No Woman, No Cry

The new year is a dour mistress. I am overwhelmed with sadness, having entered the two months of Jenny's suffering that would make Christ blush for complaining about his crown of thorns, the nails in his wrists, the spears poked into his torso. There is no great lesson from this suffering, other than life isn't fair. Jenny may have failed me and the kids, but damn it if she didn't make the lives of hundreds or thousands of kids better in the work she did. She allayed suffering for so many, only to be killed by her own body in the most painful and lingering way. I did my best to ease her pain, but my attempts were no match for pancreatic cancer. Her sorrow permeated everything, like gamma rays penetrating all of us. I just didn't want her to suffer. We couldn't stop the inevitable, but we could do our best to make her last few months, weeks, days better. She didn't make that task simple, it was never going to be easy.

I go back and read earlier posts on occasion, yes, I needed an editor. But this period, from December of last year until early March were terrible for her. My 50 year old wife so debilitated she needed a scooter to go to the grocery store, a walker to go more than 10 feet. Her body rebelling, her mind abandoning her, and the pain never abating. We cared for her as best we could. But all she wanted was to be with someone else. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. 

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I am pushing on, though. I am slowly returning the home to its pre-Christmas state. If decorating the home took several weeks, and it did, the discombobulation brought on by Jenny's loss makes the tasks more difficult. 

One more day off. . .

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