We hold on

I have been absent from my blog for a while – 10 months according to WordPress.

I’ve had a busy year. I was hired at a great job in April and learning the ropes and getting back on a workday schedule took much of my time and concentration. Basically, I was at the top of my game – a new job perfect for me working with databases, married to an amazing, loving man, and a cute, little house for two. With two solid jobs, we started planning for trips and adventures to celebrate our milestone birthdays next year. We got ourselves on a new healthy regime of exercise and simple, organic foods. We couldn’t be happier. And we held on to dreams.

In August of this year, my husband started getting headaches. We attributed it to the humid summer that Eastern Canada was experiencing at the time. While asking our pharmacist what to do about the persistent pain, he got physically sick in the store. I drove him to the local ER. They treated him for the pain and nausea and sent him home. The next day his regular doctor sent him for a CT scan of his head. With my husband’s history of melanoma in 2014, his doctor just wanted to rule it out. I was at work when my husband called. “They found a lesion on my brain. I need you.” And we held on to hope.

Our world since has been a blurry whirlwind of scans, x-rays, surgery, and more bad news of cancer in the liver and bowel. The tumour in the liver is inoperable. It is just too large and in a delicate spot. When the doctor said to my husband, “This WILL take your life in 6 months to a year,” my heart froze, then it broke. It shattered like a rose fresh from a liquid nitrogen bath that has been dropped to the floor. The doctor quietly dismissed himself from the room. We held each other so tight and sobbed. We whispered our love and promises between moist, gasping breaths. And we held on to strength.

Since that day, there have been hospital stays to combat nausea, too thin blood and pain, doctor appointments, blood transfusions when his hemoglobin dropped too low, more surgery, then chemo, immunotherapy and radiation in an effort to buy a couple extra months or even just one more day. And we held on to love.

Today is the 11th anniversary of the day we met. I felt that meeting coming in my solar plexus for months, like the wild excitement before a big vacation away. We met at Christmas time at a bar. At the end of the night, we were slow dancing, oblivious that the music had stopped and the lights had come up. My friend gently pulled us apart and held up my phone number for him. On Boxing Day we had our first date. The rest, as they say, is history. I have told my love that, for the rest of our life together, he never has to buy me a present. There is no way he could ever top the first present. Him – Best. Present. Ever. And we held on to each other.

And we hold on. We will keep holding on until he let’s go. And then I will hold on to memory.

Update: My beautiful, funny James passed away with his loving family by his side on January 21, 2017. He will be missed. He will be loved. He will be remembered.