When my father was dying and about to be sent home, he asked me if I would help him to die if he got to that point. I said I would. I have always been grateful to God that he then got too ill to go home, and my last gift to him was to get him into a hospice. He died looking into my mother's eyes. Would I have done as he asked? Yes, because I loved him and I knew why he felt that way. Was it selfish of him to ask me? Probably. He knew that everyone else would say no, and he knew I was enough like him that I would get why he asked. It would have been a hard thing for me to live with. But it would have been from love on my part.
If I love my H as I say I do, isn't letting him go a similar choice? It isn't what I want or hoped for. I see some of the chaos he has created for himself too, so that keeps me thinking it's not the 'right' choice for him. But truthfully, how can I know? Maybe it is. Maybe love means accepting that he knows what is best for him right now and this is it. And just because I love him so much, it doesn't give me the right to think I control his life or know what is best for him. (And I think I did in our M sometimes.) So, is loving my H really about letting him 'move on' with as much grace as I can muster?
If I love myself, isn't easing back from the chaos of a wounded depressed H a good choice too? I had someone who cherished me, whose face lit up when I walked into a room, who thought I was irreplaceable and always wanted to talk with me. I was part of a team. Until I wasn't. But I did trade in bits of myself at the service of that team. I did it willingly, but perhaps too often. Maybe loving me is as simple as saying 'enough' to the pain.
Truthfully, I'm not sure who I am now. Or where I am. Or what I will do next that makes me feel I matter and that my solo life is good enough to be worth the losses. But I do know I have to try, even though I miss my family every day. I feel as if I am no longer in the central space of anyone else's life for the first time in 53 years. I have friends, good friends, but the reality is that I am on the edge of others' lives. But I know I have to have faith in what I can make next, even if I have no idea what to do. That's a big step because off and on, I haven't been sure my life is worth the effort. And it feels like a really big effort is needed.
So, the D stuff will rumble on. Eventually it will end. My H will move on to the new life he wants i the way he thinks best, whether that turns to to be a good life or not.
I'm just stood here trying to figure out now how to Make A Life rather than Get A Life. No idea what that looks like, but it is the reality of where I am. I hope that more of my postings now will be about that than about my H/D/M/MLC - all of which are either lost or outwit my control.
I know I'm a worthwhile person, I do. I just don't know what to do with that at the moment. I was talking to someone last week whose H died 2 years ago. Listening to her, she feels much the same as where I am. Pleased to have survived the grief but not sure what to do now.
I'm a bit frightened, I think, that I don't know and I don't quite see yet how to know what I don't know. (If that's not too Rumsfeldian!)
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
