A Place With Trees

If I could find a place that had trees like this I might be able to let Nick's ashes go in the ground. I would like to think of him looking up to this view. But then again, who says he would be looking up from the ground. So stupid. I just know Nick would like being in the woods, with the trees, with nature.

Still struggling every day. This past week has been quite bad. I am heartbroken and I do not know how I will EVER find my way back to feeling even remotely decent. I feel like I am drowning in the murky waters of grief and sorrow.

I have a book that I got years and years ago from the library. It was being sold as a used book and I brought it home. How strange all these things that I have in my life that are now being used to heal my own wounds! The book is called, "Meditations for the Terminally Ill and Their Families." Each story speaks to the myriad of emotions that come with learning that a loved one has a terminal illness. The editor and author of one story, Judy Osgood, also writes, "no one understands the peace that can come from confronting that diagnosis, nor can they grasp the courage for facing it, or the hope for dealing with it like those who have walked that lonely road."

In Nick's case, we rarely confronted the possibility that Nick's leukemia could be a terminal diagnosis. We all wanted to believe that Nick would be one of the lucky one who would beat a disease with basically a horrible prognosis. As I recall, NO ONE ever spoke to us about the chances of beating this disease. I know the odds were not in our favor. I read the research papers and saw the statistics, but, I carefully filed those in the recesses of my nurse brain and tried to move forward with blind optimism. Bone marrow transplants are usually a LAST RESORT and bone marrow transplants are fraught with complications beyond the imagination of even the most medically savvy patients and family members. If they told you all the bad things that could happen you might choose to forgo this wonderful "cure."

In this book, the mother of a sixteen year old boy had to learn to accept that he would never accept his cancer as a terminal illness. He was going to make it. He was going to live. In her story she says, "Finally, I did not force my son to face the fact that he had a terminal illness. I let him call the shots on that one because his age dictated his need to deny he was dying until his very last breath." She follows this statement with a quote by Phyllis Hobe, "It was, I discovered, a time for a special kind of love that is gentle with the dying and ferocious with death."

Nick never spoke with me of "terminal illness." I know he honestly believed he would beat his cancer. He told me all the time, "It's gonna be alright, Mama." Of course, now I know that could have meant anything, but, I don't think Nick would have chosen to do all the treatments that he did, if he did not think he was going to make it. I constantly second guess all the decisions we made. I wonder if Nick was made to suffer needlessly because no one had the guts to tell us that there was no hope. We were always clinging to hope. Hope that things could be fixed and made right somehow. Hope that Nick would be the miracle. Hope that Nick would survive.

Another gentleman, Harold P. Radtke, wrote the following after finding out about his diagnosis of a terminal illness..."Death, or any personal compromise with it, is beyond my ability to comprehend; at least in the present. What I can understand is life, in whatever measure of time it is yet to be mine; and it is that which I must contemplate while I still have it. Lord, give me the wisdom to know not only what to do, but when to do it." So like Nick, this person discovers that he is hard-wired to fight for life. Despondent over his life being so unfairly cut short, Mr. Radtke found the idea of his impending death was weighing so heavily upon him that he could not live the life that he had. He came to realize that he could not ponder the imponderable and he was wasting time in trying to do so. He determined that he would live the life he had day by day, moment by moment. Accepting that you have just been given notice that your life will soon be over, gives you the freedom to do things differently than if you are still thinking you are in it for the long haul.

Throughout Nick's illness, we were never working from this premise. It seems we were all trying to avoid discussing the elephant in the room. Was I the only one who knew it was there? I know the doctors had to know this, but, they never brought it up. It seemed like Nick felt he had to be strong, whether only for himself or for others. What toll did that take on him? Why was he never able to share his fears, his worries, his concerns about the possibility of his death? Was he like that sixteen year old who needed to deny death until his last breath? In denying it, did we lose the opportunity to acknowledge that this might be the end, that we might have a finite amount of time left to talk, to share thoughts and fears and wishes for the end of his life. He wanted to do so much. We always put those things on the back burner until he was "better."

At the very least WE COULD HAVE BROUGHT HIM HOME TO DIE! THAT IS WHAT HE WANTED AND I WISH WE COULD HAVE GIVEN HIM THAT. THE WAY THINGS WENT DOWN THAT BECAME IMPOSSIBLE. I have so much anger and frustration over how things went down during that last week in the hospital. The suffering and pain that Nick had to experience. The suffering and pain that we had to experience. I cannot even talk about it for it will bring up to many horrible memories that I cannot bear to think about right now. Those images are forever etched in my mind.

But this poem from the same book is what I wanted to share. This poem makes me wonder if this is what it felt like for Nick; not being able to let down his guard or put down his sword as he was fighting the battle for his life. Nickolas never thought of himself as brave or courageous, but he was. He gave it his all and did so without complaint or negativity of any kind. I will never forget how hard Nick fought and the things he was willing to suffer in order to survive. I pray that I was able to bring him some comfort in all those days we spent together. I pray he knows he was loved beyond measure by all of us who held him up as best we could against such an evil enemy.

"Even Warriors Need To Rest"

"Lately I've been fighting battles left and right,
But even winners can get wounded in the fight.
People say that I'm amazing, strong beyond my years,
But they don't see inside of me, I'm hiding all the tears.
They don't know that I go running home when I fall down.
They don't know who picks me up when no one is around.
I drop my sword and cry for just a while.
For deep inside the armor, the warrior is a child." ~Twila Paris

I love you always and forever my beautiful son.