I tucked the Phillies’ blanket around him and kissed his cheek. “We’ll be okay,” I told my husband. “The kids and I will be okay. And I promise not to give up on writing. We’ve had a long journey but we’ve survived. Maybe our story can help others survive as well.”
Then I stepped back to my children as Ron’s coffin was wheeled away.
Ron died in 2019, just shy of our 44th wedding anniversary on October 4. While the physical aspects of Ron’s failing health began with a car accident in 2000, his mental battles with BiPolar disorder happened in 1996. More than half of our marriage was spent in waiting rooms and hospitals. I’ve written earlier about the toll on the healthy spouse that caregiving takes and the research assures me that I am not alone in having often felt lost and invisible.
That’s not what this post is about.
Many marriages fail when one spouse becomes seriously ill. It’s a condition the Seattle Care Cancer Alliance has researched and calls “partner abandonment in patients with serious medical issues.” 90% of the time, sorry to say, it is a husband who leaves a critically ill wife. But women, too, have been known to be so overwhelmed by the role of caregiver that they walk away. It doesn’t mean that love no longer exists; it might mean that the love has not been able to change enough to sustain the losses.
Ron and I stayed together. Ron and I stayed in love. Even when intimacy had long flown out the window, when the only household task he could successfully accomplish was folding the laundry (sort of), we could still watch movies together. We could still play Scrabble. We could still sit out on the deck on a summer evening, listening to the music from the carillon bells at Lawncroft Cemetary.
A few years ago, the wife of our minister spoke to me about what she saw in our marriage. “Somehow,” she said, “your relationship with your husband just gets deeper and deeper. I’m not sure how you do it, Linda, but somehow you and Ron are still in love.”
It’s a story worth telling. And I promised Ron that I would.
And I’ve never broken a promise to him.
What is a promise you have made that you might find difficult to keep?
This is the best and most beautiful reason for your retirement. I was unable to be a caregiver for my husband at home for the last two months he lived due to my own severe disability. When he could no longer walk, the home nurse could not care for him at home either. Yet, he encouraged me to keep writing each time I visited him in the hospital. His face shone with joy for each new word of encouragement I had received from a coach and shared with him.
You have kept that promise & continue to do so. I am thankful that you are always there for me as I am a caregiver. Love you BFF!