“Vicarious Tales of Woe”

“Can one die vicariously through another?”
a short rambling by S. Redenbaugh

Patriotic Nymphomaniac was written on the card she handed me. I wasn’t sure if she was in a band or trying to pick me up but it certainly was a conversation starter. We drank heavily and talked deep into the half moon night. It was like being a teenager again, tapping back into that stamina that used to race through the veins. Laughing from the heart. Each sharing small intimate stories we hadn’t told anyone else in years. Silly kid stuff in full-grown adult bodies, we were having a type of fun that doesn’t happen that easily after ones thirties. Comfortable with each other so quickly, a wordless trust was expressed through our eyes. Her hands, softly touching my wrist, punctuating her reply to my child like question. I hung on every word she spoke; even those that one-day would become irritating if we were to ever marry. She laughed at my silly jokes, even those that would become irritating if we were to ever marry. I was mesmerized, awestruck, and I felt lightheaded watching her slightest of moves. I couldn’t help but notice the way her lips curved up when she smiled. It was the first day of the rest of our lives together.

The cancer claimed her last Tuesday; 3 months to the day she told first me. She had known when we met, but when would be a good moment she would say later, the prognoses were good then. Her treatments always coincided with visits to her fathers or work trips away, her secret held so close for two years, the double pain she must have felt. I still wish I would have known from the start, I couldn’t help but think I might have been able to do something, its human nature to think so. I do not fault her though; the love she gave me was one that I consider infinitely lucky to have had in my lifetime. It will never be matched in the life I still have left.

The day she found out it had grown, that death was all that was left was the day she sat me down and said she had to tell me something. I didn’t have a clue of what she was going to say having never seen that look in her teary eyes before, but I knew it was going to change my entire life.

We held each other and cried for the entire first week, we both took family leave from work, neither caring about anything in the world outside of us. I felt an array of emotions, from anger and betrayal to fear and hopelessness, but I kept them to my self. My mask was one of strength, but I know she knew better. I wanted this to be her time, what ever was left it was going to be spent doing the things we had planed and talked about.

The house was sold, and both cars traded in for a shiny white convertible. We jumped on the adventures after talking with her doctor. “We” didn’t have long. For her, our trips were something she had always dreamed of, for me, I didn’t notice anything but her. Sadly, I also believe it was a nightmare for her at the same time, knowing the memories we were making would be left to me with no one to share them with. It was unspoken, and unshakably it was there for the rest of her life. I knew she was mentally counting off each of the few days we knew she had before her body would shut down. I ignored the calendar, but in her eyes I knew the count.

In the final days she laid in our bed. I had moved it into our home office where she could look out into her garden. She had made beautiful things grow there, and had spent countless hours working the ground. I can still taste the abundance of what she grew, and her lust for life. She is everywhere I look doing all that she did in life. I can also still taste her. I can still feel her soft hands in mine. I can still hear her call my name, weak, tired, and at deaths door, telling me to water her garden. I knew what she meant, that was her way of saying it was time, and I took her in my arms, softly kissing her goodbye.

Tomorrow will be one week, although the days have no meaning to me any more. The grief is beyond anything I have ever known, or anything I have ever felt. It is in these silent moments that strangely I realize that I have also died vicariously through what she went through.

Through it all, her love stayed as strong for me as when we met. Mine grew in ways I can’t explain. I remember in the end when I tried to make her believe that I believed that I would be all right. She smiled at me and called me a liar, but it wasn’t hurtful, it wasn’t spoken with anger. It was in a softer tone. It was as if she was able to mentally paint a picture for me, one of her arms holding me one last time. Still sobbing like the little boy that once lived in this giants skin I felt her stop breathing and I knew I was alone again.