feeling it

I seem to go through really sensitive or empathic periods when stuff that other people are experiencing really hits me in the gut and I feel as though I’m right in it with them.

I don’t know if I’m actually in one of those periods right now, or if the reality of the situation is just too sad not to feel, but califmom’s husband died yesterday and it’s been affecting me a lot.

Leah and Bob’s struggle with Bob’s cancer is pretty well documented on her site. Over the past few weeks, it became clear that Bob’s chances of surviving much longer were growing slimmer and slimmer. Leah not only had to brace herself and her children for her husband’s death but had to think about how to live life without him after being with him for 21 years. In a recent entry, Leah wondered how she would do everything without him:

“And now, I have to figure out how to do this without him –without the other part of me.

Without my We.”

Yesterday, Leah quietly posted the words, “He’s gone,” to Twitter. I expressed my condolences, as adequately as one can do over such a silly medium, and immediately went upstairs and snuggled back in bed with my husband, who was still sleeping.

The husband is my companion through and through. For nearly 10 years, he’s been my buddy, my confidant, my lover, the father of my child. There are very few things in the world that I want to experience without him and every night, when I get to be next to him, and fall asleep, I get to feel safe and secure and like everything will be alright…at least for the next few hours while I’m dreaming beside him.

Later, I went up to him and said, “I know you’re going to look at me funny, but the husband of a woman whose blog I read just died of cancer today.” I hugged him and added, “I just want you to know how grateful I am that you’re here.”

I know that it’s something that we’ll have to deal with someday. I just hope that we have a little bit longer than Leah and Bob did. Eleven more years with him isn’t nearly enough.

4 Responses to “feeling it”

  1. rachelraven Says:

    My work puts me in this situation a lot. I’ve had to build a small, yet thin, wall to get through it, but in the beginning, if I remotely connected with a situation, my heart would ache. It still does, but again, I’ve built up some protection from it over the past 15 years.

  2. Eleanor's Trousers Says:

    He’s no husband, but I go through moments when I think that if I lost my best friend, BC, I wouldn’t know how to go on. (Thank you, liberal benefits policy). He knows he’ll be fine financially if I’m gone, but it hurts to know that those we love may not always be there. I’m grateful for every reminder.
    .-= Eleanor’s Trousers´s last blog ..Spending Time, Spending Money =-.

  3. melanirae Says:

    That post gave me chills. I’ll be leaving the LOML soon and I don’t know how we will manage. He’s my partner in crime and everything else.

  4. Casandra Says:

    I linked to this on my Facebook, it’s beautiful and terrifying.

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