Last week began year three of widowhood. Weirdly, it was not the day that The Husband died that was the difficult one this year. Rather, it was five days prior. That day, his doctor sat me down and said that he'd deteriorated and she was not sure he'd recover. Ever.
She wanted me to make a decision. A decision I did have to make, ultimately. But not that day because although The Husband could not speak (he had a tracheostemy), that did not mean that he was not lucid and that he didn't understand what was happening to, and around him. He could still communicate. He had agency. Some, at least. I was not going to rob him of what little dignity he had left. It was not for me to decide whether he should live or die. That decision was his to make.
It's a conversation I have difficulty reliving.
He wanted to come home.
That might - might - have been possible if he was again sedated and given another round of hectic intravenous drugs. He - and I knew - that he might never wake up again. He did tell me that even in his sedated state, he knew when I was there. We'd been through that twice before.
When we took his wedding ring off, before the sedative took effect, I promised to wear it and to be there every day. I did. I was.
He rallied over night. It was short-lived. The day after that, the machines - yes, over the 37 days that he was in ICU, I learned their language - told me that everything was deteriorating. The drugs were not working and the machines were keeping his body alive.
I was confronted with making the decision I had refused to take five days earlier. It was a fait accompli because we had - many times - discussed that neither of us was to prolong the inevitable for the other.
This is one of the last photographs of us together - at a wedding. Taken just a few weeks before he went into hospital.
Every year when the aloes flower, from the moment the buds emerge, I am reminded of The Husband's last weeks. One of the things I'd do, is take photographs of their progress and show them to him. I took these a couple of days ago.
Until next time
Post script
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