I took this picture in April 2021, on a day Eric and I had to ourselves. As parents of young kids, we had learned early that the best getaways were the ones where we got the kids away and we could stay home ourselves.
This day and a half to ourselves was perfect. Eric spent the night before on the playstation while I whittled hours away in the basement. We came together for a movie or two or three. And the world was spring enough for open windows. I convinced Eric to keep the window in our upstairs bedroom open while we slept. I’d been looking at those mountains all winter, and now I could breathe them. In the morning, we drove up to the Cragsmoor Stone Church. We had never been there before but had, long enough, marveled at its steeple from the town far below.
It’s hard to fathom how oblivious we were, in those moments, on that day, of what was coming for us. Cancer was a word for distant people. Death was an occurrence that made sense, even in its pain. Natural.
I think of this man often. Not the Eric who died from brain cancer at the age of 35. Not the Eric who was survived by three small children and a wife of six years, but this man. I think of this man, my healthy husband. Eric. My best friend, my helpmeet, my cheerleader, my constant. My true north.
After he became sick, two years ago–to the day–tomorrow, that man disappeared. He became “patient,” and I became “caretaker.” We were thrust into a warped version of life where we made daily trips to the radiation oncologist’s office. I became good at math for the sake of getting medication doses right. Our kids got good at interacting with strangers because this new life threw them into the spotlight. I became fluent at speaking insurance company’s lingo. And in those four months of fighting his cancer best I could, this man I cherished disappeared.
We fought to find moments here and there where we could still exist as the best friends, the lovers, the partnership we’d always been. We scheduled Wednesdays as our date days, and we would take in a movie after his radiation appointments. The radiation team would ask us what movie was on the docket for the day, knowing what Wednesdays meant for us. Food had lost much of its flavor for Eric, but he would still humor me with lunches out on those days. It was impossible, but he still gave me what love he had.
And then he died. In August. Four months after the first seizure, his heart beat pulsed its last. There was no miracle revival, no last final breath. It was a silent departure, aside from the beeping machines and the murmur of hospital personnel outside the room.
The disappearance of Eric felt final right then, at 7:30 in the morning of August 20, 2020. It marked the beginning of months of searching. When I brought the kids back to our house after a summer spent elsewhere, there were none of the familiar smells of him. His pillows, our sheets, even the blanket on his lazy boy –they’d all been freshly laundered by thoughtful family. Where were his smells? Where were his sounds? His footsteps coming up to the front door, his key in the lock, his off-tune humming. My love, where did you go?
But then Google Photos, that unbiased memory keeper, began to send me photos with labels of “A year ago today.” I would be reminded, so painfully at first, of how full we had been one short year before. A healthy man holding two bright-eyed beaming babies in his arms. A man kissing the cheek of the woman he loves. A brother holding up a beer in a toast for someone else’s new chapter.
I started the impossible job of packing our home to sell it and move closer to my mom and my dad. I found a zip lock bag in the bathroom, and in it were travel size versions of Eric’s shampoo, his body wash, and his deodorant. The complete combination of his smells. I buried my nose as far as I could, and breathed deeply. Here was my love. Here were memories I once thought lost.
Slowly, impossibly, my love came back to me. Slowly, impossibly, the four months of him as patient faded into the background as the memories of healthy Eric reclaimed the foreground. Slowly, impossibly, I have him again, this bright light of Eric. My memories aren’t first of his illness, his loss, the deep absence he has left behind. My memories first are of his tendency to eat too much pasta in a single sitting; his devotion to good stories, whether they be on a screen or in a book; his desperate love for our three cheeky children. My memories first are of his presence, a warm body in our bed who would hook his arm under my sleeping head to tuck me close to him. My memories first are of this man, standing here on a mountain, looking into a valley, curious about what comes next, but content with what things are.
I think of him often.
a scribble of jo 