A few days ago, I ran across an old receipt and for some odd reason I thought to myself, "Ten months ago I was a happily married man." At the beginning of February, we had just raised enough money to start the Enhertu treatment and the oncologists thought it would give my wife another year or two. It was the first optimistic news we'd had in a while and her death was the furthest thing from my mind. Two weeks later, she was gone.
Today, I went to a gym for the first time in 11 years. I've never been particularly fit but middle-age spread has hit me hard and I've ballooned to 96kg (211 pounds or 15 stones). In my defense, my wife was an excellent cook and, although she always made healthy meals, I always had two (or three) servings. On top of that, after she was diagnosed, she rarely had the energy to do any exercise and I happily chose to spend my time with her on the sofa. I always told myself I'd join a gym after she was gone.
What I didn't appreciate was that, because I said that, joining a gym became emotionally tied to her absence. I thought about it often and I always found an excuse not to join--finances, time, commitment--but in the back of my mind I knew it was because it was one more tiny acknowledgement that she was gone.
Of course, I could have done a million other things to lose weight but I knew those were never going to happen. Last night a friend said she had been diagnosed as pre-diabetic and that was the wake-up call I needed. When I went in to sign up, I don't think the person at the desk even noticed my anguish.
I'm already starting to forget the little things, like how it felt when she touched me. I know it was wonderful and calming and always full of love, and she stroked my head and rubbed my back and held me every day for eleven years, but I can't remember the actual feeling. All those little moment of us just being together, talking nonsense, making plans -- it must have been another person because I can't remember it. Sitting on the sofa with my hand on her leg - she always curled up so her legs were tucked against me - or the feeling of her hand in mine. I would give anything to feel these things again.
The garden actually looks quite good; I think my wife would have been very pleased. The vegetable beds are really taking off and I've just planted clover as a walkway around them. (Last year we layered cardboard and mulch, which worked for a while, but it's a surprising amount of work. Plus the clover should attract bees which is good for the veggies, as well as the environment.)
My wife loved fairy lights and I used to have them in the bushes and strung overhead on bamboo poles. I had to take them off the bushes to do some trimming and never put them back, and I had to take them off the poles when the solar panels were installed and never put them back. I've just done a big trim so I really should put them back up. She would love that.
