In the Beginning

I don’t know where else to start but at the beginning

My Love and I met in October 2005. Online. He happened upon my profile, started up a conversation, and proceeded to rock my world.

He was a renaissance man with a conservative streak and Jewish. I was bald, and Christian. One day I decided that I didn’t want hair anymore so I asked my daughter to cut it off. I loved it. It stayed. I had (have) tattoos. He didn’t believe in them. I really didn’t care what anybody thought (still don’t)- I was (am) me. It’s hard to write about myself in past tense because a major part of me still feels like the same person I was in 2005.

But I’m not.

So we met. He was eight years older than I and so different. I was interested. He was intrigued. We were equals intellectually (truthfully, he thought he was smarter, so I let it slide- he was just older). The conversations were marvelous -no shortage of things to talk about- experiences, history, philosophy, current events, children, our demons, our pasts, likes, dislikes, books, music. We laid it all out on the table. We laughed – a lot. He was an extrovert. I was introverted. He talked, and talked, and talked. I listened. I challenged him to face his demons. He challenged me to do the same. We slayed them together and continued to challenge each other’s notions of how the earth orbited the sun and fit into the solar system.

I was so different from anyone he had ever met. He was the same for me. It was easy, comfortable, like it was meant to be. We completed each other.

As our relationship progressed we moved in together, married, and settled into our routine. He traveled a lot- drove a Motor Coach. It was perfect for someone like me who was used to being independent. He was gone for stretches of time then home for a few days. The reunions were glorious.

Then he had to have quintuple bypass surgery in 2009. The health challenges started. I had a few as well, but we made it through together. Five years later Chronic Kidney Disease reared its ugly head. Dialysis came soon after. We loved and continued to support each other.

He didn’t let on in public how depressed he was when he could no longer work. Very few friends knew just how bad he was feeling. When we went out or were with friends, he always presented himself as happy go lucky, fun, the life of the party – no matter how he felt. But I knew. We talked about it. I encouraged him. As he grew weaker, as is often the case, everything fell to me. I took it on willingly. Of course I was exhausted. But it didn’t matter. He was still here. Still fighting. Still with me.

But in the last few years, the hospital admissions became more frequent. He was turned down for transplant three times. He started having a great deal of pain. We made the decision to seek Palliative Care Hospice.

When the peritoneal dialysis treatments became less effective, he refused hemodialysis- he didn’t want to live that way and I really couldn’t imagine myself doing it either. Then he received the horrific diagnosis of Calciphylaxis in May. The pain was unbearable. He was in agony. But still he fought. Still wanted to come home. Didn’t want to leave me. He died in his sleep on 26 June 2019.

My world shattered into a million pieces when I received the phone call to come to the hospital at 5am.

To be continued…

194 & 6/365 XO Lisa