Bitter

I’ve had a tough week.

My wife has been ill, and it’s been rough. I can’t say what’s wrong with her, it wouldn’t be right. But I can say she’s been waging a terrible war against her illness and, unfortunately, losing all but a few of the battles.

It’s hard, in times like these, to take the focus off myself. There’s this feeling I have – rightly or not – that I’m the one who needs help right now. "Damn it," I say to myself, "why this? Why now? What about me?"

"I don’t want to die alone." That’s what I say.

I don’t want to.

Then I think about her and try to put myself inside her head. I can’t. She’s been not well pretty much since the day I left my oncologist’s office in the VA hospital, met her in the waiting room, and told her the news.

"It’s not good."

I remember. Her eyes went kind of blank for a moment as if she was looking into a future she couldn’t comprehend. Then she nodded. "Yes," she said. "I get it."

But she didn’t really get it right away. Not all of it. But as time passed, and I had chemo and didn’t get any better, as my immune system crashed and I puked and bled in unmentionable ways, as I grew sicker, she started to get it. She began to understand the future and now it scares hell out of her. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be inside her head.

In the fellowship I belong to, there’s a lot of talk about God’s will. No matter what happens, I’m told, it’s "God’s Will." The words are always said with reverence, said so large that I know there’s no arguing with them.

That’s baloney. God is supposed to be rational, loving, and just. There’s been nothing rational or loving or just about this last week and my wife’s pain. If God’s intention is to teach me how painful it is to watch someone I love suffer, I’ve learned. I don’t need any more training, so stop, already.

Friends ask what they can do to help and the only response I can make is to ask them to pray. What I don’t tell them is that I don’t think prayer is going to help because the God who would do this isn’t about to listen to any pleas from anybody.

So I've had a tough week.

But nowhere near as tough as my wife's. I wish it would end.