Smudger Snippets: It's Only When
Created | Updated Oct 6, 2013
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days that all these memories come flooding back to me.
It's only when you arrive back at your house, let yourself in and then see all the debris that the ambulance people left after they'd ripped open all the medical consumables that they used to stabilise your wife, your partner, your soul mate, who you have spent all those years living with, and taking care of for the past few years.
But this is it, you are on your own now. The house feels totally different, the silence deafens you, as you look around the bedroom. The bed is still dishevelled, the dent in the pillow, where her head was, no more than a couple of hours ago, with her slippers still there on the floor. I wanted to put them on her before they took her away, but I never got the time, they took her away so quickly, yet the time we waited for them to arrive seemed like an eternity, time seemed so precious then.
Funny really, as that’s the one thing you have plenty of now. It’s ironic, as it was only yesterday that you complained that you never got much time to yourself, due to looking after your wife 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now, the reason for your complaint is in hospital.
Not for the first time I know, as she has been suffering with emphysema for the past eight years, then had a brain haemorrhage, due to the fact that they lost control of her blood thickness, which was being controlled with drugs, after having DVTs (blood clots) in both her legs.
We both know that, some time in the future, she will not be coming back from the hospital - we were told a few years ago that the emphysema is terminal, and that she has been on borrowed time, yet she has managed to postpone that for quite a few years beyond what was given at that time. Although we have discussed this, and made plans for when that time does come, it’s at times like this, that you feel you are going through a dress-rehearsal for that moment.
The house is deathly quiet just now, and the feeling of loneliness is gut wrenching, with reminders of her presence all around you. But at least this time you know she will be coming back, as you've been told that although it was a stoke, the chances of her recovery are quite good. So at least this event wasn’t, "when".
