For two weeks now, there's been a thought nagging at me. It's not been fully formed; rather, it's just a vague sense of a piece of information that's troubling, but just out of reach. It's something important that I needed to remember; something I clearly didn't WANT to remember, because remembering it would be too painful. But I'm not good about leaving things alone, and so I kept puzzling on it and puzzling on it.
Last night, it finally hit me, and it took my breath away.
When we found out that Doug would need to have surgery (and we knew it before Christmas), he wanted to wait until after his birthday to have it done. Doug's birthday is April 4. I pushed HARD for him to have it done as soon as possible: the risk of complications for that surgery is lowest when it's done as elective surgery rather than in an emergency situation, and every day that we delayed risked something happening that could become an emergency. And because I pushed him, Doug agreed to do it as soon as possible. For me.
And I just last night realized that, if I hadn't pushed him to have the surgery right away, he would still be here. I would've had my love until AT LEAST May, because they would have postponed the surgery due to the pandemic. And who knows? Maybe the outcome might have been different and he would have survived to come home to me. I know that's not probable, but even if Doug dying after surgery was a foregone conclusion, I could have had two or three more months with him. Not nearly enough, but far more than we had.
My husband would still be alive, and here with me during this crazy, horrible time, if only I hadn't pushed him to have the surgery sooner than he wanted to. He's dead because of my impatience, my anxiety, and my need for control.
Doug is dead because of me.
Don't try to put some kind of positive spin on this. I realize that we didn't know this would happen. I realize we didn't know he would die. I realize that we didn't know there would be a pandemic that would've put off the surgery. What we did or didn't know is irrelevant. The FACT is that, because I pushed him to have the surgery earlier than he wanted to, he's dead.
Maybe that's why he hasn't come to me in my dreams. Maybe he's angry at me. Maybe he hates me. Maybe he'll never forgive me. I don't blame him; I don't think I can ever forgive me, either. I deserve this sadness, this loneliness, this emptiness. I did it to myself. Doug is dead because of me.
That's why I haven't been able to will myself to die so I can be with him: I don't deserve to be with him. He's gone because of me, so why should I get the joy of going to spend eternity with him? No, I deserve to spend my remaining time on this planet alone and lonely and scared and empty, and then find him in the next life only to be rejected for being responsible for cutting his life short. I deserve that.
I thought the sadness was bad. I thought the loneliness was unbearable. I thought the emptiness was overwhelming.
But the guilt? The guilt is worse than all of them combined.
Doug is dead because of me. I'm still alive, and he's not, because of me. And there's no amount of working through my grief that can ever make that okay, or manageable, or easier.
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