Waiting

Waiting for anything is hard. Waiting to ride on the roller coaster, waiting for service at the restaurant, waiting for Christmas, waiting for a birth. So far, the hardest thing I've ever waited for is this waiting we're going through now. I can't even say what it is. Relief, maybe? Wellness?

The man I love more than life itself is sick, critically. His body is going away, ounce by ounce, pound by pound. Cancer is cruel. He is afraid of the scale in the bathroom, what it will show if he gets on it. When he must, he dresses for it: heavy shoes, a jacket, woolen pants. And it's not that he doesn't eat at all. I make him whatever he thinks will taste good, or at least not make him sick. Before he eats, he takes nausea pills, and afterward he goes to the bathroom. He's tired of chocolate milk shakes made with instant breakfasts, and he has been through all the flavors of the nutritive drinks on the grocery shelves. The steak he used to love is sickening, and salads have not been in his mouth for months.

Now I can put my thumb and forefinger around his shoulder bone and all that separates them is skin. How can this dear vigorous, outgoing man have been reduced to a skeletal figure who sleeps so much of the time?

It's cancer, that's what it is. And I really know what we're waiting for, but I won't say it. Not to him or to myself.

While we're waiting, we will keep holding hands and talking about the good times we've had, and the sad times, and the times of sheer happiness. And heaven.