Five years ago today, I held Rick’s hand in a death grip. A literal death grip, for hour upon hour. By noon of that day, I realized he was going to die, and he did, at 8pm that night.
The night before, alone in my bed, I had an odd feeling. A scary feeling. A feeling like my life was going to change drastically. A feeling that the love of my life may be leaving me forever. The odd thing is, there was no medical reason for me to think that the night before he died. He’d broken his hip the day before, and, sure, there were unexpected breathing issues, but the doctors said he’d just need to be on a ventilator for a couple days until his lungs were clear, then they’d do the surgery to repair his hip. After a few weeks of rest, he’d be like new.
Well, as new as a man in remission from lung cancer could be.
But, that’s the thing… he was in remission. The cancer wasn’t the issue. The effects of the chemo and radiation had weakened him and he’d fallen before he could regain his strength. So, this was just a setback, right? Not life threatening? Except, deep inside, my mind was telling me this wasn’t routine, or a setback, or any of those things. This was it.
I couldn’t sleep that night. Finally, I texted him. He had his phone with him at the hospital, but of course, he was unconscious and restrained, so obviously wouldn’t see my text. But it was my crazy last-ditch attempt to pretend everything was normal, that it was just a short hospital stay like many others in the past year since his cancer diagnosis. I wanted to believe that he’d be coming home soon. And I hoped, in some surreal imaginary world of my making, that by reaching out from the loneliness and desperation of my empty bed, he would hear me telling him that I loved him…
But by noon the next day, I knew he wasn’t going to make it. I knew I’d never feel his arms around me again. I’d never hear his voice. I knew that I had to keep touching him, stroking his arm and his head. I needed to memorize the feel of him before he was ripped from my life.
At my age, I’ve lived through the death of many loved ones. I’m aware that it’s inevitable. I’ve held all those hands at the end… my mom, dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles. I’ve watched so many of them take their last breath. It’s painful. It’s difficult to process. But, this one death, Rick’s death, was unlike any I’ve ever experienced.
I ask myself why. Surely losing my own parents was as awful as it gets. But I expected to lose them. The entire generation before me has left me, one by one. Of course, that doesn’t make it hurt any less, losing those people you’ve loved your whole life, but, still, they’re older and you know they won’t live forever, so you brace yourself for the inevitable as you watch them age. This death was different.
This man was truly a part of me. He knew me more completely than anyone ever had – even my parents. We shared our deepest thoughts and most intimate feelings. He knew me at my worst, and loved me anyway. And I knew every facet of him, as well. And, despite our foibles and failings, we chose to stay joined to each other “until death do us part.” Those words, spoken at the altar twenty years before, pronounced in front of family and friends, didn’t quite sink in until death actually parted us. And I realized that when I recited them on that joyful wedding day, I pictured two gray-haired ninety year olds in fifty years or so, holding hands and dying in bed together – like the old couple in “The Notebook.” That was my vision of “until death do us part.” After spending our golden years together, we’d drift off in each other’s arms.
But that wasn’t meant to be. Instead, he was one week short of his 64th birthday, intubated and unconscious, emaciated from cancer, dying from a freak accident, while I clung desperately to him, hoping for a miracle that didn’t happen, leaving me to spend the rest of my life without him.
I retired a month ago, so, despite having five years to heal from the grief of his loss, I’m suddenly faced with a new set of challenges as I tackle how I’m going to spend these golden years without him by my side. I’m not going to be traveling with Rick, hanging out with him on the beach during sunsets in Florida (or in our backyard), or even simply having breakfast at the diner, dinner on our deck, and going on our weekly date night, before watching our current favorite series on TV. Instead, I’m living alone.
I’ve made new plans for how to spend my golden years. I have a full and fantastic life, and I’m very, very thankful for that. I’m also grateful that, despite not living to reap the rewards of his 40 years of hard work, Rick left me living in financial security and able to retire and begin this new journey. I’m surrounded by friends and family who support me and help me fill my idle hours, and I’ve got a vision board of hopes and dreams (a term I like better than “bucket list”). I re-entered the dating world six months before COVID hit, so I’m also back out there meeting men and moving on.
But this wasn’t how I pictured any of this. And five years ago today, as I held his hand in that death grip and sat staring at him for hour upon hour, waiting for him to take his last breath, I knew my world was shattering and that it would take years to pick up the pieces.
Most of those pieces have been picked up now, and the picture of the rosy future they used to form has been rearranged successfully into a new world without Rick. But there are still some jagged edges, some gaping holes in the center of that picture that will never be filled without him here. I just can’t focus too closely on those, or my whole world might collapse again. So, I’ll give myself this one day to reflect on our last moments together and dream of what might have been. Then I’ll get back to work picking up the pieces of our shattered world and continue to recreate my new life and future without him.
About Katherine Billings-Palmer
Katherine Billings Palmer is a retired technical writer and author who lost her husband to lung cancer shortly after celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary. She began writing through her grief in an online journal of feelings, thoughts, memories, and poetry on her personal blog: The Writing Widow.
Katherine published a series called “A Widow’s Words,” three books composed of essays and poetry about her struggles to cope with and work through her grief. She also published a small book of poetry, I Wanted to Grow Old With You; a humorous book of anecdotes from her grandsons, I Didn't See That Coming; and her most recent book, A Grieving Heart: Poems of Love, Loss, and Healing for Widows and Widowers, which includes more than 60 poems about coping with grief.
All books are available in print and ebook through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo.
Katherine’s biography and blog can be found at her website: The Writing Woman. She also posts her poetry and prose on Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, and Substack @thewritingwoman.
Websites: thewritingwoman.com and thewritingwidow.com
Amazon: katherine-palmer
Instagram: @thewritingwidow and @thewritingwomandotcom
LinkedIn: katherinegpalmer
TikTok: @thewritingwoman
Substack: @thewritingwoman
Bluesky: @thewritingwoman.bsky.social
Pinterest: TheWritingWidow
Hi Katherine,
This is so beautifully written. I saw so many parallels to my own story in yours.
Thank you for writing this so eloquently about your husband Rick.
Just wanted to say hello and keep writing!
With gratitude,
J
It’s now four years for me. Somehow, life just goes on. But sometimes the diagnosis of Small Cell Lung Cancer and the phrase “a few weeks to live” seem like they happened to someone else. We would have been married 60 years in September. My book of our experience, Marv Taking Charge, is due out in November on Amazon.
This was hard to read but I was compelled to, by reading it I found myself comparing things you write to those moments in my own life, yes there are differences and some I feel you had better than I, others I had better than you, I had a wonderful 46y with my man, he passed just 2 days after our anniversary on 26th April 2022, I know he was just hanging in there for that day so we could spend 1 last anniversary together, not the one we had planned though, and so many other plans that we had dreamt and saved hard for all gone, he too had lung cancer and 2 tumours on the base of his spine that in the matter of just 4 weeks had left him paralysed from the waist down, from his first visit to the Dr’s to his death it was a mere 12 weeks, why didn’t they listen to his concerns? if they had he may have been able to have an op he should have had, he may have been able to have the cancer treatments, we may have had a bit more time together, I feel cheated, I feel angry, I feel like……………………………….there will be no happy ending for me, I don’t want to look for anyone else, there never can be or will be anyone else, he was not only my husband, my best friend, my sole mate, he was my world……………there is nothing left for me.
Hi Lesley I too feel the same way. The doctors won’t listen to me either.