All In

We lingered for a while after our coffee grew cold and crumbs were all that remained of an afternoon treat. Heart to heart, we leaned in to the unknown and shared the space where certainty flees and fear feels like shame.

“We live in the boonies,” she said. “If we get sick, there’s not much in the way of good medical help.”

I nodded, remembering. It was on our list when we moved to our mountain dream. Find a good doctor. And a dentist. Have it all in place as soon as you can. But we weren’t sick, and our checkups were up to date. There was time.

Another friend, ten years older than we were, told us it was too late for he and his wife to go after that cabin in the woods they always wanted. He said at their age, despite how active and healthy they both were, they needed to live close to hospitals now. I scoffed at that. No way was I going to let a hospital’s address determine mine. We’d go for the dream and figure things out.

We always figured things out. Going all in, we did it together. But this time we lost it all. I guess Rob won the prize. But I lost everything. I even lost my ignorance.

I’m still figuring things out, but now I have to do it without Rob here. Of all the things I’ve learned the hard way, the one that is the most crippling is a personal awareness of how fragile life is. How easily a strong, healthy man or woman can be brought to their knees by a disease, a virus, an accident. How quickly strength deserts you while you fight for your life.

It makes me afraid. I hate to admit that, and yet remembering how much I wanted to join Rob for months after he left us, I see now where a bit of healing has happened and the normal instinct of wanting to live has returned. It’s the fear of death that makes me aware of how much I value life. It's such a paradox. But also, after having lost so much when I lost Rob, I find myself fearful of losing again, and remarkably aware of how easily it can happen.

I thought I was the optimistic one in our marriage, even though I was more of a worry wart than Rob. He was the bravest man I’ve ever known, but his pessimism kept him from simple things like making a phone call. “What if they’re busy?” he’d say, postponing the effort to find out. “What if they’re not?” I’d respond. “You won’t know until you make the call.”  Or, "What if it doesn't work out?" he'd ask, wishing I'd leave well enough alone. "But what if it does?" I'd answer.

You won’t know until you try. You won’t know if marriage is a good idea unless you make the commitment. You won’t know if children are fulfilling and the best thing on planet earth unless you become a parent. You won’t know if the next house is better than the one you still hold a mortgage on unless you change addresses. And what if, after you take the risk, you end up with an armload of regret, eyes turned back to the city you left behind, forgetting all the things that propelled you forward?

"What if?" It’s paralyzing, isn’t it? Like Lot’s wife in the desert, turned to a salty statue, unwilling to take one more step forward and away from what she could not hold on to, she stands immobile, a monument to regret. And the irony there is that, either way, no matter which way you choose, regret comes along for the ride.

This is not the life I imagined. It’s not the dream we went for. It’s unfamiliar and scary and I feel so guilty that things turned out this way. The “if only’s” torture me, making me forget that only hindsight is 20/20. Where for decades we were one, now I’m all that’s left of us. And I feel frozen. The hard-earned experience I’ve gained, where the blinders are off and I can see clearly how short life is and how little control any of us really have, is both a blessing and a curse. There is nothing I could have done to save Rob’s life. I don’t have that much power. I found myself face to face with the one thing Rob always said was inevitable—we are all terminal. Allowing myself to go free from the torment of self-blame is a relief. It was not wrong to follow our dreams.

Now I am faced with another future—living in the liminal space between what I wanted and what is left to me, “fighting for a life I cannot see,” as a wise woman recently said to me. I stand on the precipice of forward motion, trying to decide if I can let go of what was and untether myself enough to move forward, or if I will allow the salt of my tears to cement me to this ground where at least I know what to expect.

It’s a strange choice unlike any other I’ve ever faced before. I wish Rob was here to talk to. But if he was, I wouldn’t have this choice to make. What I am slowly learning is that, while I feel abandoned, I never have been. God is for me. He is in me. He is holding me.

We’ll figure things out together.

With thanks to Lionel Roubeyrie whose wonderful photo is seen above. The original can be viewed from this link: Bet | a simple poker party | Lionel Roubeyrie | Flickr