Saturday, August 16, 2008

His Wife Calls

And calls, and calls and calls. Day and night. The beep of his cell phone is a constant sound marking a rhythm alongside the Infusion pump. She is angry and scared and sad. A friend says to me “have compassion” not knowing how deep my grief and regret for her runs. I know the hip jargon of self-help. I didn’t hurt her etc etc. But I did. This woman is living through my worst nightmare: the man I love has left me; the life I counted on is gone. And she too has the double-whammy of losing him and then losing him. Divorce and cancer. I pray for her every day.

He turns off the phone and she texts. The phones bounces around the coffee table—her anger making it dance from one end to the other. I feel scared of this bouncing phone too. Will it be too much for him? The guilt and knowing that he caused this pain to someone he loves? Here we are in this new life—a relationship, cancer, divorce, integrating our social lives, family lives, financial lives and she is out there disbelieving, furious, stricken.

Part of the fear I feel when that phone beeps and bounces is that I know I am also looking in a mirror. This is what happens to a woman who makes a man her whole life. This is the nightmare of a woman who becomes so dependent on a man. He left the room and now there is no one there. I have this choice to make too.

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