Because She Is MY Wife
My beloved SJ has joined the innumerable others who have passed from this life to the next. I now have to deal with the fact that, despite how it appeared four years ago, it is I who has to cope with the reality of going on in life without her.
I fell in love with SJ the very first night I met her. A couple of mutual friends introduced us to one another in a bar at a motel where all three of them worked. We eventually went over to their house and started playing the game “Password”. SJ and I played against our hosts. We were able to guess the password usually with one clue. I was blown away by how well she and I connected. That one night endeared her to me for life. However, because I was already in another relationship, four years passed before we were able to come together permanently.
I suspect there is no such thing as a “typical” marriage. Prior to our union I told SJ two things: 1. I couldn’t support us both on my income alone, and 2. I didn’t want to have children. After 31 years, we have no kids, and we both worked most of our lives until we both went on disability. Oh we had our ups and downs like most couples. Her mother was the biggest thorn in our relationship for almost two thirds of our marriage. Her mother reminded me of that movie with Bill Murry and Richard (somebody) called “WHAT ABOUT BOB”. SJ’s dad passed away the first year we lived together. Her mom, then being alone, was constantly causing us to change our plans to go somewhere, or not even bother to make plans to begin with. SJ’s mother was one of the most manipulative people I had the displeasure of knowing. Though I am no prince charming, I often felt like I had married Cinderella, and the step-mother had no intention of letting us move into the castle without her.
In spite of how I felt about my patriarchal in-law, SJ loved her mom. Eventually her mother began to suffer because of Macular Degeration. SJ faithfully took care of her mother. SJ worked six days a week. Every day for ten years she spoke to her mom at least once. Almost every day off SJ had, she spent with her mother doing shopping or doctor’s appointments. She also prepared most of her mother’s meals in bulk in advance because she could no longer cook for herself. My beloved wife was extraordinarily faithful to her last living parent.
SJ was adopted after her parents had adopted another girl four years prior. I only met SJ’s sister one time; at their dad’s funeral. In 20 years, SJ’s sister never came to see her mother one time. She did, however, periodically call asking for money for one reason or another. Ironically, both sisters passed away within eight months of one another.
SJ and I did pretty well financially in the early years of our marriage, until my foray into the stock market. We were poor, but happy. That being said, I always hated being lower middle class in my childhood years. I had really good parents. Unfortunately, I had to live most of my life until I realized it. It also shaped much of the thirty-one years SJ and I were together. I hated being working class poor, and I hated not being able to give SJ many of the things other people had.
SJ seemed to have a knack for besting me when it came to financial disaster. I lost 15K in the market, and we had to refinance our home. 25 years later, after actually paying off the house, we had to mortgage our home again because SJ had somehow managed to accumulate almost 40K in credit card debt. Two years later, in 2016, I quit my job due to headaches 24/7. I was making plans to die because I had allowed skin cancer to enter one of my eyes. The experience wasn’t fun by any stretch of the imagination. To be fair, GOD did heal me, but I interfered with the healing (which is a whole other story). At the end of 2016, we got Obama Care. In 2017, I had an operation which saved my life.
A year and a half later, SJ falls and breaks her hip. While in the hospital, she suffered a stroke. After two months of being on the medical merry-go-round, SJ had to see an oncologist. Apparently, they discovered a tumor in her lung while she was in the hospital. By then, SJ couldn’t communicate like she did prior to the stroke, but she made it clear she had had enough of hospitals and rehab facilities. She chose not to pursue treatment. Fast forward to 2021, SJ’s shoulder begins to become quite painful for her. After two hospital stays, she finally agreed to suffer an MRI and a Pet-scan. Prognosis, the cancer had migrated from her lung to the bones in her shoulder and brain. SJ passed away about five weeks later.
Despite all the problems we had in our marriage, which were mostly due to my selfishness, lack of confidence in some cases, and over confidence in others, or the disagreements which usually ended in both of us yelling at each other because I heard her but didn’t listen, or etc., etc., etc., I miss SJ. Long after we were unable to replicate the honeymoon experience, I finally began to learn what love was really all about. All of the duties she did for me for 28 years, which I probably took for granted, I had to do for her after her stroke. I would gladly continue to do them regardless of what difficulties might arise just to have her back on this side of life without the cancer.
She wasn’t incredibly attractive, couldn’t handle money very well (nor could I for that matter), much for housekeeping, and a packrat deluxe, but she was very kind, loving, faithful to her parents, and generous when it came to gift giving. My mother once told me that if she had had another daughter, she would want it to be SJ. WOW! What a compliment! I believe the Lord has told me I will see her again. With the exception of Jesus, I am looking forward to that day.
No goodbyes, just see ya later, Babe. |
