#SOL16: Dear Rob

Rob at 34.

A letter to my husband that I will read to him when the time feels right. Or perhaps this letter will find its way to a parallel universe where Rob will read it and recall.

Dear Rob,

It's March. I did not think you would see this new month begin. This morning I am oddly thinking about the end of my dissertation, recalling  the Edward Said quote I closed the work with. You know the one where he writes that we are well past the beginning before we recognize it as such. That feels important somehow, although I couldn't say why. One thing, of many, you taught me was to trust my tacit knowledge. I know more than I can say and these months supporting you as you battled cancer and now accepting death have taught me that again.

Me at 35

This morning, as I sit next to you I am sipping tea and watching you sleep. I hear the soft repetitive moans you make as you breathe and I know you are working through leaving--and it is so much harder than I had thought. But how could we know? We who have been so busy living fully, loving sweetly (and not), raising Devon. Is it any surprise that we did not stop to wonder about death; to speculate about endings save the one way off in the future when we were both very, very old? And perhaps that has been for the better.  Had we known that you had less than 2 decades to live when we adopted Devon, how might that terrible knowledge have colored us, shaped what we valued, loved, failed at? Would we have been the risk takers we are? The parents we are? The lovers and friends? I suspect not and it's hard anyway to think of you as conservative or cautious.

I want you to know that I plan to use images I make from your many notebooks in new art collages. I am hoping you would approve and think you would. Making, I was recently told is how I will survive your death.  That and being a mother.

These last two weeks where your hold on the earth has been less tethered have been difficult. And just when I think I have lost you for good--that you have truly forgotten me, forgotten us, forgotten where you are--you wake and motion me to you, take my hand, and tell me, "I love you so much. More than you can know." You tell me to protect Devon, love him for you and though I think I have loved you so greatly before, I find that my love for you grows even more.

These last few months watching you valiantly live and struggle to die have been the most significant of my life. You humble me.

Your wife,
Mary Ann