I (40M) lost my wife to cancer in February 2022, after a long battle. When we married, “for as long as you both shall live” to me meant those vows were valid until we were both dead. And we would often joke with each other about how our vows are valid even beyond the grave. Then she was diagnosed with cancer. They caught it late. Still, she fought for nearly 4 years.
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My wife had a good group of ladies that she was friends with. They did a lot together – concerts, dinners, movie nights, etc. They have been astounding throughout all of this and stood by our side through the illness do everything they could to help. The depth of appreciation I have for them is substantial and significant.
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When the end was in sight my wife began telling me that she wanted me to move on and live life to it’s fullest, to not be someone who never moves past her death. She began telling me she wanted me to go out and meet people, date, fall in love, make mistakes, be happy. She insisted I was too young to cut people off, to be a widower for the next 50 years. She told her friends this, too. She even joking told them that I was up for grabs immediately after the wake and we all politely laughed. She made me promise I would move on. And I did promise her that but, I also fully intended to lie.
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My wife’s friends came around regularly to check up on me. They’d bring food. The group invited me out to everything, fully incorporating me into their group. And when my wife passed, we all cried together for a long time.
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One day about a month after the funeral I found a letter my wife had left me hidden in a drawer. Finding this message from her that she left before going into hospice was a surprise. In it she told me how much she loved me and that I needed to move on. I immediately searched the house and found a half dozen more letters. Sometimes I’ll dig through something I haven’t been in for a long time and will find another one: in the insider breast pocket of a formal jacket I don’t wear much, in the shoe box beneath my childhood pair of air jordans, in the back of the pantry, in the box of christmas decorations in the attic.
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My wife had three friends who were single: two had been divorced years ago and the third just never found Mr Right. Of that group of friends, they’ve been the most present. Calling, texting, coming over and spending time talking. Sometimes they come alone, sometimes they’ll bring someone else from the group of friends. And everything has been above board. But two of the three of them have propositioned me in various ways. The 3rd is Kate (35F).
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Kate, who was probably my wife’s closest friend, was over the other night for pizza and the latest episode of that Apple TV WW2 airplane show. But we got to talking about Barb and her sexual advance and Kate revealed something to me: my wife had apparently told the three of them that she hopes I heal from this and that she wished I would wind up with one of the three of them. We laughed a bit about that but then Kate handed me her phone where the texts back and forth between her and my wife in messenger went back for years. We read through them together and Kate pointed out very specific messages my wife sent to her about me.
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Kate told me that I may not be in a place, mentally and emotionally, to have a relationship and that I don’t need to rush into anything with anyone: I needed to focus on me and focus on healing. She then told me that there’s nothing wrong with a little hanky panky and maybe it would do me some good but that I should make no decisions about anything until I’m ready. We spent the rest of the evening holding each other, crying, and going through this treasure trove of messages she had between her and my wife talking about inconsequential things from before my wife got sick. I eventually went to bed. We had too much wine, too much wine to drive, so Kate went to the guest bedroom. I slept soundly. WHen I woke up the next morning I didn’t wake up looking for my wife. I laid there in bed knowing that my wife had passed and she wasn’t coming back and that there was nothing I could do about that. But I felt a little better than I have been feeling.
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I don’t really know what to do with the rest of my life. I could live another 50 years. I have nothing but free time (I’m retired, living off of past success, investments, and a few patents) and think I am ready to climb up out of this figurative crater I’ve been living in. I’m thinking about getting a shih tzu. I’m thinking about pulling my deceased father’s old project car out of storage and restoring it; an old sports car he had while he was young and in the Air Force but which he put in storage when he and my mother started having kids. I would like to do some traveling but I don’t have anyone to travel with and got the whole ‘globetrotting alone’ bug out of my system when I was still young. Maybe I’ll restore my father’s old car, get a shih tzu, and we’ll hit the open road together. I don’t know.
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I also don’t know what I should do about my three apparent suitors. All three of them are beautiful, intelligent, and successful people and I value them all but, I’m also not going to play relationship games with anyone (including myself). Seeing that chat history between Kate and my wife helped me realize that we all leave behind little pieces of ourselves, like how my wife left all these letters and how we all have a wealth of cherished memories with her and each other.
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And really that’s maybe what I have to say here: I’ve been mourning the loss of my wife when I should have been celebrating her life and the wealth of good she did in the years that we had her. And if I don’t keep the last promise I made to her, it would be a serious betrayal. So I need to ‘find north’ and step forward towards whatever life has in store for me.
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