The Twists and Turns of Life

Today is John's birthday. He would have been 69 today.

During the final year of his life, I was active on a cancer caregivers' listserv/bulletin board. Those of us on the board were the primary caregivers for someone, typically a family member, with cancer of any type. Although there was the occasional tiff on the board, as there are in all online communities, for the most part this group of people were a lifeline for each other. When I was worried or scared or needing information, day or night, I could post a note on the board, and usually within 15 minutes I had what I needed, whether an "attagirl" or solid information and a link to the page I needed.

We all got to be as good friends to each other as one can be with someone you've never met face-to-face. In September, three months after John's death, there was a cancer march in Washington and many of these people traveled to DC to participate in the march. My home was the center of our activity, and several of these people, both the patients and the caregivers, stayed with me.

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When I began making plans for The March, I told Jaci and Tyler I needed their bedroom and would pay for a weekend away for them, airfare and hotel. That was the beginning of their planning that ended up in their wedding in New Orleans on September 26, 1998. But that's a story for another post.
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One couple who wasn't able to travel to The March was Bruce and Trudi. Bruce had been diagnosed twelve years earlier with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (NHL) and had been brilliantly battling this horrible disease. He would be in remission, then he would suffer a setback and Trudi would think she was going to lose him, then he'd pull out of it and the cycle would begin again. Their life was the roller coaster no one wants to ride.

Trudi kept a journal, a blog before the word "blog" was coined, to not only keep track and document what was happening with Bruce, but to also focus attention on this disease whose incidence increases every year. She was tireless in her battle for Bruce and her work to wipe out this disease. She had many interests — her garden, her scrapbooking, her children — but Bruce's health was her compass for each day.

Every so often, over the years since my activity on the caregivers' board, I would search for and reread Trudi's NHL journal, to see where they were in their lives and how Bruce was faring. Whenever I read, I would post a note on the guestbook to let them know that I still remembered and was thinking of them. I left one such note about a month ago.

Two nights ago I received a response from Bruce. He told me, to my horror, that Trudi was diagnosed in December of 2006 with inoperable, stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer with metastases to the adrenal gland and to the brain, and she died in April of 2007! She kept a blog of her ordeal. I can't imagine what a blow this has been to Bruce, after being the primary focus of Trudi's attention for so many years. I'm thankful he has daughters nearby who will maintain Trudi's vigilance over his disease. But the loneliness and the sadness. Oh, I remember it too well.

How does this relate to John's birthday? I have said many times that I was blessed to be able to provide care for him through this illness. I found a strength within myself that I would probably never have known. I found supreme and utter happiness and contentment in our marriage, as did he. I believe I was an inspiration to many people who watched my management of his disease.

And through the caregivers' group, I formed bonds with people who were traveling the same road as I. Some did it more adeptly, some less, but we all understood the journey as only one who is walking a road can turn around and see where he's been.

So on John's birthday, I am filled with gratitude for having been given the opportunity to learn and grow through his illness, and for having been blessed with a wonderful marriage, two-and-a-half years of happiness more than many people experience.

And simultaneously, incredible sadness that it couldn't have continued twenty-five years longer.