This piece came to me after reading a thread in a lesbian political group on Facebook. The thread was not about marriage or what you call your spouse but made in a conversation about a political topic. The comment was not argumentative, really it was rather simply stated that this woman would not call her partner, were they to ever marry, her wife since the term “wife” was part of the language of the patriarchy. I filtered this comment through my experience. You see, my late wife warned me before she died that her family would turn their backs on me no matter how supportive they seemed presently because they did not see our relationship as being equal to a heterosexual one, our love was “less than.” She said they would do this even though they had participated in our wedding. I was convinced they would not. Her prediction came true. They did see our relationship as less than, and based on their actions, I believe they would have taken everything from me if I hadn’t had that marriage license. Let’s face it, some in straight society will never want us to have rights or see us as equal. But some will eventually see our love, our grief, our struggles in the same light as their own if we use their language, their terms. Language is how we define and compare experiences. Language is our filter. My wife was my wife. No other term conveys the struggles, the grief, and the love contained in the time we had.
We all wanted the equality of marriage. Yet some struggle with the titles and terms. To say wife brings images of June Cleaver, Perfectly coifed, perfectly applied makeup, Wearing pearls as she cleans and cooks. To say wife embraces the chains of the patriarchy, At least, some say.
If we embrace the equality of marriage, And not the trappings of a wedding, What is the definition of a wife? What does it mean to be a wife?
Doing the daily things to keep home going That’s what a wife means. Yes, it means the cooking, cleaning, laundry, And more. Sometimes it means staying When you feel like walking out. Even before the government says It is legal to call Your wife your wife– It means pulling yourself together After you hear your wife has stage four ovarian cancer, So you can be the one to break the news When she wakes from the anesthesia Of an emergency surgery.
That’s what it means to be a wife.
When a month later, Late at night, After another surgery, Your wife turns her frightened eyes to you And says that she doesn’t want chemo Unless you are home to care for her. Your choice—your career or her chance at life. You resign the next day.
That’s the definition of a wife.
And so, it goes— Surgeries and chemo— But a prognosis of eighteen months Turns into nearly five years— In those years, The Supreme Court says You can finally call each other wife. And marry to make it so. Your daughter, thrilled, Speaks eloquently about the love Between the two of you encompassing her, Protecting her. You both cry. Neither of you had any idea What the thirteen-year-old would say When she stood to speak. You kiss you wife’s bald head as she bows it To wipe tears away.
That’s what it means to be a wife.
And then, very near the end, You find them among A mass of papers and bills Your wife had run rampant through. Hotel receipts. Hotel receipts When you thought she had gone To the casino with a friend. You watch your wife sleep peacefully. Heavy doses of morphine now. Rarely does she wake. When she does, She is thirsty and hungry. She is wasting away. Skin over a skeleton. If she eats or drinks, She vomits green bile And the pain is like nothing You’ve ever seen. There will be no confrontation Over hotel receipts. So, she had another fling With her high school flame, A woman she first loved, A woman who, for spite, Married her husband On your wife’s birthday. Yes, your wife turned selfish this last Year. Some dying turn generous and Some turn selfish. But you couldn’t deny the logic. Afterall, your wife was the one dying, As she was to always remind you. You shred the hotel receipts. Your daughter should never find them. It would destroy her to know this. And then you feel it. Something is chiseled out of you, Sharp edges remain. Your wife cries out. You run to the bedroom. She has fallen and shit herself. You get her up and to the bathroom. You clean and bathe her. Get her back into the bed. She begs you for enough morphine to end it. When you tell her you can’t do that, She calls you a selfish bitch. You give what’s prescribed by hospice. She sleeps and so do you.
That’s the definition of a wife.
Hospice increases the morphine dose and strength. To be given hourly. The nurse wants to know if you want a nurse Around the clock. You say your wife said no. She said she didn’t want that. You honor every wish she had.
That’s what it means to be a wife.
For five days she does not wake. For five days you do not sleep. Energy drinks and coffee are your magic elixirs. You administer the morphine as the hospice nurse instructed. You know what they are having you do. Slowly, slowly, this increased strength and hourly dose Is killing your wife, shutting down her organs.
Yes, it is a mercy. She couldn’t drink or eat. The hospice nurse visits every day. She says the pulse is weak in your wife’s ankles. 24 to 48 hours at the most she says on day four. The nurse clasps your shoulder on the way out.
That’s the definition of a wife.
Your wife mutters, “I’m sorry, so sorry.” Three times before Midnight of the fifth day. You do not know to whom Or for what your wife apologizes. Her words have no reference point And never will. Your daughter comes home From a friend’s birthday party At ten o’clock. She checks on you and your wife. “I’m sorry, so sorry,” Your wife mutters for the last time. Your daughter asks why she’s saying that. You say you don’t know. The rain starts. It’s pouring down. Eleven o’clock– a dose of morphine. The rain hasn’t stopped. Midnight. Your daughter checks to see if you need anything. You ask her to make a pot of coffee. Another dose of morphine. You swipe your wife’s lips with a sponge To keep them moist. As you are rinsing the oral syringe, You hear the breath, the rattle. You walk to the bed. Place your hand on your wife’s chest. It is still. No rise. No fall. Still. Your head falls upon your hand. Your daughter comes in and asks What is wrong. You tell her it is over. Done. She places her hand next to yours. She feels the stillness. She screams no. And runs to her room, Slamming her door As if it would shut out Time and death.
That’s what it means to be a wife.
You call your wife’s parents next, The hospice nurse after them, The funeral director is called last. You endure the parents Because you can’t imagine their pain. They must bury a child. The nurse certifies the death and tosses The drugs and leaves. She handles it all Efficiently. Then the funeral director arrives.
It is still pouring rain. They wait patiently in the hall. The parents leave. You ask your daughter if she wants a moment To say good-bye. She takes it, telling you she’d like to be alone with your wife. You wait patiently with the funeral director and the assistant In the hallway. Something hollow settles in your chest. Your daughter leaves the bedroom And you take your turn. Your wife is gone. You stroke her forehead. Take her hand. It is over. It is done. Five years of grieving, Losing pieces of your lives together, Watching plans melt away, Watching the woman you love disappear As the cancer spread to the brain And behavior became irrational, Accusing, and you became the Whipping post for all the things lost, All the things your wife felt slipping away. You wonder how much grief there could be left, How much more could be felt after all this? You let the funeral director and assistant Take your wife away. They tell you to look away And so gently close the door. She is covered on the gurney when they open the door. It is still pouring rain As they take her out the front door and into the hearse. You close the door. There is much to do. You drink coffee until sunrise. It stops raining. You will sleep today, you suppose. Later. After…After so many things to do… After the hollowness inside is hollowed out After the sharp edges wear away When feeling returns
That’s the definition of a wife.
For better and for worse. In sickness and in health. Love and cherish To have and to hold
This is all of it— The equality of love. This is a marriage. This is the definition, the meaning Of what it is to be a wife, And what it can convey of a heart.
The magnolia tree stands, filled with blossoms and mocking me. Mocking the freezing weather a series of blue Northers have trailed through the Houston area, that tree still stands in bloom. It is three o’clock in the morning, and I stand in the middle of the yard, staring at the damn tree. Another sleepless, restless night. We both know I’ve had my fair share of them over the last few months. Last five years even.
The light from the street lamp that the county has recently seen fit to erect on the farm to market road which runs behind our backyard casts that mocking magnolia tree in a spotlight, something that showy attention hog of a tree seems to crave. The magnolia tree uses its irony to snicker at me. And I swear I will chop the damn tree down myself. Not the easy way, no power driven chainsaw. Just the old fashioned sweat-dripping body, searing-sore muscles and bloody-blistering hands way. But I know I never will. I feel I’ll never be able to move from this house because this tree, this gift, roots me here. Remember how I joked that you would have to dig this tree up and move it with us to the Hill Country surrounding the San Antonio area when we retired?
I suppose the tree knew, felt it too, that you would leave when the cold hit Houston and leached the color from the Texas sky and land.
We could speak of odds beaten, time had, gratitude for what has been. I could speak of all the things I’ve tried to memorize and how I wish the human brain came equipped with a flash drive or an SD card.
For four hours I’ve watched you sleep. Your sleep is peaceful this night. Your profile outlined, set almost aglow, by the light of the full moon that seeps through the slats of the wood blinds in the bedroom. And I’ve spent the hours trying to memorize all the shadows cast by that moonlight upon the curves of your forehead, cheeks, the line of your nose and jaw, and the glint of the silver waves of your full head of hair that has now returned in full force. I think of the words said to me five years ago by a dear friend who lost her husband to a sudden heart attack at 42, “Had I known he was going to die the next day, I would’ve stayed awake all night and memorized every part of him.”
It is the cruel irony of the human memory that made me leave our bed and drew me out to this tree. I was well educated in the ways of memory and loss when I buried my father, then my mother, and then my younger and older brothers each in his turn, and so now I know how years blur the edges and bleed the colors of memory. I’ll have the photos and videos that only capture so much.
But what they cannot capture is the smell of your skin when you wake from a lazy Sunday afternoon nap, or the gentleness with which you transfer a monarch caterpillar from the butterfly weed in the garden you created to the terrarium to protect it from the wasps seeking to kill it, or how you sing a different song every day and never quite get all the lyrics right each time you sing a snippet of it throughout the day, or a thousand different looks or sighs, or how the Texas accent can become more pronounced in just a heartbeat because of something said or a shift in mood or tone. So many things to memorize and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what there is, of what I do not want to forget or let fade, of what I want to remain in crystalline perfection within my memory.
And the memories not made. My daughter still says you are the one she wants to walk her down the aisle on the day she marries. She is your daughter too in all but biology and the three of us know it. But the fourteen year old girl she is now is angry. Angry that you stopped chemo. How does the child in her begin to understand quality of life versus quantity? Even my intellect can barely understand it as my selfish heart insists the only thing that matters is more time. Do I tell her it was her tears that convinced you to try a bowel re-section surgery and a new, even more grueling, chemotherapy regiment when the doctor’s words could not? When I could not find the courage to beg you to do it and convinced myself that it was bravery that helped me say, “It’s your body. And it’s you who has to go through all of it. You know, I’ll support whatever you decide to do.” The child in her can only see that you stopped the chemo half way through.
Thinking this is the last scheduled treatment, you say to the doctor, “I’m ready for this last one. Let’s get this show on the road!”
“I think we’ve miscommunicated. This is only 2A,” she explains.
“But you said three treatments.” Your shoulders slump.
“I’m sorry. I think I haven’t been clear. It is three treatments, but each treatment is given in two parts. 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B and so forth for a total of six infusions. I thought I had explained that after your surgery.” The doctor looks to me for back up. I’m not sure why the doc always looks to me for back up or to confirm your assertions that you feel absolutely fine.
“You just said three treatments,” I said, knowing I have that deer in the headlight look, knowing you would not do more than what you had agreed to do, knowing and seeing the price you paid for each surgery, for each chemo treatment.
“I’m sorry for any misunderstanding.” Looking down at your chart, she continues, “Well, your blood work is ok. So I’ll clear you for treatment today. Everything else good?” The doctor looks at you and then at me.
“I’m great,” you say. “Remember, I’m your star patient.”
The doctor looks at me again. I smile. The elevator up two floors to the Infusion Team for port access. Thank God the wait is long and the lidocaine cream had time to work to numb that area around your port-a-catheter so that you don’t have to feel as if you are being stabbed again. The elevator down one floor to the chemo suites. Another long wait sets your nerves on edge, a mix up with the doctor’s signature on the orders makes the wait longer today. Finally, we are in and the pre-meds start. The new, super-duper cocktail of steroids comes first. Then the anti-nausea meds and the acid reducer meds. Then the allergy meds just in case your body decides to rebel against what comes next, the poisons.
Twenty minutes into the hour and a half which the first bag of poison takes to drip into your body, you lose what little color you had, your face turns the shade of death, an ashen white grey. Forty-five minutes into the second bag of poison, I see the first tear escape the corner of your eye. I count my breaths. Thirty. Until you turn and say, “I can’t do this anymore. Please call the nurse and have her unhook me. I want to go home.” I start to protest, but you say, “Please” once more. And my selfish heart melts. I cannot ask you to suffer through more poison and what the poison brings to you.
Our daughter has never seen your face in the chemo room, and she will never get to see your face as you walk her down the aisle on her wedding day or see you hold her first born child though she still talks as if that is in a possible future, yet she knows the truth. That it is not possible unless there is a miracle from God. The God and Jesus she said she knew existed when she was six, remember? We had decided to pack up the dusty, cobweb riddled parcels of our respective pasts and address them “return to sender.” Our decision made, I explained to her what our plans were and that you would be moving into the house. Her face was blank for a moment before her eyes went wide and she said quietly, a whisper of wonder and awe, “Now I know that Jesus is real and God does answer prayers. Because this is what I prayed for, Mama.”
This summer, she does a very teenager thing and rages at you when you ask her to pick up a wet towel off her bathroom floor. The slamming of her bedroom door stabs all of us, cutting us with the brutality of its sound. And the magnolia tree, flourishing, stands, looking up at her bedroom window.
Now the magnolia tree blossoms, your most romantic anniversary present to me. Summer, our 7th anniversary as we counted them, I came home to find you already there, home early from work, a rarity, waiting for me with a bottle of champagne, a lovely card, and a newly planted magnolia tree, my favorite tree. In the card, you had written how we would blossom and grow together through the years like the tree. You told me it was the best magnolia you could find, but the following year, you would have to prune it since it had limbs at the base of the trunk making it more shrub like in its shape. But you were diagnosed with Stage Four ovarian cancer in August and too sick to prune the tree at the optimal time during dormancy.
When the next optimal time for pruning rolled around, you wanted to forge ahead with the project to shape the magnolia which was then about 10 feet tall and looked like a large flowering shrub. But I told you not to do it. I was afraid. I’ve never really been superstitious, but they say if you prune a magnolia tree, it will not flower that year when it comes out of dormancy. And for some reason, I was afraid that if the tree did not flower it would be some sort of sign. An irrational fear, I know. I chided myself for thinking of it this way. After all, looking at things as signs and symbols was the territory of fortune tellers and religious fanatics. Signs and symbols were something to be looked for and connected to in literature and art said the analytical part of my English teacher mind. Not something one looked for in everyday, ordinary life.
Last year, you pruned the magnolia tree. And I was heartsick when I came home from the store and found you in the backyard, the saw in your hand, announcing, “I just finished. How’s it look?” You looked at your handiwork, the twisted dismembered limbs piled neatly at your feet as if readied for a funeral pyre.
Wiping the sweat from your brow, you turned to me, your eyebrows raised. Like a child you sought approval and praise for the butchery of your hard work. “Looks great,” I said, smiling, letting you have the approval you wanted. “But will it be ok?”
“Won’t bloom this spring. But it’ll be fine. It’ll bloom next spring though. Likely grow taller than it would have without cutting all these branches down at the bottom here.”
“That’s good. I’ve got to put away the groceries,” I said and left you to clean up the severed limbs. I cried, although I didn’t let you see me cry. In my mind, you and the tree were linked, though I knew it was not a rational link to make. The link was made on emotion, on sentiment, a childish link. But the tree grew. And flourished. And flowered. And so my hope that the cancer was also pruned from your body flourished and flowered. Perhaps the last torturous surgery and the last grueling rounds of chemo had worked and it would not come back a fourth time.
But while the magnolia tree stood dormant, the cancer grew. The last surgery and chemo only purchased ten months before the cancer reappeared, spread to the lungs. Palliative care, the only choice. Not that it mattered. You had made the decision that you wouldn’t do any more treatment. It was “worse than dying” you said. And I know you speak the truth of it. I felt it too. But how could I ever tell you that the minute the poison began to drip, you began to slip away from me, from her, from us. No matter how hard you tried not to, little by little, you slipped away. Until the third day after, then you were gone. The fourth day, I felt the hole within me form and the world turned to sepia then to stark black and white. The fifth day, you would begin your slow return and color washed into the world again. Yes, a dress rehearsal for death, for grief.
This summer the magnolia tree blossomed and flourished as you faded, drying out like a wedding bouquet turning brown around the edges. Pain wilting your strength, shading the light from your eyes. For brief moments and sometimes a few brief hours at a time, we were blessed when you were strong enough to be your old self and we were entertained by your song of the day with mangled lyrics, watching you count the monarch and swallowtail caterpillars in the butterfly garden you planted, mourning with you if you happened to lose one to a wasp or a bird, laughing with you if you suddenly broke out into your “too white to be a white girl dance,” as you refer to it, in the middle of the kitchen.
It was at those moments when I looked into the eyes of that angry fourteen year old and saw the six year old who said she knew God answered prayers, and I recognized the longing there. It was the same longing I felt, and still feel, the longing to once again feel the luxury of taking time for granted. It is the longing of a selfish heart for more time no matter the price, no matter the sacrifice. It is the longing for a miracle like those of two thousand years ago in which we all believe. It is the longing to memorize a person with such crystalline perfection that the edges can never blur and the colors can never bleed away. And the magnolia tree stands outside the kitchen window.
That damn tree has the audacity to still bloom though it is two days after Christmas and I had to wrap the outside faucets to protect our pipes from the freezing temperatures we so rarely get here in Houston. Like Longfellow’s “Cross of Snow” that lies “sun-defying” on a “mountain in the distant west,” it defies the cold as if celebrating our June anniversary, as if it doesn’t know that you have been vomiting bile every day for two weeks, as if it doesn’t know that you’ve lost fifty-five pounds in the last two months since you could no longer eat more than a bite or two at a time and now can no longer eat at all. The magnolia acts as if it were summer with all its open, creamy blossoms. And I wish it were.
The summer we met. The sun behind you as pulled open the glass door of the restaurant, a silhouette with a halo around your wavy mane of hair. Everything perfectly outlined, perfectly sculpted. Both of us too nervous to eat, drinking too much coffee that Saturday afternoon. You finally admitted it was your sister who put your profile up of the dating site and with whom I had been communicating. I shifted my eyes from yours, convinced I would next hear how you were not interested in meeting anyone, that your sister had taken too many liberties. But you said you were glad she had and invited me to her house the next weekend for swimming and a barbeque. When you saw my hesitation, you told me to bring my daughter as your niece would be there also. And so we began that summer twelve years ago.
The next weekend, my daughter began her journey toward becoming your child as well. Your introductory gift to her, a small, squishy stuffed bunny which she promptly named Special Bunny and which she has never slept without since. What an incongruous sight it is to see the teen she has become sleeping with Special Bunny clutched in her hand and tucked tightly under her chin, making her look still so like her toddler self as she sleeps. But that afternoon twelve years ago, you swam with her clutching onto your back and played with all her water toys to her infinite delight and snuck away with her for ice cream before the burgers and hot dogs were ready. She was ready to admit she loved you long before I was.
It was the next summer before I could admit that. Too gun shy, too many hurts, and a child’s heart to consider in the whole process, I didn’t want to jump into anything. We’d been seeing each other just a tad over a year that Sunday morning as I stood outside on your patio, looking through the window and watching you and your father play cribbage in the living room. I sipped the coffee you had brought me as I watched and the thought that I loved you, and that no matter how things worked out between us, I knew I would never be the same again for having loved you. In that moment, I knew that not even the woman with whom I had my child had ever meant as much to me as you did. The thought rocked me, unsettling me so that you were a bit taken aback by my hasty departure that morning. We’ve laughed about that morning a good number of times over the years.
I hear your groan on the baby monitor I clutch in my hand. You said I didn’t need to buy it. You did not want to admit that you had grown so weak that I could not be out hearing range of you. Yes, it is likely time for more liquid morphine and anti-nausea meds. If it were summer, I’d bring you down the stairs and outside to see your butterfly garden. Although you are a good eight inches taller than I am, I’ve no doubt I could carry you down the stairs now, as you once picked me up and carried me up the stairs, a bottle of champagne clutched in your hand.
Once the healthy muscle of a marathon runner and softball player rippled on your body and now the skin hangs over bones depleted of muscle in an effort to keep the body alive. The cancer starving you to death. So fragile your body seems when I have to move you that my own five foot two, size four frame feels massive and brutish, and I fear breaking you, causing you pain just to bathe you.
Before returning to you, I check on our daughter. I still like to watch her sleep sometimes. She has Special Bunny clutched up under her chin as always. Her lips slightly parted, yes, looking like a toddler in her sleep. I worry for her, who is my life, and her grief for you.
I return to our room. You are restless. There is pain. I measure out the morphine, dribble it slowly into your open mouth. I brush your hair off your face. And you, the one who is my soul, you do not wake.
When you do wake, you will complain of the awful taste in your mouth. I will lift you and give you water, and you will drink to try to rid your mouth of the morphine taste and the dreadful, unquenchable thirst caused by the medications. Then you will vomit bile again, your stomach unable to process that much water at a time.
The hiss of the oxygen tank audible. It will be only days according to the hospice nurse who comes to visit daily. She has said we could have 24/7 nursing care if we wanted, but I know you do not want that. So I’ve refused and told her that as long as I can keep you out of pain, we’d do fine just as we are. I look out the window of our bedroom, staring down at the magnolia tree. Did it know that you would never leave me in summer? Did it know that you could only leave me in winter? Your restlessness subsides, the signal that your pain is held at bay. You are peaceful, your breath coming slow and shallow, rasping. The blossoms on the magnolia are open like empty bone china cups waiting to be filled by summer rain.
The science of flight
Broken, stripped down
Into the realism of words.
The dryness of what happens:
Lift and torque,
Drag and propulsion—
All things the ancients
Dreamed of mastering.
And so, we moderns have:
The smallest of Cessna,
The most enormous Airbuses,
The cavernous military transports,
Such technology and science
To destroy the magic.
Until watering the garden
On a summer evening
And turning to see
A tiny green hummingbird
Stick out his chest in pride
At having mastered
Standing still
While flying.
Belief needed in the moment–
See diamonds, rubies, sapphires,
Gold, treasures to cherish.
Let the mirror reflect
The lies to eyes
And souls
In needing desire.
Do not hold them in harsh sun.
Too thin,
Too frail,
Too fragile
To withstand such blazing light.
Gently bury them deep
Beneath the soil
Of a needing heart
And the damp decay
Of foolish wants.
Let the lies take root
Growing into the very soul.
Believing
The lies
We tell ourselves,
We smile
To keep
The truth at bay,
As the lies grow
The rot of hopelessness
Into our very souls.
I Words scattered across the page. Words littering the soul.
All these words Piled upon the table, A hoarder’s table of words.
Words left unsaid, Unwritten, A bouquet of words Wilting in the heart and mind.
Words twisted in contortionist meaning Of manipulations, Weaponized for destruction, Yet leaving victims living. II Words of things that can’t be said. Words of things that should have been. Words of things we could not speak out of fears too deep. Words of things we could not begin to understand Of ourselves, of each other. Words of things we wanted so to believe Of others, of the world. Words of hope Of love Of charity Of peace. Words of what we have lost. Words of what we may never again find. III Words, words, words Slipping through the fingers Like water in a desert, Dripping away, evaporating Before they can be used.
Words, words, words Twisting round the wrists, Writhing up the arms, Biting the face and neck, Killing before they can be used.
Words, words, words Left unread by faded ink, Left unwritten by a tired mind, Left unsaid by a fear filled mouth.
I knew how to dance once. Didn’t have to think about the placement of feet, a way back when the movement of elegance and grace, of heat and passion, of fun and joy was all rhythms I could hear and follow, Reveling in the feel Before a shoulder snapped out of joint, Hanging limp at my side, And I unlearned the lessons of dance, Unlearned all the intricacies Of the Argentine, Unlearned the grace Of the Viennese, Unlearned the joy Of doing double time.
Unlearned everything of dance Until I barely remembered I once knew how to dance.
Then I tried to learn The Texas Two Step And failed and failed and failed Couldn’t feel the steps and glides That looked so easy, so fun And I wondered if I ever had known How to really dance. Maybe once, a long time ago, I could have mastered this, This Texas Two Step dance.
Words do not come easy this morning
In this my holding cell,
This state of in between.
Months of wait for this,
Wait for that.
I’ll feel settled, peaceful,
When my house is built,
When I’ve moved back,
When my spirit and body
Are no longer hemmed in a tiny apartment,
When winter breaks,
When spring arrives,
When I can no longer remember a North Texas sky,
When I can no longer remember you
Before I pulled the curtain away.
The fantasy of you seemed so real—
A dream come true—
A dream pitted against the reality of you,
A dog fight tearing me into tiny bits.
Now I glue and duct tape myself
Back together the best I can.
I may be missing a bit here and
A shred or two there. But they will
Scar over under the duct tape and glue.
This is a blog about my life. It's about much more than living with cancer. It's about reading books, cold water swimming, mothering, eating. All that stuff that people who don't have cancer do. If you're looking for my poems you need to go to fmmewritespoems.wordpress.com
