Although I do not feel like writing this, nor, really, doing anything aside from sleeping and crying, I will write it because I need to get it out, and because I need to stay ok as much as humanly possible for many reasons and beings.

I am drowning in grief and sorrow for the loss of my sweetheart, but there are several "complications" as the jargon has it, that are making the experience worse, more terrible, unbearable. I have a long standing pattern of finding such extreme fault with myself that even when I have done a thing well, I see only the parts that weren't perfect. I now full well where this comes from in my past, and most of the time i have a handle on it, but right now it is running rampant. Alex is beyond exasperated trying to get this "insanity" under control. But it's not his to deal with, it's mine and me alone. So I will list off some of this right here and hope along with the daily griefwork I'm doing, will help.

These are either Big Lies, as in totally crazy and  need to be dispelled, or they have some kernel of truth but are still not worthy of me beating myself half to death over.

Big Lies include, he wasn't happy enough, I didn't do enough, I am a truly evil person for canceling his Barkbox (after he totally lost interest in it and didn't even try to tear the squeaky thing out of the squeaky toys)....that sort of thing.

Sometimes I look at things I bought for myself or the house, over the last 2 years and I just loathe myself - as in "oh great, yeah, you bought a greenman necklace when you NEVER ACTUALLY GO OUT, and Danny was dying from cancer but you didn't know, did you? So you bought jewelry. Some 'great Mom" you were." etc etc

Sigh. It's as if everything I did that wasn't geared to Dan was evil, proof positive how fake I am, not really a  good mom at all, I mean look at the hours on etsy WHILE DAN WAS DYING.

This is truly awful and idiotic and I need to find a way to make it stop. (Writing this helps). There are so many layers of falsehood here I need to unpack them and get on with the real business of loss; grieving.

The less idiotic but still pointless things I torment myself with include, focus on, his cancer diagnosis. It's evident that he probably had TCC for some time - looking through older posts I see the bloody urine started a year ago. A year ago! My Facebook memories showed me a post from  yesterday where we took him for Xrays - I was worried about a stone after his urinalysis didn't show evidence of infection - but no stone. He was so traumatized y the Xray I had him on Metacam for days - and we assumed the enlarged prostate was at last worth treating, before putting him through an ultrasound. It was, after all, a finding! So I started him on a prostate blend with pygeum, saw palmetto and pumpkin seed oil with the idea that if it helped, we were on the right track. And it did! (I also increased zinc, beta siterols and lycopene). We were marveling at how  powerful herbal medicine can be. He cleared up, so I believed we were doing ok - that was before we knew he had GOLPP, but I did know he had heart disease, and with the prostate now I felt we were managing old age stuff, but I did not think we had cancer, despite his brother and father dying of it (maybe more from tat litter, but those two I know) his herbicide exposure in Rupert - I believed we had dodged that bullet and would just have his bloodwork checked and use the prostate support, at that time.

And I think he had a pretty good couple of months, too, last spring, for an old guy.

 

                                                            February

May, overseeing my seedlings

July - last month I was able to walk, I had 3 lumbar fractures at the end of the month and that was the end of our long, beautiful life together of walking, exploring. I remember how proud I was that after my disc injury I was able to get up and out sometimes twice a day, if only for 15 minutes...I was also careful not to let him overdo it with his heart issue. He LOVED those walks so much, even the short ones.

Danny looks glum here, but I remember that he was dragging me so hard on walks I think that's how I hurt myself. He was also throwing clots at this point, and it was alarming, but I increased his prostate herbs and he stopped. Again leading me to believe we had hypertophy/infection and not cancer.

I wish we had done the ultrasound there, although to be fair, I didn't know he had GOLPP, and with TCC, it would not have changed the outcome much. He could not have tolerated chemo I am fairly sure, and while I would have shifted a few things in his diet and herbs, not a lot. So there may be a hidden grace there.... 

I have to remind myself, every step of the way I was present for him, he had his three meals a day, home made food, he had many supplements for old age/cancer, he was the center of my world.If he had discomfort which I am sure he must have, he would hide it well - although in older pictures of last year I see the hunched back walk, I always thought it was prostate. We went weeks and weeks with n bloody urine at all, before it came back with a vengeance after Christmas.  If indeed he had TCC since last February, then he lived a full year without meds, which is 3 times the average. I have to remind myself that no matter when we found the cancer or what we did, the outcome would be the same, as always going to be the same.

This dreaded silence, this unbearable emptiness, the absence of starshine from my days and night.

But I need to remember that it was ok for me to engage in some frivolity, to buy things for my house, at the same time he was here and forefront in my heart always. I don't know why I need to indulge in this extreme self hatred, but I hope it passes soon. Danny was my heart, and while I could have been more *perfect* (more enrichment at the end?) I think overall, as his Mom, guardian, protector, and best friend -  I was pretty good.