One of my struggles right now, particularly with writing, is honoring my memories with respect to those of others. I've mentioned before that I lost my Mr. 1inamillion to cancer long ago. What I haven't written much about is the differences in the husband that remained until he finally passed away. That is much of what I have been processing lately. My desire to balance memories of who he was before and who he was outside of our four walls, with my experiences with him is a lot of why there has been such a gap in blogging. I want to be honest in who I am and honest in my journey, but I've feared tainting how he might be remembered by others.
But what the hell, it's my blog.
Life as Mrs. 1inamillion carried some similarities to that of living with an addict. After all, years of tumors and treatments calls for a plethora of drugs. Even when taken as prescribed for legit needs they carry ups and downs, changing who we are. We walked a lot egg shells, rode a lot roller coasters. I sucked in a lot of his anger, bitterness and frustration to just deal and maintain as much 'normal' as we could. Holding on to the love and commitment for the man of whom I only seemed to catch glimpses, I distinctly remember consciously shutting down particular goals and ceasing friendships to peacefully survive however long remained. Because it was just temporary, and dear God it had to come to an end sometime. I put myself in a box, and am finally finding my way out.
I long to forget Thing 2 asking, 'Mommy, is it okay for Daddy to be mean just because he has cancer? Because I don't think he should get to be mean just because he has cancer.' I pray she forgets ever needing to ask such a question, but I expect she won't. I know they're young enough that many of their memories will be shaped by what we tell them, so I try to talk about Mr. 1inamillion-the early years as much as I can. I also know that the hard things define who we are, make us strong, and grow deeper roots so we shouldn't deny them.
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