I Don't Want to Do This

Honey,

I don't want to do this anymore. Can we be done with this already? Can you just come back, and be healthy, and we'll just have our life back? We'll just pick up right where we left off, I promise it will be like you never left. Maybe even better. I don't want to do this anymore-this, waking up every day to nothing, going to work and coming home to more nothing, and then going to bed with nothing all over again. I don't want to get the looks from people that I get when they see me and wonder how I'm doing. How do they think I'm doing? I don't want to make all the phone calls I need to and explain why they have to talk to me and can't speak directly with you.

I don't want to go through this pregnancy by myself anymore. I want you here with me. Things are getting interesting now: I'm getting huge, I'm getting pains, I'm losing mobility, I'm feeling the babies move around...and I want you to be here to help me through the rough parts and enjoy and share the good parts with me. I don't want to think about signing up for Lamaze classes and having to pick a different labor partner. I don't want to go to my doctor appointments and ultrasounds and have them say, "when your husband gets here, we'll just send him on back". I don't want to have to squeeze someone else's hand as I try and work two humans out of my body. I don't want to be cut open on an operating table and have my children taken out of my body for me without you there to receive them for me. I don't want to set up the nursery without you helping me paint. I don't want to put the cribs together and arrange the furniture without your input as to where everything should go. I don't want to bring the girls home from the hospital to an empty house where your presence barely exists. I don't want to have to tell Olivia that you called her "olive", because you're supposed to be here to do that yourself.

I don't want to go through your things and box up the things that I can't bear to throw away. I don't want to go through your medications and records and forms and accounts and make sure that everything you ever touched or opened is empty or closed or secured. I don't want to look at your xbox anymore because all I see when I do is you sitting on the couch with your headset on playing with the guys, but I don't want to move it because then there would be a hole in the entertainment center that wouldn't belong. I don't want to clear your bathroom things off the counter because then it will feel even more like I'm living alone and without you.

I don't want to hear that what I'm going through is normal and that things will get better. I don't want to know about people who have twins just like "I" do. We-"we" have them. Together. They are not "mine", they are "ours". I don't want to go out and socialize with people because it's "good for me to get out of the house". I don't want to have people check in on me to make sure I haven't killed myself in the meantime since their last check-in. I don't want people telling me that everything will be okay. How is this possibly going to be okay? I don't want to get up in the morning and talk on the phone to strangers and listen to them bitch about their procedure preps like it's the most terrible thing a person can go through in their life. I don't want to go to the store or drive around in public and see couples fighting with each other or taking each other for granted.

I just want to be with you. I want to have what we used to have back. I want to laugh about all of our inside jokes, like swordfishermen or chester-molester. I want to not be able to fall asleep without your hand in mine, or some part of me touching some part of you. I want to come home and make you dinner and listen to you complain about how I never make fish or use artichokes. I want to go to Sugarhouse park and feed the ducks with you, and drive up to Silver Lake and feed our sunchips to the squirrels. I want to pour could water on you while you're in the shower and ask you if you have the keys before I lock the door to the house on our way out. I want to fight over who gets to drive the Xterra and why I can't have one radio station preset on your setting. I want to play scatergories with you on my team, and kick your butt in Friends scene-it. I want to take the trip to Jamaica we had to cancel, and I want to sell our cars and run away to Italy. I want to just sit on the couch with you or in the car and not say anything because we don't have to say anything because we're totally and completely comfortable with each other. I want to feel your hand on my knee, and in my hand, and on my shoulder, and in my hair. I want to hear you tell me about the insane movie you watched last night while you weren't sleeping and how ridiculous you thought it was. I want to read the "you laugh, you lose" thread on your forum and stay up for 2 hours passed when we went to bed.

I want to fly with you to Missouri in a week and a half for Jen and Bryan's wedding. I want to play fantasy football in our leagues with you again this season. I want to laugh at you and how terrible your Raiders are until you'll no longer sit next to me on the couch. I want to sit next to you at Thanksgiving in a room with your toe-headed family and see how proud of our dark-haired children you are. I want to go shopping at Hobby Lobby for our annual Christmas ornament and pick ones for the girls this year too. I want to get a babysitter and go out for Valentine's day. I want to spend Memorial Day celebrating the anniversary of our engagement, not the anniversary of your death.

Every day is so different, sweetheart. There are bad days, and not-as-bad days. Never any good days. I have to do all the things that I don't want to do here, and I will never be able to do any of the things that I want to with you. All I have are the memories of us being together, and they're very powerful, but they're not good enough. Right now, at best, I can hope for the distraction of the girls being born, but what kind of mother uses her children as an excuse to escape reality? I'm doing my best to be strong for them, honey, I know that's what you wanted, and it's what I want to do, but I haven't figured out how to do it yet. I haven't even figured out what to do to get myself to a point where I can even think clearly about how I'd even start to get myself to a point where I could be alright. I don't want to do this anymore-I don't want to be without you. I want you to come back and be with me and let us live our lives together until we are old and wrinkled and unrecognizable. I know I can't have that, and I know that I have to be without you. But knowing these things doesn't make them any easier, and I don't think it should. It shouldn't be easy when your husband dies. It shouldn't be easy to let go and say that you're in a better place now. It shouldn't be easy to level with the fact that you never got to hold our children or tuck them into bed or say prayers with them. It's not okay that you're dead. It's not okay that the cancer took you away from me. It's not okay that you left me without saying goodbye. It's not okay that you're merely "watching over us".

Maybe I am complaining and whining, but I think I'm entitled to it right now. All I've ever been is devoted and supportive and loving, and now all I am is hurting and crushed and devastated. I miss you. An incredible amount. There is no good word, really. I love you too but even that can't change what this is. I just want you to know that I don't want to do this anymore, but that I will because I don't have any other choice.

I do love you, but I don't want to do this anymore.