SHARING SPACE

Strangers in our house. No option except managing everything myself. And I couldn’t. Not physically or emotionally. If I’d had a nervous breakdown or injured my back, what then.

Ben spent 3 weeks in the 5 bed Assisted Living/Nursing Home facility and was clearly miserable. But he needed that time to strengthen his body, his legs especially, to prepare for the rigors of chemotherapy. And I needed that time to gather my strength and prepare for the hard physical and emotional work that I instinctively knew was coming.  I knew from the start that we’d need help at home and thankfully he could afford it.

It isn’t easy sharing the intimate space of the act of dying with the person you’ve shared everything with for 20 years, or, for that matter, with the strangers you so desperately need there. Somehow, for the most part, you blend into each other’s spaces while at the same time setting some boundaries. “I’m very tired” I told the 21 and 25 year old paramedics rotating 24 hour shifts. “Please don’t wake me at night unless it’s an emergency.” I knew sleeping well was the best medicine for me. The one thing that would keep me going. I knew they were capable and willing. They respected that need for space and only awakened me once in the 4 weeks Ben was at home. One night I tried sleeping in the twin bed next to his hospital bed but he had a restless night and we both suffered through it.

(I realize while I’m writing this that my geriatric and hospice nursing experience taught me that caregivers MUST take care of themselves in order to take care of others. And it’s true. Don’t ever doubt it.)

Sharing space in this situation required sharing space with new stuff, moving from beloved treasures to IV poles and hospital beds, to drawers emptied out only to be filled with medications and medical supplies, emotionally moving in and out of wanting to remain in this space, this beautiful, comfortable house, and wanting to leave it behind to move on to a simpler space, a simpler life without pain and heartache. I think we both felt that.

It isn’t easy sharing space with grief, allowing it, allowing the “stages” as you float in and out of them. It is truly a process (and not a linear one) that takes patience and time as you let go of the past and move toward acceptance while remaining, as much as you can, in the moment.

Ben and I spent 20 years sharing space, 16 of them in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and just shy of 4 here in Mexico. Tough sometimes, especially during Covid. Both of us independent and set in our ways. But over time we figured it out, often retreating to separate rooms to read, write, or touch base with friends and family. That changed a bit when Ben fell ill, before we knew how ill he was. Looking back now I see that all those interruptions at my door were pleas for filling the space, the empty, frightening space…to relieve his loneliness, his fear of what I now believe he intuitively felt he was facing. “It ain’t right, Honey,” he’d say in a silly voice, attempting to downplay his angst. “Somethin’ just ain’t right.” Or “Thanks for all you’re doing for me,” he’d say. To which I’d reply in earnest, “Your turn’s coming”. Clueless at times, regardless of my training.

We just passed through Día de Los Muertos here with its jumble of gaiety, sorrow, ritual, and promise. Again sharing space with others experienced in loss. There is much to learn from the locals who routinely share their space with loved ones who’ve left this earth. They are practical, loving and wise, lingering in the “thin veil” of their departed loved ones for only a few days each year, to honor and respect them before moving on to the tasks at hand.

I found myself in that space this week as I attended, with friends, the lighting of the terra cotta plaque with Ben’s name engraved on it, mine beside it. He now shares space with all the others honored on that wall in the village. He is now part of the space of Mexico, a land he dearly loved.

It’s up to me now to find what/who I need to share my space with. Right now it is our pup, grieving in his own way, wanting his space to be filled with the sound and movement of other pups and people. And it is space shared with a rumbling of ideas and hopes and dreams, of finding who I am now as I pass out of the sharing of life with men for over 52 years, to learning to be alone in the spaces I occupy. (Something I’d not intended or imagined so soon.) Right now I share that space with the cool evening breeze, the crisp blue skies, the fields of glowing yellow Mexican “sunflowers”, the people who continue to support me, and this house and its memories, as well as its possibilities. Sharing space is not always an easy thing. Yet it is the gift we are given as we experience the human side of life.