I would've thought that I'd be ready for this, but of course,I am not. Gary Lundy, the father of my children, who I left in November 1999, passed away on February 27, 2008 at @ 4:45 p.m. He was in the 4th stage of lung and esophageal cancer and had been through extensive chemotherapy since last February. The cancer had started to leave the lung and attached itself as a tumor on his esophagus and they could not operate to remove it because of it's location near the heart and on major arteries.
My son had been living with him since 2004 because he and his dad got along better than he and I did, essentially, he blamed me for the break up of our family. My son decided to stay with him after Gary's family, determining that he should be near his mother who would be responsible for his care, moved him to New Mexico because his father begged him to be with him until he either passed away or got better. I could not deny my son this important, bonding, loving experience with his father so I stepped out of the way, making sure I was available to my son for support and care, as much as that was possible from over 900 miles away.
On Tuesday, 2/26/07, which happened to be the day after Gary's birthday (and a year after my own Step-Dad's passing), my son and his aunt called in a panic to inform me that there was nothing more that the doctors could do to help Gary, his lung had collapsed after they emptied the fluid from it and his other lung was deteriorating as it struggled to compensate for the collapsed one. I flew in that night to be with my son, got there close to midnight, tried to support Gary as he struggled for breath.. told him that I will always love him and sat with his mother and his girlfriend as he went in and out of a morphine fog. He was deeply drugged but was very much aware that that I was there, he asked me why I was freaking out and to stop freaking out. He asked me to let him get some sleep. His mother told me that he was the most awake he had been all day after I hugged him and let him know I was with him. I asked if he knew my name and he said 'Jewell'. Around 5 a.m., my son, not being able to take anymore, wanted to go home and I went with him.
We waited anxiously for word on Wednesday and finally sensing something in the air, I told my son to call. We called his grandmother first, then his aunt, and then his cousin, starting around 4:45 p.m. A moment later, Gary's girlfriend called back, my son answered so she asked for me, and told me that she had made a promise to my son that she would not tell him over the phone that his father had passed away. Josh and I have been crying ever since as we made our way back home and try to normalize the abandonment we feel. My daughter Saia, the most stoic of us all, was the most resolved and had already made plans to get a tattoo commemorating her father. It's a lovely violin, the instrument he first learned to play, with a laurel wreath of peace around framing the body and with a halo behind the strings, pegboard and scroll. There are musical symbols floating on either side of the violin and 'Dad' is written on a scroll along with his date of death written just below the scroll.. it's very beautiful and very iconic..
This man, still the love of my life, who I haven't lived with since 1999, has left me with our two children to see into adulthood and with their male role parenting needs still unmet. One of the early issues we had was around my getting pregnant was about Gary having to relinquish his childhood, which for the most part, I'm sure never happened at least for the most part and for that part, it was as if a child was raising children ~ in some way I understood. I haven't grown up totally either, but I know which parts of my child to activate and they are the parts which don't effect the development of the children I brought into the world.
We had so much conflict, due to my being the eternal optimist and wanting an extraordinary life. Gary used to say that if I loved him, we would be happy on skid row, which I thought was incredulous. I was also very independent woman (how dare I?) and I was unable to subjugate myself to his will, when I did not agree with his reasoning (which was often) and yet I loved him like no other. I don't know if I can ever love a man as I did him. I relinquished what I could, determining that LOVE dictated that I not be selfish, until further determination dictated that I love myself more rather than be destroyed.
After 17 years of this, I determined that I had to move on. Within 6 months of my leaving Gary, he had a new girlfriend who he told me he was going to have a 'fresh' start with, one that he could not have with me. I felt as if someone had ripped my heart out of my chest and I have been trying to put it back ever since. Even my children begged me to move on and get over it like their daddy did. I never believed that Gary had moved on.
A few years into his new relationship, he told me that he was not happy with her, told me things about her that I didn't want to know. I yelled that he shouldn't be with her then, and that I didn't want to hear these things about her and wondered out loud to him if he said such things about me to her. During the last month, I had gotten several calls from Gary in which he spoke of his panic and anxiety. He and I rambled on about our kids and how he was going to survive this thing. There was much left unsaid, but I know now he was letting me know that he felt the time of his passing growing near. That is the true testament of our love.
We lost so much, but I would've left him still because in my heart I knew that, for whatever reason, Gary and I were at different stages of development. Gary thought that I should just do as he said. When I quit smoking during my 2nd pregnancy, Gary continued to smoke and smoked in my presence. Damn, he smoked a door away from his son, who developed early asthma as a result. When I begged the man to get a job and suggested careers, he willfully ignored me. How dare I demand that he work and why didn't I just get a better job (!). When he actually vocalized this, I knew I had to leave him to maintain my self love and self respect. I started demanding that he support my development as I did his and he denied that support. The last straw was getting evicted. I informed him of that old adage 'I can do better struggling on my own than struggling with him'. I thought that would be the hardest thing I had ever survived and now he's gone. I am still getting over him, when I mate, I mate for life. I know that sounds crazy. He moved on, he had a life with a new woman, and even got and kept a pretty good job (!), but I struggled every day to find my footing. I am still struggling. There were bits of closure from him, in the last few months he told me with tears in his voice that he wished he would've invested in my art and my business ideas, that we'd probably be rich and everything would've been ok. But he never said that he wished he had quit smoking.. I wish he had.. Oh God, I wish he had loved himself and his progeny enough to quit. I will hang onto what closure he's given me, as I know now, his death is the final end of our earthly possibilities.
I know he's watching over his children and the morning after his death, as i awakened in the motel room (after being kicked out of his place by his girlfriend the night before, but that's another story in a different blog).. I heard him call my name, the first time quietly, as if he was whispering in my ear, and the second time much louder and more insistently.. We had always promised that the first one of us who passes would let the other know that we had made it to the other side.. Thank you for letting me know GL..
May God bless you on your next life mission and may we meet one day in some parallel universe, cleansed and renewed, with the soul's recognition of what love we found and made last in this delirious, out of balance world..
