Reinventing Myself
My life has been shattered, I don’t know who I am anymore, all I know is that day has arrived, and I am now a widow.
I am standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window at the clouds in the sunrise. I just poured myself a glass of fresh ginger tea. My thoughts on the fresh ginger, cut and boiled, made with love, to soothe the stomach.
I am taken back to the kitchen of The Hope Lodge in Phoenix, Arizona, and our first trip there. It’s where I learned to make fresh ginger tea. The ginger helps to settle nausea from chemotherapy and radiation.
A tear streaks down my cheek as I long to be back in that kitchen. I long to go back and hug Tom again, tell him I love him, again. The day I could see in my future without him has arrived. Even though I tried to prepare for it, nothing could have prepared me for it.
Sitting in the kitchen of the Hope Lodge, eating a meal I prepared for us. Other cancer patients and their caregivers are at the other tables. I look at Tom, I wonder how long I have left with him, I remind myself again to cherish every single moment. I want to have hope. I want a cure so we will have many years left together. I am afraid of being blindsided though, so the fear of losing him is always there, looming in the back of my mind; anticipatory…
