The Dream

Many times over recent years, Mark and I talked about death. He was convinced that we would live well into our nineties in sound physical and cognitive health. Since both of our fathers died at the age of 64 of cancer, I wasn’t so certain of the guarantee of years. He brought up the subject of our longevity often, and I would always redirect the conversation to the need for us to put our adult pants on and get a will and medical directive. Mark had biked for years with a group of guys every Saturday morning and it seemed to me that half of them were attorneys.

“Just ask one of them for an appointment,” I’d say to him. “We can do it first thing in the morning before we go to work and get this taken care of once and for all.” Mark finally agreed and talked to one of his lawyer friends who said he’d give us the “biker rate”, then he never did another thing about it. Besides considering the financial aspect in our regular death talks, we’d also ponder the possibility of finding someone else when either of us were no longer on this earth. That part tended not to gain much traction, not because we were opposed to it, but rather looking at a very alive spouse and saying, “Sure, I can see myself with somebody else when you’ve kicked the bucket,” didn’t seem right. To picture Mark happily remarried was like a knife in my back and I’m sure he felt likewise.

Then the unimaginable happened without warning and since September I’ve been swimming in a riptide of loss and loneliness, frantically paddling and not only going nowhere but terrified I’ll be swept out to sea if I give myself a second to rest. Every aspect of my life changed dramatically that day and everything I thought I had in the future with Mark was wiped clean. I told my therapist that whenever I try to visualize the years ahead it is a complete blank. She assures me that in time I will carve it out and make it my own but she has far more faith in the process than I do. I’ve spent every single day trying to keep my head above water, too drained to imagine anything but heartache.

On a still, dark, and cold Sunday morning I woke up at four o’clock, and as those early wake ups tend to go, I started thinking everything over for the thousandth time until I gave up, went downstairs, fed the cats, and started the coffee. An hour later I went back to bed and fell sound asleep.

I don’t know how long I was asleep when I could feel Mark standing next to the side of the bed. “Kath, wake up,” he said shaking me. “I have to talk to you.”

I opened my eyes and he immediately started telling me that somebody wanted to meet me. I looked at him like he was crazy and said I would absolutely not be meeting anybody. “You have to, Kath,” he said. “It’s a friend of Joe’s.”

Mark, I can’t meet new people right now. I’m too sad. It’s been so hard since you’ve been gone.

“You have to,” he said. “I already told Joe that you’d meet this guy.”

I started crying and said I couldn’t do that since I’m not exactly liked I used to be when he was here.

“Look,” he said, “it’s a drink. He just wants to meet you and take you out for a drink. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Oh my god, Mark, are you kidding me? That sounds like a date. What is wrong with you that you would ever agree to something like that?

“Kath, please,” he said looking at me with those intense green eyes of his. “You can’t be sad for the rest of your life.”

And I sat up in bed, looked around and he was gone but I knew every second of it was real.