I wrote this in my personal diary on June 18, 2014, the summer that Mr. Simply was dying. I found it on the morning of June 18, 2018 and thought I would post it here. I should have written about it before, but somehow never did:

He asked me last night to tell him again why we didn't just move to Oregon. Not recalling having spoken about that previously, I inquired further. "Um, whut?" His reply: "Because they let your doctors kill you there."

So I told him I was doing this here, where my friends and home are, because I have an "after" I have to consider. I also told him not to worry about it, because we could ease him out ourselves without anyone being any the wiser, and that I would do that for him.

It is the first time we've talked about that. But I have thought about it briefly, and knew that I would risk it for him rather than see him in the kind of pain he's in now -- only worse. I don't think it much risk, though, as he will be on massive painkillers, and an "accidental" OD, on his own hook, would be easy to arrange if and when he gets to the point that he wants that. And because he's under a doctor's care, and would be obviously dying anyway by that point, there would be no autopsy as long as no one suspected foul play. And he's filled out all the legal papers necessary to keep them from making him hang on, suffering, beyond any rational point of return. I have them on file, I have a copy in my phone, and I'm not afraid to use them.

It would be hard, but I would do it for him.

I'm hoping, though, that it won't come to that. They say they can control the pain, and that they will. I think he's worried now because the pain isn't currently under control (they're titrating him up to the big guns as we speak), and because I think both of us are secretly afraid that the radiation isn't working. That does not, of course, mean that it won't in the coming days and weeks, or that the chemo won't work. It's just that it doesn't look real good right this two seconds.

He looks like an old man, moving as slowly and carefully as someone 30 years older. And I don't care what the scales say, the man is losing weight. His jeans are literally hanging off of him: I could not see that there were hips or legs in there at all yesterday as I watched him walk up the driveway from the car.

My heart is breaking. Anything that makes me think of him and what he's going through, or about losing him, makes me cry. I am reading, for example, Written In My Own Heart's Blood, and as Claire and Jamie and most of the other main characters are in the middle of a war, death and loss and love are very much the subject. So I keep marking quotes and crying.

I think of things we will never do. Someone randomly posted a beautiful photograph from a national monument and said, "You have to go there" if you've never been, and it of course instantly popped into my mind that when we were young, we'd wanted to move out West after school. We never did. We wanted to travel. We never did. Something as simple as getting back to Hatteras, where we honeymooned, or just going to the beach next week for our anniversary -- will never happen. I got an invitation to the family reunion, and sent regrets, with an explanation. I almost said, "Maybe next year" but did not, and thought to myself that if I did it might well be without him. Which led to thoughts of whether I'd ever have another Christmas or Thanksgiving, at home or anywhere else, with him. This goes on all the time.

I think of more mundane, things, too -- seeing to the yard and house, schlepping the dog or bird to the vet, all the little daily things I'll be doing without him. And it's already starting: He's suggested I start getting food delivered from Schwan's again, and I'm thinking I'm going to have to shop for the new stove this weekend by myself, make my own decision and place my own order. Which leads me to thinking of how he's always been there, how solid he's always been. Even if he's the worry-wart in any big deal in our lives (and not a few not-so-big deals--my therapist used to joke that he had Pre-traumatic Stress Disorder), he's been there, and he's been a trouper. This morning, for some reason, I was thinking about his personal fortitude, remembering that he was the one who took Sam and Lucky to the vet for the last time when I couldn't. I realize now that I could have, and should have, have in fact long known this, but at the time I really believed I just couldn't. And so he did.

He may not have been my soul mate (I think I'm so warped that there is no one who could have) but I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm his. He has always treated me that well. He deserved better in a wife and lover, but I'm getting better every day and I swear by God (yeah, I know) that I am going to be as good to him as I possibly can for every minute of every day he has left.

Simply,