Paths Not Taken

For the past six years I have watched a man that I have the most profound love for deteriorate into someone who no longer has the will to live. He has given thirty-four years of his life and devotion to the only woman he had ever loved. Their love spoke a quiet truth. The Sunday morning ritual of dancing to Teddy Pendergrass are no more, but in his mind he relives it on a daily basis. He talks to her still and constant.

I couldn’t begin to understand how he feels because his love for her is on a higher level that I could possibly understand. They shared a history, a love, and five children. When she was diagnosed with Mutiple Sclerosis he watched his once beautiful red head succomb to the harsh reality that her sickness yielded. For sixteen years he held her hand during the relapes, remissions, spasms, and then death.

You have to have that understanding that the love a child has for his/her mother pales in comparison to the love shared between that of a husband and wife. Most of his sixty-three years was spent loving and caring for his wife, he knew of nothing else.

I’ve watched him become an alcoholic and it angers me and breaks my heart all at the same time, but my love for him is and will always be unconditional. I’ve heard people tell him that he needs to get out and meet new people. Maybe that would probably help. His reply: “No one will take the place of my wife”!

If that’s not loving unconditionally, I don’t know what is. Would I like for him to find a nice person to spend the rest of his days with…..sure I would, has there been women who have tried to get close to him………yes, but there are some things that you just can’t force on someone if it’s not wanted. He’s not ready to let my mom go and I respect him for that. I want him to understand that eventhough she’s gone, she’s not forgotten and that she is still with him. She would want him to be happy. I guess from his point of view, that would be easier said than done.

Kate Bush/This woman’s Work: