I never really realized how much my husband loved me. I'm not saying I questioned if he loved me because he showed it every day we were together, but I never comprehended just how deeply we were bound. The last minutes of his life were the ones that made me realize exactly how much I was losing.
To understand, I have to describe his death. Ben had metastatic melanoma that started as a mole on his right arm. He had several other tumors crop up over the five years after the initial diagnosis, but the ones that killed him were three tiny tumors on his liver that eventually made him look as distended as a nine-months pregnant woman. The story of his illness and the too coincidental events of his last hospitalization is an amazing tale in itself, but the last night was the stunner.
Because the liver tumors had so distended his stomach, Ben hadn't eaten any food since July. His last meal, appropriately enough, was a chili dog. His love of junk food is definitely in his genes as both my children eat nothing else. For the past month and a half, he'd been kept alive intravenously. When he came home to hospice care, he elected not to continue the nutrition, but to pass from dehydration instead of a more lingering and painful death as the tumors continued to grow and compress his internal organs.
Death from dehydration involves several stages and I have no great desire to elaborate. If you're interested, look it up. Suffice to say, for the last two days, he had been completely gone mentally, speaking occasionally to people who weren't there and muttering incoherently. His eyes were rarely open probably due to their dryness and his hands moved constantly in a gesture that imitated scratching, but actually wasn't, according to the doctor.
The nurse had informed us she didn't think it would be too much longer, and after nine days of watching him slowly disappear, we gathered around his bed to wait. My mother sat beside me and my father beside her. His mom walked in and out of the room and his youngest sister was upstairs trying to get a little sleep. My baby girl, ten days old, was with my aunt upstairs and my 2 1/2-year-old was watching The Lion King in the living room.
I sat beside his bed and held his hand. His other randomly patted across his body and he breathed softly. I looked at him and felt a swelling of love. The waiting was killing me. For two days, he'd not really spoken a complete word, let alone a thought, and sitting beside the shell that he had become was wearing. The Ben I knew had gone several days ago and I longed for peace for us all. I leaned over and kissed his hand, then began to pray under my breath for it to end soon.
At that moment, I saw my final miracle.
Ben opened his eyes and looked at me. He wasn't gazing about the room or randomly blinking, but looking at me. My eyes caught his and he held my gaze as he hadn't in two whole days.
"I love you," he said clearly, and he smiled, completely back to the man I fell in love with.
Everyone in the room froze in shock. I gasped and read in those beautiful eyes the same message that I had seen so many times in so many places over the years. The silent communion of two people who know each other so well share passed between us so quickly. I drew breath to respond, but even that little time was too much. His eyes closed as I breathed in and his breath left him in a great sigh. I replied, but I know he never heard me.
I've been blessed in so many ways in my life. I have family who've supported me, marvelous children who amaze me daily, and friends who laugh and cry with me, but the greatest gift God ever gave me was three seconds of clarity in Ben's eyes and the words, though usually insufficient to fully express the sentiment, that showed me how deeply I was loved.
While I know he still can't hear them, it feels appropriate to say them here: "I love you, too, Ben."
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