My husband always knew he would die young.
I don’t know how he did, but he always predicted (warned?) that he would. This, of course, always made me bristle.
“Why do you keep saying that? Are you preparing me for widowhood?”
He was always certain. "Just you wait." (Honestly, this kind of talk drove me crazy.)
When we met, I might have told him that I didn’t really think I would ever get married. I didn’t think I needed a man.
So he spent 5 years trying to convince me to marry him. (Of course, he never mentioned that he thought he would live a short life in all that time.)
Mike both loved and hated my independent streak.
He loved that I could change my own flat tire but hated that I would not even bother asking him to do it for me.
Exasperated, he would ask, “Why don’t you give me a chance to help you?”
In our marriage, I learned to do just that. I learned to let him in and take care of me. I learned that we could take care of each other.
I even let him take care of flat tires, realizing that this made us both happier. (Fancy that!)
And when we had children, he took care of them, too. In fact, he was their primary caregiver from infanthood through their preschool years while I took on the role of primary breadwinner.
My husband was good at that. Taking care of us. Of letting go of his ego in favor of a balanced partnership and time with his children.
(Time with his children. Was this part of his short-timer's plan?)
He was the consummate family man.
He was constant and reliable. He loved us without smothering us.
Mike was like a Boy Scout, prepared for every eventuality. He stocked our home with supplies habitually, even long before the pandemic. He had spare parts for everything, tools for every job.
He paid all the bills. Made sure we saved for rainy days.
He made a mental checklist of all the things he wanted to accomplish to feel secure about our future if he were to die unexpectedly.
At one point, he remarked, “I can die now” after crossing a very specific milestone.
But also, he lived to make memories with us. Our kids are well traveled because their father wanted to show them the world even when they were probably too young to remember or appreciate it all.
Thinking back on this now, I am torn between gratitude and sorrow.
Certainly, I am grateful for his consummate preparedness and for all that he packed into the very short time we had with him. For his sacrifices.
But I am filled with sorrow for that feeling of impending death that never seemed to leave him.
And I am completely mystified, to this day, by his certainty.
Mike was not in the best of health, but he was faithful in taking his medications and getting checked regularly.
And frankly, he had a “mind over matter” and “power through” mentality that prevented him from letting anything get in the way of fulfilling his commitments. To anyone.
Even if he were feeling poorly, it never got in his way. If he suffered, he mostly did so in silence.
The most he would complain about was being tired.
He worked hard, and he persevered through setbacks.
This is a man who once chopped off his fingertip while making dinner, paused to clean off his wound, and refused to go to the hospital. He had me take over the cleaning of the wound and the fingertip pad he had sliced off, try to reattach it by sticking it back on, and bandage it tightly. He was back to helping me prep dinner in minutes. (Yes, he required a lot of bandage changes and constant reminders to elevate. And prompts to go to the ER. I tell you: the fact that blood clots is a glorious thing. That a fingertip pad can reattach itself is another. As for the man's stubbornness? Maddening as heck.)
So in a way, he always seemed just fine. Indestructible, even, and willfully so.
He was physically strong. Stronger, even, than he looked. He could lift our 200-lb. garage door, it seemed, without issue. He had freakishly strong hands for having such short fingers.
It was always hard for me to imagine the feeble man he predicted he would be by the age of 60, and in a way, I am so glad I never met that man.
Although I also never imagined he would die at 53.
Even when his health was failing him in the ICU, it was hard for me to imagine my strong guy being so broken. Indeed, his doctors and nurses said he was a fighter, even while sedated. (They said he was always trying to wake up, which caused additional stress to his system.)
It will forever be a mystery to me how my dearest love predicted a short life for himself.
It could be this fear or certainty of a life cut short that drove him to work so hard. To shrug off pain and illness. To create beautiful experiences with us.
More than this, he bolstered my confidence every chance he could. Told me that I
I would be more than enough for our children without him. That we would be more than okay. That he chose well in marrying me.
To be honest, I never really took any of this well because I resented - no, hated - his certainty that he would eventually leave me. But now? I replay his words. Which, I think, might have been his hope.
Mike used to attempt to endear himself to me and the girls by having us verbally confirm that we knew that he loved us. (Admittedly, this was met with mild annoyance much of the time.)
“Who loves you?” he often asked sweetly. (We sometimes would say, “Jesus”. Or the girls might say “Mommy” just to tease him.)
I always knew that this was important to him not because he felt insecure. It was an attempt to remind us. Or to gauge whether we felt loved by him.
I find it impossible to be mad at Mike for choosing me and the life we built, even when he fully expected to break our hearts. Because he was singular in his intentions: he wanted to do well in loving us and in taking care of us. And if at all possible, he wanted this to be his legacy.
And truly, being loved by him was a tremendous gift.
How blessed we have been, even as we have suffered for losing such a man.
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