Another promise

I've said before there were three great promises in my life: I promised my dad I wouldn't be afraid of life; I said till death do us part; and I promised Deb I'd be OK after she was gone.

Actually, there are four.

When the hospice person came into the hospital room to talk to us before letting Deb go home the last time, among the questions was directed at me: "If something happens to your wife, do you think you might harm yourself?"

I answered as truthfully as I could: "I don't know."

And it was the truth. I didn't know what I would do. I'd never lost a wife before. Certainly never lost the only woman I'd ever loved before, the woman who'd become the center of my life, the person who'd become the way I defined myself. More than anything else in this world, I was her husband.

What would anyone do in those circumstances?

Did I think I would kill myself? I didn't think so. I had made that decision when I was 13, when I was standing in the bathroom with a razor blade and thought what was stopping me from doing it. I decided then that if nothing else, I couldn't put my mother through losing another child (I had an older brother who died of leukemia), so as long as she was alive I would never do that.

But this was a different situation all together, and right then, I honestly didn't know what I would do.

After the hospice person was gone, Deb turned to me and said, point blank, "I want you to promise me you won't hurt yourself."

First off, she knew I didn't make promises lightly. And she knew I'd never break a promise I'd make to her. So she knew what she was doing.

Of course I promised her. I could never say no to anything she wanted.

After she died and the hospice nurse and I cleaned her up, the nurse asked where Deb's pain medication was. Not really wondering why she asked, I told her, and she gathered it up. It wasn't till much later I realized she took it because of my answer to the first hospice person.

I could've told her not to worry about me hurting myself. I had already promised.