My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

In February, my wife Lisa died after 34 years of marriage.

And now in September I am facing open heart surgery for aortic valve replacement. I go in tomorrow, September 4.

These things compound, because my wife was a nurse who was always wonderful at taking care of her family when we were sick, and to be facing this without her at my side feels cruel and wrong. I have been missing her lately with the same brutally painful intensity I felt in the weeks after her death.

The causes are also mixed up together. My wife slipped into renewed drug addiction before my eyes, but I did not notice because I was depressed myself and, I think, ignored plain evidence because I did not have the strength to deal with the consequences of calling her out. My doctor first detected my heart murmur two years ago and suggested I see a cardiologist, but I did nothing. Partly this was because I felt fine – still feel mostly, fine, actually – and partly because I did not want to deal with it. If I had gone to a cardiologist two years ago I would have gone into surgery with Lisa at my side, and maybe that would have given her a reason to go on living at least a little longer.

But I did nothing, and now I face surgery and recovery without Lisa, wondering if the kind of life I can have without her is worth the effort and suffering of going through this.

There is one possible bright side, which is that I have had this problem all my life. I was born with a bicuspid (two flaps instead of the usual three) aortic valve, and this may have limited me physically. As the valve grew more stenotic (=calcified), a process that takes years, it may have limited blood flow in ways that messed with my brain. Some people who have had this surgery report feeling healthier afterwards than they have in decades.

Maybe I will be one of them. But I fear the regrets that haunt me will keep the remainder of my life from ever having the depth and breadth of joy that I knew in my good years with Lisa.

Still, there is this, from Wendell Berry:

It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work,
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have come to our real journey.

Odds are that I will be back in about two weeks. Thanks to all of you who have supported me and enjoyed my work, and to my many friends. I hope to hear from you again soon.