Seven Years Since Everything Changed

Seven years ago this week, my husband’s cancer came back. There are dates associated with grief that everyone remembers—the day someone dies, birthdays, anniversaries. But there are other anniversaries that live more quietly in the body. Dates that marked the beginning of the before and after, even though you didn’t know it at the time.

This is one of mine.

I remember Keith on pain medication, so confused that he didn’t know who I was. I remember waiting for answers and then hearing the words we desperately didn’t want to hear: it was cancer again. Keith was not conscious when we received the news. He didn't know. I did, just me, alone in the hospital room.

That night, in the hallway of the oncology floor, I had the first panic attack of my life.

I think about that woman now. She was terrified and overwhelmed, but she had no idea what was still ahead. She didn’t know everything Keith would endure. She didn't know everything their son would lose. She didn't know how much would eventually be asked of her, but she feared it all.

She certainly didn't know that seven years later, Keith would be gone and she would be looking backward, wishing she could somehow reach through time and hold all three of them. Maybe that is why I've felt so unsettled this week. I know the rest of the story now. And I'm heartbroken by it.

I'm heartbroken for Keith, who deserved a long life beyond cancer. I'm heartbroken for Liam, who deserved decades more with his dad. And I'm heartbroken for myself, because I deserved to grow old beside the person I loved and cherished. 

There isn't a lesson that makes any of that fair.

Maybe meaning doesn't always come from finding a reason something happened. Maybe sometimes meaning comes from bearing witness to what happened and refusing to minimize what it cost. We went through something devastating. We loved each other through it.

And despite everything cancer took from our family, it cannot change the fact that we were a family. That Keith loved us. That we loved him. That the life we had together mattered.

Seven years later, I am still here.

I carry the woman who stood terrified in that oncology hallway. I carry the boy who deserved more time with his dad. And I carry Keith—not simply as someone I lost, but as someone I love. Maybe that's what this anniversary means.

Some losses change the shape of your life forever.

And some loves do, too.