Losing someone

As I sit here writing, the aroma of simmering vegetable soup and cornbread baking in the oven makes it hard to focus. I keep thinking about slipping into the kitchen, taking a long handled spoon and sampling the soup. But the soup isn’t for us; it’s lunch for our neighbors down the road who are going through a difficult time right now.

Nurses visit frequently, and her outlook does not sound good. He seems to be struggling with making sure she has what she needs and probably has little time for thinking of life without her. I can’t imagine what they’re going through.

As Jilda and I walked yesterday, he pulled his SUV to the curb and rolled down his window to give us a brief update. We both listened. The sadness in his voice broke my heart. Jilda asked him if he thought he and his wife might be able to eat a bite of vegetable soup. He said he thought she might like that. Jilda promised some for lunch.

Before he rolled his window up and headed to the store, I told him if there was anything I could do to help, let me know. In reality, there’s little anyone here on earth can do.

I know the coming weeks and months will be brutal. Our friend Yvonne went through a similar situation with her husband, Charlie, earlier this year. They’d been married over 58 years.

She told me this week that at times when she walks through their house, she feels Charlie’s presence.  She realizes that some people write this off as wishful thinking on her part, but when two loving people are together for that long, it would be strange for him NOT to be with her on some level.

I thought about both Yvonne and our neighbor as Jilda and I finished our walk yesterday.

Trying to imagine how I would feel if faced with a similar situation was not an easy thing to consider.

There were times over the last few years that I feared the worst. Jilda was struggling with severe side effects from her monthly infusion treatments. The treatments were for a defective immune system.

This procedure causes side effects in only a small number of patients, but she hit the side effect lottery and struggled with aseptic meningitis. Some months it only put her on the couch for a few days, but other months she rarely left it. I can tell you it was scary to think I might lose someone who’s been with me for most of my life.

Jilda and I started dating in high school. That was in 1968, and aside from the two years I was in the Army, we’ve been together ever since.

Today, after the soup simmered and the cornbread browned, she boxed up enough for our neighbors to eat for a day or two.

He told me to thank Jilda for doing that for them. It wasn’t much, but under the circumstances it’s the least we could do for neighbors who are hurting.