(This was originally included in my book Caring for Kait as Chapter 41. It has been removed for the 2nd Edition. I actually kind of like this chapter, but in my updates, it didn’t seem to fit.)

……………………………… ………………………… … …… …………… ………………………………………… ……… …… …… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. (tick) …… ………………… ……………………………………………….. (tock) ……………………………………………………… ……………… ……….. (tick) ………………………………………………………… …………………………………. (tock) …………………………… ……… (tick) …………….. (tock) …………………. (tick) ………… ………… (tock) ………………………….. Our apartment …… (tick) ……. Once full of laughter and life … (tock) …… Once full of love ……….. Once full of positivity ……….  Completely silent …… (tick)………. Aside from the nearly inaudible ticking of the clock ….. (tock) ………………..Complete silence.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….I sit on the couch……By myself……..Empty……. (tick) . ………… …… (tock) ………………..Staring blankly forward ………………… …………….My social cushion………. Gone …………………… My breathing has slowed…. Significantly ………… …… I’m suffocating …… …………………………My phone sits on the coffee table in front of me……Waiting for it to vibrate……Waiting for a text from Kaitlyn…… (tick) …………… ………(tock) …………… I ate two chocolate chip cookies today……  Want to pick up the phone and tell her………I can’t………………..

………………………………………………………..Silence………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………birds chirp outside……………………………….Hindu babies scream and cry in the hallway.

My head’s a balloon……… weightless …………………..My body tingles………………………………I look around the apartment …… …….Everything remains……………..but it’s desolate.  Barren.  Lonesome……………………

I’m drowning ……….. Deep, dark ocean of despair ………….. I keep sinking ………………. deeper ……………….. and deeper …………………  The light of the sun ……….. vanished ……… no strength to swim.

Who can I talk to? ……………………. I need Kait ……… …… ………. I only want to talk to Kait ………………………………….. Kait where are you?………………………..You were the one and only person I trusted to pick me up ……. You were the one and only person I trusted to admit when I needed help…..or when I was sad…..mad…..glad.

…………………………I can feel my heart trying to repair itself …………… ………………… This hurts……………..hurts badly …… …………………Is this what the rest of my life will feel like? …….. …….. ……………….It’s only been an hour…………..How will I make it through this week? …………….. How will I make it through this month? ……… …………………. How will I make it through this lifetime? ……… ………….. Kait…… can you come back?

Everything I do, I can still sense Kait.  Taking a shower.  Walking around the apartment.  Lying in my bed.  I still feel her presence.  It feels like someone is constantly looking over my shoulder.  I can feel a certain foreign energy wrapped around my neck, my back.  Is it her?  Is my mind fooling me?  It’s impossible to differentiate whether I feel this presence because my memories are still so fresh, or because she actually is present.  My mind can’t tell.  It could be either.  For self-appeasing purposes, I want to believe it’s her.  So, it is her.  It’s definitely her. 

“Hi, Kait,” I say with a smile.  “I miss you.  I love you so much.  I’m sorry for what you had to go through.”

Reminders of the life Kait and I had together are everywhere in the apartment.  Our rings lying next to each other.  The mound of shoes taking up a whole portion of the closet.  Jewelry sprinkled across our dresser.  Her clothes hanging in the closet.  Family pictures throughout the apartment.  Her cute snowman hot chocolate cup resting in the cupboard.  Candy and chips and green tea and cooking supplies and her favorite chili from her dad and her nutritional drinks to combat the ill effects of cancer and more, littered throughout the kitchen.  Her wedding magazines.  Her wedding planner.  Her career information – letters of recommendation, resumes, references.  The letter and a picture from the little boy at Kennedy Elementary sent to Kait to update her on his progress and let him know he missed her, which nearly brought her to tears at the time.  Halloween decorations still up from October.  The prayer she wrote down on a sticky note and taped to the inside of our bathroom cabinet.  Her makeup.  Her shampoo.  Her hair straightener.  Her wigs.  Her bandanas.  Her coats hanging from the coat rack.  Every decoration in the apartment, all her touch.  The coffee table she bought for $5 at a garage sale that she sanded down and beautifully refinished the summer before we moved in together.  The plant stand my grandpa made for us that she sanded and spray painted to match the color scheme of our living room. 

Reminders of Kait are scattered throughout.  I like it.  I don’t like it.  They make me happy because they bring back certain memories.  They make me sad because they remind me that Kait’s gone, for good.    

Hours and days pass.  I sit on the couch.  Pondering.  Reflecting.  In pain.  My head is boiling.  My heart.  I feel like I’ve coded.  No pulse.  I’m a zombie.  Darkness envelops me.  I’m frightened.  Am I in hell?  I think so.  I can’t be sure.  Purgatory?

I can’t believe people experience similar pain every day.  Some worse.  Some face the challenge of cancer for years.  Some at a younger age.  But it’s not a competition.  A tragedy is a tragedy, and pain is pain.  Comparing situations would seem immature.  Not everything in life needs to be reduced to a competition.      

What do I do?  I have to start clawing my way out.  But the shroud of blackness is too thick, too overwhelming.  I need help. 

I can’t live the rest of my years as a lifeless, wooden replica of a man.  I have to live, somehow.  But, everything that gave my life meaning.  A purpose.  She’s gone.  The one thing I was responsible for I let slip away.  The one thing I completely devoted myself to can no longer be my devotion. 

Now what?  What’s the point?  I had goals.  I had aspirations.  Then disease entered.  Those goals and aspirations became completely and utterly meaningless.  I set my sights on a new goal.  It was my only goal.  Kaitlyn.  Doing everything I could possibly do to help return Kait to health.  I worked harder to achieve that goal than anything I’d ever aspired to achieve.  My only purpose in life then was keeping her alive, and it was more important and meaningful than anything I’d ever done.  Even if I couldn’t do much, even if I had almost no control over her outcome, I wanted to work tirelessly to acquire all of the necessary tools to make my new dream a possibility.  And then a reality.  I was all in.  Pledged all of my being.  And, not only was I to keep her alive, but I was also to make damn sure she was happy.  All of my stress.  All of my worries for her, the person I loved more than anything in the world, had to be swept under the rug.  It had to remain hidden from her view.

I would never outwardly admit it, but I knew there was a good chance she wouldn’t come out of this in the end.  That also had to remain a secret, even if she knew it, too.  And, if she was to succumb to her ailment, then I had to make sure in her final months that she was not stressed, and that she was able to love, laugh, and live her life happily until the end.   

Above all, no matter how much stress and worry I was under, I always kept myself grounded in the reality that what she was experiencing was so much worse than what I was experiencing.  She was actually dealing with her own mortality and physical pain.  So, whatever stress I was under paled 100 times over in comparison to what she was dealing with.  I always had to remember that fact then, and I still have to remember that fact now. 

I still went to work, but I coasted because that was a trivial part of my life.  My job mattered little in the grand scheme of things.  More of an annoyance than anything.  It kept me from my real task.  If I was fired, I would hardly flinch because I knew what awaited me at home was infinitely more important than a simple job.  Time with her was potentially running out.  Every activity not involving Kait was time wasted. 

For a year, that was my life.  That was my goal.  Kaitlyn was my true job.  Now what?  No job could ever compare to the job I undertook 12 months ago.  What’s even the purpose?  What’s the purpose of doing anything now?  Whatever task I undertake from here on out will never compare in importance and meaning to the one I had.  Money no longer carries the weight it carried before.  Everything severely lacks meaning.  From here on out, everything I achieve will seem pointless and miniscule in the end.  So, what’s the point?  What can I do that would even come close to the importance of the previous goal I had? 

I just don’t know.

My purpose is gone.  I am obsolete.  I’ve passed my expiration date.  What to do…     

I wake up in the middle of the night.  Still sleepy.  Still groggy.  Kait’s leg is nestled up to mine.  She likes to feel my presence when we sleep, so she always keeps her leg against me.  Every night.  I love it.   

I continue waking up.  I lift my head and turn my body, wanting to give Kait a kiss on the forehead.  Letting her know she’s safe and she’s loved.  Maybe I’ll squeeze her, too.  It depends how she responds.  I don’t want to wake her.   

My grogginess becomes complete consciousness as I turn over. 

Kait’s not there. 

That’s right. 

She’s gone.  

The feeling against my leg was just the fold of the blankets. 

Oddly, I found myself only partially disappointed.  On one hand, the sense of dejection upon realizing Kait was not there as I had anticipated was heavy.  But, on the other hand, for those 5, 10 seconds as I was waking up, I genuinely felt a familiarity of something I had just months earlier, something I had gotten used to for years.  For those 5 to 10 seconds, she was alive again in my head.  She was actually alive.  And I liked that feeling, however short it was.

Once again, I sit on my couch, staring blankly forward.  I feel like I should be doing something productive, but I can’t.  The mere thought of moving, even lifting a finger seems like a daunting task.  It’s as if the blood in my veins has hardened to concrete.  I’m cemented to the couch.

What’s the point?  Will I always feel like this? 

My heart hurts.  I literally feel an intense pain in my heart.  After every lub-dub, I feel it mourn for Kait and the suffering she had to endure.

In my head a pair of vise grips clamp around the backs of my eyeballs, squeezing tightly.  Beyond my control and beyond my prediction, they add and release pressure at their own will.  At times, like they are squeezing lemons.  My eyes well up and fluids drain.  

My body and my spirit are constantly at war.  Somehow I feel like I’m floating and falling at the same time.  My physical body continues plummeting down this dark abyss, but my head feels like it wants to detach itself from my body and float away.  This must be my spirit trying to leap out of my shell.  My face feels like pins and needles.  Tingly.  I’m completely numb. 

Am I half dead?  I mean, I know I had this nice theory saying that I gave myself to Kait, and when she died, a part of me went with her.  Could that be true, after all?  It seemed like just a cute, crackpot theory, but now it seems plausible.  Essentially, I feel like a part of me is dead. 

If the rest of my life is going to feel like this, pure agony, should I just end it now?  I mean, maybe that whole suicide and hell thing is just a myth. 

But, what if it’s not? 

What would it feel like to put a bullet in my head?  What would it actually feel like? 

Would it hurt?  Would it be peaceful?  Would it relieve all of the built up pressure in my head?  Hmm…

This isn’t how life is supposed to be lived, and I don’t have the strength to change it, so what’s the purpose of living if it’s always going to be like this? 

But it won’t always be like this.  Right?  I mean, everyone says time heals.  Is that true?  Or, do we simply learn how to cope with the pain as time moves forward?  Do we simply learn more effective methods of managing our wounds?

Weeks passed.  Some days I would feel a spark, thinking I must be getting over some sort of hump.  But then, hours later, that spark would vanish, the plank would drop beneath me and I would plunge deeper into my limitless sorrow, dispassionately treading to keep afloat.

Every day I replayed every aspect of our battle against our cancer insurgency.  From the day we first met, to the day we first learned she had the disease, all the way up to her final moments, the same images cycled through my mind, hitting rewind and starting over every 15 minutes.

Every day I pondered my future.  Will I ever work again?  Will I ever find love again?  I don’t think so.  How could I?  People say I have to, eventually.  But, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.  It feels like it won’t be fair to the girl I pursue.  Will she have difficulty understanding my eternal love for Kaitlyn?  Will she have difficulty understanding when I have a moment of sad memories and tears for another woman?  Will she feel like she is my consolation prize?

I don’t even know if it’s okay to truly be happy.  How can I be if my primary source of happiness is gone?

I ponder whether grief will always be a prominent part of my life.  I feel like if I’m not grieving, I’m doing Kait a disservice.  How dare I smile!?  Kait suffered and died, I should not be smiling.

Then the hypochondriac in me starts wondering whether or not the long-term stress I experienced could have caused damage, effecting my ability to think in the future.  For over a year I pushed my neurons as far as I think they could be pushed.  Can neurons burn out and die?  Of course.  I feel like I’m having a hard time with short-term memory now.  Things in the past, which would never escape my mind, are beginning to escape.  Remembering simple names of people, or simple processes I’ve done over and over suddenly become more difficult as I question myself every time.  I can’t focus.  I can’t concentrate.  Will that last?  Is it just because I’m still stricken with grief and guilt?  Or, maybe old age is simply setting in.

Sitting in my apartment, I think and I think and I think.  All the thoughts become overwhelming.  So, I take advantage of the skill I acquired from suffering through cancer – I blank my mind.  A complete whiteout.  I never thought it was possible to halt all thoughts, but I learned how.

After briefly clearing the brush of sadness from my mind, I soon come upon anger and disgust aimed heavily at pharmaceutical companies and a system which perpetuates such evil, self-serving behavior.  Through all of my digging, I received a rude awakening in that we are nowhere near a cure because money trumps compassion and human values.  While our most beloved suffer and die, we are fed stories through the media of “breakthrough” discoveries to instill hope in us, making us believe they are doing everything possible to destroy cancer.  That may be true, but only if it helps the bottom line.   

I was so angry, because instead of taking advantage and testing the natural, God-given resources expressing similar DNA to our own, like plants, we continue using toxic, carcinogenic chemicals, which poisons and destroys our bodies.  After 30 years and trillions of dollars spent, the methods employed today have hardly changed.  So many novel, natural approaches have been ignored because they wouldn’t be profitable, or are banned because they threaten the monetary gains of the pharma industry.  When cheap, healthier, and potentially more effective alternatives are brought to light, the heads of these corporations with the help of the FDA will do whatever they can, going to great lengths to discredit the method, steer people away, and even ban it.  

Ineffective, damaging poison will continue to be the preferred approach because it brings in the most money (approaches like effective, yet costly Stem Cell Therapy, Gene Modification, etc. are years away).  If you were the head of a company and your job depended on increasing shareholder value, which study would you lean toward?  The one where you can charge a patient $200,000 over a few months (Kaitlyn on Ipilimumab)?  Or, the one that can’t be patented because it’s natural, where competition will drive the price down to unprofitable levels (like with High-Dose Vitamin C, say)?  The answer is simple.  I understand it.  But, I don’t like it.  In fact I loathe it.  This kind of behavior is promoted by a gaming system with its rules that need changing so that human life is put ahead of monetary gains.  However, that won’t happen. 

I become angry because I see so many people defend the abhorrent behavior exhibited by those in charge of these companies, when just a smidgen of research exposes their intrinsic mission.  And, that mission is not geared toward you or me.

In the meantime, with stress rampant, with carcinogens in our air, our food, and our water, and with pharmaceuticals merely seeking profit, cancer and other major diseases will continue to rapidly increase, causing the deaths of millions of people.  People who you and I love dearly.  People way too young, who deserve a chance at a full, fruitful life. 

It angers me because I feel like Kaitlyn might still be alive today if greed didn’t play a role in the medical world.  That anger, that rage fuels my utter disdain for pharmaceutical companies and the money-driven “men” at the top who play a role in stunting true medical progress.  As much advancement has been made in remedying other ailments, cancer remains big, big business.

Rage dissipates.  Sadness returns.  And the life cycle of our relationship begins again in my head.  Overall, I was in bad shape.     

I needed reminders that life goes on, that I can’t sit and sulk in sadness and depression.  And, oftentimes those reminders would make themselves known in subtle ways. 

It had been a month, and I was sitting on the couch during the evening with the blinds agape in our apartment.  Through the mound of snow surrounding our porch, a full-grown rabbit appeared.  Standing right outside the window of the sliding door, he looked in.  Could this be the same rabbit from before?  It must be.  Do rabbits grow that fast?  I suppose they do.  Remembering how Kait used to feed him during the summer, I quickly scanned the fridge, but I didn’t eat vegetables, so we were empty.  Feeling a duty to Kait and to the furry critter, I grabbed my keys and hurried to the store to buy lettuce. 

When I came back, the bunny was gone, but I still dumped a large handful of food on the ground.  As the minutes passed, our rabbit friend returned and began munching away at his tasty meal.  From that night on, I fed the adorable rodent almost every day.  For Kait.  And because I didn’t want him to starve.  Hopefully it made Kait happy. It was a gentle reminder I may still have purpose.  That others may need me, yet, in this world.  That I can’t be sitting on my butt feeling depressed forever.