How strange life can be. Some people say, "You plan. God laughs." And that certainly would be the case here. I didn't even plan; I guessed at what would happen. You got diagnosed with cancer, and I thought there would be a descent into cancer hell. The only variable, I thought, would be the rate at which we took the dive. I wondered what it would be like, how long it would last, what medical elements would come into play, how you would handle it, and what my life would look like as well. Really, God, I wasn't making plans; I was planning to cope. Maybe that in itself was a 'plan'.
But then at a point in our journey, cancer took a back seat. On April 28, two days before our 22nd wedding anniversary, you called me at work. You didn't want to lie anymore. You didn't want to put Laura in the middle. You wanted to come clean. Knowing that I would be seeing my therapist in 45 minutes, you wanted to let me know that you were playing poker again. In fact, you always had been playing poker, you always would, and 'that is just the way it is'. Nuclear bomb falls on kindergarten teacher in Southern California. All is destroyed, devastated. Building demolished, vegetation obliterated. Will there be any survivors? The mushroom cloud rises up into the atmosphere tall dark and ominous. Can't you see it? The fallout flattens everything in its path. All is dark, gray, ruined, there is no going back. Life as we have known it will never be the same again. You hand me a broom. Go clean it up. Deal with it.
I tell you that I am stunned, crushed, hurt. I see I have enabled you to gamble. I pay the bills. I go to work. You gamble. I scrounge for summer funds. I take extra jobs. You gamble. I tell you that from now on you will pay your medical coverage and there will be big changes around here. After all, we've just suffered a nuclear holocaust. I ask you to be thinking of how you are going to protect me from any damages that might arise from your gambling. What if you are thinking, "What the heck, I'm going to die, one last hurrah, I'm going to play in this high-stakes game"? Or, you just decide that throwing money on a table is the way you want to spend your final days? You would need to think of a way to protect me and provide for me. There's no life insurance. There's no retirement plan with my name on it for widow's benefits. For once, protect me and provide something for me.
I let our anniversary slip by unnoticed. I have no desire to celebrate.
I tell you that I am stunned, crushed, hurt. I see I have enabled you to gamble. I pay the bills. I go to work. You gamble. I scrounge for summer funds. I take extra jobs. You gamble. I tell you that from now on you will pay your medical coverage and there will be big changes around here. After all, we've just suffered a nuclear holocaust. I ask you to be thinking of how you are going to protect me from any damages that might arise from your gambling. What if you are thinking, "What the heck, I'm going to die, one last hurrah, I'm going to play in this high-stakes game"? Or, you just decide that throwing money on a table is the way you want to spend your final days? You would need to think of a way to protect me and provide for me. There's no life insurance. There's no retirement plan with my name on it for widow's benefits. For once, protect me and provide something for me.
I let our anniversary slip by unnoticed. I have no desire to celebrate.
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