I was in the hospital two hours south of home with my oldest sister, that is about all I knew. The days became a blur but I now know it was a Wednesday, the Seventeenth of September, the day before I said goodbye.
It had been a grueling week that started by sending the kids off to school Monday morning, a few days prior. I was extremely anxious as that week began, full of fear. I cannot explain with the proper words how unsettling I was feeling as I helped Krista out of bed that morning. She could barely get up. I remember so vividly helping her get ready for her scheduled appointment, a “regular” checkup I guess it was called. At the clinic we arrived. The nurses could see it on my face, I could see it in their eyes. Never in my life had I been so lost.
She could barely muster the words, “I want to go to Rochester,” after given the option to go home and be done with this horrible chasing after the wind, or to carry on the fight till she had nothing left. What a choice, but that is where it stood.
Leading up to that fateful morning, she was increasing losing her battle. There had been a loss of direction by her medical team, her oncologist at the U of M had suddenly left for a better opportunity I am told, and our connection with her doctor in Rochester had been severed to a great extent due to her travels and I don’t know what. It was as if we had landed in some strange, God forbidden place where no one spoke and though we were screaming for help, no one was listening, or hearing. It was the most desolate of times, a desert wasteland, cold and empty, hell was what it was.
She was so weak and so was I that late summer morning. The sun shown brightly but all was so very dim. We were in the cancer clinic of Fairview Lakes, and there were hugs. The most powerful hugs I had to that day ever felt. First from a great man of older years, a volunteer at the clinic that had served Krista in such a kind and compassionate way. He only knew me by the power of the spirit that came upon us a few times since she had been receiving treatment. Then from two of the many wonderful nurses, their faces, their grace…I will never forget. They didn’t have to say anything, we all knew, I guess.
The call to Krista’s parents and the kids they took from school. We all went, my loving sister included, to meet my beautiful wife in a hospital bed two hours from home. She woke and had that smile, that stole me over twenty years before. She was brilliant. Those eyes so sincere, the laugh. She was so sweet yet so very strong. I always remember how I was nervous to ever disappoint her, because she was so real, so kind, so innocent. But her strength, physically and spiritually was what won me over, and of course her beauty…
The team of doctors down in Rochester were all strange to me. I didn’t know who they were. “Where is her doctor,” I asked, but no one knew or so it seemed to not matter. The group of 6 or 7 huddled together and exchanged a few glances my way. I knew that they were plotting, “how can we tell him?” They were, I heard, some of the most world renowned, but I didn’t care, it made no difference anymore. They were there to deliver the news, the miracle was not to be, or so I was told. She was the bravest of fighters. They had never, ever, seen a Myeloma so aggressive, they said. It was the only kind that could have possibly taken it her, I believe.
“God gives the strongest battles to his greatest soldiers” wrote my daughter on a piece of paper that still hangs on our wall today.
Though we don’t know the day or the time, it was now that she would prepare to go home. But it wasn’t to be our home, at least not the one where we raised our children. Our home, the one that we created together, our little place of paradise here on this land prepared for us to raise these incredible children. No, she was apparently going to a better place, that is what is hope.
I whispered to her, and gave her a kiss. Tears rolled down her face. I was broken.
The family started to gather as did some great friends. They were but a small sampling of the love that was so powerfully felt by so many over the two years we spent dying together. There she lie.
I was so conflicted. It was a feeling that never left me in this journey. Every time I had to leave her in suffering as I went to cover our growing babes. Many times we had spoke and every time she asked that I take care of them, they were her life, they are her- living today. So I went to be with them as I somehow knew she was protected by her savior.
There was not but a moment of slumber when the call came. My loving sister spoke these words, “Wade,..she is gone.” When we arrived, her eyes, those ones that I shared, were wide open and filled with a peace that cannot be explained. The chaplain said that she came upon her just a few moments before and knew that this was different. My bride was gazing towards the window looking off in the distance. I know she was doing what she was told and was so joyous in the meeting. He came for her and she went to be with him.