Marriage - Second Stage

My husband missed his oldest sister and his mother in spite of the way they had treated him.  He blamed their actions on his other sister's husband, somewhat far fetched since this brother-in-law had no reason to trouble himself to do anything for his mother-in-law, whom he despised, or his wife, whom he abused.  The brother-in-law did nothing to stop his wife and mother-in-law but certainly did nothing to instigate their behavior.  He was not a good man or an honest man, but also not a stupid man who would not have taken a course of action that would result in harming himself.  The mother's actions cost her many thousands of dollars, money she really didn't have.

My husband was not willing to take the first step to reestablish contact with his sister or his mother and it was obvious that they would not make the first move so I wrote to both of them, offering friendship and hospitality.  Friends invited us for a fowl supper in my husband's home town, knowing that my husband's mother would attend.  At the supper, as we walked by my mother-in-law's table, she turned and invited us to come to her house for tea together with her daughter and her daughter's new husband.  We introduced her to her grandchildren, by now about 8 and 3 and went to her house for tea.  From then on, we visited with her and her daughter regularly but the events of the five years previous were never mentioned, there was never an apology, and I was never spoken to or answered directly if I said something.

My husband enjoyed his job as farm manager, a house came with the  job, and we were able to establish ourselves financially during the nine years on the University farm.  When the management changed and  my husband began to have accidents, I knew it was time to move on.  Before our marriage, my husband had accidents of varying severity whenever he was severely stressed, as when the three long-term romantic relationships he had been involved in ended.  Unable to stand up for his own rights, he took out his frustration on himself and hurt himself, accidentally. There had been no accidents for the first twenty years of our marriage so it was time to move even though it created some financial insecurity.

We bought a house in town, a house that became our home for the next 27 years.  A few months after leaving the farm, my husband had a new job working on the farm for Agriculture Canada, where he stayed until he was 67 quite happily.  After my retirement, we began spending a month every year visiting my husband's older brother, who had been with the Armed Forces in Germany while some of the rest of the family were sticking it to my husband, and who lived on Vancouver Island.  For twenty years, my husband and his brother got together at least once a year and sometimes twice a year.

The year after we bought our house in town, my husband's oldest sister and her husband bought a house four blocks from our house.  They had no children and our family became their family.  When my sister-in-law's second husband died, she never regained her enjoyment of life. Life for her had revolved around her husband and the things they did together.  Two years after her husband's death, she moved to a care home with the assistance of our family and by the end of that year, she was gone.  Four days after her death, my husband had a stroke that kept him in hospital for 7 weeks and that resulted in him becoming a permanent resident of a nursing home.  He never came home again.

Two years and 70 days have passed since that night when my husband fell and couldn't get up again.  He had been slowly deteriorating since the April, now eleven years ago, that he picked up a parasite on the way home from BC, passed out after becoming very dehydrated, fell and suffered a concussion.  He spent 5 days in hospital but was never the same again. 

Three strikes and you're out, they say.  It's been two strikes.  Now there's one to go.  When I visited him this afternoon, the promise of chocolate brought a smile to his lips momentarily and then he closed himself off again.  So this is good-by?  I kept waiting for things to get better, and then they got worse.  It could have been better, but it could have been a whole lot worse.  We did the best we could with the resources and the knowledge we had.  There were lots of times of tears but there were more times of laughter.  Thanks for the ride.  It's been good. Good-night, my love.