The Next Phase

Welcome back I guess.

It's been 16 days since Hillary died. 412 days since she was diagnosed with metastatic cholangiocarcinoma.

It seems I need to write, to yell into the void, to talk. To talk about myself, my feelings, my kids, and Hillary. It's been 5 years since my last post here. Honestly, it's been several more than that since I posted meaningful updates online anywhere which showed much insight into my mental state.

Our first date wasn't really even a date. I mean, I certainly didn't think of it that way until we talked about it years later and reflected that perhaps it had been. I don't recall what prompted it, my vague recollection was that we had been chatting and both realized we had no dinner plans and neither of us felt like cooking. So we went out to Kelseys.

I recall nothing of what we talked about. I do recall being happy and really enjoying talking to Hillary. I remember afterwards being surprised about how easy she was to talk to and that I could make her laugh just by being myself and talking about what I saw and thought.

She never ended up with brain mets. Despite her failing liver, she died fast enough that her personality, the core of it remained until she died. Our last real conversation happened about 2 weeks before she went into the hospital for the last time. By real, I mean that it was about us, our relationship, a real working conversation about how things were going and what we were going to do. We worked through something and both came out of it happy despite the stress we had going in about the topic.

My last actual conversation was during a 10-15 minute period where she was fairly lucid and awake two nights before she died.

I miss talking to her so much. This will come up again.

Day 16.

7 or so hours until I get to sleep and get to day 17.