To the Partner Who's Trying: I See You

I want to say something to you, the person standing in the kitchen at midnight while your loved one is on the couch with a comfort object they didn't know they needed. You are doing something there isn't a greeting card for. Nobody teaches this part. You are learning a language nobody spoke to you, and you are trying, and I see you.

Karl was my person for forty-four years. We built a life on small things. Coffee on Saturdays. Arguments about the thermostat. The way he always left his shoes in the hallway no matter how many times I asked him not to. When he got sick, when the cancer started moving through him the way a season changes whether you're ready or not, he wasn't the same man who'd left his shoes in the hallway. He was scared. He was sometimes angry. He was a body that needed things, and I gave them, and I loved him, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. And I would do it again.

But I wasn't the only one who showed up. Karl showed up too. Even when he was the one dying, he found ways to check on me. He'd ask about my day, my sleep, whether I'd eaten. He'd notice when I was running on fumes and tell me to sit down, to rest, to let the dishes wait. He was the patient and he was still my partner. He was still Karl. That's what I want you to understand. You don't have to be perfect to be seen. You just have to keep showing up. And if you're still here, still trying, still reaching for them in the dark even when you're exhausted, I promise you they notice. Maybe not in words. Maybe not in the ways you'd recognize. But on some level, in some quiet corner of themselves, they know. They know you stayed.

There will be days you want to walk out. Days you lock yourself in the bathroom and cry and wonder how you ended up here. That doesn't make you a bad partner. That makes you a human being who is carrying something heavy. I locked myself in the bathroom plenty of times. I cried until my face was swollen and my throat was raw. And then I washed my face and went back out and held Karl's hand, because that's what wives do. That's what partners do. We fall apart in private and show up in public. That's not failure. That's love, the real kind, the kind that doesn't look like a movie. It looks like a bathroom floor at two in the morning.

After Karl died, after the funeral and the casseroles and the cards that all said the same thing, I had a lot of quiet. Too much quiet. I didn't know what to do with myself without someone to care for. And then I started collecting little things. Stuffed animals, mostly. I put them around his photograph. A bunny for spring. A duck in a raincoat for summer. My great-granddaughter taught me about clip-on plushies. I have an octopus on my purse now. It's small. It's silly. It makes me smile. And that's what I want for you too, somewhere down the road. Not just the hard parts. Not just the showing up. The small joys too. The clip-on octopus. The flower that bloomed in the garden. The stupid joke that made you both laugh. Hold onto those. They're not a distraction from the hard stuff. They're what makes the hard stuff bearable.

You are doing something enormous. Something the world doesn't celebrate enough. You are loving someone through the hardest chapter of their life, and maybe the hardest chapter of yours too. And you're still here. Still trying. Still reaching for their hand in the dark. I see you. I really do. Keep going. And don't forget to get yourself a little octopus now and then. You deserve something soft to hold onto.

— Lydia

About the Author

Lydia is a retired LPN and military wife who became a widow at 66. She lives in California, where she maintains a rotating seasonal collection of stuffed animals around her husband Karl's photograph. Her great-granddaughter recently taught her about clip-on plushies, and she hasn't looked back.