marriage – Menopause & Malarkey

Sometimes I could feel his eyes on me. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s true. He would look at me like he was memorizing more than my face or features. It was like he was carving our life and each memory into his soul.

Steve loved me better than I’d ever known.

From the start of our story until his last breath, he made sure I knew.

I was seen
I was beautiful
I was worthy of love

When his breath grew raspy and labored, he still said, “You’re so beautiful” and “I love you.”

Something happens with trauma. The nervous system takes cherished words and emotions and marries them to bitterness and pain.

Glances feel unsafe
Smiles create doubt
Possibilities become frightening

The brain attaches the wrong sort of “what ifs” to innocent interactions. Instead of, “Huh. I remember this,” causing butterflies, it twists into, “I can’t go through it again.”

I could give in to fear. To doubt. Let it freeze my heart in a time when love meant more sacrifice than I could have imagined.

Or I can close my eyes, exhale, and allow good things to warm me.

Things like

Grace.

Patience.

Hope.

Then when I feel eyes on me. Someone smiling. Someone seeing me.

Butterflies won’t make me flinch.

Not even a little.

🦋🦋🦋

11 years, 2 months, 15 days.
That’s how long we had.

We met. We fell in love. We eloped. We knew 50 years was a lofty goal — he was 38, I was 41 — but we were determined to “go the distance,” as he always said.

Heather and her late husband Steve stand close together in a softly lit church, smiling warmly at the camera. Heather is holding their marriage license, and Steve has one hand resting gently on her shoulder and the other on her arm. Both look happy and proud, captured on a meaningful, joyful day. — *The day I became his Mrs. 11/17/2011*

We didn’t know the distance would be so short.
11 years, 2 months, 15 days — from I do on November 11, 2011 to goodbye on February 1, 2023, when he took his last breath on earth and his first breath in Heaven.

And for the record?
Cancer sucks.

I can measure the time we were married.
What I can’t measure are the things grief refuses to quantify:

The number of tears I’ve cried
The number of times I’ve heard, “I’m so sorry”
The number of times I’ve said, “Pawpaw would be so proud of you”
The number of times I’ve thought, “Oh, I need to ask Steve—” before remembering
The number of times I’ve wished he could walk the dogs with me
The number of times I’ve felt the emptiness where his touch should be
The number of times our kids could’ve used his guidance
The number of times I’ve pulled out his half-empty bottle of aftershave just to breathe him in

The list could go on for… well, forever.

I’ll never forget the question he asked on our 11th anniversary — the one we both knew would be our last. He felt well enough for a short dinner out, but the outing took everything out of him. That night, sitting beside him on the bed, holding his hand, he looked at me and asked:

“If you knew 11 years ago how this would end, would you still have married me?”

That question hits differently when you’ve lived inside cancer hell. Our marriage took “in sickness and in health” to a level I wouldn’t wish on a single soul. Why would anyone knowingly choose a marriage of just 11 years when it meant walking through a storm like that?

Because… love.

Like I told him that night, the honor of loving him for 11 years was worth more than the idea of never loving him at all. It wasn’t a comforting line for a dying man — it was the truth.

For every heartbreak, we had a hundred memories wrapped in laughter. We loved each other fiercely.

‘Til death do us part.