Love Means Saying Goodbye

and other thoughts about mortality

Photo credit: Jacquelyn Tierney

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day; it was also Ash Wednesday. The two don’t tend to correlate, but when they do, your husband—a Catholic, or perhaps a lapsed Catholic who doesn’t tell you much about the status of his belief—and who is recovering from cancer—will be sure to point out the connection between love and death.

For those of us in the crowd who aren’t Western Christians: Ash Wednesday is, according to the Brittanica, “a solemn reminder of human mortality and the need for reconciliation with God and marks the beginning of the penitential Lenten season.”

My husband C chose to focus on the “mortality” aspect of Ash Wednesday. He texted me: “Here is my favorite song about the confluence of love and death for Valentine’s Ashday,” along with a link to the Jason Isbell song, “If We Were Vampires.”

I did not know this song, so I played it as a naïf—though I should have known that I would start crying immediately.

If we were vampires and death was a joke
We'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke
And laugh at all the lovers and their plans
I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand
Maybe time running out is a gift
I'll work hard 'til the end of my shift
And give you every second I can find
And hope it isn't me who's left behind

It's knowing that this can't go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we'll get forty years together
But one day I'll be gone
Or one day you'll be gone

Only two days before had we learned that C officially has chronic graft versus host disease, which means that the new immune system that his body has is also confused by the presence of a foreign invader—the bone marrow transplant that saved his life. Acute graft versus host disease can manifest in a variety of unpleasant ways, but chronic GVHD can last for five years or so; it might last for the rest of his life. It can diminish his quality of life. And with most things associated with cancer, chronic GVHD can be fatal. While researching the condition alone at home, with C traveling back to me, I honed in on the fatal aspect of chronic GVHD and burst into tears, proceeding to cry for two hours until he got home.