Happy Anniversary

Amanda,

Yesterday was our anniversary. And I miss you something awful. We’ve been married for 9 years now, but those 9 years have felt like a lifetime. I sit here and have trouble putting into words how much we’ve been through and how close I feel to you. Yet, even though we’ve been through so much, we stand right in the middle of the most trying time we’ll ever face.

I was watching a few minutes of football last week and of course there was pink all over the field, for breast cancer awareness. How cute. I even saw some kid wearing pink socks at Stewarts with his football jersey… and while both watching the game and seeing that kid, I felt angry. Like a deep, primordial anger that made me turn the TV off and have to walk out of the store. It surprised and scared me. I wanted him to take those socks off. Every time I saw a pink towel at the game, I wanted to turn the TV off. It got so unbearable, I had to miss all of the football games that week.

You know why? Because I almost feel like they think it’s cool. It’s an f’in joke to these people. Not so much in that they laugh about it, but so much in that they have absolutely no clue what their supporting, and are only wearing this crap because they either have to, or because it makes them feel or look cool. Whereas in reality, I look at people wearing this stuff and I get disgusted.

Cancer has destroyed my family, and there is nothing “cool” about it.

I wonder if that dude who is wearing that pink jersey knows what it’s like to go to work for a few weeks, having no idea whether or not his wife is going to live to see her next Christmas. Probably not. Does that kid wearing those socks know what it’s like to see his mom become so disfigured that she can’t look in the mirror anymore without becoming severely depressed?

That ref that just threw that pink flag for “holding”… I wonder if he knows what it’s like to watch his otherwise happy and loving wife spiral downward into a pit of depression so deep that she can’t sleep, eat, take care of her kids, leave the house, or face life? Does he know how it feels to watch that happen as he sits idly by, completely unable to help… to the point of hopelessness? To have to beg her to go to her final treatments because she simply can’t take the abuse anymore? To wake up at 1 AM to his wife uncontrollably sobbing because she just went to the bathroom and caught a glance of herself in the mirror? To watch her quickly lose everything in her life as she tries to make the physical and emotional pain go away? I wonder if he knows what it’s like to read posts on Facebook and just fill with envy at pretty much everyone who is living a normal, healthy life that isn’t completely full of sadness and pain, and know his wife is doing the same?

That lady wearing the “save the ta ta’s” shirt… does she know that finding a little lump smaller than her pinky’s fingernail could lead to gaining 30 pounds, removal of her hair, boobs, lymph nodes, ovaries, and uterus, permanent physical and psychological scars, premature menopause, loss of normal use and permanent pain and swelling of her right arm, a lifetime of daily physical therapy, 15 years of side effects from reduced / eliminated estrogen production, PTSD, and major, debilitating depression? HA! Save the ta ta’s… freakin hilarious. I guess I find it hard to laugh at that now.

Look, I know that this will pass, eventually. But I also know that our lives will never be the same again. And I know that you, I, and We will never be the same again. Like I said, we’ve been through a lot. But nothing like this. I hope that the next 9 years are better and more tranquil than the last one has been. Nobody will ever understand what we've been through, but I love you, and I will always be there for you.