Spring means having to say I’m sorry for not having had more patience, and for not cherishing the small amount of time Adrian and I had together on this earth.
May 24th is the anniversary of his dying – his death day.
My feelings are complicated because he wanted to die.
Rather, he did not want to go on living his diminished, painful life. He begged for release, and I helped him begin the process to get it.
Yet I wonder—if I had been kinder, more loving, and a better caregiver—would he still have chosen escape?
In the weeks leading up to Adrian’s death, I was hardly aware it was spring. Surely we were spending more time outdoors, wearing lighter clothing, worshipping the occasional heat of sun?
I felt that sun on my back last week on a local walk with a couple of friends. The sun on my back—in Ithaca! It was a true gift.
Adrian always chose to be outdoors rather than in. Hiking, biking, windsurfing, tennis and swimming—my life became fuller of these after I met him. To me they meant recreation and a way to keep fit. For Adrian, they were a way of life.
He took up clamming when we lived in Florida, spending hours every day on his little boat on the Indian River. When we moved to Kentucky, he took up vegetable gardening. In Ithaca, it was cross-country skiing and ice-skating.
Adrian had no fear, and the local weather never kept him from spending time outdoors. Until his last winter here, when he told me he didn’t want to spend another one in Ithaca.
I see the college students wearing shorts outside in February and March. I ask my granddaughter if she’s warm enough in her light jacket on a day I’m wearing my winter coat, scarf and gloves.
I grow old, I grow old. And so I feel the cold.
But I’m still here, and I am willing to spend another winter in Ithaca—just not yet.
Adrian windsurfing.
