Nothing extravagant.
I bought mattress.
New winter coat.
Dental work.
I put emergency fund aside.
Then met financial adviser who had no connection to Richard.
I did not want another person deciding what was best for me without explanation.
I told adviser:
“Explain everything.”
She did.
Slowly.
Repeatedly.
I kept control.
For first time in life, money did not feel like thing men translated for me.
Three months later, I went to facility where Richard spent final year.
Not to find romance in suffering.
I wanted facts.
The nursing director remembered him.
“He was difficult.”
I laughed.
“Yes.”
“He hated asking for help.”
“Yes.”
“He accused occupational therapist of reorganizing his entire life because she moved one mug.”
“Definitely him.”
She showed me common room where he sat.
Not room.
Privacy mattered.
She said he used communication tablet after speech deteriorated.
Watched baseball.
Complained about coffee.
Kept photograph beside chair.
Me and children at Lake Geneva.
“He talked about you.”
“What did he say?”
“That he had made a mess trying to spare you.”
That sounded accurate.
I asked:
“Was he afraid?”
“Yes.”
No romantic softening.
Good.
“Did he suffer?”
The nurse answered honestly.
“Some days.”
Then:
“He also laughed.”
That mattered too.
Illness did not consume every second.
I had been imagining five-year corridor of misery.
Life is rarely that uniform.
I went to his grave a week later.
No cinematic forgiveness.
I stood in cold.
Said:
“You arrogant bastard.”
Then cried.
Then:
“You loved me.”
Pause.
“And you did not trust me.”
That was truth.
Love without trust can become control very easily.
He believed he was protecting my future.
Instead he chose my pain.
He made me believe I had been discarded.
He allowed me to spend five years ashamed.
The money helped now.
It did not retroactively feed me then.
That distinction became important when friends said:
“But at least he left you secure.”
At least.
Two dangerous words.
Yes.
I was financially secure.
Also:
I had been deprived of information necessary to make decisions.
Both.
I started therapy.
At sixty-six.
Never too late apparently.
Therapist asked:
“What would you have done if Richard told you diagnosis?”
“Stayed.”
“Would you have become caregiver?”
“Yes.”
“Would you have resented him?”
I stopped.
“Maybe.”
“Would you have wished sometimes you had left?”
Another pause.
“Probably.”
“Would that make staying wrong?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
Richard feared complexity.
So he eliminated my agency.
He thought:
If Diane stays, she sacrifices.
If Diane leaves, she is free.
But people are not equations.
I could have stayed with home aides.
We could have divorced later.
Lived separately but remained involved.
Used long-term care.
Asked children for help.
Made choices together.
There were many possible futures.
He selected one.
That was real loss.
Not just marriage.
Possibility.
I used some money to establish emergency account for myself.
Some invested.
Some paid medical care.
Then, after much thought, I created modest respite grant through local caregiver nonprofit in Richard’s mother’s name.
