What is the
level of my responsibility for my husband’s demise? Cancer was
the enemy. I was fighting along with
him in this battle. I suffered too. I am a casualty. But I survived. Is there
shame in this? Why should
I attribute guilt for surviving where there should be none?
The truth
is there are cultural expectations on how we deal with adversity and
tribulations. We ought to fight and
survive. We ought to push head on and live not die. Society likes to cast
heroes and villains, winners and
losers conflating these ideas with those who perished and survived. In a tragic
situation, this
expectation puts undue burden on people who survive --- a sense of guilt
whether conscious or unconscious;
that somehow surviving is not an accomplishment to celebrate but a pittance of
an inglorious reward. Why
did I survive and do I deserve this?
Of course
the enemy was in my husband’s body, cloaked with invisibility and invincibility.
Cancer was a stealth
harbinger of doom. It was slowly producing its arsenal of weapons; the ability
to multiply undetected
with impunity. By the time it reached its zenith, multiple organ systems began
to malfunction.
One by one, the enemy targeted without discrimination. It sowed then reaped
destruction wherever it
went. My husband did not have a fighting chance when he was in enemy grounds.
His body was the
battleground and he succumbed to cancer’s might. He lost the fight and his body
lay wasted in its
desolation. But in his death, he also vanquished the enemy.
Where is my
hand in all these? Where is my guilt? Like the cancer, it is hidden in the
innermost secret sanctum of
my being. My fear is that I did not do more than I should. I
could have, I ought to have, and I
did not. All because I believed that my husband
was an autonomous being with a will of his own. He was the
actor in his life story. He made choices and he took the bitter pill for those
choices. The respect for my
husband’s self-determination expressed in that autonomy was paramount and
directed my responses
to this enemy. My actions and lack of actions bind me to this pillar of guilt.
Maybe, I am equally at
fault and I do not deserve to live just as my husband did not deserve to die.