You could easily state that like millions of others born into this world she never had a chance. Call it Karma or Fate or just a poor roll of the dice, but she got the short end of the stick after being born. She was the last (at that time) of a line of eight children her mother had. As a toddler she was taken and placed into foster care because her mother, suffering as most of that family did with severe depression, had a nervous breakdown. She was put into a mental hospital and the little child was without her mommy. Then, her real father, divorced and married again, took she and her two brothers in. Their stepmother, who later committed suicide, was mean and verbally abusive to them. They had to sleep in a hallway and were only allowed into the bedroom each morning to get dressed. She could remember the woman shouting orders to these three youngsters, which caused such trauma. She did what she had to do and survived it… and then her mother took her back. She had gotten out of the institution and married an auto worker, and things would now be better.
When asked years later by me, her husband, how things were at home with her stepfather, she always said ‘ Fine. He cared about me.’ Her kid sister, the real daughter of the stepfather and her mother, told a different story after she had died. ‘It was horrific. My father drank too much and they always fought. Not a nice home to grow up in.’ She stayed there until she graduated high school and then off to college… away from the chaos. For some reason, one that she never really explained, she left college after three years and moved to NYC . Her superior intelligence helped her learn how to type fast and well, and she had no trouble finding employment as an executive secretary. Then, she met a fellow, fell in love with him and they married. Soon after she had a wonderful daughter. Things were coming together until he cheated on her and acted more and more obtuse, and then they both found out: He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and quickly the marriage ended. Now she became a single mom with NO support in a place like Yonkers NY, a lifetime away from Lake George, Michigan.
She did what she always did since her youngest days and just ‘ Bit the bullet’. As most single moms have to do with a young child, she awakened early each morning, dressed and fed her daughter, then off to the day care lady’s house and on to her fulltime job. Rushing back after work to pick up her daughter and then off to have dinner at home. Home was simply a railroad apartment, which is all she could afford. On the holidays she allowed her ex to take their daughter to his family’s house ( only a mile away) so the child would have a nice time with the grandparents and her father. Meanwhile, she would be alone for Thanksgiving , Christmas and New Years. So sad. She did date a few men from time to time and even got emotionally involved with one fellow, who turned out to be a compulsive gambler. Her sweet nature allowed him to borrow money from her, which I was able to get back for her after we met.
She was a smoker, not excessive, but enough to alert me. I did smoke one cigar daily, so my lectures to her had little merit. I should have set the example and quit, pushing her to do the same. The one disappointment I had was to not quit at that time. Also, when we met she had to fly up to Michigan as her mother was dying of cancer. She never told me what cancer it was, which 34 years later I found out was lung cancer…from smoking cigarettes her whole life. I never explored it and should have at the time. Her mom died at 62.
She had this aversion to doctors and dentists and refused to go to them during our whole marriage. She was frightened of blood and said she could not handle getting lab work done. Once again I did what I could to convince her to see a family doc and family dentist at least once a year. She refused and would get really angry anytime I pressed the issue… which I did for our entire marriage. She was such a strong woman physically that I could never imagine that she, ten years younger than me, would be the first to go. When she found out she had stage 4 lung cancer one year ago, she handled it better than me. It was if deep inside her psyche she knew something like this was going to happen. I was crushed!
For seven months I was her caregiver, watching the love of my life dissipate. She never complained and never expressed resentment for what was happening to her. I held on and did what I could to make her time with me as balanced as can be. The pain of the disease going into her bones was so painful. They had her on morphine and fentanyl as she was slipping away from me. Helping her take a shower once a week and seeing her whither in terrible pain each time you touched her broke my heart. Imagine what it did to hers. Finally, after all that downhill trek to death she succumbed to it all and passed away right after I kissed her forehead. For her the bell had finally tolled. She was sixty six, too young to leave us.
She lives on in my very essence.
PA Farruggio
Four months On