This Is Not How It Ends

by Rochelle B. Weinstein

In each loss there is a gain, As in every gain there is a loss, And with each ending comes a new beginning. —Buddhist Proverb

I’ve heard it said that life is about choices. Paths stretch out ahead of us—sometimes, we make conscious decisions and other times, fate intervenes and chooses for us.

“They say home is in the heart, it’s being with the people you love.” “I believe that.” “So why is it the heart is always the first to break?”

Words had power. They carried weight and, when strung together, invited you inside their world. One that didn’t hurt. I felt their pain and sorrow, their highs and happiness, but my own heart was tightly guarded.

Time brought forth a menagerie of mixed, confusing messages. Time was stolen moments, the few joyful occasions free from chemotherapy and pain meds, free from the heavy cloak of grief that swathed us in its grip. Time was an adversary. It was out of reach and oh so close. It neared, it disappeared. It left me distraught and exhausted from the chase.

“I’ve read the body holds our misfortunes, that sensitivities are a combination of the physical and the emotional.

Liberty believed in intersecting circles when it came to relationships. “One person can never satisfy all your needs. You are the center and there’s a lot of overlap.” I fought her on this conclusion. I believed in love. One true love.

“When you love someone,” he began, “nothing should keep you apart.”

Philip loved, and Ben listened. There was a distinction I was just beginning to understand.

Love doesn’t give us many chances. It’s fate and we have to take it while we can.

“Charley, I intended to give you many things in this life. Someone to love you, someone to cherish that feistiness of yours, that innocence in your heart. I also chose to protect you from so many things. From pain, from loss, from having your heart broken. I’ll keep some of those promises to you. But not all.”

“Charley, I don’t have time. None of us have time. We only have moments. Strung on a string that can break at any minute.”

“Mortality’s an interesting thing, Charley. When faced with it, our decisions hold far more weight.”

No one ever talks about the end. How in days leading up to it, you beg a higher power to take your loved one away, to relieve them of their suffering. And then when they pass, you can’t imagine anything more horrible. The finality. The dissolution. It’s the great paradox, the ill-fated hypocrisy: In life we watch them suffer. In death it is we who suffer. There is no in-between.

“We’re all sensitive to stuff, Jimmy. People, music, words. And sometimes those sensitivities affect us in ways we can’t control, forcing us to do things we otherwise wouldn’t. If you’re not one hundred percent in with the treatments, don’t do them.”

Abandonment leaves a painful mark. It inks you for life, if you let it, making you believe you’re not worthy, leaving you distrustful of wishes and dreams, when they only disappoint.

Forgiveness is the greatest act of love you can give another human being. With forgiveness comes the ability to fully love—yourself and others. And when I say love, I mean all that comes with it.