Letter To Lou
Lou had serious lung disease long before it was ever diagnosed, but I saw how he stopped doing things he loved, always running short of breath and always denying it.
This went on for years and years until Lou could no longer ignore the elephant in the room. By then, though, his pulmonary fibrosis was very advanced, requiring hospitalization frequently.
He spent the last three years of his life tied to oxygen, til one night there just wasn’t enough.
Lou had surety succumbed to a lingering death, yet another soldier who’d shoved into the strangling arms of Agent Orange in Vietnam.
This is the actual letter I wrote to him the morning after he died, full of self-blame.
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| Moosehead Lake, Me, 9-14-2021, oxygen line shimmers |
“I feel like every part of me gushed blood because my heart broke the moment you died as I lay on the bathroom floor with you, begging you not to leave.
Why didn’t you listen?
Did I not take care of you well enough? Was I too wrapped up in my own pain to notice you during your long illness?
Somewhere along the way did, you stop loving me? How could you not know how much I loved you for our 51 years?
Did I fail to show it? Was I guilty of taking our relationship for granted? Are these the reasons you didn’t want to be with me anymore?
I still need you so much. I want to go where you are because I don’t know how to exist without you by my side.
My heart still bleeds and the tears won’t stop. This pain is unbearable.
I am broken, the pieces scattered on the floor like shards of glass
Come back to me, Lou, please!”
I’d like to know if others ever felt this way, too. Please reply at elaine.tro4@gmail.com
copyright by Elaine T Troisi, August 11, 2023