Amy

My wife Amy died yesterday, bringing an end to her nine-month fight with cancer.

There’s so much I want to say about her, and so much I’ll probably be writing in the future.

For now, know that she’s the strongest person I’ve ever known. She fought this thing so hard… Again and again, she surprised doctors and nurses with her strength and determination. That fight gave her the chance to see her son start high school, her daughter start her first real job. It gave us nine more months to be together and love each other.

She dealt with chronic pain for most of her life. Cancer and treatment made that worse. But at the end, she wasn’t hurting. She was comfortable. Her children were with her, along with me, her parents, and others who loved her.

She worked as a child and family therapist, and the tributes I’m already seeing from some of her clients and coworkers confirm what I already knew. This was her calling and her passion, second only to loving her children. She’s the most caring and empathic person I ever met. She helped and inspired so many people.

A few nights ago, we were able to transfer her to a wheelchair, and I took her for a walk outside the hospital. We got to enjoy the (sort of) fresh air, the flowers and trees around the hospital. She loved going for walks, and I’m so glad we had the chance to do one more.

Our family and a few close friends have been helping out, sharing love and support and grief, so we’re not alone. We’ve got a lot to do… it actually helps me a little to have things to do to keep myself busy for these first days.

I appreciate so much the love and understanding and support you’ve all shared through this. I hope you’ll understand if I’m a little hit-and-miss in responding to email and messages in the immediate future.

I’ve been telling my son the reason it hurts so much is because we love her so much, and as hard as that pain is, would we trade away the love and the time we had with her?

I was lucky enough to have almost sixteen years together with her as a family, and another fifteen as friends.

I’m sure I’ll share more in the days to come.

For now … I’m just so grateful for who she was and how much we shared and how much better our lives were because of her. And I miss her.