And we all fall down…

(courtesy of google images)

In hindsight I can only speculate as to what happened.

But I will honestly never know.

He left on a plane in January 1995 and I never saw him again.

When did the cracks start to form?

When did it all fall apart?

As I said I can only speculate.

This is what happened the way I see it.

I have no other eyes to view this with.

But if I had to pin point when the first cracks started to form I would say it was in early 1994 after I got out of the hospital.

My sailor had come to stay with me at Christmas time like he had so many other times.

When he picked me up at the airport I showed him a series of bruises that had literally just started appearing all over my body.

Out of nowhere I would get a new bruise. And it was dark and purple and large. Bruises were covering my legs and I swore to him over and over that no one touched me.

Over the next couple of hours bruises started appearing on my arms and my eye even went black.

His exact words were: “Looking at you, I want to arrest myself”.

The very next day I went to my old childhood doctor. A doctor I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager because I rarely get sick. I knew that there had to be a logical explanation for this. In my mind I thought I ate something bad and was having an allergic reaction.

But by the time I got to the doctor, both my eyes were black, my legs and arms were covered in bruises and I had a bloody nose that would not stop.

My doctor immediately called an ambulance and had me rushed to the hospital.

You do not pass go. You do not collect 200 dollars. You do not go home and get clothes. Someone can bring them to you. You go directly to the hospital.

I was admitted to the hospital just days before Christmas.

And I would not be released until after the New Year.

To say that the whole experience was surreal is an understatement. From the ride to the hospital, to being admitted, to being taken to (God I don’t even know where) but they were giving me transfusions and asking if I knew my blood type and people who could donate…it was all so surreal and scary and lonely.

And then the tests…my doctor (being so sweet) said to me “We are going to do a series of bone marrow tests”

And I stopped.

And my heart stopped.

And I knew.

I mean I really knew.

I looked at my doctor two days before Christmas in 1993 and I said:
“Oh my God. You think I have Leukemia.”

And at that moment.

At that moment in time…

I didn’t know where my sailor was, or my mother was or even where God was.

I looked at my completely bruised body and all of these things hooked up to me and I felt like I hadn’t lived and that I might not ever have the chance to live again.

And my doctor put his hand in mine and said: “It’s okay. You’re going to be fine. I’ve seen this before with my son. You are going to be okay”

Only to find out years later that his son died of Leukemia.

And the tests…

Let’s just say that they were painful.

Very painful.

To the point of passing out painful.

But they came back negative.

Absolutely, positively negative!

And my sailor.

He stayed with me during the day and then stayed at my parents during the night but…

But he had to leave.

And like always.

I knew it.

He knew it.

But we ignored it until that day came.

And in the middle of all those painful, heart wrenching, soul stealing tests…he left…

He did come back as quickly as he could. He put in for an emergency leave and was back by my side two weeks later but…

But I was on crazy amounts of medication including some pretty strong steroids.

My emotions were everywhere and all over the boards.

But the one emotion that was constant was anger.

And I was angry at him.

I’m not saying it was right or wrong or justified.

It was uncontrollable.

And I think part of it could have been because I knew…

I knew he had to leave again.

I knew that at a time when I was at my loneliest he was going to leave me.

Leave me all alone.

And even though after I got released from the hospital and things went back to normal…

Normal being that I lived my life separate from him waiting for his return.

Waiting to live my life with him.

If I had to put my finger on it, I would say that was the first crack.

The first chink which would ebb out creating more and more cracks, leading to that fateful day in 1995 when he got on a plane and never returned.