The Eye of a Needle

Sushila Subramanian was a natural musician, a talented engineer, and one of the kindest and most generous people I've ever known.  She was also my wife for 12 years.  For two long years she fought a battle with cancer.  I am still in awe of the courage, grace, and dignity with which she faced that horrible disease.   

Six years ago today, I sat by her side as she took her final breath.  At that moment, my life passed through the eye of a needle.  In an instant, the universe compressed to include just me and her and silence.  I honestly don't even remember who else was in the room with me at that moment.  All of our plans, every possible future that I could have had that included Sushi disappeared. 

Sushi ceased to exist, but my life has continued after that moment.  There are still threads passing through the eye of that needle to connect me to my past.  However, in some ways, just like trying to look through the eye of a real needle, as I move further away from that moment, it becomes more difficult for me to see what is on the other side.  I can only see the needle and the small circle formed by its eye.  Tragically, I can no longer remember the sound of Sushi's laugh, but I can clearly remember, in every detail, the sound of her last breath.   I can catch glimpses in my memory of her playing music or dancing or cooking or walking on a beach, but my memories are overwhelmed with chemo and losing hair and weakness and surgery and hope and lost hope.

Having gone through that experience does not define who I am.   For a brief time after Sushi's death I joined a support group for people who had recently lost their spouses.  But I quickly broke off from that group because I didn't want to define myself as a widower.  I am more than that, and my life is defined by more than that moment.   However, going through that experience did change me.  I'm the same person I was before, but I'm not the same.  In some ways I'm better, in some, worse.  

I've gone on to live my life after that moment.  I've found love and happiness and the joy of being a parent.  I aspire to enjoy every single day.  I look for happiness in things big and small.  I try to learn and grow as a person and contribute positively to the world.  To do any differently would be a betrayal to my own beliefs about the importance of living life, and it would be a betrayal to Sushi's memory.  Cancer took from her the opportunity to live a life.  I feel that I honor her by living a life, in part, for her.