Tag Archives: single parent

Terminal Cancer, Day by Day

Loneliness & other strange feelings

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I’ve been feeling strange lately, and only recently identified the feeling as loneliness. I don’t get lonely often. I’m an introvert and have more solitary hobbies than time to enjoy them. But these days I feel like I don’t have anyone to talk to. My friends are busy with their own lives, preoccupied if not blissfully happy with newborn babies, celebrating their own milestone birthdays and anniversaries, running their own businesses. Many have offered support, but I don’t want to mess their lives up with all this grief.

I can remember two other times when I felt lonely.

In 1998, my parents helped me get settled into my first home-away-from-home, in residence at university. We waved goodbye and they drove off, and I was completely alone, knowing no one in the city. I felt lonely, and it was a strange, unpleasant, panic-inducing feeling. I walked to the cafeteria for a welcome orientation event and had made friends within the hour.

The other time was when a three-year relationship ended, and I realized I’d just lost my best friend. I was in my new bachelor apartment and wondering what to do with my spare time. I felt the brief panic of loneliness, then started calling up girl friends and planning nights out.

I was able to remedy both these instances, and so I’ve been struggling to figure this one out too. Technically I haven’t lost my best friend, yet. Technically I’m not a single parent. But I feel like a best-friend-less single parent. I want some time and a safe place to adjust, to recharge my introvert batteries and to connect with people who can understand what’s happening to me and my family. But I spend my days running after a toddler and trying to support my sick husband. I feel like there are numerous albatrosses hanging around my neck, many worlds resting on my shoulders. I want a quiet moment to put down all this weight and sleep, rest, just pause the world so I can take a breath and catch up.

Terminal Cancer, Day by Day

Co-dependence

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A friend of mine is going through a similar experience these days: her husband also has terminal cancer, although a different kind. We were comparing experiences one day and one commonality is that some days, unpredictably, we are single parents. When I buy groceries I have to assume that it will be up to me to get my toddler and all those bags safely up the steep stairs and through the baby gate. I hesitate to buy large items, like the futon couch I considered at Walmart, because I can’t depend on having an able-bodied helper to move it from my minivan into the house.

On days when Brock is tired, he’s not really present. If he’s in the living room watching the news and Isaac is in there with him, I still need to do the mom thing and check in on our kid to make sure he isn’t eating the crayons or tearing apart our living room: Brock sometimes just doesn’t have the energy to parent.

I realize that this is a normal struggle for true single parents, and for parents who have a lame ass partner who doesn’t do their share. I’m lucky that Brock is a great dad and does his best for me and Isaac when he’s feeling well, which is the majority of the time.

It’s the randomness of his ability to help out and be involved that’s confusing. If Brock is with Isaac in the living room, do I check in on them? Or does that make me a helicoptering mama who doesn’t leave her husband alone to parent? If I ask a friend to come over to help me move furniture around, does that make my husband seem weak and useless?

Limbo. We’re living in limbo. I’m grateful for the good days.