@ehBeth,
Wearing it on a different finger is something I've thought about, and I think it could be a good idea. I would have to get it re-sized.
We did talk about the future of our family if she was gone, but not much. It's harder to talk about than some might think. It was like I was giving up on any hope of her recovery. I had a really hard time with that. One part of a conversation that sticks with me was when she said she couldn't bear to imagine me with another woman. I couldn't either.
I hope I don't bore anyone with a long story here, but a little back story maybe appropriate. In the last couple of years before her diagnosis, we had not been getting along well. We fought, argued, ignored, did things out of spite, and sometimes I really hated her. I think she really hated me sometimes too. Not always, but we were just having a rough patch. we'd had them before and worked through them and came out the other end loving each other again.
After her diagnosis, there was a lot of fear of what might happen and a lot of hope that she would beat it. I thought that if I lost her I would still be able to handle everyting fine. There was a part of me that even thought that it would be easier. I still had some resentment issues. She went through chemo, then surgery to remove her stomach. It was a horrible time for her, but she was a strong willed person and fought hard to recover from what was way harder than I had anticipated. Her strength and will to live gave me a renewed respect for her, and my feelings for her grew stronger than they had ever been before.
She had more chemo and some other related surgeries that I won't go into. When the doctors found that the cancer had spread, they put her chances for survival at zero, but they allowed her to try some more experimental chemo with worse side effects. She got blisters over her wole body and in her moush and other parts. She was willing to continue, but the doctors said no. There would only be pallative treatments from then on.
Through all of this, we had grown to love each other more than ever, and I wanted her to stay more than anything. maybe that's why I still had blind hope that somehow she would pull through and beat it.
Now back to the conversation from earlier. She had said that she didn't want me to remarry, and wanted me to promise that I wouldn't. In my blind hope, I still thought she was going to make it, and I gave what I thought was a flippant and humorous response. I said "baby, I would never want to get married again." I meant it to be lighthearted jab at a time when I thought everything was going to be okay, and that we would continue the conversation. Then she drifted off into a drug induced sleep. We didn't talk about it again.
When someone is gone from your life, you think of all the stupid thing you said and mean things you did, and wish you could have done or said something different. That's one of the things I regret the most. She was on so many mind altering drugs, that I don't know how she interpreted what I said. Did she think I promised that I wouldn't marry anyone, or that I would date but not marry, or that I regretted marrying her? I'll never know.
I related this conversation with my mother, but before I could tell her the whole story, she assumed that I promised her I would never remarry. She started telling me that I shouldn't hold a promise like that and I have to go out and blah blah blah. Then in her classic way, she abrutly let me go before I could get out the whole story. Apparently she started telling others about it, because my in-laws started telling me that I don't have to keep that promise. And I have to assume that the whole clan communication spread it throughout both families, because other people said something similar to me.
So, I shared this intimate conversation with one person who wouldn't hear the whole thing, or grasp the nuances that were hidden in the details, and now everyone thinks that I vowed to stay by myself for the rest of my life. Now I wish I had someone to share all of this and more with, but I'm wondering if I could be missing out on conversations because they're not interested in someone wearing a ring.