If you don't come home (or even if you do)...

You stopped my heart the other day. 

We listened to one doctor and then a second one talk about your body, your labs, and what numbers weren’t adding up.  I knew it was important. Critical, even.  I was pretty sure I knew what they were saying, wrapped up in words like “kidney function” and “sceptic shock” and “heart stress”. 

I needed to hear it in different words, to make sure I had it right. And you, the seasoned nurse, understood every word, every number on that monitor.  So when they were gone, I looked to you, like I always do, to hear it in words I trust, in that safe, beautiful voice of yours. 

“If you were going to put what they said in your own words, how would you say it?” I asked.  

You searched my face for the longest time, looking from one eye to the other and back again.

And then you said, “I’m dying.” 

And my heart stopped.  And my world reeled.  And my words went missing.

. . . . . . . . . 

You were always the one for whom words flowed easily.  You were the talker, I was the writer.  From the very beginning you put me at ease, talking comfortably and drawing me in when I was going to tell you I didn’t want to date you but then suddenly I knew I did and so I said “Yes” instead of “No.”

My words come slowly.  I was the bumbling shy one who said, “I think so,” when you asked if I would marry you.  And you always, from that day forward, filled in the empty spaces of my shy, introvert nature with comfort, and loud laughter and sometimes shockingly crass words, and other times with soft tears and love in your warm, brown eyes.  You chattered and yammered and laughed and told stories until I felt bold enough to talk, and knew that my words had found a soft place to land. 

So the other day my words went missing.  We just stared into each others’ eyes for the longest time, and I couldn’t find my breath, or any words to soften the chill of truth in the air. 

So now I’m writing my words down. Right now.  Listen to me:

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I need you to know that I’m crazy about you.  That if you The Talker did not marry me, The Writer, I would never have learned to find my words. 

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I want you to know that it was you who taught me how to play and enjoy and laugh, and that keeping all the rules was not the point of life, but sucking and savoring the juice out of life’s goodness, was.

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), know that adventure happened because of you.  Starry nights, sleeping out under the black sky.  The buck that stood silhouetted against the moon behind us when we awoke in the middle of the night in that Colorado canyon.  Fish flopping on the bank.  You pulling the hook out of my chin when my fly-fishing lesson didn’t go so well.  Singing “There was an old woman who swallowed a fly” as we biked down the—what was it? The Deschutes canyon?  The way your smiling Irish eyes went all squinty when I shot your magnum and it nearly knocked me off my feet.  Cooking over many a campfire in the dark.

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I will never forget our mad scramble to make the plane when our daughter was about to be born, and how I wanted to strangle you for gathering all your fishing supplies in order to adopt a baby, and how you held onto the rack above you because you had shingles, and how, in the stopover, when they said, “It’s a girl!” you suddenly lost all your words.

Your heart was always tender like that, your eyes quick to fill with tears of love, and you were a big pile of mush when you met your baby girl.  Your words flowed and your eyes twinkled as you held this tiny thing and promised her the moon.  You always held our daughter fiercely, defended her boldy, and made a glorious fool of yourself cheering for her in all those swim meets.  And admit it: you were proud to watch that video of her fighting in a boxing match in Chile.  Always her champion.

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I want you to know how your courage has shaped me, stunned me, protected me.  That night you quietly let the police know your gun was loaded and you would use it if you needed to—the night they tracked a fugitive murderer through our woods.  How you always quietly and firmly stepped toward danger rather than away from it if we ever were threatened.  How you earned two Hero Awards at Salem Hospital for volunteering for the hard and dangerous things no one else would do.  How you neutralized that giant who threw his mother across the E.R. by jabbing a needle with sedative through his pants.

You’ve never had a hint of cowardice, but somehow you also had such softness for the hurting and the babies and the little old ladies, and I’ve loved watching you hug them all and tear up.  Strong men cry.

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I want you to know that never, ever, has there ever been a man I wanted other than you, not even in my dreams.  Yes, you were a pain in the ass sometimes, but you were MY pain in the ass, and I always knew you would fight as hard for me as you sometimes did with me.  You might be the most stubborn, unbending man I know.  But I knew you would always be stubborn FOR me, as well.  Thank you, THANK YOU, for always loving me.  For tenaciously returning to the table to work things out.  For daring to apologize and hold me close.

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I want you to know that you were my hero in a thousand ways.  You dreamed with me about a house in the country, and then lived in a moldy trailer with such lousy cell phone reception that we could only make a call if we stood outside in the rain on a Tuesday with one leg pointing east—all so that you could build my dream house between your shifts at the hospital. 

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I want you to know the smoky goodness of your rack of ribs or grilled salmon or any one of the millions of things you cooked for everyone you loved made all of our memories richer.  And that some of these pounds are your fault, and I love you for it.

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I need you to tell me where the key to the mailbox is, because I haven’t had to pick up the mail for 19 years.  I need to know how to pull all the hair balls out of the sink, just how to drag the trash can down to the corner, what that whirry noise is when I accelerate, why the lawn mower breaks every April, and how to reach the smoke detector at the peak of the great room or scrub skunk juice out of a dog’s fur.  Because you do all the things I don’t want to, and leave me in the pampered joy of blissful ignorance.  Thanks for the million small things you do every single day.  They have not gone unnoticed.

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), thank you for all the little wet puppies you held up and kissed on the nose, and all the times you ran those big dogs or took them to the vet.  Thank you for the loud mornings when I was trying to sleep in and I would hear your happy voice talking baby talk to the four-leggeds, and I would smile and tuck myself deeper under the covers.

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), please know that your farts are legendary.  If that was your goal, you mastered it.  Yesterday when they told us the MRI of your back revealed what looked like a bubble of gas, I nearly snorted through my nose.  “Of course they found gas!” I was thinking, but only you would have thought that was funny, so I refrained from saying it out loud.

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I will think of a million other things I will wish I had said to you today.   You have taught me what comfort and acceptance looks like, how to nap on a Sunday afternoon, when lowering the bar is the right thing to do, and that it’s okay to fight for what I want.  You have brought scores of precious people through our doors, one at a time and sometimes by the dozen, loving them with food and stories and football games and filling our house with voices and laughter and strong opinions and waffles and ice cream.

 . . . . . . . . .

If you don’t come home, Jim, the soul will be gone from The House that Jim Built. My heart will lose its ballast.  I will see you in everything everywhere and love you for it and ache to say my words to you and just hear your voice, and I’ll probably write to you as though you were still here, because my soul is knit, for better or for worse, to yours.  And of course I will never be out of words to say to you.  I will always want you, always reach for you.

If you do come home, even if your life is changed or your body broken, the heart of this house will begin to beat again.  Voices of friends, laughter, the smell of good food, fishing stories, and dogs lying at your feet—or foot, if it comes to that—it will all still be here in The House that Jim Built.  A welcome and love is waiting for you, arms wide open, for better or for worse.  You are wanted here, treasured in whatever form of you walks or wheels through our door.  You are the soul of me, and the heartbeat of this house.

But if you don’t come home, not to this house, know this:  There is another home waiting, with a welcome so wide and a sea of familiar, smiling faces, and the strong, welcoming arms of Jesus, who might be ready for some new fishing stories.  He brought you from death to life once before, remember?  Way back when you were 18 and heading down a road to destruction. And he will finish that good work he began in you.

I’m not done talking; I’ll never be done wanting to talk to you.  But for now I’ll let you sleep.  Just know…

If you don’t come home (and even if you do), I will love you forever.

Kathy Gallagher

5/29/20