Six Months, Part II
It is interesting to see where my mind takes me, early mornings when I wake up. Six months since Jason’s passing. Six Months. I talk about all that in part I.
It has been six months since he took his last breaths, but if you’ve read more recent blog posts of mine, you’ve read a little bit about how it feels like I lost him before that.
To be honest, the last six weeks of Jason’s like were especially ugly. I don’t think I realized just how ugly it all was, until I am here now, six months later, finding the space to process it all. But to be even more real, most of Jason’s cancer journey was pretty ugly. Especially starting when his cancer reoccured in October of 2024. Most of 2025 was hell. There were moments of hope, and joy. But it was not pretty. It was a lot of clawing for survival. In the 18 months from Jason’s diagnosis to death, the real single beautiful, “normal” moments, were our wedding and honeymoon. Some days I am truly shocked he made it through our honeymoon as healthy as he seemed, now knowing what was on the other side of our return.
But those last six weeks, they were utter fucking hell. My Jason, he wasn’t my Jason. The person I knew and loved was using all his energy to simply survive. I watched him rapidly slip away from “himself” and become a shell of the person he once was. At the time, my mind wasn’t quite adjusting to just how rapidly things were changing, not until the very end. But it was there. And he was hurting, immensely. I was in survival mode. Trying to help him in whatever way I could. I reflect, and even though those last six weeks were the ugliest, he was hurting long before that. Some days I think about how much he was likely hurting and not saying. The pain he was fighting through, to still try to show up. He fought hard, and I believe he covered up a lot. And I think he did it for me. Which is beautiful and some days makes me angry. Angry because I wish he had talked to me more about how he was really feeling, so I could’ve helped him sooner, so we could have tried to avoid so many moments of crisis. And then I feel guilty for being angry. Because the truth is, we were just doing the best we both could in unimaginable circumstances. Most of all, I am just angry I couldn’t save him.
I remember the days, in early August, I would be sitting next to him, and it would be quiet, as talking a lot was starting to get very hard for him. We would just sit there and watch something on tv. He was sleeping a lot, but I would try to spend any awake time with him that I could. I was trying to hold it together, but the tears would fall down my cheeks. He would grab my hand and say, “I am not gone yet”. I would force a smile, and tell him I know. When he would fall back asleep, I would go to our room and cry.
I talk about missing Jason. Over these six months I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that I don’t miss the version of Jason who was deeply suffering. It has taken me a while to come to terms with that. I don’t miss the hell that the cancer brought into our lives, the survival mode, the suffering. The way cancer stole from him and from me. The fear we were living in. I think for the first time I am more at peace with the fact that that version of Jason is gone. I am at peace knowing that the man who was in utter pain is no longer suffering. I remember when Jason died, feeling two different forms of relief. Relief in that I was by his side. I had lived in total fear that one night he would die in his sleep and be scared and alone, calling for me and I was not able to hear him, only to come out and find him in the morning, dead. And relief that if this was going to happen, that he did not linger for days, weeks, on end. Because the immeasurable suffering that would have brought to him, to me, would have been even more unbearable. I think about something Jason said to my mom, back in April, after we learned the immunotherapy stopped working. He told her, “What I care about the most is making this the easier on Lauren as I can possible. I need to make this the least hard I can on Lauren.” I don’t know if Jason had a control over the way he went. I do believe in some ways he did everything he could to make it the easiest he could on me. I believe he knew when to let go. And I extra believe that the two people he was waiting for permission from, was my mom and me. Because I know, outside of me, my mom was the other rock in his life. The mom he loved most in this world. He adored her, she meant everything to him.
But being at peace that the suffering version of Jason is gone, doesn’t mean I am not angry. I am so angry. Cancer is the most evil disease I have witnessed. I am angry. Angry that the trial that Jason was deemed the “perfect candidate for” didn’t work. Angry that we were even in the spot of needing to be trying a trial at all. Angry that Jason did not get more opportunities to try more trials, because all the doctors would say is that there would be more options if this one didn’t work. We didn’t get that. That makes me angry. His cancer was too aggressive. I am angry that his cancer was aggressive. Angry that they typically say Colon Cancer is slow growing. Not Jason’s. I am angry that the immunotherapy stopped working. I am even more angry that it worked so well and then it stopped working. I am angry that when it was working so well they made him stop it and go on steroids to slow it down. I wonder so often if that’s the reason it really stopped working. I am angry at the slow burn it took from the end of January to April to really determine if the cancer was no longer responding to Immunotherapy. I am angry that we had to make decisions at that point in time, on the “right” path forward, and I often ask myself, did we make the wrong one. But I am angry that we were even there, in that space, just months after watching the immunotherapy absolutely destroy the cancer. I am angry that it stopped working. I am more angry that no one knows why it stopped working. I am angry that no one knows why in 99% of this journey. I am angry that we even had to start the immunotherapy. Because I am angry that Jason’s cancer came back. I am SO angry that Jason’s cancer came back. I am angry that the scan was clear at the end of Jason’s Chemo and then short months later a 5” conglomerate of lymph nodes were there. I am angry that the chemotherapy didn’t work. I am angry that Jason began chemo with a clear PET scan, and no evidence of disease. I am angry we were told that the chemo was preventative at the time. I am so angry. Asking myself how did we get here, from where we thought we were. I am angry that no one can tell you why. I am angry that no one was talking about how aggressive Jason’s cancer was, or how only 5% of colon cancers have both MSI-H and KRAS DNA. ONLY 5%. I am angry that no one actually knows, because everyone’s cancer is different and unique. That no one can actually give you an answer, outside of sometimes this just happens. But most of all, I am angry that the person I love, my husband, was even diagnosed with cancer. I am angry there was cancer at all. I am angry at Jason’s horrible parents, for ignoring his father’s family history. For never being tested for Lynch Syndrome, the mutation that caused Jason’s cancer. I am angry they didn’t take that seriously in 2017 when Jason’s uncle was diagnosed with cancer. I am angry they would blame Jason for getting cancer, saying “we told you to get a colonoscopy”. Even though, anyone who knows medicine knows that no 20-something year old can walk in and ask for a colonoscopy without medical back up. I am angry that they even felt they need to say those words, like they needed to shift blame off to Jason for their own miss management of Paul’s family history. I am angry that Paul was not tested for Lynch Syndrome in 2017, because knowing he had Lynch Syndrome could’ve changed Jason’s life. I am angry that when I asked about Jason’s “stomach Issues” in 2022, Jason’s mom brushed it off like it was nothing and said “oh that just runs in Paul’s family.” I am angry. I am angry no one told me. I am angry they didn’t love Jason enough to try to protect him from this. I am angry. I am angry, because I don’t know if it would’ve been different, but it could’ve been.
I am angry at everything cancer stole. Everything that we lost, missed out on. I am angry at watching people who get to live without suffering. Who don’t have a clue what any of this feels like. It feels so utterly unfair. I can’t stand the people who say “life isn’t fair” yet have never seen this level of “unfairness”. “Life isn’t fair” is for losing a sports game, losing your job, not getting the new thing, job, house, etc. that you wanted. It is NOT for someone who gets cancer, and it certainly isn’t for someone who dies of cancer. What happened to Jason, to me, and to others who have walked this immeasurably painful road and not made it to the other side, is more than just “unfair”. It is evil.
It is ok to feel undeniable love for Jason, find specific moments of beauty in Jason’s cancer journey, and also be angry cancer was apart of our story. Wish that it never happened. Fume at the fact that it ended our story.
It is ok to miss Jason every single second of every single day and work to be at peace with the fact he is not suffering, while also being angry that he was ever forced by cancer to be suffering.
It is ok to say I love Jason, and would’ve done anything to save him, would’ve walked this road over and over to hope it ended differently and also wish none of this ever happened.
It is ok to love the people around me, who are not living this like I am, knowing they are showing up for me the best they can, and still be angry they don’t know this type of pain and be sad they are living a different version of reality, the one I dreamed of living.
It is ok to find beauty in moments of this life, even though Jason is gone, and still feel entirely incomplete without him here.
It is ok to keep going, to choose to try to move forward, to hope to one day dream again. While also feeling like a future without Jason is entirely unimaginable and wishing every single second of every single day he was here.
It is ok to not know “how” or “what yet” but hope that one day there is more beauty in this life again. To hope that I find it, whatever that looks like for me. But also still wish Jason was here and alive with me.
It is ok to laugh with friends, go out, do things, and then come home and cry.
It is ok to not cry some days, and other days feel like the world around me is still burning, the same way it felt like it was six months ago.
It is ok to unapologetically feel anything. Because this is my story, my grief, my pain.
Grief is not “just love with no where to go”, it is that, and layers upon layers of other emotions and experiences.
Pretending that grief is just unexpressed love and only missing someone, is discrediting all that it really is.
It is so much more complex than that.
Most day’s I feel I’ve only scratched the surface.
Even though it feels impossible, cruel, often like betrayal. I am learning that most days, the best way I can honor Jason is to keep living. To keep trying to find joy, no matter how badly it hurts. Life doesn’t warn us when something is happening for the last time. So not living it, is a dishonor to those who have left us far too early. And Love... Our love for them doesn’t end when someone stops living. It lives on in the way we choose to keep living, despite the world giving us a reason not to.
