When Change Comes Knocking Unexpectedly

There are several things you learn when you get married. First, you learn to set expectations. Secondly, you learn to not live by any of those expectations.

When we first got married, I knew for an absolute fact that no one on planet Earth was stronger than my wife. Of course, she was nothing like Superman in the feminine form—that would have been me exaggerating her into falsehood. But regardless, she was still a special kind of wonder. A woman phenomenal in her ways, kind and loving— she was special, in a particular type of way that was hard to describe.

These features endeared me to her greatly for she was one of the strongest women I knew, and so, it was only normal that I thought we’d be like that forever.

But I was wrong because I failed to put into consideration that people change. People grow, and growth can bring change whether good or bad. However, what I cannot understand is how anyone can change so much that they become irreconcilable with their past. Change always leaves footprints. But this one didn’t.

This is a story of what you become after ‘change’.

This is the story of my wife on a journey from strength to change.

***

We stared at the doctor as he pronounced the words that were about to change our lives forever.

“I’m sorry, but you lost the baby.”

These were words that were to change and alter our lives forever. Words that we least expected to hear cut through our conceived joy. Words thar reminded us that nothing could be more painful than the loss of a child you never met.

The doctor’s gaze was fixed on us as we drank in the information with pain.

I moved my focus from the doctor and stared at the roof as if wanting to see God. I wanted my gaze to pierce through the hospital ceilings into the clouds, far into the throne of heaven where I could stand before my maker, and the maker of this child that had been taken from me—the child that had been taken from us, simply to ask the question that dangled between my lips. I wanted to know why.

Why?

Why??

Why???

How did this happen? Why was it happening to us? This was the sole thing we so much desired, yet here it was, eluding us and fast slipping from our hands time and time again.

“We had to operate to save her life. I’m sorry.” The doctor continued in the most professional tone ever as if he did not just declare the worst news that a married couple could ever hear.

I watched the blood drain from Anna’s face again for the umpteenth time as the doctor had just pronounced that she had a terminal disease and was going to die any minute now.

“Babe, I’m sorry,” I say, and squeeze her hands into mine.

Her hands are stiff and unresponsive.

I was afraid at that point that Anna may have lost the will to live. She probably wanted to disappear and die like the baby.

I stared into the white wall lost in thoughts. It was all my fault. I should never have brought up that stupid argument with Anna. I should not have let her reach across to slap me on the face, I should never have tried to push her to the wall with my words.

I should not have… I should never have…

Waves of guilt cascaded down my body and I felt my legs wobble in defeat. Life had dealt me a terrible blow.

“It’s all my fault.” Anna’s tiny whisper ushers me back to reality from the haziness of my thoughts.

I pull my eyes from the wall and stare in her direction.

I want to stop her and tell her not to blame herself. But this is the first time she has expressed herself in months, so I let her vent.

She surprises me again and doesn’t.

Instead, she continues like that like it’s a new word she had just learned.

“It’s my fault. It’s all because of me.”

I pull her into a hug and she breaks free almost immediately like my body had scalded her. It was happening and it was true. My wife was never going to forgive me.

I look into her eyes and notice that she’s drowsy and saying repetitive things and lost in the myriad of her thoughts.

I used to love the complicated web of her mind, and how she could create crazy scenarios and get me to laugh over the absurdity of them all. But that mind which was also the most beautiful thing about her, was also a curse now, in these moments in our marriage.

It was a safe getaway space from me. And I felt the worst, every time she’d shut me out of her mind, and give me no hint to know what she was thinking.

She was doing the same thing again… shutting me out.

Sometimes I wondered if she harbored similar thoughts of killing me. Her mind was a web of mystery, and it was normal to feel that way when you could not tell what she was thinking.

“You need to lie down, Anna. The doctor has demanded that you have 2 weeks of bed rest. So that you can feel better again.”

She looks at me suddenly and for the first time, I see something in her eyes that I do not understand.

“I don’t care. I was pregnant and I did not know. How can the universe even trust me to be a mother? I am undeserving of being a woman. I have searched and prayed and kept watch for a child 5 years into our marriage and the very moment it happens, I do not even notice. I am the biggest irony of what a mother should be.”

“Stop saying that”, I say, pressing my lips into hers to shush her. “Stop saying the wrong things, Anna. This is not your fault.”

“It’s my fault!” she reaffirms again. Her lips are cold and chapped, and I can tell she is fed up with everything.

We both are.

“You were hemorrhaging badly with the miscarriage that happened. The doctor had to take out your womb, to save your life.”

That’s it.

My lips are only a breath away from hers, yet I do not kiss her. I breathe in the same air as she, and I wish we could go back to the days when we were so in love. The days when we had similar thoughts. The days when so much change had not come to ruin us completely.

Now there were many things left unsaid between us. My infidelity. The miscarriage. The pressure from society. Her travel job, her mind, and now the hysterectomy that the doctors had performed on her.

It was bad enough to deal with Anna’s ultimate desire to have a child. Back then, before the miscarriage, there was still a chance to keep hope alive.

Now, all hope was lost.

They had to perform a hysterectomy on her.

Pregnancy, the one thing that Anna desired above everything else had been forcefully taken away from her for life.

From us.

And the only thing I could do to help was to try to get her out of her mind.

And I was failing terribly at it.

Anna was never going to get out of her head. Neither was she going to forgive herself and her body.

Sometimes, I wondered why our marriage had become so sour and bitter.

I wondered why the knowledge of our childlessness meant so much to Anna. It did not bother me as much, as long as I knew that I had her. She was more than sufficient for me in the marriage.

Anna on the other hand was not content with the thought of not having children. Marriage for her was a means to an end—motherhood. Anything outside of that was unacceptable.

This change was not part of the original script, and now that everything is falling apart, it made me wonder how the center of our marriage would work now.

We did not see this coming.

All images are sourced at unsplash.com