Looking Back by Jenny Montgomery April 2021
What surprised me about the pandemic was how freaked out I was that my husband would die from it. Mind you, I am not a drama queen. I’m the one person in my family everyone looks to be level-headed and calm in a crisis. Death does not scare me. Being an Episcopal priest, you could say I manage crises, death and dying for a living.
I freaked out anyway. Every time Joe went out of the house, I was convinced he had been exposed to COVID. I went berserk in Lowe’s when he briefly pulled his mask down to defog his glasses. I shrilled at him to wash his hands. Rising numbers fueled my fears and amped my panic of Joe dying. No one wants a loved one to die, and yet for me, we were at such a tender place in our marriage that I couldn’t stand the thought of him dying. Not now. Not yet.
The mere possibility of losing Joe just as we were falling in love again seemed unfair. Still recovering from years of hurt, I was finally beginning to trust him again. There had been no scandalous affair, no devastating job loss, no health crises that we knew of. It was rather a gradual unraveling resulting in rips, tears, and ragged edges that I thought were irreparable.
At one point I believed Joe was depressed. His frequent migraines also worried me. So, I nagged him for weeks to go and talk with his doctor. Gloating after the appointment, Joe tells me the conversation went something like:
“Hello Joe, what brings you in today?”
“My wife thinks I’m depressed.”
“Joe, what do you think?”
“I don’t think I’m depressed.”
“Well, tell your wife she is not my patient, you are.”
And that was the end of it. Joe was fine, he wasn’t depressed, his migraines were not an issue and the problem was me.
Looking back, I can see the subtle shifts in Joe’s behavior were telling us something. When we were moving from Virginia to Connecticut, it was so unlike him not to help me pack. He would zone out when sorting through things and I interpreted his behavior as laziness.
Looking back, I can see that letting the colorful red flowers he bought to plant in the yard of our new home die before he got around to putting them in the ground, was a sign. Similarly, not filing our taxes on time and letting bills go unpaid were signs that he wasn’t simply procrastinating.
Looking back, I can see how forgetting to shower, to get ready for an evening out with friends, to make dinner, to keep appointments, and forgetting to pick me up from JFK even after multiple reminders were not signs that he didn’t give a damn.
Looking back, I can see how drifting apart romantically, settling for hugs rather than making love was a sign. Our once lustful romance turned lifeless. Loneliness and longing seeped into our bedroom. I interpreted this as Joe losing his sex drive now that he was sixty-seven or because of the weight I had gained. He was adamant neither was true.
Looking back, I can see that Joe was instinctively masking his symptoms. When his children called, he was upbeat. He laughed and told stories. When he went to church, he was friendly and outgoing. Out in public, Joe wore a smile. Only I knew he was sleeping for hours during the day and staying in his bathrobe until I came home from work. I tried numerous tactics to motivate him, from being patient and encouraging to begging, yelling, crying, writing him a letter, leaving reminder notes, and finally doing things myself.
No one knew while we were at the beach in the summer of 2018 that Joe could barely function yet still believed he was fine. During one of his extended naps, I decide to take a walk on the beach, alone. The cloudless blue sky, gentle sea breeze and warm sun on my face begin to soften the tension in my shoulders. My steps lighten. Watching overhead as sea gulls soar free and pausing to allow the cool ocean waves to caress my bare feet, I decide in this moment I cannot live like I am living any longer. I am getting out of this marriage.
Viewing our marriage so differently—Joe was happy, I was miserable—was yet another sign that something was wrong. What was wrong was that Joe had an undiagnosed benign meningioma brain tumor that had been invasively growing and unraveling our marriage for years.
It was our marriage therapist who first suspected this. Couple’s therapy was my last-ditch effort to stay married and we had been seeing Yvonne weekly for four months. She was a good listener and didn’t take sides. We both liked her. She often said how puzzled she was by the conflicting interpretations we consistently gave about our marriage.
On the Monday before Thanksgiving 2018, I was seeing Yvonne alone because Joe was out of town to be with his kids for the holiday. After a huge argument over driving him to the airport, Joe was in Houston or so I thought. He hadn’t called me like he said he would and wasn’t answering his phone. At this point I was so angry and hurt that I didn’t even care.
Settling into the plush sofa in Yvonne’s office, I begin recounting my most recent fury with Joe for forgetting to tell me about his flight to Houston and not answering my calls. Surprisingly, Yvonne holds up her hand to stop me from speaking.
With sadness in her eyes, she says, “Jenny, I need to tell you something that I wish I had recognized before now.” My heart races as her tone of voice isn’t her usual calm demeanor.
She continues, “I think Joe has something serious going on neurologically and you need to get him seen by a neurologist immediately.”
Her words punch my gut and I can’t breathe. Somehow, I know she is right. I cry. Yvonne doesn’t explain further only that she suspects Joe may have early onset dementia or a brain tumor. She then gives me Kate’s name, a highly regarded neurologist. I call Kate’s office as soon as I get to my car.
Joe was due home on that Sunday and his appointment with Kate was on Monday. I met him at LaGuardia and gently broke the news to him once we were home. His reaction was as though I had said we were having chicken for dinner. I cried again.
Larger than a golf ball between both his frontal lobes, Joe’s personality changes, impaired judgment, lack of motivation, memory loss, headaches and fatigue were all signs this tumor had been growing and causing swelling in his brain for years.
Two days after Christmas 2018, ninety percent of his tumor was removed. The other ten percent was too close to an artery and had to remain. Once Joe’s body had recovered enough from surgery, he underwent six weeks of radiation to help ensure the residual tumor wouldn’t continue to grow, at least for a while.
So far, so good. Joe survived. Our marriage survived and I’m learning to forgive the brain tumor I named “Thaddeus,” which I discovered means “courageous heart.” It has taken a lot of work on both our parts to try and make sense of the tumor and in some ways to bless it.
Our marriage is now stronger than it has ever been. Since we’ve both been vaccinated, I am no longer freaking out. We still wear our masks out in public but I’m no longer afraid. Most every morning Joe makes breakfast with a beautifully set table and fresh flowers. We laugh a lot and make sweet love. We take long walks and enjoy each other. We are looking forward to traveling once it is safe. Life is good, very good. We’re enjoying retirement and neither of us is ready to die. Not now. Not yet.