A literal light in the darkness
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: maine
Posts: 1,548
A literal light in the darkness
I have two rechargeable flashlights that we were gifted early in our marriage. I've forgotten who gave them to us, though I believe it was my parents. It was probably after we'd moved 30 miles into the suburbs to our first home. Power outages were frequent then, and the flashlights were invaluable. We took them camping, too, but mostly they were used at home.
Those were happier times. My husband was an alcoholic, but still very functional. He had a good job as a computer programmer. We were renovating a house. We camped. We took ballroom dance classes. We attended reunions with our families, weddings of our friends. We planted a couple dozen tomato plants each spring and dried hundreds of quarts of tomatoes in the fall. We made maple syrup from our own trees. We took real vacations, to Nova Scotia and Washington D.C.
Over the years, as his drinking took over, we did less and less. When the company he worked for was taken over, his drinking increased, and it took him almost two years to find another job. My husband lost interest in many of his hobbies. We moved closer to the city, into a new house to renovate. Something as simple as plumbing a new sink became a project he had to do three or four times before it didn't leak. He had crushes on our female friends and called them incessantly whenever I wasn't home. One of them was a girl barely twenty years old. When he called one night so drunk he could barely be understood, her parents put a block on the phone. I was mortified when a mutual friend told me about it months later. We never went anywhere or did anything unless he was certain he'd be able to drink. Though he could spend hours talking to others, if I waited for him to hang up and asked him for a minute of his time, his reply was, “Make it quick, I have things to do.” It wasn't as if he had a job. He lost three jobs in the last six years of his life.
I had decided to leave him. I came home, having secured a third part time job, and that same night he told me he had lung cancer. I never told him about my decision, and owing to the location of the tumor and the advanced state of the illness, he died five weeks later.
I was sad and bitter the last few years of our marriage. I resented that he had time for everyone but me. I resented he could be interested and polite and engaging with other women but not to me. Where were those women he adored while I was cleaning up vomit after his chemo?
In the aftermath of his death, I tried to bring order to the house. I found the flashlights but only one of them worked, and only for a few minutes at a time. I should have thrown them out, but it seemed a shame. After all they came from my parents, and my Dad had passed away only a few years before. I guess I hung onto them for sentimental reasons. In casting about the internet I found a site that sold replacement batteries and bulbs. The flashlights are carefully replaced in the kitchen after each use.
Each time I use one, the bitterness decreases. I remember the garden, the vacations, the times we were happy. Floyd the flashlight guy will never know what he's done for me.
Those were happier times. My husband was an alcoholic, but still very functional. He had a good job as a computer programmer. We were renovating a house. We camped. We took ballroom dance classes. We attended reunions with our families, weddings of our friends. We planted a couple dozen tomato plants each spring and dried hundreds of quarts of tomatoes in the fall. We made maple syrup from our own trees. We took real vacations, to Nova Scotia and Washington D.C.
Over the years, as his drinking took over, we did less and less. When the company he worked for was taken over, his drinking increased, and it took him almost two years to find another job. My husband lost interest in many of his hobbies. We moved closer to the city, into a new house to renovate. Something as simple as plumbing a new sink became a project he had to do three or four times before it didn't leak. He had crushes on our female friends and called them incessantly whenever I wasn't home. One of them was a girl barely twenty years old. When he called one night so drunk he could barely be understood, her parents put a block on the phone. I was mortified when a mutual friend told me about it months later. We never went anywhere or did anything unless he was certain he'd be able to drink. Though he could spend hours talking to others, if I waited for him to hang up and asked him for a minute of his time, his reply was, “Make it quick, I have things to do.” It wasn't as if he had a job. He lost three jobs in the last six years of his life.
I had decided to leave him. I came home, having secured a third part time job, and that same night he told me he had lung cancer. I never told him about my decision, and owing to the location of the tumor and the advanced state of the illness, he died five weeks later.
I was sad and bitter the last few years of our marriage. I resented that he had time for everyone but me. I resented he could be interested and polite and engaging with other women but not to me. Where were those women he adored while I was cleaning up vomit after his chemo?
In the aftermath of his death, I tried to bring order to the house. I found the flashlights but only one of them worked, and only for a few minutes at a time. I should have thrown them out, but it seemed a shame. After all they came from my parents, and my Dad had passed away only a few years before. I guess I hung onto them for sentimental reasons. In casting about the internet I found a site that sold replacement batteries and bulbs. The flashlights are carefully replaced in the kitchen after each use.
Each time I use one, the bitterness decreases. I remember the garden, the vacations, the times we were happy. Floyd the flashlight guy will never know what he's done for me.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 685
That is very beautiful, Velma. Sad but beautifully written. I hope your bitterness continues to decrease until it's totally gone. It's very sweet you got the flashlights working again and their light is diminishing the darkness with which you lived.
A work in progress
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 16,633
Congrats on reclaiming some happy memories for yourself. 
It's easy to discard them, bury them, in the aftermath of an alcoholic relationship that's ended bitterly.
But they are OUR memories, and we have a right to hold onto the happy ones.
Thanks for sharing!
It's easy to discard them, bury them, in the aftermath of an alcoholic relationship that's ended bitterly. But they are OUR memories, and we have a right to hold onto the happy ones.
Thanks for sharing!
Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 50
Thank you for this beautiful story. Today is the second anniversary of my alcoholic husbands death and I have been sitting here by the fire remembering and realizing that indeed as time goes on I remember more of the good times and continue to let go of the bad times.
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