I was so angry, I slammed the door on my out to the front porch. I sat and stewed for what felt like hours, but it was probably just minutes. Time took its toll, and when I realized Kevin wasn’t coming outside for me, I gave in and went inside. He wasn’t upstairs. I got ready for bed and went to our bedroom in the dark basement. He was quiet. Angry quiet.

I crawled into bed next to him, and he asked where I had gone. I told him I hadn’t gone anywhere, I had been sitting, FUMING, on the porch for the past hour waiting for him to come out and talk to me. He thought I had left. He thought I had LEFT.

Do I recall the subject of what caused this fight we had? No. Do I recall how the fight went? Yes. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking of that one horrible fight we had. I know now that he’s dead, and that when we were together, I was often an immature fighter. I would say things I didn’t mean, and put blame where it didn’t belong. I have grown a lot since those days.

We fought. Not often, but he was always the calmer of our two. I didn’t understand calm fighting, I hadn’t developed that skill quite yet. I just knew defensive mechanisms to get my way. Those didn’t work with Kevin. He would make me think logically about things. I hated that.

Death doesn’t make perfection. Kevin had faults. There were things about him that drove me nuts, that I never quite understood, but loved him enough to try to. Our relationship is maybe now more perfect than ever, because we can never fight again. All I can do is shout at the sky in anger.

You may never hear a widow(er) speak of the bad times. When someone dies, that’s not what you want to remember. But we had our share of bad times. All relationships do-it is normal; to develop a strong relationship, there has to be ups and downs. What’s important is that you know how to get through them together, instead of apart.

Cancer wasn’t a fight we could win. For the most part, it brought out the best in us. We didn’t fight then. We cried, we tried to understand one anothers’ emotions in the turmoil of the disease that was destroying our relationship.

As I heard someone bitch about their wife today, and how they loved being away the past 5 days in the mountains, watching the TV channels they wanted to, being away from their nagging wife, I bit my tongue. But ya know, I probably said similar things about Kevin’s love for shows that I didn’t always enjoy.

Now it’s different though. I know that I miss the fact that I can’t complain about the choice of TV shows we watch. I envy that that guy has the ability to make those complaints, and I don’t, not with Kevin at least.

In my new relationship, we disagree, we don’t fight. I think there’s just a different understanding. While I still sometimes want to be the immature one and pull out the defensive side of me, I know that’s not healthy, nor worthwhile. I don’t want to remember that. I want to remember that we merely disagreed, never fought.

We learn from our pasts, and maybe today, you’ll learn a bit from MY past.