How It Began 

Losing a partner is a fact of life. Though we know women tend to live longer than men, it doesn’t make it any easier when they leave us. It’s not something most women actively plan for. My paternal grandmother lost my grandfather in her early 60s. My parents were both in their 80s when my father passed. I was even younger when I experienced this unexpected, unwished-for, uncoupling—an unwanted witness to a slow and painful death.

It started with a persistent cough, a lump in his throat that developed into difficulty swallowing, and then one day, Sikander, my partner of almost ten years, came home with a file from the doctor and a dark look in his eyes. 

“Honey,” he said. “I have a really important appointment with a specialist tomorrow, and I would really appreciate it if you would come.” 

“Of course,” I said, looking up from the homework I was grading for my college classes. “Meet you there or go together?” 

He hesitated for a moment. “Go together, but remember to be very calm,” he cautioned.  

Sikander had been asking for a scan for a while, and his doctor had dragged his feet. But the scan had finally been ordered, and the results were now in. We went to the doctor’s office and in less than 30 minutes, the roof caved in on us. Holding a report in his hand, the specialist told us it showed a sizable mass.

“A barrage of tests will tell us if it is cancerous and where it has gone, if anywhere.” 

The resulting tests did show it was cancerous and that the cancer was at stage 4. I was calm, preternaturally calm. Stunned does not even begin to explain how I felt. How could this be?

Sikander and I had met accidentally in our mid-40s when we ended up leaving a film at the same time. His vast knowledge of cinematography impressed me since I was doing an MA in film. I had forgotten about that encounter until we ran into each other again at a local film festival. We were about five years older, divorced, and locally established writers by then.

We were surprisingly well-matched. We both graduated from the same school, spoke several languages, were interested in the arts, and had lived in Europe. We were also the oldest child in our families. While Sikander’s family was from India, and mine mainly from Italy, we were raised with similar values. A bit more practical-minded than I, Sikander planned our trips, plotted out film festivals, and dragged me to the ER when my tachycardia overexpressed itself.

I took us to plays I had reviewed, writers’ events, and the occasional dinner party with friends. It was wonderful having a romantic partner to share interests with, to read in bed with, to call up at work just to say hi. After a wildfire swept through his town, Sikander came to live with me. We became inseparable, going for walks, writing our arts coverage together, saving each other seats at this or that show, getting to know various artists, and expanding our social circles. 

Sikander was always so supportive of me, never failing to attend my film presentations, spoken word performances, and art openings. His kind but constructive comments made a huge difference in my work. For my part, I gladly proofed his writing, cleared our press passes, and kept him on top of his health challenges.

We said I missed you to each other when the days were long and rife with issues. We had our differences, of course. I worked too much, he said. He flirted too much at parties, I thought. We both liked my cat, but I refused to get rid of it even after Sikander became allergic to it. 

Once, we went to dinner with a friend who had known me for over 20 years. She called me later to say how pleased she was that I’d found someone so engaging and effortlessly able to hold my interest. As for me, I was delighted to cover events with an intellect who carried his weight and made me laugh out loud. And when my frustrations with life became so great that I couldn’t contain myself, his calming tone and measured advice always grounded me.

How It Went

But all of that would change.

I became the Sherpa as Sikander started to weaken, carrying his backpack of books, notebooks, and medications from one medical office to the next. Sikander was very fortunate; his oncologists were kind, caring physicians who took a strong liking to him. The first one wanted to start him on chemo right away.

“The tumor is not resectable,” she said. “It cannot be removed from where it’s located in the esophagus.” 

Sikander was resistant to the idea of chemo and soon switched to another, equally wonderful doctor at Moore’s Cancer Center at UCSD, who was open to seeking experimental treatments and other non-traditional approaches. 

How had this happened?

This was not the way things were supposed to be. How did our delightful conversations about art and culture switch to dreadful discussions with doctors about cancer markers and do-not-resuscitate orders. Sikander was often angry but concealed it well. I buried my feelings in work, problem-solving, and saying yes too often.

As Sikander grew increasingly more tired, reading in bed together and watching films eventually stopped. It was too much for him. We learned that while esophageal cancer happens, it’s mostly a man’s disease. It starts off as a GERD, mostly among smokers. In rare instances, it shifts to Barrett’s Disease. And rarer still to esophageal cancer. The first oncologist gave him about 18 months. The second was more hopeful; with radiation and chemo, “Longer,” he said. 

Sikander said no. He would bargain with God by radically shifting his diet to organic foods. Because he could no longer move up and down my stairs and his mother was coming to help care for him, it fell to me to find housing that would work. We were tremendously lucky and ended up in housing near the hospital. It turned out to be a godsend as Sikander’s cancer continued its steady assault on his body. 

Stage 4 basically means the cancer has moved into at least one organ and started traveling the highways and byways of the body’s lymph system. In Sikander’s case, it went into his bones, hollowing them out, turning them into brittle sticks. 

Our stay at the sublet was turning into a master class in how insidious cancer can be. Sikander could barely move and spent most of his day in bed. His mother, a devout Hindu, prayed. I went from there to the house to feed the cat, to teaching at the college, back to the house, and off to the apartment daily. Sikander either went from bed to the doctor or from bed to the hospital for blood transfusions, and finally, to the hospital for more extended stays. 

One day, as he was standing to brush his teeth, he started to sway. 

“Do you want me to support you?” I asked.  

He just looked at me blankly and collapsed. I had never seen anyone faint with their eyes open. His pelvis and femur had snapped, which necessitated a hip and femur replacement. At least that amount of diseased bone is out, I thought. 

Things progressed from there to stays in a series of special nursing facilities. Pray you never end up in one. The staff was usually friendly but horribly overworked and underpaid. The supervising doctor was up to her ears with her own practice while supervising multiple facilities with dozens of patients. 

The staff tried to keep up, but clothing went missing, medicine got inadvertently skipped, and once, I had to call in staff because the paraplegic Sikander shared his room with had fallen out of bed, and no one knew the poor man was on the floor. The last straw was when Sikander got sepsis, and the staff could not call an ambulance because they had to wait for the supervising doctor to OK it. 

As it became clear that Sikander was only getting worse, we arranged one of his family’s properties to serve as a place for him and his mother to stay. Already a slim man, Sikander lost weight rapidly. He looked like something from an El Greco painting. But once the place was set up, the center of operation shifted, hospice was called in, and life revolved around this tiny apartment. 

Since I taught at several colleges, my days were spent just holding on. Adjunct-hourlies do not get much in terms of leave, and the new semester was challenging. The last few weeks were incredibly painful as his condition deteriorated. He spoke less in English and more in German and Hindi, two languages I don’t know. Morphine helped ease the pain. By the time I got back from work at night, I was too exhausted to talk, and Sikander was either too sick to engage or hallucinating from the morphine. 

His family encouraged me to go home where I squeezed my very patient cat and cried myself to sleep. The end came not long after. I got a phone call telling me to come. Sikander would not wake up. By the time I got there, rigor mortis started to set in. I had to close his eyes and jaw and try to unclench his hands. I asked the hospice when they had called it. They said it was the same time I had received the phone call. 

I have never spoken to his family about this, but I didn’t understand why I wasn’t called earlier. I will forever regret listening to them and going home the night before. The days that followed were a mess. Even now, five years later, they are a blur. I called a friend to help since so much had been left undone. Sikander died intestate. I should have insisted he draw up a will. 

We blindly settled on a mortuary that did cremations, and when we got things ready, we realized the extent of what the people who were so eager to help set up the apartment had done. Even though I had arranged his many suits in the closet so that jackets and pants would be easy to find, we were hard-pressed to find a complete suit. They had ransacked the closet, taking the better pieces with them. 

The Funeral 

The day of the funeral was hard. Because the family was Hindu, I relied on Hindu friends to help me. All in all, it turned out well. It was a small reception; friends came to speak and pay their respects. I was so grateful to those who came because it showed his mother that he lived a rich life with people who loved and respected him. I put his favorite press pass and a little balsa wood elephant in his jacket pocket, the last piece of art I ever made for him. 

The Cremation 

The cremation ceremony was ghastly. I had never seen one before. Under ordinary circumstances, I can barely handle an open casket. I ducked out and sobbed behind my car in the parking lot. 

The Ending 

The rest of the story is, perhaps, like many similar stories. Things were said and done that were better left unsaid and undone. I struggled in my work. Adorable undergrads asked if they could do anything for me. Friends were kind. The film festivals were kind. Concentration was brutal. Numb with grief, I drifted through my days, working long hours but barely making deadlines. I ran myself ragged. I was a terrible conversationalist and an even more terrible friend. 

A reasonably healthy person, I started having minor health problems. My blood pressure shot up, and three years after Sikander’s passing, I found myself in surgery for my gallbladder. Other deaths followed: my father and the cat. I became exhausted and unmoored. To cope, I turned to ritual.  

Even now, I still sleep on the same side of the bed I used to sleep on when Sikander was here. I live in Southern California, so every year, I do an ofrenda, a Mexican Day of the Dead alter. Some years, it’s easier than others. I place papel picado, his favorite foods, candles, and mescal there. It soothes my need for something, and oddly enough, it works. I think it’s because we were both so connected to the Latino arts community here, and we are from cultures where ritual plays a prominent role. 

I am often asked if I ever hear from him. Maybe I do. Hummingbirds, seen by many cultures as messengers, have flitted through my balcony door. Once, when I invited a friend to the theatre, I turned to talk to him, and was freaked out to sense Sikander sitting in his seat, reaching to take my hand as he often did during performances we attended together. 

Beginning Again: Reconstructing Meaning in Midlife

It has been five years. I can go to the festivals now without feeling lost, but I miss my fellow art critic. I can sleep alone, though it’s sometimes a bit cold. I miss our discussions and our ability to move between different cultures together. I miss having Sikander read my work and share in my small triumphs. I miss asking him to take pictures of me with my art, and reading his writing.   

It is quiet here; no one singing in the bath, no one scolding the cat for longing to share lunch. I don’t have to negotiate over Netflix, wonder where my book went, hold a table for two at the café. I never imagined finding myself in my middle years looking at an unpartnered retirement. I was thrilled about doing things with someone I deeply loved as the years passed. 

Still, I am fortunate to have wonderful friends and an arts community that embraces me, but this little hole always stays unfilled, a candle that remains blown out. 

One picks oneself up and moves on. For a very intense ten years, I was part of a collective of two passionate and creatively productive individuals. And now, it’s just me learning to recalibrate and carry on. It’s not the same. My relationship with myself and others has changed. I move through the world aware of others, but always as a self-contained entity. I am not ready to engage with a potential partner. I am happy within a friend group.  

I find I like being in control of my daily life—for the most part. But I would give up that control in a heartbeat, along with my unwanted diploma in caretaking and grief for none of this to have ever happened. I am no longer angry at him for refusing chemo or for leaving so much unfinished business behind. I am grateful for having had a loving and supportive partner. I have yet to learn how to be grateful to live alone. Perhaps, in time, I will find someone else. Right now, it feels strange to dance with someone other than him.  

Although I have pulled myself together enough to go out for coffee or dinner with friends, I miss his closeness, the sense of partnership, and the comfort of belonging. And then, I remember my grandmother and realize I am not the only one who has lost a long-time partner—I, too, can remake my life and reconstruct meaning with each new season. And maybe one day, though not this year, I shall put the ofrenda away.        

Rebecca Romani has an MA in Film Studies and teaches and lectures on film in Southern California. She also writes about film and art for various online publications in the US and abroad. She has lived in Europe and Morocco and currently lives in the US where she restores furniture in her spare time.