What-if

I try not to play the "what-if" game very often, but today it seems to be following me around a little bit. Walking across campus I found myself thinking about how much I love being in school... and wondering if I would be in school right now if Nathan were still here.

I'm not sure that I would be. I think I would be a mom right now, with not-enough-time for going-to-school-ness.

And then I watched the season finale of Parenthood.

And there were some scenes of the couple in which the wife has breast cancer that were super reminiscent of my life... and I remembered that relapse happens... and so it's possible that even if Nathan hadn't died we might still be dealing with the same things. I might still be dealing with the stuff that we had already been fighting for so long. Only it would have been 2 more years. I've been a widow at this point for longer than Nathan had cancer. I can't imagine how hard and scary it would be to go through everything that we did and have everyone celebrate being "done" and then for a relapse to happen.

And I can't imagine what doing it all over again would have done to me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that a lot of times I play the "what-if" game with the perfect scenario. What if Nathan had never died and everything had gone just according to plan?

But there is a flip side to that, too. What if Nathan had never died but had been constantly suffering for the last two years? That doesn't even bear pondering it hurts so badly. What if Nathan suffered for 2 years and then died this week? What if I had been laid off and then he relapsed? What if we had adopted a baby and then I lost Nathan? There are so many terrible scenarios that could have played out and didn't.

Don't get me wrong. If I could have my life back as I planned it to go, I would take it. But if life held any more pain for him... well, I guess I'm glad it wasn't my choice to make.