He'd Only Have Seen the Ceiling

My late husband’s house took 10 years to build, was 3 times over budget, and he lived on TV dinners to attempt to afford a gigantic mortgage. His first marriage failed over this, and I almost left him, too… the day before his first seizure leading to his glioblastoma diagnosis.

I’m fairly certain he was poisoned by massive levels of uranium in our well water and radon in our house that I didn’t discover until 2012. There is a cancer cluster in the Rocky Flats area of Colorado, a place known for its nuclear weapons development.

But by then it was too late. He had spent decades there.

An Ayn Rand aficionado, engineer, and someone who worked his entire life for private contractors for the federal government or the military, he wasn’t really the type of guy who thought about poisons much. His hippie green wife did, but by the time I arrived on the scene, most of the damage had likely already been done.

Robb had a love/hate relationship with his house. According to one person, Robb once called the house art, and said, "All can be sacrificed... for art." And in fact, Robb may have sacrificed his life… for art.

But Robb became less idealistic as the years wore on, and as I wrote previously he told me, "The only reason I didn't leave this house was because of yellow freaking fear." Fear of change, I think, and fear of the unknown.

Prior to his diagnosis, even, Robb would often say, "I think I'm ready to leave the house now. I think I'm finally ready."

But Robb was never really ready. It's as if he was gearing himself up for being ready by voicing it out loud to me, hoping that stating the desire would make it real enough for him to carry through.

Six days before Robb died, the morning we left for Tijuana in my last-ditch effort to save his life after his second brain surgery, he stood in the bathroom cleaning out his nose. He was taking an interminably long time to do it. I knew Robb like I knew the back of my hand, and I knew he was stalling. I lost patience.

“Robb, we’re not going to take two fucking hours to leave this house…”  

No response.

I demanded, “Do you want to get back into bed? Is that what you want?”  

"Yeah," he said angrily. I knew he was lying, but that if I allowed him to get away with the lie, that he would.

In a fit of anger, I walked over and started to throw the covers back on the bed and I said, “Fine. But know this. If you get back in this fucking bed, you’re never getting out again.”  

I watched. He stopped cleaning his nose, pondered, and made his way toward me. "Books!" he said.

"Yes, I have all your books packed up."

"Computer!" he insisted.

"I have that, too, Robb. It's all packed up in the car."

He lifted his hands, let them relax down toward his sides, and sighed. He had run out of ways to prolong this decision any further.