Divorced Anniversary, A Complicated Day

For stem cell transplant recipients, anniversaries, or transplantaversaries, or re-birthdays, are cause for celebration.

For divorced people, a wedding anniversary, or a divorced wedding anniversary, brings mixed feelings. Yesterday was one such day for me. And depending on what’s been happening, on these days I might feel wistful, or sad, or disappointed, or nostalgic for what could have been. Or I might think what a good idea it was to get divorced and remember my relief when living without constant conflict.

We looked so full of hope in the wedding photo that popped up on Facebook yesterday, marking my memory from four years ago. I was married a lot longer than the timeline suggests, but it popped up because I had used it in a blog post about my thoughts on our anniversary that year.

Ten good years and three downhill

I had written that although we had our differences, I appreciated what he did for the kids, and by extension for me, when I was undergoing treatment. He moved I with them when I was in the hospital, spoke to their teachers, and kept their routines intact. He cooked good meals and infused the home with his slightly off-beat sense of humor. And when I finally got out of the hospital for good, after the transplant, he stayed in the house for a year so I would not have to go at it alone in my weakened and fragile state.

We even went on vacation, to Cape Cod, as a family, since I couldn’t be left alone.

He wasn’t a model ex the whole time, though. My sister was taking care of my affairs when I was in the hospital since I couldn’t do it. That meant collecting child support from him and paying my bills. I didn’t know it at the time, but on a couple of occasions when he was angry at me, and he had brought my daughter to see me in the hospital, he deducted parking and her lunch from my child support. My sister thought this was low, and I had to agree. After all, the visit was just as much for her benefit as it was for mine.

I sometimes summarize the trajectory of our marriage as “ten good years and three downhill all the way.” It was bitter enough shortly after that I wouldn’t have been able to turn to him. But things settled down. It wasn’t tense anymore. And upon my diagnosis in 2003, he was the first one I called through my tears. He was always a good soother, and he didn’t let me down.

If it hadn't been for the marriage, there wouldn't be the kids

The path to my first stem cell transplant – my autologous – was drawn out due to a break for treatment of aspergillus, a fungal pneumonia. I might have caught it in the garden or in the dirt. Who knows? But in any case, I had to go home and build platelets because the transfusions in the hospital weren’t working. When I had enough platelets, I went back for a video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS), and although I don’t know what it would feel like to get hit by a Mack Truck, the docs said that’s how I would feel, and it hurt like I had been hit by something big.

It was summertime, and my ex had planned a vacation with our three kids. They couldn’t leave me home, so they took me with them. I lived on a bottle of oxycodone, his kindness, and the relief of being out of the hospital and with my kids. It felt like the old days when he called me Ronnette. We walked on the beach as a family.

It wasn’t the first time we would go on vacation as a divorced couple, and in some ways, it worked better than when we were married.

The wedding picture makes me sad because of the promise in it and the knowledge of why it didn’t work out. But the bottom line is that we have three great kids who are well-grounded despite all they’ve been through. And if there hadn’t been the marriage, there wouldn’t have been the kids.