My backpack

Regret, that's a heavy word. I have carried that heaviness like a backpack filled with sorrow and misery, lost wishes and dreams that never came to fruition.

I mopped floors, dusted blinds, changed diapers, and signed up for PTA. I smiled at all the right times and cried when no one was looking. From the outside, people thought my backpack was filled with sunshine and rainbows.

And sometimes it was.

Sometimes her smile lit up my room, filled my lungs with oxygen, and enticed my nose with her scent. We were two moms, raising the brightest children. Our jobs were great; our house was immaculate; our friends were fun. On the good days, my backpack was light and easy to carry.

But those days became fewer and fewer as the darkness crept in. Slowly at first, barely noticeable. Her headache kept her from wanting to attend our daughter's ballgame. She had to work overtime, so could I handle dinner on my own?

But then the floodgates opened, and darkness came rushing in like a dam that breaks in the middle of a hurricane, destroying everything in its wake.

The conversations turned cold; holding hands became nonexistent, and the kids even started avoiding her because of her frequent outbursts. I begged her for an explanation. She just looked at me with steel eyes as if

to cut me without making me bleed out.

But I was bleeding out. I needed answers; I needed to know what I was doing wrong and where my wife was. The kids wanted their mommy back. But I was met with silence and distance.

Distance that grew more distant with every minute. After a while, I quit trying. I had children that needed me, and a job I had to keep. She moved into the spare room, but was hardly ever home. I knew she had found a lover, but I had no proof, and if I was honest with myself, I didn't want any.

Many times I thought about kicking her out, but she still paid her part of the bills, and with as little as we saw each other, I decided that as long as she was helping me financially, I would let her stay.

One day I passed her in the hall, and I noticed how small and frail she looked. I asked her if she was ok and she nodded. That was all: a simple nod, and then she walked out the door. Drugs; at that point, I had convinced myself she was on drugs. Drugs and a lover. I mean, what else could it be, right?

I was so, so wrong. But by the time I learned the truth, it was too late to do anything about it.

She had been gone for two weeks. I assumed she was staying with her new lover. The bills were still being paid, and I had long stopped asking questions. It had been over a year since we had shared a bed and several months since I had seen her in the hallway. I tried my best to avoid her at all times.

I was cooking dinner when the phone call came in. The voice on the other end asked if I was Sherri Denaro. I answered yes, thinking I would be hanging up any minute from someone trying to get a scam by me.

Mrs. Denaro, this is Anne from Piedmont Hospital. You are listed as the next of kin for Brianna Denaro. We are calling to let you know she passed away at 3 o:clock today.

Passed away? Who is this? The next several hours are still just a blur to me, although it has been 5 years since that phone call. I learned that night that my beautiful wife had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She was told it was inoperable and she needed to get her affairs in order. I found the journal she kept in her room after we had her buried.

The first words hit me harder than anything ever hit me in my life.

To my beautiful soulmate Sherri. If you are reading this, I am already gone. I am so sorry it had to be this way, but I could not stand the thought of becoming a burden to you and our children. I know as you read this book you will be angry, thinking that I robbed you of precious time. But believe me when I tell you that was never my intention. I watched you and the kids laugh and carry on with life every day. Just like I know you will now. I never had to hold you or them as you cried, knowing one day I would be gone. I cried enough for all three of us.

I needed you to hate me so I could see for myself that you could carry on without me. That the kids would not miss my presence; maybe that makes me selfish, and I realize you will be angry at me for a long time. But please, know and tell our precious daughters that I truly did it out of my love for you and them.

Grieve me, but never lose your spirit. I have watched you over time grow stronger as a woman and a mother; I know you will be ok. Our love was real until my last breath, and even now I don't regret not seeing the pain in your eyes as I took it. I did it my way, Sherri. Please don't hate me for that. Remember the good times, the laughter, the joy. Don't look at this as unfair. I kept you from the pain, from me being the woman who pitched the ball for Carissa's first Little League game, to the woman who didn't have the strength to even hold a ball.

"DAMN YOU!" I screamed as I threw the book across the room, unable to read anymore as the tears poured down my face and the snot ran out of my nose. How? How could she have been so selfish not to give the girls and me our time together, knowing that time would be cut short?

I walked out of the room, leaving the book on the floor where it landed. The girls would be home from their grandparents' house in an hour, and I needed to look presentable. I would deal with all this later.

It took a month to go back into that room, a month of anger, bitterness, tears, regret. When I felt strong enough, I went back and picked up the book. I sat on the floor and over the course of the next few hours I read all her entries. She gave me a little insight into what her treatments looked like and why she kept me from them, but mostly she talked about things she observed on any given day.

"Today I watched you dance around the kitchen with the girls. You all had wooden spoons singing at the top of your lungs as if putting on your own private concert. I want so bad to join you, but just getting out of bed to watch you has robbed me of all my strength for today."

"I passed you in the hallway; you were wearing that sunflower dress I love so much. Her hair smelled like honeysuckle. You thought I didn't notice you, but I always notice you. You are the light in my darkness. I love you, my wildflower."

It finally hit me that she truly did what she thought was best for this family. I was still deeply hurt, but the thought of her suffering alone, to see us unmarred by her cancer, really hit my heart. Whereas I believed she was truly being selfish, I now realized how unselfish she had been. Now my regret turned to the fact that I didn't try harder to find out what was going on with her. That is a regret I will carry around in my backpack for the rest of my life.

But the backpack is also filled with wildflowers and Little League games. Laughter and dancing in the kitchen. But the most important thing I carry in the backpack is a journal filled with entries of love and memories. And someday, I pray that all the regret in the backpack will spill out and only be filled with sunshine and rainbows.