He’s in the waiting room. He knows it’s by appointment, he’s not on my list, and yet he’s there. He has red eyes. He, the colossus, the one who is so quick to tap me on the shoulder and make a joke, he is devastated.
I understand when I see him that it happened. I mentioned this possibility the last time I came to see them.
I call him softly, ignoring my principles on the principles, the schedules… He shakes my hand, I don’t say my usual jovial hello. He doesn’t tap my shoulder. We give each other a sad smile.
In my office, he seems lost, he no longer knows if he should sit down, take off his coat, he remains standing and stares at my keyboard. I show him the chair and ask him to sit on it. He comes to his senses, takes off his overcoat, installs it carefully on the backrest and lands.
I wait.
He takes a slow breath.
He says she died the day before yesterday. He has tears in his eyes. He explains that he would like something, he hasn’t slept, he hasn’t eaten, except last night he got up at 4 am to eat a yogurt, he must have tightened his belt already. He speaks slowly, he pauses. He’s fed up with people ringing the bell, he can’t stop crying and he’s ashamed. I slip that it is normal for him to cry, how to do otherwise when you have lost the Other, with whom you have spent your life, whom you have loved, and sometimes hated. He repeated several times fifty-five years, fifty-five, and twenty since my retirement spent together permanently.
He looks at me again and says he just wants to sleep tonight and the next, before the funeral, which he’s afraid of, because he doesn’t want to cry in front of people, he’s ashamed. I’m saying if we can’t cry anymore at funerals, then where are we going. He smiles.
The last few months have been difficult. But despite the difficulties, despite having been the helper, the one present twenty-four hours a day, he is not relieved. He explains to me that he had got used to it and that he was ready to continue for years if necessary. For her. He says glad we talked about it. Even if he was not ready, the surprise is not total.
He talks about her, their life together, the emptiness that has just settled. He speaks for himself. He speaks for me. He speaks for Her.
I have tears in my eyes, I concentrate not to cry.
I see her, leaving my office, and slapping big kisses on my cheeks, rather than shaking my hand, a few years ago, when many neurons were already gone. Until she can’t come anymore. Until too many of them had packed up for her to keep walking. And that then, he must take care of Her, at every moment.
I offer him a sleeping pill, I explain to him that I have no medicine to keep from crying, he knows very well, even if he still hoped for it.
He gets up, shakes my hand and, smiling, says to me “what’s really crazy is that since you’ve been here, with all the illnesses you’ve found me, She’s the one who left first. ”…