Puck 2016: An end of the year tribute to Amy

2016 has been a horrible year and one of the worst parts of 2016 was my wife Amy's diagnosis of cancer and eventual death from said cancer back on November 25.  2016 was supposed to be a good year.  We were supposed to be electing the first woman president in this country and this was also supposed to be a good year for Amy and me.  Neither happened.

First, I need to set the stage.  Back in 2009, I was struggling somewhat with depression.  Honestly, I had been struggling with depression for probably over 5 years, having received occasional counselling in college.  In September of 2009, I was to a low where I was once again receiving counselling.  Then in November, I met Amy.  Meeting her really helped me to turn my life around.  Immediately, I no longer had a need to receive counselling.  My depression still took a few years to completely go away.  Looking back, it must have actually taken a full five years, generally becoming less of an issue every year.  When I did have bouts of depression, I tried my best to hide it from Amy.  Perhaps I didn’t want Amy to think she was at all responsible; I really don’t remember for sure.

I wonder, if I hadn’t been bothered by depression for all of those years, could I have done a better job of returning the favor and helping Amy make her life better?  Now, her mother, Arlene, may say that I did that just by loving Amy.  But that won’t stop me from wanting to have done better yet.  Things actually went in the wrong direction the first year or probably two of marriage.  Both of us gained weight.  I don't know how heavy Amy became, but I was beginning to push 200 pounds myself at one point.  (I would need to dig through my health records in order to figure out what year this was.)  We did get this turned around.  I did get back down to my more normal 185 pounds and stayed there until 2015 when I started really pushing myself to lose more weight.  I don't really know how Amy did.  Stereotypically for a woman, she would not talk about her exact weight much.  What I do know is that she didn't improve her running times very much.

Amy participated in running events even before her and I met, but Amy did not like to run.  She may have even hated it.  She ran because she didn’t want to be overweight and out of shape and she forced herself to run to achieve that goal.  I wish I would have been able to help her more on this. I will quickly note that one activity she did enjoy was bicycling.  We did eventually get a tandem bicycle, but this was only two years ago.  The reason for getting that was so that we could bike together.  My skill level was substantially higher than hers, so she would slow me down.  Also, Amy never felt comfortable going more than 30 miles at a time before she would tire out.  Getting the tandem allowed us to go faster and further together.

This brings me back to 2016.  As I said, 2016 was supposed to have been a good year for us.  Amy had quit her full time job at the Hope Lodge so that she could have more time at home.  Add in the fact that she was also losing a daily commute to Iowa City, this was going to add easily 10 hours to her day.  This was plenty of time for her to add in additional workouts to her day.

Amy started off the winter by working on rearranging our furniture instead so that we could be ready for adoption, something else we were really hoping would happen, or at least start to happen here in 2016.  So I figured by the time spring rolled around, I would be ready to push and help Amy to run more.  I had even purchased a resistance sled to work on strength and speed.  We didn’t get to use it that much.  Back in April, she was complaining about her stomach bothering her when she worked out.  Obviously, in hindsight, that had to have been the cancer.  We probably should have seen a doctor about the issue.  That said, I don’t think having detected the cancer a month earlier than we actually did would have made much of a difference, so I’m not going to be blaming myself for overlooking such warning signs.

Come May, we participated in a triathlon up at Wartburg College.  That was a good indicator that we were way off track from where we should have been as Amy did not have a good time.  It would be less than a week later from that point that she would be diagnosed.

I so wish I had done a better job of helping Amy reach her fitness goals.  This will, unfortunately, be a point of deep regret for me for some time to come.  I've been trying to do my best to somewhat make up for my past failures by spending time this holiday season trying to get into shape myself.  I've also been working on getting Amy's dog Bailey into shape as well. But, as I do so, I can't help but think why I didn't do more of this sooner.

This all said, I'm glad 2016 is going to be over.  Sure, I recognize that the day that marks a new year is arbitrary, but it is a marker nonetheless.  Perhaps I can turn 2017 into somewhat of a year where I can feel more like celebrating Amy's life and work on letting go of my regrets.  I suspect Amy would have wanted as much.