All persons having sex in this fictional story are over eighteen years old.
My wife Carol and I had been married for twelve years when the abnormal test results came in. She'd been sick for awhile off and on and she could never quite get completely well. After several appointments and prescriptions her doctor ordered the testing done. All signs pointed to cancer. Some cancers can be fought and a person could live for years after treatment. Not Carol's, hers was pancreatic cancer and it was a killer. Pancreatic cancer has very few symptoms early on. Once a victim does begin to show signs of problems the cancer is far advanced.
Carol and I were given instructions to get our affairs in order as soon as possible. She wouldn't have much time. Our children, Jimmy who was ten and Ali who was nine were told of their mother's outcome, crushing their souls. They clung to their mother as she lay in her hospital bed each day. We all cried together in that hospital room and eventually a room in hospice when Carol declared that she'd had enough.
"I love you all so much but this sorrow has to stop. I want to hear about your futures, without me. Lets make plans right now, so you'll know if 'that's what mom would want' or not and move forward. I don't want you to remember me like this. We always had fun as a family."
I went to the nurses station and brought back pens and paper to write down what plans each of us had for the future. Carol even took one giving me a tearful wink.
Jimmy went first reading out his plans. "I want to be a firefighter and save people. I want to..." Carol cut him off.
"Saying that you 'want to' is a wish, Jimmy. Please change all of your plans to 'going to' and set a course to achieve them."
"I am going to be a firefighter and save people. I'm going to meet a girl who likes sports and marry her. I'm going to own a big house and a Porsche."
"Those are very good goals, Jimmy. I think that the 'girl who likes sports' might want a Porsche too." Carol replied smiling at him.
"What about you Ali?" Carol asked.
"I am going to be a doctor and help cure people. I'm going to marry a tall handsome boy who likes to hug and kiss like you and dad do. I'm going to have babies and live in the big house next to ours so dad can come over and visit us whenever he wants."
That brought out the tears again but, not so much for our loss as for Ali's caring nature.
"What about you dad? What's on your list?" Jimmy asked.
"I am going to raise you and your sister to be loving, caring people and help you achieve your goals. I'm going to help grandma as she gets older. I'm going to fix up that old Mustang that's out in the barn and get it running."
"You forgot one, Eric. You need to add 'I am going to find a loving, caring new wife to love and to share my life with'." Carol said with determination.
The tears poured from my face as I whispered "I can't put that on my list."
"You have to dad. That's what mom wants. You have to put it on your list!" Jimmy said getting louder and more emotional as he spoke."
"I just can't." I barely choked out.
Ali walked over to me, put her hand on my shoulder and took the pen and paper from me. She wrote 'I will find a nice lady, like mom to marry.' and handed the paper back to me. "We'll help you dad." she said through her own tears.
"Look at me, Eric." I looked up at Carol with the tears still rolling down my face. "That's what I want, Honey. The kids don't need a depressed, broken father trudging through the rest his life. Find someone who makes you laugh. Don't let me become a martyr to you."
Carol died two days after we'd made our lists. It remains the saddest day of my life. My babies were crushed. There are no words that could convey the amount of sorrow everyone felt the whole week after she passed. If I didn't have the kids to live for I'd have joined her in the afterlife. As it was I felt like I would never be happy again.
My mom was the angel holding us together. I asked her if she would move in with us for awhile to help with the kids right after the funeral. My dad had passed away a few years before from an industrial accident, so she knew the steps of grieving we'd go through. She withstood all the anger, sorrow and self destruction both myself and the kids threw at her and gave us only love.
*********************
I was lost after Carol's death. Just after the first anniversary of my wife's death my mom took me aside and said that I was killing my family. The kids were emotional wrecks, I never left the house and she was getting more depressed every day watching us disintegrate. She told me to go out and get fucked, at any cost, on Saturday.
"Go fuck some woman, any woman and don't come back until morning, Eric. I'm serious. Carol was a wonderful woman but she was only that, a woman. Half the world is female and you need let one of them get close to you. Fucking is a quick way to do that, so as your mom I'm telling you to go get fucked!" she had tears in her eyes but gave a little chuckle at the irony of a mother telling her son to go use some woman for his pleasure.
"I wouldn't have any idea how or where to even find a woman let alone one willing to have sex with me, Ma."
"Go down to Plato's. That's a pick up joint isn't it?"
"I think so. What if I just can't do it, mom. I don't want to start crying in the middle of a bar."
"No crying would be a bad way to pick up a woman. Don't do that." she laughed. "You can do this, Eric. Maybe, get angry at what has happened and take your revenge out on some poor girl. I don't mean hurt her, but give her an anger bang."
"How is it that my mother knows what an 'anger bang' is?" I asked in shock.
"I've watched a few movies, son. I'm up on things. Now, go get dressed and get your ashes hauled! I don't want to see you until morning. The kids and I will be fine."
Plato's six months later:
