This is a very personal post. The month of March appears to be rich in dramatic experiences.
I have just been told that Daniel Michael Kevin Jones (13 November, 1981 – 22 March, 2010) has died today at 12 noon in St James’s Hospital in Leeds. He was 28, he wanted to be a writer, and he was born with a liver condition that, sadly, could see him struggling through life. And he was my de jure husband.
We met online on 29th of August 2000. We were one of the first couples to have found each other via the Internet. A good proof for those who wonder if or not the web is a good place to find your other half. Neither of us was prepared for it, but we both embraced the change. A little over a year later – in November 2001 – we got married in Moscow. We separated in December 2006, a week after my birthday. In May 2008 I finally moved out of their house. He fell ill in late December 2009; he was taken in to Manchester Royal Infirmary in February 2010. I visited him twice there, and I even considered going to Leeds with him, even though he was no longer my husband. But certain things changed, including my financial circumstances, and I didn’t go. They were planning to give him the liver transplant, but I was told the operation never went through: he was too ill.
It was the first relationship proper for both of us, and it was always difficult to manage. We’d have fantastic times together, and then we’d have really hard, hard times. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that living with parents, first mine, then his, didn’t help things.
We owe a few important things to each other. I owe Daniel my British degree, living in another country, and all the experience I’ve gained that made me rethink certain things about how we approach life, people, goals, and relationships. He owes me the desire to be a writer, visiting new places, and the experience of breaking out of the rut. I’m not as strong as a bull when it comes to health. However, my parents always encouraged me to push the envelope. His family was much more cautious, and this would inevitably cause friction between us once we started living in his house. But when we met he did the impossible: he came to visit me in Moscow. He found a girl he’d fallen in love with, and he overturned every obstacle his parents or doctors tried to put in his place.
Truly, when we are in love, we do the impossible. Love doesn’t mean lust on this occasion, but rather this commitment and dedication to the object of your love (a person, a subject, a project, etc.) that sees you going for it with all ardour and vigour. In these ten years we undoubtedly have discovered a few things about each other that we didn’t like, but him going and getting me, against all odds, is likely to remain a benchmark of how much a man can do for a woman. Obviously, there are always other ways of showing love and appreciation, but one of the things I will always remember about Daniel is that first visit.
We separated after 5 years of trying. It was a hard work for both of us. I was too ambitious and, honestly, too different from him. Secretly, we both realised it quite early, but none wanted to admit that we wouldn’t be able to work around it. As for him, he turned out to not be as independent and go-getting, as it seemed at first. And this is how I learnt the lesson in the importance of your circle. There was a marked difference in Daniel who came to visit me in Moscow; Daniel whom I married and with whom I lived in my native city for over a year; and Daniel whom I found upon my arrival to England, after he’d spent 9 months living at home.
He changed in some ways in the years since we split. He regularly went out of his house to read and write; recently he’d grown a beard and had his hair down most of the time. We would meet occasionally, and the last time I saw him healthy and walking he was wearing a top hat. He had plans and dreams, and even though he was still too lenient to himself in going about them, it felt as though he was definitely getting there at last.
When I visited him in hospital in February, it hit me hard. I may not have had any feelings for him as a man any longer, but as a person who’d been in my life for nearly 10 years, he was dear to me. He looked dreadful, but I felt how much he feared. To think that his father died from ulcer nearly 4 years ago, in 2006, was terrible. Two days after that visit I was in the hospital again, seeing him going into a severe nervous breakdown, fighting all of us, not recognising anyone. But the most bizarre thing was that his mother wasn’t there. When I arrived, he was asking her to not talk to him. In the end, she took it really personally and left, saying to him: “It is because you’re like that with me that you’re in hospital”.
I was by his side all this time, but immediately as they gave him sedative and I had the chance to sit down and compose myself, I realised that this was the pivotal moment. In fact, my real self threw it upon me, and I had to accept. I realised that, as far as his mother was concerned, I was his wife; in fact, I wasn’t. I realised that there and then, by his bedside, I had to make a choice between my past and my future. The truth was that my present was ridden with problems, mostly financial, and by committing myself to the past I was to make them even more severe. And I would get even further away from the future.
I know it sounds almost heartless. It isn’t. It is not heartless to accept the fact that you are following your heart when you have every reason not to, while at the same time those who must be much more committed and passionate turn their backs on you and the person you care for. When I explained to my ex-mother-in-law that his son and I weren’t together any more, and that was the reason why I didn’t want Leeds hospital to approach me as the first contact, she asked: “So, you don’t love him anymore?” “I do”, I said, “but as person who did a lot to me, as my dear friend, not as my husband”.
I’m not sure she understood…
