But over time, we managed to cope with the reality of Melissa’s absence. My days consisted of struggling to balance my commitments and the long and tiring chemo sessions. My biggest concern was that my girls could lose their father.
The following year was a real hell. Chemo was excruciating, leaving me vomiting and barely standing on my legs. I lost my hair and a significant amount of weight. But I refused to give up.
After all those struggles, twelve rounds of chemo and a number of radiotherapies, I was finally c..a.n.cer-free.
And then, two years after my wife abandoned us, I met her at a gas station and the meeting almost felt like poetic justice. Seeing her after that much time felt surreal. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Melissa, is that you?” I asked as soon as I got out of my car.
She looked older and fragile, as though her entire world collapsed.
Melissa tried to avoid me at first, but she then asked to talk to me at the nearest park.
The woman who felt confident and wanted more from her life than being around her husband and her children was now crushed. She regretted her decision of ever leaving and begged to reconnect with her daughters.
“No, Melissa,” I said firmly. “They spent a long time feeling miserable because their mother had left them. But now they finally moved on an are thriving.”
Her new man, Marco, turned out to be a fraud who left her penniless.
At one point, I even felt sorry for my wife who left me and the kids and her poor choices, but I didn’t let her tears change my decision of not taking her back.
Both me and my kids deserved better.