Loyalty & Love
“It is WAY easier to leave than to stay.”
When I knew that my kids were on good paths in their grief and healing journeys, I sought professional support for mine. It’s said to put your mask on before helping others; in my case, knowing they were okay was my mask. Helping them daily, proving to them every day that we would be okay - that was my medicine.
It was never lost on me that I would need focused support for my own heartbreak, grief, and the very tragic capital-T-Trauma I experienced.
On the day my husband passed away, I found his body. That particular day marked the one day of the week on which we’d all leave the house together. Most days, I got the kids off to school and carried on with my plans, and Brian was able to have a slightly later start. But on Thursdays, we synced up.
On this particular Thursday, we didn’t. While rare, I figured he was doing telemedicine or perhaps taking the day to catch up on patient notes from home. After I took the kids to school, I hiked with our Golden Doodle. On my way home, I texted Brian to remind him to bring his bike to work. He was going to meet a friend for a ride - something he’d been meaning to get back into for a long time. When we got home, I even bathed my dog, as she got muddy on our hike. But Brian’s cars were still parked, unmoved. I wanted to see what his plan was, what was going on that day.
(Brian and I stopped sharing a bedroom in my second pregnancy - he snored like crazy, and our sleep schedules were too different.)
When I got to Brian’s space, everything was still.
I have compartmentalized the events that followed, knowing they are integrated with but also entirely separate and different from the other pain I have been feeling. When I resumed working with my longtime therapist, I’d shelved this particular part of my day because I really wasn’t sure how to approach it or how it would affect me.
But I know that finding and trying to revive the dead body of your life partner, your husband, is a capital-T-Trauma.
I felt stillness and quiet and called his name. When I found him, facedown on his unmade bed (he’d laundered his bedding), I knew right away. Yet, I had hope. This simply couldn’t be. This was a dream. A fucking nightmare. I’d just lived a totally normal morning with my kids, my dog. My morning routine.
I think it was then that I temporarily left my own body. To date, I don’t know whether minutes were minutes or 20x that. Whether I waited 30 seconds or 30 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. It was him, but it also wasn’t him. I firmly believe in our souls. I did CPR until the ambulance came. I got to see his beautiful green eyes one last time.
In trying to work through and heal this Trauma, I was asked to think about how my body felt at the time and then, as I look down upon myself in that moment, who I saw.
I’d never seen a dead body, and I’m not sure anything prepares one for it. But I did the things. I tried to rouse him; when the dispatcher told me to flip his body, I did - all 200 pounds of him; I administered CPR, while the chest compressions merely moved air through his chest and mouth and did nothing more.
While gruesome, that moment in time defines what I had committed to being to this man. To be committed, loyal, supportive, and loving through the very end. I look down in hindsight and see a terrified yet brave woman who showed the fuck up. Who never turned him away. Who never threw him away, no matter how hard shit got at times. Who never left.
When I had to leave the room so the paramedics could take over, as I had written before, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I was TRYING to crawl out of my skin. I wanted out of my body. I was rolling in wood chips. While I have never had suicidal ideation, and this sensation has nothing to do with the sentiment, I simply didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to be anywhere - this simply couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t BE in a place where this might be happening.
I kept begging the sheriff to tell me I was actually sleeping and none of this was happening. She just kept saying, “I am so, so sorry.”
I hope I never experience that type of shock again.
In conflict, inevitable in partnership or marriage, I always told Brian: “It is WAY easier to leave than to stay.”
Staying means compromise. It means hard self-work. It means tough conversations. It means sacrifice. It can mean disappointment and heartbreak. As I said in my eulogy earlier this month:
“I have always said that humans are the ultimate variables. We are constantly changing, evolving, growing, questioning, challenging, ailing, aging. Most of the time, we don’t know what is going on or why. Which is why marriage is so tricky. You say some vows one day. But real, true marriage is a daily, conscious commitment. Brian and I did not have an easy journey. But what he and I share in common through this very day is the stuff that matters most.”
Daily. Conscious. Commitment.
As I process that particular morning, however gruesome and painful, I am starting to see how, in many ways, it’s emblematic of our bond. I showed up for Brian the way I always did. And of this, I am proud. I still think painfully about him in his final moments - did he know what was happening? It’s said that, in a sudden cardiac arrest, the “process” takes about 1-2 minutes, with the person losing consciousness nearly immediately. I love this person so much. To think of him powerless in this capacity is heartbreaking. I know there is nothing I can do about it. I suppose I can lean into gratitude that it was painless and quick.
I am still so early in my journey. I hate the grief’s non-linear trajectory. I wish the pain would lessen and stay that way. I hope he can see me, our kids. I hope he knows how deeply loved he is. That’s really all I want.
I look back at the last text message I ever sent him, about bringing his bike to work, and how he didn’t see it. I wonder if he can see it now.
