mward.blog

The beach is my favorite place in the whole world.  I don’t go in the water and I hate getting sandy but despite that, I love it so much.  I am at Newport Beach.  It’s cold for California and I am wearing a sweater even though I came from New York yesterday where it was 28 degrees.  I feel so close to my husband here.  He loved the beach as much as I do.  He even went in the water and would stay in forever.  We had some great times at the beach.  Sometimes a bunch of us would go and have a fire and just hang out.  It was such a simple time.  I am at such a crossroads in my life.  I would love to move back to California.  It’s just so expensive and more importantly it is too far from my kids.  I just can’t leave them.  I don’t want to leave them.  My daughter and I still have so much to work through.  I am still not sure why she’s angry at me, but she is blogging and expressing her feelings that way.  It’s great to read but also horrible as I hate she’s in pain.  No matter how old your children get, they are still your children.  Of course they won’t understand that until they have their own.  It’s a cruel joke in a way.  I’m my mom telling me these things that she would say to me and annoy me!  If she doesn’t text me back I feel she’s angry at me.  I’m trying to not feel that way.  I have to realize she’s a grown up, married and has a busy career.  It still hurts.  I love both my kids so much.  When she couldn’t tell me she loved me when she dropped me at the airport, I’m still not sure I can recover.  I haven’t even told my therapist about that yet.  I don’t want her to think she’s a bad person because she’s not at all.  I have decided I’m staying in NY until April and then probably moving back to Boston.  I loved it there and had made a life for myself. You can’t go home again I have learned. I was gone 5 years, people moved on, made new friends.  I may spend a month in California, I just don’t know.  My daughter and her husband bought a house and I’ve been there 3 times, maybe.

So apparently I suck at blogging since its been three years since I wrote the last posts. My therapist recommended it as apparently I’ve developed a case of OCD.  It is pretty bad and consumes most of my night. It involves self harm. The funny thing is, no one would know.  I mean no one. I keep it all to myself.  I don’t want to burden my children or my friends. Three years and I am still dying inside. Every day there are reminders that I am alone.  The only person I could rely on and talk to every single day is gone.  A lot of great things have happened since he died.  My daughter earned her masters in teaching, married an amazing man and will have a great life.  My son married an amazing woman that I adore and is in law school.  Ivy League, top of his class.  I am alone.  Yes it is a pity party.  I have a dog.  That is it. What am I supposed to do? I want to run away.  I run every day.  I take trips and still I am running.  My daughter started a blog.  She called to tell me about it since I would see it.  I feel I could copy and paste and change the name to my own.  We are living the same life.  She doesn’t understand and I don’t fault her at all.  This is the worst thing that has happened to her.  I have lost my step dad and my mom and it was horrible.  After my husband died, I no longer grieve my parents. It is a whole new ball game when it is your spouse.

I started traveling as a way to cope and run and avoid.  I go to places my husband and I discussed. I went to Nice in 2018. This year I went to London and Paris, which was amazing.  But I was alone.  I go to California frequently and as of this writing I am in Miami.  Next is Toronto. It’s running, that’s all it is.  It has to stop

After a horrible night in a hotel, we make our way to the funeral home.  We sit there numb as the director asks us question after question. Questions I don’t want to answer.  My children are distraught, my son’s girlfriend and my daughters boyfriend are not much better.  No one wants to eat, sleep, or sit in a funeral home answering questions.  The only thing we want to know at this point is can we see him?  After getting through the funeral home, we go back to the hotel to attempt to get things ready for Friday.  My son is going to give a eulogy and I have to put a music list together to play in the background.  We are also getting photos together to share with everyone.  The question is why are we doing all this?  I want to die, I don’t care about getting picture and music together, but I do it because what is my other option?

The next morning we are heading over to see Bart one last time.  I am so afraid but have to be strong for the kids.  The funeral home he is at is an hour away as that was closest to home.  We arrive and I go first.  I see him laying there and I am done.  How can the most wonderful, kindest person in the world be gone?  I beg him to come back to me.  I apologize for anything I can think of that I may have done wrong.  I tell him I can’t do this without him.  He looks so peaceful that I almost want to take a picture, but don’t and I regret it now.  I hug him, I kiss him and I cry and cry and cry.  My daughter went next and it is as horrible as you can imagine  I want to run to her and just hug her but I know I can’t.  Everyone needs their own time with him.  My son goes next and I can tell how hard it is for him too.  I feel bad for men sometimes because they do feel the need to be strong and it sucks   My daughter sits close to me and I tell her that I lost your dad I can’t lose you too.  She said she can’t look at me, it’s too painful and I know we have a long road ahead.  It absolutely tears me apart that I have to leave him there and that he is going to be cremated. I will never see him again.

The next few days are a blur.  We move to a hotel closer to the other funeral home.  My sister comes to town and my brother comes too.  I have two family members I can rely on our of 4 siblings.  They don’t disappoint.  Friends come over, we hang out at the pool and visit with friends.  We get ready for the 2nd worst day of our lives.

My husband has died.  My children no longer have a father.  As I listen to my daughter wailing in the background, I think to myself, “Oh my God, I have to call my son.”  He knows we haven’t heard from him and is concerned.  How do I tell him over the phone? My daughter is begging me not to tell him.  Literally begging me to please not tell him.  I know she’s not thinking rationally but I get it.  How do you tell your child over the phone that his father has died.  I make the call and put on my best “everything’s fine” voice because I want him to be home when I tell him.  He answers and I said, “Hey, where are you?”  He’s at the store.  “Can you call me when you get home?”  He knows something’s wrong despite my best efforts and he tells me he’s in the car in the parking lot.  I tell him his father died.  He says, “What?”  I will never forget the way he said it.  The disbelief in his voice.  The heartache and pain.  He is going to drive home and be with his girlfriend.  My heart is officially broken  We have wonderful, beautiful, kind children.  This is not supposed to happen to them.  All we want is for them to be happy and they are devastated.  

Now what do I do?  My daughter is still inconsolable, my son is in NY and I’ve got to start making phone calls because I honestly don’t know what to do.  I call his younger brother.  My daughter ends up having to tell him, because I have another call I have to take.  He told me he fell to his knees in agony.  This is his third sibling to die.  I call my sister, my best friend, my boss, the coroner calls asking me questions I can’t and shouldn’t be answering.  It’s too soon.  In the meantime, we need to get to NY.  The problem is my daughter refuses to leave.  She is distraught, hyperventilating, numb.  She won’t go.  If she doesn’t go, it’s not real.  My only choice is to call 911 and get them to help me.  She needs something to calm her down.  I will never forget.  They arrive and are so nice and supportive and decide to transport her to the hospital where maybe they can give her a sedative.  In the meantime, I can’t help but notice that she flinches if I touch her and she can’t look at me.  We had always been close, and had some issues over the years but this is different.  We get to the hospital and I call her former boss who is more of a friend now and even though she just had a baby and has two other toddlers at home, she comes to the hospital.  She is a calming presence, someone my daughter will listen to.  After 3 hours at the hospital and a prescription, we finally are heading to NY.  We all agree to meet at a hotel as no one wants to go to the place where their dad died.  I finally see my son and girlfriend and we just hug and hug and cry.  It’s now close to midnight, we are all exhausted.  My son, his girlfriend, my daughter and her boyfriend are in a room and I have the adjoining room.  I’m scared.  We have to go to bed but how will we sleep?  How can I go to sleep knowing my husband died in his sleep?  Will I die tonight too?  My fear and grief keeps me up most of the night.  I know deep inside I will not survive this heartache.  We have been married almost 34 years.  I dated him at 18 married at 19 and 34 years later, he’s gone.  What am I going to do?  I really have no idea.  My daughter can barely look at me, she must blame me for not being there.  That hurts too.  How will we ever get through this?  

How can I possibly close my eyes to go to sleep when I am positive I am not waking up?

At 54 years of age, I never thought I would start a blog.  After almost making it through the worst year of my life, I feel the need to share my story.  To be honest, I am hoping it is therapeutic.

I remember the day like it was yesterday.  As I sit here I don’t see how a year has gone by.  It has flown, yet been the longest, hardest year of my life.

August 26th, 2016

I’m in Boston today, have the day off from work.  I work in Boston during the week and head to NY to spend the weekend with my husband.  I decided to spend some time shopping and had a nice, long conversation with my husband.  I couldn’t wait to get to NY Sunday as we were taking our son and his girlfriend on a boat ride on Lake George.  As we always did, we ended the call with, “I love you”.  I went to the gym and spent an hour working out and used the pool for the first time since joining.  My husband worked an overnight shift at work and he texted me when he returned home to let me know he would call me when he got up.  August 27, 2016.  My daughter came to town so I took her and her boyfriend shopping and out to lunch.  When 1:30 rolled around and my husband hadn’t called, I wasn’t too concerned as he has been late calling me before.  We started heading home and by 2 I still hadn’t heard from him.  I was starting to get nervous.  I called the apartment manager and begged them to go check on him.  His car was still there.  Obviously I had called and texted him a million times by then.  They knocked on the door and he didn’t answer.  I begged them again to please go in, that he didn’t have any weapons and maybe you would startle him but he wouldn’t hurt you.  In the meantime I called his work and they said he didn’t show up.  HE ALWAYS SHOWS UP!  The man who answered the phone said he would contact his boss and send him over.  It was then  I knew.  I just knew.  My daughter kept saying I was worrying about nothing and dad was going to be mad for making such a big deal.  I was already crying.  How did I know?  How? I am sitting on the floor leaning against the ottoman crying.  My daughter is on the couch with her boyfriend and her dog Sophie.  I am waiting for someone to call me.  My husbands boss finally calls, but it’s not him on the line, it’s the police.  He identified himself and all I could say was, what???  He said, “I’m sorry he passed away”.  I screamed and screamed, no, no no!  My daughter looked at me in horror and asked me, what?  I had to tell her that her dad had died.  The sound that came from her will always be in the back of my mind.  She became completely hysterical and was hitting windows and going around the house yelling over and over, that he’s mine, he’s mine.  Over and over and over again.  At this point I don’t know what to do.  I am simply lost.