I miss you today.
That’s all that I have as a reflection today.
I miss your smile. I miss your hands on mine. I miss your hugs. I miss your voice. I miss your laughter. I miss our banter.
I just very simply miss you.
He Told Me He Wanted to Die
The police officer took my statement and went over a few things. He was gentle with the questioning and made sure I had time to process. The questions were simple and I don’t remember most of it now. I remember showing him my phone, the simple displayed texts belied the gravity of their message. My husband had sent a suicide note via text while I slept.
“Had he ever mentioned wanting to take his life before?” the officer asked.
I barely paused to consider the question before shaking my head. No.
Later that evening, as my mind sifted through jumbled thoughts and emotions, I realized I had lied. Not intentionally, of course. But he had mentioned suicide. Years ago. And only once.
*
I walked into our bedroom and found my husband sitting on the edge of the bed. His brow was furrowed like he was deep in thought.
I paused a moment and drank in the scene.
“You okay?” I asked.
He looked up at me, concentration broken. He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“I was just thinking,” he said, “that sometimes I feel like killing myself.”
The statement was so nonchalant I almost didn’t understand it.
I must have reacted because he shook his head and stood up. He closed the space between us and kissed me. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I wouldn’t actually kill myself. I have you and our son. I wouldn’t leave you.”
I watched him leave the room and then life continued. He’d never mention suicide again. I’d never ask if he ever revisited the idea of killing himself. I’d actually never think of him as suicidal.
*
I obsessed over that moment when it was too late to intervene or do anything.
What other signs had I missed? What other ways had I failed him?
Why are we so afraid to ask if someone is suicidal?
If I’ve learned anything, it’s to ask. The question is taboo but so important.
“Have you ever thought of killing yourself?”
Bad Coping Skills
You’re so strong. -everybody
I hate when people say that.
What does that mean? That I wake up in the morning? That they’re glad it’s not them?
That I didn’t follow suit?
WHAT DO THEY MEAN??
Will I ever know? Who knows.
But I do know that most days I do wake up. And I do get my kids ready for school. I work. And plan for the future. I bathe. And clean my house. I buy clothes. And I schedule vacations.
I even worry about current political events.
Question: has anyone had a spouse die and have people tell them they’re NOT strong? That they’re failing at this “after death” part of the vows?
Well, you know what? I’m currently drinking. And eating ice cream. And angry.
Am I still “so strong?”
You’re Not Here
What a strange thought.
You’re not here anymore.
Sometimes it feels like you’ve just gone away for a bit. Maybe you’re on a vacation or visiting family. Maybe you’re deployed again and I communications are briefly down.
But you’re not.
Sometimes it hits me full force: you’re dead. You died. I buried you. You’re gone.
It hits me when I walk into the living room. I expect to see you but there’s an emptiness in that room instead.
I think of planning dinner and remember what you like, but then realize it doesn’t matter because you won’t be here to join me.
I look forward to embracing you, touching you…but that’s something that has long passed.
No more conversations with you.
No more planning a future with you.
No more.
It’s all gone.
Because you’re not here.
Children’s Grief Can Leave One Breathless
I’m driving to the gym, a routine day. There’s a children’s area where my boys will play with a few other little ones. They normally like to go and enjoy their time out and about. It’s a social thing, healthy for both body and soul.
Initially, making it to the gym was a feat. Everything seemed like a chore. Eating, dressing, bathing, cleaning.
Everything.
I waded through mud for a while. How long? I don’t even know. Weeks, months? More?
Living took energy that I could barely muster.
And yet, one foot in front of the other, I stumbled.
Eventually, the days started to run smoother. The gym did help. Seeing myself improve in areas like speed and strength helped solidify the idea that my new normal could include improvements. Smiles and laughter were possible, dreams and plans could continue or be made.
But we still also held a lot of grief. And that grief bled out into normal life every now and again.
Grief for myself, and I guess most adults, can come suddenly, but it tends to last. Plans are cancelled, time is spent processing.
Children grieve differently. Their grief is a flash fire that arrives and then is over before one has time to breathe deeply twice.
I was halfway to the gym when my oldest burst into tears. I was startled, not sure what to think. Was he hurt? Did his brother hit him?
“What’s wrong, mi amor?”
“I want my old gym!” he cried. Sobs wracked his body.
“Your old gym? The one by the old house?” I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. “Do-do you want me to sign up for new classes?”
Then everything.
“NO! I want the old gym! I miss my house! I miss my daddy! I miss my friends! I don’t want a new class! My daddy is gone!”
I pulled into the nearest parking lot and pulled him out of his booster seat. His little body trembled as I held him. I held him tightly to me, as if I could absorb all his pain and spare him these moments.
His head leaned against my shoulder for a minute after he stopped crying and then popped up.
“Mommy?”
My eyes were huge and filled with tears. I could barely speak. “Yes?”
“Can we go to the park after the gym?”
With that, it was over.
I cleared my throat and blinked a few times. “I think maybe let’s go back home and watch a movie, yes?”
He smiled. “Okay.”
I was left breathless for the rest of the day. He clung to me closer for the rest of the day but there was no other outburst.
Both children would curl up next to me that night, little hands clinging onto my shirt or my hands, as if to make sure I wouldn’t wander away as well, leaving them with no one.
The Demons of Abuse
I’m not innocent in any of this. I’m scarred as much as you were. We went through the early years fighting to survive, you and I. My childhood left scars from food insecurity and transient homelessness. My family and I bounced from stranger’s basements to government housing to battered women’s shelters.
My mother, weighed down by her sins, fought for us, her children. She was gone before we woke up for school, back long after we had started dinner for ourselves. And yet, for the limited time she had, she bathed us in hugs and pleasant memories every second that she could spare. I have fond memories of warm, yellow rice filling my belly when the only thing left was rice, canned tomatoes, and salt. In spite of being victims of a system that stomps on your neck and refuses to let up, we made it to adulthood. I climbed my way out, just barely.
You had consistent meals and clean clothes, but were violated in ways that anyone, let alone a child, should ever have to face. You were let down by everybody that was supposed to love you. Based on your accounts and the tearful belated apologies from some of the adults in your life, your life was, quite simply, an adolescent hell. The assumption was you would end up in prison forever.
And yet you persisted, you climbed out of the mud, demons still clinging tightly to your back, and you surprised the world.
It’s no wonder we were drawn to the other. We both knew pain and trauma; we knew the coldness of the world at a time when many other children were safely tucked into soft beds.
Maybe that’s what we meant when we uttered our vows to each other. Forever and honor meant that we would make our own family, our own children, and we’d give them the safety and warmth and brilliance that had been severely lacking in ours. We’d heal through love, loving each other, loving our children.
But that’s not how it works. No one explained that healing is a process, a journey that’s personal. You can’t take someone else and fill the cracks in your own soul.
But we didn’t know.
And in the end, the demons crept back. They found you, they consumed you. And I lost you. And now I’m left missing you. Forever.
I feel like I failed you. I didn’t recognize the severity of what you were feeling because of what I was going through. The stigmas of mental health and the craziness of the life we were living kept us too close to the fire. We couldn’t tell the difference between light and flame, and the smoke ended up suffocating us.
I’m sorry I failed you.
I’m angry with the family that raised you. I’m angry at myself. I’m angry at the things that were said, the things left unsaid. I’m angry we didn’t have a chance.
I’m angry that for the conservative opinions of yours that had you exercising your right to own a gun because though we practiced on the range, the only time it was ever used outside of practice was not for hunting or for defense…it was to stop the suffering. You ended your life in the pull of a trigger.
I’m Afraid I’ll Forget You
I have not enough photos and not one video of yours. I have daily reminders in the eyes of your children, in small mannerisms that were passed along via the complexities of genetics. A boisterous laugh rings out and I can hear yours alongside it. A little boy runs along a river bank and I see an echo of your gait.
Even so, I’m afraid I’ll forget you. Sometimes I struggle remembering the depth of your voice, the texture of your hands. I wish I could recall some of the late night conversations, the stolen minutes between being parents, deployments, and military lifestyles. I worry that one day, the sands of time will have eroded all of what I had of yours.
I remember little boys tossed into the air, shrieks of laughter peppering the sky. I remember bedtime stories and snuggles on sick days. I remember the day you first held them in your arms.
I remember us, sipping beers, staying up way too late, enjoying each other’s company after a busy day. I remember date nights and impromptu work lunches. I remember the smell of grease and oil, a hint of the cigarettes you always tried to quit, when you walked in through the door.
I remember arguments sparked from the difficulty of a dual-military lifestyle. I remember your grateful grin when I finally returned from the ship. I remember tears and kisses pre and post deployments. I remember the angry messages sent through email, the distance taking its toll on us.
I remember cook outs with friends and walking the beach. I remember long road trips to see family and small, backyard firework shows.
I remember so much but it seems like so little.
If there’s anything I can ask of my aging self, please hold tightly to the memories. I hope I continue to see you in the everyday things.
It hurt so much to lose you, but I never want to forget, the ugly, the amazing, the beautiful, the sad. I want it all because it all was you.
Dreams
I have this dream where
I’m missing something valuable
I wake up and make my coffee
I spoon oatmeal into a bowl
The air feels still and silent
Then electrons stir
You walk in like nothing
A slight smile as if to say good morning
I’m startled, I’m stunned
You’ve been gone
But I don’t know why
Why did you leave me?
Were you ever gone to begin with?
Why did these tears appear?
You stop short of where I sit
I stand and get close
I’m afraid to touch you
I reach out to see if you feel as solid as you seem
But then, no
You’re not solid, you’re not real
The room is empty again
You died
That’s why you’ve been gone
The room is always empty
You’re never there for breakfast
You’re never in the living room
Never watching television
Never getting ready for work
Never reading bedtime stories to our darling boys
Never slipping in beside me at night
There’s just an emptiness
Dark, heavy emptiness
That lingers in the rooms where you used to be
And then I wake up
I reach for you as if to confirm what I know
Just emptiness on your side of the bed
I never knew emptiness could weigh so much
I never knew emptiness could cling
It even follows me to my dreams
Insomnia
“I knew this feeling, the 2 a.m. loneliness…”
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby
I can’t sleep. My mind races, a tangled mess.
It keeps trying to take me back to the morning I found him. There are flashes of events: walking down the sidewalk, the unnatural warmth of a February morning, flashing lights…a bloodied shirt.
When I close my eyes, I feel anxious. When I open them, I feel weary.
I wish the black, inkiness of the night would consume me. I want to crawl into a void, a bottomless pit.
Is this what purgatory is like?
I don’t wish for death, but I don’t want life.
I don’t know what I should be feeling: fury, sadness, guilt, anger, despair. Maybe I feel all this at once and that’s why my body can’t settle down. I need to untangle myself from the events that just occurred.
I’m 24-years-old. I’m planning the funeral of my 27-year-old husband. His demons haunted him, alcohol poisoned him, our marriage trouble him. Whose doing is this? His for pointing that gun to his head? Mine for all the arguments that a dual-military lifestyle brought to us? His family for the abuse they delivered throughout his whole life? The military for worsening the depression that plagued him? Society’s for stigmatizing mental health screenings and illnesses? Is it all of us at blame?
Does it even matter at this point because he’s never coming back, my children will never really know him, and everything that we knew has ended.
That bullet pierced the fabric of before and left a mess of what’s now after and I’m left lying on a bed facing the loneliness of the night.
How Long is a Day?
When I was a child, summer was endless. Each day stretched out longer than the horizon. My siblings and I turned feral; we would wander the neighborhood pretending to be lost pirates at sea, adventurers discovering new lands in the wooded area of the semi-maintained town park, or simply play tag. With dirty, bare feet and flushed faces, we’d find our way home once we couldn’t justify the amount of light left in the sky.
As an adult with children, a career, university classes, and the normal day-to-day of any other adult, the days can sometimes fly by and I’m left shocked that a new year is about to begin.
How long is a day?
I imagine that it depends on the unit of measure. Is one counting minutes, hours, moments? A deadline makes for the short unit of measure, especially for a procrastinator like myself. A heart break is the longest.
The longest day of my life began the morning after an argument with my husband. I had gone to sleep exhausted, my emotional state fragile and frazzled. Sometimes I hate thinking of it.
I had been afraid that night but let’s not dive too deep into what occurred before…not because I don’t remember, but because at the time of this writing, I’m not ready to look deeply into what was.
I curled myself around the warm, sleeping body of my toddler, my oldest sleeping just across from me in his own little bed. Their breaths lulled me to sleep, even when my mind raced and ached. I felt battered.
I woke up to chaos in my bedroom. Harsh light spilled out into the hallway and I was surprised that he was awake. I crept into the bedroom but no one was there. Just a rumpled bed and an open gun safe. My mind registered the scene but didn’t begin to try an process the images. I only wondered why the house was so silent if someone was awake.
When I finally found my husband, time stopped for me. There was no initial cry or scream. The finality of the situation didn’t break me until I called 911 and began to talk. I thought I was speaking slowly and clearly.
“Ma’am, please slow down and repeat your address. I can’t understand you.”
Was I crying? Was I screaming?
Time slipped by as slow as molasses. I was so frustrated at the day. Morning wasn’t over and I longed for dusk, I longed for the night, I longed for a new day to begin. I don’t even know why. Maybe I just wanted it to be any day other than the day that death visited our family, another day than the one in which my husband took his life.
That day lasted a hundred years. I aged a lifetime by the next morning. Inside my soul, a dull knife slashed me open. I bled out without dying. I was an empty husk that watched the events around me unfold.
I fell into an ocean of grief and pain, but it was too much to process. I was in shock and I had two buoys barely holding my nose above water. They were 2 and 4-years-old. As they were rushed past the body of their lifeless father, blankets covering their heads so they wouldn’t witness a thing, I realized that our entire world had ended and I had to figure out how to piece together a new one for them.
The World Still Turned 