The Moment

I still have never felt as much shock to my body as I did in that moment. The moment everything changed. Even after speaking with doctors and sitting next to his hospital bed knowing he was never coming home, the crash that hit my body with his last breath is something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. 

It all collided down in one moment. The only object standing still was me, looking straight ahead with a phone in my hand. 

When I think back to the moment the doctor declared his time of death, the walls are still dripping. The image of everything in that room is warped. 

I let it continue to be that way. I don’t try to train my brain to stop the walls from melting. I remember it how I experienced it. 

While it only lasted for a moment, it was the longest moment I’ve ever endured. I felt the air escape my body. I felt the pause. And then I felt air fill my lungs. I was hollowed out, but alive. The room was loud with the sound of shoes shuffling on the floor. Machines were being hooked up again and people were saying words. I looked over at my husband and knew he wasn’t there anymore. 

While I’m only 37 now, I was 34 on that day. And knowing every experience I’ve had since then, those dripping walls feel so much further away than a little over three years ago. I’ve outlived my husband who would be turning 40 this year. This month. Sometimes I allow myself to wonder how we would celebrate him stepping into a new decade. But I never keep my mind there for long. I imagine us laughing together as a family, eating his favorite cake I always baked for him, while he and our boys try to outwit each other, and then I leave it. I leave it as quickly as I leave the dripping walls. 

To be completely honest, they feel about the same. The final goodbye and the never-wills. But the loudness of the shuffling shoes and the memory of his body let me know we won’t ever be sitting around as a family, laughing and eating cake together, again. If I spend my days wondering what life would be like if he was still here, or if I spend my days standing still while everything falls apart around me, I’ll never move again. 

It’s incredibly difficult to see straight after that type of moment. It’s difficult to think straight. It’s difficult to function at the base level. 

You will, though. And that’s still more surreal to me than the dripping walls. 

When I think of everything I’ve done from that moment to today, it’s all in a world I would have never imagined as the young, 34 year old woman who got that first phone call. And every moment now is painfully and joyfully real. 

When I turned 37 I brought with me a new perspective to life. Every choice I make will happen on a day that I am living where my husband and so many others never had the chance to do. Any bit of push and pull between survival and truly living that we go through as widows was washed away. I will not live in survival mode. Even when I’m struggling, even when I have no idea how I am going to get through everything (I think) I need to do in a day, I know I can because I am alive in a world full of possibilities. 

I still do not claim to know what happens after we die. But I do believe, from my own experiences the night before my husband’s accident to every single day of my life since then, there is so much more to this world than what we see. There is so much happening around us that we cannot even fathom. I was resistant to that at first, but it was very much in my face. Even when our world feels very bleak and empty, there is beauty circling all around us. 

We are simply humans living in bodies and given choices. And we’ll fuck it up. And then we’ll figure it out. And hopefully we figure it out more than we screw it up, but either way we learn more and more everyday. We learn more about ourselves, this world, and the ones who are no longer beside us. It’s in accepting that one day the walls around you may melt and crumble and shake and take your breath; then your lungs will fill just enough to know you’re alive and standing in a mess. And this, as brutal as it will be, is when your world begins again. This is your bottom. This is the start of a new process. Will you choose to listen to your body? Listen to your gut and trust your intuition? Will you make choices that feed into your soul that allow you to live in a way that fulfills you? Maybe you don’t want to—and that’s the beauty of it all—it’s your choice. And you can decide whenever you’re ready. Please remember, though, somewhere in the depths of the clutter in your brain, that letting those morphed faces be only a momentary flash rather than your everyday image will shift your eyes to the possibilities around you. And knowing that you stood tall and alive while everything broke around you (and likely even inside you) will give you the strength to continue moving forward. 

At some point, you’ll think more about the beautiful days you did share rather than the ones that hurt you, or the moment everything changed, or the moments you won’t get to experience. Memories and daydreams are always allowed. Trusting yourself is what will actually make miracles happen. 

We can’t control the actions of others. We don’t truly know what another person will do. We cannot escape death. But we can control our own actions. We can believe in ourselves enough to know that when it all falls apart, we will handle it. We will move again. 

There is no box we have to stay in. Failing doesn’t matter anymore because you know there’s another option waiting for you. There’s a another opportunity to try again or take what you’ve learned and move on to something new.

People will hurt you.

People will love you endlessly. 

Just like everyone around you who is living, people who have died also fucked up.

None of that is within your control. You can’t mop up those walls or piece everything back together as it was. I tried. There’s nothing left to grow there. That moment happened and now it’s gone. Today you get to choose you. To love yourself. And trust yourself. And embrace your inner badass to live in a way that truly fuels you. 

In that moment, our world completely shifted. The shock changed our vision. And when the wind hits just right, we’re reminded of those hollowed pieces. It’s almost as surreal as the dripping walls. As it blows through us we simultaneously give into the emptiness and breathe in knowing we are full of life. And no one around us notices a thing—the feet keep shuffling.