Thirty Days

How a month can change things. The holidays are here. We had so many plans for the holidays this year. Our youngest son’s 5th birthday has passed. That was day 14. That was rough. Halloween.

Now we’re prepping for a trip to Asheville for Thanksgiving with family. We were looking up where we wanted to take the boys for a hike. Matt was planning on enjoying the campfire. We imagined our kids actually going to sleep at a regular time and we could hang by the fire at night to simply enjoy each other’s company while sitting under the stars. The thoughts reminded me of our honeymoon.

I’ve been trying to find the perfect pot roast for Christmas. We were focusing on breakfast previous years, but none of us are huge morning eaters. Christmas was our favorite holiday. It was always just the four of us. The boys would open their presents; Matt and I would sip coffee and enjoy the show. They’d play with all their new toys and we’d relax together. I was determined to find the perfect pot roast for this year and make it our “Christmas pot roast.” I did. I found it a couple weeks before Matt’s drop. The week following, he went to the grocery store and came back with another roast. I thought it was funny because, originally, he questioned my ingredients. But it was delicious. The week he bought it was our anniversary week and the week he was going out of town, so I froze it and planned to have it the day he came home. It was supposed to be Sunday. But there was more to the job than they all anticipated and he had to stay and work that Sunday. He made it to about 9 am before dropping through the roof of a warehouse.

Thirty days ago, on October 13th, Saturday, I had an overwhelming feeling of happiness and love. I realized in that moment how beautiful my life truly was. Matt and I have had ups and downs and through it all shared a fierce love that couldn’t be touched. I was happy. Truly. And I thought of my husband and how I was excited for him to get home because I just wanted to love him. I wanted him home with his family. I was sitting in “his chair” when that feeling came over me. I rarely sat in that chair. I rarely ever went in that room. Looking back, I call it the calm before the storm.

Later that night I woke up from a strange dream. Strange enough to wake me up. I went to the kitchen and stuffed a Krispy Kreme donut in my mouth and said aloud: Alright, Matt. I’ve reached my threshold. I’m ready for you to come home.

The next morning, October 14th, the boys and I woke up and scrambled to get ready. Since I knew Matt was working and I was getting us ready to leave, we texted back and forth that morning. We didn’t call each other. We simply texted because why not. They were fun and happy texts. His made me smile and I know mine did the same for him. The boys were going to a friend’s house and I was going to my volunteer place and Matt was already at work. So, we didn’t hear each other’s voice that morning. We figured we’d just call at lunch.

It was about 10 minutes before I was going to say bye to the boys and leave for a few hours, come back to pick them up. Grab some groceries or maybe just a quick dinner. Get ready for bed. Wake up. Go to school. Come home and have dinner with daddy. About ten minutes before that regular Sunday routine could take place is when I got the call that changed my life forever. The world immediately started spinning, but slowly. I was in shock. I left my kids at our friend’s house and intended on going about my day. I was in shock. I didn’t know. And then I realized what the hell was happening.

And then it hit me while I was driving. Fuck. I went home to gather clothes for me and the kids and called the hospital. The neurosurgeon didn’t want me to get my hopes up. He used the words “terrible” and “unfortunate” several times. I knew he wasn’t coming home with me. I didn’t know how long we’d make him hang on, or if he’d die on his own, or if I’d need to make the call, but I knew he wasn’t coming home. This was it. He’s been out of this house for about five days now and he wasn’t even given the courtesy of sleeping in his own bed before he died. That detail pisses me off. He hasn’t touched me in days. He hasn’t hugged our boys or heard their “I love you, daddy” face-to-face in days. What kind of shit is that.

When I walked into that hospital it felt so surreal. I knew my husband was dying and this is where we were saying goodbye. In fucking Tennessee. When I first saw him—my heart sunk. I could feel it. I didn’t cry. I breathed pretty heavily, checked his body, admired how beautiful his face still looked through all of this. He was so warm. He was always so warm. I wanted to crawl into bed with him. I should have. It wouldn’t have changed anything. I wouldn’t have stimulated him so much that he would…. What? Die? He already was, just not officially. I watched them do so many vital checks. The nurse performed them every two or four hours. The ones where I saw his eyeballs really brought the reality of the situation in for me. The pinching and squeezing—whatever. But to see his eyes with no light inside and no movement when an outside object touched them—he was gone. People were holding onto hope, but he left when he hit that concrete; and he would not have wanted the life he’d be given if someone brought him back to simply be able to still touch his warm body. He was gone.

The past thirty days have been filled with things I wish I never had to do. The phone calls. The arrangements. The disappointments. The heartache. Finding the strength to smile everyday and be alive for my kids and for myself and for his memory is exhausting. I’m not sure what happens from here. The old cliché of “home is where the heart is” is pretty confusing right now. The three of us left in this house lost a huge chunk of our hearts just 30 days ago. It burns. And it hurts. And hopefully that’ll eventually be how the light gets in. One can hope.

We married on October 10, 2010. Our story started long before that. The last time we touched each other, fully alive, was October 10, 2018.  And our story will continue. Somehow. Long after this.