Yesterday would have been my husband's birthday so I am thinking about him, the loss, the recovery, etc. I lost him suddenly when he was 49. We had been married almost 26 years. We had three daughters, all in college at the time of his death.
#1: The First Day-- I had had about two weeks to get used to the idea that he would be down for a long time. Another week when things went hopelessly downhill and then I had to make the decision to unplug him. The doctors thought he might linger all summer in a coma. It was April 21. He died the very next day. It puts my stomach into knots to say this but there was some relief on my part. He was a grade school teacher. I was a high school teacher. We were living in a small town about three hours and a little more away from the hospital in Wichita where he had been airlifted. We were both running out of sick days. The credit cards were charged beyond triple what we had ever charged before, and that happened months before, when our daughter was sick so just a tankful of gas to get to Wichita was an awful expense. There was a motel across the street from the hospital that gave special rates to people with family in the hospital. I remember the desk clerk and the shuttle driver being so kind when I came in about 4 a.m., after he died. You just don't think of people like desk clerks being sensitive and kind.
The traveling to and from Wichita was so stressful. When I got home there were only more bills in the mailbox and worries on top of worries, the phone was shut off for a few weeks--landlines only in those days. The oldest girls were talking about quitting college. I said no way.
Our youngest daughter had been gravely ill all that winter, in ICU at one point. She was just beginning to regain her health when her father fell ill. The other two girls were in college. My husband and I were out of sick days and the expenses were mounting at an incredibly scary rate. No. We had insurance, good insurance, but you cannot believe how fast the average family can be drained even with health insurance. This beautiful kid went out and got a job in a nursing home the week after her dad died.
So, really, that first day was numb. I remember Columbine happening and talking about it with a nurse but other than that not much thinking except to nurture my sick daughter, get the girls together and comfort them, make the arrangements and pay another set of bills out of nothing. Being under contract my husband's salary ended the day he died. I was on part time sick leave. Thank God for my colleagues who had donated their sick days to me. Teachers of Ingalls, Kansas, District 477. Great people.
That morning before dawn I drove 4 hours to pick up our middle daughter from college and then another six to get home. We cried and we laughed. Don't remember what about. She and her sister say we stopped for Chinese. I have no memory of that. When we got to our house friends were there waiting for us--co-workers, neighbors, parked all up and down the street. My brother flew in that night from Eugene, Oregon. I have gone on record saying that my brother drives me nuts but I fell into his arms and cried.
The first week I worried that I might lose the house. The first month I wrecked the car for some stupid errand and could not scrape up the deductible to get it fixed until the life insurance and pension checks came in, in August. Oh, and the girls and I figured out how to start the my husband's tricky lawn mower. His friends had been mowing for us but that couldn't last forever.
The first year I talked my youngest into enrolling in the local junior college. She went part time and was terribly depressed about her father but managed to work and go to school. I paid her tuition by teaching night classes. My oldest graduated and moved to Ohio. The second oldest graduated that spring and came home to live with us.
The first year I decided to sell the house and move into teacher housing which was free. I wanted to move to another town because everyone always associated me with my husband. I felt that I would always be a sad widow lady if I stayed in the same town. The two youngest girls moved with me. The middle girl worked in my school. The younger stayed at the nursing home and managed to graduate from Dodge City Community College with an AA, despite the depression and meds.
All of us working and living together was not ideal. The teacher housing was a trailer but a nice trailer. Still, a trailer in a town of 288 people after a 4 bedroom house in a city of 26,00 is an adjustment. It was the only way to get out of debt. My girls were angry about the move. I wrote a novel about it--Fruit Salad and Wings. Funny thing, it is a comedy.
#2-- Sex? Hate to disappoint but no way. No man has ever looked remotely sexy to me in the last 17 years. (Well, there was that photo of Haggis a few years ago, but that was just a flash- pan, David Crosby thing.) He was not my first love and we definitely had a quirky relationship--female high school teacher/male second grade teacher? He was Virgo. I am Gemini.
I think the thing that most knocked me over was how much I loved that guy. In the20 some year whirl of raising 3 daughters, two careers, dealing with insane family, old Victorian house upkeep, I guess the true, blue, deep red, heart wrenching love between two older adults had been buried. Our girls were away from home that year before. For the first time we had time to bake bread and make our favorite soup and sandwiches together, to have real conversations and to share old memories of college days. He even admitted that he had seen the ghost I swore was haunting our basement. So, no. It was kind of like the tragic end to a first love. I just want him and I am tearing up right now.