Wilted Lettuce

I threw away the last of the flowers today… and the wilted shredded lettuce that I told him to grab the night before. My blue nail polish is faded and chipped from the July 4^th vacation. The house resembles an ordinary life. The laundry is still in baskets in the laundry room. The open toothpaste container is still next to the sink. The phone charger is still on his side of the bed. A single lottery ticket is propped in his car’s cup holder. His phone will occasionally ring. I can put the television on now. I moved his ‘important papers’ pile. I am moving within a space we called ‘ours’. I left the house last week. I left the house last week to go to the mall. I left the house last week to go to the mall to buy a funeral dress. It’s a time like no other when the living world touches the grief world. It’s as though you can almost hear the crash. Eye contact is non-existent. Things need to be accomplished but you only want to retreat back to your safety net. If you have ever lost someone very special to you, then you already know how it hurts, and if you haven’t, then you cannot possibly imagine it. But, unfortunately, someday you will. You see, there is a club that you never want to join. But you will one day. When just one person is missing, the entire world feels empty. We will all feel it at one time in our lives. It’s God’s funny way of reminding you what is important. “Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be”. And you move, even when moving is all that you can do. Moving without a plan and moving within a stillness that has no description. When you look at the world through tears, you see things that dry-eyes cannot see or feel. Immediately nothing matters; not the bills; not the laundry; not the workouts; not the vacuuming. Nothing. So you take a step forward…and then another step…and the next thing you know you have another day coming to a close. But you count them, much like a new mother counts the days of her newborn. Two weeks. We are at two weeks. Our loss is two weeks old. In 16 years I have never gone two weeks without seeing him. I have never gone more than 24 hours without talking to him. So I listen to the one text message from months ago saved in my voicemail just to remember what my past sounded like. It’s amazing what people can accomplish when tears are streaming down their faces.

I spent 8 hours, without sleep, writing the hardest story I have ever written. I had to write the most important story of all true stories. All the English classes in the entire world do not teach you how to write the obituary of your husband. The story of a man who left us years and years before he should have. I wanted to simple say: “Wally Christopher Kelly left this world on the night of July 11, 2019 and this is complete BULLSHIT!”. He always said I never listened to him. He always rambled on and on about things he had accomplished in his life. I have rolled many an eye to the stories he so loved to tell. Well, guess what honey, I listened. I remembered. I remembered the stories through a foggy brain and a shattered heart. It’s odd when your ‘co--rememberer’ is gone. Sixteen years of ‘inside stories’, kindergarten graduations, little league championships, family vacations, nights dancing in a Hawaiian hurricane, new business ventures together, room service in bed, our favorite restaurant in New York, our secretly despising the same people, the snowstorm of 2008 when we felt like the only people in the city, knowing exactly how each day begins and ends, and then… dissecting it. And then you realize you are the only one left that has that memory bank. I didn’t plan on doing this thing called  life without him. Muhammad Ali said that every fighter has a plan until they get hit. We got a one-two punch smack in the face.

There are images of Jackie Kennedy standing on the tarmac when her husband was assassinated. Pillbox hat. Blank state. Deflated. Unless you’ve known sudden and devastating loss I do not think that you can relate to that image. A picture says a thousand words and that photo says what words cannot describe. Deflated. Crushed. I read the funeral program today. Two weeks later. I am sure that I read it that day. I don’t remember. A gauntlet of grace from friends and family surrounded me, but my only thought was inhaling and exhaling. I have never experienced this in my life. The ability to be present but not. I remember thinking that it hurt to smile. I could hear myself breathing in and out and not much more than that. I wanted soft places like bed, pillows, arms, or laps, not the sterile reality of a wooden church pew.  I remember not having the strength to wipe the tears rolling down my face.

I know the sound that a heart makes when it breaks. It does not simply hurt inside one’s chest. It crumbles and thrashes. It wells up inside. It explodes with ferociousness. It is felt to the ends of your fingertips. It shakes. It wipes away worries and thoughts and plans and steals you of your strength. It leaves you lying on the floor begging God to wake you up from your horrible dream. It makes you remember and forget all at the same time. It makes your brain race through every memory both good and bad. It makes you replay and replay every word said to each other that last time together. It makes you retrace their steps in hopes of feeling them again. It makes you light candles. It makes you sit in silence. It makes you scream and curse at them for making you do the rest of life’s crap alone. It makes you look directly into the face of the ugliest giant there ever was. It makes you mad that the world is moving forward but you are stuck. See, when great hearts break they make a sound that you will never forget; a sound that feels like silence mixed with commotion. They say when you die your entire life flashes before your eyes; a broken heart causes the same results. It makes you see yourself from the outside looking inward. It makes you want to comfort the person that you see. It makes you watch this person that you know to be you but do not recognize. It has brought many a great man to their knees. It makes you pray to a greater God for the ability to stand when your knees are giving out. When a heart breaks it gets confused with what to do with the empty space within it. They say that the chemicals in tears when a loved one dies are not the same chemicals as in other tears. I tasted one (lots actually). They are different. They drip in my mouth sometimes when I am just too numb to grab a tissue.

I can’t begin to describe the feeling of the funeral. I sat among hundreds and hundreds of friends and family representing a life well lived. The service conducted around me, but I only heard myself talking to my husband. I watched him as he was placed in the front of the aisle of the church. I told him that this room was filled with all of his connections he made for the last 62.11 years. I have never felt more loved and alone; of which these words have no space within the same thought. I asked him why. I cursed him. I thanked him.

One-week prior we were on the streets of Coronado, California watching the Fourth of July parade. I watched the videos last night. I listened to him talking in the background. It was our tradition. It was part of ‘what we did’ every year. Little did I know that one week later I would be sitting in a church back office picking out psalms for his funeral. I heard it. I replayed it. Over and over. There in the background I hear his voice. My phone is recording the bagpipes marching down the street. I don’t remember the conversation at all, but it is there as my witness. I say, “Honey, we could have bagpipes at your funeral” (another inside banter we had following the death of his mother). “Now that would really hit the ball out of the park” he replied. One week later four pipers marched my husband out of the church…son holding his urn…blessed by our priest. You see, life does not fucking prepare you for this bullshit. Goddamnit!!!! Why the fuck? I don’t want or need these lessons in my life, God!

As I sit here and write this I know that he is still with us, although he is placed behind me in a beautiful blue urn, surrounded by mementos of his life. A life well lived. We feel him move around the house. I haven’t been able to let anyone in my/our bedroom. I told my Ashley that I feel like he is in there. An energy. I laughed when I told her that I am keeping him trapped in there and not letting him out. She replied that he would hate that. “I know”, I said. I know. God dammit, I KNOW! I know too much about this person. I hear him. I feel him guiding me. CS Lewis wrote, “As if God said, “Good; you have mastered that exercise. I am very pleased with it. And now you are ready to go on to the rest…”. But God, I needed him here. HERE! My only comfort is thinking about why God reached down and pulled him from us. I can only imagine that a man with so much power and drive and larger than life personality down here with us would only be just as strong of a powerful force up there…as he watches over us…and writes the next chapter of our lives under his direction.

Chili Fritos

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One year ago today (12/27) my husband died.

For 3 minutes and 27 seconds.

Who knew that 3 minutes and 27 seconds could last so long…

In 3 minutes and 27 seconds I learned everything I needed to know about life.

In 3 minutes and 27 seconds I saw lives unravel. I saw hearts break. I saw families collapse. I saw chaos. I saw pain. I saw devastation. I felt loss. I felt loneliness. I felt tears of pain. I felt anger. I was confused. We were scared. We were devastated.

For 3 minutes and 27 seconds we were changed.

…and then he lived.

I knew something wasn’t right. When you live with someone for years upon years you just know when something feels different. So I called 911… and we took him in to the ER for some tests. My Ashley dropped everything and met me there.

Things you notice in the emergency room:

Very young doctor; nurse is a big burly guy that probably rides a motorcycle; lady next door won’t stop hacking up a lung; and a strange excitement for the lobby vending machine.

Ash and I shared chili flavored Fritos and watched a Navajo family check in their grandma. She clearly had some diabetes issue. The family was not the epitome of health. Funny how events become tattooed in your mind; otherwise worthless points of reference. Enough time had passed, and I had diagnosed the entire lobby at this point, so we returned to the ‘patient’.

You know when you are a kid and you think that there are monsters under your bed and even though you check every single night you know there aren’t any under there….. well, imagine if just one time you checked and there were googly eyes staring back at you….that feeling in your chest….the shock of it all…..ok, now imagine that feeling but walking down the hall to your husband’s bed in an emergency room.

Time stands still at this point… I remember every single second… I remember facial expressions… I remember faces… words… thoughts… papers….needles. She met me in the hall and said, “Are you Amy? Your husband went into cardiac arrest and we are trying to revive him. It’s been 3 minutes”…..

3 minutes!!!!!

Three minutes ago I was eating chili Fritos in the lobby commenting on a Navajo family and their diabetes issues. 3 minutes ago I was sitting with Ashley in a way too cold lobby in a hospital down the street. 3 minutes ago I was a wife with 4 kids barely middle aged. I was texting and looking at Instagram and checking Facebook. I was normal and normal was good.

One thing you will never be able to explain (and I hope you neverrrrrr can) is the feeling when they have you come in the room where a minimum of 9 doctors and nurses are working on a ‘coded’ patient. You may not know this but when a patient ‘codes’ it is all hands on deck…every single doctor and nurse have to present themselves… it’s utter chaos. As Jodi Picoult stated, “Did you ever walk through a room that's packed with people, and feel so lonely you can hardly take the next step?”. I remember a very young security guard was standing outside my husband’s room and I remember him saying, very nonchalantly, “I’ve never seen a patient ‘code’ ”. Well join the club, Mister…. And as I stood over the man that was my husband… the man that was about to make me a widow…and a brain rapid firing a gazillion things that need to happen…I stopped and looked at the doctor and said, “You had me come in here to say goodbye, didn’t you?”. I have never been surer of something in my entire life. I KNEW my purpose. I understood with 1000% clarity why I was called in there. I could see my daughter collapsed on the floor outside. I could see a central line in my husband’s groin. I saw his head hanging off the table. I could see his eyes wide open and, as they say, “no one was home”. I saw a heart monitor with a flat line. I saw the end. And I stood there and I folded my hands and for some reason made eye contact with that security guard and said, “Pray hard!”.

I remember repeating, “please please please please please please please” over and over and over and over. Eyes closed. Hands clasped. Complete surrender…. And then 27 seconds passed and a man said, “We have a pulse but it’s a faint one”. I grabbed my husband’s head in my hands and shut his eyes for him. The nurse told me “Ma’am we aren’t concerned with his head right now”, but I was…I was… I was concerned with his head and his heart and his body and his family that was collapsed on the floor outside room 27 in the emergency room in a hospital down the street.

Funny how life sucker punches you from time to time. Little pieces of reality pie. Death never really comes at the right time, does it? So you make yourself strong because it's expected of you. You turn into the person others need you to be. And you roll up your sleeves and say “Let’s get dirty”. And you throw yourself into the moment. I like to think that December 27, 2017 was ‘so last year’, but when death knocks at your door it doesn’t matter if you answer it or not, because hellooooo tag you’re it!

It isn’t anything I have talked about. I didn’t Facebook it. I closed my circle. I let a few in. Some came in regardless and without abandon for their dear friends. I slept on a waiting room couch in a fetal position as 2018 rang in. I learned about blood. And hearts. And visiting hours. And coffee….lots of coffee. By the way, hospital cafeteria hours suck…..

But he lived. We lived. We love… and continue to love. You never really know the strength of a family until you see it break down. It is a beautiful sight to see although that sounds like the worst kind of sight there could be. Ohhhh you want to know how you did as a parent, well, throw in the death of a loved one and the pain associated with it and BINGO you get to see the fruits of your labor. UGHHHHH why does it have to be like that? Why does pain bring out the best in people? When the world falls apart, and it will from time to time, look no farther than left and right….those are your people…your family. Your pain is their pain. Like the saying goes, “We bleed together”. We're all pieces of the same ever-changing puzzle. You see, within 3 minutes and 27 seconds my ‘circle’ dropped everything, and I mean EVERYTHING and came to a hospital down the street to Room 27 on December 27^th  to watch and pray over a heart line on a monitor that held all the answers to the past, present, and future of a family collapsed on a hospital floor.

Why do I tell my story, now that a year has passed? Because life, it turns out, goes on… And the mundane activities become your focus and bills are paid and dentist appointments are missed and kids go to collage and dishes pile in the sink and you forget. You forget what happened in Room 27 on the 27^th. Then you get a call from you husband and he says, “Honey, let’s go to the casino today to celebrate my one year death anniversary”. And you realize those are words that at one point in time, when 3 minutes and 27 seconds lasted an eternity, that you never thought you would hear again. And I clasp my hands and close my eyes and quietly say to myself, “But I already won”…..

Ghosts

“I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't.”

― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

They bus in. Literally hundreds of them. The streets are lined with cars. Little red wagons are overloaded. Strollers carry the entire family as mom and dad push them from house to house. Sometimes a wine glass can be seen in the hands of the parents. Flashlights light up the street like fireflies. Carefully the parents wrangle their little ones to the next door. Dads can be seen choosing the next ‘perfect’ house. The streets are alive. I sit at home without a single trick or treater ringing my door. In fact, I don’t even have a potential ghost or goblin preparing for the night. But I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the organization needed to haul my little ones around in our red wagon. I remember timing dinner and forcing them to eat before the big outing, as they anxiously waited until the sun went down to begin their hunt. I remember the hours of choosing the perfect costume. I remember mapping the perfect routes. I remember pulling my Parker home in a red wagon because he simply couldn’t walk another step in his Superman outfit. Once home I remember the piles of candy poured out on the floor as they counted their prizes. I remember getting home in time to hand out candy to the ‘older’ teens that would come out and think ‘ya, they are a little too old to be trick or treating’, but would gladly hand over the goods. I remember being so glad that Halloween was over. I remember being exhausted from the night. We quickly adopted a tradition of going to our neighborhood ‘Bloody Bistro’, which was actually a house full of actors that created an elaborate Halloween set each year. I could also recite exactly which houses handed out glasses of wine to the parents, which was always my favorite neighbors. I remember loading up the golf cart when they were older so that we could hit more houses in less time. As I write this I can hear the shreaks and laughter of children in the neighborhood. I remember what it felt like when Halloween meant something different than it means to me today. I see the faces of the parents walking with their children and I want to place my hands around their cheeks and say “Cherish this. Cherish this with all your heart”. Every step. Every doorbell ring. Every piece of candy. Every piggy back ride around the block. Every little costume. I want them to know that their little monster or Superman or ballerina or cowboy will grow into an adult someday. I want them to know how quickly that ‘someday’ comes. I want them to know that someday they will be sitting home on Halloween and hear the sounds of young families out their door and will remember. I caught a glimpse of a family on a golf cart tonight. The dad drove their three kids in the back of the golf cart. The children appeared exhausted. The dad was driving fast, as if to race to get home, and probably trying to catch the last half of a Monday night football game. But one little boy in the back sat slouched over his bag of loot in a giant old man mask. I thought to myself, yup they age THAT fast. Before you know it. Before you even realize it.  

I have walked through many lives so far on this journey called life. I have nursed babies that turned into toddlers that learned how to walk, then learned how to drive, then drove away.  When you are in the midst of being a young family all you ever want is for them to grow up so that you can have some time to yourself. You are so over the diapers and the bottles, dishes and drama, the homework and teenage years. You long for more time alone. Until you actually wake up one day and you are what you wished all those years for: alone. And you quietly open a fun sized Snicker bar and prepare to dress your dog up as a football player and remember the days that passed by in the blink of an eye.