The Price is Love

Within the first few days of Rick’s death, I was seriously concerned for my mental health due to the dark thoughts since losing him. Not that anyone can truly be prepared for such a horror, I was unprepared for how much it would impact every single aspect of our lives. The agony was never ending, always there. Even if I was able to keep it contained for a minute, it was there scratching under the surface ready to bring me to my knees at any minute. Grief is exhausting, healing is even more exhausting, and I had no idea how long this would last. I find myself in awe at the fact that  I remembered the moments of that night so clearly. The smells, the sounds, sights, or random things I looked at, fleeting thoughts. From the time Hannah screamed for me to call 9-1-1 until we as a family walked out of the hospital leaving one of our own behind, I remembered every soul-crushing detail.

I had linked arms with Wade and Kayla as we walked out into the night air, knowing that I was forever changed from the events over the last few hours. I clung to our children, not only for comfort. I needed them to hold me up and keep me steady on my feet, too. Physically and mentally, I was completely unsteady, that alone frightened me. I had no idea what was happening to me. Was I losing my mind?

From that moment on, things became fragmented and disjointed, the pieces have been filled in from listening to the kids talk about it from their viewpoints. There was so much  I was experiencing that was considered “normal” grief. However, I didn’t know this yet. So,  the uncertainty only served to add a tremendous amount of fear that I was losing my mind along with the fact that I lost the love of my life, too. In my head, I kept seeing myself a shadow, looking over the Grand Canyon without colors. Gray scale. I was frightened I was going to slip over the edge if I wasn’t careful.

As we slowly walked out of the hospital and got into the car it seemed unusually dark. The clouds covered the stars and even with the lamp posts lighting the parking lot, it felt very dark and ominous. It was as if for a minute, the World was acknowledging that our family lost an integral piece of us. As I looked up at the starless sky, I was searching for a glimpse of the moon. The moon always gave me courage and strength. If you asked me why, I wouldn’t be able to give you an answer. It just was something I felt connected to on some other level. Without warning, it occurred to me that this was the beginning of the darkest night of my soul. I wondered if I was strong enough to endure it. I didn’t know if  I could live without him. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to try.

As we all went our separate ways with plans to meet at Bri’s, I looked over at her. Our beautiful second daughter, with her long, thick hair and her dad’s kind blue eyes. She was my mini me in so many ways, but I used to say she got the best of both Rick and me. Her face was red and splotchy. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, making the blue in her eyes seem unusually bright. They turned down at the outer edges just like Rick’s did when he was sick or sad. I noticed her hands were shaking as she started the car. Suddenly, this overwhelming feeling of restlessness came over me! I was fighting this urge to rip out my hair, while running into the darkness screaming. I was utterly terrified by these foreign new feelings. I had never felt such things before. It was unsettling and deeply concerning. I was flooded with more fear as I thought, what is happening to me? I realized I needed to get away from this hospital that held my husband’s dead body quickly. I couldn’t stand the thought a minute longer. Without emotion, I flatly told Bri, “Drive.”

I didn’t want to alarm anyone, so I kept silent about these dark thoughts. The pain of grief was nothing like I  had ever experienced before. It was a physical pain, which came in waves. I couldn’t take a deep breath and when I tried, it was tight and sharp. It was as if my heart had shattered, and those shards were stabbing me every time I tried to take a deep breath. My heart was beating wildly, it was erratic and at times I swear it stopped beating for a second and then galloped frantically to find its rhythm again. For a fleeting moment, I compared my heart and my life. Is that how life without him would be? It would feel wildly erratic until I found my new rhythm. Fear coursed through my body when I wondered how long this would last. I didn’t want to do this for very long! I wasn’t strong enough. I wondered if anyone ever died from a broken heart. For real.

Wanting to pull my hair out or rip my skin off was a ridiculous notion, but nevertheless unnerving. I had no idea how to react to these dark thoughts. I was repulsed by them and shocked that it was me having them. What in the hell was happening to me? I had no idea what was normal or not normal because I knew nothing about this all-consuming grief. Regardless, I was confident that what I was feeling was not  normal. In fact, it was the furthest thing from normal. I was unstable, terrified, and was too scared to speak about any of my thoughts aloud for fear of adding to my children’s pain. That night I laid on Bri’s couch while sleep eluded me. My grandson Elliott slept soundly beside me. His little arm linked in mine protectively. I touched his dark blonde hair and noticed all the ways that he reminded me of Rick.

The nights were a special kind of torture because everyone else was asleep and I was alone staring at the TV wishing there were some way Rick would walk through the door. Sometimes I didn’t want to sleep because that meant nightmares would come, and I would relive those minutes in his shop and that was one memory I loathed. My fight or flight would be triggered for no apparent reason during the oddest times, often in the middle of the night. Even when I tried to sleep, that damned movie reel would invade my head and I was powerless to push it away.

I couldn’t eat. When food arrived instead of the smell making me hungry, it made my stomach do flip flops. I was nauseas from the relentless adrenaline rushes. I grew weary of those quickly and felt like those alone were making me feel crazy. I had to figure out a way to get them to stop. They felt awful and were so intrusive. They not only made me feel sick, as they built up in my body, they made me want to run out of the house screaming as loudly as I could, so the whole World would hear me, “My husband is dead! He died tonight and now everything is ruined!” After a while I would start feeling shaky and woozy. Sometimes in the middle of a moment of profound grief the bile would rise, my throat would tighten, making me vomit. Since everyone was in bed, I didn’t want my cries to wake them up, so I screamed into a pillow until I thought I would faint from exertion. Then, I would lay on my back, heart pounding, my head threatening to explode from all the crying causing intense sinus pressure. It was all too much. How will I make it through tonight without him?

 I felt bitterness and anger knowing that the World would continue to exist as if Rick didn’t just die, leaving me behind and screaming in horror, “Now what do I do?!” People would still get up and go to work, laugh with their family, and hug their partners. And my world had ended on the cement floor of his shop less than twenty-four hours ago. I was in stunned disbelief that this was how our love story ended. No, this certainly wasn’t the plan. I thought about the night before when we were all laughing and joking right over there in Bri’s kitchen. We were keeping up our tradition of Sunday dinners, but we all enjoyed going over to Bri’s because they had a pool and a hot tub. We were excited that our pool would be completed in a couple of months. Then dinners would resume at our place. We were already making more memories here in Texas, we were so excited for our newest adventure here. If only we had known, it was our last Sunday dinner together. I shook my head to stop the hysteria from building and I mumbled, “Dammit, Richard!”

When the fight or flight got too intense that is when I would start to think about clawing my skin. I knew that I was trying to separate myself from the pain, to feel another pain would do just that. I knew that it was disassociation and that was far from normal. I was shocked that my survival mechanisms from my childhood were showing up to help me during this frightening time. I welcomed something other than the pain of grief; it was too much for me to bear. I wanted to die. In some ways I was hoping these physical pains were a sign I was dying. To be put out of my misery sounded like just what I needed. How was I going to live without Rick? This wasn’t the plan. Dammit, it was not supposed to happen this way! We were retiring, getting ready to start a new chapter in our lives and this happens? What a cruel, sick joke. I was bitter. When I started asking why God didn’t take “so and so” instead, they hated being married to each other or “he is such a terrible human”, why didn’t God take him? Shame would wash over me for wishing this mental torment on someone else selfishly so that I didn’t have to. I felt like a terrible human, and I was filled with shame. Which in turn, sent me into tears of despair all over again.

No one ever told me that grief felt an awful lot like fear and anxiety. After Rick died, nothing remained the same. It was like I was a stranger, in a strange land, speaking a language that no one else could understand. It wasn’t only isolating, it was scary! I was losing myself; I already knew I was profoundly changed from the events that happened in Rick’s shop, and yet I felt my stubborn side dig in her heels, refusing to be changed. But. I knew. A part of me died right there with Rick that night and it is impossible for me to think I couldn’t be changed profoundly, yet I did.

 I have since learned that grief and fear go hand in hand. For those of us feeling fearful are normal. It affects the same area of the brain and is one more part of deep grief. For me, it’s the unknown that I find terrifying, I can manage challenges a bit more if I understand the why and the how. This was no exception.

I didn’t need anyone to confirm one fact that I already knew, horrific grief is the price we pay for love.