Ten Years Ago Today, the World Broke

Author’s preface: This is a very difficult subject for me to talk about and so mostly I do not. It is uncomfortable for everyone including me for a host of reasons and as much as I like to make people uncomfortable about some things, this is not one of those things. If you know me, you know that if I need to say something I will say it. Thank you for your understanding and I deeply appreciate your support and kindness in respecting my boundaries on this particular topic.

Exactly ten years ago today my first wife Victoria died suddenly and unexpectedly. I held her in my arms as she took her last breath. We had only been married for two years but had been together as a couple on and off, mostly on, for almost 14 years prior to getting married. She was the love of my life. I have never spoken of this to anyone until now, and it may sound crazy, but I swear it is true. At the exact moment she died I heard a very loud crack or snap, almost like thunder, or a buzzing, and I felt something like an electrical current flow through my body. It happened so fast, and I squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as I could, and I said to myself, this isn’t happening, I am asleep and this is only a nightmare, when I open my eyes I am going to be in my bed and this will not have happened. And I truly believed it. I believed it with all my heart and soul, and then I opened my eyes, and she was there, dead in my arms, and my world collapsed. Now I think the sound I had heard must have been my heart breaking.

I fell into a pit of grief so deep and dark that it is a mercy no words exist which can describe it, for it would be a crime to force another to read them. I moved home with my parents, went into my room, closed the door, and didn’t come out for a very long time. I slept 12 hours a day and barely ate. When I was awake, I cried and wished I could go back to sleep. I blamed myself for her death. All the things I could have done but did not. The present was an empty grey blur, and the future was a thing I wished would never come. For me, the past was all that mattered, because there, in the past, she was still alive. My only connection to anything and anyone was writing. It was my only outlet to process the things I was feeling. Many people, especially my parents, did all that they could to help me, and I thank them for that from the bottom of my heart. However, they knew as well as I did, that I could not be helped. There was no help to be had but for one, the passage of time.

I had only been out of the hospital for a little over a year when my wife died. I was barely recovered after having spent 3 weeks in the ICU and a month total hospitalized with necrotizing pancreatitis which could have, should have, killed me. Vickie was the reason I had survived and recovered. She took care of me and helped me learn to walk again. She gave me hope for the future when I had none. For the first 3 months after leaving the hospital I suffered from ICU induced delirium. I was absolutely convinced I had died and that the “life” I was living was fake. I was just going through the motions, pretending to live and the people I saw and interacted with, including my wife, didn’t really exist. They were not real. Can you imagine the toll that must have taken on her? How painful must that have been for her to deal with? But she did deal with it. She was patient and caring, and made sure I was safe, and took my medication, and got to my doctors appointments, and ate, and did my exercises and everything else that is required of a living human being. Eventually I realized that even if I was dead, I still had to eat, and I still needed money, and I still needed to work, and gradually without barely noticing the change, I was living again. I did return to work, and it felt like maybe things were going to be OK. And then she died, and it should have been me. It should have been me. If I had died in the hospital like I should have, she would be the one alive right now, not me and these words would not be written, but she would be alive and other people would have the chance to meet her and the world would be so much brighter and better for it. I cheated death, and the price I had to pay was the loss of the person I loved the most in the world. I didn’t ask for that, I did not want that. I would gladly have died to save her, but I was not given that choice.

“Theirs not to reason why” is a famous line from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1854 poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. It describes soldiers dutifully obeying orders, even when they know a mistake has been made. That phrase has evolved into a general idiom used to describe situations where people must follow orders or comply with a system without questioning the logic behind it. I do not follow orders, and I do not comply with any system without question. And I will not comply with a system which took something I love from me without reason. So, I keep writing, and thinking, and hoping that someday I will have the chance to change this system. And I will question it, and keep questioning it, and never stop until I am satisfied with the answers. To be crystal clear to any who may know, I will not accept any answers that contain the words fear or pain or suffering or loss or fate or karma or any other pseudo-philosophical/religious bullshit term as valid. So go back to wherever it is you reside and try again. When you are ready with some actual answers I will be waiting for you and tell Vickie I love her and miss her and that I do still think about her every day and I will find her again and tell her how sorry I am.

Below is a story I wrote shortly after the death of my wife. It was one of the first I ever published online.

I Received My Wife’s Ashes Today

They came in the mail, the postman delivered them in a small box. There was a black sticker on the outside. Cremated Remains it said. I had to sign for them. That makes sense right? Who would want to get a package of some stranger’s ashes? Even worse if they were to get lost. The mailman knew what he was delivering. Clearly he had seen the sticker. Honestly I felt bad for the guy. There was a look of deep sadness in his eyes as he handed me the package. “Sign here sir” he said. “I’m sorry.” Me too Mr. mailman, me too. Sorry that the love of my life, my soulmate, is gone forever, sorry for all the good times that will never be, sorry even for all the fights we will never have, sorry that I’m now a widow at age 42. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

The pain is still so fresh. The grief so raw. It’s all so surreal. I open the box. Inside is another box. A small black plastic container. A piece of white tape clearly printed from a label maker with her name the only marking. There is also a certificate of cremation. Like some fucking award from work for best new product idea or something. One of those template certificates from Word or PowerPoint. Everybody has a couple pegged up in their office. Congratulations, your wife is dead and the remains of her dead body have been incinerated. This is your certificate to prove it just in case anybody asks.

The plastic box opens on one side. Inside the box is a bag. There she is. Everything she ever was or ever could be. Reduced to a bag of dust. I don’t know how to move forward from this. I don’t know how to go on. Life for me however continues. This sad lonely life. Everybody says it gets better with time. The pain diminishes. The memories fade. From where I’m sitting the future looks bleak. A future without my baby. The love of my life. Goodbye sweetheart. God I miss you.