I have unpublished my posts as I am officially in the process of writing a book! Stay tuned! :)
Monday, May 7, 2018
Thursday, November 13, 2014
That First Night Home Alone, Part 1
It was a Monday night. Or heck, maybe it was a Tuesday night. I really cannot remember the specific date or day. But I remember the feeling. And I will NEVER forget it. I am so glad I do not have to live this night (or the many like it that followed) anymore. So now I am willing to share it, purely in celebration that I no longer feel this way.
It was the first night after Jason's death that I was home alone with the girls. My family and friends had been there with me every minute of every day (probably on what-is-she-gonna-do watch) for the first month or so. I spent not one single night alone, nor had even one meal alone to that point. Family and friends had flown in from all over the country and taken days and weeks off of work to see me and make sure they helped as much as possible. My uncle Matt was the last man standing after about a month of the chaos. And it was chaos. Between my crying fits, family and friends were a revolving door of in and out, too many cars in my drive way, and air mattresses in several rooms of my modest 3-bedroom, plus-a-study house. Over this time, they had helped me take notes on all the things I now needed to do, make phone calls, get some necessary meetings taken care of, plan a funeral, force me to eat, help with the girls, insist on installing a garage door opener, flooring my attic, putting all of the garage junk in said attic, and insisting I now park in the garage.
I hugged my uncle Matt goodbye in the garage that morning before work and headed out, knowing he would not be there when I got home. I tried to be tough all day, and dammit I was. It was easier to be at work because I could pretend life was normal. I still laughed with my coworkers that day. I didn't want people to treat me differently at work, because that would remind me that I am no longer the Claire I was just a few weeks before. I had been forever changed in the matter of a few fateful hours. But I didn't want to dwell on that. So, I carried on, much to the surprise of my coworkers, as if nothing had happened.
After work, I picked up the girls, as I always have, got home, checked the mail, and started looking for dinner for them to eat. This was typical and nothing new. I was always home alone during this part of my day, as Jason has always gotten home from work after me. Around 6pm, bath and get-ready-for-bed time, it dawned on me for 1/100th of a second that Jason was late coming home. I almost reached for my phone to text him "Oh hey, got 2 of your kids here covered in sketti sauce. Plan to come help today or anything?"
Then a much darker realization sunk in. It took all of my fibers of strength not to curl up in a ball on my cold tile floor and cry. I had my 2 babies watching me, and I was determined to figure out a new normal routine for us all. Usually now is the time Jason would take over a kid and I would take the other. We would switch off each night. Man to man coverage. Then after they went to sleep, we would reconvene in the living room for a couple hours before our own bedtime. It worked great. In fact, I had just started thinking we had this parenting thing figured out. But now I was alone doing this. Harper was still only 8 or 9 months old and I hadn't mastered the art that is bathing them at the same time. Lila likes to "swim" alone in her bath with colored water tablets, but Harper hates colored bath water. Harper can't even sit very well in the bath tub yet. Lila wanted to run cold water, but Harper was not ok with cold water in March. By the end of that first bath alone, Harper's soapy slippery baby skin had slipped out of my hands no less than 30 times, and Lila was still confused on why she had to share her bath tub that everyone was in tears. I opened the bathroom door and saw the sun had started to set and my house fell dark. Jasper, my dog, paced back and forth outside of the bathroom door, following us from room to room, probably sensing that I was lost and frustrated... and alone. I wanted to call my friends and tell them to come help me, but I couldn't. I knew that this was my life now. I didn't have Jason and I needed to figure this out alone. This is how it will be now, at least for a while.
Now I had to figure out how to get my infant to sleep and still keep my toddler entertained. At this point, Harper was still being quietly rocked to sleep with a bottle in her room. And Lila was used to wrestling around or reading books with myself or Jason in the other room. This was possibly THE biggest adjustment and hurdle for me of them all. Our favorite, most bonding time of day was now the worst and saddest time of day. I knew I had to make changes to the routine because it was a 2-man routine. But not today. Today I tried my best to do the 2-man routine alone. I tried with moderate success to get Lila to quietly read a book next to Harper's rocking chair while I slowly rocked back and forth, watching Harper's innocent eyes droop and roll into a quiet slumber. I wished I could be her for that moment. None the wiser to the sadness and reality that was all around her. At that moment she had peace. She wasn't worried about the years ahead of her when she would not have a daddy to go to daddy-daughter dances with. She didn't think twice about donuts with dad for father's day. She wasn't thinking about who would walk her down the aisle at her own wedding one day (hopefully) at least 25 years from now. But as much as I was jealous of clueless little Harper, I wasn't her. I was her protector. And I decided then and there to keep things as normal and happy as possible for my girls. No matter the cost to myself.
After half an hour of rocking in a dimly lit room, I carefully maneuvered my way through the minefield that was putting Harper gently in her crib without waking her, I rushed Lila out of the room and we continued on to have our story time. About this time, some bad Texas weather was rolling in. I could hear the wind picking up outside, beating against my windows and roof. I could hear the rain start to fall, and soon after, warnings of severe weather interrupted my regularly scheduled programming on TV. I could feel my anxiety rising because while I usually love a good storm, this was just not the right night for it. More than anything, I was worried about losing power. For whatever reason, it seems like whenever the wind picks up, we lose power in my neighborhood. I didn't want to lose power. I kept whispering to myself "Don't lose power," because I would literally and figuratively be LOSING POWER. The movement and dull white noise from my ceiling fans and the comfort of turning on every light in my house to chase the shadows of this day away helped me to keep moving. I needed the hum of the refrigerator and the background noise of the TV to make me feel normal. Plus, the girls needed sound machines and little princess night lights in their rooms to sleep! I kept begging God, and my electric company, please just don't let me lose power.
I put Lila to bed, crept slowly out of her room, and reached the end of the hallway, where I would normally see Jason sitting on his end of the couch. I just stood there staring a burning hole into the couch, almost paralyzed. This exact moment. This moment had been THE moment I knew was coming for weeks. The moment I would reach being ALL ALONE, while my girls slept, and knowing that is how my life would be now. As I was wallowing in my own misery, a huge flash of lighting filled my kitchen, blinding me.
And the power went out....
TO BE CONTINUED...
It was the first night after Jason's death that I was home alone with the girls. My family and friends had been there with me every minute of every day (probably on what-is-she-gonna-do watch) for the first month or so. I spent not one single night alone, nor had even one meal alone to that point. Family and friends had flown in from all over the country and taken days and weeks off of work to see me and make sure they helped as much as possible. My uncle Matt was the last man standing after about a month of the chaos. And it was chaos. Between my crying fits, family and friends were a revolving door of in and out, too many cars in my drive way, and air mattresses in several rooms of my modest 3-bedroom, plus-a-study house. Over this time, they had helped me take notes on all the things I now needed to do, make phone calls, get some necessary meetings taken care of, plan a funeral, force me to eat, help with the girls, insist on installing a garage door opener, flooring my attic, putting all of the garage junk in said attic, and insisting I now park in the garage.
{Aunt Carole helping with baths}
After work, I picked up the girls, as I always have, got home, checked the mail, and started looking for dinner for them to eat. This was typical and nothing new. I was always home alone during this part of my day, as Jason has always gotten home from work after me. Around 6pm, bath and get-ready-for-bed time, it dawned on me for 1/100th of a second that Jason was late coming home. I almost reached for my phone to text him "Oh hey, got 2 of your kids here covered in sketti sauce. Plan to come help today or anything?"
Then a much darker realization sunk in. It took all of my fibers of strength not to curl up in a ball on my cold tile floor and cry. I had my 2 babies watching me, and I was determined to figure out a new normal routine for us all. Usually now is the time Jason would take over a kid and I would take the other. We would switch off each night. Man to man coverage. Then after they went to sleep, we would reconvene in the living room for a couple hours before our own bedtime. It worked great. In fact, I had just started thinking we had this parenting thing figured out. But now I was alone doing this. Harper was still only 8 or 9 months old and I hadn't mastered the art that is bathing them at the same time. Lila likes to "swim" alone in her bath with colored water tablets, but Harper hates colored bath water. Harper can't even sit very well in the bath tub yet. Lila wanted to run cold water, but Harper was not ok with cold water in March. By the end of that first bath alone, Harper's soapy slippery baby skin had slipped out of my hands no less than 30 times, and Lila was still confused on why she had to share her bath tub that everyone was in tears. I opened the bathroom door and saw the sun had started to set and my house fell dark. Jasper, my dog, paced back and forth outside of the bathroom door, following us from room to room, probably sensing that I was lost and frustrated... and alone. I wanted to call my friends and tell them to come help me, but I couldn't. I knew that this was my life now. I didn't have Jason and I needed to figure this out alone. This is how it will be now, at least for a while.
Now I had to figure out how to get my infant to sleep and still keep my toddler entertained. At this point, Harper was still being quietly rocked to sleep with a bottle in her room. And Lila was used to wrestling around or reading books with myself or Jason in the other room. This was possibly THE biggest adjustment and hurdle for me of them all. Our favorite, most bonding time of day was now the worst and saddest time of day. I knew I had to make changes to the routine because it was a 2-man routine. But not today. Today I tried my best to do the 2-man routine alone. I tried with moderate success to get Lila to quietly read a book next to Harper's rocking chair while I slowly rocked back and forth, watching Harper's innocent eyes droop and roll into a quiet slumber. I wished I could be her for that moment. None the wiser to the sadness and reality that was all around her. At that moment she had peace. She wasn't worried about the years ahead of her when she would not have a daddy to go to daddy-daughter dances with. She didn't think twice about donuts with dad for father's day. She wasn't thinking about who would walk her down the aisle at her own wedding one day (hopefully) at least 25 years from now. But as much as I was jealous of clueless little Harper, I wasn't her. I was her protector. And I decided then and there to keep things as normal and happy as possible for my girls. No matter the cost to myself.
After half an hour of rocking in a dimly lit room, I carefully maneuvered my way through the minefield that was putting Harper gently in her crib without waking her, I rushed Lila out of the room and we continued on to have our story time. About this time, some bad Texas weather was rolling in. I could hear the wind picking up outside, beating against my windows and roof. I could hear the rain start to fall, and soon after, warnings of severe weather interrupted my regularly scheduled programming on TV. I could feel my anxiety rising because while I usually love a good storm, this was just not the right night for it. More than anything, I was worried about losing power. For whatever reason, it seems like whenever the wind picks up, we lose power in my neighborhood. I didn't want to lose power. I kept whispering to myself "Don't lose power," because I would literally and figuratively be LOSING POWER. The movement and dull white noise from my ceiling fans and the comfort of turning on every light in my house to chase the shadows of this day away helped me to keep moving. I needed the hum of the refrigerator and the background noise of the TV to make me feel normal. Plus, the girls needed sound machines and little princess night lights in their rooms to sleep! I kept begging God, and my electric company, please just don't let me lose power.
I put Lila to bed, crept slowly out of her room, and reached the end of the hallway, where I would normally see Jason sitting on his end of the couch. I just stood there staring a burning hole into the couch, almost paralyzed. This exact moment. This moment had been THE moment I knew was coming for weeks. The moment I would reach being ALL ALONE, while my girls slept, and knowing that is how my life would be now. As I was wallowing in my own misery, a huge flash of lighting filled my kitchen, blinding me.
And the power went out....
TO BE CONTINUED...
Friday, February 28, 2014
What just happened?
I know this is the first post and I should introduce myself and my situation but I'm taking the catch-you-off-guard approach, much like Valentine's Day 2014 did to me and everything about my life.
(Photo from August 2012 by www.yourcandidmemories.com)
(Christmas Day 2012 with Lila)
If you don't know me, you'll catch up fast. And if you do, then you already know some of the story, but really, you are sitting at home wondering what happened. You are talking about me, about us. You are telling your husband or wife or coworkers about a girl you know from school, work, the gym (that's a joke) and how she lost her husband so suddenly. Her seemingly healthy, 32 year old husband. The father of her 2 young girls. I take no offense. It's shocking. I'm still walking around in a fog. I can't say much more than "I can't believe this is my life" and "what the hell just happened?"
I am a story-sharer by nature. Anyone who knows me can attest. So I feel like sharing my new story, just like I always have. I guess you could call me a "documenter". I like to write things down. I like to read them later. I like for other people to know my story. I guess it's cathartic. I just need to get things out into the universe I guess.
This is me. The day Jason died, Valentine's Day this year, 2014. Just two weeks ago. Seems like so long ago now looking at this picture. I sent him this photo in the early afternoon with some guilt trip about not sending me flowers (it was just a joke as I had told him not to spend our money on flowers this year, especially since we would spend so much on dinner, which would come with a single rose anyway).
This is Jason with our daughters, Lila and Harper, just a few months ago around the holidays. He was a wonderful father. He loved them so much, he would have killed for them. Quite literally.
It was Valentine's Day, so we had a date planned at our favorite restaurant. It's a small Italian restaurant with 1 chef, 2 waiters and about 10 tables, in a downtown area near where we used to live. We still made the 45 minute trip over there on our special days because it was "our spot". He took me there on our first date, he proposed there, and all of our birthdays and Valentine's dates happened there too. It even burned down once and we were heartbroken, only to be thrilled once it was rebuilt with a new look. The food is amazing and I would like to recommend it to you, but I can say with certainty I will never return there. The memory is too strong.
Jason's mom came over to watch the kids after we put them down to bed and we snapped a quick picture and were on our way to dinner for our 8.30pm reservation.
We arrived on time and had decided what we would eat from each course on the menu. We ordered our drinks and just talked about what a great day it had been. We had gotten some good news earlier in the day and Lila had enjoyed her Valentine party at school. We have both found much joy and meaning in our children, so we talked about them a lot.
It became a celebration dinner; a celebration of new opportunities. We were both in a great mood.
But it wasn't long before Jason started complaining that he was cold. That was at about 8.45pm and from that moment, nothing was ever the same again. By the time he was done eating his appetizer, he was visibly shuddering, saying he was cold. I offered to switch seats with him (since he was sitting by the door with the cool breeze coming in) and snapped this picture, which would become our last. This was the last moment things were "normal" for me and for us.
Within 10 minutes I could see by the look on Jason's face that he wasn't just cold. Now he said his back hurt so I offered to get this fancy restaurant to bag up our food. Before I could even take care of the (expensive) tab, he was in the car waiting for me. I got our food to go and met him in the car where I found him laying back in the seat. He had to drive because I cannot drive a standard transmission car. And at this point I had no idea where this was heading and he assured me he could drive. He drove really fast because he needed to get home so badly and that was making me increasingly concerned. Now he was saying his stomach hurt too and he was still freezing cold. I was burning up under the car's heater and he was still cold. Jason was almost never cold. He wore shorts in the snow. Seriously.
At that point we called the 24 hour nurse line and they said go to the ER. We were already headed there anyway but I guess I was hoping for insight. I had asked Jason many times if he had felt bad before this because he seemed to be getting really sick, really fast. He assured me that it just hit him and he felt great before dinner. I asked if he felt chest pains, jaw pains, or arm pains (indicators of heart attack) and he said no. So we swung into our house, which is practically next door to the hospital, to change into more comfortable clothes since we knew we would be in the ER a while. That took all of 4 minutes just to let his mom know what was going on and I drove him to the ER. We rushed in and I had no idea it would be the last time Jason stood underneath the stars or saw the sky or breathed outside air. That's hard to swallow now, looking back.
Once in the ER, we waited for almost an hour. Jason was getting worse and I could see that. We asked "how much longer" a few times. He went from needing to sit to needing to lay down. Finally they called him back. His temp was 103. They gave fever reducers only for his temp to go up.
In the next 4 hours there in the middle of the night, Jason deteriorated right in front of me. Tests were run, scans taken and the doctor kept telling me she was at a loss for what was happening. She said they were "stumped" by his symptoms and how he presented. His blood pressure was falling, his oxygen levels were dipping now into the 80's, they had laid ice packs all over his body. He was breathing harder, even on oxygen, and was less coherent. I showed him pictures of Lila and Harper, still not knowing how dire the situation was. I was just trying to perk him up. His body continued to fail on him. I will save the horrific details and just leave it at what the doctors told me...
"Shortly after we inserted the breathing tube, he stopped talking back to us..."
We did try to save him. The staff did CPR for over half an hour, resulting in a lot of the nurses' sweat and everyone's crying and my screaming. They administered at least 8 epinephrine doses, among a few other medicines, on Jason. Finally the doctor came to my eye level where I sat at Jason's feet and told me he was not going to come back. She asked for permission to cease compressions. I knew he was gone.
I sat in that hospital room with him for hours, until they made me leave. Talked to him, promised him things, called his family to come say goodbye and then I left only after he did.
I walked outside the ER and it was daylight. The sun was just peeking over the clouds in the early, dewy morning hours. And I took the first step toward my car; the first step of what appears to be a VERY long journey.
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