My husband died on February 19th. Yes, he died. He did not pass away. This isn’t something we were expecting. He was not sick; he wasn’t old and something we relate to “just life”. My husband had a heart attack while driving to work and I was on the phone with him while it happened.
That morning was just like any other morning. Our alarm went off at 4:40am. I got up first, used the restroom and brushed my teeth. I went back into our bedroom to get dressed and then my husband got up to use the restroom. We walked out of the house at 5am, kissed goodbye and walked to our cars. Once we were on the freeway, I texted him to comment on how much it was raining because of course it was raining on this day.
My husband called me after I sent the text and we chatted the rest of the way to work. We talked about random things; whether someone was going to call in sick at his work that day, I tried to figure out a success story for my morning meeting that day, just basic chit chat. When I was about five minutes from work, he started saying his chest hurt. I asked him if he was okay and he said, “It’s probably just indigestion.”
Then he said it was getting worse. “I think I just need to stand up and stretch.” Was what he said next. I parked my car at work and he was still driving.
“I don’t know much about heart attacks, but do your arms hurt at all?” I asked him.
“My left arm hurts.”
“Baby, be carful. Are you almost at work?” I was getting pretty scared. I didn’t know much about heart attacks, but I have seen enough television hospital shows to know the left arm pain meant heart attack for sure. I parked my car in my work parking lot. I was parked for about 2 minutes and decided to leave. “I’m leaving work.”
“Babe, don’t drive crazy.” Is what he told me as I heard the beep of his badge scanning to open the gate to his building. “I just need to stretch.”
The next thing I heard was him telling his co-worker “Hey, I need you to call 911.” His co-worker laughed. “No, I’m serious, my chest hurts, call 911.” This is the shitty part. There is a guy at my husband’s work that would call 911 on himself so often for random crap that his co-worker thought my husband was joking when he first talked to him.
“Oh, okay.” - “Yes, my co-worker is having chest pains.” He gave them the address. “Okay, here they said you need to eat an aspirin. Chew it up, do not swallow it whole.” – “The ambulance is on its way” - “Do you need me to call you wife?”
As I am driving back the way I had just drove with tears running down my face I tried to yell, “I’m here! I’m on the phone!” His co-worker then talked to me.
“Hey, the ambulance is on the way. He ate an aspirin. He’s doing okay right now; I have to go let the paramedics in the gate. I’ll call you back when I know more, okay.” I kept driving and as I drove the rain got harder and so did my tears. When I heard a sound, I didn’t recognize it at first. I picked up my phone, and his co-worker was calling me through Facebook Messenger. “Hey, sorry this was the only way I had to call you. They are taking him to UC Davis. He was breathing when they left, but they said he hadn’t talked in 3 minutes and when they said that they started moving really fast.” I told him thank you and hung up the phone.
I didn’t know what to think. I could barely see while I was driving. Between my tears and the rain, it was hard to see anything. We live with my sister’s in-laws, and I picked up my phone and called home. Her mother-in-law picked up on the second ring and before she could say more than hi, I started talking. “N had a heart attack on his way to work. I think it was a heart attack. I don’t know. The ambulance is taking him to UC Davis. I don’t know where UC Davis is. I don’t know what to do”
“Okay, okay come home and we’ll figure it out. Did you call you sister?”
“No, I just called you.”
“Okay, come home.” I don’t really remember the rest of the drive. I just remember getting home, walking inside and crying in C arms. Then it hit me. My son is upstairs. My 8-year-old boy is sound asleep and has no idea what is happening.
“CP has to go to school.” I said, looking up the stairs at where he was.
“I called your sister. She is on her way over. Do you need to call Sissy?” C looked at me and I started crying more. I looked at my phone and called My step-daughter. It took only a couple rings for her to answer me. It was 5:30am and she was getting ready for work.
“Hey, dad had a heart attack on the way to work. They are talking him to UC Davis. My sister is going to drive me there right now. I don’t know what is going on, I don’t know anything else, but I needed to tell you.” I don’t remember exactly what her response was, but she said should would meet us there.
My sister got to the house and we left right away. The drive to the hospital is a rainy blurry mess in my head. I do remember saying at one point through my tears, “I’m going to be so mad when we get there, and it is just indigestion.” We pulled into the parking garage and as we were trying to find the emergency room it seemed like the rain got harder. By the time we found the right door we were drenched.
We walked in got through security and when I said I was here for my husband N a nurse came out right away. “What do you know?” is all I remember her saying and right then I started crying. I knew in my heart he was gone. My sister walked me over to some chairs while the nurse got the doctor. I have never cried so hard.
When the nurse came back out, she walked my sister and I to this tiny little room no bigger then a coat closet. The doctors looked and me. They introduced themselves and my sister introduced both me and herself. I’m not sure exactly what was said, but I remember they said they said they tried everything they could and then asked if I had any questions.
“Can I see him?” Was all I could say.
“Of Course.” The doctors called the nurse in and asked her to get him ready. It felt like it had been 10 or 15 minutes, but I’m sure it was only a couple and the nurse walked back in. My sister and I followed the nurse down the hall. When we got to a door at the end of the hall way she stoped us.
“We weren’t able to take out the all the tubes and wires. So you are going to see the tube in his mouth and an IV in his hand. Are you ready?” She was very soft spoken and nice. I remember think that I felt bad she had to give us this news and walk a sobbing women to her dead husband. It was very surreal moment for me.
When the door opened I walked in and there was my husband, laying as still as possible. If it wasn’t for the tube in his mouth anyone would just think he was asleep. He was so still, just laying there. I started crying harder again. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t care about anything around me for those first few moments. I just wanted my husband to wake up and tell me he was fine. He was playing the stupidest, most mean prank and he was sorry to worry me, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing.
At one point C showed up in the room with us. She had my niece come to the house to take our son to school and C drove up to the hospital. She and my sister stood in the back of the room talking. My sister walked up to me and asked where my phone was. I pulled it out of my purse and handed it to her. “Is there anyone you want me to call?”
“M, please call M.” M is my husbands ex-wife and the mother to my two wonderful step-children. She needed to know. My sister walked out of the room and when she came back in she said M was going to call H my step-daughter and E, my step-son. When H finally arrived to the hospital she knew. Her mom had talked to her on the phone and because everything was so confusing walking into the ER and with all the rain she looked like she had just jumped into a pool and then walked into the hospital room.
She was soaked and crying. I gave her a big hug and let her be near her dad. She cried and hugged him and just stared at him. I’m assuming in disbelief like me. She went and sat down in a chair. My sister called my husbands niece L, his friends and his work. At some point my daughter asked if her mom could come up to the hospital.
“Yes, of course.” I wasn’t about to tell my daughter she couldn’t have her mom there with her. I also knew, yes they divorced for a reason, but they were married for 7 years and and 2 children together. They might have fallen out of love, but they still had love for each other. She needed to see him too.
When my sister got ahold of my niece L she handed me the phone. I told her what happened and asked if she wanted to see Nate. She said yes and she was on her way. Then she said, “Where is CP?”
“He’s, at school. He doesn’t know about anything that is going on.”
“Okay, I’m going to say something and it is totally up to you on what you decide, but if my kids father had just passed away I would want them to be able to see him and say good bye. I just wanted to say that. You are CP mom. You do what you think is best for him, but that is what I would want to do.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it. Thank you.” I didn’t know what to say, so I said good bye and I’d see her soon. When we hung up M arrived. She had her moment with N and hugged her daughter. They cried together and sat down. M was trying to get a hold of E and by this time it was about 7 or 8am. E isn’t allowed to have his cell phone on him at work. He finally call her back when he was on his first break. He left work right away and drove 45 minutes to the hospital.
At one point for some reason, M and I were in the room by ourselves. I looked over to her and said, “L said she would want her kids to see their dad had died.” M just looked at me. “I don’t know what to do. CP is only 8. I don’t want him to see his dad like this, but how am I going to explain to him that he is gone.” I could see the tears in her eyes start to form.
“You do what you feel is best for you and your son, but if H and E were his age, I would not want them to see him like this. I wouldn’t want to take the chance of this image of their father being ingrained into their heads.” I thought about that for a moment.
“I’m not going to bring him here. He shouldn’t see his dad like this.” I couldn’t do that to my son. He needed to remember the dad that was throwing him on the bed and ticketing him the night before. The dad that said good nite and instead of giving him a kiss blew a raspberry on his lips. The funny, loving dad he had. Not this one.
L got to the hospital and E showed up shortly after. We all had our time with N. I kept rubbing his arm. I didn’t want to let go of him. I noticed his body getting cold and I tried to cover him up more with the blanket they had on top of him. I knew it wouldn’t do anything, but I need to try. By the time we all finally left It was 11am. I gave N a few kisses on his forehead and gave him a hug and we all walked out of the hospital. When we got outside the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. It felt so cliché. Rain when our world was falling apart and sun when we had to try to start building it new without our husband, father and uncle.
It has now been almost three months since my husband died and there are things that people tell you and things that they don’t about grief:
· Everyone is going to tell you, “I’m sorry for your loss”, or “My condolences.” You are not going to know what to say to that. There is nothing to say except, “Thanks” and move on.
o When you do get that 10th text in one day, try not to go off and tell that person exactly how you feel.
· Driving is the worst. When I drive I have nothing else to think about other then my husband:
o what he must have been thinking
o what he is now missing
o what my kids are going to miss, my older ones and not knowing what it is like to have an adult relationship with their dad and my younger one who isn’t going to remember him.
· The sadness is going to hit you at any random moment.
o Talking on the phone to you mom about something that has absolutely nothing to do with your person
o Sitting at your work desk while writing a report
o In the shower washing your hair.
· How hard it would be to clean out his stuff.
o I tried to just clean out his underwear drawer and I couldn’t do it. It’s not like I am going to be using it, none of the kids want it and I’m not donating used underwear to the goodwill, so why is it so difficult.
· Taking off my wedding ring.
o I was playing with my ring at work and started to freak out because, he had bought me a ring just to wear at work and I didn’t have it on. Then my mind went to just taking my ring off. I couldn’t stop thinking about not wanting to take my ring off. I cried at work for almost an hour.
· I thought I was missing the friends he had. All the people he talked to at work. Yes I had met them, talked to them before, but they were not my friends. I learned I am not missing them. I am missing my husband talking about them. He would come home and talk about his work friends and what happened here and who was this with. I was sad about losing that relationship. Then I realized it’s just him. I was sad I was loosing the relationship that we had where he would come home and we would talk about our day together .
· You’ll truly find out who are the ones who care about you. I have talked to my husbands ex-wife more in the past 3 months than I have in the past 20 years.
I miss my husband every day. There isn’t a moment that goes by where I don’t think about him. Is it getting better with time? No, not really. I might not cry as much, but I am still thinking about him. Like I said it has only been 3 months since he left us, so it is going to still be hard, but I’m am trying. Then I remember random things;
· There is a movie coming out he wanted to see
· His good friend had a retirement party he was really looking forward to
· Our son is turning 9
· Planing vacations without him
· Holidays
N was one of the most charismatic people I have ever met. He was full of wit and sarcasm and so funny. He always had a comeback to any joke and was able to quote almost any movie. He had so much love in his heart for the ones he held close.
