Why is something that I will never know until I meet him on the other side.  I just have to learn to live with the questions.   He did leave me a long five or six page letter and I’m very grateful that I got that as I have met other widows who didn’t get a note but it didn’t really answer many questions.   A lot of details were on his bank password and how much the boat was worth and his managers contact info etc.   My memory is a little foggy but I do know that I didn’t get the note for several days after his death which still bothers me.

We were in complete shock and getting that right away would have helped just a little I think.   Not sure why the police held onto that.   They also held onto his  phone for several days and I was told they wanted to go through it to make sure there was nothing that would be disturbing to the family but I also wish they hadn’t done that.   I don’t know what, if anything, they may have erased from it.    His note started off “I have battled depression for a long time” and that floored me.  Absolutely floored me.    I had no idea.      He did say how much he loved the kids and to “tell them everyday that I love them but that I was just very, very sick”.   What I did know, or thought I knew,  is that he was very stressed out and it was affecting every aspect of his life.  Our life.  We talked about it so he had opportunity to tell me he was depressed but he didn’t.   Looking back now I can see the classic symptoms of depression but even if I knew then what I know now I’m not sure I would catch it.     I live with the guilt of not being able to help him, to stop him, and I’m not sure that will ever go away.   My boyfriend (more to come on him later), my family, my therapist and everyone tells me it’s not my fault for not knowing and I know that but deep down you run through those last weeks and months of conversations and texts and wonder if I could have saved him.

He was a top sales manager for his company and won Manager of the Year at least four years.  He nearly always earned the big trip and we were able to go on amazing vacations with his company.   France, Hawaii, St Thomas, etc.   He was a great manager and everyone loved him.   He was traveling most of the month and I was also in sales at the time so I would travel when he was home so we were passing in the night a lot near the end.     He was wanting to get back into the sales rep side so he didn’t have to travel as much but he was finding that many companies thought he was overqualified and that it was a step back from his current position so he was getting frustrated.   Money was a little tight so it wasn’t like he could quit without having another job.      I remember a text he sent me on December 14, 2012 (six weeks or so before his death) when he had missed a Christmas program that Haley was in because he was out of town(right after the Sandy Hook school shooting).   I had sent him a video of  it and this was his text back:

He was definitely more emotional in his texts than he usually was and I just thought he was worn out.   He wasn’t sleeping well at all and had finally gone to see a doctor who prescribed Ambien.   He was trying not to take it too much, didn’t want to get dependent on it, but he did tell me that he was taking it while he was out of town the week prior for his national sales meeting so that he could hopefully sleep and function the next day.    I know lots of people take Ambien nightly and never have issues but I think that the Ambien combined with his undiagnosed depression just caused him to sink deeper into that hole and ultimately snap out of reality.    You know the warning on the commercial that says “may cause suicidal thoughts”, well I think he was one of those people that it just combined to create the perfect storm.    He wasn’t eating much the last few weeks and was sick and staying in bed a lot but now I think he was more depressed than really sick and just couldn’t hardly get out of bed.    I just didn’t put it together.

He was a very strong Christian of deep faith and the last book he read in the weeks before his death was Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander. I remember him coming home and telling me how amazing it was. I have personally always been fascinated with near death experience books so I think reading Eben’s amazing story might have also made him yearn for that “perfect love and peace” that is often mentioned in those stories.

We had conversations about suicide before and I just never in a 100 years thought he might one day be one of those statistics.      He did try to reach out for help the morning of his death and called a psychiatrist. There were four missed calls from them calling him back throughout that day so I know they knew he was suicidal. I called them after his death and they just told me that he had made a future appointment but now I wish I would have spoken to whomever he talked to because they might shed light on what he was saying that morning. At the time I just wasn’t thinking straight and now of course it’s been five years. Suicides have risen since his death and there is much more talk about depression and suicide these days.   I hope to change the conversation to make people like Brian not be afraid to admit to depression and seek help.   That it’s not at all a sign of weakness to reach out for help.

Below is a card that he also left for me.