Those first days and weeks were such a blur. I felt like I was in a fog. Family and friends swooped in and I went on auto pilot. Planning his memorial service and dealing with insurance, legal paperwork, social security and all those things that I never thought I would be dealing with so soon. There were a few days of not knowing if I would receive his life insurance or not because of the “suicide clause”. It’s a clause in life insurance policies that benefits are voided if the policy was added or changed within two years. Luckily he hadn’t changed his in ten years so we were fortunate in that regard. I remember going into a store to buy an outfit for his service and the sales rep was a woman I used to work with years before and she asked what I was looking for and I said “something for my husbands funeral”. Surreal.
Since I had asked Brian his wishes shortly before his death we had him cremated. We never saw him again after he left that early morning. Actually, he left so early that I was still sleeping and hadn’t seen him since the night before. Hayden however heard him and woke up and Brian told him, “it’s just one night bud, I’ll see you tomorrow”. I know when he left that morning that he hadn’t planned to never come back. I often wonder if we would have been able to believe it more or get more closure if we had seen his body. I’m not sure if given the opportunity I would have wanted to see him but I know it might have helped us to believe it was true. It was hard not to imagine him walking through the door again and took a long, long time before I didn’t expect him to do just that. This is the sticky note to the kids that he left on the fridge that morning.
The service was very foggy. I couldn’t even cry but remember Haley whimpering next to me the whole time. She was only four and seeing the pictures of her daddy going across the big screens in the church and hearing people talk about how great he was and how much he would be missed just overwhelmed her.
So many people came. People I hadn’t seen in years or ever and people who didn’t even know him. A few people even started going to our church after being there for the service. Brian would have liked that.
Much of the time since his death I felt disconnected from the world. The world was going on around me but my world had been turned upside down and I didn’t feel like I fit in it quite the same. I was in medical sales and tried to keep working for a year and a half afterwards but I just couldn’t do it. I totally lost my motivation and I had been at the same company for almost ten years so my doctors and staff knew me and it was so hard to go in there and act normal and not emotional. They also needed me to travel more and that was extremely hard now as a widow and unsettling for the kids so I quit and am so grateful to be able to be here for them and to be able to take our long trips, make new memories and lessen the stress from working outside the home. I know many widows don’t have that choice so I don’t take it for granted.
Seeing other families that have a dad still bothers me. Like with the kids sports. I’m very quiet on the sidelines, Brian was the cheerleader/motivator for Hayden at football, soccer and basketball games and his absence at these events is sometimes palpable. Mark is able to come occasionally but he has four very active kids of his own so just not enough of him to go around. To this day I get a little sad and jealous at family type events, school programs or our vacations with just the three of us where I see all these families with dads and we are just there by ourselves. It’s not fair that my kids don’t have their dad. I know life isn’t always fair and this is the hand we have been dealt but just being honest. When we are with Mark and his kids it’s totally different because we are this big crew and people always comment on our big, blended family and it’s the other extreme.
Six months after his death his parents took us all to Colorado to spread his ashes in a trout stream as he had told me he wanted. It was a great trip but also very bittersweet with his family and all four of his children and grandson but with him missing of course. My sister-in-law scouted out a picture perfect location for us to lay him to rest and we had a little service for him (my father-in-law is a former Chaplain). Many of us said something and Austin played his guitar. I’ll admit that it was really weird to feel the ashes and know that it used to be his body. Not sure all of the kids really got that, especially Haley since she was only four but I had never been around ashes before which is actually more like sand I think and it was just odd and sad to think about what was. I saved some of them and put them in a special urn and still have some left in the original box. I guess in case the kids ever want to do something special with them or something. Or just holding onto pieces of him.
