Relishing in His Goodness: Surviving the Beast and Becoming a Widow

It's been nearly six years since I was here happily spewing out my carefree feelings into this cheery little blog for nobody to see. It took a few thousand steps for me to find my way back here...I mean, does anybody use AOL anymore?! These old blogs are a pain to get back into. But, nevertheless, here I am! Spewing out words to myself once again. I've been told, countless times, to write. "It's therapy. It'll help." (thanks Mom.)

So, I'm writing.

Bare with me, y'all...I'm rusty!

I nearly started a new blog but couldn't bring myself to do it. I needed to be back here with all of our old memories. Photos of him. A time where covid-19 wasn't an issue. A time when the most I had to worry about was the kids chaotic schedules, or what to cook for dinner. Gosh...All the things we take for granted, right?

This feels like home.

My world seemed to come to a screeching halt the morning after our 17th wedding anniversary. I received that dreaded, middle-of-the-night phone call, that nobody wants to get. That one phone call thrust me instantly into the knowledge that I had also been shoved into the club that nobody wants to join. The widow's club.

Hi. My name is Christy. I'm 42 and I am a widow.

Ugh. They could at least hand out cool ink pens to new joiners, or something. This is the pits.

Forgive my humor...or don't. It's helped keep me alive so it's stayin.

He caught it at the end of August. My symptoms began several days after his. It was painful, and torturous but I forced myself to move as much as possible in the first three days. Despite my constant nagging, he wouldn't budge until his appointment for an infusion came up. The morning he left still plagues my mind because I was extremely sick when he kissed me goodbye. I wrapped my arms around him and told him I loved him. I can still feel his scratchy beard on my face and bare shoulder...but I can't remember if I ever opened my eyes to look at him. When I think really hard back to that moment, I see his silhouette hovering over me. But, I don't know if that's a memory or one last hope. In the end, I guess it doesn't matter as I never physically saw my husband again. I don't even remember the date. September 7 or 8th maybe? No idea. That's my best guesstimation. He was admitted into a hospital 40 minutes away, after they realized how low his oxygen level was upon attempting to get the infusion. He never received that infusion, in fact. Three days later, I was admitted into a local hospital that put me even farther away from him. The majority of it all is such a blur. My son called 911. I was evidently incoherent and wearing a color on my lips that most people wouldn't look good in. Turns out, though, that my fingernail beds matched my lips so I suppose I was going for some kind of a look.

I was in and out of consciousnesses, but I remember opening my eyes when they wheeled me into the ER and my first thought was, "Ohhhhh, absolutely not! If I'm gonna die I'd rather do it at home in my own bed! This place is so packed that I'm gonna end up dying right here in one of these weird cots!" That ER looked like they were seeing patients after a massive tsunami. There were people laid out in make-shift cots all over any spare space that was available. Scratch that. The unavailable space was being used as well. I was too weak to scream my internal indignation and force them to take me from the hell that I was witnessing, while they pushed my stretcher, at what seemed like turtle pace, through the sea of make-shift cots and frazzled nurses. I fell asleep to the sound of infectious coughing, beeping machines, and moaning. I woke up in a weird hallway. It was oddly silent after seeing the amount of people I'd just seen in the ER. I have no idea how long I'd been asleep. There was some scaffolding at the end of that hallway...I think they were painting it. It was so odd and I nearly thought that I must be hallucinating. My bed was the only bed in that hallway. In fact, there was nothing else in that long hallway aside from my bed, the scaffolding, and a large rolling cart full of medical supplies at the foot of my bed. "Hey!!! When did they transfer me to this bed?!" A kind nurse gently prepped my arm for blood withdrawal as I weakly asked her why I was in that long empty hallway. I don't remember what she said, but it wasn't long before I was placed in a room. I remember crying and asking, "How did I get a room so quickly while these other folks are left struggling out in the open?" I later found out it was because of that shade of blue I was wearing on my lips.

He called the hospital I was staying at, from the one he was staying at, incessantly. "How is my wife? When can I talk to her? Is she eating or drinking? What are her stats?"

The nurses always laughed as they told me he called...again. I was far too weak to talk in the beginning, but it was an insanely happy day when I was able to FINALLY facetime him from my hospital bed to his. He seemed to be doing a little better than I and I was so thankful for that. He was sugar coating, though. He was struggling. Once it was apparent that I was getting better, he declined. We celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on facetime, once again. I had just had my first shower after God only knows how long. I was clad in one gorgeously sleek hospital gown, whose designer somehow escapes me, and an itchy towel still on my head as I told my husband that I loved him. He couldn't verbally speak so he signed it back to me. He just kept wiping tears away and I was dying to know his thoughts so I suggested we hang up and text. He told me, via text, that I looked beautiful. "I miss you so much. I wish we were home celebrating today. Your color is back, babe. You look really good. Thank God you're getting better. You scared me."

Soon after his last text to me that morning I received a phone call from his doctor. "Your husband has signed the paperwork stating that he agrees to go on the vent. He's struggling to breathe. We can't get his oxygen level up. I'm sorry to have to tell you this way, but we are going to have to vent him. I'm going to wait twenty more minutes to see if we see any improvement and go from there."

My nurse was in the room taking blood and giving me that little white paper cup, slap full of covid fighting pills, when I got the call and went full-on hysterical. I wanted out. I NEEDED to be with my kids. My doctor agreed to let me out as long as I signed a form stating that I wouldn't hold them liable for anything that may happen with an early covid pneumonia discharge and under the condition that I stay on oxygen for at least another month while at home. My brain was screaming, "Okay, okay, okay, okay!!! Sign the discharge papers already!" An hour later, I was being wheeled to my sons car, where my sister stood eagerly by his side to see her favorite sister alive and breathing ( and without that funky shade of lip color), and after a short reunion we were headed home (There is no place like home.) where we cuddled, sobbed and prayed for a positive outcome.

Three hours into my home reunion, he called!!! I screamed when I saw his name. His face quickly popped onto my screen and tales of his day worn on his face. He was clad with a large bi-pap and tried terribly hard to speak through it. The kids huddled around me to see their daddy and he just cried and cried and signed "I love you" over and over. He answered yes and no questions with his thumb. Again, I asked if we could text because I needed to know the medical details of what was going on and how it came about that he didn't end up on the vent. He didn't answer medical questions, but instead told me that I was, once again, beautiful. "I am so happy you made it back home to the kids, babe. I love yall so much."

Then he went silent for a couple of hours. I texted over and over. "Please fight, baby. Come home to us." to no reply.

Then finally:

"I'm thirsty. They are worried that if I drink I'll choke. And my lips are so dry they hurt."

"Do they have you on a saline drip to keep you hydrated? I'll call the nurse now and see if they have something to put on your lips. If they allow me to come tomorrow, I'll bring you carmex."

"Yes, I'm on a drip. And okay. Thank you. Love you. Hope I get to see you tomorrow."

"I love you, too. The nurse said she'll put some Vaseline on your lips, babe. She is going to ask your doctor if I can visit you tomorrow."

Silence.

"The kids and I are praying fiercely. Come home to us. We need you."

Silence.

"Please fight. I can't do this without you. I don't want to do this without you..I need you. We need you. Please baby, fight!"

Two hours of silence. Several phone calls to the nurses station and a million frantic questions that went unanswered. "His doctor is going to call you soon to update you."

Finally another text. It was to be the last text he'd ever send me though and the words break my heart into a million pieces every time I think of them.

"I cant breathe i'm sorry"

I pleaded with him over and over and over to fight. I begged God. I fell to my knees and pleaded...

"Please, God, no. Please don't take him yet."

Finally a call at 1:00 am...

He was frantic, in a way that he seemed rushed, on the other end. His thick accent was hardly audible as he explained that they were going to take my once strong husband back to be vented. They couldn't get his oxygen level up and his bp was dropping.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you over the phone."

"Can I come see him in the morning?"

He was quiet for a second before answering quickly, "Yes, of course you can. A nurse will call you soon."

The nurse explained the venting process. "We'll keep him in a medically induced coma for three days and begin to wean him slowly off the vent to see how his lungs handle that."

I was still extremely weak and sick. Exhaustion plagued me and every ounce of me needed rest. It was only for that reason that I was able to fall into such a deep sleep after getting off the phone with that nurse.

When my phone rang it was still dark outside so my heart thudded in my chest and my stomach dropped...I knew who was calling and I knew why. It was 6:03 a.m. and the voice on the other end was kind and empathetic as she told me, through tears of her own, that my husband passed away 40 minutes prior to her call to me. They tried to revive him, several times, but they just couldn't get him back. She told me that he talked about his wife and kids constantly and she was so sorry that we'd lost him.

The shriek that came from the back of my throat seemed almost childlike and unrecognizable.

"No, no, no, no, no! What am I going to do without him?! I don't know what to do! What do I do?!"

That precious woman, God bless her, please. She just kept apologizing to me and sobbed along with me. What a gift to not be left alone in my first few minutes of grief.

He's been gone for nearly 15 weeks.

Grief is not my best friend. He is an absolute beast of burden.

I've found myself, countless nights, rolling over to reach for a body that will no longer ever be there.

There are a gazillion things that make me wanna shove grief into a locked box and toss him over a boat to drown, BUT...God.

God has revealed Himself to me in more ways than I can ever tell you...but that's why I'm here! Because I feel the need to tell the world what He has done for this grieving widow and her grieving children.

Because I was still sick and because I couldn't fathom going to the hospital where the shell of my husband lay empty in the morgue, my mom and sister rushed to pick up his car and belongings for me. I cannot describe what being handed a hospital bag full of your deceased husband's things (belt, wallet, shorts, shirt, cell phone etc) feels like. I wouldn't wish that ache on my worst enemy. But, my biggest tender mercy came in the form of a drafted text that I found on my husband's phone to me. Sometime between his last text to me, and the vent, he attempted to send a text that said, "hey babe can you turn off the bathroom light please"

I truly believe that in his final hour, before being vented, he was hallucinating. I believe he thought that he was at home, in our bed, when he saw a light that he thought came from our bathroom. I know that he saw God's light. The fact that, in his final hours, he thought he was home and saw that light...that was the greatest gift God could have ever given my husband, and to myself and children. What peace in knowing our Father!!!

God blessed me well with people. My sister went to the best local funeral home to make all of the arrangements so that I wouldn't have to. She and my mom went grocery shopping so the kids could cook themselves easy meals while I continued to heal from covid. We were gifted with lots of food, toiletries, love, love, love and more love. The amount of love shown in those first two weeks was overwhelmingly precious. It was impossible to feel alone in the thick muck that was grief, whilst being loved on by so many people...including complete strangers.

Tender mercies. Do you know what they are? Oh gosh, I hope you discover yours if you've not already...they have kept me afloat! On a daily basis, all of these 15 weeks, He has gifted me with tender mercies in the form of hearing my children produce a big ole belly laughs, despite grieving, seeing my fella in sweet dreams, having friends send random bible verses to me with words that contained the answers to prior prayers that I'd had with Him, flowers sent to our home, on Veteran's day, by a stranger who wanted to honor my war Vet, a million little contagious smiles on the faces of my somewhat resilient children, assurance, music, lights, love...I could go on and on and on.

Actually, I will go on. A local radio station sponsored our family for Christmas and the words written in the cards that were attached to the gifts, from complete strangers, meant far more to us than anything that could have ever been bought.

God and Humanity. Doesn't it make you just wanna be in His light?

Despite missing that guy something fierce, I know my husband's salvation so I know where his soul is today. That thought brings me such comfort and peace. I am simply thankful. Thankful for the 18 plus years I was given with him. Thankful for every fight that taught us how to grow and forgive. Thankful for every hour that I spent watching Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives with him despite my slight disdain for Guy Fieri. Thankful for the fact that he loved for our bedroom to be frigid at night, as that gave my shivering self ample opportunity to spoon my warm fella. Thankful that he made me and our children his world. I'm thankful for his spontaneous spirit. The ten thousand breakfast feasts that he woke us up to. Thankful that he always grabbed my hand as he drove us to our many adventures, and kissed it often. I'm thankful that right up until he couldn't stay awake, he made sure we were okay. I'm thankful that he left this world asleep, without the knowledge of suffering or pain. I'm thankful that we get to see him again.