The past few days have been so incredibly hard. I wake in the mornings and reach out for Pascual only to touch the cold side of the bed. Full wakefulness just reminds me that it’s not all a horrible dream. I lay there dazed., numb.. completely empty of all emotion. Then the tears come... gentle and silent like a tranquil tide. Each wave is followed by another until I am crushed under the weight of emotions so deep and mournful, I will surely drown.
I need to get up. I have to shower. I should get dressed. But what is the point? I pull the covers over my head and burrow down deeper to the safety of my cocoon. I’m entitled. My husband just died. I am becoming a beautiful butterfly. I’m just in the liquified goo phase.
Calls to coroners, funeral homes, crematoriums and medical examiners all gratefully turned over to my cousin Karl to be handled by him. Overwhelm is the word of the day.
The baby is fussy. He has finally learned to fully walk and say Yayo (Pascual’s Grandpa name) 4 days too late. He keeps looking over our shoulder for Pascual. He is sensitive to the energy in the house. We’ve been going on lots of walks and giving him lots of extra attention. But our nerves are raw and his screaming is hard to take at times. We tag team him. It’s getting easier to manage. He is typically a happy baby and very easy to soothe. So we give extra cuddles.
More calls and cards and checks and flowers arrive daily. The generosity of people is incredible: I tried to tell Pascual that we had a large network of helpful and caring people. It bothers me that I have to prove him wrong now. If he had just let me reach out a few week ago, our world might be different today.
For whatever his reasons... he kept all these things inside. I knew he was sad. I knew he was hurting. But even his therapist didn’t know how bad he really was. I thought he would snap out of it.
The things I found in his phone search history haunt me. The exact details of his death as described in the emotionless detailed accounting by the coroner guts me to my core. In this moment I realize, with his OCD he had thoroughly researched every kind of suicide. Ruling out any type where I might be sued by another party. He chose one of the most difficult and slow painful ways to die... all so I would be safe. Doing it at a hotel so I wouldn’t be the one to discover his body. Going the extra mile of disengaging his I phone locator so we couldn’t find him and stop him before he succeeded.
The shopping list and receipt for the Home Depot in his briefcase for the tools he needed to do the job. The unused things in a bag on the floor of the car. Still sitting there in the car in front of my house, with the 2 large bags of cat food he told me he would buy next time he went by the feed store.
His lack of a note, the fact he chose a date 4 days before my birthday... both indicators that he was no longer in his right mind. The man who loved me would have thought of those little things. The overdue library books on depression hidden in a pile on his side of the bed. Cryptic posts on his Facebook page that I never saw because I was off Facebook for 6 weeks after my surgery.
Guilt eats at me. If I’d only checked his phone history. If I’d only read his Facebook posts. If I’d only not taken my pain pills or even had a surgery, I might have been aware.
None of these things bring me comfort. Nothing I could have said or done would have changed anything. He wanted to keep it secret. He wanted to Kill himself. He was ill, he was in pain and he needed emotional support and medication. This is the reality. Men often do not ask for help. There is a stigma surrounding male depression. A man isn’t a man if he can’t handle his feelings and business.
I am here to tell you that is crap. It takes great strength to ask for help. If my loss and my words can stop one person from taking their life, it’s worth the breath to say them.
If you are hurting, if you are feeling down, if you have thoughts of suicide, please call the National suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255
Please don’t let your family be the next one like me, second guessing and wondering about every single thing you said or did that might have changed your mind.
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