Life After Loss: Austin Marathon

2015 rewrote all of my goals. I have just one now. To Survive. To make a Difference.

I'll take 26.2 miles of steps toward that goal this Sunday, February 14th.

If you can donate to this Go Fund Me campaign, which goes directly to supporting The Code Green Campaign, click here. 

 

The Code Green Campaign's mission is to bring awareness to the high rates of mental health issues in first responders and reduce them. To eliminate the stigma that prevents people from admitting these issues and asking for help. To educate first responders on self and peer care and to lobby for systemic change in how mental health issues are addressed by first responder agencies.

Dear EMS Spouse

No worries. Hidden demons.

Dear EMS Spouse:

Don’t worry. It will never happen to you.

1/4/2015 (09:31) I don’t know if I tell you this enough, but your (sic) the love of my life and I know “what I got myself into.” I am lucky enough to have an amazing girlfriend and a future wife that challenges me to be a better man

Good to know sweetie. P.S. I’m thinking Nolan’s counterpart can be Elyse Alexandra

What’s that from?

Isn’t from anything I just like both names. I always wished I’d been an ‘Alex’

I like those names as well

1/12/2015 (10:05) I want to make a big deal out of you. Your (sic) an amazing person and I want you to feel special

1/13/2015 (11:59) [Phone call] “So…I have to let you go…”

1/13/2015 (13:02) AOSTF --- 29 y/o Male. GSW, right temple. DOS.

Don’t worry. It will never happen to you. He’s excited about his newborn son. He told you not to worry. It’s just that his sleep schedule is messed up. It’s nights. He’s just “tired”. Always tired.

I’ve spoken with 3 other spouses so far: 2 widows. It's the same story. Neither saw it coming. The third doesn’t believe it will happen to her. The other two perhaps saw the warning signs…perhaps they stopped buying the liter and half bottles of liquor because they noticed while he didn’t drink every day, on those really bad days that bottle would get drained if it was available. They stopped making it available. They were trying to protect him from himself. They wanted him to sleep but there was a fine line between getting buzzed enough to pass out and going too far.

Perhaps they didn’t put locks on the gun cases. They appreciated his honesty and they thought protecting their home and their children was important. Perhaps they refused to acknowledge that he could ever turn it on himself. He was a good medic. He was brilliant in the back of the truck. He loved me. Loved his kids. Locking the guns would be admitting he wasn’t in control. 

No. Locking the guns would be a failsafe for the bad days; days when the demons had a leg up on the hero you loved.

He hit his highs and he hit his lows. This went on for years; there was always a light at the end of the tunnel... When he hit the lows you knew you we were on the way back up when he resolved to stop sleeping so much. When he got up and decided to eat better: no more fast food – he was going to take lunch to work. He wrote out his workout plan once more: time to hit the gym – start boxing, hit the weights again. He did all this two weeks before that awful call came in. He was on his way back out of the darkness before that tipping point came.

The everyday stuff will always be there. History of a fucked up family life: the narcissist father. Maybe one of the kids gets sick. Or the car starts making a funny noise. Maybe he’s trying to go back to school but it’s not turning out the way it was supposed to. Holidays hit or money gets tight. Someone unexpectedly dies. You fight over something stupid. When they’re operating at 90% of their stress capacity, there is little room left to hit that tipping point. Work could do it. Personal life could do it. Family could do it.

But don’t worry, Spouse, it will never happen to you. You’re different. He's different. He’s the life of the party. He always has a joke to tell. He’s the goober. The terrible jokes -- those beautiful blue eyes and that fantastic smile. He lays next to you at night and looks you in the eyes and softly just says “Hey” while he brushes your hair back and everything feels perfect. You plan your honeymoon and you’re sure you’ve found a way out of this god-awful system. EMS is draining him. You’ve promised to support him or you’re going to leave for somewhere better – there’s greener grass elsewhere. You’re sure you’ll be safe, if only he can hold on until the end of the year. He makes it 13 days.

Don’t worry EMS Spouse – losing him to suicide – it will never happen to you. You’re never hoping but always ready for the LODD call. The moment where you realize your support can no longer overcome his pain? That happens to the other women. Not you.

Sincerely,

The woman it happened to

Saved for the babies yet to be.

Midnight Music: You Should Be Here

Everything's just not alright, yah except for one thing it's screwed up everything.

You should be here...

Standing with your arms around me here
You should be here...

You can say it's just one of those things, but

You should be here... 

You know if I had just one wish, it'd be that you didn't have to miss this. 

You should be here... 

I'd be in a better place too if only I could just see your face...

...It's not been a good year

Because you should be here...

Midnight Music: Prayer for the Road

I used to tuck notes into lunch leftovers that I'd prep for Ryan, stick them in his pockets, and leave post-its on his dash and steering wheel. Not a lot - just random surprises. And every time I got off the phone with him, the last thing I'd always say was "I love you. Be safe."

I came across the new video about a month after Ryan died. Tears poured out of my eyes as I watched it over and over. Listening again, 10 months after I first saw it. Still hurts.

What Now?

When the loneliness and fear invades

And I am too weak to care for myself

When I stand back to view the woman curled fetal

And hate everything I see about her

How do I survive?

She sits there now

A person once so strong and life-filled

Now an indiscernible wreck; dependent on others

Turning to the bottle to forget

But first has to travel the road to remembering

How does she survive?

When I want someone to take care of me

If only the focus for a night

But cannot pursue that evening of reprieve

Without sacrificing my pride

I’m not one to accept one-time use

Built to first require trust and connection

How do I survive nowadays with those demands?

It’s on those days and weeks

I’m reminded that right now

There is little value in a person so broken

Fragile enough that a single comment or joke

Can unlease months of self-doubt and reminders stowed away

How do I survive under these feelings of worthlessness?

I ask who do I still trust?

I ask why do I still share?

I ask how did I fail so badly

The one I loved wholeheartedly

To arrive here in the first place?

I ask what is so wrong with me?

I ask where do I go now?

I’ve told myself that I will establish no timeline

That I do not need to search but rather remain open to being found

But I am searching; to survive I must find comfort and reprieve

I must find the feeling again of being valuable to another

Something easy enough to tell myself, but so hard to believe.

Each of you have soothed your conscience with rehearsed words

At the expense of the weakest one here

A memorial service provided you “closure”

But did nothing to soothe the agony for the one

That stood by him even when that grown man looked at her

And in pain said “I don’t want you”

She stayed, though lashed out in frustration at times

Loved him; Helped him; Sacrificed for him. 

You have returned to your routines

You have continued to pursue your happiness and pleasures

You have declared yourself at peace

Night after night I have sat mostly forgotten but bathed in empty promises.

I am incapable of focus, unable to multitask, strained to remember the most recent past

I challenge myself and if I succeed it still leaves me exhausted as never before

I obviously lack discernment

I ask for honesty and have done nothing but give the same

In that I repeatedly opened myself up to silence and hurt I cannot handle.

Perhaps the road I go now is to continue the path I’ve been on before

With Abandonment the only companion at my side

Perhaps now I recognize that I have just two choices

To thrive alone or to die falling short in my attempt

I don’t know what tomorrow brings

Let alone the next day, month, or years

I was just trying to survive one day at a time

To grasp happiness when it appeared to me by surprise

I don’t know when the fog will lift

When discernment and focus and passion will return

I don’t know whether opportunities even await

Or when more pain and disappointment will be introduced.

I wish to simply be in control

But I can control no one’s thoughts or actions

He’d still be here if I could

I’d have replaced memories a decade long of saving others

And longer of feeling as a bargaining chip and not a son

I’d have captured the hauntings and tortures of his mind

And replaced them with calm: with a warm beach and peaceful water

We were going to physically share it together

A reprieve from the demons

A promise never kept and memories lost forever.

It’s time to shut my mind to others

It’s time to retreat to a distance

It’s time to busy myself to provide excuses

To pretend that I’m occupying my time

With (empty) events in the presence of strangers

And to mitigate the time left to a churning mind

Obsessed in my thoughts

“Why wasn’t I enough?”

“Why am I not enough?”

It’s time to remove honesty from my tongue

It wasn't wanted in the first place.

Perhaps then I regain control

Over a life that has been long void of just such.

Letters: 300 Days Later

Thirty years of Thanksgiving dinners that you are forever part of.

Good morning Sweetie,

My very first post I wrote 17 days after you died--the day before your 30th Birthday--as I contemplated what to do, how to “celebrate” with Mom when we both hurt so badly that you would not be with us. I’d already filled half a notebook handwriting my thoughts and stowing away memories I was terrified to lose. When we carried you back to San Diego I began to panic as my mind was so obsessed with dissecting the most recent month(s) and I had a hard time recalling the little memories of you. I was afraid it would get worse.

I never wanted to forget how it felt to have your arms around me and your chin on my head when you got off shift, crawling out of bed to help get your fleece or uniform off as I asked how it went or helping you get ready to leave for your 24’s or day 12’s, making sure I was up so you wouldn’t leave without a kiss and a “Be Safe”. In order to rest your chin comfortably, I had to be barefoot and you had to still have your boots on. So I wrote it out. All those little details and feelings as many as I could remember until my hand cramped. And I kept writing. I described that happiness to  myself so it would never be lost. I have lost the smell I wished so desperately to hold onto. I washed the last load of your laundry this morning. I hadn’t touched it since January hoping to hold onto that memory but the reality was it has been long gone; it was time to finish that task.

I also wanted to see what my journey would look like in retrospect. So I began writing out my feelings too. I never expected anyone to read it---who would want to experience pieces of this journey, tidbits dredged from a fragile mind? I’ve gone back and looked a few times to remember what it really did feel like at those times. You are present daily in my heart, so you already know these: nearly every emotion under the sun, entering my life at unspecified times and for unspecified lengths. There is no linear progression, as those who haven’t known a devastating loss might believe. When I look at my past self I see my ups and downs. I see resolution through agony. I also see despair.

Today, oddly enough, on Thanksgiving, I hit 317 days without You. Three hundred whole days since I penned my first sloppy jumble of thoughts. One year ago today I was prepping Thanksgiving dinner with my family. I was looking over at You smiling because we were going to tell my parents that we were getting married this year. We had the house, we had the puppy dogs, Thailand was already decided but you wanted to be respectful to them and share that information yourself. I was poking you earlier that morning to wake up, get out of bed, and come join everyone for breakfast because you’d thrown the blankets over your head trying to catch a few more Zzzzz’s. Ryan, your name will forever be on my Grandmother’s white tablecloth that holds 30 years of family present on Thanksgiving Day. We will remember you every year for many decades to come.

I have wondered and come to the conclusion that no one, not even my future self, could have explained to that shocked and numb girl, even in her own words, how 300 days will change her. I’m going to change over, Sweetie, and talk to her now.

Always Yours, Sweetheart,

Stephanie

________________________________________________________________

Hey Girl,

Oh boy, well, people will tell you that it gets “better” with time, Darlin’, but first it will get much much worse. The shock that allowed you to do things that had to be done when your brain really could not comprehend what was happening--that will eventually begin to lift. When it does, you will not be prepared and it will hurt like hell.

Remember sitting in the back of the SUV at the airport, telling Sam “When she gets here, you need to focus on taking care of his mom, not me”? You knew, just hours later, that you were about to mean nothing, that you would have to be granted permission to try and make his funeral the best way to honor and remember Him. I know you knew at the time that to Ryan you were #1 out of 7 billion. He told you. It still hurt, though, to be handled as second-class.

You do have value, even though so many days and weeks you will feel like you don’t. Even now, those thoughts intrude. Recognize them, acknowledge them, but Darlin, do not let them trap you.

When you think you can’t breathe, take a step, go to work, feed yourself, or open your eyes any longer then repeat over and over again “You can….Stay here. Make a difference. Do it for Him.” It worked. You’re still here, as sucky as that sometimes is, 10 months and 13 days later. Right now, I’d like to think that repeating those words will continue to work. Because you are a fighter just like Ryan. That’s why you love him. You found the man that both matched and also improved you – don’t ever forget that.

You are granted permission to do or say anything and everything you feel. The people that called him your “ex”, the ones that questioned how well you really knew him, the ones that told you a month later that it was “God’s will” or “Don’t worry, you will find someone else”, the empty consolations...It is your right to be enraged over those insensitive and unnecessary utterings. Some come straight from the mouth of an asshole and others from people that Just. Don’t. Know. They have no idea what is ok and what is not. They are blessed to have an ignorance of this.

You will scream to release pain you are terrified to leave inside. Do it. You must. I’m going to insert humor at this point and say that, realistically, try not to do this in front of other people, please? It’s pretty f*ing scary to see and hear.

You’re not going crazy. All those people that stopped calling or the ones that never called, the promises that were not kept – Dear Girl, know that it is not a rejection of you. A friend will tell you later that even if for only the 30 seconds it took to make that promise, they did truly think they were capable of supporting you. They were not, and that is ok. Yes, it’s complete BS that when you had just your fingertips left holding onto this world, that people left your lonely cries for help. When you asked ”Coffee?”/“Make you dinner?”/“Want to go for a run?”they didn’t respond with “I can’t” or “Not tonight but I can tomorrow” but instead with complete silence. It will make you feel worthless and abandoned but please, you must learn to just release these people.

Because, beautiful girl, remember this: Linda stayed. Jodie stayed. Gina stayed. Ben & Matt stayed. Marc helped you. That 1 angel left here in Austin, she kept you alive. And you cannot see it now but eventually you will meet some absolutely phenomenal people. They will amaze you with their capacity for help and empathy, if even in the middle of their own disaster. And they will always come into your life at just the right time. How this happens, I cannot explain to you, but it will:

A stranger at Fado will buy you another pint, even though you can’t even open your mouth to thank him because your brain cannot comprehend what your eyes have seen. He sees someone he doesn’t even realize is having one of the worst day of her life and offers kindness.

TCSO will ask if you need to be escorted home, when you’re pulled over for a headlight out. That officer will show you compassion in the middle of your heartbreak.

You will meet the framer at Joann’s who will tell you about her nephew, also a medic, whose death 10 years ago was also a suicide. She will promise you she will wait until she can give all of her attention to framing Ryan’s uniform for his Grandmother so that it is done perfectly. She will ease your mind.

His coworker will drag you out of the house on multiple occasions to show she genuinely cares - to watch you and try to keep you from feeling so isolated.

You will meet strangers-turned-friends, who you will share the most intimate things, even though you’ve never met--because they will “get it”. This will come at a time when you so desperately need to not feel alone. They will become your rock on the bad days.

A woman at the farmer’s market undergoing chemo will give you your first compliment in months when she looks at you, post-run sweat and mud caked to your body and legs and will say “Wow, you’re so pretty” It will happen when you really need to hear that. Go to the car and cry. You’re allowed. I know you wanted to hear that from Him, not her.

You will meet neighbors you two never got to know. One in the middle of their own grief, even. You will meet running buddies with their own stories. You have aged beyond others in this experience and so many people, generations older than you even, will not be able to relate. You will find times to be gracious to them over that and you will be angry and rude, because you’re too tired to care about another person’s feelings. Don’t hate yourself for this - remember it’s not who you are--simply try to hold your tongue when it hurts the next time. While losing a spouse at some point is a likelihood for much of the population, widowed in your 20s will leave you nearly a pariah. You can still find empathy from those without experience; it is just rare.

A woman at the airport bar will hold you as you’re leaving New York and tell you that she is a widow too - she will share about losing her husband of 33 years. She will know components of your pain without you saying anything. Once again, this will come at the perfect time, when you are returning home, worn out and emotional after letting go of pieces of him that you never wanted to release from your hand. She will take your number and will reach out to you when you return from spreading just the smallest fragment of ashes in a city he always wanted to visit. You had to take that trip. It will not be easy but you must. You have to prove it to yourself that you can get on a plane alone and you have to honor him.

You will read. A lot. Devour these words from both blogs and in primary research, from books and personal posts. They will expand your mind. You will grasp to profound sentences and these will become a set of mantras critical to your healing.

Embrace the good. Look above where I said “You are allowed to do or say anything and everything you feel”? This also means that you can have “New-Good” Days, not just “Not-Bad” Days. It means you can recognize that you felt happy. I  know you will wait for the other shoe to drop, but don’t. There will be days when you thought something was wrong with you because every cell in your body was in pain but you couldn’t cry. When you watched in 3rd person wondering “What is wrong with you?” Your heart carries him every moment; you know you still miss him and it both aches and stabs. Crying doesn’t prove you miss him, it just provides an emotional release.

Your heart will always be sore, even in times of great happiness. 

You have graduated into yet another shitty "club" where you begin to know others not by their favorite drink or their weekend plans but through their souls and life stories. You have been given a gift. You will not see that at 17 days and you will not truly understand it at 317 days. Logic will simply frame it for you to consider in the future. Though the thought has come to your mind, you will wish every day that this stupid f*ing "gift" could be returned and you could retreat into your previous level of naiveté. Stephanie, you must grasp to the opportunity in this as you did the pain of a decade ago because your life is a journey...It's an exhausting, bullshit, unfair, journey that seems to shatter your heart nearly every time you wake up to an empty bed and come home to an empty house. 

Darlin, you cannot bring him back. You can only share him going forward and craft a legacy for him and for you. You will love him forever, and you will realize that yes, perhaps one day will cross paths with someone who lets you love Ryan forever because that's the only way they could love you. I'm getting ahead of myself--baby steps--just recognize that you don't have to give him up.


I can tell you these things 300 days later, not because you are looking down the road and setting a goal to be at this place by this time. 

You're used to doing that, Silly Girl, but Life doesn't work like that right now (and perhaps ever) and let's be honest with each other, you're not in the position to do much thinking anyways. You're going to take some steps forward and then get pushed back down. I am going to take some steps forward and then wind up a mess just as I thought I was doing "better". That has been my experience this week. It's ok.

Even now I know nothing of what 300 days from now will hold - whether we will be better or worse, stronger or more desperate. I know there are some bad ones coming up; I see them from miles away but our goal is today. 
You will do your best.
You will forgive yourself for your worst.
You will wake up tomorrow and do the exact same thing over and over and over. 
You will make a lot of mistakes, do a number of foolish things, but all you can do is try.

You won't understand this 17 days in - not even if you could read it from your own mouth... Some of the things I'm saying you have read, but they are incomprehensible. You cannot understand what the heck "new normal" really means. You cannot understand what it is like to hide feelings and thoughts and reactions so that you appear to cope around others. You cannot understand a feeling of carrying thoughts and memories but having to push them aside to function because you're not capable of that right now. Just allow yourself to be wrapped in peace in those shortest moments, on that good day. Indulge in "numb" because it gives your brain a break. Over the next 300 days your life depends on fighting and hurting more than you have your entire life. It's going to be awful, but you can. It hurts - a LOT. But you will make a difference.

Suicide Changes You

Suicide Changes You

I can’t look down and see 8-0 on the speedometer without panicking. If I am not paying attention and make it up that high…seeing those numbers reminds me of the exact point on the highway – passing just under the 290 flyover on IH-35 – when I saw those numbers before and spot checked myself: “Ok, slow down; why are you going so fast, Steph? Because you heard his voice. Because you’re scared shitless. What do you say when you walk in and he’s holding the gun? Think – what do you say, what do you do? What do you do if he points it at himself? Or at you? No he wouldn’t hurt you. Walk in and hold him. Tell him you’re here. What if he tells you he’s done? You heard the resolution; this is different than before. He might act. You need to get home now. Why is there traffic--it's noon! And he’s not picking up his phone. Ok, calm down. Let’s think. Think.”

Something as simple as driving 80mph is forever changed. It doesn’t catch my attention because I may get pulled over and ticketed. It floods my mind and churns my gut with the reminder of that day. My heartrate increases; I hold my breath. Something like speeding means so much more than it used to. Because suicide changes you.

Suicide Changes You

I don’t go to the movies any longer. The first movie I went to after Ryan died I thought I was doing the right thing: you know, getting out of the house? Whiplash. There wasn’t much at the time to go see. As I watched the stress build from bullying, I sat white-knuckling the seat thinking “Someone’s going to hang themselves.” Not exactly a positive experience. Avengers kicked my butt because Black Widow is on video with the Hulk as he says goodbye and the screen blacks out. Cue Trigger. I go watch Magic Mike and all I can think is “I just want to go home to my Man, to my Best Friend.” but instead I sit around on a “Girl’s Night” surrounded by married women complaining that their husbands aren’t Channing Tatum. Count your blessings, bitch, you get to go home to someone... I went back to the car and screamed at the top of my lungs, pounding the steering wheel in frustration. Straight Outta Compton was much too violent to calm down: my pulse was racing and I couldn’t relax and be “entertained”. I’ve given up on movies for now.

Suicide Changes You

The dryer alarm going off as I’m trying to fall asleep makes me jump out of my skin and puts me on high alert just as I’m settling into the emptiness of sleep. Well shit, restart the falling asleep timer. A car running over a plastic bottle as I’m running down the street brings the panic and hypervigilance that is exhausting to keep cycling through. Pretending that these sounds and moments aren’t impacting me so I look “normal” adds to the fatigue. “Tired” doesn’t begin to describe the feeling.

Suicide Changes You

Out of nowhere my mind attacks me, flashing an experience of standing behind Ryan screaming for him not to, and then watching him pull the trigger. I should not have these memories. I was not a witness. My brain has decided that doesn’t matter; it has rebuilt its own reality, reconstructed from the condition of the house afterward, the details of the ME's report and other minute pieces of information and experience. These day terrors happen, thankfully, with much less frequency and I have now spent months packing away the smallest details so that this doesn’t happen, but sometimes they flood to the front unannounced and without warning. At the back is where they must stay.

So when you see me “zone out” I’m simply trying my best to pack up something that spilled in my brain in order to protect myself. When I get up and walk out of a room at random, it’s not because you said anything wrong; it’s because while I put back those files that spilled from my mental filing cabinet, I cannot have the external stimuli of conversation and televisions and lights and movement. I must walk away. As necessary as drinking was to get to give reprieve from the insomnia, I do a LOT of remembering before I get around to the forgetting...Because suicide changes you.

Suicide Changes You

I want to be happy for others and their happily ever after moments, but the reality is, the engagements and the weddings, the babies and the big life moments, at times I just cannot muster the strength to celebrate at the level I should. You’re asking me to reach down and touch the hot stove – to sear my skin voluntarily as I watch the happy moments I miss or I never got to celebrate now being enjoyed by another, even by those people I sincerely care about. Biting the inside of my cheek to hold the tears back when a man puts his arm around his partner’s waist, lays a hand comfortingly on her thigh, laces fingers with her, or when carries his young son out of the grocery store on his shoulders. I see these and while I want to support your moment of joy, I’m standing alone missing my Best Friend. It’s a stab to the heart behind an empty smile and some weeks I may not have the strength to handle. 

Suicide Changes You

Moments are frozen in time while months simultaneously pass at lightning speed in a way they never have before. I may only recall 1 or 2 things that I’ve done or accomplished over the last week or month, but when you ask me when was it that “X” event happened, I still catch myself reacting with “Like 3 months ago…” for an incident in September/October 2014. It makes you feel like you’re going crazy - that everything I remember and refer to about Ryan is in relation to January. It’s not denial, it’s simply this inexplicably-bizarre time distortion.

Suicide Changes You

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” 

“I just need one person at a time to talk.”
“Wait, what was I saying?”
“I think we talked about this, but I don’t remember…”

My memory is gone. Forgive my forgetfulness. I am listening; I just cannot retain right now. And by all means, please don’t crowd and question me all at once. I need to be the director in this chaos.  I’m not incompetent. I’m just digging through the rubble of a scared and insecure girl who has spent the last 10 months feeling less safe, less cared for, less certain of anything than ever before. This girl is searching to find the woman who was competent, intelligent, and would fight as long and hard as necessary to be successful. You’re not the only one that notices she’s gone. I too want to find her so incredibly bad. But I don't want all of the “Old Stephanie” back, I just want pieces of the person I remember. She’s never going to be back in her full form but I’m taking baby steps to retrieve some of her best parts. 

And in the meantime everyone, including myself, will just have to learn to deal with the sensitive, jumpy, forgetful, sometimes teary-eyed space cadet that is the “New Stephanie” until the strong, motivated, helpful, smart, vibrant pieces return. And when they do, they'll come back added to a more empathetic, more loyal, more loving, more powerful woman.

Because Suicide Changed Me.