Category: death

Nothing and Everything

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My husband is dead. It’s been almost 6 months. And he’s still dead. I walked into our, well, my, technically, bedroom tonight and I could smell him. And I sobbed. He didn’t even really have a particular smell. He didn’t wear cologne even though I kept buying it for him. He used whatever soap I purchased, so I guess we smelled pretty similar. His shampoo wasn’t super aromatic. But I swear I could smell him. So maybe he did have a scent.

I miss him. And yet, it’s almost as if he were never here. I often wonder how in the world did it all happen. Why did we meet? How did we fall in love? How did we come to marry and have children? And how on Earth is he gone? At 37 years old. I’m 13 days older than Ash and he always joked I would die first, naturally, because I’m so much older. But that didn’t happen.

He started getting sick in 2014. I also happened to get pregnant at the very end of 2013 so, at first, I felt like he was stealing my thunder a little bit, what with all the throwing up and not getting out of bed. That’s what I was supposed to be doing. He had countless doctor appointments and multiple hospital stays before he finally ended up with a diagnosis. Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. It’s an auto-immune disease that affects the liver and bile ducts. I’m sure you could have guessed that if you have been reading my writings for a while. There is no cure. He may need a liver transplant 10-15 years down the road. Ash’s doctor was world famous. One of the best in his field. We were scared back then but he assured us, most people that have PCS die with it and not from it. Most people.

Ash and I changed our lives. Our marriage had been more than a little shaky for a while. At times, I did not deserve him. At times, he did not deserve me. But once he was diagnosed, back in 2014, our perspectives changed quite a bit. We learned to accept each other. We worked at it every day. And it worked. We changed. Ash had to quit drinking, you know, because of the whole liver disease thing. He started a clinical trial, we had to travel a couple hours north once a month to his doctor to check in and they were some of the most fun days in our relationship. We learned to communicate with each other again. We fell in love all over again. I guess, in a way. Life changed, for the better, if you can believe it.

In April, 2018, we were back at Ash’s liver doctor, just for a routine check up. And the words that came out of that doctor’s mouth was some of the best news we’d ever gotten in our lives. He said “I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep it up. Your numbers are incredible. We don’t see this with this particular disease much.” In September, 2018, he was diagnosed with Stage IV Terminal Cholangiocarcinoma. Bile Duct Cancer. Terminal. That’s how fast it happened. He went from what we liked to joke as a “medical marvel like Ross Gellar” to a dying man. How does that happen? Why does that happen?

I just miss him. I miss kicking his ass at Mario Cart. I miss all our date nights. I miss holding his hand. I miss just driving around doing nothing with him. I miss the way he could make me laugh. I miss his amazing smile. I miss his positive attitude. I miss how he always knew when I was about to start my monthly business based on my attitude. I miss hearing his voice. Jack has Ash’s old cell phone and the voicemail on it is still Ash’s voice. I call it, at least a few times a week, just to hear that “Hey, it’s Ash’s voicemail. Leave a message.” Simple. To the point. Just like Ash wasn’t. Ha! (It’s funny because it’s true.) Either way, I miss him. Hell, I miss the shit that I hated and thought I’d never miss. But I do. Grief is annoying like that. It reminds you that even the bad shit wasn’t really that bad. In my case anyway.

The kids are so incredible. They are so resilient. So in the moment most of the time. Sure, they have their breakdowns. But they are less frequent. I’m so envious of their strength. They are growing and learning and they are just amazing.

I don’t know the point to any of this, other than I went in my room, could smell my husband, sobbed and felt the need to write. So I did. And it’s helped in the way that only it can. My own personal therapy. Remembering him is a gift, one that I hope to only love one day.

Broken

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How do you not hate everything? It’s nearly impossible. You have good days. You have shit days. You have mediocre days. But even on the good days, there is this underlying pain that trumps even the best times.

We put on a brave face most of the time. But if I can be real for a minute, that’s all it really is, just a brave face. Because inside we are so fucking fragile. We are broken. We are lost. And I don’t know how we come back from that.

We trudge along. We do the things we are supposed to. We laugh at stupid jokes. We talk to our friends. We go about our daily lives. But none of it is the same. Because we are fucking broken.

We are vulnerable. We are scared. We are bone deep sad. We are so sad that it physically hurts. We have this newfound realization that everything, and I do mean everything, fucking ends. The good things end. The bad things end. Things you wish would last forever end. Things you never wanted to begin with end. It all just fucking ends. Whether you are ready for it or not, it all ends.

And it fucking hurts. I hurt all the damn time. And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I’ve tried to fill the void with things that are good for me. I’ve tried to fill the void with things that are bad for me. I’ve tried distraction. I’ve tried copious amounts of wine. None of it fucking works. It may seem like it for a time, but in the end, I still fucking hurt.

Was my relationship perfect? Not even close. But it was mine. I married a man. I started a family with a man. And now, he’s gone. And we are fucking broken.

I grilled steaks tonight. I didn’t burn my house down. I didn’t burn the steaks. They were even quite tasty – according to Colt, the best he’s ever had, my sweet, sweet boy. And Jack? Jack could barely eat it. He said it didn’t feel right eating steak without daddy. Because we are fucking broken.

To my friends, I’m sorry. I am a terrible friend right now. I am selfish. I am angry. I am tired. I am alone. And I can’t be the friend you deserve. To my family, I am sorry. I rely on you for everything. I need you constantly. I thought I was strong, but I’m not. I’m just fucking broken.

I want to numb the pain. I want to make it all go away. I want to forget. And I never want to forget a thing.

I sometimes ask myself, if I had it to do all over again, knowing the end result, would I do it? Would I go on that date? Would I meet that man that would change my life forever, in so many ways? It’s a stupid path to go down, because, of course, we can’t change a damn thing. But it doesn’t stop me from wondering. Of course, the immediate response is YES! I would do it all over again. The days when I’m really feeling it, this unrelenting agony, this gut-wrenching pain, the answer is no, I would skip all this heartache, all this pain, even though it would mean I wouldn’t have these exact children, because then they wouldn’t be broken either. But the real answer doesn’t matter. I don’t even know that there is a real answer because you can’t change what has already happened. And honestly, I wouldn’t want to. I mean, if I could go back and change things, I would change Ash’s shit liver, not us being together. Because, no matter how short, we were meant to be together for that period of time. We were meant to have 2 beautiful boys. And I guess we were also meant to lose each other November 12, 2019. And I guess that means Jack, Colt and I are meant to be a little bit broken, for the rest of our lives.

Strength and the Lack Thereof

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I am strong. That is my daily mantra. I set the intention of having strength every day. And I’m going to brag a bit and say I do a pretty good job on most days.

Enter global pandemic. That strength I’ve been holding so tightly to has sailed away like a ship in the night. You see, in real life, we are constantly on the go between kids, friends, sports, school, eating someplace other than the kitchen, errands and other such things that make our lives an actual life. Put that life on hold, and us recently unfortunately widowed folks are left to actually have to deal with our feelings. So thanks for that, raw bat eater. I’ve got a couple of hand signals for you.

I selfishly took this past Saturday, and aside from working out, did not leave my couch. I let my children play outside, I gave in to too much screen time and too many video games. And I parked my ass on the couch and didn’t really move. Other than to blow my nose because I let myself basically cry all day long. It is not my proudest day in history, nor my strongest day in history. But maybe it was my most necessary day.

I recently complimented myself on not having a day where I laid around and drowned in self pity. I guess I planted the seed in the recesses of my mind. And that seed sprouted and turned into this past Saturday. I watched romantic comedy after romantic comedy, which was quite the idiotic move because do you know what life is not? If you said a romantic comedy, you would be exactly right. But it did unlock feelings that I guess I’ve been holding onto for far too long and I finally let them out.

The problem, you ask, with letting them out? Once they start, I’m not sure how to make them stop. There is so much shit, in the world, in my own personal life, that sucks right now. And if I’m completely honest, I’m having a hard time finding the bright spot. Yes, my children are a bright spot, we have our health and each other and all the other shit you’re supposed to say that you’re grateful for (and I am grateful for it) but I also have all of these other negative feelings and self doubt and pain that are overtaking everything good that I know I have.

And there’s really not anything to be done about it, which would drive Ash crazy. He was always a fixer, not great at the listening and just being there. If there was a problem, yo, he’d come up with several ways to solve it. There’s no distractions to push away the painful feelings. There are no friends to give hugs and love and feed me wine and tell me I’m pretty. (That’s a joke.) It’s just me. And the boys. And the dogs. Trying to pretend like we’re ok.

My poor kids, every night, something makes me cry, generally at the dinner table. My sweet Jack always asks if I’m alright and my sweet Colt always answers she’s just missing daddy. And that is true. I am missing him. But there’s so much more to it than that. So many things, that I, myself, do not understand and do not know how to navigate through.

So, for now, I guess I’ll just let the water works flow. Because what else are you supposed to do when your husband dies and then the world fucking stops?

Stage 4: Sadness

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Grief is selfish. The feelings that grief can emanate are all consuming. It is something you feel, on your own. Maybe I should rephrase to say that grief is selfish for me; I can’t speak for everyone. When I’m in the throes of my sorrow, or even the boys’ sorrow, it is all about us. How we’re feeling. How we’re coping. We work through it. We try not to burden others with it. We try to keep it just for us. We try to be strong when we enter the real world with other people.

Yesterday was a day of grief for us. Maybe more so me than the boys, but any time they see me sad and crying, they tend to join in, in one way or another. I woke up yesterday feeling broken. I tried to distract myself with cleaning (my least favorite task) but came across my wedding album and being the daft twit that I am, decided to flip through it. A couple of things came to mind – 1. we looked genuinely happy (even though I tried to call off my wedding the night before but that’s another story for another day). B. I couldn’t help but get angry, looking at how genuinely happy we looked, to the point where I “punched” Ash in the face (well, I punched his picture in the face) because he’s not here trudging through this life with me as promised. To be fair, he trudged as long as he could. I guess it’s not his fault his time was cut short. 3. The anger led to acute sadness. And that’s where my feelings remained for the duration of the day.

My dad stopped by. I cried on him. And he hugged me. And it was so nice. I went to my parents house for the afternoon so that I didn’t have to be alone (not that I’m alone because I always have the boys, but I needed adult companionship, adult conversation and honestly, I just needed my mom) and I let the sadness completely fill me and I let it out on my parent’s front porch. Silent tears poured down my face. It’s such a combination of so many feelings, this grief. I obviously mourn the loss of Ash – I miss him. There’s also so much fear. Will I feel this way forever? Will our new normal ever feel normal? Of course, our new normal keeps getting more and more abnormal thanks to ‘rona so that’s fun. Will I always be this lonely? I guess the only way to do it is to go through it. But man, is going through it exhausting. I know the answers to all of my questions. I know that time heals all wounds, or some such bullshit. Which is bullshit, I don’t think some wounds ever completely heal. You just learn how to live with a limp, so to speak.

I also had one of the best day’s I can remember having since losing Ash on Saturday. It started with an ass kicking workout followed by a fantastic beach day with my boys. We played paddle ball (we suck at paddle ball), we threw the football until my shoulder ached and fingers went numb, the boys got in the frigid cold water. We left sun kissed, tired and filled with a sense of peace. We filled our bellies with delicious takeout and then we watched one of our most favorite movies ever, Trolls. It was just a perfect day. And I think that’s what led to yesterday.

Ash wasn’t there for our perfect day. We had a perfect day without Ash. We will continue to have perfect days. But they might always be followed up with a hangover of sadness because life does go on. We move on. March forward. We continue to love, we laugh, and some days really do feel perfect. And some days don’t.

And when they don’t, it’s so easy to shut everyone out. I ignored phone calls yesterday, text messages. I didn’t want to let anyone in. I didn’t want anyone to know how shitty I was feeling, how down and out I was. I just wanted to let myself feel every last drop of sadness. I wanted to hug my parents and let them take care of me and the boys, if only for the afternoon because I needed that love, that acceptance and that time. Because grief is selfish.

 

Why?

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The dreaded question. The one that has no answer. But I can’t help but wonder, why us? Why my kids? Why don’t they get to have their father? What did they do to deserve this? How were they chosen? Is it something that God chooses? Is it an eenie meenie miney moe kind of thing? Is our fate already decided before we’re even born? Don’t get me wrong, this is not something I would wish on anyone. But I especially don’t wish it on my children. Do they ever wonder why my dad? Of course they do, but they’re kids, and they go with the flow. They feel it and then they move on. I envy them for that. I feel it nonstop. All the time. So many memories. So many good times. So many terrible times. But it all made us who we were, who we are. And I just can’t help but question why. Certainly Jack and Colt don’t deserve this. They are young and wild and innocent and beautiful and intelligent and weird and perfect and imperfect. Why don’t they get a life with the man that helped create them? The man I chose. The man that chose me. Why did we get so unlucky? Fate? Luck or lack there of? God’s plan? Well, God, guess what? Your plan really sucks for us. We are ok because we are strong, but we are not ok because a very large piece of us is missing.

Tonight was not a great night in the Jones household. That’s actually a lie. It was great in a beautiful and sorrowful way. We were sitting at dinner, just chatting and I looked over at Colt, looking so much like his daddy, acting even more so like him and I asked his favorite memory with daddy. This lead to a mad dash from the table to my (my, mine alone, just mine) bedroom to grab our “Daddy Memory Box” filled with weird and random shit chosen by the boys. Colt, in his 5 year old excitement, brings the box to the table and grabs Ash’s wedding band (one of those rubber/silicone rings you order on Amazon for $8) and declares that his favorite memory of daddy. Ok. What about anything you did with daddy, I ask him. His reply: legos and golf were my favorite things to do with daddy. Mine too, buddy. Well, not Legos, they’re not my favorite but golf, that was definitely a favorite.

Jack then decided to take his mad dash from the kitchen table to gather all the memory/photo books we’ve created over the years. We paused our eating and just flipped through them. And we cried. We cried because we made so many great memories together. We had so much fun together. We also created some pretty awful memories, but the beautiful thing about life, and death, is that once someone is gone, even the bad becomes the good. Because it’s something to hold onto. It’s something that you learned from, something that seemed important at the time, but in reality, didn’t matter one damn bit. It’s not that someone becomes perfect once they are gone, it’s that you realize how much you loved the perfect and the imperfect. Because it helped shape who you were, who you are and who you will be. You can look back and laugh at what once caused you so much anguish. You can find the hilarity in the awful, the beauty in the pain, and the love in the hate.

Ash and I were passionate. We fought with passion and we made up with passion. And what I wouldn’t give for one more fight and one more makeup. I can remember the last time we lay together as husband and wife (you know, in the biblical sense). It was January, 2019. We were in a Residence Inn in the Brier Creek area of Raleigh. It was the day before chemo. We didn’t know then that it would be the last time, at least not consciously, maybe subconsciously. It wasn’t our best effort, either, for obvious reasons. It was a little clumsy, we both cried the entire time and it was short lived. It wasn’t passionate but it was full of love, full of trepidation, full of fear and full of sorrow.

I’ve dreamt of Ash twice in the last week. In the first dream, we were riding in the back of a pick up truck. Our children were with us (so unsafe). My mother was driving (she would never allow the children to be in the back of a pickup truck) and my father was riding shotgun. Ash was upset because he had just learned I’d made an offer on a lot without consulting with him (um, bullshit babe, I asked you nonstop for guidance) while my mom was trying to tell him how nice Mother’s Vineyard in Manteo is. The next one, I walked into some kind of cafeteria. He was sitting at a table with a bunch of unfamiliar faces. We locked eyes as soon as I walked in, he got up and started walking towards me as I was walking towards him, never breaking eye contact. And then I woke up. That one hurt.

So, again, why? Why my children? Why us? And why, following all of that, must we be stuck at hour homes with no outside contact? How are we supposed to handle that? I guess with the same strength and resilience we’ve handled everything else.

My parting words to you this evening are to hug your husband/wife tight. I know he/she is probably driving you crazy (especially since you’re stuck with only each other), but imagine if you didn’t have him/her at all. Would the bad times also become the good times? I’d bet my life that they would. Fight passionately and make up with that same passion. It’s all cliche but it’s all true.

End Game

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Ash and I were (technically I guess I still am) huge Marvel movie fans. They have everything a great movie needs – plenty of action, a dose of humor and even some romance thrown in the mix. We saw Avengers: End Game one Tuesday night at a large AMC at the Streets of Southpoint in Durham, NC. It was one of those theaters where you could order beer or nachos or other items that you would never have considered ordering at a movie theater (we never did venture past popcorn and a coke). The chairs were recliners (that possibly may have had a heated seat feature, I can’t quite remember), there were tables and fancy cupholders and you had assigned seats, which never failed, we always seemed to mess up somehow. It was a pre-chemo night. See, Durham is a good 4 hour drive from us, appointments and chemo always started first thing in the morning so Ash and I would go up the day before, stay in a hotel and always tried to make a date out of it (we were always very good at dating), even when he felt his worst, he always wanted to keep me happy, entertained and feeling his love.

Last night, my youngest, Mr. Tolt, spent the night with my parents. (I promise this is probably leading somewhere relevant, but maybe not. It’s hard to say where my brain might take us.) Jack and I had an at home date night, just the 2 of us. Well, the 2 dogs were here as well but they don’t really count since they don’t talk and one of them constantly ignores all of us and the other is constantly in our faces. At first he ignored me (kind of like our old brown girl), as every 10 year old boy likes to do to his mother. He engrossed himself in several Star Wars Battlefront, well, battles, for lack of a better term, until I lured him away with a delicious dinner of frozen cheese pizza (don’t worry, we didn’t eat it frozen, I’m not that bad of a mother) and Caesar salad.

After eating, he finally decided he would grace me with his presence and he wanted to watch a movie. His choice was End Game. I convinced him he needed to see Captain Marvel first, which I’ve been attempting to get him to watch with me for months, to no avail (apparently when you’re 10, and male, girl superheroes aren’t that cool, at least for him anyway – I don’t want to blanket all 10 year old boys in that category). I told him she could kick his ass and would be worth watching, I promise. So we watched it last night and he loved it, as I knew he would because Mama generally knows best. We then had a slumber party in my bed, which is a rare thing that both my boys seem to think is the best treat in the world.

We slept in this morning until almost 9 am (one of my favorite treats!). We’re actually still in our jammies now at 12:20 pm EST (don’t judge us, we’ve nowhere to go and not shit to do). As soon as we woke up, brushed our teeth and got coffee (well, I got coffee. He didn’t. Because 10 year old.) Jack turned on Disney+ and loaded Avengers: End Game. I was excited. He was excited. The movie is great, albeit a tad on the lengthy side (that’s why it worked out so well that Colt wasn’t here.) I saw it, with Ash, not too long ago (see above), and I had no idea the affect it would have on me today, watching it with our oldest son.

We’ve been so wrapped up in the Coronavirus pandemic, it’s been easy to forget what else has been happening in our world, what we’ve lost, how we’ve navigated the last 4+ months, even what we’ve gained and how we’ve grown and changed.

This morning, watching End Game, made me feel our loss again. I ugly cried for the first time in a while. It was hard to watch the end. I found myself comparing my loss to Pepper’s. She looked so beautiful and full of grace for Ironman/Tony Stark’s funeral whereas I looked drunk and loopy at Ash’s. (Also, I know it’s all fake and a movie, I’m not that crazy, yet, but it invoked feelings and when I feel it, I do it, you know.) The part where she told Tony to rest now, it would be ok, they would be ok, I never did that for Ash. Not while he was conscious anyway. On the night I ultimately led him to his death, I said it, but in true Kellie fashion, I made it a joke. I laughed. I asked if he could see the light and if so, to go on into it. I guess I told him we would be ok. I can’t quite recall. But I wasn’t serious. I never take much seriously and in this instance, I wish I would have. I had been up all night, slowly easing his pain, slowly taking his life (because I was instructed to do so – just want to make that clear – I did not murder my husband – I eased his suffering upon strict orders to do so). At 5:30 in the morning, I decided my mom and I needed coffee. I left the room and Ash left me. I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t tell him I loved him. I didn’t tell him we would be ok. Nothing. I left the room. And he left us. End Game.

Today, I watched a movie with my son. Today, after watching that movie, I am not ok. I am filled with regret – regret for not being a better wife, regret for the way I left things during Ash’s final hours, regret for making everything a joke. He deserved better. He deserved my best. And I did not give it him. That said, he loved me anyway. I just wish I would have said a proper goodbye. I wish I would have thanked him for choosing to spend his life with me. I wish I would have said I love you just one more time instead of hey baby, see the light? Why don’t you go on into it. I wish I would have embraced him one last time, held his hand all through the night. But I didn’t it. And I can’t change that. I can’t get that back. End Game.