June 25, 2001
Well sweetheart,

Today is the official first day of the summer holiday for the kids. I left them a short list of things to do and hope they won?t start calling me, fighting. I asked them again about a camp because they?re going to be stuck inside until after 3, and today is a busy day so it?s not like they can go to the pool or anything. I guess we?ll just have to see how it goes.

This afternoon I am going to drop Heidi off to Lori Young?s house (that?s her Cadets leader and mother of Heidi?s friend Jillian). Today is the Girl Scout end of the year party. They?re going to play miniature golf, just like last year, and then go over to Applebee?s for dinner. As for me, I?m going to take Kristin and Billy to the Roseanne and then take everyone over to Applebee?s.

Heidi just called me (here I am at work, not a half hour into the day) and already they are fighting. They would have called you because that was your area. You?d field the calls from the kids, straighten them out and get them to refocus. I hope I did the right thing. Heidi wants to be in charge so that she can ?punish? Kristin. I told her no and I talked to each kid about what I wanted them to do.

If this doesn?t work, I?m going to have to put them into some kind of emergency day care situation. I don?t know how or where, but I can?t have them at each other?s throats in the house all day. This really sucks, Rich. You weren?t supposed to leave me in this predicament and I?m not sure how I?m going to handle it.

I am still numb, I think. The Grief Monster only visited me that one time, last Monday night. So far I have been hanging in but I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wrote a letter to the Ehrlers, hoping that we can continue to rent the house after October. I get through the day but I am still feeling very much like an actress in a play or something.

The parking lot is being repaved and for the next few days we have to park out of the parking lot, across the street at Pathmark or down one of the side streets. At any rate, I thought what a hardship it would have been for you with your bad knee and ankles and your heart to have to walk to and from the house. And then I thought, it?s a good thing you?re missing this and then I thought: are you crazy? I know we would have found a way to manage had you lived but you didn?t, so I guess there are some small blessings to be found.

I?ve read posts from widows that never got a chance to say goodbye to their husbands. I am so grateful for that hour we had together, when you held my hand and put it to your lips and we talked. Somehow I think we did get a chance to say goodbye in that we knew how much we loved each other. Another widow I?ve become friendly with, Helen in Rochester, was telling me that incontinence is one of the early signs of impending death and that when you wet yourself that night it meant you were already in the process of dying. I wonder if you knew that on some level. I didn?t think of it until later; all I had to go by was the fact that it happened when you passed out at work. Helen also said that the dying process really is undignified and unpleasant to watch and that it?s no wonder you wanted to spare me that. When we found you, your eyes were closed and you seemed to be asleep. Helen said you had to have been gone at least three hours. That means you died not long after I went up to bed.

Some of the widows say they try to do things to make themselves feel sad and I wondered why. Is it because they?re still in a numbed condition like me and they want to make sure they are real and that they do have feelings? I haven?t cried since last Monday. I go to bed at night and the girls are in the bed so I am not alone. Maybe that?s why I don?t cry. Or maybe it?s still this protective web around me?the one that makes it feel so unreal.

Messages I posted on the widow support board:

Life IS unfair. That's one of the things Rich would say a lot. We would go
with the flow and roll with the punches and stumble through the hard times
and yes, life was unfair a LOT.
You were there for your step-daughter. That counts for a lot. I believe that
there is life after death so I think her father was watching too.
My youngest daughter was in the end-of-year spring concert, playing the
violin in public for the first time. Rich would have tried to go to see her
if he could. I think he was there watching from above.
Sometimes believing it isn't enough though.
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I was talking to a friend tonight. I am still feeling that weird numb
this-is-not-me-or-my-world feeling most of the time. I function okay, I
look, act and talk like me...but it's like I'm waiting to go back to my real
world. There are so many little things in my real world that I miss here...
Rich and I used to drive in to work together. We worked just a mile or two
apart, with a major mall between us. On the way in, we'd listen to Q104 for
the trick logic question of the day to see if we could figure it out...and
Rich was really good at figuring those out! And when I'd drop him off, he'd
always stand and wait for me to pull out and he'd flash the international
sign for "I love you" and I would sign it back to him and I'd hear him call,
"Don't forget the lights!"
That came about because I'd park in this underground garage and when I'd
leave at the end of my day I'd turn the lights on. My work day ended at
2:45; his at 4:30. Sometimes I'd go to that mall and walk but other times
I'd just go to where he worked, park, curl up and nap until he came out.
Once or twice, though, he'd startle me awake because I'd forgotten to turn
off the headlights and someone in the front would see the car and call him
up to tell him.
Sometimes I hear him say it so clearly: "Don't forget to turn out the
lights!"
Other things I miss:
his snoring
his laugh
the way he'd say, "do you know how much I love you?"
his surprises...sometimes flowers, sometimes a candy bar, sometimes an
off-color email card
his smile--he was so handsome when he smiled, his face would just light up,
especially his eyes
snuggling up against him on those rare occasions we wanted to watch the same
TV program
watching him play with one of the kids
listening to him singing to a favorite song--he loved John Fogarty and
Clearance, the Stones, the Beatles, Eric Clapton...
one of the things I miss most of all is his dreams of retirement...what we
were going to do, where we were going to go...
Even with the three kids in my house, it's too damn quiet...
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