I never knew what I was going to do with these pages. I started them, but I didn't seem to have any direction until now. I guess a little background is in order. I am Lacie25 and my husband was Denim25. We thought the nics were cute together and the 25 was a number that we came up with by accident, or so I thought. I guess there really are no accidents in life. You see, Denim and I celebrated our 25th anniversary on May 10th, 2000. We had never been happier, not that we weren't happy, it is just that our boys were grown and we were able to concentrate on one another again. We had been remodeling the house and making plans what we would do in the yard next year. We had planned short vacations and long ones, we talked about retirement...everything. Monday, August 14, 2000, we kissed and hugged bye for the morning, we said our "I love you's". There was something special about his hug and kiss, he squeezed a little harder and longer, I smiled and looked into his eyes and said "My what a special hug". Little did I know it would be my last.

We had made plans to see each other later that morning, at the doctor's office. I had had some tests run and was going in for the results. He was to meet me, but I told him if he was too busy I understood and would see him at lunch. He said ok but he would be there. His plan was to pick up our son and run some errands.

I got to work and wrote down the date, I thought, there is something special about this date, but couldn't figure out what it was. Later that morning I had a sharp quick pain in my chest, strange I thought. Our son called a little later worried about his dad, he had not shown up. I told him not to worry he probably got tied up with a customer. He wasn't at the doctor's office, again although I was beginning to worry too, I thought he had just been busy, I would see him at lunch.

I came home and he wasn't here. I started searching the house and realized his gun was missing.

I got frantic I knew what he had gone to do in my heart and I wanted so bad to find him and stop him. Our son came over and we went driving around to places I thought I might find him...and hopefully stop what I was so afraid he was going to do. I had called his mother in hopes she had heard from him and told her he took his gun, I was afraid of what he might do, for her to stay put in case he called or came to her. Our youngest son had stayed home in case he came home or called. We didn't find him. One of his friends suggested we call the police again and see if they wouldn't put out a missing persons. We came home to call, as we rounded that corner again I visioned 2 police officers coming to our door...I already knew.

We called the police and they sent out an officer. He took the report and went to his car to call it in. He stood outside talking to our son and at one point I went out to check on them. I saw a police car drive by and I went inside. A few moments later 2 new police officers came in. Jerry (Denim25) was gone...he had committed suicide.

Oh God, my heart broke! My world at that moment fell apart.

We had been so happy, what could possibly have gone wrong? I searched the house until I was exhausted trying to find any clue as to why he would do this. I tried to recall the past few days, weeks, months, anything that would have given me a clue. I prayed so hard...WHY??? His words kept coming back to me, "If I ever get an illness like my dad or your dad had to where I would be laid up suffering a long slow death I will put a hole in my head before I put anyone else or myself through that." He did exactly what he said he would do under those circumstances. He had said that several times, but I didn't have a clue he was sick. I started to remembering little things and searching records for anything.

In my record search, I found that on August 18, 1999 almost a year before, he had withdrawn $500 from his bank account and went to the liquor store and bought Crown Royal with a check. All total he had withdrawn $4600 from his checking account from January 1999 through August 2000. This was particularly strange since we paid almost everything by check. We rarely used cash for anything. He had gone to the doctor once several years earlier without saying anything to me about it until afterwards. So I knew he would have found a doctor that I didn't know and would not have used our insurance if he was trying to hide something from me. I believe now he had done just that, found out he had something like cancer and decided to deal with it on his own. I believe he just wanted his family happy and didn't want to see sadness in us. That would have been his way.

I have always believed in taking natural stuff for illness over prescription stuff, if I could find someting natural that did the same thing I would need a prescription for and had bought some vitamins and minerals, but I had not taken these. He mentioned something about them around early summer. He wanted to start taking them. There were 5 bottles of them and I asked him several times if he knew what he was taking and what they all were for. He said somebody needs to take them and he knew what he was doing. It was kind of strange to see him taking them in a way, he rarely took anything like that. He had been taking atleast 4 aspirin at night for his ankle. He may have been taking more, but that is how many he would tell me he was taking. He also always woke up at 5:30 in the mornings, like he had a built in alarm clock. He overslept at least 2 times this summer and blamed it on the aspirin. In all the years we have been together I don't ever remember him oversleeping until then.

On Tuesday, August 8th he had an appointment with my mom to cut his hair. Everyone was always telling him how much he looked like Richard Gere and it happened that day too. A lady walked all around him and then said "He looks like Richard Gere from all sides". Mom said it was strange that day, he was unusually quiet and when she finished he said he liked it, she turned around for just a moment and when she turned back he had left her money on the counter and was already gone. He didn't even say bye. That night he had gotten out of the shower and I was sitting down and he told me about the lady in the shop and what she said. I grinned and told him "You loved it and you know it". Then I noticed on his hip he had 2 red marks that looked like where a bandaid had been. I asked him what happened, he just looked at it and said he probably scratched it. I thought it was a strange scratch, but I didn't question him further, he never knew what he did to himself when he got cuts, bruises and scratches, he would say "I don't pay attention to stuff like that when I am working..it just happens".

Thursday before when we were eating lunch and he jumped up, getting choked on his sandwich to go throw up. I had followed him shortly after to check to see if he was alright, he said yeah the sandwich was dry and he couldn't get it down. I asked if that happened often, he said everytime he ate something dry and couldn't get it down he would throw up. I told him he may have a hiatial hernia or something, maybe he should have the doctor check it out. That night he picked me up from work and wanted to know what I wanted to eat, I told him I had stuff to fix chicken fried steak and I wanted to cook. He never turned down chicken fried steak, it was his favorite. Also, I didn't cook very much, so that was always a special treat for him. Our oldest son had been having problems with his blood sugar and we had bought him a glucometer to watch it. That night while I was cooking Jerry broke down and cried when he told me it hurt him to watch our son take his blood. I held him and told him it would be ok. Being a parent is hard when we have to see them go through something like this. He had been tested at the hospital a week earlier and was told he had diabetes, but he would need to go for further testing to be sure. He at this point had not been to a doctor yet, but was keeping it under control with diet and watching his blood sugar. It hurt us both that he was having to go through this, Jerry was never an emotional man and I thought he was really taking this hard. I assured him plenty of people have diabetes and they just have to keep it under control. I finished up our meal and he enjoyed it as always. He took a few phone calls to customers and one had people in his family that has diabetes and they discussed it for awhile. I think he felt better after talking to this guy and realizing people do live with it and even if our son had it he could control it. We watched a movie together, basically just enjoyed being with each other.

Friday I remember neither one of us ate lunch. He always had lunch, but he said he just wasn't hungry. Neither one of us was hungry that evening either, so we just snacked. I told him I wanted to get up early on Saturday and go to the meat market then come home clean the office and maybe get some painting done in the hallway. We did go to the meat market and got the office cleaned, but we decided to relax and paint on Sunday. We had gone out Saturday morning to a fast food place for breakfast sandwiches so neither one of us was hungry for the rest of the day. That wasn't really that unusual lots of times we would not be hungry after a big breakfast.

Sunday I got up and fixed t-bone steak and eggs for breakfast, I had laid the steaks out for the night before, but since we didn't have them I thought I would fix them for breakfast. We decided to paint on the hallway and did for the better part of the day and into the evening. He had put alot of woodwork in the hallway so it had to be painted with a brush, not to mention the 8 doors which I was in charge of painting. About dark he took me by the elbow and told me that I had done enough we needed to rest now. I told him we might even get finished next weekend. We again decided we weren't hungry after the big breakfast we had had. I went in to check my email and he took my brush to clean it. When he had finished he walked into the office and he had the sadest look on his face. I had never seen him so sad. I went to him and told him "Oh honey, you look so sad." I told him our son would be okay he didn't need to worry so much. I hugged him and he seemed to get okay. I know now that it was more than sadness, I have seen the same face in the mirror. It was grief, he was grieving for what he was about to put us all through. Later that evening I read "Trucker's Last Letter" to him. I usually read stuff like that and cry, but that night my precious husband broke down and cried. He never cried over stuff like that. I told him he didn't have to worry about us not knowing he loved us he showed us love all the time and told me all the time. We clung to each other while we cried. Little did I know. His note read "I am so very sorry to you all. I love you all very much!" That was it, no explaination. He had always said if he got a terminal illness he would do this exactly like he did it. He had said he would not put us or himself through that kind of pain and suffering. He was a quiet man and kept alot to himself. If he had found out he had an illness, he didn't let on to me. That would have been his way. I miss him so much he was the love of my life. We were married 25 years this year and had never been more in love. I know in my heart he would not have left for any other reason. He is with the Lord now and I am happy that he is experiencing the fullness of God's love. He was a good man who's time it was to go home. Some day I will see him again. I didn't know I had saved the Truckers Last Letter in my folders and just found it this morning. I have been slowly working on web pages for my husband, but was finding it hard to get back to them. Since I found the letter, now I know I can work on them some more. I just wanted to share the blessing that letter had given us. You see, I only saw him cry 4 times in the 28 years I have known him. He knew he was about to put us through the most pain we had ever experienced in our lives and that letter touched his heart enough to cry. I thought he was crying because he felt he didn't show us enough love, which was far from the truth, he was crying because he was dying. Ellen

Thank you for visiting my page at Angelfire. Please come back and visit again!

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