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Once Upon A Time

by | Sep 18, 2010 | Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Infidelity, Marriage Problems, Military Deployment And Family | 2 comments

I used to be a wife.

That seems like a lifetime ago but he was my first true love and when I was 19 my childhood dreams came true: we were married in the back room of a church in Vernon Parish, Louisiana.

Our first year together was great.

In October, he came home from the National Guard a couple of weeks before our first son was born to start our civilian life together. The day we brought our son, Nick, home I didn’t think life could get better. We spent weekends with friends, had our own place, he had a good job and life was good. In 2003 we extended our little family by one more, a little girl. We were complete.

In 2004, we got word that life was going to change when his guard unit got called to Active Duty. We weren’t sure exactly when he was leaving but we started preparing the kids for it. We mounted a world map on the wall to show them where daddy was going. We made countdown calendars and drew pictures. Alone, we prepared for the worst.

That cold day in November, we bundled up our 3 babies and headed for his departure. Friends and families were everywhere, but I was still in denial. I didn’t want to say goodbye and I didn’t want to lose my husband. I tried to hold it together because I didn’t want him to see me like that. So we just hugged and kissed and said that we’d see each other soon. We waved until we couldn’t see the plane in the sky anymore and then I went home and cried – a lot.

I saw him once before they shipped out to Iraq when I drove with two boys and two girls -strangers- to see our soldiers in New Jersey for Thanksgiving. It was fun, but it was a sad trip. I knew that there was a chance I would never see my husband -my best friend- again, and in some ways that is exactly what happened.

He arrived in Kuwait on our 5 year anniversary so he had a friend bring me flowers and a card. I still have that card somewhere, I think. We talked a lot while he was ‘in country’ through the phone or the internet. I’d turn up the speakers on my computer so that I’d never miss his call, and if I did, I’d spend the day crying.

I heard that other soldier’s wives and girlfriends cheated and it baffled me. How is that true love? I took my vows seriously, for better or for worse, and this was my version of the worst. It never even crossed my mind to stray, but it got into his head that I cheated on him. It was impossible. It broke my heart.

He came home right before our anniversary in January of 2006. He was nothing short of a celebrity among our family and friends and for awhile things were great.

Then, the issues started. He was quieter and wouldn’t talk to me. That summer, we separated. I couldn’t tell you for how long or what I did during that time because I don’t really know. I started talking to another guy for awhile but realized I needed to focus on my marriage so I moved back home.

In January 2007, we separated again, this time it was for good. He’d been cheating. And maybe that was why he believed that I was – because he was trying to rationalize his actions. I really don’t know. A few months later, I started talking to the guy I had met the year before, partly because he was a good guy and partly because I really wanted to hurt my husband the way he hurt me.

After my divorce, I moved in with the guy and shortly after became pregnant. At the same time my now-ex-husband was busy getting remarried and having a baby of his own. The guy and I didn’t work out. I moved out and began my life as a single mom.

And that is the end of that story. This is just one chapter in our lives and through my tears, I am working on writing the next one.

I Want To See His Face Again

by | Sep 17, 2010 | Coping With Losing A Friend, Friend Loss, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving | 2 comments

When I moved back from Indiana to my hometown, I was starting my sophomore year in high school. It wasn’t so scary because I knew a lot of people and had kept in touch with a few friends. I was welcomed back like I had never left. I just kind of folded back in.

One of the new friends that I made was Steve, who one of my friends tried to set me up with. Steve was funny and short with a big smile and even bigger feet. He dated my friend Jackie for awhile until, for some 14-year-old reason, they broke up. Steve asked me out and after okaying it with my friend, we started dating. We dated through Valentine’s Day, had our first kiss at a school basketball game, we had our share of inside jokes, and talked on the phone every night. We were inseparable.

After we broke up, we stayed best friends. He knew everything about me, we shared a locker, we still talked every day, joked and laughed and hung out at the park. He was still my best friend.

Steve called me 14 years ago this morning and told me he was going fishing with some buddies. I told him to have some fun and asked him to call back later as I went about my day. He didn’t call me and I didn’t call him – I figured I’d always have tomorrow.

Early the next morning I got a phone call from another friend. She asked me if I had read the paper or watched the news. For some reason, I said yes even though I hadn’t. I was 15 why would I want to read the paper or watch the news?

She told me that one of the two boys that had drowned the night before was Steve….

They still couldn’t find his body…

I don’t remember hanging up, I don’t remember saying anything. That day is a blur. I remember crying so loudly that my aunt called my mom home from work, I remember leaving with some friends and driving around making up crazy scenarios about where he really was and how he was actually okay. It helped us get through the next few days.

We all knew he wasn’t coming back.

Three days later, Mighty Mississippi coughed him up twenty miles from where he went under. I don’t know why, but knowing he was out of the water made me feel better. Now I had closure.

In the days before his funeral, a bunch of us hung out at his mom’s house, sharing stories and talking about him. His visitation was the hardest one I have ever been to. I watched all my big strong guy friends break down in tears, some of them fell to their knees at the casket, which we had loaded with all sorts of goodies for him to have in Heaven.

I remember the sitting room had this mirror – it was called an infinity mirror or something like that – and every time I looked in it, I felt better because I felt like I could see right into Heaven. I really wished I had one at my house.

The funeral was harder than the visitation, his family played his favorite song – the song we’d called “ours.” I talked about him, which I am so glad I did. Then we had to say goodbye.

I have been to the cemetery a few times in the last 14 years, but I have never been strong enough to go to the place where he was when he drowned. I still talk to him a lot. I think about him all the time. Over the years I have lost touch with his family but would want them to know that they are in my thoughts every day. I loved him and still do.

Some times I will dig out my folder that has all things Steve in it and I will cry, and laugh, and remember. I am still scared of the river; I try to avoid it especially in certain places. I have a hard time going over the bridges but every time seems a little bit easier.

I decided the best way to end my post about Steve would be to end it with a poem I wrote for him. It won first place in a local poetry contest. That was a great way to honor him.

In Loving Memory

I want to see his face again

I long to see his smile

I need to hear his voice once more

If just for a little while

My mind wants him here with me,

But still he’s far away

It’s trying to think of everything

To make him come to stay

My heart is searching soulfully

To hide the love inside

But the love I have inside for him

Is something I simply cannot hide

I will sit here wondering

How it could’ve been

And I’ll sit here waiting

For my chance to come again

(Dedicated to Steven C. Morse on August 14, 1996)

Not All Anniversaries Are Happy

by | Sep 16, 2010 | Anniversary Reactions, Baby Loss, Child Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood | 8 comments

{sigh} Yesterday was the 6 month anniversary of Robert’s death ~ he was 14 1/2 months old when he died. The past 6 months seem more like a year. I thought time dragged on when my husband Joe was deployed in Iraq, but that flew by in comparison to this. Not a day goes by that I don’t think to myself “Oh no, I forgot Robert at home.”

Or I look in the backseat of the truck & my heart stops because I think “I lost Robert in the store!!!”

Then I realize that he’s gone.

I flash back to the moment I found him laying so still in his crib, I knew in my heart he was already gone. There was nothing I could do.

6 months ago was the hardest day of my life.

Harder than saying goodbye to my husband while I was 9 months pregnant as he drove off on a bus late at night to get on a plane to go to war.

Harder than the day I had to go to the hospital, alone, straight from my OB appointment because they couldn’t find Robert’s heart beat.

Harder than the day Robert was born and the phone connection Joe was on in Iraq sucked and I couldn’t hear him half the time.

Harder than giving birth to Robert, without an epidural because he came so quick it didn’t take.

Harder than the 9 months I was home alone with 3 kids and a husband who was at war and having near misses at death almost everyday.

At 7:55 am on Sunday December 14, 2008 I went to get Robert up and ready for church. I picked my baby up out of his crib and I knew he was dead. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Brianna was in our bedroom watching Playhouse Disney. She couldn’t know what was happening. I carried Robert into the living room, called 911 and pleaded for help.

I gave my baby CPR, knowing it was useless, waiting for what seemed like hours for the police to arrive, it was barely 3 minutes.

I handed Robert to the first officer through the door who actually was in Joe’s unit. He took Robert and another officer and paramedics came in. They tried to work on him, but I knew from the words they were saying it was too late. As soon as I had handed Robert to them I called Joe’s cell phone. He didn’t answer and I didn’t know where he was.

He had left at 4:45 am to take Kameryn to his hockey game. Joe’s phone was ringing, but then I realized, that I didn’t know what to say. I handed my phone over to another officer and said, “I can’t tell my husband. You have to talk to him.” I don’t know what he said, but thank God Joe was only around the corner. Joe barreled through the front door to find me sitting on the floor, sobbing.

Joe called his family to come over and they were at my house within minutes. I couldn’t get in touch with my parents, but finally, my best friend Heather and the police went to my parents’ house to tell them.

All I wanted was to get to the hospital to be with Robert but I had to answer questions. Joe called his LT at work, his 1Sgt from the unit. “God, we need to get to the hospital. Why are we still here?” was that all I could think.

Finally, they let us leave for the hospital.

They took us into a waiting room where we had to wait while person after person from the hospital and police talked to us. Thankfully, not long after we got to the hospital so did numerous people from Joe’s unit, our church, and people from Joe’s work. I was so overwhelmed by how many people came to help us. Much of the rest of the day at the hospital is still a blur. I remember pits and pieces of those hours but mainly I just remember being numb.

My Robert was dead.

What had happened? All the questions the coroner was asking me, that I had to tell the detective the same things I had told the police at the house, I just wanted to see my baby. “When can I see Robert?”

Finally, Joe & I could see him. Our sweet baby boy. All I wanted to do was lay next to him, my head next to him, smelling his hair. Bubby had the best hair, he was supposed to get a hair cut on Friday. I just rubbed his hair with one hand & held Joe’s with the other. Kissing my baby’s head, tears wetting it.

That is how I spent the day 6 months ago

A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

by | Sep 15, 2010 | Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Depression, Depressive Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, Mental Health | 4 comments

Sometimes, the act of talking to someone and taking action is all we need to find hope.

This is her story of hope:

I went to see my doctor yesterday for major depressive disorder. He sat and listened. He took my problems seriously. He even asked me if I thought I should be hospitalized. He talked about what a loss my children would have if I was gone and how they would blame themselves. It made me stop and pause. I listened.

He added another SSRI to the two medicines I currently take.

I have hope now.

Hope that I will make it through this. Hope that the new medicine will help me cope with all the craziness in my life. And it feels good to have hope. It is something to hold on to.

I met with my counselor as well. She wants to see me more regularly to help me through this. It feels good to have someone want to help me fight through this fog of depression – to help me find the light. She helped me see that all this anxiety is in my head and when the anxiety and the depression get together, it’s not as bad as I make it out to be. I take other people’s actions too personally. My kids aren’t trying to escape me; they just want to spend some time with their dad. Even though it hurts me, it’s not personal.

That gives me hope that someday I will be able to differentiate between what is reality and what I am imagining or reading into the situation.

I don’t know if my marriage will make it, but I have a feeling that no matter what, I will be able to make it through to the other side. I will be okay. No matter what, I have my kids and I have my goals.

We all will be able to make it to the light and live to see another day.

A Letter To My Younger Self: Miscarriage

by | Sep 15, 2010 | A Letter To My Younger Self, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Livng Through A Miscarriage, Loss, Miscarriage, Pregnancy | 2 comments

Hindsight is 20/20 – that is what they say right? Do you ever wish you could go back in time – back to the future style – and share some words of wisdom to yourself? At times I find myself wishing I had that super power – or technology caught up because I could have some interesting/heartbreaking conversations with myself:

A Letter My Younger Self About: Miscarriage:

Dear Devan,

I think that you should sit down because what I have to tell you is not going to be easy to hear. It will seem near impossible but I am so sorry to tell you it is true. In 5 short years, you will experience one of the hardest journeys you will have been on in your 28 years of life and experience: 10 heartbreaking & painful miscarriages. Yes, 10.

You will bounce from worrying about ever getting pregnant because of your previous surgeries for ovarian cysts to worrying about never carrying a pregnancy to term. However, after your first 3 miscarriages you will become obsessed with basal body temping and you will be diagnosed with a short luteal phase and progesterone deficiency. Although this is part of the answer after you have your healthy boy and start trying to conceive again, you will be punched in the heart with 2 more miscarriages.

You will be strong and try to pretend this is not affecting you as much as it really is. You will not share your feelings with anyone, not your husband, your family, or friends. You will battle through it and you will be blessed with your second full-term child – a beautiful girl.

I wish I could tell you this was the end of your heartache. You will, in fact, endure 4 more and then you will become pregnant again and you will pass your 8th week and think you will be welcoming your third child in a handful of months. A phone call that literally brings you to your knees will have you broken in ways you could not imagine. Your amazing husband will be there to catch you. He will guide you through the surgery and he will be your rock. Triton will be with you forever and you will think about him a lot. After some new medical plans and medication you will welcome your third healthy child and she will bring you back from some of that darkness and sadness.

I wish I could tell you that all this wouldn’t happen. I wish I could stop it from happening. The reality is this experience, this wordless journey will define so much of who you are – not negatively. Good things will come from it – you will see just how strong your marriage is and just how incredible your husband is to help hold you up when you thought you were sinking. Your children will bring so much joy to your life because you know how much you fought and ached for them.

You will realize how strong you are and that this – motherhood – was without a doubt what you were put on this earth to do.