Today is three years since my husband died… I don’t know what part makes me pause more – “three years” or “my husband died.”
When Steve first died, I never thought I’d make it through the first minute. We were spending time as a family on Sunday night and on Thursday, I decided what type of flowers I wanted for his casket.
Then I had to get through the first full week, then the first month, the first holidays, the first year. Now I sit here, eyes swollen and cheeks wet from crying over the fact that it’s been three years since my husband died. He DIED. Three years since I’ve talked to him, hugged him, kissed him, gone to sleep with him and woken up with him by my side. Even after three years, it’s just unfathomable to me. For a long time, Tuesdays sucked. And the 7th of each month still brings heartache. It was 29 months before I got through the 7th of a month and didn’t realize it until the 8th.
I never thought it would take three years for my anger to kick in – but it has. And it’s not directed at Steve – I could never be angry at him for dying. He didn’t know he had a congenital issue with his aorta – it took a coroner to find it. He never would have left us on his own. That was one of the hardest things to deal with in the beginning when it came to Bear – Daddy didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to go. “Then, why isn’t he here.” I still remember Bear being concerned that Daddy had gone to Heaven without his shoes. And, when he saw his cell phone sitting on the table, he was upsets because Daddy forgot his phone and now we couldn’t call him.
In all honesty, and it’s caught me a bit by surprise given that it’s been 3 years now, most of my anger is directed at the cleaning lady who allowed Steve to sit dead in a bathroom stall all those hours. The same cleaning lady who apparently had an ‘immigration issue’ which is why it’s thought she didn’t escalate any concerns she may have had to management. While she cleaned the counter tops, refilled the paper towels and picked up the floor -- how could she not have noticed that the same pair of white tennis shoes in the handicapped stall hadn’t moved despite her knocks on the stall door to see if the owner of the shoes was okay – for six hours.
His feet didn’t move and were in the same exact position at 11am…12pm…1pm…2pm…3pm…4pm… She knocked the on the stall door and when she received no response, she would just continue cleaning, would sign the log on the back of the door indicating that she’d done enough to earn her minimum wage for that hour, and she moved on until it was time to come back and do it all over again. She let him sit there, dead, for 6 of the 9 hours that I searched for him. His cell phone ringing, his feet not moving. No one did a thing. No one questioned.
I couldn’t be there for him that day but she was. She was the most constant presence around him that day – every hour, on the hour – yet she did nothing. When the assistant manager I was with that day asked “is this bathroom empty” at 11:45 am – she answered “yes.” The question and the answer were in English. So we kept looking and searching. I walked every inch of that super Walmart calling his cell phone, screaming his name, kicking under full clothes racks to see if he’d fallen or passed out and couldn’t be seen. I drove the green-belt around the store looking for his body. I went to the bank in the shopping center, screaming as I ran in that I needed to check our bank records – what if he’d been abducted? Yes, put the alert on his credit card but make sure he can still use it – if he’s hurt or in trouble, he will need money. More driving the green-belt, more screaming his name through the store and more calling his cell phone. I was told to go to Sam’s Club next door – they thought they had him on surveillance video. No, it’s not him. HELP me – someone HELP ME. Finally, someone in a suit told me to go back over to the store and the store manager would meet me at the door – his name would be Phil and he would help me. We walked to the back of the store at 5:04pm – I remember because I glanced at my cell phone and asked my friend to help me remember to pick Bear up from daycare. 10 minutes later, 911 was called. A formality as he’d been dead for hours. Rigor had set in. All those hours of searching and yelling and crying and fear and confusion – ALL of those hours and he was in the exact place I’d checked when I very first arrived at the store hours earlier. Yeah, I have some anger towards the cleaning lady. Three years later, and she still doesn’t want to be in the same room with me.
I know in my heart that I will probably live the rest of my life alone and that scares me and saddens me all at the same time. We had SO much we wanted to do – together! I was supposed to grow old with Steve, save up for retirement together, attack our bucket list together. Cruise Alaska, experience Cooperstown, go to Australia. It saddens me when I think of all that has been taken from us.
Bear got royally screwed in this whole mess… Steve will never have the birds and the bees talk with him… He won’t join him on Boy Scout trips, help him pick out his first car, help him with his tux on Prom night, let him sneak a beer in the garage at 17 while talking cars and girls. He will never see his son graduate high school or college or help him through his first broken heart. He will never meet his daughter-in-law or hold his grandchildren. The list of ‘he will never’ goes on and on. This is NOT the life we signed up for and is not the life we promised to give our son.
I don’t share my personal feelings freely because I want pity or sympathy or because I enjoy people peering into my private thoughts. I share what it’s like to be a widow to try and convey what it’s truly like to be widowed. It’s hell. You don’t get over it in a year. The journey is full of fear and sadness and guttural sounds of pain and emotion you never thought your body was capable of making. Through my pain, I can only hope that it will help someone to live more in the moment, to appreciate their loved ones a bit more, and to never, ever take one moment for granted. Not one. Steve went to Walmart for an oil change. How much more mundane can you get? And he never came home. Please, don’t take a single moment for granted. In a heartbeat, everything can change. Every. Single. Thing.
May He Rest in Peace
Steven M. Turner
1966-2007
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