This allowed for more freedom of living. Rather than having to go and sit in a center for 6-8 hours 3 days each week, he was able to have shorter treatments daily. Also this allowed us to travel with ease. Just pack up the stuff and go. We traded in our Ford Taurus for a Dodge Caravan and hit the road.
Despite excellent care, my husband passed away at our dining room table on May 27, 2018. It was as awful as anyone can imagine, perhaps more so. Meetings with the Non-Negotiables are always transformative. I still remember him looking at me and then he wasn’t. It was like he’d just been turned off. Click. Just like that.
It was so hot that evening, and the paramedics worked feverishly to revive him. The younger paramedic was pushing, sweating and counting. He pushed, sweated and counted all the way to the hospital but I knew he was gone. I saw it, I felt him leave.
It was almost as if he passed through me on the way out. In hindsight, I know that I stood strong until the end and that every celestial being on heaven and earth knew that that was the only way to get to him. They had to go through me and that’s what they did.
The ambulance driver was trying to be distractingly chatty but I was listening to the pushing, sweating and counting. It was pushing so hard, I almost wanted to yell at him to Stop. Can’t you see the man is dead?!!!!!
But my real concern was that I had to tell his mother. She’s a good woman and must admit an excellent mother in law. However, my husband was her first born son and probably her best friend. It broke my heart to have to tell her to come to the hospital.
I stayed quiet in the hospital because I didn’t want them to tell me to leave the room. They were working on him so intensely that they didn’t notice that I was in the room. I squatted down in the corner and prayed as I watched them hook, draw, pump, push and command. The doctor called time of death of 22:19, but I know that it was really more like 21:57.
After the attending physician called time of death, he asked his team who was there with him so he could make the notification.
I stood up from the corner and said, “You just did.”
He was shocked and stammered a bit, but he quickly fell back on his professionalism. He tried to gently explain what happened, but his words were scripted. I SAW what happened, I wasn’t confused and they didn’t falter.
I was petrified because I had to tell a black woman from Alabama that her first born son was dead. Good LAWD!!!
When my in-laws arrived to hospital, the nurse asked me if I wanted the hospital to make the notification or if I wanted to do it. I was married to this man for almost 21 years, they are my family and there was just no way I could let anyone else tell them. I told the nurse I would do it, but I just needed a cup of water first.
Thankfully, since it was Memorial Weekend the hospital staff was preparing for their holiday. So when she came back in she had a bottle of Greygoose and a cup of water. She waved the bottle, I nodded, she poured generously, I took a long gulp and went to tell my mother in law that her son was dead.
It’s actually very hard even writing this part, because it still breaks my heart to think of her face when I told her.
When we talked about it later she told me that the look on her face was in response to mine. Her exactly words were ” You didn’t have to say a word ‘T’ (she always called me ‘T’), I saw your face and it was something I’ve never seen – Defeat. I knew he was gone before you opened your mouth.”
Yes Lord she called it. I was defeated, out for the count. I was dead in all ways except physical body.
It was Memorial Day weekend and I must admit to still feeling a bit of trepidation throughout the month of May. Which is probably one of the reasons I’m writing so much so quickly now. Today is May 5, 2024 and I feel the strangeness of the season.
The first couple of years if not for Math Tutor Tj I would’ve died. The work kept me cognitively aware and the trust of my students made sure that I at least got up and brushed my teeth.
It was also the reason I refused medical alleviations. They took away my ability to “feel” mathematics. Listening to scientific recommendations I took medicine as an emotional tourniquet during the first few months after my husband’s passing.
However, one day I was working with a student on trigonometric identities, and I couldn’t mentally see them. I mean the math was just marks on the page. No form, no reason, no beauty, just symbols.
Now this indicated a serious problem for me, because I’m practically Egyptian when it comes to trig. I do trig problems the way some people do Sudoku or crossword puzzles so me struggling to remember these things was very distressing. Like something was stolen from me. I was angry. I’d just lost my husband and now math?
When I talked with my doctor about this he offered something less mind bending, but I refused. I decided that I’d just lost my husband of 20 years just 6 weeks shy of our 21st anniversary and I’m probably supposed to feel sad.
My feelings were normal for my the mental injury of grief and I didn’t want to be chemically normalized. I can heal. I have to heal this injury.
Also I knew that I needed to be able to do math in order to eat so it was really a no brainer.
I shut down my physical office, and moved online exclusively.