Sometimes running away is the only thing you can to do, especially when you come home and find your beloved husband lying dead on your bedroom floor.
Our friends and family found my plans to go to Mexico so soon after Harry's death crazy, and many told me as much.
I decided to run away and Mexico would be my run away destination. Harry and I had always found Mexico to be beautiful, deeply frustrating and mysterious. I felt Mexico in all its complexity would be the perfect refuge for my grief which I found to also be deeply frustrating and mysterious.
I have a deep connection with Mexico I cannot explain. Harry and I moved from our home in the mid-west to Mexico in 2008. I had accepted a teaching job I found on the Internet after retiring from a 32 year teaching career. The job was teaching English at a posh school in San Jose del Cabo at the tip of the Baja peninsula. One of my dreams had always been to teach in a Spanish speaking country and since we were both retired we decided to embark on a grand adventure. I had visited Mexico in my late twenties and always dreamed of returning. The two of us lived in Mexico for two years, returning after Harry had a terrible accident which required surgery in the US.
I began substitute teaching when we returned from Mexico and nearly half a decade of lovely years rolled by. Until.... that day. I came home from shopping on that unseasonably warm early spring day in March to find my beloved husband dead on our bedroom floor. I had called Harry about three that afternoon just as I was leaving work, telling him I would be home shortly after a brief trip to the grocery store. Our conversation was brief but I vividly remember how euphorically happy he sounded. Thinking back on our conversation I thought, what was he so damn happy about?
I arrived home at four and instead of finding Harry in the kitchen cooking dinner for the guest we had coming for dinner, I found him lying on our bedroom floor. I heard myself gasp and cry out as I dropped to the floor next to him thinking he had fallen and would get up with a little coaxing. His head was resting gently on his outstretched arm and his eyes were open and glassy. I touched his face and arms. He felt warm in spots, but other parts of him were icy cold, a dead sort of cold. I of course knew he was dead the minute I was on the floor next to him, but your mind won't allow you to comprehend that reality quickly.
I remember getting up from kneeling beside Harry and going to the phone in the kitchen. For some reason I was unable to pick up the phone and call for help. Instead I went back into the bedroom briefly to cover him with a blanket and then I ran out into the hallway of my condo building. I needed to connect with someone and there in the hallway, as fate would have it, standing in front of her condo next door to mine was my next door neighbor, Sandie. She was with her dog unlocking her door. I told Sandie I thought Harry was dead, not quite believing the words that had just come out of my mouth. Sandie, a retired nurse, immediately went into our bedroom as I stood frozen in the kitchen adjacent to the bedroom. She came out a few seconds later and told me that, yes, he was gone. Sandie called the fire department, my family and friends, many of whom came immediately. The coroner arrived promptly, followed by the fire department and an hour and a half later they took Harry out on a wheeled gurney.
I was awake for the next three days straight unable to eat or sleep. My daughter and son-in-law and grandson moved in with me. Friends and family came and went bringing food and comfort. At night I sat on the couch staring into the gas fireplace in my living room wrapped in a comfort quilt hand made and delivered by another dear neighbor, Ann, who also lives down the hall from me. I used to joke with Ann that I didn't want to see her walking down the hallway to my door with one of those damn quilts she stockpiled in her bathtub ready to bestow upon people who had experienced the loss of a loved one. We lived in a large 55 plus building so the demand for grief was pretty steady. It never crossed my mind that I would qualify for a quilt.
Our friends and family found my plans to go to Mexico so soon after Harry's death crazy, and many told me as much.
I decided to run away and Mexico would be my run away destination. Harry and I had always found Mexico to be beautiful, deeply frustrating and mysterious. I felt Mexico in all its complexity would be the perfect refuge for my grief which I found to also be deeply frustrating and mysterious.
I have a deep connection with Mexico I cannot explain. Harry and I moved from our home in the mid-west to Mexico in 2008. I had accepted a teaching job I found on the Internet after retiring from a 32 year teaching career. The job was teaching English at a posh school in San Jose del Cabo at the tip of the Baja peninsula. One of my dreams had always been to teach in a Spanish speaking country and since we were both retired we decided to embark on a grand adventure. I had visited Mexico in my late twenties and always dreamed of returning. The two of us lived in Mexico for two years, returning after Harry had a terrible accident which required surgery in the US.
I began substitute teaching when we returned from Mexico and nearly half a decade of lovely years rolled by. Until.... that day. I came home from shopping on that unseasonably warm early spring day in March to find my beloved husband dead on our bedroom floor. I had called Harry about three that afternoon just as I was leaving work, telling him I would be home shortly after a brief trip to the grocery store. Our conversation was brief but I vividly remember how euphorically happy he sounded. Thinking back on our conversation I thought, what was he so damn happy about?
I arrived home at four and instead of finding Harry in the kitchen cooking dinner for the guest we had coming for dinner, I found him lying on our bedroom floor. I heard myself gasp and cry out as I dropped to the floor next to him thinking he had fallen and would get up with a little coaxing. His head was resting gently on his outstretched arm and his eyes were open and glassy. I touched his face and arms. He felt warm in spots, but other parts of him were icy cold, a dead sort of cold. I of course knew he was dead the minute I was on the floor next to him, but your mind won't allow you to comprehend that reality quickly.
I remember getting up from kneeling beside Harry and going to the phone in the kitchen. For some reason I was unable to pick up the phone and call for help. Instead I went back into the bedroom briefly to cover him with a blanket and then I ran out into the hallway of my condo building. I needed to connect with someone and there in the hallway, as fate would have it, standing in front of her condo next door to mine was my next door neighbor, Sandie. She was with her dog unlocking her door. I told Sandie I thought Harry was dead, not quite believing the words that had just come out of my mouth. Sandie, a retired nurse, immediately went into our bedroom as I stood frozen in the kitchen adjacent to the bedroom. She came out a few seconds later and told me that, yes, he was gone. Sandie called the fire department, my family and friends, many of whom came immediately. The coroner arrived promptly, followed by the fire department and an hour and a half later they took Harry out on a wheeled gurney.
I was awake for the next three days straight unable to eat or sleep. My daughter and son-in-law and grandson moved in with me. Friends and family came and went bringing food and comfort. At night I sat on the couch staring into the gas fireplace in my living room wrapped in a comfort quilt hand made and delivered by another dear neighbor, Ann, who also lives down the hall from me. I used to joke with Ann that I didn't want to see her walking down the hallway to my door with one of those damn quilts she stockpiled in her bathtub ready to bestow upon people who had experienced the loss of a loved one. We lived in a large 55 plus building so the demand for grief was pretty steady. It never crossed my mind that I would qualify for a quilt.
After two weeks, my kids went home, the memorial service was over, friends didn't call or come over so much. I was alone. Not easy for a person who had only known married life, for better or worse, since she was twenty. A few weeks after Harry's death, I found myself on the couch at three am, wrapped in the comfort quilt reading one of the stash of "now that you are a widow" books given to me by friends. I chose to read Diane Rehm's recent book about her journey into widowhood. Just as I reached the last few pages of her best seller, On My Own, I found myself beginning to experience a full blown panic attack.
I had been desperately hoping this renown Public Radio journalist would offer deep insight and wisdom about becoming a widow. Instead, as I approached the final page of her memoir, I found myself spinning out of control with a full blown panic attack. The long married author I felt was basically choosing to devote the rest of her days in a state of continual mourning for the loss her beloved husband who had died a slow painful death from Parkinson's disease. She seemed quite happy and content with her choice. I, however, found myself at the end of the book silently screaming inside wanting to launch myself out of my comfy chair and comfort quilt and my body and run out the door of my condo into the neighborhood streets screaming like a banshee. A life of unending despair and mourning I knew was not something I could bear or choose to bear if at all possible. I should have just taken one of the sleeping pills prescribed by my doctor which were sitting on the bathroom counter and gone to bed.
Instead of a drugged sleep, I found myself plunging into a bottomless pit of grief, despair and terror that went on for several hours until somehow I was able to stumble into bed about 8 am and fall asleep. Thank goodness I somehow avoided the drama of running out of my 55 plus building screaming. Gossip about the crazy woman, now widow woman, in #315 would have traveled fast. I was already the topic of gossip in my building for many reasons and I didn't want to add to the story, at least not in that way.
Diane Rehn clearly did not provide the comfort and inspiration and direction I was hoping for, but, a day or so later, the universe was gracious enough to provide me with a strange unexpected message. I was just waking up in the morning and about to open my eyes when I found myself in the backseat of a car crammed full of people I did not know. Harry was driving the car and playing one of his favorite roles in life, other than a Shakespearean role of course, the role of tour guide. The crowded car seemed to be floating in the clouds and just below us I could see the Roman Wall in the north of England, a place Harry and I had often been. Harry was behind the wheel of the car pontificating and gesticulating about the history of the wall. He turned round with an outstretched arm to point to a feature of the wall below when he suddenly saw me sitting directly behind him in the back seat of the car. He smiled sweetly and I reached out impulsively and grabbed his gesticulating hand and kissed it. Our eyes locked intently for a brief moment and he smiled at me with a look that carried a profound message I was only later able to really comprehend. I opened my eyes and came down out of the clouds.
I laid perfectly still in bed with my eyes open for several long minutes as a deep sense of peace and contentment washed over me. Harry was obviously OK! and doing one of the things he loved best in life: tour guiding. Later I severely chastised myself for having opened my eyes so quickly instead of spending more time in the floating car with Harry. I soon realized however that more time floating in the car was not important. The message was Harry wanted me to move forward in my life. He was happy, I could be happy too. I have never since found myself on one of Harry's sky tours but Harry continued to continually guide me on my widow's journey. What I needed to do to for myself was not on the pages of a book. What I needed to do do was about to take shape very quickly.
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