Moving Forward

Deciding and Saying Goodbyes

                My family all surrounded me over the days coming to his funeral.  My sister had made sure that the kids and I were being taken care of or in my case taking care of myself.  The anti-anxiety and the sleeping pill I was prescribed in addition to my other medications were monitored to ensure that I was indeed taking care.  Everyone was expecting me to collapse and just give up.  What they didn’t realize was that although my heart was broken, and I was in a fog I was also determined.  I couldn’t give up the children had already lost their father in a blink of an eye they didn’t need to lose their mother as well.  The strangest thing was that I also felt an overwhelming sense of calm about him dying.  I wasn’t angry and I wasn’t devastated at the loss.  I was calm and accepting until one moment in time.  One moment when I let my mask slip.  My sister was watching my children while I made my way to the funeral home to plan for his funeral.  I didn’t want to do that because that was one step closer to making it real.  My father picked me up as nobody was letting me drive.  We had been in the car for close to fifteen minutes when I heard myself scream out.  “He f*****g lied to me, I hate him, he f*****g lied to me.”  My dad was concerned with the sudden outburst and pulled over to the side of the road for a moment.  He turned in his seat to face me and questioned who was the liar?  I started to cry and said “Bob, he lied to me dad, he really did.”  My dad asked me what it was that I felt that my husband had lied about, and I replied “he said he was going to be the oldest living Rainey ever and look at him now.  He f*****g lied to me why didn’t he keep his word?”  After a few minutes of crying, I told him “I don’t want to do this.”  He questioned me again and I explained that I didn’t want to go to the funeral home and talk about what to do with my husbands remains.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  In the end I let all my emotions out and we finished the drive to the funeral home. 

                When I walked into the funeral home one of my other sisters were there, my husband’s sister showed up as well as my father and me.  The director of the funeral home and the owner all met with us to talk about his final arrangements.  I had decided that he would be cremated as that is what we had discussed some time back long ago.  We looked at plots to bury his ashes and I chose a double plot beneath some lilac trees.  I smiled because I remembered we both loved the smell of lilacs.  When my time came my ashes could be laid to rest right next to my beloved husband.  As I was wrapping my head around the idea of being a widow which is what they called me the owner cleared his throat and spoke up to me.  “” We want to give you and your children a DVD of his pictures set to music if you would like it.  Something for you all to look at when this is all over and remember him by.”  I smiled through my tears as this was the nicest thing to ever happen to us and I accepted the gift I was being given.  “What do I have to do for you to make that happen?”  I was told I would need to pick about fifty pictures that I felt represented him and put them in the order I would like to see them appear.  I was also supposed to pick out a couple of songs that he really loved so that they could set the pictures to motion on a DVD with his favorite songs.  We set a date for the funeral and then the director told me that they still hadn’t received word as to when his body would be released but if I got them a picture of him, they could do the identification for me, and I wouldn’t have to got through the pain of seeing my loved one dead again.  At the time I agreed to let them make the identification of him as I just wasn’t willing to face seeing him like that.  After all was said and done, I called my minister to let them know of the date and time that the funeral home had available and confirmed they would be there as well.  When we got back to my sister’s house, I set about the task of letting everyone know when his funeral was going to be.  Then I buried myself into writing his obituary, choosing, and aligning pictures for the DVD and picking out a couple of songs that I knew he really liked.  Every time I looked at his smiling face my heart lurched and I couldn’t even begin to understand how I was going to live without him.  I was finally able to get the required number of pictures found and placed in order that I wanted them to be.  I emailed the obituary, the pictures, and the names of the songs to the funeral home.  It was in their hands now.  The next day my husband’s obituary and pictures were up on the funeral home website, and it sank in a little deeper that this was real.  He was really gone, and we were really going to saying our final goodbyes to him in a few days’ time.  I would give anything to have this nightmare end, but I had to face the facts this was no nightmare it was in fact a reality.  My reality.

                As the day of the funeral approached the kids and I moved back into our home.  I had been able to get an appointment with social security about his death benefits.  Other people were coming forward and helping with money as well as meals for us for the first few weeks.  We loved the help we got from everyone and couldn’t express our gratitude more.  We set about our new lives, without our dear husband and father to share our joys, frustrations, and sadness with us.  What I would have given to have his strong arms wrapped around me at that time taking away the pain in my chest from losing him.  My neighbor was so concerned she asked me to give her a code word to let her no without so many words that I was thinking of killing myself.  I hadn’t even entertained that idea since my husband had died but I placated her and gave her two words.  “Purple Rain” I told her.  She smiled and got the reference.  A few days before his funeral one of his nephews from out of town came to my house with his wife and little girl.  They stayed with the boys and I until the day after the funeral and were such a tremendous help it wasn’t funny.  He drove me to the funeral, and she helped me out of the car.  I stopped by the car and looked at them and told them I didn’t want to walk over to the tent I just wanted to go back home.  “Auntie, everyone is waiting, they won’t start this without you.”  My nieces gentle and calming words rang out in my ears.  I smiled at her and started to cry “but, if we start this then its really real and he isn’t coming back.”  She held tightly to one of my arms as her husband, my nephew, grabbed the other and he gently said, “with or without a funeral auntie he isn’t coming back.”  I knew they were right and was thankful for their support.  I made my way to the funeral tent where everyone was gathered to pay their final respects to a man, I had loved for twenty-six years.  I was surrounded by my boys and just kept staring ahead of me at the urn on the table that held what was now my husband.  The funeral was a blur and honestly, I couldn’t remember anyone who was actually there.  I was cold and numb inside and whatever happened that day I was not aware of.

                After the funeral things started to calm down.  The boys and I got into a routine.  We played his DVD often so that we could laugh and remember him in our own way.  But it was when everything was said and done that the nightmares for me had truly started.  Everything would start out really well. I would get the kids off to bed and make sure they were sleeping soundly.  Get into my pajamas and climb into bed myself.  I would turn on the television and grab my phone to read a little on one of my novels.  After a while I would find myself finally getting sleepy and would turn everything off and then drift off to sleep.  The nightmare always started the same way.  I was standing in a courtroom, gazing into his eyes, and committing my life to him.  Our lives would flow quickly by and then suddenly I would find myself at that morning it all ended.  As much as I tried, I could never wake myself up and the nightmare played out fully each and every night.  A few nights it was so bad that I had actually screamed out from my sleep and awoken my three oldest children.  They had rushed into my room and asked me what was wrong because I had scared them.  After a few weeks the nightmares continued but then went further than my husband dying they went to my kids dying as well and that was more than my heart could bear.  Every night I would find myself waking several times in the night walking through the house and checking on my children.  Making sure they were still breathing and assuring myself that I wasn’t going to suffer that nightmare at least for this night.  I had stopped taking my medications as they made me very tired, and I was afraid of not being able to hear if one of my boys needed me.  I was the only parent they had now, and I needed to be there for them.  As the days progressed and life continued on the kids, and I started to make plans to go out of state and visit the nephew and niece that had stayed with us during their father memorial service.  I was scared out of my mind about planning this trip, but I knew that I needed to do it for more than one reason.  We needed to get away and have a little fun but more than that I needed to prove to myself that I could raise five boys without him.  That our life didn’t end just because his had and that we would still be able to do many fun things together without him.  Of course, my heart hurt that we were doing it without him.  For some reason it was heavy on my heart that we had to take this trip to Montana no matter how much I would rather just stay home.  So, the plans were made, and we set about preparing.