A Long Strange Trip - Twenty-Five Years

 

June 18, 1999. Worst day of my life. Twenty-five years ago today, my wife Angie, the love of my life, died in an automobile accident. I was told the day after her funeral that I would grieve her death the rest of my life. History has proven that to be true. The twenty-five years since have been one long, strange trip. I do not write this to elicit sympathy. Please do not express any to me. Twenty-five years on, the words will not be comforting, but will only wear on me. Thank you. I do not write this to remember a damn death. I have made my peace with it all. I write this to remember her, and to remember the extraordinary acts of kindness shown to me by so many. I hope that you, as my reader, will maybe gain some perspective. Finally, I write this to recall some of the ways that grief really messed with me. There is no way to prepare for grief. It overwhelms you, it robs you, and it replaces a lost innocence with a sinister journey that takes way too much time to complete.

I want to start off by giving thanks. I am so grateful to have spent 11 years with Angie, the last 8 as her husband. She understood me, she “got” me. Yes, I was probably difficult at times, a tortured soul of sorts. She loved me anyway. I received more love from Angie during our 11 years together than many people receive in a lifetime. For that, I am eternally grateful. I hope the love I gave back to her was sufficient. She also birthed two of the best sons any man could hope for, and I am so proud of them both. For that, I am also eternally grateful. Do I wish I could have her back? More than you could ever know. I know that will not happen and I am at peace with that.

The afternoon of the accident, I experienced one of the greatest acts of kindness I have ever known. One of the local churches had a ministry that would send people to hospitals to comfort families like ours. Imagine getting a call about 3:00pm on a Friday afternoon asking you to go to the hospital in Jasper, Tennessee to comfort a family from Kansas that had two small kids and whose mother had just died in an accident out on I-24. They came, they played with my kids and kept them distracted and kept them away from the other patients in the hospital. The pastor’s wife came to the hospital, sized up the situation and could see that we would need an overnight change of clothes (the wrecked car with our suitcases had been towed to a salvage yard that was closed for the night). She went to Wal-Mart and got some stuff for the boys and let me take some of her husband’s clothes since he and I were about the same size. I still have the shorts she gave me as a reminder of all the people there and the tremendous kindness and generosity they showed me.

I look back at the early days of my grief and wonder how I have made it this far. Many acts of kindness helped. People from my Sunday School class brought dinner over for the boys and me. I remember a childhood next-door neighbor of mine and one of her best friends brought me dinner one evening. I was so absorbed in my own grief and so numb that I was undoubtedly lousy company. They stayed with me anyway and ate dinner with me that evening. Another time, I remember a long-time friend took me to a Royals game. Nothing better in the summertime than a ballgame. Again I was numb and absorbed in my own grief and was terrible company. Today, I can look back on those times and realize just how bad I was and just how tremendous the kindness and generosity of friends really was in those days. There were so many other instances of kindness displayed towards me and I will forever appreciate it. Thank you to all who showed kindness and grace to me in those days.

Grief will mess with your mind in ways that you cannot even fathom. There is simply no way to overstate this. There is no way to prepare for grief because it is overwhelming. Some of your thoughts during these times are appalling. I consider myself to be a man of Christian faith, and that was really messed with. There were times when my “prayers” consisted of me yelling at God. I was pissed. I had been handed a life that I wanted no part of, and for which I felt wholly unqualified. I never wanted to be widowed. I never wanted to be a single parent. Yet there I was in that life that I never wanted. In Genesis 2:18, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” Boy, did I let God hear about that! In the midst of all this, I had a friend tell me, “If you keep yelling, God will keep listening.” Such comforting words that I will never forget. Who am I to tell God these kinds of things? I am sure that I had many other inappropriate thoughts during this time that leave me appalled at myself today. These days, I am sure grateful to worship a forgiving God.

I need to back up a bit here. I mentioned above that I never wanted to be a single parent. I meant that. There were many times where I looked at my sons as objects that trapped me in some hopeless rut. I would never wish single parenthood on anyone. But, I love my two sons more than anything. They were cheated so early on. To their credit, they never used their Mother’s death as a crutch. Throughout their childhood, I could see times where Angie’s absence stole a piece from my boys. And that pissed me off. I cannot imagine my life without them. I love them more deeply today than I ever thought possible.

I have mentioned anger, and I felt plenty. I learned all about the five stages of grief. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. After the tragic death of a loved one, you immediately go into denial. It is a wonderful coping mechanism that helps protect you from harm and keeps you from feeling. You need that in the immediate aftermath. I found that the next three stages are fluid. I never went chronologically from one to the next. I might find myself saying I’d give it all back in a heartbeat to have her back. The next day I might find myself angry. Even as you are going through all these stages, you want your life to be “normal.” Your life will never be normal again. As you seek out your new normal, you will find that life does start to feel normal again. But only in pieces. Life will be going well, then bam! Something will hit you out of the blue and it will knock you back. One step forward, two steps back. Gradually, this will transition to two steps forward, one step back.

Grief left me feeling incomplete, unlovable and with the feeling of sticking out in a crowd for all the wrong reasons. I felt like a damn freak show at times. For me, the biggest part of me had been ripped away, never to come back. I had invested many of my hopes and dreams for the future in her. Just like that, it was all gone. I didn’t give a damn about anything in those days. It was impossible. Quite honestly, those two boys of mine, those who made me feel trapped at times, kept me going. I knew that regardless of what happened, they deserved a future. And their best future was going to be with their Dad around to be a part of their lives. That kept me going.

I have a cousin who once gave me some wonderful advice about dealing with grief. She said that “it will find its place” in your life. This cousin experienced the tragic death of her 6-year-old son, so she spoke to me from a place of wisdom and experience. I have not forgotten those words. This is where I come to acceptance. It took me years to come to that acceptance. It meant coming to terms with and accepting a life that I never wanted, a life that I hated. That was the first step in true acceptance, and that was hard. When you are deep in grief, you do not think in terms of “this gives me the opportunity to build a new life, this give me a do-over.” You are so focused on what you lost. In my case, what I lost was tremendous, and I still had (hopefully) a long life ahead of me. I have come to accept this life I have now. It is not anywhere close to where I want it to be, and it never will be. But I can go forward from here, everyday, and hopefully make a life that will bring me happiness and joy.

As I remember these last 25 years, I am reminded of the words of one of my favorite hymns:

When peace like a river attendeth my way

When sorrows like sea billows roll

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say

It is well, it is well with my soul

I hope that you, the reader, found some blessing in all this. This was tough to write, but also a labor of love. I knew I had to write this. Angie deserves a tribute.  Plenty of memories come back on a day like this. That is what makes this tough. I am so fortunate that I was married to someone who was so unforgettable to me. And I wish she was still here with me. Blessings to all.