My Journey to Widowhood

Right Next Door

Michael tried to pull away from me over time and he became less affectionate towards me. He never was a hand holder or a hugger, but there was no affection at all besides our good morning and welcome home kisses. He was depressed and scared, and truth be told, so was I. I needed to be held and to feel as though I had a partner. He just wanted to be left alone.

December 2020 is when I realized that our time together was closing in on us. He started getting sick, but it was different than the other times. His body hurt, he was experiencing swelling, lost his appetite, and he was more depressed than I had ever seen him. He was having severe anxiety attacks at night and was scared to go to sleep. I spent most nights awake for fear of him needing me. I was so scared to lose him. 

We made a deal to hug every night for two or three minutes, just sit and hold each other. I had read him an article about how hugging is good for stress, anxiety, and depression. He agreed to try it for me, and every night I would sit on my knees in the floor facing him in the recliner while we hugged. He wasn't very keen on the idea at first, but then he got to where he looked forward to it and would ask for it. This was much needed in our relationship and we began to feel closer. He started to open up more, and also started to consider heart transplant. He had a couple of hospital stays that did not result in his swelling going down like we had hoped. He was no longer able to pick Logan up from school because it was painful for him to walk. His legs felt heavy and he could not lift his legs to get in the truck. I talked him into letting me sign him up on home health services so we could have nurses coming in to check on his swelling, and also he could receive physical therapy. Having those appointments a few times a week gave him something to look forward to, and he liked the different people coming in visiting with him. 

He finally started talking to me more about things like funeral arrangements and mine and Logan's future once he passed away. I worded things in a different way and said "Michael, if I were to pass away before you, these are what songs I would want at my funeral", and "If I were to pass away, I would want you to move on as long as she was good to you and Logan". He responded with "I know that I will pass away first and these are the songs that I would like played at my funeral, but I know that the funeral is more for you, so you can pick the songs". He also said, "I do not want you to move on, and if you do, I will haunt you". I laughed and told him that he wouldn't do that to me, and he replied, "Watch me". Later on  that day he told me that it hurt to think about me moving on, however he understood. We hugged and I promised him that me moving on would never mean that I would stop loving him, and that I would only move on if that person loved our son as much as they love me. I stand beside that statement. My son deserves to have a good man in his life just as much as I do.

One day I received a text from Michael asking me if he could order a new practice amplifier to play guitar. Tears filled my eyes when I replied "yes". I had missed the sound of him playing that screaming guitar so much. A week or so later I walked in from work and there it was. He was in Logan's room hooked up to the practice amp. I sat down in the hallway and cried tears of joy. That was the last time I heard him play.

He scheduled an appointment with a heart doctor that he had not seen in hopes of getting the ball rolling to transplant, and he even stopped drinking because he felt so bad physically. Emotionally I had the man that I fell in love with back, but physically he continued to decline. He barely ate any more except for a can of Chicken Noodle Soup for dinner each evening. That was all that he wanted. His legs were swollen and painful. He had started getting pains in his abdomen. The morning of the appointment he text me to ask if I could meet him there to help him out of his truck and into the doctor's office since his scooter was in the trunk of my car. I called our nephew and asked him to go to my house and help Michael get in his truck. We met for his appointment, got his new patient paperwork filled out, and after entering the exam room, were told that he needed to go to the nearest emergency room. He was admitted in the hospital that day with an exacerbation of his congestive heart failure. He continued to worsen over the next few days and was sent to OSU Medical Center in Tulsa. I didn't go with him that night, however we talked on the phone, and I told him that I would see him in the morning as soon as I dropped Logan off at school. When I got to him, he was so sick. He was confused and couldn't hardly stay awake.  Over the next couple of days, we found out that he had bacteremia, and they weren't sure where the infection was coming from other than maybe his defibrillator. They couldn't remove it because of all of the other issues that he had going on. His kidneys started to fail. The doctors discussed dialysis, but they needed to clear up the bacterial infection first. Eventually his liver started to fail. They told us that he had cirrhosis of the liver, and I was so mad at him that he had continued to drink all those years, and I told him so right there in front of the medical staff. He said, "I really f*d up this time. Didn't I, baby?".  I left the hospital that day and drove home so upset. I was so angry at him in that moment that I needed to come home and be by myself for just a little while. I knew that he had so much going on medically that he wasn't going to be coming home with me again, and I didn't want him to pass away with me being angry at him. I didn't want the last words that I spoke to him to be out of anger. That night I cried, I prayed, and I begged God to have mercy on our situation. I prayed for patience with my husband, understanding, and the ability to let the past be the past so that I could stand by his side his last days. I woke up the next morning and drove back to Tulsa. The doctors informed me that although he did have cirrhosis, they believed it to be cardiac induced cirrhosis.  Since I had last seen him, he had gone from being able to talk to me a little bit, to slurring his words, to not being able to talk at all. I had been driving back and forth an hour each way trying to keep things normal as I could for Logan. My sister, being a widow herself, knew the stress and how tired I was. She rented her and I a room at the hotel next to the hospital. When I left his side that night to rest, I told him that I would "just be next door" and would see him in the morning. When we got to our hotel room I cried. He was in room 406 at the hospital, and our hotel room was 407- I truly was "next door". That was the last night that he Facetimed me. He called around midnight and was trying to speak but I couldn't understand him. He kept dropping the phone and picking it back up to try to see me. Eventually it hung up, and I received a call from his night nurse. She was asking for consent to do an EGD (Esophagogastroduodenoscopy), a procedure that allows the doctor to look inside of the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum, and said "I have been your husband's night nurse the past few nights, and I just want you to know that your husband is the sweetest. I stand in his room and rub his hair and he loves it. It seems to keep him calm." I shared with her that rubbing his hair is something that I do and that he also likes his chin hair rubbed. I was so thankful that when I was away getting rest, someone cared enough to do those little things.

He couldn't speak but occasionally I would get a little something out of him. One day I pulled pictures of Logan up on my phone and said, "He looks like you in this picture". His eyes widened and he said, "He does". He never liked to talk about love or relationship stuff, but I was sitting next to his hospital bed talking about how much I love him. I looked over at him and he was looking back at me like "Are you kidding me?". I said, "I know that you don't like to talk about love, but we are talking about it today". He rolled his eyes and gave me a little smile. Another day I asked if he wanted me to pray with him and he said, "I do". Michael was not a church goer although I had tried many times to get him to attend other than on a holiday, however that day I stood next to his bed holding his hand, and with tears rolling down both of our faces, I asked God to put his healing hand on Michael, and His will be done. I thanked Him for the years that we had had together, and I asked Jesus to come into his heart and to forgive him of his sins.

I didn't miss a day of holding his hand and praying after that.