One year ago today…

It was the 56th day of the 57 day losing medical battle.

I was paralyzed with sheer exhaustion and fear stuck in the guest bed at my friends house, 20 minutes from the hospital.

On this particular day, I just couldn’t get out of bed and make myself go to that god-awful hospital and see his body wasting away while I’m powerless to do anything to save him. I have hours and hours of recorded conversations with me, begging the doctors to give him the life-saving protocols and stop pumping the harmful drugs. I was denied every single time.

About 4 o’clock in the afternoon,

I pulled myself together and drove there. One block away, I pulled over into a parking lot, crying my heart out. I didn’t have the courage to keep going. I didn’t want to face the truth that his body was giving out. I was still determined to believe he would be healed and come home with me.

I called a friend who prayed with me. I felt so bad that I didn’t want to go see his dying body once again, but I did, and I spoke life over him and his room like I always do struggling to change the frequency in his room. He has been so drugged up for days that I hadn’t seen his eyes open or really any signs of life.

Within a few hours, a woman I’ve never met, called me, said she’s been praying and offered to bring her red light therapy to the hospital, if they would let her use it. It was his third bout of sepsis in 30 days that was killing him. I had researched several things that would heal him from sepsis, but they would not allow me to use those either. It was their fault He got the sepsis, and 3 times in 30 days?

She arrived around 9 PM and I begged the Doctor Who was on call who happened to be the one I had fired previously, and I had to get on my knees and beg them to let us, use the red light therapy and let my friend come in and let us stay past visiting hours. They didn’t kick us out until almost 1 AM. It was a beautiful memory with a beautiful Stranger, who instantly became family to me.

They actually let us close the curtains on his fishbowl room, for the first time to have a little privacy

and we played the whole tones healing music. We lifted our praise to God together and created a positive atmosphere loving on him and lifting him up to Heaven.

The hospital staff knew he was dying, but I was still believing he wouldn’t.

The next morning, the nurse called. I didn’t get very many calls from the hospital during 57 days but this was the first time a nurse sounded anxious, worried and even sad. His BP had dropped to 18/21 and it wouldn’t be long now.

Our daughter met me there and we held him the best we could with all those damn machines hooked up everywhere. Four life saving machines had been keeping him “alive” for days.

I so desperately wanted to climb into that bed and get behind him and hold him in my arms one last time. But it was impossible.

When he breathed it last, I was still in denial, and I spent the next 90 minutes calling him back from the dead until they kicked me out. My friend Robin joined me the last 30 minutes.

I didn’t know someone could cry that many tears, the whole floor was full of used Kleenex. Bring your own box of Kleenex is my best advice because the hospital ones were a quarter size of normal ones and so rough. It was truly inhumane. Crying before now was a luxury I refused to let myself indulge in because I needed all my energy focused on trying to save him.

Watching someone you love die is an experience you carry with you to your own grave.

You’re never the same.

But whether the experience makes you better or bitter is entirely up to you.

Continue reading “One year ago today” →

I remember being tortured every single night in my own bed, because of the awful reality that I would never again wake up next to you.

I hated sleeping all alone, I hated the empty house when Andrew was gone, I hated the quiet and the loneliness, I didn’t like Being left alone with my thoughts, the gnawing questions

“why was I left here?

What is my purpose?

How can I make sure your death is not in vain?

What Would you want for me?

How can I best honor you and make you proud by the story I’m writing every single day?”

I remember if I got to the end of my day and I didn’t cry more than once or I didn’t forget to feed myself, it was quite an accomplishment.

I remember choking on my coffee as I would take a sip and a sob would come up in my throat.

Remembering to breathe? That took a very long time. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my lungs.

I remember feeling guilty that I was still here, still breathing. I would have gladly given you my lungs. Ok

I remember the dark, thick blanket of hopelessness and doubt that I would ever feel joy again.

I remember how your ashes felt slipping through my fingers into Lake Michigan in July.

I remember the first Valentine’s Day, the first easter, the first Mother’s Day, our first wedding anniversary, Father’s Day, my first birthday, first trip back to Michigan without you for Christianna’s college graduation, Elisabeth’s first birthday, the death of our first grandchild through miscarriage, your first birthday, the kids first birthdays, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first family vacation without you, the first New Year’s,

and now the one-year anniversary.

I remember the first few Sundays, sitting in church without you next to me and looking around at all the beautiful couples and families and feeling such despair.

I like the line in this song “go write a story that you can’t wait to tell me… On the other side”

Baby, that’s exactly what I’m doing…

I wanna make you and my Heavenly Father proud.

I’ll see you in the morning,
Darling, I’ll see you in the morning.

All my love,

Shari

It’s no secret, I am my greatest admirer.

I had an excellent teacher for 26 years. I know what it feels like so when I lost it, I was able to Re Create it so to speak.

However, it appears I have a secret admirer.

I will turn half a century this June and I can genuinely say I love myself and I even really really like me.

This is a great accomplishment.

I would wish this for everyone and you can achieve it in seasons of joy and comfort, but it is not likely you ever will without extreme pain.

And that, my friend, is the greatest tragedy of this life on earth in my humble opinion.

One of the many things I admire about my husband is his ability to live in the present.

Since his life was cut short at 53, I’m sure he’s glad he didn’t waste time in the past, or the future.

Even as I write this, the profoundness hits me right between the eyes as it should.

I used to tease he was Mr. present, and I was Mrs. future.

At the time, I wanted him to be more like me, but now I realize I want to be more like him.

Thank you for all that you taught me, darling. I love you to the moon and back.

For years, my advice to my girlfriends complaining about their husband/marriage, was and still is this:

I tell her,

“no matter what happens,

You have to live with YOU the rest of your life so the way to win is to work on yourself and maybe it will save the marriage and maybe it will not.

Either way,

YOU WIN!!”

My Darling Children,

I’m so sorry for the awful reality

of your Dad’s absence on this earth.

There will never be another family photo

with him (last one below in Michigan, June 26, 2021)

It’s simply not possible.

There will Never be another family Christmas with him.

Not ever.

There will Never be another family vacation with him.

Never.

We just completed all three without him.

Our 2021 family Christmas was this:

Liz and I visited him in the hospital,

the other kids said their goodbyes Dec 17

before they flew to Michigan.

He was sedated and vented with a feeding

tube on Christmas Day and almost every day

after (there was one day a week before he

died that he was coherent at least while I was there)

Christmas 2022 photo from Florida family

vacation below.

This elevated my coffee experience to a whole new level of tastiness and health and well-being each time I drink it.

It’s on Amazon or in Costco.

You’re welcome.

I also add a tablespoon burdock root ? concentrated Tea that I make up ahead of time for the week to get 102 fabulous minerals from the earth into my body.

I also discovered how blessed I am to have a rainwater system because the minerals are so rich in it. Lack of minerals contributes to just about all diseases.

“if you’ve had the better part of five decades to become the man of my dreams, and you haven’t done it yet, don’t think you’re going to sell me on your potential.

All I care about is your track record, I know what I want and I won’t settle.

people may say it’s impossible to which I reply, I’m only looking for one man and I know he’s out there.”

There was a pause.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Piglet.

“No,” said Pooh after a bit. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“That’s okay,” said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend.

“What are you doing?” asked Pooh.

“Nothing, really,” said Piglet. “Only, I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don’t feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either.

“But goodness,” continued Piglet, “Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you’ve got someone there for you. And I’ll always be here for you, Pooh.”

And as Pooh sat there, working through in his head his Difficult Day, while the solid, reliable Piglet sat next to him quietly, swinging his little legs…he thought that his best friend had never been more right.”
A.A. Milne

Sending thoughts to those having a Difficult Day today and hope you have your own Piglet to sit beside you

Author Unknown