Tag Archives: questions

Anniversary, part one

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No, not the anniversary of our wedding, first date, or first meeting. Not even the anniversary of Mike’s death. There were no flowers, or fancy night out, or even a cake. It was a bittersweet day, a different kind of anniversary – it was the date marking Mike’s removal from my home.

I’ve alluded to it in past posts, but Mike was not amenable to our separation. I had to get a court order to have him removed from the house. If it were up to him, I’m sure he would have still been laying on my couch in the basement. But I couldn’t do that to the kids – or myself – anymore.

I discovered his drinking problem in May 2010. I was on maternity leave and Mike had been unemployed for about six months. It was then that I discovered he was spending his days laying on the couch in the basement, not moving, not talking, not watching TV (or helping around the house or paying bills or doing anything else productive). He was basically not functioning at all. Then, I caught him trying to hide a bottle when I came downstairs. Suddenly, the random (daily) charges at gas stations and Walgreens made sense. There was something behind the cloudy, unfocused, narrow eyes that he had been sporting for while. The falls down stairs, passing out in a bar, and five trips to the ER over the course of 12 months – there was probably more to those too. Everything pointed in one direction – drinking.

I confronted him and he denied everything. Then he promised to stop. And broke the promise. And promised again. He was kicked out of an outpatient rehab program for showing up drunk. AA made him think he didn’t have a problem (“THOSE people have problems,” he told me after attending a meeting.) On and on for more than a year. The lies, the hiding, the denial, the continued drinking.

When my job was eliminated, I told Mike that I knew he never stopped drinking and lying about it. He admitted it. And I told him that until we figured things out, until one of us was employed again, there was to be no drinking, no lies. I told him that I couldn’t handle it, that my heart couldn’t take any more.

He held me, kissed my head, and said, “I couldn’t do that to you. I love you. I understand.” He agreed no drinking until everything in our lives was back in place. He even showed me all his hiding places and threw away the half empty bottles.

His promise lasted a few weeks.

We had a fight – over something stupid. I left him alone in the basement and about four hours later, he came upstairs, smelling (reeking) of booze.

“You’ve been drinking,” I said.

“Yep, and I’m done lying about it. That’s your problem, right? The lying?” he responded.

I took off my wedding ring and kicked him out of our bedroom for the night. (Which was actually not a big deal since we hadn’t slept in the same room in months.) I cried for about 30 minutes, then stopped. There were no more tears that night. I knew what had to be done – I had prepared myself for it.

The next day, I drove to the library and sat in the parking lot. I pulled out a tattered notebook and flipped to the last page. Divorce attorneys. I had been doing research for months, just in case I needed it, and had it narrowed to three potential lawyers. I called the first one and explained my situation. He advised me to go to the courthouse and get an order of protection which would get Mike out of the house. The attorney walked me through the process, telling me where to go when I get to the courthouse.  “They’ll help you,” he said. “This is your first step.”

As I talked to the other two attorneys, I kept thinking about the order of protection. It seemed like a pretty extreme thing to do, but I knew that Mike wouldn’t leave on his own, and frankly, I was done.

When I got home that afternoon, I asked Mike to leave. At this point, he had been on a binge for more than 24 hours – no food or drink (other than drinking whatever liquor he was hiding). He called me a “fucking bitch” and said it was his house. Then, he passed out again.

I slapped him awake. (Really, he was PASSED OUT and I couldn’t wake him without doing something physical.) I wanted a confrontation. “You really need to leave,” I told him. “You can’t do this here anymore. Our kids! Me! It’s not right and it’s not fair.”

More names. He put a pillow over his face, removing it only to spout out more nasty names and tell me to get out of the basement. Then, something caught my eye by the stairs – Ethan had snuck into the basement and was watching us from around the corner. I saw the pain and confusion in his little eyes, and I knew that it was time to end this – for real.

I didn’t talk to Mike the next day, other than to tell him I calling his parents because he wasn’t eating or drinking anything. That announcement was met with more name calling. The next day, his parents arrived and stayed in the basement with him for the next several days.

 — TO BE CONTINUED. coming up: I go to court, the ambulance arrives, Mike leaves (not willingly)–

Wanting a dad

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Ethan and I were listening to music and talking about our days yesterday on the drive home from school. Out of nowhere he said, “Mommy, you really need to go out on a date.”

“What?” I asked. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, I need a dad,” he said. “I really want a dad.”

“It’s just not that easy,” I said, holding back the tears behind my oversized sunglasses.

“It should be,” he said, matter-of-factly. Then he went on to talk through the Pokemon powers of Jigglypuff or some other weirdo creature.

Heart. Broken.

I know the kid desperately misses his dad – well, not the dad he had in the last few years, but the kind of man who will take him camping and fishing, will spend time explaining “boy stuff” to him on a rainy afternoon, will teach him how to fix things around the house, will play ball with him in the backyard. He misses the idea of a dad, since Mike really didn’t (couldn’t) do any of those things with him.

This conversation raised some questions that I need to sort out. I’ve talked about how I’ve contemplated dating as a widow, but now there’s a larger consideration – when and how would I introduce someone to the kids.

Great, another thing to think about…

His Death is Real

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Know what makes death real?

Reviewing the computer-generated image of the tombstone, or as they call it “cemetery memorial.”

The cemetery gave me a choice of two memorial companies for Mike’s tombstone. I went with the local one – they do everything in same small town as the cemetery. Seemed nice to support a local business that keeps jobs in the community and has been around for 60+ years.

The woman who answered the phone was very nice. I explained what I wanted – simple, cost-effective, not flowery or over designed. Just his name and dates. No chiseled angels or flowers. No fancy shape. No “best dad and husband ever!” Just tombstone-y. Basic.

We settled on a grey stone (cheapest option) with no special carving. Since it was a single grave (meaning, I didn’t buy plots next to him), it was actually much less than I anticipated. Of course, like everything in this death business, there’s a hidden fee. In this case, a $300 cost for  the “foundation” – it’s a cemetery requirement, not even sure what it is, but it’s not negotiable. The sketchy thing is that unlike paying for the grave plot (paid to the city) or the tombstone (paid to the mom-and-pop company), the foundation payment is due to some dude – not a corporation, just a dude.

This whole thing can be done by email and snail mail. Crazy. The company just sent the image by email. Of course, there’s a mistake. Mike’s date of birth is wrong. My fault. Thank goodness for seeing the proof!

Still, even with the wrong date, there’s something final about it. Something more than going to his showing or the funeral mass or burying him. Seeing the image of a grave marker with his name and his dates makes this very, very real. And final.

The Last Decision

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I heard from the cemetery guy this week. He picked out a “nice” spot, near a new walking bridge, close to the river, on the side of the cemetery closest to campus. “You can walk to Saint Joe’s from there,” he told me. I’m sure it’s a lovely spot.

We even settled on the date to lay Mike’s ashes to rest – August 17.

In my mind, I envision this as a very private moment for the kids and me. Maybe one of the college priests. And my mom, of course. In a way, I just want the closure. Just want it to be done. The bigger a deal is made of this, the harder I think it will be for Ethan, and that won’t be good. And, I really don’t think Mike would have wanted this to be a spectacle.

But…

I’ve thought a lot about if I want to involve Mike’s parents. They ignored me at the showing and the funeral mass. They haven’t reached out to me or the kids (other than sending the kids each very impersonal card for birthdays). There’s no relationship between me and them or them and the kids. Hell, Mike didn’t even like them and made sure I knew it every time I talked to him.

Honestly, his parents were always assholes. There was a deep-rooted, one-way hatred toward my dad. (And my dad was the most laid back, likeable person you could EVER imagine.) It made my dad laugh, when Mike’s dad would start something with him. The laughter and trying to blow off the situation only infuriated Mike’s dad more. Which just continued the cycle of my dad irritating him and laughing. Over and over.

Things didn’t warm up with Mike’s “condition.”  They refused to come to St. Louis when I called them during Mike’s last binge. The blaming that started with the phone call telling me Mike died. The way they acted toward me, the kids and my family at the funeral. The planning of the post-mass lunch against my direct orders to NOT have a lunch.

I’m sure there’s NOTHING harder than losing a child, especially one who refused to get help. One you watched waste away, knowing there was nothing you can do to stop it, to change it. And I can’t imagine talking to my child, then finding him dead in the morning. That has to be the most difficult, awful thing imaginable.

Have I reached out to them? No. We didn’t talk when Mike was alive. They would call his cell phone – not the house phone – to make sure they didn’t have to talk to me. (Sidenote: when I say Mike hated them, this is a good example. He would let their calls go to voicemail every time. He would have to work up the strength to call them because he knew it was such an ordeal to have a conversation with those people. He usually wouldn’t return the call for two or three days, and when he did, Mike was a grouch in the hours before he placed the call and for hours afterward.)

I have no reason to reach out to the former in-laws – I am the mother of their only grandchildren. I am the keeper of the ashes. I hold the cards. And, I don’t have anything nice to say to them.

Still…

The question remains: should they be invited to the, what should I call it?, the ceremony (seems too great for what I’m planning), the event (again, too lofty), the burial (um, maybe). Involving them would only make a difficult day more awkward and painful than it needs to be. Ethan and Lauren really don’t know these people, and involving them would be weird. I don’t know how they would react to being there and part of it, so I can’t prepare the kids for what would be an amazingly dramatic performance, I’m sure.

Besides, after the mass luncheon fiasco, I can’t trust they would honor my request to keep this a very small, private, intimate affair. I imagine they would invite all sorts of random relatives who would like to spend a Friday afternoon at a rural cemetery ignoring me.

On the other hand, is it wrong to NOT notify them? Can I send a letter after the fact with the location of his remains? Am I stooping to their level of asshole-ishness if I don’t “invite” them? Does it matter? What if I sent a nice note with a map to the cemetery afterward?

I have a few weeks to decide what I’m going to do…

Dying Young

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Mike knew he would die young.

I remember the first time he told me that. We were in my dorm room cuddling. As he nuzzled my hair, he said he would die in his late 30s. The comment had nothing to do with anything that was going on – totally out of the blue.

“You don’t know that,” I said, trying to change the subject. “No one knows when they’re going to die.”

“I’ve always known,” he said. “I think it’ll be around 37.”

I pushed for details, but he didn’t have any – just the thought that he would die before 40.

Through our 20s, we talked about it occasionally. But by the time we were 30, neither of us brought it up again. Maybe it was too close to home. Maybe he forgot he ever told me. Sometimes I would think about it, but I’d always quickly dismiss the thoughts. When he turned 38, I was relieved. He died 2.5 months after his 38th birthday.

I don’t know if he ever told anyone else. I certainly never said anything to anyone. I’m not even sure why I’m writing this, other than I’ve been thinking about it for the last few days.

Did he really know he would die young or was it a coincidence? How much did he know? Did it contribute to his drinking (thinking – knowing – that death was coming anyway)?