sj85

It's easy to be eloquent when you've repeated the same story in your head, regularly, but have no one who'd understand it if you were to tell them. Finally feeling like there are people who can relate makes it a release. I'll be more active as time goes, I think. This board could be the cathartic release I've lacked.

thanks. I figure it's time to air out some of the thoughts and feelings about... all of this. I remember shortly after losing her I came across the other board. I looked for it today and saw it was no more. Nearly said screw it, that's no more than I should expect, but did a bit more googling. Was pleased to find this. Hopefully some camaraderie and being able to relate may help. Thanks for the kind welcome.

I occasionally visited the old board, don't think I ever posted... hell, don't think I ever registered. I just turned 30 in January, lost my wife, (call her that, had for years, for what it's worth, which isn't much.) last May. The coroner said it was the result of an arteriovenous malformation. One day she was fine, that evening she had a seizure, which she's never had, the doctors sent her home from the er saying it was probably due to a uti or something. That night I woke at 2:50 am and found her unresponsive on the bathroom floor, I couldnt get the door open because her head was blocking it and I didn't want to injure her neck. I thought she was gonna be ok. As I was talking with the 911 dispatch, she stopped breathing. Firefighters and emts arrived, she coded in the hall, they got her heart started again, but didn't get her breathing. By the time they had she'd gone about ten minutes without. There was so much more after that, and an eventual declaration of brain death, several more days of hell because we're both organ donors, waiting for them to make their arrangements. But I had next to no say in any of it. There's no common law in my state, and I was treated like a stranger. Our kids, one from her first marriage, whose bio dad hasn't been in her life since age two, and our son, both have emotional delays and disorders. Our daughter is living with her grandmother, I see her once a week. Our son is here with me. We were homebodies together, we didn't have friends, really, not with us as busy as we were trying to put our lives in order so late in the game. I had been a stay at home dad homeschooling our daughter, we lived on her student loans, she went back to school at 30 and was one semester away from her teaching degree. It's been since last May, and I still feel like the only native speaker of a language built for two. People hear that I'm "widowed" and either talk around it or handle me with kid gloves. I found a job that I threw myself into, and am trying to be good to my kids. I have an empty life I'm filling with distraction. Guilt and baggage and pain I try, to often, to ignore. I have children I'm ill suited to raise, pets I don't have time to care for properly, and loneliness I want to fill, but worry it's useless and foolish. I've pulled a "fiddle-dee-dee," scarlet ohara for awhile now, and it's been catching up to me. ...consider this an unmarried widow coming out from wherever he is.