Don't know what I am doing here..no purpose left inside me

by Bonnie
(Beaufort, SC)

For some reason, today has bee horribly sad and lonely. My neighbor came by to visit and we both started crying because we miss him so much. She insists that I should at least pack up some of his clothes that are in his bedroom but I can't do that. That seems to me that it makes it "final" and I am not ready to make it final. He was the love of my life for twenty-five years and I miss him so much. He died in his room on his bed as his nurse was changing his bandages. He was laughing with her and then he just suddenly laid back and stopped breathing. I was home with him and we were watching tv just before the nurse came to our house. I let her in and went to the bathroom. I didn't see him get up from the couch and go into his bedroom with her. I knew he was getting sicker and sicker but everytime we rushed him to the hospital in distress, he recovered and came back home. I think that made it harder for me to accept that he was on the verge of leaving me. I replay the scene that morning over and over. When the nurse hollered to me to call 911, I rushed in the room. He was laying on the bed looking straight up. His eyes were open but they were fixed and looking up. The nurse was doing CPR and told me he was still breathing but I knew he was gone when I looked in his face. He had a glow on his face and a very peaceful look...almost like he was looking into the face of the Father....I will never forget that look....He suffered terribly during the last few months of his life...actually he suffered during the last four years of his life but the last six months were the worst. We were turned down by hospice because my husband insisted he wanted "aggressive" treatment. He told them he wanted me to call 911 in an emergency....that decision made things much worse for me because I lived with the pain he was in and could do nothing about it other than to give him his pain pills. And...we fought over the pain pills. I was scared to give him all that he asked for because his heart was so weak. He could not understand this and he wanted more because the pain was so unbearable. Funny thing happened though. The morning he died, he told me that I forgot to leave his pain pills out the evening before. I told him I was so sorry, that I forgot because I was sick myself when I went to bed. In a very quiet small voice he said, "that's ok...I am ok" this was just before he died. After he died, the hospital found 8 pain pills in his pants pocket that I didn't even know he had...

I don't know why I am saying this except that I think he had finally came to terms with the fact that he was dying and that nothing could change that.

I miss him so much...the silence and loneliness are almost too much to bear....funny after all those years and the stupid arguments about leaving each other and divorce (never meaning it) I realize how much I loved him and relied on him. He was my best friend.

I simply do not know what to do with my life right now...how to pick up the pieces and move on.