My Ruined Heart

My Ruined Heart

The days pass, endless and endlessly, longer than they should be, longer than they are. Longer than any days of my life. 

My family has been my backbone. Our daughter Erika, heart heavy with her own grief after witnessing Peter's death, has kept me upright, with love and calls, actions and caring, and the help of her husband Paul. My sister and brother traveled to Wachapreague, and spent days with me, comforting me, doing with me tasks that I could not do alone. Their families have reached out in big ways and small to help me through this agony. My dad and stepmother have reached out across the miles with love and support and hearts filled with parental caring and help.

My Eastern Shore friends have come, once I became able to see people, and have brought gifts and food and flowers and the salve of distraction and conversation. My friends from across the country and around the world have sent me letters and notes, cards and gifts, posted their love and support on social media and reached out, over and over, during this awful time.

I am truly humbled by the outpouring of love and support, and truly grateful. Thank you, all of you. I see your love, I realize its power, and I understand how very much I need all of it and all of you, who have given so freely.

Even so, even with all that, it's hard to describe how empty and centerless my life feels without Peter. It's a long, straight hallway with dim lights and no clear end, no turns, no doors. No windows. It is hard to feel that things will look shiny and bright again ever. In my head, I know they will - experience has taught me that they will - but my heart just doesn't know it yet.

I have been painting. I have been eating, and sleeping fairly well. I've been tending to my unruly pack of dogs, and find that I am grateful for their endless needs and their exuberant joy, and how they greet me with exhilarated welcome every time I walk through a door.

Hold your loved ones close, that is a thing I know now in a way I never knew before, and find a way to a peaceful heart today, in this moment. If there is a thing you do, a way you are, that you don't like in your relationship, change it. Imagine - if he died today, would you regret being a nag? If he died today, would you wish you'd spent less time asking him to pick up his stuff and more time telling him how much you love him? If he died today, would he know how central he was to everything that you do?

These questions and their inevitable answers of failure have cut deep into my heart since Peter died. In the daily ups and downs of marriage, we take small frictions and minor squabbles for granted. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd been more accepting, kinder, more willing to overlook, give in, acquiesce. I wish I'd written him more poetry and fewer reminder notes. I wish I'd sung him the song of my heart more fully and more clearly. I'd give anything to take back those careless quibbles and exchange them for words of love and support.

We had a good marriage - even, maybe, a great one. We loved each other, treasured each other, told each other so, and sought to make each other happy every day. But if I'd known it would end so soon, so abruptly, I'd have changed so much about myself. I'd have been such a better person, such a better wife. I'm sharing this now not to berate myself, but to offer a moment's pause that might help you avoid an eternity of longing.

Peter

Peter

My sweet husband died on Thursday, Oct. 10, after a massive heart attack here at home Wednesday night.

He had come home Sunday from more than three weeks in Rhode Island, where he went to a Chariho High School reunion and spent great, loving, wonderful time with our daughter, Erika, her husband Paul and their youngest, Ashton.

If you knew Peter, you know what a triumph this trip was. A homebody bordering on hermit, he had terrible anxiety around travel. Going to the store, or even Virginia Beach or Salisbury -  90 minutes away, each - that was OK. But going away - away-away - that was hard for him. Very hard.

Armed with a brand-new iPhone, which he had reluctantly agreed to, after years of dismissing the idea, and had then totally fallen in love with - he set out in September for the land of his youth.

I was stunned to hear that he was interested in his high school reunion, but I didn't tease him or question it. That he was going, and possibly for an extended time, this was an achievements I celebrated - and he did, too.

He had a great time at the reunion, and a grand time with Erika, Paul and Ashton. He did a lot of cooking for them, and they sat on the front porch every evening and talked and laughed into the night. He called me from the porch and told me how much fun he was having, and again and again how proud he was of our daughter, who is in a great marriage, has earned her RN degree, has a job she loves and a fine house.

Peter reconnected with the Westerly area, too, in a way I thought he never would. He grew up there, and we met there and had our first home there, but he had been singularly dismayed with the building and development and crowding and commercialization that had occurred there over the years. He'd sworn that he'd never go back, at least not to live, and not to visit, if he could help it.

But he was so enchanted this trip that while he was there, we talked about finding a way to live there for part of the year, or even, maybe, move there. He saw old friends, visited places he had loved, and hunted for arrowheads for hours and hours many days.

And then he came home, and he was happy to be here, in our quiet little town. He told me how much he loves it here, and we talked about all the differences between Westerly and Wachapreague, and again talked about the possibility of finding a way to spend part of the year up there, in that place, yes, but more, with Erika and her family.

He had been having terrible back pain, starting between his shoulder blades and radiating out. It had been going on for four or five days by the time he got home. It seemed to ease up, but then kicked in again on Tuesday.

We went to the Rural Health clinic on Wednesday. His blood pressure was elevated but not dramatically, or at least, that's what they said. They gave him medicine for his chest cold and coughing, and for pain, and sent us home.

Around midnight, I woke up to a crash coming from the living room. He was on the couch, pale and clammy, holding his chest and arching his back. He told me to call 911 and I did, and stayed with him for what felt like hours until the ambulance arrived. They put him on oxygen and before they wheeled him out, I kissed him and told him I loved him and that it would be OK.

It wasn't. He had a cardiac arrest in the ambulance, and honestly, I believe that's when he died. Between here and our hospital. They were doing chest compressions when the ambulance doors opened. They put him on a ventilator, and got him back. Our hospital has one cardiologist, and no cardiac facilities. He came in, and said he thought Peter was stable enough to get to the hospital in Salisbury, which does have cardiac capabilities.

It was too windy for a helicopter, so we waited for the ambulance with the ventilator. Ninety minutes to Salisbury. Thirty in the ER. Then up to ICU, where he arrested again. They revived him - Erika and Paul were on their way.

I knew there was no hope. When they arrived, we spent a few hours with him, then disconnected the life support systems and let him go.

He died long, long, long before he should have. He had plans, and projects and ideas. He was vigorous, interested in life, discovering new things, new likes and hobbies. I know he wasn't ready.

And I am not ready. I am broken, lost, lonely and sadder than I could ever have thought possible. A friend of mine reminded me that I once told him that Peter completed me - and he did. He was my love, my soulmate, my very best friend. Everything I did, I have realized, I did to make him happy - because making him happy was what made me happy.

When I made a painting, I showed it to him first - hoping for delight and enthusiasm, or for a critique that would help me improve it. I made very few paintings that he didn't see before anyone. He was my audience, my target, the person for whom I painted.

The meals I cooked, I cooked because I knew they would please him. I found things and bought things and took pictures of things - all to amuse him or engage him or interest his sharp and active mind and imagination.

I don't know how to live without him, I just don't.

Today, it's finally gray and cold and horrible and rainy. Today the world matches my soul. These days since he died have been beautiful and warm and sunny, the kind of day in which we'd take a break from whatever we were doing, and sit in our quiet back yard and talk and watch the dogs, and he'd say, "Aahhh. This is why we live here."

A few months ago, as I was driving back from some show or painting trip, I realized that I absolutely loved my life. That it could not be better, could not be more perfect. I doubt I'll ever be able to say that again. I wake up each morning, and my first thought is, "Another day without Peter." And I weep.