I have loved two men in my entire life; neither were my husbands. My first husband died as a result of brain death in 1978. At the time, I had a five year old son that I had to bring in to see his father to say goodbye and that was the most difficult thing to do. When I came in the room with my son, my husband sat straight up in bed and it took 6 nurses to hold him down. He had brain stem death so I have no idea if other parts of his brain were still firing and he knew we were there.
But I digress. After my husband passed on, I met a man the following year that I was absolutely crazy about and who was crazy in love with me. But it scared him so he put me through hell and in our third year, he cheated on me and I didn't know it for quite some time. He finally told me and I remember that when he left, I was leaning against the wall and I just slid down the wall in such grief and pain and stayed that way for quite a long time. Shit, I thought we were going to get married and I'd be the mother of his two kids who adored me. They hated his father for what he did to me and cried when they left my house. Me, on the other hand, was in shock. I could not believe someone I loved so dearly and was so close to, could possibly walk away from me. I loved those kids as much as I loved my own. It was just horrible. Occasionally, I keep in touch with them; they are all grown up now, married with their own families and children. Last year, I even saw HIM and we sat around a fire chatting and had a good time and I found that it actually hurt me to see him and that I'd even be "the other woman" if he so desired. I guess I was really never over him and that was 25 years ago.
But mostly, the person who swept me off my feet and whom I loved beyond comprehension and he felt the same. Every night I'd write a note or a mini-novel and stuck it in his car for his reading pleasure the following day. I couldn't miss a night because he looked forward to them; they made his day and it was our way of learning about one another and working things out. But it sure was a wonderful relationship that I still miss sorely. We never fought and all he wanted, especially on weekends, was to spend time with me. When I was sick, he didn't want me in bed, so he'd set me up on the couch, just so he could be near me - asleep or awake. For the first time in his life, he learned what love was and it was amazing, absolutely amazing. I'm thankful for the time we had together and still damn wish he was with us.
He had blood clots in his legs with filters at the top of each leg and one in his abdomen just in case a clot got through. Finally, instead of ignoring it, he decided to go have surgery on his legs because he wanted to live a long life with me. So we went to see his doctor, who put him on aspirin (what a stupid thing to do) and did a stress test on his legs. I went everyway with him and I was the calming force, the comforting force whenever he had to have tests or for whatever reason. Our love transcended everything; it was magical.
And it will never happen to me in my life again. This I know. Between the aspirin - and I don't believe in blood thinners because they broke up his clots and pieces of clots were getting through his protective screen. One day he had a hard time breathing so brought the truck back to work, got in his car and headed for Winchester Hospital in MA. He made my friend David drive me down so I could use his car because he wanted me to be safe. I noticed things were wrong and I tried finding his doctors and since I complained about one of the pills he was taking, he stopped taking them altogether. The thing I was not aware of and would have have a flipping fit over was he did not have just an IV of fluids but of IV HEPERIN. Big mistake for heparin was breaking down the clots and they were going through his lungs, into his heart and into his brain, so he had a few TIA's. I noticed his speech was off, he walked the hall like a drunk and when I brought him home, he seemed to get better.
He came home on Saturday, had that breathing attack again which was caused by a clot in his lungs. When they released him, they told him they did find something but it wasn't anything to worry about. He did well on Sunday and Monday which was the evening he asked me to marry him. I figured that was a given since we were living together and had asked the doctors for two weeks off so he could close his apartment for good. We went to bed Monday night after an extremely passionate love-making and fell asleep in each other's arms.
About 4:30 an, he got up to go to the bathroom. I had a bathroom attached to my bedroom, so it was like two steps from his side of the bed. He goes into the bathroom, shuts the door, turns on the light in one swift movement, then I heard the bang of him falling. I ran around the bed and was in there in seconds. He was dead. Dear God, I howled as I grabbed a robe, turned on lights, opened the front door, grabbing the phone and dialed 911. That took about five seconds and it was only a short 2 minutes before the ambulance arrived.
In the meantime, I rolled him over onto his back and started CPR but all I was getting was blood. That howling noise stayed with me - sounded like a wounded animal. The EMT' arrived and they were big but my bathroom couldn't fit us all. After setting stuff up, they picked him up and brought him out to the kitchen to work on him. I knew they couldn't get an airway and in came the orange bucket where they put him and the equipment they had on him and out the door they went, telling the cop to bring me up the hospital. I tried getting over my doggie fence and fell, knocking over all kinds of glass cutting my knee to shreds for I wanted to get dressed before they left.One of the EMT'S yelled at the cop saying he was supposed to watch me and was I allright? So as soon as they left the house, I ran back into my room, got dressed faster than lightening and was out the door with the cop.
When I reached the ER, the ambulance was gone because they could not face me and there had to be 50 people in that OR but once the doctor saw it was me, he waved me through. I rattled off what had happened over the past week and they asked "why didn't they keep him?" What happened was the blood clots built up in the pulmonary artery till it burst. I stood there awhile and I know they were going through the paces, so I asked them to stop and leave him in peace.
In the meantime they wanted to cut my jeans to get at my knee, so I asked them please to clean him up and I went into another room where they stiched up my knee in a few places and had to have a tetanus shot. I pulled up my pants and walked back to the room he was in and the place was spotless and he was lying on a bed wrapped up like a mummy, peaceful, his face looking 20 years younger and radiant.
I had already called his brother, then went back to stay with him. I kissed him on the forehead and as I was about to kiss him on the lips, the doctor poked his head in to tell me to be careful but I already knew that. While I was being stitched up, I had called my friend, David and he was on his way up to the hospital. They found a minister to keep me company, so we went outside, had a cigarette. I asked why HE did this to me and saw David pull in. Together we walked back to the room and when he came in and saw my fiancee' he was taken aback, came over to me, kneeling down beside me visibly shaken telling me how sorry he was and more. It's shocking to see a person like that.
About 6 am, the doctor poked his head in and said to say my goodbyes because they had to move him before the hospital woke up. The people that worked there were making busy work so they didn't have to look at me. He was only 46 years old but still in shock. When he brought me home, I walked my neighborhood in my socks and David went to clean up the blood. His brother showed up to take his stuff and his car that I was using and surely wanted me to have but I gave him the keys and nothing else.
The ultimate, unconditional love of my life was dead. But I knew where he was...........
More later.
