But I should have known that I didn’t have any reason to worry about the small stuff because the women in my family have always been great communicators. As soon as my family found out that Brad wasn’t going to make it, they made one phone call and immediately my kids had someone watching them who loved them like her own family.
“Candice? Brad’s not going to make it. We need you to come.”
I’ve known Candice since I was around eight years old, but I’ve known of her since I was born. Our mothers were both Chi Omegas at McNeese (a little college in Louisiana that, rumor has it, was originally built because the town wanted a new rodeo arena and building a college was the best way they could figure out how to fund it). Carrying on that legacy of friendship, Kristi and Candice had been Chi Omegas at Colorado State University together. Being four years younger, I had always looked up to Candice as another older sister (and, when we were young, was the pesky younger sister she never had). As we all entered adulthood, the differences in our ages ceased to matter and the three of us had a friendship that we knew could be counted on for anything.
“I’m coming.”
With just a few phone calls, news of Brad’s accident had spread like wildfire, and I was already getting reports of people who were starting out from various parts of the country to be there in time for the funeral. Our local friends in Denver had been coming by the house during the three days I was gone, bringing food and helping with the kids during the day while Candice spent the night. Her husband, Rob, was holding down the fort at their house at night, caring for their girls, who were five and three, and bringing them over during the day to distract mine.
As I walked in the door for the first time in three days, I saw more people in my house than I knew it could hold. It seemed like every friend I had was milling around, trying to figure out a way to simultaneously be helpful and stay out of the way. Nobody really said anything to me, but I could feel them watching as I slowly walked over to the French doors that opened out onto the back porch.
And I watched through the glass in amazement at how my backyard had transformed itself into what looked like Sesame Street on crack.
Three children were up in the middle of our big pine tree (the best tree-climbing tree around with strong branches that start about a foot off the ground and stretch over twenty feet high), and Sarah was wailing as she stood holding on to the lowest branch, bitter that she couldn’t keep up with them. Michael, who had the chubbiest cheeks God ever put on a kid, was playing tag with another little boy, who I immediately recognized as one of Steve’s, Brad’s roommate from the Academy who was stationed in Texas and had driven through the night with his wife and three kids to be there. And Haley was sitting calmly on the porch surrounded by Barbies and two of her closest friends.
Having a tragedy like this happen to children so young is both a blessing and a curse. At five, three, and one year old, they were easily distracted and, surrounded by all of their friends, blissfully unaware of what was going on.
But on the other hand…they had no idea what was going on.
My friend Sheila spied me watching through the glass and slowly made her way from the back porch into the breakfast room where I was watching all of the madness in the backyard. Friends since Haley and her daughter, Hannah, were still in diapers, we had met when we both joined a local moms’ group and then had our sons within three weeks of each other.
Sheila opened the door and looked me square in the face. She reached for me, and the shaking in her hands matched the tremor in her voice.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” she said.
And then she left.
I was in too much of a fog to really digest anything that was going on or any words that were said. But I would later come to realize that that was one of the most honest responses to Brad’s death I would ever receive.
It almost seemed like Moses parting the sea as I stepped out onto the back porch. People moved aside to let me reach for my children who, I’m sure, thought I was hugging them so hard because I hadn’t seen them in three days, one of the longest stretches we’d ever been separated. Sarah wrapped her little arms around my neck, happily sucking on her pacifier as Haley cried, “Mommy! You’re home!”
“Guess what?” Michael said with excitement. “Nathan, Alex, and Annika are here for a visit!”
And it hurt my very core to think about telling them why everyone was here.
So here it was. The moment of truth. But how to say it? How to tell a kindergartner, a toddler, and a baby that Daddy’s gone to that big jungle gym in the sky? How to be sensitive, but honest enough so that they really understand that Daddy isn’t just working on a project in Virginia for a while?
How to do it without landing them in therapy for the next eighteen years?
I wanted to be very careful with my wording, and I didn’t want to completely fall apart. This was our first big loss, but I knew enough about parenting to know that kids take their cues from us. Even when my children were babies, if I was stressed, they would be cranky. If I was in a bad mood, they would be, too. If I was singing and happy, they would giggle and play along. And if I could take a deep breath and handle things calmly…they would hopefully feed off that energy and do the same.
From the moment I thought about telling the kids what had happened, I knew that I would have to be very cautious about my grief in front of them. I knew that it would be okay to cry and be honest about what I was feeling. But to have a full-blown panic attack would only do one thing.
Make them panic.
So sitting there in front of them, my whole body wanting to run screaming down the street, I had to rein in my own emotions and just hope that I got this right. After all, I didn’t want the end result of telling them that Daddy had died from a brain injury to be that every time one of them got a bump on the head they’d scream, “I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die! I just know my brain is swelling!”
I’m always thinking long-term about how to avoid the next potential disaster, but as a mom, even more so. Because in the end, that’s just more work for me.
I sat them down in the TV room with my parents and in-laws, hoping that as my children heard the worst news of their short lives, they would look around and see the faces of the people closest to them and be comforted. Somehow, without saying a word, the crowd of friends that had gathered in our home seemed to dissipate and find other places to be. Extra children were brought outside and the house became unnaturally quiet as I sat down on the couch, Sarah squirming in my lap, Michael on one side, and Haley on the other.
I took a deep breath.
“Daddy got hurt,” I said, surprised at the calm voice that came out of my mouth. “I know that Nana told you that Daddy was in an accident the other day. And we thought he was going to be okay.”
Hard swallow.
“But Daddy’s head got bumped really hard. It’s not like when you bump it at the playground or when you’re running around. It got bumped much, much harder than that. His head got hurt so bad that he died.”
Sarah continued to wriggle in my lap, completely oblivious to the news I was delivering. Haley and Michael looked up at me with wide, puzzled eyes like they knew what I was telling them was important but they couldn’t figure out why.
“Look around the room,” I continued, pointing to the family surrounding us. “There are all of these laps that would love to have you in them. You can ask anyone a question or just get a hug or whatever you need. Everyone here loves you and will help you however they can.
“And Daddy loves you very much. But now he’s in Heaven. And he’s not coming home.”
Now, I’ll be honest with you. My own views about religion are somewhat conflicted. Actually, I don’t know if that’s the right word. Let’s just say that I’m the kind of person who likes to study something before I fully believe it. We attended church as a family, and I liked
the church we went to because it seemed to fill my need to be educated, with a few peppy hymns to break up the hour. But now that I was faced with how to explain that Daddy was gone and knowing the next question would be “but where?” Heaven was the easiest explanation I could come up with on short notice.
And then I just had to cross my fingers that some Sunday school teacher would be able to fill in the blanks on how the whole system works.
I could hear sniffles around the room from the adults, and even though I was exhausted, I was a little proud of myself, sure that this little mommy moment would land me in the Parental Hall of Fame. My kids nodded, indicating that they understood what I was telling them, and then they began peppering me with the most insightful questions.
“Can we go back outside and play?”
“Can Alex stay the rest of the afternoon?”
“If we go to McDonald’s later, can we play in the play place?”
So much for a heartwarming discussion and my Lifetime Original Movie moment.
My kids jumped up from the couch and ran out the back door, determined not to let this pesky death business get in the way of their dream playdate with every kid they had ever known from around the country. Worry about whether they were experiencing the toddler version of denial was trying to ooze its way into my head, but the anxiety I felt about everything else that was going on wouldn’t make room for it.
One of the first lessons that I learned during the beginning stages of widowhood was to take every moment (and problem) as it comes, for the simple reason that all of the moments and problems are so enormous that if you let them all in, you will suddenly find yourself with smoke coming out of your ears as you try to think about everything at once.
The fact that my children didn’t seem to be digesting that their dad was gone suddenly wasn’t my biggest problem. That would become my biggest problem years down the line when, say, my daughter wanted him to walk her down the aisle or my son wanted his dad to lead his Boy Scout troop.
By then, the problems of now would have dissipated a little and I would be able to focus on the problem at hand.
But that day, I decided to just be grateful for the fact that the kids had twenty little distractions running around my house. And that they were happy. Because in our new situation, I didn’t know how long “happy” would last.
“I need to be alone for a minute,” I said to the family that was still standing there, seemingly in shock that nothing more monumental had come from the discussion I’d just had with the kids. I excused myself as everyone watched me walk up the stairs with expressions on their faces that I thought were strange then, but which would become very familiar to me in the near future.
They didn’t know what to say or what to do with me.
I headed up to my room with a very detailed plan that involved lying on my bed and letting all of the feeling drain out of my body. But I couldn’t. The restlessness that would plague me for the next six months seemed to begin in that moment. I lay there on my bedspread with my eyes wide open and every cell in my body so active that they all seemed to be competing to see which one could make me move first.
I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and rolled over, reached for the phone, and dialed the number of a friend I’d known since kindergarten. In all of the hubbub that had been going on for the last three days, I had no idea if Christa even knew Brad was gone, if anyone had called her. For some reason, I felt the need to say it out loud, to shock someone else the same way I had been shocked. If something like this had happened to someone else, I would have immediately called her and said, “Did you hear…?” only to listen to her reply, “You’re kidding! When did that happen?” And we would have gossiped about it for a healthy length of time.
But this time, the “did you hear” was about me.
And at the moment Christa answered the phone, I’m afraid that I began to wail.
“He’s gone! Christa, Brad’s gone! I don’t understand it. He’s gone!”
Lying on my stomach, tears streaming down my face and drenching the phone, breathing so fast it seemed like I could pass out at any moment, I said it over and over and over again, trying to make it seem real and hoping that she would convince me that it wasn’t. But what I got was the only thing anyone could say at that point.
“I know, sweetie. I know.”
5
I would like to say I woke up the next day ready and able to plan Brad’s funeral. But there are two things wrong with that sentence: First of all, you can’t wake up if you never went to sleep. And second, no one is ever ready to plan a funeral. I don’t care if the death was sudden, after an illness, when you were twenty, or when you were ninety. Even when you know it’s coming, when someone dies, the moment they take their last breath always feels unexpected. And no one can ever really picture what it’s like to be carrying out someone’s “final wishes.”
I find it grossly unfair that one of the first things we have to do as widow rookies is put together a large event that, even when done well, still leaves all of the attendees feeling uncomfortable and like they’d rather be anywhere else. Funerals seem to have almost nothing to do with the widow and, in fact, very little to do with the person who died. A lot like with our weddings, we tend to put together an event to pacify at least one person in the group who not only fancies themselves an amateur event planner, but the resident expert on our lives, as well.
I realized this when, a few years after my husband died, I went to a funeral, and while speaking to the bleary-eyed spouse and telling him how beautiful everything was, he finally looked at me and said, “My in-laws planned the whole thing. I’m giving a party next month and we’re all going to get smashed.”
Good plan.
In another, more obvious way, funerals are eerily like planning a wedding because not only do you spend an obscene amount of money to commemorate one day (and create an event that has “compromise” written all over it), but you’ll also find that the more funerals you go to after the one you planned, the more you wish you had done things differently.
For example, since Brad and I were the first of our friends to get married, I was the first to make my bridesmaids wear dresses that they would never wear again (despite my assurances to the contrary) in burgundy and the finest fashion the ’90s had to offer. I was the first to pick out flowers that, when they arrived, looked nothing like the picture. And the first to plan a reception at a large banquet hall that for some reason had a large papier-mâché-looking tree in the middle of the room.
As we got older and attended more and more weddings, I started feeling a little frustrated with myself that I hadn’t picked a bigger ball gown, butterflies instead of bubbles, and a better bar. My sister and I used to joke that we’d do better the second time around, when we were marrying for money. I remember, after Brad and I had been married for about six years, purchasing an amazing wedding guide for my friend Christa as an engagement present. As I showed it to Kristi, I said, “Now why didn’t I have that to help me plan my wedding? Look! It even has its own calculator!”
To which she replied, “There’s always next time!”
Unfortunately, now I know that could be true.
It’s the same thing with funerals. After doing the planning yourself and then going to a few after that, you start thinking, “Now why didn’t I get the flashier urn and the comforting shaman to preside over the service instead of that big, clunky casket and the geriatric minister?”
And you feel a little guilty, wishing for a do-over.
All widows go about funeral planning differently. Some want all of the control; some don’t want any; and some don’t even want the funeral. I guess, for the most part, I fell into the middle category. I had some idea of what I thought my husband would like, but as far as the logistics went, I was open to suggestions. I didn’t know where to start, and if it had been left up to me, the funeral home wo
uld still be charging me a monthly storage fee.
The day after Brad died, I woke up in my room, after finally getting a peaceful hour of sleep, to my mother gently shaking me awake. I don’t remember personally feeding my children, bathing them, or putting them to bed the night before, which was a good indication that she had stayed the night (and why I didn’t win the 2007 award for Mother of the Year).
“Sweetie? You need to get up. We have an appointment in an hour.”
My mother had been hard at work looking for the best funeral home in the area, and she had settled upon the one that Doug, the pastor, recommended. I’ll tell you, the funeral business is cutthroat (no pun intended), and it’s certainly not an industry where you want bad word-of-mouth. Can you just imagine what must have happened in the past to make someone say, “Call this funeral home, but do not under any circumstances call that one?”
I mean, how horrible would it be to have a botched funeral?
My in-laws followed my parents and me to the funeral home, and when we arrived, I was surprised that it was not only across the street from the preschool I had taken my kids to for years (I had never noticed it), but it was also located at the end of what looked like a strip mall. I had always pictured funeral homes in large, old stately houses, not plopped right next to a chiropractor’s office and two doors away from a liquor store (although in the throes of grief, both of those services could come in handy).
Confessions of a Mediocre Widow Page 5