For me, it seems as though my entire life has been a struggle. The good times have been few and far between. Specifically, though, 2010 has been a most difficult year for me. There are a few close people who know some of what I’ve had to endure, but no one knows everything…especially all of the internal struggles that are going on. I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore…somewhere along this path called life I’ve lost my way and myself. I’m using this blog as a means of opening up, with the intention of gaining an understanding of everything that’s happened, and hopefully, from there, I can begin to heal.
I feel like I should attach this disclaimer ~ in no way, shape, or form am I a writer…I do not claim to be one…I’m just a mom, who desperately needs some emotional relief.
I’m choosing the date of July 22, 2010 as the topic for my first post. I think this will be the most difficult one to write. I look at this post as the epicenter of all of the posts that follow.
And so the story begins…
I suppose before I delve into the events of that fateful day, I should give a brief synopsis of the months leading up to that day. My husband of twenty-five years had engaged in many affairs over the years. I, myself, had endured emotional, mental and physical abuse at his hands. Because of this, I was completely and utterly terrified of him. I will go into greater detail on this subject at a later time. In February of this year he asked me for a divorce. To be honest, I was hoping for this day. I told him that I agreed with him. I said, “I’m not happy and you’re not happy. I think this is the best thing to do.” We filled out all of the paperwork. He said to hold off on the filing, though. We never did file. We were never legally separated.
He continued to stay at the house with me and our 3 kids, while seeing his girlfriend everyday. We didn’t see that much of him. He was either with her, or in our building/garage, which was his man-cave. He had his computer, t.v. and even a mini-fridge in the building. He would come into the house around midnight, or sometime after, to sleep on the couch. Most of the time he was drunk, which often led to crazy incidents which I will touch upon at a later time.
On July 21, five months after he had asked me for a divorce, we had a discussion after he came home from work. It was actually civil, for once. I was finally brave enough to tell him how I felt. I told him that I thought it was time for him to find a place to live. I told him that it was hard on me, with him seeing her everyday and then coming home and showing me pictures of them eating out and having a good time. To make the situation more clear, I was not allowed to go anywhere or do anything. He was still controlling me. I sat at home, by myself, every day. I told him to imagine if it was the other way around. What if I was the one going out every day and he had to sit at home, by himself, and watch it all go down? I told him that it would hurt him and he wouldn’t like it very much. He agreed with me…shocker. He said I was absolutely right and he said he would do whatever I wanted. I also told him that I didn’t want him here, that I didn’t want to see him everyday. I felt like I couldn’t begin to move forward with him smothering me and continuously stressing me. He went to the back door and turned around and said, “I want you to know that I love you..I always have..I always will.” I just looked at him and I didn’t tell him that I loved him, too. He had the most hurt look on his face. I remember going to the bedroom and crying my eyes out.
The next morning I had an appointment out-of-town. I had to be there at 8am. It was a little over an hour drive so I was planning on leaving around 6:45am. I got up around 5am and took my shower. I noticed that the light in the livingroom was still on and that he had never came in to go to sleep that night. This wasn’t unusual. He had done this before…had even stayed at her house on occasion. When I went to get into my car I noticed that his car was still here. He had not left to go to work. I didn’t think anything of this, either, because he often took days off without notice. He was also planning on going to the beach with his girlfriend that weekend so I just assumed he was taking off to get things ready to go. As I drove down the driveway I glanced in my rear-view mirror to see if he was standing on the porch of the building, which he usually did whenever he heard me leave in the car. He would either wave, if he knew where I was going, or summons me back, if he didn’t know where I was headed. He never appeared that morning. Even after I got on the interstate, I held my phone, expecting him to call, but he didn’t. I just figured he was mad at me about our conversation from the previous evening.
My appointment lasted until almost 12:30. I didn’t get home until around 1:45. I went into the house and asked the kids if their Daddy had been in. They said no, that they had not seen him. I decided to go out to the building and let him know how my appointment went. The door was open, which was odd, because he usually kept it locked. I went in and looked to my left. He was usually sitting at his computer. Nope, wasn’t there. The chair was turned around and facing the back of the building. My eyes followed the path from his chair to the back of the building. It was not very bright in there. The workbench light at the back of the building was on, but the front half of the building was only lit by the sunlight coming in the door. It’s really difficult to describe what happened next. It’s even more difficult to describe what I was feeling. It took quite a few seconds for my eyes to focus on what I was seeing and even longer for my brain to process it. My husband was hanging from the rafters with a rope around his neck. He was at my level. His knees must have been bent and close to the floor…I don’t know..I can’t remember how his legs were…I just know that his head was lower than mine. He was facing towards the right back corner of the building, so I was looking at his profile. I remember thinking that this is a joke. He’s trying to scare me, like he’s done so many times before. I said his name and repeated it over and over as I was walking towards him. I reached out and almost touched him, but I didn’t. Because at that moment, I had stepped around to see his face…and I knew. Nothing can prepare you for this. Everything you think you know about this act is not real. I am a horror movie addict and I have seen some gruesome stuff in my time, but nothing ever came close to depicting this as it really is. His body was swollen to almost twice his original size. His head…I will never get that image out of my mind…it looked like it was stretched..elongated…to almost twice its original size. I’m sorry about being so graphic, but I live with this image every day. I need to talk about it.
As to what happened next…I’m not really sure. I remember a police officer picking me up off the ground beside the building. He took me to the shade. Next, an ambulance showed up. The paramedic held me and I fell against her and cried and cried. She never let go of me, though. They took me into the house while they removed him. By now, maybe 8-10 cops, paramedics, sheriff’s deputies and even the animal control officer, had showed up. They took my statement and then they were gone. I was now alone and had to somehow try to make sense of everything.
The one small thing that I am grateful for is that my children didn’t decide to run out to the building to see him. I get sick and extremely upset when I think how much of a possibility that was. I was over an hour away. I could not have gotten home fast enough to be with them or help them. I probably would have had an accident trying to get to them. I’m just so thankful that they didn’t have to witness what I saw.
It never really sunk in that whole week, or even the next. I hurt more now than I did then. I have felt so many different emotions… sadness, loss, anger, grief, panic, anxiety, guilt, relief. I was so angry at him for abandoning us like that. I feel so much guilt. If I didn’t have that talk with him the day before he would probably still be here. I didn’t tell him that I loved him back. He probably thought I hated him. I didn’t hate him. We just didn’t belong together. Too much had happened. I told him I didn’t want to see him everyday, but I didn’t mean this…I really didn’t.
And now to explain why I titled this post “Saving Lisa”. I’m an avid reader. A member of a book club. I had received a few books in the mail. One was Under the Dome, by Stephen King. He’s my favorite…been dying to read this book. Several times I went to pick it up and start reading it but I would lay it back down and reach for another book. This other book, that my subconscience, or God or something, wanted me to read, was titled, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, by Beth Hoffman. A cute story. Sort of a cross between Steel Magnolia’s and To Kill A Mockingbird.
Not until the very end of this book, did I realize why I was so compelled to read it. I highlighted a few passages in the book that struck a chord with me. This was something I needed to hear. The first one is on page 292…
“Don’t go wastin’ all them bright tomorrows you ain’t even seen by hangin’ on to what happened yesterday. Let go, child. Just breathe out and let go.”
So simple but so true. I’m spending too much time dwelling on what happened and I’m letting my life slip away. The next passage is on page 301…
“But like a deep bruise, the memory of Momma’s final day jolts me whenever I bump up against it.”
That describes exactly what I go through several times a day, every day. Then, on the very next page, page 302..
“It’s how we survive the hurts in life that brings us strength and gives us our beauty.”
That’s just a powerful statement, especially when you’ve had to survive a lot of hurts. And finally, on the very last page of the book, the passage that left me crying for over an hour, but made me realize a truth that I couldn’t see until now…
“Momma had left this world and set herself free, and in doing so, she had set me free too.”
I think my husband had dug a hole so deep for himself that he felt this was the only way he could free himself…but more importantly, I truly believe that he felt this was the only way he could free me. About a month after it happened, I was talking to one of my friends and I told her about how it was all my fault and that everyone’s gonna think that…she sat me down and told me about the conversations she had with many people about this. She said there was one coherent feeling or thought with everyone…they all believed that if he had not taken his own life, that it was just a matter of time before he killed me or the kids or both. She said 100% of the people felt this way. I had no idea that so many people knew the complexities of my situation. As I ponder events in my life, I, too, believe that things would have spiralled completely out of control. The irony of it all, though, is that I’m still not free. This will haunt me for the rest of my life.
desperatelyseekinglisa 