Chili Fritos

-->

One year ago today (12/27) my husband died.

For 3 minutes and 27 seconds.

Who knew that 3 minutes and 27 seconds could last so long…

In 3 minutes and 27 seconds I learned everything I needed to know about life.

In 3 minutes and 27 seconds I saw lives unravel. I saw hearts break. I saw families collapse. I saw chaos. I saw pain. I saw devastation. I felt loss. I felt loneliness. I felt tears of pain. I felt anger. I was confused. We were scared. We were devastated.

For 3 minutes and 27 seconds we were changed.

…and then he lived.

I knew something wasn’t right. When you live with someone for years upon years you just know when something feels different. So I called 911… and we took him in to the ER for some tests. My Ashley dropped everything and met me there.

Things you notice in the emergency room:

Very young doctor; nurse is a big burly guy that probably rides a motorcycle; lady next door won’t stop hacking up a lung; and a strange excitement for the lobby vending machine.

Ash and I shared chili flavored Fritos and watched a Navajo family check in their grandma. She clearly had some diabetes issue. The family was not the epitome of health. Funny how events become tattooed in your mind; otherwise worthless points of reference. Enough time had passed, and I had diagnosed the entire lobby at this point, so we returned to the ‘patient’.

You know when you are a kid and you think that there are monsters under your bed and even though you check every single night you know there aren’t any under there….. well, imagine if just one time you checked and there were googly eyes staring back at you….that feeling in your chest….the shock of it all…..ok, now imagine that feeling but walking down the hall to your husband’s bed in an emergency room.

Time stands still at this point… I remember every single second… I remember facial expressions… I remember faces… words… thoughts… papers….needles. She met me in the hall and said, “Are you Amy? Your husband went into cardiac arrest and we are trying to revive him. It’s been 3 minutes”…..

3 minutes!!!!!

Three minutes ago I was eating chili Fritos in the lobby commenting on a Navajo family and their diabetes issues. 3 minutes ago I was sitting with Ashley in a way too cold lobby in a hospital down the street. 3 minutes ago I was a wife with 4 kids barely middle aged. I was texting and looking at Instagram and checking Facebook. I was normal and normal was good.

One thing you will never be able to explain (and I hope you neverrrrrr can) is the feeling when they have you come in the room where a minimum of 9 doctors and nurses are working on a ‘coded’ patient. You may not know this but when a patient ‘codes’ it is all hands on deck…every single doctor and nurse have to present themselves… it’s utter chaos. As Jodi Picoult stated, “Did you ever walk through a room that's packed with people, and feel so lonely you can hardly take the next step?”. I remember a very young security guard was standing outside my husband’s room and I remember him saying, very nonchalantly, “I’ve never seen a patient ‘code’ ”. Well join the club, Mister…. And as I stood over the man that was my husband… the man that was about to make me a widow…and a brain rapid firing a gazillion things that need to happen…I stopped and looked at the doctor and said, “You had me come in here to say goodbye, didn’t you?”. I have never been surer of something in my entire life. I KNEW my purpose. I understood with 1000% clarity why I was called in there. I could see my daughter collapsed on the floor outside. I could see a central line in my husband’s groin. I saw his head hanging off the table. I could see his eyes wide open and, as they say, “no one was home”. I saw a heart monitor with a flat line. I saw the end. And I stood there and I folded my hands and for some reason made eye contact with that security guard and said, “Pray hard!”.

I remember repeating, “please please please please please please please” over and over and over and over. Eyes closed. Hands clasped. Complete surrender…. And then 27 seconds passed and a man said, “We have a pulse but it’s a faint one”. I grabbed my husband’s head in my hands and shut his eyes for him. The nurse told me “Ma’am we aren’t concerned with his head right now”, but I was…I was… I was concerned with his head and his heart and his body and his family that was collapsed on the floor outside room 27 in the emergency room in a hospital down the street.

Funny how life sucker punches you from time to time. Little pieces of reality pie. Death never really comes at the right time, does it? So you make yourself strong because it's expected of you. You turn into the person others need you to be. And you roll up your sleeves and say “Let’s get dirty”. And you throw yourself into the moment. I like to think that December 27, 2017 was ‘so last year’, but when death knocks at your door it doesn’t matter if you answer it or not, because hellooooo tag you’re it!

It isn’t anything I have talked about. I didn’t Facebook it. I closed my circle. I let a few in. Some came in regardless and without abandon for their dear friends. I slept on a waiting room couch in a fetal position as 2018 rang in. I learned about blood. And hearts. And visiting hours. And coffee….lots of coffee. By the way, hospital cafeteria hours suck…..

But he lived. We lived. We love… and continue to love. You never really know the strength of a family until you see it break down. It is a beautiful sight to see although that sounds like the worst kind of sight there could be. Ohhhh you want to know how you did as a parent, well, throw in the death of a loved one and the pain associated with it and BINGO you get to see the fruits of your labor. UGHHHHH why does it have to be like that? Why does pain bring out the best in people? When the world falls apart, and it will from time to time, look no farther than left and right….those are your people…your family. Your pain is their pain. Like the saying goes, “We bleed together”. We're all pieces of the same ever-changing puzzle. You see, within 3 minutes and 27 seconds my ‘circle’ dropped everything, and I mean EVERYTHING and came to a hospital down the street to Room 27 on December 27^th  to watch and pray over a heart line on a monitor that held all the answers to the past, present, and future of a family collapsed on a hospital floor.

Why do I tell my story, now that a year has passed? Because life, it turns out, goes on… And the mundane activities become your focus and bills are paid and dentist appointments are missed and kids go to collage and dishes pile in the sink and you forget. You forget what happened in Room 27 on the 27^th. Then you get a call from you husband and he says, “Honey, let’s go to the casino today to celebrate my one year death anniversary”. And you realize those are words that at one point in time, when 3 minutes and 27 seconds lasted an eternity, that you never thought you would hear again. And I clasp my hands and close my eyes and quietly say to myself, “But I already won”…..

A Griswold Moment

Looking through my window one would believe that our family tree was decorated with the help of the Griswolds. The mismatched patterns would send Martha Stewart back to a jail cell. You see, I inherited 'Fancy Tree Syndrome' from my father. My mother did not have this trait. She allowed my father to have his tree and decorate it any way that he wanted. Fancy tree syndrome carries several characteristics; usually they have ornaments (usually glass) that all have a similar color structure (usually gold or silver). These trees usually are in the 'fancy room' (living room). On a side note, I used to have a friend when we lived in New Jersey, whose parents would block off their fancy room with string so no one could ever enter the fancy room unless they were allowed (usually holidays). Anyways, these fancy trees were perfection. They would also be the place that the special gifts would be placed. I remember waking up one morning to a moped underneath the tree when I was 12 or 13 years old (insert hospital visit notes here). My mother didn't help in decorating the fancy tree. It wasn't really her thing. My dad always does everything gracefully. Fancy tree in fancy room peering through a front window and BAM Christmas has arrived. Then there was the 'kid tree'. Ya, that was the name of it. The kid tree was the ugly stepsister of the Christmas holiday. Glitter felt snowflakes made at Girl Scouts night...hang it on the kid tree. Oh, a framed picture covered in glue and beads from preschool...hang it. A souvenir from your trip to the Rockettes one winter...here's a hook. A gourd shaped like Santa...move over Rockettes. Baby's first Christmas...First Christmas together...new home ornament...new dog ornament.... you got something for me to hang then just provide the hook and it makes it to the kid tree...otherwise known as the the 'kid junk tree'. I usually do a fancy tree and a junk tree. This year I decided to do a kid junk tree. Ok ok maybe because that was the box that made it from storage...maybe because this has been a tough year and we all need to be reminded about what really matters (you decide). If you come into my home I might give you the 'tree tour'. This tour consists of a detailed description of each and every ornament on the junk tree. As I was unraveling the ornaments yesterday I was taken back in time. Each ornament has a story. As Parker was laying on the couch I would constantly bring him each discovery and tell him a quick summary of the ornaments history. He didn't care much for the details. The junk tree is much like a Dickens' novel of Christmas' past. There are ornaments for Baby's First Christmas. There are ornaments from when I would take the kids to the store and let them pick their own ornament for that year. There is a Sponge Bob dangling from a rope. There is a Minnie Mouse wearing a nurse outfit. There's a rustic star that was used as a place setting at Parker's first birthday party. There are frosted ice cream cones that remind me of what was on our tree when I was growing up. There's a fragile silk silver and gold ball that was on my tree when I was little. The tree consists of glue and beads and framed pictures of days gone by. This tree will never make it into any Chip and Joanna Gaines segments. I don't need it to. I do not care if anyone walks into my home and gasps at the sight of the tree that looks like an episode of Hoarders. What the tree means to me is that we lived. We loved. We shared a life together. We created memories. Each ornament takes me back to a place where time can stand still for a moment.... where Hannah is 7 years old and making a glass ornament with her picture inside, adorned with some gold ribbon... or Ashley writing 'Love you Mommy' in red beads on a piece of wood. And Parker's face glued (so much glue) to a piece of fabric and a tree hook from preschool. These ornaments have been lost in our storage unit for the last several years. This year, when I went to retrieve our Christmas crap, they were front and center with the decorations. How this happened is not quite sure. Maybe we can call it Christmas magic. So this year our Christmas theme is centered around our junk tree. I have filled my home with treasures that were made with tiny hands and big hearts in a time where mommy and daddy were the center of their universe. A time when Christmas was magical. A time when Santa was Superman. I know that everyone has different visions of what Christmas looks like to them. Believe me, I like your fancy trees. Perfectly spaced balls of similar color and ribbon that looks like the wind swept it haphazardly across the tree. Perhaps an occasional glass ornament. Yes! Love it. But that won't be OUR tree this year. This year we are doing the hoarder/junk/kid tree. Just to remind us all of where we have come from and who we are as a family and how much love is in our home. So if you come visit our home this Christmas, grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate and prepare to sit for a while as I explain the story of the glitter stork at the top of my tree....

Green Ball

I look for inspiration in writing almost daily. I rarely write when I don’t have a strong, overwhelming NEED to write. I felt that pang to write today. I initially was going to write about something as small as a molecule.  Yup, a molecule. Something so small that looks like a whole other galaxy under a microscope. With all the memes and Facebook videos streaming through our lives, one in particular has stuck in my head. It depicts a giant green ball being led by a rope that appears to be walking it, as if it were a family pet. The title of the video was “This is happiness”. I’ve included it as the photo for my blog. So freaking cute. A myosin protein dragging an endorphin along a filament to the inner part of the brain's parietal cortex which creates happiness. Who knew that a protein is so adorable. I initially was going to write about all the myosin proteins swirling around in our bodies during Valentine’s Day and what not. I initially was going to go into depth into my myocin thresholds yada yada yada. Not today. And please hold that thought about the protein while I go off on another tangent.

I watch the Olympics for the sport of it, of course. I love to see people pushing their limits and living their dreams.; however, it’s more than that to me. I like to watch the ‘aftermath’. After the runs, the twirls, the racing, etc….I like to see who the athletes run to. I like to see a semi-god of an athlete, an epitome of determination and focus, …become a real person. One who searches the crowd of photographers and fans to find their ‘happiness’; their ‘love’; their ‘reasons’. The 17 year old Gold medalist who finishes her half pipe and whips off her snowboard boots and her helmet and says “where’s my mom”.  And as tears of joy run down their faces, which minutes prior were steadfast and focused, I always think that I want to collect their tears. WTF Amy (I can hear you saying that now). I want to take a little vial and collect the tears of these athletes when they are at the pinnacle of their lives. I wonder if their tears, much like the myosin protein, look different then the tears of perhaps someone who is sad, or scared, or reflective. Do their tears have a zillion tiny proteins on leashes walking around in them? Freaking happy protein parade? Do sad people have different looking proteins walking in their tears?

Watching the news this morning we are reminded of the school shootings happening in our lives. They flashed to the Sandy Hook attack. A photograph showed children being led out of the school after the massacre. One little girl’s face in that photo promoted this blog post. Utter fear and terror was on her face. But within her grimacing look I could see that it wasn’t so much what had just occurred within her peaceful little school, but it was a look saying, “I need my mom/dad”. You could actually see that expression. And her tears were steaming down her face and landing on her once dry rainbow t-shirt. That innate NEED for someone or something. I thought of her tears, too! What a contrast there would be if we could see them under the light of a microscope against those in a completely opposite tearful moment. All the events that are occurring inside of us that we don’t even know are happening. I hope that little girl and all these young people have those happy molecule walks that will far outweigh any of the bad stuff.

The shooter…a troubled boy…lived with some family friends, ‘since the death of his mother’ as stated on the news. Perhaps when his body was at it’s lowest point and he couldn’t feel that happiness microscopically running through his body he was also looking for his reason out in the crowd; perhaps that was his mother that was no longer there. And in all the pain and hatred and anger that this horrible, horrible person did to his former classmates, you see how people, whether the gold medalist athlete or the worst possible person imaginable, to the innocent child or the guilty adult; that there is one thing that we all have in common. It can’t be seen but we feel it ever day. It can’t be seen but we show it daily. It can’t be seen but it drives us in both positive and perhaps negative ways. It’s that damn little protein on a leash looking for all the other little protein friends in this big beautiful body of ours. It’s the happiness we feel when we know we are loved and we know we can love that person back, whether we are on the top of a mountain going for the gold or in the darkest depths at the bottom of your hill and see no way out.

My wish for you is to always search for your ‘faces in the crowd’…the ones who make your happiness walk around in your body a million miles over…and never lose faith that rainbows after the rain will dry up someday and you can be at the top of your mountains once again.