By Kathleen Leppek

This is just my experience. My experience of a close relationship and an unexpected death. Just as each relationship is unique, no two death experiences and the aftermath are the same and the choices made on how to move through it is different for everyone.

My siblings said that he was just a good guy. He didn’t have to try to be a good guy. He just was. He just had a way about him; quick to smile and engage with others. He had a nice ease about life and an accepting quality where people opened up to him and said things they didn’t tell most people along with considering him a good friend and best friend by many.

Eight men, paramedics and firemen, in the middle of our living room, knelt in a circle around him with a look of earnest, care and honoring of which way this was going to go. A machine kept his heart beating and pumping blood while they alternated turning the machine off and taking turns pumping his chest to see if he could sustain a heart rhythm. That scene is etched in my memory like many others from our time together. The two paramedics talked to me after pronouncing his death. They thought he died instantly of a cardiac embolism as a result of a quick blood pressure change as well as the conditions of COVID, Alpha-1 antitrypsin and a long flight from France, all of which did not help the situation.

We were sailors, cyclists, hikers and skiers of mountains. I remember calling him Mr. Lungs and the winner of the polka dot jersey. On our bikes, when I saw a big hill coming up, I would gain as much distance as I could on him before the hill but, he would always pass me in no time at all, steady with no evidence of strain, gliding by me. It was later that he was diagnosed with Alpha 1, a genetic lung condition that slowly leads to lung disease and liver damage.  So, we changed our biking style to electric and we hiked the mid-west of the flatland instead of the far-west mountains. He was not a living zombie; he engaged in life but, I was seeing the struggle appearing those last few months, a change of getting tired of it all and the exertion of bringing in breath.

I was at my sister in-law’s and her boyfriend’s house; she convinced me it would be better not to be alone that first night. I lay in the dark bedroom, cold and covered in blankets, the living being of our dog, best buddy next to me.  Waves of shaking rolled over my body and I didn’t really sleep at all. Now it’s morning and I feel so tired and so sick; I try to swallow water and plain toast and barely get it down. I press for heading home, hopefully to sleep, sleep off this panic stress my body is feeling. When I get there, my body breaks down, my throat is constricted to a squeak and I let out a series of everything that is in my stomach while going between deep slumbers, answering texts, phone calls and receiving encouragement from friends and siblings. One brother tells me to hang in there. It might be a while to get over this with new waves of grief coming. Another says to just rest. You can survive a long time without food and water, just sip water and sleep. My sister tells me she’s flying in but, when her flight is supposed to come in, my body is frozen in place in the bed. I’m ready to let her know she will have to take a taxi from the airport and then I get a text that her flight is cancelled and she’ll be here the next day. I rally all my strength and make it to the airport the next day with my dog at my side. She is in stress too. I congratulate myself for rising out of bed, making it through the first hump three days after my husband’s death.

I realize, sitting in the backyard with my sister, that every sincere text, phone call, as well as my family are awakening me out of this grief grip. My body, being next to a trusted family member, is calming down. I tell my sister that I am feeling better every moment she is here. Thank goodness she came; I didn’t realize how important it was to be with trusted love ones. She is at my side as we go through all the first week of things that need to be done when someone dies. The funeral home arrangement, where the celebration of life will be, meeting with a lawyer, changing names on accounts and bills, etc.

The blame bounce back starts. Why didn’t I understand the signs and why didn’t I insist on him going to the hospital? But I didn’t know and he said he was feeling and getting better. Why didn’t the healthcare provider give us more information all the while asserting isn’t it great you can be at home? You don’t need to come in.  Why didn’t they allow us to see his pulmonologist?  Why was their service so dismissive when all the signs were pointing to this result?  Another grateful discovery was realized. I have friends and family in the health care field including nurses and a respiratory therapist to assist me talking through this need to blame myself. Included is the thought that my husband and his soul made this decision. Yeah, I accepted I don’t get to decide when someone I love dies and it’s not my fault they choose to pass.

I pull out all of his photos, birth to present, for some to be seen at the celebration of life. What a lucky kid, always smiling in his various bomber jackets, Beatle suites, fancy outfits and the latest toys that his parents purchased at the army base stores. He started his life as an army brat and learned from his mom to smile and greet others ready to make friends. And photos of us, wow, we really did like each other and have fun. Proof, it’s not just my imagination; he is a loved and dear one in my life.

It’s the day of the big event. Why am I smiling so big. I hug and greet every person. I’m so happy they are here. This isn’t a day of grieving. This is a day of celebration; the way he would want it to be. It feels like he is living through me, so happy to see all his friends and they are such a good bunch! His work buddies, golf buddies and other sport team buddies, family and neighbors are there. They all bring forward good memories and acknowledgment of a life well led. All add to the reconciliation. Some friend’s and my brother’s speeches, all add to the picture of a well-rounded life of friendship along with some cool surprises of will-to-good in his life that I didn’t even know about.

I spend over a week in my home town and head to my favorite Lake Michigan and hike, bike and beach the area each day. This is another healing step I take grounding in my realizations around death. My steps of grieving started that first night lying in bed feeling my body break down. At the same time, the light of my soul above me shined and the wisdom of my heart rang that I could get through this with an emphatic, “You are not alone.” It didn’t take long for the spiritual insight to drop into my mind like an elevator going down to my mental body then my emotional body and finally to my physical body. My mind went to work verbalizing with feeling to my emotional body all the reasons why my husband and I were okay and all the reasons why I would be just fine along with all the greater understandings I believed about life and death. For these understandings, I could give up my self-centered need to be in pity and I could accept his discomfort of not being able to breath and be the vitality filled being he knew. I could choose to move forward to a healthy, interactive life.

From this stage, I soon got over my necessity to turn on my talk. At first, I had such a need to verbalize what happened; my feelings, thoughts and difficulties. I also smiled and laughed a lot. Some people even asked me, “Why are you so happy?” It was easy for me to tell them, it’s because I’m so happy to be with you, to be with people and not be alone. It’s amazing when you have a close spouse, how much time you actually spend together. We liked each other and if we weren’t doing something, we were perfectly content to just hang out. That doesn’t mean we were always together. He had his friends and activities and I had mine and we gave each other trusted time to do our own things. I filled the void of his passing with interests, group activities and one-on-one time with friends. I joined a large four-part a cappella singing group on a suggestion from a friend. I’m glad I was open to try new things and now I sing and dance about every day. I burst into song and laughter spontaneously and laugh at myself often. I sometimes even awaken myself by the things I now think are so humorous such as the truly mundane and everyday obstacles as well as just being happy with life and calm quietness.

I’m also aware of the challenges as they bring insight and deeper understanding along with releasing the old. For a while when I had a new experience, I would think, I can’t wait to get home and tell my husband about this and then I’d remember, oh yeah, he’s not there anymore. Among the difficulties is a new anxiety I never had over doing matters on my own, many of which I haven’t had to do before. I found that if I keep moving forward, I figure out things as I go and the pressure is relieved. I stay open to new prospects that can bring in possibilities and potentials and keep life interesting.

That summer trip to the shores of Lake Michigan, I went to a small café with my brother, his wife and son. As we placed our orders and walked to an empty table to take a seat, I pulled up another chair so everyone had a place at the table. Everyone stared at me as if I lost my mind. I looked around the table and realized I had pulled up an extra chair that was not needed for the present living or maybe I knew deep inside there was another living present. My husband was there beside me. He gave me the lift in life to see the good, the fun, the laughter, the ease of a smile…the flow of happiness we can share with one another.