The Impact of Losing The Most Important Person in My Life

A Loss of Some One Important

One evening in November of 1980, my father went to get my husband from work while I prepared dinner. I waited , but still no one came for a long time. As I stood at the kitchen sink watching out the window and waiting, I saw an ambulance turn onto the road that my husband worked on, never dreaming it was going to get my husband. Shortly there after my father returned home. I watched as he got out of his car alone.
I knew something was terribly wrong by the way my father held his head as he walked and the look on face. My father came into the house and told me to get my little boy and let's go. As my father drove, silence filled the car. My father broke the silence. He said, " Tommy's been hurt ." I was fine with that, but then he said, "he's been hurt bad." I knew my father to not be a man of exaggeration. My heart sunk, I felt this awful sorrow. I knew it was bad. We arrived at the hospital shortly thereafter. I was anxious to see my husband. The nurse came and got me and led me to this lifeless figure. It was the one I vowed to live with in sickness and in health, till death do us part; the man that I loved with all of my heart, my husband. Lines and hoses were hooked everywhere to him. There was a tube in his mouth and one that led to a bag that hung off of the side of his bed, the other end was inserted into a hole in the side of his chest. He was blue. I later learned that was called cyanotic, from being without oxygen to his brain. As I stood there watching this tube in his mouth, I saw the contents from his breakfast go down that tube; the grapefruit he had prepared for himself. Oh how I grieved as I regretted not getting up and fixing his breakfast. I never imaged he would never speak another word to me when he left for work that morning. We had a disagreement the night before and I was pouting on him. Just a young bride not realizing one of life's lessons of learning appreciation through loss would be right around the corner for me. They took him to the I.C.U. where I would spend the next five days. I watched the machines day in and day out hoping and praying for something that never happened. My husband's body would convulse sometimes sending me into a frenzy to get the nurses. The nurses and hospital staff were so generous as to let us break the rules to come and go as we wanted to. I guess they knew these were the last days we would spend with our loved one. The doctors would come daily to give me a false hope or maybe it was just something I imagined in my own mind. I remember one of the last nights I would spend at the hospital. The respirator was giving him 30 - 31 breaths per minute when I left his bedside. I had went out into the waiting room to get some much needed rest. I awoke the next morning in what seemed to be the same position I had laid down in the night before. I jumped up to see if there was any improvement in my husband. When I went into his cubicle I felt this horrible dread. I saw the machine that I knew was giving him 30 - 31 breaths per minute clicking back and forth from the number nine to ten. Someone came and told me the doctors needed to talk to me. An event that I wanted so badly to avoid. I was led into this little room that said consultation room outside the door. I heard what sounded like an angelic choir singing as they explained to me that his brain scan indicated no activity and they needed me to sign a paper that would give them permission to turn the machines off. I wanted to run as far away from this scene in my life as I could get. I begged them ,"Please, let`s wait another day." They began telling me that his flesh would fall off his bones. I remembered my brother telling me they had watched the movie of Karen Ann Quinlen together. He had told me that Tommy said if he was ever in that shape to not sustain his life, to let them turn the machines off. I knew I had to let go of the most important person in my life, the man I loved.