Getting the news

Your whole life can change in the blink of an eye or the span of a phone call. Karl's cousin called me at work to tell me that Karl had died while visiting his brother in Arizona. Life as I knew it had changed and no matter how much I wanted it to be back to the way it was, it never could be again.

I still remember sitting there for a minute in shock. It was a Friday afternoon and I was 90% finished with a task I had promised to the client by the end of the day. I debated with myself as to what to do. Then I got up and walked over to my boss and told him that Karl had died and I needed to leave, but that I would finish the import first. Then I went to HR and told Steph I needed to take bereavement leave. I asked her and my boss both to let everyone else know (so I wouldn't have to) and to give my phone number to anyone who asked for it. Then I went back to my desk, stopping at my co-worker's desk to ask her to do some things for me while I was gone. Even though Janee was a very private person, she gave me her cell phone number and told me to call. As it turned out she was the only co-worker who talked to me that weekend, because the people I told to tell everyone didn't do so until Tuesday. I'll never forget the hurt of that, spending the weekend expecting that at least some of my co-workers would care and not hearing from them.

I cried all the way home. Luckily I managed to not get into an accident which in some ways amazes me as I certainly wasn't paying attention. When I got home Karl's cousin (who was living with us when Karl died) and I cried together and then set about calling all the people who needed to know. As bad as it is to get one of those calls, making a whole string of them is worse. One of the people I called was a friend who was expecting that the call was to wish her Happy Birthday. How I wish it had been.

When someone close to you dies, especially when you share living quarters with them and see them everyday, the world becomes sort of surreal. First so many things that seemed so very important just an hour earlier were irrelevant. Did that work deadline really matter? Did eating dinner? Even sleep was hard in that king-sized bed that we had shared for 26 years. Somehow it seemed bigger and more lonely that it ever had when I was home and he was out of town. Karl had been out of town since Monday, the house wasn't any different really, but somehow it seemed quieter and less secure. Almost frightening. My Rusty dog knew something was wrong but not what. Still he clung to me knowing I need his comfort.

Karl and I were not married, so there was a measure of fear, too, that first weekend. I didn't know if I would have a place to live once the will was opened. I didn't know how I was going to make it financially even if he did leave me the house as he had paid many of the bills from his income. The income was gone, but not the bills. I didn't even know how I was going to make it through the weekend.

Before that day, I had always thought that a broken heart was just a phrase, Now I knew it was a very real, physical feeling. I wondered if I was going to have a heart attack, it hurt so much. Of course, at that point, I would have gone gratefully if I had a heart attack and not even bothered to call 911.

We had been together for almost half my life; I couldn't really remember what it was like to not have Karl there. He had been there for every other awful thing that had happened for almost all of my adult life. He was my rock, the secure underpinning of my life. He was exactly the person I needed to go to in my grief, but he wasn't there. Would never be there again. I couldn't even wrap my mind around the concept.

What lessons did the first days of grief teach me? Well, first it reaffirmed how important love is and how very glad I was to have shared Karl's life even though I had to go through grief at the end. It also showed me how unimportant some much of the minutia of our lives can be. Finally it taught me that you can go on even while your heart is breaking.