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Fear is a by-product of Grief

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Over twenty-seven years ago my world was shattered in an instant by a careless driver. I have chronicled here in this blog how I have put the pieces of my life back together over the past quarter century.

As I have put my life back together, my amazing immediate family consists of my wife, Shelly, and my sons, Dylan and Taylor. I have a tremendous fear that I am going to lose them, like I lost Dana so many years ago. It’s not a normal worry and concern that most have for their loved ones. At times it becomes an all-encompassing panic. I really hate the way that it makes me feel when I am in the midst of it.

 

From the start of our relationship, whenever Shelly would drive somewhere I would have a big pit in my stomach the entire time. I would try not to make it obvious as I did not want her to notice the depth of my anxiety. But I would always let out a big sigh of relief when she let me know that she had made it to her destination.

Five years ago, when Shelly was injured in a freak explosion in our home, my fear was amplified to a new level. The explosion knocked Shelly unconscious for approximately twenty minutes. We learned that 90% of those knocked unconscious never regain consciousness. We were told to consider ourselves very lucky that she lived through the accident. Her condition was so severe that she literally had to relearn to walk and talk again.

In these last five years we have learned to live a “new normal” in our house. For me, it has given me a lot of reason to reflect on all that I am grateful for. But it also has reiterated that things can always get worse. We are so thankful that Shelly is still here with us. But I also often think about how close we came to losing her. In those early days I would often tell myself; “I was right, it really can happen again”.

As her caregiver, I fight the inclination to be in constant worry. I really work hard to allow myself to be at ease and to be grateful for her progress. I have learned that her traumatic brain injury allows for a greater possibility for an early onset of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc. I know I cannot control any of this, but the fear of going through intense grief again consumes me at times.

Our oldest son, Dylan started driving around the time of Shelly’s accident. We were living in the snowy Teton Mountains at the time. Sometimes we needed him to drive out of necessity, as Shelly was unable to drive at all during the first several months of her recovery. On nights that he would go out with the car, I would lie wide awake until he made it safe to our driveway. If he would get home later than normal, my mind would wander to a hypothetical, awful accident and imagining the sheriff coming to our door to give us bad news. Sometimes the anxiety became so severe that I would need to go downstairs to keep Shelly from seeing the extent of my panic.

Seven months after Shelly’s accident, Dylan went away to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He did not take a car down there for his first two years. But I did worry plenty about him being on his own for the first time. Again, I did not want my excessive fear to be known, so I would text him at times (usually something about our mutual love of music :)), just for validation that he was ok. For his junior year I brought down our Nissan Frontier for him to use. Those next two years my anxiety was amplified! I never let him make the 5 hour drive home. Instead he would take the Salt Lake Express shuttle.

Now Dylan has graduated from college, is living at our house in suburban Phoenix, Arizona and working in graphic design in downtown Phoenix. He has an hour-long commute with lots of rush hour traffic each day. I am still on edge. But as I write this, I am happy to realize that my tension has gradually lessened over this past month or so.

Our youngest son, Taylor, is a junior in high school and has had his driver’s license for over two years now. At 15 years old he got his license in rural Idaho, where there is not much traffic. A few months after getting his license we moved back to Arizona. The streets and freeways of Phoenix are wild with crowded, fast and unsafe driving. He is uneasy to do much driving on these chaotic streets. In one way I am relieved that he is not asking to be out on the road very often. But I also realize I am enabling him by constantly driving him anywhere he needs or wants to go. I do know that we need to encourage him to get out there more often and to get comfortable with city driving. But I have such fear in what can happen to him. I would much rather make an hour or two hour roundtrip drive for him than to be in panic and be imagining what could happen to him.

My goal for the next few months is to encourage him to do the driving more often (while I sit in the passenger seat). My hope is that I find the way to see that he is comfortable to drive himself often by time the next school year starts.

As I have started writing recently, it has helped me come to the realization of some long-suppressed realities of my grief. I am realizing that I have felt a lot of guilt that Dana died alone and that I was not there to help her when she needed me most. I have a deep-rooted fear that this will happen again, and I try to do all that I can to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

I am encouraged that I am starting to understand the depth of why I feel certain ways and why I do the things that I do. A work in progress for sure, but I am heartened by my ability to recognize more about myself, as well as being encouraged with the progress that I am finally making.

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The 10,000th Day

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I have been numbers driven as far back as I can remember, whether in my business or personal life. In my journey since Dana’s death, there have always been many different dates and numbers playing out in my head. Sometimes comforting, other times maddening!

An early example of this is that I was aware when the date came where I had been without Dana as many days as I was with her. Whether comforting or maddening, these “number games” have been a useful mechanism that have helped me get through time. A more recent example of this is that Dana lived exactly 22 years and 5 months. This past October, when my oldest son Dylan hit the 22 years and 5-month mark, I knew it and it had a lot of significance to me.

Ten thousand days. In those early days it seemed like such a random, far off number. But I often would wonder to myself how life would be in “ten thousand days”. I wondered how I would be functioning. I wondered how I would be coping with the pain. I wondered if I would have a family or if I would be all alone. I wondered if and how I would actually make it in this world that long. The list went on and on. My thought has always been; to get through the years, I would first need to get through each and every day. A daunting task, but the only way was to approach it one day at a time.

So when I was thinking of what to name this blog, “Ten Thousand Days” quickly came to mind. I was approaching 27 years, but more significantly to me I was approaching ten thousand days. It was quite a personal accomplishment for me to make it so far. I was finally writing about my journey, in the shadows of the ten thousandth-day. So there I had it, the name of my blog!

I cautiously hit the publish button for the first time in mid-August. It was so scary to finally put myself out there, after holding it all inside for so long. It took a month or so for my story to start gaining traction. I have since been amazed and humbled by the amount of people I have been able to touch. My original post, which tells my story, has since been published by The Good Men Project and Thrive Global. Other pieces from my blog have been published by The Mighty. The inspiring story of my wife Shelly’s battle with TBI and PTSD went viral, first being published on The Mighty and then getting picked up by MSN, Yahoo and others.

Today is the day, March 30th, 2018. Ten thousand days since Dana left this world.

A few tears have been shed this week as I wrap my head around how long this has truly been.

It took almost this entire amount of time for me to begin serving others with a positive purpose. I am ashamed that it has taken me this long to channel my journey in a positive way. But it feels great to finally be doing so.

I am working with a publisher and starting to write a book. A book detailing my whole journey, both the highs and the lows. My hope is that my raw story of adversity, resilience and gratitude reaches, helps and inspires many.

I am finally at peace. It took almost ten thousand days to get there. I believe writing has been the final push to get me over the top on that. For so long, I kept it all inside. I felt that people really were uninterested and too uncaring to hear it. I have now been humbled to find otherwise. I am hearing from people all over the world. My story is helping those in the early stages of a similar journey. Maybe my experiences will help them get to peace and positivity much sooner than it took me.

Although writing my story has been healing for me and helpful for others, I do realize it has been uncomfortable for a handful of people. Some have apologized to me, while others have been noticeably silent. That is okay, as some will have a differing memory on how things played out over two decades ago. But I truly can’t put into words how helpful the acknowledgement and heartfelt apologies have been.

Now I embark on the next ten thousand days.

One thing I know for sure; in these next ten thousand days, I will do a much better job exemplifying Dana’s legacy in the positive and optimistic way that she lived her life.

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Let the Widowed Move Forward Without Judgment

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As I have continued moving forward on my long and twisting path since losing Dana, I have finally let much of the negativity go. The most damaging, long-lasting side-effect from the trauma came from the cruelty of judgment.  As I described in “My Story”, much of my remaining anger, rage and resentment departed as we were unexpectedly battling my wife’s life-changing brain injury.  Her amazing courage and positivity gave me a life-changing wake-up call.   I was finally able to take down the hardened barrier that I had built up around me.

Shelly needed me, and she needed the best possible version of me.  I was instantly fueled by her strength and optimism.  Up until then, the rage, anger and negativity weighed me down and affected those I came in contact with.  The angry bitter man I had become was directly correlated to the harsh and painful judgment Shelly and I had received when we became a couple.

In the initial years of grief, I couldn’t win in many people’s eyes. To me it was pretty simple; I had lost my world and my future.  Dana and I had a storybook existence that was suddenly gone without warning.  I would never “get over” that.  People didn’t really want to deal with me, as my grief was too raw and uncomfortable for them.  They just wanted me to move along.  But move along on their terms.  It’s an impossible balance.  On one hand, they want you to get over it. But on the other hand; “don’t you dare find new happiness, especially with anybody we know”.

It was a complete surprise to me that a little over three years into my journey I fell in love with Shelly. Three years earlier, I hardly knew Shelly when she became roommates with one of Dana’s best friends.  I spent quite a bit time at their new apartment, still in shock and spewing so much about my despair.  Most people would grow uncomfortable with me during that point in time.  I was grateful that Shelly would listen without answering back in the platitudes that were so commonly given to me.

By time our relationship changed we had become the closest of friends. We had it backwards.  Typically it goes where we fall for someone, get to know them through this initial attraction stage and then become best friends.  Our relationship instantly had strength and depth, due to the unique bond we had developed over the previous three years.

That made the judgment we received from some of those in our inner circle devastating. Their thoughts and insecurities were so off base to how things truly were.  I knew I would always love Dana as much as I did the day she died.  Shelly was simply joining Dana inside my heart.

I knew that I had nothing to feel guilty about, as Dana would wholeheartedly approve.  Dana knew that Shelly was an amazing person.  She would be pleased that I had Shelly to get me through my remaining life.  I knew there was nothing about this that was disrespectful or tarnishing to Dana’s memory.  But we were being accused of doing such.  It was a blessing that Shelly knew Dana and a blessing that we could talk about her with such ease.  Those closest to us should have been the happiest for us.  Many were, but it was the cruel comments and actions of a small few that created such lasting damage.

Fast forward almost a quarter of a century later. Shelly and I have a stronger relationship than ever.  But I still think about Dana everyday.  Society seems to think that you can’t have both.  But I am here to say that you can.  You can have tremendous love for two people at once.

A purpose of mine has become teaching empathy to those that are dealing with somebody close to them who is grieving. Simply listen, acknowledge what has happened is horrific (don’t downplay it) and allow them to be.  As time continues to pass, continue to let them be.  Let their new life begin to take shape without negativity.  Always remember that there is no playbook as to how long any of this takes.  You may think it is happening too quickly, or you may think it is taking too long.  Just understand that this is not for you to have an opinion on.

As the one grieving eventually moves forward; be there with love and support.  Always remember that they are not replacing the one that has died.  They are finding the ability to move forward.  To move forward to make the best of the life that they need to continue to live.

Let them move forward without judgment…..

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My Wife’s Inspiring Battle With Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD

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The five-year anniversary of my wife Shelly’s traumatic brain injury just passed last week. Her life, and our entire family’s life, was forever changed in a split second on that cold day in January of 2013. We had a freak accident happen within our home. A home-made bottle of ginger ale was taken from the refrigerator to the kitchen sink to be poured out. Shelly was busy and didn’t pour it out right away. As it sat on the counter for a few days, it went from cold to warm, and it slowly fermented. As it fermented, it turned into a bomb. The bomb happened to detonate at the exact instance that Shelly walked past it in the kitchen. The force of the blast through the tiny opening of the 2-liter bottle knocked Shelly unconscious to the ground. We estimate that she regained consciousness about twenty minutes later. She was bloody, her face was swollen and there was ginger ale splattered all over the kitchen.

Dazed, she called me immediately. I was at work, running a natural foods store in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It took me a bit to understand what had happened. She sent me a picture of her face. I was horrified at the sight of her swollen, bloody, black and blue face. We lived in tiny and remote Victor, Idaho. I called neighbors to see if any were home that could take her to the doctor. Everyone I talked to had already made the commute to Jackson Hole for the day. I look back now and realize how foolish I was in not calling an ambulance. But nonetheless, Shelly got herself to the car. The car was covered in ice. It was zero degrees outside. Between scrapping the windshield and running the defroster, after several minutes she was able to see out of a tiny corner of the windshield and she drove the mile to the Victor’s lone health clinic.

The nurse and doctor that immediately saw Shelly was appalled at the sight of her face. They immediately thought she had been a victim of domestic violence. Shelly was able to explain what had happened and the doctor quickly called me. I was on my way to cross the mountainous Teton Pass on the thirty-minute drive home to Idaho. The doctor was extremely concerned about both her eye and nose. Thinking her nose and eye socket were broken. She told me the nurse would be driving her to the small hospital in the town of Driggs, which was ten miles north of Victor. I navigated the ice-packed roads to meet Shelly at the hospital. I could not believe how black, blue and swollen Shelly’s face was. The result of the CT Scan came quickly. The hospital doctor explained that her nose was broken, but her eye socket was fine. She told us how fortunate she was that this was the only extent to Shelly’s injuries.

We went home very confused as to how this kind of accident could happen, but also feeling lucky that this was the extent of it. As we entered the kitchen at home, we saw sticky ginger ale everywhere. I also saw the 2-liter soda bottle lying on the ground, intact. The bottle cap was in the dining room. I cleaned up, Shelly rested and we counted our blessings.

The next day Shelly went back to work. She had recently started a baking business that had really taken off. She shrugged off her injuries and dug into her many baking orders at the nearby commercial kitchen that she rented space in. As the days passed, her nose and face hurt, but she was healing up and life was getting back to normal.

Fifteen days after the accident Shelly called me at work to ask me to bring food home for dinner. She started to talk, but couldn’t get the words out.   Panic stricken, I quickly left work and drove home. I called the doctor and told her what had just happened. She told me that we needed to see a neurologist right away. The neurologist only visited our remote valley only twice a month, but she explained that he would be there tomorrow and for us to come in. As I rushed into our house, I was greeted by Shelly sitting in the living room. She struggled to talk and barely could walk. I was numb with shock.

That next day we visited the neurologist. He told me that Shelly was much like a soldier that was hit by a bomb at war. She had a traumatic brain injury and she would not be getting better. This was our “new normal” and I needed to adjust to it. He said this all in such a matter-of-fact way. This gentleman certainly lacked bedside manner! At one point he asked Shelly why she talked in such an “infantile” way.

From this day forward the true journey began. I quickly realized that there must be better care than this rude, insensitive doctor. Walking and talking had become so difficult, she was having to learn how to do this again. Parts of both her short and long-term memory were gone.  I was working for what turned out to be a non-compassionate jerk that did not like that I needed to cut my workload from 70+ hours per week to 55 or so. We had no family nearby. We moved to the Tetons less than two years earlier, so Shelly had not made close friends yet. We were isolated, alone and facing bigger hurdles than anyone could imagine. We had two children that quickly stepped up and helped however they could. Dylan was 17 and Taylor was 12.

The closest large city to us was Salt Lake City, Utah. It was five hours away. I made an appointment at the University of Utah Neurology Department. Shelly was furious with me and did not want to go. She did not realize how severe her situation was and how she desperately needed help. In Utah I learned that we were extremely fortunate that Shelly did not lose her life that January day.

I was falling apart. I would cry uncontrollably as I drove to and from work. I was not a stranger to tragedy. My fiancée had been killed over 20 years earlier (My Story) and now I was driving down the road crying and saying “why me again” and “why Shelly”. But as I walked through the door at work or at home, I tried to appear to have it all together.

I had never considered Shelly a very patient person. But I was becoming amazed at how patient Shelly had become with herself and her situation.   I was feeling sorry for her and for myself, but she would have none of that. She started working each and every day toward improvement. Baby steps were being made. Fairly quickly we discovered that western medicine does not know how to really handle traumatic brain injury. Their answer seemed to be to over medicate every symptom. They had limited answers on how to truly treat the root of the problem.

We also learned that Shelly had what was called an “invisible injury”. Her face had healed up nicely, so she looked great! People cannot understand how severely injured a person can actually be when they look great. Friends and family started to think she must be fine, since she looks so good. That was hard, because we needed so much help, but people didn’t understand that at all.

We eased away from “Western medicine” more and more. There were a couple of local “alternative” medical providers that started to do wonders for Shelly. One provider worked on manipulating her central nervous system in a way that was re-wiring her brain cells. The other did amazing work with acupuncture and acupressure. We traveled to Arizona to learn “Neuro-feedback” treatment that we could do from home.

We would constantly experience small milestones. Milestones such as; driving to the corner to pick up Taylor at the bus stop, cooking a simple meal or walking to the mailbox down the street. Shelly kept working so hard and was so aware of each improvement she had made. The milestones achieved gradually became bigger and bigger.  We had become so close as a family. Myself, Dylan and Taylor were the only people that truly knew what a courageous battle Shelly was fighting. On the rare occasion that we would see friends or family, they would only get a small glimpse of her struggle. It was  hard for them to truly understand the magnitude of the battle.

A little over a year and a half ago we moved back to Arizona. I feel like this has been the single best thing for Shelly. Friends, sunshine and familiar surroundings have been amazing for her.

So many areas of her injury have improved. The post traumatic migraine headaches occur far less often. In my estimation, her motor skills are now 80% of what they were prior to her accident. Some of the areas greatly impacted are; her mapping skills are gone.  She struggles with any type of  multi-tasking. Simple math has become difficult.  Areas of both her short and long-term memory are still affected. She spends hours each day doing brain exercises that help her continue to make improvements.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the biggest repercussion of her injury.  The PTSD is still very severe. Her brain remains in constant panic mode. Noises, commotion, sudden and abrupt changes all create complete havoc on her brain. I have become extremely aware of our surroundings at all times. I try to quickly make appropriate adjustments when necessary. She is able to go to Taylor’s varsity basketball and football games. But with earplugs and sitting away from the band and the majority of the crowd. She is able to drive the surface streets in our far western Phoenix suburbs and for a few miles on the freeway when traffic is light. But she certainly cannot drive across town on the interstate. The two worst nights of the year for her are 4th of July and New Year’s Eve, as the fireworks put her in uncontrollable tears and fear. There are so many examples of things that trigger her PTSD. To see her so quickly in such fear is both helpless and heartbreaking to me. My biggest goal for us is to find the proper treatment to help combat this PTSD “flooding”.

I am Shelly’s caregiver. There are many things that she can no longer do for herself. But being around her every day, I can’t properly express how inspiring she is to me in her courageous daily battle. She deals with the ramifications of her brain injury and PTSD with such positivity and grace. I am in awe of her strength and optimism.

Shelly is truly my hero.

 

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Resilience and Perspective

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The simple definition of resilience is “the capacity to recover from difficulties”. I have constantly heard how “resilient” I am throughout the differing degrees of adversity that I have been forced to endure. When I look back at how I reacted and carried on through these situations I am stricken by the fact that I could not have moved forward on my own.

Twenty-seven years ago at 23 years old my life was thrown upside down. Up until that point I had lived a life that I would say was charmed. Then tragedy struck when the love of my life, and the center of my amazing life, was suddenly killed. I look back now and reflect on how was I able to get through each of those early dark days. Most people in my life at that time did not handle the situation very well. They said the wrong things. They expected me to react in an unrealistic manner. Or they avoided me all together. But in those darkest of days unexpected heroes emerged. They allowed me to be me, but they also forced me to continue to live life and move forward. When I was living through those days I didn’t stop and think about how much certain people were doing for me. It wasn’t until many years later that I could look back and put into perspective how those handful of people had such a part in my initial ability to exist and my ultimate resilience.

Something I learned at this early age was perspective. Most people my age did not yet have life experiences that could relate to mine. It was very isolating to be the one that had something so tragic and final happen to. The heroes that emerged in my life didn’t try to say they knew how I felt. They just let me be and they listened. But they also didn’t throw a “pity party” for me. They lived and laughed with me too.

Some people do manage to go through life fairly smoothly. They don’t lose a partner or a child at an early age. Their parents and siblings live a long and healthy life. They are healthy themselves. But this is really the exception, rather than the rule. Most people we encounter on a daily basis have some burden and pain that they are carrying with them. This pain and these realities of life enable us to become more empathetic people.

I look at the life circumstances that have happened to me since Dana’s death and they are big in their own way. In 2005 I was running the fastest growing start-up supermarket chain in the country. This was “my baby” that I had helped develop from the beginning. As I was working like crazy, a power-play was emerging with my “right-hand” man. I did not see this at the time. I have always been a loyal and trusting type. To make a long story short, I was pushed aside. But I was dealing with so much anger and rage back then, I know my out of control temper was sabotaging me too. I had stock in the company. I thought the document I had proved a certain amount of stock options. The owner had a different idea on what that document said. He ultimately won that argument and the millions of dollars that I thought would be mine never materialized. Eventually the company was sold for several hundred million dollars.

How did I handle this? With plenty of anger and bitterness. But I also had perspective from what I had gone through earlier in life. Sure this was my career that I had worked so hard to build and this was a lot of money. But it couldn’t compare to losing the love of my life at 23 years old. I made it through that so I certainly could make it through this.

I pulled my boots up and reinvented myself. Rather than move the family and listen to the calls from grocery industry headhunters, I changed gears and went into a whole new line of work. I had some time with a severance package. So I took that opportunity and I got into the mortgage business as a Mortgage Loan Originator. I took a class from a young originator named Kyle. He taught me the business and I quickly thrived. In my first year I made more money than I had made in the previous year as a grocery executive. I knew a lot of people that respected and trusted me. I built a strong business out of referrals developed from this respect and trust. Kyle and I became business partners. Business was good and I loved the freedom and flexibility of my new line of work.

My wife Shelly and I bought a beautiful house and had it remodeled into our dream home. But not long after doing this the housing market and the economy began to crumble. Property values fell dramatically. Banks started to fail. This was a nationwide crisis, but here in Phoenix the depth of the crisis was as bad as anywhere in the country. I had plenty of clients that wanted to refinance their loans. But values plummeted in such a way that people suddenly owed more than what their homes were worth. I couldn’t get many loans closed. My income was 100% commission, so my income drastically declined. The housing industry was in a catastrophic situation. The economy was suffering in a way we had not seen in my lifetime. It was like I was right in the middle of another bad dream. But again, with the perspective I had, I did not let these new challenges phase me.

I did need to figure out a way to make more money than what I was currently making in the housing industry. So I jumped back short term into retail. It was an opportunity running a Halloween store for Spirit Halloween. I worked night and day. Setting up and running the Halloween store and continuing in the mortgage business at the same time. The Halloween season came and went quickly, but I sure appreciated the money and the challenge while it lasted.

Once the Halloween season was over, I again needed to supplement my income. The economy had gotten so bad that grocery jobs were not even available. I had a realtor friend that had started driving a cab for the biggest local cab company. She was making some decent cash. I quickly decided to do this. I didn’t hesitate at jumping into this opportunity.

It’s amazing what you will do to provide for the family when your back is up against the wall. I quickly became the best possible cab driver I could be. Initially my plan was to stay out of the unsafe areas of the city. But that plan quickly changed as I chased the most lucrative fares throughout the 6th largest metro area in the country. Shifts were 12 hours long. Sometimes I’d work day shifts, but I found that I preferred 5 PM to 5 AM. I would do this several days a week, and then work on my mortgage business during the day.

I found myself meeting people from every walk of life and background. I could be driving a wealthy lady on a series of errands to minutes later driving a homeless person with all of their life-long possessions to a city park for them to spend the night. Or at 4 AM I could be waiting to pick someone up on a dark side-street in the most crime-ridden square mile in the city.

I have always been a competitive person that enjoys challenging myself to new inner-goals. It was no different driving a cab. The hustle and the unknown of what each shift would bring became fascinating to me. I soon had return clients calling me from all areas of the city and was quickly making $250 to $500 a shift. The long-time “cabbie” friends that I had made said my success was unheard of. I found the more relaxed and talkative that I was, the more money that I would make.

This six-month experience was life changing for me. I remember driving in the middle of the night thinking how much more rewarding this was than being the big-shot executive that I had once been. At that point, I was one of the biggest names in the retail side of the fast-growing natural foods industry. Five years later I was anonymously driving a cab through the “mean-streets” of Phoenix. Society would say that this was a tremendous fall. I was losing my house and was hustling in the middle of the night (in constant danger) to have just enough money to pay the bills and put food on the table. But the realization that I wasn’t alone and that I needed to count the blessings that I had hit me like a ton of bricks. So many of my passengers had such sad or inspirational stories to tell. I would listen and sometimes share different aspects of my story of resilience with them. I started learning that people were generally good. Most people just want someone to listen to them and treat them with respect. I was discovering that people were generally the same, whether they were in the wealthiest or poorest parts of the city.

Halloween season came along and I was asked to run a number of stores for that season. I found that I had become a better manager after the experience in the cab. I had become more empathetic and understanding. I also had done tremendous work on my temper.

During this Halloween season I got a call and was asked to do a grocery consulting job for a natural food retailer in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. A couple weeks after Halloween I took a five-day trip to Wyoming. This store owner had just bought the store. He had never been in the grocery business before and was realizing that he quickly needed help. There were so many areas of opportunity where I helped him with the business while I was there. He kept me on retainer to keep helping him once I returned to Arizona.

About a month after my visit to Wyoming he asked me what it would take to move up there and run the store for him. I threw out a crazy annual pay number to him. That number didn’t faze him a bit. Suddenly I had this lucrative job offer to get back into the grocery business in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I told my wife Shelly and she thought that was a ridiculous idea. But I was a realist and knew this was much better than any opportunity in Arizona. The economy was at rock bottom. The mortgage business had become so tough and there weren’t any adequate opportunities back in grocery. I had connected well with the owner of the store. He had been a successful entrepreneur and had the finances to run the store in the right way. He respected my knowledge and success in the natural food business and was eager for my help. On a personal level, he had lost his wife five years earlier, so we seemed to bond with our similar experience of loss.

Five weeks later I left the 70 degrees of Phoenix for the winter wonderland of Wyoming. Shelly and our boys stayed behind until summer. The family was not thrilled to leave Arizona, but they embraced the new adventure. It seemed every move I made with the store became a success. Sales and profits skyrocketed. Per square foot we had become one of busiest natural food stores in the country. My natural foods “swagger” was back! I built a team of the smartest, most passionate people I had ever been around. As the small town local grocer I became a well-known and prominent member of the tight-knit mountain community. I was asked to be a board member with three of the local non-profit organizations. I also became the host of a popular weekly alternative music radio show (with the help of my oldest son, Dylan). The warmth of the community and the beauty and peacefulness of the countryside was again life changing for me.

Shelly, being the amazing baker that she is, started a small baking business. She really missed Arizona, but had gotten busy and was meeting people through her business. We had battled back and were finding success in our new surroundings. Then one day everything changed once again.

On January 17th, 2013 I was at work and received a call from Shelly that she had been hurt. It was hard for me to understand at first. There was an explosion in the kitchen, she had been hit in the face. She sent me a picture of her swollen, bloody, black and blue face. I was horrified. I was thirty minutes away, I made some calls to try get her a ride to the doctor. To no avail, I rushed out of work and toward home. I had severe winter conditions to battle on my drive up and over the Teton Pass to our home in Victor, Idaho. On the drive home I received a call from a nurse. Shelly had managed to scrape the ice and snow off of the windshield enough to be able to barely see to drive herself to the nearby urgent care. The nurse said she needed to be driven quickly to the hospital in the next town, which was about fifteen minutes further north. They were worried about her eye and nose. The nurse drove her to the hospital and I met Shelly there. I was shocked seeing Shelly so battered and bruised. It turned out that her eye was fine, but her nose was broken. All else was reported as being fine. We felt thankful and drove home.

What had happened was that Shelly made some homemade ginger ale. She put the finished product in empty 2 liter bottles. One bottle ended up at the back of the refrigerator. Shelly discovered it one day and decided to pour it out. She sat it on the kitchen counter, got busy and forgot about it. It sat on the kitchen counter, slowly turning into a bomb. At the exact split second that Shelly passed the kitchen sink, the bottled exploded. The force of the blast knocked Shelly to the ground and unconscious for twenty minutes or so.

All seemed fine as Shelly’s face continued to heal. About two weeks after the accident Shelly called me at work to tell me what to bring home for dinner. She could not get the words out. Again I quickly rushed home. Shelly was suddenly struggling to walk and struggling to talk. We saw a neurologist the next day. In a very non-compassionate manner he told me that Shelly had a traumatic brain injury. She was like a soldier that had been hit by a bomb at war. He also told me her life would most likely never be the same. 90% of those knocked unconscious never regain consciousness. So we were told that we should consider ourselves lucky.

The journey since has been one that has amazed me with Shelly’s grace, strength, courage and positive attitude. She has had to learn to walk and talk again. Many pieces of both her long-term and short-term memory are gone. She struggles to multi-task. Her brain is in constant panic mode from the severe PTSD she is saddled with. But she never ever feels sorry for herself or asks “why me”. I have become her caregiver, as she cannot do many things on her own.

Since this accident there has been so much new adversity for us to battle through as a family. The medical bills piled up. My employer didn’t have as big a heart or prove to be as good of a person as I initially thought him to be. We were a thousand miles away from the support of close friends and family. Good medical care was five hours away. It was such a long, lonesome and painful road for Shelly to adjust to her “new normal” in a strange, remote environment. But we became an even stronger and closer family, and I became even more empathetic.

Two years ago the opportunity to come back to Arizona presented itself. Kyle, my old partner in the mortgage business, had stuck with the business through the toughest of times. The housing market eventually corrected and the economy came back to life. He asked me to get back down here and join his company.

I have reinvented myself once again both personally and professionally. I am starting to thrive again in the mortgage business. But most importantly Shelly is thriving back down here with her friends and the comfortable surroundings of the city she loves.

What a battle and journey it has been and continues to be. I look back through it all and can’t believe how far I have come as a human being. I continue to take it one day at a time and strive to be the best person that I can possibly be. Thank goodness for resilience, because without it I can’t imagine where I would be.

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Peace From Telling My Story

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It has been twenty seven years now that I have been on this long and winding journey after the loss of my fiancée, Dana. Long, long ago I started repeating the motto “one day at a time” in my head.  One day at a time is how I was able to come to terms with moving through life.   It’s the only way I could see marching on with excruciating pain in my head and a tremendous hole in my heart.

After some years passed I learned to laugh again, I learned to love again and I learned to appreciate life again. But with my ability to laugh, love and live again, I also had anger and rage that I had to combat on a daily basis.  As I discussed in “my story”, my anger and rage subsided after my wife Shelly narrowly escaped death 5 years ago.  Her subsequent life-altering traumatic brain injury and her unbelievably positive outlook on life caused me to reexamine my outlook.  The anger and rage diminished and I then started down a path of gratitude.

As I have begun traveling this path of gratitude I have had a burning desire to help others. I have felt a need to help those that are facing a similar journey to the one that I have had to travel.  As well as helping those who have people in their life that are dealing with the deep despair of loss.  Back when I started this journey the resources to truly help me were not easily found or available.  I want to be the type of resource that I would have appreciated having twenty five years ago.

I have had this story inside of me that was yearning to be told. I knew this for quite some time, but I had no clue how to begin to tell it.  It’s a heartbreaking story of resilience and gratitude that has much to be learned from it.  I had the feeling that once I told it, I could find some healing in the knowledge that it was finally out there.  There’s a quote from Maya Angelou; “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”.  This quote I could relate to so much!

I have had guilt for years that I have not been able to use my story to help others. Guilt that I just kept it all bottled up on the inside, letting it erupt into rage often.  I have always felt I owed Dana more.  I hated that I was not continuing her legacy and living my life the way she lived hers.  Anger and rage never crossed her mind.  Now here I was living my life with so much of it.  Shelly’s grace and courage in handling her new normal finally snapped me out of it.

I started writing a year ago. It took nine months before I was comfortable enough to start publishing what I had written.  I really had no idea what to expect, but the positive reaction from strangers was overwhelming.  I have received messages of thanks and support from all over the world.  I am touching people that are struggling to navigate their own journey of loss.  It took three more months before I finally felt the strength and confidence to share my writing with the circle of people I know.  I nervously put it out there.  The reaction was quick and positive.  I did not expect to find such strong support from my friends and family.  Such a tremendous weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I will continue to write as I embark on this new journey of helping others.  The peace I finally feel now, I had been struggling to find for twenty seven years.

 

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My Story

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“Three more weeks and we will never have to say goodbye again.” Those words have echoed in my head for over twenty-six years now.

Thirty years ago I was a sophomore at the local community college. I kept seeing this cute girl walking to class that had the biggest, most beautiful smile I had ever seen. I was head over heels, but far too shy to approach her on my own. I would see her often talking to a girl named Gina, whom I had known since elementary school. So I cautiously asked Gina about her. She said “oh that’s Dana, she is such a sweetheart”. A few days later she gave me her phone number and said that “Dana would love for you to call her”. I called her that afternoon, we talked for two hours. We went on a date three days later.

Dana (pronounced Dan-na) was…

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Pictures of You

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We never had the opportunity to establish a home together.  So when Dana died, I was left with only a handful of physical things from our relationship.   It consisted of some gifts she had given me, letters and cards as well as a lot of pictures.  Our relationship was long before the modern day cell phone “selfie” era, but we always took a lot pictures.  We traveled often and did so many fun things together.  We always seemed to have our camera nearby.  We would take the finished rolls of film to the local Thrifty Drug to get developed.  We always ordered doubles, so that we would each have a set of the developed photos.

She would sometimes make me a photo album or a photo collage.  Our favorite photos would end up in frames that would be prominently displayed.  We would buy each other special frames, usually at the local Hallmark store.  The pictures that ended up not making it into a fraWe never had the opportunity to establish a home together. So when Dana died, I was left with only a handful of physical things from our relationship. It consisted of some gifts she had given me, letters and cards as well as a lot of pictures. Our relationship was long before the modern day cell phone “selfie” era, but we always took a lot pictures. We traveled often and did so many fun things together. We always seemed to have our camera nearby. We would take the finished rolls of film to the local Thrifty Drug to get developed. We always ordered doubles, so that we would each have a set of the me or album sat in envelopes in my desk drawer.  After Dana died, I was amazed at truly how many pictures we had taken together.  

Pictures of You — The Cure (You Tube)

In the first several years I kept many of them displayed.  I eventually put them away.  They ended up in a box in the closet.  This box also contained the letters and cards, as well as some gifts (such as stuffed animals) she had given me.  As the years started to pass, I would look into this box every so often.  Every time I would look, I would become overwhelmed with emotion.  This usually resulted in uncontrollable tears.  So for many years, I could not bear more than a quick look at a few of the pictures inside the box.  I couldn’t handle the pain and emotion of diving into the contents and looking through the dozens of envelopes of pictures.  

I have a truckload full of love and pain in my head and heart that I carry with me each day.  But I also have this box.  This box has made 9 moves now.  My wife Shelly would ultimately put it in a safe spot as we would get settled into our new home.  I would always know where it was, but I could rarely get myself to look inside it.  Sometimes it felt like a cloud hanging over me.  In my years of anger, I remember thinking; “I had something so special, and now all I have is this box to show for it”.  

Last year we moved from Idaho back down here to Arizona.  As I was attempting to get organized and unpacked, I decided to dig into and organize the box.   Wow, the emotion and raw, vivid memories overwhelmed me.  I sat there and looked at every picture, read every letter and card.  I was blown away by the emotion of it all.  I had traveled this journey of loss for over a quarter of a century now.  It was with me each and every day.  But as I finally came face to face with the detail of this box, I was stricken by how much detail I could remember surrounding each picture, each card, each letter.  I cried, I cried a lot.  I think I cried every day for at least 2 weeks after my initial organization of the box.  But I also felt an amazing sense of peace and happiness surrounding it.  It seemed to validate that what I had was extremely unique and special, it could never be taken from me and it deserved to be celebrated.

I have since dug into the box several times.  Last year on the anniversary of her death, I posted a few of the photos on my Facebook page.  It touched a lot of people.  I will do that again in a few weeks as the anniversary of her death comes again.   I actually just settled on the 3 pictures I will use.  I am so thankful that we took so many pictures.  As I age and so much time passes, some of the detail of specific dates and events had started to fade.  That really has bothered me.  But by possessing and celebrating these pictures, the detail of so many fun and special times will continue to be with me.

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The Reality of Time

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I am approaching the 27 year anniversary of Dana’s death. I was 23 then, now I am 50.  Often I wonder how I made it all these years.  Looking forward in that amount of time, I will be 77 in 27 years.  That truly boggles my mind!  But it also gives me comfort in realizing how far I have made it.  I look at it as me having made it approximately halfway through my journey of loss here on earth.

I have a lot of memories of how I was told that time would go.  I remember so well many different older people telling me that I would be fine.  They would speak to me as if they had the answers since they had lived longer than me.  It was a consistent narrative that went something like this; “in time you will look back fondly at your first love, but a new life will begin and take the place of that.”  Several people told me the story of their “first love” and how they still sometimes happily thought about him/her.  It was so frustrating to me at the time.  I knew that the loss of my fiancée, the one that I had such a unique and special connection with, could not compare to a break up.  A break up and a death should never be compared to each other. But people do make that comparison often.  We were going to live until old age together.  In death she did not become my “ex”.  If people could understand the way our heart really reacts, it would ease a lot of pain and misunderstanding.

I married Shelly and am deeply in love with her. I am so thankful for that.  But the two relationships are mutually exclusive of each other.  People struggle to understand that.  Society believes that once you fall in love again you have replaced the one that has died.  This is such a fallacy.  What actually happens is the heart opens up to love two people.  The love for the person lost does not diminish.  But the ability to deeply love and have a great relationship with the new love can flourish in an amazing way.  I consider myself very fortunate that this is what has happened for me.

I moved forward; I did not move on.  There is such a big difference between these two terms.  We have no choice but to move forward.  The challenge is how to do it most productively.  For me, moving logistically was the key to moving forward.  The rest of it started to fall into place once I moved 2000 miles away.  I can’t imagine how time would have played out if I did not fall in love with Shelly.  I certainly don’t think I could have made it to today alone.  It was also important that I was able to find those handful of things that I loved and was passionate about.  I put my head and heart into these things.  This seems to help with the tendencies of both anger and depression.   Both those ugly demons really take work in fighting.  I have gotten good at not worrying about things that aren’t really important.  When you go through the tragedy of loss, perspective certainly is gained on what really matters.  But that takes many years to sort through.

I have also noticed that I love change.  Without change I become stagnant.  That enables the demons of the pain to steadily take a bigger toll on me.  Whereas change occupies and distracts my mind.  The need for change has probably hurt my career and financial situation.  But I am at a point where I am okay with that.  Change has become a friend that has enabled me to better deal with time and pain.

I love music. I am a fanatic for alternative music and punk rock.  My oldest son shares this passion.  I stay up on new bands and new music.  We have gone to the Coachella Music Festival together 9 times.  We had a weekly radio show together for almost 5 years.  There are so many ways where music brings me comfort. I both connect and escape through music.  There is a saying, “music is my therapy”.   This is so true for me.  It enables me to cope like nothing else.  By finding these joys in life (whatever they may be) the days, months and years start to pass in a more manageable way.

The significant dates all remain significant.  Some years they hit me harder than other years.  The memories are still there.  I still think about Dana every single day.  Most days it’s with smiles and happy thoughts.  Some days it’s with tears.  Then there are days where it’s with anger.  Thankfully those days are not as often for me anymore.  The anger can be so destructive, but it also is an agent to help with the passing of time.  As weird as it sounds, in the years that I had such anger it became a distraction that got me through the years.  But thankfully I realize now that time is much better passed with positive distractions rather than the hateful, negative stuff.

I hate the term “time heals all wounds”.  Sure it heals and numbs many of the open, gaping wounds.  But the constant of pain is there no matter how much time has passed. It’s just there, a part of me.  Being almost 27 years into this journey of loss, I guess I can say that I have become okay with not being okay.  The grief of such a loss is a life sentence.  My wish is that society could accept and embrace that with the empathy it deserves.

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My Personal 9/11 Story – Never, Ever Forget

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This is my personal 9/11 story.  It involves my very best friend, the same Mike from my first post in this blog My Story…

Last year our personal story was told by Mike Rowe on his “The Way I Heard It” podcast, the episode called “You Don’t Know Mike”.  It went viral and was seen and heard by millions of people.

16 years ago this past week I was sent to the East Coast on business with Wild Oats Markets.
It was 16 years ago today that co-worker/friend Simon and I finished our work several hours early in Westport, Connecticut.  We suddenly had a free afternoon and evening.  So we quickly checked out of our hotel and headed to New York City (the afternoon before our scheduled mid-day September 11th flight out of La Guardia Airport in NYC).

We heard that the Yankees were home and that Roger Clemens was going for his 20th win vs. the Red Sox that evening.  So we decided to head straight for Yankee Stadium.
After we bought our tickets, it started raining like crazy.  The game was delayed until the rain let up.  We had just gotten to our great seats when I spotted my lifelong best friend Mike and his wife Elena walking by.  Such a wild coincidence!   Baseball was everything to Mike and I as kids, we started going to Dodgers games together at 9 years old in 1976.  Amazingly, here we were running into each other at Yankee Stadium.  It was the first time either of us had been there.
I traveled weekly at that time and would often stop to see Mike when I was in the area. But on this particular hectic trip I had not let him know I was nearby….but here we were!

The rain started up again and the game was eventually cancelled.  We headed to the exits with Mike and Elena.  They didn’t have a vehicle at the game, and we didn’t have a hotel booked for the night.  So they jumped into our rental car and we headed to their apartment in Hoboken, NJ.  This was directly across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan. We could see all of Manhattan and the World Trade Center perfectly from their neighborhood.  What a sight it was!!  We came up with the idea to maybe go to Mike’s office the next morning to see the amazing view on our way to the airport.  Throughout the night I had called my parents, my wife and a few people that I worked with.  I told each of them how amazing it was that we ran into Mike and Elena and that we were going to stay with them and then possibly go into Mike’s office in the morning to see the view….
When we got to Hoboken we immediately headed to this cool little Irish Pub in Mike’s neighborhood.  The Harp’s and Guinness’s started flowing.  We listened to great music (The Pixies…lots of PIXIES ) and had amazing conversation. Mike kept saying he needed to get to bed, but we kept insisting “one more beer”.

When I woke up not many hours later, I heard the shower going.  Then I heard someone leave the apartment. A bit later I finally salvaged enough energy to get up. I told Simon to get off the couch and jump in the shower.  I turned the TV on.  I immediately saw that a tower had been hit.  I opened the curtain and could see the smoke as I looked at lower Manhattan out the window….

I assumed I most likely had heard Mike in the shower earlier, but I rushed to the master bedroom and hollered for him.  No response at first, then finally Mike responded that he was still in bed because he was so hungover.  Yes, a hangover kept Mike from going to work on time.   Mike worked for the small investment banking firm Sandler O’Neill on the 104th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.  This was the only time EVER that a hangover kept Mike from getting to work on time.
Tragically 66 of the 82 co-workers that were in Mike’s office that morning did not survive.
With Manhattan being in chaos, many of the injured were being sent on ferries across the Hudson to paramedics in Hoboken and then taken to nearby NJ hospitals. We were right there.
I will never forget the 30 seconds that I did not know Mike had not gone to work, and was still in bed….

I will never forget the emotion of Mike’s wife Elena, as she finally arrived back at the apartment. It was Elena that I had heard in the shower earlier.  She worked across the street from the twin towers and was about to get on the train when the first plane hit. Her daily destination was the stop in the basement of the WTC…

I will never forget the pain, suffering and horror all around us….

I will never forget the courage, strength and unity of the people of New York and New Jersey, it was so stunning how everyone immediately pulled together as one….

Never, ever forget 9/11/01

 

From last year, here is Mike Rowe telling our story….

The Way I Heard It: You Don’t Know Mike