The weather warmed in March, and it seemed everywhere I went, I saw either happy couples walking hand in hand, or single women, alone and wishing for someone to date. Or so I thought. Maybe it was hope. When I was shopping for groceries, for example, my eyes would roam from one woman to another, and with those I found attractive, I imagined myself asking them out. They always said yes, of course, and from there I would conjure up a whole life for me and whoever had caught my eye. From our first date, to falling in love, marrying, and living happily ever after, I planned out my life with each woman at a glance.
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Room for Two, Chapter 6
In a college communications class I had read about couples who spent most of their lives together. After one died, it was common for the other to pass on soon after, even if he or she was in good health. At the time I couldn’t comprehend how someone could lose their will to live after their spouse was gone. But I began to, at least partially, understand how they felt. Krista had been a significant part of my life for seven years — four as my girlfriend and three as my wife. My life had become completely entwined with hers. Now that she was gone, I didn’t feel complete. I had to force myself to live.
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Room for Two, Chapter 5
The evening before I flew to Phoenix, I walked through the house and examined the work that had been accomplished. All the walls had been repaired and painted white. The old carpet had been torn out, and new floorboards installed. The bathroom had been gutted, and a new shower and toilet had been put in. The house smelled of fresh paint and was finally looking habitable. I was pleased with the progress.
As I paused in each room, I realized Krista had been right. The house had great potential. She had been able to look past the dead insects and neglect to see its true beauty. I had been too preoccupied with its disrepair to see that a little work could make the place livable.
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Room for Two, Chapter 4
Per my request, only close friends and family members were invited to Hope’s funeral. After a large funeral for Krista, I wanted to keep this one private. Officially saying good-bye to my daughter was going to be the most difficult thing I had done, and I wanted as few people as possible to witness it.
There was another reason I wanted to keep Hope’s funeral small. Krista’s suicide had made everyone uncomfortable in my presence. I felt like a leper. People acted as if coming near me would spread some unexpected tragedy into their life. By this time, I realized their hesitation was because they didn’t know what to say. When a loved one dies from a tragic accident or an illness, most people can find words to express their sympathy. "It must have been his time," or "The doctors did everything they could." With a suicide, everyone avoided me, almost as if they blamed me. Most people couldn’t even choke out, "I’m sorry." In place of comforting words were a lot of questions no one dared ask. I saw them in the sad faces of family and friends. They wanted to know why Krista had done it. Why hadn’t I prevented it? How could I not know she was suicidal? Everyone looked to me for answers. I had none.
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Room for Two, Chapter 3
I didn’t sleep much that night. In the morning I told my family it was because the living room couch was uncomfortable. But the real reason was that when I closed my eyes, I relived opening the door to the apartment, hearing the gunshot, running back to find Krista’s body. The only way to stop the images was to keep my eyes open and think of Hope. I thought about the last time I saw her before she had been taken to the waiting helicopter. The nurses had brought her out in a transportation unit where, if possible, she looked even smaller and more helpless. She was attached to a large machine that would keep her on life support during the short flight. I pressed my hands against the plastic shell that encased her. I wanted to hold her in my arms and whisper into her tiny pink ear, "Everything’s going to be all right. I’ll see you soon."
At some point sleep must have overpowered me for a few moments because at two thirty in the morning I awoke suddenly. I walked to the kitchen and stared out the window at the street, which was dark and quiet. I noticed my dad’s truck in the driveway and wondered when he had arrived and why he hadn’t come and talked to me.
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Room for Two, Chapter 2
I expected the maternity wing of the hospital to be bustling with proud, bleary-eyed fathers and grandparents carrying stuffed animals for the newborns and flowers for the mothers. But when the elevator doors opened, the hallway was empty. As I followed the police officer down the hall, every room we passed was dark and vacant.
There were six nurses clustered in a tight circle at the nurses’ station. Their conversation abruptly stopped as we approached. All six turned and looked at me. Their faces showed something between sadness and rage. It was then I realized they had been talking about me, or, at the very least, about Krista and the baby. The police officer said something to a nurse in purple scrubs. The nurse opened the door of a postpartum room and motioned for me to enter. I could feel the gazes of the rest of the nurses as I walked past.
The room contained a bed, a couch, and a few plastic chairs. A television was mounted on the wall opposite the bed. There were three framed photographs hanging on the walls. One showed a green field with bright yellow flowers. The others were of a river winding slowly through a valley and the peaks of snowcapped mountains.
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Option B
I’m honored to be a small part of Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant’s new book Option B. The message of the book is one that everyone can benefit and learn from: We are stronger and more resilient than we think. We not only have the ability to cope with devastating life events but can rediscover joy and find greater meaning and appreciation for life after experiencing tragedies. The book teaches readers learn how to own situations instead of having situations own us.
Since many of my readers are widowers or are in a relationship with a widower, the book is about how Sheryl Sandberg was able to put her life back together after the unexpected death of her husband. The book has some good ideas that can help widowers overcome the loss of their spouse and count the blessings in their lives. It contains tips and suggestions on how to talk to those who have lost a loved one or struggling with serious life events.
Thankfully the book looks beyond simply losing a spouse and you don’t have to have lost a spouse to appreciate the message Sandberg and Grant convey. Anyone who’s suffered from or had a friend or family member who’s has a serious disease, lost a job, is going through a divorce, struggling with addictions, victim of sexual assault, etc. can benefit from the message in this book. Highly recommend read.
Room for Two, Chapter 1
I don’t remember the last thing I said to Krista, but I know it was not "I love you." Even when I think long and hard about our final conversation, our last words to each other elude me, which is probably for the best.
The last time we spoke was on the phone. There was shouting. A lot of shouting. Though in hindsight it seems like it was all on my end; I don’t remember Krista sounding angry or frustrated. Our conversation ended when I threw the phone down in disgust. When I arrived at our apartment twenty minutes later, I was furious. I slammed the door to the car, feeling the muscles in my arm clench.
In the pale light of the November afternoon, the fourplex had a dreary, mournful look. Brown leaves, having long lost their cheery autumn reds and yellows, were scattered over the matted grass. I looked up at the apartment window, hoping to see some sign of Krista. The blinds were closed and the lights were off. The place looked deserted. My anger began to morph into fear.
Read MoreBook and Life Updates April 2017
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted updates on books, life, or anything else so I thought I’d do a short update on things then share some news about an old book.
Those wondering when my next book will come out, all I can say is soon. Very soon. I’m towards the end of my second rewrite. It’s been a slow process mostly because my free time is limited. I work on the book every day from 4:30-6:30 a.m. At that point the kids are up and life takes over. There are little kids to feed and big kids to get off to school. Then it's off to my job. Once I’m home at night there are sports practices for some kids, church activities for others, homework to do, and dinner to prepare and eat, and then it’s time to get the younger kids ready for bed. By the time everyone's in bed for the night, I’m too physically and mentally exhausted to write.
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not complaining. I have a nearly-perfect marriage, seven wonderful kids, a day job that I love, and a home to keeps everyone warm, dry, and happy. Having lost everything that mattered many, many years ago, I wouldn’t trade any of that for more writing time because books are books and families are forever.
But the books will keep coming. I promise you. They won’t stop because for some reason I can’t stop writing the stories that filter through my head. In the meantime, here’s some news about my first book.
The nice thing about owning the rights to your own book is that you can do whatever you want with them. It’s been 10 years since my first book and memoir Room for Two was published. To celebrate, I’ll be posted the entire book in my blog. Starting Monday, I’ll post Chapter One and will continue to post a chapter for the next 16 weeks until the entire book is up.
So if you haven’t read Room for Two before, now’s your chance to try it out. If you have, then you can enjoy the journey again, one chapter at a time.
Marathon Girl and I in the fall of 2002 and the fall of 2016. The years have been kinder to her than they have to me.
Widower Wednesday: 3 Things that got Us from Dating to Married
Yesterday Marathon Girl and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. I share this news in part because I want readers to know it’s possible for a widower to remarry and have a second marriage that’s just as wonderful or even better than the first one. However, for widowers and the women who date them, it seems the journey from dating to exchanging vows is a long, arduous process when dating a widower because of all the unique issues that pop up.
Looking back on our early relationship with the perspective of time, I can pinpoint three things that we had either agree up or work towards in order for our relationship to progress from dating to husband and wife. Having read or listened to thousands of widower-related dating stories over the years, these are also issues that stop most widower relationships from progressing to marriage or a serious, long-term relationship. I share these three tips hopes that it can help readers pinpoint issues in their current relationship and, hopefully, lead to something stronger and better.
1. We both had the same long-term relationship goals
After three or four good dates, Marathon Girl had a serious conversation with me about what I wanted from the relationship. At first I thought the point of the talk was to see how serious I was about her and the relationship. However, as the talk progress I realized what she really wanted to know if we are on the same page when it came to what our long-term goals were. Marathon Girl wanted to date someone who was serious about marriage and having a family at some point in the future. No matter how nice or wonderful I treated her, she wasn’t going to waste her time dating someone who didn’t want those same thing. She also wasn’t going to waste her time hoping to convince me otherwise or hope that I’d change as our relationship grew more serious. (That rarely, if ever, happens.)
Though I wasn’t sure what to make of the talk at the time, looking back I see that having this conversation prevented both of us from getting into a serious relationship where we loved each other but couldn’t give each other what we ultimately wanted (in our case marriage and children). Realizing that we headed down the same endgame in mind, we could focus more on compatibility issues and decide if spending the rest of our lives together was something we really wanted to do.
2. We made each other our number one priority.
Once we agreed to date each other exclusively, we both agreed we were going to make each other the top priority. There wasn’t going to be a trial period where we were going to half-heartedly commit to each other and bail out at the first sign of trouble. The relationship was going to work out (read: lead to marriage) or it was going to end—most likely in few short weeks or months. That meant spending much time together as our schedules would allow. (For me that meant getting up before 5:00 a.m. every morning and running 4-12 miles with her. For Marathon Girl that meant fewer trips to her parents’ home on the weekends.)
Making each other number one meant integrating each other into every part of our lives including introducing each other to friends, co-workers, and family. It meant not hiding our relationship from anyone. It meant and not letting widower issues dictate or hinder our relationship. It eventually meant moving to a city 25 miles away right after we were married so we could have a fresh start in a new place and make new memories.
3. We both made peace with the past, agreed to live in the present, and work for a better future
Marathon Girl was 23 when we started dating. At that age, she never considered seriously dating someone who had been married before—let alone a widower. She struggled with the fact that very small part of my heart would belong to someone else. She had to accept this fact but at the same time know that from now on my heart was now hers and that she—not the deceased—was in the top of my mind and thoughts at all times.
My challenge was realizing it was okay to open my heart to someone else and that taking down photographs of the late and putting or giving away her things wasn’t a slight to her, our relationship, or the life we shared together. Instead of focusing on what I had lost, I learned to focus on Marathon Girl’s wants and needs and the future and family we could build together.
If any of those three things hadn’t happened, I don’t know if our marriage would have lasted a year or or if we would have even tied the knot in the first place. What I do know is that agreeing on the long-term goals of the relationship, putting each other first, and living in the present instead of the past made it easier to overcome all the unique widower issues that came up and still occasionally arise in our relationship. Bur 14 years in I have absolutely no regrets about my decision to move forward and build a new life with Marathon Girl. These last 14 years have been the fastest and best years of my life and I can’t fathom where my life would be without Marathon Girl in it. Marrying her was the best decision I ever made and I’m looking forward to spending the rest of this life and the eternities with her at my side.