Last Words

I got 5 hours of restful sleep last night. It's not enough and it can't make up for days of little to no sleep, but it's an improvement.

I went in to work at 10 am today, because working my normal hours just wasn't possible when I have so many companies to call. I have to call banks and credit cards and the mortgage company and the electric company, etc. etc. etc. and most of those places have the same working hours that I do. So I wasn't getting anything done. I was getting overwhelmed and by the time I was getting home at night, I couldn't do any paperwork or send any death certificates because every place I called was closed. So today I got up early and made some calls before heading into work this morning. Then I stayed late at work to make up the time.

I am thoroughly exhausted. And I'm still not done.

I got a bill in the mail yesterday from the Ambulance service for $750. To Rick. For Rick. I called them and said I didn't want to pay it because he was dead when they arrived and they didn't do anything. They weren't even allowed in my house before the police. They waited outside. They didn't even transport him. I have to write a letter, but hopefully it will work out. One more thing to add to the list.

The first phone call of my morning was not one I made, but one I received. The state trooper assigned to the case called me. The day of Rick's death, the police took his suicide note. I had seen it, of course, because it was his note that threw me into a panic and made me call 911, but I couldn't go back in my house and they took it. I couldn't remember exactly what it had said. I've been waiting 11 days to get it back so I could read my husband's last words to me. This morning, the trooper informed me that I could come by the State Police Barracks and pick up a copy of it.

Rick's words themselves are private, so they won't be shared here, but tonight was an emotional night as I drove to the station to ask for the written product of my husband's last thoughts and feelings. My mom drove behind me in her car and I felt like we were in our own little funeral procession.

As I made that drive tonight, I replayed my last words to my husband in my head. I was leaving for work that day to be Manager on Duty on a Sunday morning. I said, "I love you." He said, "I love you." We kissed, I left, and I never saw him again. 

When I could finally sit down tonight to read the note I last saw on May 18th where it was lying on my kitchen table, I was able to process it in a more contemplative and final way. I was able to really read the words I could not really remember from 11 days ago. 

It is the saddest note I've ever read. But Rick's last words to me were full of love, apology, and thanks. "Thank you for being the best wife to me any man could ever ask for," he wrote. It breaks my heart that the man I loved thanked me before ending his own life... but it gives me a small amount of peace to know that his last feelings were perhaps of gratitude rather than despair.