One Year Ago

When I awoke on February 6, 2008, I was a happily married fifty-one year old wife and mother. When I finally crawled into bed after three a.m. that night, I was a widow. Unable to sleep or to cry, I just lay in my bed and shook. Hard. In a matter of hours my world had changed dramatically. My body was in shock, my mind numbly trying to grasp what it did not want to know. My beloved Jimmy was gone.

He had come home from work not feeling well. His chest was hurting, he said. Because he had been fighting a chest cold for a couple of weeks, I was not particularly concerned. I rubbed Vick's salve on his chest, gave him a cough expectorant, and flirted with him in a futile attempt to cheer him up. Nothing helped. As a precaution, I reviewed the symptoms of a heart attack, but quickly concluded that there was no reason for alarm. He was probably coming down with pneumonia.

There was no denying, however, that my husband was in a lot of pain. Miserable, he lay down on the sofa, but he could not relax. He got up and put on a jacket and his slippers because he was cold and clammy. As he restlessly paced the floor, he said, "Call Phil". Our dear friend, Phil, a physician, expressed no urgency when I told him what was going on. He did, however, ask me several questions that I could not answer.

Finally, I gave the phone to Jimmy, telling him, "You're going to have to talk to him yourself. I can't answer his questions." Though a bit irritated with me for handing him the phone when he obviously did not feel like talking, Jimmy quietly discussed his symptoms with Phil. That conversation would later prove to be a valuable source of information. At that time, though, Phil simply directed us to several over-the-counter medications that we had on hand.

Still restless, Jimmy wandered upstairs and tried to nap. I finished preparing dinner as quickly as possible because Stephen, our twenty-two year old son, needed to eat a hasty meal and get on the road. He was headed back to his home in Jackson, TN, to assist with cleanup from massive tornado damage at Union University the night before.

Stephen and I sat down to enjoy our enchiladas, but Jimmy refused to join us. He did, however, come downstairs to tell Stephen "Good-bye". After sending our son on his way at 7:27 p.m., my husband and I walked into the family room. Talking briefly, he told me, "I almost passed out upstairs". It was at that moment that I first began to suspect this might be more than a respiratory problem.

Not knowing what else to do, I walked into the kitchen and began washing dishes as I pondered this new piece of information. Hearing an odd sound, I looked toward the family room and saw Jimmy lying on the floor, his face turned away from me. At first I thought he was playing with our little dogs, but when I called his name he did not respond. Already walking toward him, as soon as I saw his face I knew he was in serious condition. Though strange sounds were emerging from his mouth, he was completely unresponsive. The clock read 7:30.

I patted his face and spoke his name to no avail. Knowing time was of the essence, and living twenty minutes from town, I tried to lift him so that I could get him to the car. Limp and heavy as he was, however, I could not even get his shoulders off of the floor. I ran to the phone and called Stephen. He couldn't have gone far in only three minutes, but he did not answer his phone. Cell phone service is rather unreliable in our rural area, so I left a frantic voice message, "Come back! I need you! I need you! I need you!"

Afraid to leave Jimmy alone for more than a few seconds, I ran back to his side and again attempted to revive him, still to no avail. Because we do not have 911 service, and the number for the Sheriff's Department is not easy to locate in the phone directory, I thought it would be much quicker to have a neighbor help me get my husband to the hospital. Unfortunately, however, nobody would answer their phone.

"God, show me what to do!" I prayed as I ran back and forth between the list of phone numbers and my Jimmy lying on the floor a few feet away. At that point I realized that, regardless of what might happen, our dogs needed to be confined. To my great relief, they all obediently went into their kennels as though they knew something wasn't quite right.

About that time, neighbors John and Virginia B. called, having seen our number on their caller ID. "Jimmy has collapsed in the floor. I need help!" I told them. Within a minute or two, they and their seventeen year old grandson, Chris, arrived at my door. Never in my life have I been so glad to see another human being! I immediately asked Virginia to locate the Sheriff's phone number and call for an ambulance. I have no idea why we didn't just load Jimmy into the car and go to the emergency room as I had originally planned, but in the end it wouldn't have made any difference anyway.

Sitting in the floor, holding my sweetheart, and begging him to breathe, I watched the color drain from his face. In my heart I knew that he was dead, but did not openly acknowledge the unthinkable. "He's awfully pale," I said. Once again I tried vainly to feel his pulse, but my own heart was throbbing so hard that it was impossible to tell if the rhythm beneath my finger tips was my husband's or my own. "Come on, Baby! I need you!" I pleaded, knowing all the while that it was no use.

Stephen appeared then as did chosen children, Mary and Shane, who lived down the road. At my request, Stephen again called Phil, but when he relayed Phil's question "Is he breathing?", I could not tell my son the whole truth.

"I'm not sure," I replied.

At last the paramedics arrived, quickly deducing that they were too late. Even so, they attached the heart monitor to my lifeless husband and began CPR. I knew even then that they were only going through the motions for my sake in an effort to help me process the awful truth. My Jimmy was dead.

When one of them said, "I'll call Alvin," I knew he was referring to the county coroner. I numbly followed one of the paramedics to the front door, an action I soon came to regret because when I turned around to walk back into the family room, a beefy deputy blocked my way. Knowing better than to resist a man who was just doing his job, I simply asked him to retrieve the telephone for me so that we could begin to notify family and friends. He surely was annoyed at having to make repeated trips back into the kitchen and family room area to find cell phones, chargers, and my address book, but he did not complain. At least I was able to tell him exactly where to locate each item.

I asked Stephen to call our older daughter, Leigh, and her husband, Neil, but only to tell them that they needed to come out to our house. After some discussion, it was decided that chosen child, Mary, and the neighbors' grandson, Chris, would make the forty-five minute drive to get our younger daughter, Jamie, from work. Likewise, she was not to be told what had transpired until she was safely at my house.

By that time, word had begun to get around, and a stunned crowd was beginning to form in my living room. I thanked each friend for his support, assured them that I was fine, and continued to make and answer telephone calls. At times I was talking on two phones at once as I informed loved ones that Jimmy had died. "Daff! Ohhhh, Daff!" was all that some of them could say. It was simply incomprehensible that my husband, a healthy, active fifty year old was gone without warning.

My own greatest concern was for my children: twenty-seven year old Leigh, twenty-two year old Stephen, and twenty year old Jamie. Our older son, Jonathan, had been killed less than five years before. Whenever someone asked how they might help, I simply said, "Pray for my kids". I knew that, still in the healing process from the death of their brother, the loss of their beloved Daddy was going to be very traumatic for them. As long as I live, I will never forget the looks of pure anguish on each of those precious faces as they arrived home and learned what they had already suspected. Those were by far the most heart-wrenching moments of all.

"Alvin", the coroner, arrived to officially pronounce Jimmy "dead", then asked to speak with me. "Is there somewhere we can talk?" he asked.

"Can we still not go back in there?" I questioned, referring to the family room where the body of my beloved still lay on the floor.

"If that's ok with you," he said.

"That's where I want to be," I replied.

He seemed surprised as I calmly and without tears sat down beside my husband's still form and began to coherently answer his questions. I told him that our personal physician was present, and that he had discerned the cause of death to be a thoracic aortic aneurysm based on a conversation with Jimmy shortly before he passed away. Still, however, he recorded "Myocardial infarction" as the official cause of death. Later I learned that this is customary procedure as aortic aneurysms are rarely diagnosed. He offered to have an autopsy performed, but I declined. I was completely convinced that Phil's diagnosis was correct, and therefore felt no need to submit my family to the autopsy process.

As Alvin called the funeral home, my children were given the opportunity to see their father's body before it was removed from our home. Soon "Scotty" and his funeral home attendants arrived, and before I knew it the times for visitation and the funeral service had been established. Scotty and my friend, Jan, accompanied me to our closet to select clothes for Jimmy. While Jan steamed Jimmy's navy suit, I watched as the body I had loved for so many years was placed into a body bag, loaded onto a gurney, and taken from our home forever. It was all very surreal!

Eventually all of the flashing lights disappeared from our lawn, and friends gradually went their separate ways. When we were alone, Leigh, Neil, Stephen, Jamie, and I sat down to collect our thoughts and to begin initial plans for the memorial service. It still amazes me how quickly details must be dealt with when someone dies. There honestly is very little time to think. While we didn't make any definite decisions that night, we did make tentative lists of Scriptures and songs that might be used, and persons who were to be involved in the funeral service. It was helpful that we had been through this once before when our Jonathan went to be with the Lord.

Knowing that we were not going to sleep, we tidied up the house a little, sent emails, and posted a notice on my blog. Leigh and Neil went home at some point, but Stephen and Jamie stayed with me. Mary returned to wait up with me as Rachel, another chosen child, was due to arrive around three a.m. We knew that Rachel was going to be devastated as she had adored her "Papa Jim".

After visiting with Rachel for a short time, we all attempted to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be an exhausting day. Life without Jimmy had just begun.