Right Where You Left Me

The day Coleman died, I was at Disney World. I was at the Happiest Place on Earth with my dad when my world fell apart. How’s that for irony?

So, some background info:

Coleman had weight loss surgery in September 2023, and his recovery was going well overall. We had some bumps along the way and were learning as we went, but things went well. He was the happiest he had ever been and felt like he had a second chance at life. Hell, I felt that way, too. I had sat with him during his darkest times and loved him through the lowest of lows, so it was an incredible feeling to be riding this high with him. He was waiting to announce his surgery and weight loss on social media until he hit 100 pounds, which, as it turns out, at his time of death, his weight loss was 104 pounds. He had the picture picked out, the caption written, and was so damn excited.

Anyway, he had been experiencing shortness of breath occasionally in the week leading up to his death. It was worrisome, but he also felt that it had to do with not getting enough protein or vitamins, and everything else was going great, so we didn’t overthink it. I remember Sunday morning sitting in line for the Winnie The Pooh ride at Disney when he texted me and said he was having issues with breathing the night before (Saturday night), so he was going to call his surgeon first thing Monday morning. We went about our day like usual. I FaceTimed him from a gift shop to help me pick out Christmas gifts for our niece and nephew, and I texted him throughout the day to see how he was feeling. I was worried, but I also thought I was just being paranoid.

Another crucial part is that Coleman tends to fall asleep anywhere – literally 5 minutes as a passenger princess, and he will be sleeping – so randomly not answering the phone wasn’t out of the ordinary. In the past when he has fallen asleep on the couch I would access our Alexa devices remotely from my phone and say “hi” to the dogs over the device, which would cause them to bark and for him to wake up. It sounds very “Big Brother is watching,” but it wasn’t like that. I usually did this when I would be dog-sitting for my parents, and I would wake him up and tell him to go get in bed since he had to wear his CPAP.

So I am watching the Cowboys game with my dad in Orlando, but texting Coleman different things about the game like “What a fake!” or “Wide Open! Holy Crap!”. He wasn’t responding to messages, but that isn’t unusual. I called him during halftime to check in, and he didn’t answer initially, but then he called a few minutes later and said that he was in bed and had fallen asleep, so I told him to go back to bed and that I loved him. He texted me 10 minutes later, responding to my football messages from earlier, and said that he loved me and was sweating.

Something else you should know about me is I keep our house COLD, like COLD COLD. Ask anyone who has been to my home, and they will tell you it is always cold, like 60 degrees year-round. So when he said he was sweating, I replied, “Why?” because that isn’t normal for him, and he usually complains about his coldness. After 20 minutes, I followed up by saying that I was worrying about him, but he didn’t respond, and I assumed he had gone back to bed. I then sent another text right before going to sleep and said I hoped he was OK and that if I didn’t hear from him in the morning, I was calling the police. When I said that, I did not think I would ever need to contact the police. That is crazy talk. No, I said that so that if he woke up in the middle of the night (which was common), he would know I was worried and would respond to let me know he was OK. This was 9:43 PM. I went to bed shortly after and didn’t feel great about not hearing from him, but I also figured everything was fine, and he was asleep.

At 12:59 AM, I shot up out of my bed shaking, ran to the restroom, and started throwing up because something felt wrong. I had never felt like that before in my life, and I honestly thought I was going crazy, but I was shaking and throwing up, and I just knew something was wrong. That is the best way I can describe it. My dad and I were in the same suite, but we had our own rooms, and he was asleep. I didn’t want to bother him because I had nothing to go on except a feeling, so I got on the Alexa device and started “talking” to the dogs. I could hear them barking but nothing from Coleman, so I pulled up the interior camera in the kitchen. I usually NEVER access the camera when someone is home because that is weird, but I was trying to find a way to make sure he was okay.

As soon as I opened the camera, I saw Baylee (one of our dogs) sitting in the bedroom doorway, staring directly at the camera and not moving. I called her name, but she didn’t react at all. Bay is our dramatic one; if the wind changes directions, she runs around and barks her head off, but she is still like a statue to the point where I thought the screen was frozen. I zoomed in, and the second I saw her facial expression and eyes, I knew something was wrong. Trust me, I know how that sounds. I can’t explain it other than I just knew. So, hands shaking, I googled the non-emergency number for Royse City and made the call.

I remember everything like it happened yesterday. The operator answered; I told her he had surgery a few months ago, complained of shortness of breath and sweating, and that I felt that something was wrong. She dispatched two officers to do a welfare check on him. They knocked on the door, no answer, so they called my cell phone. When they called my cell phone, they were standing at the end of the driveway (I could see them on my exterior cameras), and I could hear the dogs through the phone. I told them that normally, the dogs barking would have woken him up, and they said that they could hear the dogs from the street, and they agreed. At this point I was scared something really bad happened, but I was also convinced that Coleman was going to wake up to 2 police officers standing over him and we would have a good laugh about it later. We don’t leave a key out, but I told them I could open the garage door from my phone (thank God for technology), and they asked about the layout of the house, guns, and any people who might be there. I told them the dogs would sound scary, but they were harmless, and gave him the house layout. He told me he would call me back, so I did the only logical thing: I pulled up the police scanner for my area and listened.

I don’t know why I thought of doing this. I was desperate for information, and my brain was firing on all obsessive cylinders that day. On the scanner, I heard the officers say they had just talked to me on the phone and that they were entering the home. I heard my dogs barking on the police scanner, and then it went silent. What I learned after the fact is that there is a public frequency that you can hear on these different streaming services, but there is also a private channel of sorts that they can use to communicate sensitive information. I didn’t know that then, but I was scared and 1,000 miles from home, so I did the next logical thing and pulled up our exterior cameras again. If I could go back and change any part of this, I wouldn’t have pulled up the cameras. At this point, it is 1:39 AM Monday. There was nothing for a bit, and then, at 1:49, I saw an ambulance pull up on the camera, lights but no sirens, and I started screaming.

I don’t know how to describe the sound coming out of my mouth, but I still hear it in my nightmares. It was this desperate guttural scream that felt like it was being ripped from my soul. I will never forget it. I ran into my dad’s room, screaming over and over, “They called an ambulance – they didn’t call me.” As I was watching the camera, I saw them unload a stretcher, and at that moment, the officer called me. My responding officer was the kindest human I think I will ever know. He confirmed that Coleman was found deceased, and all I could do was scream. He sat there on the phone with me while I was screaming and crying, and he stayed with me. He didn’t rush me off the phone; he kept apologizing, and I kept screaming. I later wrote him a letter thanking him for the kindness and love he showed me. Looking back, I don’t know how he could experience something like that and not rush off the phone, but he stayed. I remember begging him to take care of my dogs because they are all I have, and he said he would be at my house for a while because they had to wait for the judge to come out and declare it so he promised he would make sure the dogs went potty and had water before he left. I told him I didn’t know what to do, and he patiently explained everything just for me to say the same thing two minutes later, and he would re-explain it repeatedly. He didn’t try to rush me off the phone once, and he was a steady voice and a calm presence while my world was falling apart.

Meanwhile, my dad sprung into action when he heard and called American Airlines to get me home and started packing our bags. I eventually got off the phone and followed my dad from room to room as he dealt with the airlines and packed everything up. My knees kept giving out and the sound that was coming out of me was inhuman. It was a broken scream/sob. God, I wish I could forget it. On our way out of the hotel, my dad grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom for me to use as a tissue, which became my security blanket. I clutched it while going through security at the airport, sitting at the gate, going through the entire flight, getting our luggage in DFW, etc. I still have the hand towel, except now it is a shade of pink because it got washed with something red.

Something else important to note about the airport and flight. As I was walking through the airport, waiting at the gate, boarding the flight, and sitting on the plane, I was sobbing uncontrollably, and not a single soul said a word to me. I remember at one point, my dad was trying to get us on an earlier flight, so he was at the ticket counter, and I was sitting down alone when the medical examiner called. The people sitting next to me heard me ask if my husbands body was there yet, what am I supposed to do, that I was trying to get back to Dallas and, the whole time in my mind, I am begging for someone, literally anyone, to sit near me or hold my hand or show any sign of compassion or kindness. No one said or did anything. They just watched me. Everyone watched like I was a car wreck they couldn’t look away from. The flight attendant, two hours into the flight, finally said, “Are you OK? It seems like you are having a bad day,” and I replied, “My husband just died .”It was the first time I had said it out loud. Mind you, I sat on the flight for 2 hours crying; she, as well as the other flight attendants, walked past me a dozen times, and they never said a word until 2 hours in. I don’t think I will ever forget that feeling of loneliness and isolation. To be at my rock bottom and not shown an ounce of kindness from humanity really screws someone up.

My dad was my rock and moved heaven and earth to get me home. We sat together crying on the plane ride; he handled the phone calls, got our bags, and got me home because he knew I needed my home, dogs, and mom. I don’t like to talk about what happened when I walked into my house for the first time, but I do think my parents aged a decade seeing me in that type of pain and hearing the sounds coming from me. I remember moving from room to room in my house, sitting on the floor, sobbing, and then moving to another room, sitting on the floor, and sobbing. At one point I laid down where his body had been found. It was bad. People came over, decisions were made, and my panic attacks started. During one of them, our intervention counselor at the school I teach at was at my house when it happened and gave me some techniques for next time, but the panic attacks were debilitating.

The following days were a blur. I planned my husband’s funeral. I know it was technically a celebration of life, but to me, it was a funeral. I spoke at the funeral, and, looking back, I genuinely don’t know how I did it. There is a video on my Facebook if you want to hear it. My eulogy was the easiest and most challenging thing I have ever written. I showed up to the funeral, I went through the motions, I did the things, I hosted the reception for family at our home, and then everyone left, and an overwhelming feeling of darkness made itself home in my soul. Everything was gone- all the future hopes and dreams, the vacations we had planned, the concerts we had tickets for, the future children and dogs we already had names picked out for. Everything. I have had my fair share of tough times, but I could always see the “good” in things or find the positives. This was the first time in my life where it was just empty and dark. I thought I would never smile again. I couldn’t imagine ever being able to laugh at a joke. It felt like my life was over at 33.

I started therapy three days after his funeral and have gone weekly since. Therapy saved me. I also returned to teaching full-time when we returned from Christmas break in January. My students also saved me. There was a time when I honestly didn’t plan to return to work because I didn’t think I would ever be a functioning human being again, but I just put one foot in front of the other and did the best I could. On days when I couldn’t get out of bed, I would stay in bed (docked $327 each day because I am out of days) and would “go dark.” On those days, I only talked to my parents or my therapist, and I was surviving at that point. Other weeks, I would work all five days, full of energy and happiness, and I would be so proud of myself for being a normal person that week. Part of the reason I was able to do that is because my students are incredible. Literally. I wanted to show up for them because they showed up for me.

For a while after his death, people didn’t know what to do or say, so they wouldn’t say anything (which makes sense), but as someone who was craving someone to notice me and acknowledge me, it just felt so isolating. I’ve learned now that people saying, “I don’t know what to say, but I see you,” is all I needed to hear, or sometimes a big bear hug heals more than words. Big bear hugs were Colemans “thing” – he seriously gave the best hugs – but they also became such a healing thing for me that now I will crave just a really big hug. Well, not all hugs. There is a random teacher (literally, I have no clue who she is), but she likes to stop me in the bathroom and hug me, and the whole time she is hugging me, I am eyeing the sink and wishing she had let me wash my hands first 😂

Which brings me to another point: my friends and family. Death brings out the best and worst in people. I had people show up for me over the last four months that I never would have expected, but on the other hand, I haven’t heard a word from people who “should” have reached out. In therapy, we talk a lot about how detrimental phrases like “would” and “should” are because there is no place for them in my healing journey, but I’m also human, and it is hard not to take those things personally… especially when it feels so disrespectful to Coleman for people to not check on me, but that is something else I am working on in therapy.

Right now I am at a place in my life where I am hopeful for my future, which is something I never would have said back in December or January. Early on, I decided that I owe it to myself to keep living life and fighting like hell to find happiness and heal. Sometimes, the healing looks like me dancing in the kitchen with the dogs; other times, it is just me brushing my hair and putting on clean pajamas. It hasn’t been easy, but I am slowly becoming a version of myself who is excited about the future and hopeful that God still has beautiful things in store for me, even if things aren’t the way I thought they would be.

For example, I won’t get to have kids with Coleman, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be a mom someday. I know I will be. It might be through fostering or adoption, but it will happen one way or another. Same with falling in love again – I was fortunate to have experienced what people wait a lifetime for – and if I never fall in love again, I will be okay because I got to have Coleman. Still, I miss having someone do the yard work, unclog the drain, and grill BBQ chicken. (That was a joke – it is OK to laugh😁 Laughter is the best medicine). Basically what I am saying is, when Coleman died, it felt like so did my hopes and dreams, and it has taken me time (and therapy) to realize I still have a lot of life to live and love to give in whatever way I can.

So that brings me to the present day. Now, this might shock you, but there aren’t a lot of resources or “how-to” books for 33-year-old widows, so I am winging it, which is where this blog came into play. Writing has always been a source of therapy for me, and I have kept journals since elementary school, but as I kept writing in my journals for the last few months, I couldn’t help but feel a tug that it wasn’t enough. I don’t love the idea that my deepest and rawest moments are on the internet, where they will live forever, but I also know that if this is a way for me to heal and process life and possibly help someone else, I will do it.

So here we are. I hope that this blog can be a safe space for anyone in a position similar to mine, anyone who has experienced loss, or for anyone just curious how I’m doing these days. I am currently rebuilding my life and rewriting my story. I’m looking to the future, taking those vacations, going to those concerts, and choosing life, and I would love it if you joined me through it all as I begin again.

Love,

Brittany