The story of August 31st - Part II

Read Part I

You may be surprised to learn that the foremost thought in my head at that very moment was...

...I really have to pee.

I actually stood at that doorway and contemplated making my way to the bathroom with my eyes shut, and looking for Daniel afterwards. The thing is, if what I suspected had happened, it had happened hours ago and another minute was not going to make a difference. I didn't shut my eyes but did walk toward the bathroom. The sight of his feet at the end of the sofa bed drove all thoughts of the bathroom out of my mind. No time to pee...I was too busy screaming.

He was just lying there in his pajama bottoms. He looked fine, like he was sleeping. Except that he never slept on his back. I shook him several times, knowing the truth but of course not believing it. I called 911 and headed out the door and across the parking lot to the cemetery office, where I knew my friend T was working. I don't remember exactly what I said to T, but I screamed it. I walked back outside and called my little sister and screamed. I was finally catching my breath and returning to relative calm when the ambulance drove by.

The house is small, set back from the road and located in between two cemeteries and next to a church and very near the outer border of Chicago. The first thing the paramedic said to me (after he turned around and found the place) was "you're not in Chicago". Excuse me, I AM in Chicago and, oh yeah, MY HUSBAND IS DEAD.

Let me interject something here. Life is not like the TV show "ER". On ER, the doctors and paramedics are always rushing and yelling things like "stat" and "gunshot wound" and "MVA" and such. Our emergency room visit the day before and my experience with the paramedics was a whole different thing. All the doctors and nurses and EMTs in the real world are certainly as dedicated and heroic as the actors portray them. The difference is they are just a lot more calm. They have to be, for good of the patient and the loved ones and themselves. If they weren't, they would all die of anxiety before their student loans were paid off.

Anyway, the paramedic listened to my story as we walked into the house. He checked for a pulse and felt his skin temperature and confirmed my diagnosis. They did an EKG as required for the record. They asked me all kinds of questions and before long the police arrived, and they asked me all kinds of questions. Right after the police informed me that there would have to be an autopsy (no kidding), the shock wore off my bladder and I finally got to pee.

More people arrived...phone calls were made...some people left. (Later I would be briefly embarassed thinking about how many people saw the condition of the house - horribly messy with moving boxes everywhere, dirty laundry on the floor and such. Oh well, live like a slob...) I packed a bag. The funeral planning began. My friend L agreed to take our cat Stella for a while. Poor Stella had been hiding in the basement since the first scream.

Within an hour of his body being loaded into the paddy wagon I was on my way to live with my big sister.

continued