Eleven years ago, on January 19, 2010, my life changed forever. That was the day my husband died. There are things about that day that I remember as clearly as though it was yesterday. There are things I can’t remember at all. I remember calling 911 and telling the dispatcher “Well he’s coughing up blood so it’s pretty damn serious.” I remember the EMTs getting to the house around 8:40am, and me wedging myself into the spot between the bed and the side table so I could still hold my husband’s hand as the EMTs examined him. I remember him passing out before they could get much more than his name. I don’t remember them transferring him onto the gurney to take him out to the ambulance.

I was anticipating spending the day in the hospital at his bedside, so I grabbed my laptop and went to my car to follow the ambulance. It sat at the curb. For a very long time. For what felt like forever. And then the back of the ambulance started bouncing up and down and I knew they were doing CPR and that was when I started to cry. The driver came out of the back and asked if I wanted to ride with them to the hospital. I remember saying “Fuck yeah let me get my stuff” and grabbing my purse and jumping in the cab of the ambulance. I remember accidentally hitting the siren switch on the floor with my foot. I remember the dispatcher routing the ambulance onto a side street due to a wreck on the main road, and I remember thinking that if I had tried to drive my husband to the hospital, we would have been stuck in that main road traffic. I remember wanting to scream at the people who wouldn’t get out of the way of the ambulance with its sirens and lights going – my husband was dying and they wouldn’t get the hell out of the way.

I remember the ambulance pulling up to the ER and the EMT saying he’d come back for me, and I said “Don’t be surprised if I’m not here” because I jumped out and followed the EMTs and the gurney into the ER. I remember seeing one EMT riding the rail of the gurney because he was still doing CPR on my husband. I remember thinking that CPR in real life looks nothing like it does on TV. I remember stopping in the door to the trauma room, and someone asking me if I wanted to go to the waiting room. I said no, that I would never be able to forgive myself if I left him. The person asked if I wanted to stay. I looked at him and said “My mom is a nurse. I know what the odds are.”

They got me a chair and let me sit next to my husband as they worked on him in the trauma room. I tried to stay out of their way, but kept my hand on his arm so he knew I was there, if he was able to know anything. They worked on him for what felt like forever but was probably around 10 minutes before they realized there was nothing that could be done and that he was gone. I don’t remember if it was 9:12 or 9:17. But my husband was gone.

I remember sitting there with my head against his arm as the tears came, trying to remember how to breathe, trying to think of what came next. I didn’t have my mom’s work phone number but I did have my sister-in-law’s, so I called her and said that Dan had been taken to the ER and they think he had a heart attack. I remember my sis-in-law asking “How long is he going to be in the hospital?” and I told her “He’s dead.” I remember staying by his side while I made phone calls – his mom, his brother, my family, the organ donation people, my doctor… the hospital was marvelous to let me have that room with him to take care of what I could while I still had a grip on my sanity.

His mom lived nearby and said she would come down. My mom lived 2,000 miles away and got on the next flight down. And while I waited, I remember looking at my Dan, the love of my life, my Dear Heart, looking at his ears growing dark as the blood pooled in them and the fluid coming up the breathing tube in his throat, and I remember watching the fluid level still rise even after he was dead. I don’t know to this day what actually happened – the death certificate says “lobar pneumonia” because his lungs were full of fluid (and weighed twice what they should have). My personal theory is ARDS caused by some sort of infection that resulted in his lungs being rapidly flooded with fluid.

I don’t remember how long I stayed there. I stayed as long as I could. I remember holding his hand and removing the wedding band that I had put there three and a half years earlier. I still wear that band on my left middle finger today. But I eventually had to say goodbye. I don’t remember how I got home, I think his mom came and picked me up. She must have, because I think I remember telling her I wanted to be alone. I didn’t have the strength to help anyone else with their own grief – I barely had enough strength to deal with mine. I spent the afternoon in bed, in the bed where he passed out holding my hand, crying my heart out. There were papers on the floor that the EMTs had discarded – maybe for EKG leads, I don’t know – and they looked like paper flowers.

I threw them away.

The rest of the day is a blur. My mom came down on a flight. I don’t know if I picked her up at the airport or if she took a cab to my house. I remember that I didn’t eat anything for like three days. Nothing smelled good, nothing tasted good, nothing sounded good. Eventually mom and I went to get sushi, because it was protein and carbs in bite-sized pieces. People came to town. We planned the funeral. I remember being a control freak with the casket spray and the florist was generous enough to let me come in and help put the spray together. Other friends helped gather pictures and things that I wanted at the funeral and they took care of setting up things at the funeral. Dan was agnostic so there was no religious ceremony, but we invited his friends and family to come up and say some words. Friends, family, co-workers… I think for them it was interesting to see the different facets of his personality and his life that they didn’t know. I knew them all and it was comforting for me to hear everyone else talk about what he meant to them.

I remember getting up at the end of the ceremony and going up to the podium and looking at the people, and the thing that came to mind to say was “Well, I bet you didn’t think there’d be a quiz today…” I think I said thank you for coming, and I know I said some things about him, but the only thing I remember is “Dan wasn’t perfect… but he was perfect for me.” I remember so many people coming up and giving their condolences and I was just working so hard to keep it together that I don’t remember faces or words. My mom told me later that my brothers were always within a couple feet of me, keeping an eye on me, and that makes me feel good even to this day.

When the last people left the room I went back up to the casket to look at my love one last time. I put my hand on his heart, made a promise to him, and that’s when my knees finally gave out and I bawled for a few minutes on the ground next to the casket. Family and friends went back to the house afterwards and I vaguely remember telling stories and reminiscing but at that point I had reached “Numb” so I don’t remember much.

I do remember taking the shirt and the shoes that I wore for the funeral and throwing them away because I never wanted to wear them ever again.

I also remember making the comment that I didn’t want flowers for my birthday anymore (which was two days after the funeral) because people had brought several of the floral arrangements from the funeral back to the house and the dining room table was covered with them. My mom never got me flowers for my birthday again.

Over the past 11 years I have rebuilt my life into something that I am content with. It’s not what I wanted, not what I expected, not what I would have chosen… but it’s mine and I have to deal with it. It’s where the belief “Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful” was born, because there is still beauty to be found. It’s just harder to see.

But January 19 will always be hard.