Tag: death

The last 30 hours

Published on by kerrymckim15 Comments

Saturday, August 20, 2016
New York City

I was sleeping in the recliner that the nursing staff had found.  I think they took pity on me because I was sleeping on two chairs put together.  The resident woke me up just after midnight and told me that Bryon’s numbers were looking much, much worse.  I called my daughter’s Godmother.  I was hysterical and I know I yelled at her after she asked some questions.  

I barely slept the rest of the night.

The following morning the resident came in.  She came in to tell me what I had been fearing: that Bryon’s heart was going to stop beating that day.  I remember staring straight ahead with tears in my eyes.  The resident asked me if I wanted to know what was going to happen.  Through my tears, I just nodded.  She explained to me the there was going to be a lot of yelling and everyone was going to come into the room and work on resuscitating him.  She explained that I would need to leave the unit should that happen.  I just nodded.  

I called my daughter’s Godmother who said she would be at the hospital as soon as possible. I truly don’t know how I would have gotten through the day (or really the past 15 months) without her and her fiance.

I made phone calls.  My parents were in Albany with my daughter.  I didn’t think it made sense for them to bring her down because Bryon was no longer aware and my daughter would be too young to remember.  Plus my parents are from Maine and my father hadn’t been to New York City since 1964 and it didn’t make sense for him to be driving in a city that was unfamiliar when Bryon wouldn’t even be aware.

I called Bryon’s parents and they told me they weren’t coming.  As a parent myself, I will never understand their decision.  If my daughter were in New Zealand and I heard she was dying, I would be on the first flight I could get across the world.  But we all make our own choices in life and we have to live with those choices.

I called some of my friends.  Some of them were able to make the trip down to the city that day to say their good-byes.

Specialists came in and out all day.  Each one gave me the news that there was nothing they could do.  Exploratory surgery would be the only option and he wouldn’t survive a trip to the operating room.  I overheard one of the doctors say they were looking for a Hail Mary.  I just appreciated that the doctors hadn’t given up on him, even though his death was imminent.

Saturday turned into Sunday.  Bryon was still alive.  It was my Dad’s birthday.  I wrote Happy Birthday on his Facebook wall because I knew my first call to him on his birthday was going to be telling him that Bryon had died.  

My daughter’s Godmother stayed with me all night.  Neither of us could sleep.  I was too afraid that if I were to fall asleep that that would be the moment his heart would stop beating.  I didn’t want my last moments with him to consist of me being awoken by commotion.  So my daughter’s Godmother and I stayed up all night, taking turns talking to Bryon. Obviously we didn’t know how much he could hear us or understand us or if he could hear us at all.

His vitals were falling.  His heart rate and blood pressure dropped to levels that I hadn’t seen in the five months of staring at the monitor.  His hand felt cold when I held it.  

I was talking to him.  I was probably rambling.  I remember telling him that our daughter and I were going to be okay.  Then I started rambling about shower hooks. Then, at 6:47 am, Bryon’s heart stopped beating.

Nine months

Published on by kerrymckim10 Comments

Today I had the honor to write a guest post on Mohamad’s Around the World series. It was a lot of fun to write about New York’s Capital District.  You can check it out here.  

And if you are visiting here from Mohamad’s blog, I just want to say welcome and I hope you stay awhile!

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Bryon has been gone for nine months. The world is moving on without him and each day the world moves on, I feel a little bit more alone in my grief.  Widowhood is emotionally lonely even if you aren’t physically lonely.

I barely noticed Spring and Summer last year because I was sitting in the ICU with him. This year I am determined to enjoy Spring and Summer but when I sit on the front deck with our daughter, his absence is pronounced.

I miss him when I see other couples.  I am no longer whole. He was my other half and he has been ripped away along with my dreams and my future.  I don’t know why everyone else gets to be happy except me.

I work so hard at trying to stay positive and strong.  I know it’s what he would have wanted.  But sometimes I have to pretend I am positive and strong.  It’s what people have come to expect and I feel like they don’t want to know the truth.  And it can be exhausting.

No matter how much people try to understand, there is always some level of disconnect. People don’t understand how something as simple as a song can trigger sadness.

Sometimes I get tired of having to explain why certain things make me sad.

Sometimes I wish people would let me just be sad without making suggestions on how to fix my sad mood.  My husband is dead.  Why can’t I just be sad?  I’ve accepted that my sadness is now a part of who I am and why can’t people just accept that it is a part of me now?

I get tired of having to listen to platitudes and insensitive remarks.  I know people mean well but sometimes I get tired of the fact that it gets put on me that I have to accept that this is just how people are.  Why can’t it be other peoples responsibility to think before they speak and be a little bit more sensitive?  Is it really that hard?  Or am I really just expecting too much?

People seem to only like to hear about my grief when it’s empowering and inspiring.  The negative emotions of my grief make people uncomfortable and I get tired of feeling like I have to apologize for my emotions.  I envy those people because I wish I lived in a world where talk about grief makes me uncomfortable and I can avoid it.  I can’t avoid grief.  It’s my life.

I hate the fact that some days, I am almost used to Bryon being gone.  Each day that passes, he slips a little further away.   

All the days of my life

Published on by kerrymckim1 Comment

Our cake had four tiers, each with a different flavor.   The cake was decorated with a Celtic cross, red roses and with the tartan ribbon from Bryon’s Scottish clan.  There were weddings pictures of our parents and Bryon’s grandparents.  No wedding pictures of my grandparents exist so there were pictures from my grandparents younger days.  

There was no cake smashing as neither of us were fond of that tradition.  The song that was playing during our cake cutting was “You’re my Best Friend” by Queen.  There was so much excitement going on that day that I don’t remember what the cake tasted like but that was okay, we would freeze our top tier.  Of course, one year later we would discover that that cake would absorb the flavor of everything in our freezer and not taste as it was on our wedding night.

I was driving back from Starbucks yesterday morning (a habit I am trying to break though I am not sure I really want to) when Queen’s “You’re my Best Friend” came on the radio.  (Warning, you might think I am nuts after you read the next sentence.) They say the dead communicate to you through electronics and I am convinced Bryon is doing that.  He communicates with my daughter’s Godmother by putting Top Gun on her tv and he communicates with me through songs, usually in the form of Hall and Oates.  I have heard Hall and Oates more in the past couple of months than I have heard in my whole life prior.  He was partial to this 2008 Saturday Night Live skit of “Hall and Oates”.

Usually hearing a song that triggers a memory like that makes me cry but I actually handled it alright.  I was actually excited that Bryon was communicating and I turned up the song and listened.  Surprisingly I didn’t cry.  I was actually kind of happy and lighthearted.  I was okay until I read my friend widow blogger friend Emily’s post.  Emily’s post really reasonated with me and after I read it,  I cried.  I know, I cried.  Big surprise, right?

Emily’s post got me thinking about the wedding vow “till death do us part” but Bryon and I did not make that vow.  Our weddings vows at our Catholic Nuptial Mass stated that “I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”  I remember having a conversation with Bryon about the significance of that vow.  He did not express any preference between “till death do us part” and “I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”  As far as he was concerned, they had the same meaning.

I remember saying to him that I preferred “I will love you and honor you, all the days of my life” because one of us was going to die before the other and when one of us died, our love wasn’t going to stop.  Bryon didn’t really want to talk about it.  He was never one to talk about death and what happens after.  He came from a family where talking about death was taboo while my Boston Irish-Catholic family talked about death almost casually, like one would talk about the weather or the Red Sox.

My love for Bryon didn’t die on the August morning in New York City when he died.   I will love Bryon until I take my last breathe because my love for him doesn’t die until I die.  He is a part of me now and he will always have a part of my heart along with all the memories from our years together.  My love for Bryon is intertwined with the love I have for our daughter and our friends.  Even if I remarry, I will continue to love Bryon.  And that’s okay because the heart has an amazing ability to grow and to make room to accommodate all the love a person has to give.

Bryon’s love lives on in me.  I am who I am today because of Bryon’s love.  And I like to think that his love has made me a better person.  Bryon taught me so much in our short time together and I will never be the same.

And I will honor Bryon for all the days of my life.  I try to honor Bryon in many different ways.  I honor him by trying to be a good mother to our daughter.  I honor him by spending time with our friends even if it goes against my introvert tendencies.  I honor him by trying not to take my life too seriously.  I honor him by trying to do things that are out of my comfort zone.  I honor him by letting more inappropriate comments come out of my mouth.  I honor him by travelling with our daughter.  And some days, honoring Bryon might not be noble and it might be as simple as getting out of bed and existing that day.

But I will never stop loving and honoring Bryon.

Rest in Peace Rev. Malcolm Stephens

Published on by kerrymckim6 Comments

You are probably wondering “Who is Malcolm Stephens?’’

I was asking myself that very question the other night.

I was looking at my Facebook newsfeed and there was a post from Malcolm Stephens. It was actually written by his wife and it was stating that he had passed away unexpectedly and that the funeral service will be Saturday.  This immediately grabs my attention because widowhood gives you a sick fascination with death.

He was a Facebook friend of mine and yet I had no idea who he was.  The fact that I didn’t know how I knew him didn’t concern me.  I have a lot of Facebook friends I don’t really know.  A lot of people had sent me friend requests when Bryon got sick and I assumed he was a friend of Bryon’s.

I clicked on Rev. Stephen’s facebook profile looking for clues as to how Bryon knew him.  Our mutual friends would reveal how he knew Bryon.  I would learn if they were connected through politics, or college, or law school, or the Masons based on mutual friends.  But Bryon was our only mutual friend.  I could see that Rev. Stephens was the minister of an African Methodist Episcopal church and that he lived in Atlanta, GA.  We are Catholic from New York so I have no idea how their paths crossed.

I message my daughter’s Godmother to tell her about this.  She could not place Rev. Stephens name and she knows a lot of people too.  We both discussed how Bryon knew so many people.  We pondered a few possibilities but we were still stumped.

Now it was starting to bother me.  How did Bryon know Malcolm Stephens?  Did they meet on an on cruise or on an internet cruise forum?  Did they meet on a train?  At a conference?  I looked through Bryon’s Facebook for clues.  Looked at the “see friendship” option and there were only brief but sincere messages of friendship between the two.  I still couldn’t figure it out.

Then I investigate Rev. Stephen’s on my own Facebook.  We had become friends when Bryon got sick.  Turned out he messaged me twice and I never responded to either.  First was in April and in that message he explained to me that he was Bryon’s manager when he worked at Disney.  That explained it.  The second message was in August when Bryon was in NYC.  Rev. Stephens told me that his sister who lived in NYC would like to stop in and pray with him.  And for whatever reason, I never responded.  I know I was overwhelmed, but was I that overwhelmed?

I cried.  I cried for his wife, his family and his community.  This man was clearly a caring man and he had touched many lives.

I cried because I started thinking about how this past spring he was worried about his friend and all he really had was my facebook status updates.  I was too overwhelmed to answer texts and facebook messages.  Among our close friends, they had created their own hierarchy of information.  His best friend would communicate with his college friends, another friend communicated with his political contacts.  But unfortunately I did not delegate anyone to be a contact for people Bryon knew that did not fit into one of this many groups.

I cried because I thought about all the lives that Bryon had touched.  So many that even I, his other half and best friend did not know to what extent that Bryon’s touched people.

I cried because I thought that even if they hadn’t seen each other in ten years, they probably had already met up, two old friends in Heaven.

I am beginning to think that Bryon touched so many lives that there was no way that the average person could process all his friendships.  Whenever I take those psychology tests online, my results are either introvert or ambivert (which means I fall exactly in the middle of the introvert-extrovert scale).  I like the company of others but it does wear me out.  If I seem like I am outgoing, it is because I worked hard to develop those social skills.  Being outgoing doesn’t come naturally to me.  Bryon, as we know, was an extreme extrovert and I still am amazed at how many friends he had. I have no idea how he managed to keep all these friendships alive because he spent so much time with my daughter and me and he was always focused on us.  I never felt cheated or like I was second place.  He also got a full nights sleep every night.  I truly have no idea how he did it.  It was like he had a superpower.

Rest in Peace, Rev Malcolm Stephens.  I am sorry I didn’t know you but if you were friend of Bryon’s, you must have been a good person.

Brunette Catholic, blonde Buddhist or somewhere in between?

Published on by kerrymckim3 Comments

I always thought I had a strong sense of who I was.  And I never questioned my own authenticity.  Yes, on the outside I am from a small Maine town but many people don’t realize that I spent the first 14 years of my life in the Boston area.  I spent a semester abroad in England when I was 21.  Besides Boston, I have spent time in London, Paris, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Miami, Houston, New Orleans, Vegas and many other cities.  I am fairly educated and worldly.  I just try not to be pretentious about it.

I have always been a rule follower whether it was my Catholic religion or sitting in school.  I was not a kid who got in (much) trouble.  I did get caught daydreaming a lot but there was a whole world outside whatever window I was looking out of.  I can’t say I never broke the rules in high school but I pretty much did as I was told.  I did not drink in high school or go to gravel pit parties.  I rarely stayed out past curfew (though my parents were pretty lenient as long as I called) though sometimes I stayed the night at my best friends house because she did not have a curfew. This created a kind of late night loophole that I would take advantage of. (Sorry Mom and Dad!)

I stretched my wings a little bit when I was in college.  A few weeks into my freshman year I decided to get an eyebrow ring.  It was 1997 and it was before they became popular.  It actually looked good on me though I don’t think any picture exists.  I didn’t think it through because I was heading home the following week and figured I would just take it out when I was around my parents.  My parents never saw it (though my brother saw it and he kept threatening to tell them).  I realized that I was never going to have the guts to wear it in front of my parents and I couldn’t handle the pressure of living a double life so the eyebrow ring didn’t last.

And of course, there was the road trip my friends and I took to St. Stephen, New Brunswick just so we could go to the bars when we were 19.  I remember walking along the Saint Croix River, pointing to the Maine side and laughing because we “couldn’t drink over there but we can drink over here.”  I always think of that trip every time I hear “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies.  I wasn’t a saint but I kept myself out of trouble.

I was a very hyper and annoying kid and somewhere along the way, I figured that I had to bottle up my true self to fit in with people.  I would just sit quietly because I didn’t want to become hyper and weird and annoying.  I chose to only open up to a few.  I liked to participate in structured activities so I only had to discuss the topics on hand.

After college, I started dating the guy who would later become my ex-boyfriend.  I think of him as kind of an anti-Bryon because he was the exact opposite of Bryon.  One could argue that Bryon was the over correction of this guy. I could probably write a whole post on him and what I learned from that relationship.   In very general terms Bryon was a Catholic, Republican, manly-man who loved sports while the anti-Bryon was a Protestant, Democrat, non-manly man who preferred science fiction to sports.  Another big difference was that Bryon actually liked me while the anti-Bryon did not.  I think I was someone who paid for dates for two and a half years.  He never embraced me for who I was and I spent two and a half years trying to be the woman he wanted.

After I broke up with the anti-Bryon, I got absorbed into the world of politics and most notably, the Young Republicans.  I embraced the lifestyle of Republican politics and I wore suits, heels, pearls and the Sarah Palin hairstyle.  I loved politics because it was like I was an actress playing a role.  I didn’t have to worry that I was shy and awkward.  Politics gave me a way to relate to people.  It was also during my time in politics that I learned conversation skills and poise.

Politics led me to the best years of my life.  My years with Bryon.  The years where I became a wife and mother.  And like everything else, being a wife and mother provided me with a role that I was more than happy to assume.  Bryon did love me for me but relationships are always filled with give and take.  Bryon had the successful career and I pretty much was content to live in his shadow.  It might have caused some contention between us at times but I don’t regret it. Especially since he apparently wasn’t meant to be here as long as the rest of us.

I have heard that during widowhood, you begin to question everything you once believed.  I thought I had myself and the world all figured out.  While I learned that I am much, much stronger than I ever gave myself credit for, I also learned just how much Bryon overcompensated for my weaknesses.  I don’t have him to cover for me anymore. I have learned that I can count on my family and I have also learned which of my friends are actually my family.  I have learned who I can’t count on (some were surprising) and which friends really weren’t friends. I learned that you can’t put all your faith into the healthcare system and that the healthcare system can fail you.  And I learned that God  doesn’t care if you did your best to be a good Catholic girl for over 30 years.

All those years of trying to fit into roles and groups has left me with a repressed free spirit.  I have always had a free spirit that gets antsy and wants to see the world.  It used to drive Bryon nuts when I wanted to day trip to anywhere, as long as it was out of Albany. He usually indulged me. I also have a creative side.  I am still in the process of trying to let those parts of me out.  I have been running.  I have been travelling.  I have been cooking new recipes and putting together furniture from IKEA.  I have been reading about Buddhism to try to stay Zen.  I have been in the process of changing over to natural cleaning and beauty products.  I plan to have a garden this summer and learn how to can vegetables.  I tried to dye my hair blonde but that didn’t work.  And don’t be fooled if you ever see all the books on my nightstand.  You might see titles that consist of history, religion, politics, business, memoirs, parenting and grief/self help but the last two books I read consisted of one by the Long Island Medium and the other was Jodie Sweetin’s memoir.  Candace Cameron Bure’s memoir isn’t proving to be nearly as exciting as Jodie Sweetin’s memoir.

I realize that I was just afraid.  I have been afraid of success and I have been afraid of failure.   I have been afraid to let people see the real me.  I had a clearly defined past and I have been afraid to stray from the expectation of who I am supposed to be.   I have been afraid that if I tried something different or learned about something different that it might change how I think.  And if I continue to be afraid, I will never fully live and I must fully live to be an example for my daughter.  So my daughter can grow into the woman she is supposed to be.

Tears in Heaven, ice cream, and Sleepless in Seattle

Published on by kerrymckim9 Comments

A few weeks ago I went to brunch with a few friends.  The food was delicious and we had a great time.  There was lots of laughter and stories and a few mimosas. Both of them were talking about their dating adventures (or misadventures) which I enjoyed hearing about them.  

But on the ride home I became really sad.  I had one grandmother who lived to be 90 and my other grandmother is 95.  I genetically have the potential to be stuck on this planet for another 60ish years and that is a long time to be alone.  But I got sad thinking that someday I might have to date again.  I started crying and the tears kept coming.  I did not ask for this.  I was happily married.  I don’t want to be alone for 60 more years but I also don’t want to date.  Why does life have to be so cruel?  Why did my happily ever after have to get ripped away from me when so many other people get to be happy?  Why does everyone else get to be happy and not me?

So I get home.  I post a sad status on my Facebook because I feel the need to vent and  some brave people comment and try to make me feel better and while I appreciate their intent, it never makes me feel better. Maybe I just need to stop sharing my feelings on Facebook.   I blast my sad songs list on Spotify (doesn’t everyone have one of those?) and eat some ice cream.  I blast Tears in Heaven and listen to it on repeat.  Then I do what I do when I am feeling incredibly sad.  I put on Sleepless in Seattle which lives on my DVR because I needed to hear Tom Hanks say  “Move on. Fine. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll just grow a new heart…I know. But it just doesn’t happen twice.”  Tears in Heaven, ice cream and Sleepless in Seattle, are like, my trifecta of grief.

One of my best friends must have seen that status because she messages me asking if I am okay.  She is one of the few friends that I don’t feel like I have to answer with “I’m okay.  Everything is okay.”  I told her I was sad and I was listening to sad songs and eating ice cream.  I did not tell her I was watching Sleepless in Seattle because I was nervous that she would have gotten into her car, drive over and delete Sleepless in Seattle off of my DVR and I can’t live without that coping mechanism.

Things have changed in the past month or two.  I am starting to come out of the widow fog but the grief certainly has not subsided.  I am still incredibly sad.  I am still trying to make sense of Bryon’s death.  Some days I begin to think that I am used to Bryon being gone while other days I still sit in shock and disbelief that he is actually gone.

When Bryon first died, I tried to come up with a timeline for grief.  I have always been a goal oriented person so it made sense that I would set goals for the grief process.  But it hasn’t worked that way.  The months have just been bouncing by and I have been unable to attain any of these goals.  I am still wearing my rings. A lot of our bills are still in Bryon’s name, his stuff is still taking up space in our house and I still haven’t shut off his phone.  My friend asked me if the fact that we talk about Bryon so much is holding me back and I said no because most of my thoughts are still consumed by him and his death.  I am afraid to stop talking about him because then he really will die.  Yes he is physically dead but his story remind me that he actually did live and I am not ready to let go of that yet.

Have I been moving forward?  I don’t think so.  I think I have been surviving and keeping myself busy by traveling and doing activities with my daughter but I don’t really think I am moving forward.  I am distracting myself.  I am waiting for time and grief to pass before I start living again.  I spend time with my friends and my daughter and I work, usually until the early hours of the morning as I put off bedtime every night because lying in an empty bed is just too painful.  I need to stop searching for happiness because I am just not going to find it.  I am just getting used to being sad and I need to embrace that because that is my life right now.  This is my normal and since I can’t set my own timeline for healing, I need to embrace that I am going to feel sad until the indeterminate time comes when I no longer feel sad.

So for the time being, I will continue to feel sad.  I will continue to cry when I think about what I have lost. I will still continue to distract myself.  I will continue to go on adventures with my daughter. I will still continue to spend time with those I am close to.  I will continue to try to check items off of my widow “to-do” list.  I will continue to try to find myself as an individual.  I will continue to do all of these things until eventually my grief subsides and all of this just becomes part of me and my story.

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Growing up without a Dad

Published on by kerrymckim1 Comment

The following post was not written by me.  My friend and high school classmate LeeAnne lost her father when she was 16 months old.  She recently shared some of her thoughts about growing up without her father on Facebook and graciously agreed to let me post them here.  I always appreciate her input because it gives me an idea of some of the things my daughter might experience.

* * *

What It’s Like Growing Up Without a Dad? I’m not talking about the deadbeats in the world. They piss me off (sorry for the language). I’m talking about growing up without a Dad because he is forever gone. He’s forever gone because he is in Heaven (yes, I believe in Heaven. I have to because if I didn’t, none of it would make sense and I would live my life a very angry person). It sucks. Plain and simple SUCKS. I was 16 months and 23 days old when that tractor pinned my Dad. I was 16 months and 25 days old when he gained his angel wings and left me here on this Earth without him. If he was a deadbeat, it would be better. At least I may have some chance of finding him and seeing him and even being really mad at him for leaving me. But he wasn’t. He loved me. He wanted me. He planned on being there forever and ever for me. He didn’t choose to leave me. Deadbeats piss me off because while they have created a child and then just decided they don’t want to play the role of a parent, my Dad was robbed of something I’ve heard he was very proud to be. I can tell by the pictures I see of us that this is true. You can tell he loved me and wanted me to be happy and safe. When you lose someone at such a young age without memories of your own, you cherish photos. I mean cherish them. My Mom eventually had a boyfriend and they had my sister together which gave me a sibling and for that I’m grateful. However, my Mom’s boyfriend was far from the ideal stepfather figure. He didn’t like me. I didn’t like him. I haven’t spoken to him willingly since I moved out of the house on my 18th birthday. In ways, it sucked having a sibling because every day I got to see her and her dad together. Something I never had and always wanted. Father’s Day sucks. It’s just a 24 hour constant reminder of what you don’t have. As I got older, I’ve learned to try to embrace the day and consider it another day to spoil my Mom. She is my Dad in a way too. January 30th sucks because that was the day my Dad was born. September 8th sucks because that’s the day he left me. Father Daughter dances suck. I mean, as a Mom, I love watching my girls get that time with their dad but, the little girl in me is jealous as hell. Wedding Days suck because the moment your Dad walks you down the aisle and the infamous Father Daughter dance becomes your Mom walking you down the aisle and trying to keep you from melting down like a big baby because you just want your Dad. The dance becomes your Mom holding you and you guys talking about how much he is there but he’s not there at the same time (and trying to make sure our beads on our dresses didn’t get stuck together because that would be humilitaing). Your fatherly advice comes from your grandfathers but you are of course too young and “know everything and anything” to acutally listen and appreciate those words after they are gone. Taking your kids to “meet” their grandfather by taking them to stare at a stone with words and plant some pretty flowers, sucks. They ask questions and you have no answers. I wasn’t the only one he was taken from. He was taken from my kids as well. He would’ve been an amazing grandfather. I don’t have my own memories to hold on to and to comfort me on my bad days. I have other people’s memories and that sucks too. I love hearing about him and I love knowing about him but I’m so damn jealous of every single person who ever met him and knew him. I’m not the friend who you can turn to if your parent passes away because while I had the same thing happen, I don’t remember it. I can tell you how to live without a Dad though and that sucks that I can tell you that. I apologize for the long rant. My birthday is getting closer and it’s another reminder that the older I get, just means the longer I’ve missed out on him. Anytime I hear of a father passing away and has a young child left behind, my heart automatically opens up to that child. I know what they are going to go through for the rest of their lives. I just pray that they at least get a wonderful father figure that can help ease the pain and who can at least be there as someone to turn to. It may have been different for me if I had that. It’s ok though because for 16 months and 25 days, I had The. Best. Dad. On. Earth.

Maybe I should just be over it by now

Published on by kerrymckim7 Comments

It’s been over seven months since Bryon had passed and over a year since he was in the ICU.  I can tell that there are some people who can’t figure out why I am still grieving.  I can see the looks and feel the judgement.  Surely I should be over it by now.  I mean, in the normal world, seven months is a long time.  But I am beginning to think that time passes in a very different way in the world of grief.  In seven months there have been many milestones with my friends and family.  There have been new jobs, engagements and babies.  I have managed to function in a 40 hour work week and somehow I manage to remember to pay the bills each month. But for most of that time, I have been living in a fog.  The fog is starting to lift which presents its own set of challenges.  

The last time I felt alive was a Tuesday in late March in 2016.  Bryon had been in the ICU for 5 days and he had gotten an infection and things were going downhill quickly.  I called my father and he and my mother did the only thing they could think of that could possibly console me- they took my daughter out of daycare and brought her into the hospital to see me.  She was only 18 months old and had no clue what was going on.  She wasn’t talking yet, at least not in anything that could be considered part of the English language.  She sat on my lap and smiled at me as I hugged her.  Things at the hospital got even crazier so my parents brought my daughter home.  As my parents were leaving, I remember saying to my mother that if Bryon died then our daughter would be too little to remember him.  My daughter’s Godmother showed up.  We made some phone calls.  Bryon was rushed into emergency surgery and I was told that he might not make it through.  I can still remember exactly who was present with me in the private family room as we sat silently in fear while Bryon was in surgery.

My world was literally crashing down.  I didn’t know how this could be happening.  This didn’t seem real.  It was like someone took the floor out from underneath me and I was falling.  Bryon was such a strong and healthy person and now he was literally clinging to his life.  How could this have happened?  And why did this happen?  How am I going to live without him?

And at that moment, an emotional pause button was pressed.

From that moment on, for the next five months, I was in complete survival mode.  I was just trying to get through each day and do what I needed to do to get to the next day.  Some days I lived hour to hour.  I lived off of iced coffee, diet soda, those hershey ice cream cones from the hospital cafeteria and whatever food my friends brought for me.  I read fluffy literature, taught myself Sudoko and re-organized all my Pinterest boards.  I did what I had to do to advocate for Bryon and keep him alive.  My only other worry was my daughter but for most of that five months, my parents had pretty much given up their life in Maine and temporarily relocated to Albany to take care of my daughter.  For the weeks they went back to Maine, my friends in Albany stepped up and took care of my daughter while I was at the hospital taking care of Bryon.

The button remained paused when Bryon died and remained paused through the funeral.  The button remained paused during the weeks following his death.  It remained paused as I resumed my running and binge watched all seven seasons of the Gilmore Girls and five seasons of Parenthood.  It remained paused that night I drank too much wine and bawled during Jinger Duggar’s wedding.  It remained paused after all the countless times I watched Sleepless in Seattle and P.S. I Love You.  It remained paused as the United States elected a new president.  It remained paused as I went through the motions of “celebrating” the holidays and welcoming a new year. The button remained paused as I left my job at the hospital where Bryon was for four and a half months because going to the same place where Bryon had been sick was too painful and I started a new job working from home for another company.

I was in a survival mode and then the “widow fog”.  There is a theory that we are in the fog because the grief is just so bad and that is the only way the grief can be processed.  We need to be numb to survive. And now that emotional pause button has been hit again and my emotions are resuming.  It’s like I am back in the ICU again and my world is crashing down again.  I am left in the same spot.  This doesn’t seem real.  It is like someone took the floor out from underneath me and I am falling.  Bryon was such a strong and healthy person and now he is dead. How could this have happened?  And why did this happen?  How am I going to live without him?

Now that the widow fog is starting to lift, I am dealt with an avalanche of emotions that I have not been able to process over the past year and it’s like I am feeling all these emotions for the first time.  If you somehow wronged me during that time, I am feeling it now.  If you made a rude comment about my daughter, I am pissed about it now.  I also feel shame because there were people who cared and reached out and I was just too emotionally exhausted to answer all the texts and messages. I hope they understand that I was just too emotionally drained to even have a conversation.

I also am left to process exactly what happened.  Everything that happened to Bryon happened so fast and it was one thing after another, like dominoes.  I sat in his room in the ICU every day, praying and hoping for the best.  I struggled to stay strong, making sure Bryon did not see my fear or the tears.  It is now dawning on me exactly how sick he was and what an effect that has had on me. I saw Bryon go through things that no one should ever have to see their love one go through.  I think about those hours that I stared at the monitor that showed Bryon’s vital signs while he clung onto his life.  I am finally admitting to myself that I should never have had to ever see him suffer like that.

It has been over seven months since Bryon passed and over a year since he went into the ICU.  But while that time has passed in the real world, I am left dealing with a year’s worth of emotions in the present.  So maybe I should be over it.  But I am not.

Why am I doing this?

Published on by kerrymckim19 Comments

Yesterday my blog reached a milestone.  A milestone that I never would have dreamed of ever happening, let alone only after two and a half months.   Yesterday my blog reached 10,000 page views.  I never would have thought that my words about Bryon would go so far in such a short time.  

So why do I do this?  Anyone who knows me in “real life” would tell you that I tend to be a pretty private person who takes a long time to open up to people.  I usually prefer to keep in interactions with people at the superficial level.  Want to talk about the weather?  Sure!  Talk about emotions and feelings?  No way!  Before Bryon got sick, I kept all but a few people at an arm’s length.

So what has compelled me to share some of my most private feelings on the internet? If someone would have told me that I would be sharing some of my most personal thoughts for the whole world to see, I would have probably looked at them like they were nuts.  But here I am.  Sharing my personal thoughts in a place where anyone can see.   I am not lying when I tell you that it is one of the scariest things I have ever done.  I am most likely ruining my chances of ever getting a boyfriend (in the very distant future) because any potential suitors would likely find this blog during a google search and go running far away after reading this.  And I can’t blame them.  Run, Forrest, Run!

There are many reasons I pour my heart out on the internet.

I have barely begun to share most of Bryon’s story because it is still too painful for me to share.  But I feel compelled to tell Bryon’s story in an effort to help other patients.  I want to help people know how to advocate for themselves and I want to empower people to find the right knowledge so they can make educated medical decisions.  I want to help people know what kind of questions to ask their doctors and what to do if something just doesn’t seem right with themselves or with the health care that they might be receiving.  I want people to know why it is important to know their own health history and, if possible, that of their family members.

I feel compelled to share my story as a caregiver and an advocate because I want to help the family members and friends of the critically and terminally ill.  I was thrown into a situation where one day my husband was recovering from a minimally invasive surgical procedure to fighting for his life in the ICU a few days later.  I don’t think there is a word in the English language that could accurately describe how overwhelmed I felt during those weeks that my life came crashing down. I have a background in oncology data and oncology was one of the few medical specialties that did not play a role in Bryon’s care.  While I had more medical knowledge than the average person, I am not a doctor or nurse and I had to quickly adapt to all the new medical terminology and procedures.  Bryon also could not speak for himself while he was in the ICU and he depended on me to advocate for him.   And unfortunately advocating for patients is not easy.  As a caregiver, you need to be prepared to fight for your family member or friend.

I feel compelled to share my story because I want to help other widows and widowers.  Widowhood is a very lonely place.  It helps to read that we are not alone and that other people can relate.  I appreciate reading blogs and memoirs of widows and widowers, especially those who are further in the healing process because I want some sort of idea of what to expect down the road.  Since I benefited from the stories of others, I want to share my stories with the hope that it might help another widow and widower.

I want to share my story to help those who have gone through a trauma and/or have experienced the loss of someone important in their life.  Grief is grief regardless of whether it was a spouse, a family member or a friend and we can all relate and support each other.

I write because it helps me process my own emotions.  I was in the “widow fog” for several months after Bryon died and the fog didn’t start to subside until I started writing about my feelings and my experience.  Before I started writing, I could bottle up my emotions and ignore them for a later time.  This isn’t healthy.  Writing forces me to acknowledge what I am feeling at any given time and it forces me to deal with my grief instead of ignoring it.

I write because I must preserve as much of our story for my daughter.  She won’t have any first hand memories of Bryon and she will have to rely on the stories that are told to her.  I can already start to feel that my memories are not as sharp.  I feel a huge void that Bryon left but it’s getting harder to remember the little things.  I am fearful that if I don’t write things down then those memories will die with Bryon.

I hope to become a patient advocate someday.  I want to raise awareness for the issues that plagued Bryon and ultimately took his life.  I want to empower the caregivers of critically and terminally ill patients.  I share our story to meet others who have been in similar situations and have similar goals.  I write with the hope that I can expand my network so that someday I am able to accomplish my goals of helping people.

Blizzard of 2017

Published on by kerrymckimLeave a comment

After I put my daughter down to bed, I thought to myself that I need to remove some of this snow.  Normally my amazing neighbor plows me out but he was in Florida.  I was going to have to do this alone.  I went to the garage and looked at the snowblower.  I have never used the snowblower.  Bryon bought a high end model and a good friend of his showed me how to use it last fall.  And of course I couldn’t get the thing to start.  It is most likely the fault of the operator.  There probably wasn’t any gas in it. I googled some YouTube videos (because everything is on YouTube) but I still had no luck.  Luckily, I own an old fashioned snow shovel and as I was shoveling my driveway during the Blizzard of 2017, or Storm Stella, many thoughts came through my mind.

First I want to address a pet peeve of mine.  Why are they naming winter storms?  They are not hurricanes.  Naming winter storms is like “Fetch” and they need to stop trying to make it happen.

So during the beginning of shoveling, I was all “I am woman, hear me roar!”  Us younger widows are tough.

Then I wanted to forget the “I am woman, hear me roar” crap.  I need to start taking applications for Husband #2.  Bring on the quasi-traditional gender roles. (I am kidding, of course.  About the husband.  I am a modern woman but having some semblance of traditional gender roles doesn’t bother me.)  At this point, I don’t need any romance or intelligence.  I would settle on usefulness.

I started to ask why did my Bryon have to die? If he were alive, he would be using the snowblower and listening to some online radio station from the Virgin Islands.  At least in our old life.  I always tend to forget that even if he were still alive, things would be very different.  Had he survived, he wouldn’t have been the physically strong man he was.  He would have had some long lasting health problems.  He would be too weak to snowblow or shovel or he would still be in rehab and I would probably be in the same position.  I also began to wonder if he had survived, how would he feel about the new dynamics.  He was always a take charge person.  The last thing he would have wanted was to be dependent on me.  It would have frustrated him but at the same time, he would have been grateful.

I started to think that the Blizzard of 2017 really sucks. Then I remembered what I said to myself at the beginning of the year.  There is no way that 2017 can be as bad as 2016.  Almost half of 2016 was spent in an ICU room and a third of 2016 was spent in the earliest, most raw stages of grief.  Shoveling snow might suck but I would rather be shoveling snow than be sitting in an ICU room.

My muscles were beginning to ache and I started to whine to myself.  Then I remembered the pain Bryon was in during the final months of his life.  It seemed silly to be upset about pain that some Ibuprofen and a heating pad could take away.  I also began to feel grateful that I was alive and that my fat and asthmatic body was able to shovel snow.  It might take me three days to shovel my driveway but I could do it.

At one point I stopped and asked myself a question I ask myself a lot: what would Bryon McKim do?  The answer was simple, Bryon McKim would grab a beer (or several).  I don’t usually keep beer in the house.  I am not a big drinker, usually just wine with the girls.  But when I was grocery shopping, I saw Saranac S’mores porter and I thought it looked interesting so I bought it.  Maybe I subconsciously knew I was going to need a beer.  I rested the beer in a snowbank though it didn’t taste good after awhile.  It was still snowing and snow was getting into the beer.  And the porter started to ice up.  Oh well.

My daughter was inside sleeping and I started to think about what life would be like when she was older.  If she were older, she would have had to help me.  Was she going to help willingly or be a little stinker like I was?  I know growing up I gave my father a hard time when he told me to help with snow shoveling. Though I gave him a slightly less of a hard time when it came to shoveling out my grandmother.  I thought about how it was just my daughter and me and we were going to have to depend on each other much more than we would have if Bryon was still alive.  And she doesn’t have siblings to share the burden.  I began to worry that she might grow up earlier than most kids because of our situation.

I started to think about my retirement dream where I buy an old farmhouse on the coast of Maine.  My retirement home will likely have a long driveway so I decided that I was going to have to purchase a truck and a plow when I retire.

By 10:30, the snow was still coming down and the wind was picking up.  I was really starting to get cold so I figured that the snow will still be there in the morning and surely daycare would be closed.  So I went inside, took a hot shower and then watched the Season Finale of This is Us.  Then I went to bed.

The next morning, I was surprised that wasn’t closed or even delayed.  Half of my driveway wasn’t shoveled.  So I bundled my daughter in the Gap snowsuit that I bought in a large size two cyber Mondays ago that barely fits now. Ironically it was her first time wearing it  because it the snowsuit was too large last winter and we barely had snow this winter.  I was kind of glad it got one wear before being passed on to a friends daughter.  I told my daughter to go be like Elsa while I shoveled.

I shoveled until my daughter told me she was cold.  Then we went back inside.  One of my girls has a son that attends the same daycare as my daughter and she came by to bring her to daycare but there was a huge snowbank in the way.  Luckily, just then my neighbor’s brother-in-law showed up to plow me out and I was able to take my daughter to daycare.  Crisis was over and everything was okay.  

My muscles might still be achy but we survived our first major storm.  Bring on Spring.  I didn’t get to enjoy Spring last year so I am ready to enjoy it twice as much this year.