I WENT BACK TO work that following Monday, a week to the day after the funeral. Believe it or not, I couldn’t wait to get back to work. I was looking forward to it so much that I got into the office at 7am that morning. Now that I had the kids back in their normal routine, I was anxious to return to my own.
For the most part, everyone made a nice comment about being glad to see me back, but outside of that, it pretty much went back to business as usual. I was glad, because I was worried that some people might draw out the pity party. I was happy to see life just kind of move on and not be so focused on death.
At home, I was still trying to get my find my footing. Some days were better than others but I still felt unsure of myself a lot of times. It was probably similar to how a quarterback feels when he goes from running the show in college to taking over a pro team. You know you have the abilities but the game moves so much faster. That’s how it was in our house, and I was now the guy under center.
The thing is, even without Gina’s death, this calendar year was going to be a tsunami of changes in our house. Jackson was going off to college in the fall so there were a ton of things that went with that. In addition to his aviation school, there was documentation to be taken care of, tuition applications and requirements, housing, and other things that Gina would have handled. The girls had their own things going on as well with PTO, homework, and sports schedules.
I quickly learned that life doesn’t stop just because someone else’s does.
Running a household (with kids no less) takes a great amount of energy. If you ever hear women say they have a full time job as a stay-at-home mom, don’t scoff at it. They’re right. It takes a lot of energy, so much that I often found myself holding back energy at work to conserve it for home. I could feel myself pursuing sales less intensely than I needed to. Whether it meant taking care of existing clients or trying to build new ones, my effort diminished due to concerns over the house
Luckily, I recognized this pretty early on and addressed it. I found the best way to deal with it all was to prioritize. I lit up the PTO right away. Rather than deal with their seasonal efforts of popcorn sales, holiday wrapping paper sales, or any other time sucking effort, I just cut a check. I told them this was my one donation for the year and asked them not to bother me with anything else fundraising related. I’m sure I didn’t make any friends that way but we both got what we needed out of it. Boom. Done. More time to move on to other things.
Birthdays and sports schedules were different and something I never had to worry about before. Gina handled the sports schedules and would just let me know a day or two in advance if the kids had any sort of game. If I had something coming up or a guys weekend of golf or something, I would check with her to see if there was anything I needed to be aware of. Birthdays were never even on my radar. Gina just took care of any gifts or cards and signed my name. I would find out at dinner what we gave to whom and if I needed to make a phone call to say Happy Birthday to someone. Not anymore. Now I was going to have to keep track of it all. It wasn’t difficult, just time consuming.
Depression had kind of taken hold of me throughout the winter; it is the season that, besides its chill, represents the passing of things in nature. On top of all of that, I was raised Catholic and Lent had started on February 13th. I was obviously battling depression at this point, and its known fact that alcohol is a depressant, so I picked Lent as an opportunity to kind of get myself back on track. I gave up drinking for Lent.
As the weeks and months went on, I found a little bit of a groove, but for the most part this was one winter I had to trudge through in every sense of the word. Nothing was making me happy. Sports have always been a release for me, whether that means watching or playing, but they seemed to fall by the way side. I really spent each day just trying to get through it so I could go to bed. The girls had bounced back seemingly nicely. They were fully involved in everything at school, they were playing with their friends and Nona was helping to steer their ship. In fact, she was very attentive to them so I didn’t have to be as much. Not that I was absent, but it enabled me to crawl inside myself more than most people could and probably more than I should’ve been allowed.
As the calendar turned to March, my family talked me into scooping the kids up and heading to Florida for Spring Break. This winter had been harsh, and with the added stress of what we’d been through, they figured we could use a bit of warm weather and sunshine. The girls were elated when I told them and immediately began jumping up and down. I felt relieved; just to see them experience normal, childlike jubilation made me feel like we were going to be okay.
Packing for the trip was a huge learning experience, and one of the things I learned was that packing is a pain in the ass. Any other time we traveled, as you might imagine, it was Gina who would handle everything: tickets, accommodations, packing, etc. My job was to work until it was time to go and then be ready when she told me to be. Now I was the one packing the bags not only for myself, but for the girls. Plus I had to make arrangements for the mail, cats, and all sorts of other little odds and ends I never would have even considered just six months prior. I was crabby for the most part but only because I was so overwhelmed by this. It’s amazing that I can handle multi-million dollars worth of business and keep everything flowing smoothly, but packing for a trip with two little girls was almost more than I could handle.
I also had stepped away from all of my stress relievers in my life. In addition to not drinking for Lent, I normally played basketball after work a few times a week. I wasn’t in a structured league but once or twice a week, a group of us guys would get together and play ball. Once Gina passed, I quit going because I obviously had more on my plate at home. Now that a month or so had passed, I found myself really wanting to get back to playing. I don’t know if it was because the NCAA March Madness tournament was going on and basketball was everywhere you looked, or if it was because I truly missed the game. It was probably a combination of both. After all, I was starting to raise my head above water now and I needed something to sustain me.
I tried but going back to the old Y but it was too much for me. For whatever reason, it reminded me of Gina. I don’t know why, but something about that place just screamed Gina to me and it was too much. So I went and found a new gym not too far from the house where some guys played and ingratiated myself into that group. My jump shot might have abandoned me but it felt really good to get out there running around and sweating again.
We had a lot of family things coming up. The Florida Spring Break trip was set for March and then we had two trips in April. We were going to Arizona to send Jackson to aviation school and I also had a wedding in Vegas on the books.
When Spring Break finally came around, I don’t know if anyone was happier for it to arrive than I was. I needed to get out of the cold and out of the house. It wasn’t just me and the kids going, it was an all encompassing family thing. The only person not going was Jackson as he was still in college and had class. Chalk it up to bad timing, but his birthday fell during the time we were gone. In a combination of us being gone and everyone still being in a funk, his first birthday without his mom kind of just came and went. I bought him a gift and a card, but there was no real fanfare or celebration.
There were so many kids and luggage that it was actually easier to drive. I was looking forward to the ride down anyhow. I had a van so I loaded it up with my girls, my sister Ellen, and her kids as well.
Once it got warm enough to drive with the windows down and the air blowing through the car, it became an enjoyable ride. I think people underestimate how soothing a good windows down, warm weather drive can be, especially the first one on the other end of a long, cold winter. The kids entertained themselves in the backseat with DVDs and games so that let me and my sister enjoy each other’s company with the radio up front. It was a nice drive and felt good to be rolling along with the kids in the back. I don’t think it was intentional but we didn’t even talk about Gina. We talked a lot about where I was with things at home, and I asked her a load of domestic questions. It was nice. I learned a lot.
We drove all day until we hit Atlanta. I’m not twenty-two years old anymore so I wasn’t even planning on attempting the straight-through drive. We pulled in and got some dinner, checked into a hotel for the night and then continued on to Florida in the morning. I shared a room with my girls and Ellen stayed in one with her kids. That was kind of fun for me, building that memory with the girls. They loved being in a hotel even if it was just a check-in-and-go-to-bed kind of thing. They laughed and giggled as they got changed into their pajamas and hopped up on the bed they were going to share. I couldn’t help but smile as I brushed my teeth. Looking at them, I remember thinking that I had everything handled. They were laughing and carrying on like normal kids, and I remember thinking, “They’re good. I’ve got this.”
The next morning we loaded back up in the van and headed for my folk’s house in Kissimmee, FL. We’d been there a number of times before for family vacations. I was doing fine until we hit the exit from the highway that takes us into town. Out of nowhere, that ‘broken’ feeling came over me again. We had come here often as a family and we had taken this same turn so many times before. The closer we got to the house, the more the anxiety built up inside me. I was almost scared to pull into the driveway.
Now I’m not the kind of guy to notice signs and intervention and all that stuff, but more and more, I was noticing strange things. As we walked into the house, the song “Sail Away With Me” by David Gray started coursing through the speakers. That was the last straw- I lost it. That was one of Gina’s favorite songs and here it was, seemingly waiting for me as I walked in the door. It hit me like a ton of bricks and floored me for at least ten minutes. Everyone huddled around me and tried to hug it out of me but I couldn’t stop. It was another one of those uncontrollable cries that just takes over.
When I was done, I can’t even begin to tell you how much better I felt. It felt like a cork had popped and let all the pressure out. I didn’t realize it, but I needed that. The rest of the trip was easier because of it. We did all the normal things you do as a family with kids that age: played in the pool, visited the water parks, etc. Mom cooked every day, which allowed us to eat in the sunshine and splash around in the pool. I noticed myself missing Gina being there, but for the most part I felt okay. I actually started to feel a little bit more repaired. I know that sounds crazy, seeing as I was a blubbering mess a few days ago, but it was probably here where I started to become a pendulum unto myself. One day I felt broken and overwhelmed and the next I felt repaired and okay.
It helped me a lot to see the kids playing around in the sunshine, acting their age again. I also had the chance to really talk to my sister. Sitting under the sun, feeling the warmth on my body, watching the kids at ease; I felt like I might have finally won that first round of depression and grief.