Page 5 of Someone to Watch Over Me

How do you come back from a second cataclysmic death when you’re only thirty-five?

You don’t. The death of someone close to you changes you forever.

I’ll never again be the person I was before Jim was diagnosed. Sometimes I think about our life before he started experiencing odd symptoms, such as weakness in his right leg and a twitching thumb, both of which he chalked up to overuse in his work as a mechanical engineer supervising a machine shop and in his hobby as a triathlete. He spent long days on his feet, worked with his hands and was always training intensively for his next event, so of course we attributed his fatigue to the activity.

The weakness spread to his left leg, forcing him to seek medical attention that was an exercise in futility for more than two years. We learned that an ALS diagnosis is a process of elimination, which is like a hamster wheel that goes round and round without ever stopping on an answer.

Until it does, and the answer is a death sentence by slow degrees as the body fails while the mind remains sharp, which is the ultimate kind of purgatory for those who suffer and those who love them. It was especially hard on Jim, the most active person I knew until he lost the ability to do the most basic things, beginning with brushing his own teeth and progressing to breathing and swallowing.

Sitting in that emergency waiting room, waiting to learn Tom’s fate, I fall into a rabbit hole of despair I haven’t experienced in quite some time.

The hospital setting brings back memories I’ve worked hard to keep in the past where they belong. For instance, I haven’t thought about the frustrating, frightening journey to Jim’s diagnosis in quite some time. It’s probably been six to eight months since those particular memories tormented me.

The smell of this place brings back the frantic search for answers, as if it happened recently, rather than more than seven years ago.

I fear I’m hallucinating when Iris and Gage walk in through the main doors.

She comes toward me with the determination to help that’s so much a part of who she is. Her wild, curly dark hair is contained in a colorful headband, and her brown eyes are full of compassion and concern.

I stand and step into her outstretched arms, and that’s when I lose the composure I’ve barely clung to since I arrived home to find Tom unconscious.

“Shhh. It’s okay. He’s in the best possible place for whatever he needs.”

“Iris is right, Lex.” Gage is tall and broad-shouldered, with wavy dark hair and an arrestingly handsome face. “They’ll take good care of him and figure out what’s going on.”

I’ve never appreciated the two of them more than I do right now, the undisputed leaders of the Wild Widows, full of wisdom, compassion and advice that’s always spot-on. Now is no different.

“Thank you so much for coming.” I wipe away tears as I step back from them. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Of course we did,” Iris says. “What’re you hearing?”

“Nothing yet, but there was a great deal of urgency when he arrived.”

“Urgency is good,” Gage says. “That’s what you want.”

I don’t want any of this. “I need to get out of here,” I whisper to Iris. “Please. Get me out of here.”

She takes me by the arm and leads me to the main doors.

The second I step into fresh, cool air, I feel slightly better.

“Breathe,” Iris says gently. “Just focus on breathing.”

I do that for five full minutes before my heartbeat slows to a more normal rate. I no longer feel as if I’m about to hyperventilate, which is a huge relief.

“That’s it.” Iris rubs my arm as we lean against a concrete pillar.

“Why does something like this resurrect all the other stuff?”

“Because trauma is a bitch that way.”

Leave it to Iris to make me laugh when I wouldn’t have thought it possible.

Gage stands to my left, there in case I need him. His presence is always a comfort to me. I look to him as such an inspiration for surviving the loss of his wife and twin daughters in a drunk-driving accident. He’s one of the wisest people I’ve met on this widow journey. Thinking about him and all the coping mechanisms I’ve learned from him through his daily Instagram posts is way better than wondering whether Tom is still alive.

What if he isn’t?

I squeeze my eyes closed against a new flood of tears.

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