The day the music died

 Good Morning Everyone.  It's been a massive minute since I've done anything on my Blog and I feel like this is a homecoming.  I will be using it a lot more.  On Wednesday Aug 26, 2020 at roughly 1150 in the morning my husband of 10 year and other half for 13 years decided to take his own life.  He was the best of all of us.  Caring father of 8 wonderful kids, grandfather to 9, friend, brother, son, nephew, mentor, and someone all of us loved.  The last week and a half has been the roughest of my life and I know rougher water is still to come. 

You never think this is something that is going to happen to your family and let me tell you, it blindsided us all.  I will be writing more about the inner thoughts on this later.  I will tell you that the morning of was nothing out of the ordinary for us.  Lady Sylvanas woke us up at 0530 as she has been doing for over a week, My Loves first alarm went off at 0545 and I could hear him stretching in the bedroom.  0600 his second alarm goes off and he gets out of bed, does his bathroom business, comes into the kitchen and starts his coffee.  He walks outside while it percolates and smokes his cigarette.  Walks back inside grabs his first cup of coffee and heads back to the bedroom to get dressed for work.  Comes back out to the living room, puts his socks and shoes on heads to the kitchen for his 2nd cup of coffee.  Sits back down on the couch and flips through Facebook for a couple of minutes, before one of our twins asks for troops in COC.  He gets on COC and for the next 15 minutes maybe we are all working on our COC on our phones.  He stands up hugs all three of our younger children, walks down the hall and I hear him say something to our oldest son who hasn't crawled out of his hole yet.  Walks into the bedroom and I assume it for last minute double check that he has everything (this was not why he walked into the bedroom), comes back out and leans over me sitting on on the chair kisses my forehead, bops my nose says he loves me (I say I love you back) and walks to the door.  One of my biggest regrets will be that I love you wasn't my last words to him, but I stopped him at the door and did a normal couple thing.  "Hey love, it's Wednesday.  Trash day! There is meat in the trash please take it out."  He says sure and walks not only out the door but out of our lives forever.  

Thirty minutes later I bundle the Hobbits out the door, screaming at our Oldest to get up or he'll be late and drop them at school.  At roughly 0815 I receive a text that was meant to go to my husband from a co-worker of his asking why he quit.  I'm like, um this isn't who you are looking for it's his wife.  He's all like I'm so sorry, do you know what is going on?  I'm like no but I'll pass the message to him.  I immediately flipped over to our family tracking and it says he is still at the house but it hasn't updated since 1945 the night before.  I called his work, where I was informed by the store manager that my husband pulled up in front of his (the store manager) motorcycle and clipped his store keys to his bike and drove off.  

By this time you can imagine I am freaking out.  The store manager said he turned right out of the parking lot and maybe I should go check out another company that he had been talking about lately.  A friend and God Father to our twins works there, so I haul ass over there.  By the time I walk in I'm hyperventilating.  Our friends takes me outside and he starts trying to call my husband, but his phone is off.  I've called a couple of our close friends to see if anyone had heard from him.  NO ONE HAD.  About this time it's 0900 and I head back to our house to see if I can find anything that points to maybe where he had gone.  (Again there are things I'm not saying at the moment because I'm not ready to, not that I'm hiding anything.  When I work through it myself I'll probably blog again.)  I pull into our yard at the same moment another friends does and she calls to report him missing while I run into my house like a crazy woman.  I see that my gun is still where it's supposed to be and I look for his.  My heart stopped.  Not only is the gun missing, but where it's supposed to be is his phone.  Turned off and flipped upside down.  I screamed and dropped to the floor.  I knew in that moment I'd never see the love of my life again.  Our friend is in our yard screaming what happened.  I manage to pull myself up and head to the porch to tell her.  She gets off the phone and tells me the police are on their way.  

All I can do is stand there numb, unable to think of anything.  Our friend keeps telling me that I need to have hope and he'll be okay.  But I knew deep down that, that wasn't true.  He wouldn't have left his phone in that specific spot and he wouldn't have taken his gun with him. The police arrive and the guy is very nice.  My friend does 90% of the talking because I just can't.  He gives us the report number and says if we think of anything please let us know.  By this time our oldest son is home and standing with me.  Non of know what to do.  The police officer said we should stay here.  I've called more people then I can count and I'm sure their are other I could have called but remember I'm in a blind panic.  I manager to get ahold of a friend of his that he's known forever, long before I came into the picture) and they give us an old hangout spot.  I called the police and she says that the officer in charge of the case will call me right back or he's still in the area he'll stop by.  

Five minutes later the office pulls up. I don't even see that there are two other officers with him.  I walk closer to him to tell him about this place we've thought of.  He lets me tell him, and reaches for my elbow.  Before he can even finish the sentence, "Ma'am I need you to...." I'd hit the ground screaming.  It's the most devastating moment in my life.  As soon as I hit the ground I had booth our oldest son and his best friend (Who we consider ours, he's lived with us off and one for 3 years) in my arms crying just as hard as I am.  I know our oldest daughter stopped by at that moment to see if we heard anything, but I can honestly tell you the next 2 and half hours are a blur.  I remember crying and being held by friends.  I remember making phone calls and people telling me I didn't have to do that, but I needed to tell these people who were our friends and family.  

At roughly 1450 our Hobbits pulled up (a Friend picked them up from school) and I had to figure out how I was going to tell our Children that their father wasn't coming home.  My support system and I agree that for now we wouldn't tell my Hobbits (10 yrs old and 9 yr old twins) the complete truth.  I'm 40 years old and can't wrap my head around what was going on, how was I supposed to help our children understand.  One should never have to tell their young children that Daddy is never coming home.  

We will be starting therapy as a family in the coming weeks and I will be telling them the truth then with the help of the therapist.  I'm a writer and I needed to get this out.  Over the next little bit I'll be writing more and getting our story out there.  From the beginning to his death, and then on to what the children and I are doing.  

Thank you for reading my experience and remember to hold your family close and never forget to tell those that you love, that you love them.  Every day hug them and make sure they know your feelings.  

This is not proof read by anyone so there are mistakes.