After he heard the news, Bob went on a hell of a drunk. The Highway Patrol arrested him driving on the wrong side of the highway. I truly believe he was trying to kill himself. I told him to appeal the V.A.'s decision, but he said, " Fuck 'em. I'm tired of it."

The last five years of our marriage we slept in twin beds pushed together. He was shaking his legs at night like he was riding a bicycle. He'd wake up in a cold sweat, get up, get a drink of water, smoke a cigarette, and come back to bed-just up and down, up and down, fifty times during the night. And he thought I was out to get him. He called me at work twenty times one day and cussed me out for taking his slippers. He thought I'd taken them because I didn't want him going anywhere. I didn't have his slippers. It must have been some medicine he was on. I thought I was going crazy just being around him. It was to the point where it was my fault if he couldn't sleep or if he couldn't eat, my fault if the phone rang, my fault if he forgot to take a pill, my fault if it was raining.

Every time he went to the V.A., they just gave him more medicine and sent him home. The police counted fifty-four bottles of medicine the day of his death. He would carry it in a paper bag all day long, from room to room. The thorazine made him sit in a chair and drool. Another pill he'd be on sometimes would make him rock in that chair a hundred miles an hour and talk so I could hear him across the street. I believe the V.A. deliberately tries to discourage people, drugs them, and hopes they will give up. Well, it worked. He gave up. On October 29, 1994, he put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. October 29 was Adam's birthday.

The phone calls were day and night, people just wanting to know what happened and why. I didn't know myself! People I never heard from in twenty years would call. Not, "How are you? Are the kids OK?", but, "What happened?" They were just curious. That's a horrible feeling. I felt like people were staring at me, pointing out the girl whose husband did himself in, and I just wanted to crawl under a rug.

My friend Cheryl asked me if I'd received the $1500 from the V.A. for Bob's burial expenses. I called them and asked why they hadn't told me I was entitled to the benefit, and they said because I didn't ask. That really made me mad. They were playing head games with me and I thought, "I'm going to get educated, mister. I'm going to find out what else you keep secret." I decided to take up where Bob left off. I knew he should have been 100 percent PTSD disabled.

I was at it for six years. I had to go to Washington, D.C., to testify, but it was worth it. On October 3, 2000, I received a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs. It said that Bob's condition had increased in severity. This is six years after his death, but never mind! They raised his PTSD rating from 10 to 100 percent, retroactive to 1993. I won. I won because I was right, and because I just wouldn't quit. But I'm not a veteran on medications. He is the one who truly deserved it.

It's been seven years now, and it's a whole different world for me. I still don't quite know how to act. My whole life was around Bob, and every day I see or hear something that reminds me of him-the way someone walks, or smells, or whistles. If you asked me now if I would marry him again, the answer would be yes. The kids think he's better off where he is. They knew he was suffering. In his suicide note, he told them it was like putting Puppy to sleep. They accepted that.