There were some good people running the support groups at the Vet Center in Bellingham, Washington. I was going to the Partners of Vets with PTSD. I had been in groups before with women who were exactly like me-they couldn't get out either. I would listen to them talk about their lives and think, "Are you out of your mind? You're crazy!" Then I'd look around, and I'm in the circle with them. That's when I really felt isolated, because I wasn't going anywhere. But the women's group at the Bellingham center helped me tremendously. These women got it, and they helped me decide that I would not go into my forties being this crazy. And it was that crazy. Jean-Marie was cutting herself because she was that messed up. There was no way I could keep her there. I turned forty in September, stalled until February, and then put everything I could into the car and grabbed the kid. Certain things I couldn't take, like my jewelry box that had my charm bracelet in it, charms my parents had given me. I couldn't take them because if I took them it meant I wasn't coming back.

I had been gone a year and a half when I got the phone call. It was the Everson police, and I thought, okay, now what did he do? But the cop said Dennis had shot himself. I wouldn't let them take him off the life support until we got there. Because if only his heart was beating, I had to get there before. I kept calling the hospital, saying keep him going until-just don't let his heart stop until we get there.

They had a white cloth over him and his eyes were open and I could see his green eyes. He was still warm and his heart was still beating. I was there when his heart went down from 64 to 32 to 19 to 6 to 2. I had my arms around him, I had my head on his chest, and I heard his heart stop beating. I'm really grateful for that.

I let the nuns come in to pray around Dennis, but I wanted to say no. I was enraged that this had happened. This was not right. I did everything I was supposed to do. So why did my husband have to leave the world like that? Why? Why did God allow this to happen? Why does Jean-Marie have to go through this? I kept trying to figure it out, trying to figure out what I could do to undo it. After about three months it started dawning that this was permanent. There was nothing I could do, that this just was, that he was dead.

I couldn't talk to Jean-Marie. I didn't have anything to give her. But she had no outlet. She was talking to people, and I just wanted her to stop. I didn't want anybody to know that he died like that. It was the shame-on top of everything else, it was the shame. When something like this happens, you are so wide open and vulnerable, you have absolutely no defenses. I didn't want my husband's suicide being discussed over coffee at the diner. I didn't want a lot of people knowing, because I couldn't stand to have his death treated casually. And I couldn't defend him because I had nothing. I was just totally, completely an open wound.

It was Jean's idea to go to Sons and Daughters in Touch.52 The meeting was on Father's Day. You don't know how bad it was on Father's Day because that was the day he shot himself. But we went down there, and we felt welcomed. We were around other people who understood-these people got it. We were standing in line for coffee, and all of a sudden I started crying and I couldn't stop, and I couldn't stop telling people, "My husband shot himself in the head." Jean did the same too, and that's when she really cried. Everyone looked at us with empathy and let us finish. Nobody went, "Oh my God!" They understood. That was such a relief. I was having a hard time getting everything out, and I was falling and choking over what I was saying: "This isn't over, this isn't over. It's 1999, and my husband just died from the Vietnam War."

   

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4.11.07