When I came home from the hospital that early morning of June 11, 2006, I was no longer who I had been just a couple short hours earlier. I walked into the hospital with my husband, I was a wife, a mom, the other half of a couple. When I walked out I left with my oldest daughter Martha on one side of me and my cousin Linda on the other. I was a widow, a mom, and the remaining half of a couple that was missing the other half.
The first hours were spent with phone calls, people coming and going, and though I remember every single detail, it was spent going through the motions of living in a robot type way. The first night came slowly and quickly at the same time, and though there were people in and out all day, the night was spent with just fve young children and me.....their first night with no daddy, my first night as a widow. You could still feel the presence of Kenny, you could still smell his scent all over the house, you could pick up his clothes and the lingering smell of his cologne that even washing them didn't remove was there. Part of me felt like I was dazed and groggy from a nightmare that though I had woken up from the feelings and effects hadn't quite gone away. But my heart knew what my brain was trying to deny.This nightmare was now my life. I now had five children ages 3-13 that were my responsibility all by my self. I had to somehow allow them to grieve, yet convince them this was okay. We had to move forward through the days, with hope, love, and optimism.
The first days turned to weeks, then to months and during that time I wrote letters to Kenny every day, sometimes many, many times a day. I accumulated 24 notebooks of letters I wrote to him. They began as ways to tell him about my day, the kids days, the obstacles we faced or endured. Gradually they became letters about us, our life together, some of our dreams, some fulfilled but many shattered that fateful early June morning. I recall thinking I am supposed to be strong, Kenny expects me to be strong, be optimistic, readjust the plan, keep going forward. I must do this for him. He taught me how to live with the glass always half full never half empty. These notebooks will belong to my children one day, when I am gone and hopefully they will give them some idea of who their dad was as a whole man, not just as their dad. I tried to put some of his youth in these letters too, things he had told me of his childhood that he would have told them had he been here to do so. I tried to share some of their daddy's history and life with them. I found work, I tried to keep the family together, constantly believing with all I was that we would be closer, stronger, better people because we had not only gone through this, we had not only survived this, but we somehow would be a family despite it all,
I remember rushing home and grabbing my pen and current notebook of paper and writing everything to him. I knew in my brain it was not as if I could mail these letters to heaven, but my heart kept hope that he knew. It was that hope that kept me putting one foot in front of the other daily. It was that hope that made me wake up everyday and strive to do more than just go through the motions of being alive. It was the knowledge that Kenny expected me to raise the children to be happy people, who looked forward to the future. Their futures were still waiting and though the greatest part of who I was and who I am died with him that day, though my future was altered by his death, though my dreams for my future were snubbed out in one breath, somehow he also expected me to remember that I too had a future to create and build, to plan, to want.
I remember the moment it hit me that there would be no more memories made with him and somehow I was to make new memories with these young people, because of him.
I no longer write these letters. Days, weeks, months, and years have gone by and I still cry. I smile, I laugh, I yell, I do things, go places, make plans, but I still cry. I remain partly that broken woman that walked out of Bayonet Point Hospital that morning. I have remarried, yet I am still a widow.
If I were to write a letter to heaven today, it would be a letter of apology. I know now in my heart that despite my best intentions, I failed him. I was not able to do what he would have wanted, I was not able to create what we dreamed and planned. I tried but with me being only half of us, I failed.Life continues to throw its rocks at me, hitting me almost every time. Though I still get up every time it knocks me down, I no longer do so with much pep. I have discovered as the years went by half full is half empty.
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