I grieve both for what was and what should have been...

Nathan,

I remember the day and the events leading up to the night that changed my life forever.   I remember the way you smiled as you held Aria and played cars with Sawyer.  I remember the way your cologne smelled in the wind as we walked up to the house after spending the day with my parents and some friends.  I remember the sound of your voice as we talked on the way to the store and I remember the way you reluctantly took Sawyer to look at fish and I remember everything that was and that wasn't said on the way back home. I remember getting the kids out of the car and watching you climb into the work van.  I remember the sound of the kids crying that pulled my attention from you and took me inside and I remember the sound that made me run back out.  I remember exactly what you looked like in that moment and it breaks my heart every time I see it.  I remember the sound of my voice as I was screaming and pleading for help, I sounded like someone I didn't recognize.   What I don't remember is most of the night that followed.   Actually, if I'm honest I don't remember the week that followed.  I remember the steady stream of visitors, my tears, and thinking I heard you knock on the door.  I remember having a lot that had to be done, but I don't really remember doing any of it.

I was in shock and I don't think that it wore off until the night after your celebration of life service.

What followed that night and what I likely will never forget is the immense pain, the insurmountable fear, the all consuming grief, the indescribable confusion, and mostly the heaviness that came with the realization that you were truly gone forever and there wasn't anything I could do about it.

I've learned a lot in the weeks that have followed, both from things I've read or talked about with other survivors and my own grief.  For instance I have learned that it is a strange and awful thing to have to learn to live without the one person that you simply can not live without.  It's not really living.  It's surviving. And survive I will, for the sake of our children.  That as a mother my grief is magnified by three because I grieve not only for myself, but for my children.  I have learned that in the face of tragedy, our community really comes together.  There are still great people in this world.  I have learned that both of our families are some of the most dependable people I know, I'd be lost without them.  I have learned that we have some of the greatest friends that a person could have, and I have learned that our church family is wonderful and that grief creates friendships that might not otherwise exist.

I've learned that I miss the little things the most.  The sound of your voice when you were happy, the way you took such pride in our kids, our evening conversation over coffee, and the way you kissed my forehead before work each morning.  I've learned that I don't want to be without you.  I don't want to be a single parent, and I don't want to be alone, but more than that I don't want to be with anyone else.  People say I might change my mind, and I may, but one thing is for certain, I won't ever marry again.  I will die a Keener and I will die proudly remaining your wife, and I will be buried next to you when I do.  I doubt there is a man alive that could deal with any of that and frankly, that's okay with me.

I've learned it's exhausting being a single parent, especially to more than one child.  It is especially exhausting when it was never in your plan to be those things.  I've learned that our two year old is very literal because when I point up and tell him that you're in Heaven, he looks up and says nope, he's not up there and then looks at me like I've gone mad.  I have also learned that his grief has become anger.  He is mad at you because he wants to see you.  He tells me this almost daily and it hurts me so deeply I can't put it into words. I have learned that although our infant doesn't understand what is going on or the magnitude of what she has lost, she does understand that something is different.  She starts to get fussy around five or six o'clock each evening and continues until her bedtime.  I've decided that it's because the first thing you always did after work was take off your shirt, wash your hands, and then hold her.  She misses you too and she'll miss you more as she ages.  This also hurts me so badly that I am not sure I could accurately describe the feeling.

I've also learned that with grief comes longing.  The longing for everything to be okay.  The longing for everything to be as it once was, and the longing for what could have been.  I grieve for what was, but I also grieve for what should have been.  I cry for the plans that we made, both the small and the big.  My heart breaks for the dinners with friends we won't have, the travelling that we won't do, the house we won't buy, and the cruise we won't take.  I cry for the moments that you'll miss.  The first day of kindergarten, the high school and college graduations, the weddings, and the eventual grand kids that we will likely have.  I also grieve the fact that I dreamed of growing old with you, looking back on our lives with joy and thankfulness and now I will have to do that without you.  I have learned that my life will never be the same and that I will never understand why.

The two  biggest things that I have learned, however, are that suicide grief is different from other grief and that the question WHY, is one I hate.

The grief is different for a multitude of reasons, neither sadder nor necessarily more difficult, but certainly different.   The first being that it often lasts much longer than the normal.  There are plenty of reasons for this, the unanswered questions, the guilt, the trauma, and the unexpectedness of the entire thing.   Not only that but when one dies the way that you did, the spouse is tied into their story in a way that makes removing themselves impossible,  they are tied into the story in a way that you aren't with other types of death.   When one dies from a terminal illness no one asks you what happened or looks at you with shock at the news, and they don't ask you what went so horribly wrong as to have caused the death.   I don't think people want to know the nitty gritty details (some do, I guess), but rather that they can't wrap their head around a death like yours.  This is especially true when the person was not only young like you, but had been so looking forward to the future as you had been.  People understand that cancer will likely eventually kill, that being a police officer or a soldier is dangerous, and when a person has a heart attack it leaves little to be questioned.

With a suicide, this is not the case.  People are surprised ninety eight percent of the time and the first question out of their mouth are "but why would he do that" and that's generally followed with "Did you notice anything?" or it's worse counterpart, "How didn't you notice anything?"  and after those questions are answered they move on to "Was he depressed? Did he have mental illness?  Did something happen that day?"  And just like that I am right back in the night.  I see everything all over again and I am up to my eyeballs in pain, trauma, and questions.  I can choose not to answer these questions, of course, but that doesn't make the asking of them any less painful.  The person left behind after a death like this is constantly forced to be apart of the story, to relive the never ending nightmare again and again as if they had something to do with it, simply because they were a part of your life.  They were the other occupant in the house, the one who saw you immediately after the shot was fired.  It is assumed that they have knowledge of the deceased's reasoning and thus it becomes their job to make some sense of the horrific tragedy for the asker.

As if those questions weren't enough to contend with, I also must add my own questions.  Was this planned?  Did I miss something huge?  I look at pictures and think back on our memories and I smile, but in the back of my mind I also question whether you were truly happy there or not because of what has happened.  Did you know you would do this eventually?   The only answer I think I know, is that this wasn't planned.  It was a spur of the moment choice, and one  that I think you would regret if you could have regrets in Heaven.  The rest I will likely never be able to answer.  With "normal" deaths there are no philosophical questions, no over thinking, or late night pondering that re break your heart over and over again.  I'm jealous of those whom lose their spouses from ways we consider typical or normal which isn't something I ever thought I would say.

I am pushing through the grief.  I am making my way through the questions.  I am finding my way through single parenthood,  and I am trying to convince myself not to think about my own why questions anymore.  I haven't been completely successful but I am hopeful that one day they won't matter anymore, because even with the answers I won't be able to change it.  I am moving.  I am surviving.  I can't do much more than that right now, but as I am grieving I am also learning and though you and I were generally private people, I am finding that the more I learn the more I want to share, in hopes that maybe I can save someone like you, even though I couldn't save you or that I can help someone like me, who has found themselves in the midst of a loss and a grief that they never thought they'd be in.

Maybe that's silly, I don't know.  What I know though is that we miss you.  We love you.  Forever.

Always,
Jess