This week is the week that he died. I don’t know what day it was because by the time I found him on Thursday, he had been dead for a while. It is curious that in all those crime novels the experts can pin point time of death based on degree of rigamortis, amount of decomposition and bug larvae, and yet in this case we have a 4 day window. 11 – 15 April, 2010, the death certificate says — maybe it is because of the absence of bug larvae.
I figure it was Sunday 11 April. It was the day after I sent the last email that he ever replied to. On that Saturday I told him I was seeing someone else. He went to work on Saturday night and by all accounts was strange and withdrawn. It was last time he was seen alive.
Today I am alone (Duckfish is saving the world which he can only do in Melbourne apparently) and we all know how dangerous it is for me to think too much. Was that email the trigger that made him finally decide to die? Did losing me push him over the edge? Did he know how much his death would change my life forever?
People sometimes wonder how I have carried on for the last year without therapy, without drugs, without being destroyed. The reason is because I had no choice. Of course I could have been ravaged by circumstances and fallen apart, but that is not who I am. I am a fighter, a warrior and there is no other way.
And for him, he had no choice either. In the same way that I am hard-wired to live fiercely and passionately, he was hard-wired to stop trying. It was who he was, and no-one could change that.
His death has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with but I have been so blessed throughout the whole ordeal. I can’t help but think that the Universe looked after me so well.
When I found him, there were two CityRail workers right behind me. They dealt with the police, ambulance and fire brigade while the next door neighbours gave me hot tea and a blanket. Duckfish (who I had known for barely a week) was there within minutes and never left my side for the next three days. I wasn’t living in the same house as my husband, so I had somewhere to go that was separate and safe. I didn’t have to identify his body in the morgue because he had a criminal record and his fingerprints were on file. Shelley stayed with me for a week and helped me clean out the house and deal with all the errands I had to do. My work friends got me drunk and loved me. His parents looked after his body and the funeral which I didn’t attend and my boss let me come and go as I pleased.
But my greatest blessing has been Duckfish. He stuck around when he had every right to walk away. He loved me when I couldn’t stop crying, when I was angry and cruel, when I didn’t want to get out of bed and he listened to me talk about my husband for hours. He held me and comforted me at my very worst.
He is my angel, and I can never thank him enough. He has taught me that I am beautiful, lovable, sexy and awesome. When I see myself through his eyes, I can’t believe that I ever thought I was so inadequate.
My heart was broken when I left J. and smashed to pieces when he killed himself. But because of that, my heart now has the capacity to love more than ever before. I am happier than I have ever been in my entire life. The cost was great, higher than I would have ever agreed to, but the reward is far beyond anything I could have ever imagined.