A series presented by Jean in 2007

It’s All About Choices…

Part 1: House of Horror…

It was ten years ago this March that I left my husband.
It will be ten years this August that he killed himself.

Seems that I should be done with this by now. Right?
Apparently not. Perhaps writing this will put me another step closer to being done.

Warning to those easily offended or sensitive to graphic description:
Stop reading now and come back in a few days. Or, scroll down to
other posts or read through the archives. It’s all about choices…


Michael was a drunk. Likeable enough, as many drunks are, but a drunk nonetheless. He was also a drunk who didn’t like to work but loved being taken care of. He walked out on good jobs without having another job waiting. That meant no money from him for the six months to eighteen months it took him to find another job. Correction: accept another job. He was picky. He could afford to be picky. He bragged, often, that his wife was smarter than him and always made more money. That wife was me. Stupid. Enabler. Stupid. Scared. Stupid. Dumbshit.

We met at work in 1977. A shitty factory that hired shitty people. He had left his first wife and moved back to his parent’s home. Ironically, he left his first wife because she didn’t want to work.
Or so he said. I never talked to her.
I helped him with the do-it-yourself-divorce paperwork. Stupid.

We got married in 1978. On the beach at sunrise. Hippy-style.
About a year later, he quit that job. Walked out.
He said he couldn’t handle the un-safe conditions there. People got hurt there. That was true. I was very aware of those conditions because I worked in their Emergency First Aid Department for two years of the nine years I spent there.

That company hired him back a few weeks later, because he was a damn good die-setter. He walked out again before two weeks went by. That stretch of unemployment lasted about four months.
So began that pattern.

Did I mention he had a DUI on his record? From shortly after we started dating. Before I married him. No driver’s license.
Stupid.

His next job was with a company that made cement blocks. Good wage. Rotating shift. Close enough to the apartment that he could ride a bicycle to work when our schedules didn’t jive. He quit. No notice.
Safety issues there, too, he said. He wasn’t comfortable.

That stretch of unemployment was enough to get the bill collectors riled. Eventually, he talked me into filing for bankruptcy. Perhaps the most humiliating experience of my life. Lied to my parents. I borrowed the bankruptcy fee from them, but told them it was to pay bills. They knew he wasn’t working. I paid them back in full a year later.

I have no issues with bankruptcy for people who come by hard times honestly. I didn’t feel that we deserved that option. He could have been working.

Did his family help? Fuck. Where do you think he learned all this?
I was buying groceries for them too. Stupid.

We needed to find a cheaper place to live and a job for him. He found an ad in the paper for live-in managers at a motel
on the beachside. That meant I would be working two jobs. Stupid.
He loved it. Convenience stores within walking distance. Lots of beer.

I came home one night, after working a long day, and nothing had been done at the motel. He was drunk. Of course.
My duties at the motel included all the bookkeeping and helping him with cleaning, repairs and laundry. Plus, I did our shopping, cooking, bill-paying and apartment cleaning. This night put me over the edge.

A bit of advice for those who might be dealing with a drunk: don’t bother talking to them when they are drunk. Not that they are any more reasonable when they might be sober for an hour or two. But, they might remember the conversation later if they’re not drinking at the time. Actually, if you are dealing with a drunk… just leave. Quickly.
And, don’t look back.

To continue with the night that put me over the edge…

I ranted. And I ranted some more. I think it was the first time I let him see me angry because of his drinking. We had been married about four years at that point.
His response to my ranting?
He stood up slowly and pointed his index finger in my face. His brow wrinkled, his eyes squinted, his face got red.
He said, “If you EVER try to make me choose between my beer, cigarettes, pot and you? YOU will lose!”

Are ya thinking this might have been the time an intelligent person would have packed her shit and hauled ass out the door? Yeah.
Stupid.
Stupid for another fifteen fucking years.

I can feel the bile rising in my throat.
Part Two will be continued later…

It’s All About Choices… Part 2

I’ve mentioned before somewhere, I think, that the reason I married Michael was because…
he was the first man to ask me.
I was twenty-six at the time and literally afraid that no one else would ask me to be their wife.
So, I said yes to him. Stupid.

I had nice boyfriends in high school. I think I remember four dates in college. After college, I moved to Florida and began to meet every asshole, freak and jerk within a fifty mile radius. Michael compared favorably to them. I thought.

To continue…
The job we took at the motel was miserable. The details don’t really matter. Suffice it to say, we lasted six months there
before we quit and moved to a duplex a few miles north and on the mainland. Of course, this meant Michael needed to
find another job. And, the bankruptcy was not yet final.

Not long after we left the motel, the Federal Bankruptcy Court notified us that they were sending movers to repossess our
bedroom and living room furniture. They were the only things of value that we had that could be auctioned off, and the
monies distributed to our creditors.
They didn’t get much.
The day they picked up the furniture was another humiliation.

The next episode involved my health.
I was experiencing pain in my lower right abdomen. It was determined that there was some kind of growth in the area of my right ovary. Turned out to be scar tissue. No big deal. It required minor surgery to remove it. I decided to ask the surgeon to cut my tubes since he was going to be in the neighborhood anyway. Michael and I had already decided
that we would not have children. I wanted to stop taking the pill.
I did not want to have his children.

This was around 1982 or ’83 when insurance companies still allowed patients to stay in the hospital a couple of days after
any surgery. I was scheduled to be there for two days.

I honestly don’t remember if Michael was working by then. If he was, he took off the entire week.
To be with me? Nah.
To drink.

The morning of the surgery, he came to the hospital carrying some kind of potted, flowering plant and put it on my table
beside the bed. I was in shock. He had NEVER given me flowers of any kind. Ever. He had always said flowers were a waste of money because they always died. (Never mind the money he pissed away, literally, on the beer he drank.)

When I thanked him for the flowers, he said, “Well, I figured that if you die I’d feel bad because I never gave you flowers
while you were alive. And, this is a plant so maybe it will live a while.”
So much for that emotional moment.

As soon as I woke up from surgery, he went home. Next morning, the doctor released me to go home. It was about 10 a.m. I called the house so Michael could pick me up. No answer. I waited half an hour and called again. No answer. The cleaning crew came in to get the room ready for the next patient. Hard to do with me still in the bed.

By noon, still no Michael. I called the local police department. Neighbors were all at work. The police called me back and said they couldn’t tell if he was home or not, but they got no response when they banged on the door. Terrific.

I thought about calling a taxi, but I had no cash on me. So, I kept calling the house. Finally, around 3 p.m., he answered
the phone. Slurred speech. Said he had taken some Tylenol for a toothache and had been sleeping. Right.
When he showed up at the hospital, he reeked of alcohol and was staggering. I drove home.

Did I mention that we had to buy a new bed because we lost the last one in the bankruptcy?
Did I mention that Michael arranged to have the new bed … a king size waterbed … delivered on the day I got home from
having surgery?
SO I COULD HELP HIM SET IT UP.
And, I did. And, it hurt. Stupid.
It was either help him or sleep curled up in a pappasan chair. He didn’t ask friends for help. That’s what his wife was for.

It’s All About Choices – Part 3…

Michael was an avid reader, a talented carpenter, electrician, plumber. He could build a house. Re-build an engine. He taught himself to repair antique clocks. He had, in my eyes, the potential to be successful and happy. Yet, with all of that, his attitude was reflected in his favorite phrase, “Life sucks and then you die.”
He made that true… for him.
To this day, I cringe whenever I hear anyone make that statement.

In his eyes, nothing was ever enough. Nothing was ever quite right. But, he wanted all he wanted without effort. He wanted easy. He wore me down. I wore myself down trying to create a life that needed two people participating equally.

Finally, I realized that I was disappearing. I had allowed myself to become almost completely absorbed by him. I had no goals or dreams for myself. I existed entirely to nurture him and his life. I knew then that if I continued living that way, that I would eventually fade away… and die. My self would be gone forever. I would cease to exist.
I had to leave.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that there are very few things I do quickly. I am a planner. I am an analyzer. I am becoming more spontaneous… slowly. But, eleven years ago, I wanted to be as prepared as possible. I spent the next year saving money. Michael was unemployed for the first nine months of that year.

February 1, 1997 I rented a small apartment about five miles north of where we lived. Michael and I were working opposite shifts, so I was able to move small loads to the apartment while he was at work.
I was a nervous wreck.

March 1, 1997 I told Michael that I was moving out. He said nothing, but I could see the muscles in his jaw contracting. He wouldn’t look at me. He kept staring at the television. I asked him if he had anything to say, if he wanted to talk. Almost in a whisper, he finally replied, “What’s to talk about? Your mind’s made up.”
I spent that night in a fitful sleep on the couch.
The next morning I loaded more of my things in my car and drove to my apartment.
I don’t remember my first night there.

It’s All About Choices – Part 4…

This is getting more difficult to write, but here goes…

So, I officially made the break. Moved out. Free, sorta. I found out later that Michael went on a drinking binge that lasted several days. If his job at the time had not been with such a shit company, he would have been unemployed again.
Lucky for me, I guess.

I started making phone calls to family and friends to let them know the situation. The most common reaction was shock and surprise. Why? Because, I had avoided “airing our dirty laundry in public”. Very, very few people had any idea that there were problems in our marriage. I did a pretty thorough job of covering that up, and Michael was quite content with the status quo… until the last year when I became very distant. Preparing to leave.

It was easy to keep up a front because all of my family lived almost a thousand miles away. Visiting was infrequent. And, they were always polite and rarely questioned my explanations of his frequent job changes.

As far as my friends… I almost never socialized outside of work. Michael was uncomfortable with my friends, calling them
“white-collar”, “above” him, “out of his class”. The real truth was, they didn’t drink like he did and that made him uncomfortable. Very common for alcoholics to prefer to only be around other people who like to drink a lot. Of course.

It wasn’t until after he died that people he worked with let me know how well they knew Michael… and, how surprised they
were that the marriage lasted as long as it did. I honestly believed that I was the only one who saw him as he really was. Co-dependants really do live in their own world… a self-made world in their head.

After I got settled in my apartment, one of the first things I did was to buy myself tickets to attend a series of concerts by the London Symphony Orchestra. They perform here every other year. In 1997, they would be in Daytona from the end of July through the beginning of August. Remember this for later.

Michael found my phone number and address by calling the phone company. (Thank you, Ma Bell.) He started calling and leaving drunken rants on my answering machine while I was at work. Let’s say he was angry. Let’s also say that the few times we did speak, in those first two weeks, the conversations did not go well.
Eventually, he became outwardly rational enough to attempt a somewhat normal conversation. Unfortunately, those conversations mostly revolved around him asking me to come back. I told him I would never consider coming back unless he quit drinking… completely.
I, of course, knew that would never happen.

At first, he did promise to quit drinking. He was lying. I knew it. He would ask me to come to the house to watch a race with him on a weekend. I knew he was lonely. I agreed. He swore that he had not had a drink in (fill in the blank) days. He was drinking soda. He reeked of stale beer. I called him on it. He got angry. He would say he would quit drinking when I came back.
Talk about your pissing contest.

I would never have left in the first place if I thought there might have been a chance that things could have improved. After a couple of months, I went to the courthouse and purchased the do-it-yourself divorce packet. I made a copy for Michael. I took the papers to him in person and asked him to read through them. We had no children. I wanted nothing. It could be simple. Michael refused to even look at the papers, let alone read them.

I believe that might have been the first time he realized that I was completely… definitely… serious about ending the
marriage. Never coming back. His drinking got worse. Neighbors told me he was having parties at the house. I really didn’t care.

I could include many more details of our relationship during the months after I moved out. However, the redundancy would probably become boring. And… I’m really not writing this as a public whipping for him or a request for martyrdom for me. No one is easy to live with. Me included.
This is my way of purging and flushing and healing.
Once.and.for.all. I hope.

Moving ahead to the end of July/beginning of August 1997…

I had tickets to three of the major LSO concerts. The first two were wonderful. I attended alone. I was in heaven.

The final performance was scheduled for August 9. Because I purchased a “package”, I also had a few tickets to some of the mini-concerts in the series. The last one of those was also scheduled for August 9, in the afternoon. It was a Saturday.

I awoke that morning with tears sliding down my face. I vaguely remembered dreaming, but had no memory of any of the details. But, I woke up feeling sad… depressed. I felt so heavy in this sadness that I almost decided not to go to the afternoon concert. I finally dragged myself out of bed and to the shower somewhere around eleven-thirty that morning. My mood was terribly puzzling.

As I was getting out of the shower, I heard the phone ring. Thinking it might be Michael, I decided to let the answering
machine pick up the call. It wasn’t Michael. I recognized the voice of a neighbor, and she was asking me to pick up the phone. When I did, she said I needed to come to the house. She said there was an ambulance and Sheriff’s cars parked in front. She said she didn’t know what happened.
She did. She just didn’t want to tell me over the phone.

(I’m starting to shake as I write this.)

I told her I’d be right there and I finished dressing. Some kind of numbing feeling took over.

Michael had been diagnosed with severe asthma about seven years before. He continued to smoke about three packs of cigarettes a day. He told me after I moved out that he stopped taking his medication because he couldn’t afford it, even though I kept him on my insurance through my employer.
More self-destructive behavior? Certainly.

My thought, as I was driving to the house, was that Michael was dead from an asthma attack. That’s what I expected to
be told. I was only partly right.

I had to park in my neighbor’s driveway because there were so many official vehicles in front of our house. Most of the neighbors were gathered in the street. There was a female deputy walking toward me.
Before I could say anything, she asked me if I was Mrs. ______.
I nodded and asked what happened.
She replied, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Mr. ______ is dead.”
I remember asking, “How?”
She lifted her right hand to her temple, and with her index finger, pointed and imitated the act of pulling a trigger.
I remember screaming.
She put her arm around my shoulder and walked me back to the neighbor’s house. I tried to turn around to go back to the
house. She stopped me, but that is when I saw all the yellow Crime Scene tape on the fence around the yard. Three or four other deputies and men in suits were standing in front of the gate at the end of the driveway. Looking at me.

I guess there’s going to be a Part 5. Sorry.

It’s All About Choices – Part 5…

I found myself sitting at my neighbor’s dining table with two investigators from the sheriff’s department. They had a tape recorder on the table and were informing me that the interview was being recorded for their report.

I remember them asking: Did I live at the house?
Did we/I own any guns? Did he have any enemies?
Did he ever threaten suicide?
I truthfully answered ‘No’ to all those questions.
I don’t remember what else they asked.

Next, I remember sitting on the neighbor’s porch steps, looking toward our house, when the back door opened and saw two EMTs carrying a gurney with Michael’s body in a body bag. A uniformed deputy followed, carrying a gun that I was later to learn was a .410 shotgun, the gun he used on himself while sitting on the sofa in the living room.

I walked to the waiting hearse (not ambulance). I asked them to let me see my husband. One of the investigators said that would not be a good idea. I argued. He stood firm in his refusal. Eventually, a long time later, I appreciated his judgement. I numbly watched the hearse pull away.

I remember one of the investigators smiling at me and saying, “You’re really taking this rather well.” I glared at him and sarcastically apologized for my lack of public hysteria. He stopped smiling. I turned toward the gate and started to open it.

The investigator said I could not enter the property or the house until the investigation was complete and as long as
the crime scene tape was in place. I asked how long that would take and was told it could be several days to more than a week. I told them there were four cats and a dog in the house that needed fresh food and water. NOW.
The lead investigator handed me his business card and said that after they left I should make sure the tape did not look like it had been disturbed. I thanked him.

As the officials got in their cars and began to leave, some of the neighbors gathered around me. I began to hear what they knew of Michael’s last week. And, how he was found that day:

A long-time friend of ours had called Michael to ask if he could get him a gun suitable for killing rats that were living in the friend’s girlfriend’s tool shed. One of our neighbors was known to brag about his large supply of guns. Michael got the gun from the neighbor. For the reasonable sum of $50.

The long-time friend was too busy to pick up the gun for several days. Michael asked the helpful neighbor to show him how to load and shoot the gun in the woods. Helpful neighbor complied.

According to these neighbors and friends, Michael spent his last week drinking, bitching about me and shooting in the woods. No one called me because, they said, they were afraid I might come back out of sympathy. I recall my therapist telling me, several months later, that if I had gone back then it might have been our murder/suicide instead.

It was the helpful neighbor and one other neighbor who became concerned about Michael when he had not been seen or heard from by noon that Saturday. They entered the house through the back door, walked through the kitchen to the living room. He was sitting upright on the sofa, slouched down a bit so the back of his head was not in view. They had an idea of what they were going to find as they walked to the front of the sofa.

Michael positioned himself in such a way that the top of the sofa kept his brain and skull from splattering on the glass-front
bookcase that was about two feet behind him. Considerate, eh? They said the entry hole was just to the right of center in his forehead. Brain matter had run, like toothpaste, down his right cheek. They called 911. They went to the neighbor next door, who then called me.

The neighbors tried to talk me out of going in the house. They offered to go in with me. I politely refused both offers. I ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and walked up the driveway to the back door and walked, slowly, inside.

Somehow, I managed to take care of the animals before I let myself look at the sofa. I could tell where his head had rested. A dark red, wet stain was on the back cushion scattered with bits of bone, skin and brain. I remember trembling. I don’t remember the drive back to my apartment. I had a long list of people to call.

It’s All About Choices – Epilogue…

Right now, my brain feels like a salad spinner.

I could easily turn this into a very long soap opera and relay all the details of: the memorial service, finding the pool of blood under the sofa, disposing of the sofa and rug, moving back in gradually over a period of two months before I could sleep in the house again. Not to mention, the house was heading to foreclosure because he let the mortgage get three months behind (even though I left enough money in the bank for him to be able to pay the bills for six months) and…
over $22,000 in credit card bills.

That almost covers it.

Obviously, I survived it. I CHOSE to survive it.

It sucked for a long time, and there were plenty of times when I wasn’t sure that I would survive. Plenty of times, too, when I really didn’t want to survive. Those times scared me the most.
Some of those times were not too long ago.
I don’t want to go back there again.

He made the choices that determined his life… and death.
I will never understand all of his choices. I don’t need to… any.more.

Nearly thirty years have gone by since Michael and I met.
More than half of my life. That’s enough.

I cannot erase that time, nor do I want to. But, what I can do, is put that time in perspective. It’s done. I am not.

I am taking back my life. I am claiming my life… for ME.

I CHOOSE to live:
without anger.
without regret.
without guilt.
with hope.
with strength.
with peace.
with a full heart.

I choose to have a good life.

Autopsy

…and there was nothing in the heart but pain.
For, sorrow was pain. Fear was pain.
And love became pain.
The heart was shriveled.
The scars were memories.
It was no way to live, so it died.