I wasn’t entirely surprised.  The expectation that your addictions would conquer you was always under the surface of the hope you would overcome.

The call that you had collapsed in the shower was the “fall of the other shoe” that I had feared for so long.

Your daughter and I rushing to be by your side in ICU just the first step in our farewell.

Being told not to talk to you or touch you so your brain could rest was nearly impossible while we wanted to scream, “Wake up!”

And when your eyes finally opened, seeing the sheer terror in them was hideous.

Your eyes screamed, “Help me!  Stop this!  Enough!”

We were helpless, standing by.

And then you closed them.  The tubes removed, the monitors silenced, and you rested at last.

Breathing on your own and sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.

No response.  No finger squeeze.  No wiggled toes.  No fluttering eyelids.  Just soft shallow breathing, steady and slow.

Only when we discussed moving you over so your oldest son could lie beside you did you respond with three deep loud breaths.

“I’ll take that as a yes!” he said, and we slid you over with the draw sheet for his snuggle and mine.

Your younger children blew you kisses over facetime on our phones and saw your lips blow kisses back to them.

And then through the power of cyber space, your husband, children and I were all with you and you were gone.

Gone.

Absent, yet in some ways you seem nearer than before–butterflies, pennies in unexpected places, heart shaped rocks, inside-out shirts — javelinas at our private memorial for the older children’s dad.

Many signs we may have missed in our trudging through our grief.

Oh! to open our eyes, ears, hearts so we may be aware and notice the love around us.