4. Widowed at Age 39
“Why are you crying? He’ll be fine soon.”
The surgeon had just approached me as I stood, fearful, in the hospital corridor outside my husband’s room. “Recovery from a ruptured appendix just takes longer,” he continued. “No need to be upset.”
In my heart I knew that my husband of 21 years was not recovering on the 4th day after surgery. I stayed with him throughout each day, waiting for signs of improvement, but saw none. He was unable to eat or walk unassisted, and was in constant abdominal pain. I tried to be calm and reassuring while at his bedside, but late each night, as I drove home to shower, change my clothes, and check on our kids, I was so scared I couldn’t even pray. For the first time in my life I could not pray. I was filled with fear as I felt my husband was dying. He kept telling me how much he loved me.
On the evening of the 4th day, he seemed to feel a bit better and suggested I go home and get a good night’s sleep as he planned to do the same. I reluctantly agreed to go home, and as I left his room he smiled and said, “You need to be with the kids.”
I was sleeping early on the morning of the 5th day when the ringing of the phone woke me up. “I’m taking your husband back into surgery,” the surgeon told me. “I don’t think we should wait for you to get here. He’s in lots of pain.” I agreed they should not wait for me and said that I would come down from the mountains to the hospital as quickly as possible. The older children had been awakened by the phone ringing, and helped me decide how to handle this latest emergency. My oldest son offered to stay at home with his 4 year old sister, and get the others off to school, while my second son agreed to come with me to the hospital. As we drove down the mountain pass, the bright orange sunrise seemed to fill the whole sky, as I’ve never seen it before or since. I told my son that I was glad his Dad and I had shared Holy Communion together the night before, in the hospital room, when a priest had also anointed my husband.
“No! No! I need him! I love him!” was all I could cry over and over. How I loved him! We were still having fun together. We were so happy! We still held hands as we took walks. We still loved dancing in the dark after the kids were asleep. We still liked to sit outside, in the quiet of the night, looking up at Colorado’s star-filled sky. We loved being together! We were very intimate! We still laughed together all the time. He could not be dead!
The surgeon invited me into the room where my husband lay, covered and looking peaceful. I embraced him, kissed him over and over, and talked to him for a while before I sensed his spirit leaving. We had had our last Eucharist together the night before. The man I had prayed for as a young girl was leaving me. Our beautiful marriage, dedicated on our wedding day 21 years earlier to the Blessed Mother, was ending. I would go home to an empty bed. My Italian lover was gone. The pain in my heart hurt terribly.
I shared with my son, as we drove to the hospital, that his father and I had shared The Eucharist as our first meal as a married couple, during our wedding mass. It had always been very special to us.
Upon entering the waiting room outside surgery, a nurse immediately approached and asked if my husband had ever had heart problems before. I told her he hadn’t. Soon after that conversation, the surgeon came into the waiting room with tears on his face, and I knew.
I was left with 8 children ranging in age from 5 to 20, in an unfinished house in the forest of Colorado, with a dry well, a mentally retarded son who was already having serious adjustment problems, no family nearby, no close neighbors, and no income since my husband had been self-employed. We had moved to Colorado 2 years earlier seeking relief for my asthmatic problems. We had all lived in a tent while we built our large home on 10 acres. An autopsy soon revealed that my husband died from a pelvic clot, which had begun forming after the appendectomy and had grown very large before the second surgery when it entered the aorta.
“Mom, you knew he was dying, didn’t you?” My oldest son questioned me on the night of his father’s death. When I admitted I had known, and that I believed his Dad had known also, he tearfully told me, “I knew too. I felt like he was dying too.”
Family and friends flew from the East to be with us for the funeral, and the mountain community surprised us by filling the church for the service. Throughout the days of waking and the funeral, I would feel a scream rising in my throat until a warmth would gently flow from my head through my body, as I felt immersed in peace. People kept commenting that I was doing well and asking how I was managing to remain calm. I told each one who asked, “It’s God.” In such overwhelming peace I knew that God was letting me know I would be able to go on. God was comforting me. Everything seemed hopeless, but this powerful sense of peace continued until the funeral was over. Even during the nights, when I kept hearing my husband’s heartbeat, the peace would fill me and comfort me. During that time, also, my second son was uplifted and filled with hope by an experience he had while taking some relatives to stay at a motel. In the room, he had casually opened a Bible, which was on a bedside table.
“Mom!” he later exclaimed. “I opened it to a place that said, “Do not be afraid. I will not leave you orphans.” How often during the next few years we would recall that verse when feeling scared.
We stayed in the house for one year, selling belongings in order to finish it. The older boys and I hauled all our water to a cistern next to the house, just as my husband had been doing before his death. The well driller and the contractor had not been honest with us; in telling us we had a good well, plenty of water for a family of 10. There had never been water from the wells they had drilled. My husband had been seeing an attorney about suing them, but his death prevented that lawsuit from going forward.
I enrolled in school to prepare for reentering the work force, and the older boys left home to find jobs, no longer able to run their father’s laundry equipment business. I had to place my handicapped son in a residential program nearby, and did my best to assist all the children through their grief. Each child grieved differently. My husband had had a unique and wonderful relationship with each child, and each one faced their loss in unique and different ways. My only prayer each morning was, “God, give me strength.” After a while I added an evening prayer, “God, thank you for getting me through this day.”
It was just before we moved out of the mountain house into a downtown apartment, that I had a surprising experience as I was driving up the mountain pass late one afternoon. It was the Ute Pass road I traveled every day, sometimes 2 or 3 times as I drove the kids to sports or other school events. As I came around a curve in the road on that particular day, suddenly everything was surprisingly bright. The sky was bluer than I had ever seen it! The trees were greener than ever! The snow on the mountaintops seemed whiter than I ever remembered! It was like a dream, the way everything, including the reddish soil, appeared to be so alive! A few white clouds floating in sharp contrast to the deep blue sky seemed so close that I could almost touch them, and the assorted wildflowers appeared to be very large and bursting from the fields towards me. The brilliance of everything in sight overwhelmed me.
As I turned into the mile-long driveway, which zigzagged uphill to our house, tears softly flowed from my eyes, and I felt as though I had come back to life. It was only then that I realized how everything had seemed gray and dead since my husband had died. There had even been times when I wanted only to die and be with the man I had loved so. I had sometimes thought I smelled his cigar smoke. I had thought I heard him laughing. Once I thought I saw him in a crowded store. But now, after the first year without him, it was I who was coming back to life. The moment is one I’ll never forget.
Almost 40 years later, I still recall this incident on the mountain pass as a wonderful gift from God, letting me know that it was time for life, not death. It was like waking from a very deep sleep. My heart was still heavy, and the pain still sharp, but I was alive. God had helped me and would continue helping me. I had survived, and I would go on.
God had not left us alone.
Frank John Montesano Sr. 1974