August 26, 2005

It’s been three and a half years, and I still cry. Not all the time, not as often, not always when expected or for the same triggers as the last time, but I do. I cry. I hate to cry – yet still… sometimes, you just can’t do anything about it.

Kevin worked on “The Slope” as we call it, for one of the oil companies drilling along the northern edge of Alaska. It was a dream job – everyone wants to get on, and you have to know someone who knows someone who’s sleeping with their wife’s cousins’ dog groomer in order to get on. Kevin worked his way up there, and was the Breakfast cook, working the graveyard shift and feeding the hungry workers through the night, for three weeks at a time. He’d then be home for 2 weeks, before returning for another shift.

Some folks aren’t made to be Slope Wives – I am. I loved having him home and concentrating on the kids, and also loved him being at work where I had the run of the household. We made enough money to get by, though it was never an extreme excess, despite it being a well paying job. We got by – we had enough.

Kevin had a sever wrist injury some 10 years before, and after 5 surgeries, he was still in an incredible amount of pain. He wasn’t want to just not work, despite the fact several doctors told him to do quit and get disability. Instead, he saw several doctors and was on a pain management drug program that kept him working, and happy, if still in pain and/or drugged.

We’d been through dozens of drugs, dozens of combinations over the ten years he fought with his injury. Kevin, you see, had a large tolerance for pain, as well as an allergy to all Opiates, which naturally took away a lot of the pain relievers many turn to, and those he took eventually stopped working. He was deathly allergic to morphine, would break out in hives after 24 hours of Demerol, and all other Opiates would cause a reaction to some degree. He self medicated with whiskey and beer during his off weeks, then powered through the on weeks with a determination that would make anyone proud.

I hated that he hurt so much. It was something I couldn’t fix, and I found that to be grossly unfair. Nine days before he died, we had a doctor’s appointment to adjust his medication. He added a new medication, and when I questioned if it would mess with his allergies, I was assured by Dr. Carlson that it would not. He had pills to help him sleep, pills to help him stay awake and manage his pain. Three days later, He went back to work, pills in hand, to power through another three weeks of work.

Six days after that, he was dead.

At about 10pm that Friday night, a co-worker of Kevin’s showed up at my parents house (two doors down from ours) because she couldn’t read the numbers very well. When she told my folks why she was there, they came down to my house with her as she knocked on the door and they asked me to step outside. I knew right then something was wrong. Really wrong. This co-worker (and I can’t remember her name, her face, any detail…) told me that they had thought Kevin had overslept when he was late for his shift earlier that night. When they got to his room, they found him dead.

I thought I would join him – I’d never felt such pain like that before. It felt as if my chest had caved in, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t make sense of what she was saying – so I stared. She gave her condolences, as my parents stood near by, and that’s when I collapsed. I have never sobbed so hard in my life as I did then, unable to breathe, unable to pull it back, to control it as I always have been able to do. There was no controlling this. My world had spiraled out of my control completely – and I was lost in the storm.

Going inside and telling my children killed another part of me. We had to call The Girl back from her friends house, and the four of us huddled together on the couch and cried, slept, stared, cried. My family gathered around, supporting us as the calls were made, the wheels set in motion, everything that has to be done that night was done. Mom cleaned, Jen baked, I sat and stared at nothing, with my arms and my heart holding my children close.

It was all I could do, all I could manage. We had fought on the phone before he went to sleep. I couldn’t remember if I’d said I loved him, or if we’d ended with a hangup and promise to talk later. I couldn’t get my mind around the fact that he wasn’t going to call, that he wasn’t going to walk in the door again.

Some days, even now, three years later, I still look up as the door opens, expecting to see him there. Some days, I pick up the phone and expect to hear his voice. Some days, I miss him so much I think I might give up and die.

Everyday, I look at my kids, and I force my head to stay above the water.
Just… some days are easier then others.