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Langdon Street Press

212 3rd Avenue North, Suite 290

Minneapolis, MN 55401

612.455.2293

www.langdonstreetpress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

ISBN-13: 978-1-936183-67-8

Distributed by Itasca Books

Interior Design by Colleen Gray

Editing by Doreen Marchionni

Cover design by Tracey Reim Luckner (TraceyLuckner.com)

Author photograph by Joseph Boyle

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

My Story: A Sudden Ending

The Ten Survival Steps: Step One: Let Life Carry You

Step Two: Say Goodbye

Step Three: Choose to Live

Step Four: Let Love In

Step Five: Learn to Answer the Question, “How Are You?”

Step Six: Accept the Truth

Step Seven: Want More!

Step Eight: Let Yourself Laugh

Step Nine: Face Forward and Take Back Your Power

Step Ten: Move Ahead With an Open Heart

A New Beginning

From Surviving to Thriving: A Postscript

Acknowledgments and Thanks

About the Author

Dedicated with love to Terry,

who always was

“one step ahead”

Introduction

For more than twenty-five years, I have counseled and coached hundreds of clients as they faced some of life’s biggest challenges. I’ve admired their individual and collective strengths. Their resiliency, courage, and willingness to keep on keeping on have inspired me. Little did I know how much their examples of courage would sustain me as I faced my own biggest challenge.

When my husband of nearly forty years suddenly died from a fall at our home, I was catapulted into an aching transformation. Terry had always been bigger than life, and we had planned on living to 105. He was sixty-one, and we both thought he still had a lot of life in him. Besides, because I had married him so young, I didn’t have a clue who I was without him. We were a team, and without him I suddenly found myself on the same challenging path that many of my clients had traveled. In the dark hours of the night and through the short, lonely days of my first winter alone, I recorded the story that you are about to read. It is a very personal journey meant as a gift to you.

But first, a bit about Terry. He was born in the heartland, where ripe, golden wheat waved in the wind, eight-man football brought out the whole town to cheer, and life was about the earth, the church, and hard work. But his roots in the tiny community of Marshall, Oklahoma, couldn’t hold him. He wanted more, even after a college stint in Chicago. So he bought a red ’57 Chevy convertible and drove west to the Pacific. He used to say that he came west to find his fortune and, in a way, he did. He found me, a redhead from California.

His love letters captured my heart—what a writer he was. (It’s ironic that I’m the writer now, yet I know he would be proud.) The army soon found him and brought us to the Pacific Northwest, where he ultimately built one-of-a-kind houses and we built a family. The kid from Oklahoma loved boating in the salty waters of the Puget Sound, loved his family, and loved University Place, a wooded suburb near Tacoma, Washington, with sweeping, waterfront vistas. He picked this place to put down roots, dreamed the biggest dreams he could, and made them come true.

My story about losing him can’t prescribe how you will go about the arduous task of putting your own life together after your sudden loss. Such a loss is huge because you have had no time to prepare. Mine is one person’s experience. The rules for my life were suddenly new and the playing field different, but I found that many of the discoveries were parts of me I already knew. They were just waiting to be rediscovered. If my story restores your hope even a little, comforts you while you cry, makes you laugh, or gives you a new idea or two, I will feel that I have done my job. In my work I have always felt that the right people somehow find me, so if you have found me, I’m grateful to share this journey with you. I can tell you from my heart that even in the most difficult parts of this time, winter doesn’t last forever, spring and even summer will come again, and your life will find its new beginning, too.

My Story: A Sudden Ending

In the Northwest, days of bright sunshine and clear skies are rare, and April 15, 2003, was one of the most beautiful of rare days. We woke early with the sun already shining, ready to walk. Our hiking boots tugged on, we climbed into Terry’s car to drive to the top of the hill where we would take off on our two-mile trek. We teased each other that driving up the hill to walk was like eating low-fat frozen yogurt covered in chocolate, but the trip starts straight up, so we drove there. As we walked, we talked about a dream Terry had that morning that I’m still trying to understand. In it he was in Oklahoma on the farm where he grew up. A beautiful, sleek silver airplane landed on the dirt road on the east side of the farm. He ran for the plane, believing he was supposed to get aboard, and I thought he was going to tell me what happened when he climbed inside. Instead, he said that just as he reached the plane, it took off without him. Then he woke up.

Later, after our walk, I remember kissing him goodbye. We went on a romantic getaway over Valentine’s Day and came home deciding to “put the bedroom through college” now that our children, Tracey and Brandon, were both grown and graduated. So on this day in April, our bedroom was a mess of construction, with no furniture or carpet, a new door, a new outside wall, and a soon-to-be new fireplace. We were sleeping in Tracey’s room with Bogey and Katey, our two Norwegian forest cats, corralled to keep them from escaping through open construction doors. Terry slid Tracey’s door open a crack and said, “I’m leaving. I’ll see you tonight.” He gave me a smack on the lips, I said “OK,” and he was gone.

At about 1:30 that afternoon I had a few minutes before my next client. It seemed like the perfect time to slip out to the post office. In the parking lot sat Brandon’s Honda Insight, which Terry had just driven back from Los Angeles for me to try out. I folded myself into its tiny front seat and eased out onto the street. All the new dials and instruments had my attention until I caught sight of a truck behind me with its lights flashing and the driver waving for me to pull over. It looked like Terry’s old farm truck, but I didn’t recognize the driver. “What in the world could this be about?” I wondered as I pulled into a drugstore parking lot. It turned out to be Terry’s new handyman, whom I didn’t know, rushing over out of breath and yelling, “Terry fell! Terry fell! Do you want me to take you to the hospital?” At this point I had no idea who this fellow was nor any real indication of how seriously Terry had been injured. Nor was I about to get into a car with someone I didn’t know. I’m independent, and I figured I could manage.

I drove back to the office, tried unsuccessfully to call my client, and then left him a note on the door. I climbed back into that little car and headed out. After three blocks, my accelerator foot lost its push. Again, I pulled into the drugstore parking lot. What in the world was happening? My body was beginning to tell me what my heart and spirit couldn’t understand.

What I did know was that I needed help. There was only one person to call, Terry’s best pal and soulmate, Dixie, who worked just up the street. As luck would have it, she had just walked in the door. I don’t remember what I said, but her answer was, “Don’t leave. I’m on my way.”

I climbed into her car and we saw an ambulance go by. We knew immediately Terry was in it, so Dixie pulled out of the parking lot like a shot. Though we were right behind the ambulance for half a mile, I couldn’t see what was happening inside. Mostly I was aware of the flashing red lights and the sound of the siren. At the first big intersection, the ambulance went through a red light, and we were tempted to do the same, but good sense prevailed. However, we lost sight of the ambulance. The handyman had told me where they were taking Terry, but I couldn’t remember. “Call the city offices,” Dixie said. She knew someone there could call the fire station and find out where the ambulance was going. I called the office, and I heard someone talking to the dispatcher at the fire station on another line. When it appeared they weren’t going to give us the location, Dixie yelled, “Dammit, my brother is a fireman, and I know they can contact that ambulance and find out where they’re going!” That got results. The ambulance was heading to a Tacoma trauma center, and finally, so were we.

We rushed into the emergency room just as they were wheeling Terry off for either a CAT scan or an MRI, and I yelled, “That’s my husband!” The trauma specialist introduced herself to me as they were moving Terry out of sight and said she’d be back as soon as possible to let us know what was going on. Someone in the ER gently took us to one side and introduced us to the on-call social worker, who led us to a small room off the larger waiting room. As we walked toward the smaller room, I looked back at the waiting room full of people. They didn’t seem to have a social worker leading them to a private room. We were getting special treatment. This was not good. Usually my feelings rise to the surface easily and guide me through tough situations. About now they went into hiding with my heart, and my rational brain took over.

The handyman found us, and he handed me Terry’s wallet and cell phone. As I stood clutching the wallet, I remembered it was April 15, tax day. We never got our taxes in early because money was always tight, and I guessed that maybe one reason Terry hadn’t been careful going down that ladder was because he was thinking about getting to the bank. He had a big check to write to the IRS, and it had to go out that day. I looked in his wallet. There was my business check for half of the taxes and there was a blank check from his business account. I’m an honest person, but I wrote a check on his business account that I was pretty sure would be hot until I could make it right with the bank. My only thought was to get those checks in the mail. I called our accountant’s office, and she sent a runner to the ER to pick up our checks to mail them out.

The doctor came in and the social worker stood near me as the doctor explained, “Terry had a very bad fall. It might not be survivable.” Then the doctor left, and I turned to the social worker, saying, “My life is never going to be the same, is it?” “No,” she said, “it’s not.” Then she said, “Call the kids. They have to come right away.”

So I started making phone calls to alert the world that Terry—husband, son, dad, grandpa, best friend, community leader, leader of us all—was in trouble. Things were starting to happen and we still hadn’t seen him. He was in the intensive-care unit in the last room, hooked up to all kinds of monitors and machines. Dixie and I had to walk the length of that unit to reach him, and my first thought when I saw him was, “He’s already gone.” Even though his hand was warm when I took it in mine and his chest was going up and down with breath, the essential “him” was just not there. I believe his spirit had left when he hit the ground at home and the rest of this was just to buy us a little time to get used to the shock. I leaned over to his right ear and whispered, “Honey, it’s OK if you need to go. I’ll be all right.” The words came out of my mouth, but I didn’t have a clue if they were true or what they were going to really mean. I just knew that if he needed to go, I needed to let him.

I remember Dixie and myself sitting, standing, sitting, standing, and asking the ICU nurses questions, all the time knowing in my heart that there was nothing for me to do in this room. What needed to be done was to go home and create a little order out of the chaos of the construction mess, because people would be coming. We needed beds with sheets and towels for bathing, and someone needed to vacuum up the cat hair. I wasn’t surprised to be thinking about getting organized. When stress overwhelms me, my hands get busy cleaning. Terry used to tease me that we had the cleanest countertops in the county.