Surviving Suicide

This is a very raw, deep and completely honest account of my progress from the time I received the call that James (my boyfriend of almost one year) killed himself. I will post two or three days at a time until I get to the present.

September 21, 2016

I went back to work today… it was… hard, very hard. I’m not hiding what James decided to do.

I know it seems like work would be a good thing, if I worked in a job where my boyfriend didn’t have access to me while at work, it would be the best thing in the world. But, you see, I work at Target and he would come pick me up after my shift. He would walk around the store or come and talk with me while I was finishing up. I have so many good memories from those days.

So going to work today, was bittersweet, my co-workers that I work with the most were so supportive. We may not talk to each other after work, or hang around together, but we are a family.

September 22, 2016

So I went to bed around 8, totally exhausted last night.

When Precious woke me up around 5:30, I felt that maybe I could get through today without a break down... When I got out of bed about 30 minutes later, I wasn’t so sure. So many things remind me of James.

I’ve had a few moments of breaking down already this morning and it is only 9:30. I’m so tired of trying to be normal, when all I want to do is fall into a hole and it all goes back to the way it was before, but before what? Before Sunday, before James’ money issues, even if I could go back…would it change anything?

I’m not having a good day, so many thoughts, feelings and longings. I want to hear his voice, feel his touch, one of his bear hugs, his kisses, seeing him play with Dre or love on Precious or telling Amber she just went out, but let her out anyway.

I know in my heart, that he never meant to hurt any of us. I feel so lost; it always made me so happy when I received a text from him. I always looked forward to his text at certain times of the day.

I know this may sound harsh, but I wish Saturday was here and over and done with. Other than Sunday, this is going to be one of the hardest days of my life. The closer it gets more anxious I’m getting. I was only with him a year, these people are his family, and people he has known since 1994, I can’t say friends because like me he didn’t have a lot of friends, co-workers yes, church “friends” that pushed him out when they felt he wasn’t devoted enough, when they should have been raising him up.

As you can see from my post, today has not been a good day. James Richard Garrett I MISS YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

Dre

Precious

September 23, 2016

So far today have been a lot better, but every time I think about tomorrow, I get a sinking feeling.

I’m so scared, dreading, feel like such an outsider, even though we were together a year. James was such a big part of my life and the people around me. I wasn’t around his family much, but that is because they don’t get together a lot. And on the flip side of that, I will be glad when tomorrow is over. I want to move on, get my life back on track. There is such an empty hole, I honestly didn’t realize how much of my day revolved around him, but not in a bad way.

I feel they are going to feel that I should have seen this coming. The thing about it is, maybe deep down I did know and it was the test to see if he could prove to me that he could go through the bad with me, and not kill himself when the chips were down. We talked about this in the beginning, and I asked him not to try again because I didn’t want to open my heart if he couldn’t go through the good and the bad, together. He couldn’t promise me that. But I fell in love with him anyway, knowing in the back of my mind that one day I would be living in this kind of hell.

I feel so bad for Lyndsay, losing her father in bad enough but losing him this way. Because there is so much to do, she really hasn’t had a moment to really process any of this. It will next week or the week after, a lot of it will be depending on what all she has to do to help Chip. Now speaking about Chip, don’t know her very well, only been around her twice. The first time was in June at her granddaughters’ birthday party. She seemed nice and you could tell that she and James are close, like the brother/sister way that most people wish they had with their brother/ sisters. The other time was in July at Ellie’s birthday party. She was really nice, but you could tell they have had a few discussions on the state of James’ housing, money issues, and his health. I honestly don’t think she knew everything, most of it, but not all. After she gets everything in order and doesn’t have to think about all that, it is all going to hit and I honestly hope she is able to come out the other side okay. I’m not sure what James was thinking when he texted both of them and said I love you and I’m or I am sorry. He didn’t send me one, but he knew that I would know what it meant, and I would do everything in my power to stop it. Strange as it may sound but, I honestly feel he loved me and he knew that if not today, it would be another, and he couldn’t bring himself to do that to me. He kept putting it off, I kept telling him he could move in and it didn’t have to be permanent unless he wanted it that way. We could have put most of his stuff in storage and in the extra bedrooms here. It would have cost more in gas, but he would have been saving more, even when my rent would have gone up. He was getting sicker and he wouldn’t tell me and because he wouldn’t tell me, he was getting sicker, by stressing himself over a place to live, getting insurance and tags back on the truck and then getting it fixed. The bike had to have two new tires, and with that, this was the 2nd time the bike needed tires because it was wearing them in the same place, which means that there was something wrong with it and who knows how much that was going to cost. With all of this, you throw in being behind on the truck and most likely the bike, he thought he was losing everything….He was only losing the material things but he was never losing me, he just never seen that.

There are so many thoughts running through my head, it keeps bouncing from the last week to the beginning and everything in between. For me to be able to work through this I’m writing all of my thoughts and in the order they hit me.

Texting with Lyndsay and she brought up a good point….she is wondering if something more was going on medically. And that brings us to the thyroid doctor and maybe it was worse than he said because things started changing with him, but we didn’t see it because we thought it was due to the money and house issues.

September 24, 2016

I slept sound last night... woke up, for the lack of a better word, calm.

The puppies and I walked down to the entrance of the cave, I haven’t been down there since James and I walked all three puppies, on one of the last times he spent the weekend. That seems such a lifetime ago. While I was walking around there today, my mind started reflecting on the things we wanted to do. Just us and the puppies, I wanted to show him how to slow down and truly enjoy every, small detail. He wanted to show me how to enjoy being the “Queen”, and not in a bad way. This is the hardest thing to put into words. We were yen and yang, we balanced each other, and this still doesn’t describe how it was. He would say “surprise”, for a lot of different reasons and it would annoy me, but as Kitty Foreman told Jackie and Donna, “pick your battles” which means think before you speak because there are things that are not worth fighting over. I would give anything to hear “surprise” again.

I’m getting anxious, sad, lonely, and a pit in my stomach. Time seems to be going so slow, but also so quick.

One of the many reasons I fell in love with him, starts back at the beginning... I started talking to James on Sept 10, 2015, just two days before my birthday and four days before my hysterectomy. So we had eight weeks of talking, dating, learning about each other, and so many more things. We both wanted sex, but I wasn’t allowed. I knew that it was more about finding the love of my life, than just sex or just having fun. The thing is; if we had been able to have sex, we still would have fallen in love. This man, who I only had been talking to for two days, called me on my birthday and sang Happy Birthday to me. No guy who I have seen including my estranged husband (we were together for 21 years) ever did this. There was one person about four years ago, that was a friend about 30 years ago, we ran into each other at his ex-wives (which was my niece) funeral, and he stopped on his way to a fishing tournament to fix me a birthday breakfast. James showed me what true love was, and I wished he would have let me shown him how good our lives could have been. With all that being said, I know he never meant for any of us to hurt and feel this hole in our lives. I also know no matter how many times all of us go over the last few months or year/s, there will never be enough answers.

I’ll have to start getting ready shortly, that pit in my stomach is getting worse.

After the service, I will be getting Amber and bringing her home. Poor girl knows something is not right; she is missing her “daddy." I’ll know more once I get her home.

I know it sounds bad, but I will be glad when this is all over. For me personally, it will make the healing process easier, because I’m not left with handling his affairs.

There was a motorcycle that came down the park road and the puppies and I got our hopes up. Even though I know he’s not going to ride up and say it was all a bad dream or mistaken identity.