3:58 pm

On February 27th I turned a corner in my basement and in an instant my life changed. There, sitting 20’ across from me in the dimly lit hollows of our basement, was my husband, John. Seemingly, as though he had leaned back in a chair and fallen asleep, I realized, in fact, that he was dead. It was apparent that he had taken his own life.

Looking back, it is still impossible to make any sense of what happened. Life wasn’t postcard perfect the way we all portray it on Facebook and Instagram, but whose is? We seemed like any other middle-aged couple I know. We went through the “sappy, love sick 20’s”, “family building 30s”, “hyper focused on kids 40s” and “we’re getting to know each other again and start our empty nester years 50s”. Just the week before, we had had one of our best conversations in months. I called him to announce that I thought I was getting a great new job at work and he told me what an amazing week he had had in his new work role with a new hire in Boston. And we spoke about how great it would be that both of our jobs would take us to Beantown more often and that we would get to spend more time with our son, Brendan.

But there he was... on a chair in my basement. And I was on the phone with a 911 operator frantically telling her I needed help. “My husband is dead…I think my husband is dead…I think he killed himself!” It was surreal. The whole day was, really. I had had meetings every hour on the hour but needed to leave to grab a house key for a rental client. And for some reason, some unexplainable reason, I felt the need to stop at home and check on things before getting the key. Maybe it was that he didn’t answer my text that morning, or that he didn’t pick up his phone when I called. Perhaps it was that he was spending too much time on the sofa like he did the year before when he was a little down about his job. Or maybe the weird way he was snoring the night before, but in any case, I went home to check in.

In a matter of moments my life went from normal to a crazy swirling hell. I hung up with 911 only to realize that my car was still running. Of course it was, I was just stopping in to say hi and then was heading back to work. But the sound of sirens, and the police cars, ambulance and a coroner’s car that pulled into my driveway were swift reminders that work would have to wait. My husband was dead from a self-inflicted wound. Not a heart attack, which would have made sense…suicide. How was this my life?

And then the unimaginable came top of mind. My children’s life-long friend and neighbor stopped on his way into the neighborhood because of the police activity. The look of horror on his face and his reaction at the news reminded me that I not only had I just lost a husband, but my children lost their father, and someone had to tell them.

I turned the corner in my basement at 3:58 pm on February 27, 2019, and my life was forever changed.