On March 18 2009 I lay in my bed, my beautiful Doberman Zoey laying beside me, I had cried so much I was afraid I may even become dehydrated…The bottle of pills open and in my right hand.. the bottle of Vodka in my left hand – no glass, not shot glass.. just the bottle. I began taking the pills one by one… 7 of them were already gone.
The truest love I had ever known until that point in my life had just walked out the door and into the arms of his old High School Love – She had found him again after all these years thanks to “Myspace” and while I was in the hospital she and he met up again and decided their love was far truer than mine and his… so there I sat in the great big house all alone, with no reason to live.. sad does not seem to cover the grief I was in…I just wanted to die.. I kept thinking, will these pills hurry up and kick in.
I was just surfing the net, when his email came in….
To be honest, I don’t even remember which cheesy dating site it was that Tom found me on… I just know that he messaged me and told me I was beautiful. I put down the pill bottle and started emailing back and forth with him… I needed this so bad. I needed someone to love me with wild abandon… I just needed to believe someone thought I was special.. and he was a colorful wordsmith.. he spun all the right words in all the right ways in just the perfect timing.. as if he had been waiting his whole life to tell them to me.
He told me he was a Psychologist specializing in Grief and Bereavement. We talked for hours about how the pain of a breakup was far greater than that of a death… He told me how to get over it, how to feel better and he just seemed like he knew exactly what I was feeling and what to say to make it better.
He was magical. He told me how he had been a marine in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, how he had been to Iraq for (2) 16 month assignments. How one of his partners had been shot and killed there and he carried his body away from the scene under fire, how he worked in a Hospice with patients teaching them how to cope with death….What an amazing man… so full of adventure and excitement. How could he be so in to me?
We spoke over the phone and thru text for weeks, he was going to be giving a Seminar in Raleigh on April 26, 2009 and wanted to know if I wanted to come meet him afterwards for dinner. I agreed.
He insisted that he get me a room of my own and we could spend all day Sunday together. When he drove up I had been there for a while. Nervous? Are you kidding I was shaking like a leaf on a windy evening…But when he drove up next to me.. his blue eyes were like a calming ocean.. his smile was electrifying and he jumped out of the car so excited to see me and wrapped those huge arms around me.. he held me for so long. We pulled away and I was enamored to say the least.
We stayed up all night, in the lobby mostly, just talking. He took me to the Melting Pot for an amazing meal.. he always talked about “expanding my pallet”. He bought Chianti… I was growing more and more fond of him with every second we knew each other. Wait.. what? I was just in such a deep depression weeks earlier.. I was about to kill myself.. how could I possibly be feeling such strong feelings so soon after.. this was all so weird, I felt in my spirit that things were just not quite right.. but how could I deny his charms.. how could I deny myself the right to feel so good?
Weeks past and he came back to Raleigh again, and then once more… this time he was a bit off.
He kept running into things, stumbling and complaining of a headache.
By now were were not in separate rooms. We would spend hours just talking he was amazing. Everything I had ever wanted in someone. He took me to the mall. There was a booth in the middle that had Sterling Silver Rings with Fake Diamonds. I have never been a fan of diamonds (I think the moving Blood Diamonds ruined them for me) I just don’t like to think my beautiful ring may have cost someone their life. I prefer Zirconia or colored stones.. so when he offered to buy this beautiful zirconia set in sterling silver for me I let him!
How could I have been in love before this day, nothing felt more right than him and I... we went back to the room, I didn’t want to leave him.. but I had to go home. My Zoey needed me to take care of her and I had to work.
He called me that night and was crying… his head was hurting so bad. He could hardly breathe he was in such horrible pain. He said he would have his best friend Dr. Patel to run a cat scan tomorrow and see if he could figure out what was going on with him.. I worried all night what could it be.
He called me three days later.. (we talked between then) He said, “Julia, I need you to sit down… we need to talk… the test results are in and they are not good..” I remember exactly where I was.. I remember what I was wearing.. I remember what the weather was like, what time it was…. “It’s Glioblastoma”, I said ok…. What is that… “it’s a brain tumor Honey”, he said. Ok fine, what do we do about it I said…. Oh Honey, there is nothing that can be done.. I have 10-15 mths to live… I have to get my life in order.. I have to start saying goodbye to my friends and family…
WHAT??? Are you kidding me.. what kind of cruel joke was God pulling on me.. He let my first love walk out on me, leaving me for his ex… and now he sends me Mr. PERFECT and now.. he’s going to die.. are you F’n kidding me…I was so mad at God.. I was mad at the world, I was just mad.. How could this be…
He called me a few days later and said he wanted to ask me for a huge favor but he promised it would have a grand payoff…. I listened…He asked me if I would move there to be with him. To share his last few months of life with him.. to go shopping, to go to fine places to eat, to drive the country side with him and to just share the last few mths doing all the things he never got to do.
When he passed on he would make sure I was well taken care of there were several insurance policies in place, there was the benefits of being a Marine’s wife.. Especially one of his incredible background. …. WAIT A MINUTE.. Did he just say “marine’s wife?”… Yes Honey I am asking you to marry me, to spend my last few mths as my wife.. Letting me love you with everything I have.
Wow, wow… I mean really.. Wow, how do you answer that? I needed time.. But “Honey, I don’t have much time”…. May 2009, everything I owned was in my car and I met him in “OUR” hotel in Raleigh.. at first we talked about staying there, he would work at the Hospital or the Hospice (can’t remember) and that way I would be close to my mom and daughter…(funny he didn’t want to move to Charlotte where I lived.. I now know why, I would have been close to my friends and family – they would see thru his life immediately and they could get to me a lot easier if we lived close to them) but then he thought about his Dad and Sister.
He was dying. He couldn’t die in Raleigh, he had to be near them.. Two weeks later, we were in Somerset NJ, where we lived for the next 9 mths…. In an Extended Stay hotel….and that’s how it all started..
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