The Phone Call

Unless a loved one is expecting a baby, the phone call you get at 6:45 a.m. is never a good one. 

Last year, around this time, beginning my winter vacation, I got the call that I was losing my bio brother whom I had only recently met. The loss came as a shock. After the funeral I met my bio nieces for the first time ever. They read my book about searching for my birth family. One asked me about my ex husband. The one who was so very troubled with an addiction that made life unbearable for both of us. Is he still alive?, she asked. Yes, I answered. The question surprised me. So did my answer. How had he survived this long?

This year, same vacation. Same place. Different phone call. My daughter, at 6:45 a.m. tells me her dad passed. He is in a better place, she said. I just happened to be visiting my son at the time. I was the one to tell him his dad passed away. 

While married to this man I was constantly planning a funeral. Every time he didn’t come home I pictured him dead in a car accident. I wondered who I should call. What I would do. But he kept going. I’d lose sleep while he was passed out. But he survived.  

Even after the divorce I still worried. Even though it’s not my job to worry. I do. I worry for my kids. But I have to also realize that he is in a better place. To be an addict is to live a life of pain. I always wished I could fix it for him. I can’t. 

People ask if I would have changed anything in my life. Yes.  Many things. But at this time I must stop to appreciate that he was the reason I have my beautiful children. 

Rest In Peace, T.J.