.........I remember waking up and looking over at the empty side of the bed and turning to look at the alarm clock to see what time it was. It was 4:30am, and he was not snoring next to me where he was supposed to be. I remember sitting in my bed two hours later searching the internet for a news story that I prayed I wouldn't find, and in the midst of my search, the doorbell rang. Before it finished ringing, my whole body was shaking. I knew. I had exactly 5 seconds (the amount of time it would take me to walk from my bedroom to my front door) to pray it was Corey and his hands were too full to unlock the door, but somehow, I just knew. My hands were shaking and I just knew as I opened the door and saw the uniforms that my simple life would never ever be the same.
That day plays over and over in my head. Actually, not even the whole day. Just the part before I opened the door and right before they spoke the words "Mrs.Little, I regret to inform you that your husband was involved in a helicopter crash and has passed away." Then, it's like a switch goes off. Everything before that was a different life. When I think about the walk from my bedroom to the front door, even now, I get that shaky feeling and my heart starts racing. It is just like in the movies, which made it even more unbelievable. I waited a good six months before I decided that this was reality and stopped praying before I went to bed every night that tomorrow would be the morning that I woke up from the nightmare and whatever lesson there was that had to be learned, I learned it. I learned what was important. I learned how important seeing his smile every morning as he was kissing me bye was. I learned to truly appreciate everything he did for me, but it was too late for me to tell him thank you like I should have every single day. I know he knew it, but it's still nice to hear it.
A lot has changed these past 18 months. I am a Mom to a wonderful little girl who looks more and more like her Daddy every single day, I have a nice house, I have family near by, I am closer to my in-laws than I ever have been, and one change that is not as good as the others, I view the world differently. I usually am against putting my business all out there, especially about personal things but, it is my hope that this will help others in my situation. I went about a year and two months without actually talking to someone. I was in the car on the way to Atlanta in April and I knew that when I got there I was going to tell them that I had just started dating someone. I did not want to hide that from them because it would hurt even more if they found out from someone else. I made it just into Mississippi before all of a sudden I was short of breath, I was having chest pain, my entire left arm started hurting, and I thought, Oh my gosh, I am having a heart attack. I called my stepmother who was closest to where I was at the time and she met me at the nearest emergency room. They took my blood pressure, it was extremely high. Usually it is very low. They did chest x-rays, an EKG, a CAT scan, and lab work. They could not find anything. I automatically thought, no, they are missing something because I feel like I am about to die. The doctor suggested one more test just to be sure, so I got an Echocardiogram to be 100% sure that it had nothing to do with my heart. It came back perfect. So, they told me that I had anxiety. I laughed at first. I never actually viewed it as something "real". I thought people made that stuff up for attention or something and I sure as heck did not think it could cause insane physical symptoms like that. I continued on my search for months, thinking there had to be another explanation. Once I had that first attack, they kept coming for a while. I thought I had low iron so I took iron supplements, I thought I had a B-12 deficiency and took those vitamins, I had my thyroid and cholesterol levels checked. Everything came back fine. Finally I went to to the right kind of doctor, a counselor. I guess when you are 25 you never think about death or rare things happening and when death is just thrown in your face, it makes you look at your own mortality. He was here one day and gone the next, so now I know that things can happen. I guess it terrified me. I am still working on that. Still working on calming myself down. I need to ban myself from WebMD. I miss my care free self. I miss feeling healthy. I am getting a lot better as time goes on but, I am still on edge a lot. So, that being said, I need to keep things as stress free as possible. I am going to start doing things for me and my baby and if it makes me happy, I'm going to do it. No one else has to walk in my shoes so it really should not matter if they approve or not. If I do not start thinking that way, I will never be happy. I am trying my best to make the best of a horrible situation. Just because that happened should not mean that all the dreams I had for my life are impossible. No, they cannot include Corey, which is so heartbreaking for me, but I know in my heart of hearts he would be so happy for me, and so proud of me for how I am handling the situation. I have come to the conclusion that as long as I know he is proud of me and that he would approve, that is all that matters. He knew me best. Gosh do I miss him. I still talk to him, and I hope he listens. He has a lot of talking to do when I get there, because I have had a lot of one sided conversations this past year and a half but I know that he will be there with a smile on his face in many many years down the road when I see him again, and he will tell me everything that I have been wanting to hear. If you are a new widow, which I am friends with quite a few and it's so sad how many there are, the best advice I have for you is, stop thinking that you need to answer to everyone. You need to make yourself happy. You need only answer to your husband and you know what he would want for you. Everyone else gets to keep on living semi normal lives but you need to do what makes you happy because you know, like me, how very precious every single day of this life is. Make it count.
I love you Corey, forever and always. NOTHING will ever change that.
