Author’s Note: Thank you Emma, for the introduction and warm sentiments. I will continue to carry on the Girl Tuesday role for those that are walking this similar path. I look forward to keeping up with your journey and following you at http://www.widowingemptynests.com. Thank you for sharing your story and love with us, you will be greatly missed.
Content warning: There will be talk about suicide in this post.
My name is Diana Mosson and my husband, Erik died on March 17, 2022. Yes, you read that right, it was St. Patrick’s Day. I was 29 at this point in my life. Let that sink in.
In those very early hours of that morning the clocks stopped for the life that I knew. This became the time stamp of when, not only my life, but our children’s lives changed forever.
I am currently one year and four months out from when I lost Erik and I still replay that day every. single. day. since.
It all started with a cry.
I proceeded to the twins’ nursery to comfort Wyatt who was stirring and crying. Not wanting him to wake up Charlotte, I picked him up out of his crib and laid down on the air mattress we had set up in the twins’ room just for moments like this. I lay there half asleep hoping he would just doze off again. SLAM. At that startled moment I had thought I heard you slamming a door, thinking in my head you probably went to the bathroom, but why would you slam the door at 2 am-ish and knowing the twins were sleeping? With the thought that you were already awake, I decided to carry Wyatt into our bed. As I walked into the hallway to our room I call out, “Erik?”…trying to see where you were in the darkness. I opened our bedroom door and everything was still dark. I look in the direction of our bathroom, darkness. “Erik? Babe?” I called again. Nothing.
And it hit. In that one second, that one moment, the smell of smoke slammed against my nose. I turned the light on and anxious for some reason at this point I scan the room for you. Nowhere to be found. I scan again. And there you were. All I could see were your feet and ankles on the ground. I frantically walk-run around the bed to find what I never thought I would have found. This image of you that is now forever ingrained in my mind.
Wyatt crying in my arms as I turn his face into my body, I scream. But I scream that scream where your voice doesn’t even make it out of your mouth. That scream where you are screaming and screaming yet no one hears. I still saw your chest moving. And in the blur of what had just happened, I made that call to 911. I put Wyatt back in his crib crying and fighting to hold on to me and I rushed back to your side. The moment I remembered my training kicked in. Yet the moment I look back on still astonished I was doing that for my husband. I got over your body and performed CPR. One to thirty. Stop. Removed the blood from your mouth. Again one to thirty. Over and over for 10 minutes while I waited for the paramedics to arrive. I remember thinking you will make it through this. We will make it through this. We always made it through anything that was thrown at us. Don’t you leave me. Don’t you leave those one-and-a-half-year-old twins that need their father. Don’t you dare. That’s what my heart was telling me. But in my head, I knew the chances. Behind me, I felt a tap on my shoulder to stop. I didn’t want to. I wanted to save you. I wanted that moment where you woke up. Where I saw those blue eyes looking at me again. But all that happened was the firefighter removing me from over your body and carrying me to the side. I dropped. I was so focused on saving you that nothing had hit me yet. But in that one second that my body hit that hardwood floor my stomach clenched, the tears poured like never before, and the scream that was so silent before came whaling out.
That morning changed my life forever. The morning that I lost you. The morning that you took your life. The morning I became a widow.
One year and four months later I still don’t know what the next chapters hold, but I do know that my story has changed forever.
