Widow's Voice

The Final Passing

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This week has been full of up and down moments. Life always throws change at you but fast change from a high moment to a low moment and back really takes a toll on you. I certainly need to rest the next couple of days. Not just sleep but rest so I can think, feel and process what this week brought me in blessings and bereavement.You never really know all the things going on in someone’s life unless they share with you and not many people share as outwardly as I do. I share so it serves as a reminder to be kind to others who are secretly struggling.

This week brought heavy news that a longtime friend was very troubled and sought some serious help. This week brought a huge jump in the business I own and built since Clayton passed away. This week I was surrounded and lifted up by hundreds of friends and supporters. This week brought fun phone calls and connections. This week time stopped while I fed a baby penguin. This week a dance video I posted online was used in an ABC – 20/20 special. This week has flown by but there is still one more major situation I’ve known was coming. I need it to happen but it’s also bittersweet. Tomorrow I have to give Clayton’s ashes away.

His family is here to start sorting and selling his mother’s home. That’s where he picked up the fungal infection in the backyard that got in his bloodstream leading to medication, the medication lead to terminal liver failure, which returned him to his mother’s house for hospice care. His final view through a window was the scene where his passing all started. I never liked that house from the first day I saw it. Call it just a feeling but I was uneasy from the start and tomorrow I will be going back to help his family sort a life that fell apart.

When his mother was hospitalized after Tin passed, I went over to get his ashes because I wanted him out of that house. Ironically, tomorrow I’ll have to bring him back there to hand his urn over to his uncle for the drive up to Illinois so Clayton can be given a service and a final resting place. It’s needed closure for all of us but there is still a new finality for me. It’s been almost 5 years and now I have to bring him back to the place that took him from me. I have to bring Clayton back to where he died in order to send him off. For me, placing his urn in his uncle’s hands will truly be the final passing…

About Bryan Martin

In 2016 my life all started to fall into place. A new job as a Supervisor for animals at a small aquarium along the beautiful Florida gulf coast. It was a dream for Clayton and I to move to the beach, get settled and get married. In June of 2017 my father passed away after a long battle with opiods and alcohol. Four months later, Clayton was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with acute liver failure. Not having been able to truly mourn my father, I was faced with knowing that Clayton (Tin as my family calls him) would also be leaving me. I had dreams of marriage, vacations and a long life together. I watched all of those dreams fade away more and more each day as I cared for him until his final days. He passed away April 16, 2018 the day after my sister’s birthday.

Now I am through the fog of the first year and reality is setting in this second time around the sun. I’m very much alone in this sleepy beach town. I’m trying to just maintain balance with my new normal. I get depressed, angry, sad, jealous, confused and disoriented. Some days are better than others and I remind myself that it is normal. So many people think my life is back to normal and fulfilling because I work with dolphins and penguins but the magic left everything when Tin passed away. I have trouble feeling passion about most things that used to light my fire. I have feelings that oppose one another and it is exhausting. I want to feel happy for others but want to know why I can’t have what they have.

Along my journey, I have had tough days and some wonderful days but at the end of each day I still don't have the answer to my one question....Why?

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