Widow's Voice

Widowed Whiplash

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I haven’t had much downtime lately. Life is just moving at a very rapid pace and yesterday my body decided we were in desperate need of a red light and slammed on the brakes.

I was at work feeling sluggish after a night of thunderstorms and random coughing keeping me up. Not unmanageable, but on the commute in I noticed my coughing getting deeper and more regular. At work I started to feel winded and a bit confused. The coughing intensified so I put my emergency inhaler in my pocket and kept going. I noticed a tarp that had broken and needed fixing. As my coworker and I adjusted the tarp I started coughing and walked a few feet away. The coughing intensified, I couldn’t catch my breath, the dizzy set in and I started to panic – asthma attack.

I slid down a pole to ground and slapped my hand on the floor to get my coworker’s attention because I had very little air to cry for help. Energy fading, I got out my inhaler and took as much medicine in as I could. I held it in and kept telling myself to hang in there. Everything around got fogy, my lips started to tingle and I felt the energy leaving my arms. I was going unconscious.

“Stay Awake Bryan. Don’t die young like Clayton.”

Moments later my lungs released like a locked-up seatbelt and I gasped. Air reentered and my whole body relaxed. On the second breath I started to cry scared from the fear that I could have just had my last morning.

My coworkers brought me inside and I sat trying to recover with my thoughts still deep in fight or flight. All the things I wanted to do. All the people I wanted to hug. All the people and animals I still wanted to help. I thought of what it would be like if I hadn’t made it. I thought of how hard it would be on my loved ones. I thought of how hard it was when Clayton died and the panic set in again. The rush of all the emotions, all the grief, all the worry and all the exhaustion hit me like a truck. I got home and I did exactly what my body has been demanding. I stopped doing all the everything and I allowed myself to just rest.

Today I feel a bit battered and bruised, my muscles are tight and my eyes are sore. Overall I guess I’m just suffering from widowed whiplash…

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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