What I Was Doing In 2000

I remember a lot of things in 2000, but the one that stands out most was the loss of my husband.  We were painting our trailer one hot August morning, the temperature over 90 degrees.  Dan decided we would paint the rest of it that evening, so while he was putting the stuff away, I went in to wash up.  When I came back out, he was sitting on the steps looking dejected.  He said Pam, the trailer court manager, had come around and complained that the color we were painting our trailer was inapropriate.  We didn't have any more money to paint the trailer another color, and she had told us in a letter we had to have it repainted by a certain date.  I told him not to worry about her, that there were trailers out there with the same color.  He said, "Go back in the trailer.  Everything will be all right."



I went inside, and started reading a tabloid.  After a while he came inside, went to the back of the trailer, then walked by me and went outside.  I thought he went for a walk to cool down from Pam's talk.  I called her up on the phone and asked what had she and my husband talked about.  She said our trailer was a "shocking blue", an "electric blue" and too dark for the trailer court.  After I hung up someone started pounding on the door.  This man I never saw before told me my husband had been shot, to call an ambulance.  He left before he told me anything else.  I dialed 911, told them what he had said, and rushed outside.  I had looked around the trailer earlier for Dan, but didn't find him.  I only went around three sides, but this time I looked all around and found him at the end.  He was slumped over, with a gun in his hand.  It took me a long while to digest the fact he was gone, that he had committed suicide.  I looked at him and could hear myself say, "You finally did it, didn't you?"  He had talked for a long time about committing suicide, and I had told him what pain he would cause all those who loved him if he actually did it.  I guess he wasn't thinking about anyone when he did what he did.  Our family doctor had diagnosed Dan with extreme depression, which I had tried to tell his parents.  His dad believed Dan could snap out of it.  "I get depressed, but I get over it," he said.  I tried to tell him the chemicals in Dan's brain wasn't working right, but he wouldn't listen.  Neither would his mother.  Dan's father had died nine months prior to Dan's death, so I had to go over and tell his mother what had happened.  The police chaplain took me to see her, which I was dreading.  One of her brothers had committed suicide when she was younger, and now I had to tell her that her son had done the same.  She fell back in her husband's recliner crying, "Oh no, not Dan.  Not Danny."  While the chaplain tried talking to her, I called his brothers and sisters and let them know what had happened, and where I was.  When they came, they all rushed to their mother, no one came to talk to me.  It was the same at the funeral.  I felt like after twenty-six years of marriage, I was considered his wife.  But most people went to his mother, few to the brothers and sisters that they knew.  I knew everyone there who paid their respects, but the only reason they talked to me was because I was standing by Dan's casket.



It's been ten years now, and I bump into one or more of Dan's siblings now and then. They act like they're embarrassed to talk to me, so I let them go on.  They politely ask for my new address and phone number, and to this day no one has ever called.  So much for what my husband used to tell me.  He once said, "If anything hapens to me, count on my family.  They'll help you out."  So far, everyone of his siblings have made him out to be a liar.



Everyone knows I've dreamed of being a published author.  Once it happens, if they think they're going to acknowledge me just for that fact, they can look in the opposite direction.  I needed help and comfort when Dan left.  I don't need it or them if they think my life is going to change theirs for the better. 







Word Count:  776