Beth M Howard Making Piece A Memoir of Love,

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.“The divorce almost killed both of you,” my sister said later.It hadn’t occurred to me, but she was right.During the hour he was struggling to stay alive after collapsing from a ruptured aorta, I felt my heart about to give out, thinking I would collapse in the middle of the Chihuahua Desert.I turned to go back home at 8:36 a.m.—that was 6:36 a.m.in Portland, the exact time Marcus was pronounced dead.Is it possible we were that connected? Were our bodies functioning in unison, joined by some inexplicable force? Was I feeling what he was feeling, the struggle of his heart to keep beating? While he was hit with defibrillator paddles and receiving epinephrine injections, I was enduring my own struggle, staggering with weakness back to my miner’s cabin with my dogs—our dogs.I had a few hours to contemplate my death, but did he know he was dying? The details that were parceled out over the next few days concluded no, he could not have known.It was instant.He felt a cramp in his neck, got out of bed, took a few steps and collapsed on the hardwood floor of a friend’s house.I imagined him having one of those out-of-body experiences, floating above his body, looking down and seeing himself lying unconscious on the floor, and saying, “What the fuck just happened?” This is a man who wanted to live.He had just invested in a new MacBook Pro and an iPhone.He had a pile of new books including The Passion Test, What Color is Your Parachute and What Should I Do With My Life? And he had bookmarked his favorite new website, “Zen Habits,” which was all about doing less to accomplish more.After years of my incessant nagging, he was actually exploring ways to trade in his corporate life for something more balanced.Back in Germany, he had also just bought a new road bike, a sleek and fast-looking LaPierre, which he had shown me via Skype.He sent me emails from his weekend bike rides in France, Italy and even Slovenia.This was a man with a lot of life left to live and big plans for the future.He was only getting started.The autopsy determined he died from a hemopericardium (blood flooding the heart sack until the heart cannot pump any longer) due to a ruptured aorta.Marcus had a heart condition from birth, a bicuspid aortic valve, which means he had only two flaps to allow oxygenated blood to flow out from the aorta instead of the normal three.Blood pumping through the aorta is under high pressure.Having only two flaps creates a bottleneck and puts added pressure on the aortic wall.The wall had a weakening that eventually tore.Unless it happens when you are already in a hospital, a ruptured aorta is always deadly.There is no grace period.The blood moves too fast.The heart suffocates.And bam! Just like that.The man you love is gone.His German doctors had always maintained his heart condition would never be a problem.Had Marcus known how endangered his life was, he would have taken precautions.He was that kind of guy: disciplined in everything he did, especially when it came to his diet (only the highest quality, organic, wild-caught everything for him).He didn’t smoke, he exercised regularly, doing yoga, biking and running, and he loved being outside in the sun breathing fresh air.This was a guy who was so health-conscious, he flossed his teeth three times a day.Who does that? No, he was not supposed to die.Not like this.Not at forty-three.Not ever.My brain spun with centrifugal force after hanging up with Mr.Chapelle.I looked around the living room of my miner’s cabin in a wild panic.My body shook with convulsions.My eyes widened with disbelief.My breathing turned to hyperventilating.I paced back and forth between the desk and the daybed.I had no idea what to do.Did I really just get a phone call telling me that Marcus was deceased? Deceased.I hate that word.What a miserable word.If only I could have taken that word and shoved it through the phone line, stuffed it back into the mouth of the man who uttered it, crammed it all the way down his throat to extinguish it so he could never say it.If he couldn’t say it, then it couldn’t be true.My first call was to our divorce mediator in Portland.“He’s in a meeting,” his secretary said.“It’s urgent,” I told her.She must have heard the panic in my voice—high-pitched, sharp and forceful.She put me through.“Marcus won’t be coming in for his one-o’clock appointment.He died,” I blurted out.“He’s dead.He had a ruptured aorta.” And then my composure crumbled.“I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do!” I kept repeating myself, practically screaming in hysterics, as I entered into full-blown panic.To say it out loud to someone else, to acknowledge that which I desperately did not want to be true, made it just a little more real.Was it really true?I could detect Michael’s shock in spite of his attempt to calm me.He was a Catholic-turned-Zen Buddhist, which he had told us when we interviewed and subsequently hired him to help negotiate our separation.Marcus was in Portland and thus met with him in person several times.I was only connected by conference calls and had never seen him, but based on his gentle voice, relaxed manner of speech and his respect for Marcus’s and my determination to remain amicable, he seemed nice—for a former litigation lawyer.He had changed his career to mediation because it seemed, well, less litigious.“Take a breath,” he said.“Settle down.You’re going to be okay.Here’s what you do.”He outlined the next steps for me.Someone had to instruct me, because I couldn’t think straight.I couldn’t think past the image of Marcus and his lifeless body lying in a morgue thousands of miles away.No! I could not, would not, picture that.My mind was still insisting he was alive [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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