Originally Posted by POAndrea

My husband died Sunday. We were separated and living apart but improving our relationship as his sobriety became stronger and I learned more productive ways to process his past behaviors. He was still terminally ill but actually appeared to be doing a little better, so we were hopeful for the future. But then we were disappointed last week to learn he had a new diagnosis—cancer-- aaaaand he started drinking again. On Sunday, since I hadn’t heard from him since Friday, I went to the house to check on him. I found him upstairs in the bed. He was still alive, barely, so I called 911 and began CPR. But by the time they arrived, it was clear he had died. It was also clear he’d been on one helluva binge—three days judging by the mail and papers piled upon the porch. The house was awful; when I first entered, I thought he’d been burgled, murdered, vandalized and ransacked, with furniture tumbled, household items broken, and blood, urine and feces everywhere. There had to have been at least 50 empty beer bottles on the first floor alone. I cannot imagine what the last couple days of his life were like. (To be truthful, that is probably a mercy. I don’t think I want to know.)

I am….I am…..I don’t know what I am right now. I have so many emotions, some of them contradictory, and all of them completely overwhelming. It wasn’t exactly a shock, because there were many times in the past when I’d gone in expecting to see him dead at the bottom of the stairs. But that was in the PAST, not now, and I just couldn’t believe it. I felt so guilty that I hadn’t gone sooner, because less than a half-hour might have made a difference in the outcome. I felt shame, because the first responders were my friends, and they worked so hard and so long to bring him back, for me, and they were distraught and tearful when they couldn’t. Of course I feel anger. But the GRIEF, oh-my-god.

I don’t know what to do from here.