You Took Your Last Breath....It Hurts So Bad

Is it a dream?  Maybe you're just away on a business trip.  Maybe my phone will ring and your voice is on the other end.  I've been pretty numb.  For 5 days I watched your words get fewer and voice softer.  You moved into a hospital bed right next to our bed of 12 years and I still found a way to cuddle with you every night.  You held my hand and held on tight.  You were so weak but determined to still get up each day.  The last time you stood up you gave me the longest hug we had had in a while.  No words were shared, just holding one another and not wanting to let go.  You were just skin and bones but our hearts were beating together.  Your best friends were there every night.  You weren't alone...and every time your breaths would pause, we would hold your hand and tell you it was ok...but you weren't ready my love.  What were you holding on for?  Aydin, he needed his time.  I heard him cry as he said good bye.  Ashton needed to know that time was getting close.  I carefully put him in your armpit as you whispered to him it would be ok.  Ashton cried and asked why...I had no answers other than, I don't know baby, but if daddy says we will be ok, we will be okay.

That night, Broin, Frank, and I stayed up with Tony all night.  Tony was restless waking up and moaning every 15 min.  Alternating the morphine and adivan I struggled.  Was I killing the love of my life?  I ad to dig deep because my love told me, don't let me lay there and not be able to say I love you.  Don't let me lay there and not be able to tell you I was in pain. 

My room smelled of death.  Tony's organs were shutting down, his skin was dying, and my love didn't want to be like that.  With all his strength he reached out out to our hospice nurse Brooke looking at her like he was begging for relief.  Tony was choking on the morphine, I was having to suction his throat.  Monday night, Broin and Frank went home and I fell asleep before I could set my alarm to give Tony his medicine.  We all ironically slept peacefully.

I woke up Tuesday morning in a panic.  I stared right at his chest, he was still breathing, but hadn't moved all night.  Tony was no longer responding.  Without saying anything to the boys, I got up them up for school like every other morning.  Around 930, Brooke and her aide gave him a bath, Broin gave him a shave, I sprayed him with smell good (Aqua D'Gio) my love was ready to go home.  When I said I love you, he would slowly blink his eyes.  I knew he could hear me and was saying it back. 

At 5:00pm I called the boys and Tony's friends, and said time to come home.  We hooked him up to a morphine drip.  My love didn't deserve to suffer any longer.  It was the hardest decision I ever had to make, but Tony was specific in his instructions and it was my responsibility to follow them.  I sat on the bathroom floor crying and asking for God's forgiveness.  Selfishly I just wanted him here with me so we could still cuddle up at night.  He had been sick for so long, it didn't seem any different. But it wasn't fair to him. 

Around 923pm I called Brooke to ask her about his hands squeezing mine and broins hands.  Frank then pointed out his breathing changed.  NOOO....not happening.  I don't want him to go.  But there was nothing i could do other than put one hand on his chest and hold his other while I lay next to him watching his chest go up and down with each breath.  There was no rattle, no gasping for air.  I just know that my hand was raising with each breath and then...my hand didn't move.  At that moment, I cried out in pain.  My love was gone and damn did it hurt.  I didn't think about his pain being gone or suffering, I just wanted to wake up from the nightmare.  My sister held me and everything at that point is a blur.  When I rolled over, Aydin had just woken up.  Whats wrong mommy.  I now had to tell my 10 year old that Daddy had died.  Aydin jumped up and saw Tony laying there and broke down.  Daddy, Daddy, he wasn't sure if it was real.  Aydin crawled into the bed with him and wouldn't let go.  He didn't want to leave his daddy.  I comforted him while my mom called Brooke and told her it was time to come.

Brooke was amazing, she handled everything with tears pouring down her face.  She's my family now, she was broken hearted like all of us.  Tony impacted her like he had done for so many others.  She comforted me while ensuring my wishes when the funeral home arrived were met.  Anthoney stayed with me while they came and took Tony.  I couldn't watch.  I couldn't watch him leave our home...Anthoney watched him all the way down the driveway. 

That night, I slept with a pillow in my arms while Aydin slept in Tony's hospital bed.  At 7:00 the next morning, Ashton came running downstairs and woke me up.  "Mommy, where's daddy?"  My nightmare was real again.  He's gone to heaven.  He's with his family again.   Ashton bursted into tears.  "I didn't get to say good-bye mommy!!!" he cried.  I reminded him that he did 2 days earlier when daddy told him that everything was going to be ok.  He just layed in my arms and cried.  I knew then, it was our worst reality. 

We all knew that this day would come, we thought we prepared for it....but you can't.  I would've done ANYTHING to have my love with me forever.  We were supposed to beat this  together...instead we experienced a deeper more beautiful love and that i will forever hold on to.  But it hurts.  The pain is physical yet my heart is numb.  I don't feel like answering the phone, I don't feel like going out.  But the sun came up this morning, the alarm clocks went off, and I put the boys on the bus to school.  Its going to take me time.  I'm never going to stop loving you Anthony Wayne Leonard.  I know you said I would be ok because I'm strong, but today, I'm not....and that my friends, is ok.