SEPTEMBER 13, 2014 28 YEARS

Heidi, it would have been 28 years with you today. I repeat what I say every year, I am a better man because of you. Your smile, I see it through your vale as though it was yesterday. I remember your soft voice, your contagious laughter, the touch of your left hand. How when I billowed the blankets you giggled like a young girl with a smile that only I saw.

We miss you, Chris, Ashton and I want closure.  The police are still pursuing your passing as a homicide, how could this happen to you.  I really cannot express what I feel, as there are no words that can fully convey my sadness, my fear that you saw what was happening, were you alone?  You once wrote what it felt like when one of our loving caregivers knocked a hose off and could not figure out what to do. You vividly wrote about the progression  your body felt as it was starved of air. Here are your thoughts as written a few years ago

(Written by Heidi in 2009)

Death by vent malfunction

I could hear the air whooshing from my hose.  A small trickle of air was coming into my lungs which I struggled to take in.  

The constant scream of the vent alarm heightened my awareness.  

I could feel my body detaching.  Tingling, cloudy and praying that I don’t die 

I was turning shades of blue and purple, why wasn’t she using the Ambu Bag?
I thought about how awful she would feel if I died 

I pleaded that it would not be this way.

I blacked out, I don’t know for how long.

I woke to a horrible headache, nausea and a strong desire to soil myself. I didn’t.

My skin was clammy and cold, wet from sweat.

I was breathing and I didn’t hear the leak anymore. She obviously found the leak.

I am now left with an incredible weakness but feeling better.

Thank you lord for not bringing me home this day.

Was this what you felt 3/25/13, this haunts me every day and wish I could have protected you.

My sincere hope is that if your life was taken, the people responsible read your thoughts and feel what you must have been thinking. They know they  will be found and punished. Did your vent hose pop off itself? In either case, I believe that your faith in Jesus carried you swiftly home with little fear

If you have followed my therapeutic ramblings this past year, thank you for reading. The blog has morphed from inspirational posts (from Heidi) to my emotional rants. But life, as it always does threw some major curve-balls at my children and I. Opening up our lives does help cope with Heidi's passing being investigated as a homicide.  It does not seem real, from that night meeting Heidi 29 years ago at Joes Cafe to now