When I think of crying, I remember the sounds that my children made, when I told them that their father was dead. 

My husband died unexpectedly, of a Pulmonary Embolism, a blood clot, in his lungs. 

It was April first 2014. More than 9 years ago. 

He was on his way out to work in the morning, he was a private attorney, so he was heading to his nearby law office. He had started the car, and then come back inside the house, where I was working out to my favorite old-school TaeBo Video. 

Suddenly, he sat down on the couch, and his eyes began to twitch rapidly back and forth, he started sweating profusely, he turned a horrible shade of white, and he fell to the floor, desperately struggling to rip off his white shirt and tie, and whispering that he couldn’t breathe. 

I called 911. The ambulance came and took him to the hospital on a stretcher. The last words Charles said on the way out of the house were “I can’t breathe.” 

When I got to the hospital, he was already on life support, and the doctors and nurses were doing aggressive CPR on his limp and swollen body. 

They moved him all hooked up to machines, to a private room, and I spent the day at the hospital. The doctor told me that since he was brain dead, I had to decide when to take him off life support. 

I would decide the moment my husband would die. 

I remember I asked if I could go to the bathroom first before deciding that moment, and they said yes. I looked in the mirror of the bathroom and asked myself what was happening to me. Was I dreaming? Was this some horrible soul crushing nightmare?  

Charles was alive and breathing in the morning and I chose the moment he would be taken off life support by dinner time. 

It was just me next to him, when he took his last three breaths, and passed to the Spirit World. 

I said goodbye to his body. But I felt his Spirit in that very moment, and I knew he was more powerful than he had ever been. 

I gathered my things, and I headed back home to my children. 

The children had no idea what was going on. 

I did not have tears in my eyes as Sammi, Daniel, William, and Henry walked in the front door of our home– I was in total shock and disbelief… it was like watching a movie of someone else’s life. 

It had been less than an hour since I saw Charles take his last breath at the hospital, but I did not want to greet the children with tears, I felt I had to be strong for them. 

I held the door open for each child, and I thanked Charles’ closest friend, Tyson, for dropping them off — he was at the hospital in those last moments, too. His wife, Rachelle, had been watching my children. Somehow, they both kept it together long enough to not alert the kids that anything was wrong. 

As the kids made it in the house, I asked them to sit down on the couch, as I remained standing in the middle of the living room floor. I then quietly spoke, “You guys, I have something to tell you.” I had no idea what words would come out of my mouth, asI continued, “You know how daddy would sometimes struggle with his breathing, and he would complain about feeling pain?” They all nodded their heads. “Well, we took him to the hospital today, and… ” “Daddy is gone… he…  your daddy died.” 

And then the weeping and wailing and confusion began. Each child reacted in their own way. 

But the sound I will never forget is the excruciating pain that flew from Daniel’s 10 year old boy mouth. It was a noise that only he could make, with his ability to produce sounds so loud, that would send shivers through my body. He screamed with terror, “No, no, NO!” and he flew from the couch, and into my shaking arms.

Then, for a quick moment, he looked up at me with great hope in his eyes and said, “Mom, is this an April Fool’s joke?” 

My heart sunk even further towards the floor.

I responded with more sobbing, and said, “No, no, it is not.” 

William, who was 6 at the time, began crying and walking on top of the couch, back and forth, pacing — trying to figure out what was going on. His cries were fierce, yet nothing like the horror Daniel was displaying. In the middle of the crying he asked me, “Will you have to get married again?” I was shocked at his question, and the timing of it. My response was simply, “No.” 

Henry, our 2 year old, was confused, but started to fake cry, too, since we were all crying.

And then there was Sammi, who was 12 at the time. She sat there on the edge of the couch, without shedding a tear. She looked at me with pain in her eyes, obviously trying to be brave, and also trying to make sense of the moment which seemed out-of-body, and completely ridiculous in every way.

The thing is, it was a day, just like every other day… but on this day, my husband, and their daddy died. 
What did that even mean for us? 

I continued standing, and sobbing, and I gathered all the children together and hugged them, and said, “We are going to be OK. We are going to make it.”

Except in that moment, I had no idea how.

My parents drove all the way from Utah to Idaho as fast as they could, and they walked in the door right after I told the children. 

There was more crying, and sobbing. 

And that awful night I cried so hard, I thought I might die too, as I screamed repeatedly, “Why? Why?” WHY?

My love, my Charles, my life, my angel… had gone to sleep and he wasn’t going to wake up…