BW 119: Widow and New Mom: Melissa's Emotional Journey
Oct 15, 2024[TRANSCRIPT BELOW]
In this heartfelt episode, Melissa shares her powerful story of love, loss, and the strength to rebuild. From meeting her husband to navigating the unimaginable grief of losing him while eight months pregnant, Melissa opens up about her life’s most defining moments. Join Emily as she explores the resilience, hope, and healing that emerge from Melissa’s journey.
01:05 Meet Melissa: A Journey of Love and Loss
01:57 Melissa's Background and Life Changes
03:43 A Love Story Begins: Meeting Her Husband
06:58 The Tragic Day: Unfolding Events
11:38 Facing the Unthinkable: Hospital Ordeal
20:05 The Final Decision: Organ Donation
23:12 A Heartbreaking Decision
23:49 A Moment of Escape
25:41 The Final Goodbye
28:04 Coping with Overwhelming Emotions
32:01 Facing the Aftermath
38:34 A New Beginning
41:56 Finding Strength in Vulnerability
49:59 Overcoming Guilt and Regret
51:13 Join the Brave Widow Community
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Connect with Melissa on IG: mamabunny63
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TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Emily: Hey, and welcome to episode number 119 of the Brave Widow show. Today I talk with Melissa and she shares her very vulnerable story of the love and loss that she has had as a widow and as a new mom.
Before we dive into her story, I just want to remind you that the doors to the Brave Widow membership community are open. In the community, you will learn how to heal your heart. How to be able to get unstuck and move forward and be on grief and ultimately how to create a life that you love again.
I'll teach you everything from how to make new friends and rebuild your social circle, how to kick loneliness and anxiety to the curb and how to build up confidence in yourself and your ability to make decisions. And So much more. To learn more about the Brave Widow membership community, go to BraveWidow.
com. Alright, let me introduce you to Melissa.
Meet Melissa: A Journey of Love and Loss
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[00:01:05] Emily: Melissa became a Widow in January of 2023 and later delivered her son in March of 2023. She recently moved from Las Vegas to Washington state, and she currently says that she is just trying to put her life back together and figure out where to go from here.
Melissa, welcome to the show and thank you so much for being willing to share your story.
[00:01:32] Melissa: Yeah, I'm actually really excited to be here. I had a lot of anxiety when I woke up. But now I'm excited.
[00:01:39] Emily: I'm glad that you felt the anxiety and you decided to show up anyway.
That's amazing.
[00:01:44] Melissa: Yeah. If there's anything that this experience has taught me, it's just, I gotta just get it done or else I'm never going to do anything in life.
[00:01:54] Emily: Yes, I would totally agree.
Melissa's Background and Life Changes
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[00:01:57] Emily: So if you don't mind, if you will share with our audience a little bit about you and your background, then we can just dive into your story wherever you want to start.
[00:02:08] Melissa: Sure. My name is Melissa. Since I was a kid, people call me Mel. So either one I am 32. I live in Graham, Washington, which is a suburb of Seattle, Washington. And like you said, most people don't come to Seattle unless they have a layover. I moved here almost two years ago.
It's been almost two years. It'll be two years in April next year. After my husband diedI had my son after he died and I realized I needed help and my family was here and they were willing to let us come and crash their party. So we're here now. I do have a career. I am a paralegal for a family law firm. So that's been interesting trying to navigate this.
new chapter in life while also helping other people navigate new chapters in their life. So I think that's pushed me out of whatever bubble I had put myself in once everything happened. So yeah. Oh, I also have an 18 month old son. He's the cutest kid I've ever seen in my whole life. And I could be biased.
But I think he's so cute. He's handsome, just like his dad. So far, he hasn't gotten anything from me other than my eyesight, which is terrible. He looks like his dad. Oh, and my eye color, too. Didn't get the blue eyes, got the brown, oh, that's
[00:03:35] Emily: awesome. And what's his name, if you don't mind?
[00:03:38] Melissa: Michael.
Michael.
[00:03:39] Emily: Oh, very sweet. Okay.
A Love Story Begins: Meeting Her Husband
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[00:03:43] Emily: So tell us how you met your husband and what did you like about him when you met him?
[00:03:49] Melissa: It was so long ago. I met him when I was 19, almost 20. And we actually met online. He was in the Navy at the time and he was deployed. So he was like, Hey, just a heads up. I know it says I'm in San Diego, not in San Diego right now.
Can't tell you where I am, but we just connected and God, he was a tall six foot two handsome man. When the one thing that I really. Really? Because I always loved colored eyes. I just have brown hazel eyes. He had the bluest greenest eyes of everything in my whole life. I was like, this is it.
[00:04:38] Emily: Awesome. I love it. What, as you got to know him past the dazzling eyes and the tall height, like what qualities did you come to really admire and appreciate that he had?
[00:04:52] Melissa: Oh man, he just really wanted to help people when we first met he was a hospital corpsman in the Navy. So he was on the medical side and he was also in a special program and things like that.
So he just really wanted to help people. And that I felt was a quality in people that had just gone missing. There was no real empathy for people. And the just need to help people in any way that he could, he wanted to be a police officer when he got out of the service. He wanted to just change the way that people saw the world and that was a beautiful thing.
[00:05:36] Emily: Oh, I love that. So how long did you, the two of you end up dating before you decided to get married?
[00:05:45] Melissa: We were together for five, almost six years before we got married and we got married in a rant on a random day in the middle of September for No reason. We got married on a Sunday and we went to the courthouse in Vegas, paid 150 bucks and it was 15 minutes.
And that was it. I was like, this is the best thing that could have happened because I have a huge family. And I was just like, I'm not going to pay all that kind of money for these people that come to a wedding. And of course I didn't tell anybody and my mom was really mad. We were together for almost 13 years total.
So it's a long time.
[00:06:30] Emily: It is a long time, especially when you meet really young and it's almost half your life.
[00:06:35] Melissa: Yeah.
[00:06:36] Emily: And so you were married then about how many years were you to get married?
[00:06:42] Melissa: We were, it was going to be our sixth wedding anniversary the year that he died. So he died January of 2023.
Okay. And so September of 2023 would have been six years married. Six
[00:06:58] Emily: years. Okay.
The Tragic Day: Unfolding Events
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[00:06:58] Emily: And do you mind to share how he died or what happened?
[00:07:03] Melissa: Yeah. And don't get me wrong. I love now. I can say I love talking about it. You hear celebrities say all the time, talk about grief. And I just, I think it's so important to talk about grief in any way that it comes.
So if I get emotional,
[00:07:21] Emily: Oh, please
[00:07:22] Melissa: don't judge me, but I love talking about it because it's. Such a big part of my life and it's now shaped who I am as a person. It was the end of January. So he died January 31st and he spent a week in the hospital. And so it was a Monday and I was eight months pregnant and I had gotten up every day with him 4.
30, made him coffee, packed his lunch, took him to work. And so everything was totally normal. Kissed him goodbye, said have a great day. He said I'll see you in a little bit. And then I had gotten home, and I was doing some stuff, and so I had set my phone on the counter in the kitchen, not thinking, it was going to be this life altering random thing, but so around 7, 11 o'clock that day, someone comes pounding on my door and I'm like, who the heck is coming to my door?
Nobody comes to my door. And his coworker is staying there with him at our door. And he's there's, so my husband's name was Jeff. And he's there's something really wrong with Jeff. I don't know what it is. He didn't want to go to the hospital. He didn't want to do anything. He wanted to come home to you.
And so we got him upstairs and I could just tell there was something not right. And so his coworkers on the phone with his wife at the time. She was a nurse and she was like taking his blood pressure. And so I taken his blood pressure, because he was hypertensive. And it was. I've never seen numbers like that.
Not to say I'm a healthcare professional in any sense of the word, but I just, I was like, there's something really wrong here. So I got on the phone and I had tried calling his mom. I think three times I called his sister. And I couldn't get ahold of anybody. And so I called my mom and I said, I don't know what's going on.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I can't get anybody on the phone and I'm freaking out and I'm standing in my closet on the phone and my mom is okay, go to the hospital, figure out what's going on. So I drove myself to the hospital, his coworker picked me up. loaded him back in the car and we drove him to the hospital.
And we went to emergency unit at Henderson hospital and they immediately came out with a gurney, took him back and I didn't see anybody for about 45 minutes. And so I was sitting there and I, At that point, I was by myself. His co worker was like, look, I have to go back to work. They work construction.
And they were working on the fountain blue at the time. And he was like, I have a deadline. I'm so sorry. I hate to do this to you, but I have to leave. And I was like, I'm sure it's going to be fine. So just go do your thing. And so 45 minutes later, a nurse called his name. And they took me back and they sat me in a chair.
And. It was a long hallway and around the corner I could hear, alarms going off and people are coming in and out of the room. I couldn't see anything, but I could hear it. And this nurse comes up to me and she was an absolute angel. Everybody at that hospital was amazing, but she was like, are you okay?
Do you need anything? Let me know if I can do anything for you. And I said I think I'm okay right now. I don't. really know how to feel. And then she came back probably 15 minutes later and she had the triage doctor with him, with her. And she had said, before we do anything, I just want to let you know that this is probably not what you're expecting.
And I took a couple of breaths and I said, okay, tell me what's happening. He had a brain bleed in the frontal lobe. that you could see it was a gigantic black mass. I had seen the scan of his brain and the doctor looked at me and he's do you see anything wrong? And I was like, that's not right.
That's not supposed to be there. And he was like, yes.
Facing the Unthinkable: Hospital Ordeal
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[00:11:38] Melissa: So we have him, he's not fully in a medical coma, but he's under sedation and you can go in and see him. But we, And also it was, there was like the resurgence of COVID and the flu at the time in Vegas. So they were like, we don't have any rooms for him right now, but we're going to keep him in here until we do.
And then we'll admit him to the regular hospital. So his mom had finally called me back and I had told her what was going on. She was like, okay, they live in Idaho, which is, Eight hours away from me, but it was 14 hours away from Vegas. And she was like, okay let me go back to the house. She was out doing something and his dad's name is Mike, which is where we got Michael from.
She was like, let me grab Mike. We'll put our dog in boarding and we'll come drive to you as soon as we can. She was like, I don't think I can get a flight that's going to be like overnight or anything. And I was like, just be careful. Don't do anything that's gonna make this worse for anybody. I said I'm sure it's fine.
And that was the last thing that I said to her. And then he also had his whole family was essentially in construction. He had two uncles and two aunts out there. And so one of his uncles had finally showed up and he was, trying to make light of it. And I've always been this person where I can cope with anything through being funny, and it's not always been a great coping mechanism, but it's gotten me through some sticky situations in my life.
And so he's trying to make me laugh and he's talking to the nurses. He's I'm sure everything's going to be fine. So at this point, his foreman, the project manager and his coworker had come back. To the hospital and they were like, are you okay? Are you, do you need anything? Do you, are you hungry?
Can we get you any, do you need water? Let me know what you need. And I was like, I'm okay. I just, I don't, it's a weird cloud I was in. And for the life of me, I don't remember. really what happened that night. I don't remember a whole lot of what happened up until the point where I was told the worst news I've probably ever heard in my whole life.
And But they had told me it was going to be a few hours before they could get a bed. So they were like, just go home, get some rest, take a shower. We'll call you as soon as we get him into a bed. And so they called me at 10 o'clock and they said, we have a bed. We put him upstairs. He's in ICU. So he's not out of it yet, but he's still under sedation and we're just hoping at this point.
So I went back to the hospital and I. Checked in on him. I asked the nurses is what can I do? Not that I can do anything, but and they were like, just go home. You're too pregnant. And there's really nothing that's going to happen even tonight. So I went home and I Came back at 7 a.
m and his parents had slept in the parking lot of the hospital because they had gotten there at 4 30 in the morning and they didn't want to come to my house and bother me. So we met and they brought me coffee and then I said, do you guys want to go upstairs? We went upstairs. We hung out for a little bit and then the nurse had come in and she was like, we're going to try and pull him out of the sedation.
We don't know what it's going to look like. He's probably not going to be able to talk to you, but he can hear everything and he might open his eyes and it might be a little jarring. So just brace yourself. So my mouth is so dry too. I don't know. You're totally fine. You're doing great. So, that second day he was moving his arm and it was his left arm, but they couldn't get his right arm to lift.
And they were like, that's a point of concern. But. Because we don't know what's going to happen, we're just going to leave it as a point of concern. I was like, okay again, not that I'm a doctor, but I knew that there could be a chance for brain damage. And the neurosurgeon had come in and he was like, we took a look at his brain again.
And it looks like there is damage. We don't know how extensive it is. We don't know what it's going to look like. We don't know if he's going to be able to talk. All the things. Don't know what he's going to be able to do. So I had said, okay, immediately. I went, pulled out my laptop because I had been working, and Googled, how do I sell my house, because I didn't know how to sell a house, and we had a two story house, and so the bedrooms were on the second floor, and I was like, I'm only 5'3 I can't lift a 6'2 man.
Up into stairs and it's just not going to work. So I was like, how do I sell my house? I need a single story house. What about a home nurse? I googled all this stuff. I was like, I just need to know what all of my options are. At least that's something I can control because at this point I can't control anything.
And I hate that feeling of not being in control of anything. And The next day went by and it was pretty much the same. And then about that night, they. had fully pulled him out of the sedation, but he, and he was reacting because they'd intubated him. So he was reacting to the intubation and he kept trying to pull it out.
And so they had to restrain his arms and they're like, we don't want to freak you out, but we have to do this because it could do more damage. And I was like, you don't have to explain anything to me. You do what you need to do. And he hadn't really opened his eyes at this point. So she lifted his eyelid and one pupil was pinpoint.
And then lifted the other eyelid and it was totally dilated. And I was like, that's again, not a doctor. That's not great. That's something's wrong. Like really wrong. Pass just don't know what it is. So they said the neurosurgeon isn't going to be in until tomorrow. So we're going to put him in a full coma and hopefully it'll level out his blood pressure.
It'll level out. Okay. All the things that need to be leveled out and then we can try again. And then I went home, his mom stayed at the hospital the whole time, which was crazy because she's almost 70 and has had back fusions. And I was like, I can't, I've never had a back fusion. I couldn't sleep on that bed, but she didn't want to leave.
And we basically were like on a rotating shift where I would come in, spend as much time as I could until I couldn't. sit in the chair anymore and had to go leave. His dad would come in and out and he, doesn't want to show emotion. He, his family is Hungarian and his grandfather immigrated from Hungary over here, so they're really no emotion, no nothing.
You you. Go take care of it by yourself in a corner and you come back and everything's fine. So his dad was doing that and I was trying to keep everything together and people are calling me and do you need food? Can we bring something to your house? Are you okay? There's no labor is not going to happen anytime soon.
And I was like, everything's fine. So the next day the neurosurgeon came in and he had said, I, I don't want to be, I never wanted to be this person to do this
To two people in their thirties, because my husband was only 35 and he said overnight the brain activity had ceased a hundred percent. And he said, I have tried everything and there is nothing else I can do.
The Final Decision: Organ Donation
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[00:20:05] Melissa: And so at this point I have to figure out if he's an organ donor. And then we can connect you to the organ donation network in Nevada, and we will talk about next steps.
I had said he's an organ donor because, again, he wanted to help people. I, and at this point, my parents weren't even here, it was just his parents, and my mom kept saying, You let me know when you need me to come.
And again, I love talking about it, but, Every once
[00:20:36] Emily: in a while, let's sneak up. Of course. Here you are, you said eight months pregnant, and you're playing this waiting game day after day, not knowing what's gonna happen, and then just hearing those shocking words of essentially, he's brain dead, which is what happened with my husband.
And, yeah, that's tough.
[00:20:58] Melissa: Yeah. And so at that point I had, I stopped hyperventilating and I called my mom and I said, okay, I need you. And she said I'm on a flight. The next flight I can get, I'll be there. And her and my stepdad came and my mom sat with me at the, in the cafeteria at the hospital with the organ donation representative, and he was the nicest person ever.
And so he was like, these are your options. We're at the end of this, we're going to take as many organs as we can, but We don't know the extent of the damage to the brain and the heart because we're, he's been pumped full of these medications to try and level everything out. And so he was like, we can either do I forget again.
Everything was a total blur, and I, at one point, I was not fully understanding even what he was saying, and my mom had to be like, okay, time out. This is what it is. It was like a gentle hospice, where it was just, they don't do anything keep him comfortable until the time comes, or we can just do all the testing that we need.
To find out what organs we can take and then take him off any life support, any dialysis, anything like that. And I, that wasn't computing in my brain. And I was like can we do gentle hospice? And he was like, I don't, I think we're past that point. And I was like, I don't understand how we're past that point.
And that's when my mom was like, okay, time out. We literally have no other options. And he's trying to explain it to you the best way that he can. But. It's, we're at the end now. And so I was like, I don't even, I don't even know how to process this. So I said, you do what you need to do for the organs, because that was the whole point of being an organ donor.
And you let me know when the. It sounds so like barbaric, but the harvest needs to happen.
A Heartbreaking Decision
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[00:23:12] Melissa: And so he was like, okay, cool. I'll get on and find, donors, things like that. And so my aunt, my uncle at the time was going through complete liver failure. And I had said, if there was any way that we could see if.
His liver, because I knew they had to match the enzymes, things like that, if that liver in my husband could go to my uncle and that would make all of this worth it because I could save. the life of my uncle and my cousin could have my uncle at her wedding. So things like that.
A Moment of Escape
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[00:23:49] Melissa: And then my parents were like, why don't we go take a break?
We can go do something fun. She was like, my mom was like, let's go play bingo for a couple of hours. And, we can just pretend for two hours that this isn't. happening. And I said, great. So in that time of me driving from the hospital to the bingo, they had gotten the phone call from UW out here which was a university of Washington, where he was.
At where they were trying to find a liver for him and they said it wasn't a match and my mom,
my mom was so sad
and I immediately was so sad because I was like, not only am I losing my husband, my, my unborn child is never going to know what this person is,
my cousin isn't going to have her dad at her wedding. To dance with her and do all the things that you're supposed to do at someone's wedding and then we played bingo and I went back to the hospital and they had said, his liver is failing and his kidneys are failing. And they had said, we're going to try upping dialysis, but we can't promise that we're even going to be able to get that much.
And I said, that's fine. And so they had said, we don't know, the timeline of the harvest. So it could be today, it can be 10 minutes from now, or it could be two days from now. But we're working to get there. So I said, again, you don't need to tell me. Don't explain it to me. You do what you need to do because it's out of my hands at this point.
The Final Goodbye
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[00:25:41] Melissa: And so that Friday they
they had said, okay, we're, we have a room. We have an operating room so we can take him tonight. And I had called everybody and Is he was part of the carpenters union in Vegas. So it's a huge network of people and 500 people and everybody wanted to come. He was the safety project manager on his site.
So everybody knew him. And so everybody wanted to come and say their last goodbyes. And my mom at this point had not gone into the room to see him and my cousins were in town and everybody got to say their last thing, but my mom was like, I,
I don't want to see him
because she was like, I don't want that to be the memory that I have because my husband was a big, boisterous guy. He was 250 pounds. He was six foot two. He was this big guy. He's starting to wither away because there's just nothing left. And she was like, I can't go in the room. And they had said that they were going to come in and unplug everything.
And they had asked me if I wanted to be in there. And I said, I can't be in there. And so they said, you can just stand outside the room. And I couldn't even look in the room
when they were taking everything out. And so they do the organ walk and that was a whole thing. And we had to go through two floors of people. out in the hallway and I just had this overwhelming feeling of like, all of these people are just staring at me. And it had a, I had a hat on my head and I pulled it down over my eyes so I didn't have to look at all these people.
And then they went down to the operating room and they had said, okay, this is the last time. So his mom went over there and I feel horrible, but I couldn't even really Touch him without absolutely breaking down. And I was like, I can't let my parents see me like this. I can't let his coworkers see me like this.
I can't let anybody see me like this.
Coping with Overwhelming Emotions
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[00:28:04] Melissa: And this whole time, as I'm going through all of these emotions, I left everybody. And I went off on my own. The bathroom became my safe place where I could, feel all of the things within a five minute period, pull myself back together and go out and have to make decisions that I never thought I would have to make at the age of 31.
I have never had to call the Veterans Affairs Department and tell them that somebody had died and it was my husband and I'm the wife and I have to now make funeral arrangements and Where am I going to bury him? And what am I going to do? Am I going to cremate him or is he going to be in the ground somewhere?
And I've never had to call a bank and say, Hey, Jeffrey is dead. I've never had to call a mortgage company and say, Jeffrey's dead. And so I just, I couldn't even bring myself to touch him that last time and I feel horrible about it and I talked to my therapist about it and I carry a lot of guilt because it goes back to that very first day if he didn't want to come home to me, and he would have never said that, then he probably could have been to the hospital sooner.
And if I would have picked up the phone in the 50 times he tried to call me and just listen to the voicemails, maybe I could have just gotten in the car and picked him up faster and done something different. And if I could have been just a little braver, I could have touched him for that last time. I could have looked at all these people who are out in this hallway honoring this person that they don't.
They don't even know I could face people and that was one of the other biggest things was he's part of this carpenters unit and there's 500 people who know him and I have no idea who any of these people are and they're asking me for pictures and they're inviting me to come down to the warehouse and meet everybody and there's a room literally of 500 people who are staring at me who know that I went from being Jeffrey's wife To Jeffrey's widow.
And that was this weird chain of events that happened. And I was like, I had OCD when I was younger and I thought I had worked it out and that came back I found myself turning on and off light switches, like seven times because it didn't feel right. I couldn't sit still I had so much anxiety in this room of people who my husband knew, and I didn't know any of these people and I could not touch, I couldn't shake their hands because I was like I'm pregnant I germs like I can't.
And it became this whole thing where I, and I couldn't. Be around people, because even a few days later after everything was said and done and I'm waiting for the ashes I was like, I'm gonna go get my haircut I haven't had a haircut in forever and I walked into a great clips it like in East Las Vegas, which is not the best place even then the lady who was cutting my hair used to cut his hair and She was like, I can't even believe this is happening because I have to tell her that he is not Coming to get his haircut anymore.
And a guy walked in and as I'm explaining to this person that he's not coming to get his haircut anymore. This person knew my husband and he was like, are you Jeffrey's wife? And I was like, yeah. And he's I met your husband on the elevator. I don't know how many times he was a great guy. He was like, let me pay for your haircut.
And I was like, I can't let you pay for my haircut. But it was like, it was every place that I went, I felt like I was running into people. And so I didn't want to leave my house.
Facing the Aftermath
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[00:32:01] Melissa: And I immediately after leaving the hospital, I had, they gave me a folded up flag that they had draped over him before we went down for the organ donation.
And I had this flag and I was like, this is the only thing that I have left. That's like tangible. And I, we also had a dog and this, it sounds so juvenile, but she, him and this dog were best friends. They were like soul siblings. They did everything together. If he was eating cherry pie, she was eating cherry pie everywhere that he went.
She was. And so she got really depressed and she, I remember I. Put the flag on, he had a little walkway dresser thing where he would drop all of his stuff after and she went up to the flag because it smelled like him.
She went and sat at the garage door waiting. That tore me apart and even that dog got depressed. I have her now and she's just not even the same, which is weird to say about a dog, but she's not even the Because He's not here. And it was like, I didn't know how to explain to a dog that like, he's not coming back and I don't know how to help you.
And so that night I just cried. There was nothing else I could do. And then the next day I my parents come over to the house and they were like, what do you need from us? And I said, I. I'm not in a place where I can live by myself. I don't think I'm ever going to be in a place where I can live by myself.
But, and I was like, I especially can't live in this house by myself because everything is his. Everything. And it's just not the same. And so they were like, okay, we're going to sell your house. And so I sold my house, and I, the last couple days that we were in Vegas, I had finally gotten the ashes back, and that was the other thing that stuck with me, because I, when I made the arrangements, I had, I guess I had assumed, because I didn't know, that, um, they were going to deliver the ashes to the cemetery.
And they called me and they said, he's here for pickup. And I said, okay, great. They said, we just need you to sign some paperwork. So I guess that's all I heard was we need you to sign paperwork as like the release and the permit for the. Don't even know the internment. I guess is what they call it in the mausoleum wall.
So I drove down there and signed paperwork and then they handed me a bag and in the bag was a cardboard box and it just I'll never forget it. It just had a white label on it, and it had a bunch of numbers, and it had his name. And I had looked at the guy, and I said, what is this? And they said, this is Jeff.
And I said, what? And they said, you have to take this to the cemetery for the internment into the wall. We don't do the delivery. And so I went home with this box and I put it in my closet and my mom was staying with me at the time. And I was like, I have him in the car. Like he's in the backseat.
And my mom was like, what do you mean? And I was like, he's literally in a box in the backseat. And I said, I don't know if I can bring him upstairs because this is not what I had expected. And I had gotten food before that because I was like, I'm just gonna go get lunch. And I couldn't even eat because all I could do was cry, looking at this box in the closet.
And that's all that's left of this person. And then They had set up with the VA to have representatives come down and he was buried in the veterans cemetery in Boulder city in Nevada. And his coworker had asked me why I chose that, why I didn't want to take him with me. And I said I have, I have a little urn it's in a box.
That's probably the other reason why I'm having such a visceral reaction because it's first time I've opened that box since I moved. And I said I have him. With me, what I said Vegas is it's where he became this person. He grew into himself here and he was proud of himself here.
He had a great job. We had a home. We were married, we were going to have a family, we were going to do all these things, he was proud of himself here, and if I took him anywhere else, it would either be Vegas or it'd be Guam, which is where he really, his whole, the whole time we were together, 13 years, he had spent time in Guam when he was in the Navy, and so he was like, If I die, take me to Guam.
Take me to Guam. Take me. There's a waterfall. He's, I have a map where he drew it. He was like, this is where you go to this waterfall that I named Jeff's waterfall. Nobody else knows it's named after me because I named it myself. And he was like, just put me there. He was like, yeah, that's where I was the most happy I have ever been in my whole life.
It was like, it's just a little tiny island in the middle of the Pacific, but the people are beautiful people. The landscape is beautiful. Everything is beautiful. So if I die, either leave me here or take me to Guam. So I had told Billy, his coworker that, and I said, I have him. I am able to go to Guam, because it's expensive, I will take him to Guam where he wanted.
But this is where he, I feel like he would want to be because again, we never really had the conversation. The most conversation that we had before anything happened was like, if I die, you go back out there and you find someone else. You don't. live your life sad that I'm not here and think about all the things that we didn't get to do because there's a lot we didn't get to do.
He was like, you go find somebody else. I'm sure there's somebody else who will handle your crazy as well as I did and you're gonna be fine. Just don't dwell on it. Don't be sad.
A New Beginning
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[00:38:34] Melissa: And so I think that's also why I've been able to come out of it a lot more and also having a newborn baby a month later. Was another thing that I, at first I was like, and I gave birth in the same hospital that he died in.
And I remember when we had come back into the delivery or the recovery room after delivery, the, one of the nurses, they were telling everybody that, her husband is dead, so she's probably not going to be in the best place. And I, the lights were off and the baby was asleep. My mom was asleep and I had come around and I said, who, who said that?
Not that I was angry about it, but I just wanted to know who knew, because I didn't tell anybody. And it was the same nurse who was with me pretty much from the time that he was admitted to emergency all the way to the end, who was like, I'm just here to advocate for you. And I want everybody to know that you're, you've gone through something traumatic.
And this is also traumatic. And so they need to be really nice to you, and if not, they have to deal with me. You are an angel sent from heaven.
[00:39:44] Emily: How
[00:39:44] Melissa: thoughtful. Even anything else at that point. And the funny thing is, my son, Because he's tall like his dad, he's still in the 93rd percentile. He's been, since the day he was born, he's measuring big, so he was actually supposed to be a C section schedule.
And he decided he was coming a day early on his own. So we ended up at the hospital a day early, without my OB. And I actually had ran into my OB when we were up in ICU, and he Had no idea. He was like, what are you doing here? Are you okay? And I was like, yeah, it's not me. It's my husband. And he was like, let me clear my schedule.
I will sit down with you for 20 minutes, three hours, we can talk, and then we will, I'm going to get you in for testing to make sure that everything is okay, but I just, I need to make sure that you're okay because you're my patient. And again, everybody in the hospital from day one to day seven was amazing I couldn't have asked for anything better.
And everybody handled it so well and everybody was so lovely. And I just, it was one of those things where I am in the recovery room after having a baby and everybody knows. And so again, I'm dealing with this thing where I'm like, everybody knows, everybody's staring at me that I went from Jeff's widow to, or Jeff's wife to Jeff's widow to now a mom all within a month.
And I, my head was spinning and I was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I got this person who's now a hundred percent dependent on me. for survival and I have to be this person. I don't have any other choice. So that was the other thing that pulled me out of it where I just, I was like, I have to be okay even if I'm not okay because I can deal with it later when the baby is sleeping for two hours.
I, I have to be okay because if I'm not, this kid is not going to survive. I'm the only one who can take care of them now. And so that I think also helped, but then It was these other little things where I related to it. It was like, therapy didn't really work for me.
Finding Strength in Vulnerability
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[00:41:56] Melissa: And it wasn't until somebody had said something about, I write letters to my mom.
To deal with trauma from my mom, but I never send them to her and I was like, man, I went to school for journalism. What am I doing sitting here being sad? I could be writing. And so that was like a form of therapy. And that also helped pull me out of this because I could have easily been depressed. I, the first couple of days after he died, I shut everything off in the house.
I laid in the dark. It was terrible. silent. I could have easily been in that place the whole time up until this point. But again, I had to be this person for my kid. And I had to be okay, because if I'm not okay, then everything else is going to fall apart. Like it's all on me. And I put myself in that position because it was something I could control.
And I, it forced me to wake up, get up, take a shower, not be sad. You can cry at four o'clock because that's when you have time at four o'clock. And that was, it was a structured, The thing that I had set out for myself and that was the only way I was going to survive it because if I didn't have any of those other things, if I didn't have the baby, if I didn't have the writing letters, and I have hundreds of letters that no one's ever gonna see, if I didn't have those things, I probably wouldn't be sitting here crying about it and talking about it because it could have easily just destroyed everything that I thought it was as a person.
And then a couple days ago I was watching this. Wonderful documentary it's called Will and Harper about Will Ferrell and his friend Harper. And she said something that I was like, it was like a switch turned on and I was like, I can, it's fine now. It's okay. I can talk about it because she said she had this life where she was certain about who she was.
And then things started to creep in. And then. Everything changed and it became this other chapter. It was a before and after. And so now she's having to navigate the world. In a new phase of her life, and she doesn't know how to do it. She doesn't know how to talk to people. She doesn't know how to be a person.
And it was this like form of self discovery that I was like, I relate to that. Even though our situations are nothing alike, we're two different planets. A person has money. I have some, but I'm not a celebrity. I, but it was one of those things where I was like, it's okay to start over and it's okay.
To have a before and after, and it's okay to talk about things that happened before, and it's okay to laugh, and it's okay to be a person, and it's okay to be sad, and it's okay to be angry, and it's okay to not want to do anything. It's okay. And you're going to come out of it alive, and you're going to come out of it with this new perspective.
And you just have to figure out how to be this new version of yourself that you don't know how to be this new version of yourself and there's no handbook, no amount of self help books are going to get you there. You have to do it for yourself. And if I didn't do it for myself, no one was going to do it for me.
So that was the most important thing that I had learned through this. If I don't do this for myself, and I don't do this for my kids, I'm not going to be able to tell him later on in life how wonderful his dad was. I'm not going to be able to have those conversations that I dread because I think about it.
It's an existential crisis for me. I don't know how I'm going to tell this kid that his dad died before he was born. And I don't know how I'm going to marry somebody. I don't know how I'm going to date someone else. I don't know how I'm going to marry someone else. I don't know how I'm gonna do all this stuff, but I have to do it.
There's no other way around it. I have to do this.
[00:46:17] Emily: I love how talked a lot about the life that you had before and then the life that you have now. And a lot of times I'll tell people like your old life is in ashes, like it's gone. And that's one of the hardest things that we have to face is like the life that we had was gone.
The dreams we had for the future are gone and now we have to create something totally new. And Yeah, it's overwhelming.
[00:46:44] Melissa: Yeah. To say the least. , I, there were times where we drove from Vegas to Washington. It was 18 hours, and there were times where my mom was asleep, and I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.
I don't know if this is the right choice for me. I don't know if this is the right choice for my kid. I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna do it because I, for. First of all, I don't want to live in Las Vegas by myself as a female. Don't want to live in Las Vegas as a single female with a baby by myself.
Didn't want to do any of it. So I, and that was the other thing that taught me was I, there is help and I have to ask for it because I'm not good at asking for help. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be the simplest thing. Opening a jar. I'll, I will break that jar before I have to ask somebody to help me open it.
But I, there is help and whether it's your family, your friends, anything, it's out there and you just have to ask for it. And that was one of the biggest things that I was like, I'm not going to be that person. And I was like, Oh no, I am that person. Cause I can't feed a kid every two hours on top of grieving for all of this.
There's no way. So yeah, mom, please take the baby. Please.
[00:48:07] Emily: Yeah. I love that because that's usually one of the things people have the hardest time with is just. Being willing to ask for help and being humble enough to admit that sometimes we can't do it on our own. Yeah, absolutely. Melissa, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story.
And sharing, the advice that you have for people who are going through that. I really appreciate you just being so open and vulnerable. Yeah.
[00:48:37] Melissa: Yeah. I, that's the other thing that I have struggled with is being vulnerable and telling people. I'm having a hard time and listen, when I was 25, you would not have caught me dead crying on a zoom, but even then 25, I never credit anything I can cry.
the drop of a hat now. It's so easy for me, but it's also, that's another thing that it's taught me is being vulnerable is totally fine and you're going to be fine. You just have to tell people, listen, this is too much for me right now. I have to go take a break, but I'm coming back, but I just, I have to go cry for a second.
Or is it okay if I cry in front of you? Because I never would have done that in my younger years. Never, but
[00:49:28] Emily: here I am. Yeah. It's very relatable, because people get to see the real you and they get to see a part of their story.
What an incredible story from Melissa and I am just so grateful that she was open and comfortable enough to be so vulnerable and to just share so many of the things that were on her heart and that she experienced as part of her journey, all in the hopes of being able to encourage and inspire you.
Overcoming Guilt and Regret
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[00:49:59] Emily: I do want to touch on something that she mentioned, which is one of the things that she has really wrestled with is struggling with guilt and struggling with all of the what ifs. This is actually something very normal that many widows experience through grief, is that feeling of guilt, the questions, and the endless rabbit hole of what if, the yearning, the pain.
The regret, the just desperate wish for one more conversation. One of the things that we teach in the Brave Widow community is working with the tool of the grief recovery method. And through that method, that is something that was a huge help to me in overcoming what I wished was better, more, or different.
about the relationship and about some of the interactions that we had. So if you're struggling with guilt, if you're struggling with a deep sense of yearning and longing, if you wish something had happened better, more or different in your relationship, then come join us in the Brave Widow community and I would love to help you overcome some of those challenges.
Join the Brave Widow Community
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[00:51:13] Emily: Are you a widow who feels disconnected? Do you feel like you're stuck or even going backwards in your grief? Widowhood can be lonely and isolating, but it doesn't have to be. Join us in the Brave Widow membership community and connect. We teach widows how to find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future.
Find your purpose and create a life you love today. Go to bravewidow. com to get started.
