Debra Layton
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[00:00:00] Emily: Hey, Hey, and welcome to episode number 137 of the brave widow show. In today's episode, I talk with DEBRA and I think you're really going to enjoy her story before we jump into her story. I just want to remind you, if you are listening to this, Fairly real time that I'm hosting a free webinar on Tuesday, February 11th at 11 a.
[00:00:24] m. Central time and it's called the top five dating mistakes that widows make and what to do instead So to sign up for that you can go to brave widow calm if you want to catch the replay go to brave widow calm Love, if you are watching or listening to this after the 11th, all right, let me introduce you to Debra.
[00:00:48] Debra is a young mama to a one year old baby boy who lost her husband of 13 years to cancer. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Tik TOK, and we will include those links in the show notes. Let's go.
[00:01:02] Welcome to the Brave Widow Show, where we help widows find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future. I'm your host, Emily Tanner. After losing my husband of 20 years, I didn't know how I could ever experience true joy and excitement again for the future. I eventually learned how to create a life I love, and I've made it my mission to help other widows do the same.
[00:01:29] Join me and the Brave Widow membership community and get started today. Learn more at BraveWidow. com
[00:01:37] Debra, I know that our audience would love to know just more about you, more of your background, and then we can dive into your story just wherever you want to start.
[00:01:49] Debra: Okay. That sounds good. So my husband and I met when I was 23. I'm 35 now. We met when I was 23. I was in my last year of my master's program. I'm currently a teacher 11 years in. And so I was doing my master's program in upstate New York. And really chilly night in November, we had gone out, I had gone out with a couple friends, and we were out at this local place in downtown Albany, New York, and we must have had mutual friends because everyone kind of knew each other except for us.
[00:02:28] And we got talking saying Oh, this is weird. Like we're the only ones who don't really know each other. And we were just talking the night it went really good. And he had asked my phone number and I, he gave me his phone and I put it in. It was Blackberry's at that time. It was not an iPhone.
[00:02:47] Oh no,
[00:02:47] Emily: Blackberry. I love my Blackberry.
[00:02:50] Debra: This was back in 2011, so it was early days for those iPhones. Nice. And I typed my phone number in his phone. Wrong oh, no. Yeah I accidentally messed up a digit and, I felt really confident leaving out that night, and the next two days I didn't hear from him.
[00:03:10] And I thought that was really weird. So I was like, okay, whatever, and then he had reached out to his friend who was mutual friends with my friend asking, I've texted her she hasn't answered. And that's where it all began. And, he finally got the real phone number from me and texted me.
[00:03:33] And then we figured out that I gave him the wrong phone number and it wasn't on purpose. And he just he said off the bat that like, that was one of the telltale signs. He knew like I was his forever because I did silly things like that sometimes. So yeah, so we met in 2011. And then we were both originally from New York.
[00:03:56] We decided to pick up in 2013 and move down to Florida Clearwater, Florida. I was in grad school at the time I graduated and. I wasn't able to get a job up in New York and he was like, let's go to Florida. And I said, okay, let's try it. And then we were like a year and a half in dating. My mom was so sad that I was leaving.
[00:04:18] She's are you sure you want to move all the way down to Florida? But we did. And we were just so successful. And I found my first teaching job and he was able to transfer his job at the time. And we started our new Southern life down here in Florida. Which was a lot different than New York.
[00:04:40] But and then in 2015, we adopted our fur baby Apollo. And that's where my husband said he knew that I was definitely the one because of how I cared for Apollo. And we had got engaged probably six months after adopting him. So we got engaged in 2016, and then we got married in 2017, July 15th of 2017, back up in New York, cause that's where all of our friends and family were from.
[00:05:09] And we did the thing. We bought a house down here in Clearwater and we decided it was time to start our family. So we tried and we tried and we were really struggling. And during the pandemic, we actually had a loss. I was about 10 weeks pregnant and I had a loss. And then we were like, maybe we should go see someone because we really wanted, we knew we wanted a family.
[00:05:36] It was one of the things that attracted us to each other, when we first met. So we finally got to see a fertility specialist. We went through the whole IVF process. We ended up with one solid embryo and that embryo stuck when we transferred him. And he's now 15 months old, a baby boy. Yeah. So we had, we finally got pregnant with our rainbow baby.
[00:06:05] In November of 2022, November has been our month since we, 'cause we met in November of 2011. We found out we were pregnant November of 2022. So it November's just been like one of our months. Wow. So this month has been, is already started off to be a little tough 'cause you know it's November 5th now.
[00:06:27] And then we did our gender reveal for our friends and family in February of 2023 to let them know we were having a baby boy. And it was probably the week after that where my husband started to not feel great. He had suffered for about 10 years with ulcerative colitis and he had surgeries and things like that to help with it.
[00:06:51] And he was doing really well he was gaining so much weight. He was, he's one of those where he had no issues with weight gain or anything. So he was finally gaining muscle and he felt really good about himself. And then all of a sudden he didn't feel good. And he was one of the people to never really tell you how they were feeling.
[00:07:13] Like they tried to be strong and he was all the way that until the very end. So in March he was like, I think I have to go to the doctor. I'm not feeling well, my stomach hurts. And we knew he already had issues with that. So let's just go get checked out. Let's get cleared of everything. See what we can do.
[00:07:34] And he had tests after tests done probably for three weeks. He saw, we've never seen so many doctors before. And I was about five months pregnant. It was end of March when they had told us after biopsies that he was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer. And just like saying that out loud, like it's me that gives me the goosebumps again, because I can bring myself back to that day of when we found that out, I just come home from work and he had known he knew that morning, but he didn't he always protected me from that kind of stuff and he knew like it would just ruin my day.
[00:08:17] So he wanted me to make sure I was, with my students and. Not having to worry about that till I got home. And he told me and being five months pregnant after loss, after trying so hard to have this baby that I just cried for probably 20 minutes. And then I stopped and I said to myself that I need to be strong for my boys.
[00:08:40] I need to carry this baby till first full term so I need to make sure that, I am keeping my stress level down. I was just scared of losing it, losing him. And on top of that, being the strength for my family at that time. And so he, we told our family all about the news. Stage four is scary, but he, we had a doctor down here.
[00:09:10] He was the, our oncologist, he was very hopeful. He said, we caught it when we caught it. We immediately did this intense two weeks of radiation. Justin underwent 19 rounds of chemo. It was every other week.
[00:09:27] Emily: What was going through your mind, at that point of trying to wrap your mind around all of this?
[00:09:35] Debra: It was definitely day by day and it still is day by day. I was just,
[00:09:41] I knew that what I needed to do was to remain calm and positive on the outside where on the inside it felt like I was just being crushed and over again every day. My family, his family, nobody, we've never had. Any cancer. We went through IVF, so we already had gone through the process of testing our DNA and there were no markers of that in my family or in Justin's family.
[00:10:08] So it was hard. was like crushing every day. And every day I knew I woke up and I had to be strong. I had to physically be strong for him to see that, as I would cry and he would cry. And being together for, I think, 12 years at that point, it was a peak for us.
[00:10:34] For sure. We've been through a lot of stuff together, him and I, family issues, moving across the country and just all these issues. And this was just not something we saw for us. My husband was very much a person to tackle it and know that he needs to get through it. So every round of chemo I could see just tore him down just a little bit more.
[00:10:59] And it was just so hard for me to see him like that. Being together for 12 years, you think you've seen it all until something like this happens and you just see your person in some other way. And I just knew I knew that I needed to be strong for us. I did. I put that at the forefront of my mind and I just knew it.
[00:11:19] Emily: Yeah. And I fortunately have not had to be in that situation. And so what I hear from people that have is that as a caregiver, it's just, you feel so unseen and it's really heavy because maybe rightfully so all the focus is on your spouse and it's a lot of waiting and a lot of ups and downs and you are wanting to make sure that they feel fully supported.
[00:11:49] And like you said, you're just crushed on the inside or you just feel shattered and that. Maybe it's isolating in a way to feel that you're hearing that too.
[00:12:01] Debra: Yeah. And I did say, I had said to a couple of my friends, my really close family, everyone was like, Oh my gosh, you're pregnant. Yay. Like we're so happy for you guys.
[00:12:11] And then I had to do all of this side by side with his cancer diagnosis. And in a way I am not a selfish person like whatsoever. I'm always give. But at that moment I was like, thank you for asking about my husband, but I'm also, now seven months pregnant. And, it, people looked past me a little bit into, because this huge thing was happening, to us and to him and I felt selfish in that moment.
[00:12:42] But at the same time, my feelings were just as relevant as, his feelings in it. And he never felt, made me feel like that, but just in other, like trying to celebrate having my baby shower and things like that. A lot of focus was like, how's your husband doing? And it's but just focus on me right now.
[00:13:02] Let me just have this one day. I've been waiting so long for it. And now it's finally here. So I'm glad you did bring that up. Cause it did spark a memory that I, a feeling that I had at the time of just, I wanted it to be like, Normal. Yeah.
[00:13:19] Emily: There was that grief for what you thought that experience was always going to be like and compounded by the previous loss that you had of, oh, we have it.
[00:13:30] Oh, now you know, maybe we can try again. And, oh, we are pregnant now. This is gonna be amazing. And now we also have to navigate all these murky waters. And so there is even. Another element of grief of, this is supposed to be the happiest time of my life. And yeah,
[00:13:50] Debra: exactly. I, and that's how I felt.
[00:13:53] I felt, I'll get to the, when he had passed, but I feel like grieving starts prior to that. Like grieving doesn't grieved this pregnancy and now I didn't get the full. Spotlight for it, which I'm okay with. It's just still a part of me that I'm like, Oh I can't believe that this is happening.
[00:14:14] Like just navigating that in those waters of we're celebrating, but I also have to make sure my baby shower is not on a chemo week because I don't want him to feel like not good physically, and having to. Schedule that kind of stuff is not something that not everybody goes through. And I didn't really have anyone to talk to about that because I felt alone in that moment.
[00:14:42] And I know now being on this side of loss, it, I know that I'm not alone. There is this entire community that has such similar stories, and it's, Now looking back on it, I stand by how I felt for sure, but I knew that I know that I'm not alone. And that's a good feeling in itself.
[00:15:09] Emily: That's powerful. Yeah.
[00:15:10] Debra: Yeah, for sure. So I had gestational diabetes. We had induction set. So again, having to schedule chemotherapy around my induction and clearing with our oncologist that is it okay if, my husband doesn't have a round of chemo in for four weeks, is that okay?
[00:15:34] Because I want him to be present, once we do have the baby and be home with us and things like that. And Justin was doing good. His tumor had shrunk like tremendously his blood work, his knee. numbers. Everything was so good. We were so hopeful for this. So then once they had, so I had the baby August 1st of 2024.
[00:15:57] Emily: That's my birthday.
[00:15:58] Debra: Oh my gosh. It's the best day, right? Yes. Yeah. August 1st. Alexander Joseph, we had him and it was. Everything, everything was great. I, that was like my favorite day. We went in the day before because my blood pressure had gone was elevated. So they're like, let's just, we're just going to induce you now.
[00:16:23] It's not coming down. August 1st at 6 42 PM. So we had our son and his sister actually had recently told me that. When he first was diagnosed, he didn't know if he was even going to be able to meet his son because I was only five months pregnant. We didn't know at the time, but the doctors were hopeful and He was doing so well that in a full year later, they're like, okay, let's start talking about surgery because we want to remove it out of your body and get you in some sort of remission.
[00:17:00] You're young, you're healthy. Otherwise. other than the ulcerative colitis and the cancer. He did have it did spread to his liver, which did qualify it for stage four, but they weren't, the liver lesions had pretty much gone away just with chemotherapy themselves. So surgery was then scheduled for June 21st of 2024.
[00:17:24] And, we had this we had an amazing surgeon, we had four surgeons on his case that because of how intense, tumor removal was and plastic surgery where the tumor was. And just, it was a lot to navigate. It's a lot to navigate as a 35 year old, just learning all that I've learned about cancer and, The different stages and what doctors do what, just, I didn't anticipate having to learn this at such a young age.
[00:17:59] So that's been a huge part. I catch on to things very quickly and just all the doctors we've seen over the past like two years with IVF and then now this, just navigating that, just not something I had anticipated. And that's. That's been a, that was where it started, just, feeling this life that I had in my mind and then it just going the opposite direction and, but then giving so much hope, from the surgeons and the doctors.
[00:18:32] So we had surgery June 21st of 2024, they said it would be about an eight to 10 hour surgery. It happened to be a 14 hour surgery, one of the longest 14 hours of my life.
[00:18:45] Emily: Had to be so nerve wracking just the time and yes, and it's so hard. I
[00:18:51] Debra: was there the whole time. It's so hard because I have this 10 month old at home.
[00:18:58] Now that's a whole day that my 10 month old I don't get to see. Thankfully my mom is living here in Florida. She had moved down a couple of months before we got pregnant. So it just like the timing with that really worked out. So being away from him is so hard through this journey.
[00:19:15] Cause I have to split. I wish I could split myself in half and be with my husband for this 14 hour surgery, but also be at home with my son, for the whole day. And that was a whole day that I didn't get to be with him and Justin did really well in surgery. He pulled through, he, his blood pressure never batted an eye.
[00:19:37] He didn't bat an eye the entire surgery. That's what our surgeon, our colorectal surgeon had told us. surgery went perfect. They got pretty much all the tumor. The tumor had erupted prior to surgery. So they can't just gut out your insides, so she said we got what we got, it's going to be an uphill battle, but we're going to be in front of it this time versus playing catch up.
[00:19:59] And she was so confident and He did good. I saw him that night. I left him. He was out of it because of how much anesthesia he had. So the next day I went, he was in a lot of pain. His spinal tap didn't work. So they were trying to manage his pain otherwise. But everything was good. Everything was great until about six days after he developed a pneumonia.
[00:20:28] Where his surgery was, he had to lay flat on his back for a week straight and not really move because you didn't want to like mess up any of where the plastic surgery was and everything. And he developed a pneumonia because he wasn't, exercising those lungs and his lung, his right lung had collapsed.
[00:20:49] So they rushed him to ICU. So I'm like, okay, is, are we still good? Are we pulling out of this? And doctors were like, we may talk about a ventilator just in case having to make all these decisions. Like I said, I just never imagined. I never imagined you, as much as you, I guess you can try to prepare yourself for it.
[00:21:12] There's no preparing yourself for this. Thinking about, making those calls because I'm a wife now. I'm not just the girlfriend. I'm the wife and I, it's up to me, so we had conversations like that. If you were putting on a ventilator, like what are your wishes? Because even being together for 12, almost 13 years, that's not really a conversation that you generally have, we've talked about it, but it's not something that we've had to go on in depth about. So he was in ICU for 12 days, finally got back to the floor. His infection was pretty much gone. They started to do some physical therapy to get his legs moving and because they say with a muscle, when you don't use it, you lose it.
[00:22:02] So he hadn't used his legs in almost three weeks and his lower body, so he was having a lot of physical therapy and he was doing good and he was able to stand up on his own and walk to the chair and sit down on his own, just all that kind of stuff, and he was going to be discharged on Monday, July 8th.
[00:22:23] And Saturday morning, when I went there, because I went there every single day, at that point, I really was splitting my time. I would wake up in the morning, go to the hospital that was 30 minutes away, spend 5 or 6 hours there, go home, take care of my 10 month old. It was exhausting. It was exhausting.
[00:22:45] And I kept saying to myself, because it had been almost a month at this point, Is this ever going to link? And my what's my new normal going to look like when Justin comes home what's this going to be like, I just can't, we need to not have to drive to the hospital. And it was over summer, we had made sure it was over summer break.
[00:23:01] So I wasn't having to take off work or anything like that because obviously he wasn't working. So it was summer, it was my summer break. I was out of school, but I was in the hospital every single day for two weeks. From June 21st to when they were going to discharge him and that Saturday when I went, he was just off.
[00:23:23] There was something off about him. I know him the best. And I had said to the nurses, he's not acting like himself. He was a lot weaker. getting, standing up and getting to the chair. The left side of his face started to, it was almost paralyzed in a way. And I'm like, does your, how do you feel right now? And he was slurring his words.
[00:23:51] And I'm like, something's not right. I know him. You really have to be an advocate for those that you love because not every place knows them like you do. And I was like, something's off. I know something's off. I'm like, you have to call a surgeon. So I called our doctor who was a surgeon. And I said to her, I can't take him home like this.
[00:24:14] He can't lift himself up out of bed. I can't do it. I have a now 11 month old running around the house. I can't do this. I don't know. And I don't want him to go to a nursing facility because that's not good either. So I'm like I, something's wrong. So I pushed and pushed. And finally that Monday she ordered a full body scan to see what's going on.
[00:24:41] His lungs were clear. Everything was good. It was at night, July 10th. I think it was a Tuesday or Wednesday. She had ordered the scan. They didn't do it till the next day, July 10th. I was eating dinner at my mom's cause my mom had the baby most of the time, cause I was at the hospital. I would bring the baby to the hospital and.
[00:25:03] Do the best that I could, those wake windows, we have to make sure he's home for a nap or my night is hard and I'm by myself at night. And she called, I see her phone number pop up on my phone and they run to my bedroom at my mom's house and I answer it and she said who she was, it was 5 PM, we were just finishing dinner.
[00:25:25] And she just had this tone and I was like, gosh just tell me. And she goes. The cancer has spread to his brain and it was exactly what you thought he has seven lesions on his brain They're all they're not just in one area. They're spread out So in that moment
[00:25:50] trying not to get choked up here, but I am It's like someone took
[00:25:57] this future and just snapped it in half
[00:26:00] And I just felt like my entire world shattered.
[00:26:03] And that's really the only way to describe it. It was just, I just, I yelled for my mom. I said, mom, she came running down the hallway. She knew something was wrong by the tone that I, and I even, I had the doctor on speakerphone and I apologized to her later. Cause I just screamed, you screamed for your mom and I did.
[00:26:23] I screamed for my mom and she just came in and I was hysterically crying and she just, she knew because we had been talking about what the possibilities were prior to, getting the results and. We just, she, the doctor then explained, she answered a lot of questions that I had and my mom had.
[00:26:45] And we just, she didn't tell Justin at this point. So I was the first person she told, she said, I have to call his wife first. Like she's the first person I have to tell. And I just, God bless these doctors and stuff, because I don't know how they do that. How do you tell someone that? Cause she asked, she's do you want to be the person to tell them?
[00:27:03] And I said, I. Could I can't there's no way so she told him and then he probably like an hour later he had called me and I had just said, again, being as strong as I could just, we're going to do this together, no matter what it is. And we're going to, we're going to, as long as you want to fight, I'm fighting right by your side.
[00:27:26] So we had gone early to the hospital the next day. We talked about like the pros and cons. They started talking about palliative care, which is like what you do prior to hospice. Again, me learning all of these things that I didn't think I was going to have to learn so young. And we just had to have the most realist conversations.
[00:27:48] Was probably one of the hardest days other than finding out about his cancer and having a loss of a baby and things like that. This was probably one of the hardest days as well, because you have those conversations with this person that you love and he was your other half. And I'm trying to be strong for him as well as being realistic about it because we very much were always realistic about things.
[00:28:14] Yeah. And, he said he wanted to do whatever he had to do, so we decided on just radiation, just to bring the swelling down, because what was happening was it was on parts of his brain that were his motor skills and movement. So if they were to able to shrink that and have some physical therapy, he would then It, we don't know how long it, they didn't put a number on it.
[00:28:41] I guess you say, in movies, they're like, Oh, you have three months to live. It's not really like that in, in real life. They just said, we're going to do everything we can to just give them as much time as we can. We don't know what that looks like. So we did, he went on and he had. His first day of radiation, they created this like almost hockey mask for him.
[00:29:05] They have to keep your head so still, in there in the radiation machine. And he ended up losing his hair, not something that he had with chemotherapy. He didn't lose his, like his hair or anything like that. But he did with this radiation. So he started getting this radiation July. It was, they moved him so fast up the line.
[00:29:26] Like he had his scan. We met with the brain surgeon and then the radiologist, and the next day they had him in for radiation. Like they were taking it so seriously, which is in a way I am glad we didn't go home because if we went home, it would've been call the doctor, then you have to go this and get this scan and then this happens.
[00:29:46] And this happened all within three days. So at that point, my journey it took a turn. I thought we were going to have a lot more time. And he had his radiation and 10 rounds of radiation. And then he got into a physical therapy rehab, like it's a special rehab and he wasn't making any progress there.
[00:30:11] And I could see he was trying his hardest, but it just wasn't, it wasn't working. And at some point I had to have this conversation with myself. of we want him home and whatever that looks like we will make happen. If it gives us a day home, if it gives us a week or a month, like he wanted to come home.
[00:30:35] And so we having to make that decision and having that conversation with him that we think it's best that he moved to hospice. Again, I keep saying it over and over again because it's just such an unrealistic thing. I thought that I would have to be going through of hospice. We're supposed to be 80 or 90 when we talk about this.
[00:30:57] If that not, he was 41. He had just turned 41 on August 21st.
[00:31:04] Emily: Just mind blowing to think about. The age and having a new baby and then having to talk about hospice and, lesions on the brain and just all these things like it had to just feel so surreal and hard.
[00:31:20] Debra: It does. It still feels surreal.
[00:31:23] It just I can't believe I am. I did it, even though it feels was I even present, but I was making those decisions. And. Was doing the best that I could for our family and everything, and during this whole thing, so he had gone in June 21st, our dog that we, I mentioned that our dog earlier, because he's a pit bull, he's a blue nose pit bull, and he just developed this separation anxiety to where he was wrecking my walls.
[00:31:56] He wanted to, if I left him alone, he clawed at the wall to, and he exposed the drywall at one point.
[00:32:04] Emily: Oh no.
[00:32:04] Debra: And it was on my son's birthday, his first birthday. We came home from Build a Bear and here he was, drywalls everywhere. He's going through it too. Animals go through it just as much. They just can't tell you.
[00:32:19] So here I am grieving. Justin still had not passed away, but he wasn't home. So I've been alone since June 21st. And he was in the hospital having surgery and getting radiation doing all the things. And then finally, dealing with the dog's anxiety, dealing with my anxiety, dealing, within 11 months now, one year old at home, having my husband not physically be there for my son's first birthday.
[00:32:46] That's. Something I didn't think I'd have to go through, just all these knockdowns that I kept feeling throughout this entire journey. And I'm still standing. I just it's just a, such a surreal feeling though. We moved him to hospice. So we actually, I took a half a day at school. I went home and get the baby and we went and visited him for his 41st birthday that he was at the physical therapy, August 21st is his birthday.
[00:33:15] And that's when we actually had that conversation about hospice and he knew he said, he's like my body's failing. I just know it. And. He's I just want to come home and I said, whatever we need to do to get you home, we're going to do it. So I called his doctor, we finagled all the things that you finagled to get him back into the hospital to go to hospice to come home.
[00:33:38] And Friday, August 23rd, he was brought to hospice, which was two minutes from our house. So it was nice. It was right around the corner. It was a Friday night. The next day I went there. I spent a couple hours in hospice with him. He had just got there. So they had to get his pain regimen under control and he was doing good.
[00:34:07] And I left him Saturday, August 24th. Probably like 630. I went, I said, I'll be back in the morning. Your caseworker will be here. We'll talk about getting the bed at home. Things I have to do, like I have to do like a little training to figure out how to administer his medication, things like that. And he told me, he texted me, he's I'm going to rest tonight.
[00:34:31] I said, okay. So I said good night to him. And the next day I woke up and I thought I had a stomach bug. And then I said, something's off. Am I really sick? Cause I felt so nauseous. I was like, okay I can't be pregnant. So I must have a stomach bug. That's definitely what it is. I was having like sweats.
[00:34:51] That's And everything and I had texted him and he wasn't answering and I was like, that's just not like him. So I told the nurse that I was going to be there probably about 1230 after my son's nap. Bring the baby. We'll spend a couple hours. There's right around the corner from the house. So it's nice and easy to head home, put him down and then go back.
[00:35:12] And I get, I took a shower while the baby was napping at about 1130. I saw the number for the hospice call me. And so I answered and she said, Hey, Deborah, you're coming in today. And I said, Yeah. She's okay, what time? And I was like, probably in an hour. She's like, all right, when you get here, we'll just talk a little bit.
[00:35:35] And I said, you got to tell me now, because if my son's there, I'm not fully there. Cause I'm worried about what he's getting into. And she said Justin took a turn last night and he's been in and out of being conscious. He does wake up when, if we do wake him up, he is. He opens his eyes.
[00:36:02] We want you to come in just as soon as you can. And his sister was caught flying in the following weekend. And I said, should I call fit? Is it time? Like I need someone to tell me so I can handle this. And she said, I would better sooner than later. I call my mom immediately. She wasn't going to go to hospice today.
[00:36:26] She was going to spend her Sunday at home, cleaning cause she was gonna have to watch the baby for me the next day. And I call her immediately and she, mother's intuition just knows, she picks up the phone. I don't even say anything. She's what's wrong? It was like a normal phone call. I just called her.
[00:36:45] What's wrong? I said, Justin's not doing great. I think we need to prepare ourselves. I need you to get there cause I need to help with the baby. I'm going to stay, as long as it takes. And. So we went and I saw the state that he was in and he was just sleeping and he actually heard my son coming down the hallway and when we got to the room, he's look who's here like he woke up himself.
[00:37:14] Emily: Wow.
[00:37:15] Debra: And I knew he was still there. Again, I didn't know what to expect. I did. I've never done this before. I don't even, my grandfather had passed in his sleep. So I've never done this. I was younger. So I didn't know what to expect. And so we had like our little meeting with the nurse and she just explained everything.
[00:37:35] And she just said, It could be a hour, it could be a day, it could be a week, we just don't know. So I was able to talk with him and we've already had those hard conversations. So it was really more of, just, I love you. It's okay, because he never wanted my son and I to not be taken care of. He wouldn't leave not knowing that.
[00:38:04] My mom was there, which was so helpful. My stepdad was there, and my son was there, in and out of the room. And that afternoon we just spent together and I was holding his hand. He slept. He would wake up every time I would ask him a question or I would say, are you still with me? And he would squeeze my hand.
[00:38:24] He, he just was there and I know it may not be like that for everybody. I'm just, he was there and I knew he was there and then spent the whole day with him. I brought the dog. And he got he like moved and grabbed the dog and he knew our Apollo was there with him and he said goodbye to him and he was able to, say goodbye and we FaceTime my brother and my sister in law and my niece or we're all very close.
[00:38:58] And he was able to FaceTime his sister. She was on a, she was on a flight the next day and she knew that it would have been too late, but she was coming down no matter what. And we FaceTimed her and he was like, I love you. And he was there. And then my mom said, I'm going to come back. It was like six o'clock ish at this time, 6 15.
[00:39:22] Alex, my son was there. My son said. goodbye and he always scratched at my husband's beard. He loved like his beard hair and my husband moved his face to Alexander's hand so that he could scratch his face. And I feel like that was their way of, saying goodbye and I love you. And then my mom said, don't call me Debra unless something happens.
[00:39:48] Cause every time I put the phone on off, she would jump. So they had left and I was holding Justin's hand and I told him I loved him and it's okay and we're going to be okay. And I got this and he looked at me and he took his last breath and that was it.
[00:40:10] Emily: Wow. What a beautiful gift, like way to be able to be there until the last moment.
[00:40:17] That's just really incredible.
[00:40:20] Debra: Yeah, it has not made it easier because I don't feel like anything makes this journey easy, but it's like a, just a feeling of happiness that I can have and hold that and relive that and be able to say goodbye and for him to know how much I loved him and still do every single day and how much, he loved me.
[00:40:52] And just having that, not everybody gets that. And I feel so fortunate to have had that.
[00:41:03] Emily: Yeah. And like you said it doesn't, diminish the hurt and the loss that you have, but to be able to just have that, those moments and for him to be able to have said goodbye to some of the family members, that's just really incredible.
[00:41:20] What would you share, just in these last few minutes that we have with people who maybe they're in that caregiving stage, I've had several widows on the show that they're even still pregnant while they're losing their spouse that, similar situation or they're just in the very early days, like what has been the most helpful for you or what encouragement would you give to those people?
[00:41:47] Debra: I think oh, giving yourself just all the amount of grace because and feel all the feelings because you're going to feel them to take it in. I feel like that has really helped me to allow myself take five minutes and feel how I feel. Because I have my 15 month old now, that I'm strong for, but at the same time, I feel those feelings up and down all day.
[00:42:24] And I think really just giving yourself grace and you've said it so many times. It's so important and being able to get out those feelings. Having that person or people that you can talk to and know you feel safe around because I am so blessed with the people that are in my life that I know that there's no judgment and they just let me talk and let me get out my feelings and they reassure me that it's okay to not be okay because you're not okay and it's I'm strong and I know that I'm strong, but at times it just hits you and to just soak it in as much as you soak in and remember all those joyful times and all those happy memories with your spouse soak in the grief too.
[00:43:23] And I think that's really important.
[00:43:26] Emily: Kudos to the people around you who are willing to just sit in it with you like that I think is the most priceless precious thing that we can do is through all the awkwardness and the tears and the Guttural cries and all of that is just to have somebody that's yeah, this sucks and I'm here with you Exactly.
[00:43:45] Yeah, it just taking it all in. So that's amazing. Yes. Deborah thank you so much for So openly sharing your story and the beautiful memories and things that you were able to see through all of that. And I know that has to have been Incredibly hard. And even as you think about the future that you have with your son and all of those moments that we know are going to come up and you're going to think his dad should be here to see that.
[00:44:18] That's not an easy journey, but you just, it sounds like you are handling it really well and have a great mindset for, I get to embrace. gratitude for the time we had together, the messiness of grief, and also realize my life isn't over. And all of these things are true at the same time. Yeah. Yep. All at the same exact time.
[00:44:42] Exactly. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming and sharing your story. I really appreciate it.
[00:44:48] Debra: Yeah. thank you so much for having me.
[00:44:49] If you're newly widowed and aren't sure where to start, you need the brave new widow's starter kit inside brave new widow. You'll find a starter guide to help you through your first few months. A quick start guide. You can share with family and friends so they know how to help you. And a collection of some of the frequent topics that widows want to learn more about. To get the brave new widow series.
[00:45:16] Just go to brave widow. Dot com slash start it's free and you'll get instant access. That's brave widow.com/start S T a R T. See you there.
