What happened to me during my AN hiatus

Some of you may have noticed, though I doubt it, that I was missing from AN for some time during 2009 till around late 2010. I think I still posted some but I was scarce here.

I don't tell many people my story. I don't want their sympathy. I don't want to hear them tell me how horrible they feel for me. I don't want to hear them try and comfort me, and tell me how sorry they are.

The truth is they weren't there. They wouldn't understand. Suffering is something that is best endured in the quiet of one's own mind.

But you guys are the closest things I've had to enduring friends over the years, save RecentMidget and a few others. I feel like you guys deserve to know what happened, for what it's worth. It isn't the worst thing to happen in world history, and I'm not asking for sympathy. But it IS the worst thing that has ever happened in my life so for those who care to read, here it is.

I met the woman who would become my wife in mid 2009 (her name is Leia). I was with a woman at the time who I didn't love anymore, (her name was Amanda) and who deserved more than I gave her. Unfortunately, I was young and really cruel. I cheated on her with my future wife. It is important to note that my future wife knew nothing of this when it happened, and scolded me when she found out.

Anyway, my betrayal wrecked Amanda's life. Like straight up. She went from a bubbly, happy young woman, to someone dark and bitter. And thus is the first of two regrets I have ever had in my life. Not leaving her. That needed to happen. But being so harsh that last night. Crushing her like I did. It was horrible of me, and of all the things I've done in my life it still haunts me when I allow my thoughts to wander.

In the passing months, I grew distressed. For reasons I'm not quite sure of, I quit my job as a night janitor at wal-mart. It was a good job, I made a lot of money. But again, I was a child.

I began to run out of money. Then I heard that a man who was a long time family friend was moving out of my aunt's house in Delaware and out to omaha to stay with my mom. I asked my aunt if his room was available, and she said yes.

She went on to say that if I came she would get me a job at the bank she managed and i would flourish. Again, inexperience overtook me, and I accepted.

The night I accepted, I paced the floor, a choice to be made. I was leaving, no doubt, but what of my new love?

I went to her. I asked her to come with me. She said yes. And thus I made the second mistake that I will always regret. She shouldn't have come. Maybe things would have been different...

Before we left, on a windswept plateau overlooking her mother's property in the sandhills of Nebraska, I asked Leia to marry me. Sure we were only three months into our relationship, but I knew it would be awhile before we could wed. She said yes, and almost fell over the side in her bliss.

I had a truck then. An early 90's chevy 1500. Best vehical I had ever owned. Leia mentioned to me that her family sold their large dual tire truck to a Native man in her home town, and expressed great desire to have it back, that it was powerful and would make the move easier, along with sentimental value.

Love makes a man do funny things, and I traded my truck for this one. It hadn't been maintained at all. It was falling apart. I'll never forget the way she cried bitterly when she saw what the owner had done to it. But, it had been done, and we drove it back to omaha.

It died as soon as we got there. We left it in a vacant lot, Leia's quiet sniffling a backdrop to the grim scene.

Undaunted, we used Leia's small red pickup to go out to Delaware. My aunt sent us a 500 dollar check to move there. We ditched our apartments, leaving what we couldn't part with at various acquaintances houses to be delivered later. Leia left her shooting medals in her apartment. The trophies she could have given to our new daughter if she had kept them. She tried to pretend it was okay, she didn't need them. There was no room, but I watched her heart break. Why didn't I stop it then?

About this time I started refusing to talk to my parents based on our history. My parents never hit me physically, but the mental scars of my childhood still ache sometimes. Sounds gay, I know. But it is what it is.

Eventually I went to see them. I pretended to forgive them. We stayed the night at their camper. We left right from the campground, a hug to my ever ailing father, and we were gone.

We made the trip. We arrived on a stormy day. Most of our luggage got wet.

Fast forward to a few days after our arrival. It was a late night of talking and catching up with my extended family, and everyone had just gone to bed. We had been sleeping on the couches out in the living room for the past few days, as our bedroom had a fold out couch sleeper that was covered in boxes full of things my aunt failed to get put up before we moved in.

I went to find Leia.

This next part is hard for me to write. I'm trying to see the screen through really old tears. What I'm about to describe to you still haunts me as if it happened yesterday. It is the sole source of nightmares in my life, the main source of any fear or stress I experience in my life to this day. I think that I will never get this horror out of my mind. It is the single worst memory I have, the one thing I wish I could erase from my mind forever. Late at night I wake up screaming in a sweat, visions of the next few moments still burning behind my eyes.

As I said, I went to find Leia. She was in our bedroom, sitting in the computer chair with her headphones in. She was sleeping.

I didn't want her to be uncomfortable so I gently nudged her. She woke up. I told her it was time to come out to the couch and go to bed. She didn't answer. I suddenly got a sick feeling, and asked her if she was okay. Her response was,

"I'm struggling."

I wasn't sure what that meant, but I helped her to her feet and took her out to the living room. I layed her down on the couch, and covered her with a comforter. She closed her eyes and appeared to fall right back to sleep.

Yet still I had this sick feeling. It was a feeling so intense that I paced the floor for several minutes trying to gather myself. Stress from the move, I decided, and settled myself onto the couch adjacent to hers. Yet I still couldn't take my mind off of it, couldn't take my eyes off of her.

Suddenly, as I watched her, Leia's head slowly bent backward to gaze at the cieling. Her eyes widened and bulged from their sockets. Her face turned red and the muscles under her skin contorted in what I thought was an extreme grimace of pain, her lips sneering back into a silent scream.

I leaped from my spot and ran to her, asking her what was wrong. She answered in the form of a foaming hiss as her back arched and her whole body began to convulse. She was having what turned out to be a Gran Mal seizure.

I held her as she flailed, unsure of what to do, panic ringing in my head. When I met Leia, she told me she took medication for a mild form of epilepsy, nothing like this. She would jerk from time to time but nothing...nothing like this.

Eventually, she stopped flailing. She went limp in my arms. I watched the color drain out of her face. Her lips turned blue. Her eyes glazed over and became dead. Her breath leaked out in a low, guttural hiss, then stopped.

I'd never seen a seizure before. Oh god I was a maelstrom of flying limbs at everyone's door. I screamed and cried for help until I'd roused the entire house, thinking that my fiancé had just died in my arms.

I attempted to call 911. I ended up breaking the downstairs phone. As my family rushed to Leia's aide, I broke down into a screaming sob. Someone eventually got a cell phone and called for help.

At one point, she came to. I went to her, gazed into her eyes. I asked what her name was. She said "Leia" in a slurred, very impeded voice. I cried to her. I asked her to stay with me. She replied by having another Gran Mal.

I dropped her onto the couch as she hissed and gurgled, and was jostled out of the way by paramedics who had burst into the room.

I wept hysterically all the way to the hospital.

Now, Leia at this point in our life was still legally wed to a young man by the name of Ben. They had been separated for some time, and the divorce requests that Leia submitted were being refused by Ben, as he held hope that they would someday be together again.

For this reason, the nurse at the window refused me admittance to see her. I threatened her with bodily harm, and she reluctantly buzzed me in.

I found her in the hall on a gurney. She awaited admittance behind 3 gang members who had been shot in a fight. When she saw me, she broke down into tears.

I could do nothing but hold her to me, and pray for her health to a God I wanted so hard to believe in.

I held her head as she vomited from the shock. I got her water. She was shaken but okay.

........................................ ................................

I'm sorry friends, but this is all I have the strength to type tonight. Some nasty stuff is coming back to the surface of my mind, and I think I need to go to bed.

I'll finish this later in another post. Tomorrow probably.