The Floor
I pulled him off of our bed and onto the floor. The 911 dispatcher told me to. She said it would help him breathe. I grabbed his ankles and pulled hard on his legs. He fell to the floor with a loud thump. I gasped at the loudness of it, but he didn’t move on his own at all. He didn't shake his head and say, “Ow, what’d you pull me off the bed for?” He didn't do anything. He just laid there. She told me to lift his neck up to help him breathe. I tried, but it was hard to move him, and I didn't want to hurt him. I put my head on his chest again and again, I couldn’t tell if he was breathing, I couldn’t tell if that was his heartbeat or mine that I heard as he laid on the floor.
“Daddy! Wrestle with me!” she would shout, as she jumped into him and they landed on the floor. It was their favorite game. She would pound him and he would exaggerate the impact, clutching his stomach and lifting his legs in the air.
“You got me good, baby girl!” he would tell her. She would grin in delight and spin around, her sparkly dress twirling. “Let’s do it again!” she would scream as she jumped off the couch and onto the floor.
I could hear his voice in my head. “I'm fine. Stop worrying, everything’s fine.” He always said that. He was wrong this time.
I could see the bright lights of the fire truck shine through the closed blinds as they pulled up to the house. I opened the door and waved. Big clunky boots came shuffling onto my floor. Two of them followed me into the bedroom and looked down at the floor. One of them shrugged at the other one. Was it a “he's already dead” shrug? I've always wondered. They picked him up, one at the legs and the other one under the arms, and carried him out to the living room. They laid him on his back, there was more space for them to work on that floor. I couldn’t see what was happening, paramedics were in my way, tears were in my way. I had just put away Christmas the day before, I vacuumed up all the pine needles off the floor.
We got a fondue set that Christmas. We melted a giant chunk of chocolate into the pot. What can you dip in chocolate? Fruit, marshmallows, cookies, graham crackers, nuts, raisins. A smorgasbord of goodies for our chocolate fondue party. We sat the tray on the living room floor and sat around it. How much chocolate could we eat? The whole thing? Our girl was smiling ear to ear, chocolate all over her face. Laughing so hard I couldn’t catch my breath, I laid down on the floor, fondue stick still in my hand. “Let's do this all the time!” she said, with chocolate all over her teeth. Her daddy and I agreed, that was a great idea. I threw that fondue set away.
I was escorted into the other room, I sat down in the rocking chair, it wasn’t time for the floor. I prayed. My sister came, she saw him laying on the floor, she held me and we prayed. I prayed harder then I ever have in my whole life. “Please God, please God, please fix him. Please God, please God, please fix him.” It was all I could think of to say. It was all I could do as he lay on the floor.
When I was pregnant I went into premature labor. He called the hospital, told them something was wrong. He drove us there in the middle of the night. They poked and prodded and said the baby was coming now. He held my hand as I screamed in pain. I’ve never seen him so scared in my entire life, I’ve never seen him have to work at staying calm until now. He thought the baby and I were going to die. He knelt on the floor outside my hospital room and prayed.
“NO.” The paramedic said his heart was not beating well. I said, “But it’s still beating?” She said “NO,” it wasn’t beating “good enough”. I was confused. What does “not beating good enough” even mean? A beating heart is a beating heart, isn't it? If your heart is beating, you are alive. If it's not, you’re not alive. It’s pretty simple, I thought. NO. It wasn’t simple. His heart was “not beating good enough”. My sister asked if we were going to the hospital, and the paramedic said “NO.”
NO, we would not be going to the hospital. She didn’t say “I’m sorry for your loss.” she didn’t say “We tried everything we could” She didn’t say “dead” or “died.” She said “NO.”
That’s how I knew he was gone. We would not be going to the hospital. We wouldn't be going anywhere. My husband lay dead on our living room floor.
The first time I ever saw him, we were at church camp, I was 16 years old. I was sitting on top of a picnic table near the lake. A bunch of friends were standing around and we were all just hanging out talking. I looked up, and just as I did, he came walking over this little tiny hill that was more like a mound. I didn’t know who he was, but there was something about him, he had the most beautiful blue eyes and long eye lashes. He came over to our group and joined whatever conversation we were having. That was all. It’s barely memorable, yet I remember it. Something happened in that moment that I didn’t even realize. He always said “It wasn’t love at first sight, but sometime between the first time I saw her and the very next breath I took that I fell in love.”
The paramedic asked me if I wanted to see him. I stood up out of my chair, my legs already knew what my heart didn’t want to believe, they didn’t want to go in there. My whole body was shaking, and I was crying so hard I couldn’t see. With the help of my sister I forced my legs forward until we got to the doorway. Then they stopped, my feet frozen to the ground. I could see him out of the corner of my eye and my body would not go forward anymore. Someone told me to sit down. My back against the wall, I slid down to the floor. A few feet away his body lay on the floor. “This isn’t my life; this isn’t what happens to me,” I said over and over. Was I whispering or screaming? It felt like we were just getting started, and now his life and mine were over as we both lay on the floor.
“All my love, all my life,” was how he signed every card he gave me, every poem he wrote to me. Every cell in his body told me he would love me his entire life. We would dream of the future and our “some day” farm: a big Victorian house where we would sit in rocking chairs on our porch and watch our grandchildren play as we held hands. He always said we were going to make it to our 80th wedding anniversary. We had 65 more years to go. We were going to live to be 100, then go out with a bang; perhaps skydiving or bungee jumping, crashing our airplane into a barn. Whatever it would be, we would be together holding each other's hand.
His body still laid on the floor as our family arrived in utter shock. They all had to walk past him. Did they look down? Or did they ignore what was on the floor? I never touched him again. I didn't hold his hand. I didn't kiss his forehead. I didn't lay my head on his chest. I didn’t lay next to him on the floor. Not even at the funeral viewing did I touch him again. I couldn't. My brain knew he was dead, but if I touched him, that would make it real. I didn’t want it to be real.
The summer before he died, we had a surprise birthday party at our house for his parents. His dad’s birthday was in July and his mom’s was in August. We asked them over for dinner. When they walked into the back yard and saw all the people his mom said, “What the hell is going on out here?” We all laughed at her, she didn’t realize it was a party for her. His whole family was there, we ate and laughed, the epitome of happiness. Their son gave a speech about how he had the greatest parents in the world. How his dad taught him how to love and his mom taught him about faith. He was always such an eloquent speaker.
I sent my sister to go check on our 7 year old daughter. I like to tell myself that by the grace of God, she slept through the whole thing. Other times, I think I am deluding myself because I want to feel better. Of course she was awake. How could she possibly have stayed asleep through all that commotion? Then I think, no, if she were awake, I would have known. She would have called for me; she would have come out of her room; she would have done something. I would have known. I can't bear the thought of her awake, all alone and afraid in her room listening to Mommy screaming and paramedics making noise, as her daddy died on the floor.
“Go go go!” I’m cheering her on, as she crawls across the floor in a home video. “Go get daddy!” She crawls faster, straight into her daddy who is sitting, arms wide open, on the floor. “Thats my baby girl!” he applauds. He was so proud of her.
“Daddy, I’m scared,” she whispers this time. She doesn’t know I’m video taping. He is standing in front of her holding the handle bars of her bike. We’ve just removed the training wheels. He presses his forehead against hers and says “Baby girl, you’ve got this.” He helps her balance, runs behind her and lets go. Go baby go. You’re gonna conquer the world.
I didn’t want to live, I didn’t want to breathe anymore. I wanted to be with him, but that was impossible. Instead, I laid on the floor. I needed to be on the floor. The unvacuumed, dirty, stained, rough carpet that was my floor, that’s where I wanted to be. It had to be the floor. The couch, a bed, a chair, those were too “up.” They were still living, they were still a part of the world. Not the floor. Nothing happens on the floor, everything stops. You are not expected to carry on a conversation on the floor. You don't have to hold in tears on the floor. You don't have to move, you don't have to do. Everything stops when you are on the floor.
Then I read things he wrote to me:
“I miss you so much. I started missing you about the time you pulled out of the driveway. You know that loneliness feeling you get, the one that goes to the stomach first, and it feels like someone hit you there when you weren’t looking or ready for it? Yeah, that feeling, that’s the one I got. By Monday it had spread to my heart and that’s where it sits now. I didn’t think it would be this bad; perhaps it’s because it’s combined with the left behind feeling. I love you so much. I love you so much. I love your eyes, I love your hair and I love your smile. I love that look you have when you’re tired. I love the way you look at me when you’re feeling all silly and try to tease me. I love the way you wipe your mouth off with your lips after I kiss you. I love that I can talk to you about anything and that I want to talk to you about everything. I love that I’m the first person you want to tell when happy and that I’m the first person you look for when you’re sad. I love everything about you. I am never as happy as I am when I’m with you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you with everything that I am. All my love, all my life.”
When the grief was too consuming, or life was too hard, I would stop in my tracks and lay on the floor. If the pile of dishes looked too big, or I noticed his keys on the hook, If I wanted to cry, I would feel compelled to lay on the floor. I am so heartbroken that it physically hurts, every day. The pain is horrendous. We were not a couple who had grown apart. We didn't fight. We weren't mad, or angry, or bitter at each other. We were madly in love with each other. Happily, ever after. And then we weren't. It just stopped. Most of the time I live my life with a dull ache in my heart. Sometimes the dull ache turns into a sudden stab, as if your heart is being ripped from your chest. Nothing is easy any more. Nothing is effortless. So I lay on the floor.
We always compared ourselves to Wesley and Buttercup from the Princess bride. Wesley declares, “Death cannot stop true love.” I used to wholeheartedly agree with him. Yes! Death cannot stop true love. If you truly love someone, death will not and cannot stop you from being together. Just look at Wesley and Buttercup! Death didn't stop them. That was us. We had true love forever. Death would not stop us from our love; we would find a way around it. Then he died. Just died, out of nowhere. His boat wasn't captured by pirates, although I'm sure he would have preferred to go out that way. Even now, I am hoping he can come back, that it was all some huge mistake, that the evil villain told me he was dead, but really he was taking over the ship, building immunity to iocane powder, and on his way back to me. Death cannot stop our love. He’s dead for real, not like in a fairy tale where there is some loophole, this is real life. As much as we loved each other, he died anyway.
Most of the time I was at home when I needed to lay on the floor. Sometimes I was at my in-laws or my dad's house when I needed to lay on the floor, so I would go into the bathroom where no one could see me and lay on that floor. Occasionally I ended up on the floor of a grocery store.
“Hey can you get me some Mountain Dew while you're at the store?” he messaged. “That stuff is so bad for you!” I would text back. Seeing Mountain Dew in the store makes me want to lay on the floor.
If my besties were around, which they often were, they would come sit with me while I laid on the floor. If my sisters were around, which they often were, they would ask why were were on the floor today, as they laid next to me. I usually said something like "Why not?” as I laid on the floor and cried.
My little sister is getting married. He is performing the ceremony. He was like a brother to my little sisters. They were so young when we started dating that they can barely remember a time when he wasn’t a part of their lives. I’m helping with wedding preparations. Decorations are sprawled across our living room floor. He comes back from checking on our baby girl.
“Sweetheart, come to bed, it’s so late,” he says with a yawn. “No I can’t,” I reply. “I have to get this done.” He sits down on the floor across from me and starts tying bows. He’s terrible at it, and I smile at him, at least he’s trying. We make fun of my sister's lack of planning as we sit on our living room floor.
When no one was around I would lay in “those” spots, in our bedroom and our living room. The spots where he last laid. It felt, in a way, like I was laying with him. I felt closer to him there in that spot on the floor. All his clothes in the closet wouldn't do. The bed we slept in next to each other wouldn't do. I had to lay in that spot. Part of me wished or hoped or thought if I could just lay in that spot maybe his body would magically appear there, maybe his arms would wrap themselves around me and he would whisper in my ear "It’s alright, I'm here, I'm here" Maybe if I laid in the last spot he did, maybe something, maybe I would break the curse and we could go back to happily ever after.
“You're too young to get married.” When you’re 19, your plans are everyone’s business. My dad’s friends bet that I would be divorced in two years. We didn’t care, we knew they were the ones that were wrong. This was true love, the stuff fairytales were made of. We were going to live happily ever after. I wasn’t nervous, I didn’t have butterflies in my stomach, I didn’t have a single doubt. He was the one, It was the best decision I ever made in my entire life. We were married for fifteen years, and I wish we’d had more.
Everything stopped on the floor and that's what I needed to do. I needed to stop. The floor was good. On the floor I didn’t need to think about what I was going to do for income, or where I was going to live. On the floor I didn’t have to make dinner. There was no energy to expel on the floor, there was no pressure, I could just be, without any expectation.
It was more than a year after his death, before it occurred to me that if I was too tired to do something, I could skip it. The first year was go, go, go. Try to be normal. But grief is exhausting and eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to lay on the floor. The second year I stopped. I stopped doing everything I was “supposed” to do. I realized that I was doing too much, so I stopped. I tried to rest. I quit showing up for parties. I skipped weddings and funerals because I wasn't emotionally fit enough to handle them. If I made it to church once a month, I was impressed with myself. I took a lot of naps. I metaphorically laid on the floor as well as literally.
I started to get up from the floor, very slowly. Often I would lift a leg, and realize it was too much and lay back down. Often I would be on my way somewhere thinking I could handle it only to get there and realize I was wrong. Most of the time I wanted to lay on the floor and stay there but knew I couldn’t, that I had to keep getting up, I had to keep going, our daughter needed me. Life had to go on, there wasn’t a choice. I could choose when I needed to lay down but I couldn’t choose to stay there.
We moved. I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay in the house with all the memories of him. I wanted to be able to lay on his spot on the floor. I didn’t have a choice though, it was time to get up. We bought a fixer, The only thing I could afford. I spent almost a year fixing it. I ripped the deck up, I ripped the carpet up. I ripped the wood paneling up. I ripped everything up and made it new, made it ours. His keys didn’t hang on the hook anymore, I boxed them up. I boxed up his razor and his hairbrush, I hung our new walls with our old memories, it turned out to be a very good combination. I poured my broken soul into fixing this house, making it a home for us. I am busy in this house, busy putting one foot in front of the other, busy being in the 'up' world. At times the grief still comes and I just want to go lay on the floor, just stop, just wait, just be on the floor, but I have found that being up is pretty good too.
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