And Then He Was Gone

At the time I first launched this website, I never could have imagined that in a few short years, I would be navigating the devastating loss of my husband, John.  I had started this website with the intention of offering support services, resources, and information that would help to first responders that were navigating through the dark shadows of loss and trauma. 

In 2020, when I was building out this site and writing about my experiences, I had nearly 20 years of experience working with first responders and their families that were affected by a line of duty death or injury.  Also, by that time, I had extensive experience working with communities that experienced catastrophic loss due to natural disasters or man-made disasters such as mass-shootings.  I believed that I was well educated in the area of grief and loss.  Little did I know that I would soon be humbled by the loss of my husband and I would feel completely incompetent in what I thought I knew.

In the early morning hours of November 27, 2023, I stood alongside my husband and our fellow firefighters at a large structure fire.  As with any fire, the work was tough and physically demanding.  As the chief of our department, it was his job to strategize, oversee the logistics, and figure out the tactics for putting out the fire while keeping our crews safe.  He was also a hands-on fire chief.  He wanted to actively be involved with the firefighting, something his fellow chiefs frowned upon.  They knew though that he loved to get his hands dirty even though he was wearing the white helmet.  This fire was no different.  He helped haul hose, move debris, shift equipment, and even worked the nozzle of a hose for a few minutes.  It was a “great” fire, as we like to say.  When the flames were finally subdued, and we called it a night (or really, an early morning), we felt accomplished by our work and left the scene.

Only a few short minutes after finishing the call, John collapsed.  The stress and the strain of working in the industry for over 30 years had caught up to him.  As the repercussions of each response we make over our career (both paid and/or volunteer) accumulates in our bodies (physically, mentally, and spiritually), the damage this work starts to chip away at our health and wellness.  Many first responders survive their time in service.  But there are many who don’t.  Due to the severity of the damage that was done to his body after all the years of service, this was the response that would take his life.  His body could no longer handle being chipped away.

Although I, along with our crews worked hard to try and save his life, our best efforts were not enough, and we had to let him slip away.  It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do or to witness.  That experience pushed me headfirst into a new level of understanding grief that I had never understood before.  While I had gone through many difficult and incredibly painful losses, losing my husband was heart-wrenching.  Giving the death notification to my daughter was even worse.  And then, giving death notifications over and over as I made calls to family members, friends, and co-workers was an added layer of pain that I had not anticipated.

What I know now, nearly two years since his death and twenty-eight years since my career- ending injury, has been refined by fire…both literally and figuratively.  I’ve never liked the old saying that “everything happens for a reason,” yet looking back, I can see that stepping away from this site only a few months after I began was part of my own unfolding. I needed to walk through this loss to truly understand what a journey through the deep grief of losing a close loved-one feels like.

While learning about grief and loss is a lifelong journey, I have to come to a place in my life where I believe I have a better perspective,  a deeper understanding, and am more equipped to help support others who are going through in their own journey.