That was not the last time that I lay in the spot where he had died and wept, and certainly not the last time I felt anger towards Tim for what he had done. I was angry that he had not given God and hope a chance. Some say that suicide is the most selfish act that a person can commit. I agree in certain circumstances, however, not in this case. I knew my husband and I knew how he thought. There is no doubt in my mind that he was under the impression that he had failed his church, his family and that he had lost his ministry. These things meant the world to him. He felt that everyone would be better of without him. He knew that our children and I would be well provided for with the Insurance policies that were in place, and so, he made the decision to take his own life. It was not selfishness, but rather desperation. I was not sorry for myself, I was angry for my children, our saints and Tim's mother. The only greater pain I can imagine would be to lose a child in this manner. I could not comprehend what she must be going through.
The nights were the hardest. I would toss and turn hugging his pillow to my chest and praying for God to take me while I slept. I would go into our closet and bury my face in his suits and dress shirts that still smelled of him, of his cologne. I longed to touch him, to hear his voice. I cannot explain to you how much I longed to just touch him one last time, knowing that I would never touch him again. To this day I can clearly hear his voice and see his facial expressions in my mind.. And then there were the mornings when I would awaken trembling so badly I could hardly hold my coffee cup.
It was August and it was warm. I took to going outside and laying on my back on our front lawn until late into the night, every night. I just could not bear to be in the house any longer. I would get Haley to bed and then I would go outside and lay there, sometimes until midnight or after, staring up at the stars and talking to God. I was not afraid to be outside alone so late, I didn't care, my life had become very, very small.
I decided to purchase a puppy. Tim and I had always wanted a Boston Terrier, so I went with my girls to the mall and bought myself a Boston Terrier pup that I named Bella. She slept with me every night and required much attention and potty training which helped occupy my mind. She and I spent many nights out on my front lawn. Our neighbors would drive by and see me lying flat on my back staring up at the stars completely motionless, they must have thought I had lost my mind along with losing my husband.
The two to three weeks that Haley and I lived in that house were pure an unadulterated hell. I have never, nor have I since experienced such emotional pain. To add to the pain, I received a very disturbing phone call approximately two weeks after Tim died. As I have previously touched on, Tim's childhood was very troubled, with much abuse at the hands of his father. Richard McCary had spent time in prison on at least two occasions for crimes against children, and at the time of Tim's death, he had not spoken to his father in at least five years. It was too emotionally painful for Tim to have a meaningful relationship with his dad.
His father travelled from Los Angeles to attend Tim's funeral. As you can imagine, he was heartbroken, and although there was certainly no love lost in my heart for Richard, I still felt badly for him, knowing that extreme guilt plagued him. Almost two weeks exactly after Tim's death, his father, Richard McCary, committed suicide by taking an overdose of painkillers. For some reason that news sent me right over the edge! How much pain and tragedy could one family bear? Tim's brothers had lost him in a horrific manner and now they had lost their father in the same way! It was too much!
I counted the days until I could get out of that house. I felt like I could no longer breath and deep in my heart I knew that I could not begin to heal until I was gone. I would drive around our neighborhood and the area of town where we did a lot of our shopping and pass by restaurants that we frequented on a regular basis, everywhere I went brought memories of Tim. Often I would have to pull over to the side of the road until the pain and anguish subsided. There is one restaurant in particular that brought back pitiful memories for me. Just a few weeks before Tim died we had gone out to dinner with our girls to On The Border. The restaurant was in a shopping center near our home, a place where we went to shop and eat on a regular basis. On this particular evening after we had eaten we prepared to leave. For some reason that I do not recall we had arrived at the restaurant in two separate cars. The girls and I were going to go do a little shopping while Tim returned home. As we were getting into our cars Tim asked me how to get home. I remember laughing and saying "what?" He repeated the question, "How do I get home from here?" I said, "Are you serious? You don't know how to get home from here?" I thought he was joking. He looked at me then and had the most pitiful, confused, frustrated look in his eyes and said, "No, I don't, can you tell me how to get home?" Deeply, deeply disturbed I explained to him how to drive home to the area that we had lived in for over ten years.
I worked like a madwoman and packed our whole house entirely by myself. Don't misunderstand me, people had offered to help, but I wanted to, needed to be alone. I was completely exhausted both mentally and physically. I threw things away and gave things away that I probably should not have, but I was too emotionally distraught to make rational decisions. The original plan was that Haley and I would drive to California, but when the time came, I was in no condition to make the trip. My mother ended up flying out to Arizona to drive us. I had made arrangements for a moving company to move our belongings into the home that I had purchased in Modesto, they were to follow us about a week later. And so, on September the eleventh, 2009, a day when our Nation mourned the death of over three thousand souls in New York City, I mourned my own 9/11.
We loaded as much as we could into my SUV, including our three cats and new puppy Bella. Charcoal had already traveled to California with my brother in law after the funeral. We were a ragtag crew as we set out on our journey that day. Wounded and battle weary we were a sight to behold, my cats were even traumatized and confused and my heart went out to them. As we pulled out of the driveway of 2956 N. Meadow Lane in Avondale Arizona on that hot September day, I literally felt like I was leaving a part of me in the house where Tim died. I was leaving love, laughter, memories, Christmases, birthdays, and yes, even tears and tragedy. As we drove down the street, away from our home, Haley tried to turn around and look back, tears streaming down her face. "Don't look back Haley" I said, "Just don't look back." She didn't and neither did I.
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