Dedication: all the women and men who have been here
The world crumbled around me that morning. Waking to find Ben, my love, my partner, unresponsive, was like plunging into a nightmare. The frantic scramble for the phone, the desperate pleas to the 911 operator, the paramedics’ arrival – it all unfolded in a blur of panic and disbelief. They worked tirelessly, those first responders, but the stroke had been swift and merciless, its damage catastrophic.
Life Flight became our desperate hope, a lifeline to a hospital in Nashville, where specialists battled for days to save him. We clung to every test, every scan, every whispered consultation, praying for a miracle. But the final verdict was a hammer blow to our souls – Ben was brain dead.
His mother, her face a mask of grief, arrived, her presence a small comfort in the overwhelming darkness. But even her love couldn’t shield us from the harsh realities that followed. Ben’s ex-wife, a figure from a past we thought was long buried, emerged with a chilling claim. Her name, still on the mortgage despite years of absence, became a legal weapon, a cruel twist of fate.
The house, our sanctuary, filled with the echoes of Ben’s laughter and the dreams we shared, became a battleground. His mother, heartbroken and financially vulnerable, couldn’t fight the legal onslaught. And then came the most devastating blow of all – Ben’s daughters, my beloved girls, were ripped from my arms. With no legal claim, no piece of paper to validate the love we shared, they were sent back to their mother, a woman who had been absent from their lives for years.
My job, once a source of stability and purpose, became an insurmountable burden. Grief consumed me, making it impossible to focus, to function. The demands of the workplace became a cruel mockery of my shattered reality. Days blurred into a haze of meetings and deadlines, each a torturous reminder of the life I was losing.
Now, I stand amidst the wreckage, adrift in a sea of loss and despair. My beloved Ben, our home, my livelihood, his daughters – all ripped away by a cruel twist of fate and the heartless opportunism of a woman who had long abandoned her claim. The silence is deafening, the emptiness unbearable. I am haunted by the ghosts of their laughter, the warmth of their hugs, the love that filled our lives. The world keeps spinning, oblivious to the gaping hole in my heart, a void that can never be filled.
I have nothing left and I feel a constant void of nothing in my soul. I cant seem to find a job more do I have anywhere to go, if there is anyone or anything anyone can do to help I would appreciate it more then you know
sincerely, a broken woman Billie
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Photo credit: Image provided by the storyteller.
