Who's Going To Handle The Thermostat?

I published another collection of short stories today. It feels like betrayal doing anything like that. You know, things that are just for me. It's not even been two weeks yet, and this feels dangerously close to "getting back to normal."

But the book was actually finished back in December. I've just been waiting for a couple of beta readers to get back to me. So all I really had to do was fix a few typos, give it a final read-through, and upload the damn thing. It still feels wrong somehow.

My house is a little cold today, or so I'm told. I told mom she could have free reign over the thermostat. It sounds like I'm being a hospitable host, but the truth is I don't actually want the responsibility. I've never been the thermostat master. I don't tend to care about the perfect temperature. I put on a blanket if I'm too cold, and I strip to my boxers if I'm too hot. But my "comfortable range" has always been a lot wider than KJ's.

Once mom leaves in a few weeks, I just don't know how I'm going to manage the thermostat. It's weird the little things that hit you. Yes I'll miss KJ's smile and her personality, but I'll also miss her micromanagement. I'm the type of person who will shiver for hours without noticing I'm cold. Seriously, I just wasn't designed to live by myself.

I have to see a lawyer on Friday. There's probate things I'm supposed to work out. KJ had no assets, no will, no trust, nothing like that. Her family doesn't want anything of hers, and she didn't own anything expensive. But apparently the law here still requires some sort of probate/estate paperwork.

Her bank refuses to close her account until they get that paperwork. I sent them her death certificate, but they said without probate paperwork they'll keep it open, accruing monthly fees. I don't need to claim the money in her account - she only had about $20 in there - but I'm going to end up spending hundreds in legal fees to get it closed, probably.

Hey you, reading this. Leave a will. Even if you're poor, leave a will. It will simplify things for those you leave behind.

I'm not hurting for money yet, so don't worry about me there. Still, if anybody just wants to help me out financially, the usual methods still stand. You can tip me here:

https://buymeacoffee.com/xine

Or you can always buy my books:

https://books2read.com/ap/8N19Lr/Xine-Fury

https://xine-fury.itch.io/ 

The books2read link will take you to a landing page for all my books, which will then link you to Amazon, Kobo, and other e-book retailers. The final link is for itch.io, which is a great site for indy creators (mostly computer games). That site will actually let you download my books as files without the DRM, so you can manually transfer them to whatever device you wish to use.

I don't get much from my book sales, but if you read any of the books and review them, it will help drive more sales in the future.

God, I hate to sound like a shill in a mourning blog, but some of you have been asking if there's anything you can do. If you want to make me feel a little better, book sales are a great start.

I'm really sick of all this.

Hollow Pursuits

Mom and I were sorting boxes today when I came across my wedding album. I was having a good day, but after that I had to sit down and rest a while. I just suddenly lost all my energy.

I'm glad I'm getting things done but I have no idea how to have fun anymore. Sometimes that helps me get things done. I figure if I can't think of anything I'm in the mood for, then I might as well do something I'm never in the mood for. But that policy only takes me so far. Sometimes I feel a wave of grief and suddenly all my energy's gone, like my batteries just suddenly fell out of the compartment.

It's going to take me a while to have fun again. When video games started having achievements and trophies, I really got into achievement hunting. But the hunting also sort of ruined video games for me. Now if I've already gotten all a game's achievements, I'm less likely to go back and play it again.

Tangent: You know, the above could probably be fixed. I think it would be cool if achievements also had a number beside them, indicating how many times you've popped that achievement. Then you'd have more reason to go back and do it all again. But I digress.

It's also harder for me to go back and play older games, the ones from the pre-achievement days. Playing them just feels like wasting my time. I mean, arguably video games are always a waste of time, but counter-arguably you're never wasting time if you're having fun. People need fun now and then, psychologically speaking.

Anyway, I've spent 30+ years training myself to have fun in relation to another human being. Having fun by myself feels like wasting time, in a way it didn't seem so before. Every time I laugh at a comedian on the TV, I look over to make sure KJ is having fun too. Which is why I'm glad my mom's here, but she won't be here forever. I have to learn how to have fun by myself again.

I touched on this in a previous blog, but I do wonder if this was fated to happen. You know I'm not religious, but I still kind of feel like things happen for a reason. People's lives do follow patterns. Fit it into your personal philosophy however you can, but sometimes life plays out like someone is writing it.

I think there is a reason I'm here, in a new state. It's just suspicious to me that KJ lived through more than a decade of failing health, only to pass away shortly after getting the house of her dreams. If she'd died before we moved, I wouldn't have moved. It's like the universe placed me here because it has a plan for me here. 

And then we got her a puppy. We couldn't really afford a puppy, and we didn't have a good plan for integrating it into our household. Normally we wouldn't have made a bad decision like that, but somehow we fell into it.

KJ had been wanting a puppy for years, but it just didn't fit into our lives. Maybe the universe knew KJ was about to die, and wanted her last week to be as happy as possible - a puppy, a new home, etc.

And if any of the above is true, then I also believe that I've been positioned here for a reason. I predict that sometime in the next few years, I'll have an opportunity. I don't know what kind. Financial? Maybe. Romantic? Doubtful. Maybe I'll just meet some new lifelong friends.

But whatever it is, it will be an opportunity that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't moved here. Perhaps it was in the cards all along, a plan put in motion from the moment I lost my job in Tennessee. Or maybe it's all just random.

But if it was by design, I'd really like to ask the universe: Was this really the only way? Really?

But darker thoughts have also occurred to me. KJ hadn't been to the doctor since December. Usually she went every three months, so we would have had an appointment in March. But she's always hated doctors, and she'd been putting off getting a new doctor here.

Maybe if we'd stuck to the schedule, the new doc would have found something. Probably not, but it's possible. So in a way, I blame my old employer for this sequence of events. If they hadn't eliminated my position, then we never would have moved, and she would have gone to the doctor in March, and we would have kept living in that cramped little house. We wouldn't have been as happy there, but we wouldn't know what we were missing, and maybe she would have lived. Maybe.

Anything's possible.

So yeah, as you can see, my thoughts are still all over the place. But I do think I'm getting better.

Making Progress

My mom and I have been cleaning out some of KJ's stuff, dropping clothes off at thrift stores and selling  some of her DVDs and books. This is not going to be a short process - KJ had a lot of stuff, and I'll keep some of it. I'll be finding more things to sell for months if not years.

We're primarily focusing on cleaning up her bedroom in case I decide to get a roommate sometime later. KJ hoarded craft supplies, so I'm looking into local resources. I'd like to get them into the hands of other avid crafters.

The cats are starting to adjust. One of them - Quinn - has been pretty much in hiding since KJ passed. Quinn was "KJ's cat" more than the others, and spent a lot of time climbing on KJ and sleeping in her lap. But for the past week, Quinn has stayed out of sight, sleeping on my bed during the day, or staying in the cat room. But last night she came up to me and insisted I pet her for 20 minutes.

KJ's obituary appeared in the 4/25/2025 edition of the "Beloit Daily News." However, you'll need a subscription to read it, and I've found it's hard as hell to purchase a copy. Her dad had someone pick up a copy for me, but everyone else will have to settle for reading it on Facebook or here:

You'll notice it doesn't mention me. That was an accident; the website writes it for you, and has you put in keywords and fill in blanks like "hobbies" and "relatives." It didn't have a blank for spouse, but I assumed it would put me in there somewhere since I was the one filling out the form. I guess I was supposed to add myself as a relative.

But that's ok. I'm not a traditionalist. I didn't really want to do an obituary anyway, but too many people were asking about it. Mostly the older relatives who don't use Facebook and such, which is why I put it in that particular newspaper. That's where she was born, and her oldest relatives would be more likely to see it there.

We have her ashes now. I didn't buy an urn; there are too many creative people in my family for me to waste money on an expensive knick-knack that wouldn't match her tastes anyway. I'm still thinking about how she'd want to be stored, and I'm leaning towards a giant Coca-Cola can.

There's still paperwork to do, and a lot of it has to be done in a particular order. The car insurance won't let me take her name off until I get new titles in the mail, and the DMV wouldn't process those new titles until I had her death certificate, and the death certificate took a while in itself. It's a lot to deal with when you're already mourning.

All I'm saying is, never die if you can avoid it.

Awake Again

Bah, I can't sleep. I mean, I did sleep. I went to bed around 11, and woke up around 2. But now it's 3:23 and I can't get back to sleep.

The house is full of sleeping pills. KJ couldn't fall asleep without them. But I'm not fond of them. I saw what they did to her sometimes. They knocked her out so soundly that the house could have burned down around her. I don't want to surrender that much control, especially with no other humans in the house.

I did, however, take a Benadryl. My nose is stuffy.

The cats seem to know something is wrong. Kara sleeps with me all night as usual, but her daytime behavior has changed. Since she has no teeth, we supplement her diet with a "cat soup" treat every day. But she's refused to eat it the last two days.

Wicket looks confused, but he always looks confused, so the difference is subtle. Quinn is the most changed. She used to spend half her day in KJ's lap, but I barely saw the cat at all yesterday. I had to go find her, and she was asleep on my bed.

All the cats are more wary of the living room now. It probably has more to do with the puppy we temporarily hosted than KJ being gone. I've cleaned, but the room probably still smells like puppy to them.

Oh well, I'm going to take another stab at sleeping now.

Within Reach

KJ was one of the most amazing people I've ever met. She was creative, honest, sarcastic, kind, and intelligent. We met in mid-1993 through a mutual friend, and bonded over a shared love of Dean Koontz. We moved in together just a couple of months after met. We were married two years later.

When I first met KJ, she was a writer. She spent hours every day writing romance stories, and while she never published anything, her work was always impressive.

From there she went on to cross-stitch, crochet, pour painting, wood burning, jewelry making, resin crafting, and more. And she had a list of other mediums she wanted to try eventually, such as metal working, carpentry, sewing, and cosplay. She jumped from hobby to hobby like she wanted to sample all life had to offer.

We were obsessed with each other, to the point that we often ignored everyone else in the room. Some couples finished each other's sentences, but we didn't even need sentences. We often spoke to each other in movie quotes, and we almost achieved "Darmok at Tanagra" levels of communication.

In our early years together, she was an inexhaustible dynamo. I had trouble keeping up with her. Once we got our first digital camera, we began going to zoos and parks every weekend, and we loved taking pictures together. Money was always tight, but we found our bliss in whatever nature had to offer, and we searched high and low for photo opportunities.

I couldn't afford to give her the life she deserved, but she always told me she loved the life I gave her.

Then in September 2015, KJ had to go to the emergency room for diverticulitis. This was the beginning of the end. Her health was never the same afterwards. She never got all her energy back, and it was like the start of a cascade failure, health-wise.

In the following years she had several more operations, including partial thyroid removal and eye surgery. By the end she was blind in one eye and deaf in one ear, she'd developed diabetes, nearly half of her teeth were fake, she had high blood pressure, she couldn't walk very far, and she had chronic body pains.

She still tried to stay busy, but her body couldn't keep up with her spirit. There was a lot she couldn't do, and for the past couple of years she mostly watched TV while crocheting. She fell into deep depression and developed a gambling addiction. She no longer wanted to watch anything new, preferring the comfort of shows she'd already seen dozens of times. She spent most of her time watching YouTube videos.

Moving out of Nashville helped her disposition a lot. Our new house brought her a lot of joy. She loved this town, and so do I. We could easily see ourselves growing old together in this house, sitting out on the screened-in front porch and watching the cars go by.

She was making progress, anyway. There's no way to be sure how it would have gone, but I know I saw improvement. We started watching new movies and TV shows again. She was greatly looking forward to the new Fantastic Four movie. And then we got the puppy, and it made her so happy. She'd wanted a dog for years.

If there's actually any rhyme or reason to the universe, an actual cosmic plot guiding our fates, then I'd like to believe her death was inevitable, and the universe was just trying to make her final days more comfortable.

I'd like to believe that. But I don't. They say it's always darkest just before the dawn, but in my experience the reverse is more often true. The universe just loves to give you false hope, putting the promised land within reach before it pulls the rug out from under you.

Screw this universe. I want my money back.

Slight Improvement

I'm doing ok tonight. I mean, I'm still devastated, but the despair isn't as big as it was. My mom is flying into town tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her. I'm seeing joy in the little things. I actually applied to a few jobs today - I was going to take a week or two off on the job hunt, but right this minute I think I have the energy to go to a job interview.

I might disagree tomorrow. I mean, my emotions are on a big see-saw right now. But I can always cancel an interview if I'm not feeling up to it when the day comes. And most of these places take a week or two to get back to me anyway. I do have a job interview on Tuesday, and I don't know if I'll go to it or not, but right now I'm thinking I could manage it.

I didn't accomplish much today, but I don't feel guilty about it. I needed the downtime. I wish I could write, but I'll probably need a couple of weeks to heal first.

Souvenirs

Everyone likes souvenirs, right? The EMTs left the following behind:

 

In case you can't see the image, it depicts a disposable mask for delivering oxygen, the instructions for said face mask (one corner partially chewed by a puppy), a sheet of toe tags with one missing, and the peel-off liners for some defibrillator pads.

This isn't a complaint. I'd rather the EMTs concentrate on saving lives than on cleaning up after themselves. But it's still not fun finding these things around your living room after a tragedy.

However, I can't bring myself to throw these items away. I still keep having thoughts that this is just a dream, that KJ's just in the other room, that she'll be back soon, and so on.

Have you ever been watching a movie, and you're looking down at your popcorn or something when a major character dies? But it happens so fast, and there's hardly any mention of it later, and you're like, "Wait, did they just kill off Admiral Ackbar?"

The EMTs were here for over two hours on Friday night. But in my mind, it still happened so fast that sometimes I can't believe it. Like, maybe KJ went out of town, and I only dreamed she died.

Whenever I start deluding myself, trying to convince myself that she's still alive somewhere, I glance at my pile of souvenirs. It grounds me, and keeps me in reality. I'll reduce the stack soon. I'll trash the instructions and the liners, and put the toe tags in a folder somewhere (I find them interesting enough to keep, despite their backstory).

But I'm going to keep the mask out for a while, at least until I receive KJ's ashes. Whenever I find myself questioning reality, I can look at the mask for confirmation. It's a punch in the gut every time I look at it, but it keeps me from questioning my memories.

They talk about the seven stages of grief, and I am plowing through them. But not in order, and there's a lot of regression. At random points throughout the day, I'll have periods of denial, anger, acceptance, denial again, and so on.

I've been watching comfort videos today. For the past few months, KJ and I have been watching a lot of reaction videos where people watch a popular movie for the first time. One of our favorites is Popcorn in Bed. The host of the channel missed a lot of major movies growing up, and watching her watch them is like seeing them for the first time.

KJ and I had nearly exhausted the channel, but we hadn't gotten around to watching the Star Wars ones. So today, I'm having a Star Wars reaction marathon. The videos are junk food for the soul, but they do cheer me up.

I had a sobbing fit when Luke's aunt and uncle died. I'd never cried for them before, not even when I first saw the movie as a little kid. Little things like that trigger me throughout the day. Most of the time I'm stable, if emotionally tired. Then I'll have a random thought and lose my cool.

But I think I am getting a little stronger. I still feel lost, confused, and more miserable than I've ever been, but I don't feel hopeless.

At least that's something.

Good Morning

I finally got a full night's sleep. My friends came to visit me yesterday. It was so good to see them; they're wonderful people. I gave them the puppy KJ had recently purchased, along with all the accessories.

If you haven't been following my life: A week ago, KJ bought a new puppy, a tiny Yorkie. KJ had been suffering from depression, and the puppy made her the happiest she's been in a long time. It's comforting to know that KJ's final week was a good one, even if her final hour was not.

But the puppy upset the family dynamic. We had to block off the living room from the rest of the house, because the puppy was still pad training, and the cats refused to go into the living room with all the puppy smell. Now that the puppy is gone, maybe things can go back to normal. For the cats, anyway.

I can't imagine what this is like from the cats' point of view. We get a new animal that they hate, it blocks off part of the house for them. Then when the dog finally leaves, mommy is gone too. I don't know if they still expect her to come back or what. Whenever KJ's gone for an unusual amount of time, the cats ask about her. Quinn (the tortie) was especially attached to her, and loved climbing on her to sleep.

After my friends left, I didn't do much with my day. I tried to take a nap, twice, and was mostly unsuccessful. I ate a salad for dinner (KJ's salad), and watched YouTube for about an hour. Then I fell asleep on the couch, hurting my neck badly.

I finally got up and went to bed around 9:30 (I usually go to bed around 11). I slept pretty deeply, and woke up around 5:30.

Mom wants me to find a local grief counseling group to attend today, but I doubt I will. I did a little searching on that yesterday, and most of the groups I found were religion-based. I don't want to insult anyone's religion, but I don't need people advising me to pray and put my faith in God to get over KJ's death. That tactic just won't work on me.

Besides, I have plans today. My cats are still afraid of the living room because of the dog smell, and I'm pretty sure there's still a few accidents I haven't found. I'm going to take a shower, start a load of laundry (the living room blankets smell heavily of dog), and clean the living room a bit. It's not much, but it will probably take me most of the day. Even if I don't get it all done, it's nice to have a plan.

No... it's even worse than that.

 ...because every time I've had to do something difficult in the last three decades, I've gotten through it by thinking, "Do it for her." She gave me that strength. Who am I doing it for now?

I'm currently trying to take a nap, which might not be very obvious given that I'm somehow typing this. I'm dead tired, but sleep won't come. I managed to fall asleep for about 30 seconds, and had a dream about someone trying to shove a coat hanger into my throat. I'm going to try again in a minute.

My Right Hand

I've always heard indispensable people referred to as "my right hand." As in, "Oh, my assistant Charlotte? She's my right hand. I couldn't find my keys without her." I always thought I understood that phrase. I mean, yeah, she's important. So important that losing her would be like losing a body part. That's just a degree of importance, but it doesn't make it clear all the ramifications of what it means.

When I say losing KJ was like losing my right hand, I literally mean it was like losing a body part. Your hand isn't just important, not in the way other things are important. Losing a hand is a serious lifestyle change. It affects all aspects of your life. How you get dressed, how you drive, how you eat - it's all going to change.

I've been with KJ for thirty-two years. That's well over half my life. That kind of partnership has a formative effect on you. She is literally part of my personality. I can't watch a video without thinking about how KJ will react. I can't hear a joke without thinking, "Wait until I tell her this one." I can't make a decision without needing to hear her opinion.

It's like those stories you hear about K9 dogs. You know, the ones that become so bonded to their partners, that when the officers die, the dog has to retire.

It's been nearly twenty years since my father died. To this day, sometimes I'll see a movie and wonder what he would have thought of it. It kills me that I can't see his reaction. It kills me that I can't ask him his opinions on things.

But that's nothing compared to this. KJ was the guiding force in our relationship, and she's been a deciding influence in every decision I've made in the past three decades. I think about life without her, and the future just looks blank. I wanted to grow old with her. Now? I don't know what I want. I'm traveling unknown waters here, and I don't even know how I want things to turn out.

Please don't worry about me doing anything drastic. That's not what this is about. I promise that I won't do any sort of self-harm. As for what I will do... that's up in the air.

Zombie

I did finally fall asleep for about three hours. I am a zombie today. I don't feel anything. I visited my daily websites, vapidly clicking each link out of habit rather than interest. I need to shower, because some friends are visiting later. But I don't know if I have the energy. It's a whole lot of why this, why that, why bother. My sole motivator is gone. There's no point of anything anymore, and I am so done with today.

And it's not even 7 AM.

I Tried

Well, I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I think I'm up for the long haul.

She died in pain. That's what bothers me most. The coroner tried to tell me that it happened suddenly, too quickly for her to be in pain. But KJ was in severe pain - more than I'd ever seen - right up until the minute she passed out. One of the last things she said to me was something along the lines of, "Why me? I never hurt anyone."

I keep hearing her voice. I think it's the puppy downstairs, yowling because it doesn't like being left alone at night. But on the periphery of my hearing, it sounds like KJ calling for me to come downstairs. I'm going to have these auditory hallucinations for a long time. Every gust of wind, every creak of the house, I'll hear her voice in it.

I have never lived alone. I went from living with my parents, to living in a dorm room with a roommate, to living with my parents again, to living in an apartment with KJ and two other roommates, to living exclusively with KJ. It's been years since we've slept in the same bed, but I always felt better knowing she was in the house. Safer, more complete.

I still keep thinking I'm going to wake up tomorrow and find this was all a dream. Of course, waking up would require sleeping. In the 37 years we've been together, we've spent maybe ten nights apart. And every time she was gone, I had trouble sleeping. I might never sleep again.

I always assumed I'd outlive her. Between her health problems, her smoking, and her poor diet, I just figured I'd last a few years longer than her. But I at least thought we'd have another ten, maybe even twenty years together.

I don't want to get rid of her stuff. Even her clothes - I mean, I have absolutely no use for it, but it's like, "What if I give it away and then she comes back?" But another part of me thinks, "Get rid of it all as quickly as possible, because having it around reminds me of her, and that's torture."

It's too early for me to be having those thoughts anyway. Right now I just need to come to terms with her death. I can think about settling her affairs in a few days. But then, that's not how my brain works. I'm going over everything right now. Every little thing.

I don't think I'll ever be in another relationship. I've been saying that for years. We often talked about whether we'd date again if the other died. I just don't see it. Not because KJ was the perfect woman - I mean, she was perfect for me, but nobody's truly perfect - but rather because I'm so broken, and I don't have the energy to mask enough to make someone like me. Relationships are hard work, and I don't believe I'll ever have that kind of drive again.

Things were going so well. Yeah, the job search sucks, and there's the fear that I can't really afford to live in my new house. But we love this new town, we love the house, we love the neighborhood, we've finally paid off a lot of debts, and overall it just felt like a fresh, new start. The second half of our lives could begin.

Fuck.

In Memoriam

My wife passed away a few hours ago. She was the victim of a sudden, massive heart attack. I am beyond inconsolable. My life doesn't make sense anymore. I keep expecting to see her walk back into the room. What even am I without her? We've been married for nearly thirty years. I've never lived alone.

KJ has had chronic pain issues for years. Her right shoulder in particular has given her a lot of trouble. I swear some of our family thought she was faking it, but they weren't there those nights that she was howling in pain, waiting for the medicine to kick in.

She went to the doctor every three months for over a decade, but he never could figure out what was wrong. He did all sorts of tests. We went to various specialists, but no one could ever find the source. Part of it had to be the way she slept - ever since her hernia operation about six years ago, she couldn't sleep on a bed anymore. It just wasn't comfortable. So she slept in an easy chair, but she often stayed up until she literally passed out, and would fall asleep with her head leaning forward.

It was usually just the one shoulder that hurt. Tonight the pain traveled to her left side as well. We tried the usual tricks. Pain pills, Pepto Bismol, 7-Up (sometimes the pain was so intense it caused nausea). I used the massager on her shoulders.

She told me, "If it doesn't go away in 15 minutes, we're going to the hospital." I even put my jeans and shoes on, ready to walk out the door if we needed to. Then she had to throw up. I gave her the trash can and she sat cross-legged on the floor, spitting up into the trash can. Then she leaned into the trash can and just sat there for a while, trying to catch her breath.

I don't know when she died. She stopped whimpering after a few minutes, and I thought she'd fallen asleep. Sometimes the pain is so bad she passes out. I sat there for about twenty minutes, stupidly browsing social media while I waited for her to recover. I didn't want to wake her up if she was asleep, because what if the pain hadn't faded yet? It would be better to let her sleep through it. 

But at the same time, she was in such an awkward position, sitting on the floor hunched over the trash can.
I didn't want her to wake up with back pain. I waited an uncomfortable amount of time, trying to find that sweet spot between "wake her too early and she's still in pain" and "wake her too late and she throws out her back." I've woken her up too early before, and regretted it. But she was not in a good sleeping position.

I don't know how long I waited. I thought I saw her breathing the whole time, but I must have imagined it. Finally I touched her back, but got no reaction. I talked to her, no reaction. I shook her, no reaction. Then I moved over to her and looked at her face.

I will never forget that face. I'm going to see it in my nightmares, which is why I'm up at 1 AM typing this instead of getting into bed right now. She looked like a drowning victim in the movies. Her face was gray, her eyes were open and yellow. Her nose was running, and drool leaked from her lips.

I called 911 right away. They had me do CPR until they got there, but I knew she was already gone. There were just no signs of life. No warmth, no breath, no spark. There was nothing there to save.

When the EMTs arrived, they had me wait outside, and asked me a few questions. I collapsed on my lawn, wailing while I waited for them to come back and update me. They took an incredible amount of time. I later found that they'd gone through her purse for her identification, and they also went through her medicine cabinet to see what she'd been taking.

Finally one guy came out and informed me that she had passed away. I hate my brain. My thoughts were swirling with all the usual "How am I going to live without her" and "What do I do now." But thanks to all the true crime shows KJ watches, I also had "Does my grief look genuine enough, or will I be a murder suspect?" Ugh.

But no, the coroner told me later that it was definitely a heart attack. She said that there was nothing I could have done. Even if I'd taken her to the hospital right when the pain began, she would have been gone by the time we arrived.

Which should make me feel a little better, but it doesn't. Not even a bit. I'm going to beat myself up forever, wondering what I could have done to prevent it. We've lived in our new state since January, and she hasn't gone to the doctor since the move. We kept meaning to find a new doctor here, but she hates going to the doctor so much, we kept putting it off. Maybe if we'd gone, they would have detected something. Maybe maybe maybe.

Fuck. Fuckity-fuck fuck fuck.

I don't know where to go from here. She's a big part of why we moved where we moved. She just got a new puppy less than a week ago. We're going to give it to some friends. No, I'm going to give it to some friends. I have to start thinking like a single unit again. Everything in my head is we this, we that. And I keep talking about KJ in present tense, like the "she hates going to the doctor" above.

And then there's the intrusive, "maybe it's not so bad" thoughts. You know, like, "At least I won't have to buy her expensive Capri cigarettes anymore." Jesus Christ. I want to slap thoughts like that right out of my head. If KJ were here, maybe I could get her to slap me. I'd gladly let her smoke imported Cuban cigars for the rest of her life if it would bring her back to me.

We had plans! We were going to go to the zoo soon! In July we were going to go to Gatlinburg and get our chair lift photo - we try to do that every five years. This is just so sudden. Tomorrow I have to start thinking about things like closing bank accounts and whether I really need two cars.

I have no friends here. I haven't met anyone since the move. I'm alone in a strange city, with no job or life direction. KJ wasn't perfect. We disagreed on a lot of topics. Sometimes our shouting matches drove the cats into hiding. But she was still my reason for getting up in the morning, and knowing she was in the house helped me sleep at night.

This house is too big for one person. Maybe I'll look for a roommate, I don't know. Maybe I'll move closer to family. I don't know what I'm going to do. I know I'm not going to sleep tonight.

Rest in peace, KJ. I will always love you.