The Nevermore Chronicles

One of the scariest five minutes of my life

I just have to have this written down, so every once in awhile, I can go back and remember. Because I have to. Because I don't want to forget.

I love my husband. Everyone knows this. What not everyone knows is that I think I would die myself should he expire before me. He and my children are literally the only reasons I get up in the morning. Every morning.

Yesterday morning, very early, about 4 a.m. I awoke to Hubby stumbling out of bed. He was heading to the bathroom and I made the big mistake of rolling over and going right back to sleep. What seemed a long time later (but was in fact only a few seconds), there was a resounding crash. I launched myself out of bed, more startled at that point than anything else. My first words were "jaysus krist", and then "Babe, you okay?"...

...silence...

"Babe?" I got out of bed, and sauntered over to the bathroom door. "Babe? Aw, you sick?"

...more silence...

I tried to very gently open the door, so as to not embarass him should the poor man be 'praying to the Porcelain God', so to speak. He'd only had a couple beers when he came home, so I was pretty sure he wasn't drunk, but hey, you never know. As I pushed on the door, my first thought was 'oh okay, he's locked the door', but then it dawned on me, the doorknob had turned. The door wasn't locked but the door was not moving.

Panic.

"Babe....BABE!!!...JIM-MY!!!

At that moment my first thought was 'PLEASE GODS don't take him from me now', and then my next thought was, 'get your fucking ass into your robe and call 911 or you're going to lose him!!'

I ran to my bedroom door, threw on my robe, and ran right back to the bathroom door, gently pushing on the door to try to either dislodge Jim from the door (he'd passed out at the entryway, effectively wedging the door closed with his body), or get my hand in the door enough to try and get a hold of him in order to dislodge him from the door.

This honestly must have taken all of three or four minutes, tops, but it felt like a fucking YEAR. I had really almost decided to just run for the phone when Jim finally came to.

It was right after he moaned and I felt the door give way to my pushing that I realized I hadn't taken a breath in a very long time. I actually felt dizzy, but whether it was from relief or lack of oxygen I can't be sure. I opened the door and he was very gingerly hurling himself up off the floor and onto the toilet.

He stayed there for a good twenty minutes and I hovered by the door the whole time. Long story sho...well, okay long story made LONGER *sigh*, he thinks the reason he passed out was because he wasn't feeling well to begin with (I still say it was food poisoning from food he ate the day before) and had gotten up too quickly.

Throughout this whole ordeal, my main thought was "what if he doesn't make it? What if we lose him...what if *I* lose him?"

Needless to say, my thoughts on everything changed in those few moments. I will be rethinking my life as I know it. I do not want to regret not doing, not sharing, not being. Life is too short.

And once again, my thoughts are getting jumbled and I'm no longer making sense to myself, and I suspect, to anyone reading this.

Jim's okay. I'm okay. The kids are okay. I'm going to see to it that it stays that way. Period.

posted by Raevyn @ 6:34 p.m.