Not so Happy Tuesday

Last night at 7:30pm, the lawyer friend I've been working for since November called me to let me know he'd be by tomorrow morning (today) with some documents we needed to get together and get fedexed out. He'd blown me off Friday and Saturday, and hadn't called till now, so I wasn't too pleased with him, and all I said was "ok" (whatever). Then he told me how his stomach had been acting up all weekend, and I thought he was making excuses to get back on my good side, and I wasn't too sympathetic.

At about 10pm, his wife called me, hysterically sobbing.

He was dead.

Would I call his sister?

Of course.

First I called his ex-wife... the mother of his children. My bed-side manner left much to be desired, but to be fair, I was in shock. I'd only heard 2 minutes before, and all I could say was, I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but J's dead.

She said something like, please tell me you're not serious. Then I went into the limited details I knew: He'd had a heart attack. She let me know that he'd been to see his daughters earlier in the day, and they'd all commented to her how bad he looked. I just kept saying, I'm so sorry. She asked me to get more details, like where he was...

Then I called the sister. Cel phone off. Left her a voice mail saying to call me ASAP. Then I called the hospital, told them who I was and asked for whatever details they could give me... Paramedics brought him in an ambulance. By the time he'd arrived at the hospital, he wasn't breathing on his own, but he did die there, at the hospital.

Called back the ex and told her. She told me she'd told their daughters. Then i called her middle daughter's close friend to let her know her friend needed her.

I started going through my cel phone and carefully choosing who to call next. Which lawyer did he trust the most. Who was absolutely the cleanest? Completely beyond reproach? I made my choice, and called his wife, also a close friend of J's to tell her first - J had introduced the 2 of them.

I've felt like the Angel of Death since 10pm last night.. and all throughout the day today. It's not a good feeling at all... being the messenger of bad news.

There's a lot to be done, clients to be contacted, affairs to be arranged. It's definitely not pretty, and I still feel pretty numb... though I'm sure that will end the moment I see his daughters. I'm just not sure I'm ready to do that while I'm still immersed in dealing with the business end of things. There are quite a few loose ends that need to be sewn up and quickly.

There's so much more to this, but I don't feel comfortable publicizing it. All I'll say is this, and it ties back into an earlier post:

Addictions will kill you if you don't deal with them head on.
Acknowledging them is not enough.
I guess that is my lesson from all this.

I'm actually feeling angry and disappointed about the whole situation. What a waste of a great mind.

Addiction.
Heart Attack.
Dead.

There were many opportunities to step back, take stock and get well over the past 7 months. Three huge eye-openers such as - prostate cancer! - a car accident that should have been fatal and didn't leave a mark! - another hospitalization just 2 weeks ago for an infection gone haywire. Nothing worked. I feel like God was trying so hard to tell him, "You're special. I'm not letting you go without a fight! You have so much more to do here! Wake Up!!!"

The addiction won.
It wouldn't release him.
He wouldn't fight hard enough against it.
He wouldn't give in and go into rehab.
And now his beautiful daughters have no father.

The diet is feeling rather unimportant today, but I'm still on it and sticking to it. There was a momentary death=shiva=food moment in a small section of my brain, but the larger, dedicated part of my brain knocked the weakling devil to the ground and ate some protein. I haven't exercised yet today - there just hasn't been time - but as soon as I get a call from the lawyer I picked (who's currently meeting with the wife), I'll take a nice ride. I could use a pretty sunset.

And I got one.