Brian was gone and all I could do was cry a flood of tears. I just sat holding his hand and crying and the nurse came in and the two Hospice nurses motioned her to leave. A few minutes later the NP of Oncology came in and rubbed my shoulders and shared her deepest sympathies. I said to her, "Brian didn't have a fighting chance, did he?" she asked me if I was talking about with the cancer and I told her yes. She said he did but he had a lot of other things going on too. I don't know exactly or 100% what that was. I know he had clogged arteries that cause a very mild stroke, and he was diabetic and since cancer he had high blood pleasure. The only thing I know is he had cancer, and his urine was dark red, but no one told us anything more than what we knew. 

I drove home crying my eyes out. Brian always told me "Don't think and drive" because he knew driving was my only solitude and it worried him. I couldn't help it; the reality that my husband was about to die hit me harder than ever. When I got home, I looked around knowing he was never going to see this place again. I got in the shower and just cried. Looking at all his shower stuff and thinking he'll never join me in the shower again just tore me up. I remember thinking how sick it is that I am home taking a shower so I can go back to the hospital to wait for Brian to die. I had a lot of disturbing thoughts like that in that hour. I was so heart broken and scared that I was sick to my stomach, but I didn't have time for this. I needed pack enough for at least three days and three nights and I needed to get back to the hospital as quickly as possible. I knew I only had up to four more days, and I wanted to spend as much time as possible with Brian before he passed. When I got to the hospital, the case manager/s had bought me a blanket and about 10 boxes of lotion tissue and a giant bag of peanut M&Ms. Brian was medicated and sleeping. While I was gone, they connected a morphine drip to keep him as comfortable as possible. I sat holding his hand while he slept, and he didn't wake up much except when the nurses would come in. He was medicated more now, so he wasn't awake very long. 

The nurse came in and we shared the news that Brian and I decided to no longer fight. She asked if he wanted to have a CT scan to see if the chemo was working. It had been day nine since his first chemo treatment and he had been declining daily since before chemo. Brian knew he wouldn't live more than four months even with chemo and we knew even if a CT scan showed it was working, he still had seven weeks before receiving any type of prognosis. We knew it was expected that he would remain in the hospital until then. Brian knew his body better than anyone and even if the CT scan showed progress, his body was already shutting down. It was something the NP of Oncology and I had talked about previously. Brian told the nurse that he was tired of the false hope and didn't want to be let down again and I agreed with him. He had suffered so much. Can you imagine feeling like your lungs are filling with cement? That is how Brian described it. It was such a struggle to breath every single breath. He shared with me how we take breathing for granted because we do it automatically without thinking, until you have to. When you are gasping and fighting for each breath, you realize how hard your body truly works automatically to keep you alive. 

As you can see by the dates, I needed to take a long break. I truly didn't expect the flood of emotions to come back so hard after writing part one. I'm in a better place again but I needed to take a break because part two is about our final week together. I needed to be mentally prepared because this is going to be harder than what I've written so far. 

Writing this has been difficult as you can imagine. Every line I write brings my story to life all over again. When I see the picture of Brian and me smiling, I can't help but cry; I miss him so very much and never thought I would be living this life at my young age. Brian and I confided in each other that we both wanted to be the one to pass away first. Neither of us wanted to go through the pain of losing the other. His wish came true, and I am left here to try to move on in a way I never have before. I've experienced loss of a parent and loss of in-laws and friends, but that pain does not even come close to this pain.  It is a very difficult journey and today I cried off and on all day. No matter how hard I try, sometimes I just break down completely. Today I feel so very lost, alone, desperate, and fearful. I quit my miserable job on September 19th, and I have been searching almost daily for a new one. I have no idea what is going to happen but I'm trying to put complete faith in God. I'm trying to remove material things from my mind and just accept Gods will no matter what that is, but it's not easy waiting. I used to see a future when Brian was still alive, now I see absolutely nothing. With Brian, I saw us doing things together, enjoying each other, enjoying each day, and growing old together. Now I see absolutely nothing. I have nothing to look forward to and simply feel lower than I have ever felt before. Every day is the same routine, I get up and pray, I do a short bible study, bring Kora to school, come home, do another bible study or look for and apply to jobs. Then severe loneliness sets in. I feel paralyzed and have no desire to do anything. I just want him to come home, but I know that will not happen and I need to keep moving on because I have to believe God has a better plan for me. 

As I write this, I feel so much sadness and pain. I see the pictures of Brian and I hurt so deeply thinking back to these days. I can't help but cry, but I want the world to know how we saw and felt God in all our pain.  

On January 10th Brian woke with a pain in his left chest area. He thought it was from sleeping with his arm under him. It was Everything was going pretty well it seemed. I had quit my job in September and was looking for a new job. Brian was 90 days into his new job. Brian was not happy with his work environment and was struggling to decide what to do. He was so depressed from his oldest brother passing away just a month earlier and he hated his job and the field he was in. He wanted a change and just wanted to be happy again. He had hip pain, was a diabetic two, and other than that was pretty healthy.  After much discussion Brian and I decided that he would quit his job and get his health in order. On January 11th, I had a final interview with a company I was certain to be hired at and Brian went to work to give his notice, which he did and ended his employment that same day. 

The past couple of days have been off. I was feeling bitter but not at any person, just bitter in general and I have no idea why. Today was a rough day. After Brian passed away, I bought a digital picture frame because I don't ever want to forget what he looked like. I asked my three kids to send me every picture of him they had. We all panicked because we thought we were never going to hear his voice again, but in our search for pictures we found a few videos. Well, a few days ago, I was looking at the photos and one of the videos just really hit me and I just stood there crying really hard realizing I would never see his facial expressions like that again or hear his voice or see him ever again. I've gone through these same thoughts a million times but this time it really hit hard. That night I had a few strange dreams but one was about Brian. He was still alive, and he had gone somewhere. I was with my two brothers Bill and Tim and my sister Jessie. Brian, I believe went to visit his brother Scott, but he never came back. I kept trying to call him, but he didn't answer, and I kept saying "I don't know where he is, and I don't understand why he won't answer." I remember the look on my siblings faces.. a look of concern and pity. Jessie showed me a coloring drawn by a child. I think it was Brian and me walking on a beach. The words at the top were written in crayon by a child and it said something about being gone. I didn't get the meaning of the picture and was getting frustrated with them for trying to explain the little kids coloring to me. I was worried about Brian and didn't understand how the picture was relevant. Finally, my brother Bill told me Brian was gone and that he had died. I realized then that Brian wasn't coming back, and I woke up crying, but I felt a little more at peace.

The Granny Warrior Project is something I wanted to do about 5 years ago. I intended to share our lives as grandparent's raising grandchildren and the difficulties and struggles, we have all faced and endured. After I shared a lot of my story with my good friend Ann, she began calling me a warrior. This is where the name "Granny Warrior" came from. I never considered myself a warrior but after talking through many life experiences and situations with Ann, I began to realize only a warrior would be able to endure and overcome the battles I have faced in my life. I wanted to share those experiences with other grandparents who were going through similar battles, but my husband Brian always discouraged against me sharing our lives with the public.