The first time I moved was of course college, but I commuted to college for all of the last year and a half. Then I got married. My husband lived in Georgia and that was the plan, so I moved to Georgia. But I didn’t actually pack all of my clothes. I really had no belongings at that time, just my clothes. Never thinking that there’d be any problem, we had lived in the house since I was five and the move to Georgia was temporary, it simply didn’t occur to me that I should have packed every single thing, all my books, clothes and move that to Georgia. I was the oldest of six, and the first to leave the house.

Georgia, and the marriage were great. Except that there was a problem with my husband’s job and we moved back home with a better job. Once I got home, I lived in the ‘family home’ for three months while we bought our first home instead of renting. Weirdly, when I looked in my old closet in the room I had lived in for twenty years, all of my clothes were gone. This included all of my prom gowns, bridesmaids gowns, dresses I had designed and made for myself (it was the Disco years). And a lot of winter wools that I just didn’t bring to Georgia. I had even made a corduroy blazer and a bunch of matching skirts, all gone. This was a wonder to me. Perhaps I was wrong to think that if anyone in my family wanted to do away with personal belongings, they would have asked, if not simply told me.

As a mom at this time of a beautiful boy, age eight months, I seriously had so much else to think about. Primarily a new home, a new job and a new life. Coming back to New Jersey was what we both wanted, our families were here. The pay was a lot more, but so was the housing. We found a little duplex, bought it and were happy there. Then we were expecting again, and looked for another home. Not long after we began, the market at that time got hot. The first time the market was weird, 22 % interest rates on mortgages, now interest rates were 12% and we bought a small, but very cute home on a half acre of land.

About three years later, we were expecting again, I was working as a substitute teacher, and we were on the move again for a larger home. Again, we found the cutest house and moved in this time on an acre and a half….getting closer to what I had been used to in my youth. Raising three boys together we were very happy. I went back to school for a higher degree and began teaching in public school. That was in 1995.

All was going so well, we were happy, we were going to mass, one of our boys was an altar server, we did Cub Scouts, taught CCD sacramental preparation, me communion second grade, together Jack and I, confirmation. I was active in the community, Jack was active as a soccer coach for thirteen years. Then suddenly everything changed. My husband had been diagnosed with Epilepsy when our youngest was a baby. Our middle son was diagnosed at age thirteen. But my husband’s Epilepsy was always controlled by medication while our son had Intractable Epilepsy, never controlled by medications. Even combinations of medications.

A year after our son presented with the seizure disorder, my husband suddenly, while I was recovering from back surgery, presented with terminal sinus cancer. Because he traveled quite a lot at first he didn’t credit the signs, much like Katie Couric’s husband who said the same thing around the same time after being diagnosed with colon cancer. This was such an unexpected blow, such a shock that we still suffer from recurrences of feeling it over and over again, much like PTSD.

The next few years are a blur of raising three boys, ten, fourteen and fifteen. And getting them all through high school with a dad who had to undergo radiation and chemotherapy, to his beautiful face. I tried my best to be there for them. We attended all sports, shows, traveled to forensics tournaments all over the state and out of state. We did miss, to my deepest regret, the last event our middle son did in high school, he emceed the senior event, BMOC (Big Man on Campus). I couldn’t leave my husband so I missed the event. both of us missed that event, but his older brother was there much to my relief.

My husband Jack passed away on August 28, 2001. It was at the hospice and all of his family were there. No one was missing. His two brothers from California, both of his parents from California, and all of my family, my mom, dad, all of my siblings and most of their wives and all of the children. We were all so grateful to be together but so very sad to know this was the end.

I tried my very best to make my husband comfortable in those last days, as I had done throughout the entire illness. All of the surgeries and chemo therapies, and radiations, and the Gamma Knife, the days that he couldn’t eat or swallow. Or walk. My husband was a Marathon Runner, a great athlete, ran track in high school and college, and cross country, and learned soccer late in life as a coach he was determined to know the sport and played for his company team for years.

Jack passed peacefully truly surrounded by all of his family. His funeral was more beautiful than our wedding. He was loved by so many.

The loss of my husband will forever be the most incredibly sad and complete loss in my life. So whatever I say about what happened after, has nothing to do with the love and devotion I had towards this incredible man. In college my friends called him, “Mr Mellow”, he would play his guitar and sing, as calm and as cool as any guy who doesn’t want any attention, just to be there. Just to sing those great songs. My life has never been the same, my missing him has turned into a painful loss, the most painful loss I could ever have.