Three Years of Honor and Celebration… and Love

I can’t believe it’s that time of year again, and no, I am not talking about Back-to-School. Abby and I are preparing to go to Dallas tomorrow for the FirstHelp Family Honor Weekend. We will be joined by so many other families from around the country who have lost a First Responder to suicide, and we will spend the next few days bonding over our shared grief and loss.

I find it almost hard to believe that this will be our third-year attending. I remember the first year, flying into Dallas unsure of what the weekend would bring. We were just seven months out from Grubby’s suicide, so everything was still so raw, but at the same time, somehow, I was sheltered from my grief. Don’t get me wrong… it was incredibly painful and incredibly real, but there was also still an element of disbelief to it. There was no way this was our life now. There had to be some mistake. Sadly, we all knew there was no mistake, and we were right where we were supposed to be.

Meeting the people I had been seeing online in our bi-weekly Zoom grief group meetings for over five months was healing for me, just being able to hug them and spend time with them meant so much to me. I remember when I logged in to my first Zoom, seven weeks to the day after Grubby died. I cried as I talked about Grubby and his death. I remember people saying to give myself grace to feel the things I needed to feel, that it was okay if I couldn’t get off the couch or put on actual clothes instead of pajamas. They were almost all in New England, and there was no one near me that I could meet up with for mutual support. There were a few widows, a widower, and a couple of mothers on that call. The one thing we all had in common was that we had lost a Law Enforcement Officer to suicide. We were the survivors who didn’t get benefits, who were forgotten as soon as the case was closed, and in many cases, even beforehand, when they mourned their hero alone without the support of the department, no honors, nothing.

That first Honor Weekend in September 2021, I knew only names and faces from the Zoom calls, I knew only names and faces from the BlueHelp website. And I knew that I had to keep going, even when all I wanted to do was go to sleep and not wake up. The other survivors became our extended family. Now, I don’t even have to see them to know who they are. I need only to hear their voices.

Last year, things were a bit different because I was still in year two. I wasn’t the new person anymore, but that second year was just as painful if not more so than the first year. At the Honor Dinner, as the band was playing afterwards, they played “Tennessee Whiskey” and I began to cry for absolutely no reason at all. That song held no special meaning for Grubby and me. He was even less of a fan of country music than I was, and yet, here I was with tears streaming down my face. Within seconds, my FirstHelp/BlueHelp “family” wrapped their arms around me and just held me while I cried.

This third year seems almost surreal in the sense that I am no longer going to be the new kid on the block. Unfortunately, there have been so many more in the past two and a half years. I’m not as much of a hot mess as I was, but I still have plenty of days. I just hope that I can help another the way I was helped. I hope that I can give someone else the hope that I was given when I was new – hope that one day I would smile again, that I wouldn’t wake up every night at 3 AM to a panic attack, that I would be able to talk about Grubby without bursting into tears every single time. I can do that now. I can talk about him, I can talk about our life together, and sometimes, I can even talk about that day without getting all choked up.

Will I keep going to the Honor Weekend in the future, even if I have to do it at my own expense? Absolutely. For one night, the world around me takes time to celebrate the Deputy that my husband was, to celebrate the way he served, instead of ignoring not only his sacrifice, but ours too.

I don’t know what to expect from this year, but I know that I need this weekend like a fish needs water. I need my people.

If for no other reason, I hope that this year I can give the promise of better days in the future to someone who feels as though they will never have another good day.