Authors Note: This story will contain feelings/talk about suicide and death. I am still currently serving in the USAF. I understand that compared to the other forces, much of what I talk about will seem pale in comparison because “Chair Force” but I feel it’s still valid. What follows is the feelings and thoughts at that time and current. I tried to condense as much as I could, but there is so much, that it was hard and some context may be missing. I am sorry.

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So, send the pain below, much like suffocating…

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Survivors Guilt base definition is, "A condition of persistent mental and emotional stress experienced by someone who has survived an incident in which others died." but has also been expanded to include not just wartime deaths, but death of family members or strangers that the survivor failed to save. I have felt this condition twice in my life and still currently fighting it today.

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Send the pain below…

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In six days it will mark three months since my wife died from cancer. Her death was due to the overzealous COVID policies and incompetent doctors (military and civilian) in AZ that made it hard for her to get seen until it was too late and it metastasized. This left her with a stage four diagnosis out of the gate with less than six months left to live unless the cancer responded well to chemotherapy, which due to her rare type of cancer, it wasn't very hopeful. She rarely complained, always smiled, and fought bravely to very end. I was her primary caregiver and I loathe to even take credit, but without my constant persistence in medically advocating and caring for her, she would have passed much sooner. I was able to spend almost a year and half of time with her because she was the strongest person I have ever met, tripling the time the doctors gave us. She beat COVID twice, two different colitis infections, eight rounds of one type of chemo, six rounds of another, thirty rounds of radiation, losing ninety percent of her stomach to a gastrectomy, and gallbladder removal. She ultimately died from being too weak to bounce back from getting Clostridioides Difficile (C-Diff) from lack of nutrition from her condition and getting over the flu. The flu she caught from me. I had to watch her die twice. Once watching her close her eyes and go brain dead, then for her to take her last breath the day after.

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Flash back five years

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Send the pain below…

Its late August of 2018 and I'm driving on this long stretch of highway that takes me to and from base. Forty minutes one way without traffic with nothing but desert and mountains on either side. This drive was different than other days. I had cross trained and got a new AFSC/MOS and was only at this base for two months and was still dealing with everything that followed from my last base/AFSC (Air Force Specialty Code) on top of many unresolved medical issues. I told my shop counterpart that I needed to take care of something and I was heading out for the day. Before this, I was attending Green Dot training, which was a program that the Air Force opted to use for a few years to help augment the older Suicide Awareness and Sexual Assault Prevention courses we are required to do annually. Right before the class started, I was still in an argument with Mi Amor (my nickname for my wife) that wasn’t finished the night before. I can’t even remember what it was about, but about ten minutes into the class, I made the decision that I couldn’t handle life anymore and that I wanted to die. So during this drive, the music was turned off, no A/C running, nothing but silence (or near silence as I have tinnitus from my time in Aircraft Maintenance), but plenty of time with my thoughts and how I wanted to go about killing myself. I first thought to go the traditional route of hanging myself, but decided against it as I didn’t have much clearance on my stairs to do it properly, as I might just hurt myself instead of dying. Plus didn’t want my wife and 6 month old to see that. I didn’t have any pills to overdose on, so I settled on buying a gun and shooting myself.

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Send the pain below…

I get home and we finish out our argument and move on, but my choice to kill myself still was still there nagging at me. After fighting another migraine that night, barely any sleep, and just nothing left to give, I get up the next morning and head to work. My plan was to buy the gun after getting changed after work, but act like I was going to get takeout and head to the gun store, so I only had to endure the pain a little bit longer. That day when I parked my truck from getting off work, I was still wrestling with everything and what gun store to go to, I look over to my right and see my wife sitting on the stairs leading up to the front door with our daughter and suddenly and violently had clarity and silence. I knew right then and there, that I couldn’t go through with it, because the smiles on their faces would be forever marred if I went through with it and would leave our daughter fatherless.

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Send the pain below…

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I came clean to my wife about what I was feeling and she urged me to speak to someone, so I mentioned in text to my supervisor about how I didn’t know if I was coming home alive that day during some work talk, as it’s hard to reach out, especially since my supervisor was one of the main reasons that pushed me to suicide. While she did the right thing and got me in touch with the chaplain and our Lieutenant, her attitude, and the way she treated me changed from that day forward. She started treating me like absolute shit, more than she already was, while also taking away my NCO authority around the Airman. My migraines were every day now, the medicine I was on wasn’t helping and actually was making me forget things as a side effect, it fucks with your memory. This was a never ending cycle of her treating me worse because I was forgetting things (minor things really) and made me spiral hard toward suicide again. In one session where she was yelling at me for something, I broke down and told her that she “Makes me want to put a bullet in my brain everyday” and she said I can’t believe you “Want to put a bullet in your brain” totally skipping over the part where I named her as the reason. She would use this same tactic a few more times and no amount of asking leadership, they would not change me supervisors until she got moved to our other work building. The guy that replaced her wasn’t much better.

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Send the pain below…

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A month or so after this event my night terrors intensified greatly. Mi amor told me that I had some while I was in maintenance but for the remainder of time I spent at this base, I had a significant increase in the amount and intensity of them. I have only been awakened to these twice, as all the others I was in a semi-conscious state and never remembered having them, only knowing that I felt really shitty the next day. I sadly was constantly waking her up to them and she never complained about it. The last one was the most surreal experience, as I felt I had a divine revelation that it was my time to die. I woke up with the most grave sense of dread and sadness as the angel that came to me in my dream told me that it was my time to go and that they would let me say goodbye before taking me. So I spent what felt like an hour rubbing the back of my daughter while she slept and telling her how much I loved her and I how sorry I was to be leaving her. I in turn do this to my wife, until I decided to lay back down, while feeling oddly clear of any emotion and said, “I am ready, take me” and I went back to sleep. Some days I think I really did die and that I’m in Limbo awaiting further judgement, as life can’t be this shitty can it?

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Send the pain below…

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I spent three years at that shitty base before I was able to leave and get to my current assignment. She started having symptoms of something four months after getting here and was diagnosed with Signet Ring Cell Adenocarcinoma in November of 2021. Despite a CT scan showing a mass on the outside of her stomach and semi-lit up lymph nodes, the last doctor before she got real help, told her that she was “Too young to have cancer and that she has been pregnant, so what shes going through isn’t worse than that.” It took me yelling and using some choice words with our local clinic on base before someone with actual help came forward. He was a LTC and the flight commander. He immediately said she might have pancreatitis and called ahead to a hospital, a different civilian one than the one she went to, so she could get seen sooner. This event was two months after the previous hospital encounter, because I had no idea what to do to help her. Within four hours, we were told it was cancer, that somehow two civilian hospitals and one military PA missed the months prior. She was immediately rushed for a few minor surgeries and inpatient chemotherapy. After the first round she was released to me to bring her home and start outpatient chemo and care. We had no family around and at first was getting no help from my work center leadership, so I took as much leave as I could, so I could take care of her until something was figured out. I did everything I could for her.

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Send the pain below…

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I researched all her medicines to see what could mix, what couldn’t, if they couldn’t mix, could you still take them on the same day. What symptoms/side effects she was having and what could help. I created her pill schedule and feeding schedule. I tried my best to help when I came to foods, always cooking/trying different things to help as after the stomach surgery, she only had about ten percent of her stomach remaining. I gave her shots to prevent blood clots after her gastrectomy, I prepared her Parenteral Nutrition (PN) and set up her pump every day while she was on it. I assisted in de-accessing her chemo port when the PN came every two weeks. I was there for every appointment, for every bit of bad news, always cheering her on and telling her that it was going to be alright. All this while taking care of our four year old. I stopped all medical care for myself, as I couldn’t be away during the last bit as her care was so much.

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Send the pain below…

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My wife had two sets of last words. The last words she spoke while mentally clear and the last ones she said before she closed her eyes for the last time. The first set I didn’t hear as I blacked out for a bit and was told later by one of the nurses. It was simply “Sorry” to which I told her that she had nothing to be sorry about. The second set still haunts me, even as writing this up. She repeated “Ayuda Me” (Help me) about five times before laying back down and closing her eyes and went to sleep and her brain died some hours later. Sometime after she went to sleep, I told her that “I love you so much and that it is ok for you to go with the angels, I will be alright” and awaited the hospital catholic chaplain to read her Last Rites. After that I stayed with her for a bit before the pain of just waiting for her to die was too much. Much to her strength, it took another full day before she took her last breath. I was there holding her hand until she did and gave her a kiss on the forehead before having to deal with the hospital paperwork when someone dies. So once again I must send the pain below, because our now five year old still needs to be cared for, funeral arrangements etc. Her last wish to me was to find happiness when she was gone and I’m trying very hard to do so. She also wanted me to write down and share my stories from the military as she told me it would help me get through the suffering I’ve endured and all the good/funny times would be loved by others.

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Will you remember me in the next life?, you did make a promise after all.

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So here I am attempting to do so, because life must continue and our daughter still needs parenting, but I wish I died instead her. Sorry for the ramble. I am seeking help and have things under control and still would do anything for my Airmen. Ill borrow as saying from people much cooler than me:

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These Things We Do, That Others May Live.