Monday, July 14th, 2025
It is now Just a little more than a month since I lost my Best Friend for 50 Years and my wife of 46 Years. I know that I will probably never reach a point where I feel completely normal again. I am involved in a program called Grief Share that is helping me by being in a room with several other people who are also grieving a Loved One. I am still trying to play music online with my buddies and in a Jam Group of Musicians that I am Lucky enough to be involved with. I have gone swimming a few times. Swimming was an activity that we both enjoyed together during the summer. Unfortunately Sandy didn't make it this year. The following is something I wrote just about a week and a half after I lost Sandy.
I have Dreaded writing This Epitaph and Tribute for My Wife but I know that I need to do it for my sake and for hers. It seems that She is all I think about for much of every day since she's gone. She gave me two incredible daughters who she was a Great Mother to and who have, along with a number of other Fantastic Family Members including my Oldest Daughter and My Son, Sons in Law and Daughter In Law as well as my Grandchildren and Great Grandchild managed to get me to a point where I realize that, damaged as I am, I can go on and I must go on and will go on.
June 9th, 2025 was the day, or rather the morning when it all happened.
If someone had asked me prior to 6/9/25 What was the worst day of my life I had several candidates but no clear right answer right off the bat.
That is not the case anymore. When and if I am asked once again what was the the worst day of my life I will not even have to think about it. The morning of June 9th, 2025 is seared into my mind forever as without a doubt the worst day of my life. I can't imagine that I will ever have a worst day than this one ever in what is left of my life.
Sandy had a number of Physical and Medical issues going on for some time. Breathing issues, Blood clot issues, back pain issues even some minor memory issues. Although her short term memory had occasionally become something that bothered her, she had started doing Word Search Puzzles that were printed daily in the Morning Call Local Newspaper and although these puzzles sometimes took all day she was almost always determined and able to complete them successfully.
She rarely complained about her physical issues and generally, although she sometimes bailed out of Doctor visits at the last minute due to not feeling well, she was mainly pretty cooperative about getting to her medical appointments and doing what her doctors recommended.
The day before she passed we had a pretty good day together. She didn't seem to be in intense pain and although she had been doing breathing treatments for over a month and a half in which many days she had to do maybe five or six treatments in a day, this day she only did two treatments. It looked to me as if she was getting better with her breathing over all.
On Sunday, June 8th we watched several good movies. Turner Classic Movies had on "Apollo 13" and the Astronaut Documentary "For All Mankind". She loved movies and Television programs about the Astronauts and their travels to Outer Space. She felt that she missed out because she was graduating from Bloomsburg University while Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon back in 1969.
Somewhere around 2:00 in the Morning of June 9th after watching a ghastly true story on HBO about a weird and wicked Funeral Director we decided that we were tired and were going to get ready to go to bed. She had been sleeping on the couch in the living room for some time because she felt it was more comfortable than the bed while I slept on a fold out bed downstairs. I encouraged her to do another breathing treatment because she had been having difficulty making it through the nights without doing one. She agreed to do the breathing treatment but stated that she needed to go to the bathroom before doing it. Normally she wouldn't let me help her up from the couch to go to the bathroom. She wanted to get up on her own but this time she just couldn't get herself up off the couch so I helped her up and walked with her on the way to the bathroom. She was walking very slowly out to the kitchen on her way to the bathroom and when she got to the kitchen she said not in a panic and very matter of factly "I Can't Breathe".
I encouraged her to continue to make her way to the bathroom which wasn't very far at that point where I encouraged her to sit on the raised toilet seat that her son in law had set up for her. She kept walking and did make it one step inside the bathroom where she said very matter of factly apparently not in a panic "I'm Dying" and with these words she immediately collapsed on the bathroom floor with her upper body lying on top of her legs. I pulled her upper body off her legs so she was laying straight but she didn't appear to be breathing. I called 911 and more than one ambulance came very quickly and worked on her in the bathroom where she didn't appear to be moving or breathing. After getting her in the ambulance where the Paramedics continued to work on her, they took her to the Lehigh Valley Hospital Emergency Room. I followed the ambulance in my car and when I got to the hospital I was told that "They are working on her" so I was encouraged. Maybe she was going to be alright, I thought.
The hospital put me in a room by myself where I was joined by a man who I later found out was a Chaplain at the hospital who spent some time with me and when two doctors came in looking rather glum they told me that although they had done everything they could for Sandy that she didn't make it.
Although I certainly was aware of the possibility that they might not save her the awful reality of that moment really hit me hard at that point and I felt as though I was going to pass out. I didn't pass out completely but the doctors thought it would be a good idea for me to be admitted to the Emergency Room and get checked out. The staff gave me an EKG and checked my sugar and I rested there while waiting for my daughter to arrive from Haverford, PA where she had recently moved. When my daughter arrived we both went together to spend our last moments with Sandy. My daughter and I were both astounded by how beautiful and peaceful she looked.
Since that awful day for me and the last hours of Sandy's life I have found just how wonderful the members of my family are, especially my daughters, my son and my Grandchildren. My family has done everything they could to support me and love me at a time when I desperately needed that love and support. I will never forget what they have done for me and how they have all honored Sandy.
Thanks to my family we had a wonderful Celebration of Sandy's life at a local Funeral Home days after her passing. Friends and Family came and celebrated a life well lived till the end. I know that Sandy was there with us that day and I still feel her with me every day. I walk around sometimes talking to her like I did when she was here. The Urn with her ashes sits on an end table right close to my Easy Chair so that I can still watch TV Shows with her like I have done for so many years.
In a sense she is gone but truthfully she will never be gone. She always wanted to donate her body to science. Although we attempted to do that it didn't work out. She also wanted to have her daughters spread her ashes at Myrtle Beach , South Carolina where she was convinced that she was conceived on her parents' Honeymoon. I'm sure that will happen someday. In the meantime she is right there beside me as I watch movies, watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune every night like we have done for years. Just this past Sunday we watched the most recent first episode of the third season of "The Gilded Age" together.
I have begun to think about some of the reasons that our marriage lasted as long as it did. We were both involved in Social Work and we were both proud of the work we did. After Graduating from Bloomsburg University Sandy worked as a Social Worker, An Employment Counselor and a Home Teacher for the Blind all in agencies of the State of Pennsylvania for several decades. She was enormously proud of an award that she received at one point from a group that was made up of blind individuals from all over the State of Pennsylvania honoring her for her work with Blind Clients. We were both Staunch Liberal Democrats so we had few arguments about politics. We also seemed to like the same type of Music, Books Television Programs and Movies. Sandy was very proud of her daughters and their accomplishments and was also proud of all of her grandchildren.
Sandy was a very Kind person and a devoted Christian Baptist who I am sure if there is an afterlife and heaven, which I am certain there is, I know she will be there waiting for me when my time comes.
I am in awe of a book called "Journey Of Souls" that she was in the process of reading after asking me to get it for her on Amazon. I don't know how she learned about the book. I just ordered it for her. According to the bookmarks in the book she had made it to page 79 and although I was a little fearful and apprehensive about reading the book at first, I have begun to read the book and I find it to be very interesting and uplifting. The book was written by a PHD Hypnotherapist who apparently regresses his patients back to their Past Lives. "Journey Of Souls" is mainly transcribed taped conversations between the Author and his Patients describing the periods of time following their deaths when they were between lives and seemingly go into a place that certainly sounds like heaven. It is a place where souls seem to find peace. I know that Sandy is deserving of Peace and I truly hope that she has found it.
Thanks to my daughter talking to the Baptist Minister from the church where Sandy and I got married who officiated at her funeral Celebration I just began a program this week at First Baptist Church in Bethlehem called Grief Share. This program is apparently a national program that is Religious oriented but just being in a room with a number of other people who are in the same boat as me I think is going to help me heal somewhat although the Group Leader told me to be prepared because although things may improve somewhat over time that you never really get over the grief completely.
According to the Greif Share Group Leader Grief is the Last Act Of Love.
That sounds about right to me.
Sincerely Yours
Jerry Gallagher
