Erin Browning
Sudden loss of partner, Dave
Hi Erin! Tell us, what’s your story?
I am a 42 year old woman who loves to hike, travel, cook, dance, read & write. I am currently traveling & writing so I don’t have a physical location that is called home. For work I own a business serving clients one on one with breathwork and ayurvedic health counseling to help them navigate the stress of big life changes. I also develop workshops & talks for organizations looking to bring more holistic stress management to their organizations & conferences. My formal education is as a speech-language pathologist so when I began studying more about how breathing relates to the nervous system and stress it became clear this was the passion I was put here to share with the world. Needless to say I didn’t know I’d be living through my own huge loss and in turn supporting grievers with this work, but here I am.
Let’s talk about the loss of your partner, Dave. Can you share about your life leading up to it?
Dave & I were together for 6 years. When you say partner it makes me tear up. He was a true partner in every sense of the word. We were opposite in a lot of ways that could have posed challenges, but somehow we ended up complementing one another. Our relationship brought more growth in those few years together than the previous decade-long marriage I was in. We didn’t make a lot of logical sense, but there was tons of mutual respect, willingness to get through the messy parts, and the love was unwavering.
Three years ago we officially moved in together. We got a cute little house on the river in a quiet neighborhood in rural WV. It was summer. His son, my stepson Connor, was almost 14. I felt a sense of family and comfort that doesn’t come easy when you grow up in divorce, two homes, and parents creating their second stories. Dave was more settled than he had ever been in his life too. While the day to day with a teen is stressful and blended family is complicated even on a good day, we were happy. Dave taught skiing & last December he had just signed on at a ski resort that was under new ownership. The kiddo was going to be teaching skiing too for his first job alongside his Dad. We were all feeling hopeful. It was as if we could breathe for the first time in a while. The stillness of the pandemic was changing us. Less external engagements keeping us busy led to deeper conversations, more time spent doing simple things like grilling on the back deck for dinner, kayaking down the river, staying up late, and enjoying one another’s company without distraction. It was a stressful time by and large because of the global situation, but looking back it provided a closeness in what we didn’t know would be our last months together.
“I realized I didn’t have an answer, only another struggle and I had to find a way to keep moving forward.”
How about the day Dave died?
It was a normal and really good day. My stepson was gone with his mother on a vacation. When he left town we focused on fun. It was often difficult for me to shift out of child rearing mode and into the playful lover Dave remembered from our earlier days. The joke was when “the kid was gone it was party time”. Our parties were pretty tame. That night it was beautiful until it wasn’t.
The evening of December 7th, we went out to dinner, watched a little television then snuggled up on the couch while he rubbed my legs. At one point he asked if we had any antacids saying he needed to pick a choice besides mexican food because it upset his stomach. I got him the tums, the same ones I threw away in shame the next morning for not recognizing this obvious sign. We went to bed. We hugged. We kissed. We said good night and I love you. All so normal, sweet and tender. I wasn’t prepared at all. We had a very connected evening. In hindsight, it was intense with a reverence or a presence that wasn’t there in every day grind. The intensity left me feeling as if the 6 years of our relationship were collapsed into that 6 hours of time before he died.
About 40 minutes after our goodnights I woke to a sound. One brief sound. Dave wasn’t in the bed. My immediate thought was “oh, he has Daphne, he is handling it”. In my sleepy state I believed the elderly dog was dying. I was grateful this amazing man was my family. He could handle anything. I made my way into the living room, looked over at the couch, it still didn’t register. He was lying on his side, eyes closed, propped up on a couple of pillows, covered with a blanket. It looked like he was watching TV. This all happened in a matter of seconds.
It hit me.
The dog was fine.
Dave was not fine.
I got down on my knees taking his face into my hands and screamed his name trying to alert him.
One more noise, a single gasp. I ran to the kitchen grabbing my cell phone. Called emergency services. And started the process of trying to save him. He was already gone. Widowmaker heart attack they call it. From the time I dialed 911 until the time they arrived less than 6 minutes. They declared his death less than 20 minutes after arrival. 30 minutes of events that changed everything about my reality. Even a year down the road it still doesn’t make any sense.
I like to think that night Dave went out the way any man would want to if he had to...quick with minimal suffering for any of the parties involved. He had shared time with his son a couple days before and he was not there to witness any of the particulars. I was there to remind him he was loved beyond belief until his last breath. We had all the fun...tacos, sharing a pitcher of margaritas, a nice evening with a caring partner, sex, connectedness, and mostly love.
What was life like in the immediate days after the loss of Dave? How did you cope?
It was an internal battle of staying strong and leaning on support. Covid was a good excuse to keep people away but it wasn't the real truth. I felt a strong urge to keep some things as private as possible. It was as if life would stay the same if it was only mine. My entire body was heavy. I was in a fog and my memory of that time is spotty. I cried a lot. Luckily I had a friend who came & stayed the first week with me. She put cups of tea & bowls of oatmeal in front of me and never batted an eye when I took one bite and walked out the front door in dirty clothes to pace the snow covered streets and cry. She reminded me to bathe, when it was time to go to bed, and helped keep me on track for arrangements and things that had to be done as the world kept moving on. I was physically, mentally and emotionally miserable, but every single day from day one somehow I found these little pockets of love. It would wash over me. I could feel it in my bones. I could feel him and knew that he would never leave. This sense was palpable for the first several weeks. I wanted to stay in that cocoon with his spirit for the rest of my life. It was brutal. Somehow there was also a layer of magic or maybe it was denial, but trying to get to that state of love was all that got me through.
Can you talk about a specific low point or struggle you experienced?
For the first several months I did not care if I lived or died. I didn’t want anything tragic to happen to me and I wasn’t suicidal. It is tough to explain unless you’ve lived it. I simply did not see how this whole living thing could actually work out.
At 8 months my dog Daphne, the one I thought was dying when it was Dave, began to go downhill very rapidly. I had to make a decision to euthanize her. I was alone when it happened. That was a very hard moment because it was a reality check. It was just me now. I had to figure out how to be my own support.
About 9 months in I knew I needed to leave our home. Possibly the town where we lived too, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the details. I was drowning in memories, replaying the night he died over and over again. It became a giant problem when I started getting up at night, pacing in the living room where he died because I couldn’t get that scene out of my head. I had an idea in my mind that if I could hear the 911 recording I would be able to discern what went wrong, why he died, what I had done wrong. At one point I spoke this theory aloud and as I said the words I realized I didn’t have an answer, only another struggle and I had to find a way to keep moving forward.
How did you manage to find joy in those moments?
Finding joy in the low moments always goes back to sensory experience for me. I consistently work to structure my life for experiences that allow me to dip into my body’s ability to sense all the goodness the world offers. Simple things like hikes, swims, baths, music, cooking a nice meal, basically it boiled down to feeding my senses in positive ways.
I had one set of friends, a lovely couple who kept extending the invites for afternoons at the pool, grilling out, even just watching tv. When I declined they accepted it gracefully and asked again a few days later. When I showed up teary eyed and drank too much wine, they still asked again. When I came and was so spun out I am sure it was exhausting they invited me once more. They stayed the course. Once I knew I could trust them implicitly I made myself go more than I bailed.
It takes conscious effort. I called it my joy trip for the longest time
You and Dave weren’t married. How do you think that affects the grieving process (both for yourself and how others perceive your loss)?
It added huge layers of complication. First was self judgement...why didn’t I just marry him? He wanted it so badly. I stayed guarded. I was scared because my divorce a few years prior was horrible & I did not want to be in that position again. Plus we prioritized his son and every year it would come down to not having the mental energy to plan a wedding or figure out the details of a marriage celebration.
The next was really practical. I got nothing. He didn’t have a will in place, his mother had herself assigned as executor of the estate a few days after he died, his minor son was the sole heir. It was a big blow that his ex wife was actually in a better seat from this practical standpoint of financial stability than I was despite our commitment to one another for the past several years. No control of any of it and little support. I felt very alone.
Last complication of not being married is all about external validation. Being a widow comes with a label, a point of connection for those grieving the loss of their spouse, an identity point so to speak. I didn’t feel worthy of claiming it publicly and battled privately with labels vs our commitment to one another. There is a community for widows. I became a lurker. I was feeling all of these losses, but I didn’t believe I had the right to speak about them. It has been one of the hardest pieces. When someone says “your boyfriend died” I still cringe because “boyfriend” doesn’t cut it.
There is a real gap in society around traditional marriage and nontraditional commitment that is absolutely as potent in our lives and loss. I don’t know what should change but something could be better to support grievers.
How do you live life differently from before the loss (if at all)? Has your attitude about life shifted? Any unexpected changes?
I am going to share the last bit of wisdom Dave shared with me to answer this question. I live very differently. Anyone who knows me can see it on the surface, but the reason behind it goes much deeper.
When I make decisions now I often go back to the last conversation Dave and I had. I can still feel his hand holding mine while we sat face to face and his voice echoed words I didn’t know at the time I’d need to memorize.
You see, I am inherently a fixer. I am driven to find solutions to problems and highly competent at this skill. That night at dinner Dave told me “you have to stop trying to fix shit”.
Eloquent last words, right? He elaborated with examples of me not needing to worry when the ski socks don’t match or we run out of bread to make sandwiches for the kiddo’s lunch.
“It’s not all yours to fix, baby.”
The topic came back up again later that night while we sat on the couch less than an hour before his heart beat its last pulse. I was a little worried. That is not uncommon for me. He had taken some tums because the tacos and margaritas had given him “indigestion”.
I asked, “are you sure you are ok” he looked me right in the eyes and reiterated,
“I am fine--stop trying to find problems and darlin’ even if I weren’t fine there are just some things in this world you cannot fix.”
So yes, my attitude has shifted. We waste a tremendous amount of time and energy on fixing, rearranging, trying to know how to put the pieces back together of anything that appears like it might be broken. It is nonsense. The most important parts — giving, receiving & embodying love — get pushed to the back burner in an effort of trying to make life something we dream or expect. There is so much about this life that is completely out of our control. Some shit simply isn’t ours to fix nor is it fixable.
It is scary as fuck but incredibly freeing when you really let that sink in.
What do you want others to know about grief?
You will be changed forever. It feels like there should be a moment where things just get better, but this is untrue. It is all fleeting. The pain is temporary. The joy is too. We get to choose which to engage with.
I choose joy. Actually I choose love-- for me joy is a side effect of some form of love. Even in the deepest of grief there is love. I am not saying this to gloss over or tell people to look on the bright side, in fact it is the opposite. Roll around in the muck, feel it all over. Know the reality of your pain, know that beneath that pain there is still love that will support even through the darkest of times. It takes conscious choice, action, effort to get beyond the brutality of loss, but the love is there for our taking.
How can a person best be there to support a loved one who is grieving?
Just show up...Be honest about what you can or can’t do and then stay as true to that promise as best you can. If you can’t follow through with what you thought you could do, be honest again. Grievers are living raw, everything feels intense so their choices, reactions, behaviors may not make sense to you. Try not to judge it or change it, just be mindful that their experience is nowhere near yours.
“There is so much about this life that is completely out of our control. Some shit simply isn’t ours to fix nor is it fixable. It is scary as fuck but incredibly freeing when you really let that sink in.”
What would you tell others who are going through something similar?
Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself. If you can’t easily recognize how you care for yourself then get support through a therapist, a support group, coach, whatever you need to do to learn what that means specifically for you.
If you could go back and spend one more day with Dave, what would you do?
Oh my, deep breath here.... This is an unexpected question and honestly the first time I have even dared to think about it.
I would tell him YES!!!! I would let him lead and throw my damned anxiety out the door. We would take our boat to the biggest body of water we could find, he would set the entire space up to make me comfortable, cushions, blankets, pillows. I’d be in charge of the playlist and snacks. He would fish. I would read. I would dance and sing and be silly. He would shake his head and smile at me in the way he did to let me know he adored me. I’d convince him to join me even for a minute of dancing. I was always the sillier one. We’d laugh, talk about everything under the sun, cuddle up in blankets, and sleep under the stars.
In short...I would spend the day in YES mode.
What brings you joy now?
Simple simple simple pleasures. Being in nature. Time with friends. I couldn’t read for months after he died & now I can do that again. It is such a joy to get lost in a novel. I am back to traveling too. I tend to scroll through my body and my mind and determine if I am choosing to live to my fullest. If the answer is yes the I can generally count on joy coming in some way.
Want to learn more about Erin and her story? Check out her Instagram account, @erin.l.browning and her website www.erin-browning.com.