The morning after Gordie died I finally quit trying to sleep
at 4am and went out to the family room of my parents’ house. My sons were still sleeping and my
parents were in their room hopefully finally sleeping. I just sat there alone and in shock. Gordie was gone. Now what? I grabbed my laptop and started emailing some of our very
close friends from Colorado. It
was an hour later in Colorado and I knew some of them were early risers. One of them called me a short time
later. I tried to tell them
the story of what happened the night before between sobs. As I said it out loud I could not
believe this was my life I was talking about.
After I finished talking to my friend, I sat there wondering
how I was going to tell everyone about Gordie’s death. I assumed word was traveling around our
tight circle in California. I had
called some friends the night before while I was waiting for the Police to let
me go. Two of my closest friends
even showed up at the Estate that night.
I can still remember seeing their faces walking through the door and
just collapsing in their arms.
Getting word around Colorado, where we had lived for 13 years, would be
more difficult. We had such a
diverse group of friends there.
So, I put a post on my Facebook page.
Friends, it is with a broken heart that I
write that my husband, Gordie Ball, died in a tragic accident on Friday. Our 2
little boys and I are in a state of shock and a world of sadness that seems
unending. I ask that you pray that Gordie did not suffer and is already golfing
in heaven and more importantly, for my boys...that they have a wonderful life
even though they have lost their Dad. Gordie, I miss my best friend.
The irony of me posting Gordie’s death on Facebook is that he
hated Facebook. Every time he
caught he on it he would say “Time Waster!” and laugh. He always groaned when I posted
pictures and videos of him on my page.
The boys woke up a little while later. Nathan looked stunned. Wyatt thankfully had no idea what was
going on. My Mom helped me feed
them breakfast and get them dressed.
My friends were calling and texting, asking me what I needed. I called one of them and said I needed
help moving things out of the Estate so that we could move in with my parents for
now. I knew I could never live at
the Estate again.
As I hung up the phone, I realized I have not only lost my husband, I have lost my home.
I showered and brushed my teeth. I could not eat.
My friend Sierra came to get me. Sierra was one of my friends who came the night before. She and I had been friends since Junior
High. She literally almost lifted me
into her car. My friends Brenda,
Stacy, Gwen, and Suzi. Suzi was my
other friend who was there the night before and she was married to one of
Gordie’s best friends. Everyone
was crying and hugging me.
We walked inside.
I looked up the staircase expecting Gordie to come down the stairs. I looked into the kitchen expecting him
to come around the corner. He was
not there. The house was messy
from all the activity the night before.
There were dishes in the sink.
Wyatt’s Elmo chair was tipped over in the Family Room. My file box was all messed up from when
I had to find Gordie’s social security number for the police the night
before.
My friends gently asked me what I wanted to get done.
“I’d like to get the house in order so that I don’t have
deal with a mess when we move out”.
I said.
“OK” my friend said.
“What else?”
“I need to pack a bunch of stuff for me and the boys so that
we can live at my parents house for the interim” I replied.
“OK” they said.
Brenda asked me if she wanted me to sort through Gordie’s
desk in case there were bills or other things that needed attention.
“Yes, I replied”.
And then I remembered that half of our stuff was in storage after moving
to California from Colorado fourteen months ago. We had only moved half of our stuff into the Estate because
we intended to buy a house within 6-12 months of moving back to California. I wish we had stuck to our plan. We would have been in a different house
had we stuck to our plan and this might never have happened. I would think about this for the rest
of my life…what if we had moved out of the Estate, would this not have
happened?
“Brenda, Gordie was in charge of the storage units. I don’t even know where they are
located. Can you please look
through his desk and files for any information on the storage units”.
“Of course” she said.
The girls started to divide tasks and rooms between
them. Suzi and Stacy were assigned
to help me upstairs. I showed
Stacy where the suitcases were and she opened up several of them on the
floor. There were laundry baskets
with clean clothes on the floor in Gordie and my room: we had just returned from Hawaii a week
ago and I was still struggling to get all the laundry done. I just started handing stuff to
Stacy: clothes for the boys,
clothes for me, shoes for all of us, sports uniforms for Nathan, work clothes
for me, bathing suits for the boys, stuffed animals, the kids favorite books, bedding
for Wyatt’s pack and play. I
grabbed Gordie’s pillow and smelled it.
It smelled like his hair. I
asked Stacy to pack it. Then I
went into the bathroom were Suzi was organizing. I pointed out my toothbrush, Wyatt’s toothbrush, and Nathan’s
toothbrush. Suzi packed them. Then I grabbed Gordie’s toothbrush and
looked at Suzi.
“I guess I should throw this away?” I asked.
Suzi said it was up to me. Then she tried to make a joke about how worn it was and how
Gordie probably needed a new toothbrush months ago. I actually laughed and then I threw it out. Throwing out his toothbrush seems like
such a trivial thing but weeks later I could not stop thinking about it. It was probably the first moment I
realized he was not coming back.
I did not learn this until later but my friends started
hauling stuff to my parents’ house immediately. Not only did they pack it, load it, and drive it to my
parents, they also unpacked it at my parents’ house and helped put everything
away. Somehow they even hauled our
fish up there. He was happily
swimming in his bowl on my parents’ counter when I came home later.
I remember that someone made the bed that Gordie and I slept
in. Gordie and I rarely made our
bed. Correction, Gordie never made
the bed. I occasionally made it on
the weekends. My friends asked me
if I wanted them to wash the sheets.
“No, please don’t”.
I said. My response was
fortuitous. For months after
Gordie died, I left those sheets unwashed and when I returned to the Estate for
mail or more stuff, I would usually smell the sheets. Often I would lie down on his side of the bed and just cry
and inhale the fading scent of him.
As Suzi, Stacy, and I were finishing upstairs, my very best
friend, Jane, and her husband, Jon walked in. Jane had been in Las Vegas the night before. I did not call her the night before
because I did not want to ruin her trip.
But someone called her and she called me the night before as I was
talking to the police. She had
told me they were flying back. I
told her not to but clearly they did because there they were. I collapsed into Jane’s arms. She looked as shocked and traumatized
as I felt. Jane and Gordie had
been very close.
Jon asked me if I had eaten anything. I said I couldn’t. He said I needed to eat and forced me
to tell him something that I would eat.
I requested a smoothie. He
was out the door to get my smoothie almost before the words were out of my
mouth. It was the first of many
smoothies that I would consume during the following weeks. It was all I could get down most of the
time.
I went downstairs and the place looked transformed. Everything was clean. Everything was put away. There were bags of things ready for the
next trip to my parents’ house.
Jon came and delivered my smoothie. He left to give me some alone time with
my girlfriends.
All of the girls were there at that point. They asked me which of the pictures in
the family room I wanted to take to my parents’ house. I told them I needed to just sit for a
few minutes. We sat in the family
room.
I started to cry and ask “Why?” “How?”
They did not have any answers for me. They were as shocked as me.
I looked out those big picture windows. I said I wanted to go to the pool. I asked Brenda to come with me.
We walked down there.
The pool was in a state of disarray. The cover was about 70% removed. Clearly the police had pulled it back when they recovered
Gordie’s body. Other than the
messy state of the pool, it was as peaceful as it had always been. The grounds at the Estate are truly
breathtaking. I could hear birds
singing. I sat down next to the
water regulator that the police believed Gordie had been working on right
before he ended up in the pool. I
looked at the pool. I could picture
him floating in the pool, in his jogging clothes and running shoes. I sobbed and looked at Brenda.
“How did my husband die in there?” I asked.
She looked at me and touched my back “I don’t’ know Stace”
was all she said.
We walked back up to the house. Everything had been packed in cars while Brenda and I were
at the pool. It was time to
go. I peeked up the staircase one
more time. He was not there. I told my friends to give me a minute
while I set the alarm and locked the house. My friends walked out the door and
down the steps to their cars. I
walked over to the alarm and was flooded with yet another sense of loss. We did not own the Estate but it had
become our home the past fourteen months.
Wyatt had taken his first steps in this house. Nathan and Gordie had played flag football on the back lawn
for countless hours. Gordie had
taught Wyatt to hit a golf ball off the back porch. We had spent our last Christmas as a family here. Gordie had hid hundreds of eggs around
the grounds for our last Easter egg hunt.
We had taken so many family walks around the grounds with Wyatt in his
push car, Nathan driving his motorized Jimmy Johnson car, and Ralphie running
gloriously off leash, all around the enclosed property. The Estate was our home and now
it wasn’t. My In-Laws would never
have forced us out but we could not live there anymore. Our home had been ripped from us, just
like Gordie had been.
As I walked down to get into one of my friend’s cars, I had
one thought.
How the hell does
someone lose their husband and their home in less than 24 hours?
