American Wife (28 page)

The more I struggled, the slower I seemed to go. I pushed toward the future, trying to resolve each issue, or at least get through them, but progress was at a snail's pace while the pain remained deep and constant.

I thought to myself, I want to get out of this mud. I want to reach a place where I can swing my arms and legs and feel free.

But inevitably, a question would occur to me: When I am beyond the mud, will I be completely free of grief?

And if so, will that mean I no longer love Chris? Will he no longer exist for me? Will our marriage and everything we had together be completely negated?

I asked Chris's brother, Jeff, “Will it ever get better?”

“I don't think it does,” he told me. “I think you just learn to live with the pain.”

Can you do that and still move forward? I try, every day, but I have yet to know for sure whether it is possible.

BIRTHDAYS AND TALK

I thought I was doing well as Chris's birthday approached in April.

A friend called up with tickets to a Rangers game. That sounded like a nice way to spend the day; it was something he would have loved to do. Chris's father came with us and I tried to think of it all as a celebration of Chris's life.

Look, baby, we're at the Rangers game just like you would have wanted. And they're winning!

But I kept nodding off. I was so exhausted by everything—work, grief, just getting through the days.

What is wrong with me? Why am I so tired?

On the way home, I talked to Bubba and fell asleep at the same time. Half dreaming, the words came out as gibberish.

“What'd you say, Mom?” he asked.

“I . . . I'm just tired,” I said finally.

It was too much. My body just shut down. Fortunately, I wasn't the one driving.

I went to bed as soon as we got home. The next day I got up, just keeping on.

Helping the kids deal with their father's death was a constant learning experience. I felt—still feel—I was always taking some new turn I hadn't expected.

As the days went on, Bubba's anger began to emerge in fights with his sister. Finally I took him aside to talk.

In the bathroom, of all places. I can still see him sitting on the tub.

“I know you're angry,” I said. “And it's okay.”

“I'm not angry,” he insisted.

“You're not angry that Daddy is dead?”

He insisted he wasn't. I insisted back.

“It's okay to be mad,” I told him. “You have to let it out. Otherwise it will come out in bad ways. Like getting mad at your sister. I'm not going to force you to cry,” I added, finding my way as we spoke, “but I am going to ask you about things you miss about your dad. And you're going to have to tell me, even if it means crying. Because it's okay to cry. If you try to hold it in, you'll self-destruct.”

I know that for a fact—I've come close myself.

“Well, okay,” he said.

Not exactly convinced, I'm sure.

Later that night, we cuddled together in bed.

“Tell me something you miss about Daddy,” I said to him softly.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. You don't have to talk a long time.”

“I miss the way he played with me,” he said.

The tears started. I held him.

CHARITY

If there was one thing that helped me survive the first months of grief—and in fact continues to make things easier for me to this very day—it was the kindness of strangers. The outpouring of love and charity after Chris died was surely a miracle.

Almost as soon as the news got out that he had been killed, people started raising money to support us. The size of the outpouring really hit home for me when Glenn Beck asked me to come into his studio to hear a tribute to Chris. Chris had been on the TV show when the book came out and took an instant liking to Glenn; the feeling turned out to be mutual. Glenn was genuinely moved by Chris's death, and shared his grief both privately with his family and publicly with his audience.

Glenn called me into the office and presented me with a beautiful wooden box. A SEAL Trident was emblazoned on the front. It opened up into a binder, which contained letters that people had sent to Glenn's Mercury One charity about Chris.

I looked at it and just felt like crying. “I don't know what to say.”

Then he gave me a check.

Tears slipped from my eyes. We went to a studio to do a quick video thanking the charity's board; I choked up.

“You're giving me more than money,” I told them when I managed to steady my voice. “It's the opportunity to collect myself and come from a position of strength.”

One of the prizes on
Stars Earn Stripes
had been a Ford F-150 Raptor, a souped-up pickup. Shortly after the series ended, Chris mentioned to a friend that he'd been impressed by the truck and had hoped to win it and give it to me. As they got to talking, he confessed that what he really wanted to do was get me a new Ford Expedition—a Texas-sized SUV. We've had a series of SUVs in the family, and I love the vehicles for their versatility and usefulness, but all of the ones we've had were older, typically with eighty or ninety thousand miles on the odometer before we got them.

The week after Chris died, the friend who he'd been discussing the SUV with went to a cousin who owned a car dealership and arranged to buy me a new Expedition. I actually don't know the financial arrangements—everyone asked to be anonymous. The dealer threw in a warranty and service contract. When they presented it to me, I was floored. The piece of mind of driving a brand-new vehicle wasn't exactly hard to get used to.

At the same time, I kept the old SUV I'd been driving—I lend it out to others when they visit or to friends who need a truck.

The only thing we owned that was bigger than the Ford was our house.

After Chris died, Kyle Bass sent me an email and then came over to the house in person detailing his plans to forgive the house mortgage as a gift. It was a very generous offer—one matched by a few other friends—but I felt embarrassed, and even overwhelmed, when he told me to stop paying the mortgage. I thanked him profusely. I also thanked the others for their offers and generosity, explaining that Kyle Bass was taking care of us. I kept paying the taxes and other expenses, of course, but not having to write a mortgage check every month was a welcome relief.

The biggest thing these gifts have done for me is relieve stress. I didn't have to worry about putting food on the table. I could devote my energy to my kids and to projects related to Chris. It was an immense blessing, but with that blessing, came guilt. Did I deserve it? Did I deserve a new truck, or money to pay for food? Did I deserve luxuries?

That summer, the neighbors decided to sell their six-year-old Mustang sports car. I decided to buy it. It was not a necessity, and while I could argue that it got much better gas mileage than the Expedition, my reason for buying it was far more selfish than that. It was more fun to drive than the big trucks I'd driven since we had kids. I got a ridiculously good price because it belonged to a neighbor. But there was a certain twinge inside when I decided to do it. It was not the most prudent or responsible thing for a widow to do.

Was I abusing the kindness and charity I'd received?

I talked to different people about the donations. They told me unanimously that they had given me the money with no strings attached. On the contrary, several told me to have fun with it, to enjoy it in the spirit in which they had offered it.

But while I was grateful for that opportunity, it wasn't really me. I decided to put a portion of the money away as a special fund in case the worst happened—if I die, it will be there for my children. But I felt that I owed the people who had donated so generously something.

And I owed Chris as well. He had wanted to do so much good—he had already done so much good—that I felt obliged to continue that.

The generosity of all these strangers seemed to urge me to reach for a new goal:

Pay it forward.

The idea of doing small things for people was something Chris deeply believed in, and I did, too. But paying it forward was hard work.

I considered simply donating the money to different charities. But that wouldn't really fulfill Chris's ideal. I wanted to continue his legacy—and the only way to do that was to put together a charity specifically to carry on the things we had valued together.

People often start charities related to things they've lost or suffered through. I'm no different, and as I was looking for a focus, I came back again and again to the idea of supporting marriages and families under strain. I didn't want to focus just on veterans; from what I've seen, the families of first responders have very similar stresses and strains.

As I learned firsthand, our struggles in life affect more than just us. There is a ripple effect to our spirit and to others that isn't always obvious. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that by helping a marriage, we help the family that is united by it. It was a truth I knew in my heart, but it was also something that has rarely if ever been the focus of a charity: there are no foundations that encourage veterans' and first responders' marriages.

Here was my mission.

I wish I had understood more fully the effects trauma had on Chris. I wish I could have him here to love differently and with more understanding. I did my best, but maybe I could help others do better.

I looked to other groups as models. I am personally very impressed by organizations like the Gary Sinise Foundation that go the extra step. One thing (out of many) they do is build homes. They don't just build cookie-cutter houses; they build homes for specific families and their needs. And then there is Troops First, which also builds homes, sets up networks of support, and does unique things like the Proper Exit program, where they fly wounded vets back to the scene of their injuries and let them leave on their own terms.

I was also very impressed by the Boot Campaign. They're a nonprofit group that does a lot to promote patriotism and help veterans; I especially like their emphasis on supporting veterans' families. They have an awesome, hardworking board. I learned a lot from talking to them.

The last thing you want to do as a charity is to make a mistake that people believe was intentional. The more balls you have in the air, the more potential there is for mistakes. Missing a detail that seems unimportant at the time could easily lead to disaster. I started studying up on it. More importantly, I reached out for others to help.

Even though I went into it with both eyes open, it was a process that turned out to be even more complicated than I thought.

CREDIT WHERE NONE IS DUE

So much good followed Chris's death that I don't want to focus on the negative. But it does deserve to be mentioned that many people came forward and took credit for things that they had no right claiming credit for, inflating their roles in his life to make themselves look good.

A few people seem to have gotten into their heads that they could make a living off of Chris.

Of course, that happened before he died, too.

Some people felt entitled to go against the family wishes even at the funeral services because they had made donations or had some other excuse. It's too bad. I can't be hateful, but I am reminded often that some things are simply not for sale, and can never be bought.

Sad to say, I heard reports about money being raised under false pretenses; people used Chris's name to sell something or other. It was impossible to keep track of this, especially at first. Eventually we arranged for intellectual property lawyers to shut down the use of Chris's name, likeness, and logo except in the very few cases where it was authorized. But it was a little like Whac-A-Mole—one would be shut down, two others would pop up.

Chris's death spawned a number of articles and even books purporting to celebrate his life. I haven't read any of them. Some of them seem to have done a decent job; others, I'm told, are crass rip-offs, cynical attempts to make a quick buck at the expense of a hero's life.

Unfortunately, there's little I can do about most of these. As long as they don't violate Chris's copyright or break some other law, the authors have the right to say and do what they want. Freedom of speech and the press are important freedoms. Chris fought for those rights. It may be ironic that his memory is abused because of them, but that's the way it goes.

More hurtful, though certainly also allowed by the First Amendment, have been the strange and usually anonymous comments about him online. I'm not talking about reviews of the book or Facebook comments disagreeing with his politics. I mean hateful slander about his character. I suppose it's understandable when supporters of Jesse Ventura say outrageous things, but even a famous politician thoughtlessly said he deserved to die because he'd been a sniper in the military.

Bizarre.

More bizarre were the comments from alleged friends who gossiped to others about some foible or failing of Chris's—and then threatened to reveal all to me. As if I didn't know my husband better than anyone, his few faults as well as his blessings.

Chris used to say that he would spend a lot of time in the woodshed when he got to heaven, but believe me, if St. Peter takes him back there at all, it will be for the briefest of moments. The good far, far outweighed whatever bad there was. We're all human, of course, and none of us are perfect, but Chris was far above the average part of the spectrum.

When you don't have to look someone in the eye, it's a whole lot easier to diss them. Online, there are some miserable people who just want to spew hatred. And then there are other people who don't believe what they're saying at all, but are hoping to provoke a reaction.

Even the professional news media more and more emphasize things they know will get a reaction: fear, scandal, and things we can hate. We have negativity and fear broadcasting 24/7.