Reflecting on grief

You can't run from your past forever

29 years

It's been 29 years since my then seven and a half months pregnant wife Jennifer Katherine Wellman pulled into traffic and lost her life almost instantly. One would think after almost three decades the pain of losing your beautiful partner and soon-to-be-born child would be less raw. I certainly thought so.

It appears I was wrong.

I figured that out finally and started doing the work and for the last five years have been in therapy, diving into the grief, and working through the years of stupid self destructive behaviors I did to power through it all while acting like everything was fine. I’ve been trying to unsort the loss of my wife and child stacked on top of my soldiers in combat, my interpreter, my Iraqi local partners, parents, and so many more.

They call it “multi-trauma post traumatic stress disorder.” I call it my journey.

Fun at Fort Campbell in 1993

A pleasant autumn

I went into September this year embracing the cooler weather and joy of fall festival season, family, and nature. I was finally okay. Then today I woke up to tributes to her on social media from family. I sat there seeing that irrepressible smile and mischievous personality looking back at me on my phone.

The journey hasn’t been a straight line and the choices I made were often very subtle and often very stupid. One of the subtle ones I had never realized was found a couple of years ago when my girlfriend pointed out to me that I always said "Jenn's baby" and not my baby when I talked about what I lost that day in Clarksville, Tennessee. I lost them both that day but I tried to disassociate from it by creating these rooms in my brain and closing the doors. I thought I could control the flow of the journey.

I was dead wrong.

Doors have gaps

As it turns out even doors you build in your brain have gaps, loose seals, and weak locks. Those things I tried to lock away had nasty ways of leaking out and they were always destructive.

Last year I had a very bad PTSD relapse while traveling. When I stepped off the plane my girlfriend looked at me and said “what happened?'“ She hunted down, and put me on the phone, with a therapist recommended as the best trauma counselor in St. Louis. She even answered her phone when I called! As we talked about my journey, I told her that at that point I'd been in treatment for my PSTD and survivor’s guilt for four years. I just didn''t understand why I'‘d be having a relapse now.

After all, "I'm better now.”

In front of one of my OH-58’s at Hunter Army Airfield

That’s not how this works…that’s not how any of this works

She lightly chuckled. "Oh, Fred...that's not how it works. Come see me this Thursday." I did. Still do every week. So, I continue to do the work. I still struggle to balance how good a life I've led and the incredible family I built after she was taken. Your broken brain makes it a loyalty issue. How can I love this life, my wife, my kids and still hang onto what I lost? How do you cherish the gift of a new life, love, remarkable children, grandchildren, work, opportunity...and also remember the ones that were tragically lost?

I don't have the answer. I suppose if I did I wouldn't be scaring the dog crying in the backyard under the oak tree with my coffee. Not a sound she’s heard from me very often in the decade she’s been at my side.

I don't write this because I want your sympathy or to worry you. I guess I want you to understand that grief is a journey without a straight path. It changes. It recedes. It shapes you. It hurts you. It gives you a different perspective.

You can't hide from it because it will find a way to get out and hurt everyone around you. Perhaps I should have fought the battle sooner. Perhaps I should have not made the choices I made. Perhaps I’d be in a different place now had I chosen to deal with it sooner.

Perhaps I would have surrendered if I had.

Jennifer before a modeling show in Savannah in 1991

I’m not done yet….still

But, I'm still here. Still in the fight. Still making stupid mistakes. That's all we can do. Keep going. We owe that to them I suppose. I can still hear Jenn’s laugh in those old songs she knew by heart. I still stumble onto the places we shared. I still build new and wonderful memories in this remarkable second life.

I found these pictures today. Some have never seen the internet before. I send them out so the word can see a lovely lady who passed before the internet was a thing.

Cheers to you Jenny Kate and little baby Wellman...who would be approaching their 30th birthday now.

29 years and their memory lives on.

You’re not done either. Get the help. Don’t run from your past. Even the strongest of us have taken some hits and no one gets out of this life clean. I’m still here. We’ve got a lot to get done.