Summary

The author recounts her resilience in the face of her ex-husband's unsolved murder and a lifetime of hardships, including foster care, family addiction, and personal trauma.

Abstract

The author shares a deeply personal story of enduring resilience, detailing the tragic and unsolved murder of her ex-husband, Edward, and the subsequent discovery of his death three years postmortem. Despite the challenges of her past, including a childhood spent in foster care, witnessing her mother's struggles with addiction and incarceration, and her own tumultuous marriage to an addict, she emphasizes her ability to persevere and move forward. The article reflects on her life's many trials, from her mother's overdoses to her brother's stabbing, and her own experiences with abuse. The author acknowledges the impact of these events on her life choices and expresses gratitude for her survival and strength, hinting at the possibility of one day investigating her ex-husband's death or penning a novel that fictionalizes the resolution of the crime.

Opinions

The author believes that her resilience has been the key to overcoming the numerous challenges in her life, including the death of her ex-husband.
She suggests that her past experiences, particularly those from childhood, influenced her adult relationships and decisions.
The author feels a continued connection to her ex-husband, as evidenced by her writing a novella inspired by their early love and her contemplation of solving the mystery of his death.
She is critical of the hospital and state's failure to locate her or her son as next of kin after her ex-husband's death, implying a lack of effort due to his addiction issues and status as a John Doe.
The author reflects on her life with a sense of detachment, which she finds unsettling, yet also indicative of her resilient nature.
She expresses a sense of pride and accomplishment in her ability to survive and thrive despite the adversities she has faced.
The author is open to the idea of exploring her ex-husband's death through amateur sleuthing or through her writing, demonstrating her ongoing quest for closure and understanding.

My Ex Husband was Murdered and His Death was Never Solved!

Resilience has helped me survive a hell of a lot in my life

I am now and always have been a resilient person. I’ve always been capable of bouncing back from all kinds of situations and pressing forward without let up.

I was pondering over this quality of mine recently, during a time when I found myself thinking about the death of my ex-husband.

Edward (I’ll call him that for anonymity sake, plus that was his middle name) was found lying face down on the concrete, January 3, 1995. According to hospital reports, he was suffering from blunt force trauma to the head (yes, they actually described it that way and it’s not just a television term from CSI).

When he was discovered lying there, it was clear that whatever happened was no accident. He wasn’t dead yet, but he was close to it, and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he went into surgery and came out in a coma. He never recovered, and was taken off life support several days later.

At the time, he and I had been divorced for several years, and me and my son hadn’t heard or seen him in two years. Although we were no longer married, I never understood the hospital or the state’s difficulty in locating his next of kin — our son, if not me.

My husband struggled with drug addiction, so the fact that he was brought in under violent circumstances, and labeled as a John Doe probably didn’t give them much incentive to really look for family members.

He actually had no other family besides me and my son, so failing to try and contact us meant there was no one else to consult. He was cremated and his remains were sent to the county, where they simply closed the book on his life and his death.

I didn’t discover any of this until almost three years after his death, when I physically went out looking for him and tried to discover his whereabouts.

Needless to say, it was a difficult pill to swallow, not just because of the fu*ked up circumstances, but because I still loved him and I always will. That’s what prompted me to write a novella, based on the early days of our young love.

But just like my resilience was responsible for helping me move on after the divorce, when I could no longer live with an addict; eventually that same resilience enabled me to get over Edward’s death, and move past my grief.

From time to time, I allow myself to ponder over the surreal circumstances that surrounded his death. I even fantasize about trying to do some amateur sleuthing and one day finding out what really happened to Edward.

I still can’t believe that I actually knew someone whose death amounted to murder, let alone someone I loved and was married to.

Ironically, when I was 18, an ex-boyfriend was on trial for murder, and he implicated me. I was subpoenaed, because he claimed I was his alibi. That recollection got me thinking about just how resilient I really am.

Without meaning to, I caught myself strolling through my mind and thinking about all the other MAJOR situations I actually lived through.

As I recalled different events, I noticed how I did it in such a matter-of-fact way, that it was almost scary.

I don’t know which was more unsettling; the fact that I’ve lived through so much hell, or the fact that I can make the following list, without batting an eye or feeling some kind of way about the contents.

Notice the list of other major hardships I’ve suffered through, and see what I mean.

At the age of seven, me and my siblings began our path of life in and out of the foster care system. This resulted in a total of 5 foster homes before I eventually emancipated out of the system at age 18.
Besides traditional foster care, we lived with relatives, “friends” and random kinfolk from California to Chicago during some of that same period of time.
During those early years, we also spent some time living in an institution called McClarren Hall, which contained a mixture of neglected, abused, and wayward kids of various ages.
At age 8, me and my siblings were rushed from one of my mother’s house parties, in advance of a shoot out. I remember being hustled out of bed and wrapped in a blanket like a burrito, carried by one of my mother’s friends. That night, my mother was wounded after being shot twice , and shortly afterwards, she was sent to Sybil Brand prison for a couple of years.
At age 12, I was instrumental in saving my mother from one of many overdoses that nearly took her life.
At age 14, I was with one of my brothers, when he was stabbed after we were leaving a neighborhood party.
At age 16, I had a MeToo moment when I exposed a foster father’s attempted abuse (just one of the incidents that inspired my novel about abuse). Afterwards, my sister and I were removed, and finally placed in a household that we could truly call home.
At age 20, I fell in love and married a man that I later discovered had a serious drug problem.
At age 25, a week before I gave birth to my only child, my mother came to my home with a gun and tried to shoot my husband.
At age 30, I divorced my husband after the final straws that year. They included being stabbed in the thigh, and living with the fact that my puppy had been mistreated one hot summer day, resulting in his death.

Final Thoughts

The terrible things I listed are the major occurrences that left the most impact, but there were other just as disturbing events.

Once upon a time, I used to wonder how I dealt with so much, or better yet, why I remained in situations when I got older, that were clearly detrimental to my health.

My mother was an addict all her life, and the last thing I ever wanted to end up with was a substance abuser.

But as I eventually learned over the years, through lots of self discovery, is that the choices I was making as an adult, were all tied into the things that happened as a kid.

After being well acquainted with abandonment and growing up without a real home, it was hard to walk away from my marriage and the life I had with my husband, as rough and crazy as it was.

Even though it took me years to finally sort all my mental mess out, I can honestly say, I think I turned out pretty good, under the circumstances.

When I think about all the crap I’ve endured in my lifetime, it’s hard to believe that I survived this far, that’s why I thank God and my lucky stars every single day!

By now, after viewing some of the horrific events from my life, you probably agree, that YES; if nothing else, I am definitely a resilient soul!

Besides being resilient, I’m also persistent, so who knows. Maybe one day I’ll finally go do some digging around, and try to figure out exactly how Edward died, and who was responsible.

Then again, maybe I’ll just pretend like that’s what I did, and write a novel that solves the crime.

How’s that for resilience?

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