My mom asked me tonight if I would start a gofundme page to help defray the costs of planning Jonathan’s memorial and cremation. I told her that the fees for that site are crappy, but that I have a paypal where people can donate.
So, I figure if my mom is worried about it, it’s probably worth posting about again, even though asking for money makes my skin crawl.
For those who haven’t followed me for very long, pictured above is Jonathan, my ex-husband. He had a tremendously difficult life including the murder of his mother when he was seven, lifetime abuse from his father, periods of homelessness, PTSD, depression, and schizophrenia that manifested very late in his life.
Jonathan was a Navy vet who never saw combat and worked as a search and rescue swimmer in Puerto Rico. He used the Navy as a vehicle to fund his education. After he did minimal time in the Navy straight out of high school, he went to a community college to learn visual art, and he trained as a nurse.
Jonathan and I had been together since 2007, when we met. We barely spent a day apart that entire time. Over the past four years, his PTSD became more intense, and his schizophrenia really manifested for the first time. After years of intense delusions, being held hostage for a month, half a dozen hospitalizations, taking off a full year of work to be his caretaker, and accruing $30k in medical debt, I finally said this year that I wanted a divorce. I knew that if I stayed with him, my own mental and physical health would end up killing me.
We stayed very close since our divorce, talking almost every day, and I still served as his primary caretaker. He still felt like my best friend in many ways, and certainly was the person on earth who knew the most about me and spent the most time with me.
I was shocked when he abruptly disappeared at the end of September, but I knew this time was different. In a bout of intense fear and delusions, Jonathan committed suicide on the first of the month.
The police tried to be helpful, but wouldn’t search enough. Jonathan’s friends and I searched the area where his truck was recovered, just like you see in the stupid movies about stuff like this. And we recovered his body.
I have been made the executor of his estate–which means that his family doesn’t want any part in making arrangements for him. I am spending money on things I never thought I would–cremation, towing fees for his truck, copies of his death certificate.
Jonathan did not have very much money, though he did work full time. He does not have an estate that will even begin to cover the costs of wrapping up his affairs.
Jonathan was a good man. He was a feminist, a liberal, someone who cared about the homeless, about those who were disadvantaged. He volunteered with kids in an after school program in one of the poorest parts of our town. He helped people with his carpentry skills for free when their homes needed repair–usually elderly people on fixed incomes. He showed up with his giant chainsaw to help clear trees for strangers after more than one hurricane. He painted me a gigantic portrait of my bulldog. He liked hard pretzels and sweet coffee, hiking and training bonsai. Jonathan was a good man. He wanted to build furniture, make art, and write rhymes. He didn’t ask for this terminal disease.
Here’s the obligatory labels for me, Kelly, Kay, his ex-wife: I’m trans, bi/pan, have meniere’s disease (which causes vertigo and makes me hard of hearing), and I’m depressed and anxious as hell (but responsibly medicated!). I work from home as a self-publishing writer of gay romance. I used to have an objectively successful career doing this. But now I am 33, and I have made less this year than I have since I was 20.
I live with my parents, my car is paid off, I don’t have student loans, I budget meticulously at this point, but I have an astounding amount of debt from taking care of Jonathan for four years, full time. I managed his medications, came with him to appointments, figured out how to pay for his prescriptions with no insurance, spent nights sleeping on the floor in the ER with him, visited him when he was hospitalized, and acted as his best friend, wife, and caretaker.
I am now working on getting my income back by writing again, but I am also dealing with my own mental and chronic physical health issues and all of the fallout of losing someone who I spent the last 11 years with.
My parents are helping as much as they can, but my dad lost his job at the beginning of the summer, right after I filed for divorce. My friends have helped, THEIR friends have helped, my parents have helped. His family has nothing to offer and that’s not their fault. But I’m in a tough spot that continues to be tough.
So if you’ve got a dollar to throw my way so that I can get my ex-husband cremated, so that I can host a memorial (at my parents’ house) that his family and friends can travel to from out of town, so that I can pay my bills while I manage the fulltime job of shutting down someone’s lifetime of accounts and information–
If you’re able, I would love if you would donate to me: http://www.paypal.me/boyswannabeher.
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