Dear Michael Russo - USMC, this is what I WANT YOU to know!
Dear Michael,
It’s been a little over three weeks since you took your life in our home. And there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I don’t think about you. In fact, I OBSESS about you. I talk to you while I do the dishes. I talk to you about what I should do with our rabbits. In fact, I even wear your clothes if there’s no reason for me to wear my own. I mean, WHY wear MY PJ bottoms if I can wear yours?
You see, you took a VERY BIG thing from me. It was you. It was always about you.
Since I met you, I did what I could FOR YOU. I stuck by you in bad times. I laughed my ass off at you in the good times. And well, when you went to that “dark place”, I did EVERYTHING I could to pull you out of it. But stubborn is as stubborn does. You wouldn’t let me.
Even though I was DYING inside, I stood up at your prayer service at the funeral home and had a mini eulogy about OUR life. Not the common thing to do, but I did it. As YOUR grieving partner. I spoke for you again. Because that’s all that anyone had to grasp on to. It was the simple fact that I knew you better than anybody. You let me in. I devoted the last few years of my life to you. And you were a recluse. You REFUSED to participate in much of life. Besides what you could bring yourself to do for my family’s sake. They LOVED you for it. They are eternally grateful that you were in my life. And theirs.
I also got to meet your daughters for the first time. In the funeral home. They’re AMAZING. When I laid eyes on Maddie, I started crying. She looks so much like you! And Zoe... she came up to me and asked me to judge a drawing between her and her cousin. I picked hers just like I always picked you. I saw the beauty of what she made and there was a sun in hers. And she had just lost her father. Her cousin’s didn’t have one. That’s how I knew she is a “Lil Trooper”... just like her Daddy. I’m so sorry that you let that MONSTER take you (us) away from your kids. They are adorable.
I know you spent the last month of your life convincing yourself that I would be okay if you went away. I AM NOT. I’m not “finding a better boyfriend” like you hoped for me. In fact, I’m now involved with new people. One is my trauma counselor. I’ve got PTSD from finding you. The others are women like me. They are widows too. I’ve been messaging all night with one whose Wounded Warrior shot himself in the head. In front of her.
At least you had the decency not to do that to me.
My days and nights are not better without you. In fact, they are miserable. I miss you SOOOO MUCH. And my grief is inconsolable.
The only thing you accomplished by taking your own life is making me DETERMINED that no one else should EVER feel the way that I do. I will fight this battle until my dying day.
At least I’m back to writing now. I know that’s what you would have wanted for me.
I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. But that doesn’t mean I can’t save somebody else.
My Sweet Michael, until we meet again...
My name is Leilani. I used to be a Warrior Lover. Now I am a Warrior Widow.
