Angela Giles Klocke
On Friday, I told him I no longer loved him.
By Sunday, he was dead.
When I lifted my head from the table and looked around the quiet room, feeling the hard chair beneath me, I convinced myself once again this was not a dream. I was really sitting in a conference room, waiting my turn for questioning. I wiped my eyes and looked over at my friend; she was just a mirror of myself – tired, upset, dazed.
A single thought went through my head again: This is how it ends.
The moment I had heard the shot, that was my initial thought. I didn’t directly see it happen, but I just knew inside. He was dead, and I was free.
Going to the front door, I had stood there, clutching my squirming baby girl in my arms, and just looked down the stairs. His body was turned away, no movement, no moaning, no breathing. I didn’t cry. I just looked, and then walked away.
This is how it ends.
The police arriving, asking questions, sending the children away to someone else… all of it was a blur. But it led to this room. In this room, the panic finally set in. The shock lifted, and the tears and fear came heavily, resting within me, crushing the steel that had been guarding my emotions.
My turn came and I feared what would happen. Someone was dead, and although it wasn’t my fault outright, I still felt it was… and I just knew if the detectives didn’t believe me, I’d be blamed.
The questioning was gentle, yet I wasn’t sure how to tell the story. How far back do you go? Does it matter that he was abusive? Am I reacting the right way? Will they think my steely gaze is cold, or that my tears are fake?
“Sounds to me like a classic case of ‘If I can’t have you, no one ever will,’” said one of the detectives.
“You’re really lucky to be alive,” said the other.
That was the very moment I detached myself from the worst of the emotions surrounding this event. I was alive, and he wasn’t — and it was his fault. He was going to kill me, had the gun in hand to do so… died with the gun still in his hand… and yet, he was the one who ended up dead.
I didn’t go crazy or cry or anything like that. I just turned it off.
Days later, I sat beside the coffin and rested my hand on his cold chest, my head heavy from emotion and lack of sleep, my shoulders weighed down with guilt and blame. And he sat up and looked at me. My heart skipped at least three beats, it seemed. He’s still going to get me.
This is how it ends.
Of course, he really did no such thing. My mind, full of grief for a man whom I had once loved, with whom I had had three children, was playing tricks on me. It was the first time I saw him return from the dead, but it was never the last. I often expected any day to wake up and find nothing had changed.
I sat on the front row for his funeral and listened to the man giving the final words for him talk about his love of gardening and then his love of his family. I cried, because gardening beat us, and because it was a eulogy full of lies. He didn’t love us. How could he? How could he love us if he was so willing to kill me? How could he love the children if he wanted to kill their mother? Who wants that kind of love?
Behind me, the rest of his family stared at the back of my head. I could feel their hatred and blame; I might as well have pulled the trigger myself. Through my pain, I felt lost, alone, and crazy. I didn’t understand how it came to this. I wanted to stand up and scream at everyone that I didn’t do this, that it wasn’t my fault, to stop blaming me, stop calling me fake, stop calling me a murderer. Instead, I pretended it wasn’t real. I acted like I could understand their need to blame. I allowed their bitterness and sadness to take up residence inside me, feeling as if it should.
I let it all hold me back for so many years after his death, always thinking I didn’t have to feel my pain… I’d just feel theirs and understand that maybe it was my fault.
But today, I am letting go of the guilt and blame and insanity of my past, and I am embracing the full happiness I know I deserve.
THIS is how it ends.
***
Angela is the author of “when i was 13,” her memoir on life as a teen mom and wife, and she blogs at AGK’s Beautiful Life.
31 Responses to “Angela Giles Klocke”
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Wow. Thank you so much for sharing.
Wow. All I can think is that the detective was right: You really ARE lucky to be alive – on so many levels.
Thank God that for all of his faults, the man that you married in the end chose to take just his life. He might have killed your children – just to see your reaction, slaying you emotionally – and then killed you physically before finally killing himself. It happens all the time. A lot.
I can only imagine the well of guilt, grief, and anger that boiled beneath the surface. I’m glad that you’re confronting it and working to let it go. It’s the only way you’ll ever truly be free. Don’t allow his death to do to your life what he couldn’t bring himself to do.
May you find the peace and happiness you so richly deserve. God bless.
I’m happy that you know not to take the blame. I’m happy that you are free. And I’m happy that you feel you can be happy.
I ended a relationship with someone who I feared would do the same. And he did take his life, but it was because of another girl who could’ve just as easily been me.
How brave you are. I hope, eventually, the nightmares go away. Thanks for sharing.
My father commited suicide. For years my mother and I carried guilt as if we were the ones to have done it to him. I carried mine 20 years along with many other emotions and it nearly swallowed me up leading to my own grave. Last year I set myself and him free. Thank you for sharing your story. I wish you the best of luck on a healthy recovery.
Ang, maybe it’s wrong that your story kicked me in the teeth just the tiniest bit harder than usual. I’m always horrified, and always amazed by the things I read in this space, but because I knew you before you published here it was just a little more personal.
It pointed out that the abuse and the suffering and the damage doesn’t just happen to “other people”. It happens to the people you know, even the people you love. It happens next door, maybe even in the next room. The quiet woman tapping on the keyboard in the cube next to mine this very minute could be the one-out-of-four. Or the woman across the aisle from her. Or the one two cubes down. Or the one two cubes beyond her. Statistically, one of them has a story very much like yours in some way.
It’s not just “those people”. It’s “these people”. It’s “our people”. It’s my neighbor, my friend, the woman in the crowd with the empty eyes. The eyes that won’t meet mine and I wish they would because if they would she might see that somebody cares.
I always knew these things. But it’s so easy to forget because the camouflage of “normalcy” works so damned well. It’s easy to forget because we’d really rather not know.
Thanks for reminding me. For reminding all of us. And by way of returning that favor, let me remind you of a few things.
You didn’t ask to be a punching bag. You didn’t invite the anger that brought about the abuse.
Most of all, you didn’t pull the trigger. Not literally, not metaphorically. The deed was conceived, planned in the broken mind of one who had no concept of love or how to express it. It was executed by the hand controlled by that mind — and that mind alone.
Yes, “they” need someone to blame, but they need to blame the right one. Or ones. Because they created this monster, and now are unwilling to accept that they did it wrong. They will never accept the responsibility — but that doesn’t mean you should.
Because it wasn’t you. It was never you. You did all you could and you did it the best you knew how. And if it was never good enough for him, that’s on him — not you.
You know these things, but it’s easy to forget. Because the camouflage of normalcy as you knew it is just as effective for those behind it as those in front. So my hope for you is that you’ll strip that mask away and see things as they are — always. My wish for you is that the good to come will be proportional to the evil that was.
And if you ever begin to doubt, you know where to find me.
letting go is so liberating a thing to do – honor yourself, your children and what love you did have for him by letting go…
Thank you so much for sharing your story!
Isn’t it odd how the anger of the one who is hurting you becomes YOUR FAULT, and that somehow, even when you get what you might have wished for (your freedom) you still feel guilty?
You are alive. You are still you. It’s time to celebrate.
Thank you all sooooo much! I just wanted to point out, though, because I have never realized it might seem like it, but my ex-husband didn’t kill himself. The story is so much longer, of course, with so many more details. I have never realized that this piece makes it sound like he committed suicide. He did not. I guess that’s what happens when you’re so close to something – you don’t see how it might be read by others. My apologies for the confusion on that.
Thank you again so much!
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
i am sitting here with tears streaming down my face. You are amazing and an inspiration and someday I too will let go of that blame.
Wow. Just. WOW. I have goosebumps and the hair on the back of my neck is raised. I only wish this were fiction.
Sending you love and light.
Wow! What a story. I am glad you found compassion from those detectives early on. I am sorry his family was hateful to you. I am inspired that you can share this story and can now embrace life as it should be embraced.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I am so truly sorry that you had to endure what you did.
Thank you for being so courageous to share your story here with us.
When an abuser dies, there’s a huge difference in the thought process between the people who “knew” him and the people who KNEW what he was really like. The people like you and I and some of the others here, who have suffered at the hands of others. When the abuser is gone, those people get to lie about the type of person the abuser really was in life. They will only remember the good memories of them while we live the rest of our lives hiding the scars we’ve been left with. We can’t sweep the dark, nightmarish moments under the rug so easily, or hide the physical & mental pain under a pretty sweater, and pretend it’s all fine now. Our memories can’t be rewritten to rainbows and sunshine as much as we’d like them to be.
If they placed blame on you, it was only because they had no idea who this man really was in life. YOU survived. YOU are here today. YOU are what’s important to your children right here, right now, in this moment.
You are an amazing woman to live through what you have already. Thank you for sharing this with us!
you never really hear the story from that side when the abuser is the one to die. Thank you for sharing your story.
I’m glad to hear that’s how it ends.
More thank yous, everyone! And I’m in a great place in my life now. Truly happy with a wonderful man who loves me. 11 years together and counting
Just another thank you for sharing your story. The detective was right, you ARE lucky to be alive. And I’m glad that you seem to be able to release those feelings of guilt and shame… because YOU did not do this. You DO deserve happiness.
It sounds as though the “Gates of Hell” were opened to let you out; perhaps they let him in at that time. Good for you.
*sigh*
thank you for sharing your story.
i love how you wrote this.
acknowledging the fact that even when we think “this is how it ends” there is always more to deal with, more to remember, more to keep working on.
even the ending is a new way of living.
Abusers rarely show their true faces to those who are not their victims. I am sad you had to endure their blame, but I can only feel glad that you escaped, even if it took his life to do so.
Thank you for courageously sharing what has to be a painful story with us.
@agk: for what it’s worth, I didn’t read this as a suicide. Obviously there are a lot of details missing here. What I will say is “throw off the shackles and be free” you are only responsible for what is in your own heart. Flush everyone else’s pain and work through whatever is left. I’m blessed to witness all of the people who come together in this forum to share. You are claiming victory! I feel like singing! There is so much joy in declaring yourself liberated from the insanity. Submit to the happiness you deserve! Amen!
Thank you for sharing.
Fucking kick ass. THIS is how it BEGINS.
Just because your “husband” couldn’t be happy, doesn’t mean you (and your kids) didn’t deserve to be happy…and I, for one, am glad he took that chance away from himself only.
To be honest, there were many, many times I wished my ex-husband would die…car accident, suicide, overdose. But, it never happened. Then, shortly after I was finally able to leave, he was found by one of our officers in the process of hanging himself (I don’t know how far into the process he was).
I hope you have (or can) find inner peace and much happiness. Thank you for sharing your story.
I just wanted to say thank you again to everyone — for your supportive comments here and to me personally. And thank you to Maggie for this place, for helping give so many a voice in such a public way.
All I can manage to say is Wow, just wow!
You do deserve to be happy. Suicide is selfish; it could never be your fault.
How different would it have been for you if you could have ended it on your terms, not his. That is one horrible time you have been through. I read in your story that you are able to move on and I hope that you will gain strength every day of your future.
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