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Hey everyone, it's Meredith.
Today I'm going to share an episode of a podcast I think you might like.
It's called Last Day, and it's about the moments that change us.
This is a subject I'm also drawn to.
You may remember the season about big changes that we did on Love Letters in 2022.
The show Last Day has a compelling and personal origin story.
The host, Stephanie Whittles-Wax, lost her brother, the beloved comedian and writer Harris Whittles, to an overdose in 2015.
This set her on a quest to explore life-changing epidemics like overdose, suicide, and gun violence.
In the latest season, Stephanie sits down with people to talk about that moment where they knew nothing would be the same afterwards.
Brooke the subject of the story you're about to hear entered the dating market, having already been married once.
Then she met Oscar, and they shared a love where everything just fell into place.
But just three months after their wedding day, the most beautiful day of their lives, Brooke lost Oscar without warning.
This episode is all about treasuring memories you had with your loved one, but still sitting in the worst suffering you've ever felt, and how those two experiences coexist.
You can search for Last Day on your podcast player to hear more episodes of the series.
You can also click the link in the episode notes to take you right there.
I hope you enjoyed the listen.
I go in to check on him and he's laying on the floor and I was like, okay, are you okay?
Like he was still like talking just like, yeah, that was a really kind of hard workout.
I was like, Oh, it looks like, you know, he's like, I can't move my, I can't move my arm.
And I was like, okay, well that's weird.
So I was like, come on, get up.
Like I thought he was joking.
And I, so then I sat him up and that's when I saw like the whole left side was gone.
Brooke never imagined in a million years she would see her husband like this.
The lively, fun-loving, physically fit soulmate she married just two months before.
It was just an ordinary day in the new life they were building together.
Until it wasn't.
Nothing could have prepared her for what came next.
And she knew it.
Instantly.
That's an instant that is burned into my being, because my brain went you're fucked, everything's done.
Everything is changing now.
Last Day, a show about the moments that change us.
I'm your host, Stephanie Whittles-Wax.
Today the story of losing a love you never thought you'd find, amidst the backdrop of a world that is completely unlike anything you've ever seen.
If there's one thing to learn from Brooke Wilson...
It's that you can never really know what's coming.
Her life has been a series of twists and turns for the better part of a decade.
For one she's a dancer and an actor, and Lord knows that that life is never easy nor straightforward.
But for a while before adulthood and all the uncertainty that brings, Brooke knew exactly what was expected of her and exactly where she was headed.
She grew up in a suburb of Houston Texas, that had a tight-knit family small-town.
Feel small enough to notice that just about everyone around her seemed to get married right out of college.
So Brooke figured she should too.
At 22, she married her college sweetheart, and they were together for 10 years, true love or not.
I mean, we just were better as friends.
We laughed.
We were great roommates.
We had our spreadsheet with, you know, expenses.
We paid our bills on time.
Trash was taken out.
But there was just, like, no fire.
We also disconnected just because we didn't take care of our relationship.
We put work and friends and other things first instead of each other.
Well, which is when you're in your 20s, like, that's what you're building.
Who am I in this world?
What is my profession?
What am I going to do to earn a living?
Exactly.
That makes sense.
And partly because I'm also a bit of a workaholic.
So, yeah. we were just young.
We didn't know anything.
And you think, you know, oh, so much.
And not that that doesn't always work out.
But for us, it was just an opportunity, I think, to grow up with each other a little bit.
And it also, we, I'm grateful that we ended the way we did.
And we've been able to communicate with each other still about, man, we fucked that up.
Or we could have done that better.
Or yeah, we did pretty good at that.
Like just assessing, so that our next relationships would be able to Learn from our 22 year old mistakes.
One thing that 22 year old Brooke couldn't have known was how in love she would be someday, years after her divorce.
And honestly, that road to true love was long and unpaved.
Post-divorce, living back in the Houston area, she tried dating again, but says it was a nightmare.
Work was also very busy.
She felt like she wasn't getting anywhere romantically or finding the connection she knew had been missing in her first marriage.
All these different things kept coming in my way.
And then the more that happened, then I got to get this work and I got to do this and this and this.
The actor's plight of you know, you never say no.
So worked, did you know?
Was busy with shows and this and that and had a few like.
Was just trying to really listen to this universe.
You know, person thing God, whatever we want to call it.
And I was kind of being told to like you've got to slow down and make some time for uh, something to open up so that you can find this person that is supposed to be with you.
So i did was in kind of some weird relationships, ish.
Whatever ended those took some time just to be by myself and then, of course, here you know, comes in oscar.
We met on the hinge.
Tell me all about it.
Tell me about his profile.
Tell me about Oscar.
Oh, he was so cute.
Oh, he's just the most handsome.
His friends called him the Mexican George Clooney, which is so accurate.
I mean, gorgeous, gorgeous.
But his smile, he had the best smile.
Now, and he would be okay with me saying this.
He did lie about his height on his profile.
Like a lot of men do.
Like how much was the lie?
He's my height, and I'm 5'7", almost 5'8".
He has said he was 5'9".
My love was not 5'9".
5'9 or not, Oscar is radiant.
He's handsome.
He has great hair.
And his energy is big and warm.
Brooke picked up on that in his profile but found it to be exponentially more captivating in person.
His personality, his kindness, his goodness, which is something that does leap out at you.
Like, were you pulled to that?
Was there a magnetism?
Instantly.
Yes.
Yes.
I mean, anyone who has met him will tell you the smile.
And it was just this like magnet, just, I mean, beams coming through his smile.
And the other thing that impressed me was he said, can I call you on this day at this time?
And that motherfucker called me on that day at that time.
I mean, we just like, bam.
And then he asked me on a first date.
So I said, okay, yes.
And it was April 25th.
And I was at school.
I had a show with my – I'm also a dance teacher.
I'm at a school here in Houston.
And so I had a dance show with my students.
I was like, I can meet you after that.
And so I'm pulling out of the school parking lot and I hit the curb and my tire popped.
Now I'm a very good driver.
You were excited.
You were ready.
I was so excited.
And I was nervous, you know.
And so I called him.
I was like, I'm not ghosting.
This is a legit thing.
I actually have a flat tire.
And he was like, well –
Um, if you feel like, okay with it, I could come pick you up.
And I, for a second was like, dateline, dateline, never go in the car.
Don't go to the second location.
Um, that's what Oprah said.
But I was like, okay, okay.
Yeah, you can come pick me up.
So literal, like modern day white, you know, night or night on the white horse kind of thing um, pulls up and opens my door and all those kinds of things.
And, um, he opened your door.
He opened my door.
As you can probably tell by my tone, I cannot believe the sweetness, the goodness that is Oscar.
He is a caring, perfect gentleman to Brooke from day one.
Like Brooke said, she and Oscar click hard and fast when they meet in 2017.
Especially once that she sees Oscar isn't just good to her, he's good to everyone, from his tween-age son to strangers he's never met before.
He was the guy in the room that was always checking everyone's cocktails or even water for watching TV.
He saw my water was getting halfway empty.
He'd get up and film.
I mean just always had a finger on the pulse of everyone in the room and just wanted everyone to be happy and comfortable.
I mean, the time we have isn't enough to tell.
I mean the mountains of just how gracious and and giving and kind and just always aware of making people feel safe.
You know.
And as you're falling in love with this man, I mean, what was that like?
What was you know?
You'd been married before.
You'd had other relationships.
Like what felt special as you two were falling in love and building your relationship and growing together.
It was just so like instantly easy and like felt like we had known each other for so long.
We had both been married before, so we both knew things differently. that we didn't want again.
We also knew when things are right and real.
I mean, it just, it sounds, you know, kind of cliche, but it was just so easy.
And so the gut, the gut was just screaming like this.
You found it.
It's there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Two weeks after their first date, Brooke and Oscar go on a weekend excursion to the Texas Hill country, which is just lovely.
Week three, Oscar takes a business trip to Mexico and Brooke joins him.
When they get back from the trip, she all but moves in with him, because at that point the two are inseparable.
She officially moves into Oscar's apartment a few months later.
Brooke and Oscar are madly in love and they're in it for the long haul.
Three years after they meet, they tie the knot.
Oscar had this beautiful idea of instead of place cards with names on it.
He's like, why don't we write everyone our thank you notes now?
And so then, their thank you note will be where they know where they're sitting for their table number.
And I was like, that's a great idea.
So now granted, I had about two-thirds of the guests, so he had a lot fewer notes to write.
I was like, how's your wrist hanging in, buddy?
He's like, I've been done for weeks.
I was like, great.
But anyway, and it was just – and now especially – people have said to me, I still have the note he wrote.
It's like there was never any question of how he felt, not only for me, but for the people that he truly cared about.
The wedding takes place in February of 2020 which, as we know, now is on the precipice of a pretty dark time.
But in the moment, it's bliss.
And we just made it like everything we wanted it to be.
There was no like lighting of the unity, like all the things that you kind of do traditionally, which is all great, but for us, we just were like this is what we want to do.
We want to stand in front of the people who got us here, because our friends had been such a big part of of rallying behind us to get us to each other.
And it ended up being like this we were supposed to only have about 30 minutes for the ceremony.
The ceremony ended up being an hour, unbeknownst to us, because both of our vows just like the things we said to each other in our vows, the way that he knew, the way I it just was, it was just perfect.
And we got off and our wedding planner was like, okay, well we kind of have to quickly did it.
And we're like, we still have 30 minutes.
He was like, no, that was an hour.
Do you remember anything specific like as about the vows in the moment, like hearing you know some, something like I remember Mike started our vows with you are strange.
That was how he started.
Yeah.
I mean, it's the thing I'll remember the most ever from that wedding.
Like I remember so much, but I'm like, I remember what his face did when he said that, you know?
And like, are there any things like he said that just really spoke to you in that, in the moment?
God, so, so many things, but I can remember him talking about how he knew.
So I'd met his son two or three weeks into, I'd met his son really early.
And his son at the time was 11 when Oscar and I met.
And um, He was like I remember when you met my son and you left and I just sat on my couch and started crying because I knew I'd finally found what I had been looking for.
I couldn't hold it in any longer.
I cried like I've never cried before.
It was pure joy coming out in those tears.
I finally knew her name and I finally knew what she looked like.
And I knew that she loved dogs more than I do.
And she was better than I could have ever imagined.
Today's about celebrating the fact that we found each other.
So we both had just so badly wanted to find this person.
And he was like, I was just so grateful and I couldn't believe it.
But I just sat down and just everything kind of you know fell away because I knew I had finally found him, the person that I was supposed to to complete the family.
And, um, and his son's actually, his son's vows were because he had written them on a, on a piece of paper in his little jacket.
And it was his turn.
He was like, I don't need it at this point.
He was 14, I guess.
And, um, and just like spoke from his heart.
And he was like, and, and, and I finally have the family I've always wanted.
And you know, both of my parents got divorced and then I've never really had a family on either side.
But now I do and I love it.
And that's what I wanted to thank all of you, all of you for coming here.
I've been to a couple weddings here and there, but this one where my parents are being married, it's a big thing and I love it and I love both of you.
And one thing I said in my vows it's the first time in my life I feel like I can just exhale, because I've been independent very fiercely, sometimes to a fault, but out of necessity, for most of my life.
And so it was the first time I felt like okay, someone's got okay, I can just let my shoulders relax for a little bit.
I always used to look to the next thing.
My mind would race with questions of what was next.
As soon as I got a contract, I was worried about the next one.
What else can I do?
What if I don't have work?
How can I top the contract?
Will everyone ever cast me again?
And then suddenly everything becomes still and calm again.
When you arrive at the place you know your heart is supposed to be, you stop trying to fill it with everything else.
You rest.
You exhale.
And you're not afraid to linger in the eyes of a man who fills your heart with a peace you have truly been aching for your whole life.
The overwhelming love from all directions is so clear during the wedding and reception.
It shines throughout the entire day.
And everyone basks in it. and will for weeks to come.
And, thank God, people have something wonderful to bask in because, not even a month later, COVID-19 shuts down the entire world.
So it's 2020, obviously everything's shutting down.
And I can remember his son wanting a pull-up bar like the ones you put over the.
You know he was getting, you know, freshmen in high school wanting to impress the ladies.
And so we were like, that's fine, but please be so careful.
If you go in the hospital, we can't be with you in the hospital.
If you break an arm, like, that's where we were.
Again, before anything, this was like when you were still washing your, like, mail.
Yes.
You know?
Spraying down, like, the paper towel.
Spraying down.
Yes.
Oscar would come home from work and I was like, okay, all your clothes off.
We've got to wash them now.
Stay outside.
Like, he was still going into his office.
He was an HR director.
And he really wanted this home workout machine.
Um and he.
He came in and I was cooking dinner and we had a son and everything was was normal about the day.
Evening news was on, you know, and, um, it's, this is April 27th.
So two days after our three year mark of our first date.
So April 27th and I'm cooking dinner and he was like, Oh, I'm going to work out.
I was like, okay, great.
And so I go in to check on him and he's laying on the floor and I'm like okay, are you okay?
Like we're joke.
He was still loose, like talking, just like.
Yeah, that was a really kind of hard workout.
I was like oh, it looks like haha, you know, and like there's a rating on the machine you can grade it.
I was like I'm gonna give it a five because clearly that one was hard.
He's like yeah, I don't really feel right.
And he was still laying flat and I was like okay well, you know, he's like I can't move my, I can't move my arm.
And I was like okay well, that's weird.
So I was like, come on, get up.
Like I thought he was joking um, because you know he was 44 at the time, like healthy and physically fit and so physically fit and just just, just just perfect.
And I so.
Then I sat him up, and that's when I saw like the whole left side was gone of his body and his face was drooping.
Like if, like what you hear of people speak of when stroke victims have their strokes and, And so that's an instant that is burned into my being because my brain went you're fucked, everything's done.
Everything is changing now.
We're back.
It's late April 2020, and...
Brooke and Oscar's day-to-day pandemic reality is scary enough.
But Brooke has also just found Oscar on the floor after a home workout.
The left side of his body has lost all control, and they need help now.
So I call 911, and I can hear the operator.
I said, I think he's having a stroke.
And the operator asked me to say a sentence.
I don't remember what it was and have Oscar repeat it back.
But he couldn't move his mouth.
And I hear the operator go, oh, no.
And I was like, well, that's what you want the 911 operator to say.
And she said, okay, so ambulance is on the way.
His son, you know, was with us.
We had him 50-50 custody at the time.
And so I unfortunately had to ask him, I was like, I need to stay with your dad.
Can you go out to the driveway?
Because they said to make sure someone's able to let the ambulance know which house.
And so he was out in the driveway, flags the ambulance down.
They come in, get Oscar on the stretcher. bring him out into the ambulance.
I can remember grabbing his wallet because we had a little bowl by the door, like you do, because I knew his insurance card was in there.
And I remember his son just asking, is it his heart?
And I was like, no, I think he's had a stroke, but it's going to be fine.
And I'll text you when we get to the hospital.
And that was it.
So I had to follow the ambulance, because they wouldn't let me in the ambulance.
And so we get to the first hospital.
And again, this is COVID.
So I had to, you know, mask up, do all the things to even get in the hospital, and they took him back.
So I'm in this tiny little room waiting, waiting, waiting, and it was taking longer and longer.
And I was like, well, this isn't good if it's taking this long.
I think it was, I think, what is time in moments like these, but I think it was around two hours before I heard from the first set of doctors, and they came in with this, like, very just devastating response. look on their face and they were like, um, and I was like, what, what's, what's happening?
I need, you know, information.
Well, we, he's, he's, you know, taken a turn.
I don't remember exactly what they said, but I remember saying, is he still alive?
Is he still with us?
And they said yes, he's still alive, but life flight has been called because he suffered a seizure and is unconscious.
Um, while he was going into the first scan or one of the scans they were doing.
Um, Because when they put him, they told me, when they put him on the scan table at first, he was still talking and was still able to communicate with them and then started to seize.
The doctors give Brooke directions to a different hospital where Oscar is now headed, since the situation is growing even more dire.
And once again she finds herself behind the wheel of her car, driving all alone full of panic, not knowing what on earth is going on or what state her husband is currently in.
So I get there and I go into the hospital and they stopped me and I said okay, I'm here for my husband.
And, um, they said, well, you can't go, you know, COVID hospitals closed.
You can't go up, but we'll contact you.
And I was like, okay, I walk away.
And two seconds, they audibly were like, miss come back.
Cause they had called up to the neuro ICU.
And they said actually, they've given you permission to go upstairs, which now I know is because he was dire.
I thought, oh, what a wonderful gesture.
Um, Like no, it's because they they knew how bad it was when they saw, when they got into, I believe his his, his brain.
And so I go up and I'm in a waiting room again just by myself.
And at this point, gosh, it's probably two or three in the morning.
And I just remember like that shivering that you get when it's really late and you're just freezing.
And and I was very thirsty, but I didn't have a blank.
I didn't have anything.
I didn't have anybody there.
So I would sit in a chair and kind of like go in and out and just like couldn't fall asleep, could fall asleep.
And then one of the doctors came in and started to try to explain to me what happened.
And, you know, it's all this medical jargon and just like, wait, what?
Like we just got married.
Like he hasn't even seen the wedding pictures really yet.
While Brooke is in this state of utter confusion and shock, the doctors tell her what they've discovered, which is that Oscar was born with an arteriovenous malformation, that a group of blood vessels in his body never formed properly, and that this medical event that he's undergoing was basically the result of a ticking time bomb since birth.
They let her into the room to see him, but the time they spend together is incredibly short.
I got about 30 minutes and then they had to kick me out because of COVID.
And I thought I could go home.
I went home and my friend Julie was like, no, you can't be alone.
I was like, no, I'll be fine.
She's like, no, you can't.
We're going to come get you.
Because this dinner was still on the stove.
And it's what time?
It's four in the morning.
Now it's about nine in the morning.
Oh, my God, Brooke.
And so this is another thing I'll never forget.
Because of COVID, I was like, y'all, I was in a hospital yesterday.
Like at this time again, like I don't want to kill all of you because I don't know what I was exposed to at a hospital.
The COVID layer to all this is just merciless.
Yeah.
And so I'll never forget opening the door and Julia had a blanket and it's like slow motion in my mind through the entire blanket over her body and just like opened her arms.
And I just like fell into it and started bawling.
But it's like this slow-mo.
Like it's so ridiculous now.
But that's what we were doing in April of 2020.
And they had gloves on to touch me.
Like we couldn't, you know.
So Teresa helped clean.
They helped me clean up the kitchen and all that stuff.
And Julia was like, you cannot be here alone.
It's like I don't want to expose your family.
She said, we'll figure it out, which is amazing.
So I stayed with her, again, I think for a couple of days.
I don't really remember.
My parents really wanted to come get me.
But of course, not only was I worried about exposing them because they were older, but I wanted to stay in Houston.
I wanted to be close to where Oscar was.
A few days in.
Brooke's parents do come and pick her up and bring her back to their house in the suburbs.
By this point, Brooke's attention and memory are going in and out as she sits in the shock of all that's happened in just a few days.
So much has changed.
Yet basically, nothing is changing.
The bleak waiting game continues.
This is now day three or four of him being in the ICU.
I was at Julia's, I think, for a couple of days.
And you know, every hour I'm getting calls from the nurse or calls from a doctor to approve a feeding tube, to approve a this or a that or this.
You know.
So there's all these decisions I was having to make about Oscar's life and well-being, while also trying to understand what just happened.
And then I get to my parents' house.
People will come, but we sit outside and, you know, six feet apart in chairs and I can't get hugs.
I can't, we can't be together.
And I did get.
A colleague of mine was able to.
She had a connection with a doctor at the hospital where Oscar was and reached out and was able to get me in to see Oscar for about an hour.
But I went in and I was just covered in PPE, plastic, like, head to toe.
I had my glasses on.
I was crying, obviously, and so they kept fogging up.
But I just kept telling him how handsome he was.
And, like I wore the cologne, he wore on our wedding day and played our music to hope that maybe it would— allow him to like open his like.
We just needed him to open his eyes.
And then it kind of turned, and I realized that he shouldn't open his eyes.
Like the prognosis and what the doctors were telling me about, the life that he might potentially be in store for was not going to be anything he ever would have wanted to live.
Brooke says that the doctors chose gentle ways to explain Oscar's prognosis.
They would ask what kind of lifestyle he lived and what his days looked like in the before times.
And then they'd tell her that that wasn't the kind of life he'd ever be able to live again.
She knew that if he ever woke up, she'd shift from being his new bride to his caretaker.
And that her sweet polite, selfless husband, who lived with her for three years but had never so much as burped in front of her.
Would hate that.
I would FaceTime him every night with the nurse advocate and tell him good night.
And I love, you know, all the things.
And you can do it and just open your eyes, open your eyes.
And then I turned to, it's okay.
You know, I'm okay.
You can let it go.
You can, you can, it's okay.
Oscar is moved to yet another ICU.
By this point, he's remained in the same condition in one hospital or another for 11 days.
And at this new hospital the medical team is going to try a new therapeutic strategy to see if it might help turn things around.
I remember having to go get clothes from our house and pack a bag for him, because they said they would do therapy in his real clothes and not in a hospital gown, which is kind of part of their thing.
I was like, okay.
So...
I packed a bag and brought it.
But I couldn't see him because of COVID.
So I had to drop the bag off at the front desk and just go back to my parents' house and just you know wait, just waiting.
And then I got a call from a doctor at this hospital that said your husband's heart has stopped and you need to get to the emergency room right away.
Jump in the car and I can remember going under this overpass and just feeling something just say close your eyes.
So I was like and I remember my mom was kind of talking but I just was tuned out, close my eyes and I felt like like two hands against my shoulders and just like they went whoosh down my arms like this tingly, hot feel.
And then I opened my eyes and it was 11 48 in the morning And I was like that's, he's gone.
I knew he was gone.
And so I got to the emergency room and went in.
And again, no one could go with me.
And so I checked in and said what I was there for and went in the waiting room.
And then a nurse kind of immediately came and got me to bring me back to a more private area.
And the doctor called again and said, Mrs. Gears, I'm so sorry, but your husband didn't make it.
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We're all out of the ordinary.
There's a battle playing out right now over who should control American universities.
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In season one, we were guessing what was to come.
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From the Boston Globe and on the media, it's season two of The Harvard Plan.
This time, it really is personal.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
After 11 days of waiting praying, hoping for things to turn around, Brooke finds out that her beautiful, perfect husband has died.
After nearly two weeks of profound stress and waiting and hospitals and COVID protocols, everything suddenly comes crashing down.
My body stopped working.
My knees buckled.
This is not normal. reality.
And so it's like okay, so pick myself up off the floor, go back out to my parents car, because they were still like it.
Just I was in that emergency room for maybe a minute.
They drove me back to the other hospital just around the corner.
And I got up to they obviously were going to let me in this time.
And They're like, do you want a chaplain?
And I'm not a very, like, whatever person, but I was like, yeah, sure.
I just wanted somebody with me.
I was like, whatever, just another human, because all of this I had to walk through by myself.
And, I mean, I know I had a multitude of support, but physically just, you know, by myself.
And so when they had to wait a few minutes because they were finishing up whatever they had to finish up to, when you try to resuscitate someone and just went in and he was laying there, just you know still.
I wanted to lay in the bed with him, but I couldn't.
I didn't put my whole weight on him because I didn't want to hurt him.
And it's like I could, like I was, so I had one leg on the floor and the rest I was just laying on his chest and I just kept crying and saying I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
You know, this isn't how it's supposed to be.
And I told his family and I had to tell his son.
Once, you know, everything got.
It was just this whirlwind, you know, this whirlwind of like what is what just happened.
And so, and you know, they just come in pretty quick and say okay, what funeral home do you want us to call?
Just things that the roller coaster of we literally had the best day of our lives ever.
Two months later, here I am.
I don't understand.
I am so sorry.
Thank you.
Grief is already so isolating, so lonely.
It is, and...
I can just remember laying over his body.
We didn't put him in a casket.
We just had him kind of laid out and just laying on top of him.
Just these wailing sounds that came out of like I remember when my grandfather passed away, my grandmother making those sounds because I was in their apartment when they took my grandfather's body out.
And I can remember what my grandmother, what the sound she made.
And I just remember thinking, oh my God, I hope I...
How can anyone feel that and continue to move forward?
And it's just like this guttural noise that I hope I don't make again for a very long time.
And just running my hands through his hair, which sounds so weird for this, but it just when it's your person.
It's not a corpse, it's like your person and they're.
It's just so fucked up.
And so, yeah, this loneliness of all of that and then trying to figure out, well, what do I do now?
In some ways, some very human ways, Brooke is frozen, completely still.
In other ways, and you've heard this awful, frustrating story before, she has shit to do.
Arrangements need to be made.
A
Accounts need to be closed.
Paperwork needs to be signed.
It's terrible and infuriating and it feels impossible.
And yet, like before, Brooke is the only person equipped to make these decisions.
So she has to snap into action, whether she's ready or not.
Plus, there's literally no space to even sit and grieve and mourn collectively when It is the thick of COVID, so Oscar can't even have a funeral.
I couldn't eat for months.
I lost like 20 pounds.
My legs didn't work.
At one point, I mean, I didn't shower for like 12 days.
I couldn't brush my teeth.
Like, you can't do anything.
You stop functioning.
But at the same time, I had to make decisions.
Like, it was just so... And navigating, like, their legal thing.
Like, it was just so many things that I couldn't... I knew...
So I started processing it immediately.
I started thinking, I don't have time to just sit here and cry.
I got to do shit.
I got to take care of Oscar still.
I got to make sure he's going to get the best.
I got to start thinking about bills to pay.
I just went into business mode and started also processing it.
I wasn't denying it at the same time.
It's like there was this shock, but I was also... It's hard to describe, but...
I'm grateful that at the time I was digesting as much as I was, because it has allowed me to, I think, sludge through this with a little bit more forward movement.
It's just so fucking goddamn unfair.
It doesn't make sense.
It is not the way anything should have gone.
Like that, that, that crazy, crippling, this is not fair, right?
Like you want to throw your body on the ground.
Where do you put that?
Like, does that change?
Does that, like, how do you negotiate that?
How do you, where does that live now?
For me, the biggest thing was just not being afraid of whatever emotion was coming up.
So when I was fucking pissed and wanted to just scream, I did it.
When I was wanting to cry, I did it.
When I wanted to laugh, I did it.
When I wanted to just stare at his picture which took me months to even look at a picture of his I did it.
I just have not stopped myself from feeling, and still feel like this is not fair and still have moments where I get pissed about it.
But for me, the biggest thing that helped me was just not pushing it down and and putting it in a spot where I couldn't feel it.
I might not be able to feel it sometimes in the moment.
Like if I'm teaching dance to eighth graders, I can't really scream out.
This is not fair, but unless they're talking too much, which they don't, they actually might appreciate it to be perfect.
Eighth graders might actually appreciate that more than anyone.
We hear you.
We hear you.
Um, but you know.
So there are moments as I've gone on in this journey where I've had to know where I could put it.
But I just also knew I had to feel it in the moment, because I have seen this implode people and I didn't want to be that for Oscar.
I just, at the end of the root of the answer to your question is Oscar.
Yes, it's not fair, but I can't become this shell of who I was because he's gone.
Cause that would, this sounds weird, but what we always say, I was like, that would kill him.
That would kill him to know that he is the reason that I stopped living.
I mean, I have to live even harder and even more because he doesn't get to.
You know, I'm older now than he was.
I've lived longer than he has, which is not okay.
But it's also the reality.
And I still say, fuck off.
This isn't fair.
And I don't think everything happens for a reason, by the way.
Fuck that.
Fuck that.
I hate that.
And don't tell me it's some higher powers plan.
Y'all can go fuck yourself.
How about that sucks?
I'm sorry.
How about that fucking sucks?
And the world is chaos.
Yes.
Or they're in a better place now.
Fuck you.
But again, this is people don't know what to say to us.
I know.
It's like, and I understand that, but.
Just hug them.
Yeah, I understand that.
But there are things that are fucking terrible to say.
And the three things that you just listed are one, two, and three.
Top three.
So, you know, part of it is walking through all of those things.
But there's not really a place where that has gone to answer your question.
It's still there because it's not fair.
I had to call and cancel our honeymoon.
And when they asked the reason, I had to say my husband died.
So those things suck.
And those are not things you... want to do two months after your marriage.
But I did it and I will continue to do hard things.
And there's this almost like the superhero cape you wear.
You're like, I fucking walked through the absolute worst thing you can walk through and I'm still here.
So that's another thing that helps me push through these emotions because I'm still here.
So I'm be pissed and throw the fucking glass against the wall and do whatever you need to do.
But just don't stop.
Like don't stop breathing.
You don't even have to like make a tap.
Just just don't let it be something that will take your essence away, because the person you lost doesn't want that.
It's been almost four years since Oscar's death.
And those years have been a constant push and pull of the feeling completely grief-stricken and being a productive human being in the world.
Brooke has been trying to find the right balance and doing her best to sludge through a thing that never should have happened.
And as usual, as it always does, change has come bit by bit, whether we like it or not.
I have started dating again.
I'm in a relationship with a He's been so understanding about.
Trying to date again as a widow when you're in your 40s is weird.
People don't know what to do with you.
They expect you to be divorced, but not a widow.
Bonus, I'm both.
You're welcome.
Two for one.
Hey, look at me.
You got both.
And so I'm like, but I'm very well adjusted to both, sir.
What's the problem?
But like some people would be like, I just, I just, I don't think I can handle it.
I'm like, you can't handle it.
So that was very eyeopening.
And this person just didn't, he didn't balk at it.
He, he lets me talk about Oscar when I need to.
And, and it's, it's, he's very different than Oscar, which is fabulous.
And I've told him though, I'm like, I know Oscar had a hand in bringing me to you.
Another kind of sixth sense thing.
Christmas, first Christmas, no, second Christmas.
I can't remember.
The first holidays, I didn't even... I mean, those are a blur.
Oh, my God.
Fuck that.
Fuck them.
Oh, gross.
Thanks, Hallmark.
And so I'm laying there with my dilly dog, my old dachshund.
Well, Oscar's old dachshund that I took on as my own.
And I heard, clear as day, this voice.
And it was Oscar.
And he was like, next Christmas, dilly dog won't be here, but you won't be alone.
And I was like, okay.
Three months later, dilly dog passed.
And then three...
Four months after that, I met my current boyfriend.
So, like it just – I know that he has a hand in all this, because the thing he wanted me to be the most was happy for the both of us.
And I'm a relationship person.
I love fiercely.
And sometimes I don't want to even talk about my new person because I got so excited and talked about this person and then he left.
So there's a little bit of this weird like PTSD of like I don't even –
You know it's so weird, like the random little things that are just like forever.
Like you say, you're forever changed and you're forever.
I try really hard to keep all those things in check and not let it rule my life.
But of course, there are going to be some fears of people suddenly leaving me, you know.
Yes, yes.
So that and I did go to therapy and all that stuff.
And that was all great.
But I think these things are just going to be here.
It's another thing you have to learn to live with.
Yes.
You live alongside it.
You do.
You do.
I mean, it seems like Oscar was a magnificent being, truly.
When you think about Oscar now and you think about the journey that you've had, how do you feel changed from having known him?
What imprint has that left on you?
He was so... good at being generous and not just like monetarily and so selfless.
You know, I think everyone's out for themselves now and it's all just me.
But Oscar was so good at thinking about other people.
We had a couple of friends dog sit one time when we were on a trip and I had mentioned that they went because they ran to the store to get ramen.
Actors as well.
I mean, that's what we eat.
And this man ordered 80 worth of tacos from this place here in houston and had it delivered to them, like that's what i mean, that's who he was, and just being less to just snap or or or think the worst of people.
Not that i was doing that, but oscar, just i mean he, he lived he, he.
If he wanted a pair of sunglasses, he bought the pair of sunglasses.
Like he just was living.
And he loved cars.
He just loved all these different things.
And he just taught me that you just got to do it.
You just got to live.
What are you waiting for?
I'm not always good at it.
But knowing that there are these small, stupid little things that just don't fucking matter.
And spending time and letting people that you love know how you feel about them.
And how quickly things can change. go away and we don't have any time to waste.
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Last Day is a production of Lemonada Media.
The show is produced by Keegan Zemma, Aria Bracci, and Tiffany Bowie.
Our engineer is Brian Castillo.
Music is by Hannes Brown.
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Executive producers are Jessica Cordova-Kramer and me, Stephanie Whittleswax.
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