In this column, I’ve written a lot about my (now recently deceased) husband. Troy was so many things. He was loving. He was fun. He was talented. He was filter-less. He was tender-hearted. Short-fused. Irreverent. Helpful. Loyal. Troy was a beautiful and complicated person. Troy was also an alcoholic.
I haven’t talked about that part of our life yet, because it complicates our story and my grief—not for me, of course, but for people who don’t understand loving and losing an addict.
Troy knew he needed to get a handle on his addiction. He knew it made him volatile, though never dangerously, and hard to be around. He knew it was affecting his physical health. And he was working on it.
But then, he slipped off the wagon one afternoon, and made the mistake of driving. Of course, he got stopped. The court gave him the choice of 10 days in jail or 28 days in inpatient rehabilitation treatment. We talked and talked about it, and agreed to give him the tools to fight his battle by choosing rehab. We chose missing each other now for a long life together later.
It was heartbreaking dropping him off the day he started treatment, but we made the best of it. We talked daily, and Troy was excited about the process and tools for sobriety, and made incredible breakthroughs around the root trauma and shame surrounding his addiction. We even got a few Zoom calls in, and he was looking healthy, feeling proud of himself, and more in control than he’d been in years.
Then, he got sick. I don’t know exactly how or exactly when. All I know is the last 10 days he was in treatment, he sounded more tired and less hopeful and was visibly feeling less himself. But, it was court-ordered that he was there, and he just wanted to finish what he came to do, come home, and start living in recovery.
Well, Troy did make it home. For eight whole hours. He completed treatment and was released on a Monday (three days early because he was sick), and by Tuesday in the wee hours of the morning I was driving him to the emergency room. He just wanted to be home, in his own bed, with our dog Doozer and me, but I could tell he needed to go to the hospital.
The medical professionals did all that they could, but at that point he was too sick and his body was too weak to save him. On Thursday, the day he was originally supposed to get out of treatment, and on his mother’s birthday, Troy died.
Some days, I get stuck in feeling like we were handed a raw deal. I fight daily to not feel cheated out of living with a Troy who knew recovery. I ache for his parents and family and friends who, like me, knew4 he was troubled and also knew he was special. I think all the time about how he looked and sounded on the way to the ER, spending those last days by his side, and watching him take his last breaths. There’s a lot that’s still so painful.
But, also, I’m so incredibly proud of him! He did it. He beat his demons. It doesn’t matter if it was for eight hours or 40 years. He was thrown a curveball, and even in his death, knocked it right out of the park. The very last thing Troy Middleton did was win.
Sara Middleton is a freelance columnist and resident artist/owner of Studio Sol Gallery & Creative Space in Eagle Grove, Iowa. Email her at sara.studiosol@gmail.com or find Studio Sol on Facebook or Instagram.
