Love is not a Shield

I remember staring at his swollen blue face, unable to accept what I was seeing. It felt like an out-of-body experience, as if I were watching a movie about someone else’s tragedy. The voices around me faded into background noise. I wasn’t answering questions. I wasn’t thinking. I was frozen, stuck in disbelief, waiting to wake up from a nightmare that refused to end.

My psychiatric nursing skills — the ones I had relied on to help others — slipped away one by one. My head spun, my heart pounded violently, and my anxiety surged until it swallowed every rational thought. Questions looped through my mind: Why him? Why not me? How did this happen?

The front door kept opening and closing as cops, detectives, inspectors, and EMS flooded the house. Dogs barked. Radios crackled. My phone rang nonstop from people trying to get down the block but blocked by bright yellow crime tape. And yet, despite the crowd, I felt completely alone.

I remember screaming for help even though officers were only feet away — and the terror of no one responding. I forced myself up, against their instructions, just to see him again. The death rattle leaking from his body, the fluids escaping his mouth and nose, the unmistakable stillness — all of it carved itself into my memory. My hands shook uncontrollably as I ran for Narcan, refusing to accept what I already knew.

When the EMT said, “Amanda, he is already dead,” the words didn’t just land. They shattered.

I tried to pull Trixie and Maggie away from him, but I could barely move myself. Every authority figure asked me the same questions over and over, each one pulling me further from reality. They told me to sit on the bed we shared every night, holding the dogs so they wouldn’t return to him. At one point, I passed out from sheer overstimulation, only to wake in a panic, praying again that this was all a nightmare.

The officers suggested taking me to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, worried about leaving me alone in the house that had just become a crime scene and a tomb.

The emotions of that moment were overwhelming: helplessness, hopelessness, terror, confusion, guilt, sadness, anxiety, embarrassment, shame, judgment. I felt alone even though the house was full of people. I kept thinking, How the hell did this happen?

Certain details are burned into my memory: the flashing cop lights, stale coffee in the air, medication bottles on the counter, Narcan wrappers on the floor. Christmas decorations scattered across the room. The half-decorated tree still standing. And the necklace he never took off — the washers stamped with WARRIOR and RESILIENCE — lying against a body that no longer breathed.

That moment taught me that I cannot save everyone, no matter how much I know or how much I love them. It taught me that relapse can hide in silence. That love is not a shield. That knowledge is not armor. That grief can make a person collapse into themselves. After he was taken from the house, all I wanted was to stay in the bed where the pillows still smelled like him. Sleeping felt safer than being awake, because waking meant facing reality — and facing the people who blamed me for his death.

This moment didn’t just change my life. It divided it — into before, and after.