She Diaries

Lorne Pace's Story: Stories of Resilience One Year Into Widowhood and Starting Over

• Bright Sky House • Season 1 • Episode 1

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In the first episode of She Diaries, Lorne Pace opens up on the one-year anniversary of her husband Jeff’s death by suicide. She shares a story of bereavement and what it truly means to grieve a spouse, navigating the fragile terrain between heartbreak and resilience.

From parenting in grief, financial upheaval, and trauma, to leaning into community, emotional honesty, and mental health healing—Lorne shows how small steps become the foundation for starting over. Her story also sheds light on the stigma many widows face, and by speaking openly, she contributes to suicide prevention, reminding listeners: you’re never truly alone.

Content warning

This podcast includes real stories of suicide loss. Some episodes may reference the method of suicide and include emotionally intense or uncomfortable descriptions. We understand how sensitive this content is, and we carefully edit each episode to honor and respect both our guests and listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org for free, 24/7 support. Please take care while listening—pause if you need to. You are not alone.

Takeaways

  • The heart of what it means to grieve a spouse
  • Parenting through grief while honoring a beloved legacy
  • How mental health and financial transparency shape healing
  • Building resilience through connection and storytelling
  • Acknowledging the stigma that follows suicide loss and refusing its silence
  • The gentle progression toward starting over
  • Sharing hope and strength as a form of suicide prevention

See photos of Lorne and Jeff on on our episode blog post.

About She Diaries

In She Diaries, women who have lost their husbands to suicide bravely share their stories of strength while navigating the unimaginable journey of widowhood. Through candid interviews, the podcast explores their lives before the tragedy, moments that changed everything, the web of grief, and the hard-earned lessons of overcoming deep loss. These powerful stories shed light on the strength and courage it takes to move forward.

Produced by Bright Sky House — bringing hidden stories to light.

Mental Health Resources

  • 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 for free, 24/7, confidential support for mental health crises, suicidal thoughts, or emotional distress.
  • Find a Therapist: Search for licensed therapists near you through directories like Psychology Today, TherapyDen, or Mental Health Match.
  • Join a Support Group: Connect with others through peer-led or professionally facilitated support groups via NAMI or GriefShare.

Stay Connected with She Diaries

Instagram: @BrightSkyHouse
Facebook: Bright Sky House
YouTube: Bright Sky House Official
LinkedIn: Bright Sky House

If you have questions or would like to follow-up with any of our guests, reach out to Hello@BrightSkyHouse.com.

She Diaries is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hi everyone, thank you so much for joining us for the first episode of She Diaries. Not only is it special because it's the first episode, but it also features my very good friend, Lorne Pace. We recorded this podcast, gosh, it was August of 2024, so it's been a while. And when we recorded, it was also around the one year anniversary of when Lorne lost her husband, Jeff, to suicide. This conversation is raw, it's honest. We have some great stories to share with you and some laughs along the way. I hope you enjoy and I am so honored to share Lorne's story with you. Alright, Lorne, I am so glad to see you and just to have you part of this podcast, She Diaries, this is something that you and I have been talking about for really long time. I want you to have a couple minutes, Lorne, if you want to introduce yourself and say anything real quick just to kick things off. Okay. My name is Lorne Pace. I live in Asheville, North Carolina. My children and I are survivors of a suicide victim and I feel extremely honored to be your first guest and to share my story because I don't want anyone to feel as alone as I felt because you're never going to be alone. I'm just, so grateful you're here. I'm so grateful that we can hear your story and I know we're going to be helping people today. First I want to just start from the beginning, and hear about your relationship with Jeff. How did you guys meet? How did you fall in love? What was that like? Jeff and I met when I was 17 years old and we were at a party at our friend Merritt's apartment and you know, Jeff was always very good looking, you know, had a way of being very charismatic and the girls loved him. He couldn't land a girl except for me, but that's okay. They still loved him. So we were all sitting around there, these, you know, tall, thin, beautiful blonde girls. And here comes my four foot nine tiny self with black poofy hair, you know? And somehow we started talking about beer and he said, do you know what the best beer is? And I was like, yeah, it's a Heineken because that's the only good beer you know of when you're 17. And we're also four years apart. So he was 21 at the time. And that's just where it started. We were actually best friends for many years before we started dating. Well, not many, but two years. So fast forward. Two years and he had left Asheville and moved to Boone, North Carolina to continue college at App State and This was back in the day of no, you know, you didn't have a smartphone. You didn't check your email every day. I had emailed him. I got an email back that he was in Boone gave me his phone number the afternoon I called him he had to click over from the other line because he was having his home phone and internet disconnected Had I hesitated five minutes, we never would have been together We moved in together six months after dating. He proposed to me about a year after we started dating. We started dating when I was 19. He proposed to me, I was 21. I was 21 when he proposed. We got married two years later. We just, you know, he was my best friend. He got my sense of humor. He understood who I was, what I was. You know, it was, he just got me. And then... like? Our wedding, my God, we had the coolest wedding ever. We had a traditional pig pickin' on top of Cataloochee Valley in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. It's a old settlement. We got married in Palmer's Chapel, which is over 100 years old. We were surrounded by elk and friends and family. We had a 250 pound pig that was slaughtered fresh, smoked, driven up the mountain, and we partied. That was a party like no other. I still have friends and family that talk about this wedding. Being like the greatest one ever. We camped out. We had the big group campsite. It was just a spectacular day. I feel like that is, not only was that a spectacular day, ever since I'd known you and Jeff, just being surrounded by friends, being surrounded by people, always just around people that love you and having a good time and having fun, whether it's music, hanging out at your house or something that you're doing. Yeah, there's always a large gaggle of people that follow us everywhere we go. It's my delightful personality. I second that. agree. am a goddamn delight. Let's just face it. So you guys get married, what's happening next? What's life looking like? we get married? Jeff starts his career in the construction equipment industry. He began working for Hertz Equipment rental. I was selling estate diamonds, left the estate diamond industry and went into high end fine antiques. know, Jeff stayed in the construction industry. I stayed in the antique world. He was then given an opportunity to join management and we were moved to Eastern North Carolina. And didn't like it there. It was not our jam. So we relocated to Chattanooga for a different management role. And we had been married about nine years when I got pregnant. And Jeff was offered a better role with a different company, bringing us back home to Asheville. So he started working with H &E Equipment Sales and his reputation in this industry just absolutely skyrocketed. He went from a basic branch manager to a regional vice president of the entire Southeast within a matter of just a few years. So he was a very hard worker. He was very dedicated. He loved training and working with people, working on the safety issues of equipment. Just, you know, an all around hardworking man. Yeah, he was traveling a lot too at that point, right? yeah, he traveled five days a week. So I've been a full -time stay -at -home mom all by myself for 10 years. Doing an amazing My favorite vacation that we ever took was to camp on Cumberland Island down in Georgia. Jeff is, he lost all privileges of planning vacations for us after this one. You have to drive to St. Mary's down in Georgia to then catch a ferry to go over to Cumberland. So you have to stay the night. Jeff calls me all excited. I found us a room and a bed and breakfast for 60 bucks. That's perfect. Okay. We drive seven hours to pull up in front of said bed and breakfast. And it was scaffolding. And I'm like, that is not where we are staying. And he's like, surely it can't be. So we drive the whole one street around this Island and we came back and we're like, Okay. That's, that's where we're going to stay. All right then. We walked into the lobby, which smells like 75 years of stale cigarette smoke. And I was a smoker back then. Yeah. Stray cats everywhere, they had a bar at the bottom of this bed and breakfast and the claim to fame was the bartender was an ex porn star that would cuss you out while she served you drinks. So we're like, well, hell, mean, this man is worth 60 bucks on its own. The room was disgusting. There was holes in the wall that they fixed by shoving toilet paper into them. I ended up getting bed bug bites. We woke up at six o 'clock in the morning, like we have to get out of this hell hole. This is awful. You guys decided to stay the night, even after all of that? Yes, it was for one night. We're like, you know what, man? It's just one night. We can survive. We get up the next morning and it was too early to get on the ferry. So our extremely hungover asses get in the car and drive into town to then sit with 35 cops in Huddle House. Okay. Yes. We finally get on the ferry. We finally get over to Cumberland Island only to arrive at our campsite to realize we are camping next to a family with a three month old infant. No, no. We go back to the ranger station and we're like, this is bullshit. We're not sleeping next to a baby. We don't have children for a reason. worry So they move our site. We get to our campsite. I pull my pack off of the cart. The cart proceeds to go backwards. All of the ice in our cooler is gone. I had to go all the way back to the ferry, pay $40 for two bags of ice so our stuff wouldn't ruin. Then we went down to the beach and we actually saw a shuttle launch. We were able to sit on the beach on Cumberland Island and watch an actual shuttle launch. All you could see was a ball of fire about this big going through the sky. You could hear it and feel it long after you couldn't see anything anymore. and so that was a lot of fun. So, but needless to say, it was hands down my favorite vacation. It was the worst vacation we ever had but even to this very day I still look back on that trip and I laugh my ass off. Just hilarity. Yeah no and so when we got done I was like you're cut off babe like unless it's a house and you know like actual running water and I'm not doing this for mosquitoes. No no you're not no and I don't want to get cussed out by a porn star again when I order a Long Island iced tea that's not where I'm at. No, but an amazing memory. It's really my favorite memory of something that he and I did together. Because it's our luck. Everywhere we went, we had shit luck. You guys persevered through so much and then you ended up always coming out on top somehow. Yeah, we did. Absolutely. We went through a lot of hard things, but we always got through it together and came out on top a little bit better than the last time. Well, let's talk a little bit about that day. What was the morning like? He actually, he was not here that day. He had been in Charlotte all week for work. In fact, I didn't really talk to him much that day, which was a little, or that whole week, which was a little unusual. And this week it was just a crazier than normal week and I didn't get to talk to him much. And he was supposed to be home about 12 that Friday, August the 25th, 2023, to go to meet the teacher with me and the kids. And he showed up. an hour, a little over an hour late, in no condition at all to go to meet the teacher. I recently got the toxology report back and where I thought he was hungover, he was actually drunk when he got home. The toxology report showed that he had 0 .09 % alcohol in his system, so he was above legal limit.

And that was at 4 :

30 in the afternoon when he made his decision. So we did have a little bit of an argument that afternoon when he got home. He came in and he said, you're frustrated with me, aren't you? And I said, yeah, babe, I am frustrated with you. You're constantly on me about the things I do. If I have a couple of drinks in the afternoon with my friends, you're convinced I'm a raging alcoholic. Yet you walk in the door so hungover, you can't even function. You can't hold your head up. So I don't understand why it's okay for you. But I'm not allowed to just have a couple of drinks in the afternoon with my friends when I'm here all alone, day in and day out. You know, and I let him know that I was really tired of hearing everything I was doing wrong. He was really good in the last couple of years of saying, well, if you acted like this, you'd be better. If you dressed like this, it would be better. You know, if you weren't so loud, people might like you better. Well, I thought those were all the things that he fell in love with me for. This is, you know, I'm the same person I was at 42 that I was at 19. Just a little bit smarter. You know, and it was was an argument out of frustration and it was nothing out of the ordinary. This was not a end -all be -all. It wasn't even really an argument. It was more of a discussion of I need you to be present. When you're home, I need you to be home. When you tell us that you're going to be here to do something, please be here and do it. And the last thing he said to me was I'll be better. I promise I'm going to work harder to be better for you and our kids. And I said, I know you will, honey. I know you will, you always do, and I love you. So I told him to take a nap. while we were at Meet the Teacher and he said, are you sure? said, yes, I'd rather you get some rest and feel better and then you can go to the ribbon cutting ceremony with us. So we get him for me the teacher. He was still asleep on the couch. I was still a little bit frustrated. I'll be completely honest and. he feel like that's normal though. Like you weren't, I would be frustrated with that. I would be very frustrated with that. anybody in their, any wife in their right mind would have been frustrated with this situation. You're over an hour late. You can't function to do something that you promised our kids. You know, we were going to go to lunch. This was going to be a big fun. Woo hoo. It's meet the teacher day. And that's not what happened. So we came home from meet the teacher and he was still asleep on the couch. My oldest son was asked to cut the ribbon of his best friend's grandmother's Park dedication, the Karen Cragnolin Park. And this is a big deal in Asheville. Karen Cragnolin is a name in Asheville that many, many people know. She did a lot for park systems, cleaning up rivers, all of those things. So this was a really big event for you guys and for your family. wasn't for her, we would not have Carrier Park. We would not have the greenways. We would not have Riverlink. So he heard me telling the kids to get ready. He popped up on the couch and he said, hold on, I'm coming. I said, okay, that's fine, but I need you to get up. gotta go now. Like we're already late. And he didn't get up. He laid back down. And I came through the foyer to the backside of our couch and I said, so you're not coming with us? And he didn't say anything. And I said, okay, babe, well, don't forget, Kelly's gonna be here in a little bit for our sleepover tonight. You know, we should all be here about six. Think about what you wanna order for dinner. I'll see you in a little bit. I love you. And I closed the door. And towards the end of the ribbon cutting ceremony, I had this rush of a panic. Just panic rushed over me and I thought in my mind at the time it was because I wanted to be here when Kelly got here with the kids. You I didn't want Jeff to be stuck here with two kids by himself. And so we haul booty to the car, we get to the car, we get home. I pull in the driveway, Kelly literally pulls in the same time I pull in. She walks inside the house with me, has her kids with her, I have my kids with me. She was going on a date with her husband and I had offered to let the kids spend the night so she could have a date night with her husband. And so we hugged each other. She set their bag down. She said, I'll call and check on the kids in a little bit. I love you. Thank you so much. She said, I love you too. And she walked out the door. Well, upon her leaving, I started calling Jeff, where are you? What are we ordering for dinner? I think the kids want Chinese. He wasn't in the playroom, the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom. He wasn't in the den. So as I started to make my way upstairs, I noticed that our front door was open, which is not unusual. It lets in a lot of beautiful light. And that's when I saw his feet out in the front yard. And I opened up the front door and excused my language, but he was laying there weird because his eyes were open. And I said, Jeff, what the fuck are you doing? And he didn't move. I said, my God, would you just stop being stupid and melodramatic? Get up, the kids are here. And that's when I noticed something red on the side of his head. And I noticed flies flying around his face. And as I got closer, I saw that there was something wrong with his head. And in those immediate moments, I thought he was trying to fix our fence and hit his head on our fence. I ran inside and grabbed my phone and I called 911 and I said, my God, my God, it's his head. Something happened to his head. I think I need an ambulance. And the 911 dispatcher asked that I go take a second look. And upon me walking out there, I noticed my gun in his hand. He used my gun to do this. He had 45 guns in the basement, but used mine. And because mine has a habit of misfiring, I noticed his revolver was laying next to him with one bullet in the chamber. And that's when I realized what he had done. and I had four kids with me. I'm sure so much is going through your mind at this time. Just sheer panic and... panic, you know, how am I supposed to support my kids? How am I going to take care of this house? How am I going to keep things going? I haven't worked in 10 years. How am I going to take, how am I supposed to survive without my partner? You know, and that afternoon that we had that argument, one thing I did say to him was, I need you to always remember my life is not my life without you. You are what helps complete my life. One of the last things I said to him. Had he... I mean, he comes home from his work trip. His alcohol level is exceptionally high. I mean, you guys had an argument, but it doesn't, it wasn't like this big argument. Have he been struggling for a really long time? A very long time, in fact, two weeks before he committed suicide, we were driving to the outlet malls to get our daughter a backpack. And I had had counseling that day and he said, well, how was your counseling session? I said, you know, some days are easy and you feel great and some days are hard and you kind of feel a little run down. I said, today was one of those run down sessions. I'm just exhausted. It was very emotional. And he said, "You know, I'm so proud of you. And I'm so proud of all the help you've gotten and how far you've come. You've got me thinking that I need to speak to someone." I said, my God, that's great, that's great. I'll get the list for you again. This is the third or fourth time I've gotten in a list of counselors. And I didn't get to him in time. This is also not his first attempt at suicide either. So he tried to eat a bunch of pills and drink liquor at 16. And they found him in time and had his stomach pumped and had him committed. So he's been struggling for a long time. If anyone is ever considering talking to somebody, I mean, it is one of the best things you can do in your life. Is just start that conversation, have that person to talk to on a weekly, monthly basis. I do therapy and I know Lorne does. know one does too. man. Right here, both my baby's in therapy. I'm in therapy. Hell, I'm thinking about getting a therapist for the dog. We can all use it. That has to be a profession. So I... What happened in the moments after? You call 911. You have four kids with you. I call 911 while I'm on the phone with 911. I'm texting Kelly like crazy, but I can't even text because my whole body is like, you can see me doing this. My whole body was. My whole body, yeah, my whole body went into shock. So Kelly gets here and I just hand her the phone. I said, I can't fucking do this. And as I go outside to the driveway where my kids are, my daughter is out there screaming, no, no, we have to have a daddy. We can't be a family without a daddy, mommy. We have to have a daddy. None of the kids, the kids just saw him laying there. I would not let them any further out the door. No, they did not. I'm other than the police and EMS. I am the only one that saw what he did. saving It's one of the absolute worst moments of my entire life. And seeing our son on the driveway, mommy, this is a joke. You got to tell me this is a joke. This isn't real. This is a joke. My daddy's not dead. That's my daddy. That's my best friend. My daddy's not dead. This is a joke. So how long does it take for 911 to get there? Well, seeing is how I called Biltmore Forest Police and they're maybe a quarter of a mile. They were here within 30 seconds. One of my other best friends, Lauren and I, had not been in a good place at this time. In fact, we hadn't spoken in about 10 days, which was unusual for us, but we were just in a little moment. It was all Jeff's fault, but we were still in a little tiff. Kelly kept telling me, you have to call Lauren. You have to call Lauren. I said, babe, I can't call her. I haven't spoken to her in 10 days. What am I going to do? Call her and be like, I need you now? She's like, yeah, that's absolutely what you do. So I called Lauren and she was at a food truck event at the park behind our house. And she answered the phone and I couldn't speak. And she said, "Lorne, did you butt dial on me?" I said, "No, but I need you." And she said, "Wait, what's wrong?" I said, "Jeff's dead. I found him in the front yard. He shot himself in the head." And she hung up on me and she quite literally teleported a half a mile to my house. The cops would not let her through. And just as a generalization for you guys, homegirl is like six feet tall. She's kind of like this. She's a badass. She's just crazy awesome with the best RBF you've ever seen. So these cops are like, no ma 'am, she's like, I'm through. And like. Yeah, she got through. I then had to call his mom. That was the worst phone call I ever had to make. That's something that you never even consider what you're gonna say or what you're gonna have to even fathom thinking about. she answered and again, I couldn't speak. I couldn't get the words out. And she said, "Honey, are you okay?" And I just started crying and I said, "I'm not." She said, "What is wrong?" I said, "It's Jeff." She goes, "What do mean it's Jeff?" I said,"He's dead. He shot himself in the head. I just found him in the front yard." And when I told her, the whale that she let out was hands down the most painful sound I've ever heard in my entire life. He and his mother were very, very close. He was a mama's boy and I was proud of him for it because it just made him treat me a little bit better. happened? pain that I wish upon nobody. I don't care that you've ever done me wrong. No one deserves this. No one deserves to feel like this or to see this. Well, and that's one of the things you... Unless you're touched by these moments, unless this has happened to you, it's indescribable. But I think, you know, it's so important to talk about because there are so many people that don't realize that they're not alone in having this feeling and having these experiences. How many women out there have had to call their husband's mom or dad or family, sister, anybody and break the news? And who else is going to do it? I mean, it's got to be you. and has to be you. So police ask you a bunch of questions. I'm sure they ask neighbors a bunch of questions. Victim advocate comes on site as well. She was awful too. That was the worst. was like, she was like a hundred years old. I have color in books. And I'm like, no, maybe they don't want color right now. That is not where, no, no, no. So if I mean obviously that was not a good experience at all. Like, I remember you telling me that you told the victim advocate like go talk over there go talk with Lauren, I can't I can't have you in my face. I don't need resources right now. she kept trying to get in my face. She was giving me all these booklets and all these pamphlets. And I'm like, you realize this just happened like an hour ago. I can't do this with you. I'm talking to a medical examiner. I'm talking to various officers. I mean, officers had to come down and interview me a third time for that afternoon at Lauren's house. The medical examiner had to speak with me a second time at Lauren's house. Yeah. What would have been, because I don't want to talk ill of victim advocates because I do think that they have an important job, but I feel like the interactions have to be very, they have to be very mindful about what they're walking into in the state of mind. I mean, what would a better situation would have been to be able to receive that kind of help? Better situation would have been for her to come to somebody that was close to me in that house and say, listen, I have this information for her. I'm going to leave it right here. I'm going to sit here to the side. And if her or her children need me in any way, I'm right here and I'll stay here as long as I can. That's what would have been better not to be in my face and my children's face. Pretty much, To be honest with you, the hardest thing ever was the next morning. Yes, when I got up, because I couldn't sleep, obviously, and I got up and I was outside with a cup of coffee and my son came outside and he said, mommy, can I ask you something? I of course, my love, what? And he said, why did daddy do this? I said, baby, I don't know. don't have an answer for you. And sadly, we're never going to have an answer. I said, but one thing I want you to remember is no matter what, I have a piece of your daddy with me all the time because I have you and I have your sister. And I said, if you ever feel sad, scared, angry, confused, that's okay. I feel all those same things too. But when you feel those, you come to me. You let me hold you and I will take that pain for you. That is why you have a mommy. You give it to me. And that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to say to my son at nine years old. That's a conversation never thought you'd have. No, never. No. Never thought you'd have to have. So I know in full transparency for our viewers, listeners and viewers, because we're on camera, I got the call from your friend, our friend, our friend Karlsson Lauren Karlsson and it happened on me and my husband's anniversary. and we were about ready to go to dinner and I'll never forget her calling me. I missed it at first actually and I called her back and she's like, Krista, we need your services. And I'm thinking like, you got like a rodent problem, you got mold. I'm on like anniversary mindset, like this is great. And then I heard her crying and sobbing. And she just said, Jeff is dead. Jeff is dead. He's in the front yard and we need your team. And, we dropped everything, of course, got the team out there. and this isn't my intention for bringing this up, isn't, cause I don't even want to mention company name or anything. I just want to, there are people who come to homes, and they help with the biological and bodily fluid that is remaining after the coroner medical examiner, everybody takes your loved one away. What was that experience like? Did you have any expectations? Was it just like the last thing and you're so grateful someone took care of that for you? Well, I remember the police officer sitting me down and telling me that a hazmat team was coming to clean up my yard. And I said, okay, who did you call? And they said, we don't know. We did not make the call. I said, who made the call? And they said, Mrs. Pace, we don't know. We don't know who made the call because Lauren did not tell him that she had called you. And And they said someone was called but they had no information of who. I feel like this is a deeply personal moment where you should be able to have the choice of who's coming. Okay. didn't know. I didn't know anybody had been called. I didn't know that anything had been done because I was sitting there thinking like, shit, I gotta go scrape up brain matter out of the grass before my kids come back home. And I didn't. And it was because of you and your team that I didn't have to do that. And having a friend in that moment like that was, don't even know what to describe it as. It was one of the most gracious and generous and loving moments of my life. To have one of my friends step in like that and help me take care of something so that my children and I don't have to see it again. Yeah. Well, in the next... out there buying mulch at 1130 at night at Walmart. They got the black that matched my yard. You couldn't even tell. No, shout out to my team. Again, I don't want any names for self -promotion. they are, I'm just saying they're rock stars.

Going buy mulch at 11:

30 at night at Walmart. A good company that does this is so thoughtful. And I mean, there's so many companies out there to choose from, but you want someone that's going to be detail oriented, thoughtful. I mean, I remember the story of, cause it's night, so they had some big lights shining on and they heard someone walking to your house. Lauren and Kelly coming to get my stuff. And they thought it was you and they dropped it. just dropped to their stomachs in the yard like, they won't see us. Turn off the light. Like, if you didn't know, you'd think that they were doing something totally, like, suspicious. thought something nefarious was going on in my front yard. 1000 % because they're like, drop! Turn off the lights! But that's how much they really just took this job so seriously and wanted to protect you. And of course Boss is like, this is my friend, you messed this up. Like, I... Your ass is mine But I was so, I was so, because I obviously, I was in Colorado. I got a red eye out, but there was no way, even if I was out in North Carolina, I can't do it myself. Like I have a very strict rule, and I think anyone in my industry has a very strict rule or should, that you don't personally do things when it's someone that's so close to you, someone that you love. And I, we've had, I know people who have done it, and it's not. You think you have this wall that you can keep, a separation, and you just don't. And that's why we also don't want people cleaning up after their loved ones. It seems like it's such an easy task or it... There's help. There is always help. And I was so proud the next morning to be able to walk into your front yard and I couldn't tell. I genuinely, no idea. I'm like, what? I have no idea. no, there was no. no idea, I didn't ask, I never saw photos, I never saw anything. And it was also great because when friends and family come, people are very curious. And people went into the backyard that next morning. They wanted to see and there was nothing for them to see. No. Personally for myself, I could not open that door or go out there for many months. There were... There were lots of... It was probably three or four months before I could actually physically walk into my front yard. I did that morning. I can't... You were not with me, but I Katie and Utena were with me that morning because I came home to get some clothes. And they came with me and I went out in the front yard and I dropped to my hands and knees where I had found him. Cause I'll never forget where he was. And I sobbed, I sobbed and I said, I want to hate you so bad, but I'm not sure that I can just yet. Why did you leave me? This is not fair. Why did you leave us? And then that, I didn't go back out for a while. Yeah, 100%. 100%. And you had neighbors come over and help with some of the lawn care and... yeah, Brett, God love him. He's gonna get out there with his little mower and his blower and he did the yard. friend Katie, her husband Andy cleaned my gutters and fixed my gutter. You know, did some other stuff I had, yeah. Shout out to Andy and Brett. We love you. We love you boys. I want to talk about something that I think was really, really important and set people on kind of a tailspin. Yes. I know you were just inundated with so much, but one of the things that happened, which was not at all something that I could have predicted was there was that big question mark of where his wallet and keys were. And I remember calling the contact at the police department at that time and said, does the medical examiner have it? We can't find it in the house. It's not in the car. It's not in the house. Do you remember registering that it was on him? And they were very confident to me saying, no, it wasn't there. We don't have his keys. We don't have his wallet. that ball big time. Talk about what happened and what spiraled because of this detail that they dropped the ball on. You know, our home is on a very busy four lane that runs through the middle of Asheville. Like the bottom of my driveway is a main four lane. So anybody can walk up into the yard. So my first thought is, my God, did somebody come in my yard and find him there and rob him and leave him there and not call anyone? Because, you know, I can't handle that. And then it was, okay, did it fall out in the ambulance? Did it fall out in the yard somewhere? So we spent days, I mean, days going through the yard trying to find his stuff. And it turns out the police didn't even check his pockets. When I got to the funeral home to collect his belongings and to sign the cremation paperwork, they handed me his keys and his wallet because they had all been in his pocket. And let me tell you, if you have a Karlsson on your side, be very grateful because she called that police station and said, we got a problem. The stress you caused on top of an already stressful moment, not okay. Everyone was questioning too, I remember this. No matter how rational it was, know, what they thought they were saying was, they thought, well, maybe it was a murder. Maybe he didn't die by suicide. Maybe he was outside and someone shot him and they made it look like it or, and at some point, you you don't want him to have died by suicide. But. It would have been great had he, no, I mean, it would have been great, but it would have been better. Not better, I don't even know how to describe that. But no, that was absolutely not the case. The police failed to do their job. the situation completely. no one wants to say, man, I hope Jeff did this. Like, of course, you want to reason. I think at end of the day, you want to know the why, and you want to reason. And thinking that he was killed by somebody else is a much easier thing to grasp than he was warned. Yeah. had people suggesting that that's what I tell my son because my son, when this initially happened, was saying, daddy was protecting our house. Somebody did this to my daddy. No, I am not gonna lie to my children. I'm not gonna hide the truth from them. It sucks that I had to tell my seven and nine year old that their father took his own life, but it would have been much worse had I lied to them and then they found out the truth at a later age. That's not okay. 100%. And then that would be something extra that you're carrying, keeping something from your kids. Right, and that's not okay. And I said, absolutely not, I'm not lying to my children. No, absolutely not. Did anyone... There is still culturally, and especially with a lot of places in religion where suicide isn't talked about, it's not discussed, there's shame there. Did you feel any of that? Yes, absolutely. When I made the Facebook post on Facebook five days after he passed away, there was a lot of, know, my God, what happened? Did he have a heart attack? And I actually had one guy that I've, that I know locally here in town, have not seen him for years, comments on my thread and says, Lorne, do you mind sharing what happened as all of us are very confused? And in reading that comment, I got mad. So I'm like, this is none of your business. And I commented back to him and said, yeah, I do mind. This is for me and no one else. Because I knew Jeff would have felt embarrassed and ashamed for me to go and tell somebody what he had done. And it was a little shameful for me because in all honesty, I thought, my God, if I just wouldn't have yelled at him, if I just would have been nicer to him when he came home. How have you come full circle from that thought? Where is your mind now a year later with why Jeff did this? I'm going back and looking at things that should have been noticeable flags that something was going on with him. He was never one to think with their emotions. He was always very logical. So he always looked at everything from a logical standpoint, not an emotional standpoint. And he really started to act out with his emotions and was approaching things emotionally, not logically. And that is not him. You know, remembering and realizing things like that over time and then remembering, you know, he's he's dealt with depression, anxiety and addiction his entire life. And for the 22 years that we were together, when I saw him going down this hole, I would drop and stop everything and pull him out. And then the one time I put all my focus on my kids. I made the day about them, which is what it was supposed to be. I carried a lot of guilt for that for a very, very long time. But also in remembering that, I know that if it wouldn't have been that day, it would have been another day. And there's nothing you can do to stop it. You can beg and you can plead and you can say, I'm here for you, let's get you help. And most of the time that will help. But for him, he was so dead set against actually actively getting the help. So in remembering and knowing these things, this was not my decision, this was his. And I have come to terms with that. I'm so proud of you. Were as the weeks and months and things went on, you have this entire new process of opening up an estate or closing an estate really and figuring out finances for the first time in your family and figuring out what is life financially going to look like moving forward? What was that process like? And were there some big surprises? massive surprises. First of all, anybody that goes through this, I know it's gonna be hard to have this thought, but the first thing you do is call the Social Security office. You will get survivorship benefits. Because I had not worked for 10 years and I was a stay at home mom, myself and each of my children, we each get a check every month, direct deposited into our account. And that's massive. I knew he had a life insurance policy, but I was terrified. Were they going to approve it for us because of how he died? Little did I know that they had changed the law when 2020 happened. That as long as your policy has been intact for two full years without any changes, you will be awarded. We skid in under our teeth. His policy had been intact from March of 2021 and he died August of 2023. Very close to that two year mark. Yeah. And in going through things, I found out he hid a lot from me. A lot. And you tried to be involved with finances throughout your entire relationship. Throughout our entire relationship, I tried to be involved with the finances and he wouldn't let me. And it's because he did not want me to see what he had done and the amount of debt that he had created. The amount of debt he had, I physically got sick when I saw, and I still don't even know what the full number is because nobody will tell me what the actual number was. I have a guesstimate of what the number was. And I threw up. Yeah. comfortable sharing what you know? It was about $175 ,000. 11 maxed out credit cards. I mean, clearly this happened to him too, keeping this from you. He's making good money to his regional manager. He made $300,000 a year that's by whatever the fuck you want money that is not I'm$175,000 in credit card debt money. little tidbit I learned as long as you the spouse the wife as long as your name is not attached to any debt your significant other has it is not your responsibility. That debt died with him Was that a big form of relief when you found that out? Yeah. my God, am going to pay this? have kids, I have a house. You know, that was, yeah. Well, you're figuring out how do I pay for the house moving forward? How do I pay for a funeral? How do I take care of my kids? You know, I've been a stay at home mom for the majority of the, you know, for all of their lives and had, you know, you were doing your officiating business, but by no means was that going to take care of everything. No, no, I would have to book like four weddings a day. To do that. How did you prioritize what was most important to really focus on financially? So what I decided to do is, you know, as a little bit of money was coming in, like his last paycheck, selling the truck, selling the guns, because I had every gun removed from this house within two days of what he did. It was out of here. The first thing I did was pay off any credit cards of my name. I had two credit cards in my name that had balances. I paid those off completely. My van had a balance. I paid my van off completely. I no longer have any debt. I am completely 100 % debt free other than my home and have been for a full year. Oh my, Lorne! I just I remember talking with you eight months ago and there were still so many question marks around all of this. How have you also learned so much more about finances and really just dove in and absorbed as much as you can through this process? For that first week, I couldn't function. I could not eat, I could not sleep. All I wanted to do was just lay. That was it. One afternoon, I came downstairs and I've got Karlsson on her laptop. I've got Amelia Buchholz on her laptop. I got Ali on her laptop and my laptop. And Ali is on the phone pretending to cry. And I watched her walk out into the front yard and she came back in and goes, I'm just, I'm just so sorry. Can you please give me Presses mute. Hey, I need your dad's middle name. She was on the phone trying to change things for me because I couldn't do it. your friends. I think the point of this is your friends stepped up. My friends stepped up. I was not alone. I did not have to stress or think about anything at all. I mean, she had utilities switched over into my name before it was even a full week. She was able to find all the debt and she was able to find the credit cards. We were just missing a few things. And I found out that he took out personal loans that I knew nothing about because he was robbing Peter to pay Paul all these years. I mean, you can only imagine how much that heavily weighed on him. Not saying that that was necessarily the reason, but I mean, I can't imagine being isolated alone making these horrible decisions and then not including you. That has to compound over the years. In fact, two weeks before he committed suicide, we were driving back for, or we were actually in Myrtle Beach for one of our last trips. And he tried to give me an ultimatum. He looked at me in the campground and he said, I tell you what, if you quit drinking, I'll turn over all the finances to you. And I said, what does me drinking have to do with the finances? You're the one that can't have one or two and walk away. You're the one that can't stop spending money. Why am I being given an ultimatum for your mistakes? What's your message to women who are being kept out of finances? Be persistent. Know what the debt is. Know how much he makes. I didn't know how much money he made per year until we did our taxes this year. He wouldn't tell me. I had no clue. Be persistent. Ask the questions. Don't back down. Don't take no for an answer. This is your money just as much as his. Whether you work or you don't, you are a family, you are a unit, and you yourself have every single right to know what is going on financially in your family. I feel like he emotionally manipulated you so you would stop asking by like countering with something that you you were doing wrong and turning the tables. I love your message so much. No matter what, you have a right to know. No, you have a right to know. He had me convinced that, you don't worry about it. You already worry about so much. You know, you have the house, you have the kids, you have the dogs. You know, you're doing all your stuff. This is one less thing for you to worry about. Let me take care of it. I'll handle all this. And that's what I was always told. You know, in some ways I do feel a little silly and a little stupid for turning a blind eye, but at the same time, I trusted him. He was my partner. He, you know, he was there to protect us, make us feel safe. That was what he was there for. Yeah, and you trusted that. You had no reason not to trust that. No, I had no reason not to, no. Let's talk about the grief cycle and slowly taking those next few days forward to months to years. What did you do to slowly start regaining your mental health and your life back a little bit? Well, for some reason, I thought it was a great idea to go and be a lunch lady. Don't do that. You had the best intent for it though. You wanted to be closer to your kids. Like, yeah. you, taking this job and being the lunch lady very much gave me the confidence and the strength to get up because I was making myself get up. I was making myself put one foot in front of the other because in my mind, that's your only option. You have children. You can't sit and wallow. In my mind, I'm their caretaker. I need to get up off my ass and do everything I can to make them feel safe, warm, loved, and protected. And that's what I did. And mom was gonna be there at home when they wake up, when they go to sleep, and when they're eating lunch. And they were gonna see you and you were gonna be able to also know people in the school. I mean, I feel like you immersed yourself in their lives and we're also giving them that action of, mom's got you, mom's here, mom's not going anywhere. Absolutely, yeah, no, they are my number one priority. And I'll be completely honest with you, this is probably one of the most honest things I've said, and I've only said it to really one other person, my best friend from San Francisco that was here with me. She and I had a little moment one morning, my Wanda, Wan- dizzle, what up homie? She and I got into a little tiff one morning, and I sat down to have a conversation with her, and I was trying to explain to her why I needed her here. and the importance of her being here. And I looked her dead in her eyes that day and I said, the only reason I get up every morning is because those two kids in that playroom. I said, if it was not for my two children, I would have picked up that gun and followed suit. I absolutely would have followed suit with him because I didn't want to live without him. I didn't think I was strong enough. I didn't believe I was strong enough to live without him. I They are my main reason for getting up and moving forward every single day. Without my children, I don't think that I would have been able to push through the way that I did. They are my lifeline. What was the year's celebration, or was it a celebration? Is it just more of a memorial and trying to just, I feel like some people do celebration of life, some people do. Well, so we did do a celebration of life for Jeff last October. We did it the day before our 19th wedding anniversary, and I'm still gonna claim that I was married for 19 years. You're not taking that away from me. We were married for 19 years. It was the day before our 19th wedding anniversary, and we had a lovely celebration where I shoved him in a piece of pottery because we collected pottery and I didn't know what other vessel to put him in. I now cannot get him out of the pottery. He is stuck in said pottery. Is it, is because of moisture in North Carolina? No, it's because the bag of him was so big. so you stuffed it, like you got it in there and like get in there yeah like pile drive yeah so the funeral home when they called me I did have a very odd request when I was going to sign the release paperwork to have him cremated I asked if I could hold his hand one last time before they cremated him so that I could have closure and I could tell him goodbye because nobody would let me back out in the yard so you know it being Western North Carolina she's got a lovely southern accent And she's like, well, honey, I just don't know. I might talk to my boss. I'm like, OK, that's fine. So she calls me back and says, absolutely not a problem. I can hold his hand and tell him goodbye. She said, now, honey, I do want to prepare you, We had to store him somewhere unusual due to his size. He just lost 89 pounds. What do you mean due to his size? And Jeff, I mean, there's bigger, there's big, but there's bigger guys. I mean, we're talking the South. You're telling me that you don't have spots for. No, big boys do not have spots at Wells Funeral Home. They do not. They keep them in the crematorium. Again, one more thing you never thought that you'd have to think about. No, not at all. So when I went back a week later to pick up his ashes, I get this like insanely heavy bag, this box. There are not one, not two, not three, not four, but five bags of Jeffy. I have five bags. So one of his bags is in a mustard yellow Pisgah pottery teapot that we bought. It was one of the last pieces we bought together about two years ago from an estate sale. I paid $5 for it. Go me. I put him in that. I set his sunglasses out. I set our wedding picture out. I set a beautiful picture of him out and a picture of our family out. Everybody was able to sign a book to say their condolences or anything else. And it's kind of a little bit of a joke. He is still in the box in the bag in a cubby hole in my foyer because we have like this little shelf when we call it the cubby hole and he's in time out. He's in time. He's in timeout. He's been in timeout ever since I picked him up. I took him down off the shelf. This is so hilarious to me and it's - Like, like he's not in the dog house, he's in time out. in time out. He's in a corner, like a literal corner in time out in the box and bag I picked him up in. So we made our way to our church. Beautiful little white church. It's a one -room church. It's well over I mean God it was 103 years old when we got married and that was not 20 years ago. So this church is a hundred and twenty three hundred and twenty four years old. We all walk inside the church. And then I was standing there and my best friend, Kelly, who was with me when I found him, came and joined me at the front of the church, in front of the podium. And I said, he was in a Christmas bag, so his back patches were in a Christmas bag, because I didn't want to walk around. Huh? It's just one of the five. This is one of the five bags. Because I only took one bag of theirs. The one bag I had was huge. Yeah. So put him in a Christmas bag. Well, can't walk around with ashes like, what up y 'all? You can't do that. So I had him in a Christmas bag cause he loved Christmas. And so we put the bag in front of the podium. Kelly stood there and held my hands like we were bride and groom. And I said, will you please be my soul sister and best friend for life? So we're married now. and then we, man, so that's... that's binding, right? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So then we sat there for a few minutes and everybody was quiet. I couldn't sit there anymore because all I could see was, you know, 23 year old me and 27 year old Jeff standing up there. That's all I could see surrounded by everybody we loved. So I walked out and headed down to the creek and I took the last of the ashes that were in the bag out of the Christmas bag. Did you have that moment just for you and him? Yeah. a second and then everybody else came out but I had that second with him and I told him I forgive you. I'm still mad at you because we didn't deserve this, but I forgive you and I love you. Enjoy your peace. Sleep well. I love you." And I poured the rest of it out and I watched him go down the creek. And it was on his one year to the day. Because, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that we had this, you know, perfect picture ass marriage because no marriage is. And anybody that tells you they have one, they are full of shit. So full of it. You know, the last few years of our marriage were hard. They were very difficult because he was on a downward spiral and the spiral that I could not help with because he would not open up and talk to me. So being able to come to terms in peace with what he did by releasing him in a place that not only he loved more than anything, but we as a family, you we had three families that were there with us on Sunday that we took to this valley for the very first time. That were all there with us from the second that this happened, from the second I found him, these people were by my side. I'm just so happy for you. And you are just one year later. mean, do you recognize the person you were a year ago? Do you think you would a year later be where you're at right now? No, in all honesty, I thought that we would be homeless. I didn't think that we would have anything because I didn't know that I was going to be able to, I didn't think that I was going to be able to get up and keep going. I really thought that once he was gone, because I was always made to feel like I couldn't handle these things, that only he could handle these things. And it turns out. Lorne. You don't need to do this, Lorne. no, you're already doing this, Lorne. Don't mess with that, Lorne. I got it. And only to realize that, hey, I am really confident. I'm not confident. I have no confidence whatsoever. I'm actually really competent. And I can get up and do this. And my kids are actually thriving. My son, who in third grade was making all Cs and Ds, started school. The start of the school year was the death of his dad. And he persevered and ended up on AB Honor Roll the entire school year. Amazing. Amazing. You can have done that without your strength, without your resilience, just even getting up every day and pushing and just taking those small steps to keep going. You know it's funny because people keep saying you're so strong. You're so resilient You know look at and I don't understand what they mean because I don't see these as being that I see myself as doing what you're supposed to do. You have children. You have a family you have a life Just because one person decided they couldn't be in this life anymore doesn't mean you give up your life There is so much more for you and your children to get up and keep going and keep living Make those new memories talk about the old memories Continue laughing about the stupid things daddy did continue laughing about the fun things we did as a family You know, just keep the keep it happy keep it light. It's hard to do that It is one of the hardest things to do But it will be very helpful if you can just stay on that positive side of it Not every day will be positive and not every day is going to be easy there are gonna be bullshit days where you just want to crawl under a rock and not ever come out again That's all you wanna do. You don't wanna look at anyone. You don't wanna talk to anyone, but you have to. You have to keep yourself going for the other people around you because you are needed in more ways than one. Just because that one person gave up on you and gave up on themselves gives you no right in any way or any form at all to give up on yourself or anybody else around you. We're never going to be able to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes and we're never going to fully be able to understand why this person made the decision that they made. We're never going to understand their hurt. We're never going to understand their burden. But the most important thing to remember is you were not the decision and why they chose it. You were never their burden. They got in their own way. And instead of trying to find help to get out of it, they chose a different way because it just felt easier. The easy way out is not always the best way out. And you know, just don't forget that. Don't ever forget you were not the problem. You were not the burden. They themselves, to themselves, were the problem and the burden. And they didn't want to share it. I am so grateful to know you, Lorne. I'm grateful to know you, honey. Thank you so much today, Lorne, for opening up your bravery and sharing. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you, I'm grateful for you. You know, having you a part of this journey with me has meant more to me than I think you'll ever know. Just so you know that. Yeah. You have been there with me from the second we found out, and I wouldn't have it any other way. You are not just a friend, you're a gift. You are a truly beautiful, special gift. And for you, I am grateful every single day, of my life.