A Warrior's Lesson: My Husband Shot Dead Part 2

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She is a mother, daughter, spouse, and entrepreneur. Born in the Province of Quebec, she lives on the South Shore of Montreal, Canada. Her story is tragic and inspiring. As her career as a nurse took off, her life turned upside down: Her husband was shot dead.

With two children to take care of, she had to dust herself off and move on with her life, facing every emotion known to men: anger, fear, confusion…

You will be amazed by her story, and hopefully you will learn the lessons she learned. Her story is the story of every one of us: a regular person, with a regular job, whose idea of success was ingrained in her since childhood, and she was successful at it.

Overnight, everything she believed in vanished, suddenly she had to learn a new way of life.

Meet Anick, a friend, a colleague, a warrior.

Part 2

How did you learn the news?

A part of me was aware he died. I was eating at the cafeteria and saw two police cars outside in the entrance. I thought, “I hope nothing happened to Benoit.” I remember as if it was yesterday.

When I went back to work a colleague told me to go downstairs because someone wanted to talk to me. I took the elevator and knew something happened to him. When the elevator’s doors opened, police officers stood at the entrance and I said, “he's dead.”

They answered yes.

 How did you react?

I remember screaming, I mean, to this day it’s very blur. I was enraged towards the police officers, asking them why they did this and why they left him for dead.

When we went to the hospital I was in a whirlwind, everything stopped, I lost control, and I had an out-of-body experience. I witnessed myself reacting. It was unreal…very hard to explain.

We understand that.

Everything went fast because I had to plan the funeral. It was hard because I also dealt with my gut-wrenching emotions.

In the end, I almost had no say in where the funerals were going to take place. When an officer loses his life on the job, the police department can decide how things are going to go.

 Even if you're his wife and the mother of his children?

You can decide certain things, but you have very few choices. If you decide to do a private funeral, they don't have any control, but if it's public, they have all the control, or most of it.  I decided to do a public funeral because he was Catholic, he died on the job, and he deserved the biggest funeral possible. It was my choice and I stand by it.

 What were you most worried about during that time?

All I cared about was the children. There were one and a half and three at the time. I needed to be strong for them, I needed to take care of them. To this day, I believe children are conscious when something like this happens, so I talked to them as if they were. I told them daddy is up in Heaven, and when they asked if he would come back I told them no. Children are aware of these types of circumstances in their own way.

They seemed fine though, surprisingly, they seemed happy. We played with teddy bears during the funeral. In many instances, and perhaps because of their innocence, children are stronger than adults.

 So while they seemed ok, were you worried about the future?

I stopped projecting myself in the future, I’ve been living day to day ever since.

Did you get help from a psychologist?

I tried everything under the sun like eye movement therapy. In the end, psychotherapy and meditation helped me the most. I loved the practical approach the psychologist offered. We planned my whole day and we went from there. After a traumatic event like this, only meditation and taking care of myself worked.

For the last ten years, I’ve been meeting a psychologist when I need to.

What went on after the events?

I was confused. Everything in my mind was in shambles. I stopped working and received money from everywhere: life insurance, his salary… I was overwhelmed, I didn’t know what to do with it all. I paid the house off and almost everyone of my entourage allowed themselves to tell me what to do and what was to come. Everyone seemed to have some type of advice; some thought I was a millionaire, others thought I was in need. I was even told I would never have to work another day in my life. Everything happened at the same time.

I was troubled between my newfound financial well-being and the loss of my spouse. I spent money like never before, I paid trips to friends, I gave money away, I had no idea what I was doing. Only ten years later, after I studied life insurance and estate planning, I understood the value of what I had back then, isn't that crazy?

STAY TUNED for the final and most insightful part! We will go into details about her reconstructive journey, what made her go on, the most important lesson she learned along the way, and where she is today!

This is the most important part; come back Thursday!

You can reach Anick: https://www.facebook.com/anick.royer?fref=ts