Posted on 08/19/2020 12:56:49 AM PDT by nickcarraway
A husband found a heart-wrenching video on his late wife’s phone after she died of a life-long illness.
He shared the difficulty of mourning in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic with WOAI/KABB.
"Bradley, you've always been the one,” Bradley’s late wife, Stephani Wagoner, is heard saying on the video. “You've always been the one my heart belonged to, the one that made me smile.”
Wagoner found the video after she passed.
"I wake up every morning listening to that video and I wake up crying to it. I go to bed at night telling her, 'Good night,'" Bradley said.
Wagoner, 26, made the video for her husband July 29, two weeks before she died.
"She was the most perfect amazing beautiful mother those kids could have ever asked for and she will be impossible to replace," Bradley said of his wife.
Stephani was hospitalized for ulcerative colitis, a disease she had been fighting since she was a teen. Bradley said the fear of COVID-19 kept her from seeking treatment at the hospital earlier.
"If it wasn't because of this COVD, she could've been back. She could've gone to the hospital a lot sooner and a lot of this could've been prevented. Her colon may not have been taken out. It’s just a whole circle of all this stuff that could've been prevented, but she was so scared of going over there to the hospital and getting COVID and bringing it back to our kids,” Bradley explained.
Once hospitalized, COVID-19 kept Bradley from visiting her.
Bradley woke up to a police officer knocking on his door Saturday morning, telling him he needed to call the hospital because his wife was very ill.
"Never saw it coming – the most heartbreaking thing ‘bout it is having to come home and [tell] all our babies that mommy is never coming home,” Bradley said with tears in his eyes.
Stephani passed before Bradley could get to the hospital.
The now-single father is having a hard time explaining the loss to his three children, ages 6, 4 and 3.
"They want to call mommy and ask her and every time they want to, I gotta tell them they can't and that's the hardest thing because I want to, too," Bradley said.
He’s now trying to honor Stephani by spreading awareness of ulcerative colitis, also known as CROHN’S.
"There's a possibility at some point my kids may be diagnosed with it and that's what terrifies me, too," Bradley said.
Stephani also filmed a video for her eldest son. Bradley said he will wait for him to be old enough to understand before showing him her message.
The family has set up a Go Fund Me for others to help.
I can feel this mans pain. I got through my late wifes tablet to see the pictures she took from time to time.
Mine is due to the NO FIBER DIET high CARB DIET, you add in Diverticulosis, and Hypothyroid that eliminates a lot of food. Hulls, seeds, high fiber are No’s. REGLAN is the med, 1 pill broke me out in HIVES.
Reference bump! Thanks - I’m OK but son at almost 26 has had problems with modern medicine care.
Wife, a diabetic, is very knowledgeable about diet issues but son naturally considers himself invincible but he knows that certain things don’t agree with him including alcohol.
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