wistv.com - Columbia, South Carolina |Dealing with Grief: A wife learns to manage the trauma of her husband's murder

ORANGEBURG, SC (WIS) – It was not his first kill.

Mikal Mahdi was already on the run after killing someone in North Carolina.

Mahdi was on a spree. First, it was a carjacking in Columbia, then hiding out on some land in Calhoun County. That land happened to be owned by Orangeburg Department of Public Safety Capt. Jim Myers.

Jim and Mahdi would eventually meet as fate would have it, but it would not end well.

Jim's wife, Amy, would find her husband murdered on their property.

"One of the things that's been hard to get out of my mind is the screams, the blood-curdling screams," said Amy. "I felt sorry for the 911 operator that had to listen to those screams."

That's how Jim and Amy's love story ended.

It began 6 years before when Amy became an officer under Jim. There were some whispers when it started.

"Because we were in the department, we couldn't broadcast it so it had to be pretty quiet so no one knew," said Amy.

But they couldn't keep the secret for very long. On Edisto Beach, Jim would ask Amy to marry him. And, of course, she said yes.

"He didn't brag about himself," said Amy. "He was very quiet, but he had a wisdom about him, a life wisdom that most people don't have."

It's been 7 ½ years since Amy last heard Jim's wise words. On top of the grief of losing him, she's had to deal with trauma of finding her husband's body

"It's one of those things I tried to block out, but I know I'm gonna have to deal with it," said Amy. "Because I can't leave it down inside. I've got to bring it out to heal. I won't be a whole person until I heal everything."

That's where Linda Gill comes in. Gill is a grief counselor.

"Mourning, the way I look at mourning, it's the work you have to do to process the experience," said Gill.

Gill became a grief counselor after years as a nurse, helping parents who lost their children. She often works with people like Amy who lost someone suddenly.

"One of my clients, her child had died and somebody came up to her and said, ‘I understand exactly how you feel because my dog died last week,'" said Gill.

Gill says most people are very uncomfortable with the concept of death and some people may be inclined to stay away.

"You can't fix them and everybody wants you to get fixed because when you are sad, it makes them really uncomfortable or if you say something and make them cry, you say, ‘Oh my gosh, I made them cry' when what you did, in fact, was give them permission to do what they needed to do -- which was to cry," said Gill.

Staying away can also alienate the griever, according to Gill. She says to be sensitive, but say something to comfort them.

"The best thing I think to say is, ‘I don't know what to say and I don't know what to say and I don't know how to be there for you, I just want you to know I care,'" said Gill.

Those are the words Amy says have meant the most to her -- honest words and people who kept saying them. She offers some advice to those having to deal with grief.

"I will tell you this, if you call them and they don't answer, call them again," said Amy. "Whether they answer, call them again. Then call them again."

These days, Amy says she is not healed, but she is better. "It doesn't stop hurting, but the amount of time, energy spent towards the episode isn't as long as it was," she said

It's a burden Amy knows she will always bear, but what she says makes life's sharpest pain a bit duller is the people who help share the load

"I had a friend who called me every single day and I don't think I would have been able to pull through without that," said Amy.

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