One word... BRUTAL...

           

Yep. This is what I look like after spending the afternoon participating in the dissolution of my former husband's company... his dream... his vision. It's over. Finished. SDSI is no more. It feels like yet another death. Another giant piece of my previous life... gone... evaporated. It seemed almost cruel to hold the meeting in the company's conference room. It felt disrespectful to me. It should have been somewhere else. I don't know how to explain it. I was fine. I was solid. I was ready. That is, until the moment I sat at that table and the meeting commenced. I began shaking... crying... not out loud, but the tears just POURED from my eyes. It was all so formal... so legal. Clearly, I've never been part of the corporate world, so it was all new to me. Agendas, slides, proposals, tele-conferencing. It was surreal. On the phone were SDSI's attorney Arthur, Steve (David's founding partner) and his attorney. After going through all of the documents, the financials, etc., the very first thing we had to vote on was whether or not to dissolve the company. Once the formal motion was proposed and seconded, I fell apart. The sobs came in earnest and my attorney Dan asked to speak to me in the hall. He wanted to know what I planned to do. How would I vote? My shares alone held enough weight to swing the vote. But here's the thing... if the motion for dissolution hadn't passed, the next step would be declaring bankruptcy for SDSI. I didn't want that. I didn't want that for David. I didn't want his professional name sullied by a bankruptcy. At the same time, I did NOT want to actively participate in shutting it down. In the end, I did vote for dissolution. But I also had it formally entered on the record that I did not WANT to vote that way... that I was horribly saddened to see it come to this... that David would be incredibly disappointed in the colleagues who had let him down... and that the ONLY reason I had voted that way, was because I didn't believe it was in anyone's best interest to enter into a lengthy, expensive legal process. 


Several people walked out of that meeting with substantial sums of cash. The others are to be determined later, after liquidation of the company assets and repayment of their debts. Even when it's all said and done... in 60 to 90 days...personally, I will receive nothing. At his death, David's shares became property of his estate. That means that any cash value they end up having will go to the estate as well. As his estate administrator, I had to set up an estate account at the bank. So that's where the money will go, and his creditors can have at it. In theory, once all of his debts are repaid, I would get the rest of the money. Too bad for me, there won't even be enough to pay off everything he owed. Great.


It was a very long, incredibly difficult day. I feel like my heart broke a little bit more... more grieving to do. The loss of the dream... of everything that could have been. 


I'm so tired. More to say... but can't.