He had promised her a "fabulous life." Now she waits to hear how her husband died while doing something he loved.
By JAMIE JONES
Published May 28, 2003
NEW PORT RICHEY - He said goodbye on Saturday morning.
He walked to the bed, leaned down, looked at his wife, sleeping quietly.
She sensed him there and opened her eyes.
He was smiling. Excited, wearing his black baseball cap.
"Well, I'm off," he said softly.
She told him to be careful, to have a good time.
He said he would see her soon.
He kissed her goodbye.
"And that was it," Teresa Pillsbury said Tuesday.
Her husband, Duane, had left their New Port Richey home at 8:15 a.m. Saturday for a scuba diving certification class in Hudson.
Pillsbury, 46, loved the water, enjoyed going out on his 30-foot boat, The Sunchaser and had always wanted to dive. So Pillsbury and his friend, Frank Lavalier of Spring Hill, signed up for a class.
On Saturday morning, they went to the Hudson Grotto, an old sinkhole near Tower Drive. Pillsbury was excited.
"He was like a kid in the candy store," Lavalier said. "He looked giddy almost."
They needed to swim back and forth for about 200 yards as part of their certification with Scuba West Inc.
But during the swim, Pillsbury started sinking.
Others noticed, swam out, placed him on a floating dock and began CPR. Paramedics arrived and took Pillsbury to Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point.
Lavalier called Pillsbury's wife.
She drove to the hospital.
She knew her husband would make it. He had to.
She had waited a long time for Duane Pillsbury.
She met him about six years ago in a Hudson pub, where she played in a pool league and he threw darts.
Teresa Pillsbury, 41, had not had the best luck with men. She has scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, and although men often commented on her beautiful face, they seemed uneasy about her condition.
"They don't know how to handle it," she said. "They can't look beyond it."
Not so with Pillsbury.
He told her she was beautiful.
"He looked at what was inside," she said. "That's what he loved me for."
They were different.
He was about 6 feet tall; she was 4 foot 6.
He loved the water; she feared it.
He was, at times, whimsical; she planned everything.
He liked science fiction movies; she loved romance.
Pillsbury had been wild, gotten into trouble for drinking and drugs.
But during the past few years, he had cleaned up, his wife said, and spent his days working as a road construction inspector for HNTB Corp. in Inverness.
Lately, it seemed like he had been making up for lost time, doing the things he's always wanted to try, his wife said.
"He always told me, "Honey, we're going to have a fabulous life,' " she said.
She thought Pillsbury had been worth the wait.
She thought they would have many years together.
She had inscribed a message on his wedding band in 1998: "From here to eternity."
At the hospital, Teresa Pillsbury sat alone with her husband.
He was cold. He was still.
He was gone.
She leaned over the bed, held his hand and cried.
She put her head against his cheek.
"I just wanted to be close to him," she said. "I just kissed him all over."
She wondered whether he could see her.
"In my heart, I was hoping that he was looking at me from above and could see that I was there with him."
Teresa Pillsbury is waiting for answers about her husband's death. He smoked but appeared otherwise healthy, she said.
The Medical Examiner's Office is conducting an autopsy and has not yet released an exact cause of death.
Pillsbury wanted to be cremated.
So his wife, along with family and friends, will climb aboard their boats and head into the Gulf of Mexico on June 8.
There, the priest who performed their wedding will say a few words.
Teresa Pillsbury will release her husband's ashes and again say goodbye.
"I like to think that I enhanced his life as much as he enhanced mine," she said. "I can't imagine life without him."
