I started to write this missile on March 2, the day after the 1-year anniversary of John’s death.  I keep thinking I should finish it and I read it again and add more things or tweak what is already there.  It is now March 17 and time to finish this and let it go.

I think I’m afraid of grief.  I’m afraid to remember especially the good times, all the things I took for granted at the time because it hurts.  If I dwell on those last years, being relieved of responsibility and resentment and the unknown, I feel and understand those feelings.  It is year two.  March 1, 2024, has been and gone and maybe I might be ready to grieve.  I just made my second cup of coffee and thought about all the times John and I took a “coffee break” to gather our thoughts about the agenda for the day or to solve an issue.  Those times were so precious because they were never contentious.  It was just witness to how well we (and sometimes better), we thought together.  We didn’t just love each other.  We liked each other and respected how well we worked together.  Though a TV has many channels and options, I am repeatedly drawn to those DYI shows where couples are working together A particular episode of Home Town, it occurred to me that if I let myself think more deeply, I remember how much I loved planning and doing all the things we did together in the houses we made into homes, the retreat center. . .even things like planning a holiday meal.  We both enjoyed the planning and the execution it took almost more than the event itself. 

A widow here at Applewood said to me that tears come to her when she sees couples walking hand in hand.  Hand in hand was not John’s style nor would he have walked anywhere other than in a home store.  I can still remember with deep feeling a time when we were in Menards, and I went to the garden store and he to tools and as he walked towards me I holding some kind of prize he had just found that he really had to have the surge of pride I felt as he walked towards me. . .a recognition of our love for each other and my pride in being his partner.  We honored each other. 

Grief seems different than hurting.  When I hurt or someone hurts me I feel it in my gut.  My grief has moved up to my heart. 

So, I think this may be my last entry in Caringbridge.  Thank you, Dave Dorman, for suggesting I do this. Writing, recording thoughts and memories has been very cathartic and I’m glad.  Your feedback on or off the page has also been just short of amazing.  So many have commented on my honesty, and I’ve really just been telling my truth which is often like the truth you have often shared with me. . .sometimes secret, sometimes raw, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes sad and sometimes even an occasion to brag or celebrate.  I have been honored in so many ways.  As I was honored by John’s life. . the part I got to share. 

The weekend of his birthday, February 24 was in some ways more difficult than commemorating the one-year anniversary of his death.  Our “family” came together on the 24th and finished a rummy game we had started at holiday time.  It’s long and complicated as well as the time it takes for us to agree on the rules.  I ordered pizza from what’s left of John’s checking account, and we shared words and stories about dad/partner/grandpa/John.  I was glad we could be together.  Earlier in the day, I had gone through pictures on my phone that date back to 2016.  I noted that the wheelchair was very present.  I had forgotten how long he depended on it.  Many pictures were of holidays and birthday’s past.  He loved the attention during those times.  Several capture him in the throes of his overwhelming laughter.  The change in him especially the last 6 months was much more evident in the pictures than I was aware in real life.  By the time of his birthday, he had faded to not being able to appreciate the attention given to him and I think about how he often said he would die in his 80’s like his parents.  I think he had really worked hard to hang on to get to that 80th birthday.  I have pictures I took of the last week of his life including one after he died.  As I went through them, I felt grateful to have them facilitate my feelings from joy to wonder and grief. 

Most days when I read entries on Facebook, I often find one message that I know was written for me. Below is one I read on Feb 24.

When I come to the end of my journey

And I travel my last weary mile,

Just forget if you can, that I ever frowned

And remember only the smile.

Forget unkind words I have spoken;

Remember some good I have done,

Forget that I ever had a heartache

And remember I've had loads of fun.

Really fits not only the John who died but the John who lived who often said every morning how glad he was to wake up to a new day. . .the John who didn’t like going to bed at night because it meant another good day was ending when he didn’t want it to.

There was a definite definitive time when he sat on the edge of his hospital bed and said looking at the day ahead seemed hard and he didn’t look forward to struggling through it. 

Our friend Chris Claussen visited during John’s birthday week and brought me a book, Healing After Loss.  Here is the entry for March 1, the anniversary of his death.

“Where? Where has it gone, that light, that spark, that love that looked into mine?  What has it to do with that cold clay?  It’s here, here, here in my heart.  He’s in me, around me.  Nothing in that clay.”

Anzia Yezierska

The change is astonishing when breath and life departs, and the body is left.  We look at it—loved, revered—but it is only a shell now.  The processes that sustained it have stopped.  The blood lies still.  The chest does not rise and fall.

But where has the person gone?  Interpretations differ according to belief and experience.  But surely one of the ways a person lives on is in those of us who gather to mourn the passing and to celebrate the life.  It’s not simply that we will remember loved ones; they live on through things they taught us and in the way they affected our lives.

So that in the weeks, months, and years that lie ahead, we may find qualities and actions in our own lives which surprise us until we simile and think, “I wonder, Yes, maybe that a part of John living in me.”

On March 1, the day he died, I sent a text to him on my phone, “Where are you?”

I have had no visitations, no perceptible dreams, but I know that a big piece of me, sometimes even things you may think are only me, are things that John taught me.  He taught me good communication skills, he encouraged exploration of thoughts and beliefs, he introduced me to important books and ideas and quotes, he taught me to build, to ponder “what is the point?”  And all along, he loved me unconditionally.  He might disagree with me and sometimes directly and/or heatedly but he when he knew he was wrong, apologized.  Those are some of the things I want to remember.  Those are the things that have affected me, and I would not be the same person if I had never known him.

One more thought.  I wrote early on about an awareness I had of no longer being anything but “we”.  All plans and decisions had to be made according to John’s health but that affected/included me.  There was no separation.  The individuality we both valued and honored in our relationship was pretty much gone. 

Now I find myself reestablishing “me”.  Because it became so strong and necessary, I struggle at times to feel ok about being “me” again.  At times I so resented “we” especially when John could no longer make sound decisions.  Now “I” am back and sometimes don’t want to be.  Then when I do, seem to be able to find time to feel just a little guilty.  I’ve met women who are lost in their pain over losing a partner and they often want complicity and I’ve learned to navigate that I think.  I’ve also met a woman who said in her first year of widowhood, decided that no wants to be with an always sad person and she resolved herself to keep her grief to herself.  There are lots of ways of being and I’m on that journey.  It’s often the encounters with people who know “me” and supported “we” but still remember “me” that are helping me claim or reclaim identity and you know who you are.

So, like so many say, grief comes through memory and unexpectedly.  Triggers are often sneaky and happen in awkward places.  I want to feel it and am learning it can’t be defined or controlled.   Tears are messy.  Tears are cathartic.  At times my grief feels like testimony to something real that I can no longer touch and then there are the time it just hurts!

I am grateful.  I am meeting new friends.  Reading new books.  I am entertaining which is something we just couldn’t do anymore.  I have a new car, a new home, a new knee and shortly will have a repaired retina.  Like many retired people, I am busy but relish a day or anytime that is mine.  Lest I go on forever, I have also very much enjoyed writing these entries.  I’m aware that’s one of the reasons it’s been hard to birth this last one.

Thanks for the cards, the flowers, the messages. I appreciate them all and I love you

who have walked this journey with me.

One more quote.

“They do not die and become afterthoughts. they are the first thought. the thought that replays until we can fall asleep. there on our saddest days. in our happiest moments. through every mundane task. they have died but we did not. for as long as we breathe we think of t