The Weight of Nothing

Five years on and this thing is still not over yet.

I dash that sentence off, the truest thing on my mind, and I wryly laugh knowing it will never be over. What the hell, isn't that long enough to suffer? My work is far from done, and I am bone tired.

Since Christmas, it's been a different struggle. In the lead-up to the holidays, I felt light. Like a so-called normal person, I looked forward to the holidays. We cut down our tree in keeping with our new tradition and propped that spindly beauty up. I thought I might dig my way out of three years of covid-holiday isolation when we made a trek halfway across the country with our dog in tow and conquered every single one of those 1200 miles without incident. I was on top of the world.

And then Christmas Eve dawned with the magic that only that one particular date has, and darkness set in. It was hell.

We saw dear, dear family we hadn't seen in years and it was a needed balm, and yet. And yet. Emptiness descended with the early dusk as the guests arrived at my sister's welcoming, comfortable home. Our beloved dog who managed those many miles and numerous rest stops without a sound couldn't handle a party of 30 people and howled her head off, dancing on her hind legs and tipping her snout skyward to punctuate her disapproval. I put her on leash and settled her on the floor while I sat in an armchair in the corner, just Phoenix and me. Genuine merriment reminiscent of the good old days swirled around us in the heart of my beloved family, the nostalgia of the past mixed with the present, and the volume rose.  As I sat trying to convey calm to my hound, Chris's absence bore down heavily, pressing unbidden tears down my face that I could only swipe away with a bright holly themed napkin.

What is Christmas, what is anything, when you can connect with anyone who ever meant something except that one who you built a life with and want to be with most...

It was hell. 

And I'll admit, I haven't been myself since. 

I'm sad that I can't even remember what "being myself" should mean. I guess I've been a few versions of myself in the time since Chris was diagnosed. Fearful. Determined. Driven. Paralyzed. Courageous. Hard. All the while I persevered, somehow. I've done some unspeakable things. 

But lately all of the grit is gone. I haven't done much of anything because the crush of absence has been overwhelming. My energy has been sucked away by the vacuum of the void. The life force that has always whispered "do something" has been noticeably, no, more than that, deafeningly silent. The heaviness of no clear future has forced me to retreat from life. The black hole of nothing left has literally pinned me to my bed, evening after evening. In the silence of what should be a nurturing cocoon, the force of nobody there to listen at the end of the day makes it hard to breathe and the temptation is strong to succumb to pull of everything good has already happened.

The weight of nothing can absolutely crush you.

And yet. 

And yet, the reprieve of sleep washes the fog away. The new day brings a blank slate. Nothing can be once again as light as a true, beautiful memory that flits as a smile on your lips, a thankfulness in your heart. Absence can have zero mass and be simply nothing again in the light of the morning.

To be human is to have a chance to start anew, again.

Again and again you can start over, the weight of earthly burdens, absences, and nothings be set aside, until you have no more tomorrows. 

Let me try again tomorrow even when the weight of nothing is too much today.

I Fly Solo

My child asked me who my Valentine was. I was taken aback, wondering if it was some joke, because my children are aware of everything I do and I definitely do not have a new romantic interest.

"Nobody, I fly solo."

I've gotten used to operating independently. I have coping mechanisms for the quiet. I trust my judgement and let the chips fall after my decisions. In many ways, I am proud of being my own pilot and have fiercely taken on that challenge. But still, the skies are vast and sometimes bleak when you're speeding through them alone.

Recently, I took my child out to eat at a restaurant buzzing with Friday freedom. Our quietness clanged against the neighboring bubbles of the couples around me. I felt the familiarity of what others were sharing, then felt surprised that I could even recall. The truth is that if I allow the memories, I can acutely remember our own private refuge, our world built for two. I know exactly what it was like to have my co-pilot - it was like living in color - and so I am careful about how, when, and where I permit the memories.

So another Valentine's Day came and went, and I tried to ignore the cultural worship and idealization of couples. Having been part of one, I cannot write it off as simply hype - life is so much richer, bearable, joyful when shared with the right person. I tried to make my mind blank, I pretended it doesn't matter.

I shut it all out because I fly solo now.

Unwanted Blank Canvas

BUSY!

Busy busy busy.

The school year mercifully began and September has sped by. F23, as I lovingly refer to the fall semester, relieved me of the summer slowness that made me question my purpose and unleashed the you-asked-for-it busyness of the academic year that now threatens my sanity.

Here it is, Friday night. Rain relentlessly drums down. There is no sports practice to facilitate after all. There is no reason to head out. For me that is, because my children are out. One is at a friend's home and the other has taken the car *by himself* to a high school football game. An unfamiliar, unsettled silence has settled on my home and is right up in my face.

The frenetic buzz of do, check, double check, create, teach, communicate, achieve has given way to... I don't know how to finish the sentence. What is left? What is there for me in the silence when I am finished doing? That is THE question. Nobody needs me.

The world keeps turning without me doing anything "productive" or anybody knowing what I am doing at all.

I can do whatever I want.

What do I want?

Do not ask me that. Ask me anything but that. Ask me instead about the abundent, obvious shoulds. I should clean. I should exercise. I should try to find a partner. I should make travel plans for the holidays. I should do the reading for the class I paid to take. I should grade the quizzes I gave to my students today. I should prepare the remarks for the new students in my program that I am scheduled to deliver tomorrow to them and *their parents*. I should do something. (Do-oooooo Something!)

But... What do I want?

That's an entirely different question. It's not that I do not know that answer. Oh, I do. It's so easy, so automatic, it's as much a no-brainer as the unconscious, do-it-while-asleep scratching of poison ivy that I experienced this summer. The answer is not socially acceptable, or it is not to most normal living people. That is why I don't pour my guts out here anymore (not that anyone reads). What I have to say - truly honestly baring my soul no lies reveal - doesn't engender understanding. It elicits silence. Concern. Suggestions of seeing a therapist for "prolonged grief." Pity. I hate all of that; it makes me furious. But I still want you to know because I am hurting so badly and have no escape valve. I want you to know because it could have been you and if it was you, then you'd understand I'm not a freak. 

There is only one true thing I want and it's this. It is STILL this. It is ONLY this.

I want him to come back.

If he came back, everything would be okay again. I would not be uneasy, I would not doubt my decisions, I would not hate myself, I would not be overwhelmed, I would not be paralyzed, I would not be disgusted by the mess around me. If he came back, I would not be living this life anymore. If he came back, I would not be the me that I am stuck in now. If he came back, I would only be purely happy to be in his presence. I could relax. I could stop thinking and over-thinking. I would feel loved and seen and heard and be at the top of his list. If he came back, I would not be alone. I would finally be home again if he came back.

On this solitary night when I could do anything I wanted, I choose to put into words what I truly want. The tears pour down my face and I choke on the sobs because what I want is just not possible. The only thing I want is literally impossible.

He is not coming back.

The busy and commitments and exhaustion veil that, they obscure the void. They are just an elaborate defense mechanism even while I tell myself some of the activity is aimed at exploring a next chapter. If I'm busy, I am okay. Brain otherwise occupied. But when distraction is stripped away, like on this quiet Friday night, I hurt.

I want him. I want to share all of this mess with him because it never felt like a mess when we were together. And yet he is no longer. I don't know where that leaves me... I struggle with seeing my own value. There is much work to be done. Am I doing it in the busy? Or, am I avoiding it?

What am I supposed to do?

That is the wrong question. My brain doesn't understand that there is no supposed to. It's more like I'm a painter with a fresh, unsullied canvas and I get to lay down the colors, but I was never an artist in the before life and I don't want the opportunity now. The blank expanse of the surface is overwhelming and I'm not skilled or energetic enough to create a quality picture at 46.

I don't know where to start starting over. I don't know how to want anything other than him. He is hardwired into my being and he is gone. It makes no sense.

For Me on Mother's Day

Let me dismiss perfect mom,

that one who always knows what to do and does it flawlessly. 

Let me banish meticulous housekeeper, organizational master, and always-there-parent.

 

Let me release the one who perpetually has it together and that other one who never needs help.

 

Let me banish the mom I would have been,

the mom I could have been,

the mom I should have been.

 

Let me give up on perfect mom and all of her friends.

Let me know, deep in my bones, that they are just mythical ideas that haunt me.

 

Instead, let me embrace the parent I am.

 

Let me believe in the one that others see:

the brave one with the stiff upper lip;

the one who made lemonade from lemons;

the “you’re so strong” one and her capable twin “I don’t know how you do it.”

 

Let me be proud of the mom I am:

the one who doesn’t have all the answers but is always up for learning;

the one who needs so very much help but knows there is strength in the reaching out for it;

the one who makes mistakes but asks for forgiveness;

the one who will talk about the embarrassing things, the hard things, the seemingly unspeakable things;

the tireless one who accepts chaos to say yes to the good stuff;

the tired one who needs to say no sometimes;

the mom who will advocate - sometimes strongly, sometimes quietly – relentlessly for her kids;

the one who suffered an enormous loss but never gave up,

the mom who still grieves and always goes on.

 

Let me give me, this very mom, the grace I want my children to give themselves,

 

and

 

let me proclaim - loudly, emphatically - that perfect mom never existed in the first place.

 

 

 

Alone

Valentine's Day literally dawned with the realization that the dog has officially dumped me.

Yes, my loyal companion, my shadow, no longer sleeps in my bed. Her human sister and best playmate astutely set up the dog bed on the floor next to her bed. Voila, Phoenix has decided that close is close enough and her dog bed is perfect, thank you very much. Everyone is sleeping better. This is good because I am too old to contort myself around a sleeping, bed-hogging dependent.

And yet...

I miss snuggling that compact, muscular crescent in the middle of the night. I miss running my hand over her velvety ears when I cannot sleep. I even miss letting her out to howl in the wee hours because she always rewarded me with aggressive affection manifested through assertive nudges of my arm for attention as she settled back down to sleep, curling tightly into my side. That dog has single handedly (pawedly?) saved me from despair by demanding attention, learning, and love, and now she is O-V-E-R it. I miss her companionship. 

So my first thought on Valentine's Day, an inconvenient hour before my alarm went off, was that now even the dog has dumped me. This is a new low.

My second thought was of Chris sleeping next to me. I spent a while remembering the shape his dear form took, the way he loved to be warm and wore a sweatshirt or pullover fleece to bed in the winter. He is imprinted on my memory, so close I could just roll slightly to my right and rest my head on his shoulder, but so gone I would wrench my aching aging neck from not landing on his alive body.

Instead of drifting off to sleep for a precious stretch, I more solidly joined the world of the living. I looked over at his side of the bed - flat as usual- that half as empty as my core, and my third observation clanged through the quiet of my room.

I am utterly alone.

It isn't the stupid holiday or the lack of any grand gesture; it's the everyday nothingness where there once was comfort, understanding, joy, mutual making-it-through-the-day-ness. It's not being at the top of anyone's list. It's not being able to share the ups and downs. It's being invisible in this world. It's having experienced how wonderful it is to be with the exact right person and knowing that kind of fulfillment is over for you. 

Alone on Valentine's Day.

Alone every single day. 

Every. Single. Day.

Alone.

A Family, Again

The clocks changed not long ago and, right on schedule, so did the weather. It's undeniably late fall now, with winter bearing down. Dusk starts to settle in before 4:00 along with a bitter chill in the air, both signaling the dark time of the year. It's here.

For me, it begins at Halloween. The light side of the holiday with sugary sweets and dress-up tomfoolery doesn't resonate anymore; the sinister side of spiders, skeletons, and spooky graveyards does. I remember four years ago, walking with Chris behind the kids with dread of what was to come sucking the words from our mouths as we walked in silence. Inevitability still suffocates all else now, like it did then.

Days pass and his birthday comes in mid-November. I remember how we went out to celebrate that last time as a family. It was bitterly cold. I parked the car and we all hurried to the restaurant door, Chris could still hustle on that night. I made us take a picture before going in. One of our last, if not the last. 

It hurts to remember. I can hardly look at that photo.

I cannot forget. I can't tear my eyes away from his steroid-swollen face and our baby-faced children, the love so obvious it breaks your heart, or at least mine.

What to do on his birthday? Covid robbed us of most normal commemorative activities such that we do not have a routine these four years on. Even if we wanted to eat at that favorite place, it closed a few years ago...

Since Chris died, I have tried to support his/our favorite charities at a comparable level to when he managed such things. Money is one thing, but doing something with your own hands feels better, yet my hands have been tied with virus restrictions for a couple of years. Finally - finally!- when I received an email about a family volunteer day at Cradles to Crayons in November, I knew it was the perfect thing to do for Chris's birthday. 

We masked up and went. The warehouse had changed locations since our last volunteer experience as a family of four. Yet another reminder that things change...

Still, the set-up was the same. The same positive atmosphere, the same focus on the dignity of the recipients. The same backdrop with oversized crayons for pictures, the same bleachers for the "talk" before the work session.

Instantly, we were transported back. The dates are lost now - I think we volunteered twice as a family of four - but the details don't matter, we were back in that mode.

We were a family, again. 

We were assigned to the book sorting station, something new. I silently gave thanks for a new experience as we busied ourselves by dipping into the cargo bins of donated books, discarding items that were not able to be donated through C2C, cleaning those that were, and passing them on to the packaging crew who made bundles for different age groups.

The bins were emptied and the appealing to-be-gifted package pile grew. Though I felt my children begin to grow tired and bored from the tedium, I also sensed their determination to see this through and not complain. They understood that this was important for its own purpose, and because Dad believed in this cause. I was proud of them for sticking with it as our fingers grew tacky with grime from the donated books.

It felt so good. 

It felt like Chris was with us.

It felt like we were a real family again.

Ooof, that is a variant of something I have said a few times recently to very close friends. The legitimacy of my family is now compromised in my mind. Something is always missing, this is always lacking compared to the past. Somehow I backed myself into a position of feeling like we do not get to be considered a real family since we are without two parents. 

I need to work on that because, as I have written ad nauseum, he is not coming back.

Four years on, we are a different family. Smaller. Quieter, with fewer laughs, but perhaps a greater than typical appreciation for what really matters.

I have to fight myself to remember that this family of three is not an inferior charicture of a family, but the real thing. It is reduced in size, but not diminished in value or love.   

We are still a family.

But, on our Cradles to Crayons volunteer day, we were that family, again. For a fleeting two hours, he was with us in that warehouse.

But today and every day that comes next, we are this family, the one who holds Chris close and takes steps into the great unknown channeling his spirit and encouragement but making it without him.

He would be proud of us, just as we are proud of him. This I know to be true deep in my bones. 

Coiled Like a Spring

The days are busy. So, so busy. One day it was summer and now the morning darkness and chilly air tells me winter is closing in. What happened...

On the one hand, I'm better when I'm busy. Distraction takes the edge off and so I'm intensely grateful for the buzz-buzz-buzz of the academic year. Importantly, I feel like *I* have a purpose in the world when I'm immersed in my profession. In the classroom, I am uniquely me, trying my hardest to help others on their paths. Each day I get to share my appreciation for the beauty of data and logic, I dust off my proverbial pom-poms and become a cheerleader of young people who are distracted, disillusioned, and depressed. I make fun of myself to see them smile and I see them feel proud when they participate and are correct. When teaching, I am not worrying about my children or ruminating on my husband's fate, nor wondering if the best of life is already behind me and what the hell is the point anymore anyway. No, when teaching I am my authentic self. Just maybe the effort I put in could make some small difference to someone. This is good.

But, holy smokes, it is hectic. I am not sleeping enough or eating well enough. Multi-multi-multi-tasking is a challenge that I face day after day. I set alarms on my phone to remember zoom meetings with students, phone calls with brain tumor friends, bills, library books needing return, cooking plans. No stretch of time is too short to get something done, no location too odd to borrow wifi from. Still, I'm merely mortal even though I frequently deny my limits. The wax will be warming, nay, outright melting, and even though I feel it dripping off my wings, I fly closer to the sun instead of sensibly dropping altitude. The inevitable plummet is as painful as it is predictable.

Much has happened that is not solely my experience and therefore not fit to share, and so I have felt muted for months. I wonder if I would have stopped sharing no matter the circumstances. As time goes on, the world definitely doesn't understand that you don't stop missing an important person after a year or two or three goes by. It's not "complicated" or "prolonged" grief if you cry sometimes or express longing, it's the price you pay for deep connection. There is no room for nuance in this society, and now there's a mental health diagnosis for people who aren't "over" their loss after one short year. The armchair therapists are everywhere and quick to reference something they heard on public radio. 

My experience is mine. I am more protective now because I do feel judged. I sense that I am seen as unhealthy or unworthy since I am still single.

I don't care, f off world.

My particular suburban, utopian community has absolutely no idea what having a young dead husband is like. My experience is uniquely mine, my Chris still more precious than anything even though he is not alive. I don't choose to share as freely because people understand less and less what we had, how special he was, the emptiness of a life without him, and the ridiculous challenge of raising children alone. Yet, the tension of wanting to be seen as "normal" and a "valuable" or "high-quality" person is always there just under the surface, tightly coiled like a spring.

I guess I do care. A lot...

The problem is that I do not have a way to release the energy trapped in that spring. There is distraction, but that is not an outlet; it is only a disguise. Instead, I carry that tension day in and out, hour by hour, actively or subconsciously working to suppress it. Every now and then the thought of a heart attack or stroke crosses my mind, for how long can I do this? I worry that I will drop dead from stress and struggle, and then what would become of our children...

Try as I might, I cannot find a way to let it all simply rest.

Chris was my delight, my refuge, my peace, and he treasured me. With him, I needed nothing else to be happy; just spending a few simple minutes together was my idea of perfection. Now, this world does not hold real respite for me. He was my home, my delight, my solace, my one, and he is gone. 

I am tough as nails, I am strong as steel, I am incredibly capable, and I care a lot for others. I am a high quality single person. I know all of these things to be true. But, I am not peaceful without him. I do not know how to be truly, deeply happy without him.

That spring is coiled oh so tightly.

I Went to the Mat

There are dark days. I doubt myself, second-guess decisions, believe everyone would be better at managing the things that were dealt specifically to me. There are so many different feelings now that time has passed and nobody understands; the suffering is incredibly lonely.

But sometimes, when the light is perfectly right as the day is drawing to a close, I know that I did my best. Even though I stumble, I continue to do my best – for our children, for me, and I remember that I did for you, too.

I went to the mat for you.

I raised my voice and demanded attention.

I sought the best help that I could find when I realized it was all on me, no longer in your hands but completely in mine.

In the moments it mattered most, I was decisive when all eyes were on me to make the call.

I never gave up.

Even when I was tired and needed to step out, to attend to the other people who need me.

Even when I sought mental escape.

Because I did nearly break and need a minute, from time to time.

Of course I did. Because I am just one person, one human being, I needed to breathe for a minute.

I still went to the mat for you, for the best ending you could experience, for the least trauma for all of us.

I knew then that my best was not going to result in you being able to stay one minute longer than biology would allow. I know now that the pain of separation seeks blame, any deflection from a direct hit, so hating myself for everything is normal. I can’t blame myself for what happened, and I really don’t. In the same way, I’m working hard to not blame myself for the now. It simply is.

I am doing my best.

I am going to the mat for our children, for me. So we might be able to fully live with moments of joy.

Please. Help me believe these words.

 

 

Trauma

 What is trauma? What differentiates a traumatic experience from a difficult one?

One might experience something difficult as being caught in a very bad storm, frightened by nearby lightning and soaked to the skin. After darting into a shelter to wait it out, one might feel relief while toweling off the water. That was hard and unfortunate, but now it’s over. One might even learn important lessons from a difficult experience that positively influence future choices. But still, the damage can be repaired.

Unlike a difficult experience, trauma cannot be wiped away cleanly. Instead, trauma permeates the skin, steeps into bones, dissolves in blood and circulates through all the vessels, big and small, dissipating relentlessly into every last nook and mysterious cranny of the body. Trauma settles into all of the dark and mysterious hiding places: it swells to fill the pockets of joints, adheres to the ropey surface of ligaments, intricately weaves into the delicate spiderweb of nerve filaments. Trauma lies in wait, always at the ready to rush back to the bloodstream and flood the brain.

At the slightest trigger, the legacy of trauma is activated. Going far beyond memory, trauma unleashes an assault on the senses:

An unstable wobble in the stomach, the acrid taste of bile rising in the back of the throat, the heart racing at breakneck speed with the thudding of impending doom.

Your partner seizing in car, seizing again and again in the familiar red chair. The intensity as he silently held you in his gaze for the last time.

The sounds. The many, many sounds. Sirens, code announcements over a loudspeaker, urgent phone calls with dire news and split-second decisions required, grunts of human suffering and cries of anguish.

Trauma is a full-body, repetitive experience.

-----

I didn’t realize that I was traumatized for a long time. However, my dread of phone calls, fear of mail from health insurance companies and the government, and the indescribable dread that the other shoe is juuuust about to drop is not characteristic of the typical 40-something person.

It’s watching TV and hearing the sound of an IV alarm in the background of the show, then being right back in the ER, devoid of the happy ending that the program will inevitably feature.

Yes, the endless alarms of the hospital characterize trauma for me. The rhythmic, annoying beep-beep that might simply mean an IV drip has completed or a sensor was disconnected, or more sinisterly indicate depressed or elevated vital signs. The sound is dissonant, unpleasant, distressing; like someone is leaning on three adjacent keys of a synthesizer over and over and over. Two short off-key signals, then a longer pause.

Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.     Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.     

 

The patient is powerless to silence the alarm. The family cannot stop it, either. It might be nothing, but it just as well could mean the end has come.

Enh-enh.     Dan-ger.     Enh-enh.      End-time.     Enh-enh.     

It is impossible to relax or sleep in a hospital when that alarm is constantly going off.

Enh-enh.     Dan-ger.     Enh-enh.      End-time.     Enh-enh.     

Still, these years later, it wakes me up from a dead sleep sometimes.

Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.     Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.      

The alarm insists that bad things happened, are happening, will continue to happen.

 

Enh-enh.     Enh-enh…

 

Everyone I love has died or will die.

 

End-times.         End-times.         End-times.         End-times.         End-times.

---

This is trauma.

I Miss Him Like the Ocean

I read a poignant essay recently. It was written by Kelley Lynn, a remarried widow; she is some 10 years out from her first husband's death. The title of her piece is "I Miss Him Softly."

https://widowsvoice.com/post/i-miss-him-softly/

Something about it touched me. I was happy for this stranger who had struggled mightily with the loss of her partner and old life, but over a span of years forged a new life and found a second great love. In her recent piece, she describes missing her first husband "softly" as she moves through her days with her second husband.

Oh, I wish I could miss my Chris softly, but I am not there yet. No, my missing is not typically soft, not often gentle and rarely graceful. 

That is okay. I coach myself that everyone is different, my loss is more recent, it is not hers anyway nor is my life hers. It is okay.

Still, I recognize that I miss him differently than I did in earlier days. I don't remember Chris as clearly as I once did, which means the missing is not as acute, the pain is not as cutting on a daily basis. Unbelievably, I have to focus to remember how it felt to be Us; I have to quiet the noise in my brain to hear his voice, I have to actively call up the memory of his touch.

When I do... it can be overwhelming. Like a storm stirring the ocean, the waves of missing crash violently, forcefully. The diagonal, driving rain of longing makes me bone-cold. Yes, my desperate missing often emulates the endless depth and power of the angry, stormy ocean.

But life clicks along. I cannot stay in that space forever. Things change.

The storm clouds do eventually give way to all kinds of weather. Dry air moves in but it is yet windy and cool. Then, the sun peeks out and warmth takes over as the clouds slowly drift away. The ocean calms and a cerulean sky sets off the literally sparkling water for a time.

I accomplish tasks, fix things, think about the future. I make art and new friends. I apply for a new position at work and get it, my colleagues congratulate me. I watch our children grow and marvel at their progress, thankful to be here to see it. 

You know what, though? Even in calm weather there are at least ripples on the ocean, and those waves still break rhythmically on the beach. The tide still goes in and out. As the beach lengthens, the crests do meet the sand gently, retreating farther and farther away from me. On those same good days, the tide inevitably comes back in. Imperceptibly at first but relentlessly nevertheless, those same waves encroach on the smooth sand, eroding the beach bit by bit.

In the best of times, I feel like I am in Maine, standing with my feet in the sand and my face raised to the setting sun as the ocean swells to meet the land. The water rushes to my half buried bare toes, then reaches the apex and rapidly recedes. Even in its graceful calm, the cadence of the rushing water is a repeated whisper:

Toward the shore, I draw you near: I miss you.

Out to the ocean, I cannot hold onto you: Come back.

Toward the shore, you feel so close: I love you.

Out to the ocean, the details fade: Thank you.

I miss you, Come back.

I love you, Thank you.

Over and over and over and over. Sometimes serenely, sometimes brutally, often at one of a myriad of gradations in between. Regardless of tenor, the underlying rhythm has become so predictable it is comforting.

Just as the ocean will persist in its surging and ebbing, it will be this way until the end of my time, I think.

I miss you, Come back. I love you, Thank you.

Yes. I miss my husband these days like the multi-faceted ocean, the ocean I have always loved. Powerful, mysterious, scary, benevolent, beautiful; covering most of the earth where my being currently resides and his has ceased to exist.

I miss him like the ocean.

Would You Know Me?

So much time has gone by. Months and months, now over three years. Things have happened, little things, boring things, big huge things. Through it all, I often wonder...

What would you think?

I simply don't know. I could guess, but I do not have any way of knowing because you are not here. You are gone.

You are dead.

It is still shocking to me that your light has gone out. The kindness in your smile, your voice, your eyes... It will not beam on me or anyone you loved again.

How can that be? It is not fair. You were so good. So very, very good.

So yes, time has passed and you are still not here. You are not coming back. And I... Well, I have changed. I sit here tonight and know that I am not the same as I was when you were here.

For starters, I feel one hundred years old. I am bone tired from the constant managing and weight of missing. My hair is streaked with white, my body is softer, my face a little more substantial, my eyesight is declining.

Yes, the old me with boundless vigor and 20-20 vision is gone. I fall into bed exhausted every night at a shockingly early hour. My new glasses, which I have been instructed to wear as much as possible, are set to arrive tomorrow. I wonder what I'll look like with these glasses and if I'll feel totally different. My mind immediately asks...

Would you know me now?

The question nips at the back of my consciousness. I know I am quite different from when you were here, when we were Us. On the one hand, I am ashamed. I'm more jaded, bitter, depressed, leaden. On the other hand, I'm so sorry you missed out on this version of me because I manage, Chris. I handle things. I'm not only talking about the school bus just not coming for a solid week, I'm talking about Serious Crap. I'm actually decent in a crisis now. I don't know if you saw that when you were in crisis because I was so worried about doing the wrong thing and was simply AFRAID, but my competence has its origins in your decline. Your illness and death changed me.

When things go wrong, I pony up. I manage. Stiff upper lip, voicing the unspeakable and all that. 

Except. 

Except I lose my mind sometimes. I rail against the improbability of the cards life has dealt us, now me. I get angry. I am jealous of people who haven't had their lives upended. I despair. I don't know how to go on with a purpose, with joy. It all seems so meaningless without you.  

Like my clothes, this life doesn't feel like it fits. It was a life that worked wonderfully with you, with Us. But now, I don't know why I stay in this place, this job and this house and this life, without you. It no longer makes sense. Yet, I don't know what to do. 

I don't know what I am supposed to do, Chris.

Maybe you would know me now. Unfortunately, most of my life has been this way, feeling like I don't know what to do. I had no idea what to do when you seized that first time. I didn't know what to do when you had a difficult recovery from the first surgery. I was terrified when you would discuss the tumor returning while it was stable. I froze when you started having partial seizures again and then we found out that the tumor did return. I panicked inside as you faced your inevitable death over many months. I cried out of desperation as you slipped away, silently imploring you to stay.

This has been a long journey of acceptance. I am still working on accepting that you are truly gone. I do still beg you to come back... But, when push comes to shove, I am less reliant on the memory of you and Us to guide my decisions. I ask for help from other people because I am forced to, and I want to. I need so much help, so so so much help. That is ok. No woman is an island, I suppose.

The converse of my question hurts in a different way. 

Would I still know you?

Of course. Of course, of course. You are in my dresser, a heavy box of ashes, frozen in time. Your brain cannot rewire, you cannot change. Your goodness is as true as it always was. 

I don't know how to reconcile my aging and your not being.

Would you know me?

You would if you could. 

You would if you only could.

Please. If there is any way that I don't know about, don't believe in... Please help me. Please help me guide our children. Show us how to feel joy. 

Please help me go on more easily, more gracefully. 

I miss you so.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Portal to the Past

Funny how I can live in the same home that once housed our family of four, hold the same job that I started back before the brain tumor, move in the same body that I always had, and yet not constantly be distracted by the breathtaking fact that it's a totally different life. Truthfully, I'm sometimes flummoxed by the framework looking the same as it always did but the reality being different. Mostly I am able to function well but there are landmines yet, unexpected jolts to be had when one of us encounters a forgotten relic from before.

Tonight, it was when we happened on a notebook that belonged to Chris. We opened it to find some of the last notes he wrote at work from February of 2018.  We stared at it. As I sit to recount it now, I imagine a whooshing sound as we stepped through an unexpected portal to the past.

For there he was in that familiar handwriting - right back in front of our eyes - engaged in science, trying to be a good boss, making plans, and writing medical notes, all with those signature boxes to be checked off. His enthusiasm, earnestness, and intelligence were palpable on the page as we scanned notes about matters that ranged from mundane to monumental.

It was hard to read, yet impossible to stop.

It was unspeakably difficult, but we remembered him aloud.

He was RIGHT THERE.

It all could have happened yesterday...

Whoosh - the portal closed. It was four years ago. Four long years ago, and that is just back to the beginning of the most terrible time. Five years ago to the beginning of the end when the tumor returned. Six years ago to the last normal family time. The gap will only lengthen. I imagine the trips through the portal won't feel like yesterday at some point, or maybe they only do to me right now anyway as I think it is not the same for our children.  

For me, the details of that hard time are exquisitely painful and precious. I look at the pages and am transported to a different state, one in which I temporarily feel like I did with him as a partner. There are no words to describe being put back in that life. Every part of life was so much more back then. Happier and more secure in the warmth of our marriage, even as I was totally unable to do anything to stop his death. I had Chris. He had me. We had our family, we were us. It was everything I ever wanted...

I no longer have the life I wanted. The portal closed. It always does. 

Once locked out from these moments, I see in myself an endless ability to wait. I was always good at the long game and tonight I believe that I would wait literally forever for Chris to come back if he could. He and I were so connected, so entwined at the end dealing with the horror, that I do not want anything else. I could continue to manage this less-than life alone and wait a lifetime for him, it would be an honor.

My trips through the portal are illuminating. I cannot control the memories that rush back when I go through, and he comes to me in ways that remind me of what he wanted for me.

He didn't want me to wait. He wanted me to live and be happy.  

I can't give up my quiet vigilance, not yet. I don't want to live without him and I must go on, so I will continue to wait and do it all again tomorrow without him. For tonight it is enough to see it, to name it, to understand what is going on deep under my conscious mind. I will need to give it up at some point, and recognizing that is a step toward laying it down.

In my longing, I do only what I can tonight. I simply beam out my same messages to Chris. 

I love you.

I miss you desperately.

I am sorry for the ways I failed over the years.

Please help me, please come back. Please. I'm sorry for asking the impossible but I need you. We need you.

Thank you for everything.

Thank you.

Thank you. 

Today is Not Forever

 I am being tested by this pandemic. Still. 20 months on. The vaccine for kids ages 5-11 is literally days away from rollout, but my daughter's school has a sizeable covid-19 outbreak. Boom, email went out Sunday night declaring remote school for the affected grade. Trick-or-treat time for me was spent obsessing over what to do.

I just... Can't keep doing this! What am I supposed to do? There is no help to call on. The "rest" of the culture seems to have moved on and I am expected in person at work. She is not very old, obviously, being ineligible for the current vaccine. I am exhausted from the mental calculus of what is acceptable and least objectionable on multiple fronts. I am burned out from living one day at a time for years now. Years of not being able to look forward to a happy future, a good future, will drag you down.

I miss the days of thinking it through with my partner.

I miss the days of passing the baton back and forth to make it work.

I miss the relief of conversation and shared looks. This is nuts but we will get through it.

This week will be hard, but it will pass. If none of us test positive, it will be but an inconvenience. The way this life goes, next week I won't even remember how stressed I was today in the face of the next challenge.

Today is not forever. That is what I need to remember in these moments of desperation.

Today is NOT forever.

Happy Like That

This past Friday was a gorgeous October day. Everyone was excited to get through classes because fall break lay ahead and the campus emptied quickly in the early afternoon. My office was summer-warm and bright as I graded quizzes in the silence, biding my time before an outdoor meet-up with an acquaintance. We had a nice talk over coffee that stretched over an hour or more. Eventually, I felt the pull of home and my thoughts drifted to worrying about who needed me there and whether I had selfishly stayed in my conversation too long.

The drive home was truly spectacular, the stuff New England is famous for – the sinking sun set off the red-orange-yellow leaves against a perfectly clear sky. In such beauty, it should have been a peaceful drive after a productive and good day. Instead, I felt a nagging despair. It worried me in its bleakness.

 It was more than being sad that Chris was gone, though that is part of it. I did wish I was going home to a long weekend of family fun as it seemed “everyone” else was doing. I longed for lighthearted banter amongst the four of us and later conversation just the two of us. My thought process cycled through remembering what I used to have and what I would face when I got home. A mess. A kitchen I would clean up alone. Paperwork and junk mail piling up. Going to bed in silence.

The long weekend hopeless feeling was like staring into a dark abyss and seeing no bottom, no way out, no path forward.

I will never be happy like I used to be. I will never be happy like that again.

Things went from bad to worse. I woke up Saturday morning in a fog, nearly paralyzed with apathy. Minutes and hours passed, but I accomplished very little as I plodded through mundane chores. Then, I turned that lethargy on myself in a barrage of negative thoughts and self-loathing. Later in the day, the tears started and wouldn’t stop. I was in a dark place, and a very snotty and swollen-faced one at that. Talk about a mess…

I will never be happy again.

As I settled down for sleep later, the aggravating cause of my despair became clear. My eyes and nose were not just irritated and running from crying; some nasty bug was hitting me hard. Feeling physically bad had triggered emotional distress before I even realized I was sick. The moment of relieved recognition that there was a reason for feeling so terrible quickly gave way to a different awful thought: I have a virus.

Oh no, what if it is that virus???

A specific worry gave my brain something to do besides despair. Well past midnight, I researched options and made my plan from my bed. I ordered a package of rapid home covid tests for pickup at my pharmacy in the morning. I could use curbside pickup and answer the question about covid with minimal exposure to other people. I would worry about my unvaccinated child once I found out, and I would figure out how to manage two weeks of isolation if needed.

It wasn’t needed. I had an old-fashioned cold, 2019 style. I’ve never been so happy to have a bad cold!

Did you catch that? I felt happy.

I laughed a little at myself. Obviously, I feel happy at times. It’s impossible to be unhappy when a 60-pound coonhound is trying to climb into your lap and wash your face while frantically wagging her tail. It’s impossible to be unhappy when your ten-year-old makes you picture after picture declaring you to be the Best Mom Ever. It’s impossible to be unhappy when your teen is making leaps forward intellectually, socially, and emotionally.  I do indeed have some happiness in every day. Sometimes I am even overtly happy.

Still, I had not been completely wrong. Chris is gone and he cannot come back, so I will not be happy like that again. The feeling I had when we were together cannot be replicated. It was special, and it is over. It turns my insides quivery with panic again to write that truth and lean into it.

There is peace to be found in the other truth, though. I can be happy again.

It just won’t ever be happy like that again.

 

Orders of Magnitude

 

Tomorrow marks one thousand days since Chris died.

Something about that feels momentous. Quadruple digits, if that’s even a thing people say.

It’s been too long. Too much has happened that he has not seen, heard, or experienced in any way. I don’t look for his car to be in the driveway anymore as I return from work. I have lost the inclination to message him. I do not expect him to be at the dinner table nor to help me or the kids in any practical way.

It is not a month mark, nor the date of another year passing by.

Oh yes, this is yet a different time when I compare to earlier experiences. It is tempting to fit the data to a mathematical model - one thousand days is a milestone marking a length of time described by an entirely new order of magnitude.

Zeroth Order, 10⁰ = 1

The first day is a land of its own, the true epicenter from which all else will eventually ripple outward. Day one is such a shock you don’t quite know what happened. He was alive last night and now he is not. His things were packed up from the hospice house and are in a bag on your bedroom floor. It makes no sense. You make calls, take calls, write a list of calls to eventually place. You go to bed alone and it doesn’t feel quite right, but it definitely doesn’t seem real or permanent.

So the zeroth order plays out incrementally, day by near-endless day. Guests. Calls. Plans. Food. Flowers. People look to you and you must make decisions, immediately. You are propelled with the urge to honor him.

As the order comes to a close, you have little idea about what is in store, though you begin to stare out the window in confusion, take a few walks alone and just barely start to comprehend what “died” means.

First Order, 10¹ = 10

The days are counted in double digits. The service is over. Your home is cleared of medical equipment, prescriptions, papers are filed away.

People go home and back to their lives, but you do not get yours back. He does not come home. The tears that didn’t really come cannot be stopped. The pain is unbelievable.

Days tick on through double digits and you try to keep going, but you don’t know how. You are a stranger in your own home, an alien in the shell of your old life.

The first order is nearly indescribable in its horror.

Second Order, 10² = 100 

In days counted by triple digits, he’s been gone a little while, but it is still so fresh. You have survived a few firsts without him, but now you slog through that first year. It is very, very hard.

The triple digit days feature one season changing into the next, holiday following holiday, one year turning into two. The kids grow and need new shoes, new clothes, then they go to new schools. They are smart and funny, thriving even, but they miss him. There is not enough of you to go around for hugs, games of catch, homework help, and cheering section. Even if you could do it all, they need him anyway. All of you begin to know it in your bones that he is not coming back.

You begin to manage.

In the waning days of this order, people don’t understand. They are surprised by your sadness. They think you should be over it or assume you are back to normal, not comprehending that there was no normal left to return to. You are a different person with a different life, but never asked for that.

Third Order, 10³ = 1000

You make all the decisions alone, and while it is good to feel more comfortable with that, it lacks joy. You see that life stretches ahead and it would be a shame to waste it only looking back. The real work is making something of what is left because he is not coming back. He is simply not coming back.

This order is long, 1000-9999 days. It will encompass more than two decades. You could easily die in this order of magnitude. Or, you might be in your late sixties as it nears the next order.

I worry about this order. If I do that hard work and build a new life for myself, will it ever be as good? And if it were, would I lose him completely?

At the end of this order of magnitude, will I still be able to hear his voice in my head? Will I remember our life together? Will I feel connected to him?

It seems the task of the days ahead is to let go a bit to be able to live more fully. I really don’t want to.

In the end…

Perhaps the mathematical model doesn’t fit. It was a decent experiment, but the R² value was poor. In other words, day 1000 does not have to be a milestone marking an unwelcome phase. The experience of loss is not linear, nor logarithmic. I can look all I want for patterns, analogies, and sense, but the truth is that the thousandth day is just one more day in a long line of days without Chris. My feelings will be up and down, here and there and back again.

I miss him, and that’s okay.

I am trying hard to do new things and meet new people even while I look back longingly.

I can call up his voice in my head and feel his support even as I forge my singular path onward.

I survived 999 days before today. I will do it again today, and then I will wake up and do it again tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Anniversary Reflections: The Two Sentences Left Out

 July 31, 2021 was a Saturday, just like it was in 2004. Alone, I marked 17 years since I was married. It was a hard day trying to act normal while feeling hurt-angry, like a wounded animal. Although I do not believe that Chris can hear my thoughts or read my words, it occasionally helps to address him directly. Sometimes I simply plead for him to come back or to help me. Other times I have more to say or feel he deserves better from me, like that milestone day which has taken some time to process.

…

If I were a better person, maybe today would have been one of gratitude for the love we shared, for re-reading our vows and looking at pictures with thanks running through my head. I’m not, so I didn’t do those things…

The pictures hurt too much to look at. In fact, I removed our wedding picture from the mantle long ago because it became confusing to see our young, happy faces in the photo while the me in the mirror ages alone, muddles through alone. It was not helpful to my daily life without you to see us smiling from atop the fireplace, so I replaced it with a family picture.

Though I do not have them memorized, I don’t need to read the words we said during our wedding because the essence of them is indelibly imprinted on my mind. We both put our unique spin on the traditional words, and I know we both meant those promises. We lived them fully and deeply, and I am proud of us every day.

Today I couldn’t bring myself to conjure those memories. Instead, I was focused on the two sentences that were left out from the vows. The sentences that we didn’t know on our wedding day, that were handed down soon after with a terrible cruelty.

Yours, of course, was the death sentence. Nobody could see it on our wedding day, but the tumor was probably already there extending its tendrils through your brilliant brain, penning the prologue to your untimely demise. It was later revealed that you would be required to loosen your grip on everything you loved, including me, and die before you were finished.

For some reason that defies logic, or more accurately for no reason at all, I got life. There was no way to know it back then, but mine was a life sentence of living without you.

These sentences were not about delivering justice; rather biology and neuroscience blindly dealt them to us - death for you and life for me (for now).

…

I am not serving out my life sentence gracefully, Chris. I miss you with a ferocity that alarms me. The bottomless pit of sadness scares me more. Quite simply, I struggle. I wish you could help me with this as inane as that sounds.

Often, I wonder what I could have done differently and better throughout our marriage. I go down the rabbit hole of wondering if I was actually good enough for you and whether most people think the better person died. I know that I should have worried less and had more fun in too many moments. As you faced down your death sentence, I should have been less afraid to cross a line and instead asked more questions about what you were feeling, to give you more chances to talk. I am not sure if I “should” have sought your counsel about my life sentence, but I wish I had not avoided discussing it with you. We did talk some, but I held back because I was worried about hurting you with my worries about my future life, which you did not have.

…

As guests have once again come to our house after so many months of isolation, I recently landed in proximity to the marriages of others and glimpsed the periphery of their private worlds. I was reminded how a marriage gives an individual support, lends counsel, provides a respite. A few times this called some of our own magic to mind, but the relief of that ephemeral sense was immediately followed by the punch that the magic is just a memory now. Similarly, I allowed myself to wear my rings for a few hours today. They slid on perfectly and looked simple and beautiful, as they always did. I felt both immensely relieved and like an incredible fraud, so I removed them before anyone else noticed.

You were my counsel, Chris. I always looked to you, relied on you, and you never once disappointed me.

You were my delight. I laughed freely when you were animated. I was proud of your accomplishments and more so of the way you treated people and moved in the world.

You were my comfort. In you, I found true respite - I could draw a deep breath and let it all the way out. When we were together, everything felt okay even when it most certainly was not.

You were my love.

You are not here anymore.

…

It feels like someone dropped a neat spool of thread the day you died and it has been haphazardly rolling away ever since. Now there is so much thread strewn on the floor, bunched up and tangled, that it would be impossible to straighten the length out and wind it neatly to get back that perfect spool of life with you.

Similarly, I have thought about what is left of you, tucked away in my dresser. My brain understands that I could never reconstitute you by adding water to the small box containing your ash and bone bits.

The futility of that imagery forces me to see that it’s impossible to go back.

My heart desperately still wants to.

…

This is my life sentence: I missed you terribly yesterday, I woke up today aching from missing you, and I will miss you just as much tomorrow.

It hurts so much because we loved each other so completely. I think you knew that I loved you then, and I wish you could know that I love you now and will love you until my own time comes. Despite my pain, this is the greatest privilege of my life and I want you to know that.

You served your sentence magnificently, Chris. I will forever be in awe of your bravery, gentleness, and your focus on love as you moved toward the moment of your death.

Thank you for everything.

I love you.

 

Constant Juggling and Missing Him

An ocean churns in my mind, every single day. I come here to document it when I can, because it helps. It is sometimes a good thing when I don't write because I'm in a good place, but sometimes I'm in a bad place and avoid doing helpful things... Time to jot a few things down.

...

 I'm tired tonight. I feel one hundred years old. I wake most mornings thinking of Chris and pondering this less-than life, wondering what the hell happened and what it all means. I struggle with this late pandemic existence, trying to forge meaning or at least beat back apathy when there are still so many limitations and necessary precautions to take.

I miss him. 

How many ways can I say that?

How long will that be the undercurrent of my consciousness? 

What will it mean when I am not crying that I miss him with every cell of my being? Will that ever happen, anyway?

...

I messed up tonight. Nothing major. It just broke my spirit a little. I had shuttled kids around to different locations and was finally relaxing at a game, feeling a bit smug because from my chair I had ordered Thai takeout from a new-to-us place on the route home. As the game dragged on, I realized that I should check the restaurant's hours. Shoot. It was 8:15, top of the 6th with home team still needing to bat, and this place closed at 8:30. Shoot shoot shoot.

I decided to leave the game to pick up the food and come back for the child. I hoped I could make it back for the end of the game, but still I messaged the coach regarding my whereabouts, feeling like an idiot. Of course, the game was called for darkness as I was several minutes away. In the end kiddo only waited a few minutes and survived just fine. The food was not wasted. It was okay. But, I HATE this. I absolutely HATE this life of constant juggling, needing help, being out of control, feeling like a loser. 

...

The worst is feeling guilty for hating this. Chris would be here if he had any choice in the matter. Why can't I have a better attitude? 

It is time to go to bed. He always advised me to do so when I was in such moods. Everything is worse when you're tired. My husband was always wise and full of compassion for me. I will try to channel it now to show myself.

Replace in Ten Years

 

When Chris and I were house hunting in our happy year of 2007, we chose an area that would split the difference between our two work locations. We looked at a handful of properties in this unfamiliar region, but not one of those houses was quite right until the last, of course. When we toured the house that is now our home, we saw that the kitchen wasn’t ideal in its style and  having only one drawer, and that storage space was lacking in the house in general. Still, the house had no red flags like the others we had seen, and it checked every one of our non-negotiable boxes. We exchanged a lot of looks on that tour telegraphing our mutual interest.

We went straight from the showing to grab pizza, just the two of us, and talked it over. Though excited, I had general misgivings over such a large decision. Chris was sure we were ready and, as usual, I trusted his judgment completely. We took the leap and made an offer. There was a little negotiation that Saturday afternoon and somewhere in the middle of that, a few questions were answered between the real estate agents. The homeowners wanted us to know that they found the attic quite useful for storage if we hadn’t checked it out (we had not). During the inspection process, Chris explored the attic and reported that it would indeed assuage the storage deficiencies in the main living areas of the house. The attic became his domain from that day on.  

Oh, Chris was a natural organizer. He measured the trapdoor and the width of the ladder steps, then purchased a dozen or more sturdy plastic storage boxes that could be boosted up and stowed in the attic. We used those boxes first to move, then to store holiday decorations and off-season clothes, and later baby equipment and clothes that we might use later. Every box was neatly labeled in his handwriting and stored tidily in the attic. My role was supportive. I would pack some of the boxes, bring them to the ladder steps, and hoist them up to Chris who would busily tuck them away according to his system. When holidays rolled around, he would climb the ladder and find the relevant boxes to hand down to me. We were a good team…

As we headed into what we knew would be the last Christmas holiday season for Chris, many things quickly changed and became painfully different. He could not climb the ladder to root out the boxes of decorations. As I did that fall with so many things that had typically fallen under his domain or ours, I tackled the task alone, as robotically and quickly as possible. The less time I spent doing it, the less time I would be thinking about how horrifying it was that he could not do it himself, and how sickening it was to know that he would not be here at this time next year.

After Chris died, I dreaded going into the attic. Eventually I would have to do it and I did, just like everything else in the after. On those occasions, I would climb the steps, flip the light on, and stare at our old life all boxed up. The still, stale air of the attic would instantly feel suffocating as my eyes would settle on one label after another, his handwriting as familiar as my own. I would have to remember to breathe as I looked around at the artifacts of our shared, now past life. Vivid memories relentlessly rushed over me and clashed with the harsh reality that he is dead. There was no sense to be made in the attic.

How can someone’s belongings, even someone’s simply written sticky notes, still be here while he is not?

What. The. Hell. Happened.

Time has passed and, just like many other things, it has become easier to go into the attic. Not easy. But noticeably easier.

Many months ago now, we heard an intermittent electronic beeping from the attic. I knew exactly what it was - the smoke alarm battery was dying and the unit needed to be replaced. I knew this because as one climbs the ladder and enters the attic, you directly face an overhead beam to which the alarm is affixed. Chris being Chris, he had also typed and mounted an accompanying reminder that read, “Replace by April 2021.” The alarm was expected to last ten years. It was just a few months shy of that.

Every time I went into the attic, I read the instructions about the alarm replacement. Those simple words always gave me pause. What was Chris thinking when he made that note? It must have been the spring of 2011, a few years into his brain tumor experience for which he had accepted his prognosis of 10-20 years. As he read about the ten-year battery expectancy, did he do the comparison math? As he drilled the holes for the mounting bracket, did he wonder if he would still be alive when the new alarm expired? I know he was optimistic and hoped to be on the 20-year side of the prognosis, but how often did he worry or even assume he’d be closer to the 10-year side of things? Did he have a premonition that he would not be the one to make the next replacement and that note was meant for me, to help me take care of the family in the after?

There is absolutely no way Chris did not contemplate whether he’d be alive in ten years as he taped his note next to the new alarm. He told me once during the good years of tumor inactivity that he thought about dying every single day, how it would play out and when. On the day he typed that replacement reminder in the spring of 2011, our second baby had only been a few weeks old. The choice to have a second child while also having a terminal brain tumor had been weighty, truly monumental for him. Would he live long enough for this new child to know him, to form lasting memories of him? Our newborn would be ten when the alarm replacement date rolled around. Chris must have wondered, Will I be here in April, 2021?

Funny how time marches on, whether we humans are here or not. Chris was on the shorter end of the prognosis, dying eleven years after his diagnosis. The smoke alarm he put up in 2011 lasted longer than he did…

Though I did purchase a new detector in a timely manner, I dragged my feet about installing it.  The new alarm sat on the kitchen counter for a long time. I simply did not want to face the attic for this task. I didn’t want to take down the note Chris left, and I didn’t want to throw it away once I did. Most of all, I didn’t want to think about the pain Chris must have felt facing his own mortality on the day he replaced the last detector and on so many, many days between his diagnosis and death.

Eventually I did fetch the required tools and climbed the ladder to the attic, new alarm in hand. I took a minute to think about Chris before starting. In my head, I talked to him a bit as I often do. There were some tears as I told him how much I miss him, how much I love him. I apologized for not asking him more questions about what he grappled with, for sometimes not being receptive to his need to talk about his inevitable disease progression before it happened because of my fear of losing him. But mostly I thanked him for being such a good partner, for taking excellent care of us, for leading with kindness and gentleness in all situations, for being so incredibly brave, and for agreeing to add our second child to our family when he knew he would not be here to see her to adulthood.    

Then, I tackled the job. I removed the old alarm and saw that the mounting bracket would not work for the new one, so I unscrewed that as well. I’ve learned to enjoy using power tools, and took satisfaction in drilling two new holes and screwing in the new bracket. Once the alarm was installed, I knew what the last step was. Using permanent marker, I wrote on the alarm cover, “Replace Fall 2030.”

As I wrote the year 2030, that year felt impossibly distant. I did the easy math; I would be turning 53 years old in the fall of 2030. My mind raced ahead with the calculations and I realized that the kids will both be launched into adulthood by that time and will not likely be living in the house year-round. I wondered if I would be living in this house in that year, and if I would still have the same job, and if my hair would be white. Then, my thoughts turned more serious. Will my parents still be alive? I shuddered with the pain of losing them someday… Will I still be alone, unpartnered? And finally, of course…

Will I still be alive in ten years?

I blanched at these thoughts. I do not feel strong enough to bear another major loss. And, much as I sometimes do not want to keep on going, I honestly do not want to die any time soon. What would the kids do if they did not have a parent for most of their lives?

I don’t know the answers or solutions to any of these musings. The only certainty is that we all must die someday, not one of us can know the day or the hour…

With no other resolution to be found, I leaned back to inspect my work. The detector was firmly attached. My instructions, though not as neat as the typed note Chris had left, would let the future homeowner, whomever that may be, know when to replace the detector to keep the residents safe.