I’m looking at pictures from previous winters and getting jealous of the snow we’ve often had by the first week of January.
Mary loved the snow. Whenever someone would grumble about forecasted flurries she would retort, “Bring it on!”
Bring it On!
Christmas Firsts
I have almost everything wrapped and the stockings are ready. I’m not going to know what to with myself Christmas Eve night!
There will be another first this Christmas Eve and morning, at least a first in four years. I won’t be the lone adult in my house.
Kristen will spend the weekend with us and her daughter will join us Christmas afternoon.
It will be the most full Christmas my home has seen since we lost our Mary. I’ve been proud of the last few years and taking on single fatherhood. The excited energy of holidays has been counterbalanced with quiet loneliness.
I’m blessed with a partner who wants to be an integrated part of our lives. Kristen isn’t afraid of our loss or my enduring love for my late wife. She doesn’t want to replace, doesn’t ask me to forget, and always welcomes my memories and tears.
Christmas was Mary’s favorite. I can hardly sort through all her decorations and photos each year, much less put them all to use. I think she would be proud of our scrappy little displays, less scrappy with each year.
It’s a special time in our lives to share her with the wonderful, loving people who surround us.
Christmas Helpers
Ten years ago, we couldn’t keep Isaac off the ladder as Westen helped Mary place the star on our tree.
Today, these boys grabbed the tree out of the van and placed it without waiting for me.
That Was Quick
Breaking records every week.
September 15th, 2022, would have been my 15th wedding anniversary. I wasn’t anxious leading up to the day. I’m in a positive place with my grief right now.
I went to yoga that morning and all was chill. The ladies in the class were talking about dying their hair and I was content to silently prepare myself for practice.
Then the teacher told a story about her husband cutting his own hair in horrible fashion weeks before their wedding. I chimed in, “Oh, I have a funny story like that. Wow. Today’s my wedding anniversary.” Maybe one of them knew I was a widower, but I was not up for repeating that part of the story.
On the morning of my wedding I was nervous and wanted to do an extra special job on my beard. I used the electric trimmer closer than usual and took a line of hair out of one sideburn. I was sick. I just ruined our photos and Mary would have to stare at this foolishness during our vows.
It turned out that no one noticed and you can’t see the mistake in the photos.
Back to yoga and a few laughs over the story. Time for practice. Before I could settle into my first pose, tears flowed down my face. A quiet, hot crying, highly preferable to heaving sobbing.
I didn’t sit too long in the sadness. We had ten years of marriage and it struck me that I’m halfway to ten years without it. It feels like distance from something I love. Not “loved,” but a life I care deeply for in the present.
I recently heard Joseph Campbell talk about how grief gives us an intimation of the everlasting. It allows us to imagine life after death, to see how we could live forever.
I was fortunate to experience a glimpse of forever this week.
Congenital Music Madness
Beastie Boys, Rage Against the Machine, Citizen Cope, The Crow soundtrack, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Carolina Chocolate Drops have been blasting from my sons’ room.
We’ve been rearranging things and my 13-year-old discovered his mom’s CD stash a few days ago. Today I let him at the music I’ve been collecting for 30 years.
Before Home Education
We were new (tired) parents in 2009 and didn’t have a grand educational philosophy or plan for future schooling.
I was excited to read to my baby son, but we had hardly any children’s books and I wasn’t terribly interested in that kind of material yet.
I picked up Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days and started reading aloud to my one-month-old.
He fell asleep on me most times and I kept on reading because it felt like a magic spell. Sometimes I fell asleep.
Mary laughed everytime I said, “Passepartout,” and it strikes me that Westen just this week discovered an interest in French that was unexpected. Although, he says, he may switch to Spanish.
I always try to remind parents interested in home education that they’ve been doing it for years. No child between the ages of 1 and 5 needs school to learn a vast amount of skills and knowledge. No one needs any school after that either. We’ve been conditioned to accept school as a universal, yet we are born to learn. The home education community is growing exponentially and the examples of children thriving without school are plentiful.
Flashback Friday
To a joyous day at Longwood Gardens with our boys in 2012.
Always Making Friends
I got to meet new people (and a couple spiders) today and share my story.
It’s been a remarkable journey from husband to dad to believer to widower to something greater than the sum of those parts.
I’m grateful to God for all my blessings, the bountiful ones as well as the difficult ones that have taught me much.
The Greatest Thing About the Shittiest Thing About Grief
I’ve denied my loneliness.
I don’t even know how long I’ve been lonely. I haven’t allowed myself to feel it most times.
This past weekend I took my sons to camp with home education friends. It was the type of gathering that Mary loved so much, with tons of food, fun, adventure, and laughter. I had her favorite camp chair, coffee mug, and the tent we decided to buy, but didn’t receive until after she passed away. Camping always brings out Mary stories and every campfire is like going home with her.
I’ve lived these four years without her as a prideful single dad. I’ve been setting up and breaking down camps with little adult help and I’ve felt strong. That’s changing as I see I have a romantic partner who I can lean on and trust with tasks I assumed were my responsibility. She wasn’t with me this weekend, but my friends were generous with their help. I’ve grown a better practice of accepting help, but I still felt weakness. As I drove home (on schedule, thanks to my friends), I was overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy. Triggered by wet tarps and sandy bike tires, it ran right down to not being the type of husband who could protect his wife’s life.
That’s one of the shittiest things about grief. It’ll take new feelings and tie them up with the past or some impossible present. I’m a better man than the one who lost Mary. What if I had been better for her? What would my life look like now? Then comes the guilt of not appreciating the wonderful people and things in my life now. Then none of it makes sense and I’m just crying behind the wheel of a 19-foot RV as I make my way to play soccer.
At least I know how this goes. I keep the truck on the road, let the tears do their thing, and feel a whole lot better, if a little drained.
I performed well in the game, but the emotional toll weakened me enough to bring on a nagging blueness complete with brain fog and body aches. The next day I learned that I had missed a dedication ceremony for Mary. The storm of emotions has held my recovery in slow motion. Three days later, this morning, I finally received the answer about my loneliness. I had been hiding from it. I didn’t want to admit that I was counting on anyone for anything. I’m now accepting my loneliness and being honest with myself about who I can lean on and who I cannot.
Some of it is clear and some not, but I needed to return to this space and start a new chapter of healing. That’s the greatest thing about the shittiest thing about grief: if you are lucky enough to turn the pain into healing, you will forever have a source of improved spiritual, mental, and physical health.
Fireside Chats
Growing up with camping and a lot of outdoor play (and being a troublemaking boy), I have always loved fires. When I met my wife, her passion for tending fires inside and out drew me closer immediately. As we started a family and the boys approached school age, we sat at our fire pan and discussed the possibility of homeschooling. Soon that turned to discussions of all the things we were doing wrong. Yet, through all the mistakes, we saw the horizon becoming clearer. The potential of what we were attempting changed us. “Unschooling” and “deschooling” became the next wild topics around the fire after the boys were in bed. The ground under our assumptions start to shift; our parenting changed, our politics changed, we became Christians, and our priorities narrowed in focus.
Mary passed away during this process, five months after we were baptized into Christ’s arms. I got a cord of firewood delivered to the house during her short hospital stay. I still don’t know why. Irrational hope? A grasp at normalcy? Making the first declaration about things that would not change?
What I do know is that fire is magical. I remember Mary in every fire. There’s nothing more dynamic and active, yet calming. We were like that too. I was the flickering flames jumping about and she was the glowing embers, moving around the wood with relaxed intention.
Thank you for letting me share my memories with you. Have a blessed day.
