Category: Memories of Mary

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Dear Mary,

I asked God to take me to you last night.

I know you wouldn’t want that so I’m finally writing to you. A confession, I suppose.

I love you and I miss everything. I miss your hair and I miss your laugh when the boys would find your tickle spot. I miss our team, our problem solving, our only-together-will-we-get-through-this approach, and our devotion and loyalty to each other and our family.

I keep grasping for these feelings to mean something, to have utility. I guess it doesn’t always work that way.

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Sharing Shakespeare

Three years ago today, we sat in our minivan outside a senior center and listened to a children’s adaptation of “Pericles” before seeing Delaware Shakespeare’s production. With the modest bribe of a lollipop at intermission, we survived the nearly three-hour show and brothel scenes that hadn’t made the cut into the younger version. I was touched by the heartache of a father who was losing everything her cared for. I had no idea how I was being prepared to face my own loss.

Eight years before that I took my new bride, Mary, to see her first Shakespeare on our honeymoon in London, “Macbeth.” I had no idea how the Bard would become a central figure in our lives.

Tonight I was blessed to take a soul mate to her first Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet.” Again performed by the talented folks at Delaware Shakespeare. She loved it and I have found a new thread reaching back through time to help make this new life make sense.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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This #MondayMorning is brought to you by coffee, magic, and love.

Single dading is complicated, single-dad dating is fumbling with a Rubik’s Cube on a moonless night in the woods. Throw in a deceased wife, #unschooling, and a stubborn drive to challenge societal conventions and coupling starts to look impossible.

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Months ago that word entered my mind like this, “What am I doing? This is impossible. I hardly know how I got here, how can I move forward?”

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Impossible. It was already impossible. Mary loved our learning lifestyle and the evolution of our homeschool into an unschool. That love gave her an insight into her own death. Mary was moved to increase her life insurance policy less than two years before her passing. She expressed a desire for us to carry on for a while in case of her absence. She was the breadwinner and I trusted her, so we made the adjustments in our financial plans.

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Her access to Love was easy, so easy that she just strolled in its glow. Mary’s stroll was direct and paced with purpose. When I followed and watched her, I learned the habits of Love. I learned what it meant to try to be like Jesus Christ. She never would have put it that way, but I saw it when she encouraged me to Bible study. I took an honest and direct look at Christ’s life and realized I wanted to be more like that. I realized that without having ever quoted Scripture, Mary was showing me the Way. We were baptized as a family a mere five months before we lost her. The Aldersgate United Methodist Church family has been a foundational piece of our impossible puzzle. Christ’s example of reaching out to each and every human has opened my heart to relationships as varied as the seven billion people on Earth. I’ve found Love in playgrounds, libraries, yoga studios, and even the internet.

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The trouble is…I ain’t no Christ. I’m broken, fallen, and carrying more trauma than one lifetime can account for. I am easily bored by people, I have a temper with my sons, and if I’m not bored with you, I’ll probably love you to pieces. I never regret falling in romantic love, but I tend to do it easily. I enjoy being in the presence of women and I have passions for sex, family, and companionship that bring me no shame.

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That’s a lot to bring on a first date. There haven’t been a lot of second dates.

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Then I met Pinar. Not on a dating site, but online. We had been in the same small field, at the same small festival and followed each other on Instagram as locals a few months previous to her being moved to read my story. She reached out to me and we met by a quidditch field as my boys ran around on their “brooms.” I told her about Mary and she told me about studying astrophysics and surprised us with an invitation to an astronomy talk and planetarium show at Mount Cuba Astronomical Observatory that evening. Her intuition for an unschool adventure touched me. It was the kind of weeknight move that was habit for me and Mary, but that had come from years of talking and planning outings together. As I sat in the dark with this woman who had no children, I felt an energy very much like I had when I first met Mary and saw her with her nieces. I felt bold like I had with Mary, I wanted to put my arm around her.

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This wasn’t supposed to be a date!

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I kept my hands to myself until we hugged goodbye in the rain. Until our lips touched, I didn’t think it would happen. I wasn’t thinking at all.

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Five days later we had our first “official” date, a day at Longwood Gardens. We fell in love and, more surprisingly, had the courage to share our feelings for one another. It was a magical day at a magical place. Mary loved it there, we visited often as a family and on our own dates. She was present on this day too. A smartly dressed woman, maybe 60, was admiring crocuses growing out of pachysandra. I only knew crocuses to bloom in the winter, I only knew crocuses or pachysandra at all because of Mary. I asked her if they were unusual and she told me these were autumn crocuses. I thank her and she walked off. Pinar said, “I think that was Mary. Something, the way you talked to her maybe.” I turned to watch her stroll down the hill, a confident, determined stroll. Her outfit and style, cropped and tidy white hair, it could have been Mary in fifteen years.

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Mary left me with a feeling of love that has made the impossible become a beautiful reality. She left me with a faith in Love that allowed me to meet a soul mate. She continues to show up to support me.

Last night Pinar gave me a Harry Potter mug that reveals Harry’s stag patronus when filled with my favorite hot beverage. It was special as we’ve bonded over coffee and magic. It became magic in itself this morning as I tried it for the first time. I sat down to write at my laptop and couldn’t find the power cord. I searched Mary’s old laptop bag. On the corner was a button I hadn’t seen in years. She used this bag at work and it rarely came home.

We had read the books aloud to our sons, but were never Potterheads. This was an unusual token to encounter. It has reinforced my feeling of being in the right place, at the right time, whether that may be impossible or not.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Memories of Mary: Halloween 2014

My life with Mary was full of adventure. Whether it was going to a new place or handing sharp tools to our three-year-old, we were always exploring possibilities.

Each year, as Halloween approached, we would gather around the dining room table with friends and family to carve pumpkins. As with all holidays, Mary was queen. Vintage decorations, bins of costume elements, and carving kits were at the ready.

Knives and gooey guts, the boys were always in their glory and Mary loved every minute of it. I think of us team working and juggling the prep, execution, and clean-up. We both came from team sports backgrounds and it was our greatest skill.

Happy Halloween!

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Z3 Adventure: Delfest ’18

On the morning of Saturday, February 10th, my sons trained at their Brazilian jiu-jitsu studio, then were summoned by their father to Wilmington Hospital. Mom had been there for a week. Dad had been a rare sight. They were in their gis, cuter and stronger than any children I know. I sat them down on a bench outside their mother’s room. I confirmed that they understood how sick Mom was. I told them that she would probably not survive this. Hugs and crying. We were then in the currents of things we could not control. Their mother, Mary, would pass into the hands of God two days later.

We can’t control this moment, but we can plan the next. In that hallway I cooked up a road trip. “This will be a beginning,” I said to myself. Nothing radical. We were campers and festival goers already. The Delfest lineup was perfect. As littles, the boys had seen Rhiannon Giddens as a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops at the Appel Farm Arts and Music Festival in 2012. 

Front row. Zerbey style.

Six years later (essentially their whole lives), they’d get to see her again in all her iconoclastic-americana-irish-opera-fusion glory. I didn’t cry, but got pretty damn close to what might be called “crying.” My sons loved it and we had our first night together in a tent as the Zerbey Three.

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Who Is Delaware Dad?








Who is Delaware Dad?

When our second son was born seven years ago my wife and I decided that I would leave my job as a proofreader and editor to take care of our boys. Exploring our world with these wide-eyed wonders quickly became my calling. We visited museums, zoos, parks, and any place that would admit us. I saw the unexpected connections the boys made between our expeditions, read aloud sessions, and play time. “Unexpected” would be a good title for the rest of the story. We watched how they learned and decided to try home education. We analyzed the trials and tribulations, looked at the results, and fell in love with the lifestyle. Smaller in material ways, but seemingly boundless in love and learning.

We became libertarians, then Christians. We put God, family, love, and learning at the center of our universe and it seemed to be working out.

Then my wife, Mary, got the flu. She was healthy and strong by any standard. She went to her doctor, we went to urgent care, we went to the emergency department, we went back to the emergency department. She was gone six days later.

Delaware Dad was born shortly before Mary’s passing. I wanted to share our experiences with home education, my love of Delaware and the tri-state area, and help other families find their own adventures. I am so excited and grateful to be able to write for Macaroni Kid. We haven’t stopped exploring, learning, and loving.

God has given us an unexpected life. One that I believe is worth sharing and can help others. Feel free to reach out to me on Facebook to share your local favorites, educational opportunities, and any questions you may have about our grief journey. I look forward to bringing the best Delaware has to offer to you and your family.

God bless,
Jason Zerbey

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The Wrong System Restore Date

During Mary’s final days, I was inspired to take my sons on a real adventure. Mary took every opportunity to spend time with her family. Not one vacation hour was ever held over year to year. She was present as often as possible and we are (literally) eternally grateful for the time we all had together. She would amass her paid time off and start rigging the calendar in January to prepare for her favorite two weeks of the year, and by December we would have her all to ourselves to close out each year. But we never took time for a proper road trip adventure.

It took me three months after Mary’s passing to pull out of the driveway in a borrowed 19-foot RoadTrek 190 with little idea of how long we would be gone or how far we would go. After nearly seven weeks and 3,000 miles of visiting with friends and family, wandering, and exploring, we rolled back into that driveway and we had gone far.

But I messed up.

In the three months between Mary’s death and the trip I had started to develop our new life. Laundry, dishes, meals, bedtime, church, play, rest, blogging, personal business sorting, soccer, jiu-jitsu, Facebook engagement…everything was different in small and large ways. I was watching the changes, analyzing them, and through trial-and-error and important prioritizing, I was internalizing and owning those changes.

I thought the road trip would be an extension of that process. A way to prove to myself that the Zerbey Three could love each other, adventure, and still get the basic practicals done. It felt that way for six weeks and three days. Then I got sick with a nasty stomach bug and was blessed to be staying with Mary’s parents. I know I’m not going to do this alone, but I was almost incapable of providing for my sons and lying in bed thinking about what was next. Going home. It was one of those changes I hadn’t faced. Mary wasn’t there to build the ready-for-the-car pile in the hall. Mary wasn’t there to negotiate our departure time. Mary wasn’t there to wrangle with her mom about how much food we’d take with us. All of a sudden, she was gone again. Driving home, I had that empty passenger seat and no one to figure out what “had to” come in the house tonight and what could wait. I lost all the rhythms I composed in those first three months. I didn’t have enough food in the fridge and the washing machine wouldn’t accept any quarters.

I’ve got to look at this reset as an opportunity to do things better. I made a ton of mistakes in those first months. I hadn’t elaborated a perfect system that’s now lost. I had a survival system that would not last and now needs a full rebuild. So, I’ve got my first pot of coffee and blog post going. I think that’s something.

God bless,
Jason

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Word Up

Mary and I started out slow. We had each been hurt, but refused to be damaged. It was the MySpace-to-Facebook-pre-social-media-insanity era and we didn’t communicate online much. Before our first date, an analog miscommunication led me to believe she wasn’t interested and I thought, “Oh well, another flirt bites the dust.” We didn’t have these tools to express every anxiety and emotional whim as they arose.

I didn’t see our initial attraction turning into something greater. A good, healthy summer fling with a pretty, kind girl who hardly got me into any trouble. A win, but alas, no more than that.

I invited her to an outdoor wedding for what I thought was our last date. A five-hour round trip in my noisy ’95 Eagle Talon on the hottest day of August, 2004, with a lot of people neither of us knew. I figured that would be it. At best it would be a tiring affair and a low key end to a low key romance.

We sat with my mother and grandmother and had a better time than, I daresay, anyone there. I don’t know how we did it, dabbing (read: mopping) sweat and laughing like mad hatters through the day.

We got to southern Delaware late, stretched out under the stars, watched meteors fly overhead, and at 25 I asked this 33-year-old to be my girlfriend. We weren’t in love, but we could see it coming.

Our relationship didn’t heat up, but it swelled and matured like time lapse photography. Ahead of the game, as usual, Mary felt and expressed her love first in early December. I didn’t come around until her birthday three days before Christmas. So I loved this gal and had bought her a DVD player. Forget the fact that she received one for her birthday, this was not going to cut it.

I wrote her a letter. I just found it and had all but forgotten that first Christmas gift.

It wasn’t a revelation or poetry, but no object could have come close to showing how I felt about Mary. I could have terrified her (and myself) and told her how I wanted to be with her forever, but I reserved myself to writing how this was something wholly different than I had ever experienced.

We were never apart long enough to exchange letters, but left notes for one another; expressed our heaviest grievances on paper before discussing; and constantly shared emails about new events to attend, my latest unschool win or loss, and her work day. I’ve even found emails from me that Mary printed to keep.

I’m blessed to have all those words. As that life with Mary gets more distant, the notes and emails and that most important letter are still here.

We have a lot of pictures, but the words interpret them, show us what they meant at the time, especially when our memory deceives us.

Blogging this journey through grief and into a new life has been vital, but there is so much more to share. I’ve been inspired to return to letter writing and send permanent pieces of myself into the world. Revive relationships, tell stories, and grow the joy I’ve always had in creating written works.

I feel a lot less alone when I’m scratching out a letter, I feel like I’m connecting to someone now, in the future when they receive it, and maybe again in a later future. It’s bigger than a moment. It’s taking a moment and recording it, translating it, and stretching it out over time and space.

God bless,
Jason

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Waking Up With Iggy Pop

I’m gonna break into your heart
I’m gonna crawl under your skin
I’m gonna break into your heart
And follow till I see where you begin

-Iggy Pop, “Break Into Your Heart”

Mary would not have liked to hear this first thing in the morning.

She broke into my heart at a time when I was completing construction of another defensive shield. She opened me up to a world that I was reluctantly giving up on. She introduced me to a big family and community of friends and showed me how to navigate all these wonderful people.

Mary’s death hasn’t broken my heart, but broken into it. It’s the excitement and possibility of a new love, the terror of being found out to be an unworthy sinner, and the adrenaline pump of being one goal down with four minutes to go.

Mary was the perfect concert mate, even when she wasn’t particularly thrilled about the artist. This show was something special. It was shortly after David Bowie had died and Iggy didn’t mention him once, but played almost all of The Idiot, an album he wrote and recorded with Bowie. He played his best material with the tightest backing band. Although I failed to turn her into a fan, she thoroughly enjoyed the show and I earned permission to play the cleaner songs around the house.

Life is different around here, nowadays you might find the Zerbey Three listening to this gem:

God bless,

Jason