The First Three Sentences

If you were to walk into my bathroom, you’d see two wedding rings hanging from the mirror on a 3M Command hook.  One is Bride’s, the other is mine.  They hang together on a necklace I bought shortly after Sandy died.  I wore it with just her ring, then in August it carried just my ring.   Then, I put both our rings on it and hung it on the bathroom mirror where I could see it every morning and every night.  The surprising part wasn’t that I took it off, I knew I would eventually.  The interesting part is what taking it off meant.

Grief has a funny way of attaching itself to objects and my brain.  After Sandy died, I needed something tangible.  Something I could reach up and touch when the reality of what happened hit me all over again.   The necklace and the rings became that thing.  At first it was just her ring.  I would catch myself holding it when I was thinking about her.  I would reach for it without realizing I was doing it.  It wasn’t jewelry as much as it was a lifeline. I never intended to wear it forever.  And early on, I just couldn’t imagine the day I wouldn’t.  And then one day I took it off.  Not because of some grand decision.  Not because I was trying to prove anything.  The first time I took it off, I put it in a dish.  The second time I took it off, I hung it on the bathroom mirror.

Looking back, I think I was experimenting without realizing it.  For a while I thought the necklace was keeping me connected to Sandy.  What I eventually realized was that I wasn’t wearing it because I was afraid of losing her.  I was wearing it because I was afraid of what it would mean when I no longer needed it to remind me.  It took me much longer than I care to admit to understand what was happening.  Early on I thought the necklace was helping me hang on to Sandy.  I thought it was the thing keeping her close. 

She was in the stories I tell without even thinking about it.  I can hardly tell a story about Oregon or Florida without talking about Sandy.  Over half my best stories start out with “Bride and I”.  Sometimes I don’t even realize Ive mentioned her until someone else points it out. She was in the stories other people tell me that I’ve never heard before, like the origin story of her nickname Sam.  When you love someone for that many years, they eventually become woven into the fabric of our life.

There isn't a place to put them because they're already everywhere.  Every story I have from the last 38 years seems to start with Sandy somewhere in the first three sentences.  Sometimes it’s the first sentence.  And sometimes, she is the whole story.  Every major life decision has her fingerprints on it.  Her adventurousness was a major factor in why we moved to Oregon and Nebraska.  Every room in this house contains evidence she was here.  Every person who loved her carries a version of her that I don’t even know.

The longer she is gone, the more I realize how impossible she is to lose.  If Sandy is in every story, every room, every memory, every person who loved her, what exactly was I afraid of losing?   I took it off because at some point I realized the necklace wasn’t what was keeping her with me.  The necklace was just the reminder I needed in those early days.  I don’t need to carry the reminder anymore.

The truth is, hanging the necklace on the mirror wasn’t as peaceful as I am making it sound.  The first few mornings I would look at it and think, Really?  That’s where they fucking go now?  Part of me wanted to put it back on.  Not because I needed it around my neck or on my finger.  Because I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant that I didn’t.  I wore that ring for 36 years.  Taking it off felt a little like crossing a line I had not agreed to cross.  I didn’t feel healed.  I didn’t feel finished.  Mostly I just felt uncertain.  The same uncertainty I felt when I took off my wedding ring.  The same uncertainty that has followed me through every meaningful step I’ve taken since Sandy died.  It felt suspiciously like moving forward.  Grief however   has a way of making every step forward feel a little like disloyalty.

These days the rings and necklace hang from my bathroom mirror.  Every morning I see them while I’m getting ready for the day.  Every night I see them before I go to bed.  I thought taking them off might feel like letting go.  Instead, it felt like acknowledging something that had always been true.  Sandy was always everywhere.

 

The First 100 Days

People like milestones.  The first 100 days of a Presidency.  The first 100 days of a new CEO.  The first 100 days of a major project.   Me being me, I like to count things so as of today, I’ve been a widower for 100 days.  It still feels very weird to call myself that, and I think that is the first time I have typed it.  WEIRD!  Anyway, I can’t say I’d recommend the role or the title. 

A hundred days feels like it should be enough time to have some answers.  Long enough to figure out a few things.  But the one thing I have learned is that grief does not give a shit about 100 days, or any calendar dates either.  Some days feel normal.  Other days a song, a picture, and old text message have knocked me to my knees.  I’ve spent 100 days laughing at memories, crying over memories and doing both at the same time.  That’s what a widower does I guess, see aforementioned comment on not recommending it. 

Over the last hundred days I’ve sifted through thousands of pictures, electronic and printed.  I’ve listened to songs that have become time machines and others that have become anthems.  I’ve told Bride stories and I’ve heard new Bride stories and rediscovered a few stories I had forgotten all together.  I thought I was looking for comfort.  What I found was something else, I found proof.  Proof we had a great marriage.  Proof we laughed a lot at a lot of different things.  Proof we had far more adventures than I remembered.  Proof that the years together we were blessed with were even richer than they felt while we were living it.  We started as friends in what we called the anti relationship.  Looking back I think that lack of pressure became one of the foundations of our success as partners.  

The thing about evidence is that it lives in the details.  Somewhere in the thousands of pictures was another picture of Bride making a face at the camera because she hated posed pictures.  And then there were text exchanges that would make absolutely no sense to anyone else but had me laughing out loud anyway.  Tiny moments that, when woven together, told a bigger story.  The puppy love from those early days eventually became much deeper.  We wore our marriage like an old shirt.  Soft, comfortable and known in ways we can’t know new shirts.  We knew the story behind each stain, every loose thread and every hole.  The knowing was what made it so comfortable.

The second thing I learned is that grief doesn’t move in a straight line.  Finding all of that proof didn’t make the hurt smaller.  That surprised me.  I think I expected memories to provide comfort.  Instead, they sharpened the loss.  The more evidence I found of how wonderful our life was, the more obvious her absence became.  Every picture I found of us laughing carried another message right behind it.  You don’t get to do this anymore Smitty.  And that fucking sucks.  Early on I think I was expecting this grief journey to be like a recovery journey.  Where ya start in a bad place and gradually move towards a better one.   Grief has not worked that way. 

It feels less like a straight line and more like the tide.  Some days are calm, some days it feels like a rip tide carrying me out into water I don’t recognize.  What I started to realize is that the hard days don’t mean I’m moving backwards.  Most of the time they mean I’ve stumbled across something important.  A memory, a picture, a story, or some other piece of evidence of the life we built together.  One hundred days in, I have stopped measuring success by whether a day hurts.  The hurt comes on its own schedule, and I don’t have access to change the cadence.  What matters is what comes with the hurt.  More often than not, it brings a memory worth keeping. 

Which leads me to the third thing I’ve learned.  Memories are both medicine and salt.  I used to think memories were just something we held onto.  A collection of stories and moments we can take out and enjoy whenever we need them.  What I’ve learned is that memories are far more powerful than that.  They can heal and hurt at exactly the same time.  Through all the photos, text messages emails, social posts and all the other little breadcrumbs of our life, I have laughed so hard I couldn’t see straight.  Others hit me like a train on a mission and others managed to do both within moments of each other.

A picture of us on Canon Beach when we came out for my interview for the OPB gig reminds me of how much fun we had.  It also reminds me there won’t be any more new adventures with her.  A recording of her from when dear friends visited lets me hear her voice, and her laugh.  It also reminds me how long it has been since I heard that in real life.  Stories from friends let me see her through someone else’s eyes, and that is just as beautiful.  It also hurts.  The gift and cost arrive together, damn it.  I am starting to understand why memories can feel so confusing.  We tend to think happiness and sadness are opposites.  In grief they are more like roommates. 

For most of my life I have assumed the goal was to make sadness smaller.   What I am slowly learning is that sadness isn’t crowding out happiness.   The sadness exists because of the happiness.  One turns out to be evidence of the other.   There are days it would be easier not to look.  Easier to not open the photo album.  Easier to not play the song.  Easier to not revisit the conversation.  But every time I do, I discover something waiting for me on the other side.  A laugh I needed, a story I forgot, another piece of proof. 

Looking back I finally understood why I kept digging.  I told myself I was looking for memories because I was afraid of losing them.  Afraid if I didn’t gather up every picture, every text message, every story, some piece of Bride might slowly fade away.  I think part of me was afraid time would sand off the edges.  That years from now I’d remember the outline of our life together and lose the details.

What I discovered was that the details were everywhere.  In pictures, in text messages, in stories, in thousands of ordinary moments I had completely forgotten.  The evidence wasn’t fragile, it was overwhelming.  And maybe this is the biggest thing the first 100 days have taught me.  Grief doesn’t move in a straight line.  Memories can heal and hurt at the exact same moment.  And love leaves an evidence behind.  When I started digging through our life together in pictures, I thought I was looking for memories.  What I found was proof.  Proof what we had was real.  Proof that it mattered, and proof I was luckier than most. 

A hundred days wasn’t enough to find the answers, but it was enough to remind me how damn lucky I was and how grateful I am.

Damn, I miss that Gurl

This was from when we said our vows again at 20 years in.  Here is a link to what I wrote about that then.  I hadn't read that for a while, it made me cry.

https://mroatmealsoratories.blogspot.com/2010/09/i-recently-experienced-most-special-day.html