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One frosty night this winter hunkered in the folds of flannel sheets and a fur throw I read the above quote in the text of the 1948 novel, Pilgrim’s Inn written by English novelist Elizabeth Goudge. Inadvertently tears fill my eyes. Then follows a longing that mostly rests untouched beneath the surface of my consciousness; the longing for my father who loved me as that father loved his little girl.
My beautiful, comfortable home is a disaster zone. A riveter blasts through concrete on my first floor. I am upstairs in my office, Barrett’s old room, jarred to the bone and unable to think. Doing “paper work,” paying bills, and struggling to calculate how many times 5 goes into 390 without a calculator! I wonder to myself does eight go into 40 five times? Really?
I love snow. And this morning I awake to many inches of the softest, fluffiest, freshest new layer that has come in the night to grace the towering oaks, the remaining deck furniture, a distant roof, all of which I can see from my bedroom perch. As if this beauty is not enough, the sky, a pearly blue, contains a rising sun casting shadow-ribbons of gold upon it all.
It’s Valentine’s Day. Brilliant sunshine creates shadows on my snow-covered deck. The oaks beyond stretch tall against a sky of powder blue. Frigid cold preserves a snowfall that graces each twig and branch. I am playing Ella Fitzgerald’s version of “My Funny Valentine” and thinking of Bob. I am thinking of how he was my funny valentine. I am thinking of how his humor, so much a part of his vernacular, his take on life buoyed my spirits, caused me to laugh in light times, in dark times. He was an original. I could never reconstruct his random comments, only know they were a gift.
Its errand day and I am a widow, nearing the March 7, 2016 date my first and only love passed away four years ago. I don’t cry as often now, though quick tears can still surprise me. I am not crying now as I write, though I am remembering. I am remembering a typical Saturday with errands. My memories morph into what typical Saturdays throughout our later years became, after the kids were gone, when there were fewer deadlines, when meals could be fluid, when we could go with the flow. When spontaneity was part of the fun.
Christmas has just past. New Year events lie ahead. I’m listening to George Winston’s album, December that I must have played a hundred times over the years since it first came out. Music can pull me powerfully into another era, draw out memories once buried, cause me to relive the once upon a time, long ago’s of my 57 years of loving Bob.
Dearest husband of my heart:
I am assuming you are one of the “great cloud of witnesses” written about in the
book of Hebrews. That you were privy to the ins and outs of the weekend our
beautiful granddaughter Tessa married Luke. That you smiled, and even shared
some of this joy with one of your heavenly friends, or Jesus, perhaps? Or even
that a whole contingency of those who have gone before, who loved us on earth
participated in celebration. Though I cannot know for sure I, still earth-bound, can
assume.
I’ve had a yen for “Special Juice” lately. Maybe it’s that summer has never been complete without it. Perhaps it’s that everything glorious about this late July and early August weather has been particularly “special” as well, given the Polar Vortex, the drenching May and the cold gray June we had this year. What’s more likely is that the “Special Juice” person, aka Bob Carlson is residing in heaven and no one on earth has yet been able to duplicate his perfected recipe, least of all me.
I sleep in the center of the bed now. Three years after my husband’s death I have moved from “my side” to this new venue. It has been a gradual, unconscious, inching toward the middle. A metaphorical grief journey of sorts. A movement toward acceptance of what is no more: two bodies, warm, entwined, holding hands before sleep, spooning through the night, comforting in storms, ancient oak branches hitting roof and deck, lightening flashing, thunder cracking safe in each others arms. No more whispered nothings, no more laughter before sleep. No more conversations when troubles loom, when possibilities are parsed, finally given over to prayers, to the Our Father. No more quiet gazing at the love of my life, a lock of silver hair gracing his brow. No more listening to the soft even breathing he takes in deep sleep.
