Marilyn's Musings

Magical thinking story time, death anniversary edition. Part of you believes that the grief will spontaneously disappear at the one-year mark, like there’s an internal countdown playing on a scoreboard in your head leading up to the anniversary. Of course, you know in reality that no such fix exists. No waving of a fairy wand with some incantation: Poof! Be gone, grief! Shazam!?

Like many life events for someone prone to anxiety, the anticipation leading up to the day is the worst. Not colonoscopy prep worse, just a heightened intensity level. You attempt to have the perfect plan in place to mark the last first of the firsts. Read that again. The last first of the firsts. That ought to be celebrated on some level. No more firsts!

My loose plan for today included journaling the entire death day story, recording as many details as I could recall. Writing diffuses any potential ruminations and helps with the purging and processing of it all. Don’t worry, I have not and will not share my journal entries here. My deep work remains my own. Just know that the phrases, “the are you sitting down phone call” and “couldn’t they at least extubate his lifeless body” were included. I cried a few tears, not many. The day deserved a couple.

I continued on to the final destination of my remembrance tour, Devil’s Lake State Park, where I met up with kids and grandkids. Dennis loved Devil’s Lake. We went there many times over the years. It felt right. It felt natural and good: the warm hugs, the laughs, catching up, and some other assorted silliness, culminating in handing Flat Dennis off to the kids for more adventures. I know he’s in good hands.

Tonight, I’m going to re-read the boxful of sympathy cards I received last year. They’ve been sitting in my home office all this time. I feel like I should do something with them now that I’ve reached this milestone. Somehow, holding on to those cards served as a lifeline reminder that I am not alone or forgotten, because loneliness always lurks.

Thanks to all who showed up for me, who stuck by me, and continue to give me grace as the sorrow subsides, and I grow through this season of becoming. I do not know what the future holds, but I do know who holds us all: past, present, and future.

Hold your dear ones close, friends.

Just an older lady, sitting on a park bench, writing about her grief. Nothing to see here. Move along.

On the eve of the death-versary (I will always call it that), I’ve got too many words and not enough words simultaneously.

Thus far, this week of solo travel provided everything my spirit needed: the familiarity of places we traveled together, mild exploration of places yet uncharted, solitude and introverting time, and proving to myself that I can do this. I am doing this.

I am proud of myself for the vulnerability and courage it’s taken to document this past year. You do not have to understand my journey. Clearly, some folks don’t and either left my life quietly or provided low frequency background noise. To the rest who’ve stuck around, I love you and am grateful for your persistence. May I similarly abide with you in your grief at some future point.

Grief will find you. Every single one of you. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But one day, it will be your turn. I pray that when it’s your time, you will give yourself grace and space.

Grief still sucks, albeit with less frequency and severity. God is still good. See you on the road to find out.

Also, stop and smell the roses.

I went to a park yesterday to take a minute to breathe, enjoy the sunshine and near perfect temperatures, and tase (Think About Something Else) thoughts about work that might invade one’s time off, etc. This is all part of tending to your grief, a necessary part of the process. You’ve got to sit with it and in it.

As I sat there taking it all in, the sweetest birdsong became the soundtrack of the moment. The bird had a lot to say, so I reached for the merlin app and discovered it was an oriole. Remember how the oriole flew at my window repeatedly and posed for me a few weeks ago? Hmmmm. This one. Would. Not. Stop. Talking. So it had to be Dennis, right?

I looked up to the tree intently and captured these photos. We went our separate ways after a few minutes. Thanks for the visit, little birdie.

Rating Grief Relief Strategies:

Yacht Rock Playlist      7/10
Häagen-Dazs                 6/10
A really good cry          9/10
Screaming into the void  10/10
Golden Girls marathon    7/10
Dark humor   9/10
Shredding old papers and mail    5/10
Therapy    10/10
Writing about all this 💩    9/10
Decluttering with reckless abandon           8/10
Rearranging furniture     7/10
Burying the feelings   1/10
Redecorating             8/10
Memes     7/10
Meal with friends     8/10
Birdwatching       7/10
GriefShare        10/10
Reading their Bible    9/10
Returning to the scene   4/10
Touching grass       9/10
Looking through their phone 6/10
Wearing their hoodie      9/10
The family group text  9/10
Dining out alone     7/10
Getting tattoos         9/10
Throwing yourself into your work   1/10
Silly rituals when you drive by their grave         10/10
Reading all the grief books   9/10
Moscato      3/10
Sleeping on their side of the bed 7/10
Taking up space    9/10
Worrying about future everything   0/10
Hugs. All the hugs.   9/10
Faking it, hoping to make it  2/10
Saying their name and keeping their memory alive 10/10
Having an awesome support system 10/10
Calm app sleep stories for all the insomnia    8/10
Kitty snuggles      9/10
Lighting a candle      6/10
Saying "I have to do everything around here" out loud, a lot 7/10
Extra I love yous all around 10/10
Keeping a list. All the lists.  6/10
Handling the legal and other stuff without crying  5/10
Taking a break from the news 9/10
Biting your tongue when  someone says something unhelpful       4/10 
Figuring out what you need as you go  8/10
Fiercely protecting your peace with healthy boundaries  9/10
Leveling up as a badass    10/10

Whew. It’s been a day. The memories and other stuff popping up like whack a mole. It all started one year ago tonight. The weight of the week. The return of the sadness. Crying on the inside. Gratitude for friends and family keeping watch. Doing my best to bend and not break. I’m safe and will be okay. Just naming the struggle. Speaking of which, I’ve decided to name my companion (grief) Persephone. She needed a name, and that one fits. Thanks for your prayers and presence, friends.

Memorial Day weekend. Ooof.

It was just another weekend for us, ramping up for a summer with weekends at the campground. With me working every Sunday, it was always who’s going to be where when every summer weekend, chaotic but we made it work. Also, for the fourth year in a row, I was giving the invocation at Rome’s Memorial Day program on Memorial Day itself. I can’t recall if he had a band commitment last year. I’m thinking he took that one off.

That would be our last weekend together. The following weekend, he was on a ventilator. The weekend after that, he was gone.

Right now, I’m reliving all of that. It’s real now. Last year, I went full on pastor mode to get through those days. Now, I can look back and say to myself, “Damn, that was the hardest thing ever. You’re a badass who made it. You are making it, woman.” I am saying those things to myself through cleansing tears, of course, manifesting brave badass. That’s how you do it. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve. You just do it your own way. This is mine.

I cannot bring him back. I cannot replicate all the inside jokes and silliness. I cannot believe it’s been a year without him.

I can write down and document as much as possible before the memories fade with the passage of time. I can choose to live life with deeper meaning, derived from this ordeal. I can carry our love forward in my heart and soul.

I appreciate your good vibes and prayers for the remainder of this month. I’m preaching on Sunday. I missed Pentecost last year. It feels weird and wonky. I’m relying heavily on the Spirit to show up! Sighs so, so deep.

No Memorial Day invocation for me this year. I just can’t. And that’s okay. I’ll make it through the week. I have a special service planned for May 31 as I am anticipating a tough week ahead. Beyond that, I have a week off with special and meaningful plans and remembrances to mark the first anniversary. I’m looking forward to that time off with love, gratitude, and joy in my heart.

Am I doing this wrong? Nope. I’m doing this.

During a recent every so often phone cleanup, I uninstalled the Empathy app. For those unfamiliar, their website says, “Empathy partners with leading financial institutions and employers to ease logistical and emotional burdens when it matters most.” In my words, it’s a freebie grief task app provided by life insurance companies which has some useful tools for stuff I pretty much figured out on my own. The account on the app stays active for six months beyond initial install and activation.

That ought to be a no brainer, right? I’m way past six months. No use for the app any longer. Yet I hesitated to remove it. Moving forward requires letting go of these little things, too.

Also, who uninstalls empathy? Good question. I’m beginning to wonder if humanity has taken this step. And I’m not referring to an app. What happened to empathy? Did we uninstall it? Or is it simply glitching?

Can we look beyond ourselves? Can we step back from rash judgments and see the bigger picture? Do we consider how our words and actions impact others? Or have hearts hardened so much that empathy has left the building? How do we engage with other humans whose beliefs and opinions differ from our own? Are we striving for love and understanding? Can we set aside our need to be right and win arguments?

I have no answers. I uninstalled the app. I pray that I can retain empathy in my being, even if the world comes completely undone.

See the good. Be the good. Love your neighbors. Every single one of them.

I just got home from the eye doctor. She is wonderful, compassionate, and kind, but I had to tell the story all over again. She noticed our niche marker as she was driving through the cemetery. Plus, I volunteered the information. (The any changes since your last visit question.) Yep. Every time with the emergency contacts.

She recounted Dennis’s quick wit (endless puns) and that he played in the 1st Brigade Band. She showed genuine love and concern for me. She remembered my husband by name and listened like a pro. I left with a slight change in my prescription, good news that I only have the earliest beginnings of cataracts, and a mood boost.

I’ve been praying fervently for a ‘win’ lately. Today felt like one. This combined with another surprise blessing yesterday, things are looking up. May I continue to see and accept the good. Praise be El Roi, our God who sees.

I knew that May would be challenging. Sleep issues. Sadness just beneath the surface. Difficulty concentrating. Drained. All the grief ick. I am okay and will make it through. I am simply naming my reality right now. I am giving myself permission to cry, scream, or whatever else I need because we went through some hellish days last May (Memorial Day week). I made it. He didn’t. I claim that so I can remember well and keep going. Life is for living, so I will not sink in the deep end of grief. I persist and am doing my best to keep my eyes on Jesus.