Treasure

Honey,

Yesterday marked three months since you left me. Three months no longer waking up or going to sleep in your arms. Three months without your wise advice or waltzing around the house to your beautiful piano playing. Three months without you and me looking forward to whatever is next together: planning for the holidays, or for ski season, or to travel to see Pat and Emily and family in general. Right about now we'd be packing up the kayaks, taking a last (usually frosty) bike ride, putting away things for the winter, and creating the yard extravaganza for the trick or treaters. 

But this year, I've decided no Halloween. I'm struggling with the concept of you being dead, those skeletons and ghosts are feeling a bit too close to the emptiness of my heart right now. So instead, I'm looking at the holy days of All Souls and All Saints or in Spanish Día de los Muertos.  I like this interpretation found on Wikipedia:

"...is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico, in particular the Central and South regions, and by people of Mexican heritage elsewhere. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died, and helping support their spiritual journey. In Mexican culture, death is viewed as a natural part of the human cycle. Mexicans view it not as a day of sadness but as a day of celebration because their loved ones awaken and celebrate with them."

I think I need to look for and honor you in that way. 

As per getting the house and yard ready for winter, I'm doing it with a lot of help from friends and family. There are major repairs happening (your sisters and I said that it took a lot of power to pull you away from here and the house and other objects were damaged in the spiritual energy it took to carry you off). I think you might like how the new roof is coming along with the roofers directed and recommended by Carolyn and Cal. And how Lisa has been helping me organize. And that Nate has been helping by getting the things with engines repaired and teaching me how to use the chainsaw and what all the chemicals you have in the garage are. And Dave will be repairing the beautiful studio you built me. Perhaps then I'll be able to paint again.  Yet even that I find painful as you are not here to share or see. Oh, our world moves on without you!

So many gifts you have brought into my life. The studio, the deck, celebrating Halloween, fearless adventures, bike riding, music, craftsmanship, confidence, knowledge, laughter, joy. I'm learning that now I'm needing to find them within myself. Through your belief in me, I take my new faltering steps.

At this mark of your goneness, I've had a teary two days. It comes and goes like that...a few good days, a few bad days. I've come to accept that it'll be like that for a long time. I mean really how could anyone expect any less of our love? How could I simply close off the most wonderful time of my life, forget you, forget our love, release our promise—our expectation that our love would last an eternity?

I am grateful to those who have been guiding me through this, who've been giving me the space to feel all these feelings, to listen to all my thoughts and questions. They've gathered round and are helping me face the challenges of this new life of mine. My brother Dave and Patti and the girls visited this weekend, your sisters last weekend. And my brother Dan wrote a beautiful peace about us (below), surprising me, I'm touched by how well he captured what I'm feeling. I feel supported by everyone—they are handing me a lifeline. I'm so grateful for them and their love. 

The persistence of love. In my remembering, or as my grief counselor calls it, my integrating, I comb through photos, music, items, spaces, texts, videos, and voice messages. In the search, I find treasures I did not know we had—video clips, hand written love notes, bicycle journals, and mementos dear to you. From this vantage point I see you even more clearly. I see your younger, just learning self, your healthy, accomplished, happy self, and your cancer challenged, pure self. I love hearing over and over again how you called me "Love". I hold onto that when I'm feeling most in despair. I'm finding that love continues to grow beyond your death and I treasure that too. I am grateful that I was your partner and I am honored, no matter how much pain I may be in now, that we walked your last journey here together.

Honey, I love you forever plus 70 and then around again. Save a space for me please.

Pieces

© words by Daniel DeMarle 10/10/2020

I still stumble upon something of yours –

a sock,

a receipt,

a misplaced dream,

and it seems you are here.

.

I go through old papers and photos,

looking,

always looking for you.

.

I catch a glimpse,

a taste,

a smell.

.

I try to put these pieces together,

to put you back together, to put you back.

to put you back.

.

Here,

with,

me.

.

It is as if you were at the door, looking in,

but I turn and.

.

the leaves blow in the cool Fall air

.

The woods are dark.

.

Someday I will enter that line of trees to look for you.

.

but for now,

I will try, to stop trying to put the pieces back.

.

I know,

you told me,

I know.

.

You would not want me to enter those woods,

before,

my own cold winter comes.