How I Hold You

 And You Hold Me.

Hi Honey,

I made it through your favorite holiday, Halloween. I couldn't do the whole yard and house thing this year. Somehow gravestones, ghosts, etc., I couldn't unhinge from your dying, death, and my grief. But what I was able to do was to take your Honda (your favorite car) on the road, pick up Tegan, drive her to her gardens and then wander Gardener's Supply together.  Later that night, I lit candles, and with Wendi on her suggestion watched "Coco" but only after figuring out how to get into and change your Roku and Amazon accounts, enjoying popcorn and mummy hot-dogs that she brought (all potentially "triggers" but with a friend empowering instead), and the next night, which was All Saints, I cooked one of your favorite meals, turkey with the fixings and apple pie and vanilla ice cream, set a place for you with your photo, again lit candles, watched "Coco" again but this time together with Tegan in your memory. The third night, All Souls, I lit candles a third night, ate too much pasta (your other favorite), attended an online memorial where you were named twice, once as "Ann's husband" and again as "Jim" and held you tearfully in my heart.

New traditions Día de Muertos 

Apple pie for you, Tegan, and me on All Souls

It may sound crazy to those who have not experienced the rending of one's identity and one's heart with the loss of one's soulmate. But that's the thing. How do I face your loss? How do I follow your wish for me to live fully? How do I hold you now that you are not here? How do I continue?

All these holidays will be hard, but I hold how you loved me

I so miss you, I miss our intimacy—emotional, intellectual, creative, sexual, physical. How do I hold you now? Platitudes about how lucky I was to have such a love don't really soften the pain. They deepen my sense of loss even as I recognize their truth.

Daily I look through photos of you. There is you as the young man I knew as Cathy's older brother entering the world with a love of electronics, of books, of optics, of sports cars, bicycles' and your baby sister and family. There is you as a young father and entrepreneur figuring out how to provide, how to be a father, and there is you as an adventurer bicycling across Europe and later the U.S. to mend a broken heart. There is the incredibly handsome and accomplished 50 year old who courted and asked me to marry him after only dating a month and to whom I said, after looking deep into your eyes and seeing the eternal timeline that connected us, yes. There is you as my husband who supported all of my goals, who believed in and loved me deeply, moving to Vermont for me, and who brought such joy and adventure, and then there was you as the Jim, perhaps most dear, no longer physically handsome—chemo and cancer do that—but you who achieved the most bright and beautiful soul, polished, full of wisdom and profound strength, love, and appreciation of each person and life's goodness. I miss each of you. I grieve no longer traveling alongside you.

You as my handsome new husband

You on our last Halloween together, riddled by cancer but oh so full of life.

So now, knowing you can not return and I may never see you again, I am finding ways to hold you in order to live. Friends and family who share your stories, who hold my grief and support my wobbling steps are my foundation. The personal remembrances and memorials are another. Wrapping myself in your car, sharing your stories and favorite foods, kissing your photo good morning, writing, painting, wearing your favorite sweater, getting the house squared away, or exploring how I too can give back and volunteer are yet another. For now these are the ways I have found to hold you. I have only trust and faith to enable me to know you are also holding me.

A facsimile for being held by you, where I feel your confident, joyous, adventurous spirit.