Three years ago yesterday. Sometimes when I think back it feels like it happened to another person. But, I know it was me. Because after three years I still cry. I miss him still in so many ways.
Facebook memories have a way of triggering emotions – some happy, some sad, sometimes both at once. Like yesterday..
Four years ago, June 15th was a Saturday. I remember going to this coffee shop for the first, and only, time. We were headed out on one of our Saturday morning adventures. It may have been to Pepper Place, or a record shop, or a bookstore. As we sat there enjoying our coffee, “I and Love and You” began to play. It was one of only two times we heard The Avett Brothers in-the-wild (out in public).
“Load the car and write the note
Grab your bag and grab your coat
Tell the ones that need to know
We are headed north”
But, we were headed south in our hearts in 2019; had been talking about our move to Jacksonville for several years. It didn’t turn out how we’d planned. But, if he were here today I’d say, “I and love and you… forever.”
I think I’m about finished with paperwork for a while. Today I saw an attorney and finalized my estate-trust deed, will, and final wishes. My goal was to keep my kids out of probate court when the time comes.
For the past 27 ½ months I have had a real education in legal matters, taxes, medical jargon, customer service, dishonesty and kindness. Not that I was never touched by these things before, but they took on a whole new meaning when I dealt with them alone.
I grew stronger, a bit wiser, and more empathetic. There has not been a typical “turning the corner” moment; rather a lot of switchbacks up and down hill. I learned about switchbacks when I began hiking in Alabama in preparation for a trip to Montana in 2015. A switchback is any trail that follows a zig-zag pattern up a steep hill or mountainside. There’s a gradual incline up the mountain instead of climbing straight up to the summit. Hiking a switchback is a much safer and less strenuous way to climb up a hill or mountain.
I thank God for the switchbacks. The rests in between the hard parts. I thank Him for His rest in the hard parts.
“Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope.”
“I have decision fatigue” – from Graceland by Ruth Chou Simons
Boy, do I ever! I’ve had it for months on end – since April, 2020. These are decisions we would have either made together or Chuck would have made on his own.
How to move stuff
How to sell stuff
How to give away stuff
Chuck’s car
Chuck’s books
Renting furniture
End of life decisions
Funeral hymns
Where to live times three
Chuck’s grave marker
Buying my first house alone
Having storage built in my home
Finances
A dining room table
A dishwasher
A Plumber
A handyman
Which roofer to use
Which termite company to use
Work
IRAs
CDs
My will
An oil change
Buying a lawnmower
Buying a different lawnmower
Joining my church
Travel
My will (in progress)
Shower repair (upcoming)
Which grass to buy (went with Zoysia)
Pushing myself out of my comfort zone
Yes, I think I’ve pushed myself so far out of my comfort zone that I’m in another zone. I’m zoned out, so to speak.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. – Matthew 6:34
My dad was born May 31, 1932. If he was still alive he’d be 90 years old today.
He died when he was 63 years/seven months. My husband died a week from being 63 years/seven months. I’m about three weeks away from being 63 years/seven months. All that to say that soon I will have lived longer on this earth than Dad and Chuck. It puts time in a different perspective when I look at those facts. I’m just not sure what it all means.
I’ve been thinking of all the things Dad missed, but really it’s all the things we missed without him being there. We didn’t get to hear his jokes and silly phrases. He didn’t get to see me graduate from college at 39. He didn’t see his grandkids graduate from anywhere. He never knew about his five great-grandkids, so they never got one of his goofy nicknames. He missed the weddings, too.
And I think of what Chuck will miss. In two weeks he will have been gone two years. It seems like yesterday and it seems like a lifetime ago. Here again, it’s me who will miss him sharing all the events, the milestones, the joys, the sorrows with me.
I am becoming more aware of the Now and the Not Yet. Now, on earth, is still good. The Not Yet is better. I cling to that.
I look forward to April every year. It’s poetry month. It’s PAD – Poem-A-Day- with Robert Brewer over at Writer’s Digest. It’s reconnecting with a few poets I’ve met there. It’s feeling creative once more. It’s looking forward to reading the prompt of the day and being challenged to produce. It’s being able to express so many cooped-up feelings. It’s mostly happy and sometimes sad and always a month of possibilities.
Day One: “F”
Future and Present
Future and present me
to past and present you:
Do you remember how much I love all things time/space/dimension travel?
I was looking back today at some quotes I jotted down when I was reading Elisabeth Elliot’s book, The Path of Loneliness. I want to share a few, along with some of my thoughts.
"How blessed I have been to have been a wife."
My thoughts exactly. To have had all the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of 41 1/2 years of marriage is something for which I am ever grateful. To have grown up in the LORD with a man who cared for my spiritual welfare is something that is a true blessing.
The reality was beginning to sink in: despite friends and family who cared about me, I was essentially alone for the first time in my life."
This is so true for me, also. I went from being at home (two years in a dorm didn’t count as alone) to marriage. Until Chuck died, I’d never lived alone.
Where is my home ultimately? My home is where Christ is...God has made a home for me in order for me to share that home with others. "
God has given me a home in Tampa, Florida. A home I have been able to share with others, whether for a meal or a few nights. What most of those who enter my house don’t know is what a blessing it is to to have them there.
My larger family are those who also know Christ in an intimate way."
God has provided me with a larger family at Holy Trinity Presbyterian Church. I have sisters there. I have pastors and elders who truly care for me: they shepherd my soul, they check on me, they pray for me. I have a place to serve.
The loneliness of widowhood was an exit from the comforts and consolations of having a husband, and an entrance into the strange world of having to make unilateral decisions again and to learn to say 'I'instead of 'we'."
Those unilateral decisions have about been my undoing this past week. I long for someone else to make some decisions for me. Someone to just say, “Here’s what we’re going to do…”
Today, Chuck would have turned 65. If I live until next summer I will have been on the earth longer than he was. We lived together for 41 1/2 years. Before and after that I’ve lived 21 1/2 other years. I thank God for every year He has given me, the hard and the easy. I learn more everyday that all these years are but a wisp of time compared to eternity.
I found the following words from Chuck on a usb while trying to purge files on a computer. They were written in 2008 as we were preparing to join Covenant Presbyterian Church in St. Augustine.
I was born (1956) and raised here in Jacksonville, Fl. My parents were hard working, moral, but not spiritual people. Needless to say I was not raised in church, I can actually recall the only four times that I attended church services up until I was 21 years old. I was lost but I did not yet realize it. I believe it was true of me when the scripture says; “I was once alive apart from the law.”
My only real interest in life from age 8 to 20 was playing baseball. Everything I did centered on baseball. Life was planned around it to the extent that I chose my college based on which Jr. College had the best baseball coach and where would I have the best chance of being drafted. Baseball was my first and only love. Everything was subservient to it in my life. Little did I realize how God was working in my life, especially, since I had no interest in Him or need for Him (at least by my perception).
I met Angie in the summer of 1977, at the age of 20, when we were both students at Georgia Southern. We began dating and soon I fell in love with her. At this point God began to move in my life.
I never was a good student in college; I was always making good enough grades to maintain my status on the baseball team. However in 1977-78, it all caught up with me when I was suspended for one quarter (winter) due to my grades. This meant I was no longer eligible for baseball. So, too ashamed to go home, I stayed in Statesboro and worked at a lumber yard full time, saving my money so that I could return to school in the spring as a ‘new man’. I decided I would focus on serious things, making good grades, etc. I was still without God, lost, and head over heels caught up in the world. I did return to school that spring and I pulled three B’s which, was a marked improvement for me, but now it was time to go home for the summer.
In the summer of 1978 two significant things occurred; 1) I decided to propose marriage to Angie and 2) She started back to church. She accepted my proposal and soon I followed her example and started attending services myself. Over the next several months I heard the Bible taught for the first time in my life. I learned about God and His Son and I learned about my sin, “but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.” It was the first time that I ever realized I was a sinner and lost. In the fall of 1978 I surrendered to the Lord, I repented of my sin and believed Jesus Christ and He saved me. I was baptized within a few weeks of conversion and by the kindness of God in December of ’78; Angie and I were united in marriage.
If I may fast forward to the present to say, it has now been 30 years since the Lord saved me. My walk with Him, like all believers, has been full of hills and valleys, though sometimes the valleys have seemed like long deep ditches. But I can honestly say with the psalmist; “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delights in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholds him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
With Thanksgiving nearly upon us, I have been giving a lot of thought lately to the business of being grateful. I read a lot of blogs and I’ve been impressed recently with the idea of looking at all of life with a grateful eye. Which isn’t always easy when your roof is leaking, the termites are back and you get rear-ended by a hit-and-run driver. But, all these things and more drive me to my God, Who knows it all, Who determined it all for my good.
Today was a day of ups and downs, but I felt the peace of God surround me in it all. My grandson spent the night with me last night, so my morning didn’t start with me being alone. I had his company at breakfast and conversation on the drive to school. After I dropped him off, my tire pressure light came on. I found an air machine and paid my $2, only to run out of air time before I got to the one that was actually low. I drove home and then I remembered I had an air compressor that hooks up to my car. So I was able to put air in and the light finally went off. Hopefully that’s it.
Ruby and I got out for a walk around the block before noon. When I returned the mail had come. I got a nice card from a widow I met recently via Hope For Widows. Turns out we have the same birthday! She is only about an hour away so we plan to meet in person soon.
Late in the afternoon I went out to pick up a few things from the Dollar Tree and grocery store. Didn’t realize Friday night at the Dollar Tree was a hopping place. I didn’t feel impatient waiting in line, which is not how I used to be. God has done this work in me. In front of me was a grandma with her baby grandson. I could tell her mental capacity was a little diminished. As I approached the door to leave she was struggling with her bags, trying to get them all out of the cart, with the baby still in the seat. She asked me to get him out and I offered to carry him to her vehicle. She was appreciative, but all I could think was I’m glad it was me and not someone who might take off with the baby! When I lifted him up I could tell his diaper was soaked. When we got to her truck I told her he was pretty wet. So I lifted him back out of his car seat so she could change his diaper. I pray for her. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for her.
I proceeded to the grocery store, wandering around getting only a portion of what was on my list. By the time I left it was dark. I saw a man across the parking lot who, from the back, reminded me of Chuck. He was tall and broad shouldered, but when he turned I saw he looked nothing like Chuck. It still brought tears to my eyes. I thought of how when the time changed in Alabama Chuck hated getting home after dark.
Now, as I sit typing this, my windows are open and there is a pleasant little breeze. I’ve got a favorite playlist going in the background, my dog at my feet (when she isn’t up barking at every little noise).
Last night one of the elders from church called me. He was so compassionate and gave me this verse before he prayed with me over the phone:
The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. – Psalm 145:17
Go Bury Thy Sorrow was written by Mary A. Bachelor about 1870 and set to music around 1906.
I have mixed feelings about this hymn. I understand the sentiment to an extent, but I think’s it’s just too simplistic
Verse 1
The world tells us to bury our sorrow. It’s okay to grieve, just not too much or for too long. This isn’t scriptural. There are so many examples in the Bible to look to of godly men who grieved. Lamentations, Job, and Psalms are full of cries of sorrow. Jesus was a “man of sorrows” (John 11:35, Isaiah 53:3-4).
Verse 2
The second verse follows scripture more closely. I totally agree that we are to go to Jesus, Who is our brother, friend, and husband, when we are grieving. Being acquainted with grief, Jesus certainly knows and enters into our grief. The Psalms are full of David taking his sorrow to the Lord. He honestly poured out his heart, sometimes wondering if God was even listening to him. Yet, I think David knew God was there all the time.
Verse 3
Now, verse three – well. I agree we are to go and comfort others in their grief. We are to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2) and “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). That doesn’t mean we have to bury our own sorrow. To love my neighbor as myself (Mark 12:31) I must first love myself. Because I have empathy, I’m not just going to “give them the sunshine’. We can grieve together, but with hope (I Thessalonians 4:13).
So, there you have it. Aunt Marie’s hymnal is full of wonderful songs. But, as with everything else, we need to be ever discerning (Acts 17:11).
It’s hard to believe the last Monday Music I posted was on February 17,2020. Just before the world around me was totally reprogrammed.
“The Keep Going Song” by the Bengsons came out in October, 2020. It’s silly and profound at the same time. And much better than “This is the Song That Never Ends”!
And we are so lucky and blessed to be safely here
And we thought we’d be here for like ten days, tops!
{What did we know?} What did we know?
{What did we know?} What did we know?
We thought we knew a lot
We thought we knew a lot
Here we are, ten months, not ten days, after this song came out and it feels like we are back at square one.
And if your heart is breaking
I hope it’s breaking open
My heart was broken last year. And though it will never be the same, music helps to heal and soothe.
And I hope that you’ve watched a lot of
Really great television
Like, a lot of it!
I watch TV late at night. I plowed through several series this past year: Still Standing With Johnny Harris, Lost, Manifest, the Good Doctor.
I pray my pain is a river
That flows to the ocean
That connects my pain to yours
And I pray I pray my happiness is like pollen
That flies to you and pollinates your joy oh boy
Oh boy is that possible?
I don’t know I don’t know
We are making this up as we go
I’ve been able to connect my pain and my joy to other widows, most recently via Hope for Widows.
So, take a listen to this song – I hope it makes you smile.
Not In This Soup Alone 