At the church I go to, the same church that Coleen and I went to, there is a bulletin distributed each week to the attendees. The bulletin contains a variety of items, the most important being the outline to the day’s service. There are other pieces of information like who the ushers are and announcements of upcoming church events and functions. The content I was most interested in when I was in church two days ago was listed under the Prayers of the People. That is where they list the names of people on the prayer list and also where they list the names of people whose anniversary of death had occurred during that week. That was what I was focused on last Sunday because it was the week of the first anniversary of Coleen’s death and I was looking for her name in the church bulletin.
Coleen’s name wasn’t in the bulletin last Sunday and I didn’t know why. I assumed that the church had a record of such things and her name would automatically be acknowledged. From previous bulletins, it seemed to me that the deceased person’s name was listed the Sunday before the anniversary but I couldn’t be sure of that. Yesterday I emailed the woman at church who prepares the bulletins and she informed me that the church does not automatically insert the names of the anniversary deaths. She explained that with a $50 contribution, the name would be entered in a “memory book” and in turn would be acknowledged in the bulletin every year on the week of the anniversary of death. I thanked her and told her I would bring the check with me on Sunday and she promised that Coleen’s name would be in this week’s bulletin.
It might seem like a small thing, a name in a bulletin, but not so small to me I guess. I feel that Coleen should be remembered in lots of different ways by lots of different people. Not just me and not just her family but bigger than that. Coleen’s gift of life touched many different people on many different stages. I can’t reach out to them all, I don’t even know them all, but I can get her name in a church bulletin and on this internet and let some people know along the way.
I have wrestled with several things regarding September 18, 2014. It is the one year anniversary of Coleen’s death. I’m not sure I like the word “anniversary” though. That word conjures up thoughts of happiness and celebration to me. And not just me as it turns out. When consulting Google on a search for anniversary synonyms, those were the exact words that presented along with festival, jubilee and holiday. None of those come close to representing my feelings. It is not until I Googled “death anniversary” that I found the darker side with words like cessation, departure, and bereavement. My truth is I don’t much like any of those words. None of them seem to fit.
I have a friend named Sue from the support group I attended last winter. Our group ended after meeting for eight weeks but we have stayed in touch since then. Sue wrote me an email last week after an especially dramatic full moon saying that she was thinking of me and my upcoming “One Year Memory Day.” Not “anniversary of death” but “Memory Day.” I thought that was the perfect way to phrase it, the perfect way to say it. Yes, September 18th will always be the anniversary of Coleen’s death and the time will always be 8:40 PM. But I don’t have to remember that day and that time and what her world and everyone’s world looked like right then. None of us have to think about that side if instead we choose to make it a “Memory Day” to remind ourselves of Coleen and the light she shined on us all. To remember her smile, her voice, hear her laughter and endless words of encouragement. That is what September 18th will be to me each time it cycles through the calendar. Not an anniversary of death but a remembrance day, a memory day. Thank you, Sue.
I know I have written about this subject before but I don’t care. It is so important to me and my family that I am going to write about one last time … for now at least.
Lindsay is the one who first noticed it. She feels that her mom talks to her through music, especially when she is driving alone without her daughters. That is the time when Lindsay is least distracted and has the most awareness. One of the songs that Lindsay heard frequently was the Beatles classic “Here Comes the Sun,” written by George Harrison. Legend has it that Harrison wrote the song at Eric Clapton’s house after a harsh England winter and during some internal struggles with the business side of the music business. It was his optimistic plea for better days.
During the past year, I have heard that song more than any music. Admittedly, I have chosen to play it frequently but there have been many occasions when it has just presented itself almost at random, almost just barely noticeable in the background. Many of those times have been during family gatherings, others have been much more private listenings at opportune times. I know that our entire family has heard Here Comes the Sun” frequently and I believe passionately that it is not a coincidence. Strange as it might sound, I concur with Lindsay that hearing that song is in fact a message from Coleen.
So what’s the message? What part of the lyrics is so specific to our situation? To me, it’s all of it. There are really only three different lines to the entire song plus the chorus of “Here comes the sun and I say, it’s alright.” The lines, each preceded by “Little darling,” are “It’s been a long, dark, lonely winter,” “The smiles are returning to their faces,” and “I feel like ice is slowly melting.” And then each of those lines is followed by a variation of “It seems like years since it’s been here.” Pretty simple stuff for such a classic and legendary song. Here’s how I interpret those words and personalize them as a message to me:
The “long, lonely, winter” is Coleen’s death. The “smiles returning to their faces” is the healing process I am going through. I also think of my granddaughters when I hear this line as they have especially taken to this song which they refer to as “The Sun Song.” And of course “I feel that ice is slowly melting” is an extension of my getting better and moving on with my life. The Sun? That’s the newness, the hope for better days, the discovery that I have many discoveries to make. The sun is my optimism for strength, courage, relationship, and love. The sun is Coleen winking at me, telling me it’s getting better and it’s okay to move forward. The sun is also the newness rising in my life, people, places, endeavors.
The most recent time I heard HCTS was one week ago. Lindsay invited me for dinner and not just me, but she asked me to bring my friend Ruth with me. Ruth and I have been together all summer and although Lindsay and I have talked about her a few times, they had not met. Shortly after we arrived, I heard it. It was playing in the kitchen on the internet service “Songza” through a bluetooth speaker I had given her for a Christmas gift. I don’t know who else heard the song but I did. I smiled and took in the music and the words and the message. That interpretation had me thinking that truly, it can be alright.
Coleen has sent that song to me many times. I thought maybe it was time for me to send it back to her. A little bit modified, a little bit personalized. It’s sung to her, to my family, to myself, and to the new people in my life.
Last week I got my monthly electric bill in my email. It was $194.62 which is more than double what it normally is. I looked into it and found two different issues that caused my bill to be so extravagant. First of all, my energy supplier was charging me about twice the market value of energy which I corrected by canceling my service with them and selecting a more competitive supplier. Secondly, the electric company apparently misread my meter because they showed my electric consumption as being much higher than it actually was. After talking with one of their customer service reps, I learned that they had estimated my consumption based upon the energy I used for the same month last year. She explained to me that there was a “spike” in my usage last August and they assumed I would be using a comparable amount of electricity this year. Well, I won’t be. The “spike” that she referred to was indeed real but it won’t be reproduced this year. Last year I had an oxygen machine running in the kitchen 24 hours a day with a long tube that reached to the living room and all the way to the second floor where the main bathroom is at. At the other end of that tube was Coleen as she struggled through the final weeks and days of her life.
I am reminded of Coleen’s death in many different ways. The void in my house and my heart, the sadness in my daughter’s eyes, my granddaughters’ precious attempts to understand heaven, the awkward ways of some people to reconcile the loss. Now I have a brand new reminder of her death from an unexpected source: my electric bill.
So, has it been a year? Really? In less than two weeks an entire year will have elapsed since Coleen died. I know because I am almost counting down the days to September 18, 2014 which marks the one year anniversary of her passing. Of course I have known from the beginning that this milestone day was looming in my future without being reminded by my electric bill. How did I, how did we, get this far along without Coleen with us. How did we manage to do the things we have without her? Holidays, birthdays, special days, every days? It doesn’t feel like it all the time, some days I don’t think of her as much as other days. But she is always gone, she’s never there, and she is always missed.
Yesterday was one of those days that Coleen was conspicuously absent from. It was Samantha’s first day of school. You know the one where parents and sometimes grandparents hover around the kid waiting for the school bus. Then take pictures and videos of them getting on the bus and feeling so proud but at the same time a little melancholy because they wonder how that little girl got so beautiful and so big so fast and where does that time go to? Days like that, events like that were so special to Coleen and it seems like punishment for the rest of us not to be able to see the smile she would have worn and felt the love and pride she would have shown as Samantha waited for and then boarded her bus.
I thought of my daughter Lindsay and what she must have felt yesterday morning. I know she misses her mom so much and it is just unfair for her to go through days like this without sharing them with her. Unfair, cruel, painful.
I was in charge of recording the video part of yesterday’s memory. As I followed Samantha and Lindsay across the street, capturing the moment on my iPhone, I realized that it wasn’t that long ago that Lindsay was the one with the backpack and the unsure smile getting her picture taken on the stairs of the bus. It wasn’t that long ago, was it? Not unless you consider 27 years to be a long time. My memory of Lindsay and Coleen that morning is very vivid to me after all this time and I am happy about that. I expect my memory of Lindsay and Samantha from yesterday will also stay with me forever or 27 years, whichever comes first for me. It will always be just a little bit tarnished though, just because of that one missing person.
My countdown to September 18th is on. I am not planning any type of family gathering and I feel that day should be spent in a more personal setting than with a group. I have scheduled a much-needed reiki session for that day and not much else although I’m sure I will visit the cemetery at least once. One thing for certain is that I will not forget about that day. Not with reminders from weird places like electric bills and school buses.
Coleen liked things simple. She was not one to insist on things being over the top or complicated. Words like glamorous, ornate, ostentatious and glitzy would never be used to describe her. She was quietly beautiful and had her own relaxed style, subdued, understated and easy. She dressed that way, decorated that way and lived her life that way.
I kept her style in mind through all of the events that occurred after her death. From the funeral service and luncheon that followed to the committal of her ashes to the ground several months later and all those milestone days in between, I always kept in mind how she would have wanted it. Through all of those events and days, I constantly made decisions by asking myself “What would Coleen do, what would she want?” I usually made pretty quick and solid decisions by answering those questions to myself. I’m not sure she would have agreed to everything I did but I feel that I got close enough that all in all, she would have been happy.
I delayed the final symbolic gesture of Coleen’s death until just recently. Because it took me almost six months to part with the urn that contained her ashes and have a ceremony where it was buried, I had not made arrangements for her gravestone marker. Shortly after the burial in April, I began the process for her stone. And of course, I had several choices to make about that. What size, what color, what should it say, should my name be on it too, where to buy it. I felt a little overwhelmed at times because, after all, this was going to be the final statement about Coleen. This was going to mark the spot where her ashes were buried and was going to be what people would see when they came to remember her. I wanted it to be special and I wanted it to be right.
This is another one of those places where I wish I could have talked to Coleen because she would have known exactly what to do. Instead I talked to other people and solicited their opinions. I asked my daughter, Coleen’s sister, my brother, some friends and of course the guy who owned the store I was buying the stone from. My best source was when I walked around the cemetery and looked at other stones. That is what convinced me to make the size, design, and wording decisions I did. There were two things I added to the standard design that make Coleen’s stone unique to her. I added the flower that she drew that day with our granddaughter, Samantha and I also added a biblical quote, “Let light perpetual shine upon them.” Coleen was all about light and it seemed fitting to include that on her marker. It took much longer to get the stone finished and delivered than the store initially promised. I was patient at first but got a little anxious after waiting months instead of weeks. I wanted it in place before the anniversary of her death which was fast approaching.
A few days ago I was on my way to an event but I stopped at the cemetery to see if Coleen’s stone had been delivered. The store owner had promised me it would be there that morning but I was still kind of skeptical. As I drove closer to her plot I saw that it did indeed look different and that the stone was there. Brand new and shiny, it looked beautiful and I knew Coleen would have liked it very much. I sent texts out to her parents, sister and our daughter announcing that her stone was finally in place and that they should come visit. My daughter brought her daughters later that day and told me that the stone was the prettiest one in the whole cemetery. The girls picked some dandelions and put them on the stone. I was away a few days but when I came back I went to see the stone again. It is beautiful. I traced the flower with my fingertip and held the palm of my other hand over her name like I was administering reiki to it and felt the warmth through the coolness of the stone. I have been to Coleen’s grave countless times since she was buried but never did I feel the emotion of that day. Not even when I was there on our wedding anniversary. I guess it was the wording and the dates and just seeing it carved in that stone for me to read. I guess it was that and the flower that brought it all together for me. Coleen was really gone and she was not coming back and that was final. Yes, I already knew all that but it was different. You know that saying people use when they mean something’s not definite? “It’s not carved in stone.” Well, Coleen’s name was carved in stone and it wasn’t going to change. You can call it closure, maybe. I think it is that and I think it will help her parents and family with their closures as well.
I left Coleen’s grave and stone that day with mixed feelings. Sad that the whole affair was necessary but happy with my efforts and the result. The stone was the final piece of my responsibility to Coleen and her family. When I selected and designed the stone, I thought of her style, her ways, her wishes. How could I best memorialize her in such a small space? I am certain she would be very pleased with her stone, it’s just her style.
It was all so easy before. Everything was stable, decided, determined, and understood. When Coleen was alive, it was all so different. I realized how different things have become since she died 11 months ago today. I realized it when I was kneeling at her grave site trying to talk to her and hoping that she was somehow hearing me.
I make decisions now that I would have never dreamed of making before. I won’t say that Coleen made all of our decisions because she didn’t. Most of them we made together by discussing and compromising. Many decisions I have to make now would have never presented if she was still alive. Our lives together were established and fairly routine. Not boring, just every day items that you get accustomed to after 33 years of seeing each other day. I never had to decide what to do for holidays or what to buy for a gift. Now I decide what food to buy, where to go on dates, what family parties to attend, where to go for holidays. I have an opportunity to spend Thanksgiving in Florida with Ruth Ann and her family and I am deciding on doing that or doing what I have done for the last 30+ years. Tough call which of course I would never had to make with Coleen.
I have been with people I would have never met before. I have an entirely different set of people in my life since Coleen was here. My affiliation with the Buffalo Wellness Center and the Breast Cancer Network of Western New York as a member of their Board of Directors has enabled me to meet brand new people. And they are all very enthusiastic and passionate about their work and their cause. It is a pleasure to be around such upbeat and committed people. I have also recently met a wonderful woman who I am getting to know better. This weekend she invited me to a wedding where I met her entire family and it is a big one. My affiliation with Coleen’s family has waned somewhat since she has been gone. People get busy, myself included, and we just don’t seem to get together as much. Part of my problem is my relationship with my girlfriend because I can not yet introduce her to people like Coleen’s parents or other family members. So I can’t really combine things like I would like to. I want that to change and expect it to shortly.:00
I do things I would have had neither time nor inspiration for. Today, on the 11 month anniversary of her death, I spent much of the morning writing a song. That’s right, a song. Words and music, verses and a chorus. Not only was it a song but it was a love song but not for Coleen. I feel guilty about that but then I don’t. Then I decide that I really don’t know at all how I should feel about it. Truth is, I am happy whenever I write anything and to wake up and write a song is amazing to me. The inspiration moving me to do that seems cosmic to me. Almost like it is some kind of divine force willing me to figure out the words and emotions and feelings and then to somehow fit all that around a few guitar chords that make up a rough melody. I’m not sure I get how that all works but I guess I don’t have to. My favorite musical artist, Neil Young, speaks about something he calls “the Muse.” It is the force that visits him when he writes a song and the source for his inspiration. He says that when the muse is suddenly present, he makes himself alone and lets the song happen. Neil claims that he is the conduit between the muse and the recording and that the song writes itself. I felt a little bit like that today although Neil makes money with his songs and so far, I’m just making videos for my girlfriend.
It is hard to fathom that I have been 11 months now without Coleen. The only thing harder will be when I have been one year without her. And that is coming up all too soon. On July 18 which was the 10 month anniversary, I actually forgot about it. I woke up the next morning and realized that I missed the 18th. I have done that one time earlier this year and felt badly about not acknowledging those days. After last months mistake, I set an appointment in my iPhone to remind me at 8:00 AM on August 18 that it was 11 months that day. Kind of ridiculous that I would have to do that I suppose but I would rather rely on technology than forget another month. Maybe in a way it’s a good thing to forget once in a while. Maybe it’s a little sign of progress on this journey. I will never forget my Coleen and I won’t need to set an appointment reminder for next month.
