This morning I am on my porch swing with a cup of coffee. I have music playing in my living room that can be heard quite well from where I sit and is probably noticeable to the passers-by on the sidewalk as well. The street I live on has many houses with front porches yet this morning mine is the only one occupied and the only one where music can be heard. That is a common occurrence. Sometimes I wonder what my neighbors must think of me. I do things like that, I live alone now but can be found working in my yard, hosting parties, entertaining friends, cooking on my grill, and hanging out. I can also be seen driving in and out of my driveway as I am frequently on my way somewhere or returning from somewhere else. I am not sitting still.
This morning I am in an especially good place. I don’t mean my front porch but a good place internally. I have just begun my latest post-corporate world undertaking as Treasurer of The Breast Cancer Network of Western New York. I am a member of the Board of Directors for that non-profit organization that helps breast cancer patients, survivors and their families. It is something I have wanted to be involved with since I started to recover from Coleen’s death nine months ago. Once I heard about the opening I tossed my hat in the ring and now here I am starting another new chapter. I already have some thoughts on how I can help move this group forward and hope to do just that. In the hippie anthem “Almost Cut My Hair,” David Crosby sings the lyrics “I feel like I owe it to someone.” In his version he was talking about owing a commitment to an assassinated Robert Kennedy. My someone is, of course, my late wife, Coleen. I have a hard time thinking of a way that I could do more to honor her life than to help fight the disease that took it from her.
This morning I have a girlfriend. I realized it yesterday when I was sitting in a bank waiting to get my signature set-up to write checks in my new Treasurers role. I thought about the girl I have been dating for the past five weeks and smiled and it dawned on me how much I wanted to see her and that is something you think when somebody’s your girlfriend. So I realized that’s what she is. We met on June 1st downtown on Buffalo’s waterfront and spent about three hours together walking around there and talking. We finally sat down for a beer before we parted and we were both interested enough to want to meet again. We have done a lot of walking and talking and have visited some interesting places. One of those was Glen Park which is where Coleen and I were married. My girlfriend suggested that place for a walk one evening and I thought why not? I didn’t care that we were married there, it actually seemed like a good spot to meet because of that. I was very comfortable with her there and I mentioned the significance of Glen Park to her. We have had dates at a golf driving range, restaurants, river walks, a concert, party grove, and at each other’s homes for dinner. We even played 9 hols of golf together one Sunday afternoon. We seem to be on to something and are extremely comfortable and calm together.
Some of the places we have been together are places that Coleen and I were also at. That fact never escapes me but also never troubles me. I don’t get any feelings of trepidation or angst because of it. Just the opposite in fact. I embrace the newness and welcome it to locations familiar from other times. Those places are now reborn to me and even more special as I see them through the different eyes that have been opened for me. Feel them through the new awareness I have been given. I feel like I am looking at the world through a pair of brand new glasses custom-made just for me. I feel like I have opened an incredible gift of new opportunity that has been given me. How many people get to do that?.
This morning I think Coleen is happy. I think she looks upon us sometimes. She would be happy with my new role with The Breast Cancer Network. She would be happy that I have a girlfriend. I almost think that my comfort at the venues I have been is her way of telling me that things are alright. She told me before she died that she wanted me to find someone. She said I would need companionship and love and that I wouldn’t be good by myself. I think she would like my girlfriend or maybe I should say I think she does like her. One evening I was at her house and Pandora was playing. Within 20 minutes I heard Coleen’s favorite song, “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” and then “Here Comes The Sun,” which has become my family’s musical mantra of Coleen’s presence.
This morning I am happy, content, calm, grounded, confident, excited and new all over again.
This morning I am somebody’s boyfriend. How cool is that?
Before Coleen died, Lindsay and Samantha “interviewed” her. Lindsay wanted to create an activity for her daughter Samantha and her mom to do together. She also wanted to preserve some facts and favorites about Coleen for all of us to share and rally around. One of the questions they asked Coleen was her favorite holiday. Her answer was 4th of July. I was somewhat surprised by that response because I thought she would have said Christmas.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized that the 4th if July was indeed her favorite holiday and it was easy to figure out why. Entertaining. Coleen was a natural-born hostess and party planner and the 4th of July gave her the perfect opportunity to strut her stuff in those roles. I don’t remember when we started to host Independence Day parties but it was several years ago. At first it was just a few people but quickly grew to around 40 friends and family members plus whoever dropped in from other friends who were passing by on foot.
Our village holds a 4th of July parade every year at 2:00 PM and that was the catalyst for our parties. The parade is no big deal, mostly fire trucks, marching bands and local politicians throwing penny candy to the kids sitting on the curb, but residents gather every year to see it. Since our house is less than a 5 minute walk to the parade route, it became a gathering place for people to park and as long as everyone was already there, why not make it a party? Of course to Coleen, a party wasn’t just a place to see friends and family but more importantly, an opportunity to try out new recipes. Our first few menus consisted of burgers and hot dogs but one year Coleen discovered something different to serve. For her, the more unique, the better and she hit a home run when she unleashed Chickenburgers on the crowd. I wish I could remember the year of the first Chickenburger but I can not. Of course she would have recalled. I do remember one year when some of Lindsay’s friends from college stopped by and we gave them Chickenburgers. So that would have been at least 10 years ago although I feel I have made those burgers longer than that. Whenever it was, everyone loved them and they became a true 4th of July tradition to us. So much so that one year, in a fit of experimentation, Coleen bought different rolls to serve the burgers on to the chagrin and disappointment of our guests. We didn’t make that mistake again.
Beside the legend of our Chickenburgers and all the fun they were to serve and eat, there was a different experience attached to them that holds a place in my heart. It was in the planning and the making of them. The recipe calls for freshly ground chicken breast which is not always easy to find. Ground chicken can be bought in packages but it’s not the same so Coleen always shopped around to find not only the best price but also a store that would do it. Once she took care of that, the “fun” became her and I making the burgers. We usually started with approximately 10 lbs. of ground chicken which made about 50 burgers. Add a few diced Vidalia onions and a lot of chopped fresh thyme and the Chickenburger assembly process was rather involved. It was a true labor of love though.
Coleen and I usually made the burgers the night before and it would take a couple of hours start to finish. It was a little tedious but we worked together and the time went quickly. We played music, opened some wine and made an event of it, talking and laughing as we went. I always chopped the onions and mixed the ingredients and she would take care of the fresh thyme and decide how much of everything to use. Then we both shaped the patties all the while worrying that we were making them too big and we wouldn’t have as many burgers as we needed. Of course, we always had plenty. And at the end we would cover our masterpieces in the refrigerator, clean up our mess and walk down to the village beer tent and hear some live music. It was a ritual to us but we loved doing it together.
As fun as that all was, the real joy was cooking and serving those burgers and accepting all the compliments from our guests. There is a bit of a process to cooking the burgers on the grill, adding barbecue sauce and cheese at the end, and I became quite proficient at it. Those Chickenburgers were one of the few items that Coleen trusted me to grill without her supervision or critique which was good because she was busy running the kitchen and making sure all of our guests were properly fed.
Last year was Coleen’s final 4th of July. She died six weeks later. We didn’t make Chickenburgers last year. We still had a party but served a different menu. Nobody minded as it was pretty amazing that we even had the party. Coleen insisted on it though and except for substituting chicken sausage for Chickenburgers, it was pretty much the same party we had all the years previous to that. I wondered about having the party this year and went back and forth a few times before deciding that I would once again host friends and family on the 4th of July. And that I would make Chickenburgers.
It was much more challenging this year without Coleen, just like everything else is without her. I had to take care of everything, ordering the chicken, the rolls, remembering how many burgers were in a pound, how much pop to buy and all the other details Coleen always took care of. And of course I had to make the Chickenburgers alone without her company and playful criticism and advice. I couldn’t find the recipe for the burgers but I had made them enough to remember it all. And I still worried that I would finish with enough burgers as I shaped the patties. I did. I ended up with 60 of them which will leave me with enough for leftovers and to maybe share with some new friends. It’s an old recipe, tried and true. I wonder if it will taste a little differently this year.
Coleen’s 4th of July Chickenburgers
Fresh ground chicken breast (order from butcher or supermarket meat department in advance)
Vidalia Onion, diced
Fresh thyme, chopped
Barbecue sauce
American cheese
Combine chicken, onion and thyme and shape into patties. You should get about 5 patties per pound of chicken
Place patties on hot grill. Sear one side and flip applying barbecue sauce to seared side. Sear second side, flip and apply more sauce. Cook burger thoroughly, flip again, apply more sauce and melt cheese on top. Serve on soft (bulkie) roll and garnish with mayo, lettuce, tomato.
One thing I’ve learned about loss is you just never know when you are going to feel it. They told me that grief comes in waves, crashing at the shore of your emotions them returning peacefully from where they came. There is a sudden rush of grief and longing and helplessness that gives way to what is now supposed to be normal life. Although life will never be the the normal one I knew it to be.
A few nights ago, our granddaughter Samantha graduated from pre-school. When I say graduated I mean the pre-school she attended held a commencement ceremony in a local school complete with caps, gowns, procession and diploma. When Lindsay invited me I didn’t think much of it. Kind of just another one of those little things that grandparents went to like a school play or a Christmas pageant. I expected it to be cute and brief and fun to be at. I didn’t expect it to be so painful.
I sat with six other members of Samantha’s family in the third row of the auditorium. The music started and the graduates walked down the aisle from the rear and sat in their seats, bringing smiles to all of the parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier, but it wasn’t until I saw Samantha in her green cap and gown and big, proud smile that I realized we were once again one person short that night. That Samantha was missing a grandmother. And not only was she missing a grandmother for her pre-school graduation, but she would missing her for every occasion to come. Birthdays, recitals, plays, all of it. We all missed Coleen’s happiness and enthusiasm that night. She would have been all smiles and hugs and would have probably invited everyone back to the house for dessert or something. I thought about the day Samantha was born just five short years ago and how excited Coleen was. One day while Lindsay was pregnant, Coleen and I were in a store and there we saw a newborn baby. Coleen looked at the baby and smiled and said to me, “Hey, we’re getting one of those.” Or when she called me at work just before Samantha was born and told me she didn’t care about work, she was on her way to the hospital and said I better be too. And then I thought about all that has happened in those five years and how fast that time went and how Coleen isn’t with us anymore.
When it hit me at graduation, it was just like one of those waves crashing the shore. Oh my God, I thought, Coleen is supposed to be here too. This is the perfect event for her and she would have been so excited to be part of it. I half held back tears and I don’t know if anyone noticed but I was quite saddened by my realization. I guess I actually thought about Coleen’s absence before I left home because I wore her flower pin on my collar. It looked good and was quite noticeable against the black fabric of my shirt but nobody asked me about it. And nobody else from the family had one on. For me it is a way of including Coleen in functions like these. Even though she’s not physically with us, it’s a way of inviting her spirit to join in. It’s a way of honoring her and her enthusiasm.
Samantha & I at her Pre-School Graduation 7/26/2014
Coleen would have wanted to bring flowers to Samantha and I thought about that. But I thought Samantha would get plenty of those so I bought her a couple small gifts instead. She liked them, especially the bracelet from the Disney movie “Frozen,” and I thought Coleen would have approved of my choice. She might have even used one of her loving phrases like “You’re so smart,” on me after that.
For me, I never know when the grief and the loss are going to strike. I should have seen it coming at the graduation, though. I
Coleen with Claire smelling flowers
should have anticipated the void I would feel in that auditorium coming from that empty seat next to mine. I choked up several times but the biggest was when Lindsay said to me at the end how much she missed her mom there that night. How she wished she could have been there to see Sammie graduate. I said the same things to her and we talked about how hard these things are for us. Poor Lindsay. I think she got my sentimental genes. I feel bad for her and for me but mostly for our granddaughters. They are the ones getting short changed by not having Coleen as a Grandma. Of all the roles Coleen was to different people, Grandma was the one she was best at. Except for wife.
There is something different about me now. Actually, most things are different about me now. The way I live. The way I think. The people I know. The things I do and the places I go. They are all different. But it’s more than that. It’s me. Inside. Outside. I talk to people with such a calmness, such a quiet confidence. I hardly recognize myself. I am much more interesting than I was before. I should be. I know more than I did. I have been exposed to an entirely new cast of characters than I surrounded myself with before. Nothing negative about my life in the corporate world but the people there were much less interesting and inspirational than the people I have met since. My goals are different, my intentions clearer.
I wonder what Coleen would think of me now. She knew me better than anyone ever has but she knew me differently than I am now. She knew the old Rob and loved me in that persona. What would she think of me now? I wish she could see me today. I wish I could talk to her. I would be better for her now than I was when she knew me. The new self I have become would be much more pleasing to her and more receptive to her. She loved me before, she would love me even more now. She would like me better.
So I take that newness in myself to different places and I talk to different people. People I never knew before get the new version of me. Not that the last version was bad, but I am so much different now. I feel that I have a new awareness and I am eager to share that with people I know and with people I meet. It has become a passion of mine to reach out to people.
I have had occasion to speak with women who could be potential partners of mine. The calmness and confidence I spoke of earlier is even more evident in these encounters. Ironically, it is the discoveries I have made since Coleen’s death that propel me forward into my future. It is the newness that has developed in me that gives me the strength and the ability to not replace her, but to move forward without her.
A dear friend recently gave me a hand-written note that spoke of the expansive powers of the heart. She wrote that just when you think the heart is full and can not accept anything or anybody new to love, it finds a way to expand and make room for new love without sacrificing any love it already had. I believe that. I believe I will find that new love and that my heart will find the room for her while saving the space that will forever be Coleen’s. It won’t be competitive, it will be complementary.
I was recently at the venue of our wedding ceremony, a park not far from where I live. I met a woman there. She had brown hair, brown eyes. She was part German, part Irish and she had a lot to say. She was familiar, she was different. I was calm and I was confident and I tried to be interesting. She got the version of me that Coleen created but never saw. It was all very new and I felt my heart opening up.
I have read about grief. I have attended support groups for widowers. I have gone to individual counseling and attended bereavement seminars. I have lived through milestone days without the most important person in my life. I have celebrated my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, Valentine’s Day, her birthday as well as all the monthly markers of her passing, all without her. Those days were all difficult, as I expected them to be. None of them were as difficult as June 6th which was our 33rd wedding anniversary.
Why was that day so much harder than the others? It shouldn’t have been. I mean it was just a part of the first year cycle of loss. It is said that the first year of occasions after a loss is the hardest and that the sum of all those special days is never again equaled. I don’t know about that because I am still within the first twelve month time zone. But it was by far the worst day of all. Here’s why.
Our wedding anniversary was a day that the two of us shared as a couple. Yes, we would get cards from people and some acknowledgement but it was our day to remember and to celebrate. It was a day when we would buy each other cards, I would buy flowers, we would go to dinner. Whatever happened, it was celebrating us and our lives together. So when June 6 came up in my rotation of days to feel shitty about, I didn’t have much company to share my grief with. It was my day to grieve alone.
I wasn’t sure what I would do that day. A few weeks ago at a luncheon with my support group, I was asked what I was going to do on the day of my wedding anniversary. I didn’t have a good answer because I really didn’t know what I was going to do or how I would feel that day. I thought about options ranging from going out to a fancy dinner alone to ignoring it completely. I knew I couldn’t just turn my back on it and did not want to eat alone. What happened that day seemed to take care of itself almost like I was just the conduit, the guy doing the deeds that had already been decided. In the morning of my 33rd wedding anniversary I left my house with a vase, a pair of scissors, and a bottle of water, and a book of poetry. I bought a dozen red roses and an anniversary card and drove to the cemetery where Coleen’s ashes are buried. I wrote something special in the card and sealed the envelope. I trimmed the roses, poured the water and placed them in the vase. I placed the card in the middle of the roses and read several poems from Coleen’s favorite book of poetry. I left to attend to some appointments I had that day. Ironically one was a session with my Hospice bereavement counselor where we talked about how I was handling the day. She liked it.
I returned to the cemetery later that day. I brought with me a bottle of champagne, two flute glasses, the book of poetry, our wedding album, and a folding chair. I opened the wine, poured two glasses, and toasted our loves. As I drank from one glass I poured the other into the ground. I looked at our wedding photos and remembered the day aloud. I opened the card I had left that morning and read it to her. I read another couple of poems. I drank more champagne and shared more with the earth. I celebrated the love I shared with Coleen. I celebrated us. At the end, before I left, I poured the rest of the champagne in the ground, slowly circling the vase of red roses. I selected one rose from the vase and brought it home. I left the others along with the vase, the card, and one of the flute glasses partially filled. I was sad throughout the entire yet when I left, I took with me a sense of calmness and peace. Something that I had done that day, or maybe the sum of all of them, made me feel better. Something had pulled me through and made me realize that an anniversary should be a celebration not a wake.
The love story that was Coleen and I was Coleen and I. Sure, there were many wonderful people in our lives but the love story was her and I. And it was an incredible story. Perhaps nothing special to most people and certainly nothing to ever make a movie about, but to the two of us it was special. From start to finish, we were in love. Actually, we were madly in love. Yes, we had moments when we were mad at each other and when we disappointed each other. Nothing was perfect. But when we got past those moments as we always did, it was true love. Nobody understands the relationship two lovers have. The intimacies, the conversations, the sharing of secrets and concerns and weakness, the planning, the memories. Nobody understands that relationship except the people in it. We understood it. We knew what we meant to each other and how lucky we were to be together. No wonder the date we celebrated our love together for so many years, now left for me alone, was so painful for me.
