I’m not sure I ever knew Coleen and this song in the same breath. We listened to a lot of music together. For me, music should be playing in the background for most activities and in the foreground for all the others. But it should always be playing. Coleen and I had music playing most of the time whether we were cooking, dining, having cocktails or cleaning the house. Music was a big part of our lives together. We didn’t always like the same music but for the most part, we had a lot in common. We did rock, blues, jazz and classical and every once in a while, she would even let me slip in some Neil Young. If I was good.
In 1971, Cat Stevens released “Teaser and the Firecat” and the last song on side one of that album was called “How Can I Tell You.” It is a beautiful lament to lost love and a missing person. I was in my last year of high school when I first heard it and although I thought it was a nice song, it never had much impact on me. I always thought the song was about losing someone you loved. I never thought it was about death. But now when I hear it, I can’t imagine it being about anything but that. I don’t recall specifically hearing this song with Coleen but I’m sure we did. If not, we’re hearing it now and I’m the one singing.
I admit that I am plagiarizing myself here because I posted this song back in September just before Coleen died. But I played it again tonight when I was writing my last article and it is just so powerful and so sad. I just had to do it again.
Saturday, March 8th is Coleen’s birthday. She would have been 54 years old. But she’s not. Obviously, I think about that a lot. How can she not be here? How did she become one of the missing in my life? I was recently talking to a friend about another friend who I may never again here from because of a misunderstanding that had little to do with either of us. I said that I don’t want any other people leaving my life. I have already lost enough as far as I’m concerned and I don’t want anymore goodbyes.
Sometimes, even after almost six months, I still wonder what happened to Coleen. I wonder how that woman with all that life, enthusiasm and optimism got stolen out from under the rest of us. I think often of the photo I took of her when we were on the Spirit of Buffalo cruise on Labor Day weekend 2012. She already knew she had lesions on her liver and lungs and that they were undoubtedly cancerous. But she never said a word to any of us. Instead, she waved to me as I caught her with my iPhone standing barefoot on the deck of that boat, sunglasses on, Magic Hat #9 in her hand, smiling. And keeping her secret from me and everybody else. I will probably always wonder what happened to her. It all went so fast. Sometimes I don’t even remember what I did to help her. I know I did a lot but I wish I could turn back the clock and do more. I know I could have done more especially if I would have known the way I was going to end up feeling.
If Coleen was still wih us, she would have declared by now that this was going to be her birthday weekend. She always claimed the whole weekend as hers whenever her birthday was within a day or two of it. By now she would have decided where she wanted to go for her birthday and who was going to come with us. She wouldn’t have cared how much it was going to cost, only that she was surrounded by the people she loved and that we had a good time on her day/weekend. I would have probably said something about the money part and her reply would have been, “Who cares, we’ll make more.” I heard that answer more than once.
Many times, especially if she had a new recipe she wanted to try out on a crowd, Coleen would decide to host our family for her birthday. She loved to entertain and to cook for people. That was one of her true joys in life. If she could make someone happy by feeding them, it was a successful day. There was a bumper sticker on her car that said “Love People, Cook them tasty food,” and that was certainly one of her mantras. I salvaged that bumper sticker from her car before I traded it in and it now hangs in my kitchen.
Last month Lindsay brought up her Mom’s birthday and said “What do you want to do, Dad? I think we should do something for Mom’s birthday.” I agreed. We should do something to celebrate that day. How could we possibly ignore it? How could I be alone on March 8 and expect Coleen’s children and family be alone? Especially since this is the first March 8th since her death. I may always raise a glass on her birthday and sometimes maybe more that that, but this will be the first one. They say you never forget your first one.
We thought about going out to dinner at one of Coleen’s favorite restaurants but as the guest list grew larger, we decided instead to celebrate Coleen right in her own house. So on Saturday, I will make lasagna and Coleen’s parents, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, children, grandchildren will gather and we will remember her and celebrate her life. I can’t help but think she would like that. Especially the lasagna part. That was one of the few dishes I was allowed to make. She assigned that recipe to me long ago and said I made it so good that I should always be the one to make it. I think she would have made it just as good, but it was a little too busy for her so she delegated that one to me.
I don’t know if its right or wrong to celebrate the birthday of someone who has died. I also don’t know who has the qualifications to decide. I only know how I feel and what I think is right to me. So this weekend is Coleen’s birthday and I will celebrate her life with my daughter, granddaughters and her family. It is an important day for all of us. I may never understand what happened to her, why she’s not with me anymore, where she has gone. I do understand though, how to remember her. I know what she would have liked and how to make her happy.
Throughout much of the time since September 18, 2013 and now, I have discovered many hidden treasures and messages that I thought were too coincidental to be coincidences. And I have learned that there are no coincidences so I take things pretty literally. I had an epiphany a few nights ago while trying to sleep that had to do with two of those discoveries. Individually, they were both very powerful to me. But up until those sleepless hours that night, I had not related the two.
There is a flower that adorns many of the pages of this website and is used as the header logo on all of them. I have stated before that flower was drawn by Coleen while sitting at our kitchen table with our granddaughter, Samantha. They were coloring and talking and Coleen was doodling at the same time. That was perhaps the last time the two of them shared that activity as Coleen was already very sick and it took a lot of effort for her to even sit at a table. I discovered that flower along with her sketches of a tree and even one of me in a pile of papers laying in the kitchen before Coleen died. There was also a drawing of our house that Samantha did in beautiful colors. I didn’t know what to do with them all but I knew they were special, so I carefully put them aside and in a safe place so I could see them later.
When I started this website I wanted something unique to use for some of the graphics. Something that would say “Coleen” every time it was seen. I thought immediately of the flower she had drawn and scanned it into my computer and used it for the logo and other appropriate areas. I could never get the quality of it quite right, though. It wasn’t until I was asked to prepare an announcement flyer for a breast cancer function that I recruited help with making the flower more beautiful. I wanted to use the flower on the flyer, but it looked lousy. So I asked my Photoshop guru son, Patrick to help. He sent me back the flower in all its magnificence and it is on the flyer and I was able to update it on the website as well. It looks so much better and captures the true beauty of the moment when it was created.
That is the first part of my story. The second part is about a quotation I discovered shortly after Coleen died. It was written in her cursive hand on the back of a calender that contained 365 inspirational quotes. Apparently that wasn’t enough for her because she found one from Abe Lincoln that she thought should have been included and wrote it on the back cover. It was on her nightstand and although I don’t know how often she read it, I do know that she lived it every day of her life. It was almost her mission statement.
“Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”
I am very proud of the flower and what it represents. It is almost an entire legacy unto itself as it speaks so clearly of Coleen. I also love the Lincoln quote and anyone who knew Coleen would attest that it fits her so well. Perfectly, in fact. And sometime that night, it dawned on me the significance of those two seemingly unrelated discoveries. I can sometimes be really slow to recognize things right before me. Things that seem very obvious to others come much more deliberately to me. I was lying awake thinking of that flower when the quote popped in my head. “Doesn’t that quote say something about planting a flower? Being planted where it might grow? And don’t I have a drawing Coleen did of a flower? And why can’t it be the same flower?”
It now is the same flower. It represents everything about her and is even more of a tribute than before. Last week after Patrick sent me the enhanced flower, I thought about having some pins made of it. People wear pins on their collars, hats, lapels or most anywhere for all sorts of causes or reasons. Maybe there is more to this message than it seems. Maybe if someone wearing a flower lapel pin was asked what it meant, they could answer it is a tribute to a woman who died too young from breast cancer and would want to help people stay alive longer than she did. They could say it is her way and our way of recognizing passion for life, love of family, and desire to help. It is the flower that was planted where a thistle once grew and has now become a symbol for healing and discovery. For all of us.
I woke up this morning and had an immediate thought. Usually I slowly enter into coherent thoughts after waking up but this morning I had one shortly after opening my eyes. It was the date. February 19, 2014. That meant yesterday was February 18, 2014 which was exactly five months since Coleen’s death. And I went through the entire day without acknowledging it. I can’t believe that happened.
Coleen’s memory was all over yesterday and I thought about her and talked about her far more than I did on most days. I was with Maureen for a massage and we always talk about Coleen. Sometimes, we even feel her presence there with us and that room is a very special place for things like that. I also talked to my daughter Shauna on the phone last evening for quite a while and we spoke of Coleen repeatedly. We even talked about a conference being held in her honor and designing a logo out of the flower Coleen drew that I am using on this website and other places. Shauna did not mention the significance of the date. I wonder if she was waiting for me to say something first or if the date slipped her mind, too? I almost hope she forgot because then I wouldn’t feel quite so bad.
I exposed my writings and this website to someone new last night and talked to them after they read it. We talked all about the life that Coleen and I shared and how special she was and will always be to me. I also went back and read several of those articles myself and got wrapped up in the feeling and emotion of many of them. But through all of those things, I never realized that yesterday was the 18th.
For anyone who has read me here, you know how emotional I have been every 18th of the month. That day has been like a time bomb to me. The only thing worse than that is when the moon is full, or near full on that date. I admit that since retirement, I frequently lose track of the date because I simply don’t need to know it like I used to. That’s why I put any appointment or event into the calender of my iPhone and set a reminder. I didn’t think I needed to that for Coleen’s date of death, but I’m doing it now. I don’t want that to happen again. Or do I?
I have to wonder what it means that I forget the 18th. Is it a sign of progress in my healing that I didn’t fret and get all emotional about yesterday? I spent a lot of time with my memories of Coleen and remembered her fondly with several people. All without being consumed by tears and sorrow. Or does it mean that I am busying myself enough that I am letting go a little bit more than I thought I was? I don’t know. Either way, I don’t particularly like that I didn’t remember and I don’t intend for that to happen again. The perfect day would have been everything I did plus actually remembering it was the 18th. I might be getting better and I might be letting go, but an anniversary is an anniversary. Girls don’t like it when guys forget anniversaries.
I have reached the point in my new life that I think I’m ready for female companionship. Maybe even have a girlfriend. Some might be surprised by that admission, others might be relieved. I myself am confused and somewhat torn by these feelings and the daily conflict I face between letting go and hanging on.
Coleen and I had a wonderful relationship for 33 years. We were madly in love and shared a life that others would be envious of. Now, I am envious of that life and jealous that I don’t have it anymore. Coleen knew I would feel that way and that is one of the reasons she instructed me to find someone after her. By telling me that, she was relieving me of the guilt I would foster in myself by taking that course. She was giving me her permission to let go.
I wondered when the timing would be right for me to put myself in play and actively seek out another woman. I admit to thinking about becoming active for a while, a couple of months at least, but always questioned if I was being too quick in looking for love after Coleen. I felt guilt about doing something that I would have done with her if she hadn’t died. But she did die and that’s the conundrum I faced and still face. I must let go in order to move on.
And what of the woman I find and invite into my life? How fair is of me to ask her to understand me at this particular place in my time? She meets me as a single man slowly recovering from the loss of his beloved wife. I think I am in the right condition to begin a new relationship, maybe even a romance. Yet I know that I am still hanging on to Coleen in different ways. And although my house is slowly becoming my home, it still has much of Coleen and the 27 years of her life here to overlook. It wouldn’t bother me so much to enter a woman’s house after her husband died, but girls are different and I know that would be an issue for most of them. I have been told by a friend that I might want to look for a different house because no woman will ever be completely comfortable where I live. Or how about the rings I wear on a chain around my neck? Coleen’s engagement ring and wedding ring have been dangling around my neck, flirting with my heart since about a week after she died. I don’t ever want to take them off. But what should I expect a new girl to think when I take my shirt off someday and display those rings? How is that supposed to make her feel?
Sometimes, I think I would be better off if I met a woman who had lost her husband. Since I became a widower, I have felt that losing a spouse is the worst kind of loss. There is just nobody in your life that you share the things with that you share with your spouse. All your emotions, troubles, worries, joys and intimacies are placed in the trusts of each other until death do you part. And then what happens after death parts you? A sorrow and vacancy overwhelms us and we want to do what we have always done and that is turn to our spouse for comfort. Only we can’t. A victim of the same pain, a fellow survivor would be able to best understand what my dilemmas are. We would be well equipped to comfort each other, share our loss and our healing. I would not be asking as much of her as I would be asking of an otherwise single woman.
During the past few months, I have developed several activities that not only keep me busy but interest me immensely. I am on a board of directors for a new nonprofit, do a lot of writing here, take yoga classes, get reiki and massage therapies, attend a support group, and have contributed time to my church and some cancer organizations. I am very inspired by these interests and plan on not just continuing them but to also expand them. I want to become more involved in helping people understand loss and their healing and find ways to develop new projects, market and grow the nonprofit, advocate for breast cancer concerns. Of course, most of these interests and inspirations were born as a result of losing Coleen. I would argue that although inspired by her, my participation comes from my enjoyment and ability to bring special talents and skills to those projects. A new girl in my life might think otherwise. She might see my interests as a another way of me holding on instead of letting go.
Some people have already expressed discomfort with the idea of me being together with someone other that Coleen. We were not the perfect couple but we got along well and had a lot of fun together. We presented well and made people very happy and comfortable around us. Coleen and I had many diverse interests and explored those individually but we did so many things as a couple. We were Coleen and Rob to almost everyone. In my new life I am just Rob and that is hard enough for people to accept. It is already a harsh and constant reminder that Coleen is gone. Imagine the uneasiness I will cause when I introduce my “friend” to them. They all know it’s coming but nobody wants to see that.
How fair is it for me to ask a woman into my life and she has that issue to deal with? How comfortable will she be in that situation when I introduce her to my daughters or son or friends or sister-in-law? Or if I am with her and run into one of Coleen’s friends or someone we knew as a couple? I envision that scenario as being not only inevitable, but extremely awkward and uncomfortable for everyone involved. Am I being fair to ask a girl to enter my life and be put in such stressful situations? How about the old friend? She would be troubled seeing me someone other that Coleen. And I would feel bad about being the catalyst for all this discomfort.
Ultimately, I guess it’s going to come down to me being comfortable with myself, my situation and my new friend. Once I am that, I can share or pass that comfort on to everyone else. I don’t want to fall in love right now. It’s too early for me to do that and I am too selfish with my time and interests. But I would like to be able to spend time with a new girl, get to know each other, do some dating and see what happens. I know I have a lot of luggage with me that I have to deal with and that she will have to deal with and I’m worried about how fair all that is for her. I worry about how I will affect my family and friends by being with another girl. I worry about how I will react when I start getting closer to her, when I feel myself slipping away from my past and reaching out for newness. I want to let go but a part of me wants to hang on, too. I never wanted to think about love without Coleen, let alone love after her.
