I was walking past the greeting card aisle at the grocery store last week and I wanted to buy you a card. Like I have done every year for the past 33 years in a row. I never liked buying cards very much, especially if the card wasn’t for you. And even when it was for you, birthday cards and anniversary cards were never as much fun as asking you to be my Valentine.
I remember the first Valentine’s Day we were together. It was 1981 just about a month before we took that historic trip to New York City where I surprised both of us by proposing. I wanted to do something special that year and came up with two pretty good ideas. I bought a box of those silly valentines that little kids give to each other at school. I picked out ten or so of the best ones and mailed them to your house. Each on in its own separate envelope. So you got a pile of silly valentines in the mail and you thought that was funny. Your parents thought it was weird, but they thought that about me anyway. I also went to a bookstore in search of something memorable and a little more romantic than that. I found the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. It was a little red book titled “With Love From …” that contained lip prints of famous people along with their signatures. The book was virtually page after page of kisses. You loved it. I found it months ago in the bottom bookshelves in the dining room, dusted it off and put it in much more prominent position among other treasures. Right now it is sitting next to me and I am reading what I wrote in the book before I gave to you.
To the girl whose lips make this book so appropriate … from the guy who’s so glad he met them … 14Feb81
You know, Valentine’s Day was always a big deal to me. I loved picking out just the right card for you and would spend quite a bit of time finding the perfect one. One year I couldn’t decide between two cards so I bought them both. I was always looking for just the right combination of romance, sex and humor. Although I admit that some years I went strictly for romance. Valentine’s Day was the perfect day to tell you about love and how much of it I had for you. It was also the perfect day for me to add to your lingerie collection which I recall doing more than once. I loved our romance, it really never ended until …
I was cleaning our closet a couple of days ago and found more gifts from V Days past, both books. You always liked books and as much as I would have liked to, I couldn’t buy you lingerie for every holiday. In 1997, I bought you a little book called “Love Letters” which is all romantic correspondence from famous people. I’m not sure how much of this you read but it doesn’t look very worn. More interesting than the content, at least to me right now, is what I wrote inside the back cover. A verse of poetry. Remember that I used to do that sometimes? You never thought it was very good, you were probably right. But once in a while I would hit on some words that seemed right together. In this case, I thought I described part of you pretty well:
She’s gathering information
On a subject strange to me
She’s got magazines and printouts
And her curiosity
She’s got lights on in the bedroom
Informercials on TV
A book of coupons in her car
And a brand new recipe
Alright, maybe not the most romantic prose ever written. It got better though, in 1999 when I gave to you another book, this one titled “The 50 Most Romantic Things Ever Done.” It was supposed to be fifty romantic stories in one small book except I altered it. I typed an additional story, the 51st, and pasted it to the last pages of the book. That story was of you and I getting engaged in New York on your birthday in 1981. I always liked that story.
I know there are a lot of Valentine’s Day cards hidden in the drawers of our bedroom. I had a special place where I kept your cards to me and I think you have some in your top drawer also. I never threw any of those cards away and I never will. I have to ask you something though. Is it okay if I don’t read those cards this year? Can I just leave them where they are for maybe another year at least? I want so to see them again, read what we wrote to each other on the days we celebrated our love. I just don’t think I can do it this year. I hope that’s okay and you understand. I’m doing better but I know I’m still too wounded and fragile right now. Can I save them for next year?
They say the holidays are the hardest. We got through those and they weren’t as bad as I thought. But the next three, starting with tomorrow, are going to hurt a lot. Valentine’s Day, your birthday and our anniversary are all wonderful days, some of my favorites. But I’m going to need a lot of help with them. Valentine’s Day was always special with you, in some ways maybe the most special. I’m just going to celebrate that one for now. I’m not sure how you will celebrate with me, but I hope you find a way.
Our bedroom closet was not large yet it housed an amazing amount of possessions. Most of those were Coleen’s. She dominated the closet with her clothes and items she would store in there. Coleen was not the most organized person I have met and she had a propensity for keeping things she should have gotten rid of. I suppose we are all guilty of that to some degree, but she had more stuff in the closet than she ever wore or used. Since her death, the closet has been an almost sacred area to me. One of the places I least want to tread for fear of memories and emotion. Yet each day I am in that closet several times either getting clothes or putting them away. And each time I enter, I focus only on the immediate task and try not to look around very much. And each time I close the closet door behind me, I tell myself that I have to get in there and clean that closet out … someday.
For reasons I am not yet prepared to discuss, I decided to deal with the closet a few days ago. I have written before about the emotional impact I have gotten when I disturb Coleen’s things. By converting “our” closet into “my” closet, I was in effect taking another step in making our house my home. Those are always steps I would prefer not to take, but I’m eventually better as a result. The times when I have cleaned her car, moved her books, rearranged her dresser and put things away have created some of my most emotional moments. I fully expected a healthy dose of that as I began the task of removing Coleen’s belongings from our bedroom closet.
I was most fearful of the clothes she had on hangers. I took them down and transferred them to a closet in a different room so they could be gone through more thoroughly. I was not ready to determine a final disposition for them yet. Wisely, I did not look at each item individually as I grabbed them in bunches of six or so. But I couldn’t help but spot some of my favorites as I removed them from the closet. And I would think of her wearing something and be reminded of the occasion or occasions and of me holding her in it. I touched the fabric of some of them and could almost feel her underneath, my hands holding her and our lips touching. Our eyes closed then opening to look in each others eyes. I saw the tops she wore in regular rotation and those funky scarves she loved for warmth and style. And dresses she was in for only a time or two but always for a special occasion. She had a sexy black cocktail dress that she wore to a wedding and on a cruise we took about 20 years ago. I have a photo of her in that and she was so beautiful and young.
As you might have guessed, that was exactly my fear of the closet and why I waited so long to take it on. So many wonderful memories and reminders of such a beautiful life together. I managed to get all her clothes out of the closet, and cleaned out a shelving unit before I moved to the floor. She had a lot of shoes there and bags of random items, most of which would be thrown away. But there was something leaning against the wall that I didn’t recognize. It was wrapped in brown paper and was rather large. I thought it might have been a sketch or something artsy. Coleen’s friend Sue was an artist and often gave Coleen some of her work and I assumed that was what this was. I removed it and placed it on the bed. It had been wrapped very carefully, almost professionally, and that made me even more curious.
I finally got the paper off and found a beautiful handwritten calligraphy of a poem and realized that I had seen it before. The poem was called “Celebrate the Journey” and was one of Coleen’s favorites. And I remembered seeing this artwork years ago when she brought it home with a big smile on her face. Coleen had a friend named Carol who was an unlikely cancer survivor. Carol had a gift of calligraphy and Coleen asked her to work her magic with this poem. Carol did a remarkable job and Coleen was going to have it framed and hang it somewhere prominently. She never got to that. Instead, she put this beautiful piece of art in the closet, where we seem to put so many of our good intentions. Where we put so many things that we want to get to, but end up soon forgotten. Where so much of Coleen’s life resided for me to rediscover that day.
The artwork was beautiful. But the poem was the message. As I read it, the inevitable tears came to my eyes. Once again, I felt like I was receiving another message from Coleen. A message telling me to celebrate the journey and also telling me to tell others the same thing. That seems to be the constant to these messages I find. They are all directed at me but they always need to be distributed to others as well. Sometimes I think I’m just the messenger, the conduit to receive and redistribute and help others. I don’t know how else to look at the discovery of this poem as anything other than a message. It was meant for me to find, to read, to be inspired by and to share. So here it is:
Celebrate the Journey
Who knows why life unfolds
the way it does; why we chose
one path or another, share the
way for a while or a day, then
say goodbye. There is no
predictability here, and less
control than we might wish.
But there is the quiet urging
of the heart, the knowing in
the soul, the wisdom that’s
beneath the mind, accessible
if we breathe and turn inside.
When the tide of change rolls
in we can resist or be at peace,
struggle or release. The stuff
of life may not be ours to
understand. It’s enough to
offer love, to receive the best
and worst, to embrace and
say farewell. What matters
most is to celebrate each
moment of the journey.
“Celebrate the Journey” was written by Danna Faulds and was in Coleen’s favorite poetry book, “One Soul.” This book contains over 100 pages of poems from the heart of yoga and Coleen would often read it in bed and at times when she needed peace. I recall her pointing this particular poem out to me on more than one occasion.
It also represents what I think of as a personal failure in caring for Coleen during her final days. I never thought of reading aloud to her from this beautiful book until I saw it the day after she died. Instead of just holding her hand and telling her I loved her, I could have been reading these wonderful poems to her, too. She would have liked that and I will never forgive myself for that oversight. Ironically, after I did find this book, I was trying to recall which of the poems Coleen liked so much. After finding the artwork in the closet, it dawned on me that poem was the one I had been looking for all along. Maybe she was pointing that out to me as well.
I could have cleaned Coleen’s things from the closet earlier than I did. Or I could have procrastinated some more. But whenever it was that I decided to do it, I would have discovered the words and art of Celebrate the Journey. I guess it’s all in the timing of things and I don’t think I needed to hear the whispers of the message earlier. I must have picked the perfect time to clean the closet.
One of these days I ‘m going to go back through all the writings on this website. I’m going to review all the notebooks I’ve written in and all the scraps of paper I’ve scribbled on and saved in a big pile. I am going to read all the writings in my journal. I’m going to do all these things to refresh my memory on all the ways Coleen has communicated with me since she died. She has been very creative in getting messages to me and in making her presence felt and I am thankful that I am aware enough to notice those contacts.
I believe she was reaching out to me again last night when I was sleeping. I know I dream a lot but I am not good at remembering dreams. There always seems to be some kind of blockage with me when it comes to them. I wake up with a sense of having traveled somewhere and experienced something, but I can rarely remember what or where. Once in a while I wake up in time to capture what I was dreaming and that happened to me last night. Months ago, I met with Coleen’s friend Jillian and she told me things to expect from Coleen, her spirit, her spirituality. Jillian told me not to be surprised if Coleen came to me during the night when I was in our bed sleeping. She said that when we sleep, our conscious state is very near to energies on the other side and we are very receptive to contact from those energies.
My experience is that Coleen comes to me in the night. I first noticed it a few days after she died. On previous nights, I went to bed exhausted and fell quickly asleep. I would wake in the morning and find my blankets and sheets virtually identical to the way they looked when I climbed into bed. I slept so soundly that I hardly disturbed anything. Then one night that all changed as I tossed and turned and was unsettled all night. I felt a presence there with me, almost like wrestling me under the sheets. When Coleen and I slept together during her last few months, I was very careful to be a still in bed as possible. She struggled with sleep and was sometimes in pain so I wanted her to be as comfortable as possible. That was hard for me when all I wanted to do was hold her and tell her I loved her. I had control over very little, but those were two signs I could send her telling her how I felt about her. I know she knew, but I really wanted to hold her more than I could. So I tried to sleep as quietly as I could and I think I made a new habit of that which carried through to today. That night when I was wrestling myself, I know I had company in my bed.
I was troubled for a while because I was not having dreams with Coleen in them. Even though I don’t remember dreams that well, I didn’t think she was in whatever dreams I was having. That had changed recently though. During the past couple months I have awoken with remnants of dreams that Coleen was in. They are bizarre, never making much sense. None of them have had any special revelations that I can recall although for all I know, she is telling me all the secrets of life and I don’t remember. It is interesting to me that when I see Coleen in my dreams, it is always the pre-cancer Coleen. It is her with dark hair, almost shoulder length. It is her younger, healthy, vital, sassy and beautiful.
This morning I woke up early, around 5:00 AM. I was just lying in bed for a few minutes when it dawned on me that I had been dreaming. And my dream was about Coleen and me. She was talking to me, like she always did. She was giving me some advise, like she did to everybody. She had some knowledge to share and I was the one who needed to know what she knew. I’m still a little awed that I have recall of this dream, so it must be pretty important. Coleen was talking to me about a friend of ours and telling me that she and her husband, another friend of ours, were getting divorced. Coleen thought I might want to stay close to that situation because she thought that girl and I might be good together. Now, I know that scenario is crazy because that couple is not going to split up. But dreams happen for a reason so there must have been some message there for me to figure out. I’ll have to work on that. Leave it to Coleen though to try her hand at matchmaking from heaven. On her husband. When the two of us talked about me finding someone after her, I half expected her to tell me who I should get together with. Maybe last night she wasn’t telling me who, but perhaps who not.
There was another sign from Coleen last night that was not a dream. I was out most of the day and came home around 7:00 PM. It had snowed a lot all day and before going inside, I shoveled the snow from my front sidewalk and porch. As I finished, I glanced skyward and damn if I didn’t see the moon in its waxing crescent, smiling down on me. Now the weather has been winter for weeks and the sky has been perpetually cloudy, so to see the moon after so many nights of it hidden was a gift to me. But our sky was not really clear, and as I looked above, wisps of clouds crossed the moon’s path. As they did, it created a flickering effect with the moonlight and I imagined the moon winking at me. Smiling and winking. Alas, I welcomed that feeling, along with the accompanying chills up my spine, for only a minute or two before big clouds hid the moon from me once again. I don’t know how long the moon was visible before I noticed it, but I suspect it wasn’t long. I was in the right place to see, recognize, feel and enjoy the sign it sent. Now I just have to figure it all out.
I have been influenced by the “Letting Go” reflection that was read during yoga class last week. Apparently it has had some impact on people I have shared it with and I am encouraged to share it with others. It has had significant impact on me as I have taken some steps toward dealing with Coleen’s death that I have been putting off. They haven’t been huge steps but anything I do these days that feels like closure seems like a sign of progress. I believe that by reinforcing my truths, that passage has also allowed me to develop a little further in becoming my new self.
Coleen’s nightstand was a constant collection of random thoughts. It was usually littered with books she was reading and notes she was making and various medications. Since her passing, I cleaned that up along with the top of her dresser and removed all signs of sickness. I kept some special items on her nightstand and it had a kind of shrine quality to it that reminded me of her. In a way I wanted to preserve things as she had them so I could prolong her life instead of letting go. That was obviously not a reality but it became my way of holding on to her. Four days ago, I put all of those things away.
On the third floor of my house there is a family room that used to be an attic. It has had many different uses over the years, most recently a bedroom for Patrick during the months before and after Coleen’s death. When he left for New York City in November, the room was a mess and I had transferred some of the more unpleasant reminders of Coleen’s final days up there to get them out of sight. When I decided last week to recreate that room into something usable, it forced me to deal with those unpleasantries. There were two wicker baskets with items she had used when she was sleeping downstairs during her last weeks. There was also a shopping bag from the funeral home which I had placed all the sympathy cards in along with the sign-in book and mementos from her wake. And of course the three poster boards with all those photos on them. I emptied the wicker baskets, put the funeral home bag in a box in a closet for safekeeping and disassembled the photo boards. The room on the third level of my house will now be used for yoga, learning to play piano, and hosting my granddaughters as a playroom when they come over to visit.
I have a closet full of Coleen’s clothes. Before Christmas I washed her winter coats and donated them to my friend’s clothing drive for needy children but I have done nothing with her clothes. That closet is still an uncomfortable place for me. Whenever I walk in I try not to look at her clothes hanging there for fear that I will see a dress or top that will rain memories upon me. Coleen had eclectic tastes in clothes and she owned some pretty funky things which she wore very well. Lots of scarves and lots of colors and prints. My daughter and Coleen’s sister have both told me they would help me go through her things and decide what they wanted to keep. The rest I want to let go of. Hopefully I can get everyone here this week and we can sort that out.
The bedroom Coleen and I shared for so many years is getting a little bit of a makeover. Besides the removal of some of Coleen’s items, I have traded the comforter and pillows from our guest bed for the ones on my bed. It is a more masculine appearance but more than that, it is a different appearance and I like that. I have also decided to start sleeping on her side of the bed and did that last night. That side was mine for a long time until Coleen decided we should occasionally rotate sides. We did that once. Today I will be moving some of the furniture around in there, too. At a Hospice grief seminar I attended in December, the speaker told of how he rearranged his father’s bedroom after his mother passed away. He removed her clothes and belongings and changed the layout of the room for which his father was very appreciative. Apparently, it helped his father in his healing process. I have been delaying that action for quite some time but now feel it’s another way of letting go.
I had another grief counseling session with my Hospice counselor three days ago. Before I went, I printed a copy of the “Letting Go” reading I got from yoga. I thought she might already be aware of it, but I wanted to show her just in case she wasn’t. I ended up reading it to her because I thought it was the best way to present that message. It took me a little longer to get through than I thought it would and I had to pause a few times for composure, but I read it out loud to her and she just loved it. She asked for a copy and I gave her the one I brought. I was so happy to share that message with her because I know she will pass it on to others, just as I have been doing. It will be heard tomorrow for the first time by a group of Coleen’s fellow metastatic survivors. I sent it to my friend Barb who in turn passed it on to several people. Tomorrow she will read it at the metastatic breast cancer support group she attends which is the same one Coleen attended, too. It will have very special meaning there because although the words will come from Barb’s mouth, they will come from Coleen. Just as I first heard Coleen deliver them to me through the voice of my yoga instructor, I know Barb will let those women in on the secret of “Letting Go.”
Sometimes I wonder why I do some of the things I do. And then I do them and something happens as a result and I say, “Oh, that’s why I did that.” It doesn’t always have to be a big thing like retiring or buying a new car. Sometimes it’s just deciding to go out for some music or to meet someone. Or today when I went to a yoga class at the last minute.
It wasn’t quite the last minute. I have actually been planning to go since Christmas when my daughter gave me a gift certificate to Healing Waters, the studio where Coleen attended so many classes. I also attended two separate six-week Intro to Yoga classes there and I was anxious to continue with yoga. Yesterday I had an epiphany telling me that I needed a lot more yoga in my life so I decided to attend the 9:30 AM class this morning. It was “Gentle and Restorative Yoga” and was one of Coleen’s favorite classes there. She attended it often. I will admit to procrastinating about yoga since Christmas and I was pleased with myself when I left the house a few minutes early this morning even though the temperature was below zero. I could have easily used the “it’s too cold to go anywhere” excuse, but I didn’t.
As I drove this morning, the sky was clear and the sun was shining brightly in my driver-side front window. There was a song playing in my car that I was hearing for the first time called “Until the Colours Run.” I didn’t know what it meant but I liked it. I drove past a patch of tall trees and the sunlight flickered through them and pulsed through my window onto my face, winking at me. The song hit the chorus, the sunlight perfect, open road ahead and a sudden surge of goosebumps made its way up and down my spine and through my crown. I was very peaceful just then, content, on my way to one of Coleen’s favorite places. Knowing I wasn’t alone.
Today was the first time I attended an official, open yoga class. Today I wasn’t just another beginner trying to learn yoga without pulling a muscle or making loud noises. I was in a class with people (women) who were experienced and I was expected to have a working knowledge of yoga. I was very comfortable with that and kind of proud actually when the instructor said “table position” or “downward-facing dog” and I knew what to do. I am still very much a beginner, but I didn’t feel out of place today. The Gentle and Restorative class is just that. It has a lot of stretching and restoration of the body using assorted yoga postures. What I especially liked about it was that it also stretches and restores the mind and the spirit through those same yoga postures. I was very receptive today and able to cleanse my mind of thoughts that didn’t belong in that room. I was very able to be present. I heard things differently today than before.
At one point our instructor Sue, had us in mountain posture which is basically just standing straight, still and strong. She was encouraging us in that posture and said “… like a mountain. Tremendous strength, incredible beauty.” Tremendous strength, incredible beauty. What a beautiful thing to hear. I have heard all those words before although never strung together in that sequence. And in hearing them spoken so confidently that way, I took confidence and comfort from them . I can be that. Everything can be that. Coleen epitomized that. I heard those words like it was the first time I had heard the English language. They sounded so inspiring to me.
I heard other things clearly today too. I heard my body talk to me, telling me it was okay to challenge it more. That it could absorb a little more stretching, it could go little further. And I heard my mind tell me the same things. It was ready to be cleansed of some emotional debris to make room for new creations and thoughts. And of course, I heard Coleen very clearly. It made sense that she was there. That was when I realized why I decided yesterday, after postponing for over a month, to attend yoga class today. It was when we were relaxing in meditative postures toward the end of the class. Sue was reading a beautiful reflection about letting go and behind my closed eyes, I was seeing the most brilliant shades of fuchsia I have seen. They were swimming in and out of clouds, playfully, changing shades from light to dark, tempting me to give chase. It was the same vision I have had during reikis and massages. The same vision I always get when Coleen visits. The colors were fitting of the message Sue was reading about letting go:
“…The energy will be a part of you forever. It has made you what you are today. What will be, will be what you create. If you move forward hopefully, happily, expectantly and joyfully, then that will be your new experience. We can drag the past with us as heavy baggage, or we can carry the blessings and memories of the past as a beautiful memento. We can face the future with apprehension or with faith. One thing is certain, there will always be a past we must make peace with. There will always be a future we must live. The way we let go can make all the difference.”
With the vision of fuchsias floating around those wonderful words spoken about letting go, I couldn’t help a few tears leaking from my eyes. I guess that was probably the point where the “Oh, that’s why I did that,” realization kicked in. That’s when I knew for certain why I did what I did today and why I was at Healing Waters. I had a date to be there. A date to learn about having Tremendous Strength and Incredible Beauty from the strongest, most beautiful person I’ll ever know.
This is the entire reflection that Sue read today. I think it’s beautiful and am so happy she shared it with me. You know, if I had waited until tomorrow or next week to attend a yoga class, I wouldn’t have heard this.
“Letting it go – it is a rite of passage. We all face those moments throughout our lives. Time and circumstance repeatedly require that we let go of what we know – the old, the familiar, the comfortable – and embrace the “next”. There are people who spend their whole lives resisting those moments. They hold on, physically or energetically to the past, and they never really find peace in the present. Whether we must move beyond a person, a property, an employment, a location, an activity or something else, we have only two choices. We can go gently and easily – or not. We can go confidently – or fearfully. We can go looking forward – or looking back. We can hold on, or we can let go. What has been, whether you judge it good or bad, has been filled with lessons, and blessings, and experiences. Honor them all. Take the time to remember with gratitude and appreciation. Understand that nothing you have ever done will ever be lost. The energy will be a part of you forever. It has made you what you are today. What will be, will be what you create. If you move forward hopefully, happily, expectantly and joyfully, then that will be your new experience. We can drag the past with us as heavy baggage, or we can carry the blessings and memories of the past as a beautiful momento. We can face the future with apprehension or with faith. One thing is certain. there will always be a past we must make peace with. There will always be a future we must live. The way we let go can make all the difference.”
