There were three days between Coleen’s final evening and the first day of her arrangements and they were very busy and hectic. People at the house, coming and going, Lots of talking, crying, emotions. Making plans for her wake then the funeral service. Lindsay, Karen and I spent a couple hours with the funeral director making decisions about dates, times, death notices, urns and so many other items. The next day Lindsay and I met with Mother Liza, the dean of our church who would be performing the funeral service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. We talked about Coleen a great deal and selected readings and hymns.
It seemed that there were people at our house around the clock. Lots of food was given to us by neighbors and friends, lots of mouths to feed. One of the many activities that was crucial to properly remembering Coleen was to make some poster board sized photo collages. It seemed that everyone had a hand in that and we needed them all. We have so many photos! Drawers, boxes, albums full and that didn’t include what I had on CD’s, hard drives and my iPhone. This was a daunting task.
We spent hours pouring over the collection, setting aside the special photos that we wanted to consider for the finished product. We went all through the last 33 years or so plus the childhood photos that her parents brought over. The vacations, holidays, birthdays, parties and just living life in general. At times it was a lot of fun to look back at that and other times so emotional that I had to look away or leave the room. My God, what a life we had together.
I kept waiting to uncover a specific photo. It was one of my favorite pictures of her. It was taken just before she turned 30. We were on vacation in Cancun and we took a ferry to a tiny island called Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) for the day. Once there, we rented a moped scooter and spent the day buzzing around the island and it’s beautiful beaches. Somehow we found this little seaside restaraunt called Maria’s and stopped there for lunch. This is where Coleen would have been able to enhance this story because her memory for details was unequaled and she would be able to recite exactly what she had for lunch and what wine she was drinking. I don’t remember for certain but I believe there were margaritas and a bottle of Pouilly-Pouisse on the table at different times that day at Maria’s. And we had fish and salad and a wonderful day. I almost crashed that moped once or twice after lunch but we managed to find our way back to the ferry and to Cancun. In the photo, Coleen was sitting at our table in her swimsuit and sunglasses, she had a drink in her hand, a red flower in her hair and one of those big Coleen smiles. She was beautiful.
During the photo collage process, I tried to keep calm waiting for that photo to materialize but it never did. I decided not to stress about it, that it was here somewhere and got missed with all the people looking through things and mixing stuff up. We ended up with three huge poster boards and could easily have had twice that many. There were wonderful photos of her. Just not that one from Maria’s.
On the second day after Coleen’s funeral service, I was up early. Her urn was on our dining room shelves kind of crowded with some other things and I wanted to give it some space. I started moving some of the shelf occupants around and saw on the top shelf another photo box. I remembered putting that up there several years ago under Coleen’s direction and remembered that it was empty. So I grabbed it and was surprised by it’s weight. I brought it down and took off the lid and saw it was full of photos. I reached inside and pulled out a fistful and looked at the one on top. You can probably guess.
I have a theory about that. About finding that box, about finding that one photo in that whole box of photos with my first try. About trying so hard to find it during those previous days.
I wasn’t supposed to find it then. Not when there so much commotion, so many people, so many other photos that it could have gotten lost in the shuffle. Instead, I was supposed to find it that morning when I was all by myself, when there were no other photos or people around to distract me. So Coleen and I could be alone together with it. And remember that beautiful day.
I was talking about this story and this photo and describing it the other day to my new friend, Jo. She asked me if I knew what it meant for a girl to have a flower in her hair. I said that I didn’t. Jo smiled at me and said, “It means she’s spoken for. She’s taken.” I liked that. And I like to think she’s still spoken for.
After Coleen’s funeral service, we had a brunch at a waterfront restaraunt downtown near St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral where the service was held. In the Episcopal faith, they do not have a eulogy per se during the service. Instead, the sermon is somewhat personalized to the deceased and their name is used throughout the service, but there is no actual eulogy. It was suggested by our church’s Dean that in lieu of that, we might want to say a few words at the brunch instead.
Three months earlier, I had eulogized my mother at a different kind of service and it was all I could do to get through it in one piece. I basically just read my speech and made as little eye contact as possible and still had to stop several times to compose myself. I knew I would not be able to do the same with Coleen. It was just too emotional for me to attempt. Our daughter Lindsay said she wanted to talk about her mom and would say something about her at the brunch and I was happy about that.
But as the day approached, I realized that I just could not let that moment, that opportunity get away without taking the microphone. I would never be able to forgive myself. After all, this was supposed to be a celebration of her life and I had been a pretty big part of that. At the same time, I knew that I would never be able to get through a whole speech without breaking up. I was pretty sure that I would even struggle with complete sentances. But I had an idea how I could pay tribute to Coleen without making a scene. I went first before Lindsay because hers was longer and sweeter and because I knew what she had to say would weaken me.
This is pretty much what I said:
I couldn’t not say a few words about my beautiful wife Coleen and I knew it would be hard to talk to you about her without getting very emotional. So, here are some words I wrote down that will always mean Coleen to me:
Curious
Witty
Cooking
Nurture
Vacations
Reading
Yoga
Intuitive
Enthusiastic
Smiling
Fretful
Funny
Grandma
Determined
Party Planner
Persuasive
Adirondacks
Social
Healing
Information
Menu
Concerned
Guidance
Family
Sunflower
Optimistic
Cabernet
Encouraging
Loving
Mellencamp
Spiritual
Inspiration
Soulmate
Sassy
Sexy
Beautiful
Forever
Everywhere
I choked a bit on the last few words starting at Soulmate that day. I’m choking on all of them now.
Here’s the original list.
I had a massage appointment scheduled for Saturday, September 21 which was three days after Coleen left us. At first I was going to cancel, but thought better of it. I sent a text to my massage therapist, Maureen, telling her that I wanted to keep the appointment. She had heard about Coleen and thought that it would be good for me to have that massage.
Maureen had given me about five massages at that point and I was on a monthly schedule with her. She was outstanding at getting deep and really working out my stress and tensions. Coleen had also seen her several times and they were of like minds. Very alternative, thoughtful and creative. It’s funny how Coleen surrounded herself with people like that, like her, especially toward the end. She took a lot of comfort there. I think it’s also interesting that I followed her lead. Which brought me to Maureen just three days after Coleen’s death.
Things were a little different that day. When Maureen started she said, “Sometimes grief settles in the tissues, Rob. Today, we’ll try to get rid of some of that. It might be a little emotional for you but that’s OK. You’re safe here.”
Safe. That was the first time I heard that word spoken like that, in that context. Directed at me. I was safe there. All through the massage, something felt just a little bit different to me. I was relaxing into it, very receptive to Maureen. She was right, it did get emotional for me a few times but I just let that happen. It was very natural.
Towards the end, I was on my back and Maureen was behind me working on my neck and shoulders, releasing the tensions there. Then she did something different, she laid the palms of her hands down over my chest and just kept them there for several moments, perfectly still. I felt very relaxed and I could actually feel the warmth from her hands. I didn’t realize it at the time but this was part of reiki, the laying of the hands for healing and energy.
When she finishes, Maureen leaves the room and gives me a few minutes to compose myself. As she did, I lied on my back with my eyes closed and felt it for the first time. It felt like Coleen was there with me right in that room. A presence, a comfort, something different like I had never felt before. I took it in and then thought I was crazy, shook my head and got dressed.
When I came out of the room I said “Maureen, you going to think I’m nuts, but I swear Coleen was there just now. She was in the room.”
Maureen smiled. “She was, Rob. I felt her when I first walked in. She was there. And when I put my hands on your chest, I looked down and saw her hands there. She was with you.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so I did a little of both. That was my first experience with Coleen’s presence. There was more to come. A trusted adviser who knew Coleen well said that she would be present to me sometimes. That she would be helping me and guiding me. Things have happened since that massage and I have felt her often. I told her a few weeks before her passing that I would always be talking to her. She gave me one of her looks and said, “Well, I’ll try to figure out how to talk back to you.”
I have been trying to arrange my schedule this week in Ft Lauderdale so that I can spend happy hour on the beach. It’s usually my second or third trip of the day there but I try to always be on the beach by 5:00 PM. It’s one of the big pressures of my days here.
My happy hours here are not extravagant. They consist of a couple Heineken’s iced in a $8.oo cooler I bought at the local CVS and a roasted almond tin I fill with whatever snacks I have laying around the condo. I also make sure to bring the Stephen King novel I am reading, some antacids, my iPhone, room key, and a small notebook and pen in case I get the urge to write something down. At that point, I feel pretty complete.
I like to think that Coleen and I invented happy hours at the beach. We probably didn’t but I remember starting our tradition on a vacation we took years ago, 15 or 20 years at least. We were on a little island called Ocracoke, which sits at the southernmost tip of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Our routine while there was to visit the beach in the late morning before the sun got too hot and too aggressive and then return to our rented house for lunch. We would hang around in the afternoon, reading or seeing some sights, riding bikes or maybe just napping.
As it got closer to 5:00, we would pack up some beer or wine or both, some snacks, the kids, and head back to the beach for happy hour. The kids would get back in the water with their boogie boards and Coleen and I would be that couple you see on the beach with a glass of wine, looking in each other’s eyes, talking, laughing, making plans. Never thinking this far ahead when one of us would be missing and the other one would be having happy hour alone on a different beach. Never thinking of that.
This beach in Ft Lauderdale reminds me of Ocracoke today. It’s windy and the surf is up. Nice waves. We always liked big waves. I can almost see the kids on those boogie boards. And Coleen wrapping up and being worried about getting too much sun because that wasn’t good for her. And the wind in her hair. And the life in her eyes.
Tonight when I leave this beach, I won’t be going back to our rented house with her. And I won’t be opening a bottle of wine and chopping vegetables or garlic or onions while she cooks dinner. Shrimp scampi, maybe? And I won’t be laying with her in bed either.
I’m starting to think this is why Coleen wanted me to come to the ocean. Not so I could have happy hour alone but because she could talk to me here. Communicate with me. We shared so many wonderful times on these beaches. Vacations, memories, boogie boards, happy hours. She could remind me of all that here.
Maybe Coleen’s on to to me and my theory about confronting the memories, looking at the pictures, feeling the hurt and anguish and loss. Then moving forward, healing, being safe. Maybe she knows all about that process. Maybe she’s encouraging it.
I have taken great comfort in meeting people Coleen knew outside of the orbit she and I shared together. She was a tremendously hard worker and talented social worker and in her occupation, met and helped many people with cancer diagnoses. I have also met friends of hers from her metastatic breast cancer support group and colleagues from other cancer organizations whom she frequently worked closely with.
They all loved her. Coleen was the type of person who could spin positives on almost any situation. She was a wealth of resource and provided advice and encouragement seemingly without trying. It was so natural for her.
Of course, I already knew most of this but still took comfort in hearing it from others. About two weeks after her passing (sorry, can’t seem to use the “death”), I received an email from a friend and colleague of Coleen’s with a link to a blogpost about her. It was written by a patient Coleen had touched and helped and is such a wonderful tribute to her and the relationship she fostered with others. Her name is Leah and she is a cancer survivor and a pretty regular blogger. I have not yet met her except through her article. I would like to. I think she would be another one of those outside the orbit people whom I would find comfort with.
