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.
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.
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.
