Celebration
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.
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