And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
Well, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve spent the greater part of this day trying to figure out what I’m going to write about. I sifted through my week, day by day by day. Nothing stood out.
I know that what I’m seeing on the news is affecting my mood. So is the two-year anniversary of Michael’s being struck and run over by the passenger van – January 17. So this week has been a bit like walking through a swamp and trying not to pay attention to it. I hear the sound of my footsteps schlorping through the murk…but I keep my eyes leveled ahead at what’s in front of me. Not quite like wearing blinders…I’m fully aware, I can see and hear what’s going on, inside and out. But I keep my gaze steady.
I found myself puzzling over the term “anniversary” in connection to Michael’s accident, that was the start of this two-year awful cycle. Anniversary just doesn’t seem right. It brings up visions of celebrations. Balloons. Wedding bells. Parties. Smiles and laughter. None of those fit this kind of “anniversary”.
Somewhere in the middle of this murk, slogging through the swamp, thinking about anniversaries, my mind settled on one of my own novels. Learning To Tell (A Life)Time. One of the storylines in that book belonged to Cooley, who also appeared in The Home For Wayward Clocks and who had a cameo appearance in In Grace’s Time. In Cooley’s past was a boy (she thought) who romanced her via the internet, but when he showed up to meet her face to face, he was a man. A man who proceeded to rape her. Cooley remembers the day, and the date, as if it just happened, and she wonders what to call it, each year as that date approaches. Like me now, but not the me that wrote that book as I didn’t have an event like that to ponder, she wonders what to call it, because anniversary doesn’t work.
As I thought of Lifetime and Cooley, I remembered that she (and I) found another word for a date that you always remembered, but it wasn’t a good memory. I couldn’t remember what it was. I wrote the book in 2011 and 2012 and it was published in 2013, so it’s been a while. So I sat down with my own copy of the book and paged through it, trying to find the scene where she (and I) found the word. I was amazed at what I saw.
First, this, which included the definition of the word “anniversary”:
Anniversary
- The yearly recurrence of the date of a past event;
- The celebration or commemoration of such an event.
The word celebration bothered Cooley. There was no celebrating this. It stuck in the mind like an impossible sliver, something that just couldn’t be dug out.
And:
April 16. Cooley hated the month of April. While others were celebrating the coming of spring, she always found herself wanting to sleep. Hibernation didn’t hit for her in the winter, but in the new green of an April morning.
An impossible sliver that can’t be dug out. For me, January 17th. The accident. And June 19th. Michael’s death.
And I have had an impossible craving for sleep since the Christmas season started.
Then I read this:
Finally, she landed on a site for death anniversaries, a discussion of the different ways cultures acknowledged the deaths of loved ones. Words on this site came from all around the world. Gio. Kishin. Jiri. Shraddha. Gije. But one word, broken down, stuck out to Cooley. The Japanese word meinichi. Mei, the article said, meant life, and niche meant date. A life date.
April 16, 1993, was definitely a day that changed Cooley’s life. It wasn’t an anniversary. It was something else. Life-changing.
Meinichi. That word would be reserved for Marcus, and for the rape, alone.
I carefully closed my novel and slid it back into place with the others. Standing before them for a moment, I let my finger touch each book, one by one.
Somewhere in the writing of To Tell (A Life)Time, from 2011 to 2013, I answered my own question that I would ponder in 2026. I couldn’t remember it on my own, but I had to look back over my own words, to come up with the word that soothed Cooley. And that soothes me now.
My anniversaries with Michael – the anniversary of our first date, the anniversary when he moved here from Omaha to be with me, the anniversary of our marriage – would remain anniversaries. Celebrations.
But the day I received a phone call, telling me my husband was struck and run over and that I needed to come to the ER right away – “Hurry!”- is not a celebration. The day he died…not an anniversary either.
Meinichi.
I answered myself thirteen years before I even had the question. A question I never wanted to ask.
I don’t know how this fits as a Moment Of Happiness. Despite The News. But it was a moment that made me smile, hug the book to my heart, glance over at Michael’s photo, drop my shoulders, and breathe. So it will have to do.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
