12/1/24

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

The last time I wrote these words was on January 2, 2018. I started this blog in late 2016 on my Facebook page, and then I moved it to my blog on my website in March of 2017. By then, I’d vowed to do it every day for a year.

2017 was a very dark year in my life. I started the blog after I was assaulted at the end of 2016, and then had my life and my family’s life threatened repeatedly, because the man who assaulted me wore a red MAGA hat and the assault made the national news. I became afraid to leave my home, to go anywhere to do anything, because of all the messages left in my email, my social media pages, and in my real mailbox. To try to break myself out of it, I began to post on Facebook a moment every day that I smiled involuntarily – when I felt happy. My Facebook page flooded, and so in March of 2017, I moved it to my blog on my website, where I continued to write a Moment every day for the full year. In retrospect, I’m glad I did, as the year went on to have my husband lose his job twice, my daughter was bullied so extremely, we had to move her to a new high school, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It got me through the year, and when the year ended, I continued the blog, but once a week, until now.

Today, I’m returning to the once a day blog, for the month of December, because I’ve had a new worst year of my life. My husband Michael was struck and run over by a passenger van on January 17^th, 2024. He struggled for five months, then passed away on June 19^th. The horror of his accident, the lack of concern from the City of Milwaukee (the driver only received a $73 citation), and Michael’s death has been a trauma that’s been difficult to deal with. I didn’t realize until Michael died how much I’d been on automatic pilot. It was the only way I could keep up with my own responsibilities and my new responsibilities of taking care of Michael.

And then suddenly, there was no Michael. What we were working so hard for – his ultimate recovery – didn’t happen.

I’ve had so many people tell me how strong I am. My daughter Olivia at one point said, “I’m so sick of being resilient.” There have been many times, privately, I’ve not been strong. I’ve not been resilient. I keep waiting to do something right, that will cause time to rewind and my life to go back to normal. Which, of course, is never going to happen.

It has been five months since Michael died, which I know isn’t long. But I feel like I did back in 2017 – I have to do something to get me back on track. I am in a tailspin. So I’m reaching for what worked for me then.

Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News.

And so:

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I woke up this morning to the sun in my face. I don’t have curtains on my bedroom window, but plantation shutters on the lower half. The sun likes to poke fun at me by rising above the shutters and shooting beams against my closed eyes.

We’ve been having gloomy cloudy days though, so the sun wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

I got up and staggered into my office, to turn on my computer. I stopped. And blinked.

Everything was clean. The sun bounced off dust-free surfaces. My concrete floors were free of pet hair and whatever the cats tore apart that day. The area rugs were bright. My desk was clear of papers and detritus. My plants stood up, freshly watered and as happy as I was to see the sun.

I turned in a slow circle. The third floor of this condo is a loft, and it holds our bedroom and bathroom and my office.

Well. I need to change that, don’t I. It holds MY bedroom, MY bathroom and my office. This space, which I shared most intimately with Michael, is now only my own.

And it was clean.

The last time the house was cleaned was sometime before Michael’s death, and then it was done by two lovely students who stepped in to help. I don’t remember the last time I cleaned the house…until yesterday.

Yesterday, I cleaned this floor. The third floor. I dusted everything in sight, and sneezed to prove it. I vacuumed. I bought a new tool, a sort of rake that is for removing pet hair from carpeted stairways and furniture and rugs, and I attacked the stairs leading from the second to the third floor. I put things away.

The biggest thing I put away – a 7-page single-spaced letter from the police investigator who looked into how Michael’s accident was handled when I put in a complaint against the police department. This 7-page letter described, literally in second by second detail, what was on the security camera video that recorded Michael’s accident. I steadfastly refused to watch that video, but now, thanks to this investigator’s excruciatingly detailed report, I could see every second of that video in my mind. Including exactly what Michael did, what his body did, as he was hit.

Yesterday, I folded the letter neatly, opened my credenza, got out the folder I put together a couple days after the accident, and put that letter in with all the rest of the stuff. From the ER. From the hospital, the rehab, the in-home healthcare, the hospital again, and the hospice. I put the letter away, closed the folder, set it back into my credenza, and shut the door. It is no longer in my sight, in a spot behind my desk where I could see it, every single day. Where I could remember what was in it. And see it all again. Over and over.

And this morning, the sun shone in my face and woke me. Then it shone all around this space. My space. Neat again. Organized. Even the plants look relieved.

I took a deep breath, hugged myself, and smiled.

Next weekend, I’m cleaning the second floor.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.