Author: Kathie

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

The Moment is actually this morning. Right now. And it will continue into this afternoon and evening and tomorrow and the next day and some of the next.

I’m on my way to La Crosse, Wisconsin. Oregon is my favorite place ever, of course. But La Crosse is my favorite place in Wisconsin. Basically because of the Mississippi River that runs through it. So I suppose other places where I could be by the big river would work too. But La Crosse is where I spend time by it. Stick my feet in. Listen to it roll.

The sound of the Pacific Ocean. The sound of the Mississippi River. Two completely different sounds, but both soothing to me. I call the Pacific Ms. Pacific. And the Mississippi? She’s always the river, as if there is no other.

La Crosse and the Mississippi also hold memories of the two major relationships in my life. Husbands.

My first marriage, to the first boy I dated in high school, lasted seventeen years. We married between our junior and senior years in college. He was everything my parents wanted for me – or for them — and so I thought he was everything I wanted too, because it made them happy with me. And it did work, for a while. The marriage produced three amazing children, and I can’t imagine my life without them.

As it began to grow more obvious that the marriage was breaking apart, he and I decided to take an extended weekend away, something we hadn’t done since the kids were born, all three within four years. It was an attempt to remember who we were together. The kids were parked with the grandparents, and in a totally random decision, we decided to go to La Crosse.

Oh, that place. The bluffs. The river.

We stayed in a lovely hotel, with a swimming pool surrounded by windows overlooking the river. There was a patio outside, where you could sit and watch the river flow. Across the river, I could see a beach. I so wanted to go there. I wanted to say I put my feet into the Mississippi River.

So we did that, even though he protested that it was a waste of time, that the river was dirty, that I would become ill. We drove over the river and found the beach. I rolled up my pant legs and waded in; he didn’t. He sat on a picnic bench and played with a handheld game. I stood by myself, knee deep, and felt the strength of the river. I asked her – silently, because I didn’t want him to hear, and I didn’t want to be ridiculed – to help me. I asked for some of her strength to seep in, under my skin.

We went on a riverboat cruise ride, again, my idea. He complained about the cost. He sat at a table in the cabin, the windows separating him from the water. I prowled around the deck, wanting to be as close to the river and see as much of it as I could.

That evening, our final evening there, I told him I was going out to sit on the patio. He elected to stay in our room and watch television. It was a chillier night, and I wrapped my jacket around me. I was the only one on the patio. The river looked soft, sounded soft. And I listened.

I thought of him, sitting on the picnic bench on the beach, sitting in the cabin of the boat, staying up in our room, while I experienced things on my own. I thought, We are already so far apart.

The marriage didn’t survive. We separated, then divorced.

After our first court hearing, we stood outside the courthouse for a bit. I was miserable. I missed my kids. We’d agreed to joint custody, so suddenly, I was without my children for half of every week. I felt like I was being torn apart. Standing in that parking lot, I began to cry.

“If I’d known how hard it was going to be to leave you,” I said, “I never would have done it.”

Part of me hoped he would open his arms and tell me to come home.

Instead, he said words that were close to the most painful of my life.

“Really?” he said. “If I’d known how easy it was going to be to leave you, I would have done it a lot sooner.”

And he left me there.

Years later, I returned to La Crosse and to the Mississippi. I visited two book clubs, who wanted to talk to me about my newly released novel. I was teaching by then too and I was going to teach a class on the creative process and walking a labyrinth. Accompanying me was my second husband, Michael.

While we were there, we found the beach. It’s at Pettibone Park. I rolled up my pants legs and waded in, and beside me, Michael did the same. He held my hand as we stood in the water, letting her roll all around us. I felt her strength again. I’d found it. And I felt his too.

We took a boat cruise on the same boat. Michael leaned on the railings with me, and we watched the river.

I also went to the river on my own. When I told Michael I needed some time with the river by myself, he didn’t ridicule me. He kissed me, gave me a hug, told me to be careful. He’d be waiting for me, he said.

I returned to Pettibone Park and waded into the water. Across the river was the hotel where I’d stayed with my first husband. I looked at it for a while. Then, out loud, not caring who heard me, I said thank you to the river. I returned to the hotel where Michael waited. For me.

So I’m going back there again today, and I’m staying until Sunday. I’m going on the boat cruise and I’m meeting friends to celebrate my 65^th birthday. It’s my second birthday without Michael.

But this afternoon, after I unpack in my hotel room, I will carry the book I’m currently reading out to the car. I’ll stop at Starbucks and get my favorite drink. Then I’ll drive to Pettibone Park. For a while, I’ll sit at the picnic bench and read my book and drink my drink, looking up after every page or so to admire the river. Then I’ll roll up my pant legs and wade in.

I’ll be alone. But not really. The river will help me remember, and I’ll thank her for always rolling me toward the good memories, not the bad.

Wherever Michael is, I know he’ll wait for me.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

So last week, I completely forgot to do this blog. Good grief. It was the first day of the four-day AllWriters’ Annual Retreat, and I was up to my very happy neck in 18 writers coming from 7 different states, all ready to spend four days with me! I’m sorry I missed though. I realized it at about one in the morning, the next morning, so I just let it go.

But it turns out that what I wanted to write about dovetails with what I want to write about this week.

One weird facet of learning to live without Michael is this strange feeling that I’m supposed to be someone else now. The word “widow” has been added to my definition. I don’t like that word. I never have. It conjures up visions of spiders and old women with black nets over their faces, and shapeless black dresses, and rocking in creaky rocking chairs in the dark corners of empty rooms.

None of those things feel like me. But still, it’s what I was suddenly being called. On forms, I had to check a new box. And I was no longer one of two. I was just one. And I felt like had to change to fit this new role. I had to be different.

I certainly felt different. Sad. Lonely. Bereft.

One of the ways this new feeling came out was in my hair. I’ve been a redhead now for about twenty years. I always felt like a redhead. But my natural hair color is brown. When Olivia was five years old, I disappeared into a salon one morning when she was playing at summer school. I was 45 years old. And I did what many of us have probably dreamed of doing. “Change it,” I said of my cap of brown hair. “I don’t care what you do, but make it red.” I’d been seeing this hair stylist for years, and he’d been after me for a long time to make a change. He looked at me and cracked his knuckles, then waved my way to his chair, like it was a royal throne.

When I left a few hours later, my hair was red, very short, and punked. Olivia didn’t even recognize me. But here’s the thing.

I did.

As the years have passed, it’s become sort of a brand. I can’t tell you the number of people who have said to me, “I knew it was you! I saw your hair!” Some of these people have been complete strangers.

But then Michael died, and for a while there, I was a complete stranger to me too. I no longer recognized myself.

When I went in for the latest cut and color, I told my stylist (not my original – John died several years ago) to just cut. No color. I did that for two cycles. For the first time in twenty years, my hair was brown. And for the first time ever, there was gray.

Well, I thought, that’s fitting, isn’t it? For a widow?

I tolerated it for twelve weeks. I didn’t feel like me.

While I was in Oregon, that feeling just overflowed. At 3:30 in the morning, I picked up my phone and texted my stylist. “Giving you a head’s up – I want to return to red. Gray isn’t doing it for me.”

I don’t think she was surprised.

At the appointment, watching my hair go from dull to vibrant, I felt a rush of recognition. And I felt relief.

Not everything has to change.

And then there was this week, with the hand-in-hand event. I had to go in for my yearly physical, which much to my surprise, turned into what the clinic calls a “Welcome to Medicare” visit. I turn 65 on the 29^th, and I was inducted into Medicare on July 1^st. So along with the usual stuff, I had a few things added – a pneumonia shot, no charge. An EKG – I’m just fine, no sign of heart disease. And, my doctor said, tossing me a gown, “I want to see your skin. Gotta look for any skin cancers. Especially in my red-headed patients.”

This is someone who has known me for about thirty years. He and I are the same age.

“I’m not really a redhead,” I said, clinging to the dreaded gown.

“What?” My doctor stopped, looked back at me with wide eyes.

“I color my hair. It’s actually brown.” Maybe I should have kept it brown for another few weeks, to get out of this. If I’d only known.

He leaned against the door jamb, and then slowly began to smile. “You are such a redhead. You will always, always be a redhead to me.” He pointed at the gown. “Put it on. I’ll be back in a few.”

Even as I pulled the stupid gown on, I began to return his smile, even though he was no longer in the room. This doctor knew me before I knew Michael. He knew me during Michael. And he still knows me now, after Michael.

And he sees me as a redhead. Not even because of my hair color. But because of who I am.

Still me. I am such a redhead.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Well, as of this last Sunday, I am back home. Re-entry into my reality this week has been difficult, but manageable. I love what I do, and I love where I am, enough that these re-entries require a transition, but I settle in pretty quickly.

The hardest part is losing the time for writing.

Many people will say to me that they hope I had a great time while on vacation. I wasn’t on vacation, and I never am, when I’m on the Oregon coast. I am working the whole time – but on writing. This time fit that bill exactly. I’ve been working on two books, and while I was out there, I finished the poetry book, all the way down to writing the intro. I also finished the first draft of my new novel, and started the second. Going into a second draft always feels like turning a major corner – I’m still writing, but I’m really doing more shaping, finessing, molding. Someone once described sculpting to me as starting with a big chunk of clay and simply cutting away everything that doesn’t look like your vision. Rewriting is the same. I know what the book is about now. Going through it for the second time (and the third, and the fourth…) is all about making it say it louder, clearer, until it just rings with the truth of it.

The biggest thing, for me, is that when I’m on the coast, I am living the life that I thought I was going to live. When I realized who and what I was, it was still possible to earn your living as a writer. I went to readings and book launches where the writers talked about being sent on six-week book tours, cross country or even internationally, and then coming home and sitting at their desk and writing the next book while the publishing house continued to publish the book they just finished. I sat in those audiences, and I dreamed.

I started writing before I knew I was writing. At the age of 11, I was told I was a writer and that word just rolled over me and fit like a new layer of skin. I sold my first story at 15. And bit by bit, I built my entire world and my entire life around writing. Teaching entered into my life when I was 35. I opened AllWriters’ when I was 45. If I’m not writing, I’m editing. If I’m not editing, I’m teaching. If I’m not teaching, I’m advocating.

It’s just who I am. And when I’m in Oregon, I am living the life of my dreams. Everything falls into place.

I’ve been going round and round with someone who just doesn’t get it. And it surprises me that he doesn’t, because he writes, and he publishes some as well. But he tells me he enjoys writing (so do I), but he doesn’t write with an eye on the end product, on where it’s going to go, or who will read it. And that’s where our similarities stop. I write for the reader; he seems to write for himself, and if publication is involved, well, so much the better.

To me, that’s like comparing someone who absolutely loves running, who goes out running every day, no matter what the weather, and just feels oh so good when they run, with someone who is out to win Olympic gold.

There is a step beyond enjoyment. There is a step beyond the passion for writing. There is the need for reach. I reach and reach and reach with my writing. It’s why I often tackle the difficult subjects. So much can be learned and resolved through story.

So this time, when I was in Oregon, I actually got to the point where I lost track of days and times. I slept until I wasn’t tired. When I wasn’t tired, I was awake and working. I ate only when I was hungry, and when I ate, it wasn’t in front of my computer, checking emails, but at the kitchen table with a good book. My coffee break was an actual break, out on the deck, with an iced French Toast latte from the coffee shack down the road beside me, that good book in my hand, and the ocean keeping me company.

When my latte was done, I went back inside and wrote some more.

I said earlier that when the word writer was used to identify me, it fit like a new layer of skin. When I’m in Oregon, that layer of skin is topmost and I am at my most comfortable, my most fulfilled…my absolute happiest. The other layers of skin – teacher, advocate, business owner, mother, and yes, wife is still there too – are there, but they aren’t predominant. Who I am is. Writer.

Being back home, those other layers are back out and strong again. I was welcomed by family. Students and clients were happy to see me. My dog about twirled herself to madness when she saw me, and one of the cats immediately climbed up and tucked herself under my chin. The other cat was angry with me, but by that evening, he was back in my lap. One cat gave me a face wash. The other tried to chew on my glasses. The dog sat on my feet and turned her head upside down and backwards to see me. And all was right with my world.

Thanks to Oregon, I remember who I am, which is who I set out to be. Remembering who I am leaves me awake and present again. I now have a new role – widow. But I realized, being away, that adding that role does not make me less. My home situation is different, but I am not.  I am still the author Kathie Giorgio. I am still the director and founder of AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop. I’m still Mom to my big kids, Mama to Olivia. I still have my eyes wide open and set on what I want to accomplish – and I still believe I can accomplish it.

Coming home, I settled back into myself in this new version of my life, the version that is without Michael.

So the Moment of Happiness? I feel better right now than I have in a year and a half. I feel more like myself than I have since that year and a half started.

I’m just fine.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Well, I suppose my first moment should be that I’m remembering that this is a Thursday and I’m writing this blog! I can’t believe I so totally lost track of time and days.

So I am also well aware today that tomorrow is my last full day here in Waldport, Oregon. On Saturday, I am driving in to Portland, staying overnight, and then flying home on Sunday. By Monday morning at 9:00, I will be back at work. I’m heading into a whopper of a July. The AllWriters’ annual retreat is July 17 – 20. I am in the process of putting together the 16^th Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books (I’m the coordinator). I’m teaching two labyrinth classes at Kinstone in Fountain City, Wisconsin, on two consecutive Saturdays, and so I am staying the week in between in La Crosse, where I will turn 65 years old.

It’s going to be crazy.

However, one of the things that has lessened the sadness of leaving here is that I am going to be coming back before another year has passed. I did a reading event last night at the Café Chill here in Waldport, with my friend, Oregon coast writer Sue Fagalde Lick. One of the attendees was a part of the Friends of the Library association here. I donated a book to the library – Don’t Let Me Keep You has two chapters that occur in Waldport. Within an hour after the event ended, I had an email from the head of the Friends, inviting me back to do a reading and a workshop. It looks like I’ll be coming back in April, a month I’ve never experienced here.

But lessening sadness has been what this whole trip has been about. In previous years (I’ve been coming here since 2006), the trips have been about the chance to be just purely myself. I leave behind my roles as wife, mother, teacher, and small business owner to be just me. A writer. When I’m here, I live the life I always dreamed of having. I work when I’m here, it’s not a vacation – but all of my work is writing.

This year was different. That part was still important to me, and in fact, I finished a final draft of a poetry book here, and the first draft of my next novel. But it was also about grief, being able to grieve on my own, without feeling like I was affecting anyone else.

I don’t remember much about my trip here last year. I arrived 66 days after Michael died. I know I went out to the ocean on that first day, stood before it, and said, “I just don’t know what to say.” I didn’t ask for anything. But during that trip, on a walk on the beach, I suddenly looked down and found a whole sand dollar (remember the sand dollar story?). I immediately burst into tears.

This year, I didn’t talk to the ocean until the second day, because my daughter was with me. Talking to the ocean is a private thing with me. But on the second day, she was chugging along well ahead of me on our walk, and so I stopped and faced the ocean.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said again. “I’m not asking for a sand dollar, because I don’t know if I believe in them anymore. But I am asking for help. I need help.”

Later, on our evening walk, I suddenly saw something gold in the sand. It was a rock that looked almost translucent, especially when wet. I posted a photo of it in one of my Oregon Facebook groups and asked if it was an agate.

Someone identified it as a golden sard. Since it doesn’t have a pattern, that makes it a chalcedony. When I looked it up, I found this:

“Chalcedony has a remarkable ability to soothe emotional turmoil and promote feelings of inner peace and tranquility. It is often used as a healing stone for individuals dealing with anxiety, stress, or excessive worry. Holding or wearing chalcedony can bring a sense of calmness and emotional stability, allowing one to navigate challenging situations with greater ease.”

I also read that the gold or yellow is a rare color. A friend here told me to put it on the flashlight of a cell phone. I did, and it just glows.

Olivia only stayed with me for a week, leaving me with two weeks here alone. The morning after she left, I took my first long solitary walk alongside the ocean. And so I spoke quite a bit to Ms. Pacific, thanking her for the agate, but also talking about how I’ve been feeling. As I walked back to the house, I looked down and found a small sand dollar, the smallest one I’ve found yet. After a few more steps, I found two more. Even smaller. When I laughed and said to the ocean, “Why are you giving me progressively smaller sand dollars? Is that supposed to mean something?”, I walked a few more steps and found the largest sand dollar of the day. I think the ocean has a sense of humor. In all, in quick succession, I found six whole sand dollars. All small. One was so fragile that when I tried to wash it off, it snapped in two. But I still have five.

I’ve never found so many. And I’ve never found an agate.

Last year, when I was here, I suddenly burst out into poetry. They were all about Michael, what we experienced, and what I’ve experienced since he died. I decided I would continue writing these, but only as they came, not with a specific plan or intent. For some reason, I put a deadline on it. I said I would work on this for the first year of widowhood, and the final poem would be written on Michael’s one year death anniversary.

That anniversary, June 19^th, hit while I was here, and Olivia too. But I found that day that I couldn’t write a word. So I let it go. The next day, the first full day after that anniversary, a poem rose up. And…the book ended.

As it did, I felt something turn in me. Not the end of grief, no, but a turning. A looking forward.

I wrote the introduction to this book while I was here too. In it, I described the relief I felt writing these poems as “soul-soaking”. And they have been. Then I wrote:

“Is my grieving over? Not by a long shot. But is it transitioning into something manageable, something that I can walk beside, rather than being fully underwater? And can I start opening my view again to the rest of my life, who I am, who is around me, and what I want to accomplish?

Yes.”

Yes. So my Moment this week is that I know I’m coming home in a better place. I’m feeling better. My relationship with Michael continues, just in a very different way. For a while there, I felt in very real danger of losing myself, along with losing Michael. In one of the poems that I wrote after a 3-month hiatus from writing anything at all, I wrote:

“I think about these poems

and about how I’ve gone silent.

My writing voice never silent before

but beginning to move away from silence

to missing.

Disappearing.

Dying.

Like you.

And I just can’t take another loss.”

And I can’t. So I won’t let it happen.

I’m coming home. I’ve felt the turn, the turn in me, and the turn of time and tides,  and I am looking forward.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of…(sound like a needle scratching over a record – for those of you that remember that)

Well, okay. So this is what happens when I go away for 3 weeks. I totally forgot what day it is today. I was just sitting here, getting ready to sign off and go to bed, when I thought, I’ll have to figure out what I want to write about for the blog tomorrow.

And then I thought, Tomorrow? Wait…what day is it?

And that’s when I realized that today is Thursday, though really, as it’s 1:30 in the morning here, it’s actually Friday already.

I’m so sorry! I totally and completely forgot. Largely because I was fully immersed in almost finishing the first draft of the new novel, and going over the second draft of the new poetry book. And…because I’m here on retreat and not paying any attention to the clock or to the calendar. My daughter shrieked at me yesterday because I was eating lunch at 5:00, which was 7:00 where she was.

Honestly. I promise I will be more on track next week. If I had to choose a moment of happiness from this week, it’s that I’ve totally lost track of days and times. I’m usually obsessed with them, going through life staring at my calendar and at the clock on my cell phone. Right now, I’m not even sure where my cell phone is…

It’s all good. I’ll write next week. I’ll still be in Oregon, but I swear, I’ll watch my calendar.

And yes, that helps. Despite.  Anyway.

 

 

“That’s the worst thing about death, that it happens over and over again. That the human body can cry forever.”  –Fredrik Backman, My Friends

 “The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him, ‘What are you going through?’” –Simone Weil

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

There really won’t be a blog today. It’s a hard day today, and I’m cutting myself some slack. This hard day was expected, but it’s still at least as hard as expected, if not more so. But I felt the need to come in and say something, especially out of gratitude.

Today, it is exactly one year since Michael passed away. Since Michael died. Since Michael left me. Left us.

One year ago today, the actual time now passed us as I deliberately slept through it, my daughter Olivia and I stood by Michael’s side as he left. After years of reading books and watching movies that talked about the “death rattle”, I was more startled by the lack of it. Michael simply stopped, like a clock that winds down. I called for the nurse, said, “I think he’s gone,” when she came in, and she confirmed it. That was it. Quiet.

In a death that was anything but quiet. From the moment Michael was struck by the passenger van in downtown Milwaukee, struck and then run over, our world erupted into noise and chaos. There were five months between the “accident” and Michael’s death. They were horrible months, with the only good thing being that Michael was alive. Until, quietly, he wasn’t.

I decided to head for my favorite place in the world, Waldport, Oregon, on the Oregon coast, to be for the anniversary. I’ll be here for three weeks, mostly to sleep and write, walk by the ocean, sit on the deck and stare at the waves, the birds, the passing people, the colors of each sunset, and, for two of the weeks, be alone in a place where it’s normal for me to be alone. Where it doesn’t feel foreign. For the first week, Olivia came with me. She is in summer sessions at graduate school, so she can’t stay for the whole three weeks.

And today is the day. Hopefully, the last “first” of this whole awful time. The first holidays without him, the first birthdays, the first, the first, the first. I thought when we finally moved from 2024 to 2025, it would be better. Now, I hope that since this first year is over, I will be able to start looking ahead, and only glance behind when I am looking for comforting memories. Not being the cliché deer in headlights, looking at all the trauma.

But I mentioned gratitude, and this blog is about the Moment of Happiness. So I have to say, I am profoundly grateful for the support and love we’ve received. From the moment of the accident, when students, who were already gathered in the AllWriters’ classroom, waiting for Michael to show up for his class, stepped in to close up the classroom for me and lock the doors while I ran out of the house to get to Michael, to the students who left me lunch and dinner every day Michael was in the hospital and rehab, to the students who cleaned my home because I simply had no time, to everyone who stopped by to visit, to offer a reprieve for me, to hug and hold, to everyone who came to the Celebration of Life, and to everyone since who has forgiven me for the slips I’ve made in memory and stress and organization as I’ve gotten used to this new chapter, ohmygod, I am so grateful. I will never forget the student who stayed after class one day, just to say, “You’re doing just fine, Kathie.”

I’m doing my best. And while there are times I feel very alone, I also know that I’m not alone at all.

Thank you.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Long one today. Sorry.

An odd thing I’ve noticed since Michael’s death – people keep wanting to tell me what to read. Or actually, they tell me what NOT to read. I’ve been told about books that people are reading and loving, only to hear this caveat: “Oh, but wait a while before you read it. It has grief in it…you will find it triggering.” Even students have been checking with me before they hand in pages: “Is it okay if I hand this in? Someone dies in it.”

The main thought around all this, and it’s a nice thought, a loving thought, a protective thought, is that I might be “triggered” if I read it. But here’s the thing. I believe, and I have always believed, that knowledge is power. And knowledge is help. And so rather than avoid reading about grief, or avoiding movies about grief, or telling my students to not hand anything in to me that has even a whisper of grief in it, I open my arms and my eyes and I embrace all of it. This is how I learn. By avoiding the topic, by ducking away because it might “trigger” me into feeling what I’m already feeling, is just not helpful. I do not hide or avoid. I learn.

I have learned, through trial and error, though, that I prefer fiction for this. Every now and then, when someone actually suggests that I do read something on the subject, it’s an almost sure bet that I’ll be told to read Joan Didion’s The Year Of Magical Thinking. I do have the book, but I’ve only read a few pages before I put it down. It may be, first of all, that I hate the title. I don’t want to think magically. I want to be clear-headed. I want to face reality head on. Magical thinking just won’t do that for me. But also, with this book and other memoirs, I’ve found that it seems like they’re myopic – every page, every scene, is about grief. What I wanted to know, and still do, is how you move through your day to day life while dealing with this.

Novels do this for me. They show the main characters getting out of bed in the morning, even if they don’t want to. The characters follow the clock, going to work, interacting, having meals, taking care of the dog, reading the newspaper, doing chores, and I watch them carefully. How do they do that? Then I do that too. Memoir seems to give me a close-up view, while novels give me a general whole-life view.

It’s the whole-life that I want. I don’t want to waste time and energy on what-ifs.

I did find one memoir that I loved, primarily because I laughed through a lot of it, which was intentional. That’s Debbie Weiss’ Available As Is. I liked this one so much, I actually reached out to Debbie and told her so. She’s been a wonderful resource ever since.

But lately, I’ve had a whole string of novels that just hit me where it hurts, but also hit me exactly where I needed to be hit. Other than The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez, I chose the books at random, not knowing they were necessarily about grief. I did walk into the movie, The Friend, knowing only it was what Michael and I called Writer Movies, and knowing it was about a woman whose friend bequeathed her a Great Dane. I was so moved by the movie, I came home and ordered the book and ripped through it as soon as it arrived.

I can’t even include one quote from this novel that helped, because the whole book helped, and I can’t reprint the whole book! However, it also made me want to run out and adopt a Great Dane. Probably not a good thing.

When I finished that novel and set it aside, I picked up Catherine Newman’s novel, We All Want Impossible Things. I picked her up because I read Newman’s new and glorious novel, Sandwich, and so I bought her earlier novel without even reading what it was about. So suddenly, I found myself immersed again in the world of hospice and an impending death. And I read, “Everywhere, behind closed doors, people are dying, and people are grieving them. It’s the most basic fact about human life – tied with birth, I guess – but it’s so startling too. Everyone dies, and yet it’s unendurable. There is so much love inside of us. How do we become worthy of it? And then, where does it go? A worldwide crescendo of grief, sustained day after day, and only one tiny note of it is mine.”

I was, and am, part of that crescendo. And what was most amazing was that hospice, the tail end of the story, was the most comforting. Everyone knew what we were there for. It was all out in the open, and not whispered.

From there, I went to Matt Haig’s new novel, The Life Impossible. And yes, I noticed the synchronicity of the two titles: We all want impossible things, The life impossible. And there, I read, “And the sadness leaked out. It was there on my face and in my eyes. Grief was a flood that ran through you and caused others to stand aside. Or at least wind up the conversation.”

In hospice, though, no one stood aside. And everyone talked. There was no talk of “triggering” because I was nowhere close to a trigger. I was deep inside the barrel of the gun.

But then I read the book, which wasn’t even about grief, but that brought it all into one sentence for me. It was from Ann Patchett, and the novel is Tom Lake. I was reading before sleep, and it was about 2:00 in the morning, and I read, “I understood what was happening, but not that it was happening to me.”

Sometimes, you read something that resonates so deeply, you have to close the book for a bit, close your eyes along with it, and just think about it. Roll the words around. Maybe even say them aloud. For me, this hit me so profoundly, I did close my eyes and the book, repeated the words aloud, several times, and the mantra put me fast asleep, in the deepest sleep I’ve had for months.

It was like suddenly, everything made sense. I didn’t understand that it was happening to me during Michael’s hospitalization and rehab, because I absolutely had to remain focused on Michael. On trying to get him through. For the short time he was home, I was hyperaware of every sound, every movement, or every lack thereof. And afterwards, the focus has been on getting things taken care of, how to incorporate everything he did into everything I do, what a simple day was supposed to look like.

But suddenly, as I fell asleep that night, repeating those words, I thought, Something happened to me. Repeating this sentence, it was like the windows blowing open and letting in a fresh and cooling breeze. I am dealing with what happened to Michael. And I am dealing with what happened to me.

The actual diagnosis of this is “traumatic grief”. And PTSD.

And I have no idea, after saying all this, what it is I’m trying to say here. Except that somehow, this recognition made me feel so much better. I feel clearer about what I’m going through, and what to expect. And mostly, I know that it’s survivable.

Right now, I’m reading Fredrik Backman’s new novel, My Friends. There’s that synchronicity of titles again. The friend, my friends. And I read this: “Ted’s chest hurts, like crying without oxygen, because grief does so many strange things to people, and one of those things is that we forget how to breathe. As if the body’s first instinct is to grieve itself to death.”

First instinct. But then there’s the second…Survival. I will survive this. I already have.

And that is my Moment this week.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

Reading is living.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Spring was slow in coming this year. Well, actually, it was slow, but it was also erratic. Here one day, gone the next, came back the next week. One day in the eighties, the next day in the forties. Hot enough for some folks to put on the a/c – but there would be a frost advisory overnight. Many of us were buying outdoor plants, but not planting them. We kept them in their little plastic containers and carried them out during the warm days, brought them in during the cold nights, and wondered if we would ever, ever, ever this year be able to sit on the deck and read, sit on the deck for a meal, sit on the deck at night and look up and count the stars…all without seeing our breath.

But this week – oh, this week. My doors and windows are open, night and day. The plants are outside and they look as relieved as I feel. Lots of rain, though – I haven’t had a meal outdoors yet because there hasn’t been enough time in between soakers for the cushions on my deck furniture to dry. But I have stood on the deck and breathed in the air and felt the warmth circulate throughout my entire self.

I am not an outside woman in the sense of hiking, biking, tennis, kayaking, or, God forbid, camping. My idea of camping is a hotel without room service. But I am an outside woman when it comes to relaxing on the deck with my face upraised to the sun. And then there’s my choice of car. During the warm(er) months, I drive an open-air automobile – a Chrysler 200 convertible.

This is my third Chrysler convertible. I’ve gone from the LeBaron – who I absolutely loved, and even featured in my novel, Hope Always Rises, to the Sebring, to, now, the 200. They were all named. They were, respectively, LeB (pronounced Luh-BEE), SeB (pronounce Suh-Bee) and Semi.

Why Semi? Because when I bought Semi, I also owned a Chrysler 300C Hemi, with an outrageous hemi engine. Hemi was named, well, Hemi, because there was just no other name for him. The engine was everything. When I brought the new used convertible home, and pondered what to name him, Michael said, “Well, Hemi is a 300. This is a 200. So he’s a semi-Hemi.” And Semi became Semi. I no longer have Hemi. I have a Chrysler 300S, without the hemi engine. His name is Barry, because his color is officially “berry”, but also because he would sound like Barry White if he could speak. And in my head, he does.

Semi, however, croons.

But Semi is also my deck on wheels. When I first pull out of my garage in the car, there is always a moment where I just put my face up to the sun and soak it in. When I get where I’m going and I throw him into park, I soak my face again.

And when I am in that car…I can do anything.

There were a few days here and there this supposed spring where it was warm enough to bring Semi out. I have heated seats, so I will drive him when it’s 55 degrees and up, with the seat roaring and the heater blasting. But this last week, I’ve been in him every day. Soaking in the sun every day. Deep-breathing the air every day, even the days we were under an Air Quality Advisory due to the smoke from the Canadian fires blowing our way. I’m asthmatic. And I didn’t care.

But then…it was a warm evening. Still hovering in the 70s. Sun still out at almost 8:00. I was supposed to be reading manuscripts for the next day.

But I wasn’t.

I was in that car. Music up. Heading toward…Dairy Queen and a medium caramel Moo-latte. Sheer and utter decadence.

I wasn’t the only one who had the same idea. As I approached DQ, I saw the line of cars stretched through the parking lot and out onto the street. I got in line. It would be a wait.

And like an asthmatic breathing deep during an Air Quality Advisory, I didn’t care.

I rested my head back and sang with the music, even though the top was off and the windows were down. Others sang with me. I raised my face to the sun. I did so much more than soak.

I sank. I reveled. Spring was gone.

Summer was here.

Nothing else mattered.

Well, until I headed back home, still singing, still sunning, but now with a medium caramel Moo-latte in my grip.

Heaven.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Until recently, I never kept very many plants in my home. Partly, it was because I have cats, who see every potted plant as a potential salad bar. Finding creative ways to have plants enhance your home, while at the same time, keeping them out of reach of chewing cats is not easy.

But I also didn’t have plants in the home because my mom didn’t just have a green thumb. She had an entire green body, that I think went down to the cellular level. There were plants inside, there were plants outside, there were plants everywhere. The plants that grew outside, she brought in for the winter. The plants that grew inside, she brought out for the summer. And whenever she and my father went on vacation, she counted on me to take care of them all, which was a request that brought terror to my heart. Some plants got faucet water, some got distilled water, and still others got spring water, from a pipe she and my father found on the side of the road one year. It was a faucet to a fresh spring just underground. The distilled water and the spring water was kept in milk jugs down the basement, on separate sides so they could be told apart.

I never could.

I will admit, as it took a really long time to search the house for all the plants, and then to water the outside plants, they all got faucet water with me. I dumped out an appropriate amount of water from the plastic jugs so it looked like I used it.

I also was required to fill their many bird feeders. I’m terrified of birds, and so I would just stand in the garage door and fling bird seed in the general direction of the feeders. Right before my parents came home, my ex-husband would come and fill the feeders for me.

But plants. In the spring of 2020, in the near-beginning of the pandemic, I ventured out to the grocery store. I was fully masked, I clutched my list, and I planned to get in and out as fast as I could. But as I walked into the store, I also walked straight into a display of hibiscus trees. They were in full bloom, orange and pink flowers everywhere, pointing to the sky like satellite dishes. I stood stock still and admired. It was like walking into a literal interpretation of spring. But that wasn’t what I was there for, and so I smiled at the hibiscus forest and started to move on by.

But a hibiscus branch hooked my sleeve. And suddenly, I was there for a hibiscus tree.

Ms. Hib and I spent that whole first lonely Covid summer together, on my third floor deck. I often had my meals out there, and she and I would talk. She was a great listener.

I didn’t know much about hibiscus though, and in the spring of 2021, Ms. Hib lost all of her leaves and died. Shortly after, so did an amazing student of mine. Her name was Carla. I met her when my daughter Katie went to college and Carla was just down the hall in the dorm. Carla had cystic fibrosis, and the day I met her, she was packing up to go home, because college was just too much for her health to handle. She and I talked for quite a while though, and I told her she needed to write a book.

In 2018, after a double-lung transplant, that exactly what Carla did, while entering into coaching with me. And in 2021, Carla died.

Grieving, I went into Menards, where Michael was working at the time. I was only supposed to pick him up. But when I walked inside, I walked straight into a display of hibiscus. Carla and I, the both of us trapped inside during Covid because of compromised immune systems, Carla from CF and me from breast cancer, had raved over Ms. Hib and her glorious blossoms. Now, I looked at beautiful blooms again. When I walked past the forest to find Michael, another branch grabbed me.

I was there to pick up more than Michael. I named that hibiscus Carla.

Carla stayed with me through April of 2024. Her last bloom opened on the day of the full eclipse of the sun. And she was with me through Michael’s accident and his time in the hospital and rehab. There were some very dark nights when that hibiscus was the only one I talked to. She was there when Michael came home. But she was gone before he went into the hospital for the final time.

After she died, and after Michael died, I stopped at Home Depot to pick up something – I don’t remember what. Sitting by themselves on the pavement were two small hibiscus bushes, on clearance. Nobody had chosen them. We were now into summer, and they hadn’t found a home.

So they came home with me. They were named Righty and Lefty, depending on where they sat. At the time, I simply had no creativity, no energy, not much of anything left in me.

Righty didn’t make it through the winter. But Lefty did, and is with me still. He’s been joined by Joe, a gift from a friend who was a botanist. He brought me a cutting in the spring, and Joe was growing by leaps and bounds. He was named after the Jolly Green Giant doll I owned as a child, and who I called Joe because his name couldn’t be Jolly Green Giant. Now, my startlingly tall green hibiscus became Joe.

But then came last weekend. I went to the grocery store. I had some things I needed to pick up.

I do the grocery shopping now. I do the cooking, or at least, what passes for cooking. These used to be Michael’s jobs.

As I approached the grocery store, I saw some hibiscus on display outside. They stood all together. I started to walk toward their forest, but then I saw her.

There was one hibiscus tree, all by herself, separate from the others, standing on a pallet. She wasn’t in the sun. She was in the shade. And she was alone. She wasn’t blooming, but from what I could tell from the few buds, she might have red flowers.

I stood by her for a bit. I told myself I was there to pick up food for a cookout with my kids for Memorial Day. A hibiscus wasn’t on my list. I already had two hibiscus at home – Lefty and Joe.

But this hibiscus stood all by herself. She wasn’t blooming, like the others. And I knew exactly how she felt.

I brought home the food for the cookout. But I also brought home the hibiscus tree. Her name is now Ruby.

It was still too chilly to bring her outside. So she stood in my office, in front of my plant stand, where, over the years, I’ve added a few more plants. There are plants on my second floor too. And in the classroom, plants line the windows. During the summer, the plants I keep inside go outside. During the winter, the plants I keep outside come inside.

But they all get faucet water.

The day after I bought Ruby, I slept in late as it was a Sunday. When I got up, I staggered into my office to turn on my computer.

Overnight, Ruby erupted. Red blooms everywhere. And other buds about to burst.

She made me feel like I was about to burst.

Now, all three hibiscus, Lefty, Joe, and Ruby, are on my third floor deck, with quite a few other flowers and plants. But Ruby has stolen the show. She continues to explode.

She’s not alone anymore. Neither am I.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

THIS BLOG IS VERY LATE TODAY. AND IT’S ALSO BRUTALLY HONEST. BUT HERE WE GO.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I’ve been having a very hard week. It’s like when you feel that something in your body is out of whack – your knee is out of joint, or your back feels crooked, or you have a hovering headache that just won’t go away. Some people refer to it as walking around with a dark cloud over your head. I’ve been feeling that dark cloud, but it’s not just over my head. I’m walking through it.

It really started on Saturday morning. I was getting ready to head downstairs to teach one of my Once-A-Month Write-A-Book Workshop groups. Before I walked down, I booted my computer and got the usual windows open. Email – AOL and Yahoo. Instagram chat, where my family’s chat is set. And Facebook.

Now normally, I get a notification somewhere in the late afternoon, telling me that I have Facebook Memories available, and listing a few names. “You have Facebook Memories with Christopher, Andy, Katie, Olivia…” for example, all my kids. And then I can choose to click on it and see what the memories are. But for some reason, that morning, Facebook Memories was already there, and not only already there, but wide open on my screen.

With a photograph of Michael.

His very last photograph. Last Saturday was the date a year ago that Michael made it up to the third floor, used his walker to cross my office and go outside onto our deck. He sat in the sun for the first time since January, when he stepped off the curb in downtown Milwaukee and was hit by a passenger van. And for the first and only time, he said to me, “I’m going to make it.”

That was a Friday. The day after that, I walked downstairs to teach the same exact group I was about to see. When I came upstairs after teaching that group last year, Michael was vomiting blood. I took him to the ER, and everything went downhill from there, until he died on June 19^th.

It was exactly a year later. That day, last year, was filled with so much joy and hope. And on this day, I was alone and he was gone.

I ended up being ten minutes late to my workshop, as I tried very hard to pull myself together, regain my composure. I walked into that classroom, saw those same exact faces, and lost it.

I was completely and totally blindsided. Completely. And I’ve remained that way all week, feeling like I’m not quite walking a straight line.

And so then I really struggled with what I was going to write about today. It’s why I’m two hours late with this blog. Ten minutes late on Saturday. Two hours late now.

This afternoon, I was talking to someone about this, and I suddenly found myself talking about the Oregon coast, that I’ll be running to in a few weeks, and the story of the sand dollar. If you haven’t heard it, this is the story.

In 2015, I was not in very good shape when I went to Oregon. I was feeling like my life had no purpose, that I was always a failure. My novel, Rise From The River, which took me 20 years to gather up the courage to write, was published. But vastly more attention was being paid to the 50 Shades Of Gray series. The messages of the 50 Shades books and mine could not be further apart.

When I got to Oregon, I ran straight out to the ocean and shrieked at it. Some people look up to the sky to yell at God. I yell at the ocean, and I don’t know that I’m yelling at God. I just know that I can yell at the ocean. And I said, “What do you want from me? I have done everything I can, everything I’m supposed to do. I have devoted my life to my own writing and to writers. And yet look what is valued.” I ranted. Nothing happened. And then I remembered someone telling me that if you want an answer, from God, the Universe, the ocean, whomever, you ask for something specific. So I said, “If I am on the right path, then let me find a whole sand dollar. A WHOLE sand dollar. Not a piece or a fragment.”

And I left it at that.

One evening, my daughter, who was with me that trip, and I were walking the ocean in a fog. The fog on the Pacific is magical…it glitters. It’s like walking through a glitter storm. As we walked, I could see two people coming toward us, an older man and woman. No matter which way I moved, the man kept walking directly toward me. When we arrived in the same space, he was directly in my face. But I found I wasn’t scared.

He didn’t say hello, he didn’t say, “Nice night.” He said, “Have you found a whole sand dollar?”

I still get goosebumps talking about this. I stammered, “No…no…I’ve been looking for one, but –”

“Choose one,” he said, and reached into his pocket and pulled out three. Three whole sand dollars.

I picked one, and my daughter took one. And then we walked away. I’ve never seen the man again.

I brought the sand dollar home, painted a small canvas as a background, glued the sand dollar to it, and hung it on the wall behind my desk.

I have always considered that moment a miracle.

And it didn’t stop there. Two years later, I couldn’t go to Oregon because I had breast cancer. The next year, I arrived there, ran out to the ocean, and shrieked, “You didn’t tell me my path included cancer!” And then I asked, “If I’m going to be all right, then let ME find the sand dollar this time.”

On my last day there, I went out to say goodbye to the ocean. I hadn’t found a sand dollar. As I stood there, I felt a bump against my toe. I looked down…and there was a whole sand dollar.

The person I was talking to this afternoon went to Oregon and stood by the ocean while I was in treatment for breast cancer. He thought of me, felt a bump…and found a whole sand dollar which he brought to me.

Last year, I went to Oregon after Michael died. I walked out to greet the ocean, but I didn’t rant and I didn’t rave. I just said, “I don’t know what to say.” I didn’t ask for anything. But partway through the trip, I was taking my evening walk. I happened to glance down at my feet, and right in front of me, was the teeniest tiniest whole sand dollar. No bigger than my fingernail. If I hadn’t looked down right then, I would have missed it.

But I did look down.

But this afternoon, talking to this person, I heard myself say, “I thought that the sand dollar was a miracle. But never ever ever would I have thought that my path included my husband stepping off a curb to come home and instead getting hit by a passenger van.” And then I said, “I think it was all a fluke. There’s no path. Nothing is set. Nothing can be expected. I just don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know what to do.”

I don’t know what to do. I’ve said that to myself and out loud for months now. I feel lost. I don’t know what to do.

As I drove home today, I had to come to a stop at a stoplight. In front of me was a Waukesha city bus. Blazed across the back of the bus, right in my face, just like that old man was in my face, were the words, “YOU ARE LOVED.” I blinked, and saw it was an ad for the LGBTQ+ community, a community I support, but I’m not a part of. I instantly thought, That message isn’t for me.

I went to pick up my jacket, accidentally left behind at the chiropractor’s yesterday. I went through the Starbucks drive-thru. I stopped by a mailbox and mailed a letter. And then, at a whole other intersection, in a different part of town, I stopped behind a bus.

“YOU ARE LOVED.”

I shook my head.

As I approached home, I was passed by two other buses. This time, on the side, I saw the Craig Husar ad, for Husar Diamonds. I immediately said, “Hi, Craig.”

An earlier This Week’s Moment talked about how I decided to have my wedding ring and Michael’s melted down and made into a new ring, for me to wear. I’d seen the Husar ads for years, and always said, “Hi, Craig,” because wherever I was, so was he. On the day I decided to do this with the rings, and wondered where I should go, a bus passed me. “Hi, Craig,” I said. And then I went to Husar’s.

Craig was there that day, and I met him, and his daughter. She designed my ring. Craig sat next to me, introduced himself, and shared his condolences. He told me I’d come to the right place, and there was no one better to create this ring than his daughter. As we talked, he said, “You know, there’s a real warmth and energy here. I think your husband is in full agreement with what you’re doing.”

And now, on this day when I was feeling particularly lost, and when I’d twice run into a sign that said I was loved, which I immediately discounted, I was then reminded, twice again, of the kindness of absolute strangers who have reached out to help me during this awful, awful time.

I am still walking crooked. I still don’t know what to do. But I know I am loved.

Hi, Craig.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.