I sit here trying to pound out this week’s tune, but find that I do not have much news to report: No special insights to share about my widow(er)hood, no roiling sad emotions crying to be released lest I explode. In fact, at this moment I mainly am concerned with life’s humdrum: Restocking the pantry and refrigerator, scheduling furnace inspections, meeting with a financial advisor to review my portfolio, planning a dinner with my nephew, leisurely prepping the gardens, both here and at Deer Tick, soon to fall dormant, for another growing season several months into the future. In brief, if life seems a bit quotidian, I guess that would be the news.
I follow the writings of the fine writers who contribute to this site. It has always been my takeaway that I am far older than any of them. One possible consequence of our age differential is they have a luxury of time to hold on to the past, to ruminate, to wallow, that I do not. The upshot may be that I am being forced by personal circumstances to be more forward looking. If I have a restored semblance of normalcy in my life sooner than appears to be the case for at least some of them, perhaps there are yet a few benefits to being the old guy in the room.
The larger point is that “normal” feels good, I hardly need to remind, after everything that has occurred in your own life to bring you to this site. Feeling normal once again, whatever “normal” might mean for you, is a laudable goal, which signals that you are ready to move forward and resume living.
Of course, a return to normalcy does not magically turn the clock back, as much as we all wish it could. The best one can reasonably hope for, I believe, is to adjust to the new realities. These adjustments might seem incremental, even imperceptible, but they are necessary. Every adjustment constitutes a step forward, even the tiniest adjustments.
Let me give you one example. I have enjoyed playing competitive racquetball ever since I was a young man, and still enjoy playing today, despite that the fact my reflexes, vision, strength, and hand-eye skills all have diminished proportionally to advancing age. I now am embarrassed to admit that when I first began, I was an habitual and heavy user of nicotine. Our group would play 5 or 6 games, but I would be completely gassed after only 2 or 3 hard games against good competition. Then, one day, I simply quit smoking. (It has been nearly 30 years since my last cigarette, but I digress.) Many months went by. Then, approximately a year after I quit tobacco cold turkey, I one day realized that I was able to play 4 or 5 or even 6 fiercely competitive games without either having to quit altogether or to repeatedly bend over, hands on knees, to catch my breath. I could not tell you precisely when this change occurred, though I am very glad that it did. Later in life, I have thought about this matter on many occasions but have never been able to gauge with any precision when the change for the better took hold. As I say, sometimes the most important adjustments occur incrementally, even imperceptibly. I only know that one day, and I could not say which day, there it was.
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Recently, I brought home from Deer Tick numerous photographs, a painting and drawings, and other personal items that I had shared with family and friends this past Summer as part of our celebration of Lee’s life. I temporarily had piled these together in the basement with the intention of re-hanging or restoring them to their places but had not yet done so because I tend to procrastinate. Then, this past week, while the HVAC technicians were at my place to inspect the furnaces, one helpfully pointed out that there was moisture on a portion of the unfinished cement floor adjacent to these treasures, likely the result of our recent heavy rains. As I hastily grabbed them up off the floor, I momentarily experienced that old sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach at the mere thought that one or more might have been damaged. Fortunately, I was able to see that this had not occurred. In the past the possibility of such an unmitigated disaster might have left me feeling nauseous.
I am not so naïve as to believe the same process that I describe here today in terms of a return to (a semblance of) normalcy will ever completely alleviate the grief I experience over the loss of my sweet wife– nor should it. This grief is become a part of my new normal that I embrace. I accommodate grief as a necessary adjunct to my respectful and loving remembrance of Lee, but my grief over her loss no longer rules me.
