So my parents have a time-share on Cape Cod, and its this really great condo right on the ocean in Falmouth, Mass. One side has the bay, the other side has oceanfront. You can leave the sliding glass doors open at night and hear the waves crashing gently as you sleep. Next weekend, my parents are driving there for 3 nights just to get away and be near the water and take the mini-vaation they never got to have all summer long due to having covid-19, and then recovering from covid-19, and having to be extra careful. We are STILL being extra careful, but we really need to get away. They invited me and my boyfriend Nick to join them there for the first couple nights. We are driving down seperately and we will meet them there. Im really looking forward to it. Just sitting by the water, hanging out, playing board games, going out for seafood, and breathing ocean air will be relaxing and healing and needed.

Here’s where it gets widow-weird …

Its the same condo complex, and quite possibly the same exact condo, dependiing on which one is available next weekend, where my late husband Don and I stayed on our Cape Cod honeymoon, 14 years ago. Staying there with my guy will be nice, but also emotional and probably feelings that are very complex for me. Its hard to be there and not have my mind go back to Don and I being there too, and to remember vividly for a few minutes, that life that was. If the feelings are hard and complex, I will most likely just sit with them, sort of like low-tide floating through my heart. There wont be much need to speak about it out loud, because what could I possibly say that wouldnt come across as weird or inappropriate or too much information, in this case? The memories are mine, and ours, and some things I think just remain in that silent and poignant way – where you are grateful to have them as a big piece of who you are, and grateful to also BE where you are today, and have the ability to once again feel joy and love.

Whenever I picture Don these days, I see him as a silhouette, standing and looking out at the ocean. He did that a lot. He was a quiet man with a quiet presence. He was a thinker, and he loved nature. I like to think of him sometimes as being inside that low tide, gently moving and swaying with ease and wonder. That is where he lives inside me, in all the places where I feel that gentle ease.