So you’re going along, leading your new life, adapting to the fact that your partner of 45 years died and has been gone for over a year. And you’re really working your tail off at building positive experiences and living the way you want and facing reality like a totally evolved adult. And then, wham! Without even the tiniest hint, you are instantly stunned, bowled over by the fact that your person is never coming back, that you will never lay eyes or hands or anything else on your lover, your best friend. Now how the hell does that happen?
I get it when you suddenly hear a song that was meaningful in your relationship or you’re looking at photos that bring back memories. Then the progression of remembering turns to wondering why and what if, and there’s some kind of logic there. Something you can understand. But this minding your own business, thinking about what you have to do today thing, when there’s no direct stimulus that would reasonably help explain the sudden shock and desolation is pretty unnerving. And unfair, I might add. Ambushed. What a dreadful feeling.
I’m always trying to face things head on-that’s my style. The first thing that popped into my head when this most recent hammer dropped? A few quotes from one of my favorite books. When I read it years ago, I had no idea how apt these two passages would be for me at this stage of my life. 
“..The girl raised her eyes to see who was passing by the window, and that casual glance was the beginning of a cataclysm of love that still had not ended half a century later.”
“She was a ghost in a strange house that overnight had become immense and solitary and through which she wandered without purpose, asking herself in anguish which one of them was deader: the man who had died or the woman he had left behind.”
Although the words move me and reflect me, for now, they won’t do for providing solace and a path forward. Instead, I find myself pursuing a different direction. I’m thinking about the phrase “taking the waters,” and how that applies to me at this point in time.
Taking the waters is an ancient concept, positing that immersing oneself in mineral springs, pools and the like would provide healing and rejuvenation. The practice and reference can be found in literature from multiple cultures and eras. For me, water has been a go-to place since I was a child. And now, I’m looking back to where that attraction began and contemplating that comforting reliable space.
I discovered swimming when my parents moved back to Chicago from Sioux City when I was seven. Lake Michigan was inexpensive entertainment. Our spot was Rainbow Beach which was relatively close to our apartment. We carted lawn chairs and blankets to the grassy area west of the beach. No one in my family was much interested in the water but me. My mom wore a bathing suit but my dad sat on a chair wearing long pants and sometimes, even a lightweight sport coat. They’d both grown up in the city on the edge of this gorgeous lake but were too busy scrabbling to live to spend any time near the water. Back in those more innocent days, a kid could go alone from the park down to the water and that’s what I did. I stood watching the swimmers carefully and copied their movements as best I could. What a glorious feeling. The lake was really cold but I didn’t care. I’d stay in the water until I pruned and my lips turned blue, excited when my uncertain movements took me from one spot to another. I was hooked immediately. I didn’t care about the stinky, rotting alewives that lay along the shore. Whatever happened to them wasn’t going to happen to me. Most of my early water time happened in that lake. Occasionally, my parents took us on an excursion to a city pool. I remember going off the high dive at the Wicker Park pool, an almost unimaginable feat when I, whose fear of heights is now legendary, would do almost anything to enter the water.
In high school, swimming was a component of PE class. I remember we wore swimsuits made of a material that felt rough, that the suits were baggy, and that you got either a red or blue one, depending on your skill level. I didn’t love our pool or the class. What I did love at that time was summer, when a nearby motel allowed people to pay a dollar a day to spend unlimited hours at their outdoor pool. Before I had a summer job, I split my time between The Thunderbird Motel and Rainbow Beach. My skin was bronzed and my hair turned auburn.
In those formative years, I just loved what I loved. As I evolved from child to young adult, I started a deeper thought process, probing inside myself, trying to understand what I felt and what I wanted. I was seventeen when I went to college. I had no inkling then that I would spend the rest of my life in this university town, a place plopped in the middle of corn and soybean fields where the only body of water was a skimpy little creek filled with widely varying and questionable items. I’d left my lake behind. But in time, I found the pools, first the ones on campus and then, the city pool, the one destined to become the pool of my life. The water continued to be a source of peace and lightness for me. As I swam along, slowly and steadily in my classic tortoise style, my hurt, my rage, my confusion and even my positive feelings went quiet. I can scarcely describe how unusual the internal drifting stillness felt, so in contrast to the relentless focus which is my dominant mental state. I began to learn that my water time was my meditation time, a state of mind that was more organic to me than I imagined.
But I am getting ahead of myself. At twenty, I met my husband, a water person like me. We roamed together, looking for swimming spots. We skinny dipped in gravel pits and farm retaining ponds. We found lakes a few hours from home and emerged from them with green slime caught in our toes. As we moved further into our life, our travels expanded and there were hotel pools, more lakes and finally oceans.
We glided in the waves of the Atlantic and Pacific. We spent countless hours in the Gulf of Mexico and swam with the wondrous creatures of the turquoise Caribbean. We carried our lovemaking into these waters, surreptitiously joining with each other under the surface. We managed a few pools as well. These were rapturous moments that sway in my memory. Unforgettable.
When we joined old friends and their families in a communal camp setting for several years, I swam the lake while Michael helped the kids with the water sports. I don’t believe I ever rode the jet skis we rented. Occasionally, I rode in the boat to spot the people who were water skiing or tubing. I canoed once. And I sat or stood on the dock to help the little ones learn to fish or skip stones. But for me those sweet summer vacations were about the swimming, usually by myself.
For many years when winter break began, we took our kids to Starved Rock State Park, a place for hiking and watching bald eagles, if you were lucky. For me the lodge there had the critical main attraction, a large indoor pool, a hot tub and a sauna, completely glassed in so that while you swam, you could see nature scant yards away. One amazing December day, we arrived with a blizzard minutes behind us and as I swam lap after lap, I watched the snow fall steadily, piling up in great white heaps while the warmth of the water embraced me. These were trips we shared with our children, telling stories, breaking news, relaxing and tightening the bonds of our little family unit. As they grew older, sometimes we went alone. But we also expanded our crew to include girlfriends, and eventually our son-in-law and grandchildren. We went there in the midst of Michael’s chemotherapy. And it was the last healthy trip he had the month before his cancer ran amok. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to go back there. I think I prefer to have the memories from those times remain encapsulated. I often wondered why I was the only person in the pool in the morning, up and back, up and back, not understanding why people hadn’t figured out this lovely feeling they could have so easily. I was lucky. That book is closed.
But the pool of my life is none of what I’ve described. Our local pool was called Crystal Lake. In my mid-twenties having a car and a job allowed for mobility. Crystal Lake was a lovely city park with mature trees, playgrounds, the lake, bridges and pavilions. The pool was further north and built in a depression in the land. Surrounded by trees and prairie plants, with street sounds muffled by the landscape, it was easy to feel that you were far from an urban area. No hustle bustle here. The pool was an oasis. I started attending with a couple of women friends who worked with me. I swam the most, my friends doing a few laps while I stayed in the water. Eventually, Michael joined us there periodically. He was a beautiful swimmer but lazy – he’d do a few lengths and then snooze on a lounge chair. When he got too warm, he’d rejoin me. What a treat to hold each other in the midst of a work day. The good life. Every summer I looked forward to the Memorial Day opening. Over time, my companions came and went. I kept going, every day unless the skies opened and lightning interfered. I swam through my first pregnancy in that pool. I was so enormous that the lifeguards were terrified I’d go into labor on their watch. They had a baby betting thing going, trying to score cash off my giant belly. That didn’t happen. But my babies did arrive eventually and they learned to swim at Crystal Lake Pool. When they went to day camp, they swam there a few times a week. Some of my friends moved away and new ones joined me. Michael, too, along with my sister and my mother, who sat on the side, dangling her feet in the cool water. We had family picnics there after work on hot evenings. I can see us sitting under one of the umbrella tables, plum juice dripping down the kids’ chins, going from the baby pool to the big pool, my shoulders sore from catching my little jumpers who were never bored after doing the same activity a hundred times. I remember when I made my daughter take a stroke clinic which she hated but did anyway, developing into a talented swimmer. Watching her go back and forth was almost as much fun as doing it myself. Eventually I joined the park district citizens’ advisory board so I could stick my two cents into any conversations about aquatics. Our parks director was more about parks than water. I wanted to advocate for investing in a community pool. Finally, the time came when the pool malfunctioned and it was time to tear it out, to start over with a new type of aquatic center which was more modern, with the bells and whistles that would attract more patrons and perhaps, break even financially. I was shell shocked even though I knew it was coming. Thirty years of life had gone by and that pool was part of my peace and joy. I mourned.
In time, I realized that fitness was a year round necessity and finally joined the indoor aquatic center so I could swim year-round. I acclimated because that’s what you do in order to survive and in time, was grateful to have a facility that I could use regularly. But my heart yearned for that feeling of swimming outside and escaping all the noise, both internal and external.
When the new outdoor aquatic center finally opened after almost 3 years, I went to check it out. I felt overwhelmed and alienated by all the noisy buckets, bells and slides meant to attract families and be more current than the old fashioned pool design I’d known for so long. I decided that the indoor pool would do and that except for spending time at the new Crystal Lake with my grandchildren, I’d keep my distance from this zooey place. But circumstances change. When Michael’s cancer came roaring to life last year, I stopped swimming in January and stayed by his side until his death in late May. He needed me and I needed to know that I’d done every last thing I could for him. I also wanted every single second that was left to us. When he died, I was whatever is beyond fatigue and exhaustion. After a few weeks. I realized that I needed to start moving before my body turned to total mush. I hadn’t realized how much muscle tone I lost during those months. Although I was always moving around and sleeping so little, the lack of regular exercise had caused all round atrophy. My doctor said that for every week of exercise that I’d missed, I’d need three weeks to begin to recover my strength. Suddenly I was looking at a year of weakness, something I’d never considered. Adding to the dilemma was my overwhelming sadness and grief.
If I went to the indoor pool, all the people that knew about my life would be waiting with sympathy. I knew that instead of working out, I’d be spending my time trying not to cry most of the time. I decided to go back to the outdoor pool, hoping to swim in privacy, not having to talk with anyone. The first couple of times I arrived for lap swim were disastrous. Friends I hadn’t seen in a long while were there and they all knew about Michael. Everything I tried to avoid was happening anyway. In addition, I couldn’t believe how weak I felt-every stroke was an enormous effort. I finally decided that the safest thing to do was to swim in the middle of the afternoon, when the pool was filled with screaming kids and I could disappear into the chaos while seeing virtually no one I knew. I thought it was a bit humorous that for so many people who had children and grandkids, that being around them during pool hours was like doing hard time. After a few weeks, I did bump into some friends, but not often. More importantly, I grew stronger, physically, mentally and emotionally. By the time Labor Day weekend rolled around, traditionally the last days of the outdoor season, I felt strong enough to go back indoors and pick up where I’d left off before Michael got so sick. And that’s exactly what I did. Over the fall and winter months, I reinstated my routine and faithfully moved on with my recovery.
But as spring approached and summer loomed, I found myself thinking more and more about wanting to swim outdoors. Taking the waters came into my head. I remembered how great it was to backstroke, looking up at the sky and the clouds. Watching hawks, turkey vultures and herons sail overhead as they moved toward the lake and scanned the ground for food. Dragonflies hovered constantly and bees droned along, attracted by the beautiful flowers and landscaping designs that surround the deck area. My pool pass needed renewing and I opted for the outdoor pass in addition to the indoor one. I’ve been going for a few weeks now. And indeed, I’m taking the rejuvenating, healing waters. As I glide up and back, I’ve been astonished to find powerful visual memories emerging, unelicited, from deep down in my body. I see my children, my daughter in a one piece suit with a single ruffle, diving off the side into her dad’s arms. I see my son, toddling gingerly through the kiddie pool, his arms uplifted, making sure someone was always nearby to grab his hand. I see my friends, laughing, joking and gossiping as they lay on the chaises, lazily watching me move along. I am powerwalking with my adult daughter in the shallow end, my sister nearby. I am telling a work acquaintance to stop talking to me about business when I’m in my vacation mode.
And I see Michael everywhere. I can see him diving. Swimming a whole length underwater and popping up right next to me. I can see the way his hair parts after swimming the crawl. Him smiling at me as he watches me swim length after length. I can feel how he pulled me toward him and walked around the water with me, clasped together in one of our happiest places. And I can see how much he loved being able to be there with our kids and the little boys, an experience he feared he’d never have. I don’t feel sad. I feel embraced. Every vision has a light quality to it, a shimmery glow that makes me smile, that brings comfort. My whole life happened at this place. My youth, my life partnership, my friends, my babies, my family. It looks different but it’s in the same physical place and how I feel while immersed is the same drifting meditative sensation that I’ve had while swimming, always. The sneak attacks will come again. There can be no doubt of those ambushes as my love for Michael remains so alive. But I’m going to take the waters, whenever I can. To carry me through until the next time.
Years ago I had a friend who was describing some symptoms that her mother had been experiencing for several weeks. I listened carefully, recognizing that they sounded very similar to those my dad had before being diagnosed with bladder cancer. When she finished talking, I gently and carefully suggested to her that what I heard was sounding a lot like cancer. She looked at me rather nonchalantly and said, “we don’t get cancer in our family.” I was really surprised. She was smart and thoughtful and in a blink just dismissed the most non-discriminating killer on the planet as a possible cause for the nagging problems. Within a year, her mother was dead from her bladder cancer, after putting off appointments over and over because cancer wasn’t part of their history.
Michael knew that skin cancer ran in his family and was vigilant about using sunscreen, seeing his dermatologist every three months and attacking any suspicious spots by excision or medications. My big, strong husband, who was everyone’s hero, was felled anyway. Cancer liked his body and his immune system couldn’t do a thing about it. Cancer started growing and played a 5 year cat and mouse game with my guy. 
Suddenly it seemed anything was possible. But after 6 months of treatment, Michael had a profound spike in his liver enzymes. Our doctor felt compelled to stop treatment. I argued vociferously against this as he was taking other medications which could have caused the liver issues. Knowing that his disease could get active at any time, the doctor thought we should do a challenge to see what would happen. The next thing we knew, he was gone, the second oncologist we lost in a few years. So we started over with a new one. 
His desires became my mission. With endless encouragement, prodding and the most ingenious protein shakes I could concoct, we stayed at home and for the most part he still looked strong, with good color, not wasted. One lovely April day, we managed to get across the street to our daughter’s home to spend the afternoon, to sit together with our grandchildren and go back to our own house, content with that feeling of normalcy. Our son who was abroad, working on a postdoc, managed to stop his work and get home so he could share the last days of Michael’s life. He died a year ago today, peacefully, quietly and unwillingly, with me beside him, holding his hand.
One of his favorite movies was The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. He watched it almost any time it appeared on late night tv. The story is one of a widow who occupies the home of a sea captain who’s died, but insists on being in his house with her, as if she’s the invader of his personal space. Of course, this isn’t a perfect metaphor for what happened to us. But I often feel that we will be in our home together, until it’s my turn to be done with whatever lies ahead of me.
I didn’t know I could survive a minute, a week or a whole year without Michael. But here I am, still alive and evidently destined to go forward. So I will, holding him in my heart and feeling the buoyancy of his presence which shows up unexpectedly and fills me with sensations I’m learning to accept as my new normal. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must do the thing which you think cannot do.” That’s exactly what I’m doing. The magic that Michael and I built helps me. One minute, one week, one year. On I go, on we go. I miss him every day. 
Almost another full year has passed since I wrote this blog post. I still feel virtually the same as I did back then. I remain in love with Michael and I’m still mystified by the incredible connection that lives on between us, though he’s been dead almost two years. I’m still thinking away. And I’ve learned some things about cancer and what it can and can’t do. I wanted to share my reflections in the hope that they’ll help someone out there who’s having a similar experience. 
It’s my birthday. For some reason, birthdays have never meant very much to me. I know about the day I was born because my mom told me that story over and over again. She and my dad were living with my grandparents. She went into labor during the day when my dad was working. My grandparents didn’t have a car so they asked their neighbor Vern if he could drive them to Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. Vern was nervous and driving fast so inevitably, he was stopped by the police. After they assessed the situation they wound up providing an escort for poor Vern and my mom.
However, my mom’s parents were always part of my life. I loved them. But they weren’t the type of people who had much input into how I grew up. They were immigrants with limited ideas that didn’t seem particularly relevant to their current time. Although they were loving, they weren’t engaged with more than the most basic parts of my world. Food, a new dress and banter around a kitchen table. Aside from that, they didn’t have much to offer to me, a child of the 60’s. My grandfather died when I was a freshman in college. My grandmother lived long enough to meet my firstborn child. We appreciated and loved each other but their deaths weren’t earth shattering for me. 
As he grew older, he maintained an intimate relationship with her and considered her a confidante and a person of trust. He never went through the phase of distancing himself from her like so many young men transitioning to adulthood. He always spent time with her, eventually returning all her caregiving with nurturing of his own. As she aged and became more limited in mobility and cognitive function, he visited her with his movie camera to interview her and save her memories. He took her out to breakfast, her favorite meal, and wheeled her outside through the parks and our campus community, singing and chatting with her, tucking sprigs of lilacs behind her ears and making her convulse with laughter. I marveled at his consistent devotion and often wondered about the connection that was created during those early months when he spent all his days with my parents. Would his relationship with them, and most particularly my mother, have been the same, absent that shared living time? Who knows? On the eve of her death, he came to say goodbye. As I watched them, I was powerfully moved by the depth of the extended look they shared and I felt the passing of the powerful emotions between them. I’ll always remember that look. I know that he still misses her every day.
For you with the well-meaning intentions.
I have been pondering the expectations I have for myself at this point in my life. Wondering which ones stem from my core and which ones I derive from cultural norms, at least norms as I perceive them through reading, conversation, and the overall seepage of daily technological input. 
Our home always had animals in it. We lived in Sioux City, Iowa at the time of this photo. I’m in the stroller. During those years we had a golden cocker spaniel named Trixie. I have no pictures of her. I remember her being unspayed which meant that while in heat, my mother had a lot of extra work to do. I was at the floor level with Trixie who wore diapers like me. Evidently I pushed my relationship with her because she bit me in my armpit and was given away. We moved houses and along came the next dog. King. Here I am with my arm around him. Of course, he was the family dog, but for me, that sweet face defined all my future pets. He shaped my vision for all my animal companions. The collies. Loyal, gentle friends who wanted to do what you needed them to do. Who looked in your eyes and felt you. Michael always said I liked intellectual dogs who thought like me. An astute observation. I wasn’t about playing ball and teaching tricks. I was about bonding and interacting. 
I remembered his gentle nature my whole life. When we moved to Chicago where we’d live in an apartment instead of a house, we had to leave him behind. My first big heartbreak with a pet. But not enough to stop the emotional risk we all take when we commit ourselves to loving someone who will likely die before us. A key lesson learned. And one which set an internal expectation of the cost of love. 
Michael and I were living communally at the time with a total of six people, four dogs and a cat. But Herbie and I still had our private thing. One night after arguing with Michael, I went to lie in my bed. Herbie came into the curve of my body as she’d done since she was a baby. Michael came into our room to talk and reached out to me. Herbie snapped at him. He was terribly disappointed. In the end, she remained a one-person dog. When we moved out on our own, she became aggressive toward strangers and bit our paperboy. I knew that keeping her was selfish and socially irresponsible. So I gave her up. Michael took her to the Humane Society. I was so devastated, I sent him back the next day to get her. He was told she’d been taken by a farmer in a nearby community. I never really believed it. But I learned that I was growing up. Instead of having it all be about me, I recognized that I had community responsibilities. That was a leap for me. Instead of thinking only of my own needs, I was stretching out into a wider world view. I couldn’t just stay a kid, clutching my stuffed toy. I was part of a bigger picture and I needed to act accordingly. I was moving into a place I still occupy-it’s not just about me and I don’t think it should be. A new expectation for myself. 
His presence added to the general chaos of a new baby, the adjustments of our older child to her sibling and Ribeye having to handle a lively interloper. It was a lot. I was now in my 30’s which I felt was truly the beginning of my adulthood. There were many demands on my time between family, work and home. I wanted to be the best I could at all those things. As the kids scrambled through the house and Michael and I juggled our multiple roles, Ribeye advanced into old age. I saw her become painfully arthritic and realized that it was my responsibility to determine whether she was having a quality life. This was a truly grownup obligation whuch required an emotional stretch. I remember weighing the moral choices of letting her decline further or making the call to euthanize her. I wound up choosing the latter. That day was a watershed event, a true passage for me. I didn’t handle it well. And I was permanently changed by it. My priorities were shifting. My desires were no longer first. I learned what it meant to evaluate intellectually and to manage my emotions. That time was the groundwork for my future. A scant year later, Manfred died at only 3, a victim of a congenital brain lesion. Losing three dogs in three years was astonishingly painful. We decided to take a break for awhile. Our daughter had a parakeet and there were guinea pigs and aquariums. Months passed. I felt the weight of maturity. But the absence of dog sounds were loud in my head. We thought about getting a cat although I never was a feline fan. When my son was under a year old,I made a secret trip to the humane society, just to look around. Back in those days, there was a puppy room, which beckoned me despite Michael’s insistence that we continue the dog drought. When I was drawn in, despite a feeble attempt at resistance, there she was. Another collie puppy with alarmingly large paws. And I jumped immediately and went home to face the wrath of my husband who felt victimized by me making a choice alone. Sydney Rose.
I was reading about Stephen Hawking in the aftermath of his death. By all accounts, the genius of our time. And he said some pretty interesting things. He was an atheist. He believed in multiple parallel universes. He said that the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. After thinking about all of his theories which are so outside the box and the definitions of “normal,” I realize more and more that I don’t understand anything. 
As I moved away from Hawking, I stumbled across an article about some studies being done by a British psychiatrist, psychotherapist and research fellow which posits that human brains are connected by an “interbrain” which is quietly collecting information that ultimately accounts for “sixth sense,” deja vu feelings and those “I was just thinking about you” moments that we all have at one time or another. Maybe that accounts for some of the constant traffic I feel in my mind.
Then I read about spiritual vortexes which are part of New Age concepts. They liken certain geographical locations with high energy centers comparable to a vortex like a physical whirlpool. Except that when people are in those places, the energy from them has a powerful effect on creating internal peace and harmony while realigning spiritual forces that feel chaotic and disintegrated. I went to Sedona last year, the embodiment of that type of place, and though I can’t speak to the efficacy of these forces, I can say that the majesty and beauty there do impart perspective and deep thought when trying to figure out your place in the world. 
My beautiful azalea hasn’t bloomed yet this spring. The weather has been spectacularly unpredictable. Two days ago, five inches of snow fell, covering all my emerging flowers. I have lots of greenery but no blooms. A series of unexpected family events caused me to cancel a trip to Florida twice. Apparently toes in the ocean are not my destiny at this time. My forward trajectory to the one year anniversary of Michael’s death took a few side trips. But now I find myself staring down at the month of May which is heavily loaded with my “firsts,” those days which will be the ones without my partner of 45 years. Plus other May days which are emotionally loaded.
May 1st is my wedding anniversary. Last year was our 6th last anniversary. Since 2012, we’d approached each one as if it was the last. And finally the last one came. A more difficult day than I could have imagined because Michael had a mini-stroke that day and for a brief time didn’t know my name. That was hard to manage. Then mother’s day arrives, followed quickly by Fern’s birthday which always leaves me feeling bereft, even after almost 30 years since her death. We were supposed to be old ladies together, rocking on a porch somewhere, singing Beatles songs and reminiscing about seeing them live when we were thirteen. But alas. 
My birthday comes ten days after Fern’s and then in four more days, the first anniversary of Michael’s death. His early June birthday and father’s day top off the emotional minefield of my upcoming calendar. 
That magic one year anniversary that is talked about in death and grief literature is almost upon me. And the thing is, I don’t feel much different than I did right after Michael died. I still feel married. I feel his presence around me every day.
He is still with me. Sometimes, on a difficult day when I feel like I’m sinking, I get this astonishing sense of inhaling his presence and being lifted from a downward spiral. I feel buoyed and my confidence reasserts itself. The feeling is overwhelming and reminds me of the relief I’d feel after a bad day when I’d come home and be with him and share my experiences in safety and comfort. I have transformative dreams where his touch or his words waken me and I am thrilled with what’s happened and feel better for days. I love being in our home and especially in my bedroom at night. I’ve never experienced the urge to leave this place and be somewhere which isn’t loaded with memories. I’m not lonely for anyone but Michael. I’m not seeking a companion to fill his space. But for his absence, my life feels as rich and full as it always did. And with these mysterious and powerful connections to him, I am left wondering. How much microbial and genetic information did we exchange through our 45 years together? What parts of me became so physically altered that he is still truly part of me? What do I conjure subconsciously and what is left of his energy that stays in my space? Is he in a parallel universe that brushes up against mine intermittently? Are the wavelengths of what we shared still reverberating all around me? Am I a spiritual vortex that exerts energy which draws people or their vestiges into my swirling center? Question after question after question.
I feel comfortable in this process I’m following. I feel real to myself. I know I’m still directed to the world I inhabit and am engaged in life like I’ve always been. But exploring these new interior places in my own way and trying to figure things out suits me. My greatest pleasure is my certainty in myself. Not caring how I’m perceived by others is truly liberating. I only have to answer to myself and the principles I adhere to in my personal journey of what I hope is honesty and integrity. And I honor the life I built with Michael and my family. That journey continues. But I truly don’t understand so many things that I wish would be factual and concrete. My son-in-law says the technology isn’t here for what I want to know. So I’m just accepting the way it’s going for me and I won’t be intimidated by expectations of any sort. I don’t understand a lot. That is certain. But right now, nobody else does either. We conjecture away and try to find a place to just be our own true selves. Our places are not all the same. That’s where I am as my first year as an unexpected widow is coming to a close. I’ll cry a lot in the coming weeks. But I’ll still be questioning and wondering and living. And Michael will still be here with me. Although I don’t know how that’s happened. 
Today, I obsessively watched every minute of the March For Our Lives television coverage. I cried while I listened to the brave speeches of young children who bore witness to what had happened to their classmates and their schools. I watched John Lewis march with young people in Atlanta and remembered his face as he bled for Selma. I realized that my American life as I chose to live it was flashing through my memory, decade by decade. When the DC coverage ended, I joined my children and grandchildren braving the blustery wintry elements at our local march. I wished my husband was alive to share in the experience with us. I spent most of the day mulling over how I got to this place. 
When I was a little kid, my school had air raid drills. We all lined up in the hallways, sat down, bent in half and put our hands over heads. Sirens wailed and after a period of time, the practice ended and we went back into class. I remember thinking that I was pretty certain that my arms would offer little protection if an atomic bomb landed on top of me. I never forgot feeling threatened from that vulnerable age of six and I suspect that most of my peers haven’t forgotten either.
I became a news addict in my early teens. I’m not sure if I’d heard the expression that knowledge is power but I was relentless in gobbling up information. I watched Walter Cronkite and Eric Sevareid who emitted intelligence and calm to me. I read the now defunct Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun Times. I don’t think my parents ever brought a Tribune into our home. Too conservative. 
And there was Vietnam. The draft. Finally it was 1968, my senior year of high school. King was assassinated and then, Bobby Kennedy. I was seventeen years old and my country was on fire. Young people rose up. At the Democratic convention that summer, the downtown street corners near my job were patrolled by police in riot gear. I was wondering if I could love my country through the madness of events swirling around me. Everything was so wrong. Violence was everywhere and people in power were sending my friends away to fight in a war that made no sense. After living through that wild Chicago summer, I started college in the fall. My brain hurt from thinking so hard all the time. I separated myself from my high school life and moved to the left politically. I joined with many others to actually do something to try changing the direction of current events. School wasn’t as interesting the student movement. I was all in.
I spent the bulk of my college years participating in demonstrations, reading and educating myself in more depthful ways than what I’d experienced in high school. I found my niche with fellow students who saw injustices and were bent on fixing them. I worked in a bookstore that sold books that exposed the seamy underside of our government. I went to Washington, D.C. to participate in anti-war protests. I was at the one in the photo below at which over 10,000 people were arrested and held in RFK stadium. I escaped there but the following week, I was arrested in my own student union during a sit-in at a Marine recruiting station. I faced disciplinary action by the university. We had a few moments to defend ourselves and my dad wrote a letter to present on my behalf, thanking me for opening his eyes to the fact that our government was spying on its own citizens and was corrupt. My charges were eventually dropped. But I actually had an FBI file. When my husband and I applied to see our files under the Freedom of Information Act, we received heavily redacted documents which led us to wonder who among our friends were actually spies. Truly unsettling. 
For me, those formative years permanently altered the course of my thinking and my life. The movements that I poured my energy toward are still unfinished, except for Vietnam, which after long years, finally ended. That is, unless you count all those soldiers permanently mourned and the ones who survived, bearing the weight of their service in what became such an unpopular war.