Well, it's almost over, this annus horribilis. We can look forward to happier days ahead, with a new president in the White House and a vaccine already making its way towards us.
But so much of the horribilis of this past year for me has to do with Mike's dying. And nothing is going to change that.
A year ago tonight, Mike and I went out to dinner, then walked back to his house through the brisk January air and stayed up till the wee hours of the morning working a jigsaw puzzle of the skyline of New York City, in anticipation of our trip there in April. We made our resolutions: Mike's to stay healthy, mine not to lose things.
Fat lot of good those resolutions were.
Resolved: Not to Lose Things
My New year's resolve was not to lose things:
earrings that slip from ears, jackets left in restaurants.
I was afraid eventually I'd lose a precious treasure.
If I paid attention, I earnestly thought, I wouldn't lose things
like earrings that slip from ears and jackets left in restaurants.
My husband teased, "You can't keep that resolution."
"But if I pay attention," I earnestly said, "I won't lose thing,"
sure that being careful would solve the problem.
My husband teased, "You can't keep that resolution,"
and, indeed, it slipped from my grasp in five short months.
though I thought being careful would solve the problem,
I lost my husband (most precious!) to death's cruel clutch.
My resolution slipped from my grasp in five short months.
No wonder I was afraid I'd lose a precious treasure.
I lost my husband (most treasured!) to death's cruel clutch
That mocked my resolve not to lose things.
By February Mike was losing his resolution, too, with bad back pain that we thought then was just the muscular kind of pain anyone might have.
Then everything came crashing down. The coronavirus erupted, and Mike became seriously ill with cancer. He started radiation treatments but rapidly realized they were useless, so suddenly he was on hospice, and he was dying, and I was in a three-week frenzy of pouring as much love into him as I could in the time we had left.
And then our time together came to an end.
After Mike died, life was a blur of hiking and hiking and hiking, sometimes with friends, sometimes by myself.
Then the fires came.
And after the fires, the election, with all its divisiveness and anger, its lies and disinformation and unbelief. The country seemed to teeter on the edge of collapse. Then the strengths held. The system, badly strained, came through. There was no widespread corruption. One man lost. One man, and his woman running-mate, won.
Voila 2020.
During it all, I was writing poems. Now I end the year with a new book, From Friend to Wife to Widow: Six Brief Years, a book of poems about Mike—the early years of our relationship, our wedding in May 2019, the vicious return of his cancer a year later, the three weeks on hospice, my grief poured onto the page, the healing balm of nature and friends.
Tonight, as I take down the Christmas tree and contemplate the year ahead, I am grateful for that book that has so much of my love for Mike in it. I am grateful for my friends and family who have been so good to me during this year, especially for my son and my sisters. Without their love, I think I would have sunk. As it is, I am still swimming. I miss Mike badly. I regret all those good times we could have had in the years to come. I chafe at the unfairness of the universe. But we all know the world is not fair. It isn't picking me out for special unfair treatment. I will swim into the New Year without Mike, with an ache in my heart, but also with love and gratitude and brimful of hope.
You can order books from dicoog@gmail.com. $10 plus shipping.
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