Still Life

The End

It was just an ordinary day.
February 26.
A typically dreary winter day.

A day before my 62^nd birthday.

I slept in a bit.
No need to really wake up that early since I was forced into retirement when my last client passed from cancer at the start of the year.
Takako was also asleep, but she came downstairs to our kitchen shortly after.
We greeted each other good morning and sat at our usual chairs.
It was 10:30.
I was checking emails when she made a startled sound.

I glanced up.
She stood up.
Her eyes swam.
I shouted at her to sit down.
Her legs buckled underneath her and she crumpled backwards glacially.

That awful, infinite moment was all it took for her to die.

I rushed to her but her eyes were all kinds of wrong.
Wide open but seeing nothing. Like, empty.
I kinda knew then.
I may have been shouting her name.
Nothing. No response. Just ragged, shallow breaths.

I called 911.
I was calm. I get that way in crisis situations.
I explained what was happening to the dispatcher.
All the while applying CPR.

“Staying alive, staying alive, uh-uh-uh-uh, staying alive.”

After describing the situation, she told me to stop with the CPR and go open the front door for the first responders.
I did that.

I called daughter Lynn, “Your mother is in serious trouble. She might be dying.”

I held Takako’s hand. It was warm. It was only like ten minutes, not even.

The fire truck came first. I didn’t even hear the sirens.
They asked for permission to move Takako to the middle of the kitchen floor and move the table aside. I let them.

They asked if they could cut off her T-shirt. I let them.
It was just a crappy pajama shirt anyway.

They began applying CPR. They went at it for about forty minutes.
They kept saying, “Two minutes.”
They tried a defibrillator, but it doesn’t work like TV.

Somewhere in there, paramedics came too.

And some cops.

I was standing there watching them.

One burly firefighter went, “Hey, you want to sit?”
I shook my head no.
He grabbed a chair, smacked it down in front of me and barked, “Sit!” I did.

The first responders kept clanging their heads on the low-hanging light fixture after they moved the table. I had to stop myself from laughing after the third time.

A senior firefighter asked me, “Does she have a DNR?”
That’s when all hope died.
I spluttered, “Why would a woman 62 have a DNR?”

They worked on her for another ten minutes.

A paramedic supervisor lady arrived.
She called a doctor, shook her head no, and told the paramedics to stop.
She said, “Sorry.”

A couple others patted me on the shoulder, I think.

Daughter Lynn, Kei, and Kei’s BF Toshie arrived somewhere in between.
I think all the exciting stuff was all over, though.

Just a policeman watching the corpse until the coroner’s office or someone like that could come collect her.
We asked if we could cover her body with a blanket since she was naked from the waist up.
He let us.
We kept her face uncovered so we could talk to her.

She was still warm when they came for her.

Her death came without pity but it was merciful, too.
She couldn’t possibly have suffered.
I envy her for that.

I’m proud my baby never pissed or shit herself.

Rewind: How it Started

We met in 1987 in Tokyo when I worked for a translation agency, and she worked as the boss’s assistant in the Osaka office. I was 25 then, a cocky know-it-all.
I was already halfway out of that company by then since they were a bunch of wingnuts. I mean, I was the longest serving employee in less than a year!

Takako accompanied the boss to Tokyo and we chatted briefly in the office.
She cut a trim figure in a beloved Burberry dress suit, wore owly glasses and her hair was in a bob (? I don’t know these things.).
She had well-turned ankles, tight calves, and a firm, round butt.
Not much in the chest, though. Tiny waist.
But that was just an academic observation.
She was also a year older, so I was pleasant, but that was all.
No sparks flew.

A month or so later, we met again at a company vacation of around two dozen people.
I’d refused to go, but the boss insisted, and anyway it was her dime.

If I didn’t go, things would’ve been different. How’s that for fickle fate?

I don’t remember where we went, but it was some holiday resort with hot springs. There was a waterfront path, so several of us went on a stroll. There was an older gent in his 70s. I’d just lost my grandma to cancer then, so I felt solicitous and helped him with rougher parts of the trail. Just lending a steadying hand here and there so he doesn’t stumble, that sort of thing. It’s what I do, but then so would a lot of people.

And that was all it took for Takako to fall for me.

A week after the vacation, she phoned out of the blue. “Can I come visit you in Tokyo?” I was a bit taken aback. I thought she was like okay-looking and pleasant enough a personality, but not like a star-crossed fate sort of grand romance or anything like that.
But sure, why not, I’d just gotten dumped by another girl (a different bullet dodged). Couldn’t hurt.

She came up that very weekend. We ate at a local KBBQ place (indicative of how little I considered meeting her a date) and went back to my place where we chatted.

When bedtime rolled around, I got out my own futon and laid it in my office, and put another set down for her in the living room.

She saw this and looked at me sad. “Can’t I sleep with you?”

So, we did. It was nice. Gentle.

We traveled back and forth between Osaka and Tokyo on weekends several more times.
And then, a couple months after our first time, she had to come up to Tokyo with the boss for a couple weeks. So, she lied she had a relative in town and spent it at my place.
One night, she got a bit more than tipsy – that little wisp of a girl could pound them back then – and she got all teary with me.

“Am I good enough for you?”

Without a word, I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into me.
I know I talk too much, but sometimes I know to shut up, too.

And then she owned me.

She pulled that “Am I good enough” thing just once more.
The second time was in Thailand, on a beach in Samui under a moonlit sky.
I was flying on mushroom magic and we were yucking it up, when she turned serious and teary. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing being with me?”

Well, what the fuck are ya supposed to do?

I went and got the ring and proposed to her right then and there, three sheets to the wind in Thailand, on a beach in Samui under a moonlit sky.

We got married June 24, 1988. About a year after we first met.
The ceremony was in Richmond at Minoru Park Chapel.
It’s a lovely little wooden church, painted white and with a tall, gabled roof.
It was a fantastic day without a cloud to be seen.
I was in a rented tux.
She was in a white wedding dress.
The makeup lady really went to town.
Takako was never much on makeup, but she looked kinda gorgeous in a cartoon villainess way.

During the ceremony, the priest screwed up and reversed our rings.
My ring slipped onto her finger easily.
She couldn’t get my finger into her ring.
We realized what had happened, so I turned to the confused family & friends, held up a finger, “Ready your cameras, folks, we’re only gonna do this once more.”
Takako was a bit miffed.
I didn’t mind; I got to put a ring on my baby twice at the altar.

On the paddle wheeler where we held the reception, someone screwed up the cassettes I prepared for the dance. Our first dance as a wedded couple should have been “Gypsy” by Suzanne Vega (…I know. Shush.) but it ended up being “Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads. The live version that starts, “Anyone got a match?”
I was in a rented tux.
She wore a vivid kimono for festive occasions.
She was breathtaking.
We danced up a storm.
And we really got on like a house on fire.

Full Disclosure

Confession: I was never madly head-over-heels in love with Takako.
I liked her fine, she was a good soul and person and all, but it was like affectionate as opposed to L O V E.
She, on the other hand, adored me with every ounce of her being.
I knew that it would be damn near impossible for me to be loved with her kind of intensity and ferocity.
So, why not embrace it? It worked out rather well.
Of course, now that she’s gone, I miss her intensely.
I LOVED trying to make her happy even if I couldn’t make her better.

So, if anyone were to ask me if I loved Takako, I would reply, “Yes. Absolutely. Unequivocably. 100%. Completely. Totally. Not a fucking doubt in my mind.”

This is what losing a Siamese twin is like, I guess.
Might be some baggage to unpack.

Synopsis: Before She got Sick

We got along really well, other than the fact she would be insanely jealous and hostile to any female she considered potential competition for my romantic interest.

But I’m no great shakes, sheesh. I’m 5’8” (173) and anywhere from gaunt to chubby (currently scrawny). I have a face for radio, and I ain’t got much thunder down unde…you get the idea.
Even she used to heckle my fashion sense to the kids.
Behind my back and on the phone to the kids.
She coulda done more to dress me more appealingly, but then that might attract OTHER women or something.
There were weird dynamics at work.

We had three outstanding kids.
A girl, boy, and a girl: Lynn, Kai, and Kei.
They have become astonishingly great humans.
I don’t know how they turned out that way being fathered by me.
Probably their mother.

After Lynn finished kindergarten in Japan, we returned to Canada in 1996.

I got really, really busy with my regular marketing translation gigs and video game localization projects like Pokemon, Dragon Quest, Castlevania, Yugioh, etc.
I’d often be locked away in my basement office for weeks, even months on end, often more than 12 hours a day.
I helped out around the house as much as I could – Takako had this weird thing about absolutely refusing to vacuum, so that became my job, but when I’m busy…

And somehow, despite me being a work-from-home word processor and she being a full-time homemaker, we drifted apart across years.
No affairs or straying or any of that kind of nonsense.
That shit destroys families. Comes with consequences I can’t atone.
Maybe it’s different for you.
Not even really anger, other than occasional flareups.
Just…resignation. Disinterest. Neglect.
It’s like your love and soul erode.

And gradually, inexorably, my wife turned into a miserable drunk.

I guess it was around the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver when things really started unravelling.
We weren’t talking very much.
She was drinking heavily.
I’d about had enough.
I was steeling myself for a divorce.

Crazy

Takako went out to the local mall. Probably around June of 2011?
She was gone for hours. She phoned, “I’m sorry, I lost my wallet, I’m looking for it.”
Me, “Do you need me to come?”
Her, “No! No, don’t come. I can find it.”
She came home hours later. “I didn’t really lose it.”

And then she started getting really weird, like standing in one spot in the kitchen, or sitting blankly on the couch.

We took her to her regular doctor who arranged for a psychiatrist appointment months away.

She got weirder and less communicative.

Our present doctor took one look and ordered me to take her to emergency.
By then she was kinda catatonic.

It took around eight hours to finally get her admitted at Royal Columbian Hospital. We had to have a police escort even though she was incapable of harming herself or others.
Lady cop was with us the whole time, respectfully keeping her distance.
She never took a chair in the crowded ER waiting room, either.
There’s a role model for you.
There were several cops from another jurisdiction, and they parked themselves at a table and yucked it up.
She ignored them.

Takako ended up spending 40 nights in the psych ward building an ark.
No, she didn’t.

They had to try all sorts of wacky brain meds to yank her out of catatonia.
But, it’s a pretty inexact science. They tried a bunch of different concoctions to see what sticks.

One daily visit, she was convinced we were all impostors. She grabbed Lynn and smelled her to make sure it really was Lynn. “You can’t fake smell! But that dog is NOT Domo.”

Another time, she was convinced people were watching her. “There are cameras in those holes in the wall. Don’t look at them!”

Another time, she was raving, “I’m getting the picture now! I’m connecting the dots and it all adds up!”
Me: “Wait, hold up. You can’t just connect any dots willy-nilly. It’s like those connect-the-dots drawings. You have to connect dot 1 to dot 2, and then dot 2 to 3, and so on in an orderly fashion to end up with a picture of a giraffe, for instance. You’re just connecting any dot you see without rhyme or reason. So, what happens? Your drawing turns into chaos, and eventually, you’ll end up tearing the page clear through.”
Kids: “Holy shit, Dad, that’s like poetic.”

Eventually, they found a drug regimen that stopped her from being really insane.

But that didn’t stop the awful anxiety and jitteriness.

She came home, but ended having to go back in twice for another eighty days total.

She also endured weekly electroconvulsive treatments – probably like a hundred times even during the quarantine.

I allowed myself to cry for my own sake when she got hospitalized for the second time.
Just that once.
And then I got on with it.

We had to take care of her.
There was nobody else.
All her family had passed on by then.
She had no siblings.
She had nobody but us.

Sure, I was on the verge of chewing off my own arm and GTFO from a marriage gone sour, but when she got sick with nowhere to go and no one else to help, the dynamics shifted completely. I became her primary caregiver.
Because she was family and she was ill.
Fixing her, or at least keeping her maximally happy, was my new mission.

When you're caring for someone with serious health issues, the focus tends to narrow to the very basics and just the people involved, like a two-person play.
A very sad and brave tango.
And memories all tend to get jumbled up in a blur, with several random and acute scenes that stand out in stark and vivid ways.

Our doctor marveled, “I’m surprised you stuck around.”
Me, “What, abandoning her is an option?”
Doc: “A lot of guys do. Mine did.”
Me: “Hold my beer.”

I don’t know if I was all that good a caregiver, though.
I wish I could have been more proactive and preemptive with her care, but she was a huge denier until things were well past hopeless.

She lost vision in one eye because she never told anyone about fuzzy vision until it went completely dark.
And she broke her pelvis falling backwards while squatting – that was a week stay over new years and bed rest at home for another month.
She also took forever to heal from scrapes and cuts she sustained from falls, too. I took her to dozens of hospital visits to get her wound dressings changed. Eventually I watched and learned and did it at home myself.

She became really frail in those kinds of ways.
We kinda knew she couldn’t really live a long time.
But we never said it.
And I assumed we would grow old and happy together.
Pretty simple as dreams go.

When the kids moved out (they have their own lives to lead), I became the point man.
I did most everything except cook and laundry.
She still insisted on doing that.
Laundry was fine.
Cooking was problematical since she would make very basic menus in massive volumes. I got obese.
She’d yell at me to not eat everything served, but that’s how I was raised!
It’s horrifying to treat anything that was already on my plate as a leftover.

I was still working, too.
So, when I’d get busy, the house’d get progressively more cluttered and shabby.
Hey, I’m pretty self-contained, but there are only so many hours in a day.
(But I know that’s also bullshit, too. I could’ve been more efficient with my time. Can be.)

In early October, the parkway encircling my neighborhood blazes vividly.
Its wall of trees takes on Halloween yellows, oranges, and reds.
It's all very pretty and serene.
I used to coax her to walk with me even in the worst times of her illness.
When she did manage to make it out, we would walk hand in hand, a solemn and stately procession of two and a dog chaperone.
It would take us half an hour to circle the primary school -- a distance that wouldn't take me ten minutes.
She rarely came, but when she did, it felt like a victory.

Yay, me.

Back
In the last three years, there was a dramatic change.

A new drug regimen lifted her out of depression and anxiety.
My girl was back to being chirpy and happy.
She became grateful for how the family supported her and never abandoned her.
Like, as if, right.

The new drugs also made her high as a kite. And they made her bloat like a pumpkin.
But she came back to adore me even more than she ever did before.
In so darn many photos, there she is glomming onto me tightly and beaming.
It was as if we were one pantomime horse.

My baby’d come back to me.

She developed a huge love for Asian TV dramas.
I showed them to her on Netflix and she gobbled that stuff up.
Took great delight in describing the racial stereotypes she gleaned from them. Like, “Korean dramas are AWESOME for their messy and loud intrigue. They bitch about each other in their own families, but they all unite against outsiders, and there’s like hierarchies, and hysterical girlfights with hair pulling and slapping, and they like eat cup noodles on benches outside convenience stores, they’re W I L D.
”Thai dramas are like really weird. They jump from really happy stuff to tragedy and stuff.
”Taiwanese dramas are more calm. There’s no like really crazy situations like Korean dramas like being blown across the DMZ into the North and falling in love with a soldier, like it’s more about family. Oh, but they also have ghosts.”
She was reluctant to try new things, but when I showed her there’s tons more on Amazon Prime, she was on it like grease on bacon.
When a sister-in-law visited, she gloated over seeing the latest K dramas before viewers in Japan.
Not my thing at all, but it was great to see her enthusiastic about some thing again.

Her conversations took on stream-of-consciousness weirdness.
Takako: “I can get behind rodents. They are smart.”
Nob: “Hai.”
T: “They eats nuts and berries. I like nuts and berries.”
N: “Hai.”
T: “Like otters, they are smart.”
N: “Not a rodent.”
T: “They wash the things they eat. Or was it sugar cubes?”
N: “That’d be raccoons.”
T: “See? Rodents are smart.”

T: “Did you know? Arizona is like, really sugoi (spectacular, wicked, awesome, grandiose, etc.).”
N: “Hai.”
T: “Like, they have these clay huts, kinda like orange? And people live in them.”
N: “Uh-huh. Like terra cotta?”
T: “Yeah, that, but they’re all kind of wonky and they just build them randomly here and there like plop, plop, plop (gesturing). In canyons and stuff like that.”
N: “I see. Where did you see such? Was a Netflix K-drama set there?”
T: “No, it comes up when I turn on my computer, like with a little description and the clock.”
N: “I see. Did you want to go?”
T: “Absolutely not. It’s all brown and dusty. It’s dirty.”

She would use a fictitious Nobi-chan to get her conniving ways.
I have had many strange flavors of ice cream and snacks purchased on behalf of Nobi-chan by the kids at her behest.
Lynn took her out for lunch and shopping once so I could have a day to me.
I was happily blasting Slipknot’s “All Out Life” at earthquake volume when they came home, not three hours on.
Nob: “Why home so early? You could’ve had a lot longer an outing.”
Lynn: “Mom said Nobi-chan must be lonesome. Here’s some snacks, Nobi-chan. Her choices.”
(Nobi-chan is lonesome now. Please come home.)

Lynn came home with a bag of groceries from Whole Foods including a big box containing a carrot cake.
Takako: “What are those?”
Lynn: “My groceries. And that’s my carrot cake. I’m taking that home. Don’t touch.”
T: “Ohh…” (disappointed)
Lynn puts everything in the fridge. Box is unmissable.
Next day, Lynn goes home with most everything she bought.
An hour later, she phones. “Where’s my carrot cake?”
T (who took stuff out of the fridge for Lynn to take home): “I don’t know. Didn’t you take it?”
L: “No.”
T: “Oh, my! Here it is, right here in the fridge! How could I have overlooked it?”
L: “[Extended sigh]”
T: “Well, it’s right here, sweetie. Are you coming back for it?”
L: “No.”
T: “Oh, my, then what shall we do?”
L: “You can have it.”
T: “But Nobi-chan doesn’t like frosting. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to do something about it. Yes! That’s a good plan.”
I’m listening to this incredulously.
You conniving little weasel.
She thought we weren’t wise to that, too.

I used to yell at her, "Don't you dare die before me."
And she'd scoff, "No way. I'm not putting you in a grave."
Me: "Don't want one anyway. I'd be dead. What would I care?"
T: "Same here. I'm not letting you go first. I won't be able to take it."
Not a fucking race, babe.

I bought her a pair of hiking shoes for a birthday. She wore those a lot when she started taking the dog on neighborhood walks by herself. She also liked to wear them when we would go for our weekly lunch outings, which came to include shopping trips for her snacks. She couldn’t do that for like nine years. I was so darned happy and proud of her.

She was still very frail, but we resumed short trips together with kids on their dime.
Local destinations like Nanaimo, Sechelt, and Powell River where we cavorted with goats and stuff.

We were back as a family, goddamnit.

But

The new drugs made her chirpy and perky and high af from three years ago.
About the last year, she started exhibiting progressive signs of mania, like laughing kinda unhinged and inappropriately loudly.
We all overlooked it, though.
I don’t know how we would have dealt with another round of incarceration.
I turned a blind eye.
She was happy as all hell watching her beloved Asian dramas.
I wasn’t about to upset that exquisitely fragile balance.
But any concern over the possibility of her mental deterioration was rendered moot on Feb. 26.
Good morning.

After

A day after they took my baby away, the kids took me shopping.
Happy 62nd birthday, Nobi-chan.
Because hey, real life has to go on, we needed stuff to eat.
Turns out we have a lot more friends that we’d ever realized.
Our house became stuffed with food offerings, flowers, and UberEats cash.
I think we all got more rotund from the kindness of our family and friends.

A week after, we just held a small family gathering instead of a full service at a chapel in Burnaby.
Just our immediate family, brother Ken and Diane, brother Mark, and BFF Bob and Tia.
I thought I might burst into tears seeing her after a week, but no.
She looked like she was just sleeping.
But she felt cool to the touch.
She wore the 2010 Olympic Team Canada hockey jersey and the hiking shoes.
I brought a Bluetooth speaker gifted to me by the kids and played an hour’s worth of quieter songs that she liked.
I talked about the New Pornographers’ “Adventure in Solitude.”
”We both loved this frail but brave and defiant song about coming back from depression.”
I didn’t realize that everyone was hanging onto my every word until I saw their glassy stares.
And then we all left.

And left her all alone.

I didn’t have a eulogy prepared.

This will have to do.

Sorry, babe.

We stayed at our house, me, the kids, and Mark for the first ten days.
But real life has to resume sometime, so Mark and son Kai left a couple days after the gathering.
The kids stayed around longer, but their stays eventually got shorter and now they visit nearly every weekend and not always together. That’s how it should be.
Plus, I was going nuts having people underfoot, too.

We never believed in graves — she had her family’s graves removed and the urns taken in by a local temple when she came to Canada with me.
Our family’d hardly likely go anyway.
Instead, we got a memorial bench.
The same bench she would rest at while walking Pico.
I think she would’ve liked that.
And I could always visit that daily.

It’s finally been built.

"Have a fun!!"
All the neighborhood kids remember her saying that to them when they were goofing around in our yard and garage.
That’s a good way to be remembered.

We had her cremated.
We didn’t bother with an expensive ceramic urn.
We just got a still expensive cardboard tube.
We had it up on the family room mantelpiece beside her photo.
But I took the tube upstairs since it felt kinda inappropriate for a small gathering of high-school friends here.
The kids visited a week later and were horrified, “Where’s Mom?!”

No, I have not had any visitations or any other inexplicable occurrences.
Not even the hint of a sign.
Nothing.
I sometimes rue my skepticism.
I have no faith so I can't even pray.

For days, weeks, months, I thought I had grief beaten.
Sure, I’d get sad thinking about this and that, but it felt manageable.
But then, the permanence of what my life’d become started gradually sinking in.

It’s going to be this way always, son. Get used to it.

And finally, grief’s awful gravity kicked in and I buckled.

It really is like gravity. It gathers sadness and weighs you down a little at a time.

It’s about not having a hand to hold when going on a walk.

It’s about not having someone to snuggle with on the couch watching TV.

It’s about seeing some dumb dog or cute cat meme and not being able to share it in person. (Takako, “Can’t it wait?” Me: “No.”)

It’s about not having someone fuss over my shirt collar when going out.

It’s about never quite getting the hang of folding shirts neatly and wrinkle-free.

It’s about cooking for myself alone and eating it tastelessly.
(But I have mastered portion control and I am the lightest since when I first met her.)

It’s about exercising obsessively because endorphins keep the sads away.
(I’m the fittest ever now.)

It’s about going shopping by myself and seeing the things she liked.
I would usually buy something and bring it home as a treat, and she would always greet me at the door happily and expectantly. And she would always scold me for wasting money. It was exasperating and it’s sorely missed.

Now, I come home with a cheerful, “I’m home,” like always but there’s never an answer.

Just that dreadful, sibilant whispering of silence.

It’s all so very somber and still being alone.

I’ve taken to blasting music during all waking hours except when I write to keep the whispering at bay. But that also hurts in a way.

I took great delight in recommending music to Takako.
Every Friday, we’d check out Release Radar on Spotify while cooking dinner. We’d marvel at bands still marching on. We’d laugh at the ineptness of indie bands. We’d sometimes discover something that blew our minds.
We loved doing that for each other.

In a recent Release Radar, I discovered the Bleachers’ reworking of “Wild Heart.”
I thought that Takako would love it.
I was doing curls with a barbell when the follow-through came: I would never again be able to recommend anything to her.
And that’s when the full weight of grief landed for the first time.
Just the first time.

I bawled standing bolt upright, barbell at my chest.

My beloved and adoring captivated and captivating audience of one is gone.

Confession: For the first while, I was crushed but also felt relieved since I didn’t have to be caregiver anymore. But as time progressed, I grew bereft.
I felt useless. Without purpose. And then I started second-guessing myself.
I felt like I’d failed her.
Until a very dear friend scolded me, “You absolutely did NOT fail her. You held her above the water at your own expense. You gave her her best final years.”
And I felt saved.
I showed my kids that quote.
Lynn: “Ya, Nob, chill.
”I still don’t know why you’re apologizing. Love her to bits but she was delulu.
”You brought her back to us.”
I needed to be told I did okay by her.

I still think I could have done more.

I don’t know if I could ever forgive myself.

I played video games for about an hour or two every night.
She’d go to bed around midnight, and I’d stagger off to bed an hour or two later after playing Zelda TotK or Xenoblade 3 or a Picross.
After she went, I lost all desire to play.
I suppose there’s an element of depression to it, but my love of music has grown kinda obsessive, and I still read to live, so it’s specific to games.
It’s not I’m blaming games, per se, but I do feel I could have spent more time with her than saving Hyrule.

Another dear friend told me last night, “It wouldn’t have mattered. Our endings wouldn’t have changed.”

I know, but.

Sometimes, in the darkest part of nights, I would awaken groggily and reach out optimistically, earnestly, beseechingly to her side of the bed.
But it would always be empty and cold.
Of course.

And that’s what it’s been like, losing my wife of nearly 36 years.
It ripped a gaping hole where everything that defined “us” used to be.
All the things that made us happy, sad, angry, excited, loving, and everything else in between.
A lot of colors got muted.
Silence got loud.
It’s all broken in that vast, barren space.
It has to be refilled with memories, old and new.
The old memories can be patched up again. They’ll be a little dinged up, but they’ll be fundamentally sound. They were forged by us.
The new memories need to be a bit different.
They need to be infused with goodness.
With laughter.
With joy.
With pleasure.
With love.
With all those essential things that build and fortify and sanctify a soul.

A Beginning

So, this is how I live.
In this still life.
Still life.

But it is still life.

Still life.
And I still live.