What now?

Now that we're past the first year, I can
focus on happier times, at least. Two years
ago, we were in Moses Lake with family,
testing our new tent (which we found free
next to the dumpsters up the street). We
stopped at the farmer's market in Issaquah
on the way to buy berries to share.

I'm a little lost. A lot sad. Kind of disappointed. We passed the one-year mark, and I'm still grieving. I didn't consciously expect anything to change suddenly, but I did expect something to happen — internally or externally — to mark the milestone. I have stopped dwelling on what was happening a year ago, but my feeling of futility seems to have grown.

The books all stop at a year: The Year of Magical Thinking, A Widow's Story, etc. I took some comfort in measuring my pain and sorrow, my return to normalcy, with theirs. And now? What's the message to be found in the lack of words about the second year? Am I supposed to be "over it" or "moving on"? Or has the despair just become so ordinary that it's not worth writing about anymore?

Four days past the anniversary of her death, I find myself let down. Because everything focuses on the first year, I thought somehow I just needed to get through that. And then? Well, I didn't know; I couldn't see past the 19th of July. I just assumed I'd have my brain back, some clarity, more energy. Instead, I recognize the accomplishment of getting through the first year relatively sane and with finances and social connections intact, fairly healthy and active, not obviously addicted to anything harmful. And what's my reward for all of this effort? Another year without her. And a year after that, and another after that. Is that what I made it through this year for?

Even the poetry stops at just about this point. I reread snippets from "Letter after a year," the penultimate poem in Donald Hall's heartbreaking book about the illness and death of his wife, Jane Kenyon, and about his first year without her. The book is called Without, and I recommend it if you want to understand some of the tumultuous experience of living with a spouse who is dying of cancer and then living without her. Gus, by the way, is their dog.

From "Letter after a year"

. . .
There's one good thing
about April. Every day Gus and I
take a walk in the graveyard.
I'm the one who doesn't
piss on your stone.
. . .
The year melted into April
and I lived through the hour
we learned last year you would die.
For the next ten days, my mind
sat by our bed again
as you diminished cell by cell.

I found Hall's poems comforting because so much of his experience mirrored my own, and that's true of his reliving the last days of her life as well. Now, I've lost my guides but I'm not done grieving. It's becoming clearer to me that this is a task I can't ever cross off my to-do list. That this is something I'll be struggling with, even if it gets a little easier with time, until I'm with her again. While I no longer particularly care to have a long life, I'm not planning to shorten it, either. I'm just not too excited about the days and months and years ahead.