I REMEMBER YOU

I remember you/ You’re the one who said I love you too

Did I think he really wasn’t dead? No. Did I think he might reappear in my life one of these days? No.
Was ours a perfect marriage? Define perfect. Did he meet all my needs? No. Did I meet his? No. Did I really love him? Even more after 55 years together. Recently I shared stories about him with one of his dialysis nurses who was in attendance at a Ceremony of Remembrance offered by the NW Kidney Center. She’d understood his personality and enjoyed his subtle, dry sense of humor. She and another nurse were discussing some aspect of his treatment, facing him and loudly mouthing their words, knowing that he had a serious loss of hearing. When they finished, he quietly advised them that “I have new hearing aids.” She’s still laughing about it. I told her how he selected DVD’s to watch on his little DVD player during five-hour long hemodialysis sessions at the kidney center. He avoided violent films so the selection options were small then (and even smaller today I suspect). He would get so caught up in the story and when one had a feel good, chick-flick ending he’d cry, forgetting where he was until staff touched his arm to ask if he was okay. He was embarrassed at the time but could laugh about it later when he told me. And, of course, she remembered his roses. I had taken a yellow rose, store bought at this time of the year, to set by his photo on the table of remembrance. I gave it to her from him.

So why did I open with all those questions? It surprises me, I guess, that the grief not only lingers but actually has intensified in some ways. I know that we all go through the grief process in different ways and I’m only describing how it is with me twenty-one months since he took his last breath. He lives in the remembrance. Author, Walter Mosley, shared on a talk show his observation that “The older you are, the more you live in the past.” I think that’s probably true for some and I wonder if it isn’t because it’s our way of remembering, in our memories of the past, those we cared about and miss. And because in our senior years we’re not all caught up in the demands of getting an education, raising a family, finding and holding a job, all future-based functions.

The ceremony was quite lovely but the house felt even emptier when I returned home. Needing comfort and distraction I turned on the TV and there was one of my favorite movies of all time, Love Actually. It’s a feel good movie but realistic as well, showing all the complexities of loving relationships. He would have enjoyed it.

He was the Rose Man. His name was Fred.

When my life is through/ And the angels ask me to recall the thrill of them all/ Then I shall tell them/ I remember you.

Music: Victor Schertzinger. Lyrics by the great Johnny Mercer.