(Moving forward into my second year of widowhood, I’ve committed to do one new thing—new to me—each week for a year.  It can be big or small, important or silly—but it has to be new.  It’s a way of reminding myself to focus forward, into my future life..)
​
    Sensory deprivation tanks, also called isolation tanks, have been around since the 1950’s, but now they’re called float tanks.  Floating in the tanks can supposedly reduce stress and chronic pain, by promoting deep relaxation.  Their inventor, neuropsychiatrist Dr. John C. Lilly, must have been quite the character.  He floated in the tanks after taking LSD, and by some accounts, discovered new dimensions and had encounters with aliens while floating.

    I wasn’t seeking encounters with aliens, but floating sounded like an interesting new experience.  (And, there was a Groupon deal, so it was pretty cheap.)  The company advertised  “Athletes, Meditators, and Creatives have been floating widely since the 1960’s.”  

    Back in the early days, though, the floater was fully immersed in a tank with a bizarre-looking mask that blocked out all sensory input.  This company’s pictures showed tanks that looked more like plastic clamshells—not exactly appealing to me, but not terrifying.  The tank water is saturated with epsom salt, and that provides buoyancy to keep a body afloat, even though the water is only about eighteen inches deep in the tank.

    The float company’s lounge area was clean, well-lit and smelled vaguely of the ocean.  While I waited, I was serenaded with the sounds of water burbles and faint strains of new age music.  On top of a large coffee table lay a book in which clients have written about their float experiences.  I leafed through the pages.  There were some sketches, some general accolades (“it was relaxing”) and a very sad, long entry by someone who was hoping “to turn his fake smiles into real smiles.”  I suspected he might need more than a float.  

    My favorite entry:  “This is definitely the most L.A. thing I have ever done.” 

    My attendant—enthusiastic and clean-cut, with a lean long-distance runner’s body—escorted me back to my float room:  a small, vaguely industrial space with an open shower, a place to hang and stack my belongings, and of course, my pod, which was emoting eerie green light and bubbling.  I was given my instructions:  Take off all my clothes (you do this buck naked), put in earplugs, shower and shampoo hair, turn off the room light and get in.  After I was settled in, I was told, I should hit a button on the tank wall that would turn off the tank light.  At that point, I would be in complete darkness and silence, floating in body temperature water.  I was to “just relax,” and when my hour was up, the light would go back on.

    I confessed that I was very nervous because I tend to be claustrophobic.  Not a problem, he said, once you turn the light off you won’t be conscious of being in a small space.  Well, okay.  I showered, stepped into the tank and closed the lid.  So far, so good.  I slipped into the water, or perhaps onto the water, moving my arms into a goalpost position as I had been instructed.  Then, I hit the button and turned out the light.

    It was utterly dark and immediately disorienting.  I floated, listening to myself breathe, for maybe five minutes.  Then, I decided I wanted to turn the light on briefly, just for reassurance.

    I couldn’t find the light switch.

    The float tank isn’t that big, but in any total darkness, disorientation is common.  I flapped and splashed around like a hooked salmon, slapping the tank walls, not panicked exactly, but close.  Finally I shoved open the tank lid.  With the help of just a shred of light from the room, I found the light switch.

    Whew!  Well, by my estimation, only about ten minutes were up, so I needed to try again.  Lie back, turn off the light…but this time I did take note that the light switch was very near the lever bar for the tank top, just in case.  

    I floated and tried to relax, but I found it progressively harder and harder to breath.  The humidity was intense and I couldn’t shake the impression that I was suffocating.  My brain went into overdrive:  “I’m suffocating, I’m running out of air, I’ll pass out and no one will know until the hour is up, and I could just die here…”  Definitely not the stuff of deep relaxation.  Nudging the tank lid open just a sliver with my foot, I let in a trickle of cooler air.  That, of course, lowered the air temperature in the pod ever so slightly, so that the air and water temperatures weren’t exactly the same, which is how it’s supposed to be, but I don’t think I would have stayed in the tank otherwise.

    I tried to enjoy the experience, and maybe I got close, for a time.  I didn’t feel weightless, but more like my body was supported on a hard rubber-like surface that was perfectly fitted to my body.  I never attained a sense of timeless relaxation.  If fact, when the light went on to let me know that my hour was over, I was relieved. ​

    After I’d showered off all the salt and dressed, I talked to the attendant.  He was clearly disappointed that I hadn’t been delighted with my experience.  When I told him about my breathing issues, he said there were runners’ breathing techniques that would help.  He asked me if I’d be back, and I told him that I’d have to reflect about that.  But really I don’t.  I’ll just chalk this up to a new experience, but not one I think I have to repeat.  If I decide to search for Dr. Lilly’s aliens and other dimensions, I’ll have to try another route.


    
    


    


    


    


    

    It’s been over ten months since Mark died.  As was predicted, the first year milestones have been hard to bear:  our wedding anniversary, Mark’s birthday, the date one year ago that we moved back into our remodeled house.  Facebook presents me with my posting from April a year ago, and I see the picture of Mark and me with our son, celebrating Mark’s last birthday at an Oregon beach resort.  Mark is frail in that picture, and I remember he had very little strength left, but even so, we weren’t prepared to accept the reality of what was to come, and soon.  Now as the anniversary of his death approaches, the memories of those last few months when he struggled and suffered are ever so vivid.  

    All the information from Hospice and the grief books told me about this, this first year gauntlet.  

    I don’t think time heals all wounds, but time helps.  It’s easier now to look forward, but sometimes I still have difficulty imagining a future without Mark.  I am routinely astonished when I realize that I will never see him again. His clothes in our closet still hold traces of his scent.  As I gathered the materials to prepare our taxes, the notes in his handwriting were unexpectedly touching.  He is still everywhere in my world.  

    One phenomenon that I didn’t anticipate:  I have entered a world of women.  Almost all my contacts now are with other women:  at my book group, at my volunteer job at a local women’s shelter, with a group that meets for lunch.  These women are fabulous, and their constant support has sustained me.  Yet, where are the men?

    Recently I had sat down with two groups of three other friends for meals.  It came to me suddenly that in each group, three of we four women were widows.  Have I entered the stage in my life when the men just start to disappear?

    But it’s not just that.  A few days ago, a new friend invited me for dinner.  When extending the invitation, she said, “My husband is traveling this week, so this is a good chance for me to have some women friends over.”  I went, and I had a lovely time and was happy to be included, but I  wondered:  Since I’m no longer half of a couple, am I relegated to women-only events?  I’m not trolling for hot dates, but I miss mixed gatherings.  

    This is nothing to whine about.  After all, in many older traditions, widows were disposed of quite handily.  I wasn’t required to throw myself on my husband’s funeral pyre and my relatives can’t tidily banish me to a convent to get me out of the way.  Even today, in many cultures, the rituals of mourning imposed on women are onerous and last for the remainder of a widow’s lifetime, regardless of her age.   

    But I’m finding that widowhood is not only a personal change in status.  It also moves me into another societal grouping, with new rules.  It takes a bit of getting used to.
    


    


    ​

I've been revisiting and revising some of my short fiction from years ago.  Here's a "sudden fiction" piece--not quite flash fiction (which is usually less than 1000 words) but a short short story nevertheless.  


Barricades

    Denny is far down the beach in front of us.  He has taken to doing this, lately, this striding ahead of us without noticing that his wife and daughter can’t keep up.  I focus my eyes on his back, willing him to turn around and wait for us, but he doesn’t.  From time to time he pauses, and looks far out to sea, but he never looks back.

    Michelle is singing to herself.  The sound of the rumbling waves from around the far point and the bite of the salt breeze delight her, and her cheeks burn to an almost painful shade of coral.  Sometimes she looks ahead to her father, but she doesn’t ask me why he doesn’t wait.  I don’t hurry her.  She swings her pail and shovel and stoops to pick up bits of wood, looking over each piece carefully and then tossing it away, as far as she can throw it.  Her pail is half full of rocks as smooth and rounded as lumps of resin.  She tells me she’s taking them back home as a present for Mrs. Whittaker, her second grade teacher.

    I rub a dull black rock between my fingers as we walk.  It must have dropped into the sea rough-edged and broken sharp, but then the sea rolled it and churned it and tamed it, taking away its special angles and points.  The beach is covered with smooth dull rocks.  Above the tide line the driftwood is mounded high, a long, pale frame along the rim of the ocean, all the pieces bleached to the same flat white, like the bones of huge beasts, long dead.

    Denny is still pulling ahead.  He is almost at the base of the cliff at the far end of the beach.  He looks young and strong from here, purposeful, walking like that.  I haven’t .,,,,,¬seen him move like that in a long time.  I wonder if he is angry with us, or maybe just with me, but I can’t think of any particular reason he would be.  I think about calling him to stop, but I am just too tired.  I sigh quietly, and Michelle slips her hand into mine.

    How can he move so quickly?  My legs already hurt from shuffling along the gravelly shore, my feet sinking into the gritty sand.  It’s a relief, though, not to have him next to me, cold and silent.  We were never good at talking, even in the beginning.  Now, it seems, there is nothing to say.  

    Denny is headed for the path up the cliff.  He probably wants to see the waves we can hear hammering the rocks on the other side.  They told us in town that we would find the sheltered cove here, one of the few places away from the high surf.  It’s cold, because the headland walls hold back the late afternoon sun as well as the full force of the sea.  

    The roars of the waves are everywhere.  I had suggested the Oregon coast for our few days away, though I hadn’t been here in years.  I  remembered the power of the massive breaks, the energizing raw raggedness of the wild coastline.  Now, though, it just seems unrelenting, a never-ending noisy battle between water and earth.  Even here, in this protected cove, I hear the rhythmic pounding from the other side of the cliff.  I keep glancing up, half expecting to see a gigantic crest breach the cliff and bear down on us, angry and spitting.  Denny has disappeared.

    I press the back of my hand against my forehead.  My eyes ache.  I couldn’t sleep again last night.  I stared up at the motel ceiling, listening to Denny’s dull snore beside me and Michelle’s deep steady breathing from the cot across the room.  As I lay in bed, I probed my mind the way you test an injured limb, moving it carefully, looking for the places it will hurt.  I wondered again if Denny is having an affair.  Someone hangs up when I answer the phone.  I’ve been to his office.  I’ve seen the way the women look at him, and look at me, and then look away.  They are fresh, sharp, new women.  He didn’t even try to hide from me the way he sucked in his stomach and strutted in front of them.  In bed last night I pictured him holding, kissing, making love to someone else.  I moved my mind in closer, carefully, slowly, to see his hand move over her body, his breath quicken, his eyes shine like they used to shine for me.  Still there was no pain, just a kind of numbness.  But it is not all numb.  There are still places I can’t go because of the pain:  I still can’t look at what is happening to us through Michelle’s eyes.

    Michelle is reaching for stone after stone, throwing them in the water.  She must have a target in mind, because she reacts to some pitches with gleeful giggles, others with a brief pout of disappointment.  The stones drop with deep plunks into the icy clear water.  She pauses for a moment and looks up to the cliff.  When she turns back she is biting her lip, but then she smiles at me.  I watch her carefully, wondering what she sees and knows.  I look at her a lot lately.  I can see no sign in her.  Maybe she is too young.

    Denny is standing on top of the cliff, arms folded, looking out to sea.  I stare up at him, rubbing my arms to keep them warm.  He turns towards us and lifts his hand.  I say, “Look, there’s Daddy,” and we both wave wildly.  Michelle’s face is glowing, beaming up at her father.  How do we look to him, as he stands on that cliff with the wild crashing surf behind him, as he stares at us far below on the shadowed crescent shore?  Michelle goes back to throwing rocks in the water, but I stand and look up at Denny.  He is too far away for me to read his face, but he stays turned toward us.  The sea wind whips his clothes into constant motion around him.  The wind might lift him right off the cliff and carry him away from us.  Suddenly I want to run up the cliff path to him, to stand next to him in that whistling wind.  I open my mouth to shout hey, anything, but the wind steals my words and eyes sting from the wind’s whipping and the raw rumble of the ocean is everywhere.  No matter how loud I scream, no matter how loud, the ocean and the wind will always be louder.

    “Mama!”

    I turn my face to her, and she stares anxiously up at me.  My eyes water from fatigue and the cold wind and it takes me a moment to see her clearly.  “Aren’t you going to help me?” she asks in a voice both wheedling and teasing.  She has started to dig a hole in the wet sloppy sand below the tide line.  “Help me build my castle,” she demands, scraping away with her pail.  Soft brown strands of hair escape from her pony tail and fly around her face like tiny banners.  I squat down next to her, and for a moment she leans against me.  I resist the urge to hug her close to me, because I know if I do I will start to cry.

    The sand is a mix of gravel and grit, and it’s sopping wet and oh so cold.  My hands are freezing, but the chill doesn’t seem to bother Michelle.  She talks to me as she scoops up the mucky sand and builds up the castle walls.  This is the tower where the princess lives, she says, and she makes one corner higher.  She smiles as she pats the gooey sand into place, and I wonder if she is thinking about Sleeping Beauty.  It’s the story we read most often at bedtime lately.  She cuddles under her covers at night and smiles at the ceiling while I read about Prince Charming, galloping through the dark woods to save Sleeping Beauty with a single kiss.  I always hold my breath for a moment at the end, wondering if she will be satisfied with “…and they lived happily ever after.”  It’s such a lame ending.  I wait for her to ask what it means, what happens next to the prince and princess, but she never does.

    I look at her, talking more to herself than to me as she makes the center hole bigger and builds up the walls.  She ignores the seeping puddle that has already formed in her courtyard.  She is absorbed in her task, self-contained.  I want to stretch my arms around her, and stand between her and the cold wind and water.

    I look up at the cliff.  Denny is gone again.  When I look back to Michelle, she is standing still, her lower lip protruding as she looks thoughtfully out to sea.  The advancing water is almost up to her castle walls.  The incoming tide is running strong now.

    She sits down on the sand with a splat.  “Mama, come on, we have to make the walls higher.  Come on.”  She shovels sand onto the castle walls in big sloppy mounds, laughing and scowling each time a wave comes closer.

    I start to warn her that it is useless, no matter what we do the surging water will defeat us, but then I look down at her upturned face.  She smiles at me, and for a fragment of a second we two are an entire universe.
​
    I kneel down beside her, and the cold wetness of the sand seeps through to my knees.  Grains of sand rim my fingernails as I dribble the ooze on top of the castle walls, making them stronger.  Together we shore up our barricades against the incoming tide.

    I just spent a week at a yoga retreat on the Big Island of Hawaii.  I’ve gone to this yearly retreat for decades, though I have missed some years, including last year when Mark was fighting cancer.  

    This is the second year that our yoga teacher has scheduled a week at a new location on the north end of the island.  The retreat house is slightly more rustic than your usual Hawaiian mega-resort hotel but is graceful and comfortable, with the feel of a sprawling Mediterranean villa.  The guest rooms are simple and painted in rich deep colors.  A stand of pines separates the back of the hotel from a a cliff overlooking the ocean.  Nearby a small herd of goats wanders and forages, and in our yoga room, facing the ocean, we can hear the occasional lowing from nearby cattle.  Colorful birds flit around the open-air dining area, hoping for crumbs.

    And nearby there are special stones…

    According to local lore, King Kamehameha convened his council in the ravine that is now a short walk from the hotel, to develop his strategy for uniting the islands.  There, a ring of irregular massive black stones, half buried in the earth, circle around a mound.  Other stones dot the rolling terrain, including a special grandmother stone which sits apart from the council group.

    I was told that this is a site where the veil between worlds is very thin.  The stones, they say, speak, give counsel.  It is best, we were told, to approach the stones with a question.

    I am of many minds about these types of beliefs.  I am a skeptic, but I try to keep an open mind.  After all, holy sites exist all over the world, representing a plethora of religions from the well-established to the obscure.   Miracles and answered prayers are their mainstays.  The Catholics have Lourdes; Buddhists make pilgrimages to the Tiger’s Nest Monastery; the list goes on and on.

    I was curious.  How do the stones answer?  Did they put words in your head or mumble on the wind?  Would there be a vision?  Would it be like the Oracle at Delphi, where an obtuse phrase would be delivered and might give an answer, or might not?

    A fellow yogini who seems to be very intimate with the stones approached me after breakfast on one of our last days.  “The stones told me that you should go down,” she said.  “I’ll go with you and show you the stone that is special for me.”

    Well…okay.

    I admit to entertaining some irreverent thoughts at that point.  I envisioned the stones with cartoon talking balloons over their heads, saying things like, “You tell Steph to come on down.”  But it really didn’t seem like an invitation I could refuse, so I followed her along the rutted grassy path down into the ravine.

    I leaned back and settled against my stone where she had directed and left me.  Did I have a question?  No, all I had was the familiar bruising jagged ache that has accompanied me since I lost Mark.  The morning was fine and breezy, the rock face capturing the warmth of the sun.  I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.  The world came wildly and fully alive, with the chittering of birds, the rhythmic cooing of doves, the buzz of insects.  Wind rustled the grasses, and I could hear the distant groan of farm equipment engines.  After about twenty minutes, I strolled back up the path.  Well, I thought, no stone conversations for me.

    And yet…something changed.  Since Mark died, every recollection of my last hours with him, as his breath abandoned him and I sat, stunned, next to his lifeless body created a sharp stab of pain that was almost impossible to bear.  I think I was having a post-traumatic stress reaction, because these memories came with a rush of adrenaline and horror.  But after my visit with the stones, just then, I realized that I could remember those hours with sadness but with a new  peace.  It may not sound like much, but it was a tremendous change.

    So did the stones do this for me?  Or was it the entrancing Hawaiian setting, showcasing the vitality of the life of the planet all around me?  Or was it my week with loving, joyful, accepting people?  I don’t know.  I just know that I am healing now, and that, in itself, feels like a miracle.


    


    


    


    


    


    

    I’ve passed the eight month milestone since Mark’s death, and these months are the blink of an eye and an eternity.


    I’ve been sitting down with a new friend, T, occasionally for coffee or happy hour.  She and I first met through mutual friends at an outdoor movie screening one evening in our local park this summer.


    We don't have too much in common, other than that we’re about the same age—and the unhappy coincidence that her husband died a few days before Mark did. We stared in each other’s startled eyes when we first realized what connected us.


    When T and I met a few days ago, our conversation turned, as it usually does, to our losses and traveling through grief.  Despite the differences in our background, we’ve walked the same road.  Although we’re just a sample of two, and thus hardly a scientific study, our experiences and impressions are remarkably parallel.  We are both surprised when we have long conversations with old friends, and they don’t mention our husbands.  I think our friends want to be kind and are cautious about not upsetting us, but we both miss the comfort of hearing others remember them.   We both have moments when we mentally send out “Enough already, I’m done with this, come on back now,” messages to our husbands.  Even now, we sometimes forget that they’re gone and are never coming back.  When my plane touched down on my recent trip to a yoga retreat, my first fleeting thought was, “I should text Mark to let him know I’ve arrived,” followed, of course, by the stab of pain when I remembered.  


    But the worst, we agree, is the overwhelming aloneness.  It’s a very specific sensation.  T has lots of family in the area, and she (like me) has a son who is currently living at home.  I feel well-connected in Seattle now, with friends I’ve gleaned from volunteer work, pottery classes, my writing group, my hiking group and my book group. Friends from Alaska come through Seattle frequently.  I’m busy.  But what’s missing, the gigantic tear in the fabric, is that T and I don’t have our Special Someone, the person whose bond with us provided such richness in our lives.  Mark was my sounding board, my cheerleader, the person who reasoned with me when I was heading out on a strange tangent.  


    And of course, Mark was there in the night.  I still ache for the soft huff of his steady breath and for the warmth of his sleeping body against me.  My book group just read Our Souls at Night by Kent Haru.  This longing for connection in the night, for intimacy, is at the center of this novel.  I wanted to throw the book across the room when I finished it.  (Luckily I restrained myself, since I was reading on my Kindle.)  The final passages are so grim and hopeless, as if there is no possibility of escaping the loneliness of the widowhood road.  I don’t buy it.  I may not be there yet, but if I didn’t believe that there were better times ahead, I don’t think I could go on.


———————--


    Slowly, bit by bit, my house is taking on the quality of “mine” instead of “ours.”  As time passes, I make changes, and I’m acutely aware that each acquisition, each discarded item, each move of a piece of furniture reflects a small step into the future.


    The last remnant in the house of Mark’s illness and struggle was the cache of Ensure.  It represents one of our last desperate efforts to pump some nutrition into him, before the doctors told us that his stomach had been eaten away by the cancer, and there was no way he could absorb food.  I had two dozen or more bottles stashed in a closet, rapidly approaching their expiration dates.


    On Saturday morning, I toted them over to the local food bank.  I wove between clumps of customers in the long line to get to the door, those waiting huddling under dripping umbrellas or just letting the steady, light rain fall on their hoods and scarves.  The kitchen staff at the food bank were happy to have the Ensure; it was on their “wish list.”  I pushed the bag into the kitchen aide’s hands and hurried away.  


    And then I started to cry, tears just slipping down my face, right there in the car.  I was so eager to get that bag out of my house and yet, the dilemma is evident…each step forward into the future is also one more step away from my life with Mark.


    


    

From 80 percent to 100 percent...

Our front door handle fell off a couple of weeks ago.  As I pulled the door open, the screws released and the entire piece came free in my hand.

The house remodel has a two year warranty, so I texted Blair, our project manager.  “I can come tomorrow,” he said, “but you can reattach it yourself, easily, with an allen wrench.”

A slight pause in the telephone conversation…

“What’s an allen wrench?” I ask.

Mark and I had disagreed about the allocation (or misallocation, as I saw it) of the work associated with maintaining our household.  I would get frustrated and accuse him of doing only about twenty percent of the chores.  He wouldn’t dispute that he didn’t do half, but he called the split more of sixty-forty.  I still think I was right.

But, now that he’s not here, I’m at a hundred percent, and that added twenty percent is weighing on me.  

Mark wasn’t much handier around the house than I am, but he would have known what an allen wrench is.  He might have fussed and complained, but he would have reattached the door handle.  I think I know a lot about many things, but those things have never included tools. 

So, first I do my research:  “An allen wrench is an L-shaped metal bar with a hexagonal head at each end, named for its manufacturer, the Allen Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut.”  Simple enough.  Off I go to Lowe’s, where unfortunately I encounter one of the nasty employees.

Lowe’s employees seem to come in two categories:  Some are charming and helpful, sometimes condescending (but I can deal with that).  Others are totally disdainful of a clueless woman trying to figure out a simple task.

I got one of the latter.  He glared at me over his glasses and jabbed his finger towards a set of bins.  “Over there,” he said.

The bins were filled with collections of small tools, but nothing was labeled as an allen wrench.  He watched me stare from bin to bin but he didn’t come over to help me.  I gave up and went back to him.  “I don’t know which one is the allen wrench,” I had to confess.

With a deep sigh he walked to the bins and pointed out the folding hex key sets.  But one bin had red ones and one bin had blue ones.  “Why are they different colors?”  I asked.

Another deep exasperated sigh.  “Because one is SAE and one is metric.”

Having no idea what I needed, but unable to tolerate any more of the conversation, I just got one of each.  

None of this stuff is hard.  It’s a good thing to know about tools and how to make minor repairs.  I’m sure I’ll be a better person (at least a more competent one) when I learn all this.  It’s just that there’s a lot of it.

Like replacing the furnace filter…Easy-peasy, once you’ve done it.  But the first time you have to figure out the right filter and where to get it.  (Amazon is the answer to the last question.  Amazon makes it so easy I can’t resist buying from them any longer.  Boxes arrive magically on my doorstep.)  Then you have to find the furnace manual for instructions, and hope that the whole thing won’t blow up in your face as you snap the old filter out.  What’s the big deal, you ask?  The answer is that it isn’t a big deal at all, but the first time it was…scary.  Furnaces are serious pieces of equipment.

On the other hand, I’m darned proud of myself each time I figure something out.  Wonder Woman here!

Ho-Ho-Holidays…

Chris and I attended a hospice seminar about getting through the holidays.  About twenty of us clustered around a rectangle of conference tables, boxes of tissues strategically placed in front of us.  

We introduced ourselves by reciting our losses.  Deaths of mothers, fathers, wives and husbands, our voices stumbling over our words.

Most of the seminar information wasn’t new to us.  I’ve read about the stages of grief, and what to expect as time passes.  I know each person’s journey is different in nature and in pace.  I know that the only way out of grief is through it.  Nevertheless, it was comforting and reassuring to hear the words said aloud.  I didn’t think I would get emotional, but there was so much feeling in the room that I needed that box of tissues.

The best advice from the seminar?  Think about the holiday traditions that are important for you to keep, and don’t be afraid to let go of the ones that won’t work for you now.

So we didn’t put up a tree this year.  The idea of opening those boxes of decorations floored me.  The handmade ornaments Chris made in school, now falling apart as the white glue dries and flakes and the cottony Santa beards thread away—memories of other happy holidays.  Each year Mark would buy me an ornament that was reminiscent of the year that just passed, the year that we had spent together.  When I was pregnant the ornament was a gold baby carriage.  The year we skied in Austria, it was a silver snow flake.  Those memories need to stay in the box a little while longer.  

But we did decide to have a big dinner Christmas Eve with friends, the way we always had in the past.  The extension leaves were popped into the big table and I pulled out the reindeer candelabra with the tall red candles.  Friends arrived with wine and gifts and good cheer.  The smell of roasting prime rib filled the house.  We toasted Christmas with glasses of champagne.  Yes, I was wistful, but I was happy too.  It was a good decision.

My Wedding Ring

I’ve stopped wearing my wedding ring.  After Mark died, it was of great comfort to me, and I couldn’t imagine ever taking it off.  But then, at some point, it became a symbol of my loss.  I would twirl it around my finger and grieve afresh for all that’s gone.  I’ve seen some of my friends glance at my bare finger and they must wonder, but no one has asked about it.  I’ve put the ring away in a safe place.  From time to time, I’ve felt the urge to put it back on, but I’m not going to.  I don’t know where my life is leading, but as much as I love and miss Mark, I’m on my own now.  

Talking with your dying spouse about what will follow his death isn’t easy.  I’d avoided the conversation as long as I could.  When Mark was still undergoing treatment, we both only wanted to focus on vanquishing cancer, somehow beating the terrible odds.  When Mark entered Hospice, we wanted to stay hopeful, managing his symptoms as best we could, desperate for a few more months, a few more weeks. 

When it became apparent that Mark didn’t have much time left, I took his hand and carefully pitched my voice into neutral.

“Do you want a memorial service?"

He shrugged.  “Well, I don’t.  You can have one if you want one, for you.  Don’t do it for me."

“Where do you want me to scatter your ashes?"

“I don’t care."

But I persisted…In the ocean?  In Alaska?  In the desert?  How about in the ponderosa pine forest at the top of the Palm Springs aerial tram?

He first hesitated, and I thought he was going to tell me again that it made no difference to him.  But he answered:  “Yes, the pine forest.  I love it up there."

In the end I didn’t schedule a memorial service.  I don’t know if that was the right decision, but when I envisioned a formal ceremony, I didn’t think I could make it through it.  Mark had been blessed with opportunities to see beloved friends and associates in the weeks before his death, and he’d said a lot of goodbyes.  Dear friends visited and sat with him, recounting old stories, sharing memories, and telling him how important he had been in their lives.  Although his physical state was weakening daily, he managed a final trip to see his golf buddies in southern California, and he even played a couple of holes of golf.  He was exhausted and could barely sit upright without help, but he relished his time with his friends and family.  In my mind, the important stuff had already happened.

It’s the positive side of dying from a lingering illness rather than from a sudden death:  There is great suffering to endure, but there is also the opportunity to say what should be said, to close doors gently, to cherish the love and friendship in your heart, bittersweet with the knowledge of the change on the horizon.

Last week, just about six months after Mark’s death, our son Chris and I packed up his ashes and headed to Palm Springs.

I originally thought that there would only be three of us walking Mark’s ashes into the forest:  Chris, Mark’s sister JoAnn and me.  But in the end we were twelve, a lovely accretion of friends.

There were some minor obstacles to overcome.  I wasn’t quite sure (ahem) though I hadn’t researched it (ahem) that scattering funerary ashes in a California state park was—shall we say—a condoned activity?  I knew that scattering a small box of ashes in a remote area wouldn’t be harmful in any way, but there are those pesky rules…  And in order to access the tram, all backpacks and packages are inspected at a security checkpoint.
 
Mark would have enjoyed the humor of my stashing his ashes at the very bottom of my backpack, under our packed lunch for the twelve of us who ascended the mountain.  He would also have appreciated that I traveled through the security line right between his sister and her friend, both Catholic nuns in habits, to enhance my image as a law-abiding, rule-following passenger—not that carrying the ashes should have created any security concerns.  I just didn’t want to answer any questions about them.  The security guard patted down the backpack and felt the hard box at the bottom, but when I opened my pack for inspection he declined to dig below the slippery mass of sandwiches in ziplock bags. 

From Mountain Station, we walked down the long ramp into the forest.  The top of the tram is over 8000 feet above sea level, and the scenery is stunning.  A series of trails wind over ridges and through meadows, huge honey-colored rock formations and stands of ponderosa pines.  It was one of the tram's busiest weekends, but as we descended, we left the crowds behind.  (Mark and I found this to be true every time we took the tram to the forest to hike.  I estimate that only about one percent or less of those going up the tram make the effort to walk to enjoy the forest.)  We found a meadow area a short distance off from the trail, and the twelve of us were on our own, in silence.

The day was cool and the ground was covered with a thin layer of snow, but the sun had some warmth and the air was still.  We opened the box of ashes and I asked each person to help with the scattering, saying any words that they wanted to say.  We passed the box from person to person.  Sister JohnEllen and Sister JoAnn offered a prayer.  Mark’s ashes tumbled into the snow, ivory against white.  

It was very simple.

I don’t believe that Mark is in those ashes.  They are the mere remnant of his physical being.  Nevertheless, standing in that forest with those lovely people who cared about him, watching the fine ash drop to the ground, is something I will never forget.  It didn’t given me closure (I have a way to go for that) but it has given me great comfort.

Down to the valley floor in Palm Springs, at night, Mountain Station beams a single white light.  The brown mountains disappear into the darkness, and the light becomes a low-hanging star.  I look at the star and bid Mark good night.  

I’m going to sidestep from my blog series about my experiences of widowhood to announce the re-release of COMPASS NORTH this week.   It’s now available in the Kindle version on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017QUWBZ8) and will be available in paperback very soon.  I hope you like the new cover.  


It’s been a long road.


The story of Meredith’s escape into a new life in a small town in Alaska had been rattling around in my brain for several years before I attempted to write it.  When Mark and I relocated to Seattle, I finally had the time to put pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard) to see if I really had it in me to write Meredith’s story.


Writing a novel is a mammoth undertaking.  I’d always considered myself a writer.  I earned my  MFA in Creative Writing-Fiction at the University of Alaska, Anchorage as the culmination of several years of night classes.  I’d published a couple of short stories, but nothing prepared me for the ultra-marathon of novel-writing.  


Producing the first draft was excruciating.  I found that I preferred to work in chaos, writing scenes as they appeared in my head, not following an outline or in any logical order.  As a result, my early work was a whirlwind mess of characters, scenes and situations.  After the first draft was at last sorted out (whew), a new kind of work began.  I’d revise and revise and revise.  Soon, I was sick of my story.  I’d spent too much time with it.  After putting it aside for a while, I revised it some more, and went in search of a publisher.


A small publisher offered me a contract, and COMPASS NORTH was first released in December 2013.  COMPASS NORTH remained with that publisher until August 2014, when a peculiar set of circumstances resulted in an opportunity to recover my rights, which I elected to do.  My plans going forward were a bit squishy but I was optimistic.  There were changes I wanted to make to the book, including a new cover design.  I was considering whether I should finish the sequel, A LATE HARD FROST, before doing anything further with the first book.


Then, on October 31 (yes, Halloween) of 2014, Mark was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.  He struggled valiantly for seven months, and died in June of this year.  


After Mark’s diagnosis and until very recently, I found it impossible to move forward with much of anything.  I continued to write my blog, first about our experiences as Mark traveled through treatment, and then later as I entered the foreign world of widowhood.  Working on A LATE HARD FROST or planning a route to republication for COMPASS NORTH wasn’t in the realm of possibility.


But sometimes help (or a prodding forward from a sharp stick) comes when you least expect it.  Recently a fellow author, Ceci Giltenan, offered to help me with the republishing process.


I first encountered Ceci after the initial publication of COMPASS NORTH, when I was struggling to understand the world of book promotion.  As a first time published author, I had an enormous amount to learn.  Publishing a novel is only the first step on a strange and confusing road, and I was clueless.  I had to learn about social media, and blog tours, and virtual launch parties.  I had to learn about catchy tag lines, and positioning, and what it takes to get a novel into bookstores.  I went to writing conferences, where the advice given in publishing workshops was sometimes contradictory, and often not helpful.  


Along the way, I’d noticed that Ceci (then also with the same publishing house) was having enormous success with her first novel, HIGHLAND SOLUTION, the first of an ongoing series of Scottish Highland romances.  Although my book didn’t fall in that category, I emailed Ceci and asked her for advice.  She most generously shared her thoughts and experiences.  With Ceci’s help, I participated in some on-line launch parties and she featured some of my work on her website.  Although we’d never met in person, Ceci went out of her way to help me.


Not too long ago, Ceci contacted me and asked if I had a short story to include in an anthology she was compiling, TANTALIZING TIDBITS. I sent her a story and she placed it in the collection. Ceci recently emailed me and offered her help in sending COMPASS NORTH back out into the world.  Without her encouragement, generosity and assistance, the re-release wouldn’t have happened, at least not now.


So I’m moving forward.  I’m dusting off the partial draft of A LATE HARD FROST.  I’m still struggling with the aftermath of losing Mark, and I imagine I will for some time.  But I can see that there will be a way out of the fog.


And, Ceci Giltenan, all I can say is…thank you.