Monday Morning Musing: Time Travel

Yesterday I realized that we would have no June 31st on the calendar to mark the month since Bruce’s death.   As we do in September, April, and November, we move from June 30th to July 1st. 

I’ve always been a person who has marked time and anniversaries and occasions.  I appreciate Facebook memories for just this reason.  But wow, they are bittersweet to peruse each day in this season.  July is a month of big memories in my life and in the life that Bruce and I created.  On July 1, 2007, Bruce, Taylor, and I set out on our first cross country drive from Upper Sandusky, Ohio to Seattle, WA.  We have such fun stories of that whirlwind trip, including stops at monuments and road side rest areas and impromptu July 4th fireworks displays.  We were heading toward our new life and it was FULL of possibility, which seems in stark contrast to life eighteen years later.

July also contains my Ordination Anniversary.  This year it’s a big one: twenty years of serving as an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in Christ’s church, on the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene, July 22nd.  And just six days later, our wedding anniversary.  I am eyeing that whole week on the calendar with dread now, rather than the joy I felt around it when I marked it on the calendar at the beginning of the year.

But, this brings me back to the absence of a date to mark this first month.  When does that marker arrive?  Is it at some odd liminal space that only exists in whatever time Bruce exists?   What would the physicists have to say about this?  How does this time work?

This is my musing on this morning that is bright and warm.  Maybe it’s weird.  Maybe it’s hormones.  Maybe (probably) it’s just grief having its way.

Here are some other things I’m holding in my heart at this not-quite-a-month mark:

Bruce and his absence are my first and last and every thought of the day.  Regardless of what else I’m doing, he is at the front of my mind.  And this is not entirely different from how it was when he was alive. 

Related to that, I can’t seem to write about anything other than this unwelcome season and so, if you need to take a break from reading, I understand.  Or maybe my experience will help you or someone you know walk a similar path.

People are really, really lovely. 

People can also be really, really careless with what they say.

Whether people are lovely and present or careless with their words or absent in ways that are unexpected, their responses are their responses.  Not mine.  And not mine to manage.

Moving through this season almost requires a business degree.  Or a degree in the business side of the end of life. 

I have amazing ‘kids’ without whom I am entirely uncertain I would still be standing.  I mean, that’s probably hyperbole, but I’m entitled.  And so lucky and grateful for them.

I want to remember every single conversation Bruce and I had over those last three terrible weeks. 

And….I need to stop re-living those weeks.  I’ll be beginning work with a trauma therapist later this week and I’m so grateful to have insurance that covers this important care.  One of the moments when I realized I needed to do more work was when my heart started POUNDING out of my chest when I was starting the washing machine.  I realized that the electronic buttons I was pushing were beeping in the same way the dialysis machine beeped.  Ugh.

Bruce loved the time he spent in Buddhist monasteries in India.  He lived many of those philosophical principles, including that of living in the moment.  This one.  Not borrowing worries from tomorrow, which has enough trouble of its own (look at me, sliding into Christian Scripture). And I know, if I know anything, that he would encourage me not to dwell too long on where my June 31st has gone, but rather to make the most of this day, whatever day it is.  

I’m going to go do that now, or try anyway; we’ll see how this goes.

Tay at the Columbia River as we entered our new home state in 2007. This was one of Bruce's favorite photos.