September 29th, the third year

Today marks three years since Ramsy died, and as with the last two years, it's an odd day.  My thoughts are part memory, part imagination.  All month I've had flashes of remembering his last month: driving to the hospital to see him in palliative care; sitting on his hospital bed and reading him the letters that he and I wrote to each other when we were dating and living 2 1/2 hours apart; how he hated the hospital food but still loved chips; the nurse who gave our kids popsicles when they came to see him; visits from his siblings and his mom; adjusting to the home care schedule; eating our last meal together as a family...

There are also so many memories of the rest of our years together, and who he was before the brain tumor.  The way he held his hands when he sang in worship; his laugh; his pet names for the kids (shnerks and zip-zaps and gomers); the puppy-dog look he would give me when he knew he had done something to tick me off and didn't want me to be mad at him; his ritual of making his coffee in the morning; how he would stop and pray for people right then, rather than just promising to do so...

And then there is the imagining part: if he were here, he would say this or he would think that was so funny or that would drive him crazy.  Wondering what shape our life would have taken if he had lived and we had moved to Saskatoon as originally planned, or if he had lived but been unable to work.  Thinking about the things I've learned through this experience that I might not know yet if he had never been sick, never gone away.

And I am on a threshold.  The God of eternal surprises has brought into my life a man who was close friends with Ramsy many years ago, who has also suffered the loss of his spouse.  We will be married in a few weeks, and become part of one another's history and present and future.  It is a gift I wouldn't have dared to expect.  I am so grateful that I have him to share all of this with, that he will sit with me and hear my stories about Ramsy and laugh and cry with me, and make new memories with me.  That he will help my children remember their dad and tell them stories about when Ramsy was their age.  That I will sit with him and hear his stories about his wife and laugh and cry with him.  That I will help his children remember their mom and ask them to share their favourite memories of her with me.

It doesn't take the loss away, but it makes it into something new.

Alleluia.

Photo: Lori Fenn, 2003