The Widowers Journey

Category: Memory

  • Familiar Places

    Familiar Places

    I know this happens to you.  As you travel around your town, you pass by many places that were once either special or routine to you and your late wife.  If you’re like me, sometimes you pass by them absentmindedly.  Other times it brings tears to your eyes.

    For me, the places are within a five-mile radius of my house.  Most are on our primary thoroughfare in Ballwin, Missouri, where I’ve lived for the past 39 years.  It’s a four-lane highway with numerous shops, stores, gas stations, and eating establishments.  It’s a typical American suburban landscape.

    Regardless of my travel direction, I’m bombarded by decades of memories.  Jan and I frequented every restaurant on that highway.  We hit them all many times.  There is not a drug store, a supermarket, a park, or a gas station, etc., that escaped us.  If I let my thoughts wander, I can see us in each one of those places on numerous occasions.  I can “hear” our conversations.  I can see her lovely face with her million-dollar smile that used to light up a room.  I can’t see when her life was ebbing in those memories.  The memories are all happy ones.

    It was tough enough for me when I would pass these establishments when she was an invalid at home being attended to by her 24/7 caregivers while I was out.  I would get nostalgic for those happy times, knowing that we would never be able to experience them again.  But while lost in those thoughts, I knew she was still alive.

    Those were the days of anticipatory grief.  Many of you know exactly what I’m talking about.  But what I experienced after Jan died was much more intense.  These establishments took on a haunting quality.  It became tough for me to enter them.  Going to the supermarket, drugstore, and our local gas station can be gut-wrenching.  I see her in every aisle of our supermarket and drugstore.  I see her making herself a cup of hot tea at the local QuickTrip that I frequent for gas and coffee.

    I make myself go into these places with other people I know.  I act like there’s nothing unusual, but I can see tables in these establishments where we once happily sat.  I avoid sitting at certain tables.  I usually keep my pain to myself.  Just being in these familiar places is challenging enough.

    I catch myself talking to her as I drive by them, asking her if she remembers our stopping there in the past.  Telling her how happy I was with her doing even the simplest of things.  I chastise myself for how I thought that we had forever ahead of us in this life.  Sometimes I just sigh; other times, I weep.  At all times, I tell her how much I love her and miss her; and how I look forward to reuniting with her for eternity on her side of the veil.  More than anything, that keeps me going.

    I wish I could say that it has gotten easier for me, but that would not be true.  However, I’m able to accept the truth more readily, that she’s never coming back to me and that I must get on with what remains of my life.  Mercifully, I have a purpose to my life now that is divinely directed.  I tell God that I am his.  He is directing my hospice ministry.  My workload of mercy to other men who are caregivers and widowers is rapidly increasing.  There is plenty of demand, unfortunately.  I know that when my work is all completed, he will gently call me home.  I tell him that I trust in him and that she will be there to greet me when I cross over.

    When Jan and I were young—dating and newly married- we enjoyed sitting and listening to The Lettermen sing old songs in perfect harmony.  One of their best songs was from the World War II era: “I’ll Be Seeing You.”  There were millions of goodbyes going on when that song was popular.  Tens of thousands never got the blessing of saying hello again.  That song is ever more poignant to me now.

    “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places,

    That this heart of mine embraces all day through.

    In that small café, the park across the way,

    The children’s carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well.

    I’ll be seeing you in every lovely summer’s day,

    In everything that’s light and gay, I’ll always think of you that way.

    I’ll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new.

    I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you.”

    Someone once said that grief never goes away; rather, life has a way of filling in around it.  That’s what is happening to me now.  I’m blessed.  A purpose-driven life is, indeed, filling in around my grief.  I hope you have found—or are finding- purpose in your new life and that it’s also filling in around your grief.

    Michael Burroughs is the author of Moving Mountains.  He lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

  • So Tied To You

    My late wife, Jan, loved music.  Her tastes in music varied widely.  We began dating in 1969, on the tail end of the fabulous 60s era of music.  Our first decade of marriage was the 70s.  The best songs of that era stayed with us throughout her life, as they reminded us of happy times as newlyweds starting our family.  Then there were the 80s.  That decade reminded us of our older son and his coming of age.  In the 90s, our younger son came of age.  Music from that decade reminded us of him.  In the first two decades of this century, we found new songs reminding us of the journey of our lives together as empty nesters.

    Jan loved Celtic music and church music So from England.  Classical music, especially Mozart, reminded us fondly of our four years in Germany.  Her varied taste in Christmas music was exquisite.  One reason that holiday meant so much to us was the variety of music she played on our cd player in our den.  The player can hold six CDs at a time.  Piled beside it was a couple of stacks of CDs always ready to be played.  Those CDs are still there, just as they were when I brought her home from the hospital following her third stroke in July 2019.  I have not touched them in over three years.  They are as she left them. 

    I have been a guitar player since the age of 10.  During my high school years, I was a member of a “cover band” that specialized in the harmonics of the Beach Boys.  Our band broke up when the lead guitar player went off to college.  Twenty-nine years later, we had a reunion in Nashville.  We surprised ourselves by how much better we were after a quarter century of continuous playing.  We decided to keep it up and scheduled a “gig” at a resort for the following summer.  Jan got a big kick out of that experience, as it was a side of me she did not know before we met.

    In those days, I had a keen interest in Brazilian “bossa novas.”  Among my instruments was a classical guitar that I dreamed of playing bossa novas on.  Jan always loved it when I would play and sing for her.  I would constantly lament my inability to play Brazilian music because I thought it would be too hard for me to do so.  One Christmas, after our kids were grown, she gave me a great gift: ten jazz guitar lessons (bossa novas are jazz).  She then said I had no excuse for not learning to play my favorite music.  The lessons were successful, and I played and sang many beautiful, romantic songs for a few years for her.  She loved it.

    When we had our horrendous wreck in January 2018, I stopped playing altogether.  Nor did I play during the three years she was an invalid stroke patient.  I regret that.  I think Jan would have wanted to hear me play, even though she could not communicate or reason.  I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  It was a selfish thing for me to do.  It was just too depressing.

    When I am out and about, I hear music being piped in.  When I hear a familiar song, I get sad and anxious.  I have been told this is normal.  I stopped listening to music on my car radio for the same reason.  Music is no longer a part of my life.  There are just too many memories with which to contend.

    I did something different while in my car.  I have Sirius Radio.  There is a station called “Chill.” I can listen to the music on that station because 1) nothing is familiar, and 2) it soothes my soul.  I turn it on when I am out as it is a healthy distraction, devoid of pain-inducing memories.  Lately, though, they often play a song by an artist named, Lokii, titled: “Tied to You.”  It is a sad song that repeats a haunting refrain, “I’m so tied, so tied to you.”  At first, I got very distressed hearing that song because it perfectly describes my state of affairs.  I am, indeed, so tied to her.

     I’ve made myself listen to it each time, though.  I’ve found that it connects me to Jan in a special way.  When the song would end, I would tell her I am so tied to you and will remain so for the rest of my life.  It simply defines us–in a different way than the myriad of other songs that have marked our lives over the decades.  It is a perfect song for us…now.

    I am managing my life decently one year into her death.  I still avoid the other songs.  The triggers are still too much for me.  Just turn off the radio, and avoid playing our collection of CDs.  Also, I still avoid playing my guitar.  Piped in music, I can’t escape.  Some songs stop me in my tracks.  Christmas last year was brutal.  I don’t expect that to change for a long while.

    I’m so tied…so tied to you, honey.  Always have been; always will be.