The celebration

In February, on the 25th- yes, I know it’s still 2 months+ away- it will one year since Burt’s passing.

It feels like it’s been so much longer. Not just because he had been going [or gone] for the better part of five years before that.

The not-quite a year has moved slowly, dragging in and out of deeper grief, tears but not sobs, highs and lows, memories of our-life-before, talking to the photos of him, discovering a video and voice messages that brought a tangible bit of him back. In short, so much going on.

This past May, on what would have been our anniversary- 32nd (marriage) and 35th (of the day we met), our friends gathered to celebrate Burt’s life. It was yet another surprise party I threw him. He did so well at this kind of event in the past. It was a nice send-off, but not a final goodbye.

For me, I am guessing, at this almost eight months point, there is no finality to goodbye.

I am grateful for all our friends. I am glad that I celebrated with so many of the people who buoyed us before and during the dementia journey. I am grateful that, for Burt, that hard, hard journey is finally over.

Happiness

Looking at the many photos of Burt I have on my phone, I was touched by his grins, his looking mischievous. I realized how important it was to me that he enjoyed his life. And that, in retrospect. I have evidence of his pleasure. There are all those pictures I took and the memory of his appreciation when I took them. You really do love me, he’d say, as I focused another shot of him.

As Burt succumbed to the Lewy Body disease I focused more on his happiness than I had when he was healthy. Yes, of course, I cared that he was happy in our life before the Lewy journey, but now it was linked to his care.

Happiness is a way to measure quality of life, or became my way of measuring his quality of life. As his illness progressed, I became preoccupied with seeing Burt happy.

I think that it cannot easy to be happy when you are suffering a dementia.

In the last 6 months, his doctor and I thought he might benefit from an anti-depressant. It was to enhance his mood, maybe even it out. He didn’t seem depressed, but there were anxieties.

There is all that confusion and, in Burt’s case, wondering where his wife was. Still, he was often joyful. He cracked jokes. He bathed in the attention all of us who looked after him gave. He liked to laugh. He loved to talk.

I wanted to share experiences with him. We took outings to the park. For me, it was a way to recreate the quiet times we’d spent by the river. Today, I am left wondering if he liked those outings as much as I did.

It mattered to me. I wanted us to share these new memories. Most of the time, judging by the photographic evidence, he had a good time.

Those 12 steps

“Acceptance” plays a huge role in our mental health.

My reference to the 12 steps is a wry acknowledgement of just how deeply embedded the edicts of AA are in our psyche. The opening pledge addresses accepting.. and it’s genuinely a great suggestion. Let go. If you can’t change it, let it be.

Acceptance has more urgency than we imagine; we shrug when we are advised to find “acceptance” for our peace of mind but we know how much it matters.

Fighting against realities, our limitations, gives over power to what we cannot change.

Accepting what you can and what you can’t change frees you. Therein lies control. Or, at least more control.

Some control.

That’s enough.

This was our life

I’ve already made my grieving more public than is seemly.

I continue to mourn in writing as a heads up for those of you who may experience a similar circumstance.

An unnecessary heads up, I  admit. We all grieve differently.  Also, we each face our grief  differently at different times as we mourn.

I feel like I have entered a point that accentuates my mourning. I miss him more, perhaps, since his birthday. I miss him more anticipating the one year mark since his passing. Between Nov 7th and Feb 25th I have a lot of grieving to do. Seeing a picture of Burt, bearded and studying his watch, melts me.

That picture sits on the screen of the cellphone I had gotten for him to use. It takes its turn in a sideshow, the phone on a perch next to my bed.

I have read a lot about others’ losses and I am not prepared. My fragility is unexpected. I am steelier than this, I think, as I feel a wave of wish you were here. Wish you weren’t gone.

I want to be honest with you. You deserve that honesty.

I know, with a pang, that Burt’s going was timely. I am not sure how many more years, months, days I could have tended to him.

I speak of my public mourning, but I shed few tears. I am weepy over sad endings or beginnings in books. I tear up, I don’t cry. I did not rend my clothes as was an enviable custom, nor wear a color designated for widow’s weeds.

That term, I think a little too dispassionately, refers to the rended clothing. To the enviable custom.

Burt is gone, yet I sense his presence, his curiosity, his care. It’s the memories of him and not the loss, I recognize when I look at the phone’s screen and the many picture frames decorating the house.

Coming to terms

Every day is different after the loss of Burt; it’s not just in the sense of the cliché.

As a widow, the differences in the days are linked to memory and mood. It is a matter of the ebbs and floods of sorrow and acceptance.

The holidays are notorious for being harder when a loved one is gone. And, with Thanksgiving just 6 days behind us, I’m in the thick of the holidays.

This past week, I ran into some unexpected reminders of Burt when I switched calendars.

The 2026 calendar opens with December 2025, so I put it up to replace the two previous years.

The 2024 and 2025 calendars had Burt’s last year documented by the notations I kept in each square.

Teary, sad, I miss Burt so much. Nonetheless, I decided to toss the calendars. [I took a photo.]

I also found the note from the paramedic who pronounced Burt. I kept that note. I couldn’t throw it out.

I am coming to grips with his loss, but I miss Burt so much.

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