Month: August 2026

Dear Mark,

This week marks eight years since you left this world for the next. I was recently telling someone that after you died and I went back to work, I was walking towards the bathroom from my office in the Student Union, glanced over to the other side of our floor, and reversed course. For months I had searched everywhere for you, and on that day I was certain you were hiding at the end of that darkened hallway and had decided to surprise me by showing up at my job. Instead, I found a group of students eating their lunch in the Student Government Office and I hurriedly turned around and hid in the back stairwell in shock. I don’t know if I was more stunned that you weren’t there or that I had completely lost my mind.

While that memory and others are so vivid, much of those early years are a blur. Everything seemed like it was in freefall and for the life of me I could not get a grip on a single thing to stop descending into blackness. I would count down one day without you, one week, two, three, a month, the holidays, six months, birthdays, our anniversary, and then the dreaded first year which is now shockingly times eight. For the longest time if felt like you were right there but now I can’t even remember the last time you were in my dreams. Photos of you pop up on my phone all the time. Sometimes they make me smile and other times I stare at them in disbelief. Were you even real?

But if nothing else since you’ve been gone your family has collectively forged on, of which there isn’t a single trophy or awards ceremony. The kids are doing well – genuine in their support, their empathy, their humor, and their outrage at all the stuff we distinguished as right from wrong when they were growing up. They live our values in everything they do which feels like an A+ on our parenting report card. Maggie is in her 16th year of teaching and her joy at being the school librarian and introducing literature no matter the age is something to behold. I have stood by and watched as the kids in her school flock around her like she’s Mary Poppins with a carpetbag full of just the right book for each of them. Will was the lead designer of a high school career center and last week he gave Michael and me a tour where he explained the thought process behind every inch of it. It was incredible and he wore one of your sportscoats for the grand opening which he didn’t tell me about until the next day because he said I already looked like I was about to cry. This summer Mallory graduated with a masters degree in clinical psychology and started a job as a therapist for a mental health clinic. Our family North Star and little guru is now out in the world being a beacon of hope for others. And after eight years, her and Rubin will be tying the knot. He’s perfect for her and I’m certain you would love him.

The grandkids, oh sheesh, they are a delight. Maggie and Nate are great parents, though currently master juggling all the commitments that come with three kids. They remind me so much of us way back when. Their littles are each their own brand of spitfire which brings me immense joy. They love coming over because I pretty much treat them like free range chickens and let them wander the house, the yard, and the refrigerator. I’m sure if you were here you would try to pump the brakes on that but you’d be surprised how easily they can make you fold.

As for me, I am convinced that you sent Michael to my doorstep like a stork dropping off a baby. You knew my affinity for those science types and he is one of the best. He loves me well – thoughtful, kind, and, most importantly, he makes me feel safe which I desperately needed after you died. Since last fall we have been engaged and every month we talk about getting married which, so far, we haven’t managed to do. My life with him is quiet and too cherished to reveal much except that whatever I write about you goes the same for his Marlene. We live in gratitude for what we were lucky enough to have and what comes next.

This date, your death date, always hits me hard. Like clockwork this year and every year before, I have been sick. Knocked flat by a virus and as you would so eloquently say, “I am coughing up a lung.” I never know what to expect other than for a few days my body will remember the day acutely and will come crashing down in spectacular fashion. You’d think by now I’d be prepared but I never am and doubt I ever will be.

The world is a catastrophic dumpster fire and I’m glad you and the bruised heart you lived with aren’t here to be a witness to it. But despite that and many other challenges, in your absence we found our footing and have remembered to live. Memento vivere, and however that looks on the other side I pray the same for you.

love,
k.

P.S. The moon these last few days, right?

The seasons here in the Midwest can whipsaw you with its extremes, but like most places in the last ten years, what that looks like is undergoing massive change. This spring was very cool and rainy which is not typical for us. Usually spring lasts a few short weeks at best and then we’re catapulted into summer without much of a getting-to-know-you honeymoon period. The heat and humidity is oppresssive come July and August zapping your energy, your patience, and your ability to do anything outside.

Coupled with that the thunderstorms seem to be more intense and damaging than at any other time that I’ve lived here. The trees are repeatedly sending out an SOS call. “They’re getting old,” I keep hearing, “they’re at the end of their life span,” and I don’t buy that at all. While some are weakened due to disease there are others that seem healthy until one day you’re walking in the neighborhood and a giant limb is laying in somebody’s yard. It happened last month in our front yard and it turns out the chainsaw Michael bought at Costco two years ago was not a bad investment.

Now annually we hear that it’s the hottest year on record and at some point in the not so distant future the bough will break. Mark and I were once buying a lawnmower off Craigslist and the woman selling it was a scientist. She and Mark started talking shop and when he said he was doing some work on Anthrax she suggested he contact the Defense Department for research funding. It never materialized but he did go to a conference that was predominantly attended by military officials. He came home wide-eyed saying, “You want to know what our goverment considers the highest threat to national security? Climate change.” That was fifteen years ago.

This summer started with wildfires in Canada and Minnesota followed by horrific scenes from Europe. While we have our weather challenges here, I can’t think of anything more terrifying than a wildfire roaring through the place you call home. Massive flooding is so common now it hardly garners more than five minutes on the news. Catastrophic weather fatigue is our new normal.

Michael and I just came back from Sonoma and a trip up the California coast to see his family. We visited a winery and in talking to the sommelier I asked about the wildfires in France and how that will affect their wine in coming years. Sonoma has had significant losses for the same reason and he explained that if the fire burns the vine you can start over but if it affects the root of the grape then you have a wine that tastes like an ashtray. The only way you know is after you’ve harvested the grapes, crushed them, and made the wine which gets dumped after the first taste.

Driving north we stopped many times along the way in utter astonishment, me saying, “Oh my god,” a hundred times. We went with his family to a beach close to their house at low tide to collect sand dollars where we came across starfish clinging to a rock along the shore which felt like stumbling into a sanctuary. On our last day we drove to see the redwoods and I could have cried under the quiet beauty of those stately woods.

The following day we drove two plus hours to the airport under a canopy of trees followed by our last look at the wild coastline of Nothern California. From the time we got there the same thought repeated itself over and over.

This is our home. Why aren’t we doing everything to protect it?

Early after Mark died when I was talking to my therapist, I asked how I could possibly fill the enormous hole in my life when so much of it revolved around the husband who was dead and what he did for a living. Many times over she told me that I would eventually build a new life and it would have meaning. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes and sigh at such nonsense.

She also told me that over time grief would loosen its grip and each morning after that I woke up expecting to feel a little bit sad instead of devastated. It did not work like that. Instead, I held a new grandson, joined a writing community explicitly for grief, expanded a garden, lost one job to Covid and got another, painted a bedroom and moved all the furniture into it because the one we had always slept in was too much every night. It took me so long to find my widow legs that I didn’t notice that incrementally I was building a new life and planning ahead.

Along the way, though, I fought my circumstances at every turn. I hated being around married couples with their cute banter, hated seeing family vacation photos on social media, hated hearing about the success of Mark’s coworkers, resented having to be happy for anyone for any reason. Behind the smile and “I’m doing okay,”rage simmered inside of me.

Most of the people I was mad at were always on the periphery of our lives and not worth the effort. Mark was never one to go out of his way to be nice to people he didn’t like and couldn’t understand why you would waste the energy trying. One night while laying in bed, I replayed a conversation where an acquaintance suggested I look into volunteering at a dog shelter to augment my sadness. “On your days off,” she said, “you could go there and walk the dogs. I’m sure it would help.” I got defensive and over explained myself (as usual) instead of asking, “Can you imagine a bunch of stray dogs taking the place of your husband?” And in the darkness I took a stroll down the road of all the dumb stuff that had been said to me that drove me nuts until I reached a dead end where the sign said Surrender. You have to surrender the life you no longer have, you have to surrender to a future that looks vastly different than the one you thought you were promised, you have to surrender the people in your life who don’t serve this new version of you, you have to surrender to what it can be and not what it was.

I’d say it was an overnight success but I’m not that fast of a learner. I had to repeat that word to myself a thousand times over. I still do. I still get jealous of long married couples, I still look back at what was, I still hate that Mark isn’t in the thick of scientific research. But in the surrender I found a new version of me, a new relationship, and a future I could not see for a very long time.

Last month a friend lost her father suddenly. As if that’s not hard enough, her mom has dementia and cannot be left alone so in one phone call her entire life got turned upside down. Everybody not in her shoes seems to know what she should do which is unhelpful in every way. We started working together a few years ago so I checked in with her several times before she came back to the office because, holy shit, that’s a lot to deal with. Figuring out next steps will be a long process and after a glass of wine with her the other day I said what I’ve said to others in the throws of unrelenting grief, “You’re going to be okay. I don’t know how or when but I promise you will be.”

When you can’t see it you have to believe your way to it. For me it was, and continues to be, the hardest work I’ve ever done so if it helps you to have someone show up with some street cred and a flashlight give me a call. I’m your girl.