Author: Kathleen Fisher

Prior to Mark’s death we would drive to Chicago for Thanksgiving. It was easier than going during Christmas and less chance of dealing with snow or icy roads. After he died, I didn’t have the energy or desire to repeat our traditional trek to see family and pretend that any of us were okay. We were not and for the first time in many years I made a turkey dinner for the kids and me.

It was a very hard day for all of us. We were still in shock and the idea of celebrating Mark’s favorite holiday without him was absurb. At the very least I thought he should make an appearance, and if he had to go back to wherever he now resided, I’d let him go after he ate. So goes the magical thinking of grief.

Because Mark’s death was so new and fairly close to the holidays, we got a lot of support. The day was quintessentially fall – chilly, sunny, and gorgeous. Neighbors stopped by all morning, we got many phone calls and texts and felt wrapped in care and love. While grateful, we were heartbroken, trying to be brave, and attempting to eat a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with a lump in our throats that refused to budge. It was a painful day and collapsing in bed at the end of it was the highlight.

Last year Mike and I celebrated the holiday in a new house that was full of family, friends, and several of my coworkers who couldn’t make it home for the holiday. What a difference six years can make. While gathered around the kitchen island with glasses of prosecco, Mike welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming and I made the toast. “To all of you who have filled our home today, to those we wish could be here, and to those who watch us from the other side. Happy Thanksgiving…..let’s all meet here again next year.” The last part less a toast and more of a plea to the universe to keep everyone we loved beside us.

This week there will be many people like me and my kids during that first horrible Thanksgiving. People who are bereft, lonely, heartbroken, and in shock. To walk into a room and know you are accompanied by the dark cloud of loss, the one nobody knows what to say to, the one who can only manage a weak smile with fresh tears in your eyes is so very hard. Life may go on but it doesn’t go on smoothly or easily. It takes an enormous amount of guts to show up which is something only the experienced can appreciate.

If you follow me on social media you have heard this advice before but I think it bears repeating every holiday. If you are in the room with someone whose loss is fresh and painful, please do not turn away. There is nothing worse than putting yourself out into the world after a death and feeling like a pariah because it makes people uncomfortable. Will it feel awkward? Yes. Will it be hard? Absolutely, and so maybe this will help. Ask them what their person’s favorite part of Thanksgiving was, what they most looked forward to eating, if they had a tradition that they never swayed from. It’s a neutral question that brings to the surface more happy memories than sad and everyone who has lost someone dear to them loves to talk about them.

This doesn’t mean they won’t cry. Everything makes them cry but they are tears of loss combined with gratitude for days that are gone but not forgotten. Hold their hand, hold their gaze, hold their loss. Stay with them and for the briefest of moments make them feel less alone in their sorrow.

Mark’s loss is no longer new or as brutal and I can recall with fondness the memories we made around Thanksgiving. He loved pumpkin pie. I hated it so he learned how to make it and patted himself on the back every year for how great it turned out. He’d try to convince me to try it, I’d tell him no and he’d tell me I was missing out, that he couldn’t believe anybody could actually hate pumpkin pie. I can still see his smile, his vibrant eyes, his joy at being around a table full of family. My mom, who hosted Thanksgiving for years, would tell you that you need to buy several bottles of cold duck and to crack one open before anyone arrived.

Showing up for the holidays when your favorite person is missing is incredibly brave. Loss loosens its grip ever so slowly, you relearn how to breathe, and how to live your days not terrified of the future. It is a profound, holy journey that is only made less painful when you can feel the hands on your back of family and friends propping you up.

And since it turns out that those we love are still hanging around, while you’re on the phone with your sister and brother-in-law asking them (again) how to make the dressing, some of them are whispering in your ear that you really should give that pumpkin pie another shot and that a glass of cold duck makes for a more relaxed hostess.

Bless their missed hearts.

xo

My siblings and I spent our childhood going to wakes and funerals. Every year someone in our extended family would die and we would make the forty five minute drive to the city my parents grew up in for the wake. Back then this was a two day event followed by the funeral on day three. As young kids we were more familiar with funeral parlors than parks.

We watched all methods of mourning (or stoicism) and the influence this had on us was life long. The toughest death of all was our thirteen year old cousin and a room full of people in collective shock. When my grandma’s brother died and it was time to take the coffin from the funeral home to the church, my grandma threw herself on top of it and started wailing. My mom and dad scurried us out of there and later I would overhear Dad say how mad his mom’s behavior made him – the message being that you could mourn but for god’s sake keep the drama to a minimum.

A few years ago I was having a conversation with a close friend who had an uncle who was not long for this earth. “Remember,” she said, “how every time you’d go to a family function all the aunts and uncles would be sitting at the same table? They’d have their coffee and watch everything going on and comment amongst each other about everyone.” “Oh yes,” I said and could immediately picture every one of those people in my own family sitting together. “Now we’re those people,” she said. “We’re the older ones at all the family events having our coffee and saying do you remember so-and-so? Whatever happened to them?” It was as if I had never considered this for a single minute. What do you mean we’re the older aunts and uncles now?

My grandma’s niece was named Belle. I never knew the connection when I was growing up other than that they were related. They did everything together and were more like sisters. My dad once said that Belle was the kindest person he knew and Mallory has her middle name. Belle and her husband had one son, Hal. Hal was ten years older than my oldest brother and for us the ultimate cool guy. He was an architect and after he got married and we went to he and his wife’s house for the first time we were in awe. Up until then everyone decorated with whatever Sears was offering but this place was different than anything we had seen before.

For the entirety of our lives, Hal was there for every event – first with Carol who died from breast cancer and then his later in life partner and wife, Cindy. At some point a third cousin a few years older than you becomes your equal but every year when we would go back to Chicago for the holidays the first thing Hal always said to me was, “Hey, kid.” After our uncle died last year and then our mom, my sister and I would joke that we needed to protect Hal at all costs, wrap him in bubble wrap, and put him in a secure location because losing the last person in our parents’ extended family was too much to consider.

But this spring something did happen to him. He fell, was seriously injured, and for six months his wife moved heaven and earth to get him better. Cindy didn’t get the outcome she and the rest of us prayed for but she did get time with him and on my side of loss that is immeasureable. Last week I flew home for the services and was okay until the cemetery when in unison we repeated after the priest, “And may perpetual light shine upon him.” I knew if I let out a single sob it wouldn’t stop so I dug a fingernail into the palm of my hand and made it through to the end where we all walked away from an urn that held Hal’s remains as if that was a perfectly normal thing to do on a Tuesday.

In my life I don’t think there was anyone who opened up my eyes to design, gardening, and less is more (but make sure the less is good quality) more than Hal. He was an older brother to all of us, the last tie to everyone we grew up with, the ones who shaped our lives, the table full of relatives at every event.

My brother wrote some thoughts down to make at the funeral home and asked me to look them over. I wanted to add something but had no confidence in saying it out loud without my voice shaking so I said it was great and handed him the piece of paper back. Maybe it wasn’t the time or place to say that when Hal called someone a son of a bitch you believed it to be true even if you had no idea who he was talking about.

Now the aunts and uncles table has gotten turned on its head once again which is how life unfairly goes. But, oh my, were we ever the lucky ones for all those years when it was full to the brim. As for you, Hal, may perpetual light always shine upon on you. I don’t think you ever knew all the ways we adored you.

*Hal read everything I wrote and frequently commented the same thing every time – a single red heart.*

The past seven years have been the longest stretch of time in my life that I have not had a dog. A few months after I moved in with Michael he had to put down his dog, Izzy. In his old age, Izzy, never really took to me as he had many health issues including limited vision that made him wary of everyone. It was like living with a cranky old-timer at the nursing home that you would tiptoe past in fear you’d startle him causing him to bark at the wall.

Through my dogless years, my oldest daughter, Maggie, made it her mission to find the perfect dog for me. On a regular basis she would send me pictures of dogs at shelters that she thought would work. I looked at a few and once brought my granddaughter with me to look at one who was perfect but already adopted by the time we got there. When they asked me the kind of dog I wanted, I said, “Chill, not too barky.” They said they had the perfect one and brought out a chihuahua who didn’t get the barking memo.

After Izzy was put down, Michael and I talked regularly about getting a dog but we were traveling quite a bit. It never seemed like the right time until a few months ago when we started searching on a more regular basis. We mostly used PetFinder which has listings from all of the shelters nearby. We went to see a terrier mix – a sweet dog they told us, the perfect pet. It was clear this dog was very recently pregnant and nursing puppies which was not revealed in the listing or until we asked. “But we’ll get her fixed before you adopt her,” they said and we declined.

We went again to the same shelter a short time later and I’m going to climb on a soapbox here and shout to the wind WHAT IN THE NAME OF SARAH MACLACHLEN IS GOING ON WITH ANIMAL SHELTERS? We had to be buzzed in, surrender our drivers license for photo copying, fill out a questionnaire (again) as the last one was only good for thirty days, then get put in the queue to wait to see the dogs. In this case, two brothers surrendered by an elderly owner who could no longer care for them. When our name was called we had to meet with a pet consultant and go through another grilling as if we hadn’t just answered the same questions. Yes we own our house. Yes we have a fenced yard. Yes we have a vet. Yes we have owned dogs before. Yes we have a plan for when we’re at work. No we don’t have small children in the house. No we’re not sure about owning two dogs but here we are and there is a whole buildng full of pets that need homes so….. Finally we got to meet the dogs who could have cared less about us and by that point we’d been there so long I thought we were going to end up on their adoption site.

Not to be deterred for long, Michael spent his lunch hour looking at pets and sending their info to me. One was from a smaller rescue group and on my lunch hour I started filling out the adoption paperwork. Have you ever put a dog down? Why did you put the dog down? What was the date you put the dog down? Would you agree to having the dog meet your other pets? Would you agree to having a home visit so we can see the environment the dog would be in? I declared I was done. The hoop jumping trying to adopt a rescue dog had gotten too crazy for me. Michael pivoted and turned to Craigslist and next thing I know there’s the dog of my dreams in a text. A sweet, white terrier named Ghost whose young owner was moving and couldn’t bring him to their new apartment.

The next day we put the address in our phone and headed towards rehoming the dog I knew would be perfect. He was except that he barked at us nonstop the entire time we were there. I whispered sweet nothings to him and held my hand out and he never stopped barking. “He seems really afraid,” Mike said. “To be honest,” I said, “I think my big hair is scaring the shit out of him,” which would not be the first time that happened.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Ghost and the next day said maybe we should try again. I went to run a few errands and Mike found a dog at a different shelter and drove out to see him while I was gone. He thought it was a go and called back when I got home to make sure he was still there and I could see him. He already had a hold on him as smaller dogs are the Labubu(s) of the pet adoption world – everybody wants one.

Michael found another one on Craigslist – a very specific kind of doodle that goes for thousands of dollars and yet could be ours for the Very Low Price of $250. He sent me the link. He was cute all right but a few minutes later the link had been removed. “Just a misunderstanding with someone,” the seller said and after some back and forth we went the next day to look at him at a remote parking lot thirty minutes away. “We’re either coming home with a dog,” I said, “or we’re going to end up dead. ” We waited a bit in the empty lot, and I thought of every show I’ve watched on Netflix where some dumb shmucks end up in the wrong place and are held at gunpoint until they agree to be drug runners.

I may have exaggerated a wee bit because we met a very nice woman with a dog she couldn’t keep. She had three dogs and a new granddaughter with a heart condition that she needed to help her daughter manage. The youngest of her pack needed to be rehomed. I walked him and he didn’t pull, he immediately rolled over on his back when I went to pet him, he did not bark at us. We closed the deal and put him in the car.

A week later Michael said, “I think that woman drugged the dog when she introduced him to us because he is not that mellow.” No, he is not. He thinks the minute he leaves the house everybody can’t wait to meet him. He loves a cool, refreshing drink from the toilet bowl. He terrorizes the cat, running so fast into him every time he comes in from the backyard that he ends up tackling him. He eats his food, drinks his water, and gets in his face constantly. The cat loathes him and looks at us in contempt for bringing this buffoon into his otherwise quiet life.

But on a cute scale he is a solid 10++++++. He is so happy to start the day he can’t stand it. He loves when our grandkids come over because they run him ragged. Some days he’s good on his walks but more often than not he’s a shit. He likes to jump on the couch and knock every pillow on the floor. He pulls every toy he has out of the basket to the point that it looks like we’re running a daycare. He follows us everywhere as if we can only be successful with his input.

My criteria all along when we were looking for a dog was that I wanted a female and not a puppy. Meet Ernie – our seven month old puppy. 50% some kind of doodle, 50% unmedicated attention deficit disorder, and (not anytime soon) our good boy.

Before Mark’s death, I was a frequent contestant in the If That Were To Happen Me game. This is where someone throws out a tidbit of a life event and you fill in the blank. Sometimes it could be fun like spending mega millions from a lottery win or living abroad for a year. The food! The wine! The scenery!

More often than not, though, it is a more dire circumstance – death of a spouse, death of a child, a devastating diagnosis, making a decision about life support, an aging parent who cannot safely live on their own, an unwanted divorce, someone you love who is an addict, a fractured relationship beyond repair. The only rule of the game is that you have zero life experience with said topic which makes it obvious that you know exactly what the next right thing is to do. But what happens when life does hand you one of those circumstances, when you can no longer play the game you were so good at when nothing was at stake?

The summer Mark died was the same summer a dear friend’s husband was losing his life to cancer. They were taking a family vacation a few hours away from us and we drove down on a Sunday to meet them for the day. All of it was so normal – the conversations, the laughter, the ease of being with long-time friends, and yet crushingly sad. How I would glance at Jim and plead with the universe that he was too good to take. How I wanted to take him aside and promise him that I would be there for his wife, but every practiced conversation in my head got stuck in my throat. Little did I know then that my own husband was going to beat him to the other side by eleven days.

Three weeks after that visit there would be a horrific boating accident on the same lake we had been on when a duck boat would venture out in questionable weather that quickly became life threatening. Seventeen people on board would die, five of them children, who became trapped inside the boat. One woman who managed to escape with her nephew lost nine family members that day. The story was national news for many days and I watched in horror. We were just there. Five children? An entire family gone? How is this possible? I texted Carla. Did you see this? Can you even imagine? Two months later I would learn in my own life that everything can change in the blink of an eye and there is no going back from the edge of that.

We are all lousy contestants in the game of pretending we would know exactly what to do when life upends all that we cherish, though, we like to believe that is not the case. The chasm between what if and what now is too big to cross with any certainty save for those who got pushed to the side that was just fiction until it wasn’t.

And on that side the only thing we have figured out is that we are here and we have keep going.

On the month each year that is devoted to the awareness and prevention of suicide, the irony of my story is that it’s the same month my husband ended his life. Mark’s story is so painful for all of us who loved him that it has been, to date, daunting to even try to talk about prevention without enormous guilt for what was out of our control.

When you are suddenly thrust into the club whose name is only spoken in a whisper, you find out quickly that you have plenty of company. Both of my sisters have had family members on their spouse’s side that died by their own hand. While working in the back room of a retail job I had after Mark died, a coworker who heard about my story confided to me that her sister died by suicide, another an ex-boyfriend, the sons of two dear friends – one before Mark and the other after. The list is long and always heartbreaking.

I only have my own experience and am not qualified to make public service announcements, but I do have some thoughts regarding changes I wish for around discussions about suicide. First, please please please stop saying committed suicide. While there are all kinds of self-inflicted causes of death, there is no other kind where the word committed precedes it. Saying died by suicide feels far less shameful, and for someone in my shoes, like you are not judging or casting scorn on the death of someone whose back story and struggles you do not know.

Secondly, mimicking shooting yourself in the head, slitting your wrists, or any number of ways a person can die by suicide is not funny. There are far more people who have lived in the aftermath of these kinds of deaths than you can imagine- family, acquaintenances, strangers, and first responders to name a few. The horror of losing someone you love in that manner is a trauma shared by people who were merely going about their day or doing their job. It is painful to see it displayed as a joke. At the very least know your audience.

Third, if you love someone who is struggling with their mental health help them get professional counseling. After Mark’s death I felt nagged into seeing a therapist but had no idea who to contact nor the energy to follow through. Months later I finally reached out to a friend who worked in student counseling at the same medical center as Mark and her boss gave me a name. I went into a conference room at work and my shaking hands could barely push each number. When someone actually answered I immediately felt like I was going to throw up. In Mark’s case, casting him out to navigate finding the right therapist was unsustainable given his demons and the pain of growing up in a family that never acknowledged their own or that they passed them down to their two kids. In my case, I desperately needed help finding someone who specialized in grief. If anyone would have offered to do some homework on my behalf it would have helped immensely.

Finally, there’s this story. Many years ago Mallory was working at a restaurant during her college years and was at the hostess stand wiping off menus. One of the other hosts arrived for his shift and she started chatting with him. He was usually quiet and introverted and she was hoping to get him to open up a bit or at the very least make him laugh. Sometime later he told her that he had decided that he was going to kill himself later that day but that she seemed like she really cared how he was doing so he decided to stay.

Not every story like that ends happily but it is a stunning example of the power each of us have to prevent the tragedy my beautiful family (and so many others) have lived with for years. We really can change the trajectory of someone’s life when we care enough to carry their tender heart in the safety of our hands for a brief moment.

For many, many years in the shopping center in my neighborhood was a family owned drug store. It carried everything you could imagine including an interesting makeup section. I was working at a women’s clothing store around the corner when a customer told me about a moisturizer they carried. “It’s made by a small company and nobody else in town carries it. It’s a steal at $25 – go get yourself some. You won’t regret it.” That’s how I got to know the manager of the cosmetics department who gave me the details of that product along with many others that they carried. At night an older woman took over that section. She was close to 90, still worked full-time, and always the later shift because she was a night owl. “Soon as I get off here, honey,” she said to me one night, “I head home, stop at QuikTrip and get myself a nice big soda, and then do my crossword puzzles.” If you lived close by (they checked your license) and were sick the pharmacists would fill one bottle a year of cough syrup with codeine without a prescription. It was quite the perk.

Several years ago and in what seemed abruptly, the drug store closed. At the time I was working at an art museum and was talking to the gift shop manager about it. She told me that she worked there with the manager I had gotten to know and that they both started in high school. “She never left that job,” she told me, “it’s the only place she has ever worked.”

Last month a grocery store nearby announced that it would be closing. I used to go there all the time and was familiar with many of the employees. There was a bagger who had been there for years who hated bagging. One time when I was checking out he said that he had to go in the parking lot to corral carts. The cashier said to him, “No you’re not. You just did that. You’re going to stay here and bag this lady’s groceries,” which made him furious. There was another cashier who nearly always worked the express checkout near the front door and talked to every person who walked through. Her greetings were so genuine that you couldn’t help but immediately like her and look forward to seeing her. She died suddenly and you could feel the sadness of her coworkers for months. Her death made the local news, her photograph was displayed near the register she always worked, and a donation fund was set up for her surviving son.

After the store made the announcement that they were closing I stopped in twice. The butchers were mostly absent and there were no stockers cutting open boxes and filling the shelves. It had the feel of a place whose time had passed. At the same time a clothing store I loved announced that they were closing. I had shopped there many times – mostly when things were on sale as it was expensive. I was familiar with a few of the people who worked there. I talked to one of the sales associates about it, how closing a store could be emotional as customers come to pay their condolences as much as shop the deals. At some point you just want it to be over.

At work our usual mailman hasn’t been doing the route and everyone wants to know if he has been replaced. The new guy has no idea. The dropoff of packages from the UPS man are completely different when our regular guy is on vacation. I love our mailman at the house – he is so friendly, looks like he could be in ZZ Top, and who I am leery of being replaced. The butchers at the grocery store nearby ask, “Chicken again,” when I walk up to the counter. Michael said that when he goes to the coffee shop in his building they start filling his order when they see him coming.

I’ve been walking in the park earlier than usual and have recently come across an older woman using a walker as she traverses the path. As it has gotten a bit cooler in the morning, she is there wearing long pants, a sweatshirt, and knit cap on her head. The other day I started talking to her. She told me where she lived, that she and her husband bought the house she’s been in for decades because it was within walking distance of the Catholic school her son went to. He was afraid of the bus so they fixed that problem by moving close enough that he never needed to ride a school bus again. “I decided I needed to start moving more,” she told me, “so every day I’m trying to make it over here and am meeting the nicest people.” “Oh yes,” I told her. “I’ve been walking this park for years and there are lots of regulars here.”

Seeing her these past two weeks has been the highlight of my mornings because she reminds me so much of my mom who used to walk several times a day. I want to tell her that but I also don’t want to scare her off so I head out, hope I run into her, and wish on the morning sun that the other regulars in my life whose brief and steady presence I took for granted have all landed on their feet.

Dear Mark,

This week marks seven years since you died. In the early years after your death, I used to say that it felt like you were here yesterday and a thousand years ago. Now it only seems like the latter. I have recently been following the online account of a man who lost his husband a few months ago. I recognize the raw and unrelenting pain he has of losing his partner. I think anyone who has lived through that, regardless of the years that have passed, can attest to the fact that the pain can surface to the top very easily. I often want to reply to his stories – to say that somehow things start to get better, that grief lessens its clutch. I never do, though, because how do you tell someone that it really never ends, that you slowly manage to fill in the space around you until it no longer feels like it’s going to kill you.

The world of science, your world that you loved so much, has been decimated. I told the kids that even though it sounds horrible to say out loud I am glad you aren’t around to witness what is happening. Charlatans you would call them, and they are even worse than that. Michael and many, many others are fighting the good fight day after day but everything that has been done will take decades to undo. I miss your calm explanations of how science research works and how you could counter most arguments with facts readily at your disposal. Ever since Covid people rely on that one high school chemistry class they took in high school and YouTube hacks for their information. The ignorance is laughable except when it’s your life’s work. If you were here, it would break your heart.

Yesterday I was in the backyard at the house looking to see what plants I could find to move over to mine and Michael’s. Lo and behold there were morning glorys growing. After you died I never could get them to grow again and there they were this year – bright and happy and tangled around the roses.

Like you, Mark, still tangled in the lives of me, our kids, and everyone who loved you. Your death will reverberate forever but for what seems like a minute I could call you mine. That was my favorite part.

love,
k.

****************************

Dad,

The days after you passed were the darkest, coldest days of my life. One of those days was rainy and gloomy. I looked out the window and saw life carrying on and something caught my eye. The hummingbirds were braving the heavy rain and flocking to the feeder. Seeing one always feels like a rare occurrence and on that day it felt like a sign from you – a way to freeze the moment and breathe.

As the years have gone by I often think about my future. What does it look like? Who will I be? In those questions there is always another one that follows. What would it look like if you were here? Where would you be?

My future became a blur this past year and I’ve had to rethink everything and rewrite what it looks like. But I’ve rebuilt myself and refilled the hummingbird feeder. At first it took awhile for them to come back. Now I see them almost every day, and when I see the hummingbird I instantly stop and watch – putting my future on hold for just a moment to be with you.

Will

Last month Michael and I went away for a few days. Nearly all of the trips we have taken since we met have been work related for him so we decided that maybe a long weekend not structured around a meeting would feel more like getting away. Our criteria in picking a place was that it had to be cooler than the Midwest and near water. Bar Harbor, Maine won because of its proximity to Acadia National Park. Our first full day there we walked to town and down to the waterfront, went to a bookstore and touristy shops, had lunch, and wandered.

Prior to going, I had contacted Mark’s first boss in the science world – the young upstart professor who recruited him to work in his lab and guided him to a PhD. I knew he and his wife had been going to Maine every summer for decades and it seemed crazy to be in the same town as them and not reach out. It took a bit to be able to get a hold of them but when I did we had a tentative plan to meet for a drink. As regulars in the area, they suggested a place to go that was just outside of Bar Harbor.

“Try to get a table outside,” they said, and there we were on a lovely Saturday night overlooking the water with, Steve, who I last saw six years ago and his wife, Mary, who I had last seen 38 years ago. It turned out to be an easy conversation between three scientists and me – much of it around the current state of affairs with funding being slashed, the morale amongst students and junior faculty, and finding a way through the mess.

When that had been hashed out, they asked what we were going to be doing the following day. With the exception of going to Acadia, we never had a plan for any day of this trip. Being near water and nature was all we needed but they were clearly planners and we waffled. Mary then asked, “What do you like to do for fun? Do you like to hike? Bike?”

What do we like to do for fun?? I had no idea how to answer that except to say that people like me don’t have fun. We worriers can find a hundred reasons why either of those activities could lead to death. I faked it, though, and went with the hiking thing because everybody says they hike because everybody thinks it sounds cool. They had a lot of suggestions and I listened and nodded like a badass with a sturdy pair of Merrells and a CamelBack.

The next day Michael and I had breakfast, went to an antique store, then lunch, and headed back to our inn. A few blocks away was a sand bar that every day during low tide you can walk across to one of the islands off of Bar Harbor. There are warnings to pay attention to the tide because when it rises the sand bar disappears and you could be stuck on the wrong side until the next day and low tide.

We had gone there on our first day and I wanted to return. The sand bar is home to thousands and thousands of rocks of all sizes – most covered with barnacles. I loved them and wanted to bring some home so we headed over there and I began my rock hunt. This time, though, we walked across to the other side and though we were in no danger of being stranded there, my anxiety at the thought of it was off the meter. I had visions of being marooned, of weird birds pecking at my head all night, and mostly not getting back to our inn in time for their fresh baked coffee cake and locally brewed coffee. I shut that down (thanks anxiety meds!) and then hunted, picked up and saved, picked up and tossed, gave a yeah or nay to ones Michael found, and said more than once, “If I lived here I’d come with a front loader and get some of these huge ones for my garden.” We worked our way across the sandbar and filled a small backpack with the keepers.

The next day we crammed our rocks into our carry ons and suitcases and headed to the airport. Remember when Southwest let you check one bag for free? Well, they don’t anymore and my little rock haul cost $70. When we got home I unwrapped them along with the shells I picked up and thought it was a little crazy. But I had the same idea in Ireland, the beach a few years ago in Gulf Shores, the beaches in Florida more than once, and several national parks.

I am a long-time admirer of fun people who seek the next thrilling experience throughout their life. I love seeing their social media posts and photos. More often than not I want to be one of them, but every day I look at my dumb bowl of rocks and shells and remember where all of them came in case anyone asks.

Some adventures are a whisper.

When Michael’s new home was finished and closed on, he was moving from an apartment he had lived in for a few months, emptying a storage unit and moving the contents, and continuing to work. He had been juggling a lot for many months and I offered to unpack some of his things on my days off.

Much of his belongings had been sold in an estate sale. The things he wanted to keep from the house he and his wife, Marlene, had lived in for years was packed with the help of his sisters. Both of them would put professional movers to shame. There wasn’t a single thing broken – everything carefully wrapped in paper, bubble wrap, or both.

In the empty house during the cold and overcast days of December, I opened the boxes marked Kitchen, upwrapped every piece, and then gathered everything on the island until I had amassed all the wine glasses, all the plates, all the pots, the silverware. Then I would open drawers and cabinets and figure out where everything should go. The daily things next to the stove and the things used less higher up in the cabinets. The house was deathly quiet with no tv or music to distract – only me and the contents of a kitchen from a woman who had loved and built a life with the same man as me. It was unnverving, sad, and surreal.

When Michael came home he was apologetic. “We don’t have to keep any of this,” he said, “we can get all new stuff if you want.” It would be months later before I moved in so that didn’t seem like a logical decision. “It’s fine,” I said, thinking that him seeing the things of a life he no longer had in a kitchen with someone else in it had to be even more unnerving, sad, and surreal.

I moved in during late spring and added my own things, but much of what we use every day are things Marlene bought. She had very good taste. The dishes I reach for over and over are classic blue and white. There is a panini maker that had never been used. I always longed for a Le Creuset dutch oven but could never bring myself to pay for one. In the boxes I unpacked was an orange one that I have used many times. There is a rice maker, a Cuisinart toaster oven/air fryer, and spices that I have never used. All the belongings of another woman’s kitchen.

In this new life there are many times I think I don’t deserve any of this. Times when I look at this house and know this came to be because of what Michael and Marlene built not Mark and Kathy.

But when my grandson has a soccer game it is Michael and I that sit and cheer from the sidelines. When my granddaughter had a piano recital we sat next to each other watching her. On Sundays my kids come for dinner. When they leave all three of my grandkids hug us goodbye, often running towards Michael with outstretched arms. Children that are the result of a life Mark and Kathy built not Michael and Marlene.

Last month the two of us took a short trip to Maine. We have been using a car service to go to the airport whenever we leave town and have gotten to know the driver. He was very chatty on this last trip and told us about all the hobbies he dabbles in. Some we knew about but this time he told us about his love of biking and how he has taught himself how to sew and now alters his own clothes. Later Michael said to me, “Don’t you think it’s interesting that Robbie loves doing the same things as our late spouses? Marlene with the sewing and Mark with the biking?”

There are many things that feel foreign to both of us and probably always will, but then there is this driver who showed up on our driveway shining light and unbridled enthusiasm on what we thought we had lost.

If you were to lose someone you dearly loved tomorrow I would tell you that the veil between here and there is as slim as the eye of a needle. Time after time it beckons you to look through it, and when you do you could swear that everyone you ever loved has never left you.

My childhood memories of my mom during the summer are of her being miserably hot for the entirety of it. At no time did I ever hear her declare a love for that season – she was an unabashed fan of winter. Eventually her and Dad got a window unit air conditioner for the family room and since that was also where the washer and dryer were that’s where she would be most of the day. At night we would go to sleep with the windows open and the attic fan cooling us off like old-timers.

Summer temperatures back then were not as high as they are now but there were also very few homes that had central air conditioning. Being outside during the day under the shade of a tree was a far better option than being inside the stifling house. Now the climate has heated up and what has been inherited and brewing for years has come to fruition.

I am my mother’s daughter. I hate summer.

While I’m surrounded by summer lovers, I am a stewing in my own sweat waiting impatiently for a predicted cool front to move through. When it finally does and the temperature drops four degrees and the humidity level goes from 69% to 63% I AM APPALLED. A cold front? That’s a why-you-playing-me front. I want that Lake Michigan thunder and lighting show that rattles the house, keeps you up half the night, drops the temperature thirty degrees, makes you grab a sweatshirt the minute you wake up, and has your mom joyfully saying over a cup of steaming coffee, “Thank god.”

For reasons I do not understand, summer people think that eating outside is a given when the temperature climbs. In the meantime my hair grows like Fred Flintstone’s thumb when he smashes it with his bowling ball. This has been my reality for as long as I can remember only this year my big, fat, humid hair decided it wants to be in on the sweatfest. While I’m sitting on a lawn chair with a beer and a burger it’s hard to distinguish if the sweat is dripping from my face or my hair onto my paper plate. Good times.

Inevitably someone will say something dopey like, “It’s not bad out,” or “Can you feel that breeze? Now that’s what I’m talking about.” Are you really talking about that one branch that ever-s0-slightly moved two inches one way and then another? For that one time? Cuz what I’m talking about is that we cross the threshold into that air conditioned house to keep cool instead of being out here like a bunch of martyrs waiting our turn to be charred at the stake.

One of our local tv stations has something called the EOI during their weather report- the Eat Outside Index. In spring and early summer there are many days that are a 10 which is no surprise. That’s when everyone wants to be dining al fresco including me. They haven’t even had the EOI in the last month because eating outside would be at your own peril. Ya ding-dong.

So far this summer I have googled heat exhaustion, heat headaches, heat deaths, neck fans, and a real Hail Mary – Are Old People More Affected By The Heat? Yes. Yes we are. Then I googled heat anxiety because I swear on the cool side of my mother’s final resting place that when I’m sitting with a group of people who say they’re hot but aren’t sweating it makes me anxiety sweat.

Dining al fresco in the heat and humidity of the Midwest looks nothing like the pages of Have Your Best Summer Ever! magazine. It is beat red faces, mopped brows, pitted out shirts, stinging eyes from sweat dripping into them, slapping bugs, and barely being civil to each other because everyone is hot, cranky, and sitting on the opposite side of the most amazing invention.

A temperature controlled environment.