Author: ferylfiles

March is such a hopeful month, full of light and flowers, possibilities, too. The hyacinth in the planting strip have bloomed. The tulips won’t be far behind. The vernal equinox is the 19th. Our wedding anniversary is the 20th. My Mom’s birthday is the 22nd. Hope and melancholy mix like the smell of decaying leaves and fresh flowers. They live side by side. They always have. I just notice more now.

I am excited to clear the beds in the backyard, make a plan for new flowers and vegetables. The idea is to remove the decaying back deck and replace it with a red brick patio from a mountain of bricks that have been beside this house for years. (Red brick and a green and white house–I’m determined to carry a little Athens, Ohio, and Ohio University with me wherever I go.)

The melancholy hits a little harder when the sweetness of life is so good. My heart aches for my husband to be with me so we can cook, and talk, and play. I miss my mama and wish she could hug me, demonstrate what grace and forgiveness in action look like all over again, and remind me once more that I’m brave. I’m surrounded by family, friends, coworkers, neighbors who make this life rich. Full heart. Broken heart. Every day.

I find that on the cusp of a season change, I have one or two really wakeful nights. Maybe my body is adapting to the lighter days, maybe it’s more than that. Lack of sleep brings more things to the surface, too. I’m crying a little more easily of late. That’s the nature of grief–always present, manifesting itself as it will.

I was talking to my co-worker the other day, post time change, about how I go to bed early now. Before I met Bryan and while we were dating and I lived on my own, I would regularly stay up past 11pm, maybe get six hours of sleep or so, and do that on repeat. I drank a lot of coffee; I was pretty wired, anxious, and exhausted. After we got married and I moved in, my rhythm of life began to match Bryan’s. He needed a solid eight hours, really loved nine, and on occasion would stretch to ten hours or occasionally short himself to six or seven. But mostly, it was bed between 9 and 10pm and up between 6 and 7am.

Bryan loved breakfast and busty brunettes (like Ron Swanson)–so we would be up early to have a full eggs, potatoes, fruit breakfast practically every morning and he would spoil me with my eggs cooked to order. Restful routine. Remarkably, I still do my best to get to bed early. I still get up to have breakfast (more along the lines of fruit, yogurt, granola, and nuts) early.

Why this description about restfulness and routine? I guess it’s these little elements of my daily life that continue to delight and surprise me. Bryan’s faithful habits and ways of walking in the world continue to affect me, help me, wrap me up in his goodness. I miss him so much and I feel all the ways he’s still here. How lucky am I to have had him as my person?

I’ll never fully get over the fact we can get in a metal tube with wings, fling ourselves in the air, and be on the other side of the country or the world in a day. It’s pretty incredible to be in cold Walla Walla one day and then Florida and the tropics just a few days later. I got to be on a cruise ship, one of the smaller ones out there, that’s about 100 feet longer than the Titanic was. Cartegena, a city nearly 500 years old, had sky scrapers in one section that they referred to as their Miami. Going through the Panama Canal, seeing all the tankers, shipping vessels, cruise ships waiting to pass the locks, was remarkable. I learned a lot on this trip–wonderful, fascinating, heartbreaking, and infuriating all at the same time. If you’d ever like to catch coffee, I’d be happy to chat.

But coming home–there’s something so wondrous about home. Every tour guide had that same sound in their voice–love for home. Their love for their places had that mixture of awe and chagrin. Here are the things that are great. Here are the facts of history we can’t change and how we bear the consequences of them. Here’s what we would like to change and the challenges to doing so. An honest look of home is like that. I love this place. To live here, it’s imperative to have an honest look and understanding of the history we can’t change. And sometimes with that comes responsibility and chagrin in facing the consequences of that history and new challenges simultaneously.

Our biggest industries–wheat, wine, tourism–are dependent on Walla Walla’s location, soil, and climate. Things that affect a small island in the Caribbean also affect us. We, too have an indigenous and migrant history. Concerns of fresh water, land, energy, and changes to climate are ours, too. The cost of living (to rent or to buy a home particularly), the increasing gap between the haves and have nots, and those with the means and power ensuring they maintain it–is not different with different scenery; it’s just a different flavor of the same thing.

I am happy to be home in this familiar, beautiful setting that gets increasingly so as the light comes back and the early flowers like snowbells (snowdrops/johnny-jump-ups) and crocus start to appear. My kid, friends, coworkers, kitties seem happy to have me home, too, and that’s an incredible feeling.

This week, there was a Chamber of Commerce event where folks in our community were honored for their service. Teachers, firefighters, police, members of the three colleges in town, got honors. Whitman chose Sarah Hurlburt for her work related to Frenchtown, history of people and place, and they also honored Bryan’s memory for his contributions to our town, too. It was such a great reminder that this town is full of folks who love this place, who recognize the complicated history that got us to now, and who are also doing their very best to make it better. Sarah is doing that. Bryan did that. It’s easy to throw rocks and complain about things you don’t like. Statler and Waldorf-ing the world, can be amusing, but it doesn’t get anything done. I’m glad to be home and among folks who get stuff done for all our benefit.

Over the last week or so, people have sent me little messages, notes of encouragement and love. Sometimes they just send me funnies to help me laugh. I appreciate every single one. Thank you.

Grief is universal in that we all experience it in some measure or another. And it’s as personal and unique as each individual. It’s very easy to second-guess what to do or say because the “do unto others” paradigm doesn’t always fit so neatly. I might like X, but so-and-so my hate it, preferring anything but X. I have a couple of examples that come to mind that bring a chuckle…now.

But I can say without hesitation how much I appreciate these little texts and notes and affirmations of our shared humanity. All of you have made this past year do-able. Thank you. I love you.