At peace but not resigned

It’s your birthday; my social media feed is full of reminders of you. I haven’t cried over you in a very long time, it is all catching up to me today.

I had so much to say to you. Mostly, thank you. You set my life on the right path. You saw only the best in me, or appeared to; surely you noticed what was not best, but you never made me feel bad about it. You were a prince of second chances. I wonder if you knew that I always felt I didn’t deserve you. When you told me I was the smartest person you’d ever met besides S., I was shocked. I was not; you knew many brilliant people. I was just smart in a different way than you and the engineers you were surrounded by. But it was something I always tried to live up to. My greatest regret is that I never became published while you were alive. Since you died I’ve had 7 short stories published, and completed my first book; it is now being illustrated, and I’ve decided to take the leap to self-publish it. It is my sincere hope that your kids like it; I wrote it, in a way, with them in mind.

A friend of mine who died quite young, like you, once challenged me to write a haiku a day for 100 days. I found I really liked the challenge of the structure. Shortly after, you died, and I continued to write haiku (with photos, so they are haiga). Most of them are about you. Yesterday a friend wrote to me, saying “Your haigas and haikus have addressed deep loss for some time now. Perhaps I missed the cause of this sorrow in your life. I hope in time you'll find peace.” Which is maybe his way of saying, Get over it already, we’re tired of hearing about it. The poet Donald Hall wrote a lot about his wife Jane after she died, and maybe had the same feelings - his haiku often comes to mind:

Will Hall ever write
lines that do anything
but whine and complain?

Sadness isn’t monotonous, but expressing it is. It’s strange how it feels fresh and new but also old and familiar each time it arrives. But yeah, after three years, maybe I don’t have a lot of originality left. Maybe it’s time to stop sharing haiga.

The thing is, I’m not not at peace. It’s not even that I miss you specifically - that happened after our divorce so many years ago. Now, what I miss is knowing you are in the world, living the life you deserve. It’s so unfair. I think of the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dirge Without Music.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.

That’s it, that’s it exactly - I do not approve, and I am not resigned. Why should you be gone, when so many others get to stay. I almost wrote, so many others who are unworthy, but who is to judge who is unworthy. I only know that you lived your life in such a way that no one could fault you; you were guided by an interior moral compass, while so often surrounded but people guided by nothing more than what they thought they could get away with, me included (though not anymore).

What I am is resolved, to not waste life, to not waste love. To appreciate friendship and kindness and beauty. To keep my opinions to myself, unless they can really help, and make the other person know they are loved and respected and cared for. To have no expectations, to take care of myself, to live fully in the present. Maybe most of all to let my husband know every day of his life how much I appreciate him. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have recognized him for the amazing person he is. I owe you thanks for this happiness I have.

I no longer wake up thinking about you, or walk the streets crying openly while listening to songs that remind me of you. My sadness is quieter with more dignity, much like you. I wish I could have told you, thank you for loving me. Thank you for helping me, believing in me, taking my side. Thank you for being proud of my accomplishments, and being honest with me about my writing in those first raw efforts to try and ‘be a writer’. You were right in everything you said, and yours is still the editorial voice I hear in my head. Thank you for running with me, and traveling with me, and growing up with me, learning how to be an adult. All those nights staying up late drinking wine and talking until 3:00 a.m. Those huge parties we threw in Houston, in that gigantic house that we mostly bought just because it had a pool. All those firsts together: first airplane trip, first time visiting another country, first time skiing, first time scuba diving, first time running a marathon.

Thank you for not letting me waste money on the dumb shit I wanted to waste money on; I’m so frugal now, you’d laugh (but in appreciation). Thank you for the musical education, the soundtrack of my 20s and 30s. Thank you for all the fun, for living your philosophy of working hard enough but no harder, for prioritizing joy and adventure and experiences. Thank you for the tenderness, the sweetness, and the love, even after I so unforgivably left you, us. You never blamed me; you even told me not to cry, that we both made mistakes.

Thank you especially for letting me be one of the few people who knew in advance that you were leaving this world. It has meant everything to me, to get that chance to speak with you one last time, to send you an email that gave you happiness and comfort at the end. I think I’m almost ready to end this blog now; I don’t think there is a lot more to say. How many times, how many ways can I tell you how I loved you, how sorry I am for my mistakes, how glad I am that you found love again, how sad I am and will always be that we will never have that future sit down together with a beer, your kids grown, both of us old and full of memories.