A Year Ago

I’m not generally big on commemorating events. We celebrate major holidays and birthdays and our wedding day, but everything else … I guess I just haven’t ever been really big on that.  I haven’t counted the days since Tom died.  I don’t find myself thinking ” it’s been six months”.  But today I can’t help remembering that a year ago I was sitting in a hospital waiting room waiting to hear if my husband’s bypass surgery was successful.  I was alone and I wouldn’t let myself consider any outcome other than a good one because I couldn’t imagine getting the news that he had died without anyone there to support me. 

Last summer was the kind of summer that made me think that I’d have to pick a new favorite season.  Andrew was in major trouble for theft and was grounded, which meant that I got no breaks at all from him.  And then Tom had surgery and spent the rest of the summer recovering from that.  We missed the family reunion and the trip we had planned with Tom’s brother and family.  We just sat in our bedroom and watched “Veronica Mars” and started to make a few feeble plans as Tom began to feel better.  

This summer there have been no hospitals.  This whole year there have been no medical supplies of any kind in our home.  It’s weird.  This summer my parents invited Andrew to stay with them, so I have had a good long stretch where I could relax that part of me that is constantly aware of what he is doing. This summer I have enjoyed the warm days and the rain and getting together with my brothers and their families.  I have done a few projects around the house and spent a lot of time reading and writing and doing family history research (which is surprisingly addictive).  It’s been a good summer by any standard and certainly by comparison to last summer. 

I’m approaching the milestone year since Tom died.  I’m not sure what to expect but I don’t imagine I will be able to treat it as any other day.  It’s been a hard, lonely year.  But it has also been a year of grace and love and faith and growth.  I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about summer this year but surprisingly it has been a season of peace.  So I hope that as I look forward to another year without Tom, I will be surprised by good.