Year 3 - Alone

As Valentine's Day starts to make its approach for the year I'm seeing a lot of emails and texts with a heart made this way... <3 

It's really sweet but to me it looks like a broken heart with the number 3.  And for 3 years now my heart has been broken.

When I purchased my new 2017 calendar I flipped open the cover to reveal January and all I saw was the big bold black 27.  There it was, that date that says remember me? I'm the date that Dale died. Three times now I will have seen that date come and go.  Three times I will have ached.  Three times I will have tried to celebrate his life on that day rather than concentrate on being left alone and to some degree I have been successful at doing that.

Yesterday I listened to a song written and performed by a young man who had lost his wife to an illness. I immediately knew that he lives what I live. Solitary, prayerful and not ever wanting to say goodbye, moments of gratefulness and joy for having had such a loved one but at the same time wanting to shake your fist at the sky and feel anger. A "contrariety of emotions" I think Jane Austen would call it.

But the song, instead of making me feel better, began pulling me into the dreaded abyss of sadness that grabs onto your heart making it ache for the things that could have been and then it just breaks again. "STOP" I said right out loud!  "JUST STOP!" Going there serves no purpose. Things just don't always go as planned!

And with that thought I start to recall how many times in my life things haven't gone according to my plans. Many things have but many simply have not! The biggest of course being Dale getting so sick and leaving me alone long before we were able to do all of the things we had planned for this life.

And then the reminiscing of this new subject begins, uninvited but interestingly not unwelcomed, so I let it roll. Back through time, back through the memories of things in my life that didn't go as planned.  Through the decades I hop scotch and go back to one of the earliest...

There were a couple of clothing stores on Main Street of the small town where I spent my first 10 years of life.. “The Classic Shoppe” where I never entered although a cousin-in-law (she was married to my much older cousin) prepared the fancy window displays - we thought her to be very cosmopolitan. There was also the “Deb N Heir” a upscale children’s clothing store that I only went to on one very memorable day when I was just 7 years old.

There was a girl in my school class named Shelley. 

I never liked Shelley.  

She came to school donned in frilly clothes, with layers of ruffled petticoats. She would sit at her desk and preen her skirt over the petticoats till every fold was just so and then she would lace her pretty fingers, ceremoniously place her hands on the desk, cross her dangling ankles and wait for everyone to look at and admire her. She always wore pretty white socks that folded down just right with lace around her ankles and shiny black Patten leather shoes. Her black hair was always in perfect little ringlets and was adorned with satin ribbons that were always color coordinated to her ensemble. Her nose and chin were always pointed up, for to allow anyone to be given a smidgen of her royal attention was too much beneath her. 

I really didn’t like Shelley. 

I received an elegant invitation to her 7^th birthday party.  I didn’t want to go but Mother was quite excited and nervous about it. Shelley’s father had been a high school boyfriend of Mother’s, now a successful, well to do citizen of the town.  

The ill-fated day of the party came. Mother dressed me up in my best outfit and we went down for our first visit to “Deb N Heir”. The saleslady was very helpful. She and Mother determined that a new hat would be the perfect gift for Shelley. I knew that it was expensive and much nicer than anything that I ever dreamed of having. The lady was delighted with Mother’s selection and wrapped it up in flowery paper and tied it with an angelic little bow. She went to the card display and said, “Such a pretty gift should have just the right card” and her choice really was gorgeous.  Flowers, flowers everywhere, inside and out! The decision was obvious and a pen was placed in my hand to sign my name. 

Mother was also dressed in her Sunday best and we drove to the perfect large house and walked up the perfect sidewalk through the perfect petunia bordered yard to the perfect front door and rang the bell which chimed perfectly - like the bells of Westminster.  Mrs. Perfect came to the door. She looked down on us and flashed an arrogant smile. “The party was yesterday.” She announced “But do come in…Shelley, dear,” she called over her shoulder, “You have a little friend with a gift for you.”  

We were ushered into the French provincial living room and sat on the white sofa. The woman was obviously delighted with our little mishap. I said nothing…the conversation between the two women was painfully polite. We waited and waited for Shelley to make her entrance. At last she wafted into the room, grabbed the present, ripped off the card and read it aloud, “Get Well Soon!” She read. The woman tittered, mother gasped. The girl tore the pretty paper and unceremoniously pulled out the costly hat. Silence. And then she said, “Mother can I go now?” and she was gone. The hat lay in the tattered box on the floor. 

I never liked Shelley.

Defeated, Mother and I drove silently home. That certainly didn't go according to plan.

But I survived. And so did Mother.

And you know what? I survived ALL of the other things through the years that didn't go according to my plans as well.  So even with the biggest of these, I'm putting on my brave...making more plans - fully aware that some might not work out exactly how I think they will but I realize that working at them is what keeps life moving forward. And I somehow know that Dale is there supporting my planning and patiently waiting to see what I find.


So, tomorrow is the 27th marking 3 years.  And I am suddenly feeling like I shouldn't keep saying that he left me alone.  Because he has been with me.

My dear sweet sister proclaimed via a text (in her compassionate and loving way) that we are getting together tomorrow for a day of shopping and lunch and "whatever else I want to do".  It will be a good day, just the kind of day Dale would want me to have.