A month of Love

Forty four thousand six hundred forty minutes
Forty four thousand six hundred tiny affronts
Forty four thousand six hundred forty minutes
How do you measure, measure a month?

In candy
In cars gone
In late nights
In empty dishwashers
In bird seed
Ted Lasso
and Schmigadoon

Forty four thousand six hundred forty minutes
How do you measure a month in a life?
How about Love?

—With apologies to “Seasons of Love” from Rent

So, it's been a month—a day? forever? time is funny that way—since Vic went to join Wags at the Rainbow Bridge.

And although my mindset is to focus on—and be happy about—what we had rather than what I no longer have, I have been thinking about what I have missed most. (And what I haven't missed at all—for example, the way he never checked to see if the ice cube door was shut after he filled his glass with ice. Hint: It almost never was, so warm air was always getting into the freezer, which ended up making me have to defrost the ice bucket almost every week. No. I do not miss that.)

But as I suspected, it's the little things.

• Quite a number of years ago, I off-handedly mentioned how nice it would be to have a Snickers fairy. A Tinkerbell who would deposit a bite-sized Snickers on my pillow every night. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what happened next. That's right. A bite-sized Snickers showed up on my pillow one night after work, attributed to the Snickers fairy. (Although—even though the Snickers fairy was secure in his manhood—he preferred to be called The Phantom. I think it was the comparison to Tinkerbell that was the deal breaker.) Over the years, the candy changed—sometimes Snickers, sometimes Baby Ruth, Reese's, Dove Promises, or the coveted Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark at Christmastime—but The Phantom never did. The Phantom kept his candy stash in the house, and I found it, so I am still getting the candy, but when this stash is gone, so will be The Phantom.
• I am not attached to (most) things. This T-shirt is not Vic. That tennis racquet. Those shoes. And the Volvo. It's just a car. So I set about donating it to the Longmont Humane Society. I filled out the online form, scheduled the pickup, prepared it for donation. When the fellow came to get it, we did a quick jump start—it still ran great as long as the battery was charged!—and I pulled it out of the garage one last time. That's when all those memories washed over me. It wasn't just a car—it was the Vic and Wags adventure car. They went everywhere in that car—short trips, long trips, fun trips, boring trips. It wasn't just a car—it was a symbol of all Vic had lost in the last several years. And so I stood in the middle of the street and watched that symbol drive away until it rounded the corner and I couldn't see it anymore. In the end, it really was just a car, but in that moment—one of 44,640 minutes in the last month—it was everything.
• Talk about little things—it's not that I didn't know how the dishes got from the dishwasher to the cupboard, or how the birdseed got from the storage bin to the bird feeders to the tree, or how Bella's water dish got filled, but I sure did take them all for granted. I actually had to set an alarm on my phone to remind me to check Bella's water dish every day. #DogMomFail
  
• And then there's Schmigadoon. Vic and I are huge fans of musicals, so if you make a TV show that's a parody of musicals; cast Cecily Strong, Keegan-Michael Key, Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenoweth; and get Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) to direct, that's a no-brainer. We're gonna watch that. But it premiered while Vic was in hospice care, and he just wasn't interested in it. So I sat down to watch it a couple of weeks ago with great trepidation. It was hilarious. Touching. Fun. Silly. And hilarious. (That's right—hilarious twice.) TV was our thing. We would watch a new show and talk about what we liked—and especially what we didn't. Decide whether to apply our three strikes rule or make it a pop-up foul ball—you're out! So although I loved it, the memory of it will always fill me with melancholy.
• And do not get me started on Ted Lasso. That launched last year to great fanfare—except in our house. The previews made it look like just the kind of show we don't like—stupid southern guy trope, fish out of water, a little-too-quirky supporting characters—and a rip off of Major League, a movie we loved. But when your sister makes you part of her family plan on Apple TV+ and doesn't make you pay for it and wants you to watch Ted Lasso, you watch Schmigadoon. And when you finish watching Schmigadoon, then you watch Ted Lasso. The previews got it all wrong. Southern guy is smarter than he seems, fish isn't entirely out of water, supporting characters are just the right amount of quirky—and surprisingly well-written (and played by some brilliant actors, along with the superb Jason Sudekis in the lead role). But it's even more than that—it's sweet. Tender. Funny. Heartbreaking. I think Vic would have loved it. So again, it's really hard to watch.
• As for the late nights, well, I've always been a night owl. As I'm typing this sentence, it's 12:46 a.m. At first, I was busy working on what I call “the business of death.” Planning the service, making notification calls (to people and businesses), and dealing with mountains of paperwork. It was a lot, and I don't like to have things hanging over me, so I would work from the time I got up in the morning until well past midnight. It was great because I would fall into bed exhausted and go right to sleep. But now that the big push is over, I've actually had a few nights where I was in bed by 10. I much prefer the late nights. Going to bed and not being sleepy is a recipe for all those negative thoughts you have when someone close to you passes away. Did I spend enough time with him? Did he know how much I loved him? Did I provide enough comfort in the end? The answer to all these questions is “no, of course not” (can you ever spend “enough” time with someone you love?). But for me, the answer is also “yes, of course.” Because it has to be “yes” or it will lead to a spiral of self-doubt and regret, and Vic would not have wanted that.
  

So that's it. That's my first month. In answer to the question I get asked by at least one person every day, my stock answer is, “I'm OK. Ups and downs.” But I think, overall, more ups. Because I choose to remember Vic with happiness. When a memory comes unbidden, I choose to remember it fondly. I laugh at the things we laughed about. I smile at the in jokes we had (and we had a lot of them!). In the words of the great Lloyd Bridges in Cousins, “You've got only one life to live. You can either make it chicken shit or chicken salad.” Obviously I'm not gonna make it chicken salad. Celery, onion, Dijon mustard. Gross. But you get the point. Maybe a nice Caesar salad with chicken.

I leave you with one of Vic and Wags's greatest adventures—the time Vic and Wags got in the car, backed out into the driveway ... and then just sat there for a few minutes and drove back into the garage. He was in one of his physician-imposed driving moratoriums and, as usual, made a little chicken salad out of it by creating this classic video.

As always, I know there are people who can't click on the embedded link in my blog, so here is a direct link to the YouTube video: Vic and Wags on their grand adventure.

Thank you all for your continued support. Certainly my ability to weather the downs is in large part a result of you all uplifting me and buoying my spirits. 💖