A Rocky 38th anniversary

 Rocky Mountain National Park, that is.

Vic loved RMNP. I have hundreds of his pictures taken at RMNP as evidence. We went there a lot in our early years. Stayed at the Cliffside Cottages. Listened to the elk bugle. Searched (usually in vain) for moose and beaver and big horn sheep. Saw bears, elk, marmots, jays, deer. Drove around and around and around. Went over Trail Ridge Road many times. Almost didn't get back over Trail Ridge once when we were the last car before they closed it for snow. In June.

We stopped going much after we got Wags—dogs aren't allowed in the park. (Well, they're allowed, but they can't get out of the car, so ...) We did take Bella once on our anniversary, but he worried about her needing to do her business the whole time, so we just did a short drive around the Wild Basin Entrance and left an hour or so later. As his heart deteriorated, he also wasn't able to spend a lot of time at altitude, as he discovered when his sister and brother-in-law took him in 2015—although that was one of the highlights of his year. 😊)

I've been to Estes Park a couple of times recently for the Estes Park Wool Market (no kidding—I went to a yarn show), but I haven't been to RMNP for ... maybe a decade? So I decided I wanted to go this year. Laura and I tried going in April for Vic's birthday, but the day we picked was not great weather (high of 37—I looked it up just now—and maybe some rain or even snow was predicted), so we opted to stay home. We decided to go on our wedding anniversary (mine and Vic's—Laura and I only behave like a married couple), which was Thursday. We figured we wouldn't run into snow in August.

I got us a reservation for the Bear Lake corridor. It was overcast in the morning, and we weren't sure how that would affect our day—would we see anything, or would the clouds obscure the views or, worse, drench us in rain all day? Turns out it didn't affect us at all. By the time we got to the park, the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds—just enough to make sparkles on Bear Lake but not heat up the day too much. In fact, the day was so perfect that we had the windows down the whole time—it wasn't so hot that we needed the air conditioner or so cold that we needed the heater. That fresh mountain air restored our souls.

We hiked around the lake and heard Steller's jays and golden-crowned kinglets—and then we saw both of these birds! We also saw a couple of little ground squirrels and some dragonflies. Hallett Peak was in fine form that day. As we left Bear Lake, I decided we should go up Trail Ridge a little ways. I didn't want to go all the way up because that's a time-consuming drive, and I didn't want to leave Bella for that long.

Right after we turned onto Trail Ridge, I spied something that I thought was a turkey. A turkey! I've never seen a turkey in RMNP before! I had to do a U-ey to get back to where they were, and then another U-ey so we could be on the correct side of the road. Laura took pictures from her phone. They—it turns out it was a whole family of turkeys!—were close enough to the road that we didn't want to scare them off. Unfortunately, we still scared them off a little, so weren't able to get great shots—but we did get good shots, and we saw them, which was the most important part.

Shortly after that, there was an animalert. (This is what Vic always called it—when there are a number of cars on the side of the road and a bunch of people are outside, there's almost certain to be an animal nearby.) We were not disappointed. A small herd of lady elk was resting in a meadow. (Another small herd stayed back in the trees, mocking those of us with phones instead of real cameras that zoom well). We took some pix of the beautiful elk and kept going up to Many Parks Curve. We got out of the car to take in the scenic vistas and pose for a few more pictures, then started back down toward Estes Park.

But our day wasn't over. We saw another animalert—this time a couple of male mule deer! Got abuncha (as Vic would have said) shots of those guys and got back on the road. A few miles later, we started our own animalert when we were the first to spy another group of bucks—five this time. One was right by the road, so we stayed in the car again and took our pictures from our buck blind. 😉

Then we went through Estes, did the obligatory touristy things (got taffy and caramels), and made our way back home.

You know, it started out as a sad day. I had actually never driven to or through RMNP—Vic always did the driving so he could stop at a moment's notice to take pictures. I wished that I had taken him to the park later in his life. Regardless of whether the altitude affected him, I think he would have enjoyed short visits—in particular, to hear the elk bugle in the fall. This was one of his favorite sounds. And it was our anniversary! So I wanted him to be there.

But darned if I didn't have a smile plastered on my face the whole day. I felt Vic's presence the entire time we were in the park. As if he made the sun shine, the wildlife appear, the mountain air just a little fresher.

Our anniversary marks the end of my summer grieving period (🙄), and going into it, I didn't feel like the grief was going to stop this year. The five-year anniversary of his death hit me harder than I expected. But spending that day in a place that he loved, with "my person" (my sister), and then coming home to Bella had a real healing effect.

Here are a few of the pictures we took. Enjoy!

First, some scenery:

Bear Lake

Hallett Peak

Bear Lake, Hallett Peak on the right

Bear Lake

Fireweed at Bear Lake

The view from Many Parks Curve

Next, some critters:

Steller's jay

Ground squirrel

Golden-crowned kinglet

Dragonfly

Lady elk

The next several are the male mule deer

Turkeys

Finally, sisters!

We spent a lot of time howling with laughter that day!

Hard to see me in this pic, but it's one of my favorites
that Laura took of me—I like the scenery in the background

One of my favorite pictures of Laura from the trip

Remembering a sad day with love

Today is the five-year anniversary of Vic's memorial service.

I remember because ... I remember, of course, but also because my nephew, Xan, took pictures throughout the service, and they have been showing up in my OneDrive “Your memories from this day” emails for the past few days.

Some people might not want to remember a funeral, but life isn't just the good things that happen to you. When Vic had his photography business, we talked a lot about what his slogan might be. We both wanted to tie it to memories and photography—and not all memories are happy. We actually came up with some really great slogans (🤣🙄):

• Your memories, one picture at a time (my favorite)
• Your memories, one click at a time (his favorite)
• Your story, one picture/click/frame at a time
• Telling/capturing your story/making memories through pictures

(Look, neither of us was working for an advertising agency at the time, and we did not have access to slogan-creating creative folks, so this was the best we could come up with. Do not judge.)

The point is, memories fade, but pictures don't. (I mean, yes, old-timey pictures do. But digital pictures don't.) (I mean, yes, digital pictures can be accidentally lost or deleted, but ... you get what I mean.)

That day was a hard day. I woke up sad; I went to bed sad. But the service was actually quite healing for me. To be surrounded by that much love—almost my entire family (my side and his), dozens of our friends, folks who traveled to be there, people who just showed up unannounced because they saw the obituary, people who texted me that they wished they could be there—there was no way I couldn't be lifted up. And why wouldn't I want to remember that?

(It helped that we had been planning for this day for quite a while and I knew what Vic wanted—no meltdowns, a short slide show, the music he himself picked [I found “Vic's funeral playlist” in iTunes on his computer]. He would have been so disappointed if I'd moped around all day.)

Xan is the Vic of the family. The photographer who documents all of the major milestones. So when he asked if I wanted him to “take some pictures,” I didn't hesitate to say yes. And as I relive this day, his pictures remind me of everyone who was able to show up not only to commemorate the life of a great man but also to support a grieving widow.

He gave me my memories of that day, one picture at a time.

Vic was sure no one would show up for his funeral, but look at this full house—during COVID!

Too long ago, or just a moment? Life after five years

Today it has been five years since Vic went to the Rainbow Bridge to be with Wags and all the other pets. (I see him as the Walmart Greeter of the Rainbow Bridge.)

You gotta love what AI can do these days.

When I say it out loud, it seems momentous—but what does "five years" even mean when it feels like it was just yesterday ... but also like it was forever ago? (Like this conversation between Rannulph Junuh and Adele Invergorden in The Legend of Bagger Vance.)

So it's been five years of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, births, illnesses, deaths—but also five years of cooking and paying bills and getting gas in the car and all the other mundane things in life.

And what can I say that I haven't already said before?

It's not like me to be at a loss for words—or a positive spin on life.

Because as I sit here, trying to figure out what to write about this day, all I can feel is a crushing sadness. I think about all the things he missed and all the things we missed together. All the things I drove home from alone—with him not waiting for me at the end of that drive. All the funny memes I didn't share with him. All the side-eye or squeezed-hand-under-the-table I didn't give him when someone said or did something I knew he would think was absurd. All the times that Bella did something adorable.

A thousand paper cuts every day. The kind you might forget about until you accidentally squeeze a little lemon on them.

It just never goes away, the sadness, the hurt, the hole in my heart. I thought it would.

But also ... I'm glad it didn't.

As Andrew Garfield said about the loss of his mother, "I hope this grief stays with me because it's all the unexpressed love that I didn't get to tell her. And I told her every day—we all told her every day. She was the best of us." (You can see the full clip in this episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert at 4:20.)

So I'm glad this grief has stayed with me. It means I am alive. I am human. And I loved someone so much that his absence will never go unnoticed.

Of course ... I am fine. I'm living my life. I'm taking care of myself and Bella. I'm crafting. 😄

But man, I wish I were still doing all that with him. I mean, except the crafting, obvi.

Our first picture together

Happy 'versary!

Yesterday was my 37.66th wedding anniversary. It was 37 years and 8 months since Vic and I got married. 🙂

One of our little love rituals was saying "happy 'versary" on the 13th of every month. It wasn't an anniversary, so we didn't say that, but we wanted to say something. Vic, of course, is the one who came up with the simple 'versary. My suggestion was monthiversary, which, I'll admit, was a mouthful.

Today I was telling a friend of mine about this tradition, which she thought was adorable (and let's face it—it was 😉). As we were chatting, a dove flew into my porch area and landed on a porch post.

You may remember that the day Vic passed away, a hummingbird visited me, and we decided that it was Vic telling me that he was on the other side and he was OK. I've seen a fair number of hummingbirds over the years, but last year, I started seeing other birds in unusual locations. Flocks of geese flew low over my house—and I didn't remember that happening in previous years because there isn't really a goose-friendly body of water nearby. There was often a lone goose off to the side, so I decided that was Vic. Then a single great blue heron flew over one day—Vic. And one afternoon, a hawk landed on my porch railing and stayed just long enough for me to take a picture. Again, Vic. And I thought, why would he remain a hummingbird when he could try out other winged creatures? He loved geese and herons and hawks!

So ... the dove was Vic. He also loved doves. And the friend I was talking to at the time said, "He's here to tell you happy 'versary!" And I thought she was right, because that dove was cooing up a storm!

That's when ... ANOTHER DOVE SHOWED UP. AND LANDED ON MY PUTEKETEKE! (You can read about my puteketeke here, in the "February" section, if you're interested.)

(I included two pictures because I thought the dove's expression was so cute on both. But only the second one was professionally edited by my sweet nephew, so that's why it looks so much better. 😊 Click on either or both to see them full size.)

I think she came because the first dove was calling to her to determine whether he had picked out a good nesting site. (It is. I've had many a nesting bird on my porch posts.)

Soooooo yeah. Those doves weren't Vic. If he did find another soul to he wanted to partner up with, it is unlikely it would be one that wanted to nest. But I do think he gave those doves my address and said, "Hey, she would love to have you. She'd leave you alone except for the stray picture every now and then, and she'd keep you safe. Oh, and when you go check it out, tell her I said 'happy 'versary'!"

Happy 'versary, Love. See you next month. 💞