May 2023 Newsletter

It is dusk on a Sunday. I am usually not alone at this time. I can’t remember the last time I would have been alone on a Sunday evening. Addison is working and Tom is ushering at Allianz Field for the Minnesota United Game. It is me and the cats. I am not sure how to feed myself. The cats have been fed. I know how to do that.

I am joking—I can feed myself; it is just not as fun. It is frozen pizza or a salad or soup and salad. I can do this. I don’t often think of a time that I will really be alone. But it is true, one day I could be alone after Tom dies, if I don’t die first. Louise Schultz who just passed away this last Friday was alone over 30 years after her husband died. We talked about him often. They liked to do things together, to go bike riding, to go fishing (I think). They had a tandem two-person bike. Thirty years is a long time to miss someone.

From wise women (and some wise men too), I have learned that you make new routines after your beloved spouse dies; you move closer to your grown children if you aren’t already near them. You create connections through church or social groups. But you still miss them. It is so strange being married for so long. Many tell me that you still find yourself talking to your spouse after they are gone. I can imagine that.

Now all this sad talk is stupid, I get that. Tom is just at work, not dead. Addison and I may even grab a couple cheap tickets and join him at the stadium. But it is interesting how the mind works. I re-read my HELLO from last month, also about death. My own mortality, missing my mom. But last month I asserted that I have no trouble with death; it is a thin line, one Jesus Christ has crossed for us and it all makes sense. That is all still true. But thinking about missing Tom, that just makes me a different kind of sad. Our lives are so intertwined. I am not sure how I would be without him.

It is my guess that we have a few years more before he and I will have to do the work of figuring out this kind of “aloneness”. I will set aside my speculations on this for now. Instead, I will give thanks.

I give thanks to God for Tom. For the boy who loved me when I was a senior in high school; for my entire senior year wardrobe he bought me because he got a credit card and had an income when he enlisted in the Airforce. I give thanks to God for the years we lived in Chicago and would bike to dinner in fancy clothes because UBER wasn’t invented yet and you never move your car once you have a parking place in your neighborhood. I thank God for Tom and the three children he raised while I flew away to various church meetings. Yes, this is much better. I am thankful, so very thankful!

Thanks be to God!