Tiger Lillies and wild Black Raspberries before they’d ripened. Photo by author.
I was laying in bed after another day of active “doing”. The midsummer sun was streaming in just over the trees out the west window of my bedroom. A silhouette of my Valentine’s Day orchid was visible with the promise of future blooms, a first in my experience with these fickle flowers that Keith, the first to make me a widow, loved so much. A framed picture of me and Steven, who made me a widow for the second time, sat on the table beside the plants there.
Ralph was laying down on the bed beside me and I couldn’t help but reach over and gently flip his long-legged body to lay beside me so I could scratch his fuzzy head and back. As I closed my eyes, my fingers reached his softer neck feathers, the fur that helps give the breed their name – Silken Windhounds. The soft texture of his fur has now, as it has at other times, led me to memories of Steven whose hair was so soft and fine and curly that I loved to run my fingers through it, as if touching silk threads.
Ralph, a Silken Windhound, takes his spot in the middle of the bed. Photo by author.
As I lay there, I felt the weight of Ralph on my chest and was taken back to days when Steve and I would lay beside each other in this bed, just resting, listening to music, and to each other’s heartbeats.
We would just “be” in those moments, tender connections, until they would break open and either lead to more intimate connections, or simply a quiet conversation. It would often lead to someone picking up their electronic devices to look something up. And then… the connection shifted to more practical or even creative conversations. Or sometimes nothing at all. And we were okay with that… back to our quiet comfort together.
As I felt his weight, and touched that silky fur, my eyes lightly closed. It was Steven again. And I want to hold him forever. But I knew that in reality, he was not here, and that I was alone. Just me and the two pups.
The Sounds of Memory
As I tried to remember Steve’s voice… searching my memory banks, a slight panic began to bubble up. What if I couldn’t remember what his voice sounded like? I have videos of him on my phone and computer, I remind myself. But I knew it wasn’t the same.
Steve’s voice was a mid-alto that went higher when he laughed or giggled. I always found that giggle so cute, even amusing at times, with those high treble giggles he made that could sound like a little girl. Yet his laugh was so genuine and sweet, a little boy still inside the smiling old man. It was hard to resist its charms.
The screen of my unfolding memories begin to split and I hear Keith’s voice which was more of a low alto, his voice deeper, more resonant. You always had to listen for the smile in Keith’s voice to match the subtle smiles that would often flit across his face, especially amidst the seriousness he took for his work. Because it sometimes wasn’t easy to tell if he was being lighthearted, or making a stinging rebuke. That line was often difficult to discern.
When Keith did smile, it was like sunlight shining through. In our later years, I saw more of that sunshine than darkness as we both began to cast off our former insecurities of youth, trading them for the willing embrace of another chapter to come.
Rewriting Chapters
That chapter had a plot twist, as did the next chapter written after the first turn. I see them side by side sometimes. The wrapped blanket around a dismantled table of Keith’s. Sitting on the second floor of the remodeled Gallery House building that I’d just finished… on my own… without him… I slipped down the wall to sit on the floor, overcome with grief as the shape of that table wrapped in the moving blanket looked so much like the profile of Keith’s frail boney dying body laying with his back to me in the hospital bed set up beside our marriage bed… as I watched for telltale signs of life… soon gone.
I see the screen split with the empty space now on Steve’s side of the bed. I lay here tired after a few days of “doing”… things I would have done WITH Steve. Or with him guiding me, or me helping him. We were a good team.
Instead, I was doing these things on my own. Making a list of what needed to be done, projects big and small. The small ones I could do myself – or a least mostly. The bigger projects I needed to put on my contractor hat and work out the details with someone with the right skillset.
So it was one of these smaller but doable projects where found myself completely defeated, taken down by a simple wall anchor in an attempt to hang shelves in a small closet. Once I recovered from the thorough humiliation, I asked Lizzy for help. Normally very up to doing things with me, my former student took over the planning and installation of the wall anchors themselves, while I managed the gathering of any other items.
Yet I noticed that even Lizzy was tiring easily from months of struggling with her own health demons, though less than half my age. Too young for that, my heart sank in empathy. The body keeps the score and hers holds a lot of trauma.
As I watched her struggle with one of the screws going through the shelf bracket and into the wall anchor, I realized I knew some things about the impact driver that I could teach her, things I had learned from Steve, and that I could pay forward.
As I watched her struggle with one of the screws going through the shelf bracket and into the wall anchor, I realized I knew some things about the impact driver that I could teach her, things I had learned from Steve, and that I could pay forward. Steve could be always be counted on for the generosity of his gifts of knowing how to do “the things,” a (mostly) patient teacher, at least with me. I was most grateful for this patience and willingness to teach me things, and would often tell him so.
Men at Work
The screen splits again and I see them each in their element. Keith fully inside his head, concentrating deeply on turning a bowl on the lathe, tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik… the sound of the gouge hitting the wood as he smoothed the wood into a more cylindrical shape. Often wearing a full protective mask over his head and face, I was careful never to disturb him for fear he’d shift his view and either ruin his work, or worse, have it break off the lathe and fly into him or smash across the wall. And knowing how much he loved what he was doing, I couldn’t forgive myself if I put him or his work at risk.
Keith, c. 2007, at a workshop demonstrating a woodturning technique using the outboard in order to create a large wall-hanging piece. Photo supplied by author. Photographer unknown.
Steven, on the other hand, would often invite me in to see what he was doing. I’d even ask him to show me things. I’d grown up in the era when girls took Home Ec classes, and boys did Shop class. Traumatized at a young age by my father’s own bloody run-ins with power tools, especially those with blades, I was determined to face my own fears. So Steve gave me some key pointers on the table saw, as well as a jig saw, and a chop saw. And I got pretty good with my own letterpress type saw, too. Even so, I lacked Steve’s (and Keith’s) deeper understanding of woodworking techniques and their cautionary tales.
But I’m tired now. Three days in a row of “doing” is enough.
Steve, after already diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, embracing his new potter’s wheel. Pottery was one of his favorite creative outlets. Photo by author.
Three Days of Doing the Things
Day One – To Gather and Prepare: To take my mind off my utter failure with wall anchors, I was going to make a “Quartercase cabinet.” This is a little letterpress cabinet that held small cases that I would fill with type ornaments. Smaller is better for the size of these cases since the type is lead antimony and the weight adds up quickly. I’d come up with a design based one I already had in the shop.
First there was a full day of planning, buying, and cutting aluminum L-rails that I would use to hold the small type cases in my Quartercase Cabinet. I needed to buy the 4’ and 6’ rails along with the right jigsaw blades to cut metal.
I missed the old men at the Ace hardware who could tell you whether the blade was the right one for a Dewalt jigsaw even though the blades were Bosch brand. The young ones didn’t have a clue.
It took two trips to the hardware store where I learned how much I missed their employ of knowledgeable people. I missed the old men at the Ace hardware who could tell you whether the blade was the right one for a Dewalt jigsaw even though the blades were Bosch brand. The young ones didn’t have a clue. And on the second trip to return the first blades purchased, I finally remembered to buy an 18” level since two other projects I intended to work on were in a space just shy of 24”. So the two 24” levels I’d found on my searches around the homestead wouldn’t be useful there. And the 9” torpedo levels were just too small.
Armed with the right blades, my day of cutting 24 aluminum rails went fairly smoothly, almost like I knew what I was doing. I finished them off by drilling three holes on each piece so they could be screwed to the wood cabinet. I left the workshop feeling satisfied and headed back into the house to enjoy the literal fruits of my labors from earlier in the day making wild black raspberry chipotle BBQ sauce. I’d tossed some of it into a bowl with a small chuck roast that I had cooked in the 2-quart crockpot I’d purchased when I realized cooking for one really meant thinking smaller. Over the previous few days I had managed to pick over a quart of berries from a volunteer plant that grew in my front garden and was still producing for another couple of weeks.
Day Two – Wooden Encounters: My goal for this day was to cut all the wood pieces for the actual cabinet and then build it. Measure twice, cut once. But the sign in the shop says “Measure once, cuss twice” which turned out to be more accurate than I intended. Even so, I had to chuckle as I still double checked each measure I made based on my plans I’d drawn earlier.
The cutting of my first piece went well. I was using nothing but scrap sheet lumber from around the shop and garage. And 3/4” or 5/8” plywood would do the job for the sides and bottom. The top and back could get away with being 1/4” ply that seemed plentiful around the shop.
When I made that first cut on the lighter ply, I reached down with my left hand to shut off the saw. Both Keith and Steve had the same saw, but Steve’s was set up with a left-hand shutoff since he preferred it. Stassia, my younger daughter, had ended up with her dad’s table saw. But as I reached down, the piece of 1/4” ply flipped up and flew across the moving saw blade and then hit me on the left wrist. Apparently I hadn’t pushed the piece fully away from the blade and it sucked it back and sent it flying. OUCH!!! Lesson learned.
Nursing my bruised wrist, I was thankful that it wasn’t worse. No broken bones, no blood. Just a nasty bruise that was helped later by ice and some CBD/THC lotion left from Steve’s treatment stash when the cancer had moved into his spine. A few days later, the bruising in the deeper tissue further up my arm started to show, confirming why it all felt a bit tender.
A bit of bruising. It could have been a lot worse. Photo by author.
After a few choice words, I went on with my project, making other far less dangerous mistakes along the way. Like putting all of my new rails in the wrong orientation, then having to take them all off and move them to the right position. I could hear both Keith and Steve shaking their heads with a slight rebuke – “Why didn’t you read your own plans?” Yep. Lost nothing but time and I had plenty of that, as long as my back held out.
The rest of the project went better, though far from perfect. Remembering when to grab some wood glue, getting out the longer bar clamps, using gravity to help when my strength would sometimes fail me. I put both my battery powered Dewalt drill and impact driver into hard use that day. But in the end, I got it figured out, and I was able put together something useful. My grief turned briefly to gratitude for the split screen guidance from beyond that I received throughout the day, especially the encouragement not to give up.
My finished Quartercase Cabinet. Not perfect, but fully functional. Photo by author.
Day 3 – Revisiting my nemesis: Lizzy came over and we revisited the wall anchors that had taken me down the previous week. By the time we were done, after the struggles I noted, we both felt satisfied with the results. Though we did use one less shelf, removing the one I’d messed up in my first attempt, leaving the drywall mess from my earlier misadventures with wall anchors for another day.
Success! Only the remnants of drywall anchor damage at the top. Photo by author.
Blurred Vision
That brings me here to this moment, to the edge of tears, to the split screen visions of my two loves. And to the still raw grief of missing Steve, even more deeply than I’d felt in awhile. It’s been just over 13 months and I know he wasn’t ready to give up, a fighter until the very end, my dear knight. Even so, I am grateful for being able to carry forth these split screen conversations, even if they sometimes bring with them some deep pangs of grief. The connections of love still provide a healing balm that helps me get up for yet another day of “doings”.
An Rx for Joy
Today another of my former students, Ella, had reached out wanting to visit and introduce me to her 7-month-old baby daughter. When the car pulled up into the driveway, I couldn’t help myself. Asking first, I carried this dear sweet darling into the house and just did my best to absorb her sweet babyness. I wanted to just drink up all that love, joy and innocence. Just witnessing the start of a new life with all of the possibilities of the future ahead of her, I felt my cup overflowing with joy.
And then…I rested.
It’s hard not to fall in love with this little darling, quite literally a little bundle of joy! Photo by author.
Ralph (left) and Louie, Silken Windhounds, my four-legged guardians. Photo by Mara Jevera Fulmer
We lay on the soft pillows of the chaise, my four-legged guardians and I, perched upon the second-floor porch as the sun was slowly making its way across the horizon, not yet behind the newly budding trees. Their long shadows cast themselves through the flowering pear tree and its maple tree companion, laying themselves across the practically glowing emerald green grass. A chorus of birds filled the air around me.
I took in all of this magic, lost for a time in its spell, mindlessly stroking the soft fur of my pup Ralph, so silky it stirred a memory. I’d always been enamored by Steve’s hair which had that same silky texture, so fine, yet so playfully curly like a baby’s first grown length of hair. So much alike in that same silky way.
I was drawn back to his last hours, as he lay beside me in the bed. I could hear his slow yet shallow breathing, in…….. out…….. in…….. out…….. in…….. out……..
The oxygen generator was tucked away in the next room so as not to disturb us. In the bedroom, his breathing led us in a slow even rhythm, yet barely audible, while the music played softly in the background from the list I’d chosen of his favorite tunes.
in…….. out…….. in…….. out…….. in…….. out……..
It was meditative in the most compelling way, like a swaying of the body that feels like we’re not alone, but part of a greater living breathing being, slow dancing with the rotation of the earth.
In the past I have found myself fully embraced in the harmonic moments of similar slow and gentle rhythms. Such was the case when I found myself floating above a coral bommie in the South Pacific, caught in a flowing dance with schools of fish. All the colors of the rainbow, gently swayed with me in the glimmering of life-giving sunlight beaming down from above, yet spread like angel’s wings around us.
in…….. out…….. in…….. out…….. in…….. out……..
Back in the bedroom, I hear the stutter, the slowing pace of his breath. The time is near and I keep my own breath flowing as I listened for his last one.
in…….……… out………..……..…..
The music ended, too, the last song, “Shake it Up, Baby” by the Beatles…..
I looked over at him to confirm. “You dawg”, I said to his now silent body. A little laugh bubbled up inside at the awesome irony of his departing message.
Yet tonight, the cool air now touches me from the setting sun. Ralph, my silken windhound, provides the silky touch of a memory. I remind myself to smile again.
Ralph smiles, and reminds me to, as well. Photo by Mara Jevera Fulmer
Louie, the Silken Windhound, inspects a recently fallen tree after one of Mother Nature’s mood swings with high winds. Photo by the author.
It gets crowded sometimes in my world. My mother’s voice encouraging me to do what I do best. My dad yelling from the other room, “If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all!” I know he didn’t really mean it as cruelly as it sounded. But my 16-year-old self took it quite hard.
They’re both gone now. But even so, nearly 50 years later, those words still ring in my ears at times, feeding self-doubt as I make my way, once again a widow in the world.
Other voices laugh, whisper, encourage, and cry softly. Keith, my first love, encourages me to take the risks. “Fiji? Why not?” He said. “Sounds good to me!” And so our path was set to the South Pacific, thirty-five years ago, and yet still seems like yesterday.
Then and now, he sometimes would give me a hard time about being compulsive about things… but I was too timid, really, back then. So bravado sometimes came out instead. Aging without him here beside me these last 14 years has changed a lot of that in me.
But it has changed him, too. His sometimes harsh teasing in the past has become softer, more assertively encouraging. “Don’t let your own self-doubt, and that imposter syndrome, take you down.” I can hear him whisper gently, but firmly in my ear.
I miss him holding my hand. I miss his hugs that seemed to wrap around me like a shield against the world’s troubles.
Steve, only 10 months gone, walks with me on occasion. Like the distracted child, he is off learning new things, or catching up with old friends in the world gone by, beyond the liminal veil that keeps him just out of my reach. I miss him holding my hand. I miss his hugs that seemed to wrap around me like a shield against the world’s troubles.
But I hear him when he decides to pop up into my head. “Yes! That’s the way. Don’t forget to shim the ends out,” he says. “Be careful to check the length of that screw for that door!” he reminds me, as I begin to install new shades in the living room. Thankfully I understood his guidance, since the barebones instructions that came with the packaging didn’t mention anything. And the Youtube videos were even less helpful.
I walk around the sunlit yard, still cold as Springtime brings Mother Nature’s mood swings. Today 70 and warm, tomorrow freezing with snow, the next day a little warmer again but with a harsh driving wind. But then along comes a dreary grey cold rain… and my mood swings, too.
And sometimes I just want to stay in bed all day.
Then the visitors come. And they tell me – “Rise and Shine, my girl!”
“You’ve still got a lot of living left to do! So don’t waste a minute of the life you have! For soon enough, you’ll be on the other side when your time comes, whispering advice to those left behind.”
This is an icon I created when working in Fiji. It was one of 24 icon-style illustrations with Pacific themes. Being my favorite, I adopted this one as a psuedo-logo.
Mara Jevera Fulmer's Blog 