With Every Touch

My Dearest Love,

I finished "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion last night. In it she talks about her life, thoughts, feelings during the year that followed the sudden death of her husband. I see myself in her words in so many ways. She talks about trying to avoid anything that triggers memories of her life with her now dead and gone companion. Today, everything I touch forces me to relive our past, one segment after another. The emotional price is draining. On top of this, I took one of the evil green gout pills this morning and I am feeling faint, dizzy, and even more spaced out than usual. This is going to be a hard day.

The reason for the memory replays is the upcoming trip to the Boundary Waters. I have pulled all of our camping gear down from the shelves and spread it out over the garage floor. I have set the tent up where my car is usually parked and have been trying to mentally "pack" what I think we will need. Doing this without your help seems insurmountable at times. Plus, everything I touch carries your touch as well. When I handle something that you once held, I am carried away in time and space to times when we were young and full of love.


I sat this morning on the screen porch, in the early sunlight, mending one of the stuff sacks you made with your own two hands. It is the one that holds our camping silverware. I hand stitched a portion of the seam that had come undone, much as I feel my life has come undone, unraveling under the strain of your loss, awaiting a healing hand to stitch me back together, to make me whole again. Oh, were it that easy.

I had to duct tape the shoulder strap on your old back pack where the mice had chewed the stuffing out to make a winter nest. I found notes you jotted down in little crannies of our communal gear. There was one on the floor of the tent in your own private code. I think it referred to negatives of film that you wanted to do something with. It was numbers followed by one or two word descriptions. I held it for a moment and then set it down before my vision became soggy with wet memories.

I don't know if I can do this. I have to keep walking away from the collection of gear because I become overwhelmed.

On top of all this, I need to organize the family dinner/meeting tonight where I will tell the children that my cancer is back and that I must redo a chemo therapy that did once ten years ago that only worked for a short time. I must tell them that we, as a family, must reboard that uncertain and unsettling carnival ride called "Potential Death of a Parent." What will they think? What will they do? How will I cope?

I write this to you at eleven o'clock in the morning. This will be a long day.

I love you, where ever you are.

D.