This Week’s Moment of Happiness Despite the News

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

The definition of “rest”:

Rest: /rest/ verb

cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength.

I sat down at my computer this afternoon with some trepidation. How was I going to write a Moment of Happiness for a week where I’ve been home sick with the new form of Covid? It’s a nasty one.

I tested positive on Saturday night and I was furious. How could I have Covid? But my body said, Sorry, you’ve got it. My fever soared to 103 degrees. Headache, sore throat, congestion that made me feel like my face was going to explode, and a cough that wouldn’t quit. I couldn’t take Paxlovid – it’s contraindicated with a medication that I take. They used to do IV infusions for people like me, but they don’t do that anymore…apparently without replacing that option with something else.

Going in to see my doctor, someone who I’ve known for forty years and who is my own age, he yelled at me. “Rest!” he yelled. “Rest!” and he shook his finger in my face.

So here’s the thing. Since Michael died, my sole source of income is…me. My studio. I own a small business, and I don’t receive paid sick days or vacation days or anything like that. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. With Michael gone, I no longer have his salary to fall back on. It has created in me a sense of foreboding terror. Take a day off? Are you KIDDING?

I’ve had a really illness-infested winter. The doctor says it’s because of the stress I’ve been under for the last two years. I also think it has to do with our strange weather. We haven’t been able to settle into a season. Sub-zero temperatures give way to temps in the sixties which give way to snow which gives way to rain which returns to sub-zero. Today, we have a high of 40 degrees, and it’s already on its way back down, but tomorrow, we’re in the sixties. I don’t think our bodies know what to do.

So I’ve had a round of bronchitis and flus and colds…and now Covid. And yes, because of that foreboding terror eating at me, I’ve returned to work as soon as I’ve felt reasonably well, just to fall ill again.

I snarled at my doctor and stomped home, where my daughter, Olivia, was also ill. We hunkered down together. She would sneeze, I’d cough, she’d sniffle, I’d snort, she’d groan and I’d moan. We slept when we could. And I…did (practically) nothing.

Note I said (practically). I did start writing a new story, which should be interesting to review, since it came out of a high fever. I had to get taxes ready to drop off at the accountant. There were a few phone calls to make. But honestly, nothing like my usual schedule.

And every mor–, well, afternoon, when I woke up, I went downstairs, turned on my fireplace, fetched myself a hot cup of good coffee and some breakfast, gathered a cozy blanket, sat down in my recliner with a book, and read. Usually with an orange cat on either side of me.

One of the things I love the most about going to the Oregon coast is that every morning there, I sit at the kitchen table, within view of the ocean, with a hot cup of good coffee, some breakfast, and a book. I am not in a hurry. There, I look up at the ocean. Here, I look up at my fireplace. Typically, my breakfasts are spent in front of my computer, hurriedly eating and checking my emails, before I meet with my first client.

But this week…recliner, fireplace, blanket, good coffee, good book, two orange cats. Granted, there was also coughing, sneezing, sniffling, shivering, roasting, moaning and groaning. But I chose to notice the first set of comforts.

Today, I woke up after actually sleeping well, with few wake-ups to cough or blow my nose. I felt…okay. As I sat in my recliner, coffee on my right, breakfast on my left, cat on my right, cat on my left, fireplace roaring, blanket up to my chin, and a wonderful book called I Hold A Wolf By The Ears, a short story collection by Laura Van Den Berg, I found myself sighing (without coughing) in contentment.

Oh, lovely.

And there it was. The Moment of Happiness, Despite The…Covid.

I will not return to work until Monday, so there are still 3 more days of rest, though I do have to start reading manuscripts again by Saturday. But I will attempt to take it slow.

My doctor better not EVER shake his finger at me again.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

So many mixed emotions. I feel like a blender, set on the highest setting.

On Tuesday, when my son came over, he stopped and collected the mail for me. “You have a package,” he called up the stairs to my office. “It feels like a book.”

I puzzled for a moment. I hadn’t ordered any books. A novel contest I’m currently judging had closed and the last books were delivered. Sometimes, people send me copies of their books in the hopes that I’ll review them. But I really wasn’t expecting anything.

Then I thought of the email I’d received from my poetry publisher the day before. The ARC (Advanced Review Copy) was on its way to me, they said. But that was just yesterday.

But…OH!

Andy brought the envelope up to me and I sliced it open with flying scissors.  Out slid the book. My book. My title. My name on the cover.

And different from all the others, because this book is about Michael, and my experience of my first year of widowhood.

For me, books don’t become real until I hold them. I’ve compared writing and publishing often to childbirth, but you just don’t feel a book kick you from the inside out, once it’s on your publisher’s desk. You feel it kick you from the inside, outside, and every place in between while you’re writing it, but it becomes a quiet waiting game once it’s in the process of publication. To my students, I call it The Void. Even though you know where the book is, you know it’s under contract (you HAVE the contract, you’ve printed it, signed it, and you keep it within reach on your desk), in the silence of The Void, you keep waiting for an email that says, “Oops…we made a mistake. We meant to accept someone else’s book.”

Even 18 books in.

Eventually, you get a digital copy of what your book is supposed to look like. Following the pregnancy metaphor, this is like seeing an ultrasound of your unborn baby. Whole, apparently happy, but unable to be held.

And if you’re lucky, then the publisher will send you a hard copy ARC, which is your actual book, with a banner on it that says “Not for resale”, or “Uncorrected proof.” That’s who I held on Tuesday. And it didn’t need any correcting.

Since Tuesday, it has sat beside me on my writing desk. Often, I have one hand on it, or I pick it up, page through it, put it down again.

This is a book I never ever imagined writing, and I certainly didn’t want to write it. But then the book wrote me.

This book is to help others who are going through grief, not by offering solutions, but by offering companionship. Company.

This is also my way of making sure Michael still exists in this world.

But there’s still one more, very important, thing. This book is to raise awareness of a huge wrong that needs to be corrected. I (more than) hope, but I also plan on letting this book become an awareness raiser, a shouted voice, a picket sign raised in protest.

Michael’s death was wrong, wrong, wrong. And it’s wrong for those who experienced a death under the tires of a vehicle on Milwaukee’s streets before Michael, and for those who have continued to experience it after.

It’s something that some city officials just want to shrug off. They offer words of sympathy, and then turn away. Something has to turn them back and make them open their eyes.

When I pushed hard to have the driver charged with vehicular manslaughter, the ADA said to me, “I don’t think anyone would look at the video of the accident and think the driver was at fault.”

That video.

One of the poems in this book contains these words:

“You turned to face the passenger van

as it bore down on you as you walked

Within the crosswalk

With the light

Within your rights.

The van weighed 4464 pounds.

You turned and faced it

held out both your hands

In supplication

In desperation

In the most intense act of bravery I’ve ever seen…

You placed your hands on the hood of the van

and then it hit you anyway.”

 Maybe that ADA believes in a world where people could watch this happening and not immediately turn their shocked glare onto the person behind the wheel.

I don’t believe in such a world.

So. Last Tuesday, when I opened the envelope and this book slid out into my hands, I felt a bit of the wrong begin to turn right. And I felt Michael’s presence too.

It’s a different sort of book. But I’m living a different sort of life now.

But not everything is different. The other day, I was asked, in a written interview, what it is that makes me write. There were several choices:

Be rich and famous.

Make money quickly.

Use the power of story to change the world.

The first two options made me laugh. And then I checked the one I’ve always checked, in my heart and in my mind, and in more formal interviews, like this one.

Use the power of story to change the world. Right a wrong.

Or at least try. Despite so many feelings of defeat that I’ve weathered in the last two years, I’m still trying. I can’t bring Michael back. His case is done. His life is over. But I can try to keep this from happening again.

We’ll see how it goes.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

Me with the ARC.

 

 

And so a Valentine’s Day special moment of happiness, despite the news.

I was originally just going to make this a short post on my Facebook page. But I’ve decided I need to place more of my attention on it, on my thoughts and feelings, on Valentine’s Day.

Out of all the holiday and personal celebrations of the year, and each year, since Michael’s horrific accident and death, I was amazed the first year to find out that Valentine’s Day is the hardest. From that first Valentine’s Day, when he was still alive, but hospitalized, trying to heal from multiple and horrible injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, and when he didn’t recognize me as me, but as his sister, and he didn’t even recognize himself, thinking he was 23 years old, to this year’s, Valentine’s Day has been excruciating.

I was supposed to lead a 3-hour workshop this morning, a workshop I’ve led for years and that I love. Much to my surprise this morning, when my eyes opened, it was to find the time was 45 minutes into the start of that workshop, and I had a student frantically pounding on my doorbell, worried that something happened to me.

Something has happened to me.

In this case, it was a situation where, somehow, I set my alarm clock of many years for “weekdays” instead of “everyday”, and so it hadn’t gone off. After I reached out to my students, rescheduled the class, and tried to take a deep breath myself, I sat on the edge of my bed, feeling completely disoriented.

And then I fell back asleep for another several hours. It was like my body and mind were trying to help me sleep through this day.

Last Valentine’s Day, in 2025, I was in a panic because I couldn’t find the heart pendant that Michael gave me before we were even married, even living together. He came to celebrate with me, traveling from Omaha, Nebraska, where he lived. He knew my birthstone is ruby, and he gave me a small heart-shaped pendant made from rubies and diamonds. Every year from then on, for 25 years of marriage, and including that day in the hospital, I wore it on Valentine’s Day. But last year, I couldn’t find it. It was kept, along with other special jewelry pieces, in a separate jewelry box, which I also couldn’t find. Last year, I cried over the loss of that pendant, and also, over the loss of Michael.

During last summer, I decided to clean out the antique chimney cabinet where I keep my jewelry. As I opened little plastic boxes, I discovered many pieces that I’d forgotten I even purchased. And then I found the plastic box that held all of those missing pieces, including the heart pendant. Between Michael’s accident, and that day sorting through jewelry, I’d totally forgotten that I already sorted through things, trying so hard to find organization and stability in my life again, and I’d already put it in what I thought was a safe space.

This afternoon, after I woke up again and dressed before going downstairs for a late afternoon breakfast, I put the pendant on.

In my recliner, with my breakfast and an orange cat on either side of me, I finished the novel I’d been reading and loving, The Collected Regrets of Clover, by Mikki Brammer. The main character of this book is Clover, who is a death doula. On these last few pages, first I read:

“Inevitably, they’d face the agonizing moment when they had to accept that the only way to keep that essence alive was to carry it in their own hearts.”

And then I read:

“Grief, I’d come to realize, was like dust. When you’re in the thick of a dust storm, you’re complete disoriented by the onslaught, struggling to see or breathe. But as the force recedes, and you slowly find your bearings and see a path forward, the dust begins to settle into the crevices. And it will never disappear completely – as the years pass, you’ll find it in unexpected places at unexpected moments.

Grief is just love looking for a place to settle.”

And finally, the last words of the book:

“You can find meaning in anything if you look hard enough. If you want to believe that everything happens for a reason. But if we completely understood one another, if every event made sense, none of us would ever learn or grow. Our days might be pleasant, but prosaic.

So maybe we just need to appreciate that many aspects of life – and the people we love – will always be a mystery. Because without mystery, there is no magic.

And instead of constantly asking ourselves the question of why we’re here, maybe we should be savoring a simple truth:

We are here.”

In the last several years, I haven’t been grieving just Michael, though there is no “just” in the grief I feel over Michael. I’ve also been grieving myself.

I’m 65 now. While many would say I’m successful, and even I say I’m successful, I have not attained the success that I always thought I would have. My singular goal in life, from somewhere around the first grade on, was to be a New York Times Bestseller List author. To write full time. To be like the authors then, who did have a chance to support themselves with their writing.

A chance that is no longer available to today’s authors.

When I met Michael, the part of him I loved beyond all else was his belief in me. He said I didn’t have to become a New York Times Bestseller List author – I already was. I’ve had others who believed that too, from the first grade on. My first book publisher once sat across a table at dinner with me, shook his head as he told me he was accepting my second book, and said, “New York really missed the boat with you, Kathie.”

I loved that – but I truly didn’t want to be a missed boat.

Did you know that, to be on the bestseller list, you have to sell 5000 books in one week? Did you know that, of the 30 million books published every year in all formats, less than six thousand will make it onto that list?

It is next to impossible to be on the bestseller list. And I wanted to do the impossible. I believed I could. So did Michael.

Since 2015, and the publication of my novel Rise From The River, I have run to the places where I feel closest to the universe, or a higher power, or whatever it is that created this world. The Pacific Ocean in Oregon. The Atlantic Ocean in Maine. The Gulf in Florida. Lake Michigan, right here, and Lake Erie in Ohio, and Lake Superior in Duluth. Dwarfed and looking up at the great expanse of a redwood tree in California. Standing under or beside all of these places, I have shouted and whispered and wept, “What do I need to do? What do you want from me? Why am I here, if not for this?”

I received answers, or at least reassurances. The line of whole sand dollars on the wall behind me speak to this. Last summer, when I was in Oregon, and I looked at the ocean and said, “I don’t even know what to say anymore,” I found not one, but five whole sand dollars, nested together at my feet. And each time I received an answer, I settled back into my life and continued doing what I was doing. Writing and teaching and advocating for literature and for writers.

But now I am without Michael. Someone who truly believed in me. And despite book #17 coming out any day, and book #18 coming out next year, and AllWriters’ turning 21 years old, and I’ve been teaching for 31 years this April, I have found myself mired in a grief so very thick that there are days I just can’t see to find my way. This blog has, in every way, been a lifesaver, forcing me to find a moment of happiness in every week.

This afternoon, in my recliner, having read all the above words, I closed my hand around the pendant and looked across the room at Michael’s urn. And I looked down and read again those final words in the novel I was reading.

And instead of constantly asking ourselves the question of why we’re here, maybe we should be savoring a simple truth:

We are here.

I am here. Still.

Moving forward.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

One morning this week, I sat down at my computer, as usual, hit the power button, and waited for it to go through its machinations so I could get settled into my work day. I was braced for the sudden blast of news, almost always bad or horrific lately, and my finger was poised over the keyboard to get me over to the sign-in page for my email.

Luckily, as my finger was diving for that button, I saw a headline and I paused.

“Brachs releases original flavor Conversation Hearts for Valentine’s Day!”

WHAT?

Ohmygosh. Those little, chalky, oddly sweet, heart-shaped candies with messages on them. I remember Valentine’s Day parties in elementary school, where we’d decorate shoe boxes in red and pink hearts and cut a slit in the lid so that classmates could slide in small envelopes with special cards inside. Some really nice kids would tape lollipops to the outside. But when I sat at my desk, loaded with a pink or red frosted cupcake, a couple pink or red frosted heart-shaped cookies, and a heart-festooned paper cup filled with red Hawaiian Punch (“How about a nice Hawaiian Punch?” “Sure!” POW!”), I dumped out my box of envelopes and then shook each one. If it rattled, I opened it and out rolled little Conversation Hearts. I read each one, eager to see what each classmate had to say to me.

Luv U

Be Mine

Hug Me

The teacher always passed out little baggies for us to put leftover goodies in, and I carefully brought home my Hearts.

Valentine’s Day was a holiday my parents did well. Not over the top, not ignored, but treasures waited for me on my desk every Valentine’s Day morning. There would be a card, a small heart-shaped box of Whitman’s Chocolates, holding 6 pieces, and another heart-shaped box of Brachs Conversation Hearts. Before I would go downstairs for breakfast that day, before I would even get dressed, I’d open the box of Hearts and close my eyes to pick one out. After reading it, I’d pop it in my mouth and sigh with delight.

As years went by, it became harder and harder to find the original flavor. But as my children arrived, I continued the tradition. Each child would find those two little boxes waiting for them on Valentine’s morning. By then, the Conversation Hearts were decorated with cartoon pictures, so I picked a different one for each child, carefully curated for that child’s personality and likes.

The first Valentine’s Day with Michael, he stood beside me as I pondered in front of the candy aisle in Walgreens, deciding which box was for which kid. As I chose, I explained to him the years of Conversation Hearts I’d experienced, and that while the chocolates were enjoyed, for me, they didn’t hold the importance of the Hearts. “Chocolate is included in almost every other holiday,” I said. “But Conversation Hearts…only Valentine’s Day.”

That first Valentine’s Day with Michael, and every Valentine’s Day since, until three years ago, I woke up to a heart-shaped box of Whitman’s chocolates and a heart-shaped box of Brachs Conversation Hearts, left on my desk. And a card. After that first year, as I was now sleeping as an adult without a desk in my room, but my writing table was right next door in my office, I knew to get up and go directly to that table. Before breakfast, before even getting dressed, I’d open the box of Conversation Hearts, close my eyes, and pick out a heart. From Michael.

All that time, through twenty-five years of marriage, they were never the original flavor.

Valentine’s Day 2024: Almost a month past being hit and run over by a passenger van, Michael lay in his hospital bed. At that point, he thought I was his sister, and he called me his sister’s name. He told me he wasn’t married, that he was only twenty-three years old. I’d steeled myself for a difficult day, but on the way to his room, I stopped at the gift shop and bought two Valentine’s Day balloons, one in red, one in pink, but both said, “I love you.” I brought them upstairs and found Michael asleep. I tied both balloons to the foot of his bed so he’d see them when he woke up. And then I waited.

When he woke up, he looked at the balloons and a frown puckered his forehead.

“It’s Valentine’s Day, hon,” I said. “Happy Valentine’s Day! I love you.”

“Oh,” he said. “Thanks, Rose.” Then he went on to ask me, “In your professional opinion, Rose, what do you think happened? How am I doing?”

Michael’s sister was a nurse.

I went home in tears that day.

Valentine’s Day 2025: Michael had been gone for almost eight months. It was the first Valentine’s Day I could remember that I didn’t have a heart-shaped box waiting for me. But I was missing so much more.

Valentine’s Day 2026: Coming up in two days.

Headline: “Brachs releases original flavor Conversation Hearts for Valentine’s Day!”

There is a Walgreens literally in my backyard. Their security light provides a nightlight in my bedroom that I’ve grown used to over the 20 years of living here. After reading that headline, I walked over there in the afternoon and stood in front of the candy aisle.

I no longer bought Valentine’s Day treats for my kids. They are adults now, and out and about. But I stood there, my eyes roaming over all the pink and red heart-shaped treats, until I found it. The original flavor. And not in a small heart-shaped box.

A bag.

I’d been without them for three years, donchaknow.

It wasn’t Valentine’s Day yet, but when I got them home, I didn’t wait. I sliced open that bag and then I reached in.

I always carefully organized my Hearts. Pink was my favorite flavor. So I picked out two of those, and then one of every other color. I lined them up on my table, with a pink as the first and last one.

It was the first time my Valentine’s Day treat was mixed with tears, and given to me by me. But that’s okay; I’ve grown to expect it on holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, special unique days known only to me and to Michael, and days that memories flit unbidden through my mind. Tears are now part of the tradition, I guess.

But those Valentine’s Day Conversation Hearts tasted just as wonderful as I remembered.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

This week, a client asked me if I’d be willing to let her middle school daughter interview me for a school assignment. I happily agreed, and a few days later, I was gazing into my computer screen at a young, open-faced, well-spoken girl.

Her mom, who is currently submitting her novel around, had several cameo appearances as she slipped in and out of the room. I coached her through writing that novel, and as I looked at her daughter, my feelings were similar to what I feel when I look at my granddaughter.

By the time we were done with the interview, I knew I was actually looking at my grandwriter.

The interview was supposed to be about editing, and being a professional editor. I fielded the questions about my experience as an editor, what my most proud moments are (the success of my students, of course!), do I mostly just work with grammar and punctuation, or do I look at the work as a whole (always, the whole), and then, quietly, a question about writing appeared. It slipped in sideways, sandwiched between other questions, and was followed by a few other quiet comments. But they set off alerts in my mind.

“Do you…edit…um…write on the computer?” she asked. “Or on paper?” She looked down at her notes and away from the screen.

“Mostly on the computer now,” I said, “with both editing and my own writing. But I also sometimes grab a piece of paper or whatever else is handy.”

She glanced up at me. “I like writing on paper,” she said. “I like feeling it while I’m writing it.” She looked away again.

I smiled. “I know writers who write on napkins. Paper towels. Notebooks, both paper and electronic. The backs of envelopes. Sketchbooks. Even on their own skin, if there’s nothing else.” Michael’s memory drifted into my mind. He wrote, usually lying down on the couch, and he chose to hand-write, on small post-it notes or teeny notebooks. His handwriting was beautiful, cursive, and small. When he finished the first draft, he keyboarded it into his computer, and then printed it out. The next draft was written as he read the first draft…writing in the margins. Subsequent drafts followed the same careful order. He wrote in green pen.

Looking back at the girl on my screen, she looked startled, which made me wonder if there were a few words written on an inner elbow. Or on post-it notes. Or on napkins.

“You can’t write wrong,” I said, and laughed. “Sure, when you’re getting ready to submit for publication, you have to have it in a certain format, created on a computer. But when you’re writing, when you’re working on a poem, a short story, a novel, anything at all, you can’t do it in a wrong way. You just write.”

This made me think of an interchange I had with my son Andy, way back when he was in third grade (he’s going to be 40 soon). He and his brother and sister always walked home from school together, but on this day, he ran ahead of them, threw open the back door, and flew into the house.

“Mom!” he yelled. “Mom! I wrote a story! It’s about a wizard!”

I, of course, flew just as quickly out of the room I used as my writing room and tore into the kitchen. “Really? Let me see it!”

He started to open his backpack, but then he stopped. His shoulders slumped. “I think I spelled wizard wrong,” he said.

At the time, the school system was actually grading first drafts for spelling errors, a practice I found infuriating, and that I’d told my kids I was going to completely ignore, if they brought home a red-marked assignment.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Writers don’t care about spelling when they’re writing something for the first time. You just write first. You fix later. That’s what real writers do.”

Those shoulders came right back up. He beamed at me. And then he dug out his story and I read it and we talked about it. After a snack with his siblings, he hustled to his room and to his desk, to work on the story some more.

I about melted with happiness.

Now I looked at this earnest child in front of me, on a computer screen. Her eyebrows were still puckered. I decided repeating my previous words would be worthwhile, this time, while she was looking at me.

“Camille,” I said. “You can’t do it wrong. However you write is the right way. Just write.”

And like Andy, that face opened up and she beamed wide at me.

After we signed off Zoom, I sat quietly at my writing table for a bit. Last year, my books were banned from my school district.

But I was still reaching young writers. And they still wanted to write. Despite AI, which steals the joy of writing in pencil, in green pen, on napkins, post-it notes, and skin. Which steals the joy of writing at a desk or lying on a couch or under a tree.

Which steals the joy of being a writer.

All of my students, whether they’re kids or octogenarians, have that fear of doing it wrong. That fear of the red pen circled around their words drives them, no matter their age.

It’s why I use a purple pen, when I’m editing hard copy. 😊

But all of them, ALL of them, burst into a beam when I tell them they can’t get it wrong. Write first. Then edit.

It’ll all work out. And it will have their stamp of originality and individuality on it.

I lit my screen with the story I’m working on, and set to work.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

 

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

My day off this week was Tuesday, and miraculously, no “extras” were scheduled on the broad clear expanse of my calendar for that day. Normally, a day off is where I schedule speaking engagements, appearances, doctor appointments, or whatever else comes along that would disrupt my working schedule. But that Tuesday…nothing.

I had simple plans that I was really looking forward to. I was going to sleep until I woke up naturally, without the aid of an alarm clock. Breakfast would be leisurely, relaxed, taken in my recliner in front of the fireplace, while I read for fun, not for work. The only reason I’d get up before coming to the end of a chapter was to refill my coffee cup. Then I’d take a non-rushed shower, put on my oldest, most comfy clothes, sit down at my writing table (I love it – I’ve had it for over 20 years. It’s a teacher’s desk from England, circa the 1800s. I feel like I’m in good company when I’m there.) and work on a new story that I’d started the week before. I would write until I felt I was done, without paying attention to the clock. The rest of the day would include getting Starbucks, playing my favorite video game, Animal Crossing New Horizons, a little TV, then reading in bed before sleep.

Ahhhhh.

This all changed when I received an email from my poetry publisher, containing the galleys for my new collection, The Birth Of A Widow.

For those that don’t write, a galley is a mock-up of your book. You have to read through it, watching for any typos or mistakes, including computer-generated errors created by the software that set up the book.

For a writer, it’s kinda like having that newborn baby placed into your arms. You’ve seen the words in your head, then on the paper or screen. And now…you were going to see the real thing, including the baby’s face. The cover.

Normally, the galley is received with joy and excitement. But my feelings were different this time.

I saw the email before breakfast, so I still had my breakfast in my recliner. But my mind kept slipping toward what was waiting for me. Thoughts of working on the new story wandered back into that creative compartment in my brain. Instead, my trying to lose myself in the book I was reading was interrupted by my remembering the words I’d written over the course of a year for this book. And remembering the events that caused the words.

The Birth Of A Widow is a book I never ever dreamed of writing. I never wanted the situation that presented the opportunity and knowledge and experience to write it.

But I wrote it because it took hold of me. It became something I had to do in order to recover.

I arrived on the Oregon coast for my yearly escape 66 days after my husband Michael died. That escape is reserved for writing, writing, and more writing. But that year, I didn’t know if I would be able to write a word. I hadn’t been able to, since finishing my latest novel while sitting in Michael’s ICU room, reading the entire book out loud to him as he lay with his eyes closed, and with no response, in his bed.

In Oregon, I walked out to greet the ocean. Except I couldn’t find the words. Not even to speak to Ms. Pacific.

I took a walk, came back inside, and sat down at the writer’s desk in that magical little house. And I wrote a poem. About not being able to speak to the ocean. And then, what she said to me.

The next morning, there were three more poems. I wrote them without intent, without a topic, without an idea. But the opening line always showed up.

Without a doubt, I was overwhelmed. But the words came and I wrote them. I decided, as I sat with the ocean by my side, that I would simply allow these poems to come. I didn’t plan them; they just showed up. I would write them until the first anniversary of Michael’s death, and then I would stop. While I couldn’t control the arrival of the poems, I felt like I had to control the passing of time. If I didn’t, I would write them forever, and never move on to something else.

That anniversary arrived when I was back in Oregon this past June. I actually didn’t write the final poem that day; it was the only poem I wrote where I sat down with a plan, but the plan wouldn’t come. But the morning after the anniversary, the start of the second year without Michael, I woke up and wrote the final poem.

It was a hard decision to submit the book to my publisher. The book is more intensely personal than I’ve ever written. There’s a reason I usually choose to write fiction, something I can write by looking at it outside of me, rather than looking inside of me. But I thought of how writing the poems helped me. Maybe they could help others. I decided to submit the book to the publisher and let them decide.

They said yes in 48 hours. We also decided to include an essay I wrote, called “The Cliché”, which placed in the Wisconsin Writers Association’s annual contest.

On Tuesday, when I opened the file, I hadn’t looked at the book since I submitted it. Suddenly, there it was again, carefully sculpted into pages.

And there was the cover. Artwork gifted to me by the loveliest of writer friends, created by her, and somehow giving a face to my words.

I spent the afternoon reading, reliving, weeping. A far cry (ha!) from how I planned to spend that miraculous Tuesday.

But the day still felt miraculous. Something beautiful came out of such a horrible experience. Well…something beautiful came out of the experience, but it also came out of me.

There were only a few computer-generated errors that needed to be fixed. I returned the galleys to my publisher.

I can tell you it’s very hard and conflicting to be proud of a book that was born because of the traumatic death of your husband. It’s hard and conflicting to be happy that it’s going to be released. That evening, as I sat in my recliner in front of my fireplace, all other lights turned off, and I just watched the flames, I wrestled with the wonder of it, if that happiness and pride meant that I was happy that Michael died.

Yes, I actually wondered that.

But by the time I settled into bed, my mind was settled too. Probably because I smacked myself upside the head.

I would give up, not only this book, but every book I ever wrote, every story, every essay, every poem, if it meant Michael was still here. The words “happy” and “Michael’s death” will never appear together.

But I can be happy with the lovely things that have come out of such a dark situation. It’s truly the way that I keep moving ahead, one step after the other. It’s the way I make sure that I don’t become lost too.

The book was written. It will be released soon.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

(Those six words, at the end of every blog, have never rung truer.)

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Oh, I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. My one and only grandchild, my granddaughter, turned 13 this week. I picked her up from school, we drove to Starbucks, and…we had coffee together. Well, to be fair, she had a Strawberry Acai Lemonade Refresher. But she does Starbucks. And she did it with me.

Years ago, my oldest son got married before I turned 50. I had my first 3 kids at a pretty young age (23, 25, 26), given the era, and so I was still relatively young when they all started pairing up. I quietly, but vehemently, told my son that if he made me a grandmother before I was 50, I would remove the apparatus that made me a grandmother.

He listened. He made me a grandmother when I was 52.

I really wasn’t sure about being a grandmother. My grandmothers both wore housedresses. They looked like grandmothers. They puttered. I loved Grandma Walton, as I love all things Walton, but Grandma Walton looked like a grandmother. To me, grandmothers wore housedresses and aprons, they baked cookies, they sat in rocking chairs and knitted, and they talked about the “olden days”.

I so couldn’t fit myself in that mold. I didn’t know yet that a transformation like that didn’t automatically take place when you became a grandmother.

When my son called and hesitantly told me that I was going to be a grandmother, my response was probably guarded. As much as I love babies and toddlers and children, as evidenced by my having four of them myself, going from being a young mother of three in my twenties, to having my fourth when I turned forty, I found it hard to picture myself doing those stereotyped grandma things. But I did picture myself with an older grandchild. Teenager. Having coffee. Talking about books. Music. Life in general.

With my two daughters, Katie and Olivia, coffee, and particularly Starbucks, became a connection. When they were living with me, and when they weren’t, we still met often at Starbucks. One of my favorite memories of Katie is from her first day as an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Late in the morning, after her first classes, one of which included math, which was her major, she texted me. “I’m sitting by Lake Mendota,” she said, “and I’m drinking a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice latte. I just finished my morning classes. And I am soooooooo happy.” When I received the text, I quickly jumped into my car, drove to Starbucks, got my own drink (grande cinnamon dolce latte with only 2 pumps of cinnamon dolce, blonde espresso) so I could be sharing in her coffee break with her, even from a distance. And even though it wasn’t my usual coffee break time, which falls late afternoon.

Olivia began to join me at Starbucks when she was in middle school. Her Starbucks drink is identical to mine, though she usually takes it as a frappaccino. Michael never drank coffee, and neither does my ex-husband, so it was so nice to find out they inherited the coffee gene from me. My boys, Christopher and Andy, have resisted coffee, but Andy capitulated a few years ago. He is now a coffee connoisseur, and we share new flavors when we discover them. His Starbucks drink is a white chocolate mocha latte. He and I have not yet met in a Starbucks to just sit, sip, and talk, but I’m sure we will.

And then…there was this grandchild. Who just turned 13.

On Christmas day, I asked Maya if she liked Starbucks. “Yes,” she said, nodding vigorously. “She loves Starbucks,” her parents said.

And so an idea, based on a wistful grandmotherly dream, was born.

I picked Maya up from school today, the day after her birthday. We drove to Starbucks, went inside, ordered our drinks, and sat down at a table. Once again, I gazed at a young lovely face across from me. I gave her her birthday presents, we talked and we sipped. Partway through, Olivia joined us.

Once, when Maya was only three years old, she was riding in the back seat of my car and trying to tell me that she was losing her hair. I asked her how. “It’s the srees, Gamma Kaffee,” she said. Maya for a while could not say the letters TR. They came out SR. “The wind blows the srees and the srees take my hair.”

Maya, with hair already down to her hips at the age of three, was not losing her hair. “I don’t understand, Maya Mae,” I said, looking at her through my rearview mirror.

Her sigh encapsulated all the sadness in the universe. She slumped in her car seat. “Nobody gets it, Gamma,” she said.

Not on my watch. This gamma would get it.

She and I talked some more. And gradually, it came out that she’d had an experience, standing by a tree, where the wind blew and a branch snagged her hair. The tree stole a few of her lovely strands.

I reminded her of another conversation we had, also with her in my back seat, and also about trees. “Gamma Kaffee,” she said then. “The srees talk to me.”

“What do they say, Maya?” I asked.

“I love you, Maya,” she said.

With the new backseat story, I said to her, “Remember? The trees love you. So I’m sure it was just an accident. I bet the tree is sorry, Maya Mae.”

And she lit up.

Now, with Maya at 13, entering that rollercoaster time of adolescence, I looked at her, sitting across from me.  Her gaze came back to me, strong, even, unwavering. And I thought how I would do anything for this girl.

This grandma, who misses being called Gamma Kaffee, gets it. With Starbucks between us, conversation, and steady gazes, I will continue to get it and make her light up.

Happy birthday, Maya Mae. Katie and Olivia and Andy, let’s have coffee soon. Christopher, get with the program.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

For those who read This Week’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News, it’s going to be late today, as I’m likely going to be living it late this afternoon. It will be coming…probably after 7:00 p.m. central time.

🙂

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Well, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve spent the greater part of this day trying to figure out what I’m going to write about. I sifted through my week, day by day by day. Nothing stood out.

I know that what I’m seeing on the news is affecting my mood. So is the two-year anniversary of Michael’s being struck and run over by the passenger van – January 17. So this week has been a bit like walking through a swamp and trying not to pay attention to it. I hear the sound of my footsteps schlorping through the murk…but I keep my eyes leveled ahead at what’s in front of me. Not quite like wearing blinders…I’m fully aware, I can see and hear what’s going on, inside and out. But I keep my gaze steady.

I found myself puzzling over the term “anniversary” in connection to Michael’s accident, that was the start of this two-year awful cycle. Anniversary just doesn’t seem right. It brings up visions of celebrations. Balloons. Wedding bells. Parties. Smiles and laughter. None of those fit this kind of “anniversary”.

Somewhere in the middle of this murk, slogging through the swamp, thinking about anniversaries, my mind settled on one of my own novels. Learning To Tell (A Life)Time. One of the storylines in that book belonged to Cooley, who also appeared in The Home For Wayward Clocks and who had a cameo appearance in In Grace’s Time. In Cooley’s past was a boy (she thought) who romanced her via the internet, but when he showed up to meet her face to face, he was a man. A man who proceeded to rape her. Cooley remembers the day, and the date, as if it just happened, and she wonders what to call it, each year as that date approaches. Like me now, but not the me that wrote that book as I didn’t have an event like that to ponder, she wonders what to call it, because anniversary doesn’t work.

As I thought of Lifetime and Cooley, I remembered that she (and I) found another word for a date that you always remembered, but it wasn’t a good memory. I couldn’t remember what it was. I wrote the book in 2011 and 2012 and it was published in 2013, so it’s been a while. So I sat down with my own copy of the book and paged through it, trying to find the scene where she (and I) found the word. I was amazed at what I saw.

First, this, which included the definition of the word “anniversary”:

Anniversary

1. The yearly recurrence of the date of a past event;
2. The celebration or commemoration of such an event.

The word celebration bothered Cooley.  There was no celebrating this.  It stuck in the mind like an impossible sliver, something that just couldn’t be dug out.

And:

April 16.  Cooley hated the month of April.  While others were celebrating the coming of spring, she always found herself wanting to sleep.  Hibernation didn’t hit for her in the winter, but in the new green of an April morning. 

An impossible sliver that can’t be dug out. For me, January 17^th. The accident. And June 19^th. Michael’s death.

And I have had an impossible craving for sleep since the Christmas season started.

Then I read this:

Finally, she landed on a site for death anniversaries, a discussion of the different ways cultures acknowledged the deaths of loved ones.  Words on this site came from all around the world.  Gio.  Kishin.  Jiri.  Shraddha.  Gije.  But one word, broken down, stuck out to Cooley.  The Japanese word  meinichi.  Mei, the article said, meant life, and niche meant date.  A life date.

April 16, 1993, was definitely a day that changed Cooley’s life.  It wasn’t an anniversary. It was something else. Life-changing.

Meinichi.  That word would be reserved for Marcus, and for the rape, alone.  

I carefully closed my novel and slid it back into place with the others. Standing before them for a moment, I let my finger touch each book, one by one.

Somewhere in the writing of To Tell (A Life)Time, from 2011 to 2013, I answered my own question that I would ponder in 2026. I couldn’t remember it on my own, but I had to look back over my own words, to come up with the word that soothed Cooley. And that soothes me now.

My anniversaries with Michael – the anniversary of our first date, the anniversary when he moved here from Omaha to be with me, the anniversary of our marriage – would remain anniversaries. Celebrations.

But the day I received a phone call, telling me my husband was struck and run over and that I needed to come to the ER right away – “Hurry!”- is not a celebration. The day he died…not an anniversary either.

Meinichi.

I answered myself thirteen years before I even had the question. A question I never wanted to ask.

I don’t know how this fits as a Moment Of Happiness. Despite The News. But it was a moment that made me smile, hug the book to my heart, glance over at Michael’s photo, drop my shoulders, and breathe. So it will have to do.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

(And now…the rest of the story…)

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

On New Year’s Day, in the evening, my daughter Olivia and I moved our cars up into the parking garage across the street. It snowed, and at my condo, we have to move the cars that are parked outside so a plow can come clear us out. My condo only has a 1-car garage, and I own 3 cars (don’t be impressed…the newest one is a 2018, though I do keep my cars in pristine shape. One car is for Olivia.) After we parked and were moving toward the elevator to take us back down to the street, we heard a car honk, followed immediately by a man yelling. He let loose with a string of expletives, and also a demand to not call him by a racial slur.

Now, this is not unusual. Whether Waukesha admits it or not, we have a sizable homeless population, and many hang around the parking garage, which is also our bus station for Waukesha and Milwaukee city busses. Livvy was nervous, because we would likely have to walk past the yelling man to get home, but I told her we’d be able to handle it.

Before his death, Michael and I did quite a bit with the homeless in our area. We kept a supply of Lunchables, fresh fruit, and bottled water on hand to distribute if we came across someone, and we also kept handy a list of shelters. I bought old blankets and jackets from Goodwill to distribute as well during the winter months. So I really wasn’t worried about this man. The homeless have never scared me.

When we got down to street level, we stopped for a moment and listened. The man had fallen silent, so we left the bus station and headed toward the street. Before we got there, we heard the man start yelling again. As we stepped onto the sidewalk, I saw him, off to our right, on the parking garage side of the street. The condo building is on the other side. He was still ranting, so I told Livvy we would cross the street and walk home on that sidewalk.

We crossed, and then she took off, walking too fast for me to keep up. The man noticed her and began to yell at her directly. She yelled back, saying, “I didn’t do anything! Please leave me alone!” He stepped off the curb and started walking toward her.

This is when I broke into a run. Full out. If he was going to approach my daughter, he had to reach me first. I would make sure I was between the two of them. As I ran, I called to him, “It wasn’t us. We just parked our cars upstairs.” He hesitated, then turned to head back to his side of the street.

I kept running in case he changed direction again. There was a small side street between me and the condo building, and Livvy was already on the other side. So I flew off the curb and into the street.

I mentioned it snowed, right? And we hadn’t yet been plowed. The sidewalk and streets were covered with ice, snow, and slush.

When my foot hit the street, it also hit some sort of divot and I was suddenly airborne. It was like a swan dive. When I landed in the middle of the street, it was flat out, belly down, arms fully extended in front of me like Superman. WHOMP! Amazingly, I did not hit my head and my glasses remained on my face. But the rest of me was completely flat down in the street. The air was knocked out of me and I was instantly in pain.

Olivia, luckily, looked over her shoulder, saw me, and came running back. When I told her to help me up, she grabbed my arms, said, “1…2…3…UP!” and heaved, without giving me a chance to get my feet under me. And then she dropped me.

I fell back onto the street, hitting with my right hip first, and then fell backward, so I was now fully on my back in the street. I was in pain, soaking wet with cold ice water, and I had no idea how I was going to get up. Livvy was babbling about calling an ambulance, but I knew I didn’t need that. I just needed stable help up.

There was a parked car on the street, so I told Livvy I was going to try to crawl over to it to pull myself up. How I was going to crawl with burning knees and ankles and hips and arms and hands, I don’t know. But it was all I could think of. I was trying to get myself onto all fours, when suddenly…the homeless man was there. Right next to me. And he wasn’t ranting.

“I’ve got you,” he said. “I’ve got you, love. It’s okay.”

I looked at him and said, “Can you help me up?”

He bent down and I put my arms around his neck. His arms slid under mine and around my back. Then he raised me up slowly, allowing me to get my feet under me and stand.

We were face to face. In each other’s arms. And we stood there.

The man made direct eye contact with me. He didn’t look away. His gaze was steady. Looking back at it now, I would say his eyes were kind and gentle. At the time, shook as I was, I found myself thinking, He looks so human.

So human.

He said again, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, love.” And then, “I won’t let you go.”

Now, I’ve heard often enough of time standing still. But I’ve never experienced it. Until then. There was only the two of us. His eyes. His words.

The last coherent words Michael said to me before he died were, “I’m never going to let you go.”

On this night, on that street, in the arms of a man who had been raving and ranting just a few minutes before, who may have been a threat, I felt safe. Absolutely safe.

He was so human.

Eventually, I stepped back and so did he. I thanked him profusely. He, in a much softer voice, continued what he was saying across the street. Expletives, mostly. He said someone called the police, the police were after him. Someone called him a racial slur. I told him where to go for shelter and thanked him again.

I wish I’d had the presence of mind to offer him some money, or to tell Livvy to run ahead and make him a sandwich, bring him some food. But I didn’t. I was in pain, freezing, soaking wet…and stunned.

Olivia and I moved slowly back to the condo, and I somehow got myself up the stairs (remember – I live in a three-story condo). On the second floor, I took off my soaking coat, my sopping mittens, checked to make sure my phone hadn’t flown out of my purse. Then I went up to the third floor and changed into warm clothes, while examining the multiple bruises and swelling that were already setting in. Dressed and almost warm, I moved back down to the second floor to sit in my recliner by the lit fireplace.

But first, I stood at our floor to ceiling windows and looked up and down the street. The man wasn’t there. We don’t know where he went, and we haven’t seen him since.

Over and over this week, I have replayed this moment. The gentle transformation of that man. His eyes. And Michael’s words coming out of his mouth.

That feeling of safety. Of being looked after.

I just keep thinking about it. And when I do, I feel safe over and over again.

He was so human.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.