Eight months without Michelle (#1350)

Topics/tags: Michelle

Michelle passed away eight months ago today. It still feels like a moment since I’ve been with her. I think that’s good. At least it’s good for me. Most of the time.

My days tend to alternate between extremes. Most of the time, I feel like she’s around, or at least I act as if she’s around. I go through my day. I listen to the advice I know she’d give me. Or I try to listen to the advice she’d give me. I’m not always the best listener. I feel her love. I feel love for her. At night, I recap the day for her. Sometimes the recaps are short. Sometimes they are surprisingly long.

I’d like to ask her questions. I’d like to talk to her about the challenges in my life (or what I still think about as our life), about the kids, about the broader world. I really miss the sharing, particularly in terms of helping the kids move forward in their lives. It’s particularly hard that the thing that they most need help with is her absence. I’m not good at helping with that, except in terms of sharing memories.

I also miss her for practical things. Should I worry about this health issue? Why I am so tired all the time? What do you think we should do about the weeds?

As I said, most of the time, most of the day, I get by okay.

Then something happens, and I’m reminded of just how much I’ve lost. For example, the other day, I was cleaning off a stack of books. At the bottom were two pictures she’d ordered from Youngest’s graduation. And I just lost it. Eldest ran down the stairs to see why I was sobbing so loudly. She’s with me, but she’s not. We were a pair. I’m still not completely sure what I am without her. Perhaps alone.

I’ve made it through some milestones this past month. I hope she’s proud.

I attended my first College graduation without her. I miss waving to her as I process, meeting for her for lunch, debriefing with her on the speakers (if she stayed for the speakers), chatting with friends together.

I hosted my first summer game night without her. I’m not sure that I managed to get the house quite as straight or clean as she would have liked, but I did relatively well.

I hosted my first student picnic without her. She would have made sure that we prepared carefully. I tried. I know that I didn’t get the deck as clean or straight as she would have liked. I also didn’t get the weeding done. But the deck wasn’t horribly embarrassing. I think I did well. Or at least I did sufficiently well.

Weeding is going to be hard. We always had the question of whether having her watch weeding is what sent her to the hospital last May. Did she accidentally inhale some kind of fungus? Every time I think about attacking the weeds, the question springs to mind. I know it doesn’t make any difference. And I know that I have to get weeding done. But ….

I’m also not in great physical shape. So weeding is going to take some time. A few minutes each day, most likely. I also don’t have a lot of time these days. My summer is surprisingly busy. It doesn’t help that I signed up for twelve hours of workshop this coming week, that I have more than nine hours of committee meetings and at least three hours of other meetings, that I spent eight hours preparing for those meetings, and that I also need to fit in time for my research students.

Perhaps weeding will wait. Michelle never insisted that we make it a priority.

What else? Perhaps that’s it for now. She’s with me, but she’s not. I’m okay, then I’m not. I get by. Mostly. I promised her I’d make it without her. I’ll try.

Version 1.0 released 2025-06-08.

Version 1.0.1 of 2025-06-08.