One year without Michelle (#1369)

Topics/tags: Michelle

Michelle passed away a year ago this morning. It’s been a hard year. I can’t tell whether a year seems like a little or a lot. Maybe both. In any case, the kids and I have been through a lot of firsts. The first Halloween without her. The first Thanksgiving. The first Christmas and New Year’s. The first Easter. First birthdays. Our 38th anniversary, the first without her. I suppose today is the last of those, the first time we’ve had an anniversary of her death.

I’ve also had some firsts that I didn’t really expect. My first time saying the Mourner’s Kaddish at Shabbat services. My first time observing Yom Kippur. My first time helping build (or at least roof) the sukkah. I’d never quite understood why my mother, who raised me without religion, turned to her Judaism when my father passed. Now I understand, at least a bit.

In the past few weeks, people asked what I was planning to do today. I said that I wasn’t sure. I had a meeting scheduled. I knew I’d have dinner with Eldest. About a week ago, I decided to go out for trivia night at the local brewhouse. I knew I’d visit her grave. I assumed I’d try to talk to her brother. I knew that I’d attempt to write a musing. That seemed like enough. I also knew that I’d cry, perhaps sob.

That’s what my day was like, more or less. I also went out to lunch with Eldest. I hung out on the CS floor. I tried to fix my computer. I looked at sales on Amazon. A bit of normalcy is always good. Crying and sobbing are okay, too. For me, they’re normal.

I also tried to figure out what I wanted to write today. I didn’t want to write about myself and how I’ve been feeling; I’ve done enough of that of late [1]. I considered writing up a list of things I learned from her; that feels like a separate musing [2]. I explored writing a history of her last year or two; that seemed a bit painful [3]. Nothing seemed right.

Well, that’s not quite true. I thought about us as a couple. We made each other better. We worked as a pair. She told me that I helped her accomplish things she wouldn’t have otherwise. I know that she pushed me to grow in meaningful new ways. And I thought about our approaches to the world. I can’t come up with the right words, but I’ll use pessimist and optimist. She generally worried that things would go wrong and that you should prepare for them going wrong. I typically assumed that things generally work out okay in the end.

I guess I was wrong.

I miss you, love! I hope you still read these, wherever you are.

[1] Don’t worry; I’ll start again next month.

[2] I should mention that I’ve been following this thought when I’ve been eating out: We’d tip at least $5 each at Prairie Canary. Shouldn’t these folks get something similar?

[3] Nope, don’t have anything for this endnote. I wanted a bit of symmetry.

Version 1.0 of 2025-10-08.