Twenty-one months without Michelle (#1415)

Topics/tags: Michelle

Michelle passed away twenty-one months ago today, on October 8, 2024. I don’t recall the exact time. I remember sitting next to her, checking, and she was still breathing. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up some time later, maybe 3 am, maybe 5 am, she wasn’t. It wasn’t a surprise; we knew her body was failing. I’m glad she got to pass the way she wanted, with me sleeping by her side.

In any case, I’m marking the anniversary, as I always do, with a musing. I’ll admit that as I always do is not as simple as it should be. I always think of her on the monthly anniversary; of course, I think of her every day. But I also mentally sketch a musing on the anniversary. However, I don’t always manage to write and post the musing until a few days later. Today, I’m on target.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sorrow this month, and I ended up with a perspective that’s helpful to me. I’d rather have had the thirty-eight-or-so years with her and be without her than never have had her in my life at all. It was a privilege to be married to her. In any case, my new aphorism is that It’s better to celebrate what you had than mourn what you’ve lost. Perhaps, Don’t be sad about what you won’t have; be happy about what you did. Or the more traditional, ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt that she’s gone. It does. A lot. But I’m increasingly able to console myself by thinking about all the time I had with her and the ways that she’s still with me. I’ll always feel her love. I’ll always remember her advice (or at least I’ll try to remember her advice; I’ll still ignore it too much of the time).

So I’ve been doing okay this month, at least in terms of coping with life without her. When in doubt, I recall a moment, an adventure, or shared joy with something. The memories may make me cry, but they are at least partially tears of joy.

As I said, I’ve been mostly okay. However, my subconscious had some interesting plans for me. I had multiple dreams about her yesterday and last night. They are dreams, so they’ve faded a bit, but I count at least four, maybe more. Let’s see what I can recall. The best was short: We were lying in bed together, hugging. That’s it. Just the joy of holding each other. The next one? She was gone, and I was dreaming about doing things around the house while missing her. I found myself asking questions while changing lightbulbs, Should I keep this hacked-together light fixture that she set up, or should I replace it? Of course, I don’t think she ever hacked together a light fixture. It was mostly a dream about missing her, about living without her.

That one was hard. The next one was harder. As best I recall it, I was working late into the night while she was sleeping in the next room. Eventually, I got up to go to bed as she was waking up. And I told her about the prior dream. I dreamed about what it’s like without you. And I knew that she’d be gone far too soon. I cried upon awaking. I’m crying now.

After that, the dreams got a bit stranger. In one, I was buying a new house in a new town. The house itself was strange; if I recall, it had a concert hall on the second floor that the town wanted to keep active. But the strangest part of the dream was that I felt like Michelle and I had looked at the house together and talked about how we’d use the different strange parts of the house. So each time I talked to someone in the dream, I said something like, When my wife and I discussed it before …; now she’s gone, I’ll have to think about a different approach.

The last one was the strangest of all. I don’t remember the beginning of the dream. I recall it took place in an odd, science-fiction-y social space. Not quite a bar. Perhaps a club, of sorts, although not the musical kind. At some point, people were figuring out how to use logical statements to affect the universe. I realized that if I could gather enough of something (a particular gum, perhaps), I’d be able to bring her back. However, her existence would use up the gum, so I’d keep having to find more. The dream ended with me failing to find enough gum (or perhaps to come up with the logical argument that more gum should exist). Dreams can be weird.

What was my subconscious telling me? I’m not sure. I’d venture that it was reminding me to think of her. I’d also venture that it was suggesting that I get used to living without her. It certainly reminded me of how much I loved just holding her.

Oh well, whatever it was saying, I’ll get along with some variant of the aphorism. Rejoice in the time you had together.

See you next month!

Version 1.0 of 2026-07-08.