My alarm just woke me to say that it is 10 minutes until May 12. For some reason, I spent Monday sorting through things that I had pulled out a month ago and never put away again.
The things Roger put on his uniform every day, badges, pins, ID, Accountability Card. His comb. His little tiny glasses.
And the Fire Dept tie (clip on, of course) that he never ever wore.
I scanned some more papers. International Drivers' License. Ten of them. Ten trips to support shuttle missions overseas - ten, at least. A lot of passports. All his. He used them up and had to renew them.
I ran across more photos. I love this one because Roger RARELY wore a coat - but we picked this one out together and when he wore one, this was it most of the time....for 40 years or so. He said that he did better than the Israelites wandering around the desert. Of course, I cropped Newt G and his wife out of the photo.
Ah....And then came the newspaper clippings-obituary- and the pencil rubbing from the last Firefighter Memorial. The notes from the grandchildren. Valentine cards to each other.
It seems so surreal. Still.
Life. All in a box.
My phone dinged at 5:30 tonight. Roger. Eternity. It does that every Monday. I can't make myself change it. Maybe I just don't want to forget. And also, maybe it is a really good reminder of how very near eternity really is.
I'll go back to sleep in a bit, but I'll be thinking of Roger throughout this new day. I'll think about how I met him 'in the Sears Catalog" and how when a co-worker told me that I should go out with him, that I said he was SO OLD! Ah...well, he was when I was only 20!
But really, old, he never was. He always said I kept him young, and that might be so, but in many ways I had a hard time keeping up with him. I could blame it on his long legs, but he was always moving faster than me.
Today I will be wishing that I had been more demanding about making him slow down and smell the roses. I will be wishing that he had stayed a little longer. I'll be wishing that I had not stayed busy with other things and had slowed myself down a bit and done those crazy things that never seemed like 'me.' Things like the two of us pushing the cart around the grocery store on an almost daily basis.
I always resisted, because I always thought there would be time for that when he was 90 and I was 80. I never, ever expected that he would not make it to even close to 80.
But, reality will set in also, and I will recognize that Roger would not leave the joys of Heaven even if he could. Since his departure, other friends have passed on. Some days, it seems to be a cycle.
Some days, I feel like God is just calling His children home because something big is about to take place down here. If that is the case, then I want everyone I know to be ready for eternity. To experience a joy greater than any we have on earth. That is what Roger would want as well.
Anniversary. A day to remember. I'm glad that I started writing over a year ago. It has been a help to me. It has been good to record memories for my children and grandchildren. It has also been wonderful to recognize that none of us will be here forever. This is practice. This wedding day that we experienced 42 years ago, and the life we lived together, was practice. It was practice for a perfect life in eternity.
I like to remember the ups of our life together, and not the downs. But I have come to realize that the downs made us stronger and increased our faith, both in God and in each other. The downs led us to the next up. We did the richer and poorer, and the sickness and health - although it was mostly me who did the really tough sick part, which might have been better for him. (I wonder what kind of nurse I would have been had it been the other way around) The til death do us part....well, we did that too, not that I was fond of that part so much. We had a fun life together, figuring each other out, being total opposites in so many ways, accepting each other without trying to mold the other into a whole new person. And yet we were different people at the end of it than we were when we started. Aren't we all? Hopefully we were better. More loving, more forgiving, more encouraging.
Does it get better over a year later? Not really. It gets manageable. Life can still be joyful and life can still have meaning. Does it mean that the 'new normal' will ever feel 'normal?' I kind of think not. Maybe I will have a better reading on that in a decade.
Interesting that Woodlawn called today. They wanted his marker to be installed. Plastic sign - still - over a year later. Veteran's Admin holdup. Go figure. Roger would laugh. He would tell me that he is not there so don't let it bother me. He would find humor in the fact that the VA is so slow. He would say that they know he was a conservative Republican. He does not even have a vase for me to put flowers in, and they dug up his tree. "The sun will keep my muscles warm" he would laugh and say. Good grief. I can still hear his voice in my head all the time. And mostly, he makes me laugh!
Roger's Lesson: Don't get hung up on that stuff. Keep living and don't hang out at the cemetery. You can't help those who have gone on. Invest in those who are still here. Keep telling them about the joy they can experience in eternity, but that they have to decide now. Don't give up.
Yes, it is also interesting that I found a paper today called "Happenings In Heaven"
I had never seen it before, and I thought I had been through all of Roger's stuff.
Interesting that I saw it today - I'll read it sometime during this anniversary day. I'll skip to the part about the Marriage of The Lamb.
And I know that it will remind me of the great times we had together on this earth, and that the good times were only a teeny tiny taste of the life to come. And I will think on those wonderful things of earth that we experienced together - and I will thank God that for whatever crazy reason He allowed me to end up in the Sears Catalog department in 1972, I recognize that He directed it all - just has He has done every day since. And that he allowed Roger to survive an awful car accident in March of 72 and be on medical leave, picking up his dad from ...yes, Sears, and hanging out in the Catalog Department until clock out time...... only God could have arranged that.
It is too bad the Sears Catalog has gone the way of the dinosaur. But I am so glad that my man found his bride at the Catalog desk! Thank you, Lord!
And as Roger would say...... Un-Buh-leave-a-bull !!!!
The whole story?
....ah, look back in the archives to May 12, 2014 - the photos and stories can be found there!
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