Tag: Loss

Life Happens

Featured Image by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Hello, everyone! Time sure does go by fast sometimes, doesn't it?

Before you continue reading, I want you to know that this post may be triggering for some folks. If you don't feel ready to read about topics like loss, death, grief, or home ownership1, stop reading now and do something else. And remember, you are loved and worthy of that love, no matter what you are going through.

If you need to talk to someone, no matter the issue, no matter where you are…

Head over to https://findahelpline.com/. Talk with a crisis counselor today. Verified global support for anxiety, depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence, sexual abuse and more.

The last time I posted, I had finished up my series on server-side rendering and had every intention of doing more posts on other topics, but as John Lennon famously said (and probably borrowed from Allen Saunders):

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

While I had plans, life happened.

Close up portrait of a vibrantly redheaded woman and bearded man in glasses, both grinning.
Martha and me, April 2022

My last post was in August 2022 and life was amazing. Earlier that year, I had met the love of my life (so far) and had been enjoying an amazing summer building a relationship that we both knew would last forever. In October, just two months later, Martha died of a stroke, aged 39. Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans, and so is Death (it's a big D kinda word). It is an understatement to say that it came as a shock; my world fell apart in an instant and I am still working to rebuild it into something new. Not only did I lose her, but so did her family, including her daughter, and I miss and worry about that smart, sassy, and curious girl every day.

In 2021, about a year earlier and before I ever met Martha and her daughter, I had decided to buy a new home. It was a condo being built in my neighbourhood and I was excited to become a homeowner again to begin a new chapter, post-divorce, post-pandemic. I signed some documents and paid my deposit, then watched as construction proceeded. During this time, I met Martha, fell in love, learned that love could be very different than what I had known before, and became excited that this new condo would be a place where we could build memories together. Life happened. The whole time I was building my relationship with Martha, I could see the progress as folks were building my new home. I remember being on a call one time with my parents while Martha was at my apartment, and I joked that she wasn't invited – it was my new home, but of course I didn't mean it, she was most definitely invited.

In July this year, on Martha's birthday – something I did not plan, I finally moved in. Moving is a great distraction and goodness knows, grief needs distractions. Though I am an atheist and I don't believe in ghosts, grief is a powerful thing and I was genuinely worried about moving. I was worried that if I moved, Martha would not be able to find me; that I was leaving her behind. With hindsight, this was a foolish thing – love isn't anchored to times or places, only to ourselves. I can see that now. My new condo is amazing and I love it, and she is everywhere I need to see her when I most need to feel her love. I talk to her everyday. I wish she was here to talk back.

Since she passed, among other changes, I stopped taking dancing lessons (though I might start again one day), and I started trying stand-up comedy. At this point in my life after the experiences of the last five years, I carry this distinct feeling that nothing matters except that which we choose – it's a scary place to be but it is also powerful and liberating. It is a lot easier to stand up on a stage and tell jokes when you really do not care that much about what others think.

There is so much more I could write about these last two years and about grief, and maybe I will, at some point. For now, what am I trying to say? I am trying to say that this sucks, that I miss her everyday and wish you had got to see just how bright she made every room she entered. I am trying to say that I am still growing and learning. I am trying to say that it gets easier. I am trying to say that I am still here and I still intend to write more blog posts. I am still making other plans.

A redheaded woman in a dinosaur dress feigning a scream at a dinosaur puppet on her shoulder, with a concerned man in a lab coat next to her.
Martha dressed as Marthaceratops pretending to be scared by my T-Rex hatchling puppet, Oct 2022

Soon, within a few days of Halloween, it will be the two year anniversary of Martha's death (perhaps I will start counting her death in years instead of months, though I suspect it will be both). Halloween was arguably her favourite holiday (she loved a good costume), and I'm thinking about aligning my housewarming party with that holiday to honour her, create new memories, and build the future I have to live without her (though not without her love). In the meantime, I've been busy trying to make a home that I am comfortable in, both within my new condo and within myself. Some days are easier than others.

Life is what happens while we are busy making other plans; making other plans is what creates the circumstances for that life to happen.

đź–¤

If you need to talk to someone, no matter the issue, no matter where you are…

Head over to https://findahelpline.com/. Talk with a crisis counselor today. Verified global support for anxiety, depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence, sexual abuse and more.

  1. I don't mean to make light of the heavier topics, and I think humour is a valuable coping mechanism [↩]

And so it goes

You may have noticed I have not posted in a while. We recently moved from Michigan to Texas and during that time, I let a few lesser commitments slide. That is not to say I do not value my blog, I merely value other aspects of my life more1. Now that we are settled and some of the more frantic aspects of the move are over with, I thought it appropriate to get posting again and began crafting my next entry in my series on Octokit. However, there is something more pressing that I have to share first. I want to tell you about someone very special.

In 2001, a few months after having graduated from university and moving to Cambridgeshire, my housemate, Adam, and I decided to check out the local pub2. It was on that first visit to the Red Lion in Stretham that I met Mary, who at the time was working behind the bar. She was joyful, sparkling, kind, and funny. Like the most excellent of those who work a bar, she made us feel welcome, like we belonged. For the first time, I felt like Stretham was home.

The next time I remember seeing Mary was a day or so later when Adam and I were walking across the village green. She came walking towards us, holding the hand of a little girl.

Adam memorably said, “Is that yours?”

“That” turned out to be Mary’s daughter, Jordan. It also turned out that Mary, along with her adorably cheeky daughter, lived next door to us and over the months to follow we became friends. Most Thursdays3, Mary held her “Top of the P, Top of the I” club4 where we would share a drink, a smoke, and a lot of laughs, often while watching “Enders”5 or some other nonsense. I have many fond memories of us sitting in her lounge, kitchen, or backyard, in the pub, or in the beer garden behind it; all of them with Mary smiling and laughing and sparkling.

Mary and Chrissy

When I was happy, she would laugh with me. When I was sad, she would sit with me. When I was stupid, she would tell me. Mary became the best of friends; unafraid to be honest, never judging, always supportive. A counsel and a partner in crime (I suspect this is the case for many of her friends). On the day I left for the US, it was Mary that stood in her dressing gown in the backyard of her house to wave goodbye, smiling and sparkling.

On return trips to England, I always did what I could to get to Stretham and see all my friends, stopping by the Red Lion for far too many drinks and never enough good times. I did not always succeed. For those that live far from their friends and family, it is an all too familiar experience to never have enough time to see everyone. On one occasion I visited Cambridgeshire but could not see Mary, she understood.

“Next time,” she said.

And so it was that earlier this year, Chrissy and I stopped by Stretham to see Mary and Jordan. Though we spent some time at the Red Lion catching up with some old familiar faces, it was back at Mary’s I remember most. There we met the amazing young woman Jordan grew up to be, we shared stories of the times we had shared before6, and we got to know Russ, the love of Mary’s life. We spent as much time with them as they could stand and it was wonderful. Jordan was sarcastic and sassy, Russ was witty and wonderful, and Mary was smiling and sparkling, more than I ever remember her doing before. There was even one surviving PEPSI glass from the “Top of the P, Top of the I” club and we put it to good use. The time we spent with Mary and her family, seeing her happier than ever, surrounded by love was one of the highlights of our trip.

Mary and Family

"It takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, and a day to love them, but it takes an entire lifetime to forget them."

And so it goes. Yesterday, a dear friend reached out to me and informed me that Mary had died. Some time, while I was asleep or doing something else unremarkable, the world lost some of its shine. No reason. No fanfare. No sparkle.

Russ, Jordan, and the rest of Mary’s family and friends are grieving and I with them. There’s nothing more to say about that.

Every day of our lives, we carry our friends with us, no matter where they are. They are there when we cry and when we laugh, when we have to make difficult decisions, and when we just want to reminisce. I am grateful for the moments shared with my friends and for them making me a part of their world. Mary was one of a kind and everyone that knew her is better for it.

  1. like food, shelter, and love [↩]
  2. I do not remember why we had not gone there sooner, nor the impetus that led to us going for the first time, though I dearly wish I could [↩]
  3. I’m pretty sure it was Thursdays…my memory fails a little to be certain [↩]
  4. Named after Mary’s PEPSI glasses, that had letters on the side making convenient measures for the mix of Bacardi and cola that we drank [↩]
  5. EastEnders [↩]
  6. like when Chrissy and Mary held me down while an 8 year old Jordan bound my hands with Selotape for no good reason other than “just because” [↩]