Bought a lawnmower ...

Gee, nearly two weeks since my last post. You'd think I'd have run out of things to say, with respect to losing Frank and forging a life on my own now.

Nope. Frank is in my thoughts and in my heart every single minute.

Like, last weekend. Campobello was holding its first-ever, island-wide yard sale, with 27 families taking part. I justified my going by saying, "If Frank were here, he'd want to go, too."

The best thing I bought (only thing, besides a coffeemaker, which I needed to replace because my coffeemaker went missing in all the packing) was a lawnmower. A great, big, fancy push mower with bells and whistles. The retail price was $340 in the store (the old man told me), and I got it for $150.

I have to laugh, because Frank had a very strange history with lawnmowers. He was never a friend of yards and gardens, I don't think. I believe that during his 20 years in the Franklin farmhouse, he let his lawn grow high, "prairie-style." But -- once I met him and moved in, not my style.

I got him to buy a mower right before our wedding in June 2003. Actually, because it was the cheapest model you could buy, I don't think it lasted into the next summer, when we had moved into the Machias house.

So for all those Machias years, our lawn didn't get properly mowed much. We'd borrow the neighbor's lawnmower, or Frank would use the weed-whacker lawnmower-style. Or we would pay the neighbor to mow our yard. I kept threatening to go buy a proper lawnmower, but Frank would always say we didn't need one, or we didn't have the money for one.

Naturally, at the first sighting of a good lawnmower at a yard sale (last Saturday), I grabbed onto it. It's not here, yet, because I'm waiting for our friend Mike Shannon to turn up here with his pick-up truck, so we can go pick it up. But once I get it, my plan is to use it. Regularly, too, Frank. Just watch me!

Frank's best friend has died -

Last week brought the news that Gordon McRae, Frank's best friend for about 20 years, died of a sudden heart attack. There wasn't a funeral, because Gordon didn't believe funerals are worth the expense. I can sure see Gordon saying that. Frank, on the other hand, planned his own funeral, down to the detail that Gordon would carry his urn of ashes. Gordon did that twice, first at the Catholic service for Frank in January, and then for his military burial at the Veterans' Cemetery in Augusta, in March.

I love what Gordon said more than once within my earshot over the years. Gordon had won a Purple Heart when he served in Vietnam, during the same years when Frank was a Seabee at Little Creek, Virginia. Gordon said that if he had to go into Vietnam all over again, he'd want no one else but Frank by his side.

So, Gordon is gone. Gordon and Amy had been very good friends to us in Frank's last year. Amy and I got closer, and more importantly, Gordon and Frank got closer. Frank was 61 when he died, and Gordon was 63. They had become friends since the early years of the 20th Maine. They had come to visit Frank at our house in November, in some of the last weeks that he was home.

I last saw both Gordon and Amy in late May, when the 20th Maine came to Cherryfield to dedicate a Veterans' Park by the river. Gordon and the rest of the 20th Maine fired Gordon's cannon ... he rarely went anywhere without his cannon.

It's comforting to think that Frank was "there" to welcome Gordon, wherever "there" is. Frank and Gordon are together again -- I know that. And no doubt they are talking about the Civil War and cannons.

Days of sadness

Two weeks now, and no posts for days. I think about posting every single day - for I understand I have a readership out there, however modest. Thing is, I believe that each day's post would be more of the same. More of the same sadness that just does not seem to lift.

Next week will make it six months since Frank's passing, since January 17. I truly thought that I've been through the worst of this experience, particularly when four months came and went. But goodness, months 4-5-6 have been the absolute hardest to get through. What's with that, I wonder!

A handful of my older friends who have been widowed - who are my dear listeners these days - share their experiences with me. They say, "It will get better, but it takes time. It will take a year, and let it."

So, I'm just letting the sadness settle in and do its thing. I still cry tons. I suppose I was hoping to hasten the process of healing, but I just need more patience. And, apparently, more time, too.

Day by day by day

Gee, I try to keep a positive outlook on Life After Frank. But it's totally not the same, and this time a year ago, when we were traveling to Togus VA Hospital weekly for his chemotherapy, was totally not the same from the previous summer -- when we had no idea a tumor was about to take over, then away, his life.

So now I  have moved on enough, to have moved houses. I'm still settling in this one, which is far smaller than the Machias one. I still have far too much stuff for one person, or for a solo life that has yet to reveal how it will unfold. As I unpack boxes, I come across too many things from Frank. And I tear up each time I see a note in his handwriting. It doesn't matter what he was making a note about; it's the handwriting that gets me. I have thrown away a lot of "stuff" -- but I can say that in these five months, I have yet to throw away any image of his handwriting. It's too soon, still.