Sitting with Gene

Okay, I am being tested. I mean, I think I am being tested. Why else would I find myself willingly sitting with someone who is dying, whom I don't know all that well?

Because I have seen in just the last two months what a fine person he is. And because no one should pass on without another human nearby.

There are several of us taking turns with Gene, of course. Gene is at Rachel's house, and has been there for five days now. He responded at first to glasses of fresh cabbage juice, supposedly to keep him from throwing up so much. But his strength has been leaving his body each day. We think it is a matter of a day or two, or three, before he finally lets go.

We are all there for him, to ease his pain and help his last days and hours be as gentle as they can.  I am returning for a few hours later this afternoon. That enables Rachel to be present at one of the Lubec Landmarks artist's receptions, as she does every second Saturday afternoon in summer (when the gallery shows change ... she's the organization's president).

I'm not scared, and I'm not upset. Rather, I am honored.

Another friend is dying ...

I chose to move to Lubec after Frank died because of all the friends I have here. Rachel has been the best friend among many friends. I soon learned that Rachel is a dear friend to all. Her heart is as big and wide as her open door. Friends are in and out of her house, three doors up from me, constantly.

Circles of friends overlap here. In mid-June, Gene moved back to Lubec, where he had been living "off the grid" for more than five years. He spent most of his life in Delaware, working in carpentry. He discovered Lubec, as we all come to do, and stayed. Now 66, Gene is a kind soul who found in Lubec a place full of gentleness.

Two years ago Gene got stomach cancer. He returned to Delaware for treatments, until doctors said they couldn't do anything else. So he had hospice care ... until he decided he wanted to be back in the woods again.

First he got a campsite in Pennsylvania's Poconos. Hospice nurses looked in on him everyday for three weeks. Then he realized he really wanted to be home in Lubec -- where he has a small boat and a recreational license to fish for lobsters. He also has a small collie who goes everywhere with him. Back here, Gene has been on the water nearly daily, when he isn't visiting with friends around town. He brings them the lobsters he catches and the clams he digs.

I saw him a week ago, and he told me he's been sick lately. Rachel saw him more recently, and said that it's time for Gene to come live with her. This morning, Gene called her from his place in the woods of North Lubec. It really is time for Gene to move into Rachel's downstairs, and be nurtured and fed and loved by his friends. I think he realizes that.

Dashed by a dream

Frank doesn't show up in my dreams much at all. But when he does, it's a powerful dream. I'm not one who talks about dreams at all, but this one just struck at my heart. It went like this: I learned that Frank was "out there," that there was a chance that I could see him in three years. The dream vaguely had him in a prison, and that I came across an address for which he could receive my letters. That gave me hope that I could communicate, and he would be returning in three years.

Then I woke up. It was 3:41am. Frank's dead, I realized. He's not coming back. It was all a dream.

Benefit for a cancer patient

Few weeks ago, I saw a flyer in town: Benefit supper and auction for so-and-so, Sunday, Aug. 12, all afternoon. I marked it on my calendar.

Even better, I followed through and went. The parking lot was packed. Once inside, food was plentiful and people were left standing as the auction started. The older man with Stage 4 cancer, accompanied by his wife, was seated up close to the auction action.

I've seen these local auctions where a home-baked pie may bring $5, and the bathroom faucet donated by the  local hardware shop may bring $8. Sometimes they can't give this stuff away. But this one seemed different. A blueberry pie went for $50. Some home-smoked salmon went for $40. And when the $10 gift card for Uncle Kippy's Restaurant came up, I won it for $20.

This wasn't a crowd with money. These people were the man's own extended family of cousins and everyone else who grew up alongside the family. This was a crowd filled with neighbors and friends, and lots of love.

The least I could do today was go and support the man and his family. It's just so easy to remember how wonderful and giving everyone else had been for Frank and me, back in January 2011 when our friends organized a benefit supper and auction for us. It was amazing to experience all that love and generosity back in 2011. It was amazing to see something like that all over again today, for another family in need.

The annual town meeting

Not a single thing happens that I don't relate to Frank.Take last night, for example. Lubec held its annual town meeting. I went by myself, as I'm having to do for all things these days. In the past, I've always gone to to town meetings (Machias, and Franklin before that) with Frank.

Frank never missed a town meeting, as long as I knew him, until his illness kept him from Machias' town meeting in 2011. He loved  being part of a good public discussion. He always found a point, or two or three, to make. He took his town meeting responsibilities very seriously. The critical thinker in him emerged, and he made points that others hadn't yet considered.

Could not help myself thinking of Frank last evening in town-meeting mode.

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.

Didn't want to do it ...

Did not want to remove the "married" designation on my Facebook profile ... but today, I did, anyway.  No way, however, will I remove my wedding ring anytime soon.

The wedding anniversary

We married on June 21, 2003 -- nine years ago today. We had 175 guests at Fort Knox with all kinds of Civil War touches. It was a wedding so unique that we made Monday's Bangor Daily News with a color photo (and article). We also got 60 seconds on the Channel 5 local news, at both 6 and 11pm.

It sure was an occasion. Our matron-of-honor came from Scotland, and the bridesmaids all wore colorful hoop-skirt dresses that Mom spent months sewing. She also made my dress, complete elegance with lace and "lines." Frank wore his 20th Maine uniform, with the sky-blue pants that he didn't finish sewing -- on his treadle machine -- until the evening before. There was so much perfect about that day. 


Frank and I continued to remark about our wedding for all the years ahead. Looking back, one of the ironies is that our marriage started by getting on the local TV news, and it ended that way, too. Just three days before he died, a Channel 6 television crew came to the VA hospice at Togus Hospital to film our love story ... when the UMM Ukuleles drove four hours in a snowstorm to play for him and the other patients and their families in the hospice.


I am saddened when I think too much about losing Frank far too early, even though we made that promise nine years ago, "til death do we part." But I know better. A friend from Eastport, who also lost her husband to cancer years ago, made a comment on Facebook, that it's better to think about what we had, than what I have lost. I have to agree. At least, I'm trying to think that way.

How Katie Couric did it

I wish I knew, actually. The TV anchor and newswoman lost her husband to colon cancer in 1998, when she was 41 and he was 42. She also was (and still is) a very famous person, so all of her readjusting had to take place in public view. Someone who appears to have an otherwise charmed and perfect life also had to go through all the grieving -- so I really feel for her. I read her Facebook page for inspiration.

Weeks before Frank died, I read an interview with Katie Couric about her husband's death. She wasn't afraid of her husband dying, she said, but she was afraid of "the loss." I'm not sure I understood that sentiment then, and I'm sure I still don't understand that. But, I do think about being afraid of, in Katie Couric's words -- "the loss" -- in my own context, and yup, it's something to be feared. So, I sort of understand what she was saying.

Getting through "the loss" seems both extraordinary and endless just now. Life is completely, entirely changed. I don't really like all these changes (living without Frank), but they had to happen, and I may as well pile them on all at once. Absolutely everything down to my inner self has been rattled. I can make the practical, visible changes on the outside (such as selling the house and moving), but I'm still very much working on the changes on the inside. That's where "the loss" really touches home. And it's still not a good feeling, just now.

Five months, already

January 17 to June 17 is five months already. Five months without the love of my life. Sadness still consumes me.

Sometimes I think of how widows have managed for hundreds of years before me. I should be so lucky, to at least still have options and opportunities to remake my life, even if Frank can't be part of it. Widows in history, and even today in other cultures, haven't had the chance that I've got to rebuild and go forward on a new path.

With widowhood comes a drop in social status and a new personal identity that we never asked for. I know I've got the ability to work my way through both of those -- though neither will be easy. At least I am surrounded by an emotional safety net of fabulous family and friends. Widows in other countries and cultures don't necessarily get even that much, and dispair fills their lives instead.

I still cannot imagine how the rest of my life will unfold, but I feel fortunate that I am "just" 52. If all goes well,  hopefully I've got a robust 30 years still ahead. Rather than internalize that "Woe is me," I have come to realize that I still am in charge of the rest of my life. I also don't have the limitations that widowhood at an older age might bring.

Right now I am still working through the day-to-day priorities of getting resettled into a new house in a new town. I have deliberately piled on top of all this first-year stuff the responsibilities of getting through a Master of Leadership Development degree, as well as running for the Maine House of Representatives. Meeting with success in both endeavors is the plan, but neither will happen without daily diligence. Meanwhile, remembering Frank with fondness is the best part of every day.

"Surviving joint tenant"

It's the smallest of things that occur, that make that knot in my stomach as if I'm going to cry. They happen in moments when I'm trying to hold things together, anyway. This time, I'm referring to the legal phrase, "surviving joint tenant."

This awful phrase surfaced on June4, during the closing on our Machias house. The words came from the lawyer, who is a lovely person and well-respected for her 30 years of practicing real estate law in this area. She walked her dog by our house daily, and even stopped in to visit with Frank twice in the last month that he was home, last fall.

She did my closing. Through the whole process of deciding to sell the house, and then getting it fixed and ready for the sale, I had done well with the emotions. I knew I could sell the house and move on, because the house was always more loved  by Frank, than by me. I knew I could sell off much of the furniture, because I could choose to keep the very sentimental items. I knew I could say goodbye to the house, because I would get to relocate in Lubec, a town which has always attracted me.

But there was a moment that I was entirely unprepared for, amid all the formalities of the closing. "Now sign here to convey the deed as the surviving joint tenant," the lawyer told me. That was it; the tears broke through, after a month of mostly holding them back.

That wasn't our plan, back when Frank and I closed on the Machias house as newlyweds in December 2003. We were going to live happily ever after, together, always. As joint tenants on the warranty deed, we never imagined that one of us would survive the other. Not just eight years into the marriage, anyway.

Tomorrow makes for five months since Frank died. I think about the awfulness of his illness and cancer journey, constantly. Then again, I also realize how lucky I was to know Frank and have him in my world for 10 years. And quite amazingly, that's the realization that I may be starting to focus on, instead of the incredible loss, five months after.

Donating Frank's clothes

In my previous life -- before Frank died -- there was one thing I thought about widows, if I even thought about them at all. And that thought was: "It must be hardest thing, to get rid of his clothes." It was a strange aspect to think about, for sure. But now that I have had that experience, I can see why it's a point of wonder.

I have made two trips to Goodwill in recent weeks. Both times I dropped off huge bags of Frank's clothes -- 13 bags total. Certainly more than would fit in the car, in a single trip. And both times I cried. It's kind of like a final goodbye, all over again.

It's not that the husband's clothes are the "last thing" to go out the door, but they may as well be. In Frank's case, he loved dressing well. He dressed distinctively, too -- three-piece suits, suspenders and bow ties for the courtroom. For days around the house, he liked jeans and LLBean flannel shirts. Or a variety of T-shirts that he had collected through the years, many from the Gilbert and Sullivan productions that his family had roles in, in Ellsworth in the 1990s.

The clothes added up to 13 bags largely because he had so many. There were jean, T-shirts and more from the years before we lived together, when he never threw away anything that still fit him. But, I confess, we added plenty of new clothes, or at least new-to-him, during our marriage. When I found some of his fancy suits for $3 at a local thrift store with ties to Bar Harbor, he said, "Someone my size who dressed well must have died."

Frank's older clothes never made it to Goodwill, as they were well-worn and went the way of good riddance, instead. But the bulk of those 13 bags should well-outfit any other men who stand 5-7 and weigh 150 pounds. Now, I can say  with a smile that -- someone who wants  to dress well, who is Frank's size, can do that, because of this donation. And with all the suits and suspenders, comes some quite fancy dress shoes, too.

As for Frank's collection of more than 100 bow ties, most of them hand-sewn by himself  -- that didn't go to Goodwill. That stays with me ... until I figure out what to do with them, creatively.

Counting the days

There are as many reasons why I haven't posted anything since May 20,  as there are days from then until now. Mostly I have been immersed in moving both heaven and earth. That is, the process of fixing, packing, cleaning and moving from the Machias house to a house in Lubec, has just taken not only forever, but huge amounts of emotional and mental energy. We had the closing for the Machias house on June 4, but we are still waiting to close on the Lubec house -- all for the lack of a clear title to the deed. That will be resolved in time, but it all detracts from what I had hoped to be a clean-and-swift move from one town to the other.

And, I am hardly finished with the practical details of the move still consuming most of my days. There simply was no time  to stop and reflect, and make a blog post, on the whirlwind of everything that has occurred since May 20. Frank was foremost in every thought and every decision. Mostly I'd think: "I wish Frank were here for this."

That's been my thinking every day, all along, moving between houses or not. On May 19, for the Walk for Life in Addison, the biggest fundraiser for the Beth C. Wright Cancer Resource Center, I was asked to "tell my story" about our cancer journey. I got through it, but not without tears and emotion in public. And that was okay.

Afterward, I mentioned to Center director Michael Reisman that, four months after Frank's death, I was feeling as raw and emotional and drained by losing Frank, as ever. His response was most interesting. He said that Hospice of Hancock County volunteers told him that they have found that "six months after the loss" was the time when clients felt the biggest need for comfort and conversation. I guess we arrive at a transition point, a reality in our lives, that our loved one is not coming back; that we are on our own now, forever more.

I know that I am back to blogging regularly, beyond today. There is just too much to share, that I experience every day, about this very strange journey alone in this world, that I never wanted.

Frank's friends

There were a dozen familiar faces that I could not have been happier to see on Saturday. They were members of the 20th Maine, all attending the dedication of Cherryfield's new Veterans Park by the river.

I knew that May 19 was the date, but I also knew I was planning to be elsewhere that morning. Actually, I managed to be elsewhere-and-done in time to get to Cherryfield for the dedication event, complete with cannon fire.

I loved the 90 minutes I spent with all of the 20th Maine members. He was even recalled by Kathy Upton, a 20th Maine civilian member and organizer of the park dedication, in her opening remarks. I arrived too late to hear that, but others told me as soon as they saw me.

"Frank would have been here," I told Paul Dudley, the group's president who had raised his sword to me when he saw me turn up. "I know," Paul responded.

Frank rarely missed a 20th Maine occasion in his 20 years with the group. Being among the other members was something he could always count on. Sometimes I went with him, over the 10 years we had together. But more often, he went alone to his weekends away.

This time, yesterday, it just felt as if Frank was back among his friends.

It gets better? Really?

Then how come today was my teariest day yet?

Maybe because it's late May, and I drove into New Brunswick. Maybe because Frank and I used to go into Atlantic Canada every June, very deliberately. If we didn't go to Canada on his birthday, June 9, then we went on our anniversary, June 21. We just always made sure that we were celebrating something, whenever we crossed the border.

Can't say we ever went the same place twice, in our eight years of Canada-gazing every June. On our first anniversary, we went on a late-afternoon whim to Grand Manan. We felt lucky to catch the very last ferry of the evening out of Blacks Harbour.

We also went, through the years, to Saint John, Campobello, St. Stephen, St. Andrew, Prince Edward Island and Fredericton. We'd go for either dinner or an overnight, or both, or even longer. And last year, when Frank was sick and we were on our long trip across the country, our last overnight before returning to Maine in mid-June was at Helen and Larry LeDuc's cottage in Gananoque, Ontario. See? Canada in June, again.

Separate of anniversary or birthday trips, Frank and I also crossed the border at Calais three other times -- twice for Ukulele trips to Liverpool, Nova Scotia; and once more to Liverpool, Nova Scotia, for an exploratory trip for Ukuleles-planning. Someone's got to check out Nova Scotia over a four-night Labor Day weekend, and Frank and I made sure it was us.

Today I had a meeting with a marathon organizer in Saint John. Route 1 from St. Stephen to Saint John is just rolling in beauty. So, the tears started, and carried me all the way to Saint John. Then they hit me on the return trip, too. Always in June, New Brunswick would be blooming with lupines. But there weren't any lupines on this trip, and no Frank, either.

Four months, already

" I don't know how you do it," the woman coming toward me in the grocery aisle said. I had greeted her with a smile and a hello as we angled our carts out of each other's way. I don't know her name, but she knows mine. She is one of the bank tellers at the Machias Savings Bank. We chit-chat when I see her every week or two, but I've never actually told her all about Frank and me. But she knows my story, as I suspect hundreds of other local people know, too. From the first day of the awful, terminal diagnosis, we made a decision to be very public about how we would deal with it.

"It's four months tomorrow (meaning, since he died on January 17)," I tell her. "And I don't know how I'm doing it, either."

I really don't. I have no answer for "how you do it." You just go through the day, one moment at a time. You get from one meal to the next, one meeting to the next, one message to the next. When the day is done, you're relieved, because you got through it without a meltdown or a crisis. If such a thing were either public or private it wouldn't make a difference. One would be as hard to cope with, as the other.

You don't have a choice in doing any of this. You just make up your days as they go, hoping not to get too unbalanced. You hope you are pulled together enough to be in others' company.

If today marks four months since the evening I held him as he died, I can't say it feels any better than it did at the three-month, or two-month, or one-month point. The day Frank died is as vivid as ever. And I hope it stays that way.