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.

A place for everything ...

... and everything in its place. That's certainly how my mother in Maryland lives, and it's what Frank strived for, too -- neatness and orderliness.

So I have had to struggle all these months with a very pressing and personal question: What do I do with Frank's collection of Civil War books? He had a fair number when I met him. But he also was a life-long user of libraries, so he had read far more Civil War books than he owned. And once my family knew about his love for anything Civil War, he was given many more through the 10 years.

As a 20-year member of the 20th Maine Co. B regiment of re-enactors, all of Frank's colleagues also had every Civil War book ever published. When he was dying, he said several times that he wanted his buddies to have his books. Some of them visited toward the end, and Frank always asked them to take away some books. But they were polite and declined.

The estate sale happened too fast, before I had a solution about Frank's book collection. To cope, I simply put up the sign: "Civil War books not for sale." I still didn't know what I'd do with all of them ... until yesterday.

Two of the members of the 20th Maine group, Kathy Upton and Cara Sawyer, are both librarians at the Cherryfield Library. They joined up as civilian women in September 2009, when they and the Cherryfield Historical Society organized "Living History Day" in the town. The 20th Maine was invited, and Frank took part, I remember.

In a few days, Frank's Civil War collection will have a new home at the Cherryfield Library. I knew I just needed time to figure out the right thing to do.

Cherryfield is also home to Peter Duston, a dear friend who appreciates Civil War history, too. Peter is the one who played Taps on his bugle at Frank's military service in Augusta on March 27. And Peter knows Cherryfield's own Civil War history by heart, because twin brothers from Cherryfield who served are buried in the town's cemetery. And on May 19, members of the 20th Maine are returning to Cherryfield for a re-dedication of the graves of those special Civil War soldiers.

Back to blue

As far as estate sales go, this one was fabulous, from my perspective. Of course, I'm supposed to be the weepy widow who can't let go of memories and things. And moving out of the home we made together is supposed to be a most difficult transition.

But -- nah. It's all been good. Stuff sold, I got money, tons of people walked through, tons more came back for Sunday's continuing sale.

After most of the selling took place on Saturday, I realized that some things -- some blue things -- hadn't left the house in the rush. Blue had been the reigning color in the farmhouse in Franklin, where Frank had lived for 20 years before our lives came together. So we made blue our decor from the start, and received many blue things from my wedding shower nine years ago. Blue towels, blue sheets, blue bedspreads, too. But when we moved to Machias, the interior was already cranberry, so I found a wallpaper that made our home-lives work around a cranberry-and-gold combination. Our blue stuff wasn't featured in any way. (Meanwhile, people continue to comment on my choice of cranberry-and-gold wallpaper, as recently as the weekend sale).

Once I shift to Lubec, I'm bringing back everything blue. I snatched out of the sale items all the leftover blue tablecloths, placemats, napkins, dishes and serving ware that hadn't sold on Saturday. Blue is back in my life again, in a way that I can remember Frank and all the blue touches in his farmhouse when we first met. I love that.

Stuff

It's all so strange, getting rid of stuff.

Tomorrow I am poised to get rid of all kinds of stuff. It's all the furniture and stuff that filled our home for the last nine years. Frank was living in a huge, rambling farmhouse in Franklin when we met in 2001. We had to pare down much of that, including the contents of a barn, when we moved in 2003. But with our 1860s, 12-room house in Machias, we couldn't fill it fast enough with the things we gathered together.

We were auction-goers. He had an eye for pocket watches, wall clocks, mantle clocks and, later, standing clocks. They all are wound with keys. I doubt that Frank ever owned any timepiece that used a battery. Me, I liked to leave an auction with little things that ended up on shelves. That, and globes. I have at least 14 big-sized globes.

Much of our stuff is going in our estate sale, set for Saturday and Sunday. Some things are simply not being sold, and those will travel with me to my pending new home in Lubec. But very strangely, I am okay with most of our stuff walking out the door -- and likely mostly to strangers.

Having a 12-room house filled with furniture and things that we enjoyed finding and bringing home together  -- those are the memories that I'll take with me. The stuff can go to others.