one year later…
July 13, 2025 – July 13, 2026
A Chronology of Becoming
There’re certain dates that divide a life into "before" and "after." For me, those dates are July 13, 2025, and today.
Today marks one year since Michael died.
As the anniversary got closer, I wondered what, if anything, I’d say about it. I mean, of course, I knew I wanted to write something – for my readers, for myself – I just didn’t know what. Not necessarily something to commemorate or honor it, rather to...observe it. I assumed I’d write about him; about loss, about our relationship, about letting go and moving forward without the person who spent the rest of his life with me.
But the more I looked at it, the more I realized this wouldn’t – and shouldn’t - be a post about one day; it should be about the days that have followed. Three hundred and sixty-five ordinary and extraordinary days. Days filled with phone calls, paperwork, making decisions, picking up Michael’s ashes (that was a hard one; thank you, Heidi), getting Daniel through surgery, packing up our apartment, moving into my mom’s house, navigating her dementia and finding care for her, looking for work, and about a hundred other things too numerous to list. Learning, for the first time in my life, what it would mean for no one to be responsible for me...except me.
Walking through it, nothing felt particularly remarkable. Mostly, it just felt heavy, which, I suppose, is the way of surviving a thing, right? And a month or so ago, if you'd asked me what this past year has felt like, I probably would have said that it was exhausting. Overwhelming. Messy. Frustrating. At times…beautiful. I would have given a laundry list of all the things that needed doing because that's all I could see.
I couldn't yet see what those things were doing in me…it took someone else to show me that.
A few weeks ago, my sister-in-law sent me a Marco Polo (we call them “Bing Bongs” and send them to one another on the regular). She wasn't trying to give me a pep talk or cheer me up. She was just reflecting back what she'd watched over the last year; how she’d seen me. Before she shared her observations, she told me some of her own story.
Years ago, after her divorce, she'd come home from work totally exhausted, kiss the cats, collapse face-first onto her couch, and sleep so deeply she'd wake up with fabric marks on her face. When the depression she often felt threatened to swallow her whole, she’d lace up her tennis shoes and walk for miles because movement was the only thing that kept her going. As she talked, I realized she wasn't comparing our stories. She was recognizing something familiar about rebuilding a life you never expected to have to rebuild.
I’ve spent time relistening to the Polo she sent, and I want to share what she said because it’s eye-opening and raw and unedited and, mainly, because I never want to forget it.
“It’s gonna be a year here pretty soon and while you’ve been just go, go, go, if you were to write down every single thing you’ve done (which I have record of myself – and that’s only things you’ve told me), you’ve accomplished a lot! Probably a lot more than you’ve ever had to in the entire duration of the marriage. Like…you had to reinvent yourself from scratch, you had to un-fuck a lot of stuff like your taxes, get paperwork in order, You have done SO much and went right into we’ve gotta move, we’ve gotta clean the apartment, we’ve gotta pack, we have to move in with my mom, your mom’s place was a wreck, we have to clean it out and make it hospitable, mom’s got dementia, she’s falling down, gotta figure that out, Daniel had to have surgery, you have to get a job. It’s like you’ve had to walk backwards through the relationship to untie things and put them in the right order. And every tough thing that came up, you tackled it. Things I’d want to put my head under a pillow over and not think about. I’m sure you didn’t want to but you did it, purely out of, “I don’t want to repeat this bullshit anymore. I don’t want this to be my narrative anymore and in order to get on the other side of it, I have to walk through it. And, girl, I saw you do it. Every step of the way. FUCK! That was a lot. You did a lot. And all while emotionally processing your own grief, your own hurt, your own pain, anger, disappointment, the thought of going back into the work force which was daunting to me at 44 and I know exactly how daunting it would be now, so… I see YOU. And I see and feel everything you’re going through as much as I possibly can.
I can understand the ‘weepy’; coming home and suddenly, you said that every time you accomplish something, you end up getting very emotional and fatigued. That makes so much sense to me. There’s that overwhelm and you’re trudging forward and yes, you accomplished it and, “Oh!” I can unclench my fists, I can loosen up for a second, but then there’s also the realization that the only path forward is to keep going and to keep going is going to be hard and I know it’s going to be hard and it’s probably going to get harder so there’s that in-between where you’re like, “Ugh! Can it ever just be easy?” And it’s not going to be and maybe it’s not supposed to be. And that sucks sometimes. Gives you the ICK! Can I just stop now? I feel like I’ve been grinding my whole life. “I did it! I did it! Sigh…can I just rest now? No. You did it! You did it, now do more.” Sighhhh…fucking sighhh…
You’ve done so much in just a year and you’re in the process of re-claiming your identity and getting back to who you are; peeling off all that old stuff.”
As I listened (and re-listened and re-listened) to her describe my year, it felt disorienting, kind of…unreal, because I'd never stopped long enough to look at it the way she saw it. To me, none of those things felt like accomplishments. They were simply the next things that needed to get done. There wasn't time to stand back and admire them because another hard thing was usually waiting just around the corner. But she was describing something much deeper. To her, these last 12 months meant something different. They formed a story…my story.
"It's like you've had to walk backwards through the relationship to untie things and put them in the right order."
At first, I thought it was about paperwork, untangling finances, closing joint accounts, sorting through 23 years’ worth of belongings. But the more I thought about her words, the more I began to understand how this year has definitely felt like a backward walk; an untying of my life.
Untying grief, fear, dependence, people pleasing, old beliefs that no longer fit, lies I'd mistaken for truths. Not so that I could erase the past or rewrite it. It was so I could carry forward only what belonged, only what would bring healing, only what was true.
"Girl, I saw you do it. Every step of the way."
I didn't feel brave or resilient. Most days I just felt tired. And angry. And afraid. But sometimes we need borrowed eyes to see what God has been doing in us all along.
Left to myself, I would have called this one of the hardest years of my life.
She called it something else.
She called it becoming.
I've spent a lot of time over the last twelve months thinking I was simply learning how to live without Michael, and of course, I have. I often search for memories before I reach for words, and I still have moments when the reality of his absence completely catches me off guard and my heart jumps into my throat.
Grief hasn't ended because the calendar tells me that a year has passed, it’s simply changed shape. And I’m beginning to see something now that I couldn't see then.
God wasn't only carrying me through this loss.
He was introducing me to someone.
Me.
The woman beneath the responsibilities. Beneath the fear. Beneath the expectations. Beneath the survival. Not a new woman, but the original one, the one He’s known all along – the one He called by name before He created the foundations of the earth.
Over the last few months, I’ve found that I often describe myself as someone who's "starting over at 57," but I'm not sure that's actually what's happening anymore. Maybe I’m not starting over at all. Perhaps I’m finally starting from myself.
I can feel the difference.
Starting over suggests that everything before was lost.
Starting from myself suggests something entirely different.
Of course, everything before mattered.
Yes, everything before formed me.
And now…NOW I get to live and be and create from the woman all those years were shaping.
A year ago, I thought I was losing my life and, in many ways, I was. But in saying goodbye to the life I knew and stepping into the one I never imagined would be mine, God was doing something I never would have asked for...and today I can't help but see it.
I'm not just learning how to live without Michael.
I'm learning how to live with Annalea.
And for the first time in a very long time...I think she's beginning to feel like home.
