Can Lightning Strike Twice?

It's been a year and half since Phil died.  I still miss him and still cry regularly because I miss him or wish he was here to share some moment with me.

But something happened a couple of months ago that changed my mind about being alone...

In May I got a Facebook request from the widower of a grad school friend. She was a wonderful lady, they were happily married and she passed away four months before Phil from cancer in October 2015. When I moved to Texas in 2005 I sadly lost touch with several people and she was one of them.

Dave and I played catch up about where life had taken us. We exchanged regrets we had not become closer friends when we were couples. Phil often said he wished we had... I sent Dave a great picture I took of Sylvia with her beloved convertible in front of an Ohio covered bridge. It was a pleasant exchange. I posted we were coming to Michigan on Facebook. Dave asked when we were coming, a short exchange later, Dave asked about a get together.  This was going to be a super busy visit, Phil's memorial, new daughter-in-law's first visit, meeting my oldest newly serious girlfriend...and I wasn't interested in the complication of another man in my life. I had grown quite accustom (and liked) living on my own. I felt blessed to be able to take care of myself and to have lived and loved Phil for nearly four decades! Basically I let Dave know there wasn't much time and he said he understood.

For some reason I regretted not contacting him and shortly after returning in July I contacted him and apologized. We had a long exchange of texts and over the next month there were a couple more. It was easy to "talk" with him and I felt we were kindred spirits having lost our soul mates. I am not really a texting person, but I enjoyed our conversations. Then the weekend of Hurricane Harvey we actually talked on the phone for several hours and that would be just the beginning of what would become 3 to 5 hour phone conversations, texts and emails.  I realized I missed being loved and living alone was an easy way to be emotionally detached. I just had experienced (and lost) a five year battle with cancer.

Dave waltzed into my life. Not only was he easy to talk with, we had a lot in common: a tough complicated youth, cars, motorcycles, desires for the future. I asked him if he wanted me to love him and I questioned whether two people could fall in love this way. The nicest part was I didn't feel like we had to hide Sylvia or Phil and we didn't have to leave them behind, they would always be a part of us.  I did have some questions whether Dave would be able to move forward, but I didn't want to not take a chance that lightning might be striking twice

...so into the rabbit hole I went.

The End of We?

Is It Final.. Is it the end of US?

I am no longer a we, but I still feel like a we. It's only been seven months since Phil died, but sometimes it already feels like an eternity...I miss him with every fiber of my being.

His stuff is still in the same places it was before he left.  His pants and clothes are in the same places in our bedroom.  His glasses are on the big coffee table in the living room and his junk is still on the island with a huge pile of unopened Blue Cross Blue Shield letters. I'm afraid to do anything with any of it for fear I will have to stop being a we.

I've been a we for my entire adult life. I didn't ever want to be without him. When I would tell him that, he often reminded me that he was older than me and it was likely going to happen. I dismissed it because my family seemed to die young and his was full of longevity. In the end Phil was dead right.

Gratefully I have two sons to remind me that I was a the half of a once wonderful we. I mourn at times for us, for having him such a short time...37.25, 26.80, 23.75 years. But then I am so grateful to have had any years with him. I was a lucky woman and most of the time I not only knew it, I savored it. I was blessed to have him as my husband and a father to our two sons.  And now I embrace all those wonderful times and memories and hang on to them with dear life to help carry me through this grief that I know will never quite go away.

December 2015

Today I was listening to the Daily Audio Bible and  a verse Thessalonians 4:13 came up. The verse talked about grief without hope.  I think it was about Jesus rising from the dead, but I thought it could apply to me right now.  I am grieving, but I do have hope. I do believe I will have a wonderful life with purpose before I leave this earth.  And I'm getting closer to believing that someday Phil might come to get me and I will be a complete we again.

The Seasons of Marriage

When you spend decades together, your lives go through a lot of changes.  Phil & I spent almost 38 years together and he died just short of our 30th anniversary.  They were mostly good to great years and I often likened our life together as seasons.

Spring is when love blooms. It's full of adventure, fun and sex.  It's the time you get to know each other. You're figuring out how to live together long term.. it

Summer is the hard work stage. It's acquiring stuff: houses, cars. Having kids. It's when you see each others true colors. You settle in for the long haul.

Fall you hit you stride. You bought or build your forever home. Your kids edge toward adulthood, You move back to being a couple again *wink*

Winter is the best season. It's retirement. It's when everything you've worked so hard for together pays off. Your kids move out into the world and start their own season. You reap the rewards of grandchildren. You get to travel, maybe downsize so you can relax a little bit more.

I was cheated out of savoring winter with Phil. And Phil was completely screwed out of spending the last part of life retired, traveling and having grandkids.  Shortly before he died, he told me that having grandkids was the part he was going to miss the most.  And they will be cheated because they will miss experiencing winter with Phil & me.  It's going to be a cold winter...

Phil & his cousin Barb Turner-Sept 2015

In the Beginning

Phil first appeared in my life when I was about 10 years old. I don't think he knew I existed until I was about 17.

Phil was my big brother Gordon's friend.  I adored my big brother who was 12.5 years my senior. I'm sure Gordon loved me because he was a master at gently shaking me off of his leg. As I got older I made any effort to be in his light, but it wasn't until I went away to college we started to get closer to having a real sibling relationship. I thought it was because he started to see me as an adult. But it was probably because absence makes the heart grow fonder and I also think he was thrilled I was going to college! Wherever it came from, I didn't care, I had finally made it into his light!

Phil was nearly 9 years my senior. I remember the first time he entered my world, I watched him outside painting my mom's house. His girlfriend knocked him to the ground and jumped on top of him playfully. After we had been dating a while, I found out she was the one who got his virginity...I envied her. Then when I was twelve I overheard Gordon telling my mom Phil was going to move to Oregon where another couple of Northville friends had moved shortly before. That night I told my mom that if I was ever going to get married it was going to be to a man just like Phil. And fourteen years later I did just that, I married Phil on June 18, 1986 at The Little White Chapel in Las Vegas.

Phil weaved in and out of my life as he came back to Michigan to visit his family and friends. When he came to the house I took my typical perch and watched him from the window. While I had rarely hesitated to approach anyone, Phil was different. I was afraid he was going to see that I had this major crush on him.

1972-My brother Gordon center, my husband Phil far right

Around 15 I became really interested in photography, I was obsessed with my Polaroid camera.  One day Gordon handed me this really cool East German SLR camera. He told me it used to be Phil's and he bought it from him when he moved to Oregon...I absolutely loved that camera, it took incredible pictures.

When I (miraculously) graduated from high school in 1977 my mom threw a little party at the house for me. It was a very small party made up of the most important people in my life, my mom, Gordon, my best friend and my boyfriend. As the party was winding down, Phil showed up. This time I couldn't run to watch him from the window, he was standing right in front of me. He congratulated me as he bent down and kissed me on the cheek. Then he saw his old camera sitting there on the dining room table and it sparked a nice conversation between us for just a few minutes.  

I was in heaven, but my boyfriend also saw me melting and that night it started a knock down drag out fight that lasted several days. I was furious that Greg- first didn't trust me or that Phil hadn't seen me as anything other than his good buddy's "little baby sister" (which is what Gordon called and introduced me as his entire life). Years later I wondered, had Greg seen something I had yet to understand?

Six months later I followed my boyfriend to Oregon. He had joined the Navy the year before and his ship was in dry dock in Portland.  I stayed with one of his Sargents while he lived on ship and when he got periodic days off we would take off on his motorcycle and explore Oregon and Washington.  I loved Portland and when the guys were on ship lock down, the Sargent's wife and I would venture around the city or run up to the naval base at Bremerton to pick up supplies. 

My brother kept telling me to go visit Phil, he was working at a ski area between Bend and Eugene. Gordon said the place was incredibly beautiful. Greg said no way and it started yet another fight...so I didn't go. I went back to Michigan shortly thereafter with my eye on going to college, Greg followed me back a couple of weeks later and broke up with me. In hindsight he was really doing me a favor. And in hindsight I wish I had gone to visit Phil.

Where Phil lived in the mid 70s, his house is at the bottom of the picture

It was a wild and crazy summer back in Michigan. At the end of August I went off to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. I picked it because it was a party school. My gap year had done nothing to tone me down, in fact it totally ramped me up as I found new friends who partied harder than I had ever partied.  I developed a major problem with cocaine. I was going to spiral out of control soon, but I didn't see it coming.

On a visit home in November sometime that first semester Gordon told me Phil was moving back to Michigan in a couple weeks. I told Gordon that I had a crush on Phil when I was a kid, he seemed surprised.  I think it was when I was home for Thanksgiving that Gordon had a party at his house on Linden.  I was thrilled to be apart of Gordon's inner circle.

I don't remember exactly how it happened, but Phil asked me out.  He remembered better than me. He said we went to a bar in Ann Arbor with my brother. I was shocked when he told me Gordon had shared my crush confession and Phil asked Gordon if he could ask me out.  I'm not sure when that second date was, but I fell madly in love with him, I was nineteen years old. Phil was kind and gentle, soft spoken and without that big ego like most men I encountered. I wish I had more memories about our first month's together, it was probably all the drugs I was doing.  My world was getting to ready to crack.

Shortly before Christmas I got a letter from Social Security saying I made too much money the year before, the year I was seventeen and they were going to withhold the next two and half checks...the checks I was paying the rent with.  This was in the days before they gave credit cards to college students and I didn't know enough to find an emergency loan.  I hovered through Christmas and returned to school after the New Year, my world was spinning out of control. A week later Gordon & Phil showed up on my doorstep. Phil brought me an azalea bush.  I was totally in love with him.

But I was unstable, spinning out of control, trying to hide it from the world. I should have turned to the people who loved me, the people who had faith in me, but I hadn't quite hit bottom yet. Instead I went out with my new college friends and buried my sorrows in all the drugs that were propelling me toward disaster. I did so much cocaine one night I started to hemorrhage out of control. Before they took me to the campus health center they threw me down in the snow and packed my face with snow to slow down the bleeding. Over the next couple of days I made the arrangements to leave college and return home and clean up my act yet again.  I was freefalling.

Phil was living with my brother in an old farmhouse off Clark Road in Novi. I'm not sure how much of the out of control me he saw, but I was madly in love. For our first vacation we went to Daytona for Bike Week.  We towed the motorcycles with my brother's van.  I was with my two favorite men in the whole wide world.  A couple weeks later Phil moved into his own apartment in Wixom. I moved in with him, I'm not sure if he asked me to move in, but he didn't say no either.  He had said "I Love You" though.

And love me he did. Always...even when I didn't love myself. For the next couple of years I battled my demons but I always loved Phil back. As I slipped back into my my old ways, I excluded him more and more. My old ways weren't his ways.  One night I came home super late and Phil was sitting in the living room in the dark.  As I walked over to turn on the light Phil stopped me.  He asked me if I loved him. Of course I do I told him.  Then he asked me to leave so he didn't have to watch me kill myself. He was right that was exactly where I was headed. I asked him for one more chance, that if I didn't change I would move out without him having to ask me again. He didn't say a word.

I actually meant it this time. . I finally pulled the ring on my parachute my freefall was over. Phil never stopped loving me and I knew I was going to have a wonderful life with him. And for the nearly 38 years we spent together there was more joy than I could have ever imagined.

It Was a Wonderful Life

How do you move forward when you lose the love of life, your soul mate, your best friend, your lover, the father of your children, the best thing that ever happened to you, the person you had spent your entire adult life with? The person who put up with you longer than your mother! 

How do you reinvent your life after Mr. Right?

Leaning on your memories of that wonderful life together is a great comfort. There isn't a day that goes by that I thank God for bringing Phil into my life. And there isn't a day that goes by that I think it's going to be a really long lifetime without him. I thrived because of his love.  I became a better person. I believe my success is due to his love, support & encouragement.  

He wasn't perfect, neither was I. Once I picked up a Hallmark Valentine's Day card and it said..."We were perfect together." I especially thought of that phrase the last year of Phil's life as we attempted to prepare for him to die.

Phil was a man of actions and not much for words.  It presented a lot of problems for me when we were a young couple. I didn't understand why he just couldn't say things. I wore my heart on my sleeve and knew that if I was ever going to marry a man it was going to be Phil on our second date...it took Phil fourteen months to tell me he loved me...but I knew he loved me long before he told me, I felt it.

I wish there would have been more words that last year of Phil's life, but the reality was the first six months I was filled with hope, because I didn't want to be without him. Ultimately I didn't have a choice. 

He didn't want to leave us.