Year of Hell

One year ago today, almost to the minute, I got the word that my dear wife had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. I was in New York at the time.

It's not been a great year since then. Grief, mourning, unexpected bursts of tears. A seemingly unending stream of details to address, things that needed to be done. To be blunt, my life has sucked.

But thru it all were family and friends, checking on me, expressing sympathy and support, helping where they could. Thanks to everyone who was there in my time of need. I could have lost my mind, but I didn't.

It will never be the same without my wife. But the Year of Hell is over as of today and we all have to move forward. Here's hoping 2013 brings balance back to all our lives.

Thanks for standing by me.

Eleven Short Years

Strange that today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11 event, should be an almost perfect duplicate of that horrific day. Faultless blue skies, perfect temperature, glorious late summer weather. Just as it was on That Day.

We who have direct memories of That Day know how it went. Savage barbarians driving airplanes into buildings and over three thousand innocents murdered. Among them my friend Jerry Moran and co-workers Angela Houtz and LCDR Vince Tolbert. Jerry's wife Joyce passed away just last year, so they are reunited in whatever awaits us after.

I lost my own wife this year. So as I remember 9/11 and the horrors it held, I also remember my wife and the joy she brought me. In memory, evergreen.

We remember.

Faith

Sometimes life just up and punches you in the gut, leaving you gasping and crying on the floor with nothing to do but endure. The only medicine for it is time. Time flows like a river, and it carries you away from the pain. You'll always feel it, but it gets smaller and easier to deal with as the distance increases.

Thursday, January 19th 2012 was a day like that. I was in New York, far from my home in Virginia, trying to get my parents squared away with some kind of elder care. My cell phone rang and I got the news that my wife of six years had suddenly and unexpectedly died. Eight years, almost to the day, since we'd first met.

Naturally I was in shock. Called my brother, who came over from Connecticut and made the drive back to Virginia with me. It probably wouldn't have been a good idea for me to do it alone. I might have gone off the road. The drive was surreal. We followed my usual route, which involves taking I84 to I81 thru the Poconos. It was snowing heavily in spots, and since we didn't leave New York until almost 5PM, most of the trip was after dark. We spoke little. It felt like a dream, and my mind kept circling back to "this can't be real."

It was all too real. We got to my house at one in the morning on Friday. EMTs and police had come and gone. My wife was already at the ME's office. There was nothing to be done but put fresh sheets on the bed - she had been in bed when she died, apparently asleep - and try to get some rest. I slept fitfully, and only for about three hours. Woke up later that morning and began to work the phone to get some answers.

There was no obvious cause of death, like a heart attack or stroke or some such. As of this writing, I still don't have a definitive cause. I'm waiting on test results that may take as much as four months to come back. This is because Virginia, like most governments, had to cut back on spending due to the economic downturn and, again like most governments, cut the wrong things first. The lab that does the testing is seriously understaffed. Anyway.

The funeral was yesterday, Monday the 30th. Today I am alone in the house, friends and family having all gone home. There have been tears, sobs, gasps for breath and burning eyes. And all I have to see me thru this dark, evil time is faith.

Some of you who read my blog have no faith. You, my friends, live in a cold and empty place. You deride and belittle those of us who see the connection to something larger. You point at all the horrible things that have been done in the name of faith (actually in the name of religion, a different beast altogether, which compounds your ignorance, but what the hell . . . ) and you miss completely the strength that faith gives to us.

I have faith that there's a plan, and a planner behind the plan, and that eventually all this seeming chaos we mere mortals live with will make sense. We're so small, we humans, with such limited understanding . . . we're fleas on a grain of sand and some of us think the sand is all there is. The ocean that lies so close to our little grain of sand is too vast to even apprehend, much less comprehend. But, like the saying goes, you don't have to believe in the ocean to get your foot wet when you step in it.

My faith comforts me. It tells me that my dear wife is in a better place, waiting for me, along with all those who have passed before us. I will inevitably take my place there as well, and the time of the transition is not for me to know. As it was not for her to know when she so abruptly left us. This pain I feel is in reality a selfish thing, for it marks my desire to have her back with me. And that would mean she was still dealing with her own pain, rather than experiencing now the transcendent freedom that awaits us when the surly bonds of earth are at last slipped and we rejoin the Maker.

But I loved her dearly, and so miss her terribly, and for now it just hurts.

Good, Bad, Other

Senator Robert Byrd has died. His career in Congress is highly instructive, for Byrd exemplified both the best and worst aspects of our Congress.

As both the longest serving Senator and the longest serving member of Congress, Byrd shows one of the fundamental problems with that branch of government - People who get in and essentially take root, gaming the system to make it very hard for a challenger to dislodge them. It's hard to claim with any credibility that someone who's been sitting in the same seat for fifty years can bring very many fresh ideas to the issues and problems of the day. Byrd was locked into, and epitomizes, the Washington "system".

And yet, at the same time Byrd was bringing a lot of benefits to his constituents back home in West Virginia. He was unsurpassed in the art of steering pork to his state. West Virginia saw federal benefits far out of proportion to its population or its contribution. It can be argued that West Virginia needed this level of support due to the poverty and lack of opportunity afflicting many of its residents, but one must still wonder if some of those resources might have been better expended somewhere else.

Byrd had a checkered past. In his younger days he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and supported segregationist, if not outright racist, positions and policies. Later in his career he repudiated these positions, however, and often expressed regret for his actions. One is forced to wonder how much of that regret is for the injustice of his positions and how much is for the damage it did to his political career. Because over the course of his long service, Byrd showcased the tendency of our Congressmen to regard maintaining themselves in office as their primary responsibility.

Either way, a long and varied career has now ended, and just a few days shy of the July 4th celebration of America's birth. Fare thee well, Senator.

Camelot's Last Watchman Departs

Teddy Kennedy has died. I honestly don't know how to feel about this. Ideologically, he was on the "wrong" side of a lot of issues to me, but he was a force to be reckoned with in the Senate. And some of his major accomplishments were landmark pieces of legislation, reshaping the social and political landscape of America for the better.

But Ted Kennedy was also a virtual poster boy for the "tax and spend" school of politics. And altho his record of service in the Senate is remarkable for its length and breadth, it also stands as an example of what's wrong with American politics, where people get in to Congress (either chamber) and take root. It's hard to credibly advocate for "fresh ideas" when you've been in the same office for four decades.

All other considerations aside, Ted Kennedy's passing marks the end of an amazing political saga, from his brother John F Kennedy's rise, to Bobby Kennedy's equally tragic story, to his own phenomenal career. Teddy was the last of his generation, the final sentry on the battlements of Camelot. The family scions now in public service just don't have the gravitas of the Jack/Bobby/Ted triumvirate. Somehow, the greatness of the Senate itself seems now diminished, as if a central pillar had been removed.

Fare thee well, Senator Kennedy.

Unexpected Loss

Unhappy news from NBC. Tim Russert has died. Initial reports had the veteran newsman falling victim to a sudden heart attack, but later statements are adding a question mark to that theory.

This is a great loss to the news media. Russert was even and dogged when interviewing politicians of any stripe. His Sunday show, Meet the Press, is required viewing for anyone trying to follow national politics and government affairs.

In an era of ever-increasing polarization and partisanship, Russert spoke from the center. He'll be missed.

Gerald R. Ford

Former President Gerald R. Ford, the only man who ever held the office without being elected to it, has died at the age of 93.

I remember Ford mostly from those Saturday Night Live skits with Chevy Chase. His was not an administration of Great Deeds, but it was one of quiet competence.

Fair thee well, Mister President. You go to join a mighty company.