Anchorman

Michael was a bit of an anchorman for our family, and after the stories I have heard in recent weeks, I believe for many others as well. I don't suppose I truly knew that before. I knew he was our "historian", often remembering, and commenting, on things I'd rather forget! He could bring out the best in one, and the worst! He could cut you to the quick in such a funny way that you were not sure whether he was making fun of you, or if you were so endeared to him that he just felt comfortable saying whatever he chose to say. He kept my mother, my father, my daughter alive in ways that no one else could, partly because he just never forgot a detail, and had a way of resurrecting the stories that could bring you to your knees, in laughter AND in sadness. Whatever the case may be, he was the anchorman of the family. And now he is gone. I am struggling to figure out, once again, how to go on. So are many others, most of all, my sister and their sons, his siblings and their spouses, the nieces and the nephews, the friends and the neighbors. None of us really know what to do, we are off balance, we are drifting in silence, going through the motions, layering the grief in our soul, one on top of the other, until we are choked. We must cry, we must find our way through the pain, we must make movement in some direction, even if it is wrong. We must keep on living.

This companion of grief is not new to me. I have worn the cloak for so long now, yet only beginning to understand how to truly live with it, and now, another layer has been added. Karen and I both talked about the fact that often it is difficult to realize where living in grief over Allison's passage ends and Michael's begins. Perhaps that is because the journeys were so similar, maybe because Michael correlated his life with cancer and ultimate death from this life to hers, he compared, and he used her legacy as his compass. All the while, he was thankful, appreciative, grateful that he was the one diagnosed and not one of his children. He never made it about him, he felt "chosen" in some ways to walk the journey and felt God must have wanted him to know something he didn't already know, and that Allison had paved the way for every treatment, procedure, symptom, pain, side effect. He used her story as a barometer, knowing if she could do this, then so could he, for however long. For many months, he truly expected to "beat" this thing called cancer. Even in early summer days, he was willing to keep fighting and trying new options. But he grew tired. He became weary. He had endured SO much. He knew his boys had evolved into men, he saw the fruits of his labor, as I have said, and at some point, he knew his beloved Karen would be "okay", never the same, but "okay". She promised him so, and so did I. She will be "okay". She will be forever changed, walk with a sadness until grief becomes her familiar partner, learn to find Michael, our anchorman, in the breezes, in the eyes and actions of her sons, in the beach days, in the flying acorns, in the singing chimes, on the swing, and most of all, in her heart.

None of us has comprehended this loss, yet. It will take a long time. We don't honor our loved ones at a service and resume any type of life. Everything is shattered. Everything is different, and takes on a new look. The world moves slower, then faster, and we need one foot on the floor to keep the world from spinning. Perhaps that is why, when it was their time to leave this earth, both Allison and Michael kept that one foot on the floor, they transitioned the same way, not wanting to leave their loved ones behind, but knowing it was time. Time to rest and find peace, time to leave the world so that they could guide from the spirit that was restless in pain and fatigue, to be free to BE, to share their laughter and their love.

The layers of loss are hard to separate. Where one begins, the other ends, and so on. It's complex. It's indescribable. It's lonely. Even when we know the world out there mourns for their own loved ones, and in theory we know life IS loss, still, this pain is exhausting. It is consuming. It kicks you in the gut. It brings tears that pour from places we didn't know existed. It is grueling to live without our anchor. But we will. God will see to it. Allison will see to it. Michael will see to it. They won't let us rest, not at all. They will see to it that we celebrate the day, find one sweet miracle in it, even on the days we don't think we can at all. They will see to it that we smile, live, love, and even laugh. They will never leave us, truly. So we will do our best to honor the legacy, the hope and the love. We will simply do our best.