Tonight we reach another first – our one month anniversary of Keith’s passage from this world. At the service, the Rabbi spoke of a need to return to normal for us morners, albeit a new normal. It is happening, slowly but surely. But this new normal is a strange thing. Partly because it is so new. Partly because there are pieces of my old normal, the me that existed before I met Keith, flowing into the me that existed as “us”, then flowing into each new day that moves me along my own path again.
I ventured over to one of my first old normal “girls night in” on Friday and for the first time in months, I did not cry as I started driving out of town which was a refreshing new normal. As I sit here and type this latest blog, I revel in my old normal of sipping tea on a cold winter’s night after spending the day doing old normal tidying up around the house. This morning, I delighted in firing up the kitchen for an “us” normal big breakfast of potatoes, bacon, waffles, and fresh fruit and then banging on the bedroom doors to rouse Brandon and his friends who had slept over. Brandon poured himself a big cup of new normal coffee and loaded it up with sugar and cream, just like his dad. After lending Brandon’s friend a new normal pair of leggings, I was off on my “us” normal walk. Bits and pieces of my life before and during Keith are swirling slowly together, like so many colors mixing together in paint, to create a life after him.
I keep thinking about his spaghetti sauce. Occasionally, a weekend would roll around and Keith would announce that he should make a big batch of red spaghetti sauce. A couple of cans of diced tomatoes, one can of paste, lots of garlic, a couple of onions, a few pounds of ground meat, and several hours of simmering later – he’d grab up a slice of baguette, dip it in the sauce and announce that it was the best sauce he had ever made. Then he’d point out that it would be better the next day. Every batch, each time, was always the best sauce, better than before, and would be even better the next day. That was his normal. So it should be with me – alway the best, better than before, and even better the next day.
In honor of this first anniversary, here are the speeches from his memorial service:
Cancer is so Limited – a poem by Robert L. Lynn read by Rabbi Peter Hyman.
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