May is generally regarded as the month that Spring does its thing. The trees that were budding in April after the long bleak winter have fully awoken and are now thick with leaves. The blossoms and blooms are everywhere in sight in all of their pastel beauty. The smell of fresh-mown grass fills the air. Birds and mammals are starting to raise their families. As are the insects. Frogs and fish are also doing what they do. The promise of life...renews the spirit. It's a wondrous time of year. Hope is all around.
It is no wonder then that I feel the cosmic irony of what May had become for Toni and me over the years. Or at least so it seemed to us
I have already mentioned the loss of our daughter on May 4, 1990. That's when it started. A mere three years later, early in the month of May, we lost a dear friend at the church we had been attending. In the wake of losing Niketa, we had decided not to have children of our own, and I had woosed out of adopting or fostering, so we moved in with Toni's parents and joined a church, becoming very active in their junior church program. As a result, we became very close with the church music director and his wife, Dennis and Barbara Long. Barbara was a nurse and was one of those people that was loved by everyone she met immediately. They were a young couple in their very early 30's with two delightful young children, Christopher and Kara. Not only were they a "perfect" family in spirit, they were a very good-looking bunch, like someone you would find on ShutterStock or in a TV commercial. Before long, Barbara was pregnant with their third child, soon to be named Eric. While she was in the hospital, immediately after giving birth, she caught what I am assuming was necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly--and over-descriptively--referred to as the flesh-eating virus, which is actually bacteria. Within a day, she was gone. Or at least that's how I remember it. The church was packed at her funeral with church-goers and co-workers alike, in absolute shock that something like this could happen to someone so young, so kind and so beautiful. It reminded me of when my mom died. I imagine that the hospital staff were especially affected since this happened to one of their own while they helplessly watched, their efforts in vain. A hollowed-out Dennis eventually recovered thanks to his faith and the support of the congregation. He remarried a few years later and moved away to start over. I wrote more about this incident than I had expected; it stills weighs upon my heart these many years later (the children are all grown now and we have lost contact; but I still remember our happy years together fondly, and still feel the sadness).
Later that same month, my dad died, cementing Toni and my feud with the month of May. My parents got a divorce when I was very young so my dad and I had a very on-again, off-again relationship over the years. I was lucky enough to get to know him a little better before he died. He had been living in the Upper Peninsula for a number of years when my cousin Roxy let me know he was in really bad shape. All those cigarettes had finally caught up with him: lung cancer and emphysema had come to call. He was getting a constant supply of IV blood by the time I got there: it's a 10-hour drive. I don't remember how long he had been in that condition. We drove up there with my Auntie Ann, my dad's older sister and Roxy's mom. The outcome was that a helicopter ride was arranged so that he could come back here so that I could spend his last days with him. The doctor thought it was a bad idea, but we did it anyway, figuring the nursing home could handle things just fine once he got here. I can't believe how naive I was back then, even as "smart" as I was supposed to be about such things. He lasted exactly one night. That was May 23, 1994.
Fast-forward seven years, to 2001. 9-11 hadn't happened yet. Spring had broken and Toni's dad was talking about down-sizing the garden even more than the year before. Toni's mom had passed away almost three years earlier and things were different at the house since. Life always goes on, but changes always seem to turn things upside down and you do what you have to keep the boat afloat. Toni had cared for her parents (I helped too...) as much as she could over their later years (I hear she was an evil child and teen). Part of that care involved unpacking and repacking the hole where his amputated toe used to be. He was diabetic and the toe had become infected and then gangrenous. After Toni's mom passed away, her dad started feeling his age more and his own health declined. A visiting nurse stopped by a couple of times a week to check on him before he passed away. On the day he died, sensing something wasn't right (he had "that look" as she later described it), Toni wanted to stay home with him. But we had a "special meeting" that day: a big announcement was to be made. He assured her he would be alright, and Toni promised that we'd come home right after the meeting. Which we did. We found him on the bed, one shoe off and one shoe on (we had always joked about how long it took him to get his shoes on). He was trying to get ready for his day. Maybe he was going to check out the garden. We'll never know. He didn't get that far. I will never forget Toni's reaction. And I cannot do it justice. In fact, the details are actually quite hazy to me. What I remember is the overall sense of the event: unimaginable rage and grief released as only Toni could. I remember the yelling and the beating of the walls. I waited until the flood subsided enough for me to get close enough to hold her. I think. As I said, the details aren't there much, just the feeling, but it is something I would have done and it doesn't feel like I didn't do it. I do remember eventually holding her. How long all took I have no idea. The thing was, Toni had taken it upon herself to take care of her parents, taken it into herself to do so. And now they were both gone. On her watch. She never forgave herself. But as always, we had to move on. Life had changed yet again. May 9.
Since then, the wounds have healed. Like the gap where Toni's dad's toe used to be had healed over. But even though it had healed, the toe was still missing. It is very much like that when we lose someone. The wound is gone, the pain fades. But the gap in our heart will always be there. I haven't had any major waterworks outbursts in quite a while, but what I have now is burning tears welling up in my eyes. Those will always be there, but the time between them will get longer. I'm glad the whole May death thing has been hibernation for a while now and hope that it continues its absence. Toni and I have been able to enjoy the spring for a while now, and even though she is gone from me (and I am very glad it wasn't in May), I have actually enjoyed this spring as well. The robins' nest on the front porch light is empty now, but never fear, there is another family of robins nested in the bend of the downspout on the back side of the house. The cycle of life is alive and well at the household. Life always goes on. We can hold on and enjoy the ride, or jump off and miss all the wonder. I love a good road trip, don't you?
MAY we all keep a good thought. (You didn't think I could pass up a good pun, did you? (Or a bad one...))
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