Sadiversary Number Twelve

Last summer the IT guy here on the continuum care campus was messing around with my computer for some Mickey Mouse reason when he said I don’t have the requirements needed to upgrade my operating system to Windows 11. I didn’t care. I don’t like change. I hate it when they become a necessary evil in the computer world. I told him all that and he said just keep it in mind if you see a great deal on a new computer. You’ll need one when Microsoft quits supporting Windows 10. I wanted to ask him if he thought I’d live that long but he’s my computer doctor not my medical doctor so I let it pass. When we were having this conversation I thought we were talking about something that would happen five or six years from now but---yikes!---I just looked it up and they quit supporting Windows 10 October 14, 2025! 

This conversation was floating around in my head because since New Year’s I’ve been wondering if the operating system known as my brain has run out of room. They say our brains are like computers and for the past couple of weeks I couldn't concentrate and thoughts seemed to be running around in a loop, not finding a place to land. Even the deck top in my den mimics the disarray inside my head. It looks like it belongs to a slob with its piles of notes, mail and papers that need to be put in my filing cabinet or in the shredder, both of which are within three feet from the desk. Wouldn’t you think if I can walk that close to where something goes I could take it all the way to its destination? I get this way every once in once in a while. I’ll “file” stuff to the right room but won’t bother to deposit it where it belongs---in the right folder so to speak. For example, I bought a bottle of eye drops recently and instead of putting it in the medicine cabinet I put them on the counter top in front of the cabinet. 

You’d think  by now I’d recognize the signs…that I get totally weird the first two weeks of January which “just happens” to lead up to the Sadiverary of when my husband died. It’s been twelve years since I lost him and while I can say I’ve succeeded in earning my Widow’s Wings by moving on, building a new life for myself that for the most part makes me happy and contented, not a week goes by that I don’t think about Don. How could a person not? He was literally in my life for half of it. I’m 82 and we were together for 42 years. 

In hindsight I think the lack of snow we've had up until now deepened the windup to my Sadiersary. It reminded me of the winter we had the year he died. I always thought Don custom-ordered that weather pattern as a parting gift for me so I didn’t have to fight the elements to plan his funeral and take care of all the duties a widow has to do during and afterward. He was into following the weather big time, being in the snow plow business most of his adult life. Of course, if we had gotten a blizzard instead of an El Nina winter that year I would have found a way to romanticize that as well. It’s how I roll. 

The Sadiversary takes me by surprise every single year. Why? Does my brain block it out until I can’t ignore it any longer? Sounds logical, although I've never been good at remembering birthdays and anniversaries. If I had a do-over and it wasn’t in January I probably would have established a yearly ritual to commemorate the day so it could be penciled in on the day planner where it couldn't sneak up on me. I do that a week in April when both our birthdays and our anniversary happen. I plan a trip to the butterfly exhibit where I pretend that the huge blue butterflies that fly in pairs and follow the brick path around and around the glass enclosure are Don and me. Yup, I have a bit of melodrama going on inside my head that wishes it would manifest itself Emily Dickinson style. Try as I might, my poetry is amateurish at best and sucks at its worst. And can you believe it, I totally forgot to go to my Creative Writing Group this past week? The group I started and lead! I had my stuff-to-share ready to go and when the time came to leave my apartment, it never crossed my mind. One of the members called me afterward to check up on me because it was the first time in two years that I’ve missed it. 

Now that the Sadiversary has passed, I feel different---like someone poked a hole in my brain and let all the hot air out. I looked around this morning and saw a cleaning session in my future.

 

Until Next Wednesday. ©

 

After great pain, a formal feeling comes

by Emily Dickinson

 

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –

The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’

And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

 

The Feet, mechanical, go round –

A Wooden way

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –

Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

 

This is the Hour of Lead –

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –

First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go 

 

Photo Note: Not sure what year that photo was taken but I'm guessing it was in the mid-'80s. That was the smallest of Don three front end loaders. That's all snow behind us, piled up by one of the larger loaders.