The One-Year Mark

     Today, two days after the first anniversary of Bob's death, I happened upon this quote I copied from a novel I was reading last March:
   
                                 "It's easy to believe for several months 
                                  that someone who died is just out of town.
                                  But the one-year mark brings certainty."

That captures so well how I've been feeling this week, beginning with our tender ceremony of remembrance and scattering of ashes last Saturday.  It's as if a blanket of reality has been laid over my heart, sort of like the rose petals we laid over the burial site.  The truth is settling in.

One Year Ago

 One year ago tonight, 

Bob and I said our last "goodnight."  

We didn't know it at the time, 

though I realized our days together were limited.  

The next day, we said our last "goodbye."  

It seems like yesterday.

The calendar disagrees.

Forever Ours

     And so we did it.  We buried Bob's ashes.  Our daughter, two grand-kids, and five dear friends gathered in our living room last Saturday.  We sang songs.  We shared memories, readings and laughter.  Then we gathered at the site that had been prepared to receive Bob's ashes and we raked them into the already loosened soil.  We scattered rose petals over the site--where we'll also plant a crab apple tree in November, sometime around Bob's birthday.  And then we all returned home to share a meal.

     It was beautiful, tender, touching, deeply emotional and very spiritual.  It was all I'd hoped it might be.  Yet when it was all over, I felt the reality more deeply than ever:  Bob is really gone.  Until last Saturday, his ashes sat on the dresser in my room.  I paid little attention to them, but I knew they were there.  I also knew, and still know, that those ashes are not Bob.  But somehow, they became what they truly are--the precious, sacred last physical remnants of the man I love.  After our ceremony of celebration and remembrance of his life, after carrying home the empty urn, I felt more deeply the stark truth of his absence.  

     Which is why I find comfort now in words from a poem I asked a friend to read at the burial site:

                                     What I know is that

                                     The song once sung cannot be unsung,

                                     And the life once lived cannot be unlived,

                                     And the love once loved cannot be unloved.

Bob's physical presence is no more, but his song, his life, and his love are with me--and with all of us he loved--forever.