I follow the swan to open
water, a small refuge for travelers
who arrive when ice and snow 
still cover the landscape.

The water freezes only lightly here,
a place of warm springs and haven. 

She joined the others, two
family groups, maybe. More
are coming soon.

Like the sun at Bacalar, the
ritual of rising and renewal
do not stop for brokenness. 

The seasons change. The swans 
return. Light floods the sky. 
The darkness cannot withstand it. 

He is risen. He is risen indeed. 

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I shined your boots today, took
thick paste and spread it on the leather.
 
                 Our dear sweet friend, Rebecca, died. 
                  Of course, you knew that before I did.
 
I rubbed it gently into the toe, the heel, over the bridge
and up the ankle. I could feel you through my hands.
 
                 Were you there to receive her? Just hours earlier,
                 a circle of women held her in our arms. 
 
I felt suppleness pass between us. I closed
my eyes, smiled at the familiar shape of your foot.  
 
                Now her Beloved begins marking the days since
                 her departure. It’s strange, this left-behind club.
 
You were always giving me happy feet
with your gifts of sturdy boots and warm socks.
 
                   We collect mementos, living for 
                    signs of the love that upended us.
 
I’ve watched as the leather has grown dry and dusty
in the seven months since you last wore them.

               We look for the clues you leave, provided 
                 we can clear the tears to see them.
 
Was it weird to want to shine your boots
for you? Weirder still to do it?
 
                Provided we can quiet the keening to listen. I
                would tell her Beloved that if you lean in,
 
Who cares. No one saw.

            sometimes you can hear sounds of laughter.
 
A respectable pair of boots ought
to have some spit and polish now and then.

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Leaving for treatment
a year ago today, we checked in
at the airport, went through security, 
and I watched as your eyes met every
person you encountered. I saw the 
yearning for connection. As if you knew 
that we are all dying. As if you wanted 
to relay how much it hurts, these
departures from all that we know 
and love. As if assurance might be 
found in the simple acknowledgment of
a stranger. As if you wanted to recognize
the infinite beauty of every precious 
soul. Including your own. 

Laguna Bacalar, Mexico

Today, this time last year,
we got up as usual, held hands
as we drank coffee
on the sofa together. I made
your breakfast, and afterward
we drank our second cup

fingers entwined, as usual. 
You made me laugh. We
planned the day. You 
loaded tools to go to Tom’s to help 
rebuild the barn that blew over 
in a January windstorm.

This time last year,
we were planning our summer,
excited and grateful to add to 
the basket of memories
we have made these past years. 

We met back in the evening
to reflect on the hours we 
spent apart. As usual, we gathered 
the moments up like leftover 
loaves and fishes, feeding 
each other every morsel of 
the day. 

Then lying in the repose of each other's
arms, we slept, never imagining 
that tomorrow nothing in our world
would ever be as usual again.

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I dreamed I rode the colt,
the baby grown tall and
spirited, rode him for the first
time, surprising us both. I so
yearned for some witness to
this momentous event. Then I sensed
you were there, even so.
 
Last night I set my alarm to watch
the lunar eclipse of March’s
blood red moon. I opened
the shade, bleary-eyed, and spoke
to the night sky. “Hello Bill.” 
You laughed. This wasn’t my idea, 
you said, I would never set my alarm to look
at the moon, blood red or otherwise.
 
I rode the colt over the smiling curve
of the moon, joy rising like stardust in
our wake. 

Photo by Rachael Ren on Unsplash

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I’ve been meaning to write
about his horse, Rudy, to expound
the next chapter in our life together,
 
now apart. He left me his colt, the baby
he wanted late in life, when people looked at
him – and then me – sideways, wondering
 
if a baby so late in our story was a good idea.
I’ve been meaning to write, but I’ve been
learning to run the forklift to unload hay,
 
to run the snowplow without destroying
paddock fences, learning to start
equipment at twenty-five below (thank you, good
 
neighbor, Roy). I’ve been learning
what not to do, like check oil on the
generator, when the engine is running.  
 
Hot oil sprayed everywhere, including on me.
I’ve been cutting up trees that fell across
the driveway and crushed the fence in
 
three back-to-back windstorms. I’ve been
hauling firewood inside to keep the stove burning
when the power went out for days.
 
I’ve been learning new words, watching
YouTube videos on how to bleed pressure
on hydraulic lines, how to find battery-off
 
switches, how to float the smart blade.
Rudy watches from the paddock fence.
I go to him, and tell him I’m not sure
 
what to do next about anything, much less
how to adjust the forks on the skid steer.
The first few times, Rudy looked past me,
 
scanned the horizon, searching for his
person. Then one day, his eyes met mine,
and we both knew we were in this together.
 
Since then, Rudy’s soft muzzle fills the
cup of my hand. His whiskers explore
my cold nose and red cheeks as he inhales
 
my breath. It is the closest I will come
to hands on my face, pulling me in, lips
kissing the salt of tears. Rudy snorts,
 
blows snot on my cheek, and I
laugh. That’s what I get, letting him into
my personal space. Rookie move.
 
But I like sharing personal space
with babies.
I will write about this soon.

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It was a joke, sort of. I had just returned home to Alaska after my husband’s unexpected passing. My friends, Nanette and Marcia, had come to visit bringing lunch.

“With five horses and two dogs, another animal is the last thing I need,” I said. We feigned a chuckle. Everyone was trying so hard to be kind.

Not long after that conversation, the woman and ringleader of the team who took care of our place while we were away for Bill’s treatment had a terrible horse accident. She suffered multiple broken bones, so now it was my turn to help their family. When I brought meals, someone always met me at the door. She was hurting too much for company. After several weeks, I was invited inside. Tammy lay on the couch, her face still clouded with pain. Several dogs milled around the patient. One of them caught my eye, a tiny dachshund sitting on a bar stool.

I mentioned my granddaughter, Eva’s, love for dachshunds. Tammy said, “Would you like to take him home? He’s such a cuddler, and his climbing all over me is hard right now.” They were farming him out to whoever would take him for a few days at a time.

Eva was overjoyed, and Augie has since made his way into a permanent place in our hearts and family.

Augie is indeed a cuddler, stubbornly persistent in being as close as physically possible, even climbing into and under shirts and bed covers. He bounces at my feet, asking to be held. When I pick him up, he nestles under my chin and leans in.

My herding dogs are perplexed by this mini-version of a canine. Augie darts and dashes under their bellies, ears flopping, teeth bared, daring them to play catch. When they finally oblige the chase, he runs for his life and launches into my arms for protection.

If I could have envisioned Nanette’s prediction of a dog showing up in my life as Bill, I would have thought more along the lines of a border collie. I was not envisioning a vertically-challenged little imp who has his own wardrobe. I have since learned that tiny dogs don’t shiver because they’re nervous. They shiver because they are COLD, and this is Alaska. He has a basket full of colorful sweaters.

Another unexpected soul companion recently is Rudy, Bill’s yearling colt, whom I am now left to raise.

Like Augie, Rudy likes hugs. He drapes his neck over my shoulder and leans in. His eyes at half-mast, he blisses out until I buckle under the weight of his head.

“Dude,” I say. “I love you too, but at seven hundred pounds, I cannot hold you up.”

Rudy often puts his muzzle right up to my face, as if asking for a kiss. I laugh, and yes, I have kissed him, right on the smacker. His mouth is warm and salty and grimy. Rudy seems to like it. I’m thinking this is probably not a good idea.

“What would Bill think?” I wonder.

Between Augie, the wiener dog, and Rudy, his kissing, hugging horse, I think my life’s truest soul companion is laughing his ass off.

I swore off Christmas 
this year, swore off the emptiness
of celebrating without my Beloved. No
tree, no decorations, and God 
forbid, no carols. Music is an instant
portal to tears. I have walked in 
and straight out of coffee
shops playing any music, much less
“I’ll Be Home For Christmas.”
 
But a tree arrived anyway, a cast-off,
small and lovely, an Augie tree, 
named after the grand-dog. 
At the insistence of a six-year-old,
decorations were pulled from the shelf.
Eva took charge. I suggested using
the numbered ornaments, not 
mentioning how they marked
the years we had together.  
 
Then I heard a children’s sermon online
about the comfort of holding hands,
how it helps to know someone is with you
when you’re afraid. And I thought of my 
Beloved’s hand over mine, and how his
touch could instantly release my fears. 

The grown-up message was about the messiness
and difficulty of having a baby. I remembered the
birth of my boys. Just as it seemed the pain 
was beyond bearing, a new life appeared. 
You cannot unbirth this life (why would you?)
yet nothing will ever be the same.
 
Even in the desolation of this pain, 
there has been no emptiness. In these 
days of my nativity - to my astonishment - 
a tiny fist has taken hold, wrapped itself
fiercely around my finger. Small and vulnerable, 
this new life needs nurture and
care. This baby, our baby, needs
me. I am filled with wonder. And for the
first time since my Beloved’s departure,
a spark of resolve streaks across the
dark sky like a shooting star. I know how to 
do this. We have been here before. 

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B&W photo by Megan Bagshaw, Unsplash

I burn all the candles in the house.
 
It has been seventy-two hours without power.
The one generator keeps water in the barn thawed
for the horses. In the house, the dogs and I sleep 
near the woodstove, our only 
light from candles. 

Ten degrees outside, the wind 
tears the stocking cap off my head, 
overturns the grill, and throws 
the canoe against the pasture fence. 

I do not hear the dozen trees that crash
down around our house; so loud is the
roaring wind. 

I burn the Advent candles, all at once
burn them down to red puddles 
of wax. Their glow has become 
more than holiday remembrance, 
more than symbols of
Hope, Peace, Joy, Love. 
The candles are meeting a real and present 
need for light. 

I watch the flame, glance at the flicker in
the woodstove. The sunlight that trees
absorb in their lifetimes releases again
when the wood is burned. I feel the warmth. 
Where does fire come from?
Where does it go?  Where are you, my Love?

This is the season of firsts without you. 
First Thanksgiving. First Christmas. First wind storm. 
Remember how we sat under blankets 
in the dark, waiting for lights
to come on? How we talked about vacationing 
somewhere warm? Mad at the wind, your creative
incantations of cussing made me laugh.  

Now the cussing is mine, getting up
at 3 a.m. to feed gas into the generator
and check the oil while it is
still running. Hot oil sprays out as I fumble
to shut off the smoking beast. 

The dogs’ noses quiver at the petroleum
scent of my mistake on clothes and hair. 
We curl back up around the fire 
waiting for daylight,
waiting for you.

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It has been one hundred days
of “Good morning, Love,” without reply.

One hundred nights, my hand on your
pillow, remembering the feel of your

hand enclosed over mine. How 
I cherish the things you left behind,

your hat stained from the sweat of your brow,
your toothbrush next to the sink, your wedding

ring, now on my finger alongside my own.
Rememer how, just weeks before your departure

we helped move Dad’s old chair out 
of the living room where it sat for decades.

Tipped on its side, a yellow golf tee and fistful
of change fell to the floor. I stared at the tee 

and wondered how objects can outlive their owners.
How can my life outlive yours? 

“Meet me at the river,” you said, more alive in 
my dream than in life. I startled awake. 

Putting all else aside, I went. The murmur of
water slowed my walk. There I found you, 

in raindrops glistening from hemlock, 
shimmering like tiny lanterns. In 

the yellow-crowned sparrow, who blinked
and tilted her head toward me. In the scent 

of rain and autumn, filling my lungs. 
I found you in the stubborn beat 

of my own aching heart. A giant maple leaf 
lay yellow on the dark, wet ground.

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It’s the little things, like
sending a text to wish friends
a happy anniversary and seeing that the
last message I sent them was the news 
that you had left us. 

Or the online form that asks marital
status including the box that says 
widowed. I refuse the label, mark
myself MARRIED, and wish for the
option to underline and circle the word.
because I am, always and forever
yours.

Or your jacket hanging
on the hook next to mine 
as always. I touch your name
stitched onto the fabric, feel your
name sown like seeds across my soul.

Then these words:

Once you have touched and 
tasted heaven, nothing else
will ever compare, or
ever be enough again.

Are these words mine, missing 
you with every breath and heartbeat?

Or are the words yours …
just letting me know?

Later in the day, the sun set
like a glowing peach, an anthem
of glory in the sky. It seemed
for a moment as if we were on the same
side of things, small but filled with wonder,
together in a world of light. 

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I fall asleep, my hand tucked under
the weight of you, grounding me 
like an anchor to the earth. With 
eyes closed, I know the curve of your back,
the freckle on your shoulder, that rose
shadow on your neck, I love to kiss
as I spoon against you.
Your breathing echoes 
the sound of ocean waves. My head 
rests on your pillow, inhaling the scent of you – 
loam, wood smoke, sweet grass. 

I did laundry for the first time 
since we’ve been home, and there
was your t-shirt thrown in the hamper just
where you left it. I scooped it up and
pressed it to my face.  I do not wash it. 
A used cough drop sits on its wrapper on your nightstand.
I cannot throw it away. Today, I set a place for you 
when family came for dinner. 

How can breath persist in a chest hollowed out?  The
surgeon left the wound open, mentioning a second 
surgery to clean the cavity where a 
a portion of your lung was removed.
 Your lung. My heart. 
The neurologist's words, later,
“No possibility of recovery.” 

I try to sleep, my hand tucked under
the weight of you, grounding me 
like an anchor to the earth. With 
eyes closed, I remember the curve of your back,
the freckle on your shoulder, that rose
shadow on your neck, I loved to kiss 
as I spooned against you.
Your breathing echoed 
the sound of ocean waves. I wake, my cheek 
pressed against the hard corners of 
the box that holds your ashes. 

Salt trails, the wound still open. 
Oh, my Beloved, what is possibly left to recover?
Show me.

(Gold Cord Lake, Alaska )

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the night before surgery, we lay
together, our hands lightly
cupped, life thrummed 
between our palms and fingers, warm, 
shimmering with tenderness, a light in the dark,
with every toss or turn, we found
each other, rested if nothing
else, our hands in quiet repose.

just days before, we rode our horses 
on the flanks of a volcano. we were young 
back when mt. st. helens erupted. 
living thousands of miles away, 
we wiped particles of the mountain
from our windowsills, too young to know
the taste of ash.

the morning of our ride,
our horses snorted to get underway,
all of us eager to feel muscle and spirit 
power up the trail. the path grew
steeper, the drop-offs more sheer.
as rocks dislodged and tumbled off
the edge, our horses doubled down.
Bill glanced back at me, his eyes
a fountain of laughter, “this is 
fucking fantastic.” when we
stopped to rest the horses, they caught
their breath, then stomped the ground, 
hungry to keep moving. 

through towering trees, we saw
the mountain, that great rock of latent
fury. by the end of the day, we had traversed
mud flows, rock falls, and nascent streams,
all remnants of the explosion, nearly half
a century before. back then no one 
could imagine an entire mountain blowing
apart, leveling trees, evaporating lakes,
its shoulders sloughing, melting, spewing itself
out onto a sunny sunday morning.

always the strong one, my Beloved took
the chemo, the brain fog, the nausea,
all in preparation to be cancer-free. i wept at every
treatment. last stop, surgery. he ordered a new trailer, ready
for more riding post-op. 

instead, his pulmonary artery erupted following
surgery. the chaplain came with a nurse to bring me into 
that room to which no one wants to be led. 
they are doing cpr on your husband. 
when the surgeon spoke later, she
explained his heart stopped after losing nearly
all his body’s blood. after fifteen minutes, new blood,
a fist in his chest to massage, his enormous, generous
heart began beating again. but the
outcome remained unclear. as she spoke,
i stared at red splashes of 
my Beloved’s blood
on her shoes. 

i am sitting now in the
rubble of our mountain, life not 
just altered but exploded, rock, tree, water
obliterated.  how can this heart continue 
when there is nothing
left to breathe but ash?

These past days, we have pretended it isn’t true.

Except for a tree-shaped shadow under the tender

skin on his forearm and the fatigue—



which has me learning to hitch, load, and drive

a twenty-four-foot horse-camping trailer—

you would never guess the diagnosis



that rocked our world four months ago.



We rode our horses on the beach in Oregon,

thick mist kissing the water, the surf visible only

feet from where our horses' hooves met wet sand.



We camped in the cool shadows of cedar, a deer and

spotted fawn stopping to stare. Nearby, a mule brayed

the saddest song that somehow made us laugh.



We marveled at the eagerness and power

of our steeds as they climbed switchback after

switchback, eating up trail miles like candy.



We made love like slow honey,

sweet amber and sunshine,

sighs reaching toward the root of things.



As shafts of morning light filtered through

the forest, we decided that one of the pleasures

of living is making plans. So we did.



Pretending to live is living, isn’t it?

Our forever here, now, fingers entwined

in mercies of moonlight and grace.

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Happily, the rain falls and the sun shines on the city, too. The wind blows on suburbia as well as the mountains of home. And the birds! They have truly found community among the ornamental trees that decorate these human spaces. Isn’t it something, how people, even in suburbia, will use their space to cultivate what grows, what blooms, what is beholden to the sun, sky, and soil? Mom has potatoes and tomatoes growing next to her house. There’s a bit of the farm everywhere, if you watch for it.

Farms are often edged by wilderness. At home, moose regularly wander through the woods surrounding our horse pasture. There’s a bit of wilderness here too.

A small creek trickles between and around several subdivisions. When the boys were young, before homes were built up around Grandma’s house, they played in the creek with crawfish and tadpoles. Today, some of the waters around the creek are fenced off by the county, protected now as wetlands. Even as car engines fire up for the morning commute, there are mallards rearing their young and Canada geese who drop in during their spring and fall migrations. Adaptability seems to be the key to survival, and Lily and I listen hard for the sound of water.

We are grateful to be here, thankful for Mom’s open door and generous heart during this season in our lives. She has missed having a dog around since Oliver passed on. Stroking Lily’s ears, she says, “Dogs are good for the soul.” There is a lot of good here, all around.

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(Duckling photo by Camerauthor-Photos/Unsplash)

We arrived here on fire,

my husband with fever, me

smoldering with fear about

what’s next. The world is -- our lives are --

in flames.

In my mother’s garden, we

drink cool water in the shade of

Erik’s Tree, towering now in the forty

years since my son planted it as a boy.

Has it been ten days, ten months, ten years

since we left home?

We will never return to what was.

In the shade of Erik’s Tree, a rose tilts its head.

I feel the tiny heft of her breath on my skin.

In shades of apricot and pink,

she beckons: Come.

So I rise in obedience to beauty,

slip between the cool sheets of

her petals. Drawing attention

to her heart, she shows how the center is held

by the outer petals layer by layer.

She shows how they, in turn, are

held by sturdy sepals, and

the sepals are held by a slender stem, which is

held by roots reaching deep, deep, deeper.

The roots are embraced by soil teeming with life, and

the soil is held by an earth spinning in the arms of

the yearning sun. The sun is held by bright galaxies

and all this, yes all of it, is held together

by a trinity of Joy, Gravity,

Love.

Then she notes how her outer petals

are curling with age.

Nothing lasts forever, she says.

You too will wither (are withering),

and all you love will be transformed.

The center becomes the seed. But for now,

Dear One, hold close

to this center, curl up in

its fragrance. Let the tempest

rage. Let the fires burn.

(It is true, the fire and the rose are one.)

In this moment, in this breath,

you too are held.

My Beloved burning with fever, this cancer is like a runaway 
locomotive, me throwing switches one after the other 
while gulping information on how to operate this roaring 
thing, the landscape blurring past, our map 
useless, these levers made of nothing but straw.

The past few weeks have been rough. Bill, in his immunosuppressed state of chemotherapy, picked up a virus that very quickly developed into pneumonia; three visits to ER in three days and two weeks of high fevers. I’ve never seen him so sick. Equally disconcerting was a CT scan that showed possible cancer in his right lung. So far, the cancer has only been in his left lung, which made it stage 2 and still curable. If the disease has progressed to his right lung, well, that changes everything.

After less than a month at home in Alaska, we decided to return to Bill’s care team in Vancouver, Washington. I had planted a garden, started the greenhouse, and Bill was enjoying his time with Rudy. It was disappointing enough to once again find care for the animals and dismantle the greenhouse, but saying goodbye to grandkids who asked us please not to go, well … we all cried.

Cancer pays no heed to plans.

So here we are. We have received much confirmation that, as homesick as we are, we made the right choice. The differing opinion of doctors in Alaska vs. doctors in Washington reminds us that medicine is a human endeavor with many interpretations of the same set of facts. We welcome the cautious optimism of the care team here. We are choosing to live in the light of possibility. Thankfully, Someone besides me is at the controls of this train. We cannot know where it will lead, but it has finally slowed enough to glimpse a sliver of hope on the horizon.

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Meanwhile, we decided to bring our dog, Lily, to Vancouver. I could not leave her again so soon, especially when we both cried last time — I had to carry her, face buried under my arm from the car to the front door at the boarding kennel. Our other dog Rosie, a resilient youngster, is under the watchful care of 14-year-old granddaughter, Aurora, who is training to race Mt. Marathon. That means lots of mountain climbing and hikes in Rosie’s future. Lily is adjusting to city life. Squirrels here are monstrous compared to the little red chatterboxes in Alaska. The first order of business when we landed in 93-degree heat was a haircut. Lily has requested that if she must be a city dog, she would appreciate a professional groomer next time.

So, I had a heart-to-heart with him about all the things that his body is dealing with right now. He has chemo AND immunotherapy on board, which is affecting every cell, not just the cancer. The last thing his dear, beautiful body needs is an injury. Healing a broken bone would likely be complicated and would certainly delay his treatment. HE HAS TO BE CAREFUL.

He agreed in that way boys do when mothers/wives make disagreeable noises; when their attention has long since exited the conversation.

This morning’s shiner is quite a work of art, eggplant purple with a swirl of pink and swelling at the tear duct. It turns out, one-year-old Rudy did not want to cross a wet ditch in the yard. Bill decided this would be a good training opportunity. Rudy thought otherwise. At some point, Rudy knocked into Bill, which sent him and his eyeglasses sprawling. Looking at the damage, I repeated the previous day’s refrain, plus words I immediately wished I could pull back into my mouth. “If that horse doesn’t straighten out, he needs to go!”

Bill squared his shoulders but said nothing. When he announced he was getting a weanling last fall, my family looked at me sideways. After he left the room, they conspiratorially asked whether I approved. My husband is 72 years old, after all. What could he be thinking? I thought about this question and answered, “Why shouldn’t he choose joy?” I was secretly as excited as he was. No one knows what the future might bring, and no horse could do better than to have Bill Sullivan starting them out in the world.

Reaching up, I lightly touched the outside corner of his purple eye. Then I repeated a phrase coined by Bill’s aunt years before I met him. He had arrived at a family potluck with two black eyes from the barroom brawl the night before. His aunt, heaping potato salad on her plate, told him the words I said to him now:

“Bill, it appears you were talkin’ when you shoulda been listenin’.”

Does my Beloved need to be careful? Yes.

Should he act his age? Well, can we first agree that you are never too old for joy?

(P.S. Rudy is getting gelded on Monday.)

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American Dipper © Michael Woodruff

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We cannot live in the excruciating moment 
the moment of shock, then disbelief,
then despair.
The wound is tended to immediately by
the psyche’s attempt to make meaning,
take control, to vector itself 
back to a state of normal.
Even if nothing about the excruciating moment
could be considered acceptable,
acceptance comes. Little by little. 

I lived thirty-two years, incrementally accepting
the unacceptable until one night, weeping,
driving on ice in the pelting rain
I knew this was not normal. 
The excruciating moment 
cracked open a long-hardened
shell of denial. 
Something had to change. 

Then came the excruciating moment
of being loved in all the ways
it had so long been denied.
Shock, disbelief, despair. 
This was not the normal, prescribed order
of things. Yet Love persisted,
insisted, on the truth of a 
lovable soul. Acceptance
came. Little by little. 

We are six weeks from his diagnosis,
one week since his first chemo. 
Tears fell like rain as the nurse 
pierced his skin with a needle, the 
IV tree of chemicals at the
ready.  “This is our virgin 
run,” he said, smiling. 
“We’re just being redirected.”
These have always been my 
Beloved’s words when we are 
lost on the road, wandering a 
landscape of mistaken turns.

We cannot live in the excruciating moment 
the moment of shock, then disbelief,
then despair. So we cling to the thin thread 
that all will be well. All is well. 
A new normal. Acceptance 
comes. Little by little.

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