The ashes aren't her

I took the day off work, to run two unpleasant errands. First, to the Dane County Registrar of Deeds, to pick up Stephanie's death certificate. In the aftermath of someone's death, you can't do much, legally, without one of those. And then, to the funeral home to pick up Stephanie's ashes. What a ghastly double feature; two of the worst errands I've ever run, back-to-back. But I had the foresight to bring a grocery bag for carrying the ashes home – a purple bag from the Co-Op, because she liked the Co-Op, and purple was her favorite color.

My first mistake was forgetting that it's Wednesday. On Wednesday, the entire block is a farmers' market on MLK Blvd, directly in front of the County Government Office, so I was unavoidably walking through and past farmers' stands selling all sorts of fresh vegetables. Stephanie would've been delighted and would've spent half an hour checking out all the stalls, and spent $30 on green peppers and leeks and potatoes and onions and celery that she then would've made into a week's worth of delicious entrees. Walking past all the tables of vegetables, it was easy to imagine Stephanie very happy in the crowd. My eyes were watering before I even stepped inside the building.

The Registrar's office is two blocks from the bank where Stephanie used to work. We'd met downtown for lunch many times, and often strolled to Monona Terrace. Even the crosswalk at the corner brought back a memory, though not such a pleasant one. There's no traffic light and plenty of weekday traffic, so whenever we met for lunch Steph and I stood at that crosswalk for a long while. Once, while we were waiting, she told me, "If I was an attractive woman, drivers would stop and let us cross the street."

"You are an attractive woman, Steph."

"Not attractive enough to stop traffic." And indeed, when a more conventionally beautiful woman arrived at the crosswalk, drivers would slow and stop and let her cross the street, and we could tag along. You could rant and rave about yet another injustice, or you could just cross the street. Most days we just crossed the street.

Inside the Registrar's office, everything was quick but not painless. I didn't cry too terribly much, and they had a box of Kleenex on the counter. For $30 they produced five certified copies of her death certificate, and guess what? The listed cause of death is wrong. That's weird but I'm not sure it matters, and everything else seems correct.

My eyes were blurry with tears, but I successfully drove to the funeral home. When I walked into their front office, they asked how they could help, and I said, "I'm here to pick up what's left of my wife." I didn't need the grocery bag, though; the ashes were provided in a cardboard box, and the box was inside a nice semi-fancy paper bag.

The bag holding the box holding the ashes went onto the passenger seat of the car, and I buckled it in before driving home. When she was alive, Stephanie never had the habit of wearing a seat belt. If I reminded her, she would buckle up when we went on the freeway, but she wouldn't wear a seat belt when we were puttering around town. Well, this time she let me win that argument.

You might be wondering – a cardboard box, no urn? I have purchased a nice urn and had it engraved, but I bought it on-line, not from the funeral home, for about half the price.

I'm not sure Stephanie's ashes are going into the urn, though. I took the ashes because I didn't want the funeral home to dispose of them in some other way, and I buckled a seat belt around the box-in-a-bag because, if I got in a wreck, I wouldn't want Stephanie's ashes blowing all around the crash scene. That would be disrespectful and gross. Beyond that, though, I don't have much reverence for the ashes, or "cremains," as they're called.

That box of powder isn't Stephanie, except perhaps in a literal, scientific sense. To me, what's left of my treasured wife is the memories and the artifacts all over our apartment, but the memories are in me, and I'm arranging her possessions in a corner of the living room I'm calling "the Shrine."

The ashes are only an abstract, surreal conclusion for the woman I knew and loved – someone who was never abstract, always absolutely real, and will never be a pile of ashes. So, the cremains are probably staying in that cardboard box, unless Steph's parents would like a portion of them.

Tedious, unimportant, and stupid

It is surreal how the world goes on. I read the news, eat a meal occasionally, and pet the cat, pretty much the same as before, but with no meaning whatsoever. I’m impersonating myself, acting as if every day is a normal day and I’m not flailing helplessly. Alone at home I’ve bashed my head against the wall, literally, dozens of times. I’ve also smashed my fist into the wall and done enough screaming that I worry the neighbors might call the cops.

It’s flabbergasting that I can go to work, but I say good morning to my co-workers when I get to the office, and good night when I leave. I do hope they’re having better mornings and nights than I am. Everything is awful, but I’m surprised how quickly I’ve been able to appear to be back at the ordinary push and shove. I sit at my desk all day and do my work, answer emails, requisition more envelopes, whatever, all as if I give a rat’s rectum when I absolutely do not.

I catch myself frowning perpetually. It’s my new natural expression. Try picturing Humphrey Bogart at the train station, in Casablanca. When I notice the frown, I try to rejigger my face into a more neutral look, but most of the time I don’t notice, so I probably look like the grouchiest man in the world. Which is an accurate assessment.

Often, I’m in an impatient, semi-grumpy mood. Everything seems so tedious, unimportant, and generally stupid. It’s entirely subconscious, but I hear myself sighing, loudly, every ten or fifteen minutes. It’s surprising that I haven’t hollered at anybody or gotten into any loud arguments, and it seems unwise that people are allowed to sign checks or drive a car in this mental state.

I wonder how long I can go, telling nobody at work that my wife is dead? For as long as I’ve worked there, I’ve talked about Stephanie at work – not a lot, just now and then when co-workers are discussing their weekends or whatever. Everyone at work knows the name of everyone else’s spouse and kids and pets, so eventually someone will ask how Stephanie’s doing. Actually, one co-worker has already asked, but she asked in an e-mail, so I just didn’t respond. When someone asks and I can’t avoid the question, I will crumple into a ball of weeping widowhood. I’d like to put that day off for as long as possible, but short of sending a memo that says, “Don’t ask about my wife,” there’s not much I can do.

And then I come home, which is not really home any more. It’s the same address, same furniture, same cat, but now it’s just the place where I eat, sleep, and poop. That ain’t home. I watch Doctor Who and read The New Yorker and fart around on Reddit, and there’s no joy in any of it. Something smells funky in the kitchen, but I don't yet have any interest in finding out what. Probably it's time to take out the trash.

To some extent, Madison isn’t home any more, either. There are places in this town that Stephanie and I went to over and over again, and I’ll never go without her. I can go to the grocery store, sure, but the places we went to, together, all the time? Nope, can’t do it. Can’t go to the coffee shop down the street, where we sometimes spent hours reading and chatting and sipping tea (Steph) or iced coffee (me). Can’t go to Ogden’s Diner for breakfast, her favorite place, where we're well-known regulars. Too many memories, and the waitress will ask “Where’s Stephanie?,” and my face will explode with tears all over some stranger’s breakfast.

Binge-eating would have been my predicted response, because over the years that’s usually been how I’ve handled bad news – “Three giant cheeseburgers with a bucket of fries and a strawberry malted, please, and later I’ll be back for seconds.” But I’ve been eating healthier and losing weight for more than a year, and I’m sticking with the diet, because I’m still a fat guy who needs to lose weight, but especially because Stephanie so often told me “I’m proud of you for all the weight you’ve lost.” There’s no way on Heaven, Hell, or Earth that I’m going to double-cross that.

Before she got sick, we would often go for a walk on a whim. Within a couple of miles of our apartment, there’s no sidewalk we haven’t walked. Those were good times, good walks.

After walking became difficult, we still went for walks – she was weak on her legs, but she would slowly struggle and conquer any trail. She was not one for giving up. When we bought a wheelchair, she said she could have the joy of a walk even without the walking. The footsteps weren’t what mattered, she said; it was more about the pace and the scenery than the exercise. But whatever she said, of course she missed walking.

Now I walk alone, and many thoughts and moods take turns in my head. Mostly, the recurring thought is just that she’s gone. Forever. Her life has ended. It’s not a complicated thought, I suppose, but it floors me every time I realize it all over again. If I hold the thought for more than a few seconds, I’m crying.

Some days I almost think I have my crap together, But I really, really don’t. What fools me is, I might go a few hours without crying about Stephanie, because I live alone and have no friends to speak of, so I’m not talking about her. But the moment I mention her name out loud, to anyone else or to myself, in person or on the phone or even in an email, I lose it – my voice cracks, my eyes leak, and I can’t carry on.

Stephanie’s last happy day

For many years, I was largely apart from my family, but we’ve been back in touch, and this summer some of them were planning to visit. My brother Carl and his wife Kathy, my brother David and his wife Keum, and my almost 90-year-old mother were coming to Wisconsin for four days in mid-August, to stay in the tourist-trap Dells (about 60 miles from Madison) and see us.

In all the time Stephanie and I had been together, we’d only seen anyone from my family once, several years earlier, when Carl and Kathy had passed nearby, and we spent an afternoon with them in Illinois. She had liked them, and the feeling was mutual. So, Stephanie was looking forward to seeing them again, and meeting my mother and my other brother and his wife.

Let me emphasize, I was looking forward to seeing my family too, but Stephanie was almost giddy with anticipation, asking me to re-brief her on everybody and everything, and peppering me with questions. These are people she’d heard about for decades, and she was finally going to meet them, and she very much wanted to make a good impression.

But she also wasn’t feeling well, and she hadn’t been feeling well for weeks. She worried that she might not be up to spending much time with them, and indeed, the day they arrived, she asked me to make her apologies and go see my family without her. I went to dinner with them at some restaurant, while she stayed home.

Left to right, that's me, my mom, and Stephanie.

On the second day of their visit, Stephanie felt a lot better. She felt fine for the whole day, and we spent hours and hours with my family, laughing and telling stories and having a good time. Stephanie was smiling and talking and very much herself, all day. The seven of us spent the afternoon and evening chatting with everyone at the resort in the Dells, and we went to a Culver’s, where Stephanie had some ice cream, and to a cheese store, where we bought a huge bag of squeaky curds. Steph had a great time, and she was so very glad that she’d had a chance to meet my family and spend some time with them.

For the two remaining days of their visit she stayed home in bed, again not feeling well. But for that one day, Tuesday the 14th of August 2018, she felt great, enjoyed herself, and she was delighted to be part of a new family — my family. Our family. I don’t believe in miracles, but that day came close.

I am so thankful that some of my family visited, and so very glad that Stephanie met them, liked them, and enjoyed a day with them. She was so very happy that day, so beautiful, so … Stephanie. It was her first real “Steph day” at full strength in ages, and it turned out to be her last day feeling well, her last day of really being herself.