And so it begins.

Or I should say it has ended because this will mark my first post since my dear husband died.

Michael J. Sullivan July 24, 1945 – July 13, 2023

Michael J. Sullivan, aka Mike, my husband of 52 years, lost his battle with cancer and passed July 13, 2023. So I begin life without him. One that right now seems devoid of any joy, happiness or optimism. I miss him so, and I don’t want to forget him. I want his memory to live on. It’s so very hard to let go. So I’m not going to right now. For the next 12 months in a monthly blog I will write about our lives — how he/we lived with his cancer diagnosis, how he/we handled his final days, and now what life is like without him. I’ll take a closer look at my grief, how I’m handling it, what I’m doing, what I’m learning about myself. Clearly, this process is more about me than anyone else. I am just searching for answers, some solace, for a release to get through the many feelings I am discovering that are part of the grieving process. If, at the end of the day, someone else reads this and finds it helpful, all the better. But for now, it’s all about me and beginning life without Mike.

In the last few days/weeks since his passing I have received numerous bits of advice, been given several books on how to handle grief. I appreciate it all, but I’ve also realized that this process is a very personal, individual path. It’s one I must travel by myself and chart my own course. I know only very little of what it entails at this point. I suspect, though, over the course of this year I will learn quite a lot. Will 12 months be enough? Probably not. Someone recently told me it will take five years to really come to terms with this loss I feel. I don’t know. For now, it’s one day at a time. One monthly blog. It’s not going to be daily. Even I would get tired of that. But I’ll do some looking back, reflecting on that first diagnosis and how we lived our lives for nearly two years after that. Then, as painful as it seems right now, I’ll take a closer look at those final few days, because thankfully there weren’t weeks, months, years of suffering. His dignity was intact to the end, and I am so grateful for that.

I’ve tried to piece together so many details of the last days of his life, but at times I find them elusive. When one is living in the stress of the moment you’re not worrying about remembering. My daughters have helped reconstruct some of those details. As friends and family have recounted experiences they had with Mike I’ve captured those as well. Taken them to my heart, writing them down. The same is true of the many cards, notes and letters received. Again, capturing memories and even finding surprising aspects of Mike’s personality I never knew. Even though he was a man of few words, he still was a great conversationalist — when he chose to be! Still I was surprised at how often friends remarked about the “good talks” they had with Mike.

The sympathy cards and memorials which flooded in for nearly a week have trickled to just a few a day. Even so, there are gems that arrive, like the message from our Japanese “daughter,” a foreign exchange student who lived with us nearly 30 years ago. Her message, which of course brought me to tears, will stay in my heart: “Your relationship with Mike…taught me important things. He was always kind and dependable. Mostly, the greatest thing about him was he trusted and let you explore your talents and abilities as you wish. In Japanese culture, men are sometimes not like that.”

Mike had a specific request for a song to be sung at his funeral — “Keep Me In your Heart for A While” by Warren Zevon. I promise to do that, Mike. Not just for awhile, not just for 12 months of blogging, but forever.

When Mike was first diagnosed we soon realized we needed to have a lot of medical information at hand, so our daughter organized it all in a 3-ring notebook. On the front and back covers she printed two quotes I’ve referred to many times on this journey:

“God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow or sun without rain. But he did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears and light for the way.”

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is gift — that’s why it’s called the present.”

And so it is, I offer myself up to really the only one who can give true comfort. I will take one day at a time and begin my journey without him.