Tag Archives: Kathy Anne

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No redeeming quality

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AMARILLO, Texas — I ran into a longtime friend this morning at a local coffee shop.

He and I exchanged greetings. He asked, “What brings you back?” I said I wanted to get away for a couple of days. I asked, “You didn’t hear about my wife?” He said no.

I told him Kathy Anne passed away in February as the result of brain cancer. I told him we got the diagnosis the day after Christmas and she was gone … just like that.

“Well,” he said, “I guess there’s something to be said for going quickly.” I stopped him. “No. There is nothing redeeming about this,” I said. “I cannot find anything about the swiftness of this disease that gives me any comfort.”

He nodded. My friend knew of what I was speaking.

I mean not a shred of disrespect for my friend. I merely want him to know that I remain “shattered” from this loss and try as I might, I cannot find anything yet that relieves me of the pain of losing my bride so damn quickly.

As I have noted already on this blog, the reassembling of my life remains a work in progress. It’s coming along, but it will take a while. My friend understands.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Traveling alone, as in … alone!

AMARILLO, Texas — It took me a few hours today to realize what was different about this brief excursion from my North Texas home to points northwest on the Texas Caprock.

I was alone in the pickup. By that I mean I was totally alone.

Now, you know that my dear bride, Kathy Anne, is gone. It’s obvious to you that she is unable to accompany me alongside in her customary place in the vehicle we own.

What isn’t obvious is that Toby the Puppy didn’t make this trip. He stayed home to keep my son and his two kitties, Macy and Marlowe, company.

I ventured back to the High Plains to see a few friends. Not many of them, mind you, because I’m here only for a couple of days before I head back to the house in Princeton.

But damn! Not having my puppy with me is seriously strange, man. I talk to him while we motor along the highway. He doesn’t talk back, obviously. He does respond with a tail wag and a lick. He will let me know if he has to relieve himself along the way; he gives me the doe-eyed stare and he might start to paw my arm, as if to say, “Dad, uhhh, it’s time to pull over.”

But for the first time in, oh, a very long time I have no traveling companion to share a laugh or to say, “I love you.” Yes, I tell Toby the Puppy that I love him all the time, just as I told Kathy Anne that very truth for more than 50 years.

She would say she loved me, too. Toby the Puppy? He expresses his love differently, but I know it when he tells me.

I’m glad I’ll be away only for two nights. Then I head home. The next sojourn commences in a couple of weeks; it will take me east to North Carolina and Virginia and points between here and there.

Toby the Puppy will be with me for every mile of that trek.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Birthday parties: a serious blast

I love birthday parties. They commemorate another year around the sun for those of us able to enjoy the ride.

Moreover, I also enjoy national parties, such as the one the USA is celebrating today as it turns 247 years young. Yes, we’re still a young nation, given the comparative ages of many nations with which we share this good planet Earth. I have had the pleasure of visiting countries in Asia and Europe, where they count their ages in millennia, not mere years.

This Fourth of July will be a quiet one for my family and me. We are still mending our shattered hearts. My wife left us in February after a brief, but ferocious, fight with cancer. My sons are hurting, as is my daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

I will return eventually to celebrating our national birthday. Just not this year.

The Fourth of July is intended to celebrate a great nation. It has always been great, even with its occasional dents and dings and, yes some hideous policies that have been sent to the crapper.

I look forward to enjoying the birthday party once again.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Grief: individualized, indeed

All of my friends and family have told me this repeatedly since I ran smack into the worst day of my life.

Do not put a timetable on anything as it regards how you will mend your shattered heart, they have said. Grief is as individualized an emotion as any human being ever will experience.

I have learned that lesson as time marches on since the passing of my bride, Kathy Anne, to the ravages of cancer.

It’s coming up on my five months since she passed. It remains a struggle, to be sure. Friends who lost spouses a lot longer ago than I have tell me they still break out in tears without warning. They still struggle to hold their emotions together when certain dates come and go.

They all assure me that time will make it easier to cope with it, but that I should not expect it to disappear. It will stay with me for as long as I walk this Earth. I get it!

You see, this is the first such experience that I have felt. The loss of my parents was in one instance shocking and in the other was expected. The shocking loss of Dad in that boat wreck in September 1980 caused my blood seemingly to drain from my body the moment I got the news. Mom’s passing from Alzheimer’s complications four years later saddened me, but in a different way.

Time eventually mended my heart after their deaths.

This one feels unique. Kathy Anne and I were together for 51 years as husband and wife. Her diagnosis came the day after Christmas 2022. She was gone six weeks later. How am I supposed to cope with that, given the optimism to which we clung after hearing about her potential prospects once she began her treatment.

We didn’t anticipate the aggressive nature of the cancer that had struck her and the savagery it exhibited as it grew back.

All of this has contributed to my continued pain as I trudge along on this journey.

I know my family and friends are right. I know what to expect and I know what not to expect as I move ahead. I’ll just ask everyone to bear with me … and I know they will.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Becoming totally independent

The thoughts I will express in this brief blog post might seem odd, but they are what is churning in my gut at the moment … so, here goes.

I have discovered a nagging obstacle to my emotional recovery from the tragedy I suffered in February with the loss of my bride, Kathy Anne, to cancer.

It is making decisions without having to consult with her. Others who have trudged along this path likely know of which I speak.

I am able to go anywhere I damn well without having to clear it with my bride of more than 51 years.

Example: I am going to hit the road next week for a quickie trip up yonder to Amarillo. I want to see friends, people I got to know over more than 20 years living in the Texas Panhandle. Prior to her passing, I would have asked Kathy Anne if she wanted to go. She might say “yes,” or maybe not. If the answer was no, well, I likely would have stayed home, too.

Hey, no sweat. I always enjoyed her company, whether it’s on the road or here at home.

These days I am not encumbered by anyone else’s wishes, not that I viewed her wishes a burden or any sort of barrier to me.

Now, though, I am free to pick up and go. I plan to do so again in a few weeks, heading back east for a two-week jaunt to North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia to see family and dear friends.

It’s all part of that so-called “new normal” I am seeking to discover. It’s there for the taking, I have determined. I just need to accept the reality of this moment.

Weird, man.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Pictures present no obvious pain

My dearest Kathy Anne …

I thought I’d bang out another short note to you, per the advice of our friends. I thought I needed to tell you that I am having little difficulty looking at pictures of you.

You recall when Dad passed away in September 1980. I went to his office to clear out his desk. His colleagues gave me pictures of him to take with me. I couldn’t look at them. That unreasonable fear of looking at pics of Dad lasted a good while. It faded over time.

My loss of you was far worse than what happened that day more than four decades ago. It is no hyperbole, sweetheart, to tell you that Feb. 3, 2023, was the worst day of my life. My heart shattered into a million pieces. I am still trying to assemble it, but I know that’s an impossible task.

However, I am not suffering the kind of fear I felt at looking at pictures of Dad. I can look at your lovely face and I draw some form of comfort in seeing your buoyant smile.

Indeed, I have a lovely portrait of you hanging on a living room wall next to your angel collection. And, yes, I wish you good night when I turn at the end of the day.

I consider this to be a sort of triumph over the grief I continue to feel as I continue my journey through this dark period.

I also thought you needed to hear it from me.

Make no mistake that I think of you practically every waking minute of every day. I am heartened that I can look at your pictures and think of the moments they were taken and recall them with happiness.

I will miss you forever and then some.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Retirement ain’t for the queasy

Retirement was sure to introduce me to many shifts, twists and turns and occasional bumps along the way. I knew it when I commenced that journey with my bride nearly a decade ago.

She opted to retire “early” not long after I left my career behind in August 2012. I would follow suit about three years later.

My lesson, though, about retirement is that one must be prepared for any eventuality. By “any eventuality,” I refer — to no one’s suprise, I am sure — to tragedy.

It crashed into me on Feb. 3 when my bride passed away. I am continuing on my journey, but I am now forced to find that “new normal.” I haven’t found it just yet, but it’s coming a little more sharply into focus with each day.

My friends and family have advised me to “take it one day at a time.” I am following that advice to the letter. I am putzing around my house each day, doing this and that chore.

I run errands. I mow the lawn. I have a laugh or two each day with my son, who has moved in with me.

But this new era of retirement has a different feel — quite obviously — than what Kathy Anne and I had expected when we embarked on this journey together.

Intellectually, though, I knew that it was entirely possible all of this could occur. Still, when my world changed forever the evening of Feb. 3, I wasn’t ready for it. I’ll be candid: This is the worst event ever to fall on me. The good news is that I have my family. They, too, are hurting but we give each other comfort when we need it.

I want to share this latest update with you just to let you know that I am pushing forward. Kathy Anne insisted on it if fate were to place me in this spot.

It has done so. The rest of it is up to me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Just hold hands, that’s all

We would get this question occasionally, particularly after we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in the late summer of 2021.

It went something like this: What is the secret to your marriage success? My bride had a quick answer and it was the correct answer, at least in her astute and intuitive mind. “We just hold hands,” she would say. The question was often posed in the context of our modern society that produces so many failed marriages.

Hmm. Then came the follow up: How does that help?

She would say that it didn’t matter how we were feeling at that moment, whether she was mad at me or we had some disagreement, holding hands kept us close together and enabled us to talk through whatever differences we were experiencing.

To be sure, Kathy Anne and I really liked each other’s company. I can say that without any equivocation. For certain, I enjoyed being in her company. She said she enjoyed being with me … so I would take her at her word.

The hand-holding was something we did naturally. It was never contrived or was something we had to remember to do. We would take walks around our neighborhood with Toby the Puppy and we would reach instinctively for the each other’s hand. Off we would go, traipsing around the ‘hood as the Puppy would seek to mark every weed, hydrant, lamp post he could find.

Friends would comment frequently, telling us that “it is just so cool to see you holding hands” as we walked along heading to nowhere in particular.

We didn’t get into prolonged arguments. But occasionally, as every married couple has experienced, there would be a bump along the way.

Through it all, we kept in touch — quite literally — simply by holding hands.

I offer this as a mini-seminar on maintaining a successful marriage. It helps — at least from my standpoint — that I found the girl of my dreams quite suddenly and unexpectedly one January day in college.

We enjoyed one fabulous journey for 51 glorious years.

We held hands.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Another ‘first’ sneaks up

When you lose someone with whom you do everything — and I mean that in virtually every sense of the word — then the smallest things one does take on an added emotional significance.

Those who have lost a loved one know about which I am referring.

I took a dip in our community swimming pool this evening; I had to cool off from the 98-degree heat that blanketed Princeton, Texas, today.

This was something I did routinely with Kathy Anne, my bride of 51 years and the girl of my dreams who passed away in February after a brief, but savage, battle with cancer.

I won’t go on and on about it with this blog post. It’s just one of those lessons one learns about mourning that I have just encountered. I’m quite certain the next time I decide to get wet in the pool won’t hit me quite the same way … or any other time after that.

My journey, though, continues. Yes, it’s getting a little better.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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That was some storm, sweetheart!

My dear Kathy Anne …

Several friends of ours have suggested I write to you personally. They say I should put pen to paper. But as you know, my penmanship has gone straight to hell, thanks in no small part to the journalism career that ruined my once-graceful hand.

I hope you’ll settle for a typewritten note, sweetheart.

Know for starters that I miss you every waking hour of every day. We all miss you. It’s been a struggle since you left us. That damn cancer was brutal beyond anything I could imagine.

It’s been a dark journey so far, but I have been able to write about it on my blog and it has given me some comfort along the way.

But … I have some good news. I am able to smile a bit when I think of you. Take what happened here last night. We had a whale of a thunderstorm roar through Collin County. Tornado sirens were blasting. I saw some walnut-sized hail on the yard.

I thought of the many times we talked about missing the Gulf Coast storms we witnessed when we first moved to Beaumont in the spring of 1984. Remember how they boasted in the Panhandle about the thunderstorms there? Well, we always joked between ourselves that the coastal storms had the Caprock storms beat all to hell.

We lost power twice during the night. Not to worry, though. Peter and I had flashlights ready. Toby the Puppy got a bit anxious, as did the kitties that came with Peter. Just so you know, Macy and Marlowe are acclimating nicely in their new digs here. They have reached a sort of an accommodation with Puppy: It’s his house, but they are free to roam about.

We are adjusting to life without you, my darling bride. Indeed, I don’t believe I’ll achieve that level of normality as I once defined it.

When life was “good” for me, it was because of you. I cannot claim to be “good” these days. I am getting better. I get rocked back occasionally, but I understand now that it’s to be expected.

I’m just trudging along. I’ll write you again. I promise. Just know that I miss you beyond all humanly measure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com