Tag Archives: Kathy Anne

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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

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Better, but not ‘good’

Four months into this dark journey on which I have embarked has revealed — I believe — a difficult truth about where I am likely going to end up.

My bride passed away on Feb. 3 after a brief, but savage bout with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. I have chronicled already much of what I have been feeling since Kathy Anne’s passing.

We were together for 52 years, 51 of those years as husband and wife. Yes, it’s been tough. It will continue to be a difficult trek for well past the foreseeable future.

The difficult truth?

It is that “good” as I once defined term is likely an unattainable goal for me. Friends and family ask me constantly, “How are you doing?” I cannot say “good,” because that term meant something vastly different from what I am experiencing today. I don’t intend to redefine the term; I prefer to remember what “good” used to mean for my bride and me.

I shrug and say “better.” I am better than I was yesterday — most of the time. Thus, the term “better” remains the description du jour for me as I continue on the path that will lead me eventually to the end of my own time on Earth.

For those who might wonder, though, about my emotional state, please know that I intend to stay as positive as possible. I am able to laugh loudly. My emotions run the full gambit.

I just have learned to understand something about mourning the loss of a beloved life partner, someone with whom I did everything. It is that I will never stop missing Kathy Anne. That I will have to wipe tears from my eyes at seemingly little or no provocation.

I will, though, function as a normal adult human being.

“Good” is beyond my reach. I will strive to get “better” each day … and that is a worthy goal to attain.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Loss reveals tough lesson

This prolonged period of mourning I am enduring is teaching me many things, one of which is the unintended cruelty of others.

My dear bride passed away four months ago from a savage form of cancer. I miss Kathy Anne every waking minute of every day. Yes, I have written a lot about that already and I don’t mean to belabor the point, as my grief is getting easier to manage.

What is maddening, though, in the extreme are the phone calls and text messages that keep coming at me from those interested in buying my property in Princeton, Texas.

It’s a modest, but nice home. I am making payments each month, just as we did when we purchased it in early 2019.

OK, I know what’s going on. I had to file some paperwork with the Collin County Clerk’s Office, in its probate department. It’s public record. The word has made its way to the real estate buzzards circling overhead. They want to make me a “cash offer” on the house.

I tell them all essentially same thing. I might hang up on them or tell them, simply, “I am not selling. Goodbye.”

On occasion I might ask the caller, “What prompts you to make this call? Does it have anything to do with my wife’s passing?”

They hang up.

It’s no surprise to anyone, I am sure, that losing a beloved spouse is new to me. I have not traveled down this road before. My sadness is tough to shake, even without the assortment of messages and “outreach” from those seeking to do business with me.

They likely won’t read this blog, but this forum does give me a chance to vent my frustration during this still-difficult time in my life.

So … I just did. Thanks for hearing me out.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Prepare for ‘firsts’ posts

Spoiler alert: Your friendly blogger — that’s me — is likely to subject readers to a series of blog posts commemorating a series of “firsts” that my family and I will endure during the coming year.

My precious bride, Kathy Anne, passed away in February. I have spoken already on this blog about the “firsts” that will arrive during the course of the year.

Mothers’ Day came and went and I didn’t post anything specific about that. But there will be more of them to come. First Fourth of July (which KA loved to celebrate), first Fathers’ Day (which she honored my role in becoming a dad), first wedding anniversary, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas (when she became the equivalent of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil decorating for the holiday).

I am just advising you of what’s to come. I have to make note of these events. It’s part of my journey out of the darkness. Be patient. I hope you glean something constructive and affirming from them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Trouble with that ‘d’ word

I never in a million years envisioned having trouble with a certain word after losing someone so dear to me.

But I am … having trouble saying a certain word out loud when I discuss the loss of Kathy Anne to cancer. I won’t even write it. Not here on the blog. Nowhere, man!

You know the word. The word and its variations all start with the letter “d.”

Maybe this isn’t new to anyone who has undergone this level of loss, followed by grief and mourning. You know about which I am writing this brief post.

When I was writing for newspapers for all those decades, I was told by my editors to use the “d” word when describing someone who has left this Earth. No “passing away” allowed when writing hard copy for news stories or even for opinion pieces. Can’t have euphemisms, editors would tell me. Got it!

That’s all changed for me now. I am in control of this blog and I am the boss of what appears on it. Therefore, as I comment on Kathy Anne’s life with me and my family, I will refrain — for the foreseeable future and maybe even beyond — from using that word. We spent 52 years together. Her illness was brief, but so very savage.

I am acutely aware of the finality of what has transpired. I just am not ready to say or write the word or words that tell me what I already know.

I believe you will understand. Maybe even cut me a bit of slack.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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The journey continues

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Well, gang, I have made another command decision from my North Texas man cave, which is that Toby the Puppy and I are going to hit the road again soon.

I returned in mid-April from a monthlong sojourn out west to clear my head and begin to mend my heart shattered by the loss of my dear bride, Kathy Anne, to glioblastoma … as savage a form of cancer as one can imagine.

I’ve had time to collect myself. One of my sons has moved in with me into my Princeton home. He brought his two kitties and they have done well getting acclimated to their new surroundings — not to mention to the presence of the king of our house, Toby the Puppy.

But I have decided I need more time away from my digs. This time, it’s points east where we’ll go. Unlike the westward trek, which took us to the Pacific Ocean, this journey won’t allow us to look at the Atlantic. We’ll go as far as just south of Raleigh, N.C., where I’ll spend some time visiting my cousin and her two young sons.

Then we’ll head to Roanoke, Va., where we will see two of our dearest friends on Earth, a couple my bride and I have known for more than 30 years.

After that I will visit another friend in Charleston, W.Va., a fellow with whom I worked at the Amarillo Globe-News.

Then I’ll park for two nights in Louisville, Ky., where I will spend a day at the Muhammad Ali Museum. Oh, I do look forward to paying my respects to The Greatest.

My head is a whole lot clearer as I prepare to embark on this trip than it was when I headed west. My heart, though, remains a work in progress. I do believe what many have said, which is that my heart is likely permanently damaged. I’ll just have to cope.

I can do that. First things first. The open road awaits.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com