AMARILLO, Texas — At this very moment I am feeling an odd sense of calm. Why? Because we have conducted a memorial service to celebrate the glorious life of the woman of my dreams.

Kathy Anne passed away about three weeks ago from an aggressive brain cancer. We buried her next to her mother in McKinney. Today we came back to where we lived for the longest stint of our married life and celebrated the joy she brought to those who knew and loved her.

Yes, there were moments of intense sadness. It gave way to laughter as the Rev. Murray Gossett — a longtime friend of ours — retold stories that illustrated her humility, her zest for life and her servant’s heart.

I came to see friends we met along the way during our time in Amarillo. They came to our service to honor her and to tell my family and me that we are not alone, that we have friends who love us and who share our intense sadness at Kathy Anne’s passing.

It is the love that consumed us today that, I believe, is the source of the calm I am feeling at this moment. It’s a remarkable feeling of warmth and that I do not want to lose.

Not … ever!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My journey through the darkness of mourning the loss of my bride is teaching many life lessons along the way.

I believe many millions of others have learned them, too. Indeed, I take comfort in knowing I am not the first person or the last person — and damn sure not the only one — ever to be thrust into this “life-lesson classroom.”

In many ways, I am taking a page from Kathy Anne’s own book. She imbued in me during our 51 years of marriage the knowledge that “everything happens for a reason.” We don’t know the reason, nor can we anticipate its arrival. I certainly did not expect the cancer diagnosis we received on Dec. 26 to produce the conclusion that it did.

Her belief that fate is not a blind exercise taught me well. I adopted that philosophy for myself, although I will admit freely that at this moment it is difficult for me to wrap my arms around the “reason” for my intense sadness.

But it is a lesson in life that I am learning.

I will be on the road soon to get away from the home we shared for just a few years. I will return with what I hope are wounds that continue to heal. Then … who knows what lies ahead?

My effort to get on with living might include a part-time job; I’ll keep writing for the weekly newspaper group that signed me on a couple of years ago, as I am having too much fun doing what comes quite naturally.

My bride would insist on it. Honest.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The next major hurdle looms just ahead on my journey through my intense grief. I am looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time.

We’re traveling to Amarillo very soon to conduct a memorial service to honor the life of my beloved bride, Kathy Anne. My sons, daughter-in-law and granddaughter and I are returning to the place where Kathy Anne and I cultivated many friendships; we spent more years in the Texas Panhandle than we did in any other place where we lived during our 51 years together. My sisters will be there, traveling from the Pacific Coast to bid their goodbye.

I expect to get a lot of hugs and expressions of love from many friends.

I anticipate a lot of tears along the way. Then again, that’s nothing new. I have spent many private moments since Feb. 3 crying. My friends tell me it’s natural. They tell me not to rush my full recovery. Mourning takes time, they tell me.

I get it. I am prepared for the long haul. This next obstacle will be difficult to overcome. However, I have noted already that I am far from the first human being to lose the love of his life to a dreaded disease. I won’t be the last one.

Perhaps I can apply the experience I will have gathered from this journey to lend comfort to someone else who undergoes similar grief.

That’s not exactly a silver lining. It is my way, perhaps, of finding some positives to pull from my sadness.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I continue to mourn the passing of my bride and I figure I will do so for a good while.

However, some bizarre thoughts coarse through my noggin as I seek to find my way toward a new normal life without my beloved Kathy Anne. One of them involves laughter.

I am 73 years of age. We were married for 51 years. That means she was a major part of my life for most of my time on this Earth.

There are moments when I laugh out loud at something I see, or when Toby the Puppy performs one of this pooch tricks, or when I watch someone tell a joke. I told a friend on a social media message that I feel strangely embarrassed when I laugh out loud. It’s weird, man.

There is no way I will wear black in public the way my grandmother did after my grandfather died in January 1950. Yiayia mourned Papou in a formal matter for the rest of her life, which ended on July 4, 1978.

However, I don’t want to feel oddly self-conscious when I chuckle at something. Those who have been through this level of grief perhaps know of what I am mentioning.

Hey, I’ll get through this, too.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com