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‘Better,’ but not yet ‘good’

I believe I have made a reasonably profound conclusion upon returning from my westward journey to clear my head in the wake of my beloved bride’s passing from cancer.

It rests in an answer I give to those who know me and who are acutely aware of what happened to Kathy Anne on Feb. 3.

They ask: How are you doing? How are you feeling?

My answer: I am better. I am not yet good.

The conclusion I have reached? It is that I might never be “good” the way I used to define the word. Does that mean I am going to wallow in my grief? No. It means — as I perceive it — that I will have to accept that the pain that shattered my heart will remain with me for as long as I live.

My task, therefore, will be to carry on even as I continue to hurt. The two elements are not mutually exclusive, as those who have been through it have told me.

One dear friend — a fellow I have known since we were in high school — counseled me on my trip out west to “not be afraid to move forward, but never forget where you’ve been.” He speaks from his own experience of having lost his wife to cancer just a few years ago. My friend is a wise man and I take his advice seriously.

My trip was a good tonic for me. I returned home to North Texas feeling more peaceful than I did when I departed with Toby the Puppy. I am feeling better today than I did a month ago.

And you know what? I am not going to look for the “good” feeling. I will know if and when it shows up … kinda like the moment I first laid eyes on the girl of my dreams.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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A ‘fulfilling’ journey

Rarely — if ever — in all my years walking this good Earth have I enjoyed a “fulfilling” time away from home.

I had one of those experiences during the past month on the road.

My wife passed away from brain cancer on Feb. 3. I wanted to get out of the house for a while to clear my head. Toby the Puppy and I put a lot of miles on my truck … 6,629 of them to be precise. We saw many family members and friends on our trek to the Pacific Coast.

I have received a number of gratifying responses from those who read this blog. I have written of my pain and the journey I took to help alleviate it. Kathy Anne and I were together for 52 years and her illness came on quickly and it advanced in a savage fashion.

Some of you have expressed thanks for sharing my journey with you and those expressions mean more to me than I can possibly articulate in this brief post.

I have proclaimed that I have accomplished my mission by clearing my head of the confusion that overwhelmed me along with the rest of my family. I am thinking more clearly now about how to proceed with my future plans, which I acknowledge remain a work in progress.

My heart still hurts. I won’t try to repair it overnight. Or even in the next few months or even longer than that. I have sought to develop coping mechanisms to deal with the pain that I expect will flare without warning.

I also have learned that I need not apologize for those moments when I weep. So … to those who read these words and with whom I will have personal contact, you are hereby advised to expect these episodes.

All of this my way of declaring that my journey was fulfilling and was the type of adventure that my beloved bride would agree is necessary to cleanse one’s soul.

I am glad to be home.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Live it to the fullest

PORTLAND, Ore. — One of the lessons I have gleaned from my journey out west in the wake of my bride’s passing from cancer has been something I’ve known all along.

However, it is being driven home to me as a stark reality. It is to live one’s life fully and to never, ever take for granted that you’ve got a lot of time left on this Earth.

Kathy Anne likely didn’t see the diagnosis coming when she received it on Dec. 26. We had hoped to buy her some time, that the treatment she was scheduled to receive could “control” the lesion sufficiently to give her a good quality of life.

It didn’t work out.

She was gone in six weeks. It was a stunning outcome to an event I didn’t believe was probable. Yes, it was possible and I suppose I knew it could end the way it did. I just didn’t expect it.

The journey through the Great American West will continue in due course after I finish visiting friends and family in and near the city of my birth. I believe, though, that I have reached one undeniable conclusion at the midway point of this journey.

It is that I am going to relish the sunrise every single morning I am able to do so. Every day will be an adventure. I might not verbalize it when I awake, but I will certainly realize it as each day unfolds.

That’s not a bad way to go as I keep taking these baby steps toward the light.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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What happens next?

This retirement journey on which I embarked has taken an unexpected turn, as I am now traveling alone.

OK. Many of you know that already as I have written about my bride’s passing from brain cancer. Kathy Anne was my life partner for the past 51-plus years.

So … what’s next? Obviously, it is far too early to predict anything about where I am heading. I have the strongest support possible from my sons, my daughter-in-law, my granddaughter, my sisters and my bride’s brothers and their families. I also have many friends around the nation … and, yes, the world.

Some of my friends have endured the pain I am suffering at this moment. I will lean heavily on them and their “expertise” in losing a spouse.

I want to stipulate, though, something many of you might already have surmised. Kathy Anne was far more than just my spouse. She was the woman I longed to meet when she appeared before me all those years ago. The Presbyterian preacher who married us took us through a personality test and determined, based on the results he received, that we were “incompatible.”

Kathy Anne and I laughed out loud for decades at that preposterous notion. Indeed, our “incompatibility” outlasted his time as a clergyman; he quit the ministry not many years after declaring us to be “husband and wife.” But … I digress.

Now comes the retirement journey that will continue in some fashion. It won’t be the same — quite obviously — but it will go on.

Where it leads me remains the greatest unknown answer I ever have sought, or ever will seek. I intend to find it … wherever it is.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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In the mood for philosophical thought

Waxing philosophical is not the normal grist that fuels this blog, but at this moment, I am in the mood for some of it.

So … here goes.

My mind and my heart have been traveling at light speed since earlier this month. I am realizing in real time how precious our time on Earth is and I am vowing privately — I guess now I am making it public — to make the most of the time I have left.

I wanted desperately to have more time to share adventures with my bride. That won’t happen now. I am left more or less to make do on my own. I will do that. Kathy Anne would insist on it. Indeed, she did insist on it once long ago as we talked about how we would proceed without the other one by our side.

She insisted that I stay focused on things that interest me and never stop pursuing them. As I recall that conversation, she made that statement in the form of a directive.

My two years in the Army long ago taught me to obey orders. I will obey hers.

I have known all along that our time on the good Earth is short. None of us gets out of here alive, as one of my newspaper colleagues used to say.

I am going to keep writing. I will finish, hopefully soon, a memoir I’ve been writing that I plan to leave for my sons. Kathy Anne pitched the idea to me about the time my career came to an unannounced end more than a decade ago. I think it’s about two-thirds done.

We liked to travel. I will do more of it. I have a couple of bucket-list destinations in mind: Australia is No. 1, followed closely by a photo safari to Africa. Don’t hold me to visiting those places. As I learned in horrific detail not long ago, fate can deliver an immovable obstacle without warning.

Life almost always teaches hard lessons. I have tried to be a good student of the “curriculum” that comes my way. This is the sternest test yet. I intend to give it every ounce of strength I can.

There. Philosophy lecture is over.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Time for cheer, not tears

We buried my bride today, saying goodbye to my partner of more than 51 years.

I am not going to dwell on the tears we shed today. There were plenty, to be sure. I want to speak briefly to the joy we felt coming from the woman who officiated over our ceremony.

The Rev. Mally Baum — who heads the staff temporarily at Trinity Presbyterian Church in McKinney — admitted she did not know Kathy Anne well, but knew her well enough to acknowledge what my family her many friends and I knew about her, which was that her belief in eternal salvation was real and was not something to show off. She felt it in the depths of her soul.

When we learned the day after this past Christmas of the cancerous tumor that would take her from us, Kathy Anne’s first words were, “We have to get it out of there.” That was a demonstration of the strength she carried with her. Through the ups and downs of our life together, I could depend on her to be strong. She kept that strength even as she faced what she no doubt knew could be a catastrophic illness.

Yet she maintained hope, which again is what her faith in salvation embedded in her.

One of my sons and I had spoken with Mally a few days ago about my bride, telling her about aspects of her life that she didn’t know. She took copious notes and today delivered a brief tribute to Kathy Anne that she packed with almost all the details of her glorious life.

We all shared some laughs and, yes, also some tears. My bride was a joyous individual, though, who spread kindness and joy willingly … and without a hint of self-regard.

As one of my sons noted in an earlier social media post about his mother, this collector of angels is now singing and dancing among the real angels.

I guarantee that the hereafter is a much happier place — if that is possible — with this latest angel among them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Learning to deal with grief

Grief takes many forms and it produces myriad responses to the thought that your loved one is no longer by your side.

I have mentioned to you before that I discovered much about myself when my bride and I moved from the comfort of our surroundings in Oregon many years ago to advance my career in Texas. I learned how adaptable I am.

My adaptability is undergoing the sternest test imaginable these days. It has been less than a week since cancer took my beloved bride from me. The savagery of the disease caught everyone by surprise. We had hope for a positive outcome, and I expressed that hope here.

Then tragedy struck with a shocking vengeance on Jan. 26 when my wife suffered a grand mal seizure, from which she did not recover.

A new life has commenced for me. I am still struggling, to be sure, with the knowledge that she’s gone. I see her everywhere in my North Texas home. Her presence, while she’s not here in person, remains in every room.

We are going to lay her to rest soon. Then we will travel to where she and I carved out a great life in the Texas Panhandle to celebrate my bride’s glorious life.

Meanwhile, my personal learning curve continues to present challenges I never have experienced. Still, I am hopeful that the self-discovery I made in 1984 when we settled in Beaumont after living my entire life in the Pacific Northwest will evolve into this new form of adaptability.

I believe I am up for the challenge that awaits … but it won’t be without intense pain. Of that I am utterly certain.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Memories serve as salve

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I just discovered something about the grief I am enduring at this moment … which is that recalling memories of the loved one I just lost serves as a salve for the pain that continues to cut deeply into my heart.

Many of you know already that I lost my bride this past Friday to cancer. The diagnosis came the day after Christmas. Then she was gone.

My sons and I are planning a service soon here in North Texas. One of them joined me in meeting with the pastor who will officiate at Kathy Anne’s graveside service. The Rev. Mally Baum — who my bride and I only recently got to know when we began attending the church where Mally serves — asked me questions about my bride.

She wanted to know more about her life journey and about her faith journey. My son and I shared much with her. We laughed out loud at some of the goofy things my wife would say. We shared her story, talked about her upbringing, I recalled the day she appeared before me at the college we both attended, about our story together and how we insisted on holding hands when we walked together.

Remembering those things brings comfort to me and to my sons.

Is it pain free? Of course not! I still well up … easily, in fact. Then it passes.

My friends tell me the grief will not subside quickly. They remind, though, that it will eventually. I believe Joe Biden’s wisdom when he has told Americans that the tears we shed when we think of lost loved ones will give way to smiles and laughter.

It’s happening to me now. albeit in teeny, tiny increments.

Grief, indeed, can teach us much about ourselves. I am learning about myself in real time.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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No one is alone

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Those who have been following my recent journey through a medical challenge, through anxiety and now through grief will understand what I am about to write on this blog post.

It is that the passing of my dear bride, Kathy Anne, to cancer has shattered my heart into a million pieces. Maybe more. The diagnosis of malignant brain cancer came on Dec. 26 and her struggle ended just this past Friday.

We had reason to hope for a positive outcome. Then it became, well, tragic.

What I am learning through my grief is something that I have known intellectually for as long as I have been able to process such things. Which is that I am far from the only person who has lost someone so dear to me to a merciless killer such as cancer.

We started our life together more than 51 years ago. We chose each other to be our partners in life through every peak and valley that our life would confront. We aren’t the first couple to make that pledge. We won’t be the last.

I have to remind myself of that undeniable fact as I grapple with my own grief. I have to tell myself — and I have been doing so frequently in the past 48 or so hours — that I am truly not alone in this struggle.

As near as I can tell, that means this level of grief and sorrow has been with humankind since the very beginning … of time.

My word of advice, therefore, to others who will endure the heartache I am feeling at this moment is that you, too, should keep in mind that if others can get through this unbearable pain, then so can you.

My pain endures, but so will I eventually find the light at the end of this dark journey.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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This sadness eclipses all others

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This is not the outcome I wanted to deliver to those who have been following my lovely bride’s struggle against cancer.

Kathy Anne passed away Friday after a valiant but futile fight against glioblastoma.

I am strengthened by the love and support of my immediate family members who have been with me throughout this fight. We waged this battle together and we will grieve together as well. I also draw strength from the many friends who have reached out and who have extended their love, prayers, good karma and whatever other positive vibes they could send.

We thought she had turned an important corner in the struggle that commenced the day after Christmas. We took her to the emergency room that day at Medical City/McKinney in North Texas. The ER doctor found a mass. The neurosurgeon took some of it out the next night. Kathy went to the intensive care unit, then to rehab for two weeks. She did well in rehab.

We took her home on Jan. 16. She and I made a trip to Amarillo to help our son celebrate a birthday. We returned home on Jan. 24. Then, suddenly on Jan. 26, while waiting for a physical therapist to assist her with home health care, she suffered a grand mal seizure. She returned to the ICU. She did not recover from the seizure or from what was left of the malignancy that had grown.

It is difficult to ascertain much of what transpired. I am struggling to wrap my arms around the profound grief I am feeling while seeking to come to grips with what lies ahead.

We had high hopes for a positive outcome. We thought we could treat this disease, arrest it, control and move on with the rest of our life together.

I have learned a lot in these past few weeks and months about myself and about the power of love. Yes, I cherish the memories we built over more than 50 years of married life. We traveled the globe. We made many dear friends. We brought two boys into this world and they have grown into two of the finest men imaginable.

And yet … we never discovered the manual that tells us how to cope with the crisis that befell my bride. We determined it is something that one learns in real time. You just experience it and hope you make the right decisions when opportunities present themselves.

My love and devotion to my bride were real. It never wavered. It never will. I will miss her forever and beyond.

To those who have followed my effort to chronicle this journey and extended their love, I thank you once more. It has sustained all of us as we have fought this battle alongside the bravest individual God ever created.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com