HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — I should not declare victory prematurely, as there are more hurdles to overcome, more significant dates that lie ahead.

That said, I want to issue a cautious note of confidence as my latest mind-clearing, heart-mending sojourn is about to conclude.

I ventured back east to get away from the house I shared with my late bride, Kathy Anne. I had my share of spells visiting family and friends. I have written about them already. Fifty-two years of togetherness with my dream girl aren’t going to be diminished any time soon.

However, I appear to have cleared my head sufficiently to go through a few whole days without welling up. That is a positive development … don’t you think?

My heart? That’s another matter. It remains seriously damaged from the event that occurred on Feb. 3, when I lost my bride to a savage form of brain cancer. I accept that my heart will remain permanently damaged. I hear from friends and acquaintances who have lost the loves of their lives that they, too, sob without warning. I won’t bore you with reports on when that happens to me.

Just know — if you have been following this journey through the dark fog — that I am seeing the light.

I will return to my North Texas house sometime tomorrow. I’ll walk into the living room and will see evidence of Kathy Anne where I left it two weeks ago.

I don’t expect to cry, which — if I am able to finish this journey with dry eyes — might enable me to declare a form of victory.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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

The recent tragedy that befell my family and me has forced us to learn some of life’s harshest lessons.

The great singer/songwriter George Harrison once told us that “All things must pass … all things must pass away.”

Indeed, if I have learned anything about myself while I mourn the passing of my beloved bride, Kathy Anne, is that grief and mourning are part of life.

This is my way of reporting to those of you who have been following me along this journey that I am a fairly quick study when it comes to learning that lesson. I am able to go through most days now without welling up, or without weeping openly at the thought that my bride is no longer by my side.

I am able to complete household tasks. I am able to look at Kathy Anne’s pictures without sobbing. I am able to talk about her (most of the time) without stopping to collect myself.

Granted, there remain many more hurdles to clear as I continue this trek through the darkness. They don’t look quite as daunting today as they did soon after cancer took my bride away from us. Do not misunderstand me on this point, which is that those hurdles are formidable, but I am beginning to have faith that I’ll be able to get past them … eventually.

One of the lessons that has been drummed into my noggin is to not “rush anything,” that I am entitled to grieve in my own way and at my own pace. I accept that and I am adhering to that advice.

Thus, my grief will continue, but I damn sure won’t let it burden me. That’s life, man … because all things must pass.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Grief is the most unique and perhaps most intimate feeling one can experience, which I believe I am learning as I continue to process the loss of my bride, Kathy Anne.

Forty-three years ago, I received word of my father’s passing in a freak boating accident north of Vancouver, British Columbia. My initial reaction was strange, in that I could seemingly feel the blood drain from my body as I pondered the news that hit me like a punch in the gut.

Then came this notion that I could not look at photos of Dad. It took me some time to be able to look at his face captured forever in those photographs.

Not so with my bride. I find myself wanting to look at her smile, which could light up a room. She had a wide, somewhat toothy smile. She laughed easily.

These days, as I still struggle with my emotions, I find myself gazing at her. I have several photos of my bride scattered around the house. Some were taken at our wedding more than 51 years ago; some were shot at our son’s wedding; there’s a lovely picture of the two of us at our niece’s high school graduation in 1999.

I draw comfort in those photos, unlike the dread I felt when Dad was taken from us in that shocking manner in September 1980. I was just 30 years of age then. Today, well … I obviously am a whole lot older. Maybe my emotional mechanism is more defined than it was when I was a much younger man.

I wanted to share this item with you just to give you a quick update on my progress. I appreciate very much the expressions of thanks I am getting from those who are following this journey.

Truthfully, I am beginning to see glimmers of light as I trudge through this darkness. The pictures of Kathy Anne are helping.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

EUGENE, Ore. — An extraordinary statement of affirmation came my way today from a reader of this blog. I want to share it with you.

Readers of High Plains Blogger know about the trek I have taken out west to get away from my house in North Texas in the wake of my bride’s passing away from cancer in early February. My intention has been to clear my head and to mend my shattered heart.

Frankly, I wasn’t expecting to receive the statement I got today from a gentleman I do not know well; indeed, he and I are only acquainted via social media. He wrote me to say that a friend of his just lost his wife of 45 years to cancer and he will recommend, in due course, that he take the same action I did … which is to get out of the house.

I am going to accept that statement as a compliment for the work I have produced on the road. I didn’t intend for it to be the kind of “therapy” that others might recommend.

However, I am growing ever so slowly away from the intense pain that still flares. It comes unexpectedly. It surprises me, even as I drive my truck while stroking Toby the Puppy as he sits on the passenger seat next to me.

Those fits are becoming a bit more manageable as I wend my way through the Great American West. Thus, my social media friend has recognized it and has indicated a desire to have his good friend follow the course I have blazed on my own journey out of the darkness.

I wish my friend’s friend well as he begins his own recovery.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the bits of advice I have received from friends who have endured the loss of a loved one involves something I have resisted doing for as long as I have been writing professionally and publicly.

It deals with writing a journal. I have tried my hand at “journaling” and determined that — to put it simply — it just ain’t my thing.

My bride passed away suddenly of cancer in early February. I have been writing about my feelings concerning that shattering loss regularly through this blog. I hope I am not boring you with this, but it is serving as a balm for the pain that continues to tear at me. Many of you have gone through this already, so you know to what I am referring.

I keep thinking that blogging about it is tantamount to writing a journal. Maybe it is … in my mind and heart.

A dear friend suggested I write a journal and submit the entries in my own handwriting. There’s a “visceral quality” to expressing oneself in that fashion, he said, and it serves as more of a cleansing agent than typing entries onto a Word document.

I am going to ponder that for a little while. I’m on the road at the moment and will be winding my way back to North Texas soon. I have declared my intention for this journey to be to clear my head and start mending my heart.

My noggin is clearing a little each day. My heart still needs plenty of work.

I hope to decide soon whether I want to commence “journaling” as a way to start to mending my shattered heart. I will wait until the end of this journey. If I proceed, I won’t say a word here. I just thought you ought to know about this latest minor emotional tussle I am seeking to overcome.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com