Tag Archives: grief

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Adaptability: name of game

It looks as though I will get to show off my adaptability chops once I head west next on my journey to the Pacific Ocean.

I had planned to head north from the Grand Canyon, into Utah, and then across Nevada along what they call the “Loneliest Highway in America,” U.S. 50.

Plans change, you know?

Immense snowfall has closed many highways near Lake Tahoe and through the Sierra Nevada Range.  So …

I’m going to take a more southerly route on my way to the ocean.

This I can do.

Toby the Puppy and I are planning our trip to clear our heads and our hearts after the passing my beloved bride, Kathy Anne. It’s something I must do and Toby is all in. At least he’s indicated as much.

I’ll get to see plenty of family members and friends along my journey. My sisters and their husbands await, along with nieces, cousins and their spouses, and many of the friends I have made over the years. I might even reunite with some of my high school classmates.

Just so you know, my plans only extend as far as the trip in a westerly and northerly direction. I haven’t even thought about the return trip.

I am going to stay — shall I say it — adaptable.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Wrestling with outreach effort

I am in the midst of trying to determine whether I should accept a fellow’s attempt to reach out to me in my time of intense grief and mourning.

You might wonder: Why? He means well. Give him a chance to provide some help.

My wife passed away a little more than a month ago. I have received dozens of cards, notes, expressions of love and support from loved ones, friends, even some strangers. Kathy Anne would be pleased beyond measure with the compassion that has been extended. I know she is watching over all this.

This fellow who reached out to me today is a member of the church I have been attending and which I plan to join officially in due course. He heads a group of men who have lost their wives. For the record, I am going to refuse to use the word — which I detest — that identifies such men.

I told him I would call him back. I will keep that promise.

However, I am not interested in sitting around with a group of men reminiscing about our lives with the women who made us whole. Nor am I interested in sharing with them the misery I am enduring. I am reading a book titled “It’s OK To Be Not OK,” written by Megan Devine. It’s an excellent book … and an easy read. She says that others who share their like-minded tragedy mean well when they offer advice on how to deal with grief, but it seldom provides much comfort.

If they want to socialize, fine. If they want to get together to talk about, oh, college football or share life experiences associated with our careers, I’m in.

I am just not certain I am ready for some form of a 12-step program aimed at ridding me of the grief I am feeling. It’s all too damn fresh in my mind and in my still-broken heart.

I’ll get back to you later when I make a final decision. Meantime, I have determined that writing about my dark journey on this blog gives me sufficient comfort from my intense loss.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Here come the ‘firsts’

Anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one knows about the subject with which I will deal in this post.

The “firsts” are on their way for my family members and me. Indeed, my granddaughter’s upcoming birthday will be her first birthday without Grandma … my beloved bride Kathy Anne.

More such firsts are going to follow and I am preparing to deal with them as they arrive. The first Easter, my bride’s first birthday, our first observance of our wedding anniversary (which will be No. 52), our first Thanksgiving, first Christmas … and on it goes.

You get my drift, correct?

As I have noted already on this blog, I am far from the first and far from the last person who undergo this level of grief. I am reading some books on how to deal with it. Part of my therapy is writing about it, as I am doing with this post.

Indeed, I am preparing a lengthy feature for KETR-FM radio’s website that will publish soon. It deals with grief and mourning and I look forward to completing that task. Heck, I even look forward just to performing the task, as it gives me a measure of relief as I continue along this dark journey.

That journey is going to contain is occasional gut checks along the way. Those are the firsts I have mentioned.

Most of you have been through it already. So have I, with the loss of my parents when I was a younger man. I remember sitting on my living room floor in late 1980 and tearing up when I realized it was the first Christmas without Dad, who had succumbed a couple of months earlier.

This one, however, is dramatically different, to be sure.

I’ll need to be ready.

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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News? What news?

So … I am sitting on the back patio in Princeton, Texas, with my sister and we’re chatting about the loss we have suffered and how our minds have been taken away from our usual “routine.”

“I realize I don’t miss the news,” Liz said. Which made me nod in agreement. We fancy ourselves as news junkies. Hey, I spent a career seeking to keep pace with breaking news. My sis has pursued other career paths, but her interest is deep as well.

I usually spend a good bit of time watching TV news channels and scouring various Internet sites for the news of the day.

However, our minds and hearts have been pulled away by grief over the passing of my bride, Kathy Anne.

But as I ponder the observation about “not missing the news,” I am struck by how little all these national and world events mean to me. Indeed, at this moment, they mean nothing at all.

The developing presidential campaign in 2024? The Ukraine War? Congress’s efforts to get organized? Debt ceiling?

Pffftt!

Honest to goodness, I truly don’t care — at this moment — about any damn bit of it!

Will it change? Yeah. Sure it will. It’s just going to take some time.

For now, I’ve got more important — and deeply personal — matters filling my noggin and my heart. And none of it has a thing to do with that thing called “the news.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Now comes the hard part

It is done.

I have returned to my North Texas home after being showered with love, affection and sympathy aimed at my beloved bride, Kathy Anne, who we memorialized over the weekend among our church family members in Amarillo, Texas.

We called it a “celebration of life.” It lived up to its billing. Our friend, the Rev. Murray Gossett, sprinkled his remarks about Kathy Anne with plenty of humor, along with some fond remembrances he had of knowing her for more than two decades.

We laughed and we cried.

Now comes a more arduous journey through my grief at this terrible loss. I now must navigate my way through the rest of my own life. There won’t always be a large crowd of friends around. There will be moments when I am lonesome.

Yes, I will have my immediate family upon whom I can lean. Those who don’t live in North Texas are just a phone call away. However, only I can chart the path I intend to take the rest of the way.

However, for this moment, I am feeling a sense of relief that we have completed this joyful task of remembering the woman of my dreams, my partner who in January 1971 appeared before me like a vision at a college student union building.

We built a marvelous life together. We traveled to all but two of the 50 states of this country and a couple dozen nations around the world. We saw holy sites, historical sites, nature’s most splendid grandeur … and we did it while holding hands and proving daily that we truly were made for each other.

Those are what we celebrated this weekend. I am grateful for the memories I know will continue to remind me of Kathy Anne.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Calm has settled in

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

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Learning lessons of life

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

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Awaiting next hurdle on grief journey

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

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Tragedy brings form of comfort

There was no way on God’s good Earth I could have foreseen this happening … but it has happened.

My dear bride’s passing from cancer has allowed me to share my grief with those who are willing to read about it. Kathy Anne would want me to continue to “do what you love to do.” Indeed, she encouraged me to do so even as we believed a good outcome was possible when she was stricken at the end of this past year.

I have done that. You know what? It has given me a peculiar sense of comfort to share my grief.

Kathy Anne often would joke that since my career came to an end in 2012 that I was being “paid to have fun.” Yes, writing is “fun” for me. It’s what I do. I’ll leave it to others to assess the quality of the work I churn out. I’ve been called a “prolific” blogger. That’s probably true, as I was able to write a heavy volume of news stories on deadline back in the day when I was filled with loads of energy.

These days I am a whole lot longer in the tooth, but am still able to kick it out. I have done so even as I grapple with this intense feeling of loss and sadness.

And it helps. A lot! It gives me a curious feeling of peace. I cannot begin to define its source or why it happens. It just does!

So, if you don’t mind, I will continue to share segments of this still-developing journey toward the rest of my time on Earth. Many of you might be able to relate to the struggle that we all face.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com