My wife Cindy would have marked her 64th birthday today. Instead, she is forever young-ish, locked into the age when she passed, exactly one month shy of her 63rd birthday. So at 62, she is forever - young-”ish” as our daughter might say (who is known for her “ish” endings that seem quite appropriate here.)
When Cindy and I married at ages 23 and 22, respectively, 62 seemed pretty old to us, even “over the hill.” Nevertheless, as with all couples on the day they marry, we were committing to each other for life, vowing to mark our “old age” birthdays together until “death do us part.”
Well, death did part us just a little while after we marked our 40th wedding anniversary at Beaumont Hospital where Cindy was receiving treatment for leukemia. Seven days after that anniversary, Cindy achieved remission, a first necessary milestone on the way to survival and resumption of life that was not assured but she resolved to give it her all.
She gave it her all but an infection arose at an inopportune time when her immune system was at rock-bottom and all of a sudden, she was gone.
A little more than a year now since her passing, I am muddling through living solo while sorely missing being part of the couple that she was the other, better half of. She was the center of our family and I am sorely lacking in much she did so naturally and well. In her work, her roles in our church, her nurturing of our family and hers and mine, her absence is a ginormous, jaggety void.
My frequent thoughts of her are sobering and sad but also good. Living in the house we shared for 25 years, she graces every nook and cranny and I find myself speaking aloud as if to her about something she would have waded in about.
I’ve devoted considerable time to organizing our lifetime of memories and photos. Although she was not much a keeper of memorabilia, I have many pictures of her that I am turning into various keepsakes to preserve and celebrate the wonderful legacy of her in our lives.
She would have been 64 today but, sadly, she is forever dialed in at 62, forever young-ish. I would prefer to celebrate with her but, alas, I celebrate her and also my missing her.
Here are some of my "last” pictures of Cindy at her “Forever Young-ish” age of 62 (except for one - can you guess which?).
