The Indelible Memory

Anne died in November.  I didn't get around to updating the deed on the house until the middle of December of that year.  I went to the county recorder's office and did what was necessary.  I presented the death certificate.  I said several times that my spouse had recently died and that I needed to update the deed.  The clerk was pleasant and helpful.  I was reserved and morose.  When we were finished, she said somewhat automatically, "Happy holidays!"

I was stunned and offended.  Now at the distance of eighteen months, I am not so troubled by the exchange.  On the one hand, at the moment, I couldn't believe that my situation had so little impact on her awareness.  I felt like I had walked into the office naked, and she had taken the slightest notice.  I know now that's not true.  Moreover, it seemed like one more sign that Anne was simply going to disappear from the world, unmarked and relatively un-mourned.

That wasn't true either.  I was highly sensitive and primed for any slight.  I was also so very normal, I think, in my response.  I didn't want to acknowledge the guilt I felt for erasing her name from yet another legal document and record.  I turned my own guilt on to that unsuspecting and professionally cheerful clerk.

A friend of mine who recently lost a spouse put it this way.  "I feel that everything I do, I am erasing him."  I'm grateful for permission to share that honest and poignant sentence.  Yes, I know.  I took Anne's name off the house, the truck, the insurance policies, the pension beneficiary designations, the credit cards, the student loans--everything.  I also felt at many points that I was erasing her.  I gave away her clothes and shoes.  I moved furniture and rearranged the bedroom.  Moment by moment the physical traces of her faded from view.

I am fortunate to have people in my life, however, who understand the importance of sorting and sustaining memories.  My spouse, Brenda, has been wonderful in teaching me the value and healing power of gratitude at ever step of our journey together.  "The reason gratitude works to increase life satisfaction," Martin Seligman notes in Authentic Happiness, "is that it amplifies the good memories about the past: their intensity, their frequency, and the tag lines the memories have" (page 75).  

Whether it is a piece of kitchen equipment that we still use from my former life or the ways that Anne trained me to be a better husband, there are still many times we say out loud, "Thanks, Anne."  And there are as many times that I still say, "Thank you, Lord, that I had Anne in my life for over three decades."  A fringe benefit of all this, of course, is that I am much more deeply in touch with my gratitude for my second spouse, Brenda.

We have put time, money, and effort into creating meaningful and enduring memorials to Anne.  We have given scholarships to nursing students and to a Tanzanian pastor.  We have donated worship furnishings to the center that provided her hospice care.  We invest in causes and projects that meant something to Anne and mean something to us.

Of course, I am a Christian.  The real memorial to Anne is her life which is "hidden with Christ in God" as the New Testament says.  Because we are Resurrection people who live by Resurrection hope, we know that nothing good will be lost.  All the good Anne did in her life will be redeemed and renewed in the New Creation.  That is the memorial for eternity.  It is God's memory of Anne that matters the most.