Maybe it was the quiet that was nice? It’s funny, people think that quiet is a bad part of being a widower, since things wouldn’t be so quiet if I had someone else living here with me other than the dogs. But it’s not the quiet that bothers me. And after such a busy week last week, including a weekend full of accomplished tasks and my adventure yesterday, maybe what I needed more than anything was a quiet day.

It’s been really good. Ten out of ten, no complaints.

I had the energy to text ten or twenty people this morning, and by the time my interviews were done I had around 35 messages to respond to, which was awesome. I really do need to keep in mind the fact that planting social seeds pays off, even in the short-term. I’ve seen widowers talk a lot about how isolated and lonely they feel, and I’m there too often myself as well. Sometimes it feels like far too much emotional energy to say hi to people you care about. I talk to my parents every day (at least once a day) and I know it caused consternation on their end when I wasn’t up to our phone call one day last week. But sometimes I just don’t have it in me to talk to someone else. Sure, I got into all kinds of arguments with Kellie when she was still alive, but it didn’t require this kind of effort to say hi to her—I’ve never felt that kind of cost when it comes to Kellie. There’s never been anyone else who doesn’t drain this introvert’s soul even a little bit to be around. Just her. She was my home, my heart, my one true thing.

I saw an argument in an online widow’s space yesterday that’s been stuck in my head a little bit, so I wanted to share. Someone said that it’s not fair that we have to pretend everything is okay and go right back to our usual lives pretty quickly after such a huge loss, and that in the olden days women were allowed to wear black and be in official mourning for a year. I agree that that would be really nice, just to have it understood that this life-changing event is a big deal and that there was even a visual shorthand in the form of a uniform and everything. But the disagreement came when someone else mentioned that men have always been expected to go back to work and remarry and take care of everyone and everything around them again after they lose their wives. I’ve never heard of any kind of precedent with men wearing black and being in widowhood for long periods of time. So I’ve been pondering the question of gender differences related to widowhood, and I think it’s an interesting thing.

I wonder whether there’s some kind of cultural idea that men may be expected to remarry quickly to keep the wheels of society turning or something, but that women might end up alone forever because they’ve already outlived their usefulness as a wife and mother? I’ve also picked up on some gender-related overtones of “men can’t possibly be alone, there’s an innate drive to go and have more kids or whatever” to this whole thing. When I’m public in widow spaces about my ironclad intention to remain single/married to Kellie for the rest of my life, the surprise comes when they find out that I’m a man, not when they find out how old I am or any other characteristics. There’s some kind of archetype in our brains that maybe a woman could be an old spinster widow, but there’s no male equivalent. It’s such a strange thing. Maybe women who lose a husband are also viewed as somehow contagious, like a black widow or praying mantis, and that they’re cursed to kill multiple husbands? I don’t get that vibe from other people about men, though, just the idea that it’s just understood that a guy can’t possibly be okay on his own.

I know this is probably far more interesting to me than it is to anyone else, but if I can’t talk about the stuff on my mind here, what’s even the point, right?

Maybe the point of me saying any of it is that I hope you’re able to remain more open-minded about the choices that someone in your life makes than would be your typical knee-jerk instinct. Perhaps just let people be people without all of your expectations piled upon them? I don’t know, that just sounds like a good idea to me anyway.

And hey, if you were one of the folks I texted and then carried on a conversation with me for the rest of the day, you really did make a big difference in my life today. Thank you for the chat(s). Appreciate y’all.

If you didn’t know, the new He-Man movie is free on Prime at the moment. If you’re already enriching Jeff Bezos with your membership dollars, why not have a few minutes of fun nostalgia in exchange? It’s no masterpiece, but still has its moments.

Oh, and guess what’s stupid? I seriously got a certified letter today informing me that Kellie has been kicked off an insurance panel due to being dead. Carelon spent the time, effort and money to literally make me answer the front door and sign for their dumb letter. I’ll never understand health insurance companies’ priorities, so why try?

Always grateful for a good day,

Matt

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I woke up today thinking about how it was going to be a third day in a row just sitting and staring at my laptop all day (which wasn’t very palatable to me). Coco woke us up at 6:40, so by the time I had showered, made us breakfast, and spent a few hours working on my project I found that I was nearly done with that and it was only around 10:30am. What a difference getting up at 6:40 instead of 9:40 makes!

I’m serious when I say that I really am enjoying this waking up early thing, against all odds. I’d imagine I would feel differently about it if I were in misery all my waking hours, but that’s not the case, so more time awake doesn’t correlate with more time being sad and depressed for me.

Since it wasn’t even 11:00am and I had nothing else planned, I gave into my random impulse and went searching for a Jewish deli in the Cleveland area that could give me a good pastrami sandwich. I ended up trying Davis Bakery and Deli for the first time, and was absolutely shocked by how incredible that sandwich was—I’ll be back for sure.

Since I was already out that direction, I randomly went from there down to Chagrin Falls. If you knew Kellie well, you probably know something about our connection to that place. If you didn’t, some back story is worth establishing here.

Kellie had a great deal of love for Chagrin Falls. That’s a small but fancy community built around a river and waterfall. There’s an independent bookstore there (Fireside Books), along with a branch of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream (one of our faves) and all kinds of other shops and food options, in addition to the falls itself.

Part of her adoration for the town came from her love of Gilmore Girls. In that show, the town of Stars Hollow was a character unto itself. That town made Kellie feel happy and relaxed and at-home, even though it’s fictional. Chagrin Falls always reminded Kellie of Stars Hollow. The (real) town also carries so many special memories for me.

Kellie and I have gone there more times than I can remember. We’ve also spent time there with a bunch of people we care a lot about. A few random Chagrin Falls trips:

• For one very special birthday, our friend Kim drove there secretly and waited in Fireside Books without Kellie knowing. I brought her there to browse the books and she got the surprise of getting to spend the day with Kim and her family, which was a treasured memory for the rest of Kellie’s life.

• For a different special birthday, I rented an entire movie theater (the one in Chagrin Falls, of course) and had a bunch of friends show up there to surprise her by watching a movie she was dying to catch. She was so happy that day!

• For the amazing Christmas when Ria, the daughter of Kellie’s foreign exchange sister Yukari was staying with us (in addition to my parents), we all went down to Chagrin Falls for ice cream and roaming around (there is no wrong weather for ice cream, btw). That trip will always be linked to that Christmas for me, which will always be one of the best holiday seasons we’ve ever had.

• For many years, Kellie and I went Christmas shopping for a day every December with our friends Corey and Tyler. A stop down in Chagrin Falls was a mandatory part of those annual gifting excursions, and Kellie loved and looked forward to that tradition for a very, very long time.

This is just a tiny set of some of my recollections that are tied to that place. So what do places mean to us, and what role do places play in my grief?

1. I miss Kellie pretty much all the time, no matter where I’m at. But when I’m in our home, where we spent most of the last seven years of her life, memories of Kellie permeate every bit of the space. That’s not as painful for me now as it was a few months ago, unless I’m specifically sorting through a part of our house that is especially Kellie-specific. But I feel like my memories of her here blend into one another and make me just feel her presence here, you know?

2. When I’m away from our home, I don’t always feel the constant reminders of her everywhere I go. That’s probably a good thing, since it gives me a breather, especially on a bad day.

3. So when there IS a place that is tied incredibly closely with my memories of Kellie, it feels like a shock to the system sometimes, like being immersed back into a stream of her. I don’t always expect it when it comes, and it can be a little overwhelming. That can require me taking a step back and trying to figure out why those reminders are so strong there.

4. I’ve written about how travel has changed for me now, especially to places that I’ve never been with Kellie. I have the occasional moment of wishing she were with me, sure, but that’s not the same thing as the firehose blast of memories to the face that happens in some of these places.

5. More than anything else, those new places make me homesick to go back to a place that DOES carry such a strong memory of her, i.e. my house.

6. With Chagrin Falls, I knew that was going to happen the next time I went there. Maybe all the times I ever go there. Who knows? But I was ready for it.

I’ve spent a huge amount of my time thinking about what it is about my loss that makes it so hard. I don’t just miss her as a singular person. The hardest part for me is the millions of spaces in my mind and world that she inhabited and is now missing from. It’s not her as one idea, it’s the part of her that held my hand. It’s the part of her that smiled when she saw me come around a corner. It’s the part of her that laughed a goofy laugh when she saw a silly video (and then the part of her that forwarded the video so I’d watch it too). She, and those pieces of her, inhabited those millions of spaces of my life. And those millions of spaces are all without Kellie. There’s no way to sum up all the ways Kellie was a part of my life. It simply isn’t possible.

So when I go to a place that has such a strong echo of her for me, based on all the time we’ve spent there, it can be really meaningful to me. I’ve seen other widows say that’s impossible for them to do, and that life makes me feel so sad to consider. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t go to a coffee shop that Kellie and I loved, or a bookstore, or an ice cream place, or a park. I’d probably need to stay home, but I couldn’t do that in our house if that was the case, so I’d need to move and then stay home THERE. Which sounds both excruciating and exhausting. I feel beyond blessed to not be in that headspace.

I’ll just share some of my most favorite photos from Chagrin Falls. Those memories are one of the biggest things that keep me going, sometimes. If you’ve spent time with us there, thank you for adding to the whole in that way.

Love you,

Matt

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Last week was jammed so full of work that I ended up pushing back a few big projects with imminent due dates again and again, which meant hitting yesterday afternoon and still having three major things to get finished by the end of the weekend.

I got one of them done yesterday, and spent about nine hours today finishing the second. Which means I just have to get my final assignment for my educational leadership class finished before midnight tomorrow and I’m all caught up on huge stressful tasks.

Just in time for next week to start!

I was pretty sad for much of the past couple days. I think part of that is because the inevitable result of being too busy to do what you want to do in a given week is that you end up also putting your social connections on hold. In my case, since I don’t have any social outlets within my home anymore other than the pups, not spending time with any friends means I eventually end up feeling isolated and morose.

One thing leads to another leads to another, right? It’s the whole unintended consequences thing.

I’ve been blessed by the fact that my friends are still in my life and are still very glad to catch up and hang out and be present, even a few months after Kellie’s death. It’s a common experience to lose a lot of those relationships over time after a major loss, and that hasn’t really happened to me. A tough thing, though, is that the longer I make it past the loss, the less-worried people are about my general well-being (because I’m surviving). That means fewer and fewer folks initiate contact with me out of the blue in a given day now, so I need to be the one to do that if I’m feeling lonely. There are a bunch of people who are glad to engage with me and talk stuff through and spend time with me if I say hi, and not everyone has that privilege.

Unfortunately, reaching out to people to tell them I’m feeling lonely and miss them is a pretty vulnerable thing to do, and is not a skill-set that I’m particularly fond of. It takes so much energy for me to fire off a group of texts that feel like they must be bothering people in the middle of a workday, or a meal, or down time after work, or whatever.

I haven’t solved this challenge yet, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot.

It’s a real domino effect: being too busy plus deferred tasks plus lack of energy plus lack of social contacts equals a weekend that is full of things to do and also sad and also lonely. Not optimal.

I’ve also been feeling a lot of the weight on me from all the things that I have to follow up on and decide and the tasks that I have to do and the phone calls and emails and bills that are just a part of being an adult. I’d gotten so used to having a back-up brain that would always be there to pick up the slack when I forgot something, or wasn’t capable of starting something, and now I don’t have it I’m prone to feeling that sense of overwhelm far more than I’d like.

I’m proud of myself for getting so many things accomplished this week, and so many big things accomplished in the last couple of days.

I sure could use a break from all the things, though.

Not a good one. I’m still being honest about it regardless, because they’re not all good ones.

Later, taters.

Matt

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Today was complicated, and made me experience all kinds of complicated thoughts. Insert surprised emoji here.

I had the dentist’s appointment that Kellie had scheduled for me, and it was a real challenge to show up to that because of the fact that I have relatively severe dental anxiety. The hardest thing about that is that I don’t feel like I’m allowed to legitimately be anxious about seeing the dentist, because I’ve only ever had one cavity in my entire life. So many folks (including Kellie) have had all kinds of dental surgeries and extractions and fillings and crowns, but I’ve somehow escaped all of that through sheer good luck (along with my mother’s genes).

What that means is that I exist amidst all this fear of dentistry because I just haven’t had any of these experiences that almost everyone else has. My fear comes from a place of privilege and lack of experience, not from a place of trauma. I have zero experience, so I don’t feel qualified to worry about it as seriously as I do—but the fear is still there, believe me.

The last time I went to the dentist without having Kellie present was sometime in high school. It feels really, really hard to make myself go to doctor’s appointments without her there to support and talk me through them. And the appointment today was even made by her, not me.

I was able to stave off the incredible weight of not having Kellie there until the receptionist asked me how I’ve been doing and then said that she went to school with her. That led me to the conversation about how nobody will ever know what killed her, and by the time I made it to the car I was officially having a hard time.

I reached out to a friend and to my parents, and that helped a little bit—but the tears kept coming for a while, to the extent that I couldn’t see well enough to feel safe driving and needed to sit for a bit until the moment passed.

I hate this so much, and that doesn’t make even a tiny bit of difference. Whether I’m glad that Kellie died or whether that puts me into a spiral of grief that I never recover from, it doesn’t matter. I have to be here and go through this experience whether I want to or not. And readers, to be clear: I do not want to. There is no part of me that ever relishes being without Kellie, regardless of whether I enjoy all kinds of aspects of my life. There’s another example of that wretched duality of feeling again.

To bring us back to the conversation with the dental receptionist about Kellie’s cause of death, I wanted to say something about self-disclosure.

Self-disclosure, if you didn’t know, is the term we mental health folks use to describe things we say about ourselves, either in professional settings or to our clients. That’s always been something that I have been relatively closed-off about. Not because I’ve judged others for being more willing to freely share about themselves, but because I’ve been a pretty private person for a really long time. Call it my introversion, call it my imposter syndrome, call it a trauma response from awful bosses and awful workplaces of the past, but I don’t tend to talk a lot about myself, historically, in professional contexts. Especially compared to Kellie.

When I was discussing my fear about dumping too much on my friends and how scary it is to be vulnerable with people with my therapist this week, she said something that made me shut up and think for a bit. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, honestly. She said, “But that’s not because of Kellie’s death, is it? That’s something you’ve lived with for a long time.” And she was right. My fears about being open and leaning on folks who care about me (because they could let me down or not reciprocate) have been something I’ve been working on for a long time.

Kellie’s death feels like it provides context and meaning to so many of the challenges I’m experiencing in my life at the moment. It’s hard for me not to view this loss as a lens that everything should be viewed through, and I know that all kinds of people view me as “that guy whose wife died”, and do that filtering for themselves. But my sense of identity did not suddenly appear on April 22nd, 2026. I’d been an actual human being for almost 49 years of my life before I became a widower. It’s a really good reminder that not everything hard in my life is a response to my grief. Sometimes it’s just that we’re all messed up in some way before we even experience a massive loss like this one, and sometimes we all have stuff to work on in spite of the grief, not because of it.

The second thing I wanted to mention today (because it relates back to self-disclosure) is that sometimes we experience changes in the aftermath of our grief that feel like they’ve happened because we’re messed up due to the loss. I share things about my life willy-nilly now—this Substack is a prime example of that. Anybody in the world could access these words and know all kinds of stuff that I would have kept private in the past.

It’s easy for me to label that as a breakdown in my boundaries because I’m not my normal self since Kellie died. But when I think about the conversation with my therapist, I’m framing it in a really different way these days. I share things with people not because I’ve changed. I share things with people because I always have—but the person I was sharing them all with is gone now. I no longer have my self-disclosure outlet, and that means there’s nowhere for my private thoughts and feelings to go if I don’t share them with someone else external to myself.

I no longer believe that I’m a super private person. I don’t think I’ve ever necessarily been a private person. I was forced into acting in some specific ways by specific awful work experiences, but I was always being vulnerable and open and honest to someone. The biggest tragedy there is that she’s gone, so those things have to find an outlet somewhere.

I sure do like talking to other people, now. Same deal. I’ve spent hours and hours talking to my wife for decades, but she’s gone. So I have to find someone else to have at least a tiny fraction of those conversations with.

I hope this is making sense to anyone but myself. I’m still looking for that sweet spot between private time to be with my thoughts and social time to help me be a little less lonely. This week has been so full of work and responsibilities that I’ve had very little space or energy to spend time with friends, and I feel that loneliness pretty acutely tonight. It’s so weird that I’d feel lonely after spending time with literally thousands of people at that concert and hundreds of people between the three trainings I facilitated this week, but that’s brains for ya.

I have two big tasks to get done over the weekend (the rest of my final project for this class and these grant reviews) but after those are finished, expect me to start bugging folks to come and hang out with me. I miss you guys.

Okay, time to go back to this to-do list. The quicker I do it, the quicker it’ll be done.

Enjoy your weekend, and I’ll try to enjoy mine too. Even in the midst of the tasks.

XOXO,

Matt

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Coco turned one year old today!

We lost Sage two years ago, on May 4th of 2024. Kellie died just twelve days before the two-year anniversary of Sage’s death (which sucks, because we were both already making plans for how we were going to celebrate Sage together that day).

Many of you may know this, but Sage was an incredibly important part of our lives. She represented a huge leap of faith for us, and she brought along with her a whole host of transitions. Sage meant everything to Kellie and I, and having to say goodbye to her kind of broke us for a pretty long time. I still feel her absence so keenly, even after these two long years without her.

Sage and Ivy were both rescued from Amish puppy mills, and the horrific conditions of those places led them both to experience a lot of trauma and hardships that nobody should ever have to deal with. Yes, animals can have trauma reactions too. And attachment difficulties. Anyone who knows Ivy has most definitely seen those two dynamics in action.

But despite everything she lived through in the first few years of her life, Sage was always such a gentle soul, and she taught Kellie and I so much about ourselves as caregivers, as partners, and as people capable of putting someone else’s needs or wishes above our own. We always wondered what Sage could have been if she had a clean slate from the start, and the same with Ivy. If neither of them had to experience unspeakable challenges from puppyhood, how might they have turned out? That was what ultimately led us to seek out Coco.

We eventually found a Havanese breeder who follows ethical breeding practices, cares deeply for her dogs, and who wasn’t just looking to make a quick buck. We established contact and after talking for a while, got onto the waiting list for their next litter. And on July 30, 2025, Coco Lola Butler was born.

She came from a litter of four, but we were immediately drawn to her over her siblings. We wanted another girl, and we were looking for a puppy who could get along well with Ivy (whoops). We got the chance to see the puppies grow for a few weeks of videos and photos, until we couldn’t wait any longer and said that yes, we really really wanted this one. We were the first of the families on the waiting list to select one of the litter for their pick, so we got her.

Kellie and I were both so excited! We had never raised a puppy from infancy before, so even though we’d had a decade and a half of experience with dogs in our household, we had to start from scratch with this one. We bought all the stuff, we planned and planned, we moved around furniture and tried our best to puppy-proof the house (unsuccessfully). Through it all, our goal was to have this one perfect puppy and get to experience her entire life with her, without her having to deal with trauma and poor health from bad early nutrition and all the other struggles that often accompany mill dogs.

When we brought her home, we were deliriously happy. She was exactly what we were hoping for, and she was perfect. She still is.

Listen, though. The thing about making plans for your life is that you can never, ever, know what’s going to happen. You can have all the anxiety or all the calm you’d like about big life transitions. You can plan for hundreds of hours, or fly completely by the seat of your pants—I’ve done both. You can think you know exactly where things are headed, or believe that you’re entirely in the dark about what’s next. But no matter how you approach it, you’re going to get surprised.

We spent so. Much. Time. Thinking about this puppy and how to give her the perfect life until we have to say goodbye to her again in ten, or twelve, or twenty years. And then Kellie died when Coco was only nine months old. That was not a scenario that would have occurred to either Kellie or myself, in our wildest possible projections. It is still literally unbelievable to me that Kellie’s gone. I believe it, I know it to be a fact, but its wrongness still lives in my bones, in the core of me. I cannot reconcile the truth of this with what should have happened, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. It’s one of those in-between liminal states that I have to find some measure of peace with if I’m going to survive.

One of the guys I most respect in the field of suicidology talks about the fact that those who survive the loss of a loved one to suicide often end up dwelling in ‘the valley of the whys’, because they can be consumed by the question of why this event happened. Those whys can never be answered in this life, and so that ambiguity can end up persisting across decades and decades and ultimately causing a massive amount of lasting pain.

Even though that’s not how Kellie died, that concept I’ve taught to probably hundreds of people over the last ten or fifteen years resonates with me so strongly these days. Not the valley of the whys, specifically, but the idea that a huge amount of my reality will always be flavored by an ambiguity that I cannot ever hope to resolve, at least not in this life. She should be here, and also, she is not here.

These last fourteen weeks have taught me that I am fully capable of balancing on that knife’s edge and being okay, at least a great deal of the time. I do not have to be okay with her being gone. I do not have to refuse to accept that she is gone. And, most importantly, I do not have to pick either one of those in order to keep living my life. The goal is to feel that she should be here, know that she’s not here, and still find joy and love and hope and meaning and connection.

When our friend Margot and her kids came to stay with me a few weeks ago, one of them commented that the calendar on the side of my fridge is still showing April. I think that was the first time anyone’s noticed that since Kellie died, (or at least mentioned it to me) but I think about it a lot now. That calendar was important—for more than ten years, I’ve bought Kellie a new Havanese calendar every Christmas. It’s been a tradition of ours for a long time. She died in April, and that calendar has stayed on April, because it was Kellie’s calendar. I never used it, I couldn’t even see it from my chair in the dining room, but from her vantage point it was right where she wanted it to be. And still is.

It doesn’t take up any space for me, it doesn’t get in anyone’s way, but I think that calendar is indicative of a lot of the artifacts that are left behind when we lose someone who is an incredibly significant part of our life.

Throughout every day, I am surrounded by things in my home that represent Sage. We have portraits of her on the walls, a sculpture of her on an end table, even a stained glass piece of her face on a bookshelf. I dwell amidst continual reminders of who Sage was, as well as what she meant and means to me. I love that.

Now I find that the same is true of Kellie. Kellie still inhabits this house, in a million small ways. I told you I don’t believe she’s sending me any signs, but isn’t it a sign when I feel a rush of love for her as I turn off the reading lamp she loved so much? And isn’t it a sign when I laugh at Kellie’s silly croissant squishy on the bookshelf, next to Sage’s stained glass? And shouldn’t I interpret it as a sign when I hug her favorite pillow tight in the dark and imagine that I still smell her head resting on it next to mine?

It is a miracle of the human heart that I can feel desperately lonely and also, at the exact same time, enormously grateful for the thirty years I got to enjoy Kellie being here with me. Both of those things are true, and both of those things are equally real and equally present in my life. I have hope that the loneliness will fade a bit with time, and I also have hope that the gratitude will not. That’s important to me.

Today, I celebrated Coco. Probably not as well as we would have if Kellie were still here, but I did my very best. She was incredible at choosing the perfect gifts, knowing exactly what to give someone to make them see just how much she loved them. But I tried my best today, as the single dog parent that I never thought I’d have to be.

The girls got groomed early this morning, and then I finished up that last training (three in three days). After that, the day was all about Coco. We went to the pet store so she could be fitted by the professionals for a new collar and harness (which worked out really well). She also got to select some new toys for herself, to go along with the ones I’d bought her for her birthday.

Then we ate lunch and headed down to the dog park at Mosquito Lake, which is a really lovely place that Sage had really enjoyed. I had wondered if the girls would have a special time there for Coco’s birthday, and it paid off. Ivy and Coco both were very happy for a couple of hours of play at the park, followed by hot dogs and then the long drive back home. At that point, I wrapped Coco’s presents and we made a big production out of her demolishing the paper and getting extremely excited to have a bunch of new toys and treats to play with and/or eat (often both).

It was a sad day. Kellie should have been here, and she wasn’t. At least not in a way that I could see her. It was a good day, too. I’m glad that I’m still here to love Coco and Ivy, and to love Kellie too.

The calendar is going to stay on April for now, and I don’t know that there’ll be a 2027 one going up in its place. That’s okay.

So. Coco had her birthday, and I’m so happy she’s in my life.

Much love to you all,

Matt

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I had three different trainings to co-facilitate over three days in a row this week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings). It’s hard enough retaining enough information to do the same training three times, but three different sets of material with two different co-facilitators and two pretty different audiences is its own kind of challenging.

Yesterday, we had more than 90 participants. Today, we had 60-something, and we expect 90-100 tomorrow as well. Great experiences, but they really take it out of me.

More things on my plate this week:

• Tons of work to get ready for the upcoming Fall semester

• My final project for the second course in my doctoral program is due this weekend

• CSWE accreditation paperwork with a deadline that’s approaching fast

• Counseling clients, most of whom are really struggling

• Coco’s first birthday, and all the special plans that go along with that

• Grades for the two classes I’m teaching, which both wrap up next week

• A concert in Cleveland last night

• Grant reviews for a program I’m assisting with

• A dentist appointment on Friday

Yes. Like I said, grueling. Every day brings with it a whole host of new and inventive things to exhaust me and tasks that I must accomplish RIGHT NOW.

I was absolutely thrilled to find a dog-sitter for the girls on Rover. She came over to meet with me and the pups and it felt like a really good fit, and so we tried her out while I was at my show last night. It went perfectly. I cannot possibly give her a higher recommendation than I already have, but I’m doing it on this platform as well.

I know that I have friends who love Ivy and Coco and are glad to take care of them for me. I also feel like I need to work on sustainable solutions for the long-term that don’t add more strain and stress on my support system than necessary. So just like Jessie was an addition to my support system instead of asking friends to come and vacuum my floor, I’ve now added Ashley to my support system to watch the girls. She was incredible. If you need someone to watch your dogs or cats, let me know and I’ll pass your info on to her.

I have to share with y’all the review she left on the app for my dogs. Sitters note how things went on a given visit, to give a heads-up for future folks who work with us. About Ivy, she said, “Ivy is a sweet old lady!” And about Coco, she noted, “She’s hilarious and spunky! Absolutely love playing with her!”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

So hooray for expanding my supports, hooray for a great concert last night, and hooray that this week is almost ready to start wrapping up.

By the way, for those of you in Northeast Ohio, I solved the whole “Blossom traffic is impossible and awful after a concert” problem! It’s simple: just leave the venue before the headliner starts performing, and the parking lot is deserted. I bought an ice cream cone and had a lovely walk back to my car.

Keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. Get through it somehow. Then rest. That’s my plan.

Matt

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It was a good day. I got a bunch of work done, even though I lost internet access for a couple of hours (which was more annoying than I’d like). I have a busy few days coming up, so it was nice to have a quiet-ish time today.

And look at Kellie’s roses—we have a third bloom now!

Something that has been on my mind for a few months is the question of signs from beyond the grave.

I know that nobody is going to be able to conclusively prove this one way or the other, and I also want to be clear that I think you can believe anything you want to believe. I think that there are clearly things we don’t understand that exist in the universe, so if that includes your loved ones who have died sending you messages afterward, then who am I to say that’s fake?

I’m no cynic when it comes to people and their capacity for goodness. I’ve regularly been accused of being too kind in all kinds of contexts, and I’m going to default toward trust in most situations.

I’m also a deeply spiritual person, much of the time. Hell, I’m a formal member of a spiritual community for the first time in my life.

At the same time, I’m often a realist. I see folks who try to profit off those who are in pain, and that makes me pretty angry. I’m extremely reluctant to trust any psychic or the like who’s able to have conversations with Kellie for a small (or large) fee. I see plenty of people who publish books or are influencers of one kind or another (and wasn’t Sylvia Browne one of the first scamfluencers of the modern era?) There are clearly those who love fame and attention and money and are making up all kinds of things about the afterlife. I very much doubt that these people are telling anything approaching the truth.

Still, this newsletter is about me, so I should talk about what I believe. I don’t think Kellie is completely gone from the universe, and I think she’s somewhere. I also don’t think it’s possible to carry on a dialogue with her. I don’t think she’s able to send me signs or that a specific bird or thing that randomly happens on a given day is an indicator that she’s watching over me. Maybe you believe those things, but I don’t. And it does cause me a great deal of pain to see just how many people talk about regular back-and-forth conversations with their deceased loved ones, because I’m certain that if it were possible, that Kellie would have found a way to get in touch with me. When you say stuff like that so confidently, it only makes those of us who don’t have a similar experience feel very less-than and even more isolated.

The issue isn’t that I don’t have faith, believe me. That’s something scam artists love to use as a reason why their supposed proof disappears under the slightest scrutiny. The issue isn’t that Kellie and I didn’t love each other enough, either. I’ve seen folks claiming that they have regular visits from their dead spouse but not others in their family who have also died because they weren’t close enough to those folks. If 30 years of utter dedication to each other isn’t enough love and connection to transcend the grave, then I honestly don’t know how it’s possible for anyone else to pull it off.

What’s the harm of believing in things like this? Well, every single psychic or horoscope is going to give you vague enough points that you could generalize them across any number of people and situations. The skill is called cold reading, at least in scammers, and it’s something all kinds of folks are great at. So maybe the goal is tricking you out of money. And maybe the goal is getting you to love and respect the one conduit between you and your loved one. And maybe I just get offended at the thought of people believing things that aren’t accurate. I think that sets off my justice sensitivity sometimes.

Yes, you’re primed to want to see all kinds of things and make the assumption that it’s a sign from the person you’ve lost. There’s a natural human sense of pattern recognition that plays a role here. And we all desperately WANT there to be a way to stay in touch with those who have died. I do too. I just don’t think it’s a real thing.

If it gives you comfort, then I’m glad. Because I want you to have comfort in your life. But don’t tell me with utmost sincerity that your dead spouse visits you every night in your dreams and so that means you aren’t sad they’re gone anymore—I’ve only been able to have one of those chats with Kellie in a dream since she died, and if there was a way I could make that happen every single night, I sure would. That’s my brain talking to me, though, not her talking to me. And if your love transcended death but mine couldn’t, then you’re fortunate. I just don’t think it’s possible.

They talk about bargaining, and I think part of the whole bargaining thing is trying to figure out what you can do or how to seek out just one more conversation, just one more sign that they’re not actually gone. When I hear these kinds of stories, though, it doesn’t give me more hope that Kellie’s not really gone. I’ll remind you that true faith in something means that you don’t need proof—the requirement of proof you’re putting out there shows your lack of faith, actually. If you really believed that they were still out there somewhere, that should be enough for you without also having to find a four-leaf clover in the yard or something.

I hope that clears that up, or at least gives you a window into my views on this topic. It doesn’t lessen my pain when you tell me this stuff, and it’s likely to make it worse. Keep feeling how you feel or believing what you believe, just please don’t spread it in my direction.

I’m not saying not to see or hear or remember something and be reminded of Kellie! It’s wonderful to hear a bird’s joyful song and have that make me think of her. I’m just saying that isn’t Kellie directly sending me that bird. Is the universe sending me that bird? Maybe so? I guess I just see a pretty clear distinction there.

I’m also feeling like a very old forty-nine this evening, so it’s probably time for me to go to bed. Busy day ahead.

XOXO,

Matt

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I woke up early (surprise!) and after spending my traditional morning time in Kellie’s garden, got to work on the homework assignment due by midnight tonight. I mostly finished that up before church, then afterward got it turned in and headed out toward Cleveland to do a bit of exploring.

The next stop in my bookstore tour was The Viridian Bookshop. I wanted to show them some love (and you should too) because of a recent series of events that has really hurt their business. At some point over the past couple of weeks, Google’s AI started telling people that the owners had permanently shut the store. Because Apple Maps uses some of the same data sources (though who knows where it originally came from), that started saying the store wasn’t open anymore as well, and that has meant their July sales have dropped dramatically. They’ve been desperately trying to get the AIs in question to correct the issue, but in the meantime have attempted to get customers to show up and buy stuff, or at the very least spread the word. So that’s what I’m doing!

They have a great location, right in downtown Willoughby. Their back door is immediately beside a free public parking lot, which was super convenient. If you remember the old Willoughby Brewing Company (now called something different), it’s the same lot.

The store is pretty spread out inside, with a nice hand-picked selection across a bunch of different genres. They also do something which I think is brilliant, and that I wish more bookstores would pick up on: there were post-its throughout the place, and they invite customers to write recommendations and leave them beside specific books that have meant something to them. That way, there were a bunch of recommendations and reviews and the store’s owners and employees didn’t have to do them all. I think it’s really clever, and enjoyed browsing the community recommendations as much as looking at the formal displays. I’ll definitely be back.

I also picked up groceries for the week, which I’m proud about. I love the ease of just grabbing myself food from somewhere when I’m hungry, but that’s certainly not as cost-effective as having food on-hand. So I’m trying to be at least moderately smart about when I eat out and when I eat something at home. Besides, I’m facilitating three different workshops this week, and will need food at home to eat when I’m hungry instead of needing to take the time to go to a restaurant.

Guess what? The new rose in Kellie’s garden now has two blooms, with more on the way! They’re gorgeous. Check it out (no filter needed):

On the weekend rest and relaxation front, some good news. I watched a horror movie last night (Obsession, if you’re curious). It was fantastic, and I really enjoyed it. It’s been three months since I was able to do that. I was hopeful I’d find someone in my circle who wanted to watch horror movies with me, but since nobody has come forward I figured I’d either have to start doing it alone or quit horror. But it was a success. The only negative was that Coco was mildly alarmed when screaming happened, but she got over it quickly.

I’ve also re-started watching From, which has been fun. Kellie and I had watched the first episode of this most recent season and I’d been unable to continue it without her until today.

Progress is progress, and I need to keep remembering that. Incremental improvements are still improvements.

So I’m full, marginally better-rested, watching TV, and the dogs have fresh treats and are happy to have me here. I’m ready for a busy week, including being prepared with groceries in the house. Moving into the last week of my birthday month, I’m feeling better than I’d expected.

Thanks for your support.

Matt

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One new challenge for me has been trying to learn how not to do work stuff during the evenings and weekends. Not because I’m necessarily driven to do so in the “workaholic” sense, though I’m very reluctant to equate anything to addiction that isn’t actually addiction for stigma-based reasons. No, because when a work thing that I should be working on at some point pops into my head, that’s the time I often choose to pick it up and chip away at it. But when it’s ten in the evening or first thing on a Saturday morning, it’s probably healthier not to do those things at those points.

The reason this is a NEW challenge for me is that my biggest reason for not working on the evenings and weekends for the past three decades has been so that I can spend time with Kellie (and, more recently, Kellie and the dogs). Kellie’s gone now, and I’m with the dogs all the time anyhow, and so I no longer have any concrete reasons NOT to work on my professional tasks at random times, other than the nebulous “self-care” reasons we should all be keeping in mind when we allocate our time in various places.

So it’s the weekend, and I’m trying to make it feel different than the work week because that line has gotten progressively blurrier without Kellie. Which means consciously not working, and instead trying to go on some small adventures.

It’s all part of trying to build a life that I’m not just making it through, but am relishing and thriving within. Sustainability: that’s the goal, anyhow. No biggie.

My parents left for Tennessee this morning, so things have begun to return to whatever “normal” means in my current context.

It was a little bit devastating to see them go. You might argue that “devastating” is a word that can’t really be modified with “a little bit”, since it’s so all-encompassing. But my life right now is characterized by super intense explosions of grief that are absolutely all-encompassing, and also typically only last a few short minutes. My feelings of grief over watching my parents drive away was similarly intense and also similarly short-lived, so far.

I’m not saying anything here that I haven’t already publicly told anyone who’s asked (including them), but I really won the parent lottery with these two. I just don’t know anyone else who would put their lives largely on hold for several months to come and literally live with me for almost a quarter of a frigging year until we could all make as sure as possible that I’m going to be okay without them. I know plenty of parents who would do that, I guess, but I don’t know many adult children who would also enjoy that concentrated period of so much time with their parents, as I definitely have.

My mom and dad are every bit as instrumental with my continuing progress since Kellie died as anyone else, and considerably more than I have deserved. I cannot thank them enough for all they have given me, so I will leave it at this for today: thank you.

My parents will be headed back to Morocco in the relatively near future, which is a decision that all three of us have agonized over (but mostly them) for months now. I don’t feel that they are abandoning me, and I don’t feel that they’re farther away from me emotionally when they’re overseas, just farther away geographically. And the location of my physical body is less important to me in terms of community and connection and love than the emotional alignment between me and another human being. I love them and they love me, and I’m going to be okay.

Also, they have a whole ton of my friends’ contact info. So if you get a text or phone call from someone claiming to be my mom or dad, it’s probably not a scammer. It’s just important to me that there be multiple folks my parents can check in with to make sure I’m safe and doing okay besides just me. Don’t worry, they’re lovely people, and they won’t abuse the privilege.

I had a really nice time with a couple of friends at a benefit for the Ashtabula Arts Center—we made glazed and fired our own raku pottery, and it was awesome. I’m so proud of myself for doing it, too. I signed up for it, coordinated with folks to make a plan, and then actually went! You can see one of my finished pieces below. I’m currently utterly exhausted, but I’m still glad we did it.

So that’s it for tonight. We’re full, showered (to get the smoke off one of us), and Coco’s playing with a toy in my lap. I’m going to watch a movie and pick away at a book I’m trying to finish up. Life is pretty okay this evening. Here’s hoping for more like it.

Matt

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This morning was pretty rough. I just had this overwhelming sense of ennui weighing me down. Have you ever had a slightly damp blanket sitting on top of you, slowing down every single move you tried to make and also making you feel a little bit grossed out? Yeah, that was what was going on inside my head this morning.

Everything felt too hard. Everything felt like it wasn’t fun, or at least like there wasn’t any point in doing it. Part of that was the continual need to feel what I’m feeling, and to move through life not trying to just push them down. Because my big urge today was to stop doing that. I am just tired of having to keep making it, on my own, without Kellie here to help. There are absolutely plenty of others who want to help, but today it didn’t feel like anyone could do all that much to make me feel like myself.

Sometimes it has to be enough to just not try to focus on the grief and the pain and the loneliness.

This morning, I caught myself wishing that I could just have my old life back. As imperfect and messy and sometimes chaotic as it was, it was mine—ours—and I’m tired of everything being different and new and bad.

I have no shortage of things to keep me busy, but no interest in doing them.

I have no shortage of people who love me and want to be there for me (including my parents, who are literally in my house to be there for me), but no interest in engaging with anybody.

I’m writing this out of habit today, which is as good a reason as any to follow through on all kinds of things. Habits can be hard to form, so I see it as a win that I’m managing to do so, even now.

Everyone else gets to just live their lives, and I don’t have that privilege. I have to sit in meetings this morning and try my best to fake my way through. It sucks, and I’m just over it.

Sooooo this is a great example of what this is like for me at the moment. I wrote that section up there around 10:30am today, and it’s currently 8:00pm. Right now (and for the past ten hours or so) life has felt pretty okay. This evening, life has felt pretty great, even!

This is all so messy. I hate that I’m sometimes in the darkest mood possible and then I’m awesome, often in the exact same day.

But here’s the thing: this whole newsletter is an intentional exercise in being honest and vulnerable and real. So in another life, I would have deleted everything above that makes me look like I’m giving up entirely. Because I’m absolutely not giving up on anything, but at 10:30am I was pretty down in the dumps.

Hell, I think I haven’t cried in at least eight hours now, which is incredible for a rough day. I was in a meeting this morning and had literal tears dripping down my face (pretty sure nobody noticed), because someone was talking about loss and how hard it was for her when her mom died a couple years ago.

To recap: This morning was stupid. Tonight is great. Life goes on.

I’m not giving up, I promise.

Matt

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Before bedtime, I was actually able to read a bit in the living room for the first time in a while. Progress, even slow progress, is still progress. Important things to keep in mind.

I’m also really enjoying my parents being here again (by the time I get adjusted to having someone else in the house, they’ll have gone back home). They’re just lovely people, and we’re able to have conversations that are drama-free, which I know most families cannot manage. I realize just how fortunate I am to have the family that I do, and so I need to keep reminding myself that our norm is not THE norm, because it’s not.

Today was incredibly busy. So many appointments and so many tasks left un-done on my to-do list. I know that I mentioned yesterday how hard motivation to do these tasks has been for me to find. Which has meant that my list has ballooned to a somewhat unwieldy size (and that only makes me avoid it more). But I had enough gaps today that I was somehow able to get a bunch of those to-do items marked off the list. Enough to give me a little breathing room, anyway. Something to be grateful for.

I spent a bit of today smiling, and I also cried more than I’d like. One of the things that made me smile the most were the snuggles I got from both dogs this morning, and the thing that made me cry the most was writing a poem for my book that was about Kellie’s relationship with our dogs. It just reinforces the message that I’ve been sharing with students and clients for years and years—the same triggers for grief are often triggers for joy. Resiliency factors in our lives are often also risk factors in our lives. I wish we could separate out the joyful from the grief-inducing, and just get rid of the bad stuff. But there are no exclusively bad things, that’s the hard thing. Everything is a mix, and everything has the potential to be a trigger or a source of joy.

Try to remember this in your life, if you’ve got someone who’s in a place of grief. You’re not going to be able to say all the right things, or at least be able to avoid saying something that could possibly cause pain. But you’re also likely to not be able to avoid inspiring happiness and love and connection for them—that’s the deal. Talk to them, love them, and roll with the waves, whichever way they end up going at that point. It’s gonna be okay.

The only truly bad choice you can make is to cut off connection and communication with them because you don’t want to screw up. THAT is the true screw-up. Don’t do that.

Talk to you soon.

Matt

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Ihad a difficult morning, and actually ended up texting a few people to get some support (one of those times when I felt I needed to ask for it directly). I was grateful to get the responses from folks that I did, but nobody needs to feel like they’re on-call for me.

1. I think that one of their observations rang true for me, and that the reason this morning was so emotionally heavy for me was because the weather was pretty fall-like. The temperature was down in the mid-60s, and the sun wasn’t shining blindingly, and the air felt crisp and not boiling or humid enough to make me sweat the second I stepped out the door. It really did feel like fall to me, and fall has always been my favorite season. I think it’s very possible that the sensations of entering a new season hammered home to me, once again, the fact that Kellie is gone. I won’t have her here with me to celebrate fall this year, or winter, or any more seasons at all. Spring of this year was all that we got.

Fall feels like comfort and relaxation and rest to me, and now I’m worried that I’m not going to be able to get those positive feelings when it does roll around. In much the same way as the joy of reading has been mostly eluding me for these past three months, I’m concerned that fall has also been taken away from me. I realize that “taken” sounds like an act done out of malice, like something that included volition and something intended to make me hurt.

It still doesn’t feel like anything “took” Kellie away from me, but there have been so many elements of my life that have been taken.

It’s easy for us to think of grief and loss as being about a person being gone, but I’ll note once again that your entire life is now gone. Or at least what it once was. All these parts have, really, been taken from you. Some folks feel that they’ve been lost too, because they’ve changed so much themselves as a result of the experience. I’m not to that point myself, yet, but I do really regret how many parts of me feel so much worse than they used to be just a few months ago.

It’s a challenge for me to put as much importance on all kinds of things which used to be major priorities for me, these days. Sure, some of that is simple executive dysfunction stuff, but my memory and my hobbies and so many parts of me that I once felt were fundamental are missing for the time being, and so much change can make us feel foreign to ourselves.

I hate knowing that I have some fairly important tasks to tackle and yet not feeling able to do any of them at all. I have faith that I will address the ones that need immediate attention, and I’ve built up enough good will in my various roles that folks are still giving me the benefit of the doubt when things fall through the cracks. I still experience guilt on a nearly-hourly basis about all the things I should be doing instead of writing, instead of taking a nap with the dogs, instead of sitting on the bench in Kellie’s garden and trying to make sense of what my life has become.

Another change that’s brand-new for me is that I’m now a person who gets homesick, and not just a little bit. I’ve always been a guy who looks for new situations and new places to explore. I love staying in hotels, and I can’t remember ever feeling a strong pull toward home when I’m away overnight. Kellie was the opposite—she would always rather be back here to sleep in her bed and shower in her shower and eat at her table. She wanted to be here, in our space that we love, although she loved exploring with me too. At the end of the day, she’d rather be here.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t homesick for Kellie when I was out without her. The difference is that I could always call her and alleviate that discomfort. We could (and would) talk for hours, just like when we had a long-distance relationship when we first got together.

So my feelings of what was “home” and what I needed to return to have always centered around Kellie. She was the planet I orbited. And now that she’s gone, I feel homesick for my house for the first time in my life. I struggle to stay overnight more than a night without giving up and heading right back home. If it was Kellie I was missing, I could just call her and relieve the tough feelings. But it’s my house, and there’s nothing I can do to feel better besides drive home and be in this space.

Part of it is probably missing the dogs, because I love them very much and it’s always harder to sleep without them. But there’s something about this house that I’m drawn back to now—I feel a physical need to be back.

Change can be a good thing or a bad one, and it’s much more likely to be both at once than a single note.

And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told my students and clients (and myself) that change is difficult no matter whether it’s due to something good happening or not.

These changes in me, and in my life, are not due to something good. I think a lot about the concept of post-traumatic growth. The fact is, people often learn and grow in the aftermath of a trauma. I also think about how fruit which grows from a poison vine can end up being lovely, but can also end up being poisonous itself. Either (or both) could be the case here in my life.

These changes might be poison to me, and they might be positive. Them all occurring as a result of Kellie’s death have a tendency to make me label them as being uniformly negative, but that’s not necessarily fair. As an example, me waking up early without an alarm has been something that I’ve come to accept as a welcome change. I’m now somehow a morning person, against all odds, and I’m now okay with that. Not a negative change, though I felt it was when it first popped up in my life.

So as I keep changing (or, more accurately, as I keep noticing changes that started slowly happening two or three months ago), please keep being willing to give me grace and letting me acknowledge that I don’t feel at all normal. I’m not admitting, yet, that I’ve lost myself. I think there’s still a chance at me recovering some of these aspects of myself that feel like they’re gone forever.

XOXO,

Matt

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1. My writing retreat involved a lot of writing, which didn’t leave me much writing juice for the evenings after that was done for the day.

2. Driving 7 or 8 hours on Friday and again on Sunday was also pretty taxing, and I didn’t feel like writing after either of those trips.

3. I’m still absorbing my takeaways from the retreat, and spending a lot of time considering what is most meaningful for me to share with you here, but it’ll be a while before I’m able to fully articulate how big a deal this was for me.

Regardless, I’m not planning on abandoning my newsletter. Just took a break for a few days.

Let’s see, so a few rapid-fire things to get out of the way right up front:

• My car drives like a dream, and solo road trips are still something I enjoy a lot, it turns out.

• I decided to write about Kellie and my grief and loss experience. Maybe that’s not surprising to you, but it happened organically and without forethought as I wanted it to, and I’m really happy with the direction that project is moving in. More on that in a bit.

• Being at Pendle Hill was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, although I’m hoping to be able to make it happen much more often than once.

• I had to take a few hours on Saturday night to work on writing and filming a presentation for one of the classes I’m taking. And it was worth the time investment, since I got a perfect score—hooray!

• Being able to worship in-person with other Quakers was a special thing, and to have it be at Pendle Hill made it even more special.

• Yes, I had an authentic Philly cheesesteak, and although it was pretty good, it wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

• Having all the turnpike tolls across Pennsylvania automatically take pictures of my license plate to then mail me a bill for what I owe creeped me out, and I hope it’s not a thousand dollars.

My experience at the writing retreat can best be summed up in a series of very meaningful conversations I had with folks.

I had a really special time with another widower who my story had resonated with. We have a lot in common, and we were able to discuss those commonalities and how we’ve been trying to navigate those challenges. This conversation gave me an interesting perspective to add to my ever-evolving theory of lived experience and engagement across difference that I’m sure you’ll hear about eventually. He also made the statement that he’s come to the conclusion that he won’t be able to deeply write about anything until he writes more fully about losing his wife. That made so much sense to me that it solidified my plans for my own writing project that weekend.

I spoke with a Quaker-curious person who wanted to know the story about how I came to my faith and Quaker identity, which helped me solidify that narrative and increase my comfort level with sharing it.

A person told me that my voice is so kind and compelling and that they feel such a sense of peace and compassion coming off me when we talk, which was an incredibly nice thing to hear from a near-stranger. I like that being the case, at least in this instance, because that’s the kind of person I want to be.

I got a chance to speak one-on-one for a bit with one of the facilitators of the retreat, and I’m really appreciative of that time and the insights she had to share. Again, lots of shared experience between us, in spite of all our difference.

The other writers I spent the weekend with were lovely, and their writing was also great. Although I wasn’t comfortable enough to share any of my work from the weekend with them before the retreat ended, I enjoyed theirs.

Which brings us to the project I spent so much time on—I’m putting together a book about Kellie and I and this time in my life. I’ve sketched out its rough outlines. At this point, it’s looking like it’s going to consist of five personal essays and thirty-nine poems (though some of those numbers may change). I’ve written out rough ideas for all of those essays and poems, and across the retreat was also able to write eight thousand words on Saturday (writing rough drafts of four out of the five essays). I also wrote drafts of nine poems on Sunday, which I’m really happy with. That leaves thirty poems and one essay and then I’ll be ready to do some edits and tweaking. I’ve set myself a goal of being ready to move on to the next stage of this book (showing it to more people than just myself) before the end of August. That’s the goal, anyway.

I did every bit of the conceptualization for the entire book across the three days that I was at Pendle Hill, which also adds to the special nature of the whole project for me. I don’t know if I could have organized myself and cleared my schedule for three entire days of writing if I hadn’t gone, so I’m so glad I did. And I hope that you’ll be able to read it someday soon.

The overall feeling I was left with, upon heading out Sunday afternoon, was one of peace. As I told the other writers, I’m not sure yet whether it’s something I’m borrowing temporarily or whether it’s a permanent thing. But I feel this sense of peace that I haven’t had for months now, since I lost Kellie, and that’s worth any amount of time or money (and it really wasn’t that much money in the scheme of things).

The other huge piece of news I have for you is that I was officially accepted as a formal member of the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting on Sunday morning. Yes, if you believe you’re a Quaker then I would argue you’re a Quaker. As in so many other areas of life, I feel that self-identification is perfectly valid. However, there is a process one can go through to become an official member of a Quaker Meeting, and I began that process several years ago when Kellie and I started talking about what it would take for us both to feel comfortable and accepted enough by others in the meeting to put our necks out enough to go through that whole thing.

It’s scary to be that vulnerable. It’s terrifying to write a letter requesting membership, wait while a clearness committee of folks is put together who then meets with you to discuss your spiritual journey and beliefs and how you feel that joining the meeting makes sense within your particular context. It’s also really scary to wait while they discuss and let you know their recommendation, which is then taken to the Membership & Outreach Committee for a discussion and then waiting for THEIR recommendation to the meeting as a whole.

Anyway, Kellie and I had decided last fall to move forward with becoming members of AAFM for a whole host of reasons, primarily because we love being a part of that community, and because we’ve both identified as Quakers for years. Beyond that, because so many of the people within the meeting are among those we consider to be very close friends of ours. We respect these people, we trust these people, and in turn we feel trusted and respected by them. Isn’t that kind of the definition of community?

But then several others applied for membership last fall, and the Membership & Outreach Committee (which Kellie was on) got bogged down by requests for clearness committees at the end of the year. Everyone was kind of tired, and we didn’t want to add to their load. So we told each other we’d do it in the spring. In January, I gave a speech about my spiritual journey to the folks in our Spiritual Exploration Group, and told them that us applying to be members was imminent.

And that’s when Kellie got sick(er), and had to go to the hospital. The time just never seemed right. And then she died, and nothing at all seemed right.

In one of those very long and incredibly dark nights after I lost Kellie, on May 8th (just a little more than two weeks after it happened), I finished up my letter requesting membership in Ann Arbor Friends Meeting. I sent it in after midnight. I was seeking (and still am seeking) ways to solidify a sense of love and connection, since my biggest source of those two things is now gone.

As I said in the letter, folks are often told not to make any big life decisions in the immediate aftermath of such a massive life event. But this isn’t me making a big life decision on my own—Kellie and I made the decision together a few months before she died. We just didn’t get around to doing it in time.

Someone who was there when my letter was read to the meeting said that it was the first time a letter requesting membership made them cry. I believe them, but didn’t notice because I was too busy crying myself.

So on Sunday, while I sat outside under a tree at Pendle Hill, a pretty holy place, I Zoomed in to experience AAFM welcoming me as a member with open arms. I’m so proud and so grateful and beyond thrilled to be a formal member of the spiritual community that has been there for Kellie and I for almost five years now, and has shown me so much support since her death.

So how’s this? Enough of an update for now? You people are insatiable for new content, I swear.

Peace and love,

Matt

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I’m headed to Pendle Hill, a Quaker conference center outside Philadelphia, for three days of writing and reflection on their beautiful 24-acre campus.

I’m excited, anxious, and really looking forward to getting away and deeply considering what type of writing project would best serve me in this season of my life. Could be anything, honestly! I’ve gotten myself mentally ready for this retreat by doing zero planning of any kind. I’m going to show up and see what pops into my head and heart.

I plan to update y’all as I’m able, though I may feel less like writing my typical long daily newsletters if I’m spending all day writing to begin with. We’ll see!

It was wonderful to see my parents this evening—I love them being here again, even in short bursts. So grateful to have them here to watch the pups.

Expect me to be homesick and miss my dogs and bed a great deal. And my parents. And my friends. Not in that order, necessarily. I’ll miss it all equally, of course.

I haven’t been on a solo road trip this far since 1996, when I was 19 years old.

Send me positive vibes, and I’ll do my best to make everybody proud. Or at the very least to have a relaxing weekend full of delicious farm-to-table food, tranquility, and fellowship with other Quakers who love writing.

That’s it for tonight. See you soon.

XOXO,

Matt

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Today marks twelve weeks since Kellie died. Three months. That’s 84 days, for anyone who’s counting.

Isn’t it interesting that we measure the age of babies in weeks, and now here I am doing the same thing about the end of someone’s life? I’m sure a time will come when I just count in months, and then in years, the same as with a kid.

The way we measure time has always been fascinating to me, especially since it’s such a subjective thing for all of us. I’m willing to guarantee that these past three months have taken me longer to live through than most of you. But when I was in middle and even high school, summer felt like it was over in an instant.

I was in a meeting with someone yesterday who asked how things are going for me—when I answered her, she full-on started weeping. I had to apologize to her for messing up her makeup.

My crowning achievement today (after three months, mind you) was to pay the gas, water, and electric bills. The electric bill, in particular, was a concern (because they were about to shut it off). Multi-factor authentication is a real challenge when they want to call your phone (and the phone in question is your dead spouse’s). Every time I’ve tried in the past three months, I got to the step of trying to log in, got frustrated at not being able to do it, and then gave up. Today I cut out the middleman and called the company to explain the situation. The customer service representative was curious and talkative and asked about how old Kellie was, how and why she died, and eventually got a great deal of the story from me. I think she was crying by the end as well.

So I’ve (unintentionally) made two people cry in the past two days—I hope you haven’t. It’s pretty uncomfortable to be put in a situation where you either need to lie (to protect someone else) or disclose what you’re going through (and then feel like you have to take care of their feelings anyway). I’ve been pretty transparent about my intention to be honest, even if it upsets people. I’ve got enough going on without trying to put on a mask too.

A friend reached out this morning and asked whether I could meet up for coffee, and I really enjoyed getting to spend that time. I pretty much accept most invites I get these days, though it’s hard sometimes to make decisions about what I want to do or where I want to meet up. There’s some fear there for me that if I turn folks down I’m not going to get another invite from them, and that my supports will dry up over time one by one. I know I’ve mentioned this worry before. I don’t actually think that’s a likely outcome, but since when do we just fear things that are likely to occur?

Today was relatively busy, but tomorrow is VERY busy. I’ve got six hours’ worth of appointments across six and a half hours of my day, so breathing and refilling my water and eating something will be a challenge (not to mention caring for the dogs), but some days end up that way. Not too many, which is the way I prefer it.

My parents will arrive back in town tomorrow at some point, and I’m looking forward to that. They’re coming to watch the pups while I’m away for my writing retreat all weekend. So if you’re planning to stop by my house over the next few days, feel free (but you’ll be hanging out with them instead of me). They’re pretty cool, so you’d have a good time.

I’m hanging some art on the walls this evening that has been sitting in my office for the past eight years, since we moved into our home. I think it’s time for me to put this stuff up where folks can see it, since it’s all pieces that Kellie and I both love and chose together (or that she bought for me, which is also special).

I had a great therapy session today, and am once again reflecting upon how fortunate I am to have found her. I suspect that things would have been significantly tougher for me across these past seven or eight years without her support, and I’m grateful to have her in my life. Lots of therapists struggle to find someone that they click well with—I think it’s a challenge for them to stop trying to judge what they would do or say themselves in every new interaction with a provider. Luckily (?) for me, I regularly feel like many clinicians are better than me at what I do, so I don’t have that problem.

I continue to marvel at the fact that I continue to survive, day after day, without Kellie here. I wouldn’t say I’m thriving, though I regularly get to experience joy, peace, and hope. Love, even—there’s so much love in my life.

Off to occupy myself with a meaningless task until I get sleepy enough to head to bed!

Hugs,

Matt

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That really does provide an excellent example of how unpredictable all of this nonsense truly is. Because I was really sad last night, but not much at all today. The same triggers, the same missing, only a few hours apart—but last night sucked. And today was a very good day. It feels beyond random sometimes.

I enjoy the feedback from folks who say they love to read my work. Sometimes I wish that I was capable of writing about joyful things every day instead of this. Maybe that’s a someday thing. Right now, my grief is all that I can see when I look for inspiration—it’s just an infinitely-high wall that I can neither see over nor step around. It occupies my entire field of vision, and I look forward to the day when I also have space for other things in my writer’s mind’s eye.

I got a TON of grading done today, in addition to the first batch of admissions interviews for my program. It takes a lot out of me to do those interviews, because it’s non-stop social interaction and being “on” for hours in a row—but I love them, I honestly do. The students in my program (and applying for my program) are truly special, and I feel incredibly honored to get the chance to talk with them about their career goals and get to know them on a bit of a deeper level.

In terms of grading, I have once again dug myself a hole of un-graded student work. Fortunately, today was incredibly productive and I was able to get completely caught up in both of my classes. I won’t tell you how many hundreds of assignments I needed to grade, but it was several hundred. That’s specific enough to demonstrate how proud I am of today’s hard work and to explain how relieved I feel to be current with it all now.

My class this evening was also really lovely—again, these students are really sharp. I’m a fortunate guy to get the chance to learn from them as they learn from me, and once again I have to say that my Program Director job is truly a dream come true.

Things have been quiet for me on the social front the past couple of days, but that’s largely because my schedule was so busy that I didn’t have time to plan anything. It’s not a trend, it’s just that kind of a week.

I wish Kellie was here. I still think she’s just around the corner or just out at an appointment without me, or maybe in the shower. It feels like she might pop up at any time and like this entire thing could dissolve in a second. Every few weeks, I indulge myself with a couple minutes of pondering what I would say to her if she showed up and it was proven to all be some big kind of a mistake. I don’t allow myself to do this very often, because it’s an easy mind trap to get lost in, and I don’t want to dwell in a place of fantasy instead of reality. It’s not going to happen, but the relief I feel in those few minutes is pretty attractive.

My memory and general cognitive function are both a lot better than they were a few months ago. That gives me hope that the rest will come back eventually, even if it feels like excruciatingly slow progress sometimes.

A couple of weeks ago, I gave myself a real fright by accidentally leaving the stove burner on overnight. I didn’t realize I hadn’t turned it off after making supper. Luckily there wasn’t a pot or anything flammable anywhere around the stovetop, and I’ve been extra careful to double-check every time I cook since then.

Today, I was put into another tizzy upon leaving my office to discover that this pill bottle had been chewed in half by Coco while I was in a meeting, and that she had left six or seven allergy pills strewn around the hallway. Obviously I was extremely concerned that she’d poisoned herself, but it has now been five hours since she did it and she’s not exhibiting any symptoms, so I’m assuming we lucked out. She had gotten onto the dining room table and decided to help herself to a little treat.

Here’s an obligatory photo of the completely unrepentant Coco, who has learned zero lessons from this experience, and who will be one year old in a couple of weeks if she lives that long:

I keep being struck by just how STRANGE all of this is. I was never supposed to be the only one caring for these pups, I was never supposed to have to learn how to make it on one income, and I was never supposed to lose the best friend I’ve ever had. I was never supposed to live this version of my life.

I didn’t have the opportunity to swoop in and heroically save Kellie’s life, in spite of taking required CPR training at least a dozen times in my career. She was dead that quickly—just seconds. I guess I’m grateful that I’m not in the position of the person who posted online about doing CPR on her husband until she couldn’t physically do it anymore and then losing him. I don’t know how you manage the knowledge that your partner’s life was literally in your hands and that there was a chance, however small, for you to be able to bring them back. I blame myself for all kinds of things, but that’s something I can’t blame myself for, because she was already gone.

I saw someone saying online that he had always hoped to be the one to die before his wife so that she could go through the experience of dying without being alone, because he’d be there to walk alongside her as she went wherever comes after this life.

For whatever strange reason, that’s a framing of the entire thing that gives me some comfort. As alone as I am right now, I really do believe she’s somewhere, and that we’ll be together again sometime, whenever that is. I know I won’t be this alone forever, and that thought is one of the things that helps me stop crying when nothing else will.

That’s enough sorrow for a random Tuesday. Off to seek happiness and distraction for the rest of my evening. Love you.

Matt

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It’s true that we have a lot of things we don’t need, as I think most people do. It’s also true that one person needs fewer things than two, so that’s what the downsizing looks like most of the time for me. If I know something was just meant for us to do together, or if I know something is more relevant to two people than one, or if I know there’s something I have no interest in but that she liked, then it’s fair-ish game for selling or donating. I would rather someone else get use out of it than have it sit in my office or bedroom or garage or basement. I also don’t think anyone could look at the current state of my house and call it minimalist—I still have plenty of stuff, believe me.

Anyway, I dropped off a few more items at Goodwill today, and this was the first time I’ve been able to do that, give my moment of silent thanks to Kellie, and then drive home without sobbing the whole way. That’s what progress looks like to me, today.

Progress also looks like shredding oh-so-many old piles of paper in my office. None of those are Kellie’s fault, they’re mostly old private practice things that I should have gotten rid of anyway but have instead allowed to tower over me for the last three years. It feels really good to be getting rid of my things that I’ve meant to handle for a long time as well, even though Coco absolutely loves to try and gnaw a hole through every single trash bag I’ve ever filled (and when that trash bag is full of cross-cut paper, it causes a relatively huge mess). She hasn’t learned her lesson, and I continue to tolerate that behavior from her, because we all have things we’re working on, right?

My parents and their pup will be in town for a few days later on this week, and I’m happy to see them. Coco (and Ivy, but especially Coco) is going to be VERY happy to see them. She is the most extroverted person in my household by far, and she adores every single person who comes to visit. And every single dog, so she’ll be excited to see Bruno again as well.

I was happy to finally get return emails from two of the three widowers I was matched with via the pen pal program I signed up for. We’ll see if those are conversations that we can keep going for the long-term, but I’m still glad that I wasn’t just ghosted by all three of them.

It’s been 82 days since Kellie died. We’re only two days away from three months. Three months of more tears than I can count, three months of re-learning everything in my entire life, and three months of loneliness and isolation and love and joy and heartache and more tears. Jeez. When I put it that way, I guess it’s been a LOT.

This plant was planted after Kellie died, and it’s flowering now, which really drives the point home in a super tangible way. I miss her more than I can handle, more often than I’d like. Like right now, this very second, for instance.

Today was a busy day, and tomorrow is shaping up to be one as well. I’m glad to have my writing retreat coming fast—that’s this Friday/Saturday/Sunday, and I can’t wait to see what project I end up working on, given three days of mostly uninterrupted time and space designed just to help me write something, anything that speaks to my heart. I have at least six or seven projects that are bouncing around my brain, and I could pick any of them up and run with it. Like I keep saying, stay tuned!

I’m glad that today is over, because it felt more draining than I would have liked. Those two-hour Faculty Senate meetings are sure a ton of fun.

XOXO,

Matt

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And you know what?

I’m still here.

Whether you read my stuff each day or just dip in and out occasionally, you probably know that I’ve been approaching this past week with some measure of trepidation and concern about what it would bring.

My parents have only been gone for two weeks or so at this point, and they weren’t initially sure it was the best time to choose to let me sink or swim.

But I’ve swum. Swam? Swimmed? Swammen?

I have continued to keep my head above water, in spite of all this week’s challenges.

But when I said WE made it, I meant that. Explicitly. We did this together. It’s never been just me on my own, and if it were, I think it would have been much more difficult.

When my students graduate, sometimes they thank me for getting them to that point, and every time I tell them that they did the hard work. It wasn’t something I did, it was something they made happen. Now that I’m on the other end of things, valuing the contributions of my friends to the occasional peace of mind I’ve got at this point of my life has become increasingly important to me. And so I thank them and thank them (to the point where someone told me I was no longer allowed to tell them ‘thank you’ for at least the rest of that day). Do I think they have carried me? Not really—but I do think that they have been incredibly valuable ingredients inside the stew of my survival. I also think I couldn’t have been as happy without those ingredients.

There’s some lovely metaphor about umami in here which I don’t have the energy to reach for, but I’ll let you conjure it up yourself.

I had a pretty great week, honestly. I went to two independent bookstores (in two different states), had an amazing home-cooked birthday meal, went to lunch with a friend, and had another lunch delivered by another friend. I think I got to hang out with ten or eleven folks this week, which is historic. I went to a Weird Al concert as well as an author event with Chuck Tingle, both of which were incredible. I spent two hours at a silent book club meeting (which I loved) and literally read around four hundred pages that day. I’m not kidding.

Yesterday, I went to an anniversary dinner by myself at our favorite restaurant. I also hung out in Kellie’s garden five different times during the day. It absolutely had its moments of unbearable sorrow. And yet. I’m still here.

I think part of the reason I’ve missed a couple days of writing here is probably because I’ve got so much to say and so many thoughts from this week that I don’t know where to start—I don’t want to leave anything out. That said, I realize that I’m setting myself an impossible task, so I’m just going to do my best to catch you up and move on from this point.

I read something today that I wanted to comment on—a widower said that he feels the only reason some of us choose not to open ourselves up to new romantic relationships after losing our spouse is that he believes we build the perfect idealized version of them upon their deaths, and so nobody could ever meet those standards again anyway. In Kellie’s case, I know that’s simply not true. She wasn’t the perfect person: it’s easy enough, even now, for me to identify all kinds of flaws in her. For one, she hated mushrooms (and you know how weird that is). For another, she never saw the attraction of Dashboard Confessional (even Screaming Infidelities). That’s pretty inexcusable, and really points to the kind of person Kellie was—someone who didn’t like sad emo boys as much as me.

Seriously, nobody’s perfect. And I’ve never felt like Kellie was. Truthfully, I don’t think you have to be a perfect person to be a perfect partner to someone, which is good because I suck in a multitude of ways. We fit together, that’s the important thing. So for me, I’m not trying to idealize her and then fear nobody will ever match up to her—I know that I couldn’t ever find someone who fits as well with me as Kellie. It’s okay for those who need to seek out another partner after a loss like this. I understand that loneliness and wish to recapture what we’ve had in the past. It’s just not for me, though.

You might think that nearly three months isn’t long enough for me to have made that decision, and that’s okay too. But I know myself, and know I’m not going to change my mind, so maybe you could try believing me?

I’ve spent the last few days thinking about something that’s really stuck with me. A friend commented that if we’re able to take Kellie out of the equation, accepting this massive loss on some level but not factoring that into the mix, it can be pretty great to live on your own. And I have to acknowledge that she was totally right. Two things are true:

1. I love being able to get up when I want, go to sleep when I want, turn on music I want to hear, and eat food that I feel like eating when I feel like eating it.

2. I feel deeply, tragically guilty to admit that to myself, much less anyone else.

I miss Kellie every day, and I suspect I always will. Every part of my life isn’t entirely sad, though, and at this point I experience more joy and peace in my day-to-day existence than sorrow. I have somehow stumbled through what I bet is the worst part of this new state of being without giving up on happiness and without becoming numb to the good things that I can still experience, even in Kellie’s absence.

I know that this will be a lifelong process for me, and I know that transitions take years if not decades to experience. I also know, as I was reminded of by my parents last night, that I have already been trying to work on myself for decades, and so maybe that introspection and slowly developing concept of self-worth and identity are paying off for me now.

Regardless, I’m still grateful to have made it through this week with a full heart, a renewed sense of joy, and my eyes not as sore as I had expected. Though they’re still pretty sore.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

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What am I grateful for? I guess for whatever combination of factors is making me able to weather this particular storm without any more than superficial damage to my sails. To God? Certainly. To my brain and heart? For sure. To my family, and my friends? Without a doubt. All of these things, and more, make up the resiliency factors I’m working with. I’m far from deserving a “best grieving spouse ever” medal. I know I’m making all kinds of mistakes across all kinds of domains in my life. But I’m managing.

Everyone always knew that the week with both my birthday and our anniversary in it was going to be a challenge, and it has been. And yet I continue to somehow move forward. Not because I’m some paragon of loss and grief, but because…of whatever those factors are which continue to fuel and feed me.

I got the chance to spend more than two hours with an old friend this afternoon, which was really special. She asked some questions about how things are going that I haven’t talked about with many folks, and was also able to give me some insights into her own grief journey. Both of those were incredibly valuable to me.

Once again, as another day comes to a close I’m left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for all those people in my life who continue to walk pieces of my path alongside me. These conversations have been some of the gifts which have sustained me the most. And I can’t usually predict which of these conversations is going to have the big profound life nuggets in them for me, but they still pop up out of nowhere, like prizes in a crackerjack box, surprising in their simplicity and incredibly meaningful when they do arrive.

We talked for a while about this Substack, and about what writing has meant for me now in this season of my life as well as in other times and places. I think I’m getting better at trying to articulate what grieving visibly and publicly is doing for me (for which I’m grateful). I like to think I would be having many of these same revelations if it was all just happening inside my head instead of being visible to anyone who wants to follow along. At the same time, I know that the connections I’m able to make between my experience and those of my friends and family are shaping the things I’m able to think about in a very real way. So no, I’m not any more an island unto myself than anyone else, as much as I’d sometimes prefer to be.

I need the interplay between my thoughts and feelings and your thoughts and feelings in order to keep growing and to keep figuring out what each day looks like or what I’d like it to look like.

So listen, I’m now able to say this plainly:

This is not my ideal version of life. I would never have chosen this. My ideal life would have Kellie in it, no matter what. So this is not my best life.

But what I can do—what I am trying to do—what is giving me a lot of the meaning that is currently available to me—is live the best version of life that I can in the here and now, given the fact that I’m in this place I have not chosen.

I can be happy despite existing in a sometimes desperately-unhappy reality. And I am.

Thank you for giving me the chance to think through the pieces of joy and sorrow that are currently floating around my brain, on a more-or-less daily basis. Thank you for continuing to tell me some of the ways my writing has made you think or feel. Even though the ways it affects other people is secondary to me, it matters to me to hear that it is landing for folks.

I’m really excited for my writer’s retreat next weekend. I’m going into that with zero preparation or forethought—I’ll be writing for three days straight, but I have no idea yet what I’ll be writing about. There are a bunch of projects that could suck me in, but my only plan is to remain open to what the universe nudges me toward writing and see what happens. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow is our 28th wedding anniversary, and I’ve been thinking a lot about that as the day approaches.

Many of you know that we had a big vow renewal ceremony for our 20th wedding anniversary (eight years ago tomorrow). We spent more money on this than for our original wedding, and invited more people as well. We wanted to have an event which was more suited to us as grown-ups instead of what two teenagers would have planned (and could have afforded). It was a really meaningful time for us and we were so glad to have been able to make it happen. We’ve told each other for the past eight years that we’re never getting married again, though, because two big ceremonies were enough for a lifetime. That guarantee still stands, in case you’re wondering.

When I was spending some time in Kellie’s garden this evening, I found myself thinking about what I might have done differently if I knew, eight years ago, that I just had eight more years with her. I also thought about what Kellie might have done differently if she knew she only had eight more years to live.

I’m really not sure that either of us would have changed a whole lot, though. We’ve had our challenges, but these last eight years (and especially the six years since the beginning of the pandemic) have been some of our best ones. We bought our house immediately after that vow renewal, and have been so happy here. We’ve both gotten to work from home for the last six years, and that has let us spend so much more time together than we used to, including time spent with the dogs. I can point to a decision here or there that I could have made differently, or she may have made differently, but for the most part I think that these eight years have been a massive gift. We were happier together than we ever have been. We were more in-tune with each other’s thoughts and feelings. We got along better and understood each other more than ever in our lives. A lot of that is probably due to us aging and becoming adults (and thus having our brains actually fully developed).

I don’t look back at these last eight years (or the twenty that preceded them) with a profound sense of regret. I really don’t. Even though everyone likes to say that hindsight is 20/20, I can only identify a very small handful of different life choices I would have liked us to make. Just as my overall feeling is one of gratitude again this evening, when I think about my time with Kellie it’s with a heart full to bursting with joy and love and yes, again, gratitude. I am so grateful to God for giving me these years with her, even though it feels hideously unfair for them to be cut short so abruptly and so quickly. I am so grateful to the universe for putting us in the right places and right times to be able to give and receive the love with each other and those others in our life who are now able to sustain and nurture and support me when I need it more than I could ever have imagined.

When you think about me tomorrow (if you do), please think about how much I’ve been given. Please think about how fortunate Kellie and I have been. And please think about how she has left behind her a legacy of good from a lifetime of kindness and compassion, that has changed for the better everyone who knew her, including me.

I plan to celebrate us tomorrow, not mourn her. I’m hopeful that will be enough to keep me going until the next day, and the next, and the next. Etcetera.

This photo is incredibly special—it’s one of the pics from the first time we met in-person, back in June of 1996, in that coffee shop in Columbus. We didn’t know we’d get thirty years together—we didn’t even know we’d get thirty days together! But we knew we had found something special. And we hoped it was forever. I’m still holding out hope for that.

Hugs to you all, and a toast to us.

Love ya,

Matt

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I felt loved, seen, and cared-for. It was a day that demonstrated the kind of connection and support which I’ve experienced pretty much constantly since I lost Kellie. Many people checked in to see how things were going. One of my friends came and spent time with me (as well as delivering a delicious affogato). Someone else also spent a big part of the day with me at my house, cooking my favorite meal and making sure I wasn’t on my own. A third person brought me freshly-baked goodies, and the day ended with another two friends coming and sitting with me in Kellie’s garden while we talked. I honestly couldn’t have planned out a better day for myself if I tried, and I didn’t have to make any decisions, which made it even better.

So I’m 49 years old now, and that brings with it some complicated feelings. Of course it does, since everything seems designed to make me feel complicated things these days.

Kellie was born in November of 1976, and I was born in July of 1977. That means that for the past 49 years (especially the 30 we shared) Kellie was older than me for most of the time, except the four and a half months between my birthday and hers. For that third of the year, Kellie and I have always been the same age. This week, it has been challenging for me to internalize the fact that I’m now 49, as she was when she died, and that she’s never going to turn 50. So after these four and a half months, our pattern will be disrupted for the first time in five decades, half a century. Kellie’s never going to be older than me again, and I have to figure out how to live with that truth.

Speaking of living with truths, that seems like something I’m doing on a daily basis. I can’t escape all kinds of truths. If you can, more power to you. But it feels like everything in the world seems designed to make me accept this loss, and that I’m being pushed down a conveyor belt toward being okay at an ever-increasing speed. I don’t want to accept Kellie’s death, for obvious reasons. I mean, I’ve accepted it on all kinds of levels.

But I don’t want for it to be an understood part of the universe, for it to be something that’s as true as anything else, like the reality of the sky and the rocks and this house. Kellie—the fact of who she is, who she was, and what she will always be to me—is an immutable truth in my head and my heart.

I read a metaphor for community the other day that has stuck in my head all week. The author says that the communities we inhabit are like a rope, and that we are each a strand of that rope, woven together and through one another. She writes that none of our individual strands are as long as the rope itself—the rope outlasts us as individuals, and yet we’re all still part of the reality of that woven object as a whole. It sometimes gives me comfort to feel Kellie and the choices she made around me in this house, in my life, in the world. Her strand was a lot shorter than any of us knew, but she did not leave this place unchanged.

I know that when I treat someone with kindness, it’s at least partly because of the lessons Kellie has taught me about compassion. I know that when I place a book on one of our shelves, it has a place to go because Kellie carefully decorated our space with objects that give us both comfort and utility. I know that when an old song leaves me breathless from its beauty, it is because of the memory of that song floating over a lake in the dark, sitting next to her on a blanket in our most favorite place.

The pain is still here, oh—it’s still here. I’m doing pretty well with my tears lately, or I was until today. I’ve cried more today than in the past week put together. Some of those grief storms have hurt beyond belief, and they’re all unbearable in the moment.

I’ve decided to stop writing for today, in fact. I have so much more to say about my birthday and about the meaning I’ve been taking from this week, but that will have to come another day. For now, I need to sit with the pain and be gentle with myself. Sometimes the telling helps, like bringing my pain out of my chest and sharing it with everyone else makes it less all-consuming and overwhelming. But other times, talking about how I’m feeling feels like flaying an arm or a leg, opening it to the world without tangible benefit in the moment. In those moments, simple pleasures like a good meal or a smile or a silly TV show or a good book are what I need to bandage the wound for a bit. That’s what I need this evening, not rubbing in more salt. The tears are a bit much.

I love you all for caring and for being here.

Birthday boy signing off for now,

Matt