Good Grieve, Charlie Brown

First order of business. Our memorial service and reception to celebrate JoAnne's life will be on Saturday evening, July 14, 2012 at 7 PM. Further information in the form of an evite will be forthcoming so we can get an approximate head count for the reception to follow. It is open to all who loved and cared about JoJo and her family. We hope to make it a joyous event although it wouldn't be complete without a few tears.

It has been just over two weeks since JoAnne died. I picked up the death certificates on Wednesday. That makes it official. The whole event wasn't a dream. JoJo isn't coming home. My head gets it, but the heart is a slow learner. 

Charles Schulz was a St. Paul native who penned the legendary Peanuts comic strip and brought life to its characters. He also was good for quotes:  “Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong'. Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night." The same can be said for the grief process.

Plotting a rhythmic, flowing and predictable post is a struggle. My concentration is off and so many thoughts run through my head. Please indulge me while I just put pen to paper and get them out. It is part of the process. You might also want to start a pool to see how many times I use those first person personal pronouns in the coming paragraphs. Something tells me that I, me, my and myself could take a repetitive beating.

Grieving is not a completely new experience for me. I had a few brushes with it in my teens, but the first time it was noticeable was when my paternal grandparents died. That stung for awhile, but I didn't know much else other than to soldier on. We lost both of JoAnne's parents a number of years ago and those experiences brought it closer to home. My Mom died in 2005 after some extended challenging health issues. Dad dropped dead in August, 2007, at 80, while mowing the lawn at his house. He had moved in with us by that time and we were close. I was on the verge of retiring and we had plans for things to do together. That one hurt for a long time, but I learned much about my grief process.

JoAnne and I were different with regards to grieving and probably life in general. She was a "Ready, Fire!, Aim" type of person. As for me, it was more "Ready? Are you sure? Aim. Aim. Is this really the target we should be shooting at? What happens if I miss the target? Is there anything behind it that we might hit? What is the wind direction? Will it affect my aim? OK. Ready. Aim. Fi.... Hold on! Hold on! Plug your ears! Fire!"

Not only do opposites attract, they strengthen a couple. We brought different qualities to the party and made each other better for it. It wasn't always easy and sometimes even painful. I used to refer to JoAnne as our fireman. She had no long range plan. She had a scheduler that filled itself with all of the family's daily events. She woke up in the morning, got dressed and waited for the fire alarm bell to go off signaling some issue that needed to be addressed. She just jumped in every day and got it done. My regret is that after 36 years, we had matured and figured it out. I will miss not having our differences to revel in.

When my Dad died, she was concerned that I had become overly depressed.  She would say something along the lines of, "You're not doing anything! You just sit! Don't just sit there, do something! Anything! See a doctor. Get on with life."

I would respond, "Honey, you are confusing progress with action. Don't just do something, sit there. I am thinking. I am grieving. I am moving forward. You just happen to see my body in the same place every day even though I am not. It will be OK. The lawn will get cut." And it did. In its own time, my grief moved to acceptance. In the meanwhile, winter's snow descended upon us and covered the lawn until spring.    

Part of my approach is to write. I don't know why nor how, although my Mom was a devotee of letter writing in the pre-internet day. It's just there to use as a tool to negotiate my way through. When Dad died, I found myself putting meticulous effort into thank you cards and some form of communication with each and every person who touched our lives with their prayers, support and presence. In retrospect, one could argue that I may have been a touch overwrought. My bet is that I will do the same thing as I grieve the loss of JoAnne only to a greater degree. So be it. Dad was a stoic Dane and Mom was a highly emotional Norwegian if there can be such a thing. I fall somewhere in between and writing is a healthy exercise.

Our youngest son Wade graduated from the University of North Dakota in May. Our son-in-law Adam recently started a new job. In early May we started planning a celebratory dinner for June 15th. Ryan and Alison planned to come in from Pittsburgh.  I originally told Wade that I would take the family to any restaurant he desired. Of course, he chose Manny's, a Minneapolis landmark dedicated to high consumption carnivores, a legendary steak house. After some thought coupled with events of the preceding week, I suggested to him that we could put on an equally delectable feast at home, and he wouldn't have to tip me 20%. Plus we could drink all the wine we wanted and not have to worry about driving or being moved out of the restaurant. Plus, I think my days of expense account level dining are mostly over.

I offered to prepare a meal that I refer to as "The Last Supper". It is the meal I would choose were I on my way to the electric chair. Hey! Stranger things have happened:-) Dry rubbed, dry aged medium rare to medium beef tenderloin, cheesy bake potatoes from Von Hanson's, Caesar Salad, garlic Texas toast and quartered mushrooms braised in buttah and garlic. It was all washed down with bottles of a formidably endowed Cabernet and a lush, sumptuous and creamy on the palate Chardonnay. I stole those descriptions and would hardly know the difference as most of my wine these days comes from a box. Adam created a German chocolate cake for dessert. To make it all special, we added live Canadian lobster, eh. As a side note, click on lobster and read an interesting Wiki entry about the history of this crustacean. So we boiled up four lobsters, figured out how to get all the meat and added it to the feast. Everybody pitched in and the meal was wonderful.

Our gathering was bittersweet. As much or more than anyone, JoAnne was looking forward to home from the hospital and celebration with her loved ones. It was not the same, absent the one chair our JoJo has occupied for decades, and yet her spirit was with each of us. We began with grace; a thank you for our blessings and a prayer for JoJo.  Upon amen, Heather noted, "Thanks a lot for that Dad. I'd made it this far into the day without crying. I guess that's progress." All in all it was a joyous occasion with some tears among the collective effort of sharing our grief.

Time for a break. I am pulling together some additional photos and the blog isn't posting them the way I would like. We will get it figured out and I will post some additional thoughts later. Will a day ever come when I run out of thoughts? At least you can exit the blog. I have to live in this head :-)

Keep the faith