
Here’s the last picture of Shannon I could find before her initial hospitalization nearly two years ago. I may have posted it here before. It was taken January 19, 2013 at Longwood Gardens, about one week before we left Langhorne and moved to our home here in Las Vegas. She was perfectly healthy, in excellent spirits, and excited to embark on our new post-retirement life together. A month and a day after this picture was taken, she was diagnosed with leukemia and she began to concentrate nearly all her efforts on trying to stay alive. One year ago this morning, she died.
But she didn’t concentrate 100% of her efforts on cancer; she spent a great deal of them on me and on our family. She loved and cared for me right up until the end. There were a lot of things her doctors told her she shouldn’t do. She avoided nearly all of them. But she did choose to kind of ignore advice that she felt wouldn’t be consistent with her desire to take care of me. Those things she did, and I felt loved and cared for right up until the end. I still feel her love and influence every day. I still love her deeply and think of her every day. I don’t talk about her as much as I used to, but I think of her and miss her and yearn for her. Sometimes I still cry.
Shannon was kind. She gave away her entire life to service, not just to our children and me, but to her large and ever-expanding circle of friends. It seemed like everybody loved her, and I know she loved everybody.
I find it very difficult to believe it’s already been a year. So many things have happened in that short time. She has missed so much. Birthdays, holidays, engagements, happiness, fun, heartbreaks, love, sorrow, daily life. On the other hand, like the cliché goes, it seems like forever. The seasons have all passed, my heart has found room for a new love, I’ve made wonderful new friends, I’ve traveled to some places I’ve never been as well as to several old familiar places, my mother has been diagnosed with cancer and died, I’ve worked some and actually made some sales, I’ve grieved over and over again, and I’ve learned to be happy.
I’ve talked about choosing to live happily here on the blog several times. I’m still trying and I think that’s going well. I don’t think I’m the kind of person who has to make that decision every morning when I get up. I’ve just convinced myself that it’s what I want to do, and I’m doing it. Life is good, life is sweet, life is so, so worth living. Life is continuing without slowing down. I’m doing my best to keep facing forward.
But I miss Shannon. I will never forget her. I will always love her profoundly, deeply, passionately. We went through everything together. She walked by my side for 35 years and she began to love me four years before that. She was my life from the time I was 17 until 56. That’s a long time and a lot of mileage. She remained steadfastly devoted to me every second. She was my advisor, my confidant, my best friend, my sounding board, my lover, my partner, my everything, my wife.
I miss you, Shannon. I will never forget you. I love you.