This is Sunday, January 14th 2024. This morning I saw a text from my mother on my phone. It read “I’m remembering that amazing winter day 51 years ago when Shirley and Dennis had their wedding.”

I was stunned that I had not remembered it. Can I so easily have put that behind me? I had not said today’s date, or written it, or looked at a calendar – but even that might not have made a difference. I haven’t thought about it in the preceding week when I was more aware of how fast January was progressing.

My present life is so all absorbing that I don’t think about much except how I will conduct myself in the next hour or two. I suppose in some ways that is good, but right now it seems sad to me.

Was it pure chance that this week I had the first dream about Dennis that I can remember having since he died? Even in thinking of the dream for the past two days, it did not occur to me to think of our anniversary. It’s as if his death has so released me to be in the busy world of the living, that I have forgotten to think of the blessing of our life together.

In the dream, I was investigating an old abandoned building, such as ones that were on my grandfather’s farm. It was empty and cold. In a corner, on the hard floor, Dennis was lying quietly. When I approached he said that he had been calling for someone, anyone, to turn on a light so he could see. He was like he had been in the last days of life, totally disabled and helpless. I was greatly troubled, because I could not believe he was there alone. Why did I not know that he had no one with him? Hadn’t he died? Was I supposed to still be caring for him? I helped him to a vehicle, in that odd way that dreams make possible, lifting him myself and sliding him into the back of a truck.

It’s not that I don’t remember Dennis. I read something just this morning that reminded me of him. In a wonderful book on Prayer, Richard J. Foster writes about the “prayer of quiet”.

“… we experience an inward attentiveness to divine motions. At the center of our being we are hushed. The experience is more profound than mere silence or lack of words. There is stillness, to be sure, but it is a listening stillness. We feel more alive, more active, than we ever do when our minds are askew with muchness and manyness.”

Dennis, always a man of many words, was brought to silence and he submitted to something that left him so peaceful, so accepting. There was no way to know what was in his conscious mind, but I often felt God’s presence when I was caring for him. Maybe he was experiencing that kind of quiet, contemplative prayer, without words. That’s what I like to think.

The Bible says that there is no marriage in heaven. It says that covenants, like marriage, end when one of the parties dies. I am no longer married, and maybe the acceptance of that is why I am not searching for feelings about our anniversary. Maybe that’s why I didn’t even think about it today, until I was reminded.

Or maybe it is fitting that this anniversary be like many of our anniversaries when we failed to plan a celebration of any kind. It has a comforting familiarity. Maybe it’s just me, being like we always were, and that is okay. I believe I will see Dennis again. We won’t be married but I will be glad to see him. I will remember that I loved him.