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The First Thanksgiving

By Sheri LeClair Banitt

Six months since I lost my husband. Six months of learning to do everything on my own. Paying the bills, yard work, pool care, dog duty, cat care, solo events, morning coffee, evening shows, bedtime. Washing windows, furnace upkeep, sump pump, dehumidifier, car maintenance, grocery shopping, sidewalk shoveling, clearing the driveway, church. And now a big holiday.

We have hosted Thanksgiving for most of the last twenty years. We work well together and are able to accommodate many people in our small house because of love and organization. Today is no different. It is still our house. It is organized. It is full of love. But it is missing my love. My partner. My Bou. We are now me. I am me and you are memory.

That is what loss is really about. It is hyper focus on self and situation. The loss is felt daily in the practical activities that are now left undone by the missing one. The feelings of loss come with the reality of doing things alone, depending on oneself and then allowing others to help. Asking for help and paying for services that used to come free from the one you trusted.

Letting go of what you thought would happen and what used to happen and what could have happened becomes a daily exercise in choices. You can choose anxiety, anger and fear, or you can choose peace, calm and acceptance.

I choose peace, knowing that he is okay, and I am okay. I choose calm, knowing that I am not alone, leaning on family, friends and kind strangers who want to help. I choose acceptance, knowing that I can move forward and embrace new ways of being in the world.

I am letting go and letting it be. I do not need to know what is next to enjoy what is now.

Happy Thanksgiving – enjoy your blessings!

Experimenting

By Sheri LeClair Banitt

Now four months since my husband’s death and some things are getting easier, some things are still hard, and new things are hard. All the cliches are true. You just cannot imagine or plan for all the ways loss hits you.

There are many days where I still cannot believe this happened. Then days where the reality of forever hits like a brick. This is a status I did not choose and do not enjoy. I loved my husband, and I loved being married to him.

So, life goes on and so do I. I have many middle-class safety nets to support me on this journey. I am not a rich widow, but I have enough to live. I have a great job with benefits, a home, and means to pay my basic bills. These things give me the luxury to indulge when I feel weak and need to just be still and breathe.

Family and friends have supported me in ways that truly surprise and delight me. Regardless of the turmoil in our world and political climate, people still rise up to help and care for each other. Many casual acquaintances have lifted me up with a word or smile when I needed it.

I have begun to look outside my old normal to see what could become the new normal of my choosing. With my whole life in flux, it is a great time to experiment with new ideas, new activities and new connections.

Today I joined a gym and signed up with a trainer. I am looking forward to spending some energy on my wellbeing. I think this will help restore my feeling of control about my life. Hoping to move actively into winter without fear of slipping on ice or just getting more sedentary trying to avoid it.

Family, Friends and Others

By Sheri LeClair Banitt

I am loved, and thankful for it. Today was a hard day. Not only Patriot Day, but my birthday as well. I can’t think of any time when I wasn’t greeted with coffee and breakfast on my birthday. Sometimes flowers, sometimes a gift, sometimes a card, but always ‘eggs with a smile’. My husband was a man of few words and many kind gestures. On my birthday, he made me feel special.

Today I missed my cheerleader and my birthday breakfast. Losing my partner of 43 years so suddenly has turned my world upside down and shaken my confidence. I worry about things I never thought about before. I wonder what the future will bring and have irrational moments of panic late in the night.

So, thank you to all the ones who showed up for me today with a hug, a smile, a birthday greeting, or a bit of chit chat. I needed some extra love, and I felt the good vibes. Your kind attention eased the pain of my loss and helped patch my broken heart with hope.

Quarterly Milestone

By Sheri LeClair Banitt

My husband died three months ago. 4th of July came and went and now it is Labor Day. Another milestone we used to count the seasons. It is my milestone now. Such an odd feeling. Everything is the same, but my whole world is different.

I find something to love each day, many blessings remain. Still, I feel so much loss for all the things that could’ve been and should’ve been. As summer moves to fall, the garden has grown, and produce is bountiful. I take pride in the harvest and think about freezing it for the winter. The same tradition with a different outcome.

I have everything I need. But I miss the simple things we used to share. Someone to wake up with and enjoy coffee in the morning. Someone to chat with about anything that was happening. Someone who recalls my past and is planning for the same future.

As I prepare to see family tomorrow, the house looks the same, the menu is familiar. I am excited to see everyone and catch up on what we’ve all been doing. But now I do all the preparation alone. I wish he was here to help me and to enjoy our home and share hospitality.

I miss my husband; he was my partner and very best friend. I miss knowing what was going to come next. I had to shut the door on “You and Me”, but I’m leaving it open a little bit to let the memories flow through as I step toward my own tomorrow.

Know the Passwords

By Sheri LeClair Banitt

Yes, really, you need to know the passwords. There is no way around the paperwork when a spouse dies and you need to change accounts, bills, ownership papers, service agreements, and subscriptions. Some of these will be easier to accomplish than others.

Maybe you have a joint checking account and both names are on the mortgage. But you’re still going to need the passwords to get online and see balances to update things.

For a boomer widow like me, you likely have the utility bills in his name. You need to change them so if you ever have a service issue, you will be able to call for help, and they will be able to speak to you instead of the deceased account owner. It is exhausting to explain your story over and over again to each customer service rep as your work your way through your life’s paperwork.

You should have all the passwords located in a secure place that you and your spouse have access to. You should list all the monthly bills, the website/email addresses and your account numbers. Each of you should understand who pays for what and what to do if that one is ill or passes away.

Knowing the passwords to all of each other’s stuff will make it easier to step in if one of you goes missing. Knowing the passwords means you talked about all the things that make life convenient and comfortable. Knowing the passwords means you trust each other and share the important things.

I am fortunate because I know the passwords. In the most difficult time of my life, I have the key to convenience and comfort. This helps as I work through my fresh grief and begin to walk alone.

Finding Forever 3

By Sheri LeClair Banitt

He has been gone 32 days. I am still in disbelief with smatterings of reality mixed in. I can function, I feel happiness and appreciation for the people and blessings around me. And I feel sadness and loss. I am sad for what could have been, I feel afraid of the loss I feel today and the anticipation of many more losses to come.

We had our first date on July 2, 1978. It was a blind date, and we went to the local fair. Since then, we spent every July 4th together and the last 30 of them were in our current house. A parade goes by, so we have family and friends over to watch it then come back to the house to spend the afternoon eating and visiting. This year, the parade went by, the friends and family came, we spent the afternoon eating and visiting, and I hosted alone. It was good. We all missed him, and we all enjoyed the tradition.

As every widow soon learns, the key to moving forward is to live in the moment. It’s good to visit the past, but you cannot dwell there. Yesterday I went shopping and I bought the crunchy peanut butter and the Raisin Bran. I can see there will be many more “me” things in the future. Those things make me smile because I know how hard we worked to get to the “we” of collaboration over the years. We did it. We worked together when it was our time and it worked. Now it is my time, and I will find a way to make it work.

Finding Forever 2

By Sheri LeClair Banitt

The visitation, funeral, burial are done. The thank you cards have been sent. The fresh flowers are gone. I went back to work and now I am thinking deep thoughts.

Jeff was a long-time smoker. He was diagnosed with COPD and emphysema about 18 months ago when he had an exacerbation that landed him in the ICU for 11 days. That was not enough to make him quit smoking.

Looking back, I see that he was in much more serious condition from that time forward. But when living day to day with his stubborn and strong will to be normal, we just didn’t get it. Had I known we were on a timer, I would have done some things differently. But I see that we were saying our goodbyes in all the little ways that a restricting illness presents.

I began doing more and more of the chores and he rested more. He was on oxygen overnight and many other medications. It took all he had to go to work each day. His job was not easy, but he loved working and kept it up to the end.

We stayed home more; we were less active around the house and yard. We sat together and just enjoyed television, or visiting with our kids, or snuggling our dogs and cats. That was love. Forgiving, accepting, constant and true.

As I move forward, I see that I am already used to doing many things on my own. This makes me sad, and I know that one more day or month, or year, or decade would not be enough to satisfy the yearning for more time. We had our forever and it was good. I am sad that he cannot join me in my next forever, but I know we did our best and I have no regrets.

Finding a New Forever

By Sheri LeClair Banitt

We were married on June 6, 1981. I was 18, he was 22.

He died on June 5, 2024. I was 61, he was 65. 43 years passed since our wedding day, but I celebrated our anniversary alone.

We lived our marriage vows and stayed together until death parted us. I am thankful for the years and the tears and the love and the anguish that comes with a lifetime commitment. Every day was real and impactful, and our lives were intertwined. We raised two children and handled many life challenges, including the loss of our dairy farm in the 1980s and loss of jobs in 2008 and 2009. Through time and experience, we became one.

A three-year courtship and 43-year marriage cannot be mourned quickly, so I am back at work and trying to get into a new routine. We shared most of the household chores and finances but kept some things for him to do, and others for me. I am learning simple things that I never had to know before, like how to set up the sump pump. As I conquer each new thing, my impulse is to show him, or tell him what I have done. But he is gone, so I cry and smile and know that I did his thing on my own.

We have many pets who are looking for their favorite man. They can see his truck parked outside and wonder when he will come through the door. They wonder when he will make their dinner and take them outside. They look for him at bedtime and wonder why he isn’t there to say goodnight.

With all the loss, the hardest part for me is the change in Forever. I have no concept now of what my next days and years will be where I was so sure before. I need a new Forever and I have to find it on my own.

Feral Cats – What Should We Do? By Sheri LeClair Banitt

I am a Customer Operations Manager by day, and a Crazy Cat Lady in my off time. I live in a modest house, in a small town, close to the river. We have songbirds, eagles, rabbits, weasels, groundhogs, deer, coyotes, opossums, and cats. We live in harmony with the city-limits wildlife and they cause us no harm.

Though I have been feeding the feral cats for years, we recently ended the spring kitten explosion. Two years ago, a local rescue helped me trap, vaccinate, spay and release the 6 females in my colony. Since then, we still see four of the ‘Old Maids’ and have lost track of two of them. They come and go and we continue to feed them. They are healthy and tame enough for petting.

This morning, I had to confront the feral cat problem that I don’t see anymore. As I was dressed for work and in a hurry to lead an important meeting, I stopped out to feed the cats. There, in front of The Halfway House was a small tiger cat laying on the ground. It looked dead. On closer inspection it was a small, intact male who was emaciated and missing a leg. He was breathing. He was in very bad condition and suffering. I figured he could not survive and at 6:00 am I didn’t have many options to help him.

Fortunately, my cat rescue contact came thru and helped this guy out of his misery. She called for help and a very kind police officer picked him up and brought him to the local vet where he was humanely euthanized. I paid the bill and talked with the vet. The missing leg was healed over, so this cat had been living with an injury for a while. He was very sick with liver and kidney issues. He was starving and dehydrated. It takes a long time for an animal to get into this condition and they feel pain and suffering just as we do.

For 20 years I captured kittens and rehomed them. One year I trapped, neutered, and released (TNR) six female feral cats. For two years after that, there were no kittens. I know that TNR works. I know the cats are there whether we feed them or not. If we do feed them, they leave the songbirds alone and are less likely to carry disease.

Please spay and neuter your pet cats. Vaccinate them, and keep them indoors. If you notice feral cats around your property, call a local rescue to help get them TNR so they stop having kittens and we can decrease the feral cat population. Consider donating to local rescues so they can continue this work that benefits all of us.

The Day Without my Phone by Sheri LeClair Banitt

As we get used to going back into the office for work, some habits must be relearned. I go to the office twice a week. The one-way commute is 45 minutes and the extra time cuts into my free thinking and productivity.

Once I am in the office, I enjoy being there. It’s all the prep that comes before the commute that steals my energy and focus. Do I have clean, office appropriate clothes? Do I have coffee? Should I pack a lunch? Did I put the dogs out? Is the door locked? Did I remember my laptop? Do I have gas in the car? Is there road construction? What time is my first meeting? And there are many more questions as the commute continues.

On Thursday, I pulled into the parking ramp and realized I had forgotten my phone at home. First meeting in less than an hour – no way I can go home and get it. Well, shoot! I have not been without my phone for years. So now what? I lead a large team, so it’s possible someone could be trying to contact me. My parents or husband may try to reach me. I am always there, for everyone, via my phone. OOF, this could be rough.

I was able to let my work team know I was missing my phone via interoffice chat. My daughter works at my same place, so I chatted her and she let my husband know about the missing phone. So there. I was ready for a day without my phone.

Guess what happened? Nothing. I worked all day, as usual. I didn’t check my phone multiple times that day. I didn’t know who posted what on the socials. Neither did I think about who posted what on the socials. It was a non-issue. Without the visual of the phone in front of me, I didn’t miss it.

I was steadfast in my Boomer roots. My thoughts were uninterrupted. They were my own. They were not compared to anyone else’s thoughts or activities. The images I viewed were live, in color, real life things and people. It was like I never had a whole world in my hands with a camera, computer and shopping assistant. It was fine. I was fine. I liked it.

And then I went home and got my phone. And that was the end of the old-timey experiment.