Still celebrating my anniversary and feeling the love ... and loss

My sister-in-law and I pose with country singer
Jason Blaine at a 'secret concert' held on my
wedding anniversary.

I hate the first week of August. 

For my married years, Aug. 2 was a day to celebrate another year of marriage. A happy day. Some years we we went out for supper. One year we went to Pick Your Part to find a car part for a rebuild and then to Costco for a hotdog and pop. Oh, and a sundae. I mean, it was our anniversary!

The year of our 20th, we spent in the emergency department as My Favourite Husband (MFH) received blood transfusions and a surgical procedure to stop raised capillaries in his stomach from bleeding. That one was one of the toughest as tears trickled down his face while he pled with an emergency doctor to be released — even for an hour — so he could take me anywhere to celebrate. Permission denied. 

No matter what we did, we always exchanged cards. I was the outwardly sentimental one, declaring my love with cards imprinted with lengthy sentimental messages. I’m proud to say I added my own sappy “novella” to the card, ensuring he would be reading the card for a lengthy period of time. Or fake reading it. There wasn’t a test administered after he woke up from taking a nap partway through, so I was never sure. 

His cards were usually corny or funny and simply signed, “I love you.” If he was feeling like writing more, it would be, “I love you a lot,” or “I’ll always love you," which was a lot of words coming from a man who often replied to text messages with “k.”

I have 24 years of married anniversary memories to hold close and make me smile. So even though the calendar no longer marks the years of togetherness, the date is not insignificant nor will it ever be. 

Because of the love and happiness those memories bring, I feel no ache or wrongness in taking an opportunity to create happy new memories the day MFH and I celebrated. I won’t force fun but, if there’s an event or a gathering, I have no hesitation attending. I share stories of our lives together, not just the anniversaries but different recollections from over the years. We dated for three years and were married for 24 — almost half my life. Of course, I have stories. Boy, do I have stories!

This year, back-to-back music concerts happened both on the day and the one following. On Aug. 2, my sister-in-law and I attended a “secret concert” at a local distillery. The artist would remain unnamed until his performance introduction. It was a warm summer evening and the concert was taking place on the upper floor of the distillery in a room designed to hold intimate gatherings of 100 people or so. The room had floor-to-ceiling windows, which opened up to a wraparound deck with an unobstructed view of the rolling countryside. The soft buzz of conversations interspersed with laughter drifted through the room until a local duo took the stage as the warmup act. The sound of their voices accompanied by a guitar filled the room with an anticipatory energy. Their performance was good but it also meant the artist whose identity would remain a secret a bit longer would soon be coming up.

After the final notes of the duo’s performance, the mystery artist was introduced: Canadian country star Jason Blaine. He entertained with a mix of original songs, covers of songs that were meaningful to him and stories of his life. He seemed to enjoy being with the audience as much as we embraced being with him. Time, it seemed, was suspended as we sang along, laughed along and bonded the way intimate performances sometimes do. He reluctantly wrapped up his show more than two hours later but stayed after to mingle and chat with the audience. 

As my sister-in-law and I walked back to the vehicle, I thanked her for celebrating Aug. 2 with me and told her I could feel MFH approve of the love that surrounded me that night.

The next night was a continuation of my love affair with live music. A good friend and I had tickets to the 40th anniversary of a local blues club. In the spirit of transparency, the club plays all genres of live music and the bands that played that night were a mix of rock, funk and blues. 

On this night, there were original bands and a cover band that would’ve blown the roof off had we not been at an outdoor beer garden. We danced and sang and, when I tilted my head back to look up at the moon nestled in the arms of the soft, sultry summer sky, I swear I heard MFH husband tell me he was there, telling me to keep enjoying life, to keep laughing. To keep going forward, to be open to love, open to new adventures. I felt his blessing to live my life the way I was. No regrets. My heart whispered, “I’ll always love you,” and his whispered back, “I’ll always love you, too.” One of us still lives our life here and I was determined not to waste a single, precious drop of that life. He fought hard to live and I am going to live a beautiful life for both of us.

My weekend was proof of that. So many good memories over those days. I walked around my house hugging the memories tight, dancing to some of the songs that were played, a smile stretching my cheeks in happiness.

These memories are important to me, just as much as the memories of the anniversaries when he was alive. And I was going to need all of them to keep me going throughout the next week.

You see, Aug. 2 was our anniversary. MFH died a week later, on Aug. 10. The anniversaries fill me with happiness; the deathaversary fills me with pain. A cruel juxtaposition: love and grief. The giving and the taking away.

Fuck, I hate the first week of August.