I’m sitting in a rocking chair just outside the rollup door to my shop. The big fan inside is humming like a Cessna 150 taxiing out to the runway. Even though it’s August and the afternoon was brutally hot, the evening air is almost pleasant. The breeze from the fan is helping.

I haven’t sat out here to watch a sunset in a long time. Specks of green in the woodland canopy are lit up like neon signs set on fire by the sun. A single leaf here. A small branch there. The base of a white oak trunk farther up the hill. The streams of light finding their way through the shadows of the day’s end.

Five years ago, I sat out here every evening. For weeks I came out here to sit and watch and listen. A sort of prayer vigil, I suppose. All I knew was that it was easier to be here than to be inside the house. It was here that I tried to make sense of life and death and loss.

Sometimes Wayne would sit with me. I don’t remember anything he said, but the fact that he took the time to sit and watch the sun with me was priceless. His spirit of friendship, if not his words, carried me through to another day.

Funny, I didn’t come out here to think about all of this. The dishes were put away. The coffee pot was made and set for the morning. And I just thought, “Ya know, I’m gonna go sit outside for a spell.” It wasn’t until I got here and leaned against the back of my rocker that I remembered being here before.

On the 22nd, Beth will have been gone five years. It seems like yesterday and like a lifetime ago all at the same time. You’d think I wouldn’t get emotional any more after this much time, but occasionally I can still get a little choked up. Something will happen and I’ll swallow hard at the thoughts in my head.

I don’t dwell on our life together like I used to. I’m not consumed by it. It would be strange if I was because, as you well know, I have a new and incredibly good life with Marion that I wouldn’t change even if the Braves offered me a spot in the starting rotation.

Yet here I am, rocking and remembering.

I remember because this is a five year anniversary. I remember because for 43 years we were together and never expected it to end. I remember because I’ll never forget. How could I?

I also thought about Beth today because Marion said something to me about her needing to go by the cemetery to put fresh flowers on Mike’s grave. We have always been more than generous with each other when it comes to remembering our spouses. Just because we are together does not mean that they are forgotten.

And look, it can be a balancing act at times. If I’m always talking about Beth, Marion might begin to wonder if I know who I’m married to these days. If she’s always telling me about how Mike handled things, I might begin to wonder if I measure up to her expectations. So we are in the middle of shaping a new life together that remembers Beth and Mike but doesn’t necessarily include them.

One bright spot for me. I have never been absentminded enough to call Marion by Beth’s name in the middle of a conversation. I came close a few times. But Marion…well, she got tripped up recently. She had a clean record for almost three years, but on our trip to Kentucky a couple of weeks back, she called me “Mike.” And she did it twice on the same day.

“What did you just call me?”

I wanted to make sure I heard what I thought I heard. She looked at me like what I was asking didn’t make any sense to her at all. Then, it hit her.

“I called you Mike, didn’t I?”

A couple of hours later she did it again. LOL.

Being married the second-time-around this late in life requires that you keep a sense of humor about you. I don’t care how long Marion and I might be together; we were both together with our first spouses for a lot longer than the time we have left to be together ourselves. Some of the old stuff is bound to creep into the conversation. One day I’m gonna slip up and call her Beth at the wrong time.

So, I’m not gonna hide the fact that I’m sitting out here thinking about those agonizing hours waiting on news from the ICU. Praying for a different outcome that wasn’t meant to be. It’s just part of what’s gonna happen for the rest of my life somewhere around the 22nd of August.

It’s no different than Marion remembering October 9th. The end of a two year battle with cancer. The loss of someone she loved and to whom she was committed for life. She’ll never forget that.

My favorite “Mike thing” that Marion still keeps in the house is a small sign that she gave to him. She says he wouldn’t agree with it because he went fishing whenever he felt like it. But the sign reads, “I live with fear every day, and sometimes she lets me go fishing.”

You’d have to know Marion’s fierce independence and sarcasm to appreciate that sign. Even now, at times, she will say something to me and then look at me and ask, “You’re scared ain’cha?”

I’ll shoot back. “I ain’t scared. Just thinking.”

I’m also not gonna hide the fact that I consider myself incredibly blessed to have Marion in my life. Nothing but the mysterious wonder of Grace could have gifted us with the life that we now share. There are days when I can’t wrap my mind around it. In fact, sitting here rocking, I’m shaking my head at how impossible my life seems to be.

It’s not easy to move past something like the death of a spouse. Little pieces of the life you built together hide in every corner. A picture on a shelf. A card you unexpectedly find tucked away inside a book. A blanket she especially liked.

The dilemma is that I don’t want Marion to feel awkward about those things. The things I don’t throw away. The things I don’t bury in a box in the attic. Even knowing that I’m sitting out here in this rocker thinking about a particular date on the calendar.

Marion knows I love her. She knows I’m fully committed to her. And she understands that there was a life before she came along. Just like I understand that there are pieces of Mike everywhere around her home.

So, as I sit here and the sun sets, I am pulled in two directions. One is the significance of my loss, and the other is the surprise of my discovery.

Life is bigger than the losses we bear.

And as long as there is a capacity for love, the heart can still grow.