More random thoughts from my journey after the death of my wife, Renee.

61 years ago, Newton N. Minow, the newly-appointed Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, gave his first speech at a meeting of The National Association of Broadcasters.  Here’s what he told them: “I invite each of you to set down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day, without [anything] to distract you. … I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.” 

Wow!  Don’t hold back Newton – tell 'em how you really feel!  Here’s a guy who obviously never read “How To Win Friends and Influence People”.  What a description!  What a way to tell the people you are leading that they are failing, and failing miserably. 

After telling you that, I’m a little ashamed to admit that Renee and I loved to watch TV.  I am sure that there were many other, more productive, more educational, more helpful things we could have been doing rather than exploring the “vast wasteland”.  But, there it is.  She would watch football with me, but rarely golf.  “It’s like watching grass grow” – she would say, to my horror.  She dragged me, kicking and screaming, into a love affair with “Downton Abbey”.  And, of course, she couldn’t get enough of The Hallmark Channel[s].  There were many shows we watched from their beginnings to their series finales.

Something that FCC Chairman Newton could not have predicted was the invention of the DVR which allows modern travelers of the “vast wasteland” to skip right over, to again quote from his speech – “the endlessly screaming, cajoling and offending commercials”.  [Can you imagine saying that about commercials, the life-blood of the broadcast industry, to the very people who were getting rich by selling advertising time on their TV broadcasts?  I wonder how long Newton N. Minow kept his job?]  Thanks to the DVR, we virtually never watched anything “live”.  We only watched things recorded on the DVR, and so we justified our love for TV [it was not, certainly NOT, a TV addiction] by reasoning that we were actually saving lots of time by speeding through the commercials.  Saving time is a good thing, right?

Renee was great at spotting actors who had been in other TV shows or movies, even from long ago.  I can’t tell you how many times she would stop a show in progress [she always controlled the remote, much to my dismay] and say, “Do you remember where we’ve seen him/her before?”  Of course, I could almost never guess.  But she’d look the actor up online and, sure enough, most of the time, she would be right.    

One of the things Renee loved about our shared passion for TV was the running commentary I would supply during each show we watched.  Actually, this commentary was mostly in the form of me bursting into song whenever an actor would say something that reminded me of a song.  For instance, if somebody on the show happened to say during an emotional moment, “I will always love you”, well, it would be like a Whitney Houston concert at our house as I would belt out my best Whitney impression – “AND I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU”!  There are lots of songs that can come to mind if you listen carefully while you watch TV; there are lots of opportunities to sing.  Come to think of it, this may not have actually been one of the things Renee loved about watching TV with me.

Whenever one of “our shows” took a break at the end of a season before returning for a new season, Renee would make sure to keep the last episode of the season on the DVR so that, when we were finally ready to begin watching the new season, we would be able to start with the last episode from last season as a reminder of where things left off.  The show, “This Is Us”, was one of the shows we watched together.  It had its series finale a few weeks ago.  Last night, I finally began the final season by watching the last episode from last season.  [So nobody better tell me what happens during the final season, ok?]

But, for some reason, I had been uneasy about starting the process of finishing this show.  It wasn’t that I felt bad about watching it without her.  She had tolerated it more than she liked it.  I was the one who liked it and insisted that we add it to our ever-expanding playlist.  But watching the last episode of last season reminded me of not only where things had ended on the show a few months ago, but also of why I was uneasy about proceeding.  In that show, the widowed Mother of the three adult children said she was starting to have trouble placing their Father in the scenes of her life now.  She didn’t know whether this was due to her illness or just to the passage of time.  But, in her mind, he was fading away.

Last Tuesday was the 5 month “anniversary” [is that even the right word?] of Renee’s death.  The day had actually passed before it occurred to me that I had missed it.  How is one supposed to act on those days?  Even on the one month, two month and three month "anniversaries", which I did note, I didn’t feel any worse on those days; and I don’t feel any better on all the other days.  What does it mean that I forgot the 5 month “anniversary” of her death?  Does that mean I was a bad husband?  Does it make me a bad mourner?  Is she already beginning to fade away in my mind?  I desperately don’t want that to happen.  Not now.  Not yet.  Not ever. 

How is one supposed to grieve? What are the rules? How is it supposed to look? How is it supposed to feel? A friend keeps telling me that I cannot expect to go through this without professional help. Maybe he's right. I couldn't even identify the "stages of grief" when he asked me. I've got no idea where I'm supposed to be in the "stages" right now. I would hate to be doing this wrong.

While I was thinking about all of this, I heard an old song about losing someone close to you - "More Than A Feeling", by Boston [how does a song from my sophomore year in college, 1976, become "old" already?] with some lyrics that seem to touch on this.

So many people have come and gone.

Their faces fade as the years go by.

Yet I still recall as I wander on

As clear as the sun in the summer sky.

For me, maybe what is more important than remembering the "anniversary" dates of her death, maybe what's even more important than properly checking off the "stages of grief" - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance [I looked them up], is remembering her life. I know it's only been five months since "I closed my eyes and she slipped away" [more lyrics from that "old song"]. But that's what "I still recall as I wander on" - how much she loved life. How much she loved her friends, her family, her church, and how much she loved me. Even exploring the "vast wasteland" of TV with her was a pleasure because she enjoyed it so much. I can see it all now, "as clear as the sun in the summer sky". And somehow, it brings me comfort.

I think I'll stick with that.

Ambrose Ramsey | Pastor and Shepherd