The Mandelbear's Musings

If things had gone differently in July of 2021, Colleen and I would be celebrating our 49th anniversary today, and embarking on our 50th year of marriage. Things didn't, and we're not.

I never know just how it's going to hit me. This year -- yesterday -- I hit an emotional landmine on the last page of Cordwainer Smith's story "The Game of Rat and Dragon.

... as he buried his face in the pillow, he caught an image of the Lady May.

“She is a cat,” he thought. “That’s all she is⁠—a cat!”

But that was not how his mind saw her⁠—quick beyond all dreams of speed, sharp, clever, unbelievably graceful, beautiful, [...]

Where would he ever find a woman who could compare with her?

Colleen was always some kind of cat to me. Objectively, she didn't share all that many attributes with the Lady May, but there it was, and objectivity has nothing to do with it. I buried my face in my hands and sobbed silently for a few minutes.

Forty-eight years ago today, Colleen and I exchanged wedding vows and rings at the altar of University Lutheran Church in Palo Alto, next to the Stanford campus. Neither of us was a Lutheran, but we had been going to the singles dinner at the church for several years, so it was an obvious choice of venue. We catered the reception ourselves; it included a side of smoked salmon, mini-bagels, and a barrel of home-made pickled mushrooms.

My parents didn't think it would last, but we stayed together "in sickness and in health,..." until her death finally parted us on July 12, 2021.

Colleen died one year ago today. By an odd but wellcome coincidence, my grief support group meets the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month, so there's that. (It runs from 10:00 to 11:30; I will probably post this sometime in the afternoon. I started writing this post two days ago, so please ignore any temporal confusion or calendrical parallax.)

My life seems to have been torn in half -- in part literally, shuttling back and forth between the houses in Freeland and Seattle. But also metaphorically, because so much of it revolved around Colleen. That includes nearly all of my social life.

I haven't gotten anything done in the last year. I've been reading, as usual, taking refuge in group theory and other rabbit-holes, but I'm just now getting back into singing regularly, and as for sorting and packing,... Actually, I've never sold anything on Craig's List or anywhere else online, and things that I could easily get wrong worry me. My daughter, E, is coming up to the house week after next to help with the sorting.

I've had plenty of support, mostly low-key, which I think is what I needed. Need. I haven't been left alone for more than a day or so, which is probably what I've needed even though it's not what I would have asked for. And I have the cats, who are also taking care of me in their own way. And a grief support group that meets via zoom on the second and fourth Thursday of eacy month, so they/we met this morning. There's also a Facebook group.

I don't actually know much about support, either asking for it, getting it, or giving it. Which makes being in a peer support group kind of problematic? Basicaly I'm faking it.

It's like object-oriented programming -- if a simulation is good enough, you can use it in place of the thing you're simulating. Or as Alan Kay famously said about Smalltalk, "If it quacks like a duck and it waddles like a duck, you can't tell that it isn't a duck." I just have to hope I'm waddling well enough.

Aside: the next post will be a signal boost for the James Webb Space Telescope's first images, released earlier this morning. A day that starts with that much beauty and wonder can't be all bad. And after that a boost for this morning's GoingSideways post.

This morning Colleen turned to me and said something to the effect of "It's our anniversary. Forty-three years and we ain't killed each other yet." She added that "it's been close a couple of times", and I can't argue with that.

Here's to another forty-three, love.

As of noonish today (I forget the exact time), Colleen and I will have been married for 37 years. She's fond of adding "... and we haven't killed each other yet!"

Happy anniversary, Love.

First of all, a Happy Anniversary to the lovely flower_cat, my wife of thirty one years as of today at 1pm. She keeps saying "I ain't killed him yet," so I guess I made it through another year. It was touch and go last night, I suspect -- I was in the office hacking when I should have been in bed snuggling. Oops.

Secondly, happy Perihelion!

Thirdly, happy Tolkien's Birthday!

... to me and my flower_cat!!!!

Let's try for another 30!