In Memory of Chuck: Jan,1963- April, 2015

This week is six years since Chuck’s passing. It’s odd to me that April has hit me like a tsunami. During major holidays and special days, it is common to have sentimental moments. But after six years I wasn’t expecting the grief that arrived on Easter Sunday. Easter is a family day.

I’ve read numerous articles about the kind of grief caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This is not only about loss of life but also about loss of living as we know it; isolation, fear, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion. Whatever coping mechanisms that sustained us in the past have been altered and we are left to find new ways to cope with our grief.

It didn’t help that I moved to a new community barely a year after his passing. I needed out of that house. But it adds to the sense of grief that no one in this new community knew Chuck. There’s no one to remember him in conversation or to say his name. To the people I know here, he doesn’t exist because they never knew him.

Grief is unpredictable. A special song, a birthday, anniversary, or favorite memory can pop up at unexpected times. We turn to our usual coping mechanisms and get through the moment. I have a few select memories that I like to draw upon that make me smile. I remember Chuck working in his wood shop or tinkering with that old farm truck or jumping on the trampoline with the kids.

April memories are different. In April, I remember funeral arrangements and fourteen months of hospice care. In April, I remember weeks and months of hospital stays and doctor appointments. Fourteen years and five brain surgeries, seizures, innumerable therapy appointments, treatments, infections, and increasing physical and mental disability. I remember that there were so many trips to the ER and Life Flights to St. Louis that I kept an emergency “go” bag packed and in the car. To this day, I still can’t go as far as the back yard without my phone and the thought “what if I need to call 911?” In April, I remember other patients we met along the way that never made it home from the hospital.

Planning a trip is a great coping mechanism. In the past few years, I’ve driven to the Pacific Northwest, toured Israel, and spent a week as a lighthouse keeper. In April the first year after Chuck passed, I got on a plane and went to Australia. It was a fantastic ten-day adventure. I hugged a koala, rode a pontoon boat within touching distance of crocodiles, snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef, pet wallaby and kangaroo, traveled on a train through the red center that passed from the Northern Territory to Southern Australia. I flew roughly 17,000 miles that April to avoid having the kind of April that I am having this year. There’s been nowhere to go.

If a global pandemic has taught me anything useful, it’s that I have to adapt my emotional coping mechanisms to new realities. I’ve also come to understand that the American culture as a whole doesn’t handle or express grief well. I need to be proactive in giving grief appropriate expression.

So I’ve decided to introduce Chuck and tell some favorite stories. My hope is that talking about the good times and the many things that I am thankful for will re-frame what is usually difficult about the month of April.

If you’d like to meet (or remember) Chuck, please keep scrolling.

Chuck and I met while he was stationed on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where I grew up. We were married by a Justice of the Peace at our apartment in Millington, Tennessee in 1986. Our first of three children arrived the next year. By 1990, we had three kids; Joshua, Jon, and Jessi. We were married 28 years.

Chuck joined the Navy Seabees after high school and served 20 years. A heavy equipment operator by trade, he traveled the world and often deployed for six to ten months at a time. At the end of his formal retirement ceremony, a fellow shipmate read the "Old Glory" poem. Then the CO faced Chuck and said, "You stand relieved. We have the watch." Chuck gave his final salute and said, "I stand relieved. You have the watch." I sat in my seat and cried. I didn't realize until that moment how proud I was of his military career and how much I would miss the Navy community.

For every deployment, there was a homecoming. Before 9/11, families could stand on the tarmac as the plane landed and welcome de-boarding sailors. This was Chuck's return from Desert Storm. Jessi was six weeks old when he left, ten months when he returned. And a photo after a Guam deployment.

I became a Christian and was baptized while Chuck was deployed. (I think he was in Spain or Guam?) He called me long distance (before cell phones and Skype) and said, "I hear through the grape vine that you've become a Jesus freak". Well, yeah, sort of. He became a Christian and was baptized two years later.

Before computers in every home and email sent by cell phone, I had to wait for snail mail. When he deployed to Somalia, there was very little infrastructure, therefore no phone calls. I was confused when I went to the mailbox one day and found a piece of cardboard from an MRE (the military Meals Ready to Eat at the time) in my mail. I flipped it over and Chuck had used it to make a postcard.

We bought a house when Chuck was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, MO. He retired there. Some years ago, he planted a maple sapling in the front yard. It grew taller than the house. The "Chuck" tree was felled by a storm but a neighbor gave me a sapling from the tree and that sapling is now growing in the backyard of my new house. Next Spring, a sapling from this tree will be growing on my son's new property.

Chuck loved Rock music, woodworking, fishing, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Thank you for remembering Chuck with me. And if you have met him for the first time, know that he never met a stranger. He had a laid back presence that put everyone at ease and made everyone feel like a friend. He is well remembered and truly missed.