Dear David,

Remember when I took this photograph? It was spontaneous, our first portrait together, October 4, 2004. You were so amazed by this picture:

“I can’t believe that’s me, Gail! You took 10 years off me!”

You were wearing your favourite shirt: a black linen Cuban number, which — come to think of it — was so out of place in your aviation-themed wardrobe.

You said until you’d met me, you’d thought of yourself as an old man. I remember when you said it; it saddened me that you perceived yourself this way. Because I just thought you needed some adventure in your life, and a co-pilot who’d put her hand on your knee now and again. You agreed wholeheartedly, as I recall.

When you took me on our first outing — the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour — and I pinched your bum in the darkness, you knew it was a done deal, right? I think you even yelped, and wore a huge perma-grin on your face despite the fact we were in the murky depths of a coal mine and the tour guide was narrating a grim story about child labour. Nobody understood why you were smiling.

I think that weekend caught both of us off-guard. In a good way.

You were so reluctant to take me back to JFK, I didn’t think you’d let me get on the plane. But I promised I’d come back, didn’t I? I kept coming back, and followed USCIS’s rules to the letter, taking care of business in Vancouver so we could finally be together all the time without the threat of deportation hanging over me. Every time you took me to the airport, I could tell you were worried that I wouldn’t come back, that I was totally fed up with Scranton, tired of our dark house with the ugly wood panelling, sick of cleaning up after an incontinent cat. I complained about the lack of restaurants, and not being able to work, and the dearth of public transit. Whine, whine, whine. You took it all to heart.

When you were sick, you asked, “Are you sorry you married me?”

It broke my heart.

Someone like you never, ever deserved this. No one does, but especially not you. With the way some people have talked to me, it’s as if you wrote your own death sentence. I don’t believe that, not for a moment. You deserved to have a full life, just like everyone else. I have never regretted marrying you.

After all that complaining about Scranton, you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve driven there from Toronto. I can see your eyebrows shooting up at the thought of me driving 10,000 miles in a matter of months. I blame Helma. It’s because she keeps feeding me, see:

She took your Thanksgiving recipe for maple brine turkey and she replicated it! Can you believe it? What a surprise! (Except it wasn’t quite, she couldn’t keep an 11-lb marinating bird a secret in the refrigerator.) On Monday, we tucked into this super-turkey and ate until we could eat no more. And then kept eating. It was tryptophan heaven with a German touch (Helma-style red cabbage, Helma-style cauliflower), and it was dedicated to you, wine and all. You and Hugh would’ve loved it.

I miss you guys. Lots of us do.

The clearest of skies, my love.

Your Wife

Technorati tags: letter writing, grief, spouse

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David’s comment underneath this photo he took of a B-25 Mitchell at an airshow:

My first (non-airline) airplane ride was in this plane, in 1981. I was 14, and got hooked for life.

Dear David,

I can’t believe 11 months have passed since I sat with you for the last time in Mercy Hospice. Sometimes it feels raw and vivid like it happened last week, and sometimes it feels surreal, that the way our married life ended so soon after it began could only be a terrible dream.

I can’t cast my mind back far enough to a time when my life wasn’t full of contradictions: wanting to remember and wanting to forget, wishing to return to Vancouver and wishing to return to Scranton, wanting to be alone and wanting to be with people, wanting to feel like “myself” but not knowing who that is anymore, turning back the clock for another chance at meeting you and living the good part all over again but only if I can change how the story ends. I thought with time I could put the lows behind me, but I’ve somehow managed to plumb new depths of sadness. I know few people who I can share this with, so I keep most of it to myself. Contrary to popular belief, misery does not love company.

Sometime since I wrote you last I decided that getting my pilot’s license from an instructor other than you was an idea I could eventually live with, but this is going to take a lot of time and money. In the meantime I bought a membership to an aviation museum, one that I know you wanted to visit when we were in Toronto together last year if we’d had more time. I found a brochure for it in the house when I was packing in January, and what sold me on the membership was that it included annual flights in some of their warbirds. It took me all of two seconds to decide which one I wanted to fly in: the 1939 Douglas DC-3 Dakota.

I found out from a volunteer sitting beside me in the DC-3 that they also fly the North American B-25J Mitchell, like the one you flew in when you were 14. Maybe if I hang out at the museum enough, they’ll ignore the quota and let me fly in that, too!

You’d really love this museum, Honeybun. Their restoration work takes place not behind a door, but out in the open space of the hangar. It’s one of the first things I noticed. It’s not rustic like Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, but it’s very well looked-after and everyone who volunteers there is an aviation enthusiast, just like you. Their restoration of the Bristol Bolingbroke is a project that’s spanned more than 20 years, an undertaking that can only be referred to as a true labour of love. Their Lysander restoration has taken nearly 23 years already. Talk about patience and perseverance! I could take a page from their restoration book.

I suppose you could say I’ve curated this website into a public museum of sorts, with its artefacts — photographs, videoclips, scans — and people stop by like they would a brick-and-mortar museum. People who had never met you, or Hugh, or seen the Piper Tri-Pacer or witnessed our life together have a little glimpse of it on their screens. I show them a bit of my history — big glasses and buck teeth and all — and a bit of yours, too (the perm!). It’s the Edwin-Fielding History Channel.

That’s what you get for marrying a museum hound. If we can’t visit them together like we used to, I’ll find a way to build one of my own, here. I’ll try not to embarrass you in the process, but I draw the line at Photoshopping away your fashion in the 80s. Or mine!

Missing you more than ever,
Your Wife

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Dear David,

I made it past Month 10 without completely falling apart, which is a real miracle considering the bumpy ride it’s been. I’ll be lucky if I have any friends at all by next year, what with being uncommunicative and a miserable recluse. Not all the time, but living in Toronto seems to have that effect on me.

I went to Pennsylvania and New York as much as I could the past month, and stayed at Helma’s. Not just for her cooking — stick-to-your-ribs German homestyle! — but for her company. She took me fishing at Lackawanna State Park, and I took her to Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome. Those were the happiest days since I wrote you last; I was at peace.

I also came to the full realisation in the past month that the restlessness I’d been feeling was from not flying for so many months. I scattered your ashes in the sky over Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome because it was your Happy Place, where you felt free and unfettered from the troubles on the ground. It has become my Happy Place, too. What cemented our relationship from the beginning was more than sharing the visceral excitement of flying; we spent months getting to know each other’s history before our first flight together in the Tri-Pacer, so by then there was a tacit understanding of the symbolic nature of flight.

Aside from scattering your ashes on May 30 in a Piper Cub and the Aerodrome biplane rides on the 7th, I hadn’t been in anything smaller than a regional jet since our last flight together on November 19. It wasn’t until I was at Cherry Ridge Airport again that I knew I had to go back up in the sky, and luckily I was able to find someone who went out of his way to help me.

Mike didn’t like his first landing, so we took off again! Fine by me!

I didn’t have to explain to Mike why I needed to go up so badly, he said it himself: “You and Dave were a rare couple.” He knew how much I loved to fly, and he took the time to explain in pre-flight how his plane differed from the Tri-Pacer. I don’t know if Mike will ever know how much happiness he gave me by that simple gesture.

But I know you would, and that’s all that matters.

I’ll meet you in the sky again soon.

Love,
Gail

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Dear David,

I looked for you today. It’s been nine months since I said goodbye, nearly one year since we were married and that means nearly two years since we met. How can I forget? The leaves are beginning to turn and autumn is in the air. It’s our favourite season.

After a heavy meeting at the lawyer’s, I went down miles and miles of back roads. Eventually I drove by your school and tried to imagine you driving down these same roads with your friends, young and mischievous and optimistic about your future.

I followed the Susquehanna River for a while, leaving the windows open and listening to a mix of music and the swish of leaves rustling as I drove by. I passed quaint names like Buttermilk Creek and passed up a thousand photo opportunities in favour of driving — just driving. I was tempted to stop at each fire engine red barn, every rusty tractor, vistas of multi-shaded valleys. But I didn’t — I just kept driving. I had to get past the legalese of the morning and the ire over unfair circumstances and think of your life as a journey filled with purpose and roadside attractions and adventure.

I ended up at Lake Winola and bought a sandwich to eat along the shore and sit in silence. Two fellows with a speedboat were curious when I pulled out the cameras to take photos and offered me a trip out on the lake. I was on Lake Winola all afternoon, enjoying the sunshine and waving at the other boaters and lakeside homeowners. It was a pleasant way to see this area for the first time, a place where you’d spent so much of your teenage years. I didn’t know you then, but if I did, I’d like to think we’d try and hitch a ride on a boat together… and if we were unsuccessful, we’d sit along the shore together and dangle our feet in the water and gossip about our teachers.

I’ll see you in Rhinebeck, honey. I’m bringing Hugh.

Tearfully,
Your Wife

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Dear David,

In Month Eight I went to the place where I scattered your ashes. I arrived late in the afternoon on a weekday so I could be alone. I needed to sit and listen: to the hum of the insects, to the faint rustling of trees, the echo of nearly 50 years of antique airplanes rumbling along the grassy knoll. Somewhere amidst the echoes was the sound of your voice, probably telling a story to a Civil Air Patrol cadet or passing along a nugget of aviation history. As I sat on the old wooden planks propped by concrete blocks that serve as benches for the airshows, I imagined the Aerodrome coming to life in sepia with scratchy tunes from an old Victrola. It is only through my imagination that I can see you here, but I know it’s where I can find you.

After Hugh died, I wanted to give up and leave Toronto. Losing Mister Hugh so soon after losing you was like a swift kick in the solar plexus when I was already down on the mat. Until now, I haven’t picked up his ashes from the vet clinic because I’m not ready yet. I was the one who found him, and that image is burned deep into my consciousness. I tried my best to take care of him, but his body gave out. This feeling of helplessness is crippling and all too familiar; I’d already gone through it with you. I did everything I could, but it wasn’t enough.

I had to remind myself why I chose to live here, I drove south. I saw Helma, I saw the plane, I even saw the space shuttle. I tried to feel better, because I couldn’t feel any worse. I searched for a salve for my pain, and I knew where I could find it and that’s where I went.

I will return to you, and Rhinebeck, next month with Hugh. I want to make sure you’re together, as you always were, and be with you both for a while.

Love always,
The Remaining Member of the House of Fielding

The House of Fielding in Scranton, April 2005.

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Dear David,

Look what we got by email — a poem I know you would like. From a man our age, who recently lost his wife to ovarian cancer. I’d like to meet him someday, I’m sure we have lots to talk about.

I miss you, Honeybun. I think about you all the time. I talk to you in my head, but it’s never enough. It follows me everywhere, this grief, impossible to escape because it’s inside of me. I can’t shut it off any more than I can shut off my brain.

I hope you and Hugh are having lots of fun together, wherever you are. I’m doing my best, but it’s lonely without the two of you.

Love,
Gail

A Pity. We Were Such a Good Invention

They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I’m concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.

They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I’m concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.

–Yehuda Amichai

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Dear David,

Here you are with your old Saab, circa maybe late 1992 if the PennDOT registration sticker was valid. Your fashion sense didn’t seem to evolve much since then, my dear… but you would be pleased to know I have kept ALL of your concert t-shirts, your flying t-shirts — in fact, every single tee and sweatshirt and golf shirt that bore any sort of logo or insignia. Why? Well, I’m apparently expecting to be overcome with spontaneous textile wizardry because I told Helma I was going to turn them into a quilt or something. Laugh all you want, but you know I’ll make it happen somehow.

You liked sewing more than I did, and you even had a little sewing machine that to this day sits and gathers dust in my closet. You liked to work with your hands: model airplanes, model trains, carpentry, anything that required manual dexterity. I remember we worked on a train together in the last week and your hands were shaking so badly. I had to turn away while you kept dropping the tiny screws because it tore me to pieces to see you like that. You had infinite patience for detail work, but your body was refusing to cooperate with you.

01:15 came and went, marking seven months since you passed away. Some days are very trying. My way of getting through the painful Canada Day long weekend was to walk Gigi until she could walk no more and pretend it was just like any other weekend. I ignored the fireworks, ignored the crowds, and took lots of photos. We had many happy moments last year in Toronto, and that’s what I want to remember.

“I just need to ride it out,” I told the grief counsellor.

Meanwhile, behold some crazy times with Mister Hugh at the vet as we try and determine what is plaguing his ageing 15-year old body. I’m dreading a lymphoma diagnosis in addition to his hyperthyroid, but I promise with all my heart I won’t let him suffer, whatever the case may be. I will make sure Hugh gets the best care I can give him.

Even though you’re gone, I’m learning more about you from your friends. I’m piecing together your history, filling in some gaps from a time when there was no email, no internet, no online forums, and no means for us to ever cross paths conventionally. It boggles my mind sometimes, as it did yours, that we even met at all. But we did, and it was The Weekend of Weekends.

Everyone should have a weekend like that.

We miss you,

The House of Fielding, Toronto

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Dear David,

Six months to the day after I lost you, I turned 34. At first I didn’t know how to see out 33; it was the hardest year of my life and it aged me tremendously. But then I knew I wanted to be in a place where I could “talk” to you, to look at the sky and stars and listen to you tell me stories the way you used to. I wanted to feel the way we did last year, when I took you boating for your birthday and we cut the engine in Indian Arm to marvel at the seals and eagles. One of your dreams was to be a bush pilot in Alaska, but Vancouver would’ve been a decent substitute.

I needed some nature therapy, the way we needed it last August and found it at Tobyhanna State Park.

I heard your voice on Friday, telling me to bring the first aid kit with your name on it.

“Safety first, Gail!”

I brought all your flashlights, too. Except for the headlight you wore in the Tri-Pacer; it was in the plane so we could go night flying.

I was in good company; little did I know that Kathryn is a professional camper. Lucky me — I chose to ask the ONE person who a) liked camping, and b) had the equipment!

You were with me in spirit, my dear. In the whispering of the trees, the waves lapping against the sandy banks of Georgian Bay, the ambience of the forest, you told me to delight in the small things and to be thankful for health and life.

We miss you,
Your (Young) Wife and Your (Old) Cat

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Dear David,

You’ve been gone for five months and I wasn’t expecting this last month to be so brutal. I didn’t know what to expect, exactly, but it felt harder than Month Four. How does a newly-married and newly-widowed person carry on as per normal? And when? I don’t know, I’m still searching for answers to those questions.

I’m in the new(est) place now, and I put your pictures up so I can see you when you were healthy and full of vitality. I love this photo of you with Bill King at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome last September. It was a few weeks after the diagnosis but some of your hair was hanging in there, and you could still walk without a cane. Your spirits were high.

I’ll be at the Aerodrome in less than two weeks to scatter your ashes. Can you put in a good word for us to the weather gods about some sunshine on May 30?

Love,
Gail

P.S. Believe it or not, Mister Hugh is semi-cohabiting with a DOG! You met her last July. She likes Hugh, but he doesn’t return her feelings. Don’t worry, I think he’ll come around eventually — he’s on the verge of tolerating her now. Oh, and he’s more spoiled than ever.

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(Click on picture to read comments in Flickr.)

Dear David:

Life without you just isn’t the same. In fact, it’s infinitely harder, and this past month was no exception. Grief doesn’t follow a linear scale, I’ve discovered. It doesn’t recede on a discernible level day by day — sometimes it’s latent and flares up at random, but usually it takes the form of a dull ache that I’ve come to live with. Grief followed me to Europe, and I touched our wedding rings whenever I felt alone. I usually go to Europe alone, but I never felt it more than I did this time, because it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Next month I scatter your ashes over upstate New York which I think will bring me some closure. I’ve been thinking about that day for months and how it will feel to fly in an old airplane again, just the way you like it, wearing the British aviator goggles, leather helmet and silk scarf flying back in the airstream. I remember the day we met you took out your flying accoutrements and modelled them, a little sheepishly, so I could take my first photo of you. You were so proud to show them to me, but then quite camera-shy. (You soon got used to me pointing a camera at you.) On May 30 you will have been 39, but the little boy in you was still very much alive. It was part of your charm.

Hugh is more than ever my constant shadow, as he was yours. I’ve been spending a lot of time with him lately, to make up for long absences the past couple of months. To my dismay he’s showing more signs of old age, but it’s my duty as his sole guardian to spoil him and make him feel just as loved in his geriatric years as he did when he was with you. Hugh lays wherever I am, with a paw over my toe or his chin resting against my ankle. I hope Hugh has a good number of years left in him — his affectionate nature is my greatest comfort in these difficult times.

We miss you.

Love,
Gail

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