A new kind of anniversary

I remember when Gretchen and I started dating - October 20, 1995. We walked along the streets of Scranton, PA on that night and we sat down on a bench in the city square. It was a Sunday Evening and everything was peaceful. I asked if she was interested in just dating each other and no one else. We had been on several dates and I had no desire to see anyone else. She told me that night that she felt the same way and so we began a relationship that continues to this day. The next month, November 20, 1995 was the week of Thanksgiving. She came to my house in Columbus for the first time and on our "one month anniversary" I gave her this little stuffed animal (it was an elephant) and told her "Happy One Month Anniversary". I think the "month anniversary" celebrations lasted until about month six. We got married on September 20, 1997 and the "month anniversary" celebrations began again. Then came kids and the "month anniversaries" started all over again. People would ask us how old each girl was and until about 18 months we would say, "six months" or "9 months" or "13 months".

Now I am in a "month-remembrance" nightmare. It has been 2 months since Penny's death today. The last two weeks have really been hard for me. I'm not exactly sure why these weeks have been so much worse than the other ones. I think the reality of what happened is really settling in. Since I live in MN and the rest of my family are in Ohio I don't get to speak out loud about Penny very often. Her memories are locked inside my brain and I can't share them with those around me. Outside of Gretchen, no one here knew Penny even remotely. So I think my grief is really starting to catch me. I miss her so bad. I have no idea what to do our how to really process everything at this point. Many times it just seems like a really bad dream that I am going to wake up from and I can call Penny's cell phone number and she will answer.

So in honor of Penny's memory I want to share a story about her in this post. It may just be for me but I need to write. My freshmen year of college Penny and I were a part of the same church in PA. The church we attended had this little tradition around Thanksgiving time. The Sunday evening before Thanksgiving they had a "Thanksgiving Service". The service always consisted of singing and testimonies of thanksgiving from people in the church. Typically the church was careful to ask people from all different parts of life - single, married, old, young, male, female...you get my drift. Well this particular year I was sitting next to Penny in the service and we listened to all of the testimonies. One testimony was given from a young single guy. He was probably in his late teens or early 20's. I don't know what he was asked to share on but I think he went off script. Actually I know he went off script because there is no way he would have been cleared to speak if they knew what he was going to say. He began by saying he has been reading the Song of Songs in the Old Testament. Immediately people became curious, some puzzled, and some nervous about what would follow. (For those of you that aren't familiar with Song of Songs it is a pretty explicit love story found in the Old Testament of the Bible). So this guy began to say he was thankful for the wife he soon would have. He said he couldn't wait, like the guy in the narrative, to rest his head on the breasts of his wife in times of stress. He then continued on to speak like this for about 3-4 very uncomfortable minutes. Now typically my response in a situation like this would have been what Penny did (since I have the self-control of a jr. high boy when funny things like that are being said in public). Penny began to chuckle to herself as he talked. This slight chuckle went to a full body convulsion right there in the pew. It was like if someone accidentally touched her she would have erupted in extremely loud laughter. Worried she was being a distraction, she literally fell to her knees in the middle of the row, convulsing - hand over her mouth - tears watering - straining to keep it all inside. I never saw Penny trying so hard not to lose control of her emotions. Of course being the caring brother I was, I did everything I could to make her lose control. I was whispering things like "boobies" in her ear and sneakily acting out some of the verbal descriptions our testimony giver was sharing. But all the while Penny held on until the next song was sung when through music, she could rid herself of the silliness and become composed again.

Penny was always joyous. She very rarely allowed things in life to overwhelm her. She could always laugh and her smile would cause you to remember that most of life's problems aren't worth fretting over.

I love you Penny and miss you greatly today.