I Leave Tomorrow
A note to Tender Warriors before the celebration of Lee's life
Dearest Tender Warriors,
I leave tomorrow for the town where Lee and I met, where we fell in love, where we created our life together. The service for him will be small — graveside, where he will rest with his parents — which feels right. On Friday, there will be a Celebration of Life.
They are coming from every stage of his life — childhood, college, work, the years after. Friends and loved ones from near and far, traveling, taking time from work, committing an afternoon. All of them showing up. We will bear witness to the life Lee had, and celebrate what he meant to us.
I want to devote the time, energy, and emotion required to properly and lovingly welcome our friends and family — to catch up on the important milestones of lives lived, and to spend a few last moments with my husband. For that reason, The Tender Warrior is taking a short five-day break.
With love,
Vicki
In the meantime, here is a condensed version of the May 20 essay:
An Imperfect Man. An Imperfect Woman. Together — Perfect.
On letting go, letting people in, and the celebration Lee deserves.
We never had a solid plan for after.
We had agreed, at some point in a long marriage, that we wanted to be cremated. There were vague discussions of strewing our ashes somewhere pretty. And while we were both raised in the church, formal religion hadn’t held a place for us in our life together.
But we were spiritual. We had — finally, after all the years of searching without quite knowing what we were searching for — experienced unconditional love. Acceptance. Forgiveness. With each other, and because of each other. There was no straightforward rational explanation for it. We just were.
What is more spiritual than that?
After the years of caregiving, after witnessing Lee’s long fall to Alzheimer’s, I wasn’t prepared to think about a service. Total emotional exhaustion, coupled with the fierce finality of the end — and it is fierce, in a way that takes time to move through — drove me to push the topic near the bottom of a very long list.
And then several friends asked.
When would the service be held? Would there be a reception? A Celebration of Life?
Lee — the person we all knew and loved — had been gone for some time. But here they were, wanting a chance to say goodbye. And that got me thinking.
Brené Brown writes about belonging — and about the courage that comes from believing in an inextricable human connection. That unbreakable bond is what makes us show up for each other. In joy and in grief. In celebration and in loss.
Personal tragedies — death, serious illness, loss of any kind — should not be experienced alone. As comfortable as the wilderness can feel, as much as grief can make solitude seem like the only option, it is crucial to reach out. To accept support when it comes.
And equally — when someone we love has died, the community they belonged to deserves a chance to celebrate the life that was lived. To say goodbye. To gather in the space where that person existed and acknowledge, together, what has been lost.
So I am curating a service and a Celebration of Life for Lee.
He will be laid to rest with his parents in his hometown, at the Odd Fellows Cemetery, witnessed by family and a few close friends. It will be quiet. It will be right.
The Celebration of Life will be held where it all began — in the town we loved and lived in, the place where we met and got married and marked the milestones of anniversaries, birthdays, and long friendships. The place that holds the shape of our life together.
Something unexpected has happened in the planning of it. Life gets smaller as we get older — that’s simply true. But in death, Lee’s world has opened up again. People have emerged from different chapters of his life, all wanting — all deserving — to participate in this celebration. To share memories. To reconnect with old friends they haven’t seen in years. To stand together in a room and say: we knew him, and we are grateful.
It turns out grief, when you let it be communal, has a way of doing that. Of expanding rather than contracting. Of pulling people back toward each other rather than pushing them apart.
We’re celebrating Lee’s life this Friday. We’re going to tell the stories and raise a glass and remember who he was before the disease, and during it, and all the years before any of us knew what was coming.
He was an imperfect man. I am an imperfect woman. And together — we were perfect.
We’re going to celebrate our inextricable human connections.
We’re going to have a great party.
Vicki.
Well spoken my dear friend. I say spoken rather than written because in every word I hear your voice saying softly, I give you words from my soul in my writing. For those reading my posts, I hope I give you help. For me Vicki, you've given me a whole new way of seeing you. You are truly a blessed genius. See you in Rehoboth.
I’m loving your writing
My thoughts are with you Vicki