2014. I can remember back in the mid 40s, after the war, reading my granddad’s copies of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, marveling at all the wonderful things that would be happening by the year 2000. It seemed so far off. When your 9 or 10 years old you don’t have a real good frame of reference in regards to time. It’s pretty hard to imagine 65 years down the road. But, here I am 65 years later with a lot more past under my belt than future to look forward to.

Tomorrow morning it will be 2014. How did it get here so fast. In a lot of ways it seems like it was just 1960. And in some respects there were some similarities.

November 24, 1960 – Thanksgiving Day – I lost my first wife, Sandra who was killed instantly in an auto accident when a car ran a stop sign and hit us head on as we were on our way to my mother’s for dinner. I started 1961 as a 22 year old widower, not knowing the future, stumbling my way forward to the unknown.

November 30, 2013 – 2 days after Thanksgiving Day – I lost my last wife, Shirlee, who was suffering from lung cancer and COPD. For several months I watched her struggle with the disease until finally, thankfully and lovingly God took her Home. I will be starting 2014 as a 75 year old widower, not knowing the future stumbling my way forward to the unknown.

But this time there is a difference, and to me a very important one. Shirlee and I had time to talk about my future without her physical presence, Sandra and I didn’t. Shirlee gave me words of wisdom that will help me through the future. She told me what she wanted to see me do and what she didn’t want me to do with my life when she was gone. And I feel her presence here, inside me each and every day as I try to put those words into action.

So this year I will continue to lead the choir, lector once a month, make photographs, write, read and enjoy life. I will not become a hermit, removing myself from friends and loved ones. I will continue to listen to her words of wisdom, though they may be fainter now. I’ll continue to discuss the ups and downs of the day with her, the success and the failures. And at the end of each day, I’ll smile and tell her “I love you, Shirlee Arlene.” And I’ll be okay.