August 1998

Did I ever tell you about Dane’s first email to me?  The one responding to my AOL Personals ad? 

In my ad, I’d stated that I wasn’t willing to date anyone who was already married, and I wasn’t willing to convert to another religion.  I’d already run into both of those scenarios dating as a divorced mom in the 90s, and I wanted to head that off at the pass in my ad.  As God is my witness, out of about 200 responses, 198 of them were nothing more than … dimensional information, if you catch my meaning, sometimes accompanied with dirty pictures, or married men looking for a hookup who had no shame in telling me that.  I was pretty sure no one even read my ad. 

There were 2 emails I didn’t delete.  One from a gentleman in WI who was considerably older than I was, and Dane.  The older gentleman I thanked for responding and wished him well as he was older than I was looking for as I was hoping to have more children.  I was still in my early 30s at the time. He was looking for a quiet retirement. 

Dane’s email – and I wish I still had it – even used the word, “Alas.”  How many people have you met in your life who have used that word?  Oh how I teased him for that one!  Did I mention I’m a poetical nerd girl?  If I’m honest, he probably had me right there.  Writer-man found one of my weak spots right out of the gate and didn’t even know it.  He could spell and knew how to use words, and boy howdy do I love me some words!  lol  

Further proof of the dream guy becoming real.

The other thing he said right off the bat was, “On behalf of all men everywhere, I apologize for those who have tried to convert you to a religion that wasn’t one you agreed with.” 

(Oh!  He’d actually read my ad!  Dane was nothing if not thorough.) 

He was really familiar with that one as, upon his conversion to Christ, he’d left the faith given to him at birth as he considered it heretical.  He was glad that I considered it heretical too, even though it wasn’t the one I grew up in.  I told him that it had been one of the ones a man I’d been in a relationship with had expected me to convert to even though he didn’t really practice it anymore himself, even though I disagreed with it, and that explaining to that man how I could never marry someone of his faith, had been a difficult conversation. 

[Well, that was an awkward sentence.  In a nutshell, “Would you expect a wife to convert?  Yes.  But you don’t practice?  No.  So why would you expect that from a wife?  Because.  And are you okay with monogamy?  Not really.”  Later, I had to explain to that man that I wasn’t able to meet him for a date as I was getting married.  “Sorry, no, I’m busy this weekend, and forever after.”  He’d only called me like once a month, so, there’s that.  I didn’t think he really had a right to be mad that I was no longer available, but, whatever.] 

We spent those first few days talking about faith, religions, Biblical things, topics like exegesis, eisegesis, and hermeneutics. He later told me he could hear me flipping my Bible pages through the phone and how that had made him happy.  I had my Bible at the ready!  I can’t even tell you how many hours we spent on the phone before he said, “I have to see you.”  Less than a week later, he got me a ring.

Later, it was so amusing to me that I could say, “we fell in love over the Bible.” 

Really though, what better way is there?

We both agreed that faith, however you define it, is integral to a relationship.  Be on the same page.  Ideally on a page that refers to Christ.  Faith is such a personal thing, but in a relationship, in a marriage, be on the same page! 

The more you have in common, the better off your marriage will be. 

Alas! 

And I’m still not converting for anyone.

December 26

In twenty-one years of marriage, he only let me make him a birthday cake once, for a milestone birthday, and even then it wasn’t a cake, but a pie, a homemade version of a French Silk pie. 

My husband hated his birthday.  The day after Christmas, he often felt as an “afterthought” as a boy.  As a man, things like the JonBenet Ramsey murder, and the tsunamis of 2004 that killed nearly a quarter-million people gave him a very negative view.  “It’s just a bad day all the way around and I don’t want to celebrate it,” he’d tell me.  Once, we were in the grocery store around his birthday time and from behind me, he caught me glancing at cake mixes out of the corner of my eye.  How he saw I have no idea but he exclaimed, “Don’t even think about it!”  The kids could make cards for him but no cakes, no presents, no celebrations, except for that one milestone year.  “This year, okay, because who knows how many more milestones I have left?” he mused.  Turns out, that was the last.

That year, he requested the pie I mentioned, and a “pizza cake.”  Pepperoni Pizza Cake   It turned out pretty good, too!

We were just to have an ordinary day.

Well, I never thought there was anything ordinary about my husband.  I always wished him a happy birthday, I always fussed over him, and I think in some ways that was enough for him, knowing that I wanted to do more. 

We sang a special song in his honor at church today.  It’s a song I found on one of my CDs, and I loved it because it just captured something special about the day after Christmas, just like he was something special the day after Christmas.  Our daughter carried the worship songs solo today as a way to celebrate her father’s life, and included a song she wrote.  She has taught herself to play guitar and she gets better every day.  Her dad would be so thrilled to see her singing and playing, sharing her own compositions.  What an amazing moment! 

He can’t stop us from making a big deal about it anymore.  This year we ordered pizza, and my son and I had some – the daughter is currently vegan so didn’t indulge but she did have some fries from the pizza place so that had to do.  🙂 

Happy 1st Birthday in Heaven, Babe.  Save a piece of cake for me!  ❤

November 7, 1998

It was a beautiful day for November.  Clear, low 40s, very mild for Northern Illinois. 

I fretted about my appearance.  I curled my hair, did my make-up, painted my nails, and put on my lilac skirt-suit. 

He wore a black suit and tie. 

We opted not to spend money on clothes to be worn only once so we chose our nicest things that we already owned.

We didn’t do flowers, or a cake.  Or a church, or a reception hall.

We’d had those things in our first marriages, and this time around, pretty much our only thought was our vows.  We wrote our own [big surprise for writer and poet types, lol] because to us, nothing else mattered but the promises we were making to one another.  The promises were what was binding us, not the clothes or food. 

Still, I wanted to be pretty so I made last minute touch ups to my nails. 

We had a very tiny ceremony at my mother’s apartment, with only my 2 young daughters, my mother, and the minister present.  There was no aisle to walk down, no bridesmaids,  no flower girls, or groomsmen, not even any other family or friends present.  Honestly, our respective exes kept most friends we’d had from our previous marriages, and the rest of our relatives were over 2,000 miles away in California. 

Dane was worried the minister would have trouble finding my mother’s apartment, so he suggested we go outside to wait, to flag him down when we saw him drive by.  We also desperately wanted to have a smoke. 

While we were outside, we heard the girls [who were 9 and 5 at the time] coming down the stairs.  “C’mon, c’mon, hurry!” he whispered and took off running.  I was in heels so I struggled to keep up; I thought he’d seen the pastor’s car.

Once around the corner of the building, he tucked into a niche and pulled me next to him.  “Shh!  Shh!”  The girls were not far behind us but they hadn’t seen us, until they ran around the corner and Dane jumped out with a yell, scaring the daylights out of them!  They had that momentary look of horror on their faces before realizing it was just us, and Dane about collapsed in laughter.  The man adored scaring people!  We were all cracking up when the pastor arrived.

Once we got back upstairs, my mother played a song that, unbeknownst to her, was pretty much the theme song to mine and Dane’s relationship.  I would never share such things with my mother, so it seemed pretty serendipitous that she chose that particular song, from my favorite Disney movie. 

We spoke our vows, and then sat down to a meal that my mother had prepared.

To say my mother really had no cooking skills is the polite way to say it.  I don’t even recall what she made.  We pushed food around our plates more than ate any of it.  We just wanted to get out of there!  Which we did after what seemed a reasonable amount of time.  We headed back to Dane’s apartment, and some time after that, realized we were starving. 

We were not going to cook on our wedding day so we opted to go out.

The first place we saw was a KFC so we shrugged and thought, well, it’s food, and we’re hungry, and why not?  Little did we realize we were starting a tradition!  Most anniversaries after that we got KFC to celebrate, laughing at our own joke.  “Hey, we’re easy and cheap!  What a bargain!” 

Sometime later that evening I realized, “Oh my gosh, we didn’t take pictures!”  We had been in such a hurry to get out of there, we forgot pictures!  *facepalm*  You’ll have to take my word for it – he was dreamy in a suit! 

Twenty-two years ago today, even on the same day of the week, we were married.  There was a lot of sorrow in those years, lots of bad things that happened to us, but there was also more joy than I thought possible.  I know our marriage was blessed.  I see the faces of my children and I know we were blessed.  We were best friends, and soul mates.  Dreams that became reality.  I counted the days, and we had 7,770 days as husband and wife.  Many might know what a trinity of 7’s means, how symbolic that is. 

Yes, we were blessed. 

Happy Anniversary, my Beloved. 

September 10, 1998

It was a beautiful September day, on the 10th, in 1998.  The day before, on the 9th, Dane proposed and we decided to go get some rings the next evening after he finished work.

He wore a suit that day, business formal, as his company had some C-level executives fly in from out of state, and he drove straight to my place without changing first.  It was the first time I’d ever seen him in a suit and ooh boy he cleaned up well!  He gave me a whole new level of googly-eyes.  🙂 

We spent some time at the mall, checking out rings and figuring out what we wanted.  Amazingly, we walked out with some. 

One of the things that sticks out most from that night though isn’t so much the rings, but what we did after buying them.  We walked around pretty much that whole mall – he in his suit – and every single store we entered, he put on a British accent!  I remember one clerk started asking him what part of Britain he was from, if he was from London, how long he’d been in the States, and Dane winged it the whole time.  I was trying so hard not to laugh, and then Dane was telling them how we just picked up our engagement rings so they asked how we met.  I don’t remember what he said but I know we didn’t tell anyone, “Oh, we met online a few days ago.” 

Initially we were going to try to get married that weekend, but he decided he really wanted a friend of his who was a minister to marry us, so we ended up waiting a couple of months until he had a free weekend. 

I tell you, those might have been the longest 9 weeks of my life, from our first date to our wedding!  We just wanted our life to begin and it was really hard to wait. 

A Memory from Lari

In the 2nd half of 2007, I was studying abroad in NZ. I’d just taken a year off of college for mono + a massive depressive episode, which entailed delaying my junior year abroad. I went from a Florida summer to the middle of winter at the southernmost university in the world. I knew no one. I broke up with my long-distance, long-term boyfriend my 2nd(ish) week there.

I spent a lot of time at the botanical gardens across the street from my flat. I got to know Dunedin very well. I made a couple good friends, and did well in my classes, and traveled around NZ, and got involved in extracurriculars. I also spent a lot of time online.

One person I came to know during that time was a guy a bit older than me who was extremely kind and supportive. He had me talk to his wife as well to assure me he wasn’t a creeper, and we wound up talking a lot. I told him my father had died years ago, and he often offered sound avuncular advice, making sure I had someone to lean on if I needed it, or more often to (lovingly) kick my butt into gear.

Dane and his wife became a fixture of my life. We stayed in touch off and on over the years. The frequency tapered off, mostly due to me getting my shit together and not needing as much of an informal therapist. But he was always there to give me a stern talking to when I needed it, or encouragement, or to be proud of me.

He was always there.

Until I logged into messenger last night, to find a months-old message from his wife letting me know he passed in his sleep of a heart attack in February.

I’m reeling. Dane, you are so very, very missed. I never met you in person, but you turned up as a genuine friend at a time and in a way I never expected. Thank you for your kindness, your advice, your support, and your love.

*****

He truly was proud of you, sweetheart.  He was always in your corner.  He never doubted you would be triumphant in whatever goal you set for yourself. Thank you for letting him share in your life.  I had to laugh – no, he wasn’t a “creeper,” but he knew full well how it might look, lol.  I’m so thankful you took a chance.  🙂  ❤

~Vanessa

February 25, 2020

It’s all felt so frantic some moments. Other moments it feels so … languid, like when you dream you are walking through molasses or something.

Today felt like both. A hurry up and wait kind of day. I have things I have to take care of. I don’t have the means to do it. I needed to get certain paperwork notarized. I needed an ID I didn’t have. So I had to go get one. Which meant my friend had to drive me there and back, bless her loving heart.

Then the wait. For a lousy ID. The wait, over two flipping hours.

There was a lady next to me. She’d been in front of me in another line, and I’d commentated on how I liked her knitting that she’d brought with her. She sat next to me when we ran into each other in the new area, as that seat was empty. I was chatting with my friend who’d brought me, trying to pass the time. I thought I’d tell her a story of when Dane and I were fairly newly married.

Did I ever tell you about the time he made me pretend to be deaf?

Deaf? What?

I knew some sign language, see, and when we went into this restaurant, he said, “Pretend you’re deaf! Do some sign language stuff!”

“Oh I could never …,” I protested.

“Hurry! Here comes the waitress!”

I held up my menu, mostly to hide my face so I could try to compose myself.

“Would you like anything to drink?” our waitress asked. He responded but I ignored her. I could sense her looking at me.

“Oh, she’s deaf, but I know she likes Pepsi,” he said.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in understanding. “No problem, I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

When she brought our drinks, she asked if we were ready. Dane actually knocked on the table to “get my attention”, and pointed to the menu. I nodded and pointed to the item I wanted for the waitress, did some signs, and smiled.  Each time she came back to check on us,  she basically ignored me, except for a smile or two, chatting with my husband.

We spent the entire meal like that, me faking deafness. We weren’t three seconds out the door before we were busting up laughing! “We can’t ever come back here again unless we can think of some kind of miracle cure that’s restored your hearing!”

Well, my friend was laughing by that time, because she knew my husband in real life and could totally see him doing something like that. The lady next to me started cracking up too. “Oh, please forgive me for hearing, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop but that was the funniest thing I’ve heard in ages!”

It made me feel good, to know my husband is still making people laugh. He had a unique perspective on things and way to express it, and I wish more people could have experienced it.  He wasn’t a “stand-up” type of funny guy, but he could be a prankster.  

~Vanessa

A Memory from Holly

I’ve read every entry, appreciate everyone’s remembrances.

I never met Dane, yet somehow he looks exactly as I knew he would. He was a familiar friend to me. His words told me who he was over many years. I mourn him and miss him more than people I have known up close. I feel more loss at his passing than I do at the death of most relatives.

He made me laugh. That’s not all, though. Always thoughtful, always considerate, always faithfully a friend. The concept that he thought people who wouldn’t like him once they really knew him…well, I get that. I feel that way about myself. Of course it’s not true of him. I loved my friend and I’m very certain that I would have loved him every bit as much in person, and more so with more knowledge.

He was always in love with you, Vanessa. ❤️ Yes, you were always, always loved. He never left any doubt about that. It’s difficult to consider that the Dane part of the Vanessa/Dane team is not physically present, yet I fully believe that love, once created and never rescinded or annulled, remains. The love Dane held for you and the kids…remains.

*****

Yes, sweet Holly, I believe that too, that the love remains. I know he is so full of it right now, more than he ever thought could be possible. ❤

He had a trust in you, you know. I don’t know if he ever adequately expressed that to you. He trusted your counsel immensely. More than once, when something was troubling him, he’d ask, “D’ya think I should get some feedback from Holly?” I always said, “Yes! Of course ask Holly!” A few days might go by and I’d ask if he’d heard back from you and too many times he say he decided not to bother you. He didn’t want to “pile on.” He loved that you are such an awesome mother and care-taker of people, he was only 10% joking when he’d crack about you adopting him, lol. (me too, by the way!)

Thank you for being his friend, Holly. I believe that he finally knows how true a friend you really are. ❤ Love you. xoxox

~Vanessa

February 24, 2020

I can’t wrap my head around the fact that tomorrow it will be 10 days since my husband left this earth.  I go through the motions.  I eat a little, I doze off for a bit then startle awake.  I go through the motions.  I hang out with my kids.  It seems like it should be normal, but it’s not.  There is a gaping hole, and it’s quiet. 

My husband loved the quiet, although he himself was frequently not.  He could get loud when he spoke, if he was excited about the subject or if we were bickering talking about something.  He had a terrible tendency to interrupt but in his later years I attributed that to the Asperger’s.  He’d get a thought and speak it before it had a chance to fly away, even if someone else was talking.  I’m pretty sure he only did that with me and the kids, though. 

He had sinus issues, and asthma, so I could always hear him breathing.  I even liked it when he snored.  See, in my family lore, there is the story of my aunt’s husband passing away in his sleep, on Halloween, which also happened to be the day my mother found out from her doctor that she was expecting me.  The stories of my aunt waking up to a corpse so horrified me as a little girl, that I always knew I would never be like those wives who complained of their husband’s snoring when I grew up. 

My husband even sneezed loud.  Practically blew the ceiling off the walls, I always said.  I was never sure if he did that on purpose, until after the kids were born and he sneezed quietly if they were asleep.  My proof came when he sneezed once and I jumped a foot and when I looked over at him, he was quietly shaking from laughter.  “What?” he’d say, feigning innocence, “I was only sneezing.”

He loved to collapse the empty water bottles in a quick, sudden, loud motion so that I’d jump.

He loved to come up behind me quietly when I was doing the dishes or laundry and couldn’t hear him, and go, “HI!” at the top of his voice.  He knew I’d jump.  “What?  I was just saying ‘hello’!”  That man lived for the “scare-cam”, to the point he’d watch tons of videos and just sit there laughing his butt off.  I was not fodder enough by myself to satisfy that wicked glee he’d get. 

He hated thinking of himself as a loud person, though.  He’d known loud people in his life, his childhood, and the thought of being like that himself was abhorrent to him.  He told me he loved that I was so quiet.  It was a dramatic moment for us, the first time we saw the scene from Mass Effect 3, when Commander Shepard runs into David at Grissom Academy.  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAhmUFfNkWw]  We were both crying at seeing David again, healthy, after witnessing the abuse and torture he’d endured at the hands of his mad-scientist brother in Mass Effect 2.  “That’s what you are to me,” he whispered, “You are like Shepard to my David, you made it quiet, you lengthened my days.”  What can you say to something like that?  I couldn’t speak,  I could only hug him.  I knew I wasn’t worthy.  He was the one who’d survived his life, and I managed to tell him that. 

Other times, he’d come up behind me, shuffling, pretending to be a kid.  He’d stand there, somewhat patiently, until I moved my hair aside, and then he’d rest his head on the back of my neck, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.  “I need my safe space,” he’d whisper. 

I am comforted now by our faith, and the conviction that he is now with Someone Who is an even safer space for him than I could ever be.  Nothing and no one can ever hurt him again.  That makes me glad, for all I hurt at missing him.

~Vanessa

February 20, 2020

I signed into my Xbox account today, through the computer, not through the box. It’s been a while since I signed in and I had no recollection of what might be there. Honestly, I hardly ever sign into the Xbox under my own account. My husband played some games, the kids played games on their accounts, and if we watched YouTube or Netflix or something together as a family, we signed in to my husband’s account to do that. My account sees little action, truth be told.

But there are times, every so often, when I like to sign in and leave little messages for them to find when they sign on.

Imagine my surprise last autumn, when I found one from my husband, when I went to leave one for him. He knew I wouldn’t see it for weeks, if not months, but he left it anyway, a little pot of gold if you will.

I was a lucky wife. In 21 years, I never once doubted his love for me.