Jill Pertler

The last two years have been full of changes for me – both huge and incremental. Many of my readers have accompanied me on my journey, and for that I’m forever grateful. It’s been fraught with grief, and sadness and even, at times, despair.

And then again, hope and growth.

But sometimes – sometimes – you just have to find humor in the darkness. Dark humor I guess it is. So if you’ll bear with me, here, I’ll indulge in just a bit of that.

My husband was 56 when he died. He seemed young, but I wondered how young that really is, so I looked up the statistics online. For all males born alive, nearly 90 percent of them live past age 56. That puts my husband in the top 10 percent.

He was always an overachiever.

I guess you could say he left me in the lurch. Or at least alone. With memories of what I used to have, and what I have now. For instance:

I used to have a husband.

Now I have an urn.

He used to sit on the couch. He even had his own spot right in front of the TV. His long legs sprawled across the length of it, taking up lots of space.

Now he sits on a small table in my bedroom right near the window, where the sunshine and music of birds singing comes in during the early morning hours. Despite this beauty, he is very contained. No more dangling legs.

He was forever charging his phone – or trying to, because he could never find his charging cord. The kids would steal it and it almost became a family joke (for everyone but him, and maybe even him now that I think about it).

I still keep his phone charged. It sits on my bedside table. I plug it in every morning. Once a week his phone reports back regarding the screen time used over the past seven days. In the last two years he’s managed to whittle his screen time down to nearly zero. (Again, he was always an overachiever.)

He was the family photographer, and made me smile for the camera everywhere we went.

No one makes me pose for photos anymore – at restaurants, at the zoo, on the boat, at the fleet store next to the baby chicks. I used to cringe at posing; now I realize I miss him making me feel awkward, as weird as that sounds.

He used to try to pack the car before vacations. But, honestly, he wasn’t good at it. No, in all honesty, he sucked.

I don’t have anyone to pack the car now (thank goodness). I do it myself, and don’t have to do any repacking, but wish I did. Oh, how I wish for his mismanaged, crappy packing skills.

We used to get up in the morning together and make the bed together. He took one side; I took the other.

Now I get up whenever I choose. I make the bed myself. It is easy because I only have to make my side. The other side of the bed goes unused – neat and tidy. Making half the bed is so much simpler than making the whole thing – said no one ever.

I used to take life – and so many things – for granted. I used to take my husband for granted.

And then he got sick and he died, at age 56, putting him in the top 10 percent of his class. I guess that’s an A, if death gives out report cards.

But I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his plan for the end game, she said with a wry smile.

I used to have a husband.

Now I have an urn.

And it is a damn fine urn. Beautiful even. Just like our life together.

I’d challenge anyone to say anything else about it.

Enough said. No go out and do it, whatever that is for you.