Happy Birthday, Marilyn

Tomorrow, September 16, would have been my wife Marilyn's 70th birthday.  It is yet another of those dreaded "firsts" that we all must face after the loss of a Loved One, someone who meant so much to you.  I couldn't let this occasion pass without making mention of it in this space, but what to say?

Earlier this year, I was part of a support group for people who had lost a loved one to cancer.  At the end of the ten session program, we were asked to respond to these topics for a commerative program:

• Tell us a little about your Loved One
• Favorite memory

So I did, and I thought that the best way to observe the milestone birthday that she never got to see, was to share what I wrote at the end of that group support program.

Happy Birthday, Marilyn.  We will always celebrate your birthday and you.

MARILYN SPROULE

Tell us a little about your loved one.....Marilyn was bright and lively, smart, caring, and perhaps the most compassionate person that I have ever known.  The last person that she ever wanted to talk about was herself.   When someone would ask her how she was doing or what she had been up to, she had a knack for turning the question around and asking about how HE or She was doing and what HE or SHE had been up to lately.  When she died, many people would come to me and say, "I didn't even realize that she had been ill."  She never wanted her illness to define her.  To the very end, all she cared about was making sure that everyone else who loved her would be okay after she was gone.

She was pretty, she was funny, she was a wonderful lover, and my best friend.  She lit up every room that she ever entered.   She could throw a dinner party, a 4th of July cookout, or a Christmas Brunch that would make Martha Stewart envious, and our home looked like a Pottery Barn catalog, yet it was the warmest and friendliest home that you ever visited.  She made me laugh, or at least smile broadly, every single day, and THAT may have been the very best part of our 47 years together.  I still cannot believe that she is gone.

Favorite memory....Marilyn and I met in college in 1972.  We were married in 1974.  How can you have one, single favorite memory of almost fifty years of being together?  I suppose that her vary favorite times were our annual trips to North Carolina's Outer Banks with her extended family.  We made those trips for over thirty-five years.  Due to COVID, there was no trip in 2020, but we got back there in 2021, and Marilyn was determined to be a part of that trip.  She felt good, looked good, and we had a wonderful vacation, but I suspect that she knew that this was to be her last trip with me and her family, her last trip to the ocean and the beach that she loved so much.  I am so, so grateful that we made that trip.

There were also all the trips that we made together, just the two of us:  New Jersey, Virginia, Delaware, and Hilton Head Island beaches, Hawaii and Florida, and Las Vegas for her 50th birthday, a train trip to Chicago to see "Hamilton", Cooperstown, NY and so many others.  And in later years with our friends Susan and Dan to Florida, France, Great Britain, and Las Vegas.  Baseball games and football games and basketball games, and movies and plays, and dinner dates.

Then there is a memory of building a life together.  The excitement of moving into our first house in 1979 and subsequent moves in 1986 and 2010 and making each of those houses our own and the wonderful touches of hers that made them so special, that made them a home.

My favorite memory? The long and continuous fifty year ride together.

Ashes

The view from Spirit Island in Lake Maligne

Jasper, Alberta, Canada

During my Canadian vacation last month (which I wrote about HERE), I took the opportunity to scatter a bit of Marilyn's cremains at two different spots along the way.  This is the third time that I have done this the months since Marilyn's death, and each time, I have found it to be a moving, peaceful, cathartic, and meaningful experience.

The first spot was at a boat dock at a place called Spirit Island in Lake Maligne in Jasper National Park in Alberta Province.   Spirit Island, I learned, was and remains an almost sacred place for the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, so I knew that this would make the event even more meaningful for me.  The night before, I had communicated to our group that I was planning on doing this, and I mentioned that if anyone cared to join me, I would welcome their presence.  I was honored that every person in our group gathered at the dock the next day to join in this "ceremony."  I was touched beyond words.

Lake Maligne is the source of the Maligne River.  The waters of the Maligne River eventually empty into the Arctic Ocean.  As most of you know, Marilyn loved the ocean, and while I suspect that she wouldn't have actually wanted to swim in the Arctic Ocean, I am certain that the fact that some of her remains may end up there would be a very satisfying thought for her.

Special thanks to tour mate Pat Myers who took these wonderful photos of the event.

Later in the week, we walked upon the glacier of the Columbia Ice Fields in the Park.  It was an awesome feeling to be in such a raw part of nature,  and I know that Marilyn would have been thrilled to be a part of it.  In a more private moment, I separated myself from the group, had a chat with Marilyn, and left a bit of her behind upon the snow and ice of the glacier.

 

As I mentioned above, I have found these scatterings to be a great comfort.  This is the third time that I have done this, and I have plans of doing it again at other spots that were and remain special to Marilyn and me.  I don't expect that I will write about such occurrences in the future.  I wanted to share this, however, because in the event that you may one day find yourself in this position, you, too, may find comfort in such ceremonies.

Purses

(This short entry originally was a post that I made on Facebook yesterday morning. I decided that I wanted it to be part of a more permanent record. Hence, this re-posting.)

If you knew my wife Marilyn, you know that one of her trademarks was the gigantic, heavy purses she would always lug around. Two of those purses have sat on the floor of our closet since her death in October, and last night I decided to empty them out so I could donate them to Goodwill. What I found inside was just so, so Her. Eighteen pens, three pair of earrings, an address book (filled with doctors’ phone numbers), a Tide Stick, five packets of artificial sweetener, a pill bottle filled with various aspirin, excedrin, Tylenol and such for “emergencies “, a clutch purse from Paris, a tiny Wonder Woman doll, a small pin of a sheep from Ireland, about thirty - I didn’t count them - pennies, and various other items such as band aids, wet wipes, hand sanitizers, and God knows what else. I went back and forth from smiling, laughing, and crying, mostly crying, all night long. I miss complaining to her about her “goddamned purses”, and I miss her.

The Marilyn M. Sproule Memorial Endowed Scholarship

Most people reading this are no doubt aware that Marilyn and I met as students at Robert Morris College (now University) in 1972.  We graduated in 1973, me with a four year Bachelor's Degree, and Marilyn with a two year Associate's Degree.  We then began our working careers and were married in 1974.  It was Marilyn's goal to one day continue her education and get a four year degree.  However, life has a tendency to get in the way of things, and that particular dream of hers was never fulfilled.

In an effort to help other young college students fulfill their dreams, I finalized arrangements this week with Robert Morris University and there now exists at RMU the MARILYN M. SPROULE MEMORIAL ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP. 

The selection criteria for this Scholarship are as follows:

"The scholarship will be awarded to a sophomore, junior, or senior undergraduate student at Robert Morris University with demonstrated financial need. The recipient must be in good academic standing to receive and renew scholarship support."

I am excited beyond words to know that Marilyn's name will live on in perpetuity at our alma mater, and to know that financial awards in her name will help current and future students stay in school and complete their college educations at Robert Morris.

While it is not the intention of this post to solicit contributions for this scholarship - it is fully funded at this point - please know that should you desire to do so, contributions in Marilyn's honor towards this scholarship can be directed to the Development Office at Robert Morris University.  Such a gift should be  specified as being for the Marilyn M. Sproule Memorial Endowed Scholarship.  All such gifts are tax deductible.

A Special Thank You

 

When  Marilyn died last October, I had requested that if so desired, donations could be made in her name to the Highmark Caring Place.  As those of you who know us know, Marilyn and I have served as volunteers there since 2010, and it is an organization that means a lot to us both. 

A few weeks ago, I received a letter from the Caring Place informing me that since October, gifts from fifty-three different donors totaling $4,685 had been received in Marilyn's honor.  What the donors may not have realized is that each gift made to the Caring Place is matched dollar for dollar by Highmark Inc.  Thus, over $9,700 has been raised for this wonderful organization in Marilyn's honor.

All donors will have received an acknowledgement from the Caring Place thanking them for their gift, and I, too would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who were so generous.  The Caring Place is an amazing and wonderful organization.  No one served it better than did Marilyn in her eleven years as a volunteer, and I know that your gifts in her name would mean so much to her, as they do to me.

Thank you, and let me leave you with the words of the Caring Place Pledge:

"I am here for you.  You are here for me. We are here for each other."

It's Quiet Uptown

Readers know of my penchant for writing about Absent Friends.  For the last four plus years, I feared the coming of the day when I would be writing of the absence of the Greatest Friend of all, my wife, Marilyn.  Marilyn lost her nearly five year battle with cancer one month ago yesterday on October 12.  I have waited a month before even attempting to write anything about this awful event in my life, and as I type these words, I wonder if I will be able to finish.  So here goes...

It is a testimony to her that there were any number of people who have said to me words to the effect that "I never even realized that she was even sick."  Marilyn never wanted her illness to define her.  She wanted to forge ahead with her life - and our lives - as if nothing changed.  Annual dinner parties took place, holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries continued to be celebrated, neighborhood social events, and vacations continued to occur.  As always, she was always more concerned about everyone else (like me!) more than she was herself.  Once in awhile she would rail at the Unfairness Of It All, but she never once complained with a "why me?" attitude, and those moments passed quickly and she soldiered on.  She seemed to accept her fate and put herself in God's hands much more readily than I did.  In fact, I doubt that I will EVER get over the Unfainess Of It All, but I guess that is what made her such a good person, certainly a better one than I.

When the end came, it came quickly, and after fighting so long and so valiantly, she knew what it was right to say "it's over."  She was sad to be leaving all the many people who loved her, but she knew that God wanted, and maybe even needed, her back.  "Take care of yourself, and be okay" was the constant theme of all of our conversations in those final days.  She put others ahead of herself right up to the very end.

So here I am, one month later.  Volunteering for twelve years at the Caring Place has taught me a thing or two about grief and the nature of grief.  I have learned that grief is a journey that never ends.  That there will be good days and bad days.  Now I am experiencing that first hand, and learning that it is the little things, the mundane things, that really trip you up.  I could take delivery of her cremains from the funeral director and not bat an eye, but removing her toothbrush from the bathroom and throwing it away or replacing paper napkins  in the kitchen were acts that had me crying for 20 minutes.  (Yes, I said paper napkins. Those of you who knew her surely get the reference!) There have been and will be other such moments, "paper napkin moments" as I have come to call them.

One more.  On Thursday, I was at the Pitt football game at Heinz Field.  When it started to rain late in the game, others began pulling out their rain ponchos and putting them on while I just then remembered mine hanging in the closet at home.  "Well" I said "another example of how my life has changed.  No way in Hell that Marilyn would have let me out of the house without packing the poncho."  At least I was laughing about it.  Sort of.

I have been overwhelmed, truly, by the support of family and friends.  You expect it from Family, but the friends? Wow, what a treasure it is to have good friends.  Not only the people in our closest circle of friends, but people from church, both of our workplaces (I saw people from Highmark whom I hadn't seen since I retired), the neighborhood, from acquaintances on Social Media, and the staff and fellow volunteers from the Caring Place.  They absolutely embody the words of the Caring Place pledge: "I am here for you.  You are here for me. We are here for each other."  

I move forward.  I think of her constantly and talk to her every day.  This is the one "Absent Friends" post that I never wanted to write.  There is a void in my life that will never be replaced, but I know that I have to "take care of myself" and "be okay."  It's what she wanted.  I know that while it  may forever be quiet uptown, I also know that I will never stop telling her story.

One final word to the readers, if you are in a loving, committed relationship, married or otherwise, never let a day pass without telling your partner that you love him/her.

Wonder Women