elegy odyssey for HE and SHE

“… a book of remembrance was written before him…”

Malachi 3:16

PART ONE: taking the Crown

The morning began with an argument. Granted HE was arguing with Siri, the most prominent and influential female voice in his life currently, but it was a justifiably fine argument nonetheless. 

“Hey Siri, play some 1980’s music.”

“Working… I’m sorry there is no app for that.”

“What do you mean there is no app for that? You play music for me all the freakin’ time! C’mon, get with it. Hey Siri… play some 1980’s music.”

“Working… I’m sorry there is no connection.”

“Oh good grief! You can be so impossible! What is wrong with you? Women! I thought you wanted me happy, Siri… guess not… OK… let me see… Hey Siri, play 80’s essentials playlist on Apple Music.”

“OK, Master and Commander, playing 80’s essentials playlist on Apple Music.”

HE shoots! HE scores! And bonus… Siri was in her place again. 

After SHE had died, HE had, on a whim decided it would be soothing to his male ego to have Siri more subservient. I mean, HE would never ask any real live flesh and blood woman made in the image of God to call him Master and Commander, but Artificial Intelligence… that’s a different story. Siri was gonna be his babe to control, and she would know her place! “Under My Thumb” was Siri’s new theme song as far as HE was concerned. And HE had just won his first argument in months. It was going to be OK today.

The next business at hand was to put the car in drive, and start this day of remembrance, this “Solus Anniversarius”, this 37th wedding anniversary that was now a solo expedition. Toto’s “Africa” cranked to 11 set him on his way to the first stop on his expedition to reclaim Kansas City from the sickening “firsts” HE had been experiencing.

They married in 1986. They had dated for nearly four years before that. HE first asked her out in October of 1982. Remembering this, HE thought there was no better music to make this day go well than the 1980’s playlist. “If you think there is better music than what the 80’s gave us, well, you are just wrong!” With that conviction, HE headed to Midtown. Duran Duran sang Hungry Like a Wolf. 

HE had been avoiding the city in general, and midtown with a prejudice since SHE had died. They had spent so much time there in their early years. From 1982 to roughly 1991, that section of town was a relational playground for them. And the epicenter in his mind: Crown Center… and the Westin. When they first married they both worked at Commercial National Bank. SHE was a customer service rep. HE worked his way up from the basement computer room troubleshooting the telecom network, eventually responsible for the management of a statewide ATM network. Just across the river from KCK where they worked and lived, Midtown beckoned as an epicenter of KC’s social life in the 80’s. They had spent so much time in the Crown Center square… free concerts, fumbling attempts at ice skating in the winter, shopping in Crown Center, dinners in the restaurants midtown, and thanks to a business relationship, half-price weekend rooms at the Westin which had been a regular escape on Friday nights. The first few years of their marriage had been emotionally, romantically, conversationally, and personally tied to that stretch of real estate. HE had to start taking back that territory. 

Once at Crown Center, HE made his way down the parking lot steps to the ground floor with restaurants and snack shops. It was an hour from lunch and HE wanted to scope out their favorite bagel shop. HE was disappointed to find the bagel shop now a Kansas City themed T-shirt shop. So much for the bagel with lox that would have been the lunch they would have traditionally shared. HE decided to make his way through Crown Center to the link to the Westin. It would be great to find their secret spot in the indoor garden. As HE entered the lobby that familiar hotel clean smell hit his nostrils. “This place smells like every fine hotel… and I swear it smells exactly like it did the first night we ever stayed here.”  Taking the escalator up from the lobby, HE was disappointed a second time. The indoor garden with its three story waterfall and walkway was there. It looked and sounded the same,,, just like it all smelled the same. But a grand piano was shoved up against the locked gate to the steps leading up to the garden walkway. HE wasn’t going to be able to get to the secret spot this way. 

Not to be dissuaded, HE started tapping his memory for just how to get to the upper end of the garden walkway. Making his way to the glass skyline elevators, HE took one up two floors. And just like HE remembered, there was the crossover skywalk to the fitness center. So what if HE wasn’t a paying guest. He would sweet talk his way into the fitness center if HE had too. What monster would deny entry to a widower wanting to grieve his wife on their first anniversary apart? Crossing the skywalk, HE was delighted to find the fitness center devoid of employees. HE was then disappointed yet again. The gate to the upper entrance to the garden walkway was locked. A sign informed him that the garden was closed to guests. The chain and lock meant business. His reaction: “No doubt a Covid shutdown that the hotel is too lazy to reopen!” HE was furious, but then realized that was ruining the moment. From the skywalk HE eyed the secret spot. And leaning on the rail looking longingly at that rocky alcove in the corner, where a table and chairs used to be kept, where HE and SHE had so many private moments —-their place, where HE used to write college papers while SHE read craft magazines, —-their place where they first talked about really wanting to have kids, — their place, where HE would ask for her feedback on how SHE thought their marriage was doing. Their place was now nobody’s place. And then HE smiled and thought: “Well, that’s OK. If we can never have it again, I hope nobody else ever does either.” And that thought gave him an unexpected peace… a kind of sovereign gift from the God Who had dealt so many good cards still,,, even in this losing game of poker that had been the past few months.

HE gave himself the obligatory tour of Crown Center. Making his way outside, HE went to the square with its fountains, its public stages, its tourist draws to the aquarium and Legoland. HE sat down for a while along some steps, enjoying the June sun, watching young parents with kids excited to see some exotic fish or play with Legos. There was an intercity preschool being led through the square, probably a highlight of their summer. HE remembered how much fun his own kids had here in what felt like just a couple of years ago. But it had been decades. 

HE went back inside, made his way through each level of the mall area, and hit the top floor and Halls department store. HE smiled as HE remembered how much SHE enjoyed shopping at very special occasions at what SHE considered a luxury store. After forty years together, HE was flooded with glimpses of her trying on outfits, coming outside of the changing room to model them for him… many times just for the fun of it… and a few times, because SHE deserved something fashionable and fancy, HE would insist she buy something. It really wasn’t her style to spend on herself, but HE insisted and SHE looked so delicious in the lines of a nice dress. Neither of them had ever been fashionistas. HE was most comfortable in outdoors casual. SHE was… well… sensible, more happy in budget friendly fashion. But when SHE needed a nice dress for a wedding or event, Halls it was. HE imagined her waltzing out of a dressing room at that very moment. HE thought HE would buy the entire stock of the whole store at that moment to have that happen again. HE had on occasion since her death sat in her closed closet, inhaled the intoxication of the remnants of her perfume on her dresses, and missed going out someplace really nice with her at his side. Thinking it a little weird that HE was spending a little too much time wistful in the women’s wear, HE made his way to lunch. Well at least it was pride month. It would be rude to make an old man leave the women’s wear if he seemed to enjoy it, right? HE smiled to see the benefit of political correctness briefly turn to his favor.

Time for lunch. Since the bagel shop was already off the list, HE had settled on Mediterranean. They had always loved that cuisine. And the gyro with a Greek salad sounded about right. It would have been their agreed upon second option. But the Mediterranean restaurant was a strikeout… a sign calling for cash only was at the register. Bummer. Crown Center was starting to feel like a conspiracy against his best memories… no bagel… no secret spot… and good grief, no gyro? Really? So giving into the culinary adventure that used to lead both of them, HE opted to be “sudamericano”. There was a South American kitchen across the way that specialized in empanadas. HE ordered up a beef and a chicken empanada, a double order of black beans for the side, and enjoyed a nice lunch. The beans were seasoned with almost a floral tinge… not spicy, but with an unusual, what tasted like a middle eastern spice. The empanadas were filling. And the habenaro sauce was pretty solid with the heat. HE had learned that any sauce a certain shade of orange was going to “bring it”. The salsa did not disappoint. HE imagined that if SHE had been with him, HE would have found a way to wet his lips with that salsa, steal a kiss, and watch her light up, probably call him something she’d later apologize for, only slightly outraged at his orneriness. The kiss would have made it better. HE felt slightly odd for even thinking up that fantasy. But it would have happened that way. It had before. So even though it was his third choice, and SHE would have never gotten into the salsa, HE was glad to have had lunch with her memory… in a way. HE had the South American kitchen validate his parking pass, and then made his way back to the car for his next stop. Pat Benatar belted a tune past the parking gate.

PART TWO: true love’s first kiss

HE pointed the car down Main Street, enjoying the city skyline, and working his way in traffic toward the old Inter-City Viaduct to cross from the Missouri side to the Kansas side… back to the streets of his teenage and young adult years. Exiting the Viaduct to Minnesota avenue, HE was greeted by the monolith of the old Commercial National Bank building. SHE had worked on the 6th floor, HE on the 4th floor. As HE drew closer to the building HE noticed construction fencing and debris on the west side where the old part of the building had stood. Then HE noticed that the building was boarded up all the way around at the ground level. No doubt, the entire building was coming down. That insight punched him in the gut like another kind of death. Soon there would be only memories of that building, just like there were now only his memories of her. “Is it all dying?” HE thought.

HE drove to a coffee shop not far from the city services building and parked there. SHE had found that place on Yelp a few years back and it was an interesting little oasis in an old gas station in the inner city. He headed up the street to Huron Park behind the KCK public library. It was a special place. It was their place as well. They had shared many lunches outside in the garden when they worked at the bank. And before that, it was the place where HE boldly followed his heart to dare to give her their first kiss. HE walked up the steps to the remnants of the rose garden. It was in pretty pitiful shape. There were easily a half dozen homeless dudes hanging around in various stages of intoxication. HE walked over to the corner of the garden where, on the night of her high school graduation, HE told her “I have a very unique graduation gift for you.” HE found a rose bush in bloom and looked into the middle of the garden at the rock gazebo where taking her hand he had uttered those words. It looked pretty sketch to go anywhere near the gazebo, even at one in the afternoon. So HE satisfied himself with a quick photo, and paused to remember that first kiss.

HE had talked her parents into driving her from the graduation ceremony, held a few blocks north of the rose garden, to her brother’s house for her grad party. The rose garden was an easy stop along the way. SHE had agreed to a quick May evening walk around the garden. HE had been very deliberate about just how the romantic aspect of their relationship progressed. HE had made a promise to his mother. Because his father had temporarily been out of the picture most of his high school years, his mother had been his primary educator on how to treat a woman. It was just how it had been. Nothing can change that past. HE promised mom HE would only kiss a girl HE would seriously consider marrying. His mom told him a kiss was a very serious thing for any girl. Yes, that was old-fashioned. But his mom had died his junior year in high school and now that promise felt like a very solemn vow. So although HE was in a very serious relationship, HE wanted the right occasion for that first kiss. And her graduation felt like that moment.

HE had a video playback memory of that first kiss. HE briefly hit play in his head and for a split second remembered how as HE placed his hand on her cheek and lifted her face to his SHE said… “Oh boy… here it comes.” And then the briefest of kisses, followed by laughter from them both. 

“What did that mean: Oh boy… here it comes?”

“Well, I was kinda wondering if it was ever going to happen.”

If you are keeping score at home boys and girls, that is SHE: 1  HE: 0

HE was sure that the final score has her in a commanding lead. HE was absolutely glad to know that. HE would have given anything to let her score another point because the game was always the very best thing. HE missed playing the game. HE thanked God HE got to play the game at all.

And by the way, there were a lot more kisses after HE figured out SHE liked it.

HE headed back down the hill from the garden. HE went into the coffee shop. HE was greeted by the many-noseringed, tribally tattooed, frosty-dreadlocked young man who was the barista. The young man had that incredible multi-ethnic mocha Frappuccino skin hue that HE had always envied. 

“What’s your boldest roast?”

“We have a dark roasted Brazilian blend that I think is pretty good.”

“Can I have that with some oat milk? And how about a blueberry cake donut to go?”

And then HE pumped the caffeine into his system and headed to tour the Wyandotte streets of his youth and their early days.

HE pointed the car up Ann street. HE drove past the apartment house his parents had owned when HE was in high school. The Spanish stucco architecture of the place was the same. The neighborhood however was about as run down as HE had ever seen it. HE had thought about parking at the funeral home next door and walking the sidewalks of his old neighborhood, but seeing the condition of it, decided on a safer drive-by instead. Four decades of urban decay were not a pretty sight. HE thought about how HE had spent the first two years of their relationship living in that upper studio apartment. HE remembered the time HE had an abscessed tooth and SHE had brought him soup for three days in a row while HE mended. 

HE drove on in these urban streets. All the old haunts on State Avenue were gone. The drive-in where they used to cruise his ‘63 Chevy Impala on pretty much every Friday and Saturday night was now a bail bond and quick cash business. HE drove on to the their first home. SHE had been the money saver, and by they time they married, SHE had done the diligent work to make sure their was a down payment in the bank. Together they had bought a little 350 square foot single bedroom house they later nicknamed “The Love Shack” after the B-52’s song. He turned at the old Tower Plaza, and headed down 38th street to Oakland. 

There was the “Love Shack” in all its diminutive glory. And it had NEVER been in a good neighborhood. In fact they had lived there for 5 years, and the last two regularly had police chase thieves on foot through their back yard. “Good times. Good times.” HE looked at the little place that had been their first home. It was somehow even more “love shack-ier”. It had been re-sided with a bunch of mixed and unmatched siding. From all the clutter and lawn furniture in the lot, the refrigerator out on the front porch, and multiple vehicles parked there, it was clear that apparently an entire immigrant community now lived there.

HE remembered how that house had been robbed once. How desecrated they felt coming home to it. HE remembered how they had painted it, fixed the roof, fenced in the yard for their first dog. HE cringed at the wallpapering, the termite damage, the bathroom floor HE replaced. They had used a camp toilet for a week. SHE did NOT like that. HE recalled their first furniture, their first appliances, their first… well everything. And then HE remembered the reasons they called it “the Love Shack”. HE smiled that their small first place was still a home, and apparently a very active home, for another vibrant generation. He thanked God that memory was still standing, still around, still quite real. He turned around in the drive and headed away while Prince sang “When Doves Cry”.

PART THREE: Westward, Homeward

HE decided to drive down State Avenue. HE passed the rubble and vacant land of The Mall. It had been gone quite a long time now. It was literally wild to see it all just empty weeds and rubble now. There was still the very faded sign, still visible from the highway no doubt, but that fixture of 80’s lifestyle, The Mall, was just a memory too. It was there they had their first date. HE thought about that. HE had driven by the Old Church earlier. The stone building was still very much there. The last HE had heard, a Hmong Presbyterian church thrived there. HE thought about how in the basement Youth room of that Old Church in early October of 1982, as SHE sat on a piano bench (HE had interrupted her practicing some worship music) HE asked her something to the effect of: “Maybe you’d like to see a movie with me sometime?” SHE said yes without any hesitation. So the next Sunday afternoon, after church, HE and SHE took his car to The Mall, watched Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn in “On Golden Pond”, and finished their afternoon together as they grabbed a burger, fries, and frosty at Wendy’s afterward. And the rest was the big story of his life. 

The Mall had been the place for so many later dates. With its movie theatres, video game arcade, shops, and restaurants, it was the natural place that everybody hung out. The Mall was where they bought their wedding bands. It was there one mid-October afternoon three years after that first date HE proposed to her. HE had no ring. HE had no credit history to buy a ring. But the jeweler had told him that if his fiancé would also apply, they could purchase a wedding set. And The Mall wasn’t the most romantic place, except that HE reminded her that SHE and HE had their first meaningful relationship talk right in that same Mall parking lot one Saturday night after a movie. HE wanted to ask his most important question right where SHE had begun to be a voice HE always wanted to hear. SHE said yes in what had to be the most unromantic setting in all the world to get engaged. God knows, SHE really did love him to sign on to a lifetime gig in a… mall parking lot. An hour after that proposal, SHE was showing off a ring.

HE drove on down State Avenue, past Wyandotte Plaza, which was still thriving as a shopping area. It was close to her old home. HE decided against driving to her old place. It was gated and guarded, and even though back in the day the security guard knew his car and let him right in, there was no reason for an old man to cruise through those streets. That was another life any way. HE would never pick her up again for an evening together. HE drove on to The Park. This was his big purpose for the “ Solus Anniversarius” expedition anyway. They had married in The Park. Aerosmith belted out “Dream On” as HE drove down Leavenworth road.

HE entered the park, headed right toward the recreation hall. HE wound around the shady groves of trees that lined the road on both sides. HE remembered all the picnics, short trail hikes, boat rental rides, and fishing days they had spent at The Park. SHE loved it there. It was a natural oasis from urban noise. HE remembered lying together in a hammock strung between trees, squeezing her tight, and just dreaming dreams together. The Park was a great place to get married, and circumstantially when they did tie the knot, it was logically the best place. A few folks from church got their undies in a twist that they chose a “secular” location to say their vows. SHE didn’t care. HE wasn’t concerned. They had written their own vows that were literally quotations from scripture to one another. The church would be the people assembled on that day, not the building they met in. Christ would join them together, not a church building. And the recreation hall was built like an old stone lodge, solid, castle-like, romantic, and appealing to them both. 

HE got out of the car to walk around the recreation hall. A family was there setting up for something… maybe a grad party? Maybe a wedding reception? A smiling Hispanic woman came outside. 

“My wife and I were married here 37 years ago. Would it bother you if I just walked around outside here for a bit?” 

“Oh no sir”

“Thanks so much, I won’t be long, I promise.”

HE walked around the hall. HE remembered how unbearably hot June 14th, 1986 had been the afternoon they were married. SHE was a vision of beauty in the wedding dress her mother had made for her. HE wore an outrageously hot rented tuxedo with tails, and sweat like a roast pig over a campfire. After the wedding ceremony, they had planned a reception line outside on the beautiful stone patio. It was so hot, nobody would come out there! SHE and HE stood there for about ten minutes, as people stayed inside soaking up air conditioning. HE took her hand, and told her. “The plans have changed, baby”. And they walked into the crowded refreshments room. This wouldn’t be the last time the plans would change and together they would figure out something new. HE smiled and said a grateful prayer: “God, SHE could flex with the best of them. Thank you for such a willing partner who never let disappointment keep us from a new adventure.”

HE walked up the hill to a bench in the grove that shaded the walkway down to the recreation hall. HE sat down and did something HE planned to do at that spot. First, HE opened up the album of their old wedding pics on his phone. HE smiled as slowly HE remembered that day when it was just the two of them at the start of their big story. HE closed the photos app, and opened Facebook. HE went straight to the memories feature HE had been avoiding all day because HE knew there would a dozen years of posts celebrating her. SHE was not a huge fan of Facebook. SHE defiantly called herself a Facebook stalker, and rarely, to never posted. HE loved that about her. SHE was a social media iconoclast. It made him laugh right then and there. HE did notice that nearly every one of his previous anniversary posts had some kind of comment or like from her. That was a big deal from the woman who shied away from social media and told him it was ruining true conversation. SHE had been happy and proud to celebrate them even on “Fakebook” . Tears welled up. And for the first time that day, HE let himself weep. There was a hanky in his pocket and a spare one in the car. That celebration at the bench became the best part of the day. The tears were joy. The tears were sorrow. The tears were happiness. The tears were sadness. The tears were memories. The tears were wishes that it did not have to be all over. HE was not ashamed to cry these days. Even though HE joked that HE no longer had tear ducts, just testosterone release valves, and that his tears were sheer manliness leaking from his face, HE did not kid himself. This was the mourning HE needed to do today. And this was the best way to memorialize her. The phone snapped some pictures of the grove, and then HE pulled away from the wedding venue grateful for all HE knew was made on that day 37 years earlier. George Michael was singing “Faith” as HE drove further west.

His next destination was the tiny little Kansas town of Tonganoxie. Residents called it Tongie. And Tongie was the place of their first dream home. They had moved there in 1991, after enough crime encounters at the “Love Shack” made them wary of living in the inter city. Gangs were starting to be a problem. The house behind them was filled with skinhead bikers. Gunshots were becoming a regular sound. Her parents had recently moved to rural Tonganoxie, so there was a motivation to be near them. And as God would work it, they met a builder who was also a rental property investor. The builder agreed to purchase their home if they could not sell it and to build them a home on some land he wanted to develop in town in Tonganoxie. SHE was excited to build the home they would start their family in. HE was too. And so HE decided to revisit the dream.

As HE entered Tongie, HE noticed the growth. Small towns aren’t staying small these days. Even though they had only lived in the dream house three years, HE instinctively knew how to drive through town to get there. And there it was, looking a bit different, but still the same. HE remembered their joy there. HE remembered their challenges there. It was in that house that they wanted to conceive a child. It took nearly three years of fertility visits and treatments, but God brought to them their daughter there. It was the home that had a nursery. It was the home that had a family. HE smiled as HE remembered nights with a newborn, how SHE took so naturally to motherhood. How HE never thought she looked better than holding a child. And HE was thankful again that over the course of their lives God had blessed them with a girl for her and a boy for him. They had stopped at two because neither of them felt comfortable running a zone defense when it came to parenting. But that Tongie home had been the place where family started. The greatest joy of their lives had been making, raising, loving, and celebrating their kids. It was amazing that the kids were adults now. Wasn’t HE just a few years ago holding their hands to cross the street? HE thought about how much HE leaned on those adult kids now, because they were a real part of their mom left for him. They held his hands now to cross this street of grief. HE could still very much love their mom, hold a part of her, feel her with him when HE was with his kids. God gives us a generation behind us to comfort and strengthen us. “God, thank you for these kids! I never deserved them. At times I thought I might not get them. They are a mercy for me now. SHE gave them to me through You. They are my most precious gift. They are a way SHE is with me.”

HE had one more stop to make. It was late afternoon now, and the Winery was on the way home. REO Speedwagon affirmed “I’m Gonna Keep On Loving You.”

The Winery was a favorite spring, summer, and fall hang out for them. It was just a pleasant place to hang out, talk, share a glass among the roses and the vines, a great little place to make time to be together. They had never been big drinkers and certainly were not close to connoisseurs when it came to wine. SHE loved the Tailgate Red here though. HE thought it was nearly as sweet as grape Kool-Aide, but dry wines where never her thing. SHE liked Muscatos and dessert wines. A fitting end to the day had to figure in a bottle of Tailgate Red. So he went into the tasting room. The young woman inside was sweeping up. They were just minutes from closing for the day. HE bought a chilled bottle, put it in the cooler bag in the car, and decided to take the back roads along the river home to De Soto.

HE drove those roads as Phil Collins reminded him something was “In the Air Tonight”. HE did his own drum solo when that big drum fill came at the crest of  the song. Thankfully the country roads had no traffic and no one to wonder why the old dude was making the dashboard his personal drum kit.

HE drove past the intersection where a younger friend HE had mentored for years died in a motorcycle wreck just a couple years earlier. HE felt the sting of the loss, the sudden reality of death that came in the middle of the worst of the pandemic. HE prayed for his friend’s widow who was a couple of years down the same personal road HE was now on. HE asked God to give her special grace on her own “days of remembrance”. HE made a mental note to check in with her, keep praying for her, and that reminded him once again what an odyssey this day had been.

The sun was sinking low as HE pulled into the driveway and parked the car. HE took the chilled wine upstairs to the kitchen. HE found the corkscrew, opened the bottle with a satisfying pop, and poured half a goblet for her, half for him. HE went out on the deck with a glass in each hand. He did not care if the neighbors saw him “double fisting” a little alcohol tonight. There was a reason for it. HE took a sip of the red. It was so sweet! HE made a face, but imagined how much SHE would have loved it. A hummingbird came to the feeder just a foot away. HE picked up his glass and toasted their anniversary as the hummer buzzed and fed. HE slammed it down the hatch like a cowboy in an old western slams three fingers of red eye. HE decided he would just sip her glass at dinner. HE smiled at the thought of how much SHE loved an anniversary dinner. It was going to be venison steak tonight. John Cougar sang… “a little ditty, ‘bout Jack and Diane… two American kids growing up… in the heart land…”

This was indeed a great day. HE would be able to do more of these solos because “oh yeah… life goes on.” SHE was still right there with him in many ways.