A Star to Steer By

if you seek "what is honorable,what is: good,what is the truth of your life,all the other things you could not imagine come as a matter of course.Oprah Winfrey
Anybody can become a widow. There aren't any special qualifications. It happens in less time than it takes to draw a breath. It doesn't require the planning, for example, that it takes to become a wife or a mother or any of the other ritual roles of womanhood. And it is neither dramatic nor majestic—really more a snapshot than a feature film. For such a monumental thing to be accomplished in seconds defies logic — in fact,it's almost insulting. But there it is.
My husband, Dan,died of cancer on a sunny June morn-ing, when the grip of a Wisconsin winter had finally relaxed and the Very air was a bath on the skin. It was the last day of school,and I'd assured my two middle sons,then in first and third grades,that nothing could happen to Daddy in the one hour it would take to pick up their report cards. Our teenag-er was getting ready for her senior prom; the littlest, just turned four,was downstairs with Michelle,our caregiver.
I was looking forward to an hour's sleep.All night, I'd napped on the floor near our bed with my friend Jean Marie, a nurse. Between Dan's low moans and the thump-hiss of the oxygen tank,we'd managed little rest. So, newly showered and wearing my aged flannel nightgown—the one Dan used to call my"don't even ask" nightgown — I lay down beside my husband of thirteen years,my editor and my buddy for most of my adult life.
I don't believe in signs and portents. But I've come to think that the atmosphere in a room does take on the coloration of a significant change. For some reason,! leaned close to Dan's ear as he breathed in,and then,thirty seconds later, slowly out, and I whispered, " You are the best-smelling man. You are the sexiest man. It's been a privilege to be married to you. "Dan gave a kind of hiccup. Then he was dead. He had just turned forty-five 51 was forty.You imagine that your tears,so long suppressed,will flood from you and your wails shake the walls.
Yet,I merely sat down next to this body,which had been as familiar to me as my own and was no less so now,and let my fingers trace the line of his nose — already, amazingly, cooling.
The front door banged open,and my sons rushed in from school. Michelle called up for me to sign for a package. I put on my jeans and washed Dan's face with the hem of my old nightgown, promising myself I would never wear it again, though in fact I wear it all the time. If I could only manage to see all this as terribly sad instead of crippling and horrifying,! remember instructing myself,! would not break in half. The worse moment .after all,had come four months before,when Dan — who went into the hospital with a little digestive disturbance — was diagnosed overnight with end- stage, do-not-pass-go colon cancer, for which and kind of therapy would be just an exercise. My husband,a small-town newspaper editor, had been a stand-up guy in life, in print and in death. All he said,when he heard the worst,was,"My babies,my babies. "
Now mine,alone.That thought kept me upright as I gathered our children to his bedside,and later,when I told hundreds of his assembled colleagues and friends, "It's tempting, when something like this happens to someone so young, to say that life's a bitch and then you die. But to do that would dishonor the very reason this is all so sad — which is that life is wonderful, and most wonderful for its smallest splendors:good coffee,children who smell like rain,bickering about whether to fix the linoleum. "
Dan's suffering was over, but I'd somehow forgotten, in the years of our marriage,to observe the line where his life left off and mine began. I felt lame,stupid,at a distance from myself. As for the children,who live in time differently from adults,each day was not a step toward healing,but another step away from Dan. Through my wall at night,! could hear my eldest son sobbing, "Daddy, please, please. " We com-menced the months of undone schoolwork, visits to counselors, fights on the playground. My four-year-old came home one day with a tight and secret smile. "Mike's a big baby," he said. "He thinks you can wish on a star,and it will come real. I know it won't come real,because I wished on a star for ten nights. And it's just a big story. "
Meanwhile, the roof, quite literally, fell in. That, and all manner of other bewildering debts and choices loomed. I'd been working part-time in the public relations department of a university and trying to realize the dream of supporting

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