There is a word that I learned after Tom died that really kind of rubs me the wrong way. The word is “Angelversary”. It’s supposed to be a word to remind people of the day they lost a loved one and to put some sort of a positive spin on it. Like “Ohhhh, he became an angel today.” I think the term was started for people who lost infants or small children and I think that’s pretty appropriate for them. But for adults, the term is just a little too saccharine for me. I know I’ll offend some of my widow friends by saying that, but the word would have bothered Tom as much as it bothered me. I’m sure we both would have found some humor in it. It may have especially bothered us because we got such joy out of trying to be the first one to remind the other of our Mooniversary, which was another, made up word to remind us to celebrate every full moon because we met on the night of a full moon.
I remember the first time that Tom learned about the death of one of his friends. He was out of town at the time and when I picked him up at the airport, I told him about it. He didn’t cry or seem overly emotional about it. And later I heard him talking to his good friend Dale and they were laughing and sharing stories about the guy who had passed away and saying things like “I’m going to miss that sonofabitch”. They actually probably used a different word, but I try to keep the “F” word out of most of my posts. haha. I was a little shocked. Why weren’t they grieving?
Although I had never met the guy who died, I heard a LOT of stories about how crazy and fun he was. So in their own way, instead of grieving his death, they were celebrating his life by remembering all of the joy and laughter and good times he shared while he was alive.
I could l keep going with this post and add a lot of sad things, but today is a day for celebrating Tom’s life. I sure do miss that crazy, funny butthead. And one of the main reasons is because he would think it was perfectly okay for me to call him that…or worse! Wherever he is, his spirit isn’t suddenly expecting me to be maudlin and sad all of the time. If anything, he taught me to see the joy and humor in every single day.
And for that, I will ALWAYS celebrate his life, even when it is the anniversary of his death.
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