The Joyful Widower

A few months ago, a friend of mine recommended downloading an app that can count up from a date in the past, telling you how many days it’s been since that date. He said that looking at the number of days since his first wife died not as how many days since the last time he saw her, but rather how many days closer he is to seeing her again, was a powerful shift in thinking.

I downloaded the app.

I entered the date of Melinda’s death (April 22, 1998). The app then started the count-up timer, showing more than 9,900 days between her death and the day I downloaded the app.

I counted ahead and put “10,000 Days” in my calendar.

This afternoon, a little after 4:30 PM, was 10,000 days.

10,000 days ago at that time, Melinda was in an accident on highway 95, heading home from work. She was killed instantly.

10,000 days ago at that time, I was in the laundry room of my hotel in Atlanta, starting to read The Magic Circle by Katherine Neville (not quite as good as The Eight). Someone else in the laundry room had the TV on, watching “An American Werewolf in London,” followed by a Gallagher stand-up show.

10,000 days ago, a little after 7:00 PM, I got back to my hotel room to find the message light blinking on the phone. As soon as I picked up the message from Melinda’s Aunt Pam, saying that I needed to call her at a number I didn’t recognize, I knew that Melinda was dead. In hindsight, I think I intuited it because if a mishap had befallen anyone else in the family, Melinda herself would have called me, and Pam’s voice was so flat and resigned; if there were still hope, there would have been tension in her voice.

10,000 days ago I was wearing a dark green shirt with a pattern in white circles, khaki pants, and brown GH Bass monk strap shoes as I sat on the bathroom floor, thinking I was going to throw up.

10,000 days ago I threw all my stuff into my suitcase and made phone calls. My parents. Fr. Stephen Freeman and his wife (our godparents). Our realtor (we were in process of selling our house and were 8 days away from closing). A friend of mine, also a widow of several years, whom I knew would pray. My work colleagues, so I could arrange leaving my car key with them so they could drive my car back to Knoxville. Delta airlines, so I could book a ticket to Knoxville. A cab to get me to the airport.

10,000 days ago at this time (just after 9:00 PM), I walked into the airport at Atlanta and walked up to the first-class desk (the only one with nobody in line) and told the clerk my wife had just died, and that I needed to get back to Knoxville. There was no record of a ticket in the system. I started to cry. She said, with tears in her eyes, don’t worry, she was going to get me on the first available plane. God bless her, she did.

10,000 days ago I sat in a first class seat and spent the 1 hour flight on one of their phones, calling friends to share the word. I racked up about $120 worth of phone bills, and every penny worth it.

10,000 days ago I arrived in Knoxville, picked up at the airport by my sister-in-law, Amanda, and by Ed Krieg and George Holdsworth, members of the tiny Orthodox mission we were founding in Knoxville.

10,000 days ago I was in the emergency room at Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge, standing next to Melinda’s body.

10,000 days ago I was taken to Fr. Stephen and Mother Beth’s house, where I made more phone calls to notify friends. I can still hear their voices and the exact words they said when they got the news.

10,000 days ago Fr. Stephen gave me a sleeping pill, then read to me something from Georges Florovsky’s Iconostasis until I realized that, though I heard English words, they carried no meaning. The Freeman’s then poured me into bed and I blacked out until morning, which was what I needed after the six hours I’d just been through.

10,000 days have passed. And they have been 10,000 days of the mercy of God.

God has blessed me with 10,000 sunrises, for His mercy endures forever.

God granted me to marry again, for His mercy endures forever.

God gave me my children, for His mercy endures forever.

God has given me the hope of the Resurrection, for His mercy endures forever.

God has crossed my path with so many supportive friends, for His mercy endures forever.

God continues to lead me forward, for His mercy endures forever.

God is giving me a sense of direction since I started praying “if this is what You’ve given me, what are we going to do with it?”, for His mercy endures forever.

I don’t know how many days lie ahead, but I can say with confidence that God will meet me in every single one of them as He has done so far, for His mercy endures forever.