The Dash

I have a confession to make - it has been over two years since my husband died and I still have not ordered a grave marker. I tried to do it back in September of 2006. I thought I handled it very well, too. I had the perfect scripture verse picked out, I found a beautiful piece of granite that I knew Russ would really like. I wrested with how I wanted his name. Did I want his birth name - Russell? What his family always called him while growing up - Rusty? Or what he settled on after growing up and starting his carrer - Russ? I finally decided on Russell. I knew I wanted to have his birth date and his death date on the stone - July 19, 1958 - August 26, 2004. I left the monument company feeling like I had put something together that Russ would be proud of. The next step was for the monument company to prepare a computer generated sample of the stone for my approval. I was actually excited about getting it to look at, as if I had ordered something off e-bay and the picture of what I ordered would be coming soon. I was caught completely off guard by my reaction when I received the proof. Honestly, I almost got sick. This was not real again, just a nightmare. All I could focus on was that date - August 26, 2004. It was like a neon sign screaming at me "Your husband is dead!!!" I couldn't go any further with the order. I put the proof away and haven't looked at it again. I wanted the headstone to be so perfect and capture the essence of Russ - someone with high morals, upstanding character, always trying to make others comfortable, kind, sensitive, loyal, hard-working, a great listener, a loving husband, a proud father, a devoted brother, uncle, cousin, son; a people pleaser, always a gentleman, a humorous guy. I felt like I had failed. None of these things were listed on that stone. Just that awful date. Well, now I've got a little time behind me and I am thinking about trying it again. I started wondering what I should change about it this time to try to capture the man Russ was and not focus on that date. Should I leave the date off? I just kept staring at that picture and suddenly it hit me. The essence of Russ was not wrapped up in that death date, or, for that matter, in the birth date. The most important part of his life lay right between those two dates in the dash. The dash is where he became all of those things that made him special. I am going to try it again and I am not going to even look at either of those dates. I am going to stare at that dash with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face and think about a great man.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

- Eleanor Roosevelt