A letter to Heaven on the occasion of my 'rebirthday'

It's been nearly three months since my beloved Mom 2.0 died. Here's how we're managing without her.

Dear Joyce,

I miss you, my beloved Mom 2.0.

Nearly a quarter of a year has passed since you died.

Somedays it feels like only yesterday when one of the school counselors and a vice principal pulled me out of class and handed me a note that said “Finney needs to call home” written in purple felt tip pen on a yellow sticky note.

I knew you were gone before I dialed the number.

Things have been kind of a blur since then. I took two weeks off work and spent most of the time with Bob, Dad 2.0.

I knew a point would come after the funeral when people returned to their lives and Bob was alone.

That didn’t sit right with me.

You guys upended your whole lives at age 41 to take me in as a 15-year-old whose first set of parents had died.

The very least I could do was hang out with Bob with you gone.

It’s not like Bob needs looking after. He’s independent. He keeps the house clean.

He’s spent the winter going room to room, dusting, cleaning the walls, sweeping the carpet, and washing the knickknacks the way you two always did after the first of the year.

He hasn’t tackled the basement and the subbasement yet. He will, I’m sure.

I visit nearly every day.

Bob and I are learning to talk to one another.

It’s not that we didn’t before, of course, it’s just that you were the talker.

You had all the news from the rest of the family. You had all the stories. You made everyone feel welcome.

I think Bob and I have found our rhythm.

I stop by after school. He fixes me soup with crackers and a grilled cheese sandwich. We watch the news, and “Wheel of Fortune.”

We make a pretty good team guessing the puzzles.

Many nights we watch a couple of reruns of “The Andy Griffith Show” or catch the latest episode of “Father Brown.”

We watched the girls’ state basketball championships together this year.

You probably forgot this, but that was what you and Bob were watching when my sister brought me to your house to see about me living there in March 1991.

I moved in on March 25th that year and we always celebrated the date as a second birthday — a rebirth day, as it were.

The usual gift was 18 glazed cherry cake donuts from Highland Park Bakery.

That was almost 33 years ago.

This year will be my first birthday — both the one we celebrated when we became a family and my actual birthday — without you.

It aches, but grief has not stopped us.

I keep on teaching, trying my best to communicate the intricacies of reflexive and intensive pronouns to my sixth graders.

Bob keeps busy, too. He still does the paperwork. He likes to go out to Copper Creek in Pleasant Hill to walk around the lake.

Sometimes he goes out to Bondurant and walks with Uncle Larry.

Bob sometimes out to eat from time to time with Uncle Jim or me. Bob went out to celebrate Jim’s birthday earlier this month.

He goes to Sam’s Club or Costco with the neighbor across the street.

Bob talks to your brother and sisters by phone.

And, of course, he reads. Bob methodically makes his way through his books, mostly about history. He remains the smartest man I’ve ever met, and I count an ambassador and many professors as friends.

We don’t talk about our grief much. That isn’t our way. There’s not much point in saying the obvious: It hurts that you’re not here with us.

Bob mentioned a while back he didn’t know what he was going to do when camping season came along.

He said the whole point of going camping was to take you places. That nearly brought me to my knees.

It was easy to overlook how deeply you loved each other because of how symbiotically you functioned.

Your strengths matched so perfectly together that you made everything seem easy.

I can’t imagine what Bob’s life is like day-to-day because you were always by each other’s side.

I try my best to be a part of it now, to let him know he’s not alone, that his second-hand son loves him and will always be there for him.

We miss you so much, but I think we’re doing exactly what you would have wanted us to do.

We support each other.

We gather often.

We laugh a lot.

But we sure could use some of your potato salad.

All my regards to Heaven,

Your son, Daniel.

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Daniel P. Finney, a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, wrote for newspapers for 27 years before being laid off in 2020. He teaches middle school English now.

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