A year can feel like a minute--and also like an eternity

The pain has remained fiercely raw in the year since my husband died of a heart attack. Small kindnesses and good memories have helped me keep going.

Grief sometimes hits me in unpredictable, swamping waves that leave me sobbing for hours.

Grief sometimes hits in short, sharp stabs that have not been dulled by time. I don’t know when they will ever feel any less painful, though I’ve been assured that will happen.

A year ago today, my husband, Dennis D’Agostino (pictured below with me in 2012), died of a heart attack. It was surreal. Shocking. Sad beyond words. We had plans. We had things to do together. We had the rest of our lives together.

Until we didn’t.

My colleagues at the L.A Times were kind. Some sent notes or flowers, sent food, or dropped off prepared meals on my doorstep to ensure I ate . A lovely appreciation was published in the newspaper and online. People he had worked with, as an author of several books or with the NBA and Major League Baseball, offered touching tributes. The Times and the folks at Crypto.com Arena hosted a wonderful celebration of his life a few months later.

But then, as is inevitable, the calls and notes dwindled. I understood why then, and I understand now. People have resumed their lives, though a precious few have continued to text or check in on me or try lure me out of the house so I won’t become a total hermit. My life has been irreversibly interrupted, and I’m still taking small steps as I figure out how to move forward.

The anniversary of his death is one of the last significant “firsts” I’ll have to experience. My birthday came two months after he had died. Then Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s. Family birthdays. His birthday. What would have been our 25th anniversary. Today. All tough, tear-filled days.

I miss him all the time, but I miss him most while I’m watching baseball or basketball games. I miss hearing him reciting lines from “The Honeymooners” on TV, miss him grilling hotdogs to just the right doneness on the barbecue, miss his touch and the feeling of holding his hand.

I miss him entering a room, bouncing and smiling, turning an ordinary space into a special and friendly place. I miss watching him work late at night to write out stats on index cards in his impossibly spidery handwriting when he was preparing to work as a statistician for baseball or basketball games on radio or TV. I miss seeing that handwriting on the greeting cards he’d always tuck into my suitcase before I left on a work trip. I miss the big moments and also the quiet, small ones.

I haven’t been able to visit Disneyland without him: we always joked that he was a Mickey magnet, because whenever we entered the park, Mickey Mouse inevitably would emerge for a meet-and-greet and photos. Going to Disneyland without him is still too much for me to handle. Maybe someday, but not yet.

I could swear, one recent day, that I heard him yell his trademark “Hello” from upstairs when I was downstairs, as he used to do when he was slightly impatient and wanted to get my attention. I actually jumped, knowing it was impossible, but still sure it was his voice, somehow. I want to believe it was him, watching over me. .

Grief has no blueprint, no single course to follow. It allows for smiles when remembering good times, but it also brings that overwhelming sense of sorrow that’s triggered at the sight of an old photo or the resurfacing of a happy memory. And while most people have remarkably kind to me, there were some folks who knew him but inexplicably said nothing at the time; a few contacted me later to tell me they hadn’t known what to say. They were uncomfortable. I get that, But simply sending a text or a note to say, “thinking of you,” or mentioning the missing loved one is meaningful to anyone who’s mourning. You will remember that person. You want to know that other people remember and valued your loved one, too. A small gesture can have a big emotional impact.

Worse was the person who tried to tell me how to behave. I went back to work a few weeks after Dennis died, hoping that work would be a distraction. And it was, to a degree. I started to rethink my plans one night, when another writer told me in the press work room at Crypto arena, that I “could smile more.” No, I really couldn’t. At least not then. That person said they were trying to “help.” Telling someone how they should feel is rarely a good idea or any true help in the best of circumstances. These were the worst of circumstances, and telling someone how to mourn is unfathomably rude. I didn’t want to be judged by someone else’s standards of how I was expected to behave.

I’ve gone through a lot of Dennis’ belongings and have donated a lot of his clothes, but I haven’t yet touched his books or memorabilia (anyone interested in a ton of old media guides, baseball cards, and programs?). Those books and papers meant a lot to him, and throwing them away would feel like throwing him away. In time, I’ll look into giving them to a library or hall of fame. After a year, I’m not ready to do that yet, and that’s okay. There’s no timetable, no script, for mourning.

A year. At the same time, a minute and eternity.