Exactly one year ago, with considerable technical assistance from my daughter, I began the adventure of blogging. I thought it might be a good way to organize my thoughts and keep a circle of family and friends enlightened as my children and I tried to navigate the first year after my husband Jim’s death.
I thought it might also enable me to share Jim’s story, and help keep him with all of us. His unerring grace could be an example–perhaps, most of all, to me.
Along the way, I have been surprised and moved by responses from people we know and people we likely will never meet. More than 900 readers have taken the time to leave comments on the first year’s posts. Two of my five most frequent commenters are women I have never met, but I can say with certainty that I adore them and their writing and know we would be “real-life” friends.
I have been inspired by other bloggers’ stories and photographs and artwork, and enlightened by their perspectives.
My most-read post was not the one that was “Freshly Pressed”; it was an account of an event I never could have conceived of when I started the blog.
Blogging has brought me fun facts: in the past twelve months, people have dropped in from 95 different countries, including the Isle of Man, Panama, Finland, Luxembourg, Gabon, Djibouti and Morocco. Today people have visited from four continents, and 14 countries are represented among this week’s readers. In the last seven days, the second leading source of visitors was Trinidad and Tobago. I have seen my posts translated into Arabic and Russian and Spanish and Japanese.
I have learned that people who type in the search term “live shagging” are likely looking for something very different than they get here: an account of Jim shagging flies on the Green Monster at Fenway Park.
Evidently Pablo Neruda’s poetry is very popular among my readers, as is the late and lonesome Solitario Jorge.
My name is the most common search term. At first I was a bit unnerved at the frequency of searches which couple my given first and last name with “murder” and “murdered.” I soon discovered that a notorious murderer shares my name.
The search terms “Freddy Krueger tombstone” and “biker gangs in Scotland” also somehow will get you to my posts–as will “weary of chickens,” “bad beagle blog,” “indigo autistic idiot savant syndrome,” and, “did albert einstein know what a quark was?”
My favorite search engine phrase is the amazingly elaborate one that included this snippet: “during consultation, the patient said that he is married to a fairy that he loves so much and that he can hear voices from space telling him that his daughter. . .” (My search engine page leaves me hanging at that; I wonder what this reader may have been looking for?).
The saddest search engine term inquired “how bad” was a cancer marker of a given number? I imagine some patient whose doctor simply had not explained what such bad news meant, or a family member trying desperately to find out more about a loved one’s numbing numbers –which may mean nothing to non-medical people until they encounter a monstrous diagnosis like Jim’s. When the search term showed up on my blog dashboard I realized once again both how isolating and incomprehensible a cancer diagnosis can be, and how common such hardships truly are.
My central epiphany from writing has been this, and it is difficult for me to say: I have become a better person because of what Jim taught me through his illness and death. He not only left the world a better place, but he has continued profoundly to change me.
Hand-in-hand with this realization is my biggest regret: that I could not have changed this way while he was still with us, and been this person for him.
Love in the Spaces 
There is the person you are, and the person you are able to present to the world. This has been your wondrous presenting, but “the you” already was there. It was released by Jim’s death, I believe, made needful of being expressed in order to furnish and populate that room in your spirit where he is most treasured. I am blessed because you share this unfolding with us. All of us are. Thank you.
I must believe that he knew you were this fine a person. Clearly, he loved you. I have only gotten to know him after his death, but clearly he was a man who knew gratitude. He was no fool. I am certain that he knew what he had, who he married, what manner and what quality of person was the mother of his children.
Thank you, again.
Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment. Your words are wonderful, and truly make me feel better. My blog’s statistics page also tells me that you and Myra were the very first two followers on the blog, and I realize the posts aren’t always easy to read (though they’re helpful to me to write), and am very grateful for such faithful readers. Something you said at his service was what made me know I had to keep writing, so (like me and others who did know him so well) people who didn’t know Jim also could “live their lives as though they knew this man.”
Thank you for those words of thanks. And, just to be clear, you have helped me to live as though I knew him. Thanks for helping me to know him a bit more..
Stephanie- you were the perfect one for Jim. Changing in this way would have changed the perfect dynamic you two forged through the years. Yin and yang, or whatever you may call it- you played off each other well,,, there was no need to “be better” for him- you were the best for him,,, and you continue to carry his memory forward, and maybe this process is just incorporating some of his “inner self-isms” into your self. Keep on keepin’ on.
Mike
Thank you so much for writing this–and I hope we get to continue getting “the boys” (and women) together, because he’ll be there, too. I know he was at your wedding 🙂
happy blogiversary! we should have cake together one day soon to celebrate. 🙂
Red Velvet? Pretty please?
As the others have said, I expect you were ‘this person’ for him 🙂 Your love for him and your family shines out of your writing..
Many thanks. He was an exceptionally patient man, and had an incredible gift for looking past the little things which tend to bog most people down. I suppose that even if I was occasionally somewhere between testy and a full-blown jerk, he knew what boundless love I had and have for our family.
What a blessing that you were together Stephanie 🙂
Just as Michelangelo could see David in the block, you were there all along
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”
I haven’t quite hit the angelic mark, but I love the sentiment.
What a beautiful post, Steph. I also really enjoyed the Google searches. I’m confident Killer Steph is nothing like you at all. Really, don’t give it a second thought. Not even when you get really annoyed at your adversaries in law — which you never do, of course. Never. No-Rant Martin, we used to call you. 😊
Miss you.
Love,
Barbara
Barbara! Really, can you believe there’s a convicted killer me out there? What are the odds? (I’ll have to ask the kids.) I thought you used to call me “The Terminator”? In my work life, at least. Big kisses to everybody–let’s try to rendezvous soon!
You are, and always have been, just what you need to be at that moment. Through the blog, including the poetry, beautiful photographs, literary references, music….and your unique voice, you keep Jim alive in so many ways. Thank you for sharing a bit of your world, Much love to you.
Thank you, Marie. Love back to you…..and come visit! You still need the quilt tour.
What an interesting and fun collection of facts! Who would have guessed how diverse and seemingly random searches lead people to your blog. I am going to see how obscure a search I can do to get directed back to one of your stories. You could make that concept into a game and make millions!
I’m not sure even I could make this stuff up. I do get a giggle out of “live shagging” every time it shows up, though. They must be sooooooo disappointed when they hit that post 🙂
Are you responsible for putting “stephanie martin stripper murder conviction” into a search engine? And how in the world did that hit? I don’t remember anything about strippers on the blog.