Sheltering with Late Husband

Annecy Báez

Photo credit: Annecy Báez

I sit in Lotus pose, in the house of my fiancé, surrounded by gifts from my late husband. I sit on a worn but plush floral rug in full view of the garden surrounding this old country house, which sits on five acres that were once a vineyard, even now, the Concord grapes grow sweet.  

Up here in the Hudson Valley, I am sheltering in with my fiancé and my two toy dogs, far away from the Bronx, where I grew up and my family still lives. The countryside is quiet, but from time to time, the bones of this old house creak and crack in the morning breeze. And in the distance, a dog barks, a car sweeps by, and the sparrows, finches and songbirds sing to find a mate or renew old bonds. 

The skies are quiet.  

The room smells like the dogs’ baby-powder-scent cologne, incense, and Palo Santo, a holy wood I burn for cleansing and prayer, fresh, sweet, calming. The furnace hums--a hush, a yawn, a sigh--the heat surfacing to warm the house like an embrace on this chilly spring morning. 

To my right, a potbelly furnace and sliding doors to the deck. To my left, my faded plaid-pink sofa bed, flanked by Queen-Anne-style side tables topped by matching antique brass-metal drum-shade lamps--all gifts from my late husband.  

Behind them are three windows with views of the White Lilac that will bloom in June. Ahead is a small round table, where my old Buddha sits with Malas wrapped around him--both anniversary gifts from my late husband. 

I take a sigh in Lotus pose, fully in the present moment while surrounded by my past. 

Many of the items in the house were gifts from my late husband to his then best friend, who is now my fiancé. Throughout the years, our used furniture had migrated here, one piece at a time--mirrors, table, chairs, rugs--but who would have known that one day I would live here. In every part of the house, there is a part of him, there is love. 

Love multiplied.  

Beside the Buddha are houseplants and two money trees--one a gift from my daughter, the other from my Reiki teacher. 

Indoors, a pink rose bush sits on a black metal standing planter--a gift from my fiancée on Valentine’s Day.  

Beside it, the wing chair where my late husband would sit to read. And ahead, beyond the indoor garden and my Buddha, are two ceiling-to-floor windows that show off the variety of pines, blue spruce, Japanese maple, and purple lilac decorating the landscape. Everything is in in bloom--the Yoshino cherry tree, especially, with its vibrant display of white-pink blossoms and its almond-sweet scent. Under that tree, my late husband loved to sit or practice Hata Yoga in the morning light when we visited, before the house became mine. 

My heart takes flight. 

The truth is that, unbeknownst to my fiancé, or me, my late husband had been setting us up, once he knew he was going to die. Something about us made him feel that his wife and his best friend would be right for each other. But it was his endless, selfless love for both of us that made him a matchmaker at the end of his life. He would tell my now-fiancé to please take care of me, to not let me wallow in grief; to me, he would say not to let my fiancé hide in the woods, that he was married to the grounds, to this old house, with its endless repairs--“Get him out.” I would laugh it off then, when I saw my fiancé as a brother, and only years after my mourning would I see him differently. I understood that he was happy with his monastic lifestyle, connected to nature and to the simple ebb and flow of his country life. But my late husband insisted and, even on the night before his passing, he urged me to love again. I never knew anyone could love like that.  

I breathe in and out in Lotus pose, the flow of love around me, every object illuminated, sacred in this time of loss, in this time of gratitude.

Annecy Báez is an educator, and psychotherapist, author of  My Daughter’s Eyes and Other Stories, and winner of the 2007 Marmol Prize in fiction. Her stories and poetry have appeared in various anthologies and periodicals, such as Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers and Callaloo. @annecybaez