by Ryan Manion
I thought on it for a second, and it seemed so obvious.
“You’re right. Why wait until June? You’re back now; we’ve waited long enough. What are we waiting for, at this point?” Anticipation was fun and it had its moments, but we were tired of always waiting for something. I moved in February to North Carolina, and we went in March to the local courthouse for a marriage certificate. We couldn’t wait any longer. Rob and I were both in jeans, and we called his friends Greg and Andrew to serve as witnesses.
When we arrived at the courthouse, we saw a guy turning himself in. He was quickly cuffed and ushered away. Rob and I couldn’t help but giggle to one another at the absurdity of it all.
We then stood in front of a man who was wearing a bright-red NORTH CAROLINA STATE polo shirt who was about to officiate our marriage.
“Y’all are jokin’ and laughin’ like this ain’t ’bout to be legal,” he chastised us in a thick Southern accent.
“Oh no,” Rob said. “It’s not that. We’re getting married in June. This is just a formality.”
“Well, why didn’t ya say so?” He quickly skipped to the end of his binder and said, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
Rob and I kissed and then headed to a friend’s house to celebrate as Mr. and Mrs. Kelly. We were already looking forward to the next countdown: three more months until we did this again in front of friends and family, but next time, with a little more grandeur.
Rob and I had created an exciting road map for our relationship, one that included significant mile markers for us as a couple. It had begun with a carefree year in Tallahassee; shifted to a period of growth on Parris Island and at Camp Lejeune; traversed oceans and gained gravity in Iraq; and circled back for an engagement in New Jersey and an unexpected wedding down south. We liked to imagine where else our road map would take us, and all the exhilarating countdowns we could anticipate along the way.
However, the road map that Rob and I had imagined together early in our marriage looked very different from the one Chip placed in front of me at our meeting a few months after Rob’s death. The basic principles were the same, of course, but everything felt different. Both road maps encouraged me to take a concrete look into the future; imagine a life that would feel fulfilling; and make decisions in the present that would build toward that life.
Both road maps began clean and unmarked, waiting for my decisions about how to imprint and color them. But while one elicited feelings of anticipation, excitement, and possibility, the other inspired nothing but emptiness and dread.
My entire relationship with Rob had been defined by milestones we intended to reach together: from graduations and homecomings to personal and professional celebrations. We loved daydreaming about what life would be like for us three months, six months, and twelve months out from wherever we were at that point in our journey. Most of our excitement revolved around short-term goals: making it through basic training; reuniting after deployment; counting down to our wedding date, and then to our first anniversary.
But we were just as happy to imagine our long-term goals as well: a trip to Europe, a possible career in teaching for Rob after the Marine Corps, a home, a family.
It wasn’t that long ago when a look toward the future was what got me out of bed every morning. And here I was in Chip’s office, my entire future ahead of me, and not one single thing to look forward to. No goals, no hopes, no expectations. The anticipation was gone. All that was left in its place were apprehension and disappointment.
I was in a rut when I left Chip’s office and returned to my house on base. I pulled into the drive to my neighborhood full of active-duty families, and I wished so badly to be one of them, preparing for the return of my loved one, and rediscovering the long-lost feeling of anticipation. I knew I had to find my way out.
I remembered my mom’s principle of picking one thing and focusing on that. I thought back to when taking a shower had been nearly impossible. Within weeks I was closing out accounts and completing complex paperwork. Now I was taking meetings with a financial professional. It was a baby step, but it was something to be proud of. Okay, what’s one thing? I thought. I can do this.
At the bottom of the financial road map were the basic features involved in establishing oneself financially: a house, an automobile. I figured I’d start there. My car was pretty dependable, so I wasn’t worried about that. But I loved the idea of moving off base. I didn’t fit in there anymore anyway. I was in my mid-twenties and working at a mall bath store, so the last thing I thought I’d be doing was negotiating the sale of a house. But why not?
Patiently, Chip Stratmann guided me through the entire process, and less than one year after Rob’s death, I was a homeowner. It was a bittersweet accomplishment to tackle on my own. But as with everything I do, Rob was at the center. It was his life insurance, in fact, that I used to purchase the home—and this acquisition felt totally different from the pink blanket fiasco. That purchase had felt frivolous and insignificant, like I wasn’t acknowledging the gravity of what it meant to maintain my husband’s legacy. Like I was squandering.
The home, on the other hand, was a personal achievement. I was setting goals again. I was making healthy decisions for my future and taking ownership of my life. I was becoming independent. And rather than feeling disgust or guilt about benefiting from my husband’s loss, I felt grateful to him. He had provided me this special gift and was looking out for me—always.
The distinction between a Lilly Pulitzer blanket and a new home is, of course, completely arbitrary. The guilt that one fed and the pride that the other inspired were constructs that I had invented. There’s no inherent goodness or badness in either. They’re just things.
But during my first year without Rob, that was how I saw them: one negative and shameful; the other positive and encouraging. Looking back now, I see the difference between the two for what it truly is: a creation of my own design. It’s funny how time allows us to do that. Only with the passage of time could I gain the perspective that two similar experiences could elicit completely different emotional responses from me.
It’s just like the countdown calendar and the financial road map. They weren’t so different after all. Both tools gave me the opportunity to imagine the future and anticipate what my life would be like when I reached the final destination. But at the time, one was thrilling, and the other depressing.
Perspective changes everything. When I was barely twenty-six, I hoped that the sand in my life’s hourglass would run out quickly. I didn’t know what I’d be missing if it did.
I’m several years out from the loss of my husband, First Lieutenant Rob Kelly. I think about him every day. He came into my life bringing me humor and kindness and love, and he left me with the gift of perspective. And that perspective has re-taught me the wonderfully precious gift of anticipation. Sometimes I wonder what advice I could give to others who find themselves struggling. I doubt whether I’m able to give a lot of value. But I can promise them that they will find things to look forward to once again if they allow enough time to pass.
Your dream may be taken away from you tomorrow. Dream anyway.
When my seventeen-year-old self met charismatic Rob Kelly at FSU in 2002, we dreamed of spending our lives together. It was a fun dream that occupied the greater part of our adult lives every day thereafter. As the years went on, the dream remained, but it evolved to become more mature and complex, and we adjusted it to whatever our circumstances happened to be at any given time.
We imagined our reunion after deployment; we imagined hosting parties as a married couple at our new house; we imagined holidays with our future family. We played that dream out in minute detail and gleaned as much pleasure as we possibly could from it. We wrung it dry. And then, one day in 2010, I buried my fellow dreamer and was left to dream alone.
Obviously, there was no landmark on the mental road map I had created for myself that accounted for this. No part of the dream involved losing my husband
at so young an age. But sometimes navigating life is like driving through a snowstorm: You can only see ten feet in front of you. It’s scary and treacherous, but you know what? It’s doable. You can make the whole journey that way. You may not know what awaits you fifteen or fifty miles down the road, but that shouldn’t stop you from dreaming about how wonderful it will be when you get there.
If Rob and I had known that fate would separate us so early in our marriage, I don’t think our dreams would have looked any different. We still would have had that carefree summer in Tallahassee. We still would have spent our time apart marking down the days until our next reunion. We still would have committed our lives to one another.
Anyone’s dreams can be ripped away in an instant. And, believe me, it hurts like hell. I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t. But dream anyway. The joyful anticipation those dreams bring you will far outweigh the pain their absence leaves behind. After all, anticipation is half the fun.
Be patient with yourself. You are a work in progress.
When I consider what the horrible experience of losing Rob has taught me, I think a lot about anger and the lessons I have learned in regulating my emotions. To the outsider, it may seem like I over-regulate at times. I’m not outwardly demonstrative of my grief, so when emotions consume me, it’s a short-tempered anger—not a weepy sadness—that dominates. And anger can take many forms. For me, it has shown up as frustration with customers at work or feelings of guilt about my desire to move on from Rob’s death. Slowly, I’m learning to let go of these negative emotions.
I imagine there’s a better version of myself, five or six years down the road maybe, who will be able to say honestly that all the anger has disappeared. I like to imagine a future me who has accepted the reality of this experience and has made peace with it.
I am not yet that person. I still get angry and disappointed. I still question why Rob had to be the one to step on that IED, why he had to be there at all. It’s at times like this that I remind myself that grief is a process, and so am I. Every day is an evolution, and I allow space and forgiveness for the times I fall short of being the person I’d like to be. Any one of us would quickly dismiss the faults of a friend whom we knew was struggling. It’s important that we show the same sort of mercy toward ourselves.
Finally, do one thing—today—to set yourself up for success tomorrow.
Just one little thing. It doesn’t matter what it is; it just matters that you do it. Maybe you have such intense phobias that you can’t stand to leave your house and socialize at the neighborhood block party. Fine, don’t even try. But do something. Water your garden, take a stroll around the block. You have to start somewhere.
For a long time, I thought that sleeping my days away and praying for time to pass quickly was the best thing for me. I honestly thought it was the best thing, because it allowed me to get closer to my ultimate goal, which was…what? Dying eventually, I guess? It sounds grim to put it that way, but that’s subconsciously where I was headed. I was so intent on simply managing the pain and getting through life that I forgot that life is a journey and not a destination. Committing to do one small thing each day that pushed me toward my goal was eventually what reminded me.
We are not on this earth simply to endure. We are here to live. Find one small thing each day that reminds you that you are alive. Bake cupcakes. Pick up dry cleaning. Go to a coffee shop and look at people. Find a moment to step outside of your grief and struggle in order to focus on a simple activity. Eventually, the activities will become ever-more complex, and before you know it you’re living without reminding yourself that you have to. Pretty soon after that, you begin to enjoy it. Finally, you rediscover joy and anticipation. And your life is all the richer for it.
Chapter 9
* * *
Old Friendships and
New Anniversaries
No one loved celebrating milestones quite like Rob, so that became an integral part of our relationship, and gave us even more to look forward to and get excited about. Rob and I were married for only three and a half years, but we managed to have three wedding ceremonies in that time: our first one at the courthouse in North Carolina, our big church wedding with our families to follow, and then a vow renewal ceremony three days later during our honeymoon in Las Vegas. Each of those ceremonies evokes so many memories, some sweet and romantic and some that make me giggle. We didn’t get the lifetime together we had hoped for, but we made sure to cement those vows to each other—over and over and over again.
It’s not just milestones that make a relationship special. It’s the everyday activities that make up a life. After so much time apart—long-distance dating, military training, deployments—the mundane stuff of life felt extra fun, simply because Rob and I were together.
Life felt perfect when Rob got stationed at Camp Pendleton and we moved from the East Coast to Southern California. Some of my favorite memories are of the Sundays we spent there together. We’d get up, make a big pot of coffee, and relax a little as we eased ourselves into the morning. Rob loved to make himself a big breakfast on the weekends, and he was almost ceremonious in the way he cooked the bacon and eggs and piled everything high on his plate.
Most Sundays, we had a routine. We would go to the barbershop so Rob had a fresh haircut for Monday morning (you know how Marines are), eat lunch at In-N-Out Burger (a SoCal staple; we loved it when we first moved out west), and usually hit Trader Joe’s to purchase groceries for the week.
We loved perusing the aisles for fun, new snacks and sweets, and Rob would search for anything with coconut. Depending on the season, we’d end our Sundays by watching some of our favorite shows together, like Mad Men or Dexter, and cooking dinner together. Little mundane errands to the grocery store or our burger dates to In-N-Out are some of the most cherished memories I have of my time with Rob. There was nothing terribly exciting about these trips. They happened once every seven days. But spending that time together is what made them fun and special.
After Rob was killed in 2010, I thought I’d never have another thing to look forward to in my life. I didn’t think I’d derive joy from the simple sweetness of the commonplace ever again. I remember, when my mom was staying with me in California, after Rob died, she suggested we go to Disneyland.
It was my first Christmas without my husband, and I was grateful for her suggestion to make a depressing time of year a little less depressing. I’m a nerd for all things Disney, so I figured if, nothing else, it would be a good distraction.
I was wrong. When we got there, whatever excitement I had been able to muster dissipated quickly. I realized I had been right to think there was nothing in life to look forward to, not even a visit to one of my favorite places on earth. I remember my mom kept wanting to take pictures of the trip and I was insistent that I didn’t want any photos of myself.
What are we even documenting things for anymore? I wondered. What was the point? For whom were we saving these images? There seemed to be no point in recording moments that would never be worth reflecting on anyway.
I’ve tried to make a case that the experience of anticipation is key to overcoming grief and struggle. That proved true for me.
But how are you supposed to recover emotions like joy and excitement when you’re in so dark a place? Losing Rob was a loss like no other. When you lose your husband, everything changes. And I mean everything. The way you eat dinner changes. The way you buy food changes. Who you dance with at a wedding changes. Your sense of personal safety and security changes. There’s nothing like it.
Everything I had envisioned and planned for was gone the moment those men knocked on my door. I didn’t just lose my best friend and partner in life, I lost my entire future. And nothing could have prepared me for it.
At the end the day, it’s been my friendships that have led me out of the darkness. Without them, I have no idea where I’d be. Friends can’t replace the love of your life, but they can and do remind you that life is still worth
living. Friends go on adventures with you and commiserate when all you want to do is complain.
One of those friends proved to be Melissa.
Melissa and I met in 2007. Rob and I were newly married at the time and we had just moved to Quantico, Virginia, where he was about to go through schooling to become a Marine officer. He had been an enlisted Marine for four years already, and when he decided to renew his contract for another four years and become an officer, he had to undergo more training and instruction.
Once in Quantico, I got a job as a manager for a Bath & Body Works store. On my first day on the job, I attended an all-hands meeting with all the store’s sales personnel. It was fall and we were meeting to prep for the onslaught of holiday shopping.
When I arrived at the staff meeting, I spotted a friendly-looking brunette who was toting a Longchamp purse with a Coach scarf tied around the strap; she was chatting with everyone in sight. In 2007, an ensemble like that represented the absolute height of fashion forwardness. I wanted to get to know this girl more. Fortunately, I had my chance soon after, when Melissa and I started working together regularly on the sales floor.
Technically, I was her supervisor, but it never felt that way. We clicked automatically as equals. She made our shifts so entertaining; I’d never imagined I could have so much fun selling bath products to strangers.
Almost a year after we had begun working together, I mentioned to Melissa offhandedly that my birthday was coming up in October. I was turning twenty-three. When I left work on the afternoon of my birthday, there was Melissa, standing in the parking lot next to her car, carrying a giant sign and waiting for me. She had been blasting “Happy Birthday” from her car stereo for so long that her battery had died.