72. The Captain Jonathan D. Grassbaugh Memorial Clinic

"The angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe in the hand of God."
~Eileen Elias Freeman

During a trip home from Washington, D.C. a few months ago, I was at Reagan Airport for an early morning flight and, as usual, I had packed too much stuff.  As I checked my heavy bag in at the ticket counter and then hoisted it up onto the screening belt, I was struck by a sudden sense of deja vu.  I've been here before, I thought.  This all seems incredibly familiar.  It was in that moment that I remembered lifting a similar bag up onto the very same conveyor belt over five years ago as I prepared to leave D.C. after Jon's funeral.  On that trip, I felt weighed down - both physically and emotionally.  Leaving my husband's body behind was hard enough; contemplating what on earth to do with the rest of my life seemed unimaginable.  A proverbial brick of fear and apprehension sat squarely on my chest.  My bag was heavy and full, only instead of clothes and shoes, it contained things like a wooden flag box, a folded American flag, and a plastic container full of all the birthday, Valentine's Day, and Christmas cards Jon had ever given me.

This time of year is full of moments like these. To say that the holidays are rough is an understatement, especially since Christmas day of 2006 was the last day I saw my husband alive. Every year I look for new things to do and new traditions to make the season a little more bearable. I realized as I braced myself for this year's festivities that this is the first year since I lost Jon that I've been truly alone on Christmas. In other words, I'm not in a relationship, I'm not reeling from the realization that the very thing I thought might bring me happiness was really just causing more pain, and I'm not on the brink of jumping into the dating world. It's just me. Damn...that's scary to write down on paper, much less think about all the implications inherent in such a stark reality.

Given the trepidation with which I face the blank slate of my future, I've recently taken a giant leap of faith and thrown myself into something I hope will bring me some fulfillment while also helping others in need. Over the past few years, I've undertaken several small projects in my husband's memory. My family and I award an annual scholarship to a Johns Hopkins University ROTC graduate and to a middle-school student in the town where Jon's mother is now the principal. We helped to push a bill through Congress to name the post office in Jon's hometown in his honor, and we donated funds to purchase a new optic telescope at the Phillips Exeter Academy Observatory where he worked as a student. Last year, we also funded a Public Interest Legal Foundation fellowship here at The Ohio State University. As I mentioned, however, these projects have all been relatively small in scope. The latest project I've proposed will remain faithful to the kind of public service endeavors I feel passionately about while breaking new and innovative philanthropic ground. In other words, this project will ultimately expand the scope of the Jonathan D. Grassbaugh Memorial Fund and take our community outreach efforts to a whole new level.

Best of all, this project will be all about the heroes who have given all and receive so little in return: our nation's military veterans. Although I've volunteered with surviving family member support groups and organizations over the past few years, the problems facing veterans also cause me much concern. In the state of Ohio in particular, there is currently a great need among low-income veterans for assistance with a wide range of civil issues ranging from landlord-tenant issues to disability claims. As a result, the Legal Aid Society of Columbus is overwhelmed by a caseload that requires specialized knowledge and expertise, and there is also no central location to which Ohio's 900,000 veterans can go for help.

This is where I come in. Since this community has already given me so much in preparing me for my future career, I want to do more to give back while I'm still here. I want to found a clinic to provide veterans with much-needed legal assistance. Although I'm yet to embark on any major projects of this size and scale, the time has come for me to take on an endeavor that, if successful will truly leave a lasting impression and perpetuate my husband's legacy of selfless service. It will take a lot of work, fundraising, and support, but if my recent meetings with members of the Columbus legal community are any indication, the support is there. There is simply a need for a passionate, emotionally-invested advocate with "boots on the ground," so to speak. And I think I can be that person.

My latest meeting with law school administrators and the Student Development office was incredibly encouraging; we've reached about a 70 percent solution in structuring the program to meet the needs of veterans while simultaneously offering students the opportunity to provide hands-on legal assistance to those most deserving of our help.  I can't imagine a better manifestation of the value Jon placed on both education and service, and I look forward to the coming weeks and months of continued progress.  I'm proud to report that we're now well on our way to creating the $500,000 endowment that will allow this initiative to exist into perpetuity.  In the words of a wise woman, "the older you get, the more you realize there's just one thing that matters - happiness."  I can't have the kind of happiness I long for and envisioned with Jon, so instead I do the things I think he'd be proud of, like founding this clinic.  I can't have Jon, but what I can do is provide others with the kind of help they need to live the kind of life Jon and I dreamed of sharing together.  

After I long day of meetings about the clinic this past week, I lit four holiday candles - one candle for grief, one for courage, one for our memories, and one for our love.   I sensed Jon's presence in the warmth of those four tiny flames.  It let me know I'm doing the right thing by pursing causes greater than myself.  The results of these efforts will, I hope, ultimately touch others and provide them with a little light in times of darkness.  I'm just one person, but with the right vision and the requisite support behind me, I will strive to be the kind of person the veteran community needs.  In the words of one of my favorite national non-profit organizations, "if not me, then who?"  The holiday season is indeed rough.  This is, however, the best Christmas gift - short of Jon - I could ever ask for.

My 4 holiday candles for my beloved husband, Jon. Cheers to the love we shared and for the beautiful life he gave me. It is truly an honor to call myself his wife ♥ 

71. The Last Full Measure

When President Lincoln died from a gunshot wound on April 15th, 1865, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, received messages of condolence from all around the world. She attempted to answer many of these messages personally. To Queen Victoria, who suffered the loss of her husband four years earlier, she wrote:

"I have received the letter which your Majesty has had the kindness to write. I am deeply grateful for this expression of tender sympathy, coming as it does from a heart which from its own sorrow, can appreciate the intense grief I now endure."

Almost exactly 142 years after Mrs. Lincoln penned these words, I too discovered the meaning of that "intense grief." I became a widow and a member of the club to which no one wants to belong. People ask me all the time what they can do or how they can help. Honestly, I don't really know. Maybe just let me talk about Jon instead of getting all quiet and uncomfortable whenever I bring him up? Try not to make me feel so awkward when I tell our stories and share memories of the time we spent together?

Realistically, though, there's no way to fix what's broken here. I miss him. All the time. Everything makes me think of him. So unless someone figures out how to resurrect the dead, there's only so much they can do or say. It's particularly frustrating when people tell me to "call if I need anything." In an ideal world, I'd probably take up just about anyone on that offer. On the rough nights, I'd love to to call up my friends and tell them I've had a bad day. More often than not, though, I don't pick up the phone and I don't call anyone because I'm a self-conscious, blubbering mess. The intensity of my emotions always makes perfect sense in my own mind, but when I try to explain these feelings out loud to others, the words come out sounding hollow and strange.  I don't want to be "that friend" - the needy girl who's always sad and in tears because her husband died.  So I often keep my tears to myself...or hold them inside and fight like hell to keep them there.  And yet, despite all this, I know I'm still better off now than I was when I tried to bury my grief in work and unhealthy relationships.  Those distractions didn't solve anything, besides protracting the inevitable heartache. Ironically, my decision to quit following everyone else's advice on how to be happy again is one of the best decisions I've made since the day I was notified of my husband's death.

President Lincoln once advised that we "put [our] feet in the right place, then stand firm."  I've done plenty of tap-dancing around the right place since Jon died, but I think I've finally settled where I need to be.  It's where I should have been all along, and now that I'm here, I plan to hold my ground.  This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend a special screening of "Lincoln," a film based on the final four months of the President's life.  For as long as I can remember, I've been a huge Civil War buff, so the screening was a highly anticipated and exciting event for me.  In fact, one of my fondest memories is of traipsing around Bentonville Battlefield with Jon in North Carolina.  We'd passed the site countless times before, and on this particular day, he turned to me and said, "hey babe, let's stop and check it out."  I loved him for indulging my nerdy fascination with military history and for giving me the gift of that experience.  I loved him even more for getting excited about our discoveries together on the battlefield.  We were the only ones there that day...and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Appropriately, the "Lincoln" movie began and ended with some of Lincoln's most famous oratorical words.  On November 19th, 1863, President Lincoln gave a two-minute speech to commemorate the thousands of Soldiers who died four and a half months earlier on the outskirts of a little-known town called Gettysburg.  The words he uttered that day have become imprinted on the very fabric of our national identity.  When we consider the profound simplicity of his words in light of their monumental meaning, it's easy to understand why:

"In a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.  The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.  The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.  It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is, rather, for us to be here dedicated to the great tasking remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Jon, baby, I'm so sorry it had to be you.  I'm sorry you had the give the last full measure of devotion for our nation's freedom...but I know you wouldn't have it any other way.  Within a few short years, you lived a full life.  You died for the motto non sibi - not for one's self - and it is by this same moral code that I'll live out the rest of my days.  I promise, no matter how many of those days there might be, that I will do my best to finish your work and advance the noble causes to which you devoted yourself with such passion.  I promise you will not have died in vain.  As President Lincoln so eloquently put it, although my words will fade in time, the things you did here will never be forgotten.

70. The Extra Mile

"What is it like to lose your best friend, your soul mate, your everything? Your world just comes crashing down, you lose your life, you lose everything that ever mattered to you. My husband was only [insert age]. I am [insert age]. It took me [insert years] to find him, and I thought my life finally had meaning. My life finally had what I was searching my whole life for. We had a perfect life together that people only dreamed of. People would look at us and say how perfect we looked together. People used to say, when they thought of true love, they just pictured the relationship my husband and I had. People used to tell us that looking at us, they knew that true love soul mates really do exist. All they had to do was look at me and my husband. It was like we were a greeting card for Hallmark for true love soul mates. Our lives were complete. 

~I am Too Young to Be a Widow, LibertyBell (February 24th, 2009)

I think if one more person tells me I'll find love again, I will scream and throw a full-blown temper tantrum. I already had - and lost - the love of my life. He was my soul mate and my best friend. In short, my everything. And now he's gone. Forever. Why can't society just accept that sad reality, devastating though it may be, instead of telling me I'm "too young" to make the kind of life-altering decisions that others my age are fortunate enough to be making with their husband or wife by their side? I was also too young to become a widow, and yet here I am. The older I get, the more passionate I feel about advocating for the perspective that has come at the cost of losing what I love most.

After a particularly grueling and emotional day this past week, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. to the sound of something tapping on my window. My bedroom is on the third floor and there are no trees outside my window, nor was there a strong wind that night. My puppy heard it too - she jumped out of bed and started barking at the noise. It's times like these that I know Jon is still with me. And it's times like these that remind me of how impossible it is to open my heart when I'm still deeply in love with my husband. Enough with the "he would want you to be happy" stuff. Please - spare me. I've been dealing with all of this for five and a half years now. And yes, I know he'd want the very best for me. That's what happens when you love someone. He told me himself that if anything ever happened to him, he'd want me to continue to live my life to the fullest. But that's a lot easier said than done. He also didn't want to die. He wanted to experience a long life and rejoice in all the plans we'd made for the future. It's not so easy when you're the one who's left behind to live that life without your soul mate. It literally makes me sick to my stomach when people encourage me to "move on" and "find love again." I'm simply not ready, and I don't know if I ever will be. I tried going down that route and obviously it didn't work out so well. If anything, I felt I was somehow betraying my husband, even though I know that's technically impossible.  Like it or not, it's simply not something I want right now. Ironically, while the clock may be ticking on the one hand, society also tells me I'm also "so young" and have "so much life left to live" on the other. So I'm going to work on being happy just being me for a while. There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely because I miss my husband.

A few weeks ago I attended a conference in California to learn about entrepreneurial ventures from an inspiring - though somewhat eclectic - group of speakers. All were experts in their chosen fields. One man had created a renowned mentoring program and soccer league for refugee children in California. Another woman fled Afghanistan during the Soviet War and has since returned to her homeland to investigate the infamous opium trade. Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement discussed the challenges they've faced, while the author of the best-selling book What Color is Your Parachute? spoke about measures of success in hunting for jobs given the current state of the economy. All of these speakers came together in the redwood forest, high up in the mountains of Loma Mar, California, to encourage those of us in the audience who have faced personal adversity. Their words were powerful and reflected the wisdom and insight that can only come with knowing perseverance on an intimate level. As one speaker put it, "there is no traffic on the extra mile."

Before the daily slate of speakers got underway, I spent the early morning hours trekking through the forest on a long hike, and as I walked, I thought about the direction my own path has taken and how, lonely though it might be at times, it's worth every inch of the discomfort and sorrow because it's my path and no one can take it away from me. While everyone else might be doing what life has deemed right for them, I'm doing the extra mile because I believe that extra mile is worth all the blisters and sweat and tears of the work it takes to complete it.  Not only that, it's also worth the sacrifice my husband made to send me down this path. The extra mile may be long and it may be hard, but it's mine. As my brother-in-law told me after a particularly difficult and emotional talk, I should be proud of just being myself - he told me to just "stay being Jenna," and that that's all he could really ask for.  And as the conference taught me, nothing that's extra is ever easy. So no matter what others might say, I'll continue to meander my way down the only path I know. It's extra long and extra hard. But that's ultimately what makes it worth it - extra worth it.

69. A Little Misty-Eyed

"The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and inheritance of a great example." 

~Benjamin Disraeli  

"Because of you, I can." 

~The American Widow Project

This Veteran's Day, I woke up with the taste of my husband's lips still fresh on mine. My mind was numb with disbelief and yet my body tingled from the intensity of the sensation. In my dream, Jon and I were finally reunited in either this life or the next - it doesn't matter. All that matters is that I held him in my arms for what felt like forever. It was glorious. Then, as if in slow motion, I wrapped my legs around his waist and savored in the closeness of his heartbeat against mine. When I finally pulled back and opened my eyes, there were tears streaming down his cheeks. I kissed him, almost desperately, three or four times, relief pouring over me at the sight of his beautiful face. Jon rarely shed actual tears - he'd get "misty-eyed" at particularly sad movies, but that was his limit. So this was the only second time I'd ever seen him cry. The first time was within a few weeks of his death, and it too was in a dream as real as this one.

And then I woke up - in a strange bed and in an unfamiliar city.

Luckily, I wasn't alone. My bed-mate, another military widow, lay there sleeping beside me. "Snoring" always sounds so negative, so let's just say she was "purring" gently. This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to share a life-changing experience with group of nine other broken-hearted widows. Seven of us are widows of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; three are 9/11 widows. All of us came together to help to rebuild one of the many houses in New Orleans that was destroyed seven years ago during Hurricane Katrina. The owner has been without a place to call home since then, but, thanks to the St. Bernard Project, she and her family will soon return to a completely refurbished house where they can begin the process of building new memories.

Our little group listened carefully to various safety briefings and then got to work on taping, sawing, hammering, insulating, and prepping for drywall. As we worked diligently (and apparently performed the rare task of volunteering on a Sunday - Veterans Day), we listened to an eclectic mix of country music and '80s classic hits, laughed at silly stories of our husbands, and snapped pictures of the new friends we'd known for only a few hours but with whom we'll share a common bond for a lifetime. I also discovered I have a new love in my life - a love of power tools. I felt empowered as I sawed through sheets of plywood and two-by-fours and smiled to myself as I felt warmth of Jon's presence. As I washed the sweat and grime off me at the end of the day, I knew I was fortunate to be surrounded by such good, selfless people and I felt for the first time in a while like I'd actually accomplished something meaningful. Like all good things, the weekend came to an end too soon; Dorothy once said that there's no place like home, but I was definitely more than a little misty-eyed on my flight back to Ohio. I'd probably modify Dorothy's mantra to something more like "there's nothing quite like a group of women with a passion for the men they've lost and a commitment to the life they have left to live."

I always laugh when I tell people that Jon and I would never have kissed for the very first time if not for a little liquid courage. Every time I kissed him after that first night was a gift for which I will forever be grateful. Sometimes I wonder if the memories of those kisses will be enough to last me for an entire lifetime, but every now and then he comes back, albeit fleetingly in my dreams, to remind me of how it felt to be in heaven on earth. With the help of some lovely ladies, the raw reality of those feelings seems far less overwhelming, and I feel less alone. I can't imagine doing anything other than exactly what I did to commemorate this past Veterans Day. Throughout the entire weekend of shared fellowship and hard work, the tears of both joy and sadness flowed constantly among the ten members of our little group. It might not have been the stuff epic movies are made of, but if Jon had been there, I think he might have been willing to make an exception to his general no-tears rule.  At the very least, I can imagine him up there in Heaven nodding with approval...and maybe even getting a little misty-eyed too.