Dan’s Divot Tool
There’s this tool used in golf called a divot tool. You carry it in your pocket. When your ball lands on the green, it will often leave an indentation called a ball mark in the carefully groomed grass of the green. It’s good golf etiquette to find and fix your ball mark as soon as you reach the green. My ball hardly ever lands on the green so I don’t fix many divots. But the first thing I put in my pocket when I go golfing is a well-used, scuffed, burnished divot tool. You see, it belonged to my late husband, Dan Potts, and he loved that thing (and he…
Reflections on Loss
I questioned myself as to whether I ought to write yet more about this topic, for a column titled “Edmonds Fitness Corner.” After two years, people might be wondering, is she ever going to get over it? But really, the answer is no. It just doesn’t work like that. I have adapted, changed, grown, learned to manage the most unpleasant of feelings, but there will never be closure. After two years I’m sensing a pattern—that this part of each year will be the most difficult for me regarding my husband’s death. The holidays are stressful enough for most of us, but are even more poignant with the loss of a…
Life’s Second Chances
“The afternoon knows what the morning never expected.”—Robert Frost About three weeks after Dan died, I went down the FIVE Restaurant, one of my “safe” places. I met this woman there, with whom I shared my story over (several) glasses of wine. I’ll never forget, she looked at me and said, “You’ve known a great love. You’ll know another.” I couldn’t even imagine it, at that time. All I wanted was Dan Potts back, alive and well. It was the worst and most painful experience of my life grieving the death of my husband. And I was hurting. Bad. I knew somehow people had survived this so I thought I…
