Hermitage Note: Moving Ahead In Memory Of Shirli

*** Shirli Lu Kralik, November 12, 1955 – July 4, 2022 … MEMORY ETERNAL! ***

The events of these past few months … learning of Shirli’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis and prognosis, making “final” arrangements and taking care of as much of our personal affairs as we could, doing the best I could to help and care for Shirli during her sickness and suffering, then having to bid her farewell and Godspeed to her eternal home … are all part of this new reality that I am learning to live with.

There is a part of me that is rejoicing that Shirli’s trials and sufferings on earth are behind her and her sweet soul, the engine that animated her physical body, is now at home with the Lord where she is completely safe and secure in God’s love. There is a part of me, too, that seems lost in missing and grieving the absence of her physical presence beside me. I have missed and grieved for other loved ones who have died. But the missing and grieving for those others is nothing like this.

Shirli is truly my soulmate. The use of the verb is is correct. Shirli can never be a was to me.

In one of our conversations that we had after we found out about the terminal cancer, Shirli asked me, “David, what are you going to do with the rest of your life after I am gone?”

I did not have to do a lot of pondering or soul searching. My response to her question was, “I am going to keep doing what I am doing. I am going to keep doing the things that we consider important and enjoy doing together. I am going to miss you sorely and it will be different without you by my side. But I will always keep doing what we love and think is important until it is time for me to join you in Heaven.”

It was an unselfish prayer that I prayed not long after Shirli and I moved to Alabama from New Jersey in 2003. I was simply talking to the Lord and said to Him, “Lord, you know the dire hardships and disappointments that Shirli has gone through in her life, how so many times she was uprooted by people and circumstances, how she struggled to get by as a single mother, how relationships that she hoped would pan out ended up fizzling out. I do not want to be the first to go and leave her behind to have to go through the grief of me dying and having to figure out how she is going to get along in this world by herself. Please, Lord, it would be a kindness for you to take Shirli home to be with you and let it be me left behind to grieve and figure out how I am going to get along without her.”

Though I did not anticipate it to happen at age 66, God answered that prayer and used the pancreatic cancer, a by-product of living in a fallen world fractured and infected by the sin of our common ancestors in the Garden of Eden, to deliver Shirli from her temporal physical body and bring her sweet soul home to be with Him.

These few weeks since Shirli’s deliverance from her cancer riddled body on July 4th have been busy weeks focused on taking care of post-death necessaries, tying up loose ends, getting our small living space back into some kind of reasonable livability, and a small multitude of other things associated with moving forward all while the waves of emotion come and go at their will. The emotional waves, at times, pound hard enough that I have an uncontrollable fall-apart. At times, in conversation with others, the waves hit me and I have to pause to collect myself. I refuse to try to stoically out-surf them. The waves are a product of the deep and everlasting love that Shirli and I share for one another. I choose to let them wash over me rather than build a bulwark or bulkhead to stop them.

Shirli and I had scheduled a retreat at the monastery just before the second wave of Covid raised its ugly head. Rather than chance it, we cancelled our retreat.

I spoke with the Oblate Director, Brother Benedict, on the phone yesterday to inquire about the dates for the Annual Oblate Retreat at Saint Bernard Abbey so I can get it on the calendar [December 9-11] for this year. I remember when Brother Benedict made his monastic vows. I told him about Shirli’s death and that I feel the need to do a personal retreat in the coming weeks.

I have been told by a number of people that I need to spend some time taking care of myself after going through the emotional and physical stress associated with Shirli’s cancer. Doing this personal retreat is something that was already part of my mental processing several weeks before Shirli drew her last breath.

It’s been too long since I was last at the monastery.