Familiversary & the Wisdom of Wendy's

Yesterday was my anniversary. Our anniversary, that is. (One thing that happens in widowhood, is you become more aware of how pervasive your habit is of mixing first person singular with first person plural in lots of different contexts.) I was sad about how little to-do there was about the day itself, but I also had planned in advance that I would celebrate our 6th year of marriage on a "familiversary" date-night with the kids the day after. After all, our marriage date was not the beginning of him and me alone, but of our whole family!

How did we celebrate? Sushi and a show! Here's why...

Shortly before B died, he and I had been making efforts to court each other more, and we had gone on more frequent and more fun dates than maybe ever before...ok, well at least moreso than in then-recent months of frantic school and work busy-ness. In the series of wholly enjoyable, renewing date-nights, one stands out to me as the most meaningful: it was the last big date, and it was the week before he died.

We went out for sushi and a show: Sushi Ya and La Boheme. (I won't go into the irony of having a romantic tragedy be the last show I saw with my spouse before his untimely death; I know it doesn't take much explaining). Afterward, we drove home, singing to each other the music from a modern day version of that opera, with particular emphasis on the song, "I'll Cover You" (both the upbeat version, and -- for dramatic effect, and to see who could pull off the best Jesse Martin impression (bless that man's beautiful voice!) -- the powerful funeral version). On the way home, and feeling particularly wild, we broke from our usually very controlled, healthy eating habits for an impromptu Frosty run. (Thanks, Wendy's!)

This night was also historic for a more subtle reason: it was my first dive into sushi - something my husband had waited years for me to warm up to. And mind you, I did try. Again and again and again. Much of my life, I was convinced that I could get myself to like fish, if I just kept putting in the effort. Then I married a Hawaiian, effectively upping the ante on this goal, but having still little real effect on it.

But sometime before that date night, I announced to my husband that I was ready. I had come to like certain fish enough that I could finally be his all-you-can-eat sushi partner (instead of watching from the sidelines, with my plate of teriyaki chicken and tame, Americanized veggie sides). So that date-night, we got sushi. And yes, we worked the "all-you-can-eat" like no other. There I go again mixing the first person singular/plural thing. Let's be honest, we all knew he could work the all-you-can-eat; the shocker was that I was taking that sushi joint for all it was worth. The sudden understanding of the popular appeal of sushi was like a spiritual awakening - I wanted to share sushi with the world! As a couple, we decided to make sushi a regular part of our date-night dogma from then on. Both of us could not have been happier with this new-found connection and revelation.

Talk about digressing...

Anyway, I loved sushi. Brandon loved sushi. I loved the play. Brandon loved the play. We both loved the Frosty, but that just goes without saying.

After Brandon died, I determined that not only would I not allow death to destroy my comfort, but it couldn't destroy our date-night plans either! I knew almost immediately, it seems, in the grieving process, that Brandon and I would have "sushi and a show" every anniversary, or every anniversary of his birth/death - or both.

Today was my first opportunity to live that tradition, and I brought my kids along. We went for the sushi (kids had chicken katsu actually, because every culture makes allowance for kids' chicken-nugget trained pallets, it seems), then saw a community production of Beauty and the Beast (a show which Brandon swears I promised to take him to on Broadway someday, even though I don't remember making that deal), then, when the kids crashed on the car-ride home, Mommy swung through the Wendy's drive-thru for nothing other than the out-past-10, mildly enjoyable dessert staple: a small chocolate Frosty. (I thought about getting Brandon's vanilla Frosty on the side, but knew exactly what would end up happening with it, and had already put my body through enough gluttony for the day.)

Then, the most serendipitous thing happened. As I snapped a selfie with my Frosty cup to update my family on the day's activities via text message, I looked at the picture I took and realized the Frosty had a message for me:

Wendy's gets it.

Happy anniversary, B! And happy familiversary, kids!