“Happy New Year”

Assuming I take my dog to nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow,” not “boh” or “boo”) Park this morning, that’s what passersby will probably be wishing me.
And I’ll probably say “I only hope 2013 isn’t as sad as 2012, since 2012 is the year my wife died.”
The owner of the Bailey-dog, who I see there occasionally, and a few others are hip. They’re the only ones who will wish 2013 is better for me than 2012.
We were never apprised my wife would die, only that she might.
We wrestled with her cancer five years, actually two cancers, although her breast-cancer seemed to be in remission.
Her fatal cancer was non-Hodgkins lymphoma, although that seemed in remission a few times. But it kept coming back, and it became aggressive. (Fast-growing.)
We tried various chemos, but the only one that worked was the most toxic — the one that causes hair-loss.
We had to stop using it because it could damage her heart.
Complications arose, mainly leg-swelling, caused by blockage of blood-return from her legs.
Her blockage was the cancerous lymph-nodes in her abdomen.
There also was blockage of ureter-tubes from her kidneys, which made one kidney dysfunctional.
We thought we might have to do outside kidney drainage, but that was negated when the toxic chemo reduced the cancerous lymph-nodes.
But her lymphoma kept returning, and when the last-resort hyper-expensive chemo prescription reduced her immunity too much, it was all over.
The lymphoma took her, and in killing its host, so doomed itself.
So 2012 is the year we dispersed her ashes under her father’s sugar-maple tree on our property, as she wished.
I was so stunned doing so I didn’t know what I was doing.
My cleaning-lady tells me I’m doing wonderful, that my wife would be proud.
“You get up every morning and pursue your daily-routine like nothing happened.”
“Well believe you-me,” I always say. “I know something happened.”
Local TV and radio stations are doing things recalling significant events of 2012. They might list 20 events.
In my case I only list one. 2012 is the year my beloved wife of over 44 years died. I miss her dearly.
A friend suggested widowhood sucks.

• I took my dog to the park this morning, and only saw four others. None wished me “Happy New Year.” One was hip, so I said “You know what happened, of course.” “Yes,” she said. “I can only hope 2013 is better than 2012,” I said. —I was unable to hike what I usually do, in that case almost three miles (or possibly more). But almost did all of it, skipping perhaps a quarter-mile. I was unable to hike the West Pond dam-dike. Two geese were on the frozen pond-surface, and I couldn’t risk broken bones after being lunged toward those geese. (My dog is very much a hunter.)