I am writing again after a long absence this summer, wondering what I can possible say with a broken heart. My husband Dan passed away   on September 11 after   a major heart failure in June when he  collapsed, coded and came back again.  He never fully recovered  from  the month long hospitalization and additional stress on his heart,  but  God  gave us Dan for  a precious while longer, for His perfect plans and purposes. Finally,   He called  Dan home.   His is a story about miracles and healing and  testifies to God’s loving, mysterious interventions in our lives. I was blessed to be   with him at the very end.

We celebrated  our 59^th wedding anniversary at St. Luke’s hospital and pored over our wedding album together, amazed  how very young we were, laughing over my bee hive hairdo and Dan’s serious bridegroom expressions. Since that day,   we’ve been together  through every season  and purpose under heaven. Now in this season to mourn I hope  for the time when all  mourning will cease.

It is the little things Dan has left behind which get to my heart.  I think of Dan’s hats. He always wore  a hat when he went out, a habit from youth because his skin was so fair and he sunburned easily. Whenever I go to my car I pass the hat rack in the garage where Dan hung  an assortment of hats.  They were usually crammed one on top of the other, stacked like nesting eggs along the wall: baseballs hats, cowboy hats, summer and winter hats, hats for the rain and hats for the sun. Big brimmed hats and  Japanese style bucket hats. Many  of them were old and beat up to my way of thinking, but I never dared throw one out because that would invariably have been his favorite. When the rack was full, he’d simply expand to the basket close by  and toss the extras in there. I never counted them up  and have no cause to criticize because I have my own collections of favorite goodies.

As a young lawyer and  product of  Chicago, Dan adhered to an unstated  professional dress code and wore a fedora, the kind worn  by 50’s movies detectives and gangsters.  He never seemed to care that it was no longer fashionable to do so. Dressed for the office and court, he wore a suit, starched shirt, traditional tie – and a dress hat (which no judge would permit before the bench!)   Most of those early hats are gone, except one so squished and  misshapen  which of course was the first one he’d grab. It was this stained green favorite to which he pinned photos of two grand daughters, Ava and Gretchen. Dan wasn’t  very partial to ball caps and had no tolerance for the young men  who wore them backwards. Or  inside a house. Or to church! His one exception was a blue and gold Boise State Bronco cap he wore when the Broncos played a game on tv.

In Idaho Dan started wearing cowboy hats and Stetsons. He discovered   Randy Priest a traditional hat maker in Donnelly and always appreciative of fine workmanship, Dan got several beaver or felt hats which every few years Randy cleaned and reshaped. I was taught never to place a hat right side up which was a challenge when we were in the car.  In restaurants, etc, Dan grumped when there were no hat racks. In all the years, he  only lost one cowboy hat and that was just recently.

The hat racks are pretty empty now.  I haven’t the courage to sort through the closet shelves where many of Dan’s hats are still stored. It will take time to do so and I am in no rush.  Dan’s hats  are snapshots  of who he was and what he enjoyed and whom he loved.  They’re a roadmap of this six decade  journey we’ve traveled , marking time and space we’ve experienced together.  For a little while longer I’ll l keep the hats  where they are, letting them speak to me as if with Dan’s voice. With God’s grace, it will do.