In 1994, my wife left me.

Not quite as dramatic as that.

She said she felt called to go to seminary and, would I mind?

Initially, I was not crazy about it. After all, it meant I’d be left at home with two kids, ages 14 and 12. At that point, we were living in a home I built and designed myself, on a property I’d cleared up with my bare hands.

But I knew her call to seminary was a genuine one.

So we found Western Theological Seminary in Holland, and off she went. After a month, I called her and said, “I have to be where you are,” and I put the house up for sale. The boys followed her a few months later, a blessing for them and for me. I joined her in1996.

While I waited to join her, I wrote a column for The Alpena News which extended for 12 weeks. Each week, I talked about growing up in Alpena and sort of said goodbye to the people and places that had been so important to me for five decades.

I now am again ready to say goodbye.

This time, it’s a more permanent trip.

Once again, my lady made the trip ahead of me. Her leaving this time was one none of us anticipated. She had an emergency appendectomy and, two days later, the doc said “cancer,” and then he said “stage four,” and then he said “a year and a half.”

He was wrong. It was a year and three-quarters. And I’m thankful for those extra three months.

During those months, I decided once again to follow Ginny. Well, I didn’t decide, the decision was made for me. Cancer, stage four, year and a half. Except, like Ginny, I’m not going to pay any attention to those fractions.

I’ll just go when it’s time.

It was really helpful (the first time and the last) that Ginny went first. She showed me (and others) the way, fearlessly, even joyfully. Dancing into death.

I also decided to go this time the way I did before: examining my leave-taking, rather than just exiting stage left.

I also know myself well enough that nothing is a straight line. I’ll feel free to jag to the left or jig to the right. Sometimes, when I’m writing about raising pigs (which I may well) my mind will hiccup. I’ll find myself wandering down the hallways at the college, or visiting a friend on the reservation, and always my dear Ginny will accompany me — usually in the background, but always present.

I titled these columns generally Poeticus et Politicus. While I may not always adhere strictly to the format, I’ll try to encapsulate both poetry and prose somewhere each week.

Hey!

Where’d you go

You sly fox you

There you were

As beautiful as ever

Blink!

And you’re gone

Once before you disappeared

But I knew you’d come back

That’s the difference

Now I know

You’ve gone for good

Not good

That your gone

A goodbye

Without a good

Just bye