But, we had plans…

One of the main thoughts that kept repeating over and over in my head was “But, we had plans!”

Up until now, whenever someone I was talking to would mention a plan that didn’t work out, I had a standard answer:

“Do you know what happens when you make plans?”

“God laughs.”

Of course, I don’t say that anymore. And I’m sure God didn’t laugh.

I don’t know why I was so surprised. I am a maker of many plans and not a huge percentage of them ever work out the way I want. Sometimes things are a little different, sometimes a lot and sometimes the plan falls through, completely.

But this was different; this was ALL the plans.

Dwight had just retired. Officially, in October of 2017, but realistically, in May 2018, because he worked some part-time hours until then. We had already had plans in place, but now we had even more. Retirement opens up a huge number of opportunities and we were happily planning the next 30 years of our lives.

We figured we at least had that long; Dwight’s parents lived to be 96 and 94, so we just assumed that he had inherited the long-life gene. I have no idea if there is such a thing, but we just assumed something of the sort would be in play.

OK, yes, God probably laughed about that.

Dwight spent the first summer of retirement building up the garden of his dreams and was planning on improving and increasing that this year. He canned tomatoes and salsa, and froze green beans. He grew garlic, potatoes and onions and was planning to build a full-fledged root cellar. The fruits of his labor are still in the pantry and I can’t bring myself to use any of it. I don’t want to get to the point of using the last of whatever it is.

When Dwight passed, we were in the middle of planning a trip for his birthday, two weeks later. Initially, I surprised him with tickets to Amsterdam, complete with tickets to museums, B&B reservations, maps, guides and a Heineken tour. Unfortunately, I had recently broken my ankle and would not be walking without crutches by the time of our departure, so we were re-planning for a trip to Ireland on our anniversary in May.

In the end, I cancelled it all and lost several thousand dollars. Folks encouraged me to stay with the Ireland plans, but Ireland was special to us and I knew the trip would just consist of me crying at everything I saw and did because he was not there to share it with.

We had plans to travel to Alabama a number of times this year; it’s home to four of our seven grandchildren, one of whom has Dwight as his middle name. Dwight had nicknamed him “R.D.” (Rylan Dwight) because he wanted to acknowledge the honor without saying “Dwight”. According to him, it’s a heck of a name to saddle a baby with.

We had plans for camping trips, painting the deck, riding our bikes and hosting holiday dinners. We had plans for finishing the basement, the master bath and creating a music room decked out enough for recording. We had plans for our savings account, our retirement accounts and paying down our debt.

Plans. We had so many plans. And now they’ve all been cancelled or discarded. I no longer make plans, I’m not used to doing things by myself and have no desire to do so. I would miss his presence so badly that whatever plan I make would probably not be enjoyable.

When I think about the future, I imagine a huge whiteboard as far as the eye can see. Completely empty. Pure white. I just can’t imagine making any more plans for the rest of my life, next year, next month or even tomorrow.

Our plans died when he did and there is no plan B.