By Bertha Cooper

For the Sequim Gazette

I have never been a fan of summer. It is not that I do not like it; it just feels like it is fraught with sameness.

Day in, day out, sun, sun, sun.

I explain my affinity toward darkness by the presence of the enormous number of genes dominating my body and psyche that originated in the early tribes of northern Norway.

I imagine my ancestors toiled through the short summer season to grow or harvest enough food to carry them through a long dark winter. Growing up in a household in which my father worked the hardest during the summer months, fishing on a larger troller early on and later his small gillnetter, I learned that summer was when you worked the hardest and longest.

His hard work resulted in family security through the winter and unforgettable perks of salmon or halibut for dinner.

I never tired of either and would have one or the other every day given the opportunity.

Not surprisingly, I do not have the opportunity nowadays since I have no working fishermen left to bring it home. Buying fresh fish is very expensive, especially when eaten like I eat it — more than a serving eaten by a 180-pound man after a day of hard construction work.

Good thing I can thrive on memories.

August

The word “august” means “marked by majestic dignity or grandeur” according to Webster and the month of August has become as much in my life.

August has become the month to honor the passing of time and people that greatly touched and formed my life.

I will offer with a quick list of some August events.

The enduring love of my life Paul Christian Cooper and I married Aug. 17, 1972.

My mother LaVerna M. Svardal died Aug. 7, 1980, at age 65 after a 15-year health decline that ended when she succumbed to cancer.

My father Anfin Svardal died Aug. 28, 1987, at age 80 from a compromised respiratory system developed over years of smoking and working in coal and gold mines.

My beloved husband Paul died Aug. 2, 2024, at age 97 when his heart stopped, having done all it could over a long and productive life.

There are other memorable August anniversaries, but none as significant and reportable to me as the deaths of those I loved the most in the world.

Given the concentration of events in August, if I was superstitious, I would become a much more careful person this August or any August.

I am not but I have enough of an understanding that there is a great unknown that pushes us to appreciate the coincidences of our life. If we think back and remember, we understand that coincidences are most often among the unplanned things that direct the course of our life.

I am open to the unknown. Whether I understand or can define the unknown or whether the unknown knows me does not matter to me at this sad time of my life.

As much as I am challenged to mourn the entirety of the month, I am more inclined to forgive August and remember and celebrate its fine people, events and memories.

My primary intent is to be the loving surviving mourner that brings honor to their memories.

Endless year of firsts

Today as I write, I am here 352 days without Paul. Aug. 2 will be one year, and the endless year of firsts will end.

There is not a night I fall asleep without remembering and sometimes feeling his closeness in our bed.

There is not a morning, at least not yet, that I have not had to remind myself that Paul will not come to kiss me, which he usually did.

I have only seconds in the waking morning to enjoy a fleeting visit to the pleasant past before returning to the terrible reality of being without him.

Before dark shadows of reality fall and sadness begins.

Even that is fading.

I can feel the depth of pain receding as deep sorrow begins to withdraw without daily witness leaving behind a solid foundation of loving kindness in each memory.

That is as it should be and I will someday come to talk about him, shedding less tears and sharing more memories that honor the man, the person he was.

It is how I know my life now and I know I must nurture it because I will need it healed for my future.

And I will again celebrate the deliberate movement of our part of the planet as summer turns into autumn, my favorite time of year.

Autumn feels like a reward to me for enduring summer. Especially this one.