Skip to main content

Teri McDonough Wilson - now memories are all I have

 I don't have a photograph of her.


That's what I remember thinking when I learned she had recently passed.  I'm sure somewhere in the boxes scattered throughout my life here in Western Pennsylvania is a picture of Teri and I.  We were married 10 days after September 11th, 2001.  

I still remember the day of our marriage, as we scrambled to make sure that we had a back up best man and a back up "father to give away the bride" just in case my best man, who was in the Air Force at the time; and her brother (Navy) were called off to active duty.

It was a wonderful open air wedding with great food and lots of dancing and seemed like a great start to our lives. Two young people ready to take on the world.   Needless to say, the world won.

Our relationship started off well but by the economic collapse of 2007/2008 we started to show signs of stress.  Sadly I lost my job and fell into a deep depression, I often say that I was "frozen" as I seemed unable to take care of even the most basic of tasks.   She had her own concerns and instead of being partners to help each other through this mess....we moved in two different directions.

I knew it was over when I went to visit her in a hospital after she had some sort of procedure done...and all we could do was scream at each other.

I moved out of the house we shared in Pittsburgh and pretty much left everything to her.  Shortly after I moved to Florida on a whim and found myself starting over.

I don't even have a photograph of us.

Time heals all wounds and we moved on.   Slowly we started to talk to each other again.  She and I met other people, she got the family that she always wanted and become an adopted mother and grandmother to a large family.  Somehow we become friends and forgave each other for the pain and hurt that we caused each other.

I knew she was happy as she cooked for this new found family, and taught the youngest generation how to cook.   To know Teri was to be fed by Teri.   I last spoke to her on Thanksgiving day....and we talked about an hour or so, about family and being thankful and yes; about food too.

Our mutual love of food was one of the reasons we found each other, as was our silly sense of humor.  We danced in kitchens, in parks and on street corners because we could and it was fun.  She was one of the few people in my life that I can honestly say caused me to belly laugh consistently. 

Sadly Teri's health was always a concern.  She had been born with a hole in her heart, a physical condition because spirit wise her heart was never ill.  Her brother put it best at the funeral.  A hole in the heart is a contagious condition.

She had two heart attacks during out marriage, and a horrible miscarriage.  I came home from work that day and thought I entered a murder scene.  I nearly fainted when I learned that I was going to be a father.

Still though, we had dogs and cats running about.  We had friends and wonderful dinners and more good days than bad. 

I'll miss her.  

Her death was unexpected, despite her health, and somehow this seems to be affecting me harder than it should.  It's been years since I last saw her...and our lives are truly separate now.   Yet, she kept my last name all this time.

I just always expected her to be there.   Much like I expect my beloved Susan to always be there for me.

A part of me has, and will, always love her.  Good night Teri.

Photos of Teri are available here if you would like to have an idea of the type of person she was.

Labels:
Location: Stoneboro, PA 16153, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

What all the cool kids are reading.

Honoring the past - Thinking more about "invasive" plant species.

 Recently I've been giving some thought to invasive species.  I had received both positive and negative feedback on the blog post concerning kudzu and recently I came across a very well hidden, and very small, wild cherry tree while doing some yard work.  Since it's against the house it would have to be removed since the root systems could damage my foundation.   A buddy of mine at work was asking if I was going to transfer it, his logic being that it was a fruiting tree that would not only attract a variety of pollinator's but that the deer would eat the bark and cherries, keeping them away from the garden (which Sue and I swore we were not going to do this year).  It occurred to me that I was going to have to do a slightly better job of identification, since black cherries are native to America , where as other types of cherries are not.  Being able to make a precise identification would be helpful.   I used to be able to identify all these tre...
Post a Comment
Read more

A true year in review

    For as long as I've kept a blog or a journal of some sort, I've always taken a few minutes to look back over the last year to see what I was thinking and feeling at any one time.   What worked and didn't work for me as a blogger...and as a human being.     This was our first full Calendar year in Western Pennsylvania.  I can honestly say that 2021 was a year of firsts, of disappointments, and at times felt like we were on a roller coaster without the safety bar in place.   It was also one of joy and laughter.     In some ways it was full of setbacks - for example we never did get our garden planted in the spring, which was something that I was hoping to do.   We realized however that we had planned was simply to much for what we needed and by the time we made adjustments, the growing season was over.      However we did do "little things" like replace our drainage ditch with stones and such to make...
Post a Comment
Read more

Maybe we need to rethink invasive species???

Hi. As the writer of the post and feel that I need to clarify something. I do not advocate the planting of invasive species. The point that I'm trying to make, and clearly didn't, is that perhaps we should be thinking about an invasive species in a different light. Apples, figs and other crops are clearly non native to America and Europe but are widely cultivated because they have use to humans as a food source, animal feed, etc. Kudzu is an edible plant and although it is clearly harmful can it be used someway by humans? It's a food source, it's been used as a cloth and is showing some use as a building material. All I'm trying to do is to create discussion on how we can use invasive plants in new ways.   It's mid April here in Western Pennsylvania and so far it's been warm and wet.  The buzz of lawnmowers fill the air as I gallivant through my back yard collecting dandelions to make some tea and bread with them.  I had always known that they w...
Post a Comment
Read more