After the deaths of my husband Gary and dear family friends Marcia and Jerry, it took a few years to adjust to celebrating holidays without them. The one I can’t seem to shake, though, is the Fourth of July.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were spent at our house. Marcia and Jerry’s daughter hosted Easter Sunday. But the Fourth of July belonged exclusively to Marcia. It was one of her favorite holidays. She went all out with theme decorations, wearing red, white and blue outfits, and inviting dozens of people to join the party in her open garage and driveway. Kids were given glow sticks, silly paper hats, and sparklers. After dark, Jerry entertained the crowd by setting off illegal fireworks in the street. Peals of laughter reverberated throughout the neighborhood. Earlier in the day, Marcia and I—and a few others—would attend the wacky Mendocino Fourth of July parade. Unlike other holiday celebrations that lasted a few hours, she made this a full day of festivities.

Marcia died on June 17, 2023.

Since then, each Fourth of July ripped open a painful raw grief over the loss of my loved ones and an event we celebrated for thirty years. Each of the first two years after Marcia’s death, I put a hoodie over my pajamas, a little ornamental bird in the front pouch, and set out at 6:00am to walk to Marcia and Jerry’s former house at Glass Beach. They’d built it in 1997 as part of a sweat equity program that erected all the houses along Holmes Lane. When I arrived, I’d survey the yard for the perfect spot to attach the green bird—Marcia’s favorite color. I’d cautiously look around to make sure the homeowners wouldn’t spot me as I clipped the bird to a branch of a butterfly bush near the driveway. Through tears, I’d mutter a quiet prayer of gratitude to the universe for gifting me these people.

I’d then return home to battle sadness as I tried to make the best of the day by pretending it wasn’t important.

This year on the Fourth of July, I woke feeling gloomy and weepy. Even though I’d planned to attend a party that evening, my heart ached. If Marcia were here, she’d have gone cuckoo-bananas over the 250^th anniversary of our country’s independence. We would have gathered to revel in a day of joy and laughter.

My inner judge pounded me— For God’s sake!—it’s been three years since the last of these people disappeared from your life! Show some gratitude for having been invited to a Fourth of July party. Life has moved on. Buck up and get over it!

I couldn’t push the heartache away.

I felt compelled to put another green ornamental bird at Marcia and Jerry’s. However, this year there was a bit of a glitch. This past December, I’d been diagnosed with A-fib, which is an irregular heartbeat. It sapped my energy and greatly reduced my stamina. Despite the diagnosis, I continued to walk each day. But I had to make sure I was close to home because after fifteen minutes or so, I’d become wobbly and needed to sit down.

In early May, I had a procedure called a cardioversion—a shocking of the heart—which put it back into rhythm. It took a solid month for me to start feeling better, but my energy continues to return to near normal. Yet, I worried how a forty-minute round trip walk to Marcia and Jerry’s might cause me to stumble and faceplant into a gutter. I decided I was too miserable to care.

I put a hoodie over my pajamas, a bird in the front pouch, and headed out in the early morning fog.

When I got to the Glass Beach house, I stalked the front yard, and decided to clip the bird on a lavender bush that Marcia had planted long ago. As I gingerly stepped towards it, a woman with a large dog on a leash came out the back gate.

There I stood—a stranger in the middle of her garden wearing an Anderson Logging hoodie over my pajamas. “Oh…um…good morning,” I stammered. “Are you the homeowner?”

“I am,” she said with a suspicious look.

I held the bird towards her, and nervously babbled about how Marcia and Jerry had once lived there, how important they and the Fourth of July celebrations at this house had been to me and my family, how since Marcia died, I’ve felt compelled to acknowledge the meaning of this day by leaving a little bird.

Instead of commanding her dog to attack, she smiled and said, “I met them when I bought this house. They seemed lovely.”

“They were,” I said, “and such important parts of my family. Now they’re dead, my husband’s dead, and I miss them all so much.”

 “I’ve noticed the little birds and wondered who’d left them,” she said in a gentle tone. “When you place this one, let’s have a moment of silence in honor of your people.”

We bowed our heads in reverence as I clipped the bird to the lavender bush.

It was such a special, loving moment.

We bid each other farewell.

She went on her way.

I went on mine, and cried all the way home.