It has been 8 weeks since Margo died, February 6th. 2025. It has been a difficult adjustment after 53 years of living and doing almost everything together and having each other as our best friends.
Scott and I have been doing more things together now. Maple syrup season has been helpful as it continues to keep us busy. I find that staying occupied makes life more acceptable as I adjust to being a single rather than a couple, and as I figure out what comes next.
Margo lived a good life and made it a good life for her family and her friends. She was able to accept what came next, good or bad, and although her last few years were increasingly difficult with health issues, she adjusted gracefully and as her end grew near, wished us to continue to live normally and enjoy life with or without her, while looking forward to the end of her own suffering.
And so life goes on. We keep busy. We don't forget Margo, but move on to whatever comes next, knowing she would approve of us living in the future rather than the past.
Margo learned to make maple syrup when she joined the Hanson family, and it became one of her most joyful times of year. Opening up the lake cabin, tapping the trees, arguing whose turn it was to get up at 3 am and feed the boiler, the kitchen boiling and bottling syrup with its mess and stickly spills, the selling it at the Eureka Farmer's Market with the chance to visit with the neighbors, and even having her own tractor that she bought at an auction to haul the sap. Every time I use it I remember her, the auction where she spent $850 to buy it, her driving it up the roads 120 miles from Byron MN to the cabin one summer day, and her worrying about it having good care. "Just like Grandpa's that I learned to drive on," she said proudly.
