Some days it seems like it was just yesterday. And some days feel like it was two days ago. There have been times in my life that a year was such a long time. Last year just doesn't go away. 

I was hoping all my tears would dry up in a year. I can hardly see the page I'm typing for the fog between it and me. My cheeks still burn with dried salt sometimes. And there's that emptiness that just won't go away. 

I haven't deleted my "sadness" playlist as I thought I would have by now. I don't listen to it every day like I did last year. I just don't listen to anything now. 

When will the sadness go away? When will I be able to go back to where I live and know that I'm home? 

On the weekend that marked the year of Michael's absence, the weekend that includes World Communion Sunday - the day he died, I rented a big house in the Poconos in eastern PA and invited my kids and their families. I didn't want to be in Wise. And I didn't want to be alone. We shared time and space together. We enjoyed walking in the park, riding bikes around the neighborhood, and sitting by the fire in the evenings. We watched the grandkids do kid stuff.

In 2002 and 2003, Michael lived for long stints of time with the Majangir people outside of Dembi Dollo while I stayed in Addis Ababa with our kids who were in school there. He and his Oromo colleague, Mitiku, were working with the Majangir community to set up a school and a church and to improve their agricultural process. It was probably where his favorite memories of our 26 years in Ethiopia were. He lived in a tent and cooked on an open fire, eating whatever was available and whatever he and Mitiku could make in one pot. He participated in the community. They taught him to dance. (Well - to dance their way. He already had some pretty good 1970s moves!) 

And he brought in a professional potter to show the women how to use a potter's wheel to improve their pottery work that was/is their livelihood. And since that time, we have had amongst the decorations of our houses, a bunch of interesting clay pots decorated with chickens or wild pigs or other animals. I took some of those with me to our gathering and presented one to each of our kids and their families explaining how they are symbolic of their dad. 

Michael was creative. He always had some creation going on in his head - whether it was a story about a kid named Sam that made its way into our bedtime routine, or a plan for a back yard garden that never happened, or a dream to build a ship in a bottle (he started that by collecting bourbon bottles). During some of the endless meetings he sat in, he doodled on the Paint app on his old computer. He carved square blocks of wood into four headed gnomes. He crafted every sermon he ever preached using just the right words. 

Michael saw the potential in others. And he created ways to create unusual gatherings.  Michael instigated the fellowship between the Pittsburgh Presbytery, who already had a partnership with the church in Malawi, and the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, bringing Africans together who wouldn't normally have that opportunity. The professional potter who went to the Majangir village was a woman from Addis Ababa who had never been outside the city. She had the best time of her life and was thankful to have been invited. 

And Michael was an adventurer. When I was a young woman thinking about dedicating my life to mission, I found him in Egypt where he had gone in search of a good God in a suffering world. He spent his days off from teaching at Ramses College for Girls in Cairo  out in the desert visiting monasteries or in mosques nearby. His time with the Majangir was an adventure of learning the ways of people he had only recently encountered. It's where he saw lions on the path as he drove out to their remote home. It's where he learned about hunting at night with flashlights and spears. And frankly, (but he never told me this) he thrilled at surviving an interrogation in Khartoum by the secret police. (Of course he did!)

The clay creations of the Majangir women of Ulaa Waataa are a good representation of Michael Weller and who he was. Made from the gold-speckled clay from the ground of the hills above Gambella and just below Dembi Dollo, they remind me of his creativity, his adventure, and his interest in other people, other peoples. I will keep a couple with me as I keep on moving into what I am called to do and where I am called to go for the remainder of my life. 

I'm back in Wise now, still living in the church manse because of the generosity of the people here. With the help of a camping man in the congregation, I got my little camper winterized. She'll sit in the church parking lot till I have a place to go again. I hope I'll be able to get out again sometime next year and continue my wanderings. I am beginning to think of how to use the next years of my life. I hope that will include a trip to Ethiopia sometime in the beginning of the year. I'd like to pursue the work of trauma healing with Africans who have immigrated to the US. There's a lot to do right here in southwest Virginia, where one of the poorest counties in the US is. 

I keep a picture of Michael in my camper. He's wearing the red pullover rain jacket that he bought in Marion, VA before we went to Ethiopia in 1994 and now hangs in our coat closet, He is sitting perched on one rock with his feet on one in front of him. The mountains of the western Wollega escarpment beyond him, his hat in his hands, and a backpack on his back. He is deep in thought. It's a perfect picture of him in the place where he had such a good time and such a good influence - somewhere near the Majangir village where the women worked the clay and Michael built friendships and showed God's unfettered love. It's that kind of memory I wish for my kids to hold of their dad and for others to know about him. 

I miss him every day.