Today is August 28, and as I write this, it was five years ago today (August 28, 2014) at 4:00 pm, that my husband of 37 years, Carl Crosier. departed this life. It was an eight month journey, from his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in January, to his last day on earth.

Five years ago, Carl’s sister, Carol Crosier Rodi, and I, along with our musical friend, John Renke, were standing vigil ’round his bedside in a hospice facility in Ewa Beach, some 45 minutes away from our home in Honolulu. You may remember that we had an extraordinary experience when we played Bach Cantata 106, “God’s time is the best time,” and Carl raised his left hand as if to conduct. (“Bach to the end.“)

Death was imminent, and I was already prepared to make the announcement to the world—the service was planned for St. Theresa’s Co-Cathedral on September 6th, even though Carl hadn’t died yet. A couple of days before, I had found a picture of him that I wanted to use for the service program, along with a recording of him singing, “Music for awhile,” by Henry Purcell—which he had previously submitted some years before to Hawaii Public Radio for an artsong contest in which he was named one of the winners.

Unfortunately he never saw the photo I chose, but I think it perfectly caught his expression, glasses slightly askew, a crooked semi-smile.

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If you go back to my original post, Carl Crosier 1945-2014, and if you look closely, I posted this at 4:07 pm, only seven minutes after he died. As it turned out, I had decided to leave the vigil to go back to our condo to pick up some papers our attorney had left a couple of days before. Carl promised to sign the papers “in the morning,” but it was that morning that Carl had gone into a coma, could not speak, and could not move his arms or legs.

And although Carol and I had kept vigil for two days, there seemed to be no change in his condition when I left to pick up the papers—I was hoping to sign them and having them notarized before he died. Well —I’ve heard that it is common for dying patients to wait until their loved ones have left the room—and Carl waited until I had left the room to go back to the condo.

When I arrived home, I called Carol back at the hospice facility, and that was when she told me Carl was gone. I called our son, Stephen, and immediately typed the date and pressed “Publish” on the post I had written almost a week before.

Now it has been five years, and my life is still full of music, travel, a two-year-old grandson, and so many things I wish Carl had experienced with me. But as he frequently said, “Don’t feel sorry for me; I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do, and three times over!”

I’ve been home from Norway almost ten days now, a time when jet lag has hit me hard (as usual), and getting up between 1:00–3:00 am for at least six days in a row. I’ve had to hit the ground running, doing a mass emailing for Early Music Hawaii, and trying to study over 100 pages of reading open score for the September 14th concert, “The Rise of Italian Opera and Oratorio,” for which I will be playing both harpsichord and organ.

In addition I have resumed organ lessons with most of my students, wrote a newsletter for my condo, and am subbing at St. Christopher’s Episcopal this Sunday, and at Waiokeola Congregational Church two Sundays a month from September through December. And of course, I’m still rehearsing for my Bach Concerto concert with Jieun Kim Newland, slated for January 18, 2020.

Life goes on … (sigh!)