In preparation for my leave from work (my so-called Leap of Faith), I’ve been making lists and plans for all kinds of things. One of the lists is of things I wanted the property management company to fix around the apartment. I’ve let some things slide over the last year because I didn’t want to deal with it. Ken and I moved into our northside apartment on May 1, 2006 (after a three-day, cross-country race to beat our movers) and have been pretty ideal tenants the entire run of our stay–now–weirdly–my stay. As such, the management company has been pretty responsive to our requests. When Ken was going in for his surgery in January of 2010 I requested a ramp at our back door with a grab bar to be installed as well as grab bars in his bathroom. I’m not really sure if they were required to comply by law, but nonetheless it was all handled speedily, and ready for Ken when he was discharged from the hospital on that cold and frightening winter day.

I rarely use his bathroom unless it’s a 2 a.m. situation–since it’s right across the hall from the bedroom. But the ramp built into our back porch was so well done and sturdy it felt like it had always been there. Shortly after Ken died my brother-in-law Craig kindly offered (among all the other things he and my mother-in-law had already done) to remove the ramp. I remember my answer to him was immediate–in my mind, anyway. “No.” I didn’t want it to be gone. It served such a noble and important purpose. That ramp was my partner in getting Ken to doctor’s appointments or to treatments or simply to enjoy the sunshine and budding flowers in our back yard. After positioning him at the bottom of the ramp to get him outside, the initial push (which got easier) had to be Herculean to overcome inertia (I think that’s the right way to describe it.) He’d usually say, “Punch it Chewy,” and make fun sound effects as we were launched into the great outdoors.

When the maintenance man stopped by last week so I could point out what I wanted fixed, I surprised myself with a spontaneous request: remove the ramp. He surveyed the rooms and work, then left. I felt a little jittery in my stomach. Like I’d betrayed something sacred by asking for the ramp to be removed. I sat down after he left and sulked in the selfishness of my request–amplified no doubt by the time of year and the impending and daunting anniversary of Ken’s death. (It still doesn’t feel right to write that.)

Today as I returned from my lunchtime walk I found the maintenance man hovering around–presumably waiting for my arrival. He spackled and plastered as I ate my Subway lunch, not really paying attention. Before he left he told me what he’d accomplished and added, “I removed the ramp as you requested.” I thanked him and ushered him out the front door–then immediately ran to the back door. As I stood and stared at the steps, newly revealed after a two-and-a-half year absence, I felt my throat tighten up and my eyes well up–for reasons more than that it was just gone, but in remembering all those first years when there was no ramp. Better times, maybe. Easier times, for sure.

Change is inevitable, and I would hope it’s a lesson I’ve learned well by now. But letting go of the ramp–and anything that was “here” for my life with Ken are invaluable and precious–and so hard to part with. But this ramp isn’t Ken and it’s not my love for him either. It was a valuable tool that helped us live our life together–as it changed. I’ll miss it. But I will try not to dwell on it.