hendrix fernwood /capitol

Here, with you dear reader, there are always questions. As a person who makes their living off of acquiring the answers, I suppose I should be grateful for that.

Thought I don't believe that I ever truly set to put myself in the public's eye. I had this hunger back then to tell stories, to pull back the curtain and expose hidden truths to our sleeping city, and don't get me wrong, that hunger is hardly sated. It's just different now.

My expectation was simply that instead of being seen, I would be the woman behind the scenes, the object of your fascination would be the subjects I was writing about. Through my career, as I've made leaps and bounds, all of you have come with me. Even when you didn't like my stories, you still came back for more, for that I am always grateful.

However, I will never be accustomed to your interest in my personal life, as a result, I've become rather terrible at sharing it. One forgets sometimes that they are just as alive as you. So please forgive me for my silence and lend me some grace for my agonies. I am willing to speak now, to draw back the curtain, as it were on myself.

I know the question looming over my head, the one held loosely by your tongues as I hold your gazes.

Tomorrow marks three years since my late husband, William, passed away and yes, I miss him dearly. I write this statement too easily, my fingers moving feverishly across the keys of the old typewriter he found for me six years ago. He'd been so proud of his find, I hadn't the heart to tell him that the old machine was too dated, a trap for my fingers and prone to disfunction.

William changed me in small ways, without him I notice them clear as day. For example, there is much more ink on my fingers now. It reminds me of my school days.

Many of you simply saw the loud, plucky redhead, digging for stories until her hands were painted rust from the dirt and blood she dug up. Very few of you saw the silence in me, the quiet that I carried and laid out around me in the classrooms I haunted. I was shy back then, I'd argue that I still am now.

Oh hush, I tell you.

I don't have to be there to see you shaking your head at that statement. You recall the woman who locks her gaze with her interviewees, the woman who won't take no for an answer, who debates and stands firm. I am all of those things, yes, The Wall as some of you call me, no information gets past me and I won't let topics drop. Impenetrable, strong, fierce, predatory even as some of my less pleased subjects have told me before.

I am all these things but I am none of them at once.

I miss the man who knew that within moments of meeting me. I miss the man who knew me in my quiet moments, who loved the Hendrix Fernwood that existed without the pen or the camera.

I am grateful for William and for the time I had with him, just shy of ten years. I am grateful that his loss still hurts, it would be a mark against my character if I was not still mourning a beautiful person such as him. I long for him, in the quiet hours, in that four in the morning window when all of you were sleeping and he was coming off the night shift.

I'd sit at this writing desk, tea hot beside me and write until my fingers were numb. Then William would get home and he'd hold me on the couch for awhile. Sometimes, we would fall asleep like that.

I fell in love later in life, it wasn't until I was fourty when William and I were married. For a long time, I believed myself happy alone. I was married to my work and strongly doubted anyone could come between that. It was William who showed me that love, if true enough, could account for my schedule, for my moods and the quiet.

When William passed away, I was interviewing Metatron for the opening of his museum. My husband had been sleeping off a headache brought on from a thirteen hour shift at the hospital. He died quietly, unknowing in his sleep after suffering a cerebral aneurism.

Just that morning, we'd held each other on the couch for a long time and we spoke of growing old together.

I mourn the salt and pepper in his hair and the crows feet in the crevices of his eyes. I mourn the loss of aging with him, of those mornings together in the silence before the sun.

You'll recall that for a time, I was quiet after losing William. There was a quiver in my voice that had never been there before, a few cancelled shows and a short pause in my scheduling. I thank you for standing by me during that time. In the hours of my pain that came after losing my husband, I felt that I had also lost the parts of me that he had always understood so clearly, the parts that I had never shared with you, reader.

For some time, I survived this pain in a sort of half-life. I'd come to set, put on my makeup and smile for the camera but it was different with nobody at home, waiting for my return. It was as if everything was as it was before him but this time I knew how lonely I was.

For a moment, I cursed him for that, for hollowing me out and making all this space for himself only to leave me too early. 

And grief is a strange and terribly wonderful thing. I spent a long time regathering myself. A few months after my loss, I had the pleasure of speaking to an old friend and he told me, "You can't measure the breadth of love without pain."

I realized how lucky I was to have known him, to have loved him and to have been loved by him.

I am grateful for the way it still stings, for the humanity within me. I think of William often and I remember how much he loved his job, how he loved to help all of you with his work and it makes me want to be better in mine.

So to answer your burning question reader, yes, I miss him but I will be alright.

This year to celebrate William's life, my dear friends at Fenwick Entertainment will be hosting a charity gala in his honour. I hope to see many of you there.

Yours Always,
Henry


If you or a loved one is dealing with long-lasting grief or pain related to loss, you are not alone. Please contact Panem's Counselling Hotline at 23-461 (ext 2) to speak with a trained Bereavement Therapist.