A bridge through grief

LITTLE COMPTON – Katherine Kelley was barely married for two days when her husband died in hospice care, leaving her to grieve for the life that could have been and long for the years they’d shared as a couple.

“It was such a shock, such a blow,” Kelley said.

It’s been a long journey through grief for Kelley that’s involved counseling, giving back as a Hope Hospice volunteer, and finally looking forward to life once again.

Henry Koehler passed away two and a half years ago from lymphoma. He would have been 72 on Monday.

“That was a very heavy blow, to be told ‘we can’t do anything’ and he was going to die,” Kelley said

Kelley and Koehler had been planning to marry in the spring of 2016. They owned a home and had been living together for a decade – though they had met years earlier.

“We met in 1977 working in the same office,” Kelley said.

Kelley was training in the insurance industry, and Koehler was her trainer. The two became immediate friends and had feelings for one another.

“I just fell in love in with him and I don’t believe in love at first sight,” Kelley said.

When Kelley was assigned to the office in Washington, D.C., she didn’t want to leave her friends and family, or Koehler. But she wasn’t in a position to turn down the job.

Koehler instead moved back to Buffalo, N.Y. to work in his parent’s insurance firm, leaving an opening for Kelley to stay in her local position.

It was bittersweet for Kelley.

“Ninety-percent of the reason I wanted to stay was him,” she said.

But, life moves on. “I married someone else,” Kelley said, though she admitted she never forgot Koehler, who had remained a bachelor.

He and Kelley reconnected some years later and started a long-distance relationship that lasted a decade.

“It was an eight-hour drive. There was no direct flight,” Kelley said. “We were just very, very happy together. We had a lot of plans and dreams.”

When Koehler sold his dad’s insurance firm, they moved in together back in Rhode Island. They could often be found on the water in Koehler’s sailboat with Kelley as his first-mate.

“We had a very happy 10 years,” she said.

And, they would be married after all.

While in his final days at the Hope Hospice Philip Hulitar Center, Kelley and Koehler became man and wife in a small ceremony with a couple of friends and a minister from Little Compton. Nurses managed his pain medication so he could recite his vows, which he “belted out,” Kelley said. “There was a little cake and ginger lemon sparkling something.”

Two days later, Koehler left her a widow.

“The first six months, I just stared into space,” Kelley said. “I couldn’t function. Out of nowhere, I’d start weeping.”

Kelley sought help at a Hope Hospice bereavement group. There, she met spouses going through the same emotions and feeling the same infinite loss.

“That was just a year ago. I’ve made so much progress since then,” Kelley said.

The next stop on Kelley’s “grief journey” was to become a volunteer.

Kelley’s first assignment about six months ago was to help a man named Clark with his errands. He lived in Newport and was dying of cancer.

Kelley soon found that her visits with Clark were the “high-point” of her week.

“I only knew him for eight weeks,” Kelley said. “He was an eccentric character. He was very sweet and kind. We had so many lovely chats.”

Since then, she’s gone behind-the-scenes in her volunteer work, at least for now, and is organizing Camp BraveHeart, a kid’s grief camp held each summer.

“It’s so healing,” Kelley said. “I’ve gotten more active.”

Kelley said her experience as a volunteer has made her realize that she can find “good in grief” while helping others.

“You reach a point in your grief where you find a way to give back and move forward,” Kelley said.

That meant getting back on the water, a pastime she’d missed dearly since Koehler died.

“Henry and I were avid sailors,” Kelley said. “We just loved that life.”

She did some extensive research last season to find a sail boat she could captain on her own and purchased an 18-foot day sailer.

Her next duty was to name her new pride and joy. The answer came in a text from her niece on a day when Kelley was at a “low point.” It was the lyrics from “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” a favorite song of Koehler’s. And it just fit.

“It lifted me up,” Kelley said. “It gave me inspiration.”

She named her sail boat Silver Girl.

“I sail on, but he’s sailing right behind,” Kelley said.

To learn about becoming a Hope Hospice volunteer, visit www.hopehospiceri.org or call 401-415-4200 for opportunities in southeastern Massachusetts.

Email Deborah Allard at dallard@heraldnews.com.