Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts

Friday, February 19, 2021

Just Breathe

 It occurred to me a few weeks ago that for the first time in 12 years I wasn't dragged into a pit of memories and grief over the course of November, December, and January. I admit it was a surprising realization. 

When the journey began, more like a train wreck than a journey, they told me the average time to recover from the death of a spouse was about 6 years. Obviously, I am an underachiever. I took twice as long. I can only attribute that to the accompanying PTSD that resulted from my experience. 

Maybe you could have done better. Maybe you know someone who did. I'm truly happy for them. I wish.

It took me a bit to understand what was going on with me. Apparently, my brain doesn't release trauma as easily as other folks do. I have memories from my childhood that can destroy my day in an instant. I've controlled this stuff over the years, but not without extreme efforts. Jerry's death nearly destroyed me, and even today, I don't handle stress with the same ease I once did. I break easily now, something that shocks my closest family members when it happens.

And I still have days when a memory can pop up and just wreck my composure. I sit and cry but it isn't the soul shredding of early days and the intense sadness that follows, I can cope with. 

Am I "over it"? No. That won't happen. I remember all the times I should have been nicer, more understanding, not taken part in an argument, and said "I love you" more. I remember every moment of the last 24 hours of his life. And I can't think about it. Ever. It is a nightmare I try very hard to avoid at all cost, sometimes failing. I remember the sound of his wedding ring striking the post of the headboard of our bed as he struggled with a massive coronary, and the deathly silence that followed. For months I heard that sound. And if I try very hard, I can still hear it. Just writing these words makes it hard to breathe. 

Just breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe!

The cliche is that time heals all wounds. Maybe. I'm not sure. I carry massive scars that no one but I can see. And believe me, they are deep and painful. I often ask myself if I'll ever stop hurting from it. I have no answer to that. Some folks find a new spouse in a few years. I haven't even considered it. I've met death once, up close and personal. He won that fight. The next time, maybe I'll win and Jerry will walk me home.

For now, I just try to breathe. 

Friday, December 6, 2019

Echos

This will be my 10th Christmas without Jerry. It is still painful to look at his photo and realize he's not coming home. No, I'm not over it. It is unlikely I'll ever be over it. No, I don't have a boyfriend and I haven't remarried. I can't even imagine that. That man in the photo is what I see if I even consider meeting someone else.

Ten years. So long to be away from someone you shared your whole life with. I met and married him when I was 17 and he died when I was 52. A whole life.

You know, he wasn't perfect, and he made me furious at times. But he was so very good to me. I always felt like I mattered, that someone loved me and cared about me. There would always be someone to catch me if I fell and set me back on my feet. If the car broke down, I knew who to call. There was always someone to help with the heavy lifting.

Oh, but that's not the worst of it. There were things to do and new places to go and he'd be there with me. We shared memories and even fears. At least, I did. He never wanted to worry me. I hate that because that's what makes the marriage. You both have to share the bad along with the good. He wanted nothing to darken my days.

How much he'd suffer if he knew how dark my life became with his leaving. Sarah was the only light I had to light my way.

This year, that light is gone. For the first time in 13 years, my beautiful Sarah will not be with me for Christmas. She has gone to live with her dad and I will probably never have Christmas with her again unless I live to see her grown. She is far away, and they never come here for Christmas and I've never been there for it.

Sarah was the light that kept me focused and the joy that kept me laughing. So this week has been very hard. There will be no lights, no tree, no presents, no decorations, and no excited laughter. No peaking at packages, no Christmas stories, no special meals. It will be just another dark day in an empty house filled with the echos.

The old year is dying and day by day I do too. I haven't been sorry to see a year end in 10 years. I will not care this year either. I do not look forward to a new one. Why should I?



Tuesday, February 5, 2019

The Hell I See and Hear

It is February 5 and I'm officially over the worst of the holidays. All that remains is Valentine's Day, and that doesn't really matter, anyway. Jerry usually forgot such things. It isn't the day, rather it is the images and atmosphere that are troubling. But so are normal days.

This morning, as I was on my way home from dropping Sarah off at school, I was thinking about something related to a story element. It was unrelated to anything I am working on so I can't tell you why I thought about it. I suspect, in hindsight, that I was just messing around in my head. I should never do that. I know better. 

As I cruised along at 35 mph, I suddenly had a horrific flashback. Really, I don't have them often anymore but I still get them occasionally. I could see Jerry in the bathroom, in the middle of the nightwhen I got up to see about him. He was in the dark and said he was all right. He wasn't, but I didn't know. Then, remember waking up to him thrashing around on the bed, his wedding ring hitting the headboard railing and making that horrible sound. I saw myself jumping out of bed, running around the bed, calling him and then the room goes horribly quiet. By the time I got the light on and saw him I knew. But 10 years later I still try to wake him. I pat his cheek, call him, scream for help. 

It is all so vivid but I'm sitting in my car, driving down Virginia Street at 7:30 a.m. in 2019. It isn't January 29, 2009 at 3 a.m. in the middle of the ice storm of the century. I keep driving and I shout, over and over. "STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP" When that fails to stop the scenes, I pray for it to stop. Miraculously, it does as I pull into my street. 

My firm opinion is that hell is reliving all the horrible things you've seen, done, and thought in your entire life. My brain doesn't let go of trauma so I fervently hope I've served my time. I'm trying to be faithful so that something better is waiting and the hell I see and hear won't follow me.

Someone once told me it gets better. They lied. I don't relive it as often.



  

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Vanished Into the Dark



Tomorrow will be the 29th. Seven years ago tomorrow my whole world turned upside down. Every day I stare at this tableau there is a stab of pain and a flood of memories.

This morning I was wondering this morning how I was going to address tomorrow. Since 2009 I can't approach January 29 as if it were any other day. I remember the first few years the number 29 drove me crazy. Every time the number came up in any context I experienced anxiety.  That faded eventually but the day is still a difficult day to approach.

In fact, beginning January 29, 2009, every major holiday and special occasion has been painful. Starting in August, with Jerry's birthday, until February there are six days that have nearly wrecked me: his birthday on August 6th, Thanksgiving, Christmas, our wedding anniversary on January 11th, his death on the 29th, and Valentine's Day. For nearly half the year, since 2009, I've clinched my teeth, straightened my spine, and struggled not to think about Jerry not being here. I rarely succeeded in being stoic. Each month I'd have at least one day where I just fell apart.

This year, I totally forgot Jerry's birthday. I was stunned and upset with myself the day after when I realized it. Sarah and I were sick. I always take flowers but I forgot him. In November, I was away from home for the holiday and things were very busy and filled with people I love so I didn't brood over Thanksgivings Past. Christmas the house was bulging for three weeks. More people I love, my family and some friends, filled the house up and there was no time to really brood over anything but the lack of time alone, which they gave me at intervals. It is probably the first time since he died that I didn't feel bereft or make myself sick crying. With so much coming and going, there were few opportunities to wallow in self-pity. You know there's folks who think that way after 7 years. There were people who thought that way after the first 6 months.

But tomorrow is the 29th. Today there is a pressure in my chest and a sadness hangs over me. I'm not distraught. I'm not prostrate. I don't feel like crying. There is this heaviness in my gut and I feel as if I have lost something, and I need to get up and look for it. Maybe tomorrow I'll find it?

I should go to the cemetery. I should take flowers. I should tell him I haven't really forgotten, that every day, at some point, I see him, hear him, and feel him. Sometimes only for a moment, sometimes for hours. I should remind him that when I see his picture, sitting there on that shelf, a flood of memories rushes over me. They're funny, happy, silly, angry, and sad all at once.

And sometimes, I get angry because he's not here. He left me with an upside down world and no one to help me clean up the mess. I have to figure out everything myself. I have to take care of every problem alone. If I get afraid, there is no one to hold my hand or wrap me in strong arms. No one to tell me everything is going to be fine. No one to fix the car, the toilet leak, the floor, or take out the trash.

Tomorrow is the 29th. Perhaps, the wheels will begin to turn again and the world will right itself. No. No, it won't. Because it is the 29th and on that day, I died, too. I won't find the things I've lost. Who I am now is not who I was on January 29, 2009. Everything I was and was supposed to be was gone in a moment. I watched it vanish into the dark. Maybe that is why it still feels like I've lost something. I didn't lose Jerry. I lost me.

I love you, Jerry Maddox. I'll always love you.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Rememberance

It was a beautiful day outside today. I got up this morning, pain in my neck, and headed out to the hospital lab to get blood work done for my primary care doctor. I decided that since my rheumatologist has standing orders for me to have blood test every 4 weeks I thought it was a good idea to kill two birds with one stone and combined the draw for both doctors. Only one stick.

After I left the vampires behind, I headed back home, changed my shoes and went to the cemetery to walk. I was surprised. I've been walking at there for almost a year now, off and on. It is just a beautiful place but I rarely see anyone about, even the cleaning crews. It is part of the reason I like walking there.

Today was different. The place seemed to be crawling with people and cars. They were coming and going and I had to get off the road a couple of times to allow two cars to pass. Most were old people, some on walkers, and some were probably middle age, and there were a couple of young mothers with children. Everyone had flowers and I noticed that flowers were more prevalent all over the cemetery. I found myself feeling a bit put out by all the coming and going but comforted by the fact someone remembered.

America is not a culture of death. Quite the contrary, we exhibit life with all the stops pulled out, never thinking about tomorrow, never looking back. We're a country focused on, as one beer company used to put it, "all the gusto you can get." We live for and in the moment, at break-neck speed. It is why drugs are so popular. When this feverish existence seems to slow down, because life actually runs at a much slower pace than we force it to, we are faced with normalcy and the drugs speed things up again. When you're moving so fast, reality is a blur you can ignore.

So, cemeteries are places we go when we die, to be forgotten. It is where life stops. If you don't believe me, ask anyone if they visit the cemeteries for any reason and how often. You may even get a few pulled faces and comments about morbidity and creepiness. But if you ask the same folks if they want to be forgotten, they will tell you they don't. In fact, I think most of us don't believe we will be forgotten. 

As I walked today, around each curve someone was getting out of a car, bending over a grave, placing flowers, or leaving a grave site. It was moving in an odd way. Of course, you know me, always find the flaw in the pattern, I realized that my home is not here. I have no extended family here but a granddaughter, son and a sister, none of whom I believe will remain here when I am gone, if they outlive me. My granddaughter, especially will likely go off to college, meet a Prince Charming and move somewhere else. I'm not likely to see that. And I will lie here in this cemetery, forgotten. No one will lay flowers or stare at my name carved in the stone and remember me.

This has bothered me a lot since Jerry died. As I said, no one wants to be forgotten. One of my greatest sorrows has always been that my Mama lies in a cemetery so far away I can't visit her grave and place flowers on it. I know that they're not "there" but this desire to leave mementos on graves is as old as humanity. It is inherent in us. Archaeologist repeatedly find sites of ancient burials with the remains of flowers and other mementos that were left by the living. Maybe some people do not have this inclination but it is so prevalent around the world that I wonder what is wrong with those who don't. What has happened to change us? 

It used to be even more common for people to visit cemeteries than it is today. Latin American countries have Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) where whole families have veritable picnics in cemeteries to pay homage to their dead and celebrate their life. Asia and Africa have many special ceremonies to honor their dead.  While these may seem extreme or weird to us, I don't find the intent odd at all. 

I rounded the last curve in my walk and the VA section came into view. I saw all those flags waving in the breeze. I saw the flowers I  placed on Jerry's grave and flowers other's had placed on their loved one's grave. I walked over to Jerry's and adjusted it. I read the name carved in the stone. I looked at the rows of graves of those who served this country, some sacrificing their life for it. More than a hundred small flags fluttered in the breeze and there were more on other Veteran graves in other parts of the cemetery. Monday there will be a memorial service here and the names of all the veterans who died in the last 12 months will be read aloud. There will be a 21 gun salute fired and a benediction given. For this weekend, at least, they are remembered. 

For those of you who are still with us who served and those who still serve, you are a special breed and you have my eternal thanks for your service to this nation. 






Friday, March 29, 2013

Powder Room Epiphanies

http://www.decorateitonline.com/blog/2010/05/how-to-do-it-creating-a-killer-powder-room/


I was in the bathroom.... hold on... everyone does this. It isn't some shrine or weird place of punishment, unless you follow certain people. Anyway, while I was there it suddenly occurred to me that my life has been divided into a strange set of sequences that has been punctuated by some pretty awful things. I'll give you the synopsis cause by now I know you're indecently curious.

First phase began with my birth and went from 1956 until 1974. I was 17. This phase ended in death. My life totally shifted to another level and place. I don't think it ever occurred to me how radical that was until today. I mean, it was terrible but I never really saw it in this light before. I went from being a young girl in her late teens to a wife in her late teens dealing with the death of her parent and learning how to live with a person I'd known only weeks. No girl should have to be without her mother, particularly on the day she marries, or has her first child five years later. The shift was so profound that years later whenever I miss Mama I'm nearly inconsolable. I'm devastated all over again.

The second phase of my life was from my marriage 1974 until 2009 and culminated, again, in death. My husband suffered a violent heart attack and died as I tried to save him. This wasn't just a shift from one phase to another. This was a violent blow that simply slammed me into a whole other reality without any warning or time to prepare. I still suffer from post traumatic stress.

I thought Mama dying in a clinical setting of a hospital when I wasn't there was horrible. She wasn't coming home and I didn't get to say good-by. I'm left with an image of her unable get up, write, or to speak except with her eyes and being fed through a tube. At 17 this is horrible. And yet, I have to say that my second contact with death was worse than any nightmare I've ever experienced. Being wakened from a sound sleep to your husband thrashing and having him breathe his last breath in your face is an image you won't shake quickly, if ever.

So, in my tiny powder room, I realized that I'm well into the third phase of my life and if it follows the pattern, this won't end well. This is not a happy thought but let's be practical. And truthful. Looking at the pattern and knowing what I know, this is the reality of it. The ultimate end to all things is death.

Where does this leave me? Probably right where I was before. Sitting in the bathroom having my eyes opened to things I'd rather not think about. And getting a fairly clear revelation as to why I struggle with depression fairly regularly. If the high points of your life always end in violence, and believe me, my experience of death is not warm and fuzzy, but if they always end in this manner you're going to be dealing with gremlins regularly.

So, I need to stop beating myself up about feeling this way too much. I've been feeling guilty about feeling bad. It isn't like I've had what the average consumer would term a normal life. The stories I could tell, and probably will some day, are not pretty. Living with an alcoholic was not fun. And still, I was a good kid who never did drugs or smoked or drank or partied. I was a good mom, faithful wife, and caring sister. I wasn't perfect but despite the awful things I've seen and the mistakes I made, I've turned out o.k. I need to stop saying, "Get over it."

The key now I think is try to make this next phase, presumably the final one, last as long as possible and hope that it contains more joy than the two previous ones. For now, at least, it doesn't.

What do you do for the third act?





Thursday, March 28, 2013

Just One Touch

Hi....

Why I'm still up is simply beyond my comprehension. I'm so tired. You know how tired I get sometimes. For most of the evening I've been reading blogs and other stuff. I sat and watched .... some show on my computer... I think I only watched one but at the moment, I'm not sure. Then I got up to shut the system down, only to check email and posts one more time... cause we all do that.

Anyway, I just clicked on my Timeline and there you were, smiling out at me, those wonderful blue eyes sparkling just for me. I remember that moment clear as a day. I could read your mind just by looking at your face. It was all there. I remembered. And then, in one blinding flash my whole being screamed with one phrase... I just want touch you. You hands, your arms, you face. Just to put my hands on your cheeks and feel your warm skin and to breath in the scent of you. The sound of that silent scream washed over me like a raging torrent and I was blinded by waves of tears and I gasped for breath with muffled sobs. I buried my face in my hands because I could not bear the flood.

I know...melodramatic. I always was, wasn't I. I'm not so much anymore, except about you. I suppose I should be embarrassed, even though you'd say not.

But you still take my breath away. Every time I see you, I simply can't breath. There is this place between breathing in and breathing out where everything seems to catch. Sometimes, I'm afraid I won't be able start breathing again.  I wonder sometimes... no, I wish that you knew it, before... and now... that you do that to me.

I don't know if you ever knew it.

I only know that I just want to touch you for one moment, one more time.



Saturday, March 16, 2013

A Small World

There is no guide on how long grief lasts. I've wondered for over four years now if there were markers, like mile posts along the highway, that would tell me when I was getting close to the point where I won't remember, relive, or feel the death of my husband. Unfortunately, no one appears to have erected such markers. The road is long and I've seen nary a one.

I missed Jerry today.  So, I stopped and bought flowers and took them to the cemetery. I've avoided it for months, felt guilty every time I pass the gates, which is fairly often since they are on a road I travel several times a week. No matter how many times I pass the sadness of it never fades. Oh, I don't fall apart as I once did but honestly, in some ways, this is much worse. I can't explain it. There is a sense of betrayal in it. Imagined, I'm sure, but nonetheless felt. 

As I put the flowers beside his tombstone, I couldn't breath and I couldn't look at the name graven in the white marble. I apologized for being so long in coming and tried to explain  but it is no use. While I know he'd understand, I feel no better. The bands around my chest only tighten and I have to go back to my car where I sit and sob and try to breath and explain why. 

When I see someone walking in my direction, I know it is time to go. No one wants to share this.

And I came home. I don't feel better. I do what I always do. I push it away and try to think about something else. It's a small world, grief. There is nothing else.


Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Purple Passions, Dark Days, & Frozen Time

The new year did not get off to an auspicious start. My mother died and I spent the second day of it on the road, the third day at a funeral, and the fourth day on the road. My weekend sucked. I went back to work on Monday to be greeted by two weeks backup. It has taken two weeks see any progress at all. We've had snow, cold, rain, warmth, rain, and more cold. Most days are gloomy, at least it seems so to me. Today is no exception.

I looked for some profoundly moving topic to write about or perhaps, hysterically amusing. I have neither. I have a rather boring life that doesn't require I do much but get up and cope with the most recent disasters, which usually entail my keeping a grip on my anger, frustration, annoyance, depression, or elation. I usually end up holding an empty bag. I suppose if you look closely I'm a bit manic at times.

I went back and read some old posts. Really old. Like 2006. I sounded so young. Life sounded much simpler in some way that I can't pin down. The foolish stuff I blogged about so trivial and foolish I wonder if anyone ever even read beyond the first paragraph and I almost hope they didn't.

Then, I read posts from 2009 and realized that my life can't ever be simple again. I can't jump back to the years before January 29, 2009 and instead choosing to live here, pick another city so things will turn out differently for all of us. That it will all have been a nightmare.

I absolutely despise the month of January. As my mother always said, "I hate it with a purple passion." January 11, last Friday, was my wedding anniversary. It was a painful day. And I know at the 29th grows closer every day will become heavier and darker. On that day, Jerry will have been gone four years. It seems as if it were only yesterday that I watched him die and had to bury him in the snow and ice. Some things are just frozen in time.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Fading Flames

Mama, Aunt Phillis, Alice (my mother), and Daddy.
Mama and Daddy were my aunt and mother's parents.
I keep coming back to these old photos and studying them careful. This was taken the year I was born and what you see in this photo is what I always saw. Oh, there were terrible times and things I'd like to forget. Like everyone else, they did stupid things. They cried and got angry and depressed but if there are any good memories of my life, this photo reflects them. They always seemed to be laughing.

This image also reflects any gatherings of my family. We usually end up laughing at something and often it involves a story from the lives of one of these people or something one of us has done. We are a family of natural humorist. We are funny without trying to be funny. And we laugh most at ourselves.

This morning it occurred to me that this photo also depicts the three women who most profoundly affected my life and directed its  course. These women determined my outlook, my character and my goals. They made me most of who I am today, good and bad. I can't imagine what my life would have become without them. They gave me the strength to survive trials and turmoil and grief and continue laughing, even through tears. They gave me a desire to become more. I love them, each in a slightly different way but far more than any of them could guess.

Mama would say, "My Cindy can do anything." My aunt always says, "You are so smart." My mother always said, "I'm proud of you." I had no idea who they were talking about. I wanted to be like all of them to one degree or another. I wanted to love the way Mama loved. I wanted to be the kind of Godly women Mama and my aunt were. I wanted to be as beautiful as my mother, to have that presence that made heads turn when you enter a room. She drew people like moths to a flame. I always thought if I could have inherited the best qualities of these three women I could shake the world. I do not think I've ever approached that goal.

I can't say my mother and I were close. Her parents raised me but I still loved her, with bitterness and then, with resignation. I loved her humor, her laughter, and her singing. She had a beautiful voice and I loved riding in the car with her and listening to her and Mama sing gospel songs. They'd let us kids sing with them but those two voices were about as close to a heavenly choir that I've ever gotten. I loved her ability to go out job hunting at 8 and come back with a job at 10.

Put her in a crowded room with boring people and where she was standing would be a party. When she was a waitress her customers were the happiest in the room. It was not unusual for her to carry home $200 in tips for an evening's work and that was in the 70's. People just flocked to her and she reveled in that. When I was a little girl and she came home from time to time, I loved the moments when I was the focus of that dazzling smile and I felt the warmth of that flame. I was special for a little while and when she left, I always missed her.

Thursday I will see her one last time. The flame of my mother's life is extinguished. She's left me again.



Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Reaching The Pinnacle

Tuesday, second day of the work week when we look with relish at a past Monday and longing toward an approaching weekend. I basically envision myself climbing this steep cliff, hands bloodied, nails broken, gasping for breath and stretching to grasp the pinnacle of Wednesday and drag myself over the top so I can roll down the gentle, grassy slope to Friday evening.

I'm contemplating how on earth I can skip Wednesday and just get right to that slope.

Whatever. Week is not half done but I am.

I noticed the ticker at the bottom says I've topped 20,000. What? No trumpets? No parade? No ticker tape? No balloons, streamers, or cheers? Well.

Still, I like seeing stats. One thing I noticed right away was that my post from 2008 "A Little Bit of Gun History" had hits. This may seem random but if it does you live in a cave. I actually didn't remember writing it and had to do read it. I found it interesting but then questioned my sources. Really.

It has been a horrendous week for the people of Connecticut. And probably for most of the nation. I've avoided all news but a minimum number of articles reporting it. I'm not watching videos, tributes, and reading interviews with survivors. I have a six year old grand-daughter. I can't be dragged into the hell these parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings are living. I simply can't. I see a shinning, smiling face with sparkling eyes of a bubbling little girl that holds my heart in her hands. I am totally incapable of dealing with this horror because her face is superimposed at every mention of this horrible disaster. The promise of Christmas has been obliterated for the survivors and there is no fixing it. I can only pray for them, pray for us all.

I still have no tree up. No decorations, either. I moved things around over the weekend with the help of my sons. We put the freezer in the garage. I am amazed at how much of a relief that was! I need it but it is such a nuisance to have in the house. I still have to clean out a closet for David. I'm planning on doing that this week. Unfortunately, the events of the weekend left me almost completely unable to move on Sunday. I pushed hard Thursday through Saturday to get this done, not stopping for much of anything. The price was pain that is not on any scale. I could barely walk at all Sunday and movement of any kind was misery. 

I bought stuff for our Christmas dinner. Thankfully, I have the weekend to prepare so it shouldn't be such a rush. I have to put up any decorations soon or I might as well not bother.

May I be perfectly honest? I really, really, really do not like holidays anymore. Truly. Even though I enjoy Sarah's excitement and pleasure I truly find them unbearably painful and tedious. I don't have anything to celebrate. I'm thankful for my family and my home and my job every day of the year but the memories I have of holidays are all bad and getting through November to February is just very hard.  

We don't even bother much with gifts anymore. I mean, I usually give the boys their gift in the form of money weeks before the holiday, at their request. They buy what they want. No one but my aunt generally buys me anything, maybe my sister who lives here, but other than that, I don't unwrap a thing. There is no one special for me to buy for but Sarah and I do that all the time anyway. So, in essence I'm putting myself through a grinder for nothing. It is very disheartening when all the things that sparkled and shone in your life is pretty much tarnished and rusted out and you no longer feel important to anyone. 

And with that, I'll stop. I have an hour to get my work done. It isn't enough. But tomorrow I will reach that pinnacle, Wednesday. I'll bandage the hands and drift down the hill... one hopes, to the weekend when I'll be off four days, work one and be off another four days. For that, I am truly thankful.



Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thanksgiving & Ten Feet

Thanksgiving Day 2012 started for me at 8:30 a.m. I more or less crawled out of bed. Well, I was upright but I was able to shuffle, in tiny small sliding steps to the bathroom and then to the kitchen. That is what passes for walking for me for about an hour a day. Gradually, I will be able to pick up my feet and actually move my legs forward from my hips,  hopefully without pain. Normal graceful steps don't arrive until around 10 a.m. every morning. I might or might not be able to put on shoes with a heel. That depends on if my feet don't feel broken. 

Today is sunny and the Weather.Com icon says it is 42 degrees out there. I am supposed to have lunch with my fractured family around 11:30 today at a restaurant. Traditions are gone. There is no family get-together for us anymore. We don't watch parades, play games or sit around laughing at each others antics. We haven't for a long time. I no longer cook lots of food and goodies. We will eat and return to our respective abodes. Becca and Sarah will go to her family for the rest of today and tonight. 

The year 2009, the year Jerry died, was a horrible year and every year since it has only gotten mildly more tolerable. I know everyone thinks, "Good grief, woman, its four years. Get over it already." It is easy for you to say. Unfortunately, the very nature of death is unremitting separation. You can never get back what you lost. For the ignorant and shallow I remind you to remember what it felt like to lose your favorite cell phone and you had no way to replace it for a week? Well, multiply that by a million years and you might come close to feeling what normal people feel when they lose actual people they love. If that is a stretch, you're a sad mess. I digressed there but I know someone will read this that just won't get it. 

I've come to hate holidays in a way I never dreamed possible. I am forced to remember years of family reunions where a hundred people surrounded me in this great big bubble and we laughed, talked and ate and laughed and talked and ate. We all went home and felt connected and we could deal with the next year because we'd do this again. And then they all died and it stopped. 

So, I gathered my small family around me and the bubble shrank but we still got together. Sometimes we went to my siblings and we had a bigger bubble and everyone laughed, talked, and ate and felt connected. And then they all splintered off and moved away. I moved actually. So I gathered my small family and we had our own special holiday with each other. We laughed, watched the parades, I cooked and we ate. We played games while Jerry slept in front of the ball games. And then he died and the world shrank even smaller and I realized I couldn't get through the next year.

We've tried to maintain a holiday tradition. The year before he died we began to go out so I would not spend days preparing and cleaning up. I could have a day off. We continued after Jerry died. My sister misses the old way and every year wants to go back. She even volunteered this year to cook. I realized that I didn't really care anymore. 

This year, my son and his wife have divorced. Three people I love dearly are now splintered and drifting away. I look at Sarah and I realize she will never know those hundred people family reunions. She won't know the smaller ones where my siblings and our families get together and enjoy being a weekend of laughter and good food. She won't even have a small family joining hands to give thanks for a year of good things. Maybe years from now she will have a family and she can read some of my stories about what it was and maybe she can recapture it. I hope so because there is a lot of joy back there. There was much to be thankful for and to celebrate.

Why such a depressing blog? Because I want you to think about what you have surrounding you. I want you to look around that table and think. Turn off the cell phone and think about the faces you see surrounding you. Really look at them. Talk to them. Laugh at unfunny jokes today. Tomorrow it won't matter. 

I realized what was important seconds too late. Thanksgiving weekend 2009 was my epiphany. Every year, I remind myself and I re-post that moment for any who may pass this way.


".....I sit in a room that is approximately 9x10. The realization came to me tonight that all that matters of all that we do or say can be found within ten feet of you. And we usually stay close to what we love. But we don't notice it. It is silent and we don't really notice. Unless at some point it disappears. A void opens up.

I suppose the answer would be to look around and see what is within ten feet of where you sit right now. Reach out and grab it. Don't let go. If you do, it will begin to drift away, beyond your reach. Until you can't reach it anymore."

If you do nothing else today, look around and whisper prayers of thanksgiving for all that you have surrounding you. Give sincere and prolific thanks for the blessings of people who love you. Tell them you love them. Thank them for giving you their time, love, and countless hours of frustration, laughter, and joy...to you. Tomorrow, you can go back to your cell phones and endless shopping for a bargain. Today is the best bargain you'll ever have and once it is gone, you can't get it back.





Monday, August 6, 2012

The State of Happiness

Today is Jerry's birthday. He would have been 63. He could have officially retired. He had so looked forward to it. But at 59 he died. I kept breathing.

Since 2009 I've been through a series of physical, emotional, and mental upheavals that defy description but if you truly want to torture yourself, it's all here in the blog. I lived in a nightmare hell the first year and can't remember huge amounts of time from that year. The second year, I woke up and realized it wasn't a a nightmare at all, it was just hell. The third year I though I was going to be able to crawl out and maybe, just maybe I'd be able to live among other living beings only to fall back into the pit. I am approaching the 4th anniversary and I've begun to question if life after death is even possible. Not my death. His. Is it even possible to push back the darkness and be, if not happy, content?

I've sought to involve myself with people and things and stay busy but honestly, I live in a vacuum where the only time I see or hear from most people in a 50 mile radius is when someone else has a need. Never when I have one. I try to be obliging but the results is I end up running short of energy, time, money, and reciprocation of such. Nearly 4 years later, I still am sitting in my house, alone, in silence and listening to echos. I have no more outside contact that I did the day the last person left after the funeral and the last calls came in. It shocked me to my core then. I don't shock so easily now.

These days, I don't actually think it is possible to be happy.  The people I know personally are miserable. The problem, as near as I can figure, is our concept of happiness is distorted. People seem to think happiness is doing something we enjoy, all the time. Happiness is being in a crowded room with lots of people we like and who like us and having fun, all the time.  Happiness is having the money to buy all we want, all the time.  Happiness is having security, jobs, friends, things. Happiness is stuff. All the time.

You think, when you don't have things, that getting them will fix it. You'll be happy for sure then. I'll get a new house, go to a new school, a new church, move to a new town, meet new people, get a new job. Right. It won't work.

I've got stuff. I'm not happy.

Let me tell you what unhappiness is and maybe that will explain it better. Living without the person who knew everything about me, right down to my birthmark is the most difficult thing I've ever been forced to do. I once said it felt as if I'd had my arm cut off. I was wrong. It is more like having a leg removed at the hip. And they don't sell a prosthetic for it. Someone said "Think about the good times." I don't dare. I can't reclaim them. I can't relive them. And I can't make new ones. I shatter in a billion tiny pieces and have to pick them up. They are made of obsidian glass and flay me.

In all the 35 years of marriage, I distinctly remember being terribly unhappy on many occasions, times when he displeased me and when I displeased him. Of course, we got past them but there were some times that neither of us really got over. We were human after all. We weren't happy all the time and as he grew sicker, we both grew less so. For years, I was so stubborn and demanding. He seldom said no to me and I was cared for and cherished. Right up to the night he dropped dead.

But you know something, right now, this very minute, I would do everything he asked me if he'd just come home and complain about something. I'd be happy! I'd be ecstatic if he stepped into the room and griped about something trivial. If he left the towel wadded on the seat of the toilet, his shorts in the floor, his shoes in the middle of the living room. I would be overjoyed. If he left dirty dishes on the counter.... I'd wash them with a smile. He had a hard time keeping a job the last few years and I didn't know why. He was sick. But today, if he was unemployed and broke and simply wanted to complain about it, I would so listen and put my arms around him and say, "I'm here. We're in this together. It looks bad but we have one another."

The truth is that there is no feeling like being loved, cared for, and made to feel you are the Queen of the Universe or the King. Realistically, it isn't always like that. But knowing it is always there, why, you can live in a hovel and never notice. I've lived in a few! There is nothing that can take the place of looking across the room when you're worried and having someone smile at you. Or lying in the dark staring at the ceiling and having someone squeeze your hand. They don't have to speak. You just know that they just sent you a message. I'm here. We're in this together. It looks bad but we have one another.

Nothing else in the world feels like that.

Jerry, I'd be happy to see you're face smile across the room.






Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Fading Lights

I got word that a friend of ours from 1978 died last week of pancreatic cancer. I haven't seen Mark in over 30 years but this news upset me terribly. He was a GI who our pastor had met while canvassing at a rock concert. He was converted and I never met a more charming and warm person. Mark always had a smile and when he talked to you he looked directly into your eyes. He sometimes preached and he was so good. He meant everything he said and he always said good things. There was such a sincerity in Mark Gonzales. Over the years we wondered about him and his wife Terri. Where were they? What happened to them?

 As soon as I heard the news I immediately thought, "I have to tell Jerry. He'll be so upset." And of course, that is impossible. Because Jerry is dead, too.

And so went the evening. I came home and simply became something else. Less than human, really. I didn't know what I was crying for and all I could really think about was how much darker the world becomes when the bright lights are turned off and how so many of the lights in my life had gone out. Too soon.

In 1978-79 we all lived in a place called King's Kastle, a church, christian school, and, lol, nearly a commune. It was a big old house in Frankfurt, three floors and a huge basement with a wine cellar that was turned into another living area. Communal kitchen on the first floor but some of us had small electric burners in our rooms.  I actually had a tiny two burner, bread-boxed sized stove! Our room was probably 20x12. Every room on second, third and basement floors were living areas for tenants. The pastor and his wife, a bit more than mine and Jerry's age, lived on the second floor. School and church were on the first floor.

Jerry and I lived on the third floor and I was pregnant with Mike. It is here we met Mark, and a dozen others we came to feel were family. Soldiers, some with their families, far from home who found a warm place. We had church together, potlucks, ball games, parties, and even shopping trips. We had our own spaces, but we shared our lives. I've never had such a wonderful experience as living in that place.

Today I remembered it. And wished for it again.



Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Not Interesting Enough

Not Interesting Enough

I am a widow, as my regular readers know, since January 2009. My blog for the last three years has dealt with that journey. I've talked about the difficulties of facing the death of a spouse and the adjustments widows must make alone. I've also talked about how society sees and treats us. For those still in denial about my view on it, here is a very good example. The above link is to another Blogger site, Widows Speak, that I subscribe to and it sums up the world view of a widow pretty well. 

I have to say here that after I read this I was so angry that had the man in question been within two feet I'd have beat him to a bloody pulp. He is the stupidest of the stupid, the dumbest of the dumb. Anyone who has this kind of mentality should not be making television shows. I'm being nice here. Really, really, r-e-a-l-l-y nice. 

But read for yourself. 

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Transitions

I've had a strange month, I think. It is one of those times when life seems to be transitioning in some intangible way. As the word implies, I can't put my finger on it. I've had a lot more pain lately and I have been more tired than I was for a while. Frankly, I think the pain is the reason I tired easily. It wears on you.


No, this is something else. Something akin to  waking up in the morning and not knowing for a minute where you are or what time it is. I'm restless but not so much in a bad way. No, it is just annoying because it is so vague. For me, as a writer, it is even more frustrating because I can't put a name to it.


So I go with the flow and I keep looking for whatever it is.


I'm thinking I need to get away for a bit. I keep making plans that fall through just when I think they'll work this time. I've actually thought of calling a travel agent to see if it will help me. I have never had a situation where I could not plan a trip. Never. Military wives have to be ready to up and move whenever. You usually get a couple of months of warning but you have to be ready to relocate a whole house of items, children, yourself and your spouse, find a new house, arrange utilities, contact schools, and get everything put away as quickly as possible. You have to be organized. Life ceased to be organized for me three years ago. 


I've made attempts to restructure and reorganize things with some success but there are still places in my life where chaos reigns. Getting things done at home is one. I still have the gas company coming on Wednesday sometime to change out the meter. If I haven't explained that here, I won't go into it but let's say it has been a real pain. 


Vacations are probably the biggest issue for me. I always loved it when we could get away for a bit and do something fun. I still want that but it isn't much fun and planning it is nearly beyond me. That makes no sense at all to me. I've moved hundreds of times. Yes, really. I've done two overseas moves, and five interstate moves. That is not counting all the moves within the cities where I lived. Planning a two week vacation should not be an obstacle. Planning a one week vacation shouldn't either. But it is so hard.


My plan last year to go to England was crushed by an auto accident. Financially, I'm still a bit strapped but I was going to take the plunge this year. Then they started going on about the layoffs. My inclination was go anyway. It still is. But my logical, prudent side says wait to see who is gets laid off. It makes sense. If it isn't me I'll have a better financial standing. If it is, well, I'm going to need all the extra cash I can get. So, that plan is on hold for a bit. Not eliminated, just on hold. I figure things happen in their time.


However, I can't keep going without a break. I need a vacation. I need a week in the sun where it is warm and the air smells of salt. So, my plan is to take a week but I really would like to know where I stand job wise before I do that. All this requires patience and that is the one virtue that I've been eternally short of. 


Other things are changing as well. I'm excited by some changes. Such as the group of girls I've met through NaNo who have become writing buddies. We've been meeting online as a group to talk writing. We've done this twice using the G+ Hangout feature. It was really great to "meet" these women and to talk about something I love. As my other writing group is going through some changes and becoming less focused on writing, I am finding the online group a welcome addition. 


The obvious transitions are challenging but it is still this underlying feeling of things changing and morphing into something I don't recognize where I seem to be having the the most difficulty. I get impatient with it but it isn't something I can rush. I'll just have to wait and see. 







Friday, February 24, 2012

Life after Death

I am always astounded when I hear these stories from the people that experience them. Awesome witness.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

In the Walls


In Memory - January 29, 2009.

I could leave that as my only post today and it would be adequate. I thought, somehow, that because the last few months have been tolerable that today would be very easy. Even up until yesterday I thought, “This year I won't notice so much. I won't feel so bad.”

I had a dream this morning. I was asleep in the house and in the dream I woke up and began to walk through the house. Something was wrong with a spot high up on my bedroom wall that backs on the laundry room. It was a “hot spot”. In my dream I thought, 'We moved the fuse box so that can't be causing this.' The area was soft and sticky and very warm. In the real world, the fuse box is on the opposite wall of the laundry room where it has always been.

I left the room, calling Jerry as I went. I went to the living room and the front door, both storm door and entry door were standing open. I stared, dumbfounded. What on earth was he doing that he'd leave me asleep in the house with the doors open like that? I went to the kitchen and checked the laundry room and found that the hot water heater was removed. Again, I stared. I began to work on the floor that needs replacing.

Then, I stopped. Where was Jerry? I went back to the living room and looked out the window and saw my sister's car. I went out just as she was coming in. A refrigerator was lying on the ground near the house and near the curb between my drive and the next cabinets and other junk lay on the ground. My sister said, “The people next door are moving out.”

I said, “No, she's in a nursing home and they're cleaning the place out.” This is true, by the way, she is but there's been no work there for a year at least. And no junk anywhere around.

I said, “I can't figure out where Jerry is.”

We went into the house and I went into the bathroom. Bright blue paint was all over the tiles and the shower curtain was missing. It wasn't being painted. It looked as if someone had  been painting and residue settled as they tried to clean up but it was all over the place. I rubbed a spot on the tile and it seemed to rub off easily. There was a time I'd have blown a gasket to find such things. Now I just though, “It'll come off.” Oddly, it was the old white tile we used to have in there.

I stepped into the hall. Incidentally, my bathroom was not in the right place. But directly across was a door to another room where this is a closet in the real world.  I saw a white shower curtain, spattered with blue paint hanging from what appeared to be a shower rod. I saw Jerry behind it in an odd position. He was wearing his glasses and that registered as odd to me. He'd had contacts for several years before he died. His hair was also thick and dark. It had begun to thin when he died. He'd been coloring it for years. He was younger and slim.

He appeared to be sitting on top of the window, his legs through the wall and he was hanging backwards, his hands behind his head as if he was on a lounge chair relaxing. It was such an odd, frightening position and my heart pounded. I yelled his name and ran into the room. In  my mind I thought he was dead but I asked what he was doing. He didn't answer me. He just looked at me and made no attempt to get down.

I told him I'd help him get down. I began to check the wall to see how to get him down and I saw that the wall was literally “finished” around him. There was no “hole” that he'd gotten stuck in. He was just a part of the wall. His hips were in the wall, over the window and the wall smoothly finished all around him.

In my head I was thinking I need to call 911 and get help. I have to get him out of there. And then I woke up into the real world feeling as if my chest were being crushed. I sat up and looked around.

And I said, “God, that wasn't fair. That was cruel. It was mean.”

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Sundown

The days have grown longer but the sun is about 10 degrees from the horizon and streaming directly into my window. One hour and I can go home. It will go down completely by that time.

I'm not in a very good mood. I'm tired and I remembered that tomorrow is my anniversary or was our anniversary. It would have been the 38th. It is odd how even the thought of it is like this stabbing pain in my chest. I don't know when that will stop. If it will stop.

My plan is to go home and get a very hot bath and get comfortable. I have no idea what I'll eat. Nothing sounds remotely interesting.

The day has been rather boring. I've worked but slowly and with no enthusiasm. Just plodding along trying to make a bigger dent in the mess. Tomorrow is recertifications. I think we have 124 scheduled between 8:15 & 11:15. That's seven scheduled every hour. If things go as usual, about half won't bother to show up.

I'm going now. May be back later. May not.