The dumpster arrived last Tuesday ready to absorb the past, But the garage views it with suspicion. On the first day, we label boxes 'save', Dump and donate. By the end of day four, after three loads gone, Dumping is only option. I was merciless. Des, I am sure is appalled. Hope he is over it by the time I join him in our heavenly palace.
Meanwhile the garage has room for my car, suitcases, a cabinet with tools and more, plus a bottom drawer with old, old letters he saved. These go back to 1983 when there was major chaos I won't share. But Yikes! How we got through that challenge, Only God knows and actually that's who saved our sanity.
I'm saving his office for when I no longer have bouts of sadness, especially on Sundays. I have been reading, "Fear" Essential Wisdom For Getting Through The Storm" by Thich Nhat Hanh. It is helping me deal with memories of those Sunday visits to the Mound when after visiting him, guilt followed me home.
Hahn reminds us that our memories can cause us real suffering, both emotionally and physically. Save them for a later time when we can look at them compassionately, he advises. My true home is in the here and now. The past is not my true home. Easy for him to say, I think.
Then I find a Plastic bag labeled 'Dick's handkerchiels for baptisms' and two neatly folded linen handkerchiefs are in it. Dick, his beloved brother, and baptisms to remind me of his calling.
Gratitude kicks in about here, and I know what a great ride these 41 years have been. Last week Sheb Wooley's. widow, Linda Dotson and I were reminiscing on the phone about what kind of mischief Des and Sheb were up to now. They were great friends. Linda said, "But Weren't we lucky gals to be loved by such wild, crazy guys?"
Absolutely, so says Sassy
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Snapshots of Happiness
It is more fun to go through old snapshots than clean out a garage. Our garage holds strange and unfahomable tools and other things that Des was loathe to toss out. This is the week we start the sorting with a handyman named Dana referred to me by my Dr. Murphy who happens to be his brother. I recommend either one whether you have pain in you joints or in your clutter. But I digress.
About snapshots, they seem to multiply faster than ants at a picnic. Boxes and albums abound. I started to separate families into separate stacks so I can offer them for the taking, when I noticed a common thread. Des and I looked happy, smiling at the camera with eyes that smiled too.
There we were at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, waiting our turn to go up to the top. In another we wore bright orange life vests on a cruise to Alaska during a lesson on what to do if the ship goes down. Titanic flashed across my mind, but then I can get dramatic.
Again on the water, we are headed down the Columbia River following the path of Lewis and Clark in a bright red paddle wheel vessel. More water, riding on the Maid of the Mist in NiagaraFalls. Did I mention I can't swim?
A last on land, there I am sitting on a swing in the back yard of brother and sister-in-law Dick and Siby Shields while she hangs out the wash in a soft summer breeze in Ripley, New York. Still life in motion.
All these lead me to start an album, pictures and narratives of our life, lived with gratitude.. I've decided to highlight grand travels to Paris as well as tedious road trips across the country, west to east and back again.
We got acquainted with our blended families through our travels. Wish I had a snapshot of Des surrounded by my noisy Italian family in the basement of a home in Chicago. A comic strip would show him with a cloud above his head, asking 'what did I get into?'
On the other hand, I got up close and personal with a cow on Dick's farm, awed at how big they are, city slicker that I was. Des and were extremes in our backgrounds. He was the youngest of 7 children, I was an only child. I never finished college, he earned a doctorate. Still our values matched and do did our faith. Love made it work, warts and all.
So says Sassy
About snapshots, they seem to multiply faster than ants at a picnic. Boxes and albums abound. I started to separate families into separate stacks so I can offer them for the taking, when I noticed a common thread. Des and I looked happy, smiling at the camera with eyes that smiled too.
There we were at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, waiting our turn to go up to the top. In another we wore bright orange life vests on a cruise to Alaska during a lesson on what to do if the ship goes down. Titanic flashed across my mind, but then I can get dramatic.
Again on the water, we are headed down the Columbia River following the path of Lewis and Clark in a bright red paddle wheel vessel. More water, riding on the Maid of the Mist in NiagaraFalls. Did I mention I can't swim?
A last on land, there I am sitting on a swing in the back yard of brother and sister-in-law Dick and Siby Shields while she hangs out the wash in a soft summer breeze in Ripley, New York. Still life in motion.
All these lead me to start an album, pictures and narratives of our life, lived with gratitude.. I've decided to highlight grand travels to Paris as well as tedious road trips across the country, west to east and back again.
We got acquainted with our blended families through our travels. Wish I had a snapshot of Des surrounded by my noisy Italian family in the basement of a home in Chicago. A comic strip would show him with a cloud above his head, asking 'what did I get into?'
On the other hand, I got up close and personal with a cow on Dick's farm, awed at how big they are, city slicker that I was. Des and were extremes in our backgrounds. He was the youngest of 7 children, I was an only child. I never finished college, he earned a doctorate. Still our values matched and do did our faith. Love made it work, warts and all.
So says Sassy
Monday, April 15, 2013
My New Title
I lost my status as a wife on March 12, 2013. Now I am a widow and I don't like it. I used to be somebody who belonged to someone. We were a couple. Now I am a single.
Widows come in all sizes, ages and ability to cope. I have gone through the early stages when a wave of sorrow washes over me like a sudden tsunami and I weep like a forlorn child.
Shopping in supermarkets bring on silent sadness as I pass watermelon. Des loved water melon. And cinammon rolls and cheese omelets and peanut buttter cups, and he loved me.
A week before he died, he wanted to just talk. So I put down the book by Joel Osteen I had been reading to him and put my head on his shoulder. We reminisced about highlights we had enjoyed over the years, especially the three months we spent in Hastings Nebraska where he ran agape groups for Bud Israel, the pastor of the local Methodist Church. We loved the people and they seemed to love us. Even me. Especially when Des told them I could analyze handwriting. He like to brag about me, share his limelight. A sweet guy.
"We were a good couple," he said. I agreed. Why did I marry you, he asked. Because I was adorable, I said to make him laugh. I loved to make him laugh. It was a moving conversation. We both agreed that we would do it all over again.
Next morning, his speech was not good, another stroke maybe? Who knows. A few more days and he was gone. But that last evening of clarity was a gift implanted in my memory.
So, now I cope. Little by little. I am most emotional in church where it is so easy to feel his presence, I try to remember to bring a tissue, but my pal Donna hands me one wordlessly. Easter was glorious and I saw him in the stained glass scene of Jesus surrounded by children. I used to place him up there as a young boy, but on Easter morning when I looked up, he was all grown up, standing next to Jesus and looking at me. Believe it or not. Another gift of faith.
The Hospice organization sent me information on ongoing grief groups I might want to attend. I'll think about it. This week my doctor told me I was resiliant. Hope he is right.
Widows come in all sizes, ages and ability to cope. I have gone through the early stages when a wave of sorrow washes over me like a sudden tsunami and I weep like a forlorn child.
Shopping in supermarkets bring on silent sadness as I pass watermelon. Des loved water melon. And cinammon rolls and cheese omelets and peanut buttter cups, and he loved me.
A week before he died, he wanted to just talk. So I put down the book by Joel Osteen I had been reading to him and put my head on his shoulder. We reminisced about highlights we had enjoyed over the years, especially the three months we spent in Hastings Nebraska where he ran agape groups for Bud Israel, the pastor of the local Methodist Church. We loved the people and they seemed to love us. Even me. Especially when Des told them I could analyze handwriting. He like to brag about me, share his limelight. A sweet guy.
"We were a good couple," he said. I agreed. Why did I marry you, he asked. Because I was adorable, I said to make him laugh. I loved to make him laugh. It was a moving conversation. We both agreed that we would do it all over again.
Next morning, his speech was not good, another stroke maybe? Who knows. A few more days and he was gone. But that last evening of clarity was a gift implanted in my memory.
So, now I cope. Little by little. I am most emotional in church where it is so easy to feel his presence, I try to remember to bring a tissue, but my pal Donna hands me one wordlessly. Easter was glorious and I saw him in the stained glass scene of Jesus surrounded by children. I used to place him up there as a young boy, but on Easter morning when I looked up, he was all grown up, standing next to Jesus and looking at me. Believe it or not. Another gift of faith.
The Hospice organization sent me information on ongoing grief groups I might want to attend. I'll think about it. This week my doctor told me I was resiliant. Hope he is right.
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