What’s “The Sourdough Stump?”, you might ask…? Well, at this moment in time… I can’t really give you a clear answer. The easiest and simplest way for me to explain it is this: Free sourdough bread for neighbors, friends, and strangers… or, as our little card says… Spreading kindness with free sourdough bread for whoever stops by… but for me, there’s a lot more that goes into it.
For the last tiny bit, Amanda, her mom, and her sister have been baking sourdough bread “together”… while spread across the country… and it got to the point where we realized we don’t eat that much bread in this household, but she didn’t want it to go to waste! So, on July 6th, 2025, Amanda grabbed some logs from the woodpile, made a sign sayin’, “Free Sourdough”, and The Sourdough Stump was born!… or created… or.. developed..?… definitely not birthed!… anyways, it was the start of what has so far been a wonderful adventure full of creativity, kindness, conversations, honest communication, and exercises in being more comfortable showing our vulnerabilities for Amanda and I…!
I’ve gotta say, it was super entertaining getting a text from her while I was at work which contained a picture of a couple of loaves of bread (in brown paper bags) sitting on top of a few stumps on the side of the dirt road in front of the Schoolhouse…! Unfortunately, no one stopped for those first two loaves sitting atop some stumps, but that just provided us with an initial goal of: Can we get at least 1… just ONE!… person to stop for a free loaf of sourdough bread!… that’s sitting next to the road… on a stump of wood…? Come to find out, the answer to that question is, “Yes, yes you can.”.
One of the things we keep going back to, the thing we really like about The Sourdough Stump and one of the objectives central to our idea is that it’s a free loaf of sourdough bread… no obligations… no expectations… no strings attached. It’s been fascinating to hear how many people say, “You should put a donation or tip jar out!” or “You should start selling it!”, but we like that it’s free, people… FREE! Of course, we’re also trying to figure out how to make a little money to offset some of the increased costs (flour, supplies, electricity… we have an old ass oven that makes the lights flicker when it kicks on!, etc.)… and we have the pipe dream of kinda making a living with it somehow in the future!… maybe..?.. but we haven’t figured that out yet considering our “Business Model” is currently one of just giving shit away as we drink coffee on the porch on Sunday mornings…! For right now though, we’ve simply loved meeting some neighbors, seeing some friends, and crossing paths with travelers visiting from strange and distant lands…!.. like Canada… and New Hampshire.
Since the moment I was sent that initial pic of some bread on a stump, Amanda and I have absolutely loved this whole little experience and personal event we’ve created in front of The Schoolhouse… currently on Sundays from 9:30am till the loaves run out…! We have no idea what we’re doing or how we want to do it… or why..?.. but that’s been the exciting part… the figurin’ it out… and seeing where it goes. Although we aren’t exactly sure of what we want The Sourdough Stump to be, there are interactions and observations each week that provide us with some guidance in forming our “Mission” and/or “Philosophy” with this little project/hobby of ours and if we wanna keep taking steps forward with it… whatever those may be.
So, if you’re out for a Sunday drive in Vermont and come across a stump of wood on the side of the road in front of a cute ass little red schoolhouse with some bread on top (of the stump, not The Schoolhouse)… stop and take one!… and a sticker! Who knows… you may also get to meet some neighbors and have a nice conversation!… unless it’s raining or really cold out… then we’ll just be creepin’ on you through The Schoolhouse windows…!
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
- In my Widowhood, I have found that it is a challenge to get excited about things… a lot of things… most things, really. The Sourdough Stump is not one of those things. Food can be nourishing in all sorts of ways.
- Like I said, we’re not exactly sure what we’re doing here, but we created an Instagram account you can follow to see when the stump is out and where this little project goes…! Follow along!… @thesourdoughstump
- I have dreams of Sourdough Stumps dotting dirt roads all over Vermont… providing bread and conversations for neighbors all across The Green Mountains.
- FYI… I’ve been a professional cook for thirty-one years and Amanda was a professional baker after graduating from The Culinary Institute of America: Baking and Pastry… so I guess we DO know what we’re doing when it comes to the production, baking, and food safety side of things for The Sourdough Stump. I mean, c’mon… we all have those neighbors/friends/co-workers whom we can tell what kind of pets they have at home by the cupcakes they brought to the potluck…!
- Amanda is a pretty big T. Swift fan. In honor of that I’m REALLY hoping The Sourdough Stump takes off and we get a huge number of followers/fans so that I can refer to them as “Stumpies”…!
It was hot today. Hot and… humid. When I got home this evening my bedroom was 84 degrees… a thick 84 degrees. Some might say “sticky”… like me… I would say that, but that has nothing to do with this really. Except for the fact that I’m writing this in the shade on my front porch on a Thursday evening… and I generally don’t write these things outside… on Thursday’s. It’s a change. It’s different. It’s kinda strange. It’s also quite the challenge to see what I’m typing because the reflection of my bright ass yellow shirt makes it a bit hard to see the screen! (and no… I’m not gonna change seats… I’m comfy.)
I think… like everyone else… I wish I could just drop everything, pack a bag, load the car, and experience wanderlust again for a while instead of plugging away at the grind. Not that things have been absolutely horrible… I haven’t been getting punched in the nuts when I wake up every morning or anything like that… but it DOES get a little tiring when you constantly feel overwhelmed, are constantly trying to “figure things out”, and life keeps showing you that there are things you have control over… and there are things that you don’t. So…. I’m just gonna keep plugging away at routines for right now… keep an eye on what I have control over… and maybe try to create some new routines! (Like ones where I have to brush my teeth at a rest stop, in a hotel, or next to my tent would be fun! Or in my schoolhouse… I have no plans of letting go of my schoolhouse! Gotta have home to come back to!)
The past couple of weeks have been good, filled with some good things. My lady friend and I went to Salem, Mass last week to get out of Dodge, see the ocean, and check out some witches! (the witches weren’t actually a main focal point) One thing I love about the East Coast is it’s history. Yes, we have some pretty horrendous history in this country, but everywhere does.
It’s fun to walk around a town made up of old brick buildings and wooden houses where you can read about what took place on that spot hundreds of years ago!… even though they weren’t good times. (I guess that’s how we learn not to do those things again… or not let them happen again.)
It’s up to us to decide on which to focus on and when. We aren’t helpless. Sometimes, we can do things that are actually helpful to ourselves… and others… without much effort.
Well… it has started. I have begun the process of going through shit to see what I want to keep around, what I want to save, what I want to throw away, and what I feel other people may want… of course, people definitely tell you what they want when your wife dies! More importantly though, I would want something to go to someone I love… who loved Kateri… if there is significant weight put on whatever object by whatever person… and if it’s in the “Give Away” pile! In this case, I’m going the kitchen… so there isn’t a ton of those types of things.
I mean, I don’t know if anyone is gonna be fighting over the 2 year old Cheerios in the glass jar on the counter!.. but maybe?!
Well… I officially have a Therapist for the first time in my adult life. It’s funny, as I sat here after writing that sentence, I didn’t know what I really wanted to say!… and then a friend texted and my thoughts shifted to jogging in the rain… which sounds kinda sloshy… fun, but I will probably never do… and doesn’t have anything to do with my Therapist. This is sorta what happens for me every time I stop and take the time to think about what it is I’m going through… where I’m at… what brought me here over the last 44 years and how it all works together to push me in a certain direction as I try my best to steer the wheel of life… which happens to have a significant amount of “play” in it! I keep seeing sayings like “YOU control your life” and “It’s how you show up” type stuff… and it’s true… but there’s a shitload out there that we have absolutely no control over which affects our life in one way or the other and to whatever varying degree! Hence… “play in the wheel”! (My father had an old Wagoneer. One of those classy ones with the mountain scene on the back widow. You could give the wheel a quarter turn before you headed in whichever direction!… Man, I would love to have that Jeep now.)
Generally, once I start a blog or video I just go ahead and either post it or trash it. Well, there’s actually a fair amount of videos on my phone of me playing guitar or rambling on about whatever that I had full intentions of posting to YouTube and just haven’t because I either lose motivation, run out of time, or simply second guess myself about throwing things out into the world… which is why I like to just write/record and then post… no time to second guess! After 97 blog posts and something like 9ish videos saved to YouTube… nothing horrible has happened to me yet, so I’m kinda keeping on that train of thought with the option of posting something after the fact… like I’m doing right now… from my bed… on a Sunday morning… with coffee.
It’s been a year and a half since Kateri passed away… that just seems all sorts of fucked up to me. It’s weird because at some points it seems like it has been that long (whatever that means)… and at other times it seems like yesterday. Actually, anytime I think about Kateri it seems like yesterday… which is hard… and the main reason why I have to try and manage my emotions much of the time. I can function in society without breaking down in the grocery store or coffee shop… but I still don’t care if I do. Although I haven’t become comfortable living my life without Kateri (I just want her back)… I have become more comfortable with my situation… and all the bullshit that comes along with it. Mourning the loss of a spouse is one of those “Big Life” experiences that happens to be somewhat complicated and I realize I am just settling into this whole grieving process… because it’s gonna be around for a while! Oh, it’s gonna change here and there… maybe it’ll even take a break once in a while… but it’s not going anywhere. I’m just learning to live with it.
So yeah, I’m just gonna say it… my body hurts!… but all my winter wood is neatly stacked and tucked away in the lean-to keeping it safe from the rain… and snow… and out of site! I’ve been looking at the piles on the other side of the driveway for about two months now. I was just never motivated enough or had the time to stack it, so I made it The Agenda for this weekend. My plan was to get out there just after the sun came up and have it done by early afternoon, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. However, I’m happy with how the day went… besides being reminded that I’m getting older and that I haven’t taken care of my body in the last year and a half or so! Oh well, that’s why I did it yesterday… so that I could recover today.
Ok. So all I really wanted to say is that… for me… 536 days into this experience is about the time that I needed to make the decision to start looking at the future a tiny bit more. I’m tired of the “routine”. Yes, there are things I have been doing that provide me joy (guitar, sitting by the fire or on the porch, eating cake pops, etc.), but those things are literally to get through the day. Losing a spouse is crushing… in every aspect of your life… at least it has been for me. We do things… anything… to just… not… hurt. (To give you a glimpse into the emotional state of this widower… I saw Kateri’s name in a sentence I wrote… and now I’m a wreck. I love her name… how it looks… everything that fills those letters and the spaces in between. That it was who she was.) But getting back to the point… I’m ready for change. I feel the need to make some small changes… and I’m ready for some big ones, as well. (ummm, FYI… not toooo big of changes… or too many!… or ones on a whim! Even though whims make for good adventures). I just feel the need to take a step back, take a moment, and move forward with a bit more focus on having my happiness and well being in mind going into the future.
The friend I was with was female… (ummm, and she still is)… so when R. asked if we were The Schoolhouse people it made for an interesting introduction when I had to explain that the schoolhouse was mine and my wife’s first home… that my friend is not my wife and that I live alone… because my wife died from cancer. Fun!
I’m just gonna preface this with my Wedding Anniversary was actually yesterday, I’ve been horrible at planning things lately, and at 10:08 in the morning… I’m still in the same comfy clothes as last night because I fell asleep on the couch! (I like to think of it as me being efficient… this way I don’t have to get undressed just to put them back on for a Sunday morning!) Long story short… well, abbreviated… this is what I did.
It was a beautiful drive… cloudy… cool. I took the dirt roads for the first bit and just got in the right frame of mind. When I hit Montpelier I thought, “I should probably eat breakfast…?!” and then Penny Cluse in Burlington instantly came to mind… because I love it there. As I got a little further down the road, another thought popped into my head that put a smile on my face… we cooked a majority of the food for our wedding in the Penny Cluse kitchen!… how fitting that I would be eating there!… today! It’s that whole attachment to experiences thing that I seem to keep trying to do, but it worked for this! So I got to Burlington, ate my Mama Cruz’s Huevos Rancheros, caught up with a couple of people, gave and got a hug from Charles, and moved on to the next phase of the journey.
Well, yesterday was a Saturday… and even though we got married on a Wednesday, most people get married on Saturdays… so the thought was, “I wonder if there is gonna be a wedding going on when I pull up?!”… there was. At least, that’s what I’m assuming… because there were people milling about as if they were getting ready for a wedding!
We were talking in the kitchen the other day how we couldn’t believe September is more than halfway over! Seeing the trees already trading in their bright green leaves for the vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges of Autumn Time in New England (well, Vermont) came up a bit quicker than expected… but then again… I don’t know where the summer went… or the last 17 months.
I’ll make this short n sweet since I had no plans on opening up the computer in bed when I woke up this morning! It was a Facebook post that sorta hit me… and I subsequently sorta lost it. It was from my sister and she was talking about how you don’t just marry your spouse… you become part of a family. She posted this because my brother-in-law’s mother passed away… her mother-in-law… and it just made me think about how death touches us all the time… from all sorts of different angles.
I’ve been kinda freaking out about losing pictures and videos… memories… as the time keeps piling up so I started going through them in an attempt to organize them… it’s a slow process. I realized we all get a YouTube account with our google account so I figured I would at least throw the videos I have hanging out on my phone on there so that they are consolidated, I could expand the sharing of this experience, and I could learn a bit more about this technology stuff. Again… slow process.
I took three days off of work last week… I felt that I needed to. I’ve been trying to take some time off during the summer, but it just didn’t really happen until this week. I’ve been feeling like I need a bit of time to address some of the obstacles this new life has put in front of me. It’s strange for me to think that it has 497 days… because I face it every single day. So at points it still feels like it literally just happened… and other times I can feel the space growing between points in the timeline. Either way, at the beginning of my Mini Vacation I had no plans on painting my bedroom… but I’m glad I did.
I left work an hour early on Thursday to unexpectedly drive up to B-Town for something. Work was fine, kind of a normal Thursday for me… did some ordering, sent off invoices, had a talk or two… but it wasn’t until I got up north and was sitting at my friend’s that it hit me… 16 months… since the death of Kateri.
cool that he was the one I was with when I realized the date. It’s stoopid little things like that that I have come to absolutely love… the cool little memories some situations have given me since the passing of Kateri. They provide me comfort… when those things happen. It makes me feel good. Whether it’s accurate or not… it gives me another reason to think, “It’ll all be ok.”. Sometimes life takes away the things we think we can’t live without. When it does, sometimes it gives us back tiny little things that help us keep going… we just need to make sure we are paying attention.
Ummm… I should mention that “SEX!” was the original title of this entry but it is really just a small part of this post… although, it was the catalyst to just about everything that this post is about. Really, I don’t even know how to start this thing sooooo… we’re just gonna get into it.
Sex. I was on my front porch (go figure) when that question popped into my head. The widower thing is weird. It’s just odd being thrust into this new life… alone… where I don’t have to let anyone know when I’m on my way home. That instant independence took a bit to get used to… even though the night Kateri died I took advantage of it by pulling out my laptop in bed to write notes. We never had “screens” in bed and it was the first thing I did that was… different… and for just me. A few months later as I was pondering sex questions on the porch I also thought, “How does a forty something year old man who’s been in a committed relationship for the last 18 years, who doesn’t drink, who doesn’t really wanna leave home for more than what is necessary, who doesn’t really have the energy… or desire… to “Play the Game/Field” meet someone?… who will also maybe have sex with them? Let’s see… hmmm… how about… DATING APPS!
I attribute quite a bit of my happiness in this new life to this new friend. She has given me much more than I feel I could ever give her in return. I think a lot about my situation and the obstacles I face, but I also think about how my situation affects her… and am continually impressed with how she deals with it and approaches it. I am amazed by her understanding. I am thankful for her support… and not with just the big things. She has also brought so many beautiful things into my life like s’mores in the woodstove, cake pops, Detroit style pizza, hot dogs grilled at the fire pit, long conversations in the living room, long walks around Portland… Maine, text message acronyms like DTR, kayaks, Criminal Minds, and once in a while… lazy mornings with strong coffee and comfy clothes.
I guess this is just me giving an example of why some people compare the effects of traumatic experiences to roller coaster rides. My last blog post was pretty darn positive… the good shit in this new life! I’m actually trying to be a pretty darn positive person… but sometimes things pop into my head on the 40 minute drive home through the vibrant green hills. Like memories. I’m gonna keep this short.
needed the space to try and be comfortable. Somewhere in the last of month of her life, I was tucking her into bed when she said, “You can sleep in here if you want?”…. but by the time I was done trying to figure out hospital stuff, insurance stuff, cancer stuff, life stuff… she was asleep, looking as comfortable as she could be, and I didn’t want to do anything that would ruin that. So I laid on the bed above the covers, held her for a bit, and simply kissed her goodnight.
I haven’t actually made it to the upstairs bathroom yet… might be dragging my feet. I have decided to trim the beard down to a less “mangy” length… as a friend had described it. I personally like to think of it as “shabby” or “unkempt”. Whatever you call it… I rather enjoy it. Unfortunately, it’s also hot… and I work in kitchens.
The other evening I was going through videos on my phone that I had made last summer… when I was trying to figure out what the effe just happened to my world… and I came across this picture that I had taken on July 1st, 2018. Sooooo, that would’ve been Widower Day 70… and it’s weird to think I’m at 436 now partly because much of the last 14 and whatever months are in some ways a blur… and foggy. But I remember taking this picture because of the significance of what the date on the newspaper reminded me of… April 22nd… the day Kateri died… 70 days earlier.
a chicken that week… Taco. Although she wasn’t my favorite, I thought she was the most beautiful. She just looked like a picture perfect Silver Laced Wyandotte. Bright white and black with the really red comb thing… like the ones you see in the movies! (really… I have no idea what a good looking Silver Laced Wyandotte looks like… but she sure was a purdy chicken. And… the chicken in the picture is Lil’ Bitch… she’s my favorite) Yup, poor Taco. I opened up the door to the coop… and BLAM!… dead chicken… mostly in the nesting box… little head hanging over the edge……….. it was hot. I felt pretty bad there for a bit, and then just thought… it’s a chicken… and had to move on.
I’ve gotta tell you… I meant to post this Yesterday. I felt good Yesterday. Yesterday was a good day… for no particular reason… just one of those nice, early summer days. Yup, good ol’ Yesterday. Now, Today is good, too. There isn’t really anything I could say that put a damper on Today… no big emotional moments… work was kinda fun… heck, I’m currently on my porch again… while listening to chickens as they scratch about… hopefully eating up all the ticks in the yard! Actually, I’ve had a good couple of days. I’ve been wanting to share some of the “Big Life” questions that I’ve been tackling lately… those that come along with losing your spouse… but I haven’t really had the time that I would want to devote to those topics.
I just got home from spending the day at an ESOP Conference up in B-Town. What is an ESOP you ask? Employee Stock Ownership Plan (look it up!). Yup, I work for one… and went to a conference where they had seminars and stuff about them… which also had me start my day at 5:30am with a nice little drive across The Green Mountain State. It was one of those beautiful drives where you would crest a hill to see a bed of fog at the bottom of a green valley. It’s funny to think that the hills are gonna just get more green… “make you thirsty” green. Anyways, the hills made the postcards proud this morning.
First, I just need to say that this post is pretty much a “Widower” post… not sad or anything… it’s not reminiscing about how great and wonderful and beautiful and honest and perfect Kateri was (is)… it’s about after that. For the last two days I have been copying, pasting, increasing indents… still gotta add some pics, and trying to finalize the little “My Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning” site page on this here bloggy website thing a ma jig. Which meant… I read my notes. And we all know what that means! Actually, there weren’t any waterworks the last two days… or maybe just not the last day… but, it was really kinda nice going through the notes and being able to just… remember… ponder… compare times… to simply think about them… without any convulsing, sniffing, or snorting of snot. (Kateri would always say, “Out is better than in!” if I decided to suck the snot in… instead of destroying a kleenex)
Yup, the ol’ Adirondack Chairs that Kateri and I had bought 15 years ago from The Christmas Tree Shop finally bit the dust. Well, one of them had a run in with a chunk of snow that jumped off the roof this winter… I probably should have moved it before then… oops. In all honesty, they lasted ten years longer than we expected them to! Of course, we treated them pretty well. In the beginning we would bring them into the house as our “winter furniture”. We didn’t have anything else besides a papasan and the stool (our first piece of “furniture” which I still use by the woodstove) and if you add a cushion to an Adirondack Chair… they are quite comfy to sit back in and watch a movie!
Now… I’m just gonna say that I’m one of those people who actually enjoys it when they look out the window and sees a little bit of the white stuff on the grass in the Spring. No, that isn’t some hip and modern drug reference I frequently use in this rock star life I live… it was just snow… in the yard… and it was kinda nice to see.
(Yup, when I started this post it was NOT Mother’s Day… and now it is) Simply… after the one year mark… things are different… I feel different. I was gonna go into all the ways “this” has changed… or how “that” has been replaced by “those”, but there will be other times for all that jive. I just felt the need to say that through this experience, every once in a while there is a tangible feeling when a shift takes place. Kinda of like on the first day I didn’t cry… or when six months hit and I felt like I had a little bit of control over my life… and had to make decisions for myself. Although there is no destination, there’s this tedious little march going on that keeps pushing me forward and with every step, I overanalyze it… and then adapt to make the next step.
If you do, sometimes the big pile of shit get’s a couple of shovel loads taken out of it by three simple words… written in all caps… with exclamation marks. Sometimes… “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!” pertains to the best news you’ve heard in a year and 19 days… at least for me. What’s the “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!” you ask? The docs could no longer see any tumors in my mom’s brain!… yup, and we’ll take it!
I’ve been thinking a lot about other widowers and widows lately… more so than in the past. I think that the whole “Time heals” bullshit has something to do with that. Plus, I belong to two support groups (1 just widowers, 1 widowers/widows) and it’s kinda hard not to feel for people who are going through… or who have been through… what I’m experiencing when they pop up all over your Gosh Darn (trying to be respectful) Facebook feed! In all seriousness, I’m not exactly a “support group” kinda guy and I definitely don’t engage as much as other people, but the names on the screens and the words of support I see them write to strangers has provided me with an unmeasurable amount of encouragement for not only my life to keep moving forward, but for theirs as well! It has just been one of those things that has pleasantly caught me by surprise.
It’s 7:35 in the morning… I’ve been up for about 47 minutes… and I don’t know what the fuck to say. I do know that the first text of the day came in a bit ago… and I’ve been crying those good ol’ crocodile tears ever since. Although I don’t really care if people see or hear me being emotional, I am sorta glad that I don’t have people walking past my house on their way to work or school hearing me as I sob uncontrollably while making odd noises through my mouth because my nose is so plugged up with snot! Kateri always said, “Trees make better neighbors!”… and right now I’m glad they are the ones right outside my window listening to me cope and come to terms with the fact that I haven’t been able to hear her laugh, hold her hand while walking down the dirt road, or kiss her goodnight… like I did every… single… night. It has been a year since Kateri has not been on this earth. For 365 days I have come home to an empty house filled with memories of a life that life decided to take away from me… from all of us. It hurts. It’s painful. It’s something I don’t want… but it’s what I’ve got… and I’m glad life didn’t take away the memories.
In the winter of 1998/99… December… Wyoming… I watched Kateri walk from The Chalet (female employee housing) down to the lodge, from the window of The Stables (male employee housing). She had on her blue snow pants, her white winter coat with the god awful neon patch work, and her funky hat from Nepal or some place (I should remember where she got it… she told me… it’s just not coming to me!) keeping her head warm. Kateri would sometimes tilt her head as she walked. I found the image to be calming. We didn’t really know each other at the time… we had just met. At the time, there weren’t any romantic inclining’s yet… she was just someone I found to be interesting. She was unique. There was something different about her. Thankfully, we got along and became friends!
For the last 365 days… and for the four months and three days before that… I have been consumed with either the experience of watching and being a part of cancer ravish Kateri’s body and brain, the loss of Kateri, or trying to figure out how to survive without her. It’s been a struggle. I don’t eat, I find it a challenge to put myself to bed, I’m stressed out worrying about my future, my job, my home. I’m sad, I’m confused, and I hurt… this process physically hurts… but I’m here. I’m here surrounded by the memories that Kateri and I made with each other as we built our life together. She gave me twenty years of memories to draw upon when I feel the need to be close to her. She filled our home with relics which are attached to experiences over those twenty years which I can hold in my hand, I can feel, I can smell… I can touch. Kateri will always be with me… a part of me. That’s just what happens. This last year has sucked balls, but the great things that Kateri brought into this world… into my world… are still here… even if she isn’t. That is how we hold on… to the people we love more than ourselves. That is how I hold on to Kateri… because I miss her… I love her… and I always will.
This is kinda one of those “spur of the moment” posts. It’s cloudy and a bit chilly…. with large patches of snow adding to the coolness of the image out the ol’ schoolhouse windows. I’m still in comfy clothes… from last night… because I fell asleep on the couch after watching the first scary movie… alone… in said schoolhouse… since Kateri passed away (“The Silence”. At least it wasn’t a ghost/paranormal/psychological sorta movie. And… I survived!). I actually woke up at 6 something, but was comfortable enough and warm enough, so I just decided to stay horizontal… till 9:13!… (a.m.)… and not trudge upstairs. It’s been one of those slow moving/Tupelo Honey on the radio types of mornings… and it feels good. The coffee tastes nice, dark, and strong… and I’ve already gotten to have a nice visit with a friend from down the road. I even got to pull out power tools!… and use them in my front yard while still in those comfy clothes… with the addition of rubber boots! It was literally just replacing a couple of straps… but some people… well I… will take any opportunity to fix something using tools.
I had told myself… and I guess the digital world… that I wanted to take these next two weeks (the last two of the first year without Kateri) to mourn the loss of my wife. The other day, at the end of a conversation with a friend, he asked me, “What does that mean to you?”…. and I realized… I have no fucking idea! But I figure rememberin’ has somethin’ to do with it so that’s what I’m gonna do a little of and see how it goes. I mean… we’ll see… it took me three days, 2 baths, a pint of Ben n Jerry’s, two hours and 23 minutes of Aquaman, and 13 packages of pills (Smarties) to get through 8 photos! (yup, the kind you can hold in your hand)
Each with an arm wrapped around my shoulders… a hand on my leg… one on across my chest. I remember them just holding me as I was processing what was going on… while they were processing what was going on… and I just remember saying to Keith… “This is it. We’re here for a reason…. right?… this is it?”… and all he had to say was, “Yes.”
There’s a strip between the coop and the house… which I was excited about… and then the chickens crapped all over it! (At least they looked happy!)
It hit me last night… I’m trying to jam “healing” into a time frame and attaching it to all sorts of things. This is one reason I’m thankful I decided to use writing, to start a blog, as a tool for myself as I go through this process. Recently, my plan was to just get all those things that I associate with “widower” stuff on the blog by the one year anniversary of Kateri’s passing. I wanted it all there… consolidated… organized… so that I could start year 2 with a fresh and brighter outlook, but I can’t do it. Tomorrow is the anniversary of one of the roughest days of my life… the day we found out there were no other options (two immunotherapy treatments which had two drugs at each treatment… along with one radiation session… did absolutely nothing). The day after that is the ER. The day after that… Palliative Care.
We were progressive n shit. (Actually, we didn’t like the idea of changing her name… Kateri Lidstrom wasn’t who she was… and it sounded stupid)
I’m a cook. It’s in my blood at this point… it’s part of “who” I am. We are not “Home Chefs” or tell people that, “I just love to cook!”… we are a different breed and unless you are one… you just don’t understand… like being a widower/widow. You may get a glimpse of what/who we are… but you never get the full story… there are too many details. Now, I do believe that that goes for any personal experience we humans go through. I may know that you are hurting, or are faced with the challenge of losing a loved one, or that you are an accountant and have to face Tax Season!… but I don’t know what that feels like for you… I don’t know what you need to do to get through your challenges. Nor, do I need to know. I just need to know that there are challenges in your world.
Sometimes, the ol’ balance scale is off kilter and I have to focus on whatever carries more weight. Sometimes the balance scale… feels like it has 7 arms.
All I wanna say is… I really enjoyed reading through these notes… looking back on this one day. At the time, the day itself was just kinda meh… and I’m sure I was just floating around in a daze. But reading what I was thinking about and recognizing the mood I was in as I wrote down ideas… as I was first trying to figure out what it was that I was gonna do in my life… to survive (because that’s what it feels like)… it felt good. Instant gratification. A talk with a friend. Looking for good in… whatever. Saying, “Fuck it”… and doing whatever it was that I felt I needed to do to feel better.
I like these notes because I can see a little bit of both chapters of my life in them and it was a “typical” day for me.
For 346 days I have been filling time with projects, with work, tidying, cleaning, organizing, removing stuff, chickens… and chicken chores, moving wood piles, remodeling bathrooms, acquiring things to help in the future (I’m getting older… and definitely over shoveling snow off driveways!), watering plants, rearranging living rooms (just last week!… I like it, but there’s a strange feeling sitting at home in a space set up in a way that Kateri has never experienced), seeing friends once in a while, meeting new people, seeing family even more once in a while, taking baths, playing guitars, keyboards, or blaring music when it’s significantly past the one-two. I’ve tried to fill time with actions that would help me in the future and/or make me feel good… or better. Right now though, right this second… I just want to stop… and sit… and feel the sadness that the loss of Kateri has given me… because it’s the closest I’m gonna get to her. When I can feel the pressure in my temples, when I have to breath through my mouth because my nose is all snotted up, when the words are blurry after a good ol’ “moment” (like this one)… when it hurts the most… I can see her the clearest. I can almost feel her… feel her skin… her hair. Her beautiful black and silver hair. Again… almost. Now, tell me that’s not fucked up!… (it’s not)
Well… I’m heading back home to Vermont! It was a quick trip to Boise to see my family… specifically my mother… but, I am soooo happy that I did it. The look on her face when I walked through her door I will cherish forever. The fact that I have never done something like that (surprise my family… or anyone… by just showing up) has made me think about the life I have coming up in front of me… this new life where I am solely responsible for what I want to do… and how I want to do it. My perspectives have changed on everything. What I view as important has changed. My goals in life have changed. All because my life has changed with the loss of Kateri.
Those worrisome images that had found their way into my head a week ago have been replaced with relief and the expectation that there will be more than a few other trips for us to chill with each other because… well… she’s doing fantastic! I mean, she’s not running marathons and we won’t be doing any bungee jumping any time soon (I don’t think), but she’s doing much better than… you know… I expected!
It was a good day… I mean today was. Looks like Day 24 wasn’t all that horrible, but I’m talking about my day in Boise. Aaaand… I ate a banana for breakfast… I hate bananas.
When I walked past her window and she saw my Cedar Circle sweatshirt… she knew it was me! My father… well, I just walked into his office while he was on the phone with a client… and then caused him to fumble over his words for a second! I’m sure the client was like, “ummm… you ok?!”. My mother… well… the look on her face when I walked into the house… it simply filled me happiness.
It’s the second day of my weekend and after staying up way too late last night… but enjoying no alarm!… I decided to try and pluck some things off of the “To Do” list today. You know, those little things that you just keep meaning to get to… or are blatantly disregarding?! So I did chicken chores, replaced the Daytime Running Light on the ol’ buggy, brought wood over from the potting shed… with help from said buggy… and a sled, changed out the drip pans on the stove because the old ones had literally disintegrated, and then… well… I rearranged the living room.
Yup… I didn’t really realize it until I was driving home from work that today was the eleven month anniversary of Kateri’s passing. I felt a little off today, but didn’t think much about it. Plus, coming off of Kateri’s birthday and the ringer that that put me through, I was actually just looking forward to a little bit of a mellower time for the following few days… hopefully weeks… and so far it is. At this point, having gone through birthdays and holidays and anniversaries of cancer stuff… the month anniversaries are just a way to track time. Compared to Kateri’s birthday… or the date of the diagnosis of Melanoma in the brain… or the anniversary of her death coming up in a month… all the other months have just been a countdown to that 1 Full Year moment. So, for me right now… it kinda sucks to think that Kateri has been gone for eleven months, but I’m emotionally hung over… wanna take a breather… and just prepare (if you can) for 1 year. (wow… that just fucked up to think about)
I took an extra day off at the tail end of my weekend because… as I figured… Kateri’s birthday was probably gonna be the peak of the emotional mountain expedition. (no… I’m not a mountain climber or have any desire to scale Mt. Kilamenjaro or anything. Walks though… those are good) I wanted to make sure I had a little extra time so as not to have the sense of rushing it… and I’m glad I did!… cuz it’s been rough! I mean, yes it’s been rough, but I have come to expect that. However, I was surprised by the amount of crying I did. I was surprised by how early the water works and the “I miss those days” reminiscing started… a couple of weeks prior to her birthday. I was surprised by just how much… how many emotions… I had pushed to the side as I try to figure out how to maneuver, how to live in the present, how to get everything done in this new life… without her. And I knew I was gonna need a couple of days to recover from the onslaught of everything on Kateri’s birthday… on St. Patrick’s Day.
I had gotten up around six and hit the road at 6:30am for breakfast at George’s… in Gloucester… two hours and forty-three minutes away. It was gonna be my “I’m taking Kateri to the ocean for her birthday” end to the weekend, but when you drive for a few hours by yourself… the brain kinda does it’s thing! (having control over the radio has it’s advantages, though) As I thought more and more about it, I wasn’t taking Kateri to the ocean… I was taking just a part of Kateri to the ocean… and I was taking only a tiny fraction of what is left of her physical body… that which we cremated. I could try and make myself feel better by attaching her… by attaching Kateri to my little road trip, but she wasn’t by my side.
She didn’t order bisuits and gravy or shoot the shit with line dude. She didn’t feel the ocean air on her cheeks. And I didn’t take a selfie of us on the beach with her in the background doing some funny little kick… or doing anything at all. Yes, Kateri was with me in my memories, thoughts, emotions, and spirit as I drove 71 miles per hour across New England, but she wasn’t by my side… and I realized I just needed to cover some ground for myself as I remembered my wife… and all the wonderful “Let’s go to the ocean!” adventures we had.
So I had breakfast, I saw the ocean, I sat and thought about life. Luckily, Kateri’s birthday was the day for bawling like a baby so the last two days of my 3-day weekend were a little more manageable on the tear factor and I didn’t have to tell myself, “I don’t care if people see me crying on this bench… as I stare at the water”… while other tourists snap and bark at their partners because they aren’t holding the paper doll cutout correctly while posing beneath the memorial to fishermen lost at see! I mean, I got emotional here and there, but it has been a much mellower couple of days.
“YOU’RE AS OLD AS JESUS!”… Kateri loved to take advantage of any opportunity where she was able to say that. If it was someone’s birthday and they were turning 33… well, she would start with a, “Happy Birthday!”… and finish with, “You’re as old as Jesus!”… and then the birthday boy or girl would stare at us like, “What…?”. Now, I’m not a religious man and although Kateri grew up Catholic (she said she was a “Recovering Catholic”), she wasn’t very religious… spiritual, but not religious. So the addition of Jesus into the well wishing on birthdays is kind of a conundrum to me of how and why it started, but really it was just a fun little quirky thing that she brought into my life… that has been there over the years… that has put smiles on friend’s and strangers’ faces… and something I will probably say to every 33 year old I cross paths with on their birthday till my birthdays stop coming. (ps-I guess JC died at 33… how’s that to make you feel unaccomplished in life?! Jesus… he was a go getter!)
It seemed only natural to incorporate the whole “You’re as old as Jesus!” into the day when Kateri turned thirty-three. We were working in Burlington slinging “breads”… pizza… and we were renting a little cottage in the Green Mountains 50 minutes away that looked at the back side of Mad River Glenn. Life was starting to roll… we were at that stage in life where old friendships were solidified in their place and we were meeting wonderful new people to start new friendships with… people who became a part of our family. I wanted to capture some of those people… some of those memories from “When we were younger” to look back upon… decades down the road.
So I asked a friend to make a sign and I drove that sign to other friend’s houses and to their places of employment. I carried it with me in case I ran into someone on the road so that I could snap a picture of them holding it and wishing Kateri a “Happy… you are as old as Jesus… Birthday!”. I developed the pictures (yes, they were taken with a camera… with film) and grabbed a stupid little photo album to put them in. When I gave it to Kateri I watched the corners of her mouth turn upwards to a smile as she flipped through the pics and saw her friends and their well wishes. With every turn of the page, I got to see that simple smile turn into pure innocent love for the people who were holding that cardboard sign. Unfortunately, since that album was made, we only got a decade and a bit under our belts to do the whole “Remember when” thing together… to reminisce about turning thirty-three. Now I use the gift I gave her not so much to remember our friends… but to remember Kateri… and she’s not even in the album.
Sometimes, the plan was to just hang in a certain area and relax… or do something fun and fancy like go to a piano concert in some historical and beautiful concert hall or theater that overlooks the water. You know, pretend like we were fancy as we rubbed elbows with fancy people. Sometimes we would bring our espresso machine with us on these trips, set it up on the dresser in the hotel room, and drink cappuccinos on the porch as we looked down the line of empty rooms and listened to the water as it tried to run up the land… thinking about how lucky we were not to have to share the space.
I could write about the debates birthdays created between friends pertaining to when your “Mid Forties” start… and no, they don’t start at 41! There are a lot of good memories accumulated over the years I could share, but today is the first time in nineteen years that I’m not spending Kateri’s birthday with her… because life decided it was so… and presently I don’t have the time or energy to remember twenty years of good times that are simply all just memories now. That’s what I’ll use the future for… to remember the past. Today… after I write this, I guess… I’m just gonna sit in the present for a bit and see how it goes. Being a widower is rough… it’s hard… it’s emotional. Jesus Christ!… it’s emotional. Losing Kateri is harder… she was a part of me… and still is… because I love her… and I miss her………. so much.
I had to leave work early today. I knew when I was driving in at 7:24am that I probably wasn’t gonna make it that long. I knew at 6:50am that I was probably gonna be useless. As well as at 6:15am when the first harp started the progression from a musical instrument made to create beautiful sounds… to a car horn made to scare the shit out of someone who is unaware of the tin can behind them. It’s my version of the “Sunrise Alarm”… something which I will never own.
widower provides. It’s relentless. The brain just doesn’t stop. There are periods where I can balance the “loss” and “living”. There have been times where “living” overshadowed “loss”! Other times… not so much. Right now, it just so happens to be a “loss” time. Yes, there is still “living” happening… just not a ton… and mostly in comfy clothes.
Well there… all of that sad shit just to get to a point where I could raise my spirits by giving myself a compliment! In actuality, I don’t need to give myself compliments to try and make myself feel better. I’m a lucky person and have some good people in my life who are supportive, loving, and fun. There are a shit ton of things in my life that I am grateful for. There are a lot of good things in my life… many more than horrible ones. The horrible ones are just… well… kinda gross. This is a hard experience to go through and there are a lot of challenges, but people have been going through it ever since the first Pat fell in love with the first Pat… first Pat loved first Pat back… and then first Pat died from Metastatic Melanoma in the brain… with mutations. People survive death. It just kind of sucks that it’s a part of the gig.
New show on Netflix?… nope! Hell, I’m getting emotional during sitcoms about high school kids, puberty, and first loves!
I slept in until 9:24. Well, I first woke up at 5:04am on the couch. One of those open my eyes… realize I’m still downstairs… check my phone to see what time it actually was… and then listen to the Smarties that were on my belly… from when I fell asleep… four hours earlier… roll across the hardwood floor as I stumbled to throw a couple of logs on the fire… before I stumbled up the stairs and flopped into bed. It’s a pretty normal occurrence these days on my Fridays (your Mondays)… the pile of Smarties just hanging out on my belly for 4 hours… not so much. For whatever reason, I have a tendency to want to stay up late… and if I have the next day off… helloooo couch-bed! I don’t know why I keep doing it. Every night I say to myself, “I should go to bed earlier!”… but I don’t listen.
at home in the schoolhouse… and then I move on.
it’s cooler… and the sun is running to the west providing another spectacular Vermont sunset… and feel Kateri’s skin as she holds my hand.
bone hair stick thing as a weapon… and TSA never questioned it.
you were actually hoping to do! It’s kind of annoying… but has also made me chuckle out loud a couple of times.
It was quite the psychological and emotional hit when Facebook started sending me notifications that only I could see my posts because I had “Violated Community Standards”… and then they removed them from my page. Those little messages brought up all sorts of questions for me… questions about my blog and it’s content. Did I infringe on some Trademark? Did I offend someone?… (Which I don’t really care if I do. I just don’t wanna say something and have someone think I’m trying to be mean or malicious. I know I can be a jerk… but I’m really trying not to be!) Questions about technology! Did I not set something up correctly? Why do these sites/apps/corporations work together, but these other ones don’t? Where do I go for help?
Kateri has had a profound affect on me and my life. There are things I want to do… and there are things that I need to do. If dipping my toe into the modern digital world will help me overcome some challenges and obtain some goals… well… I’m not afraid to download the app! (Until I delete it because my phone keeps harassing me that the storage is full with the gray bar… not the blue, yellow, or red bars… and I don’t know what “other” means… so I just start deleting shit)
I feel the need to share a bit of my thought process on Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning, the timeline, and some of my intentions with sharing the experience of losing Kateri. At first, at the very beginning, it was as simple as “I don’t wanna forget”. So on that first night, after I crawled into our bed for the first time in months… for the first time alone… I wrote shit down. Now comes a little insight into the mind of a widower… well, I guess into my widower mind. When I first lost Kateri, right after watching cancer cause her physical pain and force her to live with an unexpected outlook on life… after seeing it create the worry in her eyes… and me trying everything I could to hold on to the last experiences I was going to have with my wife… I was confused, lost, scared, and felt absolutely alone. I freaked out. My brain was going 8 million miles a minute… but through the dense fog that cancer creates when it comes into your life. And when it took Kateri away, for me it blocked out all those other good memories that were on the other side. Writing things down helped me cope with some of the ugly emotional stuff. It helped me be reflective on this experience. It helped me remember. And I hoped it would help make room for some of the other twenty years of good memories.
Creating this blog has been a learning experience. It has been therapeutic. With each blog post I learn a little bit more about who I am, who I want to be, what it is I want to do, and how I am going to do it. Every time someone visits Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning… I feel good. Every time someone likes a blog post or leaves a comment… I feel good. When someone I have never met emails me saying that they can totally relate to my words because they just lost their husband or wife and it has helped them… I feel good. This blog has led me to Widower/Widow forums and support groups which have been fulfilling, insightful, and have provided perspective… which has made me feel good. So when Facebook’s algorithm decided I was spam and I thought I wasn’t gonna be able to share my story on the one social media platform I know… it was kind of a personal and emotional hit. Although I don’t really know where this blog or experience is gonna take me or what doors it may open or how long it will keep going… I do know that it feels better when 47 people check out a blog post than when 3 do! (That whole positive affirmation thing)
I don’t remember if Kateri was coming home from the restaurant or from the art/artist/fancy store on Church Street, but I remember I was frantically learning origami so that when she came home and walked into the studio… which was above a garage… she walked in to her own little field of flowers… in February.
Long story short, we wanted out of the house, out of Burlington… we wanted our own space to start living our lives together. We had met this kid in Wyoming, who was also a Vermonter, and he mentioned that his father had a home with a studio attached to it above the garage. He made the introductions. It was perfect. It also helped that the giant house the studio/garage was attached to was empty… and on 28 acres. So when Valentine’s Day rolled around, I asked Steve (the dad) if I could use the bathroom in the big house so that Kateri could take a bath (it was a huge bathtub… and anyone who knows Kateri… she loves to take a bath… unless it doesn’t cover her boobs… then she finds that to be annoying… remember?). I got candles, some music, and all that jive. But she was gonna come to the studio first… so I wanted to do something that she would instantly see… like fifty origami tulips. Now, I wish I could say that I chose the origami tulip because I’m a hopeless romantic and there was some epiphany with Valentine’s Day, but it was really only because people give you things like books on origami for Christmas and we had a couple in a corner. So I thought, “Well, that would be kinda cool… and I don’t need to leave!”. So I started folding the bases of the tulips… and then the flower… then put them together and carefully placed them all over the studio to greet her when she came home from work. Side note-when you sorta just wing it, sometimes your origami tulips come with all sorts of colors and patterns.
About Kateri opening her eyes one afternoon as a new doctor came in to check on her and her saying, “You’re really good looking.”… he was. I wish I could share so much more, but it’s rough… and exhausting. Life is big… and it’s complicated. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes… it’s worse than that. Sometimes… for some things… they just don’t get better… no matter how many times you tell yourself that they are. I said it a lot… and it wasn’t true. We just weren’t gonna allow ourselves to give up. We didn’t want to. We couldn’t… because that’s not what you do.
Well, I’m more than halfway through my time off from work for a week. I had such dreams of grandeur when I first decided to use up some earn time for myself!… it hasn’t been that exciting. It’s been good… just not that exciting. At first, I thought I would try to drive to Key West and back, but I realized the end of January is a pretty popular time for people to go hang on a beach in the Florida Keys… and they like to jack up the prices! Then I thought about hitting ol’ Ned for a few days, be back in the Rockies, chill with one of my best friends… but that “best friend” already had plans to be in Utah!… jerk. (He’s not a jerk… well, yes he is, but not because he went to Utah… and I still love him). Soooo, I decided to stick around a bit, take a couple of short road trips, and attack a few things around the house I’ve been meaning to get to.
treatment. She had seen the worry on Kateri’s face and gave her a little four leaf clover pendant/pewter thing because she thought she needed it… it’s still in the downstairs bathroom on a plate with some other of Kateri’s things. I didn’t really remember Mary at the time, but I knew exactly what she was talking about because I had been seeing that little medallion every day for the last nine months and on the drive home it hit me… the memory of the day she was talking about… I could picture it… I felt it. It was one of those heart warming… and heart crushing things. As a widower, you get to have a lot of those experiences.
Wednesday I just took care of some normal everyday errands… oil change, clean the house type stuff, but on Thursday… I went to Atlantic City! (I’m not sure why there is an exclamation mark… it wasn’t that exciting) I knew I wanted out of Dodge, but wasn’t sure where to go. I had never been to Atlantic City… probably because I don’t drink or gamble, but it’s on the ocean and it’s the off season… which means you can get an ocean view room for less than $100! Soooo, why not?!
more than anyone else. I did a lot of just walking around and people watching… took myself out for a steak. Did I gamble?… yes. Did I win a ton of money?… no. Did I lose a ton of money?… nope! I gave myself a hundred bucks… and played the penny slots… in rounds of $20. Luckily, I have some self control… and it helps that I have put myself into my own financial austerity since going from a two income household to one. When you have the fear of losing everything already, it makes it pretty easy not to bet everything in the hopes of an easy payday… because most likely, it ain’t gonna happen!
I’ll admit, it was kinda fun… entertaining to say the least. The highlight was probably my last 10 minutes in the casino as I was calling it a night and walking back to my room. As I was heading to the escalator, there was a lady at the bar who made a gesture towards me which caught my eye… and then she proceeded to the base of the escalators to intercept me. Now, it became pretty apparent to me pretty quickly what her intentions were… especially when she said her name was “Angel” and was just wondering if I wanted to “conversate” with her?! “Conversate”!!… with her!! I mentioned to her that we could “conversate” right here and I took 5 minutes get to know a hooker a little better. She was really nice, had been in AC for 7 years, she was from Alabama… or Georgia… or something, she didn’t like that there wasn’t much fully nude dancing in AC, but has also met a lot of nice guys! (I’m sure she has!) It was actually the perfect end to my night in Atlantic City… and no, we did not 
“conversate” up in my ocean view room. Now, I don’t exactly have any problems with that line of business… it’s been around for a while… but I just don’t think it’s my cup of tea. (And I don’t want my ding-a-ling to fall off or feel like I’m gonna burn the house down when I pee!)
bathroom stuff from when we were remodeling the bathroom. I hung the banner from Kateri’s Kick Ass Party (our funeral) which has been draped over the spare bed for seven months. Basically, I’m trying to get the most bang for my buck with this time off so that I can hit the floor running when I go back to work. I understand that this is going to be a long process… this new life… but steps do need to be taken. Widows/widowers still need to live life and are constantly trying to figure out how to do that. Although I’m in no rush to figure everything out, I do have a certain sense of urgency for some things… or for things I’ve just been meaning to get to. So I adapted to what I was feeling and came home to my little red schoolhouse in Vermont… where there aren’t any hookers. (I apologize if we don’t call them hookers anymore… prostitutes?… ladies of the night?… rentals?… it’s not my area of expertise)
In the days after Kateri passed away I told myself I wasn’t gonna go to the doctor for at least a year. The main reason being… what did I care if there was something wrong with me? I had just lost the one thing in my life that I didn’t want to live without… yet that’s what I was doing. So what if my organs were on the fritz?… or that headache was something more than just dehydration or lack of coffee?… or that pain in the tummy was more than just the Boston Baked Beans from the night before? So what? I was good with life and if life wanted to take me just as soon as it had taken Kateri… well, so be it… it was a fun run. Now, I’m not a religious man, but in the back of my mind there was the hope that if something did happen… it just meant I got to see my sweet Kateri sooner. I wasn’t gonna do anything to hasten that journey, but I was comfortable if life handed me that card.
to use up and figured that was a good place to drop some dough. Plus, my friend had never been there before so I thought it would be a nice introduction to a wonderful, local store. We didn’t actually buy anything, but it was fun walking around looking at flannels (real flannels), winter coats, knit caps, work gloves, shoes, and messenger bags that cost 372 dollars (gift cards combined couldn’t buy that shit!). But it was seeing a good friend who works there and chatting with him that was the catalyst for me throwing a snow blower on a credit card. When he told me that the storm this weekend was expected to drop about two feet of snow on us… my brain went into panic mode on how to get a snow blower to my house!… and no, Farmway doesn’t have snow blowers. After the storm the week before… and my shoulders taking a week to recover… I was gonna do everything I could to not have to move all that white shit by hand. I mean, yes… I get a huge sense of pride by staying on top of the driveway using nothing but man power, but I’m not THAT proud! I figure, we (humans) have come up with machines to do certain tasks for us for a reason… and I was more than happy to figure out a solution.
That was Wedensday. It was Thursday that I jokingly asked a buddy to just pick one up and drop it off at the schoolhouse… 45 minutes north of him. This is where I was reminded of just how many good people I have in my life. I was actually at work when I texted my buddy and he, without hesitation, offered to meet me at the hardware store, load up a snow blower in the back of his truck, and drive it 45 minutes north. So I quickly chatted with my co-workers, jumped in the Jeep, and zoomed to Home Depot to try and snag one of the last remaining machines. It was a good thing we did it when we did. As I walked in, so did another gentleman with the same thing on his mind. This is where I felt lucky on the timing. There were only 5 machines left. Two were reasonably priced… the other three were twice as much. I staked my claim on one of the lesser expensive ones… he took the other one. It was at this moment that a wave of relief came over me knowing that I would not have to shovel my driveway… and more importantly the end of the driveway where the plow likes to push four foot high piles of snow, ice, and dirt that form a nice little barrier to keep out the riff raff. Of course, it also provides a nice barrier for when you are trying to get to work at 5:30 in the morning.
That was a Thursday and the storm wasn’t coming until Saturday night/Sunday, but do you think that stopped me from firing it up when I got home?… because IT DIDN’T! Yup, I did some snow blowing. Plus, I wanted to make sure I new how to work it BEFORE the storm actually hit. It would kinda suck to have a storm come through… to have a snow blower… and to have it NOT work. Don’t worry though… it worked… and it was fun! As a widower, this was one of those things that I viewed as an investment. Not just in the machine, but an investment in my well being… in my life. I am here alone now. I need to figure some things out. There are challenges and problems that I need to find solutions to and this is just one of those things. It’s such a stupid little thing… getting a snow blower… but I can’t tell you how much it improves my quality of life (side note-I hate the term “quality of life”.. it just reminds me of Kateri and cancer because doctors like to mention it quite a bit). I think about days like today. 
What if a storm came through… I feel like shit… and would still need to shovel my way out? Well, now I could just fire up the snow blower and make a path! It’s pretty exciting!
![img_4036[6962]](https://thirtydaysofmorning.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/img_40366962.jpg)
I went for a drive yesterday. As a cook, you get to be lucky and have days off like Tuesdays and Wednesdays… while your friends are working. I haven’t really taken any time off for myself since Kateri passed. The time I have taken has been loaded with the heavy shit… 2 weeks after she passed, 3 days for Kateri’s Kick Ass Party (our version of her funeral), a long weekend for my parent’s 50th Anniversary, and a couple of days for Thanksgiving to spend with the fam in Boise. For whatever reasons, it’s just kinda hard for me to take time for myself, so I have decided to take it when I can in the form of a day here and a day there. Hence, I am currently laying in bed on a Thursday morning, the I Love NY coffee mug on the stool I call a nightstand (with a quarter inch of cold coffee in it), and I’m typing away… well, slowly… procrastinating the shoveling of snow I’m gonna need to do… again… while trying to capture some of the things I thought about yesterday on my drive from my schoolhouse in Vermont, through the middle of New Hampshire, to York Beach in Maine where I sat on a folding chair as it sank into the sand…. with Kateri by my side.
I planned on grabbing some clam chowder from Lobster Cove, but they were closed until Friday. So I parked on the side of the road, grabbed the folding chair, and walked across the low tide beach, plopped down in said folding chair, and placed the little jar Kateri was in down on the sand next to me… and just sat for a spell. Although hoodie hoods and winter hats muffle the sound of the waves as they try to reach land, I could still hear the rhythm of the ocean and feel the salty air on my face as I sat there… once in a while looking around and wondering if there was anyone who could tell that I was crying beneath my sunglasses as my body sunk deeper into the chair. It’s not that I cared if anyone would see me crying… as a widower, you become comfortable with the fact that some emotions may bubble up at any moment… day or night… here or there… but it’s still nice NOT to be a babbling idiot in public or have a stranger stare at the frozen tears on your cheek or snot stuck in your mustache. Luckily, not that many people go to the beach on a Wednesday… in January… so for me, the experience was just what I was looking for. Well, except for the plan to smoke the joint that was in my pocket on the beach… Kateri would’ve loved that. I, however, am too much of a Nervous Nelly to be so brazen with those types of things when I’m out and about alone. Just another thing I miss about Kateri… she was the instigator… she liked to egg you on… she was the one telling you to “jump, jump, jump!”. If you listened to her, she would provide you with experiences that you wouldn’t of had if she wasn’t there… like smoking a joint on the beach.
at the absolute vastness before me. I’m sure there are all sorts of beautiful things you could say about the scenario to make it sound poetic… or you could attach metaphors to the water, the land, the vastness, the sun, or the wind, but it was really quite simpler than that. I was just a man, saddened by the loss of his wife, who was trying to find some way to feel closer to her. Although Kateri loved the ocean, although she would’ve loved sitting on the sand with me in Maine, although she would’ve loved to get some clam chowder, although she would’ve smoked that joint on the beach… she wasn’t there. So I left… got a lobster roll at Bob’s… and drove home… alone… with her by my side.
I am starting 2018 with a wife who I love more than I did in 2017…or ’16…or… (which I didn’t think could happen), a beautifully drafty little red schoolhouse nestled in the hills of Vermont that I share as a home with my wife, my friends…my family, and with hope for a bright, fun, fully lived life time to come. The last chunk of 2017 has provided me with perspectives on life that I didn’t expect, don’t want, and don’t wish upon anyone else, but this is…what it’s about… life. In the past four months I have felt that absolutely crushing emotion when you realize that life isn’t fair. In the past two weeks I have felt that stomach wrenching emotion everyday at some point, whether it be for a minute… or ten… or more. In those two weeks, I have also witnessed, heard about, and felt the love and support from friends and family that is quite simply put… overwhelming. Life. This is our life and it is filled with compassionate, artistic, respectable, honest, hard working, sometimes hard headed, but always hard loving people. Perspective. Knowing what kind
of life you live and how the past got you there. Knowing what is important. Being a part of “The Good” in the world. I have hope, because I know what it feels like when “The Good” in the world reaches out and replaces that bottomless pit of despair feeling with the memories of good times and laughter, with plans for the future, with food, art, jewelry, games of Uno, snowshoe trails, music, and more. I have hope because I have you in my life… and you… and you… and you. Soooo, thanks.
It doesn’t matter what challenges you faced or hardships you endured or successes you achieved… it can always get better. As a cook, it’s ingrained in you that New Year’s is just another day you may have to work. As you get older, you’re just as fine going to bed at 10:30. As a widower, the New Year is a point in the timeline that brings up all sorts of thoughts, questions, emotions, and memories. Personally, I don’t know if I would necessarily consider myself happy as I go through this experience… but I’m getting happier.
I don’t really have much to say about this right now… just thought I should jot something down. For me, the finding the mass in Kateri’s brain was the significant date. It didn’t matter what type of cancer it was… it was in the brain and that didn’t seem to be a very good thing… any which way you cut it. The diagnosis was three days after finding the mass and we new of the melanoma in the arm from a couple of years prior so it wasn’t much of a shock. The shock comes when you barely even scratch the surface on the information out there on melanoma… when it reaches the brain. You’re immediately thrown into a world filled with word’s like “Stage 4″… and “Metastatic Malignant Melanoma”… and “4-5 Months”. That’s when the shock sets in.
WE LIVE IN A LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE!! I love that I found one for the village that Kateri sorta started for me. It seemed like the perfect piece given the circumstances!
underside of a counter. Headaches and stars… that’s all they were at that time.
but I can’t picture any of the specifics in my head… it’s a blur. It was three days before we heard the diagnosis of Melanoma… six days before I hopped on a plane to spend time with my family for the holidays… and nine days before Kateri spent her last Christmas in our little red schoolhouse… without me.
I thought it would be the Christmas decorations that I would have a hard time going through, seeing, remembering the memories attached to them, but it was the tidying of the house, organizing it, making room for Christmas that slapped me in the face with the reality of my life. It was the taking down of Kateri’s Birthday cards that have hung above
my kitchen for nine months… and reading through them… seeing the words of friends and relatives giving my wife support… celebrating her life in a time when it was approaching the end… thirty-six days later… that threw me for a loop. The last card in the pile was from me… and I kinda had to take a sit on the floor. It was the tidying of the book shelf and finding pictures spanning the last twenty years… of horseback rides in the Tetons and snowmobile rides in the backcountry. Images of road trips to Ohio (where we said we would never go back to… and then went back 5 times), sailboat excursions in Maine, snowstorms, beaches, adventures with friends, and adventures for just the two of us. Images of sister in-laws when they were twelve, at their college graduation, and then from this year holding my wife… their sister… for one of the last times. Pictures of the various places we’ve lived in… from the Rocky Mountains to our little red schoolhouse in Vermont… pictures of 
various cabins and cottages filled with the richness of what was our life… pictures of our various homes. Snapshots of a life I don’t have anymore… and no Christmas miracle is gonna bring back my sweet sweet Kateri.
with the people who are here sharing it with us. It is the relationships with those people in our lives that we celebrate as we prop up trees and decorate them with artifacts from our past, pull out the flying Santa’s, set up various Nativities, and plug in lights to soften the darkness.
I haven’t hung up the smashed and weathered piece of mistle toe that I used to kiss Kateri beneath… and it may not ever hung up again. Things change. Significance and meanings attached to those things change… and we adapt. It’s not the mistle toe that’s important… it’s the memory of feeling Kateri’s lips, of holding her in my arms, of remembering how excited she would get during the holidays that is important to me… how she would treat people… love people… how she would put on Kenny Rodger’s and Dolly’s Christmas album at 7:00am or yell out, “Festive to the left!” as we drove through the hills of Vermont at night during the holidays. That is how I keep her with me.
think Kateri would be proud of my decorating, happy with our tree (with 2 angels and a star on top), and excited that there is snow on the ground. Although Kateri won’t be sitting next to me in her robe this Christmas morning as we open gifts of food storage containers, flannels, and Obama dolls… (actually, those are all old gifts… it’s a little more sparse under the tree this year without her), but she will be with me. If you think about other people, if you remember what is important in life, if you are true to yourself and your intentions are good… if you get excited when you see an over the top display of Christmas lights… she’ll be with you, too.
I am thankful that I was just able to give my mother a hug… to hold her in my arms… on Thanksgiving morning… and I wish Kateri was here. It took me ten minutes to write that sentence. Thanksgiving. The first Thanksgiving without my wife. The first Thanksgiving I am spending with my family in years… in at least over a decade… and it’s where I’m supposed to be today. The last seven… nine… eleven… twelve months have been filled with some of the most horribly inexplicable events that I have had to deal with in my life. My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer which spread to her brain. Melanoma took Kateri away from me in four months and three days. There are many things in this life that I am not thankful for, but there are more people, friends, family, and experiences that have been in… or have entered… my life that have given me strength, love and compassion to keep moving forward through this timeline. It’s a strange life to live when your mantra is, ” Well, for being the worst thing I have ever gone through… ever felt… ever experienced… it went as well as it possibly could have.”… and it’s still going.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning 