As I was driving home from work one day a couple of weeks ago, I noticed the leaves have started their annual metamorphosis and I realized I haven’t posted anything this summer… even though there have been a few big things that have happened in my life and in my Widowhood over the last threeish months. Ok, there was really one main big thing that happened followed by a few other fun things, but that one big thing took up some time and space in my everyday life. Luckily, I kinda had an episode yesterday where I sorta fainted, hit my face on the Jelly Cupboard, and woke up on my dining room floor in a puddle of water with a knee that… well… just doesn’t feel very good… and Amanda crouching over me with the look of worry in her eyes… yay! (Don’t worry… I’m fine. Everything’s fine.) So today I’m taking it easy… not moving cinder blocks and slate up to the firepit for our wood-fired hot tub… and am gonna catch up on getting some things down on paper…!
So… the big news on the widower front… my girlfriend Amanda and I made the decision to move in together and have her shimmy on up to The Little Red Schoolhouse…! Let me tell you, as a widower… as for me… having to go through the process of the two of us talking about it, coming up with timeframes, contemplating challenges for each of us, feeling the excitement about unknown possibilities ahead while reminiscing on memories from the past and how I would deal with combining the two… well… it was a lot…! I will say though, after the five plus years since Kateri died and having spent the bulk of that time with Amanda, it’s nice to have that feeling of sharing my life with someone I love again. I haven’t been able to look into the future very far since Kateri passed, but I’m at a point where that is changing… slowly… but it’s changing…!
Preparing for Change…!
The Little Red Schoolhouse… my Home… is filled with my life and over the last 5 years and 4 months it has provided me with a space that I could use to feel grounded in a world that was completely new to me… a world without Kateri. Although Kateri was no longer by my side, I needed to hold onto some of those things that provided me with a certain level of closeness to her. Even as mine and Amanda’s relationship grew, The Schoolhouse was still my space and I set it up in a way that I felt was best for me to deal with this stoopid life of Widowhood. In some ways… I was nesting.
As Amanda and I slowly got to the decision of her moving in, I thought about her and how to initially make The Schoolhouse a little less like a shrine to my memories and more of a starting point to setting up our Home… which basically came down to moving some “Kateri Centric” items that had helped me cope in the past and which I felt I could live without seeing everyday if it meant it made the space more comfortable for Amanda. For this post, I decided to simply upload some pics and give a little blurb about each of them. There are about 1,372 other pics I could’ve used to illustrate the experiences this widower went through while preparing for a significant change in life… but you’ll get the idea.
- Kateri’s Purse: Kateri’s purse hung on a coat hook in the mudroom since I brought it home from hospice. I love how worn and soft the leather was, the smell of it, and the pack of travel tissues still chillin’ in an inside pocket. It went home with someone who understands that it isn’t just a bag to put shit in.
- The Note in the Kitchen: This was one of the first things I took down once Amanda and I decided on the move. I wrote Kateri the note one morning before I went to work… after she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Malignant Melanoma… and before I realized just how big of a pile of shit was about to be thrown at Me, Kateri, and everyone who knew and loved her. The note simply says:
Good Morning
I am sorry I am not here, but I love you more than anything… and I’ve got my rock. Enjoy the morning with some coffee…. I miss you already.
Love
Darren
- Kateri, Karaoke, and NYC: For Kateri’s Celebration of Life, our buddy had this pic of Kateri singing karaoke in NYC blown up… because it’s frickin’ awesome! Since then, it has lived at the top of my stairs with a couple of other pics of Kateri hanging with some special people in our life. I… love… this… pic!… but I also love Amanda and feel that if she is gonna move in… maybe she doesn’t wanna be welcomed by my dead wife every time she goes upstairs! So, I took it down. It’s gonna go somewhere… just don’t know where yet.
Kateri and I got this box while living in Colorado. We used it for a variety of things, but since we bought The Schoolhouse, it has lived in the mudroom where we would stage recycling before it made its way to the garage. I never understood why we didn’t just take recycling to the garage so after Kateri died it became basically just a flat surface for me to put things on… and for a memory. Some might simply see an old yellow box, but for me it reminds me of when I got so frustrated with the situation that I put my boot through the front/right side of it… and I have had to live with the fact that I did that as Maria and I were trying to get Kateri to the Cute Little Jeep so that we could take her to the ER… and that this was the last time Kateri was… home. Yup, that’s been a hard one to live with.
Iris’s and Poppies. Kateri was a flower farmer and I love that she made beds and planted plants at our home that come to life year after year. Sometimes when I go out in the evening and the sun is setting, I’m taken aback by the beauty that the natural world provides us in our lives and the ability Kateri had to capture it.
The Last Night…!
Once Amanda and I made the decision to live together, the countdown started. For five plus years I learned to become comfortable with being alone and actually cherished certain aspects of it. One of those things is that ever since Xander came into our life just under two years ago, it was me and him at The Schoolhouse. I can’t even begin to tell you how much of an impact he has had on my life. We both lost Our People to the “unfairness” in the world, but somehow came into each other’s life. I like to call him “The Roommate”… but he’s so much more that. He’s my companion… my buddy. He came into my life at the perfect time… even though it meant that Amanda and I lost a friend. I’m honored that Judy entrusted us to take care of the love of her life. Although she was looking for someone to take care of Xander, I think she was also thinking of who he could help take care of, as well.
As the days went by… as they do… it finally came to The Last Night…! The last night where Xander and I live alone. The last night of this being My Space. The last night of texting Amanda “Goodnight”… which we have done almost every night since we’ve met. The last night of going upstairs, crawling into bed, and Xander jumping over me as he assumes his position at the foot of the bed… then pushing his paws against my legs as if I’m the one taking up all the space! I miss that. Of course, now it means that I get to lean over and kiss Amanda goodnight… instead of texting her… which is much better!
For my Last Night, I ate Flatbread, smoked some pot to honor mine and Kateri’s past (and because I like pot), and put together a Lego… because I have found putting together Legos is fun and helps me relax… and I might be addicted. The pic of Xander is the last night he had free range to half the bed.
The Move In…!
I’m finding it kinda funny that I don’t really have much to say about the actual moving in! Luckily, Amanda didn’t have a bunch of furniture or a large Beanie Baby collection that she felt the need to have on display. Nope, it was pretty much smooth sailing!
Amanda and I have always communicated well, and I think that it worked in our favor as we maneuvered through this new endeavor. Once the time came, we really just tried to enjoy it!… and not freak out. For both of us, the excitement far overshadowed any trepidation we had with the decision. For me… it was a welcomed change and seems to be the right time. Although there are still some things in boxes, we’ve settled in nicely…!
I absolutely LOVE how we decided to store our cookbooks! Old boxes… Good Housekeeping would be proud.
The Second Annual Sister Visit…!
I have another post started about this new little annual event the four of us seem to have started so I’m not gonna get into it here, but it was wonderful time filled with BBQ, Duck Races in downpours, cooking hot dogs at the fire-pit, and nightly friendly games of Uno with family. (Sorry, that’s a lie… there’s no friends in Uno!)
The Wood Pile…!
Another part of the Annual Sister Visit I’ve come to love is the stacking of the wood pile! It’s been fun coming up with different configurations the last few years and it tickles me pink that my Sis and Bro-in-Law truly enjoy doing it!
After seeing how his wood was stacked, I was all ready to claim victory over my neighbor who isn’t aware of the competition we are in together, but then I saw that he’s chopping more wood… I’m gonna have to check the rule book.
Amanda’s nephew came to Vermont to visit us at The Schoolhouse before he starts his first year of college at Alabama… the Roll Tide one… pretty sure. It was fun hanging with him talking about life while hiking up Bald Top or chillin’ by the fire or playing Bananagrams as a Don Toliver playlist makes its way through the speakers. He’s a good kid… young adult… and I look forward to hearing about and seeing where his choices take him. (I’m refraining from making any cracks about Alabama… it’s a beautiful state… with lots of billboards… which seem to be for local lawyers, politicians, mattress stores… or telling you to Go to Church or The Devil Will Get You!!..!)
The Wood-Fired Hot Tub…!
I’ve been talking about making a wood-fired hot tub for years now. Whenever we could, depending on where we were living, Kateri and I always tried to make an outdoor shower. Once in a while we were even able to have a HOT outdoor shower!… but we never had a tub. We talked a lot about making one, especially after we sat in the wood-fired clawfoot tub in the bath house Chichi and John built in the woods of Vermont during the early 2000’s. There was a parlor stove, window, tile and everything!… it was magical.
One of the things I love about Amanda is that she is supportive and can be motivating! She’s been listening to me talk about this wood-fired water trough thing for a while now and one day she was like, “Ok, let’s go get what we need!”… so, we did! We’re actually still in the building stage. I mean, we tested it out in the back yard just to see if it would work… and because we could fill it from the garden hose, but the plan is to have it up at the fire-pit… which we’ve already started to piece together.
The building of the Water Trough Hot Tub has been a wonderful experience for me on both the Widower Side of things (…those things I still do that remind me of Kateri, our life, what she taught me about myself, about what’s important, and how to live without her…) and my present life. On the Present Side, I’ve loved everything about doing this project with Amanda. We’ve definitely had a few hiccups and head scratches followed by a few laughs, but we’ve certainly had fun throughout all of it…! On the Widower Side, it’s just one of those activities that I know Kateri would’ve really enjoyed doing and it simply reminds me of her and how wonderful she was.
There’s an old well at the edge of the woods in my back yard which I figured we could use to fill the tub up with water. The water in the well is crystal clear, but we tested it anyways… it’s an old frickin’ well for goodness sakes!… who knows what type of bacteria, microbes, or other tiny ass little buggers are living in there?! Would I drink it?… No. Would I fill up a water trough with it and sit in it?… yes. Will I buy some sort of chlorine tablet/liquid/goop and learn the appropriate ratio/amount to kill everything that may pose a threat to my future bowel movements if they happen to get in my mouth or enter my body through some other opening?… (like my ears or my nose!)… Definitely. Now we just need to figure out how to pump the water out of the well, up a hill, and into the trough!
A Widower’s Thought On: Opening an old ass well for the first time in “Who Knows How Long?” without having any knowledge, information, or idea of what to expect…
- The lid was heavy and kinda awkward.
- I was pretty afraid of falling in. Nope!… doesn’t sound like a fun time to me!
- I also really didn’t want to see a body at the bottom or a hand floating or eyeballs staring back at me!… NOPE! NO! NOT EVEN! NO WAY!! Truly… I was freaking myself out.
- Too many scary movies.
Xander Turned 9…!!
He was super excited to get to wear his little glittery gold top hat again this year and eat the Peanut Butter-Pumpkin with Peanut Butter and Greek Yogurt Frosting Birthday Cake that Amanda made him. Fun times!
Down to the Last Smartie…
Well, here we are… down to the last Smartie.
I had bought a bag of them in June when a couple of my Sister-in-Laws came over to go through Kateri’s clothes before Amanda moved in. I figured the timing would create a more comfortable environment for everyone involved for an event such as that. I used a wooden bowl to hold them for easy access, but we didn’t eat the entire package. So, over the next couple of evenings I made my way through them until I got to the last one… just sitting there… all alone… in an almost empty bowl. I decided to save it for my last evening alone in The Schoolhouse… but it’s currently still sitting on the stool I use as a nightstand next to the bed. I’m sure I’ll be trying to unwrap them with the stealthiness of a Candy Ninja, so as not to wake up Amanda, in the middle of the night at some point… it just hasn’t happened yet.
Kateri would call Smarties her “Pills”. For her Celebration of Life, we had bought a ton of them and there were quite a few left over, which I was able to finish off over the course of a few months… and then my buddy started sending me a bag of them every time I ran out!
Smarties remind me not just of Kateri, but also of my life in the months/year just after she died and what that time was like for me. It was confusing, scary, sad, traumatic, relentless, fucked up and kinda just generally sucked. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom every second of the day. Some days it took something smaller than a dime to remind me of that. When I had Smarties… life got better! I mean, life didn’t get better since the passing of Kateri solely because of those little stacks of fruity sugar heaven wrapped in cellophane memories, it’s because Time has a way of healing the wounds life offers us as payment for the experience of giving, receiving, and feeling… Love.