Awe, Widowhood and 50th Birthdays…! After trying to write about it a couple of times, I decided to slack off and just make a video…!
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Yesterday would have been mine and Kateri’s 14th Wedding Anniversary… yay! Although we were together for 20ish years when she died, I was slow on the draw and waited over a decade before asking her if she wanted to get married… to me… but at least we got to call each other Husband and/or Wife for more than a few years! Of course, it’s a little weird thinking about how I’ve been a widower now almost as long as I was a Husband…! Life… sometimes it wads up your list of plans, tosses them in the trash basket, and we are forced to learn that wonderful skillset of “Adapting”.
After Kateri died, I told myself I would not work on her Death Date or on our Wedding Anniversary. Luckily, I work with some great people and so far, have been able to make that happen every year. As I’ve gotten further and further away from her Death Date, I’ve needed less and less time to recover from the emotional and psychological gymnastics routine those Anniversaries can sometimes bring. It’s also nice that as I see these Anniversaries coming up on the calendar, I’m not the emotional wreck I’ve been in the past, dreading the waves of feelings that sorta crash into you while wading through the weathering effects of Widowhood.
For the last 10 weeks Amanda and I have been doing this thing we’re calling The Sourdough Stump. Basically, Amanda has been baking more sourdough bread than we can eat and has started giving it away on Sundays… on a stump of wood… next to the dirt road. It’s something that we have both gotten really… REALLY… excited about as the weeks have gone by. We’ve met neighbors. We’ve met strangers from faraway places. We’ve waved from the porch… and have spied on peeps from the living room as they pull up next to the stump, look around as if trying to figure out what’s going on, and then wave to the house hoping someone inside see’s their gratitude. It has been such a wonderful little project for us, that even though it was my Wedding Anniversary, I still wanted to be a part of The Sourdough Stump! So I decided to spend the morning hanging on the front porch with Amanda, and then at noon I decided to go for a drive… to the camp where Kateri and I got married at.
I brought a picture with me on my little cruise across Vermont. It’s a pic of the moment we were married… arms in the air, mouths open with hoots and hollers frozen in time beneath the two perfectly placed old ass trees. I wanted go see those trees again… stand in the field… see how things have changed and what things haven’t. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen!
One of my fears on the drive over was that I would be crashing a wedding taking place there at the camp! Just driving on in like I owned the place…!.. and I didn’t want that to happen. Luckily… it didn’t. No weddings were taking place, quite the contrary… there wasn’t anyone!… couldn’t find a single person!… even tried the office and it was locked…! Now, even though I thought it would be pretty cool to revisit the place we got married and maybe get a cool pic out of it, I felt uncomfortable just parking my truck on their property and then tromping all around the fields, roads, and woods! It’s a private place, after all… and its currently foliage season here in Vermont… so I also didn’t wanna be one of THOSE people. You know, the self-absorbed-“I don’t care that this is your house, I want a picture of us and our kids in our L.L. Bean scarves and duck boots petting your cow in the field with your barn, tractor, and trees in the background” type Leaf Peepers… who will then ask you for some warm cider to take the chill off and for a cider donut just for the novelty!… (Not to be confused with the Good Leaf Peepers. You guys enjoy the show… and keep spending your money). I wanted to be respectful to this place that still holds a special spot in my heart, and to respect the people who currently hold it close to theirs… so I decided to drive home.
As I sorta said earlier, Widowhood is a great exercise in “Adapting”… “Accepting”… “Rolling with the punches”… “Going with the flow”… as we learn about ourselves, our grief, loss, and Life in a world that was never on our radar. Mine and Kateri’s Wednesday Wedding is still THE day where I feel I felt the most excitement, joy, comfort, and Love since being plopped on this earth… but that was a different Time in my Life and as the years go by, I need to recognize that there will be change in how my Past fits into my Present… and I need to adapt.
This year’s Widower Wedding Anniversary was honestly a pleasurable one. It was a nice balance between being in The Present at The Schoolhouse with Amanda, Xander, and The Sourdough Stump through the morning, while also taking the time and creating the space to provide an opportunity to stick a toe in the puddle of The Past… and not getting unexpectedly splashed by it…!
ps… It didn’t hurt that the drive was absolutely gorgeous!… we live in a beautiful place… patience helps.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Be the Hat…
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
These are the notes of things that popped into my head yesterday that I was actually gonna write or talk about… but didn’t…
The temperatures are warming up, the snow has mostly melted… even though it’s snowing right now…!, and with the third boiling of sap, our second Season of Sugarin’ has come to a close.
I’ve gotta say, I really enjoy winter… love it, actually… but I’m welcoming the warmth coming along with the sap this next little bit…! I think my body and brain needs it. There’s a lot going on out there in The World… on top of all the things most of us probably think/worry about on a daily basis… or are starting to think more about… like our futures n stuff. It can be a lot to deal with. It is a lot to deal with sometimes, but interspersed throughout our days are the beautiful things that happen solely because it’s Time for them to show themselves and we just happened to be there and look up…! You know, sunsets, low tide, the first crocus type shit. They’re there… even when you’re focused on other things.
Amanda and I started making our own Maple Syrup last year sorta on a whim, and it’s been a wonderfully fun and educating experience for both of us right here in our back yard. Nope, we ain’t no professionals, but that’s one thing I love about making Maple Syrup… it’s pretty basic stuff. If you’ve got fire, a pot, and Maple Sap… you can make syrup! Now, the fact that it takes 40ish gallons of sap to make 1… yes 1!… gallon of syrup… well now… that’s when “The Process” of boiling off 39 gallons of water comes into play!… and it’s a fantastic exercise in the practice of Patience.
I’m not gonna get into the progression of our “Operation” over the 6 times we’ve boiled within the last two years, how we started with a stock pot over an open fire… on a windy day!… and have now reached the “2 hotel pans on a box I made out of stainless steel from an old kitchen’s hood system that was being thrown away”, but each time we’ve boiled, we’ve learned to do it a bit more efficiently and have been able to make it a scant more comfortable..y. More importantly, we’ve had fun doing it… together. Plus, when Maple Syrup is part of the end result from an activity, it helps sweeten the blow when you realize it took you ten hours to get a quart of Ash Infused Syrup!… which I’m just gonna brand as “Raw Syrup”… and sell to the Asshole Tourists… it’s gluten free. (Not to the Good Tourists… because they’re Good People. Just the Assholes… because… well… they’re Assholes)
(Side Note: Sugarin’ Season takes place in spring… which we here in Vermont also like to refer to as Mud Season because of all the dirt roads… and there’s a lot of water run off… from all the snow n shit… which is what makes everything green for the two weeks of summer! But currently, the sump pump in my basement is going off every 17 minutes and 22 seconds…!.. yay.)
Amanda and I have only Mondays off together so if we wanted to boil sap together this year, we had to do it on Mondays. Sometimes, Life… and the weather… don’t care about your plans or the schedule for your little Sugarin’ Operation. Last Monday, because of an appointment/meeting/discussion that had been scheduled in the afternoon, I decided to wake up at 3:30a.m. in hopes of getting the fire going by 4:00a.m. so as to have enough time to boil our sap, jar it up, take showers, and get into town. The Oracle was calling for rain in the morning, so I even hung a tarp the night before for one less thing to do in the first few hours of the day… and so I wasn’t sitting in the rain. Just as with every previous boil… it took longer than I had anticipated (ugh… Patience… and Realistic Expectations), but I made it to my appointment…!
I actually rather enjoy getting up early, prior to The World waking up. There’s a sense of calm a couple of hours before the sun rises as the darkness is slowly replaced with the view of leaves, trees, and pastures on hillsides. I’ve had a lot on my mind as of late, and it was nice to have an opportunity to kinda be forced to sit and think. Awe… thinking. Sometimes it can be rewarding. Sometimes it provides clarity… or sometimes, it can create more questions. It can be heartwarming, sadness provoking, or profound. No matter what, we all do it!… think, that is… even if there are times we question if we were!… thinking.
One of the things I thought about in the wee hours of the morning as the sap was steaming away is that there’s a lot going on out there in The World…! Although I’m not one to get too worked up about all the bad shit in The World… (I have no control over most of the big things. I have a basic understanding of the effect money has on people, power, and politics. I get the gist on human nature.), I still pay attention and can understand the anxiety people are feeling over the current state of affairs both within The United States and outside our borders. I get it. It’s like squinting to watch a horrible reality gameshow on a 3″ screen where your retirement is someone else’s Prize Money and most of the audience members think they’re contestants on The Show, playing for a certain Team, and a piece of The Winnings. It’s whacky out there. It’s wild. It’s complicated. And… it’s on top of everything else in our Life!… gross. I’m just gonna keep truckin’ along and take advantage of opportunities to reflect on my actions, decisions, and overall Life during the quiet times… such as at 4:36a.m…. when watching sap boil.
Luckily, I was out there for a few hours and had plenty of time to think about other things besides the state of the World. Ya, I thought about some of those BIG Things like Money, Health, Jobs, My (Our) Future, My (Our) Home, and the such, but the small things were also there, like somehow, I forgot to clip my pinky finger’s nail…! I mean, that’s sorta weird… right? How did I just not clip one nail..?!… or did it happen to grow super fast..?…!.. I have questions.
I thought about how Kateri would’ve loved making Maple Syrup at Home from her own trees. I started to try to picture what that experience would have looked like but for some reason it felt… futile… pointless. Yes, she would’ve loved this… LOVED IT!… but Kateri and I didn’t have this experience… and that’s ok. We had almost two decades of being in each other’s Lives. Twenty years of which were filled with all sorts of other wonderful adventures. Sitting there, in the beat up ol’ camping chair in the dark with my coffee… on my land… at my (our) Home… I had this sense of wanting to be more in the present. I didn’t want to reminisce and feel the sadness that comes along with remembering the good times with Kateri or think about all those “If she was here…?” type questions. It just wasn’t the time for that. I wanted to think about Today and Tomorrow and This is What I Have. On this particular morning, Amanda and I were making maple syrup… because that’s something we do..!.. and I loved the feeling of excitement and anticipation I had as I pictured her with her coffee walking across the backyard to join me under the tarp so I could fill her in on the progress… and my early morning escapades. I wondered if Xander… our pup… would be by her side, but knew it was probably a good bet he wouldn’t be. Nope, he’d still be in bed… probably stretched out under the duvet… diagonally at this point. He’s not exactly what we would call a “Morning” “Dog”.
When it comes to the 6 times we’ve boiled sap, as I sat there at the start of #5 nestled in the old camping chair with my coffee mug sticking up from the armrest as the light from the fire escaped through the cracks of the fabricated metal box and stuck to the tarp and trees… I was feeling pretty good about Life. I was on schedule. The sap started boiling sooner than I expected. It was quiet… besides the sounds of The Woods, water hitting a tarp, and the crackle of burning wood. The tribulations of Life were still asleep or hangin’ somewhere off in the distance and all I had to do was keep a fire going, sap in the pans, and sit there with my thoughts. I was tired, maybe… but good.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I planned on posting a blog today and it was either gonna be some of my views about the current state of our country… yay!… or mine and Amanda’s backyard maple sugarin’ operation… a non-sarcastic yay! I’ve started writing both. One made me kind of anxious with a hint of anger and disappointment. The other was just kinda fun to think about as we’re getting things ready… and are excited for!… the Sugarin’ Season…! This is post is something completely different.
When I walked down the driveway and opened the mailbox there were a couple of small plastic shipping bags, some junk mail, and a blue envelope addressed to… Kateri. I recognized the handwriting but flipped it over to see the return address for confirmation. Yup, it was from who I thought it was from!… and a rush of emotions and memories came flooding over me.
I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. Normal things that I’m sure we all spend too much time thinking about. None the less, the ol’ noggin’ just seems to be jumping all over the place in a mental game of Whack-a-Mole, but when I saw the writing on that blue envelope… I was filled with warmth and any type of uneasy or anxious feeling I had at that moment due to the state of The World or my own personal challenges… went away. Yes, it was somewhat shocking at first, but once that subsided… I felt the Love this experience was providing for all involved. Here is what this experience sorta means to me… a few things I thought about.
Widower Notes n Thoughts… on Kateri Got a Card Today…:
The wobble in my steering wheel was rather concerning when I first felt it as I crossed over into Vermont. By the time I got to the next exit the wobble had added a wibble, so I figured I should probably play it safe and get off the interstate. At this point, although I found it concerning, I didn’t think that much about it. All I thought was there was an appointment at Mike’s in my near future… (and there was!). When I got off the interstate and started heading north, I was still at that stage where you turn down the radio and listen to all the noises your vehicle is making while trying to decipher what is an old sound… and what is a new one…!
I got to the gas station 11 miles up the road and realized that the wibble wobble had no intentions of going away. I pulled into a parking spot, gave this bar a little push, gave that bar a little pull, looked at some stuff and some things… everything seemed solid…! Considering I’m a cook and not a mechanic and didn’t really know what I was doing… I was definitely trying to look the part! I even popped the hood in hopes of seeing something obvious! Unfortunately, I didn’t learn anything from popping the hood. I was just reminded of the fact that chipmunks will squirrel away acorns in all sorts of places… like the hollow part of your hood. So, I kept on truckin’… in my cute little Jeep.
The church on top of the hill is the last point on the drive home with somewhat reliable cell service, and with the shimmy and shakes I was experiencing I decided to shoot Amanda a text letting her know something was up with my car… just in case something happened. My next text to her was sent after I pulled out of the general store 5 and a half miles up the road… and thankfully the text went through! Of course, she didn’t see it right away because she was engrossed in putting together a puzzle, but when she did see it, it said… “My wheel just fell off”… and that event set in motion an experience (that I’m currently going through) which is filled with everything from “What the fuck was that?!” to “That was pretty frickin’ cool…!” while also hitting all aspects of my life. It is providing me with the opportunity to remember Kateri, to take a couple more steps into my widowhood and find a bit more out about myself, to fulfill a midlife-crisis dream and buy a new(ish) truck… and end this experience with saying goodbye to the 2001 Tacoma that has been rusting away in my driveway for the last 3 years. I have finally become comfortable with letting go of the daily reminder of one of Kateri’s Hopes n Dreams… her own Toyota truck.
First Event in the Chain… The Wheel Fell Off.
Yup… my driver’s side front wheel fell right the fuck off. I pulled out onto the road… heard a clunk-clunk… was gonna stop to reverse back into the general store’s parking lot… but it was too late! After that second clunk the front-left side of my vehicle dropped a foot as I heard the sound of metal scraping on asphalt. I turned my head to the left and could see that I was sitting much closer to the road… and there were multiple feet of empty space between the vehicle I was sitting in and the wheel I was looking at across the road! That’s not supposed to be over there!! This is an example of one of those “What the fuck was that?!” situations.
After the initial shock wore off, my brain went to “What are the priorities in this situation?… when your vehicle is sitting at a slight angle in the middle of the road (in my lane, at least)… with only three wheels!”. So I put the hazards on, got out of the vehicle and retrieved the wheel, rolled it to the side and texted Amanda. I just wanted to let her know what was going on, that I was fine, I was gonna need to tow the car… and if she had AAA…!
Once she was on her way, I took a breath, walked back to the car… and the problem solving began! I thought about the possibility of somehow rolling it back into the parking lot…?… not likely. The “thought” that actually created the environment for me to have my first “That was pretty frickin’ cool..!” experience was, “Well, the rotor doesn’t seem to be mangled or anything, maybe if I just start jacking the car up I’ll just be able to put the wheel back on…? Now… where are the lug nuts..?..?…! LUG NUTS!!…”… I found 1… solo… lug nut. Well, maybe it’ll be enough to get my cute little Jeep out of the road..? So, I placed the car-jack where I thought looked “safe”… and started to slowly lift the driver’s side naked wheel well up off the cold asphalt.
As I was turning the “Awkward Jack Turning Thing-a-ma-Jig Tool” a vehicle pulled up beside me and a younger guy asked if I need any help. Why YES!… Yes I do need some help!… Would LOVE some help! It also felt good knowing that I could use help… and that I took the step to actually accept it from this stranger. I’m glad I did because when he returned from pulling up ahead of me, he was carrying an impact drill and socket set! This was the start of one of those perfect backwoods “Vermonty” experiences which reminds me of why I live here and love my little “neighborhood”. I mean, once getting a read on the kid, after introductions and giving the low down on the situation, I was quite confident we were gonna at least get this thing out of the road…! And God dammit… we did.
Once I reached an acceptable height to reattach the wheel, Parker (the kid) tried screwing in the lone lug nut… to no avail. When we pulled it out, we realized it was stripped to shit and was basically useless. So now what? I’ve got a wheel… but no lug nuts! Thankfully for good ol’ ingenuity, we simply took (well, not so simply) a few lug nuts from a couple of other wheels to attach the front wheel well enough to roll down the road!… at slow to moderate speeds…! Unfortunately, there were a plethora of stubborn lug nuts, so we ended up taking 2 from driver’s-side-rear and 1 from the passenger’-side-rear…but it worked!
Once I realized we were gonna be able to get the wheel on and that I was most likely gonna be able to get home… a calmness kinda fell over me. It was relieving knowing that this part of the challenge had been figured out. What started out as a somewhat fucked up, annoying, frustrating, and potentially dangerous situation ended with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. It was a wonderful experience!… besides the whole wheel falling off thing.
When Amanda and I got home and were talking about the situation, my priority was figuring out how to get to work… on Thursday… it was Sunday, but I had the next three days off because of my weekend and New Year’s Day. My plan was to order lug nuts off of Amazon (well, Amanda did since I don’t have Prime and wanted them shipped fast!), get them on Tuesday, put them on the Jeep so that I didn’t have any empty spots, drive it to work on Thursday and hit my friend’s shop on the way home. All of which I did… and my buddy was amazing.
Second Event in the Chain… my Mid-Life Crisis.
I’ll be honest, when my wheel started doing the wibble wobble thing my mind went straight to, “Fuck this… I’m buying a new truck…!”. I won’t get too much into it, but I feel like I’ve been sorta going through a Mid-Life Crisis with a touch of Widowhood thrown in there for good measure. For the past few years as the Jeep has been chugging along and accumulating miles, I’ve been looking at trucks. Lots of trucks. All sorts of trucks! When Kateri died and I went from a 2-income household to just my income (I’m a cook)… I basically thought I would be driving the cute little Jeep a bit longer into the future and didn’t think I would actually be able to buy a newer vehicle. It’s just kinda fun to wish for things… and to dream of owning an old truck.
For the last year, I narrowed it down to either a 1980-’88 Toyota Truck… or a newer Tacoma that would be more comfortable and reliable. The conundrum was that they are basically kinda sorta the same price (ish) so it’s really a matter of if I should be rational and responsible… or spend the money on “The Cool Factor”. I’m 49… I went the rational/responsible route. Yup, I bit the bullet and bought a new(er) Tacoma… which is red… and I love it.
It was fun buying a new vehicle even though it was nerve wracking at the same time… and always takes longer than expected, but Nick was wonderful and after some wheeling n dealing, I felt comfortable with what we had landed on. As we sat there waiting for paperwork to be finalized and the truck to come back from being filled with gas and the interior gone over one more time, I realized this was the first time in 24 years that I was buying a vehicle solely because it was the vehicle that I wanted. Kateri and I had multiple vehicles over the years but as one would come to the end of its life after hundreds of thousands of miles, we would talk about what would fit our needs, what did we want to buy, what worked best for us. This time was different. Yes, having a car payment again is rather disconcerting, but the fact that I’m paying for my truck… one that I’m excited about… one that I picked out… for me... actually feels… good. Of course, I didn’t drive it for the first week since it came with summer tires and I didn’t feel like sliding off Wild Hill and wrecking the thing before I even made the first payment!… but we’re good to go now… green license plates n all!
Third (and final) Event in the Chain… Kateri’s 2001 Toyota Tacoma.
Kateri and I bought a 2001 Tacoma in 2010. Her dream car was a Yota with a wooden bed. After she died, I had Hopes n Dreams of removing the bed (it’s super rusty) and turning it into a wooden flatbed. Unfortunately, Time, Mother Nature, and Money were working against me and once the gas tank rusted through (around the fuel pump rusted which caused the pump to fall to the bottom of the tank leaving a hole on the top!), it basically sat in its spot for the next 3-4 years as the Vermont weather slowly chipped away at the truck’s integrity. Heck, I had tow straps holding the gas tank on in the first place!
Because of the situation… and me not wanting my driveway to look like a used car lot or salvage yard… I came to the conclusion to simply let the ol’ Gold Toyota go. More importantly, I had reached that moment in Time where I was comfortable letting it go… and ready for it. It’s still amazing to me the amount of weight I put on certain things because of their attachment to Kateri and our life together, and it feels somewhat relieving when I reach these types of decisions… and accept them.
My Little Red Schoolhouse and that beat up 2001 Toyota Truck are two material things that probably hold the most attachments to Kateri for me in my Widowhood (plus her wedding ring and a bracelet)… of course, the house I have no plans to get rid of!… even though it’s rotting away, as well..! We loved it… LOVED IT!… when we got that truck. We drove all over Vermont in it. I have so many fond memories of Kateri and I camping in it, filling the back with items for our wedding, driving over the App Gap after work through snowstorms, hauling debris to the dump from the bathroom we demolished, or simply going for a drive to places where the roads get narrower and narrower as the forest gets thicker and thicker. At times, we might’ve even gotten lost… but we didn’t care… because it was all part of the adventure!
We all use and view our vehicles differently. Living rurally, cars/trucks/transportation is a huge thing… you spend a lot of time in your car simply going to the grocery store. Kateri and I were also filled with that wanderlust for a good chunk of our life together… basically, until we bought our Little Red Schoolhouse. One of Kateri’s favorite things to do was to sit in the passenger seat while The Band blared from the speakers and smoke from a joint was being whisked out the cracked window… and watch The World go by. Road trips were a common thing. We would spend a lot of days off just driving around and seeing the sights. Before we bought our house, looking at real estate was a wonderful excuse to putz around Vermont and talk about our future… talk about our Hopes n Dreams… as the ground beneath us was changing constantly as the miles piled up.
From the moment the ’01 Tacoma became inoperable, it has sat there reminding me that I don’t have the means to fix… that it has been neglected… that I have neglected it. Anytime I want to move something out of the garage, I only have one option because there’s a broken-down truck in front of one of the garage doors… and it annoys the fuck out of me. For the past three years when it comes time to move wood from the road to the garage, I get frustrated by the number of trips I need to take with the little garden trailer being pulled behind the lawn tractor… as I drive it right past the truck! Don’t even get me started on all the times I go to Home Depot and wished I had an operational truck!… instead of figuring out how many 2×4’s I can slide between the front seats and still shut the back door instead of strapping them to the roof…!
What it comes down to and where I’m at is that every day when I come home from work, the store, a neighbor’s house, etc… I see that truck sitting there… withering away… and it’s Time for me to let it go. It doesn’t mean I’m “letting go of” or “moving on from” or “getting past” the loss of Kateri… because we Live with Loss for as long as we are alive… it just changes over Time. For me, I recently went through a series of events that in the end transpired into some cool experiences, a new truck!… and an open parking space, and the removal of a rusty ol’ eyesore… that just happened to be filled with priceless memories of Life and Love.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
The Booty Found in Kateri’s Tacoma
The loss of a loved one and the grief that comes along with it never goes away… it just slowly changes as Time keeps marching on until one day you realize… it’s different. During the Holidays, it could be an obvious thing such as when you realize you’re not breaking down every time you open a Christmas Bin or with every ornament you unwrap from its tissue paper sleeping bag. Other times it’s simply a feeling you get when you look back on your Life and are able to recognize that you are much more firmly rooted in and excited about The Present and Future than you were a year ago, three years… or seven. You are able to look back fondly on The Past and merely recognize The Pile of Poop Times because memories of The Good Times have caught up to them and are starting to pull ahead and overshadow…! The shitty stuff will always be in the rearview mirror and they will sometimes feel closer than they appear … depending on which mirror to look at… but once they get far enough behind and the feeling of them chasing you goes away, you find there are long stretches where you can hit the cruise control, put on some Steely Dan, and enjoy the view ahead through the windshield of your cute little Jeep Renegade.
Today is December 19th, 2024. Seven years ago, Kateri and I were sitting in a doctor’s office as he informed us that Kateri had Stage 4 Metastatic Malignant Melanoma. This was three days after we learned she had a mass in her brain and two days before I left to spend what we thought was the last Christmas with my mom. Let me tell you… it was a fucked-up time!… one that I’m glad is in The Past. Nowadays, December 19th is actually kind of a special day for me and in a weird way… a good day.
I’ve dealt with (and am dealing with) the loss of Kateri in the only way I know how… and I feel I’ve done ok with it. I’m one of those people who feel the need to attach things to other things so that I can keep them in My Life, even though they mean something different to me now.
For the last few years, I’ve had my annual dermatology check-up with Dr. Dan on this particular anniversary… it just kinda worked out that way. Dr. Dan has been our dermatologist since we moved down here and is the one who initially found Kateri’s melanoma. Kateri loved Dr. Dan… and I know she had an impact on him. You could see the sorrow in his eyes as he tried to be supportive of her with the diagnosis, and I felt his empathy and compassion when he would check in with me over the phone or take me out for a meal and some music after she passed. He’s a good man… which helps make him an even better doctor.
The first few years of Widowhood were rough, and I know it’s a Lifelong process, but I’m glad I’ve been able to feel the healing effects of Time. I don’t exactly have any desire to see doctors or hear what they have to say about my health, but this is different. And although I’m pretty sure it’s not natural for anyone to look forward to going to the doctor, I will say I enjoy my annual visit with Dr. Dan. We schedule it to be the last appointment of the day to give ourselves a little extra time to catch up, fill each other in on our lives, and reflect on the special person Kateri was. Even though I’m sure he will remove something from my body to send off to some lab (Kateri called it her weight-loss program!), I’m mostly really going to the appointment for the conversation, to wish him and his family a Merry Christmas, and to personally say… Thank-you.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
The Christmas Tree has been around for a while. From what I understand, back in the 1500’s those festive people The Germans are credited with starting the tradition of selling dead trees for an exorbitant amount of money to overworked, overtired, over stressed parents just searching for that specific Cabbage Patch Doll and a little Hope!… who would also appreciate it if their children stopped fighting over who gets to help Mom or Dad duct tape the tree to the roof of the Tesla. It was pretty dark times back then, so they actually started setting up and decorating the Trees in September so that the children had something to look forward to for a quarter of the year. I mean, who doesn’t get excited about waking up on Christmas Morning… after waiting four months!… to open up gifts of potatoes, sticks, and lumps of coal?! Which, back in the day, I would suspect that the lumps of coal were a good thing. I mean, I’m pretty sure it was cold back then… a little coal could go a long way!
In case you didn’t notice, I don’t actually know the full history of the Christmas Tree… and I guess it doesn’t really matter to me. What I do know is that I have wonderful memories of decorating trees throughout my younger years with my parents and sister, through my twenties and thirties with my wife Kateri as we built our Life together… by myself for five years after she died… and now with Amanda as we foster new traditions and expand on our Life together. As Amanda and I decorated our tree… for the second year…!… I noticed a few cool little things that are now attached to my memories of decorating Christmas Trees over the years.
The colored lights/white lights preference thing is really what got me thinking about my Life this Holiday Season. I’ve always put colored lights on my tree. Kateri found these cool ones that look just like the ol’ retro bulbs you picture your dad stapling to the garage while balancing on one foot halfway up a fully extended extension ladder… except tiny… and LED!… which we used for years, and I kept up with in my Widowhood. Well… now it’s not just my tree… it’s mine and Amanda’s tree… and Amanda is a White Light type Christmas Tree person! Let me tell you about the tension THAT provided us in the Little Red Schoolhouse for the weeks leading up to Decoration Day!! Actually, there wasn’t any tension because Amanda and I have a healthy relationship built on Open and Honest Communication, Respect, and an understanding that Compromise is an integral part of any decision-making process involving more than one person. There’s that… and the fact that Amanda was able to find some lights that we could change between both colored and white!… not to mention 8 other colors with varying rates of flashing from “Awe… that’s calming” to “Frank just had a seizure!”. Either way… crisis averted!
Just as it goes that everything changes over Time… my (our) Christmas Tree is different this year from last… and the year before that blah blah blah. Yes, it is filled with all sorts of familiar trinkets, decorations, and doodahs but it’s still different… even if visually just a bit. I can see the changes in the missing ornaments and the addition of new ones. When decorating the tree, it was nice taking a moment to spend on each ornament, asking myself what I had attached to it, and deciding if it made the cut or not. Amanda did the same thing with her stock of memories. We did it together, strategically hooking glass snowmen, various Santas, and pictures of Xander on tree limbs until we got to that point where you take a step back to get a good look at your work and realize… it’s done. Amanda attached her Bow. I attached the Angels and fastened the Star. We moved the step stool out of the way because we were done with it… and it’s not great for pictures, turned on the lights (white… this time), and sat on the couch with the dog to take in the beauty of this year’s Christmas Tree… perfect.
Widower Notes n Thougths… on Christmas Trees:
Merry Christmas n Shit, Everyone…!
I jumped out of bed pretty quickly this morning when Amanda and I heard the power flicker since we woke up to a wind storm this morning. Well, I wouldn’t say I “jumped” out of bed, but I got up quicker than I have in the last 7 days mainly because I took MiraLAX at 4:00am and got a little worried about the ability to flush a toilet if the power went out! So, it was off to the garage to grab a red 5 Gallon Bucket to fill with water so that if the power DID go out, we would have the ability to flush the laxative assisted bowel movements that have been falling out of my backside each morning for the past week. Luckily, the trees have stayed off the power lines… and The Schoolhouse!… thus far.
It’s been a week since I voluntarily (…not happily) went to the Doc so that they could smash my asshole… and yes, they smashed it good! I’ll admit, I didn’t take the Doc’s warnings about the recovery too seriously. I’ve been a cook throughout my entire adulthood, so I’ve been conditioned to not pay too close attention to things like that because… well… you’ve got to work!… and it usually just came down to how fast I could get back to the kitchen. When you don’t have Paid Time Off or insurance and make very little money… you work. In my 20’s I broke both my legs. It was a much longer recovery, and I had support from family, but I still needed to work so as soon as I could… I did… on crutches and then a cane. When I had hernia surgery, I was working at a smokehouse in Colorado slinging cases of pork butts and brisket. I took almost a week off but had to get right back at it. That was fun considering I also had two teeth pulled the week before! No insurance for any of it… awe, the glamorous life of a professional cook/Chef.
This time around, though… it’s different. I work for a “Company”… like, one with an HR Department n shit… and not just a stand-alone Restaurant. I have insurance… good insurance… and plenty of PTO hours… because all I’ve mostly done is work for the last 5 months or so. I have a little money in savings in case something doesn’t go as planned (thank you Gobal Pandemic). The biggest difference being that I’m simply… older… and because of my Widowhood, I have a different outlook on life where I need to focus on taking care of Myself… both physically and mentally. That’s a hard thing to do considering my brain keeps telling me, “You gotta get back to work… you’re not doing your job… you’re letting people down… people think you’re a slacker… and a wimp!”, while my derriere laughs and through the stomach grumbles and anal cramping tells me, “Lay there, Bitch!”. So nowadays, I listen to it and am lying here in my adjustable bed drinking coffee on a Saturday morning… thinking about life… about work… about friends and family… about the Past, the Present, and a bit of the future… and about my Smashed Asshole.
This experience, the recovery, has been more than I expected but it is getting better. In my Widowhood, I learned that Life could get pretty uncomfortable… pretty bad actually… but as Time created space and has put distance between Right Now and the evening of April 22, 2018, I’m also able to recognize that Life has gotten… better. There is no Roadmap for Widowhood. You’re kinda just thrust out there in the world and expected to deal with it, cope with it, get past it… and you do!… but you don’t. It’s a lesson that keeps teaching you things for years… for the rest of your life. Fortunately, I have a roadmap to recovery from butt surgery.
I’ve used my Widowhood to find patience and strength to get through the uncomfortableness of this experience. My butt will heal and a few weeks/months down the road I’ll be back running around the forest with chainsaws and four wheelers… or chasing Xander as he’s chasing chipmunks. I’ll be vacuuming the stairs and bringing in cradles full of wood for the woodstove to keep us warm as the nights cool down. I’ll be throwing cases of turkey on carts and #10 cans of tomatoes on racks. I’ll be able to sit on the toilet without the fear of popping a stitch or blowing out my O-Ring! Widowhood is something where the pain of the experience never goes away… it just becomes less frequent. For me, this hemorrhoidectomy is something that takes away the chances of something getting worse. It takes away the bloody butt. It removes the Maxi Pads from my man bag, my car console, my desk drawer… and from my underwear. And!.. it takes away the anxiety of going out in public that I’ve had for the past year! The recovery is painful, but with this, the pain will simply go away over time if I take care of myself. After thinking about what she went through and then losing Kateri… I can deal with this little inconvenience. I mean, unlike my memories of Kateri and our life together that pop up whenever they feel the need, six years from now I’m not gonna be crying in the shower because I remembered that time I went to the Doc, and they sent me away with a smashed asshole…! Although……… I might.
Widower Notes n Thoughts on the Smashed Asshole Recovery… 1 week:
I kinda wanna see the video of Doc and Friends spelunking down my Exit Only. I’m pretty sure their goal was for my colon to see the light of day! I mean, that’s at least how it feels around the ol’ “O-Ring”!… sorta like Satan giving you a wedgie… 24/7. I remember the first time I went water skiing… it was on two skis… I sat down and learned about things forcing their way into other things. Doesn’t compare. Not even close. I’d much rather be water skiing right now. Well, not right now… because my ass feels smashed, and I don’t think I’m in any shape for water sports… plus, I don’t care about water skiing.
I’ve learned some things over the last couple of days. Here are a few that may help you through your own butt surgery.
Widower Notes n Thoughts… on the Smashed Asshole Recovery:
One of my favorite terms/sayings in the world is “Smashed Asshole”. Generally, I only bring it out when someone asks how I’m feeling and I’m not feeling well… at all… like total and utter crap… like smashed asshole. Yesterday, for the first time in my life I got to use the term… and it was completely appropriate for the time and space! Yesterday, I had a hemorrhoidectomy and when I came out of anesthesia Amanda asked how I was doing and my response was something to the effect of, “They weren’t very nice to my butt (the nurse agreed) and I feel a bit like smashed asshole…!”. Now I’ve gotta say that I wish I remembered having this conversation with Amanda, the Nurse, and the Doc… but I don’t. Really, I’m just glad I wasn’t a jerk to anyone after having my ass stretched, pulled, cut in multiple places with stitches inside AND outside my butt… when the original plan was just working on the inside… yay! Honestly, after the last 13 months or so, I’ll let the professionals do whatever they need to do as long as it stops the bleeding coming from by back side!
Have I told you I’ve been bleeding out my backside for over a year now? Well, I have. The annoying part is I actually tried taking care of it not toooo long after it started. I’ve seen multiple doctors who made me drink an ungodly amount of MiraLAX so that they could stick a camera up my colon. I’ve had polyps cut out and clipped and was told they thought that was the source of the bleeding. I’ve asked about the possibilities of me blowing out my “O” Ring by lifting heavy things… because I’m a little guy who likes to lift heavy things and I felt “a pop” down there when removing a concrete lid to a water well. I mentioned a sledding accident in 2023 when a small tree stump broke my sled… and my butt… and prevented me from walking normally for a month. I even asked about bleeding hemorrhoids because I read about them on the internet! Come to find out, that’s basically what was going on… except on steroids. Luckily, it never hit the emergency room state.
In August I was finally referred to a colorectal surgeon and let me tell you… they are not shy or hesitant about the things they do to you! I knew what I was getting myself into, but it’s still a little surprising when the nurse says, “You’re gonna feel A LOT of pressure.”… and oh boy… she wasn’t lying! Although I’ve never had anything to do with childbirth, I was REALLY working on my breathing exercises! The other thing I enjoyed about that appointment is that it wasn’t just one finger feeling around up there, multiple people felt the need to check it out!… more breathing exercises… and I tried not to pay attention to the fact that one of those fingers had long fancy nails. (I know gloves are involved… but c’mon! Even if it’s just for show and to put the patient at ease… maybe keep the nails short! Heck, as cooks we wear gloves and keep our nails trimmed for safety reasons… and we’re not sticking our fingers up people’s butts!) On a side note, I was told I have strong anal muscles… I’m taking that as a win.
All of that led up to yesterday… my hemorrhoidectomy… which I gotta tell you that everything they say about the procedure and recovery is not flattering… quite the horror stories, actually. I was preparing for anal cramps, burning, swelling, more bleeding, oozing, nausea, and general uncomfortableness. So far, it hasn’t been that bad. I mean, I think the biggest worry for me was really getting to… and through… that first bowel movement! Yup, between 8:58am and 9:10 this morning was probably the most nerve-racking span of time for me in this experience so far…! Don’t worry, I got through it with only a few tears.
Now it’s Recovery Time and I’m just gonna say that I don’t do well sitting around… I don’t like being idle. There’s always something to do and since Kateri died I have this continual sense of needing to stay on top of things, to fix things, to clean things, to move things, and to work on things. I’m trying to accept that I need to NOT do anything for the next week or so and to take it easy for the next 5-6… ugh. It’s a small price to pay if it means I won’t have to worry about blood seeping through my underwear and ruining my pants… again… and again.
Mentally, it’s been a long haul dealing with the bleeding butt. Yes, the actual bleeding was concerning but since it didn’t exactly hurt of cause too much discomfort, I didn’t have this sense of urgency or panic that I was gonna die or anything. For me, the most anxiety came from having to go out in public not knowing if I had bled though my pants, where people would see it and think I shit myself! FYI, I live out in the country so if I need anything, I’m driving… and sitting… for at least 20 minutes and usually longer. When you’re bleeding out your butt and worry about people seeing it… sitting is not what you wanna do for long periods of time!
Over the past year I have adapted to this situation as we were figuring out what was actually going on. I switched from wearing “checks” cook pants to straight up black. When buying jeans to replace the ones that were ruined, I would buy ones that were a little darker shade of blue. I carried around extra underwear in my Man Bag and always had an extra pair of pants at work. In July I bought Depends for Men… which I learned was a little overkill for the situation, so I traded in the diapers for Maxi Pads. Yup, nothing like shopping for Maxi Pads with your girlfriend!… but the mental relief they provided me were priceless. It’s been a tiring and trying process… and I’m hoping it’s over.
As I lay here in my adjustable bed with my bloody butt thinking about My Life… my body slanting towards the Building a Rainbow painting hanging on the wall… my legs slightly up and bent… I think about how it’s just so… different. Our lives are everchanging and as the years build up, we have the opportunity to look back and see how we’ve grown, where we’ve been, and who was there. I’ve been a widower for six and a half years. Widowhood is one of those types of events in our lives that brand a notch into the timeline. When I look back at My Life six and a half years ago, I feel like the physical things are pretty much the same (my house, car, work, etc.), but the people are different. I’m not saying this is a good or bad thing… it’s just what it is… kinda how these things go. Losing Kateri and my Mom were the biggest things that changed my life and the type of person I am. There was also a Global Pandemic which just kinda changed… everyone. I’ve lost touch with so many people. I miss them and the times we were in each other’s lives, but I’ve also met some pretty cool people, worked with some pretty cool people, and have done some pretty cool things. We all just keep plugging along on our own little paths.
When Kateri died, I made the decision not to go to the doctor for a year. I didn’t want to know if there was something gravely wrong with me. If there was… c’est la vie. I was at a different point in life. I had a different view on it… and things change. To this day it’s hard for me to look towards the future, but I’ve realized I’m starting to. There are things… and people… that make me want to stick around for a while and if I’m gonna stick around for a while… might as well try to make it as comfortable as possible. I’m lucky… I’ve got a good life… and I’m grateful. I’ve got people I love and a dog I love more than most of them. Yes, there are all sorts of physical, mental, financial, and general health challenges, but that’s just a part of Life. Sometimes you feel good. Sometimes you feel like Smashed Asshole… and that’s probably the gig for most of us.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Well, the cheeks are feeling the warmth of the sun for the first time in about six and a half years… and the chin has been freed from the fuzz for the first time in even longer! The Beard is no longer… because I cut it! And let me tell you, you can attach A LOT!… to a beard.
Throughout my life with Kateri, I would talk about how I really, really, really wanted to have one of those long… sorta unkept and scraggly… beards that you see on the faces of Old Timers sitting on the front porches of their hundred-year-old Vermont farmhouses. Ever since I could grow it, I’ve always had facial hair. When I was younger, I would change it up quite frequently. Then I kinda settled into the goatee and the occasional Fu Manchu with a western flare… and maybe some sideburns. I always enjoyed the Half Beard, but it made me look like Beaker if it got too long. From time to time, I would let the cheeks grow in, but there always came the point where it got a little itchy and since I work in kitchens… it got hot…! Mmmmm, hot AND itchy! So, for most of my life I’ve had something on my face… just not all over it.
This post isn’t about all the fun things those of us with Functional Facial Hair can do with it, this is about how I used a beard to help me take steps into a world I was unfamiliar with and scared of as I coped with the death of my wife. In some regards, I hid behind the mask of my own face… which I did not recognize.
Unconsciously, I quit shaving partly through Kateri’s Dance with Cancer. It just wasn’t a priority and since I already had facial hair, I didn’t really think of it. For the first few weeks after she died, for some reason I couldn’t really look in the mirror. I was in this kinda haze of just going through the motions while trying to keep my head on straight. I mean, I would while brushing my teeth n shit just to kinda check in, but only little glimpses. One night after getting out of the shower, I was standing in front of the steamed-up mirror and as I wiped the water away and saw the foggy reflection, I didn’t recognize the hairy person staring back at me. It didn’t look like me. I didn’t look like myself. And I didn’t FEEL like myself… or at least who I had been for the last two decades. It was an odd feeling that reminded me that life was different now and as I look back on it… that we can have profound moments pop up in our lives at the most unsuspecting times.
Widower Notes n Thoughts… on Beards:
P.S… I’m already working really hard on growing The Beard back!… by not shaving.
Don was my neighbor… down the road… on the left. I met Don when we were coming home the night of Mary Ann’s Celebration of Life in ’22 (Kateri’s mom). Well, I actually met him after we had gotten home… were there for about 5 minutes… and then got back into the car… and drove back down the hill to his house… in the middle of the night!
Amanda and I were in separate vehicles for the final leg of returning from the Celebration of Life. When we pulled into the driveway and got out of our respective cars, I asked Amanda, “Did you see the light on, and door open at the house across from the Church?”. To which her reply was, “Ummm, I think I saw a leg…?.. kind of sticking up in the air..?.. maybe?”… and then we had a brief discussion and came to a quick consensus of what a “Good” person would do in our situation. So, we told Xander the Dog “We’ll be right back”, grabbed the keys to the Cute Little Jeep Renegade, and went to go check on a neighbor.
Once we got 2 point five miles down the road to the Church, I flipped a bitch in the little turn around there and pulled up to the front of the house. We could see from the light in the kitchen that the front door was open, but the outer glass storm door was shut and there was someone laying on their back on the concrete slab of a porch. There was a small dog in the kitchen checking out the scene through the glass door and we noticed that it was attached to a leash… which the person on the porch… flat on their back… on the other side of the door!… was holding the other end of…! It was one of those instances where that little voice in your head asks, ” what the heck are we getting ourselves into…?”
The cool night air rushed into the cab as Amanda rolled down the window and loudishly said, “Hello…?”. Through the darkness we heard the faint and somewhat gruff response of, “Hello?” come from across the front yard. “Are you OK?”, Amanda called out the window. “No.” was the response. “Do you need help?”…. “Yes.”. “Do you need us to call an ambulance?”… “No.”. So, we pulled into the driveway, stepped out into the chilly night, and jumped headfirst into a situation and experience that would have lasting effects on all three of us.
When I got to him, I tried thinking of all the emergency/CPR trainings I have gone through at various jobs to figure out the best way… and quickest… to assess the situation. When we reached the porch, I introduced myself and Amanda to the person laying on the cement, his eyes kinda glassed over along with grass, twigs, and cobwebs stuck to his fleece Patagonia jacket and pants. At that moment… we officially met Don… as he laid on his front porch.
Now Don was a good-sized man, but we were able to sit him up where he could lean against a post. We were also able to remove the leash from his wrist so that the little dog on the other side of the glass door could finally walk more than three feet away from the entrance… and maybe drink some water! At that point, I could smell alcohol pretty distinctly. I haven’t had a drink in 17 years… so it can be pretty noticeable. I started going through questions I thought an EMT… or anyone else who knew what the heck they were doing!… would ask.
“Are you hurt?”…. “No”.
“How long have you been out here?”… “Not sure.”.
“Are you on medications?”… “Yes.”.
“Have you been drinking?”…. “Yes.”.
“Do they mix?”…… “No.”…. crap.
That wasn’t really the answer I was hoping for!… but this was the situation Amanda and I had just put ourselves in and we knew we had just committed a fair amount of time to it since we were aware Don had no intentions of going to a hospital or having anyone who deals with these sorta things come and help. So, Amanda grabbed another layer from the car and the three of us simply sat on the cold concrete as Amanda and I learned a bit about the man we would wave to on the drive home when he was sitting in his rocking chair “Watching the world pass him by”… and Don learned that he has neighbors who care enough to stop.
It was a long hour and a half as the chill of the night started to creep past our coats and our butts went numb from the cold concrete. I could see Amanda’s teeth chatter here and there as she would turn away so that Don didn’t see. We were really just buying time until we felt Don was in good enough shape to make it back inside and call it a night as we filled that hour and a half talking about… well… Life. We kept it basic. We kept it light. Just three people getting to know a tiny, tiny, tiny bit about each other… when we would normally be sleeping. It was nice… given the circumstances… and thankfully ended with Don reunited with his pup inside his house and us welcoming the heat blowing from the vents of the Cute Little Jeep as we made our way back up the hill to The Schoolhouse.
We stopped by the next afternoon to make sure Don had made it through the night ok. Honestly, given the shape he was in the prior night, we weren’t sure how much he would even remember! Fortunately, he remembered most of it. Over that summer I stopped by a couple of times just to check in and shoot the shit for a bit. We learned that Don ran the food shelf for years and was very active in the community in years past. He had a PhD. and was passionate about Environmental Research and Protection. He was proud of his French and Native American heritage. He enjoyed music, and maps, and travel. He was compassionate and enjoyed stimulating conversations. He had family… but he didn’t dive too deep into those relationships… and I didn’t pry. He loved his pup and sitting on the porch. After our evening of getting to know each other, I loved waving to my neighbor as I slowed down around the bend in front of the Church and would catch him sitting in his rocking chair.
Come to find out, Don quit drinking after that initial night of introductions. We had noticed that he looked thinner and after he told me he gave up the sauce, I thought that was the cause of the weight loss… which I’m sure played a part but come to find out… he was also sick.
This spring and summer we saw less and less of Don on the commute home. Through friends and neighbors, we learned that he had gone into assisted living… and then into hospice. Many a times I thought of going and visiting him, but I got caught up in my own life and quite frankly didn’t prioritize or make the effort to let him know the impact he had on me. I wish I had gone to visit… to have one more conversation… to be there for him… even if it was only for a minute… an hour… or two. But I didn’t and sometimes that’s just the way it goes.
Don died at the end of July. I got the text from a friend down the road who sent me the obituary from the local paper. His service was gonna be on a Saturday and I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to make it. Life and Death are all around us all the time in varying degrees and proximity. Don definitely made and impact on my life, but our relationship was very brief and limited. I wish I would’ve been able to just take off work and attend the formal remembrance of a man who gathered memories and experiences over the 87 years he traveled this land until finding his final home in our little area of the world… but I couldn’t… and I was ok with that.
Don was buried in the old ass cemetery across the street from his house next to the church. When I got out of work on the day of his service, I stopped to pay my respects and to thank him for what he had given me. I was the only person there… standing before his massive tombstone. It was quiet. It was sunny, but cool. It was peaceful. I thought how wonderful it was that he didn’t have to travel far from his home to get to his final resting place. It made me think about my own life and mortality… and where I want to be when I get to the end of my own road.
Standing in the West Fairlee Center Cemetery surrounded by the lush green foliage and softness of the Vermont summer, I decided to accept the decisions I have made in the recent past, and in turn, the outcomes of those decisions. I haven’t always made the best choices, but in life, sometimes the process is the important part to reach the best possible outcome for yourself. Life is one long learning experience. The opportunity to make our lives as close to how we want it to be… who we want to be!… happens from the moment we wake up till the moment we lay our heads down to rest… but it takes work… and is everchanging. I’m sad I don’t have the option to swing by Don’s on the way home and sit uncomfortably on the bench as he shares stories involving this or that or states for the fifth time that he’s “Watching the world pass him by” and I wish I took the time to visit him towards the end, but I am grateful Amanda and I made the decision to get back in the car… in the middle of the night… to go and check on a neighbor.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I’ve kinda been going through a thing lately. Considering the fact that when I’m flipping through Marketplace and come across an “inexpensive” sports car such as a Lotus or Lamborghini (driving an ’85 Lamborghini Countach… red… rear spoiler… has always been a dream of mine!) my brain goes, “Well, if I sold everything and took everything from savings and “retirement”… I could almost buy that!” makes me think I might be having a midlife crisis topped with the taste of Widowhood. The emotional and psychological roller coaster has been quite entertaining!… and tiring.
It hasn’t been one specific thing or another causing me stress or making my brain feel like it’s on the Spin Cycle, it’s just been one little thing after another… one more thought that piggy backs on the previous one until I realize I don’t know which station the current Train of Thought left from! I’m all for wanderlust and finding adventure in the unknown or on the unfamiliar road, but in my Widowhood I have been fighting to regain that ability to look past Today… Tomorrow… into Next Week… and maybe Next Month. It has definitely gotten better in the last 3 years or so, but man… the relentlessness of Life can simply be overwhelming at times.
On The Fourth of July, I was reminded that there are experiences in our lives… some big… some small… that have the power to pull us out of that tailspin of trying to figure out the entirety of Life and instead creates a landing pad for a brief layover in the Present to help calm the nerves… and stomach… from the recent bouts of turbulence.
In December of last year, I wrote a post about losing an earring as I was running around the woods chain sawing trees down around the fire pit. The earrings were a gift from Kateri and made by our dear friend who also made our wedding rings… not to mention married us…! I was given them about two weeks after we learned of Kateri’s cancer, which was before we truly knew the extent and severity of her diagnosis. Needless to say… I was pretty upset with myself when I realized I was rocking the single earring look from the 80’s… 30 years late! Fortunately, one of the things Widowhood gives you is the knowledge and experience that things… important things!… sometimes just go away… and you just have to accept, deal with, and adapt to it.
Well, as I felt like my life was spinning out of control last Thursday, Amanda and I were up at the fire pit grabbing the cast iron griddle for Onion Burgers we were having that evening. I was proudly showing her how I had leaf blown all the pine needles away when I noticed her bend over and pick something up. Her fingers had that pinching look to them like when you pick up something small and/or delicate… and my mind went straight to, “No… WAY!”. When she turned around, in the palm of her hand was that almost complete circle of meteorite and gold!… without a back… and we both stood there in awe for a moment stunned by what had just happened…! To have that experience… at that moment in time… sorta slapped my brain back into focusing on what I have instead of what I’ve lost or asking the questions, “Where am I going?”, and “What am I doing with?” my life. It was a moment where I saw what I had… here… and now… and the clarity it provided quelled some of those runaway thoughts and brought a bit of comfort along with it.
Although Amanda finding the earring is huge and one of those “I can’t believe you did that!” type things for which I’m super grateful, it was pretty much luck that she happened to look down while standing directly over it. I love Amanda… not because she found the earring, but because when it was lost, she bought me a metal detector for Christmas to find it! She knew how much it meant to me. She knew my attachments to it. She knew I was beating myself up over losing it. And all she wanted to do was help ease some of the sadness that particular loss had given me by inserting Hope back into the equation.
Life can get hard sometimes and it can cause us to lose sight of all of The Good we are surrounded by. We unconsciously take for granted those things we need to support and carry us as we wander through this crazy world. I’m super thankful Amanda found my earring and it’s back being part of my day to day, but I’m even more thankful that she came into my crazy world, and I get to share each of those day to days… that I get to share my Life… with Amanda.
…and Xander.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
When Kateri died, I made the conscious decision not to go to the Doctor. If there was something going horribly wrong with my body… I just didn’t wanna know! I guess it also had something to do with the fact that the one thing… person… I loved more than anything was just plucked out of my world, and I didn’t really care if The Universe had the same fate for me. I didn’t want to know if I had high blood pressure, low platelet levels, tonsillitis, or even cancer. I felt as if my future was ripped away from me and I didn’t have the ability to look towards the upcoming days, months, and years with any sort of clarity, plan, or excitement. And I’ll be honest… it’s still a challenge!, but after 6 Years of Widowhood… I’m starting to take care of some things I have been pushing off simply because I didn’t wanna deal with them. I figured, being able to actually see the world I was left to live in without Kateri would be a nice “Step” in helping change my mindset from “It is what it is and I’m just gonna roll with it…” to… “I’ve got a lot to live for… I kinda wanna stick around for a bit and see where this or that goes… maybe I should take care of my things AND Myself…!?!”. Soooo, I went to the Eye Doctor… pressed my forehead against multiple strange contraptions… saw a little red barn… and apparently needed glasses!… which I kinda knew. (On a side note, I also paid out-of-pocket to get this done because the Health Care and Insurance industries in this country suck big ol’ donkey balls.)
Widower Notes n Thoughts… on getting glasses:
One of the things I love about Vermont is it’s (our) culture and traditions. At about this time of year, when the darkness starts to lift, when the frigidness takes a break as the sun sits in the sky a bit longer than the day before and life that has been dormant for the last however many months begin to take a peek to see if it’s their time to shine, a magical thing happens in these parts which we call… Maple Sugarin’! And… well… for the first time in my life I made my own… MAPLE SYRUP!!
I know I just said that “I” made “my own” maple syrup, but that was a lie. It was actually Amanda and I that made “our own” maple syrup… which now kinda makes me want to describe the “widower” side of this experience because it’s a challenge to be fully Present when your mind is saying things such as, “I wish Kateri and I had tried to tap our trees… or boil sap… make maple syrup from resources right from our own land..!” because she would’ve absolutely, 100%, whole heartedly loved… LOVED… it. Of course, she’s not here and hasn’t been for almost 6 years, but I have been here… and have had to learn how to find happiness in my Day to Day, in this new world with new experiences… without her. I’ve had to change a lot of things about myself, how I think about things, about how I view the world with the hopes of pulling myself out of the mud pit of Loss I was trudging through and to a degree… still am.
Luckily, sometimes when you’re trudging through the mud you find things that you maybe weren’t expecting or even looking for like friendship, companionship… and Love. I might not have been able to boil sap with Kateri, but I was able to have this unique experience with someone I share my home and life with, someone who makes me laugh, someone who I always wanna spend more time with, and most notably to this conversation… someone I Love.
It started with Amanda and I walking through the woods looking for Sugar Maples to tap. This would’ve been a much easier process if we knew what Maple Trees looked like without their leaves! After checking out books with pictures and searching The Oracle for answers, we went and bought 4 taps, sap buckets, and lids to start the inaugural 2024 Little Red Schoolhouse Sugarin’ Season by tapping 3 Sugar Maples… and 1 Northern Red Oak…!.. which is no longer tapped… and we found another Maple. We also scrounged together plastic buckets (food grade) to store the sap in until we had enough to make at least a little bit of syrup… considering it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup!
After about a week we had accumulated around 8-9 gallons of sap and we figured we should boil it off before it spoiled. Now, we’ve never done this before, so we aren’t exactly set up for endeavors like this, but as I figure, and one thing I love about this process, is that at its most basic level, all we really need to do is have enough heat (fire) to boil water/sap and enough time to reduce it down to syrup. We can do that!… We’ve got the technology! So, on the windiest day of the week, we set up our Sugarin’ Station in the most inefficient way possible and spent the day… and part of the night!… chopping down trees to fuel the fire as our sap made that magical transformation from sweet water that’ll give you the shits to that golden nectar of the Gods… filled with all sorts of ash and whatever else was floating around the woods! It was a lot of fun, but we knew we could make the experience… and Maple Syrup… better.
A week. I figured we had a week until our second chance to do this boiling thing so there was a bit of time to find a better way. Contain the fire!… control the heat flow!… that was my goal. At first, I was gonna take some old, galvanized roofing that I had found in the woods (awe… Vermont) and make a firebox out of it where two hotel pans could sit in to increase the surface area and to limit ash and junk from getting into the syrup. As I was telling someone about this adventure and my plan for the firebox, someone else offered me a couple sheets of stainless steel to make the firebox out of!… how fortuitist!! So, over a couple of evenings, I figured out how to work with stainless steel and cobbled together our first firebox… with chimney and all! I gotta say, it’s pretty fun cutting and grinding metal, but I had that constant fear of accidentally slicing the palm of my hand off (even with gloves on!) or having a shard shred my eyeball or burning down the garage from the sparks flying as the grinder screeched through the stainless steel.
The second boil was much more efficient and productive, although enclosing the fire also meant limiting access to the heat that kept us warm as we stood there in the woods watching water (sap) boil! Honestly though, it wasn’t that cold of a day and the fact that it was taking about half the time compared to the first boil warmed us with excitement and accomplishment. Besides, all we really had to do was keep the fire going, keep adding sap, and simply enjoy each other’s company as we chatted about this and that and here and there. It was a pretty darn nice way to spend a Monday afternoon. I mean, I got to spend the morning in the garage finishing something I made to hopefully make our experience better (which was a wonderful learnin’ lesson in and of itself!), I spent the day in the woods burning shit with someone I love, and when Monday was all said and done, there were four and a half Ball jars sitting on the pie board in the kitchen filled with… MAPLE…FRICKIN’… SYRUP! (fuck… yeah!)
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I was in the shower washing all the bits, pieces, and parts when I felt my right ear lobe and noticed that the earring Jake had made for me… which was a gift I had received from Kateri not too many days after we learned of her diagnosis… was gone. It took one more slippy squeeze of the ear with the brain thinking, “Maybe I missed it…?… just wasn’t paying attention…?”, before it turned to me envisioning the mini version of myself, the one who resides in my skull… and has a full head of hair, clenching his fists and screaming, “Muuuutherrr…. FUCKER!!”.
In reality, I just stood there staring at the subway tile as the hot water massaged the top of my shaved head, shoulders, and back (…I don’t shave my shoulders… or my back). The steam cushioned my naked body from the cold sitting just on the other side of the curtain waiting for its chance to insert a little shiver to the tail end of my shower. I thought about where I might’ve lost it and when. Then I thought about how I had spent all day outside snow blowing, chain sawing, burning stuff, and running through the woods and realized it could be anywhere on my little piece of Vermont. Heck, it could’ve been shot to the property across the road after taking a ride through the snowblower!
My mind wanted to make a run for it, but I was able to calm it down. I took a deep breath and simply stood there in the shower… the outside world silenced by the white noise of water pelting the shower curtain and ceramic… thinking about my life. I knew that if I wore those earrings day in and day out, one day one or both of them may go missing. And on Monday… one did. Of course, that didn’t stop me from slowly walking around the property with my headlamp cranked up to full brightness as it beamed straight down scanning the snow, dirt, twigs, and sawdust for any sign of a silverish three-quarter hoop the size of a dime. FYI… I live on 6.5 acres and haven’t found it… yet.
This post wasn’t gonna have anything to do about an earring, I just happened to lose it as I am going through a Widower Moment brought on by the passing of someone who resided in the periphery of my world. I have been thinking quite a bit about my life as of late, of my widowhood and my relationship with it, but it was an email at work which reminded me that after 5 Years, 7 Months, and 9 Days we have the ability to remember things, people, and moments with such vividness that we could swear it just happened, we just saw them, and/or we just experienced this or that as if it was yesterday. The harder part for me was not the fact that I could remember the last Doctor’s Appointment, the last “I Love You.”, or even the Last Breath… it was the fact that the feelings I had in each of those memories… those moments… bubbled up from wherever they were hiding and decided to go back on tour. Well, maybe just a three-day engagement… or guest appearance… either way, they were annoyingly loud and played songs that I simply don’t care for anymore.
This recent experience brought up mainly some of the crappy stuff in life… cancer, loss, death and such. It was hard to go through the last few days where the memories that fill my head were mainly of when Kateri was sick, when we watched cancer wear down her body in a matter of months, when I sat next to her holding her shark bite listening to her breath, and waking up to a world where I would never get to hold her again. It took one sentence in a work email to remind me that Loss does not have an expiration date. Loss doesn’t stop existing even if you haven’t felt the pain, sorrow, and bitterness of it in a while. Loss doesn’t disappear because you’ve moved to a new apartment, house, town, or country. After 5 Years, 7 Months, and 9 Days… I was reminded that Loss doesn’t just go away because “X” number of Days, Months, or Years have passed by. But after 5 Years, 7 Months, and 9 Days I was also reminded that neither does… Love.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I bought the John Deere hat on the right in Kittery, Maine 5 days after Kateri died… five years, six months, and eight days ago… but who’s counting?! Well, I guess I am… but it’s not like I have been continually… I just had to look at the ol’ calendar to figure it out. I haven’t counted the days for a few years, but sometimes something pops up in my world that makes me take a look at… Time… and it provides me with a little clarity… a different perspective.
It wasn’t until I got the new John Deere hat a few days ago that I realized just how worn the old one had gotten. I mean, I could obviously see when it first started to get sweat stains and I could feel the mesh start to soften up a bit. I noticed it when the fabric began to fray along the edge of the bill and the plastic readied itself for its unveiling. I loved it when it got to the point where it just flip flopped around and only resembled the shape of my head… until I put it on. I love the wear and tear… the visible effects of its life in this world where all it is doing is holding itself together… existing… while the sands of Time slowly erode it’s exterior as the grains roll past.
I love… LOVE!… this hat and everything I have attached to it. I’ll still throw it on from time to time and here and there, but it has done its job and now it’s… tired… so I’m gonna let it rest. I’m not gonna stuff it in a closet or hide it in a cabinet… and I’ll never throw it away, but for now it’s life will consist of more time simply chilling on The Pink Box… or maybe The Bookshelf for a change of scenery. Wherever it sits… wherever it is, I know it will be there for me for whenever I need to see it, feel it, or to put it on and find comfort in all the good, bad, fun, exciting, scary, challenging, inspiring, social, and deeply personal memories I have made with it over the last five years, six months, and eight days… but who’s counting?!
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
As I was running around work this morning, it was such a pleasant surprise to get a text from my sister reminding me that today is the anniversary of when I quit drinking alcohol… 17 years ago…! I love my sister and I… wait, I was about to write “can’t believe she remembered blah, blah, blah”… but that’s not true. I CAN believe she remembered and reached out… because she is a wonderfully caring person, and it means the world to me that if I can’t get a text from my mom wishing me a “Happy Birthday!” to remind me, I was still able to have that “Oh ya, I quit drinking today” type of feeling and slow realization of a significant accomplishment in my life… followed by the feeling of being loved by someone who I admire, respect, and unconditionally love. My sister… she’s pretty frickin’ awesome. (I mean, there’s a few conditions, but I’m not too worried about any of those happening…!)
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
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 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…
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.
Xander and I had taken our walk around the loop after I had gotten home from work and I had made him do his three tricks for me before I gave him his Greenie when I was finally able to plop down in the Kateri/Xander Chair and relish in the fact that I didn’t have to wake up to an alarm in the morning and was already at the start of my weekend… hooray! As Xander crunched away and added another layer of foamy drool to the carpet, it was nice to just sit, relax, reflect on the day/week, and just breath for a minute. After a moment of quiet and calm, I did like most people in those situations and started flipping through my phone to pass a little time.
I had made a few notes on the ol’ iPhone 8 earlier that I knew I was just gonna delete. So, as I sat there wondering how many gallons of Canine Saliva the rug has soaked up over the last year and a half, I took advantage of where I was at, opened the app and deleted the notes. I then proceeded to scroll through older notes to see if I could get rid of anymore! Yay for iPhone Storage Maintenance! Now, I would like to say that I am organized and can effectively use technology to help me stay organized, but I’m one of those people who would much rather jot something down on a piece of scrap paper or document important things in multiple spiral notebooks than use “this app “or “that software” to keep my life in order. Regardless, once in a Blue Moon I’ll dictate something into my phone while driving so as to remember whatever random thought I felt I needed to remember, or I’ll type something in the moment because I felt whatever information I just heard needed to be immortalized in some cloud for the rest of human civilization… all to feel like I’m hip and not falling behind The Times!
As I was scrolling through keeping this note or deleting that one, I came across one from last year that kinda stopped me dead in my tracks. It said, “Feb. 18/19, 2022… My mom and I just put Legos together until 1:12 in the morning.” Yup… that brought back a flood of memories! Not to mention that I had made the decision to set the world aside for a tiny bit the evening I was going through old notes and was gonna put a Lego together while in comfy clothes as I watched something informative and educational on The Boob Tube such as The History of the Combover for my Friday Night and found the Lego thing to be a nice little coincidence!… and then I cried as Xander stared at me from his spot on the couch across the room. (He doesn’t have “a spot”… the couch is his.)
After allowing myself to just “Go with the flow of the moment”, I felt the need to breath normally instead of the hiccupy gaspy breathing pattern crying forces us to do! So, as my breathing slowed my mind was able to shift from memories of my mom and some of the experiences we had back to present day life. It felt good to take some deep breaths as I massaged my forehead and pressed my fingers into my eye sockets. The room was blurry from the wall of tears still resting under my eyes and it felt good to rub them away. I sat there for a moment…with my eyes closed… going between rubbing the eyeballs to wiping the salty water on my pant leg as my brain began to apply the brakes and I started to think about what I could take away from this experience. Before I decided to open my eyes, I gave my shaved head one more squeeze… my face one more wipe as I stretched my eyelids and eyebrows to my temples… and slowly watched as life came back into focus. As my hand was retreating from my face and when it got to about ten inches from my chin, I saw the various scars of Kitchen Life on my weathered fingers while another part of Present-Day Life came into focus as it was making its way around my knuckle…………. A TICK!!!… and yes, I FREAKED!!!
Let me tell you… and “Sorry” Mom… but my mind pushed EVERYTHING aside and went straight into SURVIVAL MODE! I didn’t know what to do! I can’t just flick it!… I’d only be flicking it to another position IN my house! Could I make it outside?!… before it latches on?! Maybe?! Maybe not!! As I jumped out of the chair (in a controlled manner so as not to set it free in my home) I saw the woodstove and my brain instantly went, “Flick it in there!”. So I lifted the lid, strategically positioned my hand in the opening, and plinked the little bastard with 127 pounds of pressure from my fingernail somewhere into the two square feet of ashy prison I had decided was the best place for it to go! I feel like my plan would’ve been good… if I had a fire going… but I didn’t. Now I’m worried it’s gonna somehow get out of the stove, back into the house, and latch onto my back somewhere… just out of reach…! So, I do the logical thing and start catching pieces of newspaper and junk mail on fire and then quickly opening the lid to throw them into The Tick’s own little personal crematorium! I mean, I’m not gonna put paper in the stove and then put my hand in there to light it… there’s a tick in there! After about a Sunday’s Edition of the New York Times worth of paper, I felt safe enough to say, “Crisis averted.”.
As I stood there in my living room with my hands on my hips… Xander staring at me quizzically from his couch… I laughed at myself and simply went on with the start of my weekend.
It was quite the beautiful view outside the airplane window yesterday morning. Amanda and I were flying home after spending the last five days in her old stomping grounds to celebrate her parent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary (Woohoo!… 50!… that’s pretty cool!… but I’ll get more into that). After spending the night trying to get comfy in the one square foot that airlines give you these days, the warmth of that sunrise was the perfect way to be welcomed home to the East Coast. Unfortunately, there was still another flight… and then an hour and a half drive back to The Schoolhouse before the traveling was done, but that sunrise was a nice way to start the day… which hadn’t really ended from the day before.
We got home late morning so I took advantage of the time, unpacked, and did laundry so that I could start the work week feeling settled. After being up for what we figured was around 30 hours I wasn’t exactly doing anything quickly, but the sun was out so I felt the need to do something… and then sit… do something else… and sit again. It hit me during one of my little breaks, as I sat in Kateri’s/Xander’s Chair and thought about this trip, that I am kinda dealing with another sort of loss from my life that is simply collateral damage from the loss of Kateri. She came from a big family… she had 7 siblings… and each of them were a huge part of Kateri’s and my life. It’s sorta The Nature of the Beast, but when Kateri died the frequency of Damato Interactions went the way of the dodo simply because she isn’t here. I love my In-Laws just as much now as I did when Kateri was alive, and I know they still love me, but life has changed for all of us. As I was staring out the big ol’ Schoolhouse window decompressing in the chair, I thought about how much I miss having them in my life… because they’re pretty awesome. Being widowed is technically the loss of a spouse, but in widowhood… you learn that you lose so much more. (Ok, that’s sounds a little dramatic. Kateri’s death is the big “loss” here… everything else is really just… different.)
Intermission
(I needed to eat dinner… then I ate a pint of Ben & Jerry’s… and then fell asleep on the couch. I’m back.)
The reason for this trip to Oregon was to celebrate Amanda’s parent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary. Amanda and her sister were asked to help with the party planning and to create a program (speech) which they would present to the guests. This was also quite a fairly good-sized shindig… 126 or so people!… so, we thought it would be a good idea to get there a few days early in case there were any party planning crisis..es. Amanda doesn’t get home much, so it was also a nice opportunity for her to catch up with family and a few friends. For me, I was excited to learn more about a woman who since the day I met her, I’ve just kinda wanted to know… more. I was looking forward to meeting people whom I’ve only seen in video, or heard stories about, or hadn’t met at all. I was thrilled to play my part in this little adventure… The Boyfriend!
For the most part, I just didn’t want to embarrass Amanda, disrespect anyone, or make an ass of myself…! In hindsight, I think I did ok. Also in hindsight, I don’t think I was expecting to receive as much as I did from this trip… even if no one knew they were giving me anything or I didn’t recognize it at the time. This trip allowed me to once again feel what it is like to be part of… how do I say this… someone else’s family… one that is sizeable and substantial… one that has history and stories and made up of all walks of life. I got to spend time with a family that loves one another. Yes, family is family and anyone reading this probably understands what that means (…eye roll, eyebrow raise, little head nod…) and can give examples of their own challenging experiences with Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Moms & Dads and annoying little brothers, but again… I’m The Boyfriend… just along for the ride with helping hands when needed…! I might’ve heard some tales about this person or that, but from my experience… they were all fascinating, delightful, and warmhearted people… mostly… 98.7%.
Intermission…#2
(Once again, I had to eat dinner… and then something came up… got distracted… went to bed. Now, take 3.)
People at work have asked me about the trip… How was it? How’d it go? and all that jazz… and I’ve gotta say that I’ve really enjoyed sharing some of the things I dug about our little excursion. It was nice to actually see where Amanda grew up and has spent most of her life. I think that where we live and the people who come in and out of our lives adds a uniqueness to each of our stories. The more we know, the better we can try to understand… well… “Where this person is coming from”… what makes them tick… what makes them… “them”.
Considering this being my first time visiting… and meeting a bunch of Amanda’s family, being “The Boyfriend” also afforded me the opportunity to sorta… observe… and there was something that kinda touched me on a couple of different fronts (Widowhood, Kateri, Amanda, relationships, marriage, anniversaries… love). When it comes down to it, we were there to celebrate the life of two people whose relationship as Husband and Wife started 50 years ago. As I tagged along here and there, as I hung out at their house watching and listening to 8 people simply doing what they do in a world I’ve only peeked into, I saw a beautiful thing… this thing called Love. I’m not talking the Love parents have for their children, grandchildren, or vice versa n such. And I’m not talking about the Love I saw between friends who haven’t been in the same space in way too long. No, I’m talking about the Love that has endured the ups and downs of building a life together for over half a century. It wasn’t the hundred and twenty whatever guests at the party or the beautiful slide show their Son-in-Law put together of their life that showed it to me. Nor was it the number of cards I saw in the basket congratulating them on this milestone. It actually had nothing to do with anything except for how Amanda’s parents interacted with… each other. They were comfortable together in that best friend kinda way. They were happy and excited to be sharing this experience with people in their life. They were proud. And when they danced to an audience at their 50th Wedding Anniversary, they were the perfect picture of two people who can take a moment away from the world as they get swept up in each other’s arms and in their love for one another… just the two of them… Husband & Wife.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I’ve decided to use my sledding experience… the one last week, where my ass had an unwelcomed interaction with the stump of a tree…!… as my first piece as a Performance Artist… who takes pictures awkwardly in the bathroom using an iPhone 8, his girlfriend’s tripod, and late wife’s mirror. I call this piece……… Three Days of The Moon: Left Behind.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I just had to utter those famous last words… “One… More……… Time.”… (that was stoopid)
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re too old to go sledding. I mean, it may take you a little longer to walk up the hill… and it may take a little longer to get up out of the snow pile you just plowed through when you went off course… but c’mon!… it’s still fun!! Of course, statistics show that it’s almost a guarantee that 72% of most of the time someone… SOMEONE!… will get hurt. Yesterday… that person was me, all because I had to utter those words, “One… More……. Time.”. Now, I realize that it isn’t really because of some words I uttered that my future held this meeting between nature and my body… but I found it ironic that I literally said those words maybe six minutes before… The Encounter…!
It was a snow day. The storm was finishing up on Monday (our day off) and Amanda and I had made it a plan to hang out in the woods, snowshoe the path over and over to pack down the snow to make walking Xander a bit easier, and to make a sledding run somewhere on my hill… which may or may not also have a whole bunch of trees providing excitement, danger, and the possibility of a concussion. We decided to focus on making one sledding run. That way we could spend more time on making a longer… and funner! (yes, that’s a word) sledding run.
As we made loops around the property packing down Xander’s path (Xander now has ownership of the couch, the chair, his bed… my bed, the two corners of the rug, right in front of the woodstove, and the path in the woods..!) we would try to find lines through the trees that would dump us into the back yard because it seemed safer than ending in the road, at my wood pile, the garage, or a rock wall. We decided on a line that would take us from the upper path, down around the fire pit, bank to the left, thread the trees, pop out just below the old water well which sits beneath the rock ledge, and safely drift to a stop in the spacious back yard. After an afternoon of cutting branches, blazing a path, shoveling snow to create walls, banks, and a starting point… after trudging up the hill just to let gravity tell us where to improve, strengthen, or avoid time and time again… I’ve gotta say, we have a pretty good start to a pretty awesome sledding run… that I don’t know when I’ll be able to enjoy again.
It took quite a few tries to figure it out… the path the sledding run would actually take. It wasn’t until the second shift… after chips and queso… that we really started getting some distance. Thats when it becomes dangerous. With each run, we would make it further and further… but we never actually made it all the way down without either needing to push a little bit to get around a corner or simply starting over from a dead stop. We were so close!!… but we also needed to make/eat dinner at some point! So, we decided on one more run each and then it would be time for pork chops and potatoes. Of course, I’m a child and I was sooooo close to making it all the way down that when I got to the bottom and looked up to where Amanda was standing and filming the words just fell out of my mouth… “That was so close!… I gotta try just One… More…….Time!”
I was fully expecting to stay in the sled the entire run, to have it be my best run of the day, to split the trees at the bottom and pop out of the woods and into my back yard where the snow was a giant snowy crash pad and where I would jump up in ecstatic victory! In reality, I made it maybe a fifth of the way down before… well… nature’s booby trap changed the course of not only my sled, but of my immediate future, as well. I hadn’t realized it, but we had worn down the run (and I might’ve shoveled a little too much… maybe) to where a tiny stump was sitting… waiting… just below the surface. As I took off from the top with that little kid excitement and dreams of greatness, I could hear the plastic sled gaining speed as it slid over the frozen ramp when I zipped between the trees, anticipated the first turn, and then BAM!… booby trap. I didn’t go flying, per se. I didn’t land 10 feet away or anything. I was simply stopped in my tracks by my tail bone playing bumper cars with a tree stump that decided it had had enough of our shenanigans. (Yes, I’m putting the blame on the tree stump. It knows what it did!) Let me tell you… I instantly knew what had happened… and it didn’t feel good. I had to lay there a moment… groaning… wondering if I was gonna be able to get up and walk, or if blood was squirting out of my ass, or if I even had an ass anymore! After a few minutes of assessing the situation, I noticed I didn’t feel blood pooling in the crotch of my long johns or running down my leg or anything… YAY!… so it was probably time for me to get up, gather our tools, snowshoes, and sleds… hobble back to The Schoolhouse… and call it a day.
One… More…….Time. I’m glad I said those words. I’m glad I wanted to try to make it all the way down before we called it quits. I may have bruised my butt and am now forced to tell friends and coworkers why I’m walking funny, but it was worth it. I’ve always enjoyed sledding. Before I got the snow blower, shoveling provided nice big piles of snow and I used to love making the sledding run that lined the driveway from The Schoolhouse down to the road. To this day, the video I have of Kateri and I sledding down it under the cover of darkness and hearing her laugh… it still hits me everywhere. I’m glad I still get to go sledding on my property. I’m also glad to have the opportunity to hear the laughter of someone I love as we share the experience of playing in the snow. It simply warms my heart… and has taught me that “One, More, Time” can sometimes lead to more than you were expecting.
The first video is one of Amanda on a run where she almost made it all the way down. I just wanted to show what the run is shaping up to be. In the second video, the thump is when the stump decided to break the sled and say hello to my asshole. I’m thrilled we have it on video so I can relive the trauma over and over again…!
Update: Day 2… the bruising is coming in nicely.
I was standing in the garage the other night doing the ol’ routine of chopping kindling and looking around wondering how I could rearrange all the crap I’ve accumulated over the years when the thought “I Live Alone in a Life Built for Two” popped into my head. It was one of those moments that just kinda creeped into the brain. As I thought about it, I realized it wasn’t exactly accurate or really even how I feel about my widowhood and life these days, although I vividly remember the times when “alone” was the feeling I had from the time I woke up in the morning to the time I went to sleep… sometimes also in the early morning hours. I’m glad I had that sorta sad thought cross my mind… it reminded me of how life isn’t stagnated… that we have our own unique ebbs and flows… and that I’m not alone. It made me bring back into focus the people who are still in my life, those who have come into my life, and although there are those whom I can no longer hold in my arms… I carry them with me as I flub through my day to day in a reality, which for decades… I could not have imagined.
I don’t know how I found it or what I was looking for when it showed up on the computer screen, but I came across an article and snippet of an interview where Steven Colbert asks, “What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?”. The selfless simplicity of Keanu’s answer, knowing he’s had significant losses in his life, just kinda hit me when his response was, “I know that the ones that love us, will miss us.”. Thank you, Mr. Reeves, for focusing on life… even when asked about your thoughts on death. (That was totally profound, Ted… super deep. You’ve come a long way from, “All we are is dust in the wind, dude”…!)
Yesterday, it caught me by surprise… the feelings that come along when you live with loss in your life. I do what I call “Huddles” with the crew at work every morning to check in, relay information, and give the team a platform to share things they may have questions about… or simply want to share. For a long time it was mostly just me talking to blank stares, which is why I started asking the question, “What is one good thing that has happened to you today?”. For a long time I would get the ol’, “It’s eight o’clock in the morning… I’ve got nothing.” type of responses… so I started forcing them to give me something… anything. It doesn’t need to be earth shattering or life changing, but I think we can all recognize something … at any point in our day… that we can view as good, positive, and sometimes even… beautiful. Well, yesterday, as we were getting ready for a busy Saturday and finishing up our Huddle I got to witness a quick interaction that pulled at the ol’ heartstrings…!
We were going around the kitchen sharing our “good things” when one person said how they were able to have a cup of coffee and give their mom a hug before she went to work. What hit me was when another crew member basically told them to cherish those moments with their mom. I think the reason it hit me was because I know the person who gave that little piece of adivce has experienced loss… and specifically in this case, the loss of his mom. When he gave that advice, he didn’t go into any big story or expand on his thoughts, it was simply “Cherish those moments.”. Right at that moment, the love I have for my mom and the pain that her loss created in my life came rushing back… when I wasn’t expecting it. I literally felt my throat get choked up and my eyes widen as I kept the tears from forming in the corners before they could slide down my cheeks and nestle into my beard. The intensity at which the loss of my mom came rushing back was staggering to me, as well as my ability to stop it and push it to the side so that I could get on with the day… and then deal with it later.
My widowed life seems to have hit a point where it’s just kinda humming along. The peaks and valleys have flattened out a bit to rolling hills… and smaller valleys. Although I am happy and there are things/people I’m excited about, for the most part it’s just one foot in front of the other. So when moments like these pop up… I actually kinda love them. They remind me of what’s important in life. They remind me of my priorities. They remind me of the love I have in my heart for the people who are no longer by my side or in my physical world. This specific experience, a quick little Huddle with no real discernable difference from any other Huddle, reminded me that loss is something I simply live with… and that the love I have for my Mom, for Kateri, for Mary Ann, and for friends who are no longer here is just as strong and powerful as the day they died.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I live a life enveloped in loss. After four years, two months, and 18 days I feel like Life is using bubble wrap to soften the loss as I ping pong against the walls of my day to day… I’m just surprised on how much packing tape Life used to keep my loss safe and secure!
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
The red and rotting picnic table was strategically placed over a stump at The Little Red Schoolhouse when Kateri and I bought it. Our only plan with it was to take an evening and simply torch it in the back yard, but with the move and excitement of owning our first home we never really got around to it in that first fall/winter/spring, which proved to be a good thing. My whole fam damily came that first summer we were in The Schoolhouse and as Kateri and I were preparing for their arrival we realized we didn’t exactly have enough table space… or chairs… for everyone! So, Kateri got some of that picnic table themed vinyl stuff and we wrapped the benches and table top with it, I screwed a 2×4 to one of the deteriorating legs so that it would make contact with the ground, and Voila!… table for 8!… or 9… maybe 10. We figured we would use it for that week and do something with it after they left. Well… it’s been seven years and even though it proved to be useful in the years since it was used as a stump cover… the plasticky vinyl covering is destroyed, the wood has just kept rotting as it sat in the rain and snow, and frankly…. I just got sick of thinking about how and when I would get rid of it…! So as I thought about how I wanted to spend my 5th Wedding Anniversary as a Widower, the picnic table came to mind and I decided to do something about it.
My widowed life has taken a little to get used to. Things pop up that kinda catch me by surprise such as the fact that I have lived longer in our Little Red Schoolhouse by myself than with Kateri, yet I’m surrounded by twenty years of life I shared with her as I move forward through time without her. I’m still learning how to accept the “Instant Independence” that death handed me while also experimenting on ways to make Our Little Red Schoolhouse… Our Home… into My Home. The Picnic Table was one of those things that has a strong attachment to Kateri for me, as well as a strong attachment to my Widowed Life every time I walk past it and think about how much I just don’t want to see it anymore. So I thought tearing it apart would be a wonderful way to remember some fun moments Kateri and I had with it, it would be another step (albeit small) into “My Life”, and it would give me an opportunity to use power tools!… and maybe light something on fire.
A table can mean all sorts of things and we can put all sorts of significance on gathering around one for a meal, a celebration, for a serious talk, or those times we sit there by ourselves with nothing but our thoughts. Sometimes a table is a “Catch-all” for those things we carry around in our pockets all day or it can simply be a flat surface for us to put something on that we plan to deal with later. Going through the experience of celebrating my 5th Wedding Anniversary (would’ve been our 11th Wedding Anniversary/twenty-thirdish year together) without my wife… spending time cutting that picnic table into little chunks and hauling it up to the fire pit and then sitting and staring at the flames as they gradually illuminated the trees while the Autumn Sun slowly set behind the Green Mountains, I realized that a table… even an old, rotting, and weathered one… has the ability and strength to hold so much more than I expected it to.
Random Widower Thoughts:
On September 24, 2021 Xander came to the schoolhouse for a temporary stay… and never left. Sometimes when we live a life touched by loss, some of those losses teach us lessons when we look for them and gives us things when we… weren’t. Xander came into my life four days before my 4th Wedding Anniversary without Kateri. He was by my side as I went through that anniversary crying in my bed, sitting on my deck pondering life, or doing whatever. I thought about how he was in a new space… with a new person… and not with Judy (even though at that point his stay was still just a temporary thing and we thought they would be reunited). I wondered what he was thinking about. I hoped he wasn’t sad, but felt he knew something was up. For almost a year now, all I’ve wanted to do was make sure he has the best life I can give him. I want him to have the easiest life I can provide for him. I want him to be himself. I want him to be a dog being a dog. I want him to be happy and feel like he’s home in a life which is so different from what he knew on September 23, 2021. I want him to feel loved… because I’ve got so much frickin’ love for the guy that I don’t even care about his love strings (hair) being all over the couch!… and the stairs… and the chair… and my bed… my fleece pants… and… and… you get the idea… it’s a lot of love… and love strings.
The dude that turned The Schoolhouse into a house in the 60’s also made a little path through the 6.5 acres so that he could harvest lumber for the woodstove n such. When Kateri and I bought the place, I cleaned up the paths since they had started to get overgrown by the lack of use. Since Xander has come to The Schoolhouse, we have walked the path almost every day. Well, nowadays I feel like our afternoon walk is more like me walking the path… and Xander walking, running, sniffing, digging the other 6.49 acres! It was on one of these walks that I recently realized that Xander has taught me a few things as we have gotten to know each other over the last year. Lessons and exercises that I learned while running up hills in the dark yelling, “Xander!” and “Come here, Bud!”… or standing for ten minutes while getting eaten by mosquitos as he tears apart a rotting stump… or simply walking behind him hearing nothing but the pitter patter of his paws on the pine needle padded path surrounded by the sounds of the woods. I realized I have learned a lot… staring at an 83 pound Pitbull’s butt as he trots along on the hunt for chipmunks. These are a few of those things.
Patience
Responsibility
Unconditional Love
Ever since I got back to my Little Red Schoolhouse in Vermont from Idaho in March after spending the last month of my mom’s life with her, I’ve kinda just been focused on getting through the day to day of my own life. It’s a strange feeling losing both Kateri and my mom. It’s uncomfortable not having the option of reaching out to them… and them being there. My world got subsequently smaller with the passing of each of them. My universe contracted. I felt isolated and alone as the living started moving on from the losses I was reminded of every morning as I sipped my first cup of coffee and that which blanketed me every evening when I crawled into what used to be Kateri’s bed. Living a life with loss is challenging on all sorts of fronts, but luckily… I’ve still got a whole bunch of people in this world that I love dearly, and who dearly love me. My sister is one of those at the top of the list. Although we weren’t exactly close for the first 20 years of adulthood due to distances and drinkin’, life has provided us the opportunity to reconnect with each other and reminded us that we do not have to do this alone. I have friends. I have family. I am thankful to have my sister… and it was awesome having her and my brother-in-law visit for a week for the first time… without their children!!
One of the intentions Dina and Tom had on their vacation was to help me out with things around the house. Leading up to their arrival, I had started a list of projects that the four of us could maybe do while also setting some time aside to simply chill. Now, you can fit a lot into a week and since this is a blog post and not a book, I’m just gonna go through a few of the projects that Dina and Tom helped me out with at the ol’ Schoolhouse and some of the adventures that the four of us had (Sis, Bro-in-Law, Girlfriend Amanda, and I)… in chronological order.
Unplanned Lawn Mower Maintenance
I wanted the Schoolhouse to look as “put together” as I could before they arrived so I tried to mow the yard as close to their arrival as possible. Unfortunately, the drive belt on the riding lawnmower decided to snap in half with only a few more passes left needed to finish the job! Amanda and I went into town and got a belt on Monday, Dina and Tom arrived Tuesday night, and the four of us learned how to replace a V-Drive Belt using milk crates and manuals in the back yard!
Pizza!
Last year my mom wanted to buy me automatic garage doors for my birthday… which would’ve been fantastic! Unfortunately, I have an old ass garage with old ass garage doors… that is (are) kinda falling apart… and I don’t have room for the garage door motor things. So I asked my mom, “How about an Ooni Pizza Oven instead..?!”. Let me tell you, Amanda and I love breaking that thing out! (It doesn’t hurt that Amanda is a baker and will just “throw together” pizza dough!)
The Wood Pile Competition
Although the stacking of wood really only covered Wednesday and Thursday, it took just about the whole week to actually “finish” the project. Stacking wood is part of our culture here in Vermont and I wanted Dina and Tom to share in that experience! I asked my wood guy if he could deliver it the week they got here and he actually delivered it a couple of weeks prior… just enough time for a few critters to set up shop before we started moving it!
Before Kateri died, we would stack next year’s wood in neat cubes behind the potting shed under the lean-to and talk about how the guy down the road would put metal rings in his and make cool designs. After Kateri died I guess I was looking for a little creative outlet and decided to try my hand at making next year’s wood look a bit more interesting. Not to mention stacking it not so far away from The Schoolhouse!
Vermonty Things…!
Friday we decided to take it easy and do a little sight seeing and junk shopping, so we loaded up in the cute little Renegade and headed south. Our destination was Hillbilly Recycling in Bridgewater and even though I don’t care for Woodstock… it was on the way and an idyllic little New England/Vermont town for them to experience with it’s covered bridges, shops, and town green. It was a nice day of looking at other people’s crap, eating sammies in parking lots, staring through the car windows at the sea of green blanketing the mountains as we drove the winding rural roads… and stopping for creemees before heading home!
The Beach!
When Kateri and I first bought our house in 2015 my family drove cross country to deliver some furniture… and a piano. On that trip we tried to hit Wingaersheek Beach in Gloucester. It was Kateri’s and my favorite beach to sit on ever since Randy and Vicky introduced it to us. Kateri and I would wake up around 4:00am after loading beach chairs, our umbrella, the beach bag, and her pop’s army blanket into the Jeep the night before so that we could get to Gloucester and grab breakfast at George’s… and still get to the beach when the sand was cool and there wasn’t a sea of colorful nylon domes. Unfortunately, when my family visited they had a dog with them and we couldn’t bring Lucy (the dog) into the park… so we adapted and went to another spot.
This year I wanted to give my sister and Tom a nice East Coast Beach Going Experience and thought we would hit Wingaersheek this time around! I thought we had everything lined up. There were only the four of us. A friend was gonna swing by The Schoolhouse before and after work to let Xander out. The weather was gonna be beautiful… and we had bought an extra beach umbrella for the added security of shade!… a necessity for the beach. So Friday night we got everything ready to go, hit the road early Saturday morning, drove the three hours down to the Massachusetts coast, and got to Wingaersheek before 8:45am! Everything was going as planned until we turned onto the road that leads to the beach. As we made the right turn we noticed a big sign saying “Advanced Reservation Parking Only”…!!!… something the city of Gloucester had implemented in May… and something we had not looked into! So once again we adapted… and Dina and Tom got to see the same beach we went to six years ago! The four of us made the most of it and still had a wonderful time simply sitting in the sand… people watching.
The other plan that day was to hit a clam shack so that Dina could get a lobster roll and we could test to see if Tom had gotten over his bad experience the last time we went to the beach together. When they visited six years ago and we had gone to the beach, we had also gone to Woodman’s so that they could have that Clam Shack experience. Well, the seafood didn’t sit too well in Tommy’s stomach (we think the sun was the actual culprit) and let’s just say we left a soggy brand new baseball cap in a compromised paper bag on the side of the road somewhere in New Hampshire… maybe… and I was thankful our 2004 Volvo XC70 had leather seats! I’m happy to inform you that this trip to the clam shack was far more successful than the previous one!… fried shrimp and all!
Once we made the trek home from the ocean another little unanticipated thing happened… COVID. As we putzed along across New Hampshire, Amanda was feeling a little stuffy and had a scratch in her throat… uh oh! Once back at The Schoolhouse she decided to be safe and took a COVID test. Let me tell you, for not having children and not having had COVID yet, when that first little line showed up (pretty much instantly) we were kinda like, “Ummm… now what?!”. Luckily my sister is a mom and has already had to deal with The Rona in her house… plus she already had it… so we decided it would be best for Amanda to stay at The Schoolhouse and quarantine in my bedroom, I would sleep on the couch (it’s like camping… with TV!), and she would be able to come out and hang with us (socially distanced!) when she felt up to it as we worked on the next project… The Fire Pit. We were fortunate that besides a splitting headache for a day or two, she had a pretty mild case… and I anxiously waited for the symptoms to make their way to me.
The Fire Pit
Sunday was all about The Fire Pit… (and making sure Amanda was doing OK!). When Kateri and I first bought The Schoolhouse we found a little spot in the woods that we thought would make a decent area for a fire pit. I dropped a few trees to open up the view to the sky and we foraged rocks to make a ring and kind of left it at that. When my family visited in 2016, they actually flattened out the area around the fire pit and encircled the sitting area with various stones from the hillside. It looked amazing! Unfortunately, if you were sitting in a camp chair next to the fire there wasn’t enough room for someone to walk past and/or your knees would be on fire because you’d be sitting 2 feet away from some good sized flames! (I think it’s illegal to have a fire less than four feet tall in Vermont..?!) We had always wanted to widen the ol’ hang out area, but we figured it was already a hundred times nicer than before and there were plenty of other projects to get to. Once Kateri died and I was left to my own devices, the fire pit moved pretty far down the priority list… until my sister said she was coming to visit! So on Sunday afternoon after a lazy Sunday morning, the three of us made our way up to the fire pit with shovels, rakes, and gloves to start Fire Pit 2.0.
In the years leading up to my sister’s visit, I always felt weird about wanting to change the fire pit. I mean, my family put a ton of time, energy, and love into providing Kateri and I with a cool little place to hang out and I never wanted them to feel as though we didn’t appreciate it. I love the fact that they were able to come back, experience the old pit, agree that a bit more space could be nice… and then simply made an afternoon of creating a wonderful and beautiful space with nothing but a few tools, time, and some good old fashioned effort.
Trail Maintenance Monday
We decided to stick around the ol’ homestead for the last few days of Dina and Tom’s visit and on Monday Tom and I played in the woods while Dina tackled the flower beds in front of the deck. When we first bought the house, there were overgrown paths that the previous owner had used to gather wood for the winter. I spent weeks walking the path, cutting brush, and making little piles of limbs along the trail that I figured we could take to the fire pit and burn… which never happened! So now I have little piles of limbs which are slightly hidden from leaves that have fallen over the years. This year, Tom started off making little piles on the path and we figured we could do the same thing… pick them up and burn them in the new fire pit! Now, I haven’t really done much trail maintenance recently so there happened to be quite a bit of crap (branches/fallen trees/etc.) on the path. Enough so that by the time Tom got to the back 9 it was less about making little piles and more about simply clearing the path… which involved switching to just hucking the shwag off to the side and into the forest! Either way… the paths are clear… and I have plenty of wood to enjoy in the fire pit… because I live in the woods.
Man… it was hot on Monday… and I decided to break out the chainsaw. Personally, I love the smell of gasoline and burning oil with the sound of a two stroke engine echoing through the forest. If I can be all sweaty and dusty while wearing layers of protective gear… even better! Of course, I’ve also kinda beat up the chain to the chainsaw over the last year so I was able to make one pass around the walking path, started on the fallen tree by the fire pit, and then stopped after it took way too much effort to slice three chunks off the end of it. Chainsawing is fun… but not with a beat up chain!
COVID
Yup. It was Tuesday evening, our last night together in Vermont and we were eating dinner on the front porch when I sorta sucked some food down the wrong tube which made my eyes water and nose plug up. At first I didn’t think much of it even though I was very aware about the possibility of getting COVID considering I was in close contact with Amanda leading up to… and when… she tested positive. Then, after a bit of hanging out… my nose never cleared up! The plan was for me to drive Dina and Tom to Boston in the morning so they could catch their flight home and I started worrying about how that would go if I tested positive for COVID! Once I mentioned my nose was all plugged up, we had decided the best course of action was to take a test so that we knew what was going on… and then take it from there. So, I grabbed a test from the bathroom, brought it out to the deck, swabbed the ol’ nostrils, did all the stuff, and three drops of the snotty solution on a pregnancy test later… two lines!… Balls.
I will say, when I saw I was positive with The Vid… I had an initial little internal freakout. I mean… I smoked a lot… A LOT… of things in my life and this is one virus I just didn’t wanna get even though I knew it was just a matter of time. Luckily, Amanda’s experience had been pretty mild so far and that’s what I was hoping for. The pressing matter was how to get Dina and Tom to the airport! Ah… problem solving. Fortunately, there is a bus that runs from Hanover/Lebanon, New Hampshire to Logan. All we had to do was figure out how to get them to the bus. So we had Dina and Tom drive my car to the station while Amanda and I drove and “isolated” in her car. Once at the station, Dina and Tom were able to get on the bus… and Amanda and I drove our separate cars home… safe! It was weird not giving Tom a hug goodbye, but we know the times we live in… and we don’t need a hug to know we love each other… even though it would’ve been nice.
The Schoolhouse is Once Again… quiet.
It’s now Monday morning, Dina and Tom are back at home in Idaho, Amanda is back at her place, and I’m here with Xander in The Schoolhouse listening to the hum of fans and air conditioners as I reflect on the past two weeks. Four and a quarter years ago I was taught the lesson that nothing in life is guaranteed. I was taught the lesson that the amount of love we have for someone or something does not have a direct correlation to the amount of time we have to spend with them. I was taught the lesson… and forced… to live in the present and to make the most out of whatever experience I was currently going through, both the good ones and the bad. I have a good life. I have a good job. I have good friends. I have memories of a beautiful life with my wife, Kateri… who I will cherish and love till the day I die. I love my sister, Dina. I love my brother-in-law, Tom. I love my girlfriend, Amanda. I love that they were all here with me at The Little Red Schoolhouse in the woods of Vermont for last two weeks… and I currently miss them all.
I knew I didn’t have the time to write about Thursday night because… well… I’ve just got a lot to do before my sister comes to visit! So, I decided to simply tell the story of when I found a snake… IN MY UPSTAIRS BATHROOM…! The video is 23 minutes. The actual ordeal took much much longer… and the trauma will last a lifetime.
A couple of notes:
Now, that doesn’t really seem like a noteworthy thing to write about, but I haven’t written a blog in a while and thought I just needed to start with something… so the store it is! I’ve kinda just been whittling down the provisions that have been taking up space in my cupboards, freezers, and cabinets… some of which have been hanging out for longer than I would currently like to share with you! Don’t worry, I will share that I didn’t feel the need to be adventurous with the four and a half year old chicken stock or the Hoisin sauce from 2019… so luckily, there haven’t been any late nights sitting on the toilet wondering if it’s better to just barf in the tub than to risk the swing around considering what’s been coming out the other end! Nope… none of that… I played it safe. Instead, I used my “Cheffing” abilities and had coursed out dinners for the last three nights!
Wednesday’s Dinner
First Course
Dr. McDougall’s Miso Ramen Soup made with Wild Hill Water and served in it’s own recyclable paper cup… which you can also burn
Second Course
Two poached Beef Hot Dogs served on artisanally purchased buns topped with non-organic Ketchup, Yellow Mustard, and a Sweet Pickle Relish
Third Course
A refreshing bowl of Flaked Corn, Granola, and Almonds (Honey Bunches of Oats) served in a bath of 41 degree Cow Juice
Served with a 2022 Orange Fanta
Thursday’s Dinner
Only Course
Freezer Cured French Fries topped with Provolone and Cabot Cheddar Cheese served with a side of Freshly Squeezed Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing and a dollop of Preservative Infused Ketchup
Served with a 2022 Orange Fanta
Friday’s Dinner
First Course
Can Cured and Sous Chef Selected Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup simmered for way too long over electric heat in an Emeril Lagasse sauce pot… which is also the serving vessel after being nestled in a Sister Made Bowl Holder
Intermezzo
2022 Orange Fanta
Second Course
An Axeless Mountain Dwarf’s Handful of Roasted & Salted Cashews… so a small handful..!
Served with a 2022 Orange Fanta
The lack of food in my house is really of my own doing. Since I’ve gotten back from Idaho to be with my mom for the last month of her life, my life has just been… busy. After four years of widowhood, I’m still learning how to get everything done… or to do everything I would like to… on my own. Since last September, when Xander (Judy’s dog) came to live with me, my routine has been wake up, let him out, go to work for 8 to 9.5 hours, and then boogie home to let him out again since he’s been cooped up for 10ish plus hours by that time. With the responsibility of taking care of Xander for the rest of his or my life, my priorities… and routine… have changed… and I’m learning to adapt. In regards to food, it really just comes down to the fact that once I am home and Xander and I go for our walk around property… I simply don’t wanna leave the schoolhouse to go to the store! Instead… I’ve been making do… and I’ve been ok with that. (Everything’s fine!!)
Life has it’s challenges. Some we have no control over and we’re forced to adapt. Some can be persistent and they take us a few tries to figure out. Some can be physical. Some can be emotional. Some can be psychological. Some are big, like when your life gets turned upside down with the death of the center of your world and the visions of the future you thought you were gonna have for the next 40 years. Others are small and simple, like getting out of a cozy bed on a cool Sunday morning… or playing jungle rules for dinner.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I took today off from work. I’ve taken the last three Earth Days off… well, I guess technically the last four. Although I love the ol’ Earth… I’m kind of attached to it!… it’s not the actual reason that I have taken the day off… and plan to not work on another Earth Day for the rest of my life. Nope, I took the day off because four years ago today was the last day I woke up to Kateri by my side. Four years ago today… was the last day I touched Kateri’s warm skin, ran my fingers through her hair, or could listen to her breath as she slept. Four years ago today… was the last day I could lean over and whisper, “I love you.” in Kateri’s ear and kiss her on the cheek. Four years ago today… I was holding Kateri’s forearm, I could feel the scar and indentation from her “shark bite”… and I heard her take her last breath. Four years ago today… is the worst day of my life. Four years ago today… Kateri died. Four years ago today, I didn’t know how I was gonna wake up and face… Tomorrow.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
It took me a second to process what he said, but then my brain figured out that the meth addict looking Idaho asshole driving his shitbox ’92 maroon Toyota Corolla was leaning out his window yelling, “GO HOME!” as he passed me going the opposite direction when I pulled onto my parent’s street. It caught me by surprise as I was simply driving home after grabbing a mocha for me and a latte for my mom… which I know she won’t drink. It pissed me off. It upset me to the point where I flipped a bitch with the intention of catching up to the self-absorbed and small minded dickhead at the traffic light to inquire about his thoughts on hometowns, state pride, and what the words “One Nation” in our country’s Pledge of Allegiance means to him. Well, that and if he knew I was raised here in the city of Boise which fostered a deep love for the mountains, wildlife, and wilderness in me from the vast amount of time I’ve spent in them… and that I’m only here visiting because my mom is currently laying in a hospital bed in her bedroom dying from cancer. Fuck you… you fucking fuck… who can’t even grow a proper beard…!
Luckily, he wasn’t at the light when I got to it, which meant I didn’t have to figure out what it was I was actually gonna do when I got there! To be clear… I wasn’t looking for a fight… I’m not a fighter… I’m like three feet tall! I mean, I have no problem with scrappin’ if circumstances lead to it and it’s justified, but I generally don’t like the feeling of getting punched in the face and I don’t believe there are really that many circumstances that justify escalating to the point of violence. I may have been 100% comfortable with the possibility of confrontation at the time, but I’m glad it didn’t happen. No… instead I used this individual’s last three brain cell’s reaction to the color of my license plate (on my cute little Jeep) as an exercise in prioritizing what is important in my life, what is the immediate need, and who are the people… and types of people… I wanna surround myself with as I keep marching on day after day.
Yup, this douchebag might’ve put me in a foul mood and made me lose a tiny bit of faith in humanity (and reinforced why I live in the woods of Vermont!), but he’s just one person… whom I will most likely never see again… and I’m ok with that.
With that being said… below was gonna be my post yesterday morning. It was kinda nice for me to see that I could come up with a whole bunch of people who I care about a million times more than the inbred who screamed out his window at a license plate.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Dear Mom, Kateri, Dad, Dina, Tommy, Josh, Jacob, Addison Rose, Sadie, Amanda, Matty, Les, Keith & Michelle, Maria, Pookie, Pocker, Cassie, Trilla, Moose, Jeanette, Amelia, Cisco, Chichi, Mary Ann, Todd, Tony, Scotty (The Hottie), MPH, Jake, Kristen, Sarah, Eric, Teri, Diane, Jay, Jason, Greg, Luna, Amanda, Casey, Raph, Mike, Michael, Justin, Juice (sorry I haven’t called!), Lea Jae, Becky, Cindy, Cristina, Jeff, Jeff, Jessica, Kate, Phil, Phillip, Philip, Mark, Sue, Other Mark, Other Sue, Sandra, Bill, Shannon, Tamzen, Hannah, Gen & Jake, Luke & Brady, Michelle, Tim, Carrie, Jeremy, John, Nick, John… and another John with an “H”, Ruslan, Margot (I’m so happy for you guys!), Will, Will (More Black Sabbath…!), Sarah, Jeanie, Keri, Mike, Franny, Gardner, Abby, Michelle, Cindy, Rosie (you can take the rest of the day off!), Davin, Lil’ Eric, Corey, Orrin, Ann, Cindy, Frank, Jaime, Jamie, Tara, Tara (pronounced Tara), Lucy (Little Lion Dog), Bridget, Maggie, Lauren, Nancy… and Nancy, Paul, Rob, Wilson, Tracy, Paulie, Charles, Kate, Will, Holly, Jenny, Wendy, Brad, Maura, Luanne, Carol, Dennis, Tom, Mike, Bob, Jim, John, Susan, Lucas, Greg, Didi, Sean, Angela, Angela & Sean (even though I haven’t met Sean!), Lisa, Uncle Ron (you’re an impressively strong man… fuck cancer), Kris, Rhonda, Sarah, Ian, Martha, Matt, Chad, Julie, Laurie, Laura, Chris, Gil, Leslie, Luke, MaryJane, Vickie (not Michelle’s alter-ego), Frank & Marnie (congrats on the new place!), Dan, Marc, Nadia, Andy, Brian, Nate, aaaaaaand Xander (even though you’re a dog and won’t be reading this),
Thank you.
Love,
Darren
ps… And to those who aren’t listed… I thank and send ya some love, too.
I went for a drive on Friday. I’ve been in Idaho for two weeks and a day now to be with my mom and on Friday I just needed to get out of Dodge. Well, it’s not so much that I needed to get out of Dodge… I just needed to cover some ground, get into the mountains and away from the lights and sounds of suburbia and the city, so that I could feel a bit more comfortable and be in a space that would allow me to… think. Of course, I’m pretty sure it also started the process of me having a mid-life crisis… sorta. I just happen to need more money so that I can have a mid-life crisis in style. You know, like the ones you used to be able to have in the 80’s with sports cars and cocaine! (ummm… FYI… neither of which I’m actually interested in) I guess it’s not so much that I’m having a mid-life crisis… it’s more me trying to make sense of living a life without being able to give my mom a hug, being able to tell her about my day, being able to share my life with her, being able to lean on her for support and guidance, being able to tell her… I love her. After losing Kateri to Metastatic Malignant Melanoma… with mutations… my mom was there for me. She even made the trip to Kateri’s Kick-Ass Party… oxygen tank in tow, needed because of the cancer… saying she was gonna make it there one way or another and wouldn’t have missed it for anything. My mom is a strong woman. My mom is an independent woman. My mom is a caring and compassionate woman who loved me no matter what bad decisions I made throughout my life… while also celebrating the good ones. And my mom is currently in her bedroom, laying in a hospital bed resting as Joan Baez radio fills the air… dying from cancer. No, I guess it’s not so much that I’m having a mid-life crisis… I’m just really sad… I’m just feeling kinda lost… and being here watching my mom live with cancer for the last little bit of her life is just… hard.
When Kateri died, everything I thought I knew about who I was and what I wanted my life to look like simply vanished. It was cloaked with some sort of haze… a fog… this lack of direction in the world and my place in it. Being a widower… to put it bluntly… sucks balls. To be a widower in my mid-forties, to lose Kateri at a time when we were at the best spot in our lives and we were so excited about the future, our home, our history, and growing old together… honestly, threw me for a loop. But in the last almost four years, it also taught me that as long as I’m upright and on this side of the earth… I’ve gotta keep putting pants on and taking those steps to try and figure out how to keep living in a world without something that I thought I was gonna live with forever. It taught me that sometimes in life we have to adapt to scenarios that we never could’ve imagined… that never crossed our minds. It taught me that life could be hard… and living could be even harder.
Kateri’s death showed me that I could endure quite a bit while also clarifying… and simplifying… a couple of my priorities in life. My priority right now is to be with my mom because this is one of those things that’s only gonna happen once in my life. When I leave Idaho, my life and priorities will be different than when I arrived. I’ve accepted that and I know I will be ok… and I’ll continue to search for ways to make life better. Unfortunately, part of being here with my mom is seeing her frustration… seeing her discomfort… seeing her lose her mobility… her independence… seeing her in and out of lucidity… seeing her so… tired. Losing ones we love is hard, but sometimes I think seeing them having to endure the process as cancer attacks their bodies and we witness strength turn into frailty… well… sometimes I feel like that part of life is the hardest.
So… I’m sitting in front of the woodstove on the little green rocking chair with the wicker seat as I get a fire going and figure out what it is I wanna write about. It’s been something like a month and a half since my last post and quite frankly… I just haven’t set aside the time to get on here…! (Stoopid Time!… Why are you so god damn fleeting?!) I mean, I’ve had plenty of experiences in the past month and a half that I would consider significant enough for me to sit and think upon… and then half hazardly try to capture in words, but I didn’t.
For the last month and a half, I just kinda feel like I haven’t been able to “balance” everything. One thing takes up time and energy, so the other thing gets pushed off. I’m not just talkin’ about the whole work/life balance thing, it’s more of a work/life/life/shitty life stuff/emotions/mental shit/awesome life shit/life balance thing. As of today… I feel like I’m getting a little bit more… “balanced”… and have decided to cut out sleeping from my life, which should free up some of that oh so precious Time. Think of all the things I’ll be able to get to and do!… and all of the space I’ll gain since I won’t need to have beds in bedrooms! (Before anyone mentions how A. I can’t possibly just choose to not sleep, and B. There are other things that beds can be useful for other than just sleeping… such as eating ice cream, jumping on, and pillow fights… don’t take it so literally! (And yes… whoopee. Beds are useful when making whoopee.))
Well, after that introduction, I realized the amount of time it’ll take for me to write about my 46th Birthday, Thanksgiving, visiting my mom and family in Idaho… and my girlfriend going with me, Christmas Time attachments and Cancer Anniversaries I have with Kateri (Dec. 19th… when they found the mass in her brain.), Christmas Time in my “New Life”, the New Year and New Year’s Day… when my girlfriend met a few of my in-laws, or about the past week with it’s ups and downs and range of emotions instigated by the actions of other people. Nope… no time to get into any of that! Instead, I’m simply gonna wish you a “Happy New Year!” and hope that you are stepping into 2022 with good intentions and an understanding heart. I pray that you and your loved ones are well (sorry, I don’t actually pray… it just sounded good… but I still hope you’re well and I’ll think about ya if that helps!). I’ll tell those friends and family of mine who read this that I love them, miss them, and wish I was better at getting in touch and letting them know how much they mean to me. And I’ll post this little video I made of me “playing” the guitar last night (On Insurrection Eve… fucking assholes.) when I had the intentions of it being the only part of this post! Word.
ps… Not to toot my own horn, but I think I’m still kicking my neighbor’s ass in the ol’ One-Sided Woodpile Decorating Contest…!
There are a few things that I just absolutely love about living in Vermont… things that are simply a part of living in New England such as seeing steam pour out of sugar shacks in the spring or the hills turning so green throughout the summer that it makes you thirsty. The leaves changing in the fall creating a sea of reds, yellows, and everything in between. And the piles of wood you see in yards on daily commutes as you think to yourself, “They better get a stackin’ before the center of that pile rots and a plethora of woodland creatures decide to move in!”.
Kateri and I always loved having a wood stove. There’s just something to be said about having a hot spot to stand next to when it’s 17 below outside and the snow is piling up. We lived in just two places without a wood stove and I’ve gotta say… life just wasn’t the same! I mean, it was still pretty frickin’ good… just colder.
I’ve always enjoyed stacking wood… for my own place. As we like to say, “It warms you twice!”. Of course, I’ve come to the conclusion that it actually warms me like 4 times with the amount of times I move it… stack it here, then unstack and restack there, then move it inside… and then finally light that shit up and get the stove a crankin’!
When we bought our Little Red Schoolhouse, it was in the fall so one of the first things we had to do was find a few cord of wood. I was so excited because for the first time we actually had a covered spot to store it, out behind Kateri’s Potting Shed under the lean-to… and I stacked it there for a couple of years. When Kateri died and I was left here alone, I was forced to figure out how to make things a little easier on myself when it came to all sorts of things. The lean-to was great… and I loved seeing three cord neatly stacked and settled in for the winter between those red posts and under the galvanized roof, but it was also the furthest possible point away from the house that we could stack it! So last year I decided to simply make a couple of long rows above the lower rock wall since it would be much…MUCH… more accessible in case I needed to access it. (Current year’s wood is in the garage). Plus, it’s basically where my wood guy drops it so I thought it would make it easier to stack! That, coupled with the fact that I’m in a personal competition with my neighbor… who doesn’t know it, but is also my inspiration… on who can create the coolest stack of wood made me think about how I could take this “chore” and make it into something that would provide me with a little joy and give a sense of accomplishment more than just having my wood stacked. So this year I decided to add… lights!
As a widower, I thought about how could I take this event that happens every year and insert a little bit of Kateri into it. I guess you could actually say Kateri was my inspiration for the theme of this year’s stacking. She had bought a few iron balls which had little battery powered LED lights that you wrap around them to spruce up your garden/yard/home/whatever and they’ve just been hangin’ out in her shed for three years now. When I thought about my one sided competition with my neighbor… those globes came to mind. Yes, my neighbor has iron rings with flowers hangin’ in them and little whoop de doos n shit… but you can see mine IN THE DARK! Mwah ha ha!!
Yes, some may simply think of stacking wood as a chore and something that just needs to get done… which it does… but more so this year than in any years past I have found it is warming more than just my Little Red Schoolhouse. This year, every time I look at those tidy rolling rows and see the light shining out over the dirt road of Wild Hill… it warms my heart with the memory of my wife… and the life she gave me.
One thing always leads to another. Years and years ago, my parents were going through their stuff and were looking to get rid of the piano that they had been carting around… for at least all of my life… and wondered if I was interested in having it. I had told them that I would love to have the piano that I remember taking Yamaha Piano Lessons on when I was just knee high to a grasshopper (I’m not much taller now!), so my mom said that whenever Kateri and I buy our first home they would drive it out to us… and they did… five years ago… with my sister and her family (which I guess is also my family!). It was a wonderful visit filled with sitting on the porch, swimming holes, BBQ’s, fire pit building, going to the beach, eating seafood… and then one of those family members puking up that seafood into a brand new hat while sitting in the back seat of our Volvo on the drive home… it was a pretty special time. But that’s not the point. The point is… my family lugged this piano (that none of us know how to play) from Idaho to Vermont, unloaded it into the garage, and then there it sat… for five years… getting more and more swollen as the layer of sawdust (from cutting two inches of wood off of each log I burnt for two years after I got my new wood stove) got thicker and thicker. From the day Kateri and I acquired the piano we talked about how to get it into the house!… and we never did.
In the three years since Kateri died, I kept telling myself that I need to get the piano into the house, but it seemed like such a big endeavor for one person and there have just been a million other things I’ve been needing to deal with, learning to deal with, and simply… dealing with… so it hasn’t happened. That was until a couple of weeks ago when my brother in-law informed me that they were moving from one corner of Vermont to the other and asked if I was still interested in the stove (and a couple of other things) that my Father In-law had given to Kateri and myself. Like the piano, we didn’t have a home to store it at… or to install it in! So Moose said he could hold onto it for us in his garage!… where it sat for years and years!… until last Sunday.
Although I was super excited to be in possession of the stove for the first time… (it’s pretty frickin’ awesome)… I realized I didn’t have anywhere to really store it in the garage… unless I moved the piano! You know, swap one big ass heavy object that’s been sitting stationary for years… for another! As I was hemming and hawing on what to do about the situation, my Lady Friend suggested that we… WE!… simply move the piano into the house! Yup, so after buying a furniture dolly from The Home Depot we removed a door, built some ramps, disconnected and moved a washer so that we could shimmy the dryer… and the two of us got the piano into the dining room!… which coincidently made the dining room a whole bunch smaller. (funny how that works!) It was an awesome feeling!… and one of those times where you’re standing there with a piano in the middle of your dining room thinking to yourself, “Well, that went much smoother than I expected!”.
I can’t tell you the sense of accomplishment it provided me… and us. I have some pretty strong attachments and memories of Kateri with that piano. I learned the one song I sorta know how to play on that piano. The song that I got to play for Kateri at the hospital when we went for her first immunotherapy treatment. It felt good to finally get it into the house so that it could start it’s own healing process after being neglected for years as it weathered the summer heat and humidity, the winter’s brutal cold, and the continual mist of… sawdust. For now… it’s resting. It’s slowly acclimating to it’s new environment. I’ve given it a once over, did an initial cleaning, but there’s still some sawdust in the cracks and crannies that I’ll get to in time. For now… I’ll just keep hitting a key or two every time I walk past it (because you can’t help yourself!) to see if they are still sticky or not… and wait for the time I can play the one song I learned… again.
Once the piano was in the house, the next step was getting the stove! I rented a U-Haul because Kateri’s truck is no longer running and kinda just rotting away in my driveway. I figured I could use the U-Haul to move the stove, along with a chest and sink that was at Moose’s, and then use it to move my firewood from across the driveway to the garage! Unfortunately it was getting late and raining like the dickens when I finally got back to The Schoolhouse, so this year’s wood is still sitting where next year’s wood is supposed go, but I’ve decided not to worry too much about that… yet. For the time being, I’m just gonna enjoy the fact that whenever I get the money and time to sorta remodel the kitchen… I’ve got a 1940’s (?) stove to make meals on and to remember all those Hopes n Dreams Kateri and I had… when we bought our first home. (Man… she was soooo excited about that stove! We… were so excited about our future.)
Widower Notes n Thought:
Yay!… the lazy blog post! I was gonna do one yesterday because I had a pretty wonderful Holiday Weekend and have been feeling pretty good lately… but didn’t. Oh… I tried. Spent hours trying to figure out what I wanted to share… how I wanted to share it… and realized… there was just too much. There were simply too many fun experiences, interesting situations, positive steps in this new life, good memories, and some sad ones over the last little bit for me to consolidate them into something that would capture the… je ne sais quoi (that’s French!)… warm n fuzzy feeling…?.. with a sense of security….?.. and easiness…? (A feeling of refreshing tranquility and an absence of tension or worry… yup. Thanks google!) So, I watched Unsolved Mysteries instead… and today you get a “Widower” post.
First… some pics from my third 4th of July… in this new life.
And now… a video… about a memory… that keeps coming back.
I actually started on the spare bedroom the day before the 2 Year/2 Month mark. It’s been a week long process… which still isn’t finished… but, it’s definitely a lot further along than it was a week ago!… and going through stuff is just gonna take me a bit. Although I have hit that point where I kinda just wanna start going through stuff and setting up “my” house… I also understand that it’s gonna take a while… but I can start! There’s a lot… A LOT… that comes along with the loss of a spouse. Sometimes, I feel like there’s even more that came along with the loss of Kateri. I mean… it’s Kateri!… she was pretty awesome. Of course, I think anyone who has loved someone else might feel the same way… but I’m talking about me right now.
So, this is what showed up this week in my life after I jumped on the opportunity of having another set of hands to help me move a dresser out of the spare bedroom… some pics and notes. (FYI… life is good… just a big balancing act!)
This is my final pic… and then a video… as if there wasn’t enough already! I really haven’t done anything with my little shrine to Kateri and as I was going through boxes I figured I could add a few things from the top of the jelly cupboard… so I did. I wasn’t sure about how to dispose of the sage bundles used for smudging, so I asked sis-in-law. Well, I found out that neither one of us really knows what to do with used sage bundles, but we figured as long as the intentions were good… it’s all cool and groovy. So… that’s what the video is about. Just a heads up, I mention it’s January 28th… it’s not… it’s June. There would be a heck of a lot more snow on the ground if it were January!… but there might still be a fire.
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I came downstairs from taking a shower on Thursday and thought I would get ahead of the game for the weekend, so I threw in a load of laundry. After starting the washer, I took a swing by the kitchen and then had to run back upstairs for something… probably something really important… when I heard a strange noise coming from the mud room. Upon inspection (it was pretty apparent what was going on!), I realized that the pump for the washing machine was trying it’s hardest to fill the washer… but there weren’t no water!… always a fun feeling as a homeowner. I did the whole running around inspecting faucets and pipes looking for leaks, went to the basement to check fuses, water tanks, gauges, and boilers. The boiler has a digital display that said “GOOD”… which made me feel better… but had nothing to do with my issue! After realizing the issue was above my plumbing skills (…still a cook), I decided to wait till morning to give anyone a call… I can survive a night without water. Plus, I generally have a couple of coolers full just in case we lose power!
When I got to work in the morning I gave ARC Mechanical a call and they said they would get someone out that day… they’re great. I got the initial call from Bruce telling me when he would get there, and then he called back a bit later telling me he had fixed the issue! It was a simple little fix of replacing the pressure valve!… yay! As a fairly new homeowner, and more recently a widower, when things like this happen (no water flowing from your faucets) the brain instantly goes to that worse case scenario so when he said it was a valve… I was fucking ecstatic! Although I would’ve managed getting through the weekend without water… (a friend had already filled up four-22 quart Cambros of agua for me and I can pee outside)… I was glad I didn’t need to deal with it!
Yup, the weekend was looking better already. So, I went to the store to grab some provisions and then went on home to enjoy the conveniences of modern life. When I got to the kitchen with the groceries, I turned on the faucet just to reassure myself that the liquid of life was flowing through the pipes… and that I’d be able to take a shower. With a turn of the knob… the water came out… and I was reassured. So while feeling good, I put groceries away and was about to start planning out the ToDo List for the weekend when I felt the need to alleviate some pressure in the guts. The easiest way for me to explain the experience is… took a shit, flushed toilet, went to wash hands… no water… yay. I called ARC back… and Bruce turned around… postponing the start of his weekend.
When Bruce got here, he immediately mentioned that he thought it was something bigger than the valve and gave me the number to Sargent Artesian Wells since it was coming upon quitting time for just about everyone. Luckily, when I called Chaz from the well place he was just as awesome as everyone from ARC and said he would get there tonight at some point… which didn’t happen… but I was fine with it. Even though the experience was somewhat nerve wracking on a couple of fronts, my interaction with Bruce along with knowing what is currently going on in the world made it so I wasn’t freaking out about what the possible fixes may be. However big the issue was… however painful it may be financially… I was gonna be fine.
Long story made a little shorter… the issue was that my well pump gave up… 282 feet below my front yard! For me, it went from the relief of it being a valve to needing to pull up a pump almost three hundred feet down at the bottom of a hole… but at least I didn’t need to drill a new well or anything like that! So… not the best outcome… but no the worst! In all honesty, meeting those two guys and witnessing how they approached their jobs with their sense of responsibility to the people who call upon them when things go awry… was worth the Benjamin’s that I’m gonna be handing over at some point. They seemed like good people… good neighbors… and I’m glad I can support local business.
After Bruce couldn’t fix the issue and had gotten me in touch with the well guys, he helped me prep the well for Chaz… and then we chatted for the next hour and a half in my driveway! (He also had five gallons of my water in the back of his truck from when he was testing the valve that he gave back to me after saying that it was my water to begin with). The moment Bruce approached the wishing well and simply started pushing it over… my mind was blown. I didn’t realize it wasn’t attached to anything!… at all!… it was simply around the well and over the years earth and grass had accumulated up the base of it! I mean, I kind of understood that, but there were also wires going to the light in it… that we never used… but that didn’t stop the toppling over of it! Bruce pushed… I guided it down… and when it was on it’s side, just laying there in the front yard with the rotted parts holding on for dear life… I thought of Kateri.
Kateri hated that wishing well… she thought it was cheesy… and it is, but I have always kinda liked it… the cheesiness. Although I like it, I have also known that it has been needing to be replaced… and it was on the agenda for the summer.
When we first moved in, we had some friends helping us move wood from the lean-to to the garage. They all knew Kateri’s thoughts on the wishing well… because she told them. So… every time MPH would turn his truck around in the front yard, he would give the ol’ well a little nudge… as Kateri would be egging him on, with her arms in the air, yelling at him to keep going!
Fortunately… it never got to the point where I had to build a well that day, but it did give me that wonderful memory to look back upon with such love, fondness, and entertainment as I was dealing with the uncertainty of my current water situation. It brought back so much… and not in a bad way. I felt good as images from that day filled my thoughts. I remembered Kateri in her (my) brown flannel. I remembered David standing on the pile of wood. I remembered the tiny Milk Snake striking at MPH’s heel over by the potting shed. I remembered that that day was the first day we experienced snow… in our first home. It was a wonderful day… in a different time. And unexpectedly, running out of water on Thursday made me remember a time five years ago of stacking wood and nudging wishing wells… with people I love.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
It was a hot one this week. I mean, after nine months of winter, 85 was simply sweltering! When it hit 91… forget about it! So with the heat wave I thought I would make sure The Ladies had everything they needed to stay cool, clean, and safe. No… I did not sew little tiny face masks for their beaks (they are already quarantining themselves and have the social distancing down), but on Tuesday evening I shoveled out their shavings, put new hay in the nesting boxes, took out the vent covers in the rafters (well, where the top of the wall and rafters meet… I have no idea what that would be called… I’m a cook), clean water, new food, and even shoveled some of the shavings and shit from their little penned in area. Gotta say, nothing like cleaning a chicken coop after it has warmed up a bit!… yummy.
I felt pretty good about the shortened week due to Memorial Day… was already being productive! Until Wednesday morning when I woke up, groggily went downstairs for coffee at around 6:00am, and looked out the window to greet the day. What I saw out in the back yard was Lil’ Bitch… who should’ve been in the coop I just cleaned the evening before! When I went outside to investigate… after I put pants on… I noticed the door to the coop was open. Did I forget to latch it?!
That seems odd… I thought I remembered latching it…?! And then I saw how the eye hooks were still attached to the shingles they were screwed in to, but those shingles were now attached to the door as if something simply ripped them from the wall!… the feeder was empty and broken, and Chicken (not sure if it was Chicken #1, 2, or 3…?), was a mangled mess laying lifeless just out the coop’s door in their little yard! Yay!…. Wednesday!
At first, I simply thought it was a bear looking for food considering the door was ripped open. So, Wednesday when I got home from work the fortifying began. Basically, after I cleaned up the broken glass and tipped the window box upright… I got a bigger latch. (The perpetrator pulled the window off… it was old and part of our “church” from our wedding) The wood studs in the window opening provide too small of an opening for a bear to get through and there is wire mesh covering it so I just left it open for some fresh air. Other than that… I thought I was good. 
I even taped some Pop-Its to the steps to try and deter the visitor! And then Wednesday night happened.
It was around 11:30pm when I decided to just pop my head out the back door and shine my headlamp on the coop to see if ol’ Smokey (although, I feel he’s more of a western/Rocky Mountain bear) had come around again. What I was met with were two little beady eyes staring back at me from the top step of the coop as it paused from it’s task of ripping the shingles off around the new latch I installed on the front door! No, it wasn’t a bear… it was too small. And in all honesty, if it was a bear that was getting into the coop?… I’d be ok with it. But noooooo…. it was… was… a RACCOON!… little bastards. And Rocky the Raccoon was going to town on the front of my coop trying to get to that food! It wasn’t really small… quite large actually… kinda disturbingly large… and the Pop-its didn’t deter shit! So then the fortifying began again… under the cover of darkness. (well, with lamps and the light from the garage)
In all honesty, I was a little high and the thought of it maybe being a raccoon with rabies or a fisher cat crossed my mind, so as I ran back and forth from the garage grabbing supplies… I also carried a short, flat head shovel in case I was attacked! I mean, I would periodically shine my light into the woods and those two little beady eyes would still be staring back at me just waiting to pounce!…. or for me to leave so it could get back to business.
I felt a little bad using circular saws and impact drills when it was past the one-two (midnight) for my neighbors’ sake, but the task at hand, the one that took priority at that moment in time was for me to make sure Lil’ Bitch, Chicken, and Chicken were safe. I don’t consider them pets… they’re chickens… but they are living animals that I now have the sole responsibility of making sure they have a good life… a safe life. These chickens were part of Kateri’s “Hopes n Dreams” and they remind me of that every single morning I go to open their little door along with every evening when I go to shut it, make sure they are comfortably roosted, and tell them, “Goodnight”. (Yes, I say “Good morning, Ladies!” and “Goodnight, Ladies!” everyday) So, although I felt sorta bad for using power tools when most people are sleeping… I didn’t feel THAT bad.
I still need to get the coop looking a little better, but I feel it has been secured enough to keep the larger animals out for the time being. The experience definitely threw a wrench in the week I had planned, but I’ve learned that we can only plan on so much while dealing with the things that pop up… which sometimes, we simply can’t plan for. The chickens provide me with an attachment to Kateri and I love them because of that (mostly Lil’ Bitch… she’s my favorite… it’s gonna be me and her on the homestead!), but they can also be a hard reminder of the life I had just two years ago… and of April 22, 2018 when all of my “Hopes n Dreams” were thrown out the window.
CHICKS!… 2016
On Tuesday night, I lost a chicken and over the next couple of days I did what I needed to do to try and make their life better. Today… this morning… I went out to the coop with my coffee in hand, opened their little door, and said, “Good morning, Ladies!” as a few chickens came popping out the opening… and one of them was Lil’ Bitch! Kateri ordered eight chickens four years ago. This morning there were three. A lot can happen in four years, five years, seven years, twenty years or whatever. A lot can change. We need to know how to adapt to those changes… or at the least we need to try… because Life is still all around even when Death reshapes our worlds.
We bought our Five Different Shades of Orange 1973 Super Beetle at a garage sale in Bristol back in ’02 or 3. That kinda makes it sound like we were rolling in cash and just picking up cars as we were out and about enjoying a Saturday, but it actually took a few weeks to make sure we had the money… and Bob (the seller) was having a fair amount of separation anxiety… so it was a process. He would come into the restaurant Kateri and I were managing to grab a bite and we would chat to get acquainted with each other a bit more so that he could feel comfortable knowing his little bug was going to a good home. We feel it did.
It was one of those days where we were simply out and about driving around Vermont, watching shit go by, and hitting some yard sales…Kateri loved “Yardsaling”. The Super Beetle was parked on the road with a for sale sign in the window, so we started the whole kicking the tires, inspecting underneath, checking out the rusty spots, and dreaming of what it would be like to use for one of our favorite pass times… smoking weed (with a couple of Road Sodas back in the day) and driving the back roads of the Green Mountains… together.
The inspection and dreaming was all going along fine until I had decided to roll a window down… and it didn’t go back up… and we hadn’t met the owner yet! Yup, Kateri was pretty proud of me at that point! Well, really all it did was force us (me) to find the owner and have a conversation about the vehicle… because I might’ve broken it. When we found Bob we told him we were checking out the car and his first response was, “You didn’t roll down the window, did you?”. Yup…. proud.
We had a nice conversation, checked out some of the other stuff he was selling, purchased an iron gate that we carted around with us for years (not sure where that ended up!), and set up a time to take the bug for a test drive. Of all of our experiences with that little beetle, the test drive was my favorite. Kateri had never been in… or at least driven…(?) a Volkswagen Bug before and we figured that even if we didn’t buy the car, she at least got to have that experience! I’ll tell you… from the moment she saw that little, Five Different Shades of Orange Super Beetle… with a sunroof!… it always put a smile on her face. To be able to clearly remember her enthusiasm when she got into that car, fired it up and heard that distinct Bug sound as she cautiously took off down the road with the windshield six inches from her face, it makes me happy to this day… even as I can feel the tears on my cheeks. (I guess that’s how you know it was a good thing)
I love all the memories I have of Kateri and I with that little buggy. It was an adventure every time we pulled away from our little house in the hills… to drive around other hills… never knowing if it was gonna start up again once you stopped for gas, a bite to eat, or to just take in a view. There was one time we decided to putz down south a tiny ways to where Kateri’s little sister was working for the summer at a kid’s camp. Luckily it was a beautiful day because at every stop we had to wait, let the engine cool down (I think. Again, I’m a cook and not a mechanic!… but believe those engines were air cooled.), and hope that it would start so that we could get to the next point on the trip… and eventually home! It was a great lesson in patience.
The license plate! Oh my gosh… I loved our license plate. It was the first time we got vanity plates. (Are they still called that? Personalized?… whatever) At first, Kateri wanted to have some sort of variation of Pickin’ Apples… her code phrase for sex when she was younger. But we weren’t able to get one of those. We live in Vermont… there are a lot of “Apple” people here… so we started brainstorming other ideas. As much as I like to think it was “our“ Five Different Shades of Orange ’73 Super Beetle… it was really Kateri’s. Once we realized her nickname would fit on the plate, we just thought it would be appropriate! And then we found out THAT was taken. So what do you do?… You add a number to the end! Yup… people would see us puttering around The Green Mountains, smiles ear to ear, in a bright orange bubble with green rectangles on either end that said… SQUIRT1..!
Although “Squirt” is what a lot of people call Kateri, we got a kick out of thinking about how drivers who were following us would interpret it!
When we moved to Colorado in 2007 we had to get rid of it. A friend said he could hold onto it for us and used his ex-girlfriend’s AAA membership to pull it out of it’s winter storage space… tarped in the woods… and transport it north to his place. It wasn’t in too great of shape at that point, the rust was kinda running rampant. As the tow truck guy was slowly using the winch to pull it up the angled flatbed… the battery fell through the floor! It’s sorta sad thinking about how she never hit the road again, but it’s kinda fun thinking about how our friends would sometimes pack into that broken down and stationary Bug after they had a few drinks, pass around a joint, talk, and reminisce about the good times. Kateri got to have that experience once when she came back to help a friend out. I love that image… Kateri smiling and happy in her ’73 Super Beetle… with people she loves.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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I didn’t go to bed last night until the wee hours of this morning. I knew I was probably gonna be up late since I wasn’t gonna be working today. I decided early on in this “New Life” that I wasn’t gonna work on the anniversary of Kateri’s death… ever… and I’ve made it two years in a row! As a widower, I’ve had to deal with the loss of Kateri every single day I wake up, but as time goes by, day to day life kinda turns into this new normal and I’ve gotten used to balancing the weight of not having Kateri next to me and all of the things that come along with that… and figuring out how to “live” and function in this new world without being an emotional and psychological plane wreck! I feel as though there have been a couple areas of turbulence and maybe a bit of engine trouble over the last two years, but I’m still in the air!… even if I fly pretty low sometimes. One day… I hope to be in a space where I am soooo excited about life that I simply NEED to buzz the tower!… even if Goose is pleading with me not to. One day Goose… one day.
Initially I planned on taking three days off for Kateri’s anniversary so that I could do something out in the world like go to the ocean and stay at the dumpy little hotel, which we loved, and was right on the water. We got a kick out of the place when we found the shape of an iron burned into the carpet in the entry way of room 318 (I don’t actually know the room number… it’s the one on the top floor on the end… in case you were wondering). But The Rona has kinda put the kibosh on any plans like that so I was kinda forced to decide to stick around the schoolhouse… which I’m also completely okay with. I mean, this really is the place where I feel the closest to Kateri because it’s filled with all sorts of her Hopes n Dreams. I just wish there was more time for her to experience more of them.
Two years. Jesus… what the fuck…?! (sorry Jesus, just using you as an exclamation… I don’t blame you. We’ve been warned you work in mysterious ways! At least, that’s what I hear… I don’t actually go to church or follow you on any of your social media platforms… but I dig the message you were delivering. It’s just a fair amount of your followers that I have an issue with… they can get a little freaky!) Although at points it feels like Kateri died yesterday, the fact of the matter is that for 730 days (31?… was there a Leap Year or some shit?) I’ve had to learn how to live life without her. I’ve had to learn how to live My Life using the lessons that she taught me instead of witnessing her actions. She cut the path through the woods… I just need to maintain it and see where I can create new ones. (some bushwhacking required)
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
ps… it feels odd not really ever writing specifically about Kateri and all the beautiful things that made her such a unique and loving person. Maybe my next post will be about her… and not me and my shit.
My Dearest Kateri,
First… Happy Birthday! You’ve always loved your birthday being on St. Patrick’s Day… it might’ve been the Irish in you. I love how you would make sure to have a bottle of Bailey’s around for today… usually starting the morning off with a “little” in your coffee… until the time came to start drinking it out of one of the two tiny plastic beer steins. I especially loved it when you would fill up both of the miniature mugs, hand one to someone you loved, clink them together as well as two small plastic mugs could clink, and celebrate simply being there together on your birthday.
Well babe, I’ll be honest… I had a little emotional breakdown just a second ago, decided to run to the store for some papers and on the way back I realized what it was I needed to say to you. I wanted to write to you about all the fun St. Patty’s Day/Birthday adventures we had at the ocean, in pubs, with friend’s and family… or just the two of us, but I’m not going to. Those are all simply wonderful memories… which I have. What I don’t have… is you. And today…. I’m having a hard time with that.
Since just under two years ago, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this alone. To fill you in, we currently have something happening in our world that will ultimately touch every living person on this planet… in one way or another. It’s called COVID-19 now, but get this… at first it was called Coronavirus! I know!… CORONA-VIRUS! I thought you would get a kick outta that. Although there were a plethora of beer jokes when it first came to light just a couple of months ago… and I may have made some remarks about licking door knobs to get out of work… aaaand I know you would still be making inappropriate jokes (at times) about it to ease the anxiety… it’s actually a very unsettling time and serious thing.
This is where you come into play. When I drove home from getting my papers, I looked around at the open fields, the sparsely filled Park n Ride, a family in a four door pick-up truck at the stop sign waiting to turn, everything felt… different. I’ve gotta tell you Kateri, when I heard your last breath… I heard my world change. Now, as I face a changing world, I simply wish I never heard that silence and that you were with me now. I wish I had our life again. I wish you were here to stay in comfy clothes, drink Bailey’s, and watch horrible movies on your birthday because everything is shut down. Hell, maybe we would be at an empty hotel on the ocean making cappuccinos in our room because we got it for dirt cheap! Once again, your cappuccino would probably have Bailey’s, but it doesn’t really matter what we would be doing… I just wish you were here with me because you always made uncomfortable times better… or uncomfortable in a different way… a better way!
I hope you are having a wonderful time however you are spending your birthday. I have all sorts of scenarios playing in my head, but my minds eye can only focus on your smile… that big, innocent, genuine smile. I want you to know that our friends have been reaching out today showing us they love us. It’s been nice, but I haven’t really responded to anyone yet… I’ve kinda just been thinking about you. Well, and dealing with work… and a chimney guy!… but mostly you.
You were my partner in everything… in life. When life got crazy… as it is right now… I looked to you… and I still do, Kateri. I want you to know that. You taught me so much. You provided me with direction… with purpose… with guidance. You may not be standing next to me or sleeping upstairs or at the farm or in the garden, but you are always with me.
I’ve been much more emotional today than I expected to be… you would have a blast yelling, “CRYYY!” at me… but I just wanted to send you a note… which made me more emotional… so I’m gonna stop now and say, “I love you, Kateri. Happy St. Patty’s Day and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!… you would be 46.” (because I know you still aren’t paying attention to your age)
Love,
Lippy
ps… Coronavirus: Reason #317 that trees make better neighbors.
Today I’m writing what I was gonna write tomorrow about yesterday, but I realized the date and the whole “Widower Day” was kind of a funny run of two’s so I thought why not tonight?! (I don’t know why… I just happen to like numbers. Yup, as Kateri would say… I suffer from O.D.D…. it spells odd.)
At work yesterday, I made the comment that if I didn’t love my house as much as I do, if Kateri and I had just bought some random home in the burbs instead of our cute ass and drafty little red schoolhouse… well, I probably would’ve sold it and hit the open road! But that’s not the case, so I’m still here at my little red schoolhouse home and on the drive home yesterday I had an experience that simply made me happy about my current living condition.
It was getting dark when I turned at the lake. Not like dark dark… just kinda dark. About three minutes in, I saw two dimly lit red lights moving at a slower rate than I was moving.
I couldn’t really make out the shape of the car, but I could tell the lights were the taillights of on old Volvo station wagon… and then made the assumption that it was John plugging along in front of me. This is where I felt a little bit of the warmth that “community” and “neighbors” provide once in a while. I loved the fact that before I could actually see any of the particulars, I could tell who it was. It made me feel like I was driving “Home”. After literally saying how I would’ve “Hit the open road” just a couple of hours earlier, it made me realize that I do still really love where I live… and the fact that I know my neighbors. I don’t know most of them very well, but each of them have come into my (or our) life at one point or the other. Some I wish we (I) got to spend more time with… I guess I still can. Some, I’m fine with just a wave here and there. Either way, it’s comforting knowing the people on my Home Road. It eases the loneliness… and that little experience helped fill a tiny bit of the emptiness I feel every time I head back north. It was a little thing. It was random. It was moment specific. But it was significant to me on an insignificant drive back to the schoolhouse.
When I pulled into the driveway, pulled up to the garage, put the car in park and set the parking break.. I just sat there for a moment. I have this thing where sometimes I can’t get out of the car right away… usually because I see those big ass schoolhouse windows to my left and it just reminds me of all of the “Hopes and Dreams” Kateri and I had with our lives and our home… this was one of those times. I was starting to get a little emotional when the song Dance Monkey by Tones and I came on. I had heard this song quite a few times and have just always really enjoyed it. I’d like to think that I’m sorta up on current music, but I don’t have TV and am not on the internet too much so I don’t really know about any of the artists… or what they even look like! This song, however, has just been growing on me so I decided to sit and listen… in my driveway.
It made me really think about Kateri for a couple of reasons. I thought of her dancing in the passenger seat as we would drive down the highway… or be sitting in our driveway. I thought about how she would’ve really enjoyed movin’ to this particular song. It made me think about how Kateri faced the news and fucked up reality that she had cancer… in her brain… and her plan was to dance the cancer away. She always described it as her “Dance” with cancer… and she danced beautifully with the asshole partner who unexpectedly cut in.
As I thought about these things and others, I wondered if I could maybe play this song on the guitar…? So, as I sat there in the driveway… in my “cute” little Jeep… I pulled out my phone and searched guitar chords for the song that was currently vibrating loose change in the cup holder. I saw that it was basically four chords and when the song ended, I went inside, rolled a joint, turned on Youtube to check out the official video, lit a fire, lit the joint… and just enjoyed the song for the second time in 15 minutes.
I couldn’t really tell anything about the artist from the official video, so I started searching live performances. This is where I need to insert the “Oh my God!”… because what I saw was simply amazing. The first video I found was her U.S. debut when she played on Jimmy Fallon… and I couldn’t get enough of it… of her! I’m not gonna get too much into it except to say that I found her to be absolutely inspiring… which then turned into another two hours filled with nothing but Tones and I… and Dance Monkey being played over and over again as I searched for more and more live performances. It was such a “not what I thought” experience that I couldn’t get over it! As I watched her perform… it made me wanna root for her! Of course, seeing her perform gave me the feeling that she is gonna have a shit ton of people who are gonna wanna listen to her music, learn about her story, and support her! It was just one of those pleasant surprises that come along once in a while. Check her out!
Yup, it was just one of those days. And, in all honesty… I finished writing this today… because I didn’t finish it yesterday. Instead, I fell asleep on the couch.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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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.)
For me, it’s weird doing things with someone who isn’t Kateri… but that’s the whole balancing “New Life” and “Old Life”. I mean, I still wanna experience life… sometimes with someone else… sometimes by myself… but mainly I don’t wanna keep trying to recreate the experiences I had with Kateri because those times are simply memories of a different life now… even if they are really, really good memories. I want new experiences… for my new life. Experiences like going to the Peabody Essex Museum or the Salem Witch Museum. I still wanna walk around towns and look at the architecture or old ass homes where the doors don’t have any right angles anymore. I wanna go into magic shops and get in trouble for taking pictures because they sell REALLY important and magical things. I wanna have fun and say things like, “These are the trees where they hung all the witches!” when walking through a town green… not knowing if there was any truth in the statement! I still wanna live… life… and focus on “The Good” things once in a while… and push “The Bad” to the side for a bit… here and there.
I was gonna go into some other things I’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks like the fact that I’ve started going through the house… slowly… or the fact that I’ve started my book! (an even slower start… but I’ve got a file folder with words in it!) But, it’s my Sunday on a Monday and I’ve got things to do. All in all, I feel I’ve been doing okay. Going through the cabinet in the living room was rewarding. It’s interesting what you find in boxes. This one had old computers (no, I didn’t turn them on to look at pics or anything… although I wanted to), CD’s from decades ago, cords cords cords, an old picture of me from 2007, a ticket from our NY City Christmas in 2012, toys my mom gave Kateri over the years,…. and underwear. Yup, you just never know what you’ll find!… but you’ve gotta open the box first to see what’s in it! Otherwise, it’s just a box taking up space.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.ps… You can follow the blog if you want! I promise! Unless you’re a dick… then you can follow some other blog.
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?!
I planned on going through the kitchen on Sunday since my original plan to go see a buddy in AZ fell through and I was still gonna take the time off… because I need it. When I knew I wasn’t going to some strange land filled with sand… and where the sun seems to be a heck of a lot closer… I wanted to take advantage of the time to get to some things that I just simply haven’t been able to get to yet. The kitchen seemed like a good place to start because it is also a space that is functional… I use it everyday.
Now I’ve just gotta say it went a WHOLE lot slower than I expected… and I’m actually not even done!… but the kitchen is clean (top of the fridge and all!) and I was able to go through a few cabinets and cupboards. The fridge… and everything on it… was the big one. It’s amazing what we put on refrigerators… the memories we magnet to the thin metal keeping all our shit cold. Mine kinda covered the gambit. It was dotted with pictures of family from years ago, recipes in Kateri’s handwriting, little notes, menus from local sandwich shops, magnets from our travels, wedding invitations and snapshots of good times! It also had Kateri’s pill regiment schedule on it that our nurse friend had made her when Kateri got discharged from the hospital… when her colon gave out halfway through “Cancer Time” because of the immunotherapy or some shit. Ya… I think I’m at the point where I don’t need to see that every time I go in the fridge to grab a Stewart’s Orange n Cream soda! I also stumbled upon a fortune, hidden beneath other papers, that word used to “Learn Chinese” was…….. disease. Yay!
Although I didn’t actually finish what I planned to finish in the kitchen… it is further along than it was on Satruday! I’ve learned that I can’t put unreasonable pressure on myself to bang some of these things out. Some things will just take time due to those constraints in time, emotional attachment, and… well… life. For me, I’m happy that I started the process and sorta have a game plan going forward. I made a big dent in something that has been nagging at my brain for a bit… and that feels good. Now I’m off to round up all “Important Papers” scattered around the house in various bags, boxes, cabinets, and closets… and I’m gonna show them their permanent home in the filing cabinet! (the one Kateri found on the side of the road!)
Widower Notes n Thought:
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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.)
Back to the Therapist. I’m not gonna get into the whole road that led up to me seeing a Therapist because that could take a while! (I mean, I know I got up early… but no.) And… it’s not really important. I mean (again), it is… but it isn’t. For me, the important part is that I am taking the steps necessary to keep my life moving in a direction I can live with. After six hundred and whatever goddamn days I’m also just simply…. tired… and taking advantage of every opportunity to push me in a positive direction in hopes of getting to a better space. I mean (third time), all in all… on average… in the grand scheme of things… I’m hanging in there… fair to midland, I would say… but I’m tired of that feeling of “sustaining” or “keeping my head above water”. I want growth in all aspects of my life and in who I am. I want to be able to see the beauty that surrounds me… or that is on the other side of the windshield… and not just recognize it for being beautiful. This is one of those opportunities.
So… my approach to finding a Therapist…? As with every experience in this new life, I wanted this one to be as close to how I envision it to go as possible. I already had an idea in my head of what I felt I would be comfortable with. I thought about what type of environment would be calming and warm, the location, the type of person I wanted to have this experience with and all that jive. Fortunately, so far it has worked out!
I went through EAP at work and got two referrals. Yes.. I googled each of them. The first one was closer to my home, but there were other areas they specialized in like “Yoga”… and all I want to do is talk to someone… who focuses on talking. I can get 100% behind all the “Namaste” stuff… positive energy/vibrations/loop o’ bliss/etc., but I didn’t feel I wanted it as part of this experience, so I moved on to the other one.
I couldn’t find much info on… we’ll say “Betty”… so I gave her a call. The moment I heard her voice I knew I had found my person! (I’m calling her “Betty” for a reason… she sounded consoling and supportive… and… well… “seasoned”.) I instantly felt like I could talk with her. She had this welcoming sound to her that put any of my concerns about the process at ease. It felt… good. Aaaaaand….. when we actually met at her house for the first session…. it turned out to be exactly the experience I was looking for! Betty’s stature, demeanor, her home, her history, her voice and words, even the road to her house were all fantastic parts of this new experience… making a new memory… in this “New Life”.
There isn’t much more to really say about that first session… it was mainly a get to know ya/why we’re here type thing. I was gonna do just three sessions to start, but as we were talking I realized what this session basically was and thought a couple more would probably be beneficial. So, I’ve decided to commit to five sessions and then take stock. The first three are gonna be kinda rapid fire (once a week) and then I wanna space out the next couple. What it comes down to is… for me to get to a point where I am happy with where I am, who I am, and how I’m doing it… I’m gonna need to be open to trying new things! Fortunately, this “new thing” has so far been nothing but… encouraging!
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
So…. wow. That kinda snuck up on me! I’ve had quite a few things on my mind as of late and have been kinda trying to deal with some “New Life” shit… “Old Life” shit… “Emotional” shit…… and snow. I guess I’ve simply been thinking a lot about life in general and wasn’t really doing the whole “2019 in Review” thing… until last night… at around 6:30/7ish… when it dawned on me that there were quite a few things that happened in 2019!
I was gonna throw out the ol’ “There were some good things, there were some blah blah blah things…”, but that was basically everyone’s year! I kinda figure that that’s just how it goes..?! And then I thought about how our lives’ aren’t just generalizations. They aren’t that simple. In the 365 days that I woke up in 2019 there were definitely ups and downs, but there were things… specific things… that stand out. So yup… here’s a New Year’s Random Widower Notes n Thoughts list for 2020. (yay!… and an almost ten minute video about a whole lot of not much at the end…!):
Random Widower Notes n Thoughts… June 2, 2020:
ps… I started this post on New Year’s Day 2020. Since then… I have had to use the term, “One appointment at a time.” again… but for the first time with a particular person… someone I love very much… more than most. Luckily, she’s one of the strongest, determined, and fearless in the face of adversity type of people I know… and she’ll (we’ll) get through this. Life doesn’t give us the option of when we need to deal with some stuff… it’s not in our control. What is in our control is how we approach it… how we face it… how we are going to let it exist in our life. It can beat us down… or we can accept the situation and try to take the best steps forward. I’m a “fixer”… I want to fix things as quickly as possible so that I can move on to the next thing. Sometimes… I simply can’t fix it. But I’ll do whatever I can to make it… a little bit better.
On the way to work yesterday, Christmas Eve, the realization hit me that I think this is the first Christmas in my life that I will be waking up in an empty house… alone. No one already drinking coffee downstairs. No one sneaking little wrapped packages into old socks hanging by the wood stove. No one making phone calls seeing when other people will be swinging by. I can’t smell the oil being heated up for the round upon round of fried dough. Nope… it’s pretty much just silence here at the schoolhouse. I did manage to fill the air with the smell of coffee… because this day needs to start one way or the other… and I really, really need it!
Although I talk about how I’m alone this morning… I sorta planned it that way. Two Christmases ago I was in Idaho spending it with my family because we had found out my mother has cancer and Kateri and I were going to spend it with them… then we got the diagnosis of melanoma in the brain on December 19th, 2017… and Kateri stayed home… alone. Which sounds like a sad situation with this limited information (and it was), but it was exactly how it should’ve gone.
Last Christmas, my sister-in-law was here… and it was good… but she’s not here this year and once I knew she wasn’t gonna be coming (I knew pretty early on) I made the plan to just have a Christmas morning to myself and to see how it goes… alone. 
I’ve also come to the conclusion that as for now, that whole “alone” feeling isn’t gonna go away for a while. Yes, there are people in life… people that I care deeply about… friends and family that care deeply about me, but when I lost Kateri… even though I may not have lost everything… I did lose that comfort you have in life knowing that there is that one person… that one special person who will always be there for you… who will guide you, love you, support you, laugh with you… and hold you when you just need to be held. For almost twenty years, I never really felt alone… but I do now. Not because I’m sitting in bed on my computer instead of taking bong hits for baby Jesus. Not because there isn’t the smell of oil heating. Not because sister-in-laws went to Jamaica or because friend’s and family are miles and miles away. It’s not even because it’s Christmas Morning. It’s simply because Kateri is not here… and I wish she was.
This is my second Christmas as a widower and I just gotta say… it’s weird. I wouldn’t say harder or more emotional or anything… just different. Unfortunately, life has been challenging as of late and I just haven’t really gotten into the Holiday Spirit as much as I was hoping for… but I’m trying to force myself into it this morning… and the coffee helps!
Yes, I may feel alone and sorta lost… but it’s still Christmas Morning and I want to make the most of it. I want to connect with friends and family. I want to open packages and cards from people I love. I want to share gifts with special people in my life. I want to laugh, share stories, and reminisce. I want to push all the ugly, unfortunate, and complicated challenges out for a day and just relax with my coffee by the fire, some Christmas tunes, and most likely a movie along the lines of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. Life will be there tomorrow when I wake up for work, but today… it’s Christmas… and I’m gonna try to focus on the things that I have come to love about the Holiday Season… even though they have become harder to see.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Well… I guess it’s not a tradition this year! And I’m okay with that. Yes, I will have fried dough on Christmas again in the future… (I wish I had some now!)… but I’m also learning about how my Christmases (holidays/anniversaries/weekends) are gonna go… and how I would like to spend them in this new life.
It’s a big, complicated planet filled with a whole bunch of humans… who are complicated. It doesn’t matter spiritual beliefs or traditions or backgrounds or placement on the globe… it’s basically try to be a part of “The Good” in the world. We can always start small and just try to be a part of “The Good” in other people’s lives… as we go through our’s.
Awe… Monday morning. One good thing about being a cook… Monday mornings usually don’t mean shit when it comes to the work week! And when your work week starts on a Tuesday or Thursday… well, it just doesn’t seem quite as bad. I… for one… have always enjoyed what I do for a living so My Mondays never really fazed me. I liked going to work… I loved being in a kitchen. It makes your job… and life… a bit more enjoyable when you don’t look at the start of the work week as the bottom of a hill you need to climb for the next 5 days! Of course, since Kateri died… I now have that Monday Morning feeling almost every day I wake up. I just want more time to put towards myself, my home, and the new future that life decided to wait until I was 43 to show me… when I thought I had a good handle on what the future held. Luckily, I still enjoy what I do… where I do it… and who I do it with… so that helps. Either way… it’s 9:20 on a Monday morning… and I’m still in bed. So….. ha ha.
The long and short of Thanksgiving… A lazy morning with the Macy’s Day Parade, the day spent with friends that I love, entertaining situations, fun conversations, good food, the meeting of new people, and lasagna. I also brought a “date” to Thanksgiving Dinner… did I mention dinner was held at our friend’s house where Kateri and I first lived when we moved down here? Or that our friend is also the mother of our other friend… a dear friend… the friend who married Kateri and I? (he’s one of Kateri’s pocket people) Did I mention how I sometimes can’t stop my brain from swirling as I try to figure out how to balance old life/new life collisions? Yup… I put a lot of weight on the situation. And in hindsight… too much. I feel that seems to be the case with a fair amount of things.
Now, I feel the need to mention that my “date” happened to be a friend of mine who I’ve spent quite a bit of time with over the last year and she probably knows more about what I’m personally going through than anyone else. Basically… for me… I’m glad my first holiday with someone other than Kateri was with someone I felt comfortable going through that situation with! For all the anxiety I put on myself thinking about this or that… it turns out that when you are surrounded by people you love… good people who love you back… you can take quite a bit of worry off the table. Well that… and being somewhat “grown up” and having the ability to have “adult” conversations helps everyone involved!
Yup, Thanksgiving came and went… and now it’s Monday. I’m getting my chimney swept today and it’s still trying to snow, so I’m gonna get dressed, go and shovel some of the white stuff away from where I think these guys are gonna put their ladders, do some chores, play a little guitar, be responsible and take care of some Grown-Up stuff, and get ready for Tuesday… which is really My Monday.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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I wanted to do a bloggery at some point this weekend because Friday the 22nd was Kateri’s monthly death date anniversary… and today is my birthday… yay! I took yesterday off and it’s been a good couple of days so far… a lot of thinking, relaxing, and remembering. But I don’t feel like throwing myself into an emotional three hours of writing about crap, so this morning… I made a video on the way back to bed from getting my Birthday Morning Coffee… and never got back into bed.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
So here I am on Tuesday evening, rambling on about something I did… which made me feel somewhat silly… so why not share it with the world…?! (or with whoever can find it in the sea of digital memories.)
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Kateri and I weren’t exactly “texters”… or really even cell phone users, but for some reason I had started texting her when the time was 1:23 or 12:34 or 3:45 or 2:34… you get the idea. I’ve always enjoyed numbers. At the ranch where Kateri and I met, there really wasn’t much to do in the winter if you weren’t working, or snowmobiling, or snowshoeing… or any of the other things you do when there’s 5 feet of snow out the window… with another 4 feet on top of that. So I watched movies here and there, put together puzzles, hung out with the other seasonal riff raff, and read a few books. Some of those books were filled with stories, some were filled with history, and some were filled with exciting tid bits of information like how the Fibonacci Sequence shows up in the arrangement of the seeds of a sunflower. Over the years I have read less and less about “math” as my interests turned towards other things… like cooking, guitar, and hanging out with Kateri… and now I think I’ve dumbed myself down to where I simply get excited when I look at the clock and it reads 4:56! Which I guess has nothing to do with equations or mathematics… but it’s a fun little observance that has absolutely no real significance in my day to day life… and I guess I thought Kateri needed to know when the numbers lined up!
There are so many little things that pop into my head throughout the day that remind me of life with Kateri. Lately, for one reason or another, the memories have been coming in a bit more frequently. They aren’t all big memories of exciting times, or holidays, or those special moments that are only shared between the two people experiencing them… some are little tiny random blips that show up and turn into bigger blips… like texting Kateri 12:34. I don’t know how many times I texted her when the numbers were all lined up on the clock… but I do remember that once in a great while I would receive a text from her and all it would say is 1:23… and it put a smile on my face. I knew the only reason she was doing it was because she knew I got a strange little kick out of it and looking back on it, it’s just one of those little things in my past life that now has a whole bunch more attached to it. It’s kinda like these memories are little tug boats pulling twenty years of experiences behind them with all the emotions piled up high on the barge. Once that tug boat gets to it’s destination… it’s just a matter of time until those emotions need to be unloaded from the barge… and I never know if it’s gonna get unloaded quickly… or take longer than expected!… and there’s always another tug boat coming up the river with an emotional barge in tow.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
It provides me relief. When she first died and I realized I was playing almost every day… I bought myself a new guitar… a new sound. It provided me change, but with the comfort of familiarity. This year, I thought I would take advantage of my solitude and buy myself an amplifier because of the whole “I’m not gonna bother anyone”… and plus I needed a little personal growth with my hobby. I wanted a few more options with how my “Escape Time” sounded as I searched for relief from the swirling thoughts… and it has been working. Like everything else in this new life, I try to fill time and space with people and experiences that make me feel good… with the hope of dampening down all the crap. Unfortunately… the crap is always there. But fortunately… I can sometimes swap it out for a few moments of “The Good” in the world through walks in the woods with neighbors, conversations on the couch, Stewart’s Orange Soda, Ben and Jerry’s… or simply the strumming of strings.
It’s a hard memory for me because I remember not being very sympathetic to her headache. It was before we knew what was going on and I thought it was just a headache that would go away in time… but it never did… and I’m reminded of that morning by stupid studded snow tires… two years later. (I’ve written this down before and I just find it interesting how it’s one of those recurring memories that is time specific. I wonder if this memory is gonna visit me every year when the weather changes and the people start freaking out with the first forecast snow. I swear… people lose their minds!)ps… I thought it would be cool to post this blog at 12:34… but then I had to tend to the fire and missed it!
Yup… just the vid. (I’m trying to be hip and cool by shortening the word video… but I don’t think it works. Saying “vid” just doesn’t sound right!… and it looks funny.)
I established a draft! Yup… it’s pretty exciting! Not like a draft in the writing sense of the word… with my new woodstove and chimney. If you don’t know what I’m talking about… you’re missing out on one of the best things about cold weather… a hot spot to stand next to! It’s been kind of a fun challenge dialing in the new stove, but also kinda frustrating when I can’t get it to burn as efficiently as it should. Plus, when it’s 26 degrees out, like this morning… I wanna be all toasty and warm!
This morning, after I woke up on the couch at 4:37am (next to a pile of empty KitKat and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup wrappers)… and then woke up in bed at 7:42am… I went down to get the fire going for the day. I had planned on spending today doing home chores and getting to know the knew stove since we are in a “cooling trend” right now.
You know, do some shit outside… clean and organize the garage, take down window boxes, try to leaf blow the leaves from my yard to the empty land across the road without “Sunday Traffic” seeing me!… while periodically coming in to stoke the fire to keep The Schoolhouse nice and warm. It’s the first day in a bit that I would have this opportunity so I thought I would just go with it, go slow, relax, and enjoy the Sunday Morning doing a few things that would make me happy… like drinking coffee in bed as I hear the tick of cast iron warming my home.
I’m excited to spend some time outside, too. It’ll feel good to get the yard buttoned up for winter. By next Friday, the temps are gonna start dipping into the teens, so I also feel like time is running out to take care of some of these things before the snow flies! It doesn’t hurt that it feels good to look at it once it’s all cleaned up… instant gratification! Accomplishment… I guess. And it’s always refreshing to be out in the fresh, cool air… with chickens.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Sometimes… I feel like I’m chasing a sun that has already set. Sometimes… I just wanna stop, sit, and wait for it to come back around… but I’m forced to keep moving through the darkness. (Don’t worry, I’ve got a headlamp… the batteries just might happen to be a bit weak right now!)
It was the Halloween of… ummm… 2003 maybe..? Could’ve been 2004 or 5. Well, up to 2007… but one of those years. I know we were living in South Starksboro in our cute little cottage with a loft and a woodstove… it was pretty cool. (Our first stand alone home together… rented from a couple who became very special to both Kateri and I… and who still are. It’s weird to think back at those memories right now. I wish I could get everything that is bombarding my brain right now down on paper… but I can’t… and I’m trying to get to what it is that I wanted to write about! But now… I’m thinking about how Kateri called our back yard the Dagobah System. You know?!… Yoda n shit… and it kinda was.) Anyways, I know it was within that range because on one Halloween we used the tiny bedroom downstairs and the loft you couldn’t stand up in… where we slept… up the ladder… as the places to “design” and make our costumes for the evening. We weren’t going out. We weren’t having a party. Well, I guess we never really had parties… but the point is, we were just gonna be hanging out at home that night and Kateri had a knack for coming up with some fun things to do.
I don’t quite remember much of the evening or exactly what time it was or anything… it was dark… and I was probably drunk, but we gave ourselves “x” amount of time to get into costume and to see what each other came up with! It was fun!… and funny!… and somewhat disturbing! I had made a pillow case into a huge face, tucked it into jeans that were halfway down my thighs…ish, and might’ve made arms… but I’m not sure about that! I do know that my own arms were crossed above my head with my elbows pressed into the corners of the pillow case to keep the face… well… a face. I had seen it in elementary school at an assembly or something and figured… we’ve got pillow cases!… pants!… and markers! I could pull it off pretty easily and it would be kinda silly! Kateri almost died laughing as I… or Big Head Person… ran around 450 square feet while throwing in some dancing and jumping. Yup… it was fun.
But it was Kateri’s costume that got me thinking about that particular Halloween this evening. I don’t even really remember her whole outfit… there was a lot of black. What I remember is her face. It… was… FREAKY! Definitely creepy! A little shocking… and somewhat… interesting. She had done the Scotch Tape thing all over her face making her skin look almost sorta burnt… old and wrinklyish… just simply all fucked up! We couldn’t get over how weird it looked! It almost freaked us out!… but mostly we couldn’t stop laughing and talking about how gross it was! And her nose! Oh my gosh… I almost forgot about the pig nose! Wow… I’m glad I haven’t forgotten about that! Actually, I’m glad I remembered that Halloween… this Halloween. I wasn’t expecting that!
For me, it was fun being surprised. Kateri showed and taught me sooooo many things in my life. Some of those things were personally life changing… they played their part in making me into who I am today. But it’s the normal everyday experiences that carry the most weight. I was always amazed by how seemingly easy she could provide joy to someone else. It wasn’t effortless… but it was simply who she was.
The memory that began this whole thought train was Kateri making Halloween decorations with nieces and nephews… and then me wondering if I wanted to pull out those decorations tonight because we still have them… but I’m not gonna. I just like that I have these memories… my memories… of Kateri being Kateri… and her saying, “Bloody Bloody Fangs!” on Halloween.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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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.
Eighteen months. I don’t even really know what to say… which may come as a surprise to some people who know me!… but there is just so much involved it’s hard for me to corral all my thoughts on the subject! Soooooo, I decided to revert back to a list of thoughts that have popped in the noggin of this widower as I remember the last year and a half without the person who I expected to live the rest of my life with… my wife… my Kateri.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
The End
ps… it wasn’t the end because I wanted to say that I hope you all have a nice evening. Maybe get a fire going, eat a chicken pot pie, throw in a movie, relax a bit in comfy clothes and realize that there are quite a few pretty darn good things in this world. Ummm… unless you don’t have any of those options… then, I guess you’re on your own… but I hope you still have a nice evening with the pretty darn good things in your world!
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.
Generally, I love stacking wood. It feels good being outside and doing something that helps prepare for the quickly approaching winter. I love that it warms you twice!… or three times… or four… depending on how many times you need to move it. I love that it is such an ingrained part of life here in rural Vermont. I love that people have their Wood Guys and that there is always someone looking for a Wood Guy 3 months too late! I love shooting the shit with my guy in my driveway while we sum up a year’s worth of experience in half an hour. I love that I simply tape an envelope with cash in it to the top of the chest freezer in the garage and when I notice it’s gone… my wood is paid for. Yup… the Vermont invoice! I love the memories of friends and family helping with the stacking over the years, in all the different places Kateri and I had lived… and I’ve gotten satisfaction when I’ve done it by myself. This year was a little different, though.
My idea was to stack this year’s delivery by myself since I never really asked for help or got my shit together enough to plan it out. Last year I stacked it all by myself… on one of the hottest days of the summer… because I felt I needed to prove something to myself… that I could be self sufficient. I had just learned that life can take things away pretty quickly and I was freaking out about not knowing if I would be able to stay on top of everything, so I just tried to do everything on my own. Not to mention, it always feels like you are working harder when you sweat and when you stack two cord of wood on a 97 degree Vermont summer day… well… you sweat! This year, although the wood was dropped in August, I’m glad I waited till October when it’s a tad bit cooler!
My approach to the stacking of the wood was a little different this year, as well. Almost 18 months into this new life puts me in a different space than I was last year. There has been a shift in some of the things in my life… how I view things. Although I love stacking wood and everything that I attach to it, this year it just felt more like a chore… something else that I simply have to do. It felt good to be outside and doing something that will prepare me for the future, but there wasn’t really any excitement behind it except to get the job done so that I could move on to the next project on the list. You would think after almost 18 months that I would be more on top of everything, but the onslaught of widowerhood wears you down over time and quite frankly, going from a household of two to a household of one is a lot to take on! Attach the emotional/psychological reminders you are surrounded by everyday… even more fun! But, everything still needs to get done… so I keep doing it.
Yesterday, even though I felt like the stacking of the wood was more of a chore… it turned out to be a much better day than expected. This is where I feel the need to fill you in that I did not stack ALL the wood by myself. About two thirds of the way through my neighbor Bobbi pulled up to the mailboxes to see if her tax bill had come yet and after sitting on a rock… her still in her car… and shooting the shit for a few minutes I asked if she wanted to some up to the porch and catch up. So we did! It was nice. We hadn’t seen each other in months… and she’s always entertaining! After about an hour she said she needed to go because of a FaceTime date with her kid or something, but said she would be back to help! I told her she didn’t need to, but I would take the help if I was still stacking when she was done. It wasn’t a half an hour until she came back… ready to stack some wood… thin black leather driving gloves in hand (I mentioned she’s entertaining)! It was wonderful.
For me, it was a nice surprise to end the day hanging with someone… a neighbor… when I thought I would be spending the day alone. Yes, I took more breaks as we stacked the last quarter of the pile (Bobbi happens to be in her sixties… I think), but the conversations, laughing, and reminiscing was worth the slower pace. I guess that’s one of those “sometimes it’s good to smell the roses” type things. It simply felt nice to sit on the plastic Adirondack chairs that my father had bought when they came for Kateri’s Kick-Ass Party last year, waving to cars and trucks as they drove by, and to thank a friend for taking the time to lend a hand. It was a perfect end to the day. Plus, the sun was going down at that point so I’m glad we finished it by the time the day ended! And although it felt sorta like a chore… it definitely feels good to know that my wood is stacked and I’ll be warm this winter.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
ps… to let you know… it makes me feel good when people follow the blog… just sayin’.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
And… we got older. Out priorities… changed. We slowed down a bit as we were settling into the rest of our lives. Even though I believe Kateri was happy with her life and with me… I know… KNOW… that Kateri wanted more excitement in her life… more adventures… more passion!… and I was happy with how things were. As a widower you can take that type of reflection and put the information to use by living every day like it’s the last!… or some other homogenized cliché saying… and I do most the time. But tonight… reflecting on life also showed me that I do… in fact… have regrets.(Just to put it out there… I still haven’t experienced that “Anger” at the situation feeling, yet… I just REALLY like to swear.)
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.
Basically, I’ve had a few challenges pop up on a few different fronts and I’m just gonna make the effort to control the things I can control, not worry about the things I can’t, and start asking myself… me… what it is I want my life to look like. I may have said all this before (sorry, I still haven’t re-read most of my posts), but I don’t think I can tell myself too many times to focus on being happy!… so that’s what I’m gonna do. Yup. The End.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
When I woke up, I really had no plan. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to spend the day. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to honor the date. I didn’t know how I wanted to remember the happiest day of my life in a time where the crap in life seems to overshadow and push down those good memories. I was hoping to wake up and be flooded with all the wonderful images of friends, family, and Kateri on our wedding day… but for now I guess these types of dates are just gonna remind me of how wonderful things were… of the unexplainable joy that filled my life. They remind me of what we had… what I had in my life… and what life did to my sweet sweet Kateri.
I had thought about hitting George’s in Gloucester and maybe spreading some of Kateri’s ashes in the ocean. Or maybe spending a night in Lake Placid where Kateri and I would spend a weekend if we needed outta Dodge. Once, we kinda just wanted to get out for a weekend… but also needed to do laundry! Kateri simply found a hotel with laundry services… we loaded up our dirty clothes… and spent the evening getting room service while waltzing down the hall every so often to switch it over, throw in another load, and spend another small fortune because we were doing laundry in a hotel! Oh well… it was fun… and that’s not what I did yesterday.
We got married at a place called Camp Common Ground in Vermont. It’s not toooo far away from where I live and for some reason I thought it would be nice just to go back, walk around, and remember what it was like on September 28, 2011. It was early enough that I also thought I could cruise up there and be back in time to chill at home for a bit, too! So I headed out.
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.
It was nice driving south from B-Town. I hadn’t driven that route for quite a while and it was interesting to see the changes… the growth. It was while I was taking in all this change that another thought popped into my head. I realized that I was going to Camp Common Ground because of the memories and experience of getting married there. 
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!
I had prepared myself for that possibility and thought about what my reaction would be. I even thought about just sliding in and start milling about myself!… Who would know I’m not with the wedding?! But instead, I just flipped a bitch before anyone could ask me how I knew the bride and groom… or bride and bride… or groom and groom… and started the journey back home. I would have loved to have stood in the spot where Kateri and I committed our lives to each other in front of our loved ones… beneath those two majestic trees holding court over the open field we had made into our church… but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I knew I had inserted any of my experience into “The Happiest Day of my Life!” experience for these strangers… for these two people who were about to embark on their own journey filled with their own ups and downs. A wedding should be pure joy. Yes, “Till Death” is sometimes inserted into the ceremony, but on your wedding day… at least on mine… it is nothing but love. It’s a celebration. It’s a time to focus on all the reasons we want to spend the rest of our lives with someone. It’s about “The Good” in life. It’s one of those days in life that you just push all the crap aside and fill the time with music, laughter, conversation, life, and love. And I don’t think there are many days like that in our lives (except for maybe the birth of a child) so I wasn’t about to be “The Ruiner” for these people!… who didn’t happen to think about my needs when they were planning their wedding!
Since plans were sorta foiled, I started the journey home with stopping by a friend’s house in the area. They weren’t home so I decided to take the scenic route home (it’s Vermont… it’s all scenic) and go over the Appalachian Gap. Luke and I would drive it every day when we worked in the Mad River Valley and the view from the top is wonderfully convenient.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
So…. today happens to be the 6 Year Anniversary of employment at my job. I know, I know… doesn’t seem to be like a huge deal, but for me… it kinda is… for a few reasons. Shortly after Kateri died, I needed to put some parameters/guidelines/goals/rules on my life. The whole experience is just an onslaught of everything and I didn’t wanna just lose my shit… so I told myself I wouldn’t make any “Big Life” decisions until at least today, September 23, 2019. It seemed like a decent amount of time to at least let the dust settle… figure a few things out… learn a few things… and a point to just check in with myself. The other reason… is purely financial.
First… the financial side. I’m pretty sure that as of today, I will be fully vested as an Employee Owner of the company I work for! For my company! It’s an ESOP… Employee Stock Ownership Plan… so a few hundred and some other people can say the same thing… but whatever! (Which means, I ain’t no CEO,CFO, PPO, MTG, DRM or anything… just plain ODD) Basically, we get money when we leave the company as it buys back our stocks… or something… it’s a good retirement thing. Fully vested=I get 100% of those stocks instead of 60% or 20% n such. Plus… wait for it… I get………….. A VEST! Embroidery and all! But really… it’s about the money. Since I just lost a good chunk of my household income when Kateri died, I figured sticking around for at least 17 months seemed worth the financial return. (I’m soooo pragmatic!… and thinking of my future!). The fact that I like my job, coworkers, company, and most of the guests made the decision to use Sept. 23rd as a target date pretty simple.
Ummm… honestly… yes, getting vested is sort of a fun thing for me… but there other things I have attached to that date, as well. Like some of those “Big Life” questions that losing a spouse brings up in the widowed person’s life. The questions it has brought up for me, in my life with the loss of Kateri… are significant. Questions like:
Now it’s September 23 (well, the 25th really) and I am happy to inform you……… I haven’t really answered too many of those questions! But one thing I love about my life are the little things that happen to pop up at the perfect times… sometimes… like this afternoon. I stopped to get gas and as I was pulling away I noticed I hadn’t shut the cover to the fuel filler inlet (yes… I just asked the Oracle what it was called!), so I pulled into a parking space to shut it. As I got out of the car, my phone started doing it’s little shimmy and shake as a friend was giving me a call. After a couple of “Hey Bud!”s it quickly went to… “How would you like to come work for me in blah blah blah?”. Then I heard a crashing in the background… an “I gotta go!”… and we made a plan to catch up later. It was kind of an unexpected thing
I’ll let you know, we chatted for about 2 and a half hours… along with another friend of mine (who happens to be his wife)… and a majority of that was simply catching up. Yes, we spoke about the possibilities of working together again and I asked my initial questions, but there are a lot… A LOT!… more questions that need to be asked that also need to have some pretty specific answers! But that’s not what I found most exciting about this little “catch up”. For me, the fact that a really good friend of mine happened to have an idea on this day… and he decided to share his idea with me on a day in which I have put quite a bit of personal significance on… just warmed me to the bone! The timing! It’s experiences like these that make me think about how things just fall in line once in a while to make you feel good!… to put a smile on your face! I’m not saying I’m quitting my job and am just gonna thrust myself into a new kind of life quite yet, but the fact that it even came up was just… perfect. (Kind of like when Heman stopped by and introduced himself the day after Kateri passed!… wonderful experiences.)
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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 kinda get annoyed with how we all talk about not knowing where the time went… like we were caught off guard that time didn’t stop for us… that nature didn’t take a break. But I also think we focus on the time because we live good lives, with good people, with good experiences… and we hate that that time is limited. We find ourselves in disbelief that we didn’t take advantage of seeing this person or talking to that person… or going ziplining, parachuting, to the beach, out to a nice dinner, or to the Snoop Dogg and Friends Tour featuring Warren G as they celebrate 25 years of Doggystyle (a classic album). The missed opportunities are amplified as we attach the passage of time to them as a gauge to the success of us “taking advantage of life” or not. Ya, there are all sorts of things I wish I had done in the last 17 months… but I can’t dwell on those things too much… and I am trying to not be too hard on myself as I wrestle with figuring out this new life… in a new time.
Seventeen months. In some regards, it simply doesn’t feel like Kateri has been gone for a year and 5 months… in most regards, actually. Although I have woken up every single day without her, it feels like just yesterday I was able to feel her skin, her hair, her love… without having to remember it.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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 know my sister is hurting from the loss, but she wasn’t who I focused on at first. My heart sank for my brother-in-law… because he just lost his mom. There was a flood of emotions as I read her post, but it was the thought (and my own made up image) of my sister holding her husband… consoling him… loving him… and showing him that she loves him that hit me. Her being there for him. Her being his wife. And him being a husband who is needing to look to his wife for strength, love, and support.
I love my brother-in-law. He is a good man. A strong man. A good father. A good husband. A good person… a friend. He is family… and he just lost his mom. I’m glad he has my sister to be there for him… she’s one tough cookie. Oh, I’m sure she’ll have her moments of weakness and he’ll need to be there for her, as well, but she’ll be ok. They are both pretty amazing people, a pretty amazing team… with an impressively resilient family.
One part of relationships is being there for each other in all sorts of situations. It can get messy and confusing like having to be there for your wife even though it’s your mother that passed away… but death affects everyone involved… and we all deal with it differently.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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pps… and I hope you have a good day.
I didn’t actually realize it was the anniversary of me deciding not to drink until it popped up as a “Memory” on my Facebook. When I saw that in the past I had posted “11 years” and “8 years”… I figured today is probably the day I quit drinking!… 13 years ago.
The morning actually started off pretty darn nice. It was a good morning…. not even knowing it was the anniversary of a pretty big thing in my life. For the record, I don’t exactly pay attention to how long I haven’t drank alcohol… I just don’t drink anymore… it’s been a reality and no big deal to me for quite a while now. But…. that doesn’t mean I don’t think about the decision I made… about drinking… because I do… quite a bit. Mostly though, I draw upon my decision to cut the ol’ sauce out for strength. Ya, at first it was pretty hard… but then it was just a part of who I was… and who I wanted to be. I like me better not drinking. To be up front, I quit drinking because it was either one or the other… beer (or whisky… or Jägermeister… or Bloodies if it was before noon)… or Kateri. I’m sorry to everyone who struggles with it… but the choice was simple for me. I never “fell off the wagon”… never went on a bender… never went in and out of rehab or AA… but I also never really had any reason to question my decision. Every single day since September 9th, 2006 I had a reason to make better decisions. I had a reminder next to me every morning I woke up… and every time I heard that laugh. I had that reminder… I had Kateri… until 7:24pm on April 22, 2018… and I still haven’t had a sip. I feel good about that. I know my life is better because of it. And yesterday I used that accomplishment to feel good about myself… to feel strong and secure about decisions I’ve made… because it was a moment when I needed to.
I was gonna go into the whole timeline of my feelings, emotions, and events of yesterday morning… but I’ve decided I wanna eat leftover pizza, a piece of poundcake, and watch the Denzel movie that Netflix sent me instead of rehashing it. The morning basically went: good… shitty… better, with a jolt of positivity. I will tell you… seeing that “memory” pop up… well, it came at the right time! Again, not getting into it, but it was weird experiencing something that I had seen over and over again on the online support group I’m a part of and thinking how I never thought I would experience it!… but I did. It was kinda sucky. It hurt. It was unexpected. Somewhat understandable… but unexpected. Then… on an iPhone 8… life reminded me of thirteen years dry… and the morning got a little bit better.
(wow… that was sort of a sad thing to end on… but I don’t really have anything else to say! And… I gotta get to Denzel!)
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Broke both my legs. I know, I know… impressive and looks fun!… but I don’t recommend it.
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.
This morning I had planned on looking at what I’m doing here… Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning… and begin the process of narrowing my focus since I feel I’m doing this sorta half hazardly… I’m all over the place! Well… I’m still gonna be all over the place for at least another day or two… or more. I got sidetracked… by those memories I’m trying not to lose.
Long story short… I came across this video that Kateri had taken on the morning of her first immunotherapy treatment. It was an early appointment so we were there before the masses of sick people and their loved ones started inundating the hospital. The pianos are generally locked… I’m assuming so people like me don’t just start banging on the keys… but this one wasn’t locked on this particular morning…. opportunity.
Now, if you watch the video you’ll notice that I am not a concert pianist! Heck, this is really the only song I sorta know (and it’s only part of the song), but that wasn’t the point. As Kateri, Maria, and I walked into the hospital and I saw the piano wasn’t locked… I saw the opportunity to give Kateri something… a moment to forget exactly why we were there. I wanted to provide her with something that might just take some of the worry away… even for just a moment.
I’ve gotta say… watching this video brought me back to that morning. It was strange to remember that moment so vividly. It was hard to deal with the emotions that came rushing in… ones which have stuck with me throughout today’s morning. I miss my wife. I miss being with her in the good times… and to be there for her during the hard times. And currently… I miss her being there for me. I miss her being here. I miss Kateri.
Ya… so… yesterday I wondered what it would be like to read one of my blog posts and record it. Well, the reading of it was emotional… and the process of trying to record myself (and then watching it)… was interesting. Long story short, on the drive home tonight I was thinking about it being Widower Day 500 today… good, solid number… and just thought I would share something with the widows and widowers out there. (ummm… you can watch this even if you haven’t lost a spouse… it’s ok. Just to forewarn ya, though… it’s eight minutes long) There’s no real significance to the number 500 for me… but for some reason… seems like there should be!
Sooooo, this is me reading my “Random Widower Thoughts” page… n stuff.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
Kateri and I have rented a room in a house with meat heads in Burlington, slept in a studio above a garage attached to a large empty house… on an air mattress in Monkton, slept in a loft in Starksboro (our first stand alone house… we felt so grown up), had a king size bed in our “Secluded Apartment” at the ranch in CO… the squirrels in our room weren’t the worst part… it was the racist and untrustworthy managers. We stayed on our friend’s futon up Four Mile Canyon until we found our little cabin in Ned… where we signed our lease in green colored pencil… and had no jobs at the time. Loved that place… and the people. We stayed in our friend’s basement apartment in Huntington (well, Hanksville… but only people in Hanksville care about those specifics) when we came back to Vermont… where we could hear the kiddos riding their three wheeled machines in a circle through the kitchen, back hallway, living room, front hallway… and kitchen again…. as we laid in bed with smiles on our faces at 6:32am. Our next bedroom was just an open second floor loft with a staircase in the middle. Actually, it was more of a glorified ladder, but it had a railing to hold on to! Side story… I heard Kateri fall down those “stairs” one night when I had forgotten my keys and had to wake her up by calling to her loudly from outside and knocking on the door as I stood in the darkness. When you can hear something like that, your fiancé (at the time) hitting the floor, but aren’t able to see what’s going on… well, I just about broke down the door. Our next place was The Condo… where, from our bed, we could hear the horses run back and forth in the arena on certain mornings. On other mornings… you simply smelled the shit.
The next place we would lay our heads… our next bedroom…. would be in our little red schoolhouse. It’s funny to think about all the places we’ve lived, all the places we’ve slept… and then to think about where I am stretched out right now. I just can’t believe how much is packed into this little corner of the house. Our first night sleeping on the mattress on the floor… of our first home. Moving the bed around every couple of months to find the best light. Figuring out who’s clothes will go where. Those Sunday mornings of laying in bed with coffee as we planned out our day… and dreamed about our future… between runs to fetch a fresh Cup of Joe for one another……………………. And then Cancer.
Three days after Kateri died Maria helped me go through all of (well, most of) Kateri’s clothes. It had always worked out that Kateri would keep her clothes in our bedroom and I would keep mine usually in the spare room… if we had one. It’s not like she had a ton of clothes, it was more that we lived in small spaces! When she first died, I didn’t see the point of waking up every morning being surrounded by her clothes as I would go to another room to grab mine for the day. The thought had hit me that there was absolutely no reason for her clothes to be hanging in the closest… or to fill the two dressers in the room. She wasn’t coming back…. but I had to keep waking up there. I wanted to start my day in my space… with my clothes… because this was now my life. I have a house and twenty years of memories that are constantly reminding me of Kateri and what we had. I needed to chisel out a little space that was just mine as I tried to figure out this new life… so I figured I would start in the place I wake up every morning… and where I end my day every night… when I don’t fall asleep on the couch!
For me, going through Kateri’s clothes wasn’t as hard as I expected. Maria would ask if she could take this or that for herself or a family member and I would say “Sure” or “No”. I had seen Kateri in these clothes throughout my entire life with her and we generally remember people dressed… so there is a huge attachment for me between Kateri and what she wore… her “Style”. In the moment, it was simple… I couldn’t get rid of much… but I didn’t have to either. So, Maria and I went from drawer to drawer and into the closet. We talked, we laughed, we remembered, we cried… and then we put her clothes into green bins which sat in the corner of my bedroom for 16 and a half months… until I painted.
Kateri and I hadn’t gotten to painting the bedrooms of our first home. We started with the downstairs, the laundry area, second bathroom, upstairs hallways, and kitchen. There were other things we wanted/needed to do with the house and at the time and some of those projects took priority over painting like building chicken coops, fire pits, small stone patios, and paths through the woods. There was also the bathroom remodel that started with Kateri putting the first hole in the wall before Cancer… and me finishing five months after her death. Life was just sorta happening I guess… and we never really thought about there being a timeline. So this last Monday morning, as I was talking to a friend and trying to come up with a game plan for my Mini Staycation, the painting of the bedroom project came up and I decided to go ahead and try to get it done at some point before I went back to work on Friday.
I was actually really excited about it! It was fun trying to figure out what colors I wanted to surround myself with as I stared at a wall filled with little pieces of paper at Home Depot. Another side note… this was a time I REALLY wished Kateri was with me!… she had an eye for that type of shit, but it was still fun doing it on my own for the first time.
I wanted to wake up in a warm space. I wanted it to be bright. I figured it would help put my brain in a positive space the moment I woke up!… or when I called it a day. I was gonna go with a yellowish color, but the hallway is “Mustard” and that would’ve been just too much so I went with green. Well, actually, “Granny Smith Apple” and “Spring Leaf”. Let me tell you… there must be some very green apples out there! Yup, it’s definitely bright!… it’s growing on me.
I like doing projects because of the instant gratification when you finish. After I had decided on paint color, got together all my brushes and other painting tools, I had remembered about taping! Jesus… I forgot about how much time that takes! I also wanted to do the job right so at some point during the evening I bit the bullet and started to meticulously cover trim, doors, and floors with masking tape. Although the thought of just “being careful” had crossed my mind… I didn’t wanna risk it. I knew I would hear Kateri’s voice every time I saw a little bit of green paint creeping into the wood trim.
I ended up painting until 2:34am… with the assistance of Lizzo and various 90’s Alternative Rock artists providing me with a beat to keep moving to coming from the little JBL speaker I had gotten for Kateri when she was in the hospital… but finally… it was done. It sorta reminded me of when I laid the tile in the bathroom throughout the night when Kateri was in the hospital. I kinda like plugging away… getting stuff done… when the schoolhouse lights are surrounded by darkness and the rest of the world is sleeping. I like being in my own little world once in a while. Sometimes… I need it.
I feel good about the job and again… the color is growing on me. I guess it doesn’t actually matter if the color is growing on me or not… I’m not gonna paint it again for quite a while… but luckily I kinda like it. Kateri’s clothes are now in the spare bedroom across the hall… still in the green bins. Although it feels good that they are out of the bedroom because it allows more light in and I like not seeing them stacked in the corner every morning… I still can’t move them to the garage or anywhere else outside of the house for storage. I like having them close to me… even though I don’t look at them or anything. They provide me with a bit of comfort. And no… I don’t wear them or hold them or rub them up against my face… yet.
It was hard taking another step into this new life… changing something in my home… for me. It’s weird. It’s strange. It’s odd thinking about how I want to set up the schoolhouse in a way that would provide me with a space to remember Kateri… my wife… as well as keeping my own needs and wants in mind. Yes, there were definitely some struggles and emotional moments as I was transforming my bedroom into Fern Gully, but it also felt good to take that little step… to provide myself with a new space… to create a space… in my new life.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
It was kinda strange. I’m always aware when the day comes around… the 22nd of each month… but for some reason my brain was occupied with other things all morning long. I also figure that as the months start to build up… they hit me less and less. I’m learning to live this new life and as time goes by these dates are more just reminders of what it is I’m going through, what it is that I used to have… than the stinging slap in the face or punch in the gut that would debilitate me for “X” amount of time every month.
I’m not putting much weight on the whole “I wasn’t thinking about Kateri” the entire day… I think that is probably a natural progression in this process. Of course I miss and love Kateri, but I realized I’m not gonna be a wreck every single month the 22nd comes around. Sometimes I will be a wreck… sometimes I won’t be. Life kinda happens… and keeps going… and sometimes it takes priority over the past. For me, 16 months was just another perfect moment in this pile of poop.
My friend and I were sitting on his back deck catching up and trying to figure something out, his daughter was playing with a neighbor friend inside, when I checked the time on my phone. That’s when I saw the date and it sorta hit me… 16 months. Yes, when I saw the date and realized the significance… I had to take a moment. I could feel the lump in the throat. I could feel the eyeballs get a little more moist… like when you can feel the tears holding onto the bottom of your eyelid… but they haven’t jumped off yet. A million memories flooded my mind for less than a minute… I took a breath… and we kept talking.
I loved the fact that I was going through this little unexpected episode and the person I was talking to, the person who’s home I was at… was the person who married Kateri and I. We hadn’t seen each other for more than a few months and I just thought it was kinda 
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.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
It was around this time last year, a few months after Kateri had passed, that the thought and question popped into my head, “I like sex… I wonder if I’m ever gonna have sex again?…?!” Now on the widower side of things, that brought up all sorts of other questions. Questions that were very difficult to grapple with and ones that I still spend quite a bit of time on today. Questions about loyalty… mourning… and love. Questions about what the last twenty years were about. Questions about how family, friends, co-workers, and even strangers will view my actions. Although I was… and am… going through this experience my way, I felt the need to think about the special people in my life and how those actions affect them. (I may not change a course of action because of them… but as long as I think about them I figure I’m good!). It was a lot… and still is… which is why I probably don’t talk about it much.
On the personal side of things… that thought and question has brought some pretty hard times, hard conversations, and emotional nights… that sometimes start in the morning. Here’s the thing though… all of those hard questions and thoughts (widower/personal/whatever) are just a part of the gig and I’ve come to accept them, face them, and try to answer them the best I can. (Well, sometimes I disregard them when I don’t have the energy… or simply don’t wanna deal!) They are simply some of the challenges of this process and I figured I would get them out of the way for this post because what all those types of things comes down to is… I was holding Kateri when she took her last breath… nothing will ever be as rough as that. Now onto some greener pastures.
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!
Ya… dating apps… they’re interesting. My experience with dating apps up until this point was mostly Kateri and I poking fun at my hip sister-in-law, who lives in NYC, when she would visit and talk about how there is “no one” in this area! Kateri came up with terms like “Swipe Right Greg” as we didn’t try very hard to figure out what all went into the dating app thing. We actually sat around her phone once and collectively judged the dudes who were spread across Vermont based on their looks… and paid little attention to the minimal information in their “profile”. It was a novelty. It was something that Kateri and I had zero experience with… and we were very happy that we didn’t have to deal with shit like that. We had each other… for the rest of our lives………. yup.
A friend of mine came out last fall because he knew I needed it… I love this man… not just because he gives me Smarties. We were talking about the whole dating app thing and how it seemed like such a strange way to meet people… mainly because we were just never exposed to it. He told me of a story when a buddy of his was scrolling through the pics on one of the apps during a camping trip (or something) and was showing them to my friend asking his opinion. My buddy grabbed the phone and just started swiping away saying, “Nope”… swipe, “Nope”… swipe, “Nope”… swipe. Now with the dating apps that I have seen, you basically swipe the picture to the right if you are interested in the person and left if you are not. This is something that if you have no experience with dating apps, you might not realize. So when you say, “Nope” and swipe right… you are really saying, “YES!”… to the 73 women who’s pictures are on your friend’s phone… who all believe your friend is interested in them! And… he is now the one who will have to field all the messages being sent to him by a portion of the lovely ladies!… who he isn’t interested in. I love that my friend accidently did that to his buddy. It was an honest mistake… and obviously not the end of the world.
It was also one of those things that really made me miss Kateri. We viewed dating apps as a modern convenience that we would never have to deal with… so we dismissed it… and placed very little value on them. Heck, we even made fun of the “younger generations” who used them to meet people for ice breakers, dinner dates, and hookups… never thinking either one of us would be in the situation where a dating app would be useful! For me, the dating app has provided entertainment, insight, and some clarity in what my wants and needs are in this new life. They are just one of those “steps” I have taken looking for some sort of “good”… so that I can take another step. One thing I have realized though… when it comes to sex, companionship, and relationships… I can’t take very big “steps”… I basically have to crawl through the mud for a bit.
So, just in case you were thinking that I’ve been meeting people left and right, impressing women with my cooking abilities and witty banter, traveling the world with women who’s profile says things like, “Successful, independent woman who doesn’t need you” or “Looking for a step dad for my dog”… I haven’t. Very quickly I realized meeting people takes a lot of time, energy, and work… especially as a widower. The emotional stress that the original thought and question put on me was much more than I expected. Yeah, I wanted to have companionship… basically sex… but with my sweet sweet Kateri… which wasn’t an option anymore. It’s been hard balancing those sorta primal/human needs (companionship, sex, human interaction) with the sadness, confusion, and fogginess the loss of Kateri has inserted into my life. It’s been hard… but I’m getting there… and I’m unwilling to just wallow in the sadness.
Although it has been quite the learning experience with quite a few hard decisions, talks, and mornings, I still view my life as going as well as it possibly can… given the situation. Basically, I texted with a few women (literally a few), had a pleasant lunch with one, and met a woman almost a year ago who I now consider one of my best friends… if not my closest friend in this new life. I may not be comfortable with dating apps or meeting new romantic interests… or anyone for that matter… but things have worked out much better than I expected. Sometimes, life gives you what you need at that moment.
My new friend and I work for the same company, but we work in different buildings and had never met… that we could remember. She had “Super Liked” me (on accident) on one of the apps and when I realized we worked at the same place… it kinda brought up all sorts of things. Up until that point, I viewed the dating apps as more of entertainment… seeing what was out there… something new that wasn’t directly attached to my world because my life was still very centered on the last 20 years with Kateri. When I got the notification that someone liked me… and we worked together… and she worked in the same department that Kateri used to work in!… well, that brought the situation very close to home. I had not talked about my quest to find companionship with anyone really, and now there was someone who knows I was looking… who also worked next to people who knew Kateri… me… and us. I thought about what they might think about the steps I was taking. I was worried about being judged on this one… big… step… so I didn’t respond… at first.
Actually, I didn’t respond… my thigh did. Just as she didn’t mean to “Super Like” me, I didn’t mean to “Match” with her… yet. I was running out of the kitchen and onto the loading dock one afternoon when I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check my email and noticed on the screen the attention grabbing “It’s a Match!”… or something like that. Chef pants happen to have very thin pockets and from what I can gather is—as my phone was bouncing around, my thigh was able to click on the dating app and confirm that I was interested… which I was… just not at that moment! I thought I needed some time to hash out a few questions and concerns with the situation… my thigh thought differently. As with other parts of this whole widower thing, I figured “Well, this is happening now?”… and just went with it… and stopped worrying about what other people thought.
It started with a six hour conversation… her sitting on the couch… me in Kateri’s chair. It was comfortable. It was exciting. It was honest and open. It was easy… ish. We were lucky in the fact that we worked for the same company so it provided both of us with a sense of commonality… it helped put some of the concerns at ease when you meet new people… like if they are axe murderers or something. (Her coworkers let her know that I wasn’t one). We talked about how she was from Oregon and I was from Idaho. We talked about how she went to the CIA for baking and I had been in restaurants for the last 24 years. We talked about work… and the people we work with. We talked about how we were brought up, where we lived, where we traveled. We talked about my situation… that I had just lost my wife literally months before… she was already aware. I felt the need to put all the big things on the table if I was gonna bring anyone new into my life… and no topic was gonna be off limits. If someone wasn’t able to handle what it was I was going through… then I didn’t really have time for them… and it wouldn’t be good for either one of us. Luckily, she is a very understanding, empathetic, and compassionate woman… and didn’t let the past define the present… or dictate the future. I’m also just gonna mention… communication helps. Talk people. Talk about the hard things… it helps create a good life.
The past 11 months (the time we have been hanging) have been filled with all sorts of new experiences. Some are just regular life things, while others are very “Widower” centric. Like having sex with a woman for the first time in 18 years who isn’t your wife. Let me tell you… that’s not one of those “wham, bam, thank-you mam” type things. For me, the experience was very empowering as a widower… as a person… and as a man. I’m not going to go into details, but having sex with someone new for the first time… when the last time something like that had happened I was in my mid twenties… was just kinda fun. I was older. I was experienced… not only sexually, but in life. I felt secure… enough. I wasn’t a stoopid kid just trying to get the ol’ rocks off with some stranger I picked up at the bar who I hoped would leave before the sun came up. I’m more mature… which means we think about other people… and not just ourselves. And quite frankly, I’m just happy I wasn’t curled up at the end of the bed shaking and crying afterwards! The potential was there… I lost my “Widower Virginity” on the night of the six month anniversary of Kateri’s passing. Yup… maybe not the best time to test the new sexual waters… but that’s when it happened… and I can’t change it now!
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.
We realize that there is a lot involved in our relationship. For some of you who put “it’s complicated” on your Facebook Relationship Status… you have no idea! For me, it was exciting to meet someone new, but I’ve gone through the ringer trying to figure out what it is I’m actually looking for, need, and want.
We are still hanging out because we talk about what it is we both need and want… and… well… because we both still really like each other. Our relationship has grown… even though I have had to take steps back. We still text “Good Morning” and “Goodnight” every single day… and I don’t think we’ve missed one since the first (unless one of us falls asleep), but now there is a smiley face emoji at the end instead of a kissy face emoji. At one point, it just got to be a little overwhelming for me when I realized we were basically in a monogamous relationship… and started considering each other “Boyfriend/Girlfriend”. I couldn’t wrap my head around going from an 18 year relationship… lose Kateri… and right into another relationship when I don’t really have an idea of who I am in this new life. I’m in the process of asking some big life questions of myself… and that takes time. One thing that we both agree on… one thing that we both aren’t really ready to live without for right now… is each other. Although we haven’t exactly been able to fully separate the whole friendship/relationship thing… we realize it’s because we feel we have positively impacted each other’s lives and are in no way ready for that to end. Again, communication… it helps.
There’s definitely a lot that can be said about these types of things, but this is just a blog post and not a book so I’m gonna end on this…. I am not trying to replace Kateri… because there is no replacing her. I still consider her my wife. I still wear my wedding ring. I would still give anything for her to be alive… down to my own life. I miss her so much it gives me headaches as tears gush from my eyeballs and snot runs from my nose… like it’s doing right now. I don’t want this life… I want my old life… but I can’t have it… even though I’m surrounded by remnants of it. Sometimes life just sucks. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. Other times, people come into your life who show you that life isn’t just the pile of shit you’re going through. They show you that there is happiness out there… there are good times… there is joy. They show you that you are not… alone.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
ps… you can follow the blog… if you want… or share it if you like it… or maybe you know of someone who would get something out of it… perhaps.
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.
I had been sleeping in the spare bedroom for a couple of months because Kateri really 
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.
After that night… I never slept in my own bed… next to my wife… next to My Dearest Kateri. There’s a lot that comes along with a thought like that… a lot. Like missed opportunities… that I will never get back. Yup… just driving home.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
It was a Monday morning and we were laying in bed doing what we did on Monday mornings… Kateri was looking at bathrooms to come up with ideas for ours and I was probably looking at Craigslist for jobs, canoes, motorcycles, boats, or the random things that people sell. We were sorta coming up with a game plan for the day. It was our one day off together and we always spent them with each other doing mostly nothing… it was perfect.
Kateri wanted to build a cold frame for herbs… or lettuce… or something else we could eat… so we started to make a list of things we would need to go and get at the store to put together something that would hold dirt. Now, did I mention it was our one day off together…? because we also usually just laid in bed for a bit, drank coffee (each of us taking turns running for refills), and pretty much got into a laid back frame of mind… which also made us not want to leave the Schoolhouse. So… I started listing off things in the garage or over at the potting shed which could be used to make a box… with a lid… with the hope of not having to go out amongst “the people”!
We were actually quite proud of ourselves for using what we had! I had leftover lumber probably from the chicken coop. In one of the little plastic bins/cups that Kateri had gotten for me when we bought our house… with the hope of providing me with an organizational tool for the garage I was so excited to finally have… we had found a couple of hinges. For the top…?… it only seemed appropriate to use one of the many old windows we had laying around. (We had windows because in 2011 we had gone around picking them up from various strangers so that we could build our “church” for our wedding. No… neither one of us is religious. Kateri always said she was a “recovering catholic”). And Kateri had some garden mesh/fabric stuff… because she gardened… to line the box with. We had all the fixin’s to build our cold frame! And there was no need to leave the hill!
It was a good day. Nothing special. Nothing really out of the ordinary. Just a Monday. We were so proud of ourselves for just making do. Kateri was so happy to have a cold frame where she could grow things next to the front deck… and beside her gardens. She was putting down roots… at our first home. It made her happy. It made me happy to see her and to help make her happy. Life was good… and we were happy together just doing what we did… on a Monday.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Well… as of today it has been a year since I started jotting some thoughts down pertaining to this whole widower thing on this little bloggery I have called Thirty Days of Mo(u)ring. Yup… a year. I have published 74 (75 now!) posts, learned a bit about how these things work, learned a bit about myself, have gotten some lovely words of encouragement, and have had strangers come into my world that I would now consider my friends… ish. I had absolutely no idea what I was gonna be doing with this blog, how I was gonna do it, or really even why (still don’t), but a few people have reached out to me to say “thanks for sharing… it has helped me get through my shit.”… and I can’t tell you how much that warms my innards.
There are so many things that I want to share, but being a widower is hard… and it takes time away from life. A year. It’s weird to think about all that has happened in that year… and all that I thought would happen. At this point last year, I hadn’t yet finished the upstairs bathroom that Kateri and I started to remodel before cancer… but I finally did… and I took a bath. I hadn’t yet rearranged the living room into a configuration that Kateri would never see. I hadn’t yet gotten on Widow/Widower support groups to try and promote my blog… and then find out that I didn’t wanna share it on that platform because it felt more like self promoting than being supportive. I hadn’t yet gotten on dating apps because of the curiosity… and crushing loneliness. One of my best friends hadn’t yet left Ned for Arizona… cutting off one of our last connections to a town I absolutely loved. Our closest friends here in the Upper Valley (the one Kateri always wanted to live next to, to be neighbors with until we grew old) hadn’t yet decided to start taking steps to relocate for other exciting opportunities. I hadn’t yet been to Atlantic City where “Angel” approached me asking if I wanted to “conversate” in my hotel room (I didn’t). My boss and good friend hadn’t yet left work to make another go at opening another successful restaurant. Old friends hadn’t yet come to Vermont to sit on my porch for the first time… solely because they knew I needed them. My mother had cancer in her brain a year ago… and doesn’t as of today!… (now we’re just waiting for it to clear from her lungs… CT scan today). There have been a lot of changes and learning experiences in the past year. On this day last year… it hadn’t even been three months since I heard Kateri take her last breath as I held her arm with two of our best friends sitting next to her… and holding me.
I wish I could say I’m in better shape than I was a year ago, but I’m not too sure I can say that. They say time heals… but so far I still feel it just changes things. Personally, I’m constantly overwhelmed, constantly worried about money and everything attached to it (I’m a worry wort), constantly trying to “figure out” things that can’t be figured out, constantly trying to do things that make me happy… and always trying to find more hours in the day to fit it all in. Just because I have moved further away from that horrible horrible date, it hasn’t exactly made it easier. I have been forced to manage my grieving and sadness because life doesn’t stop. I still have to go to work, take care of responsibilities, take care of the house, the chickens, deal with the blah, blah, blah… and fit the emotional stuff in when I can. Sometimes it will just show up and I have to either suppress it because I’m about to go back into work or I’m at the store or something. Sometimes, I’m in a place where I can let it go… like sitting in my car in my driveway when I just get home… or in my bed writing a blog. Either way… it’s a hard thing to manage… and a stupid thing to have to manage. It also doesn’t hurt less… it’s just more sporadic.
I know this all sounds pretty depressing… as if there was very little joy in my world… but that’s not the case. It’s a very manic experience being a widower… kind of all over the place emotionally and psychologically. Which just means there are times I’m doing well and feel pretty good about the direction I’m going… and then there are times I need to take a break from writing blogs or thinking about whatever to just go outside and dead-head the daisies in the planters on the porch… because it provides me with a sorta connection to Kateri… she loved dead-heading flowers. She would say, “Pop their little heads off” or simply “Off with their heads!”… and it made her happy. I loved seeing Kateri happy.
I guess that’s one goal of sharing your life with whoever in whatever capacity… to see them happy… which makes us happy. It doesn’t always happen… and sometimes things happen that we just can’t be happy about… but they’re gonna happen anyways. Sometimes, there are days where we just want to stay in comfy clothes, smoke a pinner, eat ice cream, and watch re-runs of Friends. But the joint burns out, the ice cream gets eaten, Friends move on to short lived spin-offs or other endeavors… and we all have to put our pants on to start a new day.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Part 1
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.
It feels a little strange to think that I’m about to take clippers to the face. I’ve talked about it a lot… trimming… just haven’t found the time… or at least the right time. I’ve become attached to the beard as it has grown since Kateri’s death. As a widower, it has sorta helped me feel better. It makes me feel different than I was in my life with Kateri… because I look different. There was a point last summer where I found myself looking in the mirror and I didn’t recognize myself… not my face… not who I was… not my life. It was an odd experience… and not just because of the beard (which was obviously shorter then). But I found comfort in the fact that Kateri would’ve loved how long my facial hair was getting as well as it being something new in my new life… and I didn’t have to do anything! A year later… I feel as though this is almost my identity now… the small guy with a big beard!
If you’re a widower… I suggest you grow a beard… unless it’s patchy or you aren’t allowed to because of some stupid shit like “work”. I simply think it is a fun way to get a little different perspective of yourself… as you are trying to figure out who you are in this new life. Sometimes, you’ll get past using the beard as kind of a crutch (sounds silly… I know… but in many ways it’s true)… and trim it when you are ready for a change… or because it’s been in the 80’s for more than a week! (FYI… I don’t plan on going shorter than an inch… but we’ll see..?!)
Part 2
Yup, now I’m gonna start to grow the beard back out!… I miss it.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Well, currently sitting in my garage because it’s cooler than the front porch right now and I don’t wanna be inside. I just let the chickens out so that they could feel the grass between their toes… and eat all the ticks. Today is one of those days that I’m willing to risk having to deal with death so that the chickens can enjoy being chickens. (when you live in the woods… there are creatures that rather enjoy eating chicken for dinner… hopefully not tonight, though!) Yup, today I’m just going with the flow. It’s kind of what I’ve been doing for the last week or two… which has been both good and… well… aggravating on some fronts.
Independence Day was fantastic. A friend and I had a wonderfully Vermonty 4th of July with parades (well… a parade), swimming holes, creamies, grilled burgers, macaroni salad, homemade key lime pie (not my home), fireworks and all! It kinda sucked getting a flat tire on the way down to the fireworks… and having the wheel decide it didn’t wanna come off for a bit even though the lug nuts were on the asphalt… but the spare made it on and we made it in time to watch shit explode! Personally, I love the fact that we both sorta rolled with it. We tried something with the tire… didn’t work… I tried it again! Oh hey, my AAA is non-existent…?… let’s try yours! Once we actually got to the point that a tow truck was coming, I just started to kick one side of the tire and it popped off! So we canceled the wrecker, threw on the full size spare (thank God… or something… that it was full size), drove to the town just south of the parking lot we were in, and enjoyed the rest of the evening! Rolling with it!… until it cost me $303 to throw 4 old tires on the Jeep and to replace the sensor that the flat tire destroyed. (Actually still rolling with it at that point… just reluctantly)
A couple of days later, Saturday, I woke up with tears puddled up on my eyeballs and lids. Now… I just need to say… this was one of the stranger “Widower” experiences I have had. I guess it isn’t really all that strange, but it hasn’t happened to me much… if at all… until Saturday. Oh, I’ve woken up and then started crying… but this was different. There was accumulation of salty water on my closed eye lids! When I moved my head I could feel the streams roll over my cheeks into my beard and ears.
I don’t really remember what the dream was about, it wasn’t anything serious or big, but Kateri was in it… both of us were… together. The odd part for me was that I was sorta watching this dream as a third person. There wasn’t a big event happening or anything… it wasn’t like it was our wedding… Darren2 and Kateri were for the most part just going about their lives. It was the fact that I was witnessing these two people just plugging away… and it crushed me. Neither one of them had any idea of what direction their life was gonna take… they had no idea of the pain that they both would face. The physical, psychological, and emotional pain that cancer was gonna cause Kateri… and the pain of having to live a life I (he… Darren2) didn’t plan on… nor care as much for. Seeing Darren2 and Kateri happy without the big pile of poop… before the big pile of poop plopped down… just sorta crushed me in my dream… which is something I guess can make you cry while your asleep.
And now!… I’m gonna go do something else… where there’s less mosquitos! (I feel like mosquitos should stay out of garages! Little bastards.)
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
It was hot that week… a year ago. Come to think of it… it’s hot right now a year later! Hmmm, maybe we should track these trends…? Anyways, it was hot… like real hot. I lost 
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.
Anways, while it was sweltering outside, I remember it felt somewhat nice in the garage standing on the cool concrete. I had built shelves on the east side with the hope of getting organized. My “nesting for one”. I was going through boxes that Kateri and I hadn’t yet unpacked from the move back from Ned. We always had an idea of what was in certain boxes and I when I came to the large rectangular one housing the King and Queen I decided I’d like to see them out again. These were from Kateri’s life prior to meeting me, so they had always been a part of OUR life… hanging or leaning here or there… and I just kinda thought they would be fun to have out in the schoolhouse (currently… they are in my front little plant room).
They were wrapped in newspaper… the one with the date… which is the fun part of moving from place to place… sometimes you get to be reminded of specific times in your life as the memories attached to those times get pulled from the vaults with the unwrapping of that protective layer. Sometimes you get to open up a box from multiple moves ago… like this one… which was four ago.
We had packed that box eight years ago and July 1st, 2018 was the day it was gonna get unpacked! When I noticed the date… it was just… kind of a flood of emotions and memories. Honestly, I don’t remember exactly how I reacted… I don’t think I lost it or anything… but I probably did. The one thing I know for sure is… I wasn’t gonna hold onto that crumpled up piece of eight year old newspaper for the rest of my life because it had the date Kateri died on it!… so I took a picture of it… that I’m now afraid of losing.
I’ve come to expect these little unexpected things that pop up. I’m glad that I took a picture of that newspaper and came across it a year later. I’m also glad I came across that picture… a year later… and could recognize a few of the changes I have gone through in this experience. Yes, the picture definitely made me emotional, but it was nice to think about my life with Kateri in a different time… in a different place. It made me happy. Those were happy times in 2010. Hell, I had just asked her to marry me when we were packing those boxes… we were moving back to Vermont to set roots! It was exciting! It was fun! And ya… this aint what we planned… and not what I expected… but I’m grateful for the life we had because it provides me with countless memories (in vaults somewhere) that simply put a smile on my face.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I’m just gonna say it… I just lost my shit (the emotional sobbing type) after reading someone’s post on FB. Yup, lost it. Loooosssst…… It. I was just so surprised by what this person had written! It was beautiful! It was powerful! It was posted by someone who was a part of my life in a time when I wore much smaller shoes. (well, not much smaller shoes… but smaller…. I was a kid) The post was touching, I had an attachment to the person… and there was a picture! It had all the makings of a moving moment! And then… then!… I realized it was one of those “copy and paste if you stand for/care for/believe in/proud of/hashtag whatever” things!… and everything changed.
Now, I need to say thanks to whoever wrote that little note… it was fantastic… but it was kind of a weird experience. I found it amusing that I put soooo much into that post… emotionally… in the beginning. One moment I’m losing my mind thinking about how beautifully my friend had shared their feelings about this or that because it made me think about Kateri… and then the realization came and it all stopped… and I laughed at myself. (memories of the person and her age now, her family, how the words made me think of Kateri, the wonderful picture of this woman and her big ass smile… all played a part in my dramatic reaction… I think)
Part of it is my lack of social media participation in the whole “copy this” or “play that” scene. The other part is it went from all of that… everything that I had attached to the post… all the nostalgia… to simply words on a screen that someone took the time to copy and paste. Still a moving post… just not the same… for me.
Just so the record is straight… I love that this person copied/pasted/and participated with this particular post. And the reason the post meant so much to me at first is because of my love for this person and I could see them sharing the wisdom themselves. It was just funny to me how my mind went in one direction… and then abruptly stopped. It just sorta slammed on the brakes so that it could see where it was… and then it realized it was on the good ol’ trusty roller coaster again.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
ummm… I’m the one who over cooked it when I was heating it back up
This simply… hit me. I miss her. And right now… it hurts.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I wish I could fill in the details of what all that evening entailed… a later date perhaps.
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.
Sooooo, Yesterday… I figured I would do something quick and make another video. Wasn’t sure what I was gonna blab on about as my shoulder would start to ache while holding my phone at that stupid angle, but I figured it was quicker than writing about “Big Life” questions n shit! And again… there wasn’t anything quick about it. I’m a cook and I have no idea about “formats” or “upload errors” or “bandwidth”… and I don’t even know if “bandwidth” applies to this situation!… but I wasn’t able to “upload” the video until Today… after spending all night trying to force it into my media folder. Which is fun… when you have no idea of what it is you are doing! Long story short… I wanted to do something… which ended up being some ramblin’ and playing a quick little ditty on my guitar… on the porch. (Disclaimer-Another again… I’m a cook.)
ps… there’s a follow button somewhere around here… and it’s ok if you share… really… unless your momma won’t let ya. (kd)
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.
Honestly, I’m not exactly sure what this is about. I was about to go play some guitar in the garage… because I’m sure my neighbors really enjoy it when I do!… but just felt I needed to get back to this… Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning. I had a thought I wanted to get down, but by the time my computer got all booted up… it was gone… or at least morphed into a mish mosh of 25 other thoughts! That seems to happen a lot lately. Almost 14 months into this and the overwhelming/confused/sorta lost aspect of losing Kateri hasn’t diminished as much as I expected. The loneliness aspect is starting to set in again. I’m staying on top of everything I need to and there are things I enjoy… but it currently still sucks balls.
I was going to throw something on FB saying I was heading up to see if anyone was around… but I didn’t. Then after the conference I was gonna text this person or that person or swing by that family’s home around the corner… but I didn’t. I just wanted to get home. One strange thing about this experience is I want to reconnect with so many people… I want to start spending time with friends and meet new ones. I want to do fun things like camp or hit a show or simply have a nice dinner. I want to keep people in my world and not let them slip away because we were all just “living our lives”. But at the same time… I want solitude. I want to be alone to have the peace and quiet as my mind tries to wrap itself around what it is that I’m actually doing with my life… what it is that makes me happy. I feel I need time to take care of all the things that need attention, which cuts into time for other things… like people. It’s kinda messed up.
OK… back to the ESOP Conference (Yes Keith… ESOP). I really enjoyed it. It was informative. They had comfortable chairs. I liked everyone I was there with. It was nice to change up my week. I learned something at every workshop that I’ll be able to take back to work with me and hopefully have a positive impact on my department as well as the company. But what has been on my mind since the last twenty minutes of the last workshop was… the last twenty minutes of the last workshop.
The Best Way to Engage Employee Owners: Tell a Story… that was the last workshop. In the last twenty minutes, the last exercise was that we were to tell our partners our story of why we work for an ESOP… why we stay working at an ESOP. Jay told me a story that happened the other day which reinforced his reasons of why he works at our company and when it was my turn… I told him I would have to go with what the company was able to give me when Kateri was sick, when she passed, and afterwards. Time… and that whole story.
After this little exercise is what has been on my mind. Once the room settled down and was quiet again, one of the speakers asked if anyone wanted to share their story… silence. You could see the panic in some people’s eyes… and I heard my muffled name come from the peanut gallery behind us as a fellow KAFer egged me on to tell a story. The speaker took a few steps up the center aisle and asked, “Is there anyone willing to tell their story?”. Again… silence… and I said fuck it! (I didn’t literally say it… just in my head) I figured this was an opportunity to see how I would do standing up in front of people… while talking. It was an opportunity to push the ol’ comfort levels. It was an opportunity to share something that adds humanity to the conversation of business. And to be frank, if I want to see where TDoM takes me…? if I really do want to get my story out there…? I need to tell it… so I took the opportunity to do just that. When not a single other person even made a hint of wanting to ramble off a random story… that they had just formulated in the last five minutes… in front of 40-50 people… I did.
Now… I think it may have been a little heavy for the audience. I don’t think anyone was expecting an Axeless Mountain Dwarf to stand up in front of them and start with, “I came to an ESOP for the benefits, quality of life, blah blah blah…” and then take the turn into how our company, “gave me time… when my wife got sick. They gave me time to hold her when she took her last breath. And they gave me time in the weeks afterwards.” I spoke about why I am forever grateful to the people I work next to, day in and day out, who have supported me through this big pile of shi… poop… and why I believe the culture an ESOP fosters is just as important as the retirement fund it creates. Nope… I don’t think they were expecting that. But neither was I.
I’ve gone back and forth for the last few hours wondering if I should’ve just sat there with the rest of the crowd… but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m happy I did it. It was a good thing for me to do. Although I hope I didn’t put a damper on everyone’s day, I’m comfortable with the experience. After the workshop was over, I was approached by Barbara as she thanked me for sharing my story. David (the other speaker) also stuck around and the three of us had a conversation. David has authored a couple of books and after my whole blog and “book” idea (which I haven’t done anything about) came up in the conversation, he gave me his card and said I could use him as a resource… networking!
The conversation with Barbara and David after getting up in front of strangers to tell my story is one of the reasons I’m glad I decided to say “Fuck It”. Was it a bit much of a story for that environment?… maybe. Do I regret doing it?… no. Do I think it people took something away from it?… yes. What that is?… I’m not sure.. but by the looks on people’s faces… it made an impact!
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
ps… yup, smack the little follow button if you want…? or maybe the like button…? maybe…?
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)
Long story short… here’s a list of observances and epiphanies (not many epiphanies, but it sounds good) and some things that have just been swirling up in the ol’ noggin… at 13 months a widower.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Yup, that’s enough sad widower shit for a Sunday morning… I gave it it’s time. Now, it’s time to get excited about friends coming to make cookies and family coming to catch up. It may be a horrendous experience losing a spouse, but cookies and conversations help ease the pain and burden of having to go through it… and I’m thankful for the people who help me get through the day… one day at a time. (stoopid Dr. Phil Moments!)
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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!
It’s a little weird seeing something that has been a part of my life… a part of mine and Kateri’s life… start to go away… and I’ve realized I’m not exactly ready for that. So I decided to take apart the broken chair, trace each piece, cut ’em out, sand them, and reassemble the same Adirondack Chair… with new wood. I wanted to keep the memories, but needed to replace enough of the chair that I decided it was a good opportunity for a fresh start… and for a project. It was fun blaring music, setting up saw horses, and pulling out the old power tools. A friend had just come and helped me organize the garage the day earlier so it was nice to have an open work space after the winter, too! I hadn’t work in the garage since last fall (it’s kinda cold out there in the winter) and it just felt a little bit like summer… early summer… late spring with fires still in the woodstove. It felt good. Comfortable.
I’m glad the chairs will have an attachment to my memories with Kateri… that I didn’t just go and buy some random piece of patio furniture because it was convenient or inexpensive. Kateri would have dug the fact that I took apart a chair and built new ones. If she was around she would just let me go and do my thing in the garage while she would dig in the dirt. I would proudly bring out the finished product and place them on the porch… and we would sit. I can picture her sliding her dirt covered hands back and forth on the arm rests… leaving little dark trails on the freshly sanded wood. All part of testing them out… of breaking them in… of enjoying them and the things they provided us.
Yup, Kateri would dig them and that puts a smile on my face. That’s the “widower” sad side of the chairs (filled with a ton of good memories and stories), but we live in the present and I’m walking into the future. I look forward to sitting on the porch in one of those new Adirondack Chairs, maybe for hours, and maybe in silence. Then again… maybe not! I did make TWO chairs! That’s the perfect number of chairs needed for a conversation on the porch! I mean, there are other seating options and space to accommodate at least 4 other people… but I’m not making another chair for a while. And just so you know, if you are ever sitting on my porch with me… you will witness me wave to every car that drives past. Except one. I have my reasons. 
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I actually started another bloggery thing the other day that I meant to finish and throw out to the ether yesterday. The whole 13 months gig… a year since I finished my Thirty Days of Mourning notes… reading through them… just made me want to share my thoughts on that day!… but I didn’t. And I’m not gonna today, either. (neither?)
My evening last night was instead filled with friends showing up on their motorcycles right when I told my mom that I didn’t have company… and then me calling her back at the end of my night. It was a wonderful and entertaining visit… it always is. I texted with besties about steroids. I ate a strip steak that had been cooked to a perfect 125 degrees… sliced… and served over pearled couscous and steamed broccoli that was almost not over cooked. I’m happy I’ve spent 24 years in kitchens… and that I have a thermometer… and seasoning salt! (Having the ability to cook for yourself is quite beneficial as a widow/widower. Actually doing it?… that’s another story!) There was some guitar… but just some. There was a text… followed by five more… one being a picture of Kateri and the Text Sender in front of the Text Sender’s family’s sugarhouse from a few years back. Both of them with winter hats, scarves, and smiles… two, big beautiful smiles… because they were happy. Kateri was happy.
Kateri loved this woman with a huge chunk of her heart. She was proud of her. She trusted her… with her life (there are examples). And the text sender loves Kateri (yes, there are examples of that, as well). For me last night, it felt nice to sorta remember some of the good shit (just starting to be able to do that… one of those kind of fucked up things as a widower) and to remember there are a lot of wonderfully caring people that the loss of Kateri has affected. It also just felt nice to feel that love myself… in a picture sent from one side of Vermont to the other, with words on a little screen followed by little hearts, and from the 18 years of friendship that preceded the Text Sender sending the text last night. The Text Sender was sad because she loves Kateri. She reached out last night because of her love for me. Yup… that’s “The Good” in the big pile of shit.
Ya… so, last night was filled with people… and that’s what I needed. I’m sure I’ll finish the other post sooner or later. Tonight though?… it’s rainy, windy, and now dark… the perfect combination for comfy clothes and mindlessness!
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
Wow. It just took me waaaaay too long to write that paragraph… and I need to eat. Aaaand… I need to come clean. There are actually no sump pumps in the video. It’s just me talking about my sump pump and how a simple thing like a sump pump provided me some comfort. The sump pump is in the sump under the house through the bulk head… where there’s spiders… and snakes… and other evil things from evil worlds… so I don’t hang out down there making videos. Sorry you won’t get to see the sump… or the sump pump… maybe some other time!……………………………….. sump pump.
Intermission
Ya… so… that was all written a few days ago… the snow is gone and it has actually been a beautiful couple of days here in the Northeast weather-wise. Life on the other hand, well…. it’s been good, but a little rough on both the professional and personal side. All just part of the process… and life I guess. I’m not sure if acknowledging the challenges makes them any easier, but I feel being aware helps me get through the day as I’m trying to look to the future. The future… hmmm. For right now, I’m starting to think about it… have to… but mostly, I’m still just figuring I’ll see it when I get there.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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(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.
As I have flubbed my way through this, there are times that I just feel lighter. Sometimes it’s happens when I come to a realization of something that has been weighing down my brain. Sometimes it was just getting through a holiday or birthday or our anniversary. For right now… for today… I attribute my “I simply feel a little better!” state of mind to two main things… getting past a date… and a text saying, “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!”.
Now, there are actually a gazillion little things I believe that contribute to noticeably feeling a little better… i.e. getting most of the yard raked, not needing to build a fire every night, rearranging the living room, meeting new people from all walks of life… in my new life, SPRING!!, the fact that I’m still on top of sh… stuff, that I haven’t acquired some strange illness that causes a baby’s hand… and arm… to grow out of the top of my head! (although… could be useful) Yup, there are a bunch of things that come into play, but currently it’s the continuous passage of Time during my tedious little march that helps me get through certain checkpoints. For me, hitting the one year mark without Kateri felt like I was just gently pushed into a new chapter of life. Of course, it might just be a new paragraph, but might as well use the universally accepted homogenized term to reference a point in the story line. Hopefully it’s a long story… and as long as there are more pages to turn… I don’t really care what chapter or paragraph I’m on!
The text… “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!”… came from my father… and he wasn’t lying. We found out that my mother had cancer (lung cancer that had also traveled to her brain) 4 or five months before we found the sh… stuff (really trying not to cuss!) in Kateri’s head. For me, it has been quite the experience having to process and accept that the two most important people in my life were handed the cancer card…. and cancer is a fucked up thing. Once you live with cancer in your world, you begin to see not only how prevelant and inconsistant the disease is, but also how many people it simply affects. It’s a strange trip. When I got the phone call that they had found something in my mom’s lung… I was devastated. When it hit Kateri… and then she died… well, I didn’t think about what was worse than “Devastated”, but I felt it. Luckily… time does help.
Sometimes, you just have to hold on for a while and let the time pass.
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!
Honestly, it’s been one of those roller coaster months, but for now I’m just gonna allow the “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!” to stick around for a while and give me another thing to smile about. Today is Mother’s Day…. and I feel fortunate that when I’m done here I have the opportunity to pick up the phone… and talk to my mom… because I love her. (yes… I’m a momma’s boy. When I was a kid, I remember crying after a swim lesson… not because I was afraid of water or got it up my nose or anything, but since I was having so much fun in the water… I forgot about my mom… and I didn’t like that.) There’s a lot of crap out there, but the good is hangin’ around, too. Sometimes it’s so good… you have to say it twice.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
I’m at a point where some of the fog is starting to lift and my mind isn’t fully consumed by figuring out how to just “survive”… the shock is dissipating, I guess. A few other people who have lost their loved ones (spouses) have reached out to me… and I can’t tell you how wonderful that makes me feel… that they found some sort of connection to what I was saying or that it put them, at the least, a little bit at ease knowing they weren’t the only ones going through this horrendous experience. They could see there are other people who somewhat understood their pain… which is unrelenting at the beginning of this life changing event.
Soooo, on this beautifully overcast and chilly Vermont Sunday morning I decided to jump back on the ol’ blog and update the “My Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning” page with adding the first 6 days of notes from my experience being alone in the world again after nearly 20 years with Kateri. I’m currently in the first anniversary month of my Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning and it’s nice to use it as sort of a gauge to how I’ve changed, coped, and dealt with this slap in the face from life. I’ll admit… it’s a little strange looking back at these notes a year later, but I love the fact that I can remember most of it so clearly. Of course, revisiting pictures makes for a lovely emotional Sunday morning… but it’s nice to recognize that it’s a different time, it’s a different space, and that I’m different. I don’t know if I can say “Better”… there’s a lot that goes into that… but I can definitely say things have changed… and that I’m ok. I’m may even be good… ish… and I hope you all are, too.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning
Widower Day 6… (April 28, 2018). Woke up at 6:58am on the couch… in the same position.
Took truck to recycling in Thetford
a. Broke the law (not my town’s dump… shhh), saw Joan, she turned right. I figured if she was going to the orchard that it would give me an in… so I followed her, so I could meet a neighbor. Laying down foundation.
b. John and Peggy
c. Beautiful view
d. Sprayed me with tick shit. New thought… I am going to constantly be paranoid of ticks since I now don’t have that person to Tick Check me (Tick Check Yourself before You Wreck Yourself…).
Took Jeep to Kmart for more green bins. (For Kateri’s clothes)
Drove to Hannaford’s in Bradford. Figured I should have at least a little bit of food I know I would eat, but don’t have to make.
a. Interesting how I’m a cook, but I was buying things I only needed to heat up.
b. First real shopping trip shopping for just me… odd sensations, realizations.
Went to Local Buzz for a sandwich.
a. Abby made it for me. Came up from behind me.
b. Same approach as Wild Hill Orchard… I need to step out of my comfort zone if I want the keep the same types of things that Kateri provided for me. I would pretty much never go get a sandwich by myself and bring it home to eat.
c. Got a pack of smokes from The Bliss (not sure if that is the name of it).
Called Will… he and Kate came over.
a. Brought enchiladas, mole, guac, beans, chips
b. Chatted in the kitchen and then on the deck… sunny, warm
c. Will called an hour later mentioning that he can always come over and we can just smoke a joint.
Tidied the garage.
a. As I type this, I realize it is giving me “purpose”… something to do, something that keeps my mind going… even if it is about what I am going through.
b. Built a support for plywood. Moved wood to middle so that I have space to move around and to start setting up the garage for the beginning of my life.
c. Threw scrap wood in black cart, baby rocker to shed, wheelbarrow.
Flipping through pictures, I came across the 3 I had taken of Kateri (the morning she died)… didn’t shock me as much as I expected it to. I was conflicted about taking the pictures, but I felt I need to have the option of being able to see her… I find the picture beautiful with the army blanket… I just love her and found it to be somewhat peaceful.
a. Deleted one photo
b. Didn’t take any other photos at Palliative.
Had a Fire.
a. Figured… why not? I’ve got a fire pit. Burnt all scrap wood from garage except planter box and piece of house (would be good to start the next fire).
b. Light out for the whole thing. Sun just starting to go down. Chickens just roosting up… I watched them march to the coop.
c. Used old gasoline to start… ya, stoopid… but kinda fun (kept thinking “WFC Style”). It got a little big at one point… need to expand the ring.
d. Looked around—this is all mine… just an odd feeling and made me think about the fact that I wouldn’t have this without Kateri… no bank would give me a loan off of what I make. Lucky that I have all of this in a time I am dealing with such sorrow and loss. I’ll figure the money shit out… hopefully.
Took a shower. Facetimed my P’s. Planned on watching Justice League (Kateri loved superhero movies… those where really the only types of movies we would go out and see… “big screen movies”), facetimed with Keith.
a. I haven’t really been able to cry when I’m alone. Talking with my P’s and Keith I got a little weepy… I was able to release a little. It’s strange all the different types of emotions and angles and just “things” the brain does as it tries to cope. I feel mellower emotionally, but I can’t tell if it’s any easier.
b. Fell asleep on the couch again (I’m writing this from bed on Sunday… at 12:30pm. Came up at 6:30 for a “Sunday morning” and haven’t really left except for 2 smokes… and had to wash my hand after each one).
Some thoughts during the day/night:
a. Willing to invest my personal time in KAF if they are willing to invest in my future… hell, I can work at home on shit and it won’t take time away from Kateri these days.
b. I still get a kick out of numbers (1234) and remember how we would text the time back and forth.
c. Realized I haven’t looked at myself in the mirror for a while… don’t even know the last time. I looked hairier to myself.
d. People are telling me “You did good”… no regrets type shit, but I don’t really care that they feel I have been a good husband/partner/”soulmate” through this and through our life. I only care about what Kateri would think… and I will never be able to ask her about that, if I gave her enough love/support… if she was proud of my actions through life and through this big pile of shit. (I am now crying). Just one of those mindfuck type things. The tears feel good.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
I’m not gonna do this for the next fifteen days or anything, but I figured it was kinda cool to revisit a year ago… that whole, “look at how much has happened since then” type thing. This has been an emotional three days, but they’ve been good. Emotional… but not exactly too much more than any other day or what was to be expected. The flood of love and support is somewhat overwhelming… in the best possible way!… but definitely adds to the waterworks.
Really, I just wanted to start year two by remembering Day 1 of this new life. Day 1 was… strange. I was exhausted. I was in shock… and in a fog. You would think it is the hardest day… the day after losing a spouse, but for me… I was numb. I just floated through it. It’s when you come out of that fog and have to live life again is when it gets tough… stoopid reality sets in.
I read through these note… thought about that day… looked back at the last three days… and I’ve gotta say that I feel good! I’m proud of myself for getting through this first year, by doing it however I thought I needed to do it. People say there isn’t a road map for this type of shit… and from what I can tell, they’re correct! I’m glad I was able to bushwhack for a bit… find my way… and I feel like there are gonna be some open spots up ahead so I’ll stay on the “as positive as possible” train for now. There are no more first anniversaries… there will no longer be days that I can say, “On this day last year, Kateri was… yada, yada, yada… alive.”. Time is a funny thing… and I’m starting to think it likes to fuck with you.
My favorite part about Widower Day 1 was Heman. Kateri and I had never met Heman… I guess Kateri just hasn’t… but we spoke about him often as we made up stories from the limited information we had acquired through the two and a half years since buying the schoolhouse. He’s a neighbor just a few houses down the road, has the bushy… somewhat frizzy big white beard, is a machinist who loves old cars (he has a beautiful old Studebaker… it’s gorgeous!), and there are stories that he has lists… that you don’t wanna be on. Kateri’s high school (?… I think) French teacher used to live down the road and he told us that once he saw his name in the ol’ 18 spot. Some time had gone by, him and Heman caught up… AND HE SAW HE WAS NUMBER 4! Didn’t know what it meant… but didn’t think it was good!
Heman is just one of those characters in life that everyone has a story about. Honestly, a vast majority of the stories I have heard from various friends and neighbors put him on a pretty high pedestal. He’s a good, honest man that will help you out if you need it… and yes, I kinda wanna be him when I grow up! (I mean, I wanna be Braedy’s dad, as well… but that’s a whole nother story that involves tractors and tighty whiteys)
I remember it was brilliantly sunny that morning… it felt nice… after, well… losing Kateri the night before. When I’m outside, especially when I’m on the porch, I wave to everyone who drives past the schoolhouse… and this loud ass purple Chevy was no exception. I watched it go by and when I heard that it stopped out front and was backing up it was kinda like… ok? this may be interesting?!… not knowing who it was at first, but when I saw that big ol’ beard… I knew exactly who it was. I can’t tell you the impact this encounter has had on my life. Although I was in a daze from just losing Kateri… I felt a smidgen of comfort. I’ve gotta tell you, Heman was nowhere near the bubble of people I thought I was gonna encounter that day, but he probably had the most profound affect on me. Day one of my new life… just happened to be the day I got to meet Heman.
Heman: Hallo… My name’s Heman… I live just down the road. Figured enough time has gone by that introductions were in order.
Me: Heman… I can’t tell you how fantastic I think it is that you stopped by today, but I’ve just gotta let you know that my wife passed away last night… and things are a little strange.
Heman: Oh, oh my gosh… I’m so sorry for stopping. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Me: That’s ok Heman. This is why Kateri and I bought this house… our first home… to set roots. I think it’s absolutely perfect that on the first day of my new life… on day one… I got to meet a neighbor… and it was you. I just wish Kateri could have been here to meet you, too.
Heman: I’m just so sorry for your loss man. If I still drank I’d invite you down to the porch for a beer, but I gave that up blah, blah, blah 2012.
Me: That’s ok Heman… I haven’t had a drink since September 9, 2006… but I smoke pot?!
Heman: SO DO I!!
Yup… and Heman basically got back into his loud ass purple Chevy, cigarillo coming dangerously close to his perfectly unkept beard, and went off to do whatever it is that Heman does.
It’s been a long strange year… and now, I’m ready to see what the next year has to offer, but this is what I did the day after Kateri died. I remember it being strange in itself to open up a computer in bed to make these notes… we never had “screens” in bed!
ps-I have yet to hang out on Heman’s porch… maybe in Year 2!
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning
Day 1… Woke up at 10:00am-to alarm-Dr. Phil moment
Just Scottie, Maria, and myself
a. Heman drove past, stopped, backed up, and pulled into our driveway.
b. Figured it had been long enough and introductions should happen
c. Told him my wife passed away.
d. We bought this home to set roots and it meant the world to me that a neighbor… Heman… would stop by the DAY AFTER Kateri died meant so much to me as I am in the first day of my new life
e. Scottie left around 12:45PM
Bobbi stopped by after checking her mail. Sat on the deck
Keith and Michelle came by. They brought me a BLT hoagie
Moose and Fam came by.
a. Went over cremation papers… decided on Wednesday.
b. Made list of who would be invited to cremation
c. Tony’s first time to the house.
d. This is what a “home” is… a place for friends and family to gather… I’m glad I had that realization.
Chichi and Benjamin came by with 6 pizzas
a. Gave me a… card.
Never really left the front deck
Got sun burnt on my face
Facetimed with my family… they were at Dina’s house.
Went to bed at 5:00am
Widower Notes n Thought:
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!
Twenty years later, I love the fact that the image of Kateri strolling through the snow is still clear as day in my mind… and that it was just the beginning of her filling my life with friendship, purpose, guidance, and love. It has been the surprise of my life watching this young twenty something woman from the east coast walking through the snow turn into the most important thing that ever came into my world. I am grateful and lucky that I am the one who got to spend the rest of Kateri’s life with her… I am fortunate in that way… I just wish she didn’t have to leave.
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.
ps… the video is kinda dark, but it did happen to be night time… and we were just sitting in our driveway. This is simply a minute and 18 seconds of Kateri being Kateri. Yup, sometimes she just had to finish out a song! (love ya Nina)
Although Kateri called herself a “Recovering Catholic”… she still loved the holidays and Easter was no exception. It didn’t matter if we were home or happened to be away in some dumpyish hotel near the ocean, visiting friends back in The Rockies, or with family anywhere… there was always an Easter Basket in the morning. I’ve got to mention that Kateri loved baskets, and if there was a holiday where she could make someone happy by putting little gifts and candy in a basket… she was all over it! The gravy being she got to keep the baskets afterwards!
Sorry, just gotta detour for a sec because one of Kateri’s favorite Easter events IN THE WORLD! just popped into my head. We have a couple of friends who throw an Adult Easter Egg Hunt! Now, first of all, Kateri loved these two people. (The husband was actually the nurse who was there when they had to tip her upside down to put an IV in her neck when her kidneys failed in 2004… after our trip to the Dominican. It was a scary time and she was so thankful that someone she knew was taking care of her… and that it was him. He had ever since held a special place in her heart). Anyways, these guys have some land in the hills and invite friends over for an evening/night of festivities. You see… the Easter Egg hunt happens once it get’s dark!… At night!… with flashlights n shit!… on a few acres in rural Vermont consisting of yard, woods, creek, pond, fields, barns, and culverts! It was probably one of our favorite experiences ever… I mean, at least in the top 250… there are a lot to choose from, but it’s up there!
It was hilarious. I think about 50 of us… ish… packed into the kitchen and living room of their little old farmhouse and waited for two things. 1. For it to get dark and 2. For John to come back from hiding the prize which would provide us with a “winner” of the hunt… The Black Egg. Actually it was shaped liked a kidney, but it did the job. It was obviously the best color for an Adult Easter Egg Hunt at night… and it was able to hold the prize of a couple hundred bucks for the winner!
It was nice for everyone to catch up in that time, to meet new people, to share stories… but once John came back!… it was on!… in the most polite, friendly, and supportive way an Adult Easter Egg Hunt could go! The fact that it was in the dark just killed Kateri and I! They would literally walk into the yard… drop eggs… and not find them till the next morning. You could see headlamps pointed straight down scouring fence lines, woods, around out buildings… and in them. You could hear the giggles of grown ups as they found and opened eggs filled with candy, lottery tickets, and booze. There was outright laughter echoing in the darkness as people tromped through the creek and slipped on the slick rocks. The year we participated, The Black Egg was inside… INSIDE… the 6 foot culvert running beneath the dirt road! It was simply one of those fun things in life that take you by surprise when you realize just how good of an idea it is… that everything about it is fun! Basically, it’s a night filled with good people who are simply trying to find money in a black kidney… in the dark… while drunk and stoned. (yes, it’s also fun sober… just not as fun… or challenging)
Last year, Easter fell on the 1st. It was actually three weeks before Kateri passed. It’s weird to think about… she wasn’t in Palliative Care yet. Heck, we hadn’t even received the bad news of no more options yet. Maria had just gotten to our house the day or two before… I think. She came to help… and to be with her sister. It was the three of us for the last three weeks of Kateri’s life… going through it… together. I am forever grateful to Maria for being here for many reasons, but it really comes down to the fact that I think Kateri needed her to be here. Kateri needed Maria to be with her as she was preparing to leave this earth… she needed her help… her support… her love. And Maria… needed to be with Kateri.
It’s because of Maria that I have this video taken last Easter after we had spent the morning drinking coffee and going through our Easter Baskets (Kateri got me a tent… that’s a whole nother story).
I didn’t remember the video when I stumbled upon it trying to clear space on my phone, so it sorta caught me by surprise. It’s hard for me to see Kateri in the “Cancer Time” and it’s quick, but it’s Kateri… through and through… in a space she loved… with people she loved.
If you are into Easter, Jesus, and all that jive… I hope you have a good one! If not… well… Happy Sunday!
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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.
Basically, I’ve enjoyed the morning. I’ve actually enjoyed the last couple of days. Last night, when I got home, I let the chickens out so that they could stretch their legs and remember what scratching in the grass and leaves from last fall feels like. I also learned that we all have a little slow motion option on our phones!… yup. As I’m going through life learning about what makes me happy, what doesn’t, and everything in between… I thought, “A slow motion video of Lil’ Bitch, Chicken, Chicken, and Chicken running to me might make me happy?!… and it did. Soooo…..
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)
Yesterday… a year ago… Kateri went into Palliative care after we spent all night in the ER (except for an early morning run home with Maria so we could grab… something?… don’t really remember). I’m not gonna talk about seeing her doc in the morning, before the hospital was humming… when I could see the sorrow in his eyes as he went over options of drilling holes in Kateri’s head to relieve some pressure. I’m not gonna get into how I kicked the wooden box out of frustration because Kateri said, “We… can’t do this anymore.”… a box I walk by every morning and every night… splintered wood that reminds me of the time I wasn’t willing to give up hope… I wasn’t willing to accept it… but my wife… Kateri, couldn’t take the pain any longer. I’m not gonna talk about that because… as awful as those sound… I thought I still had time.
A year ago yesterday, I sat on a couch. Across the room from me was my wife, my best friend, the love of my life… Kateri. It was quiet… calm. Kateri was asleep… well, drugged… but finally some relief for her. Keith was on one side of me… Michelle on the other.
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.”
What does “mourning” mean to me? I guess it’s remembering picnics with bologna sandwiches (bologna was not a part of our normal diet) in the back of Cherokees… in the middle of Iowa while a thunderstorm is wreaking havoc across an empty campground. It’s remembering Kateri saying, “Fear the poke!” as she would flex her index finger to show off her second digit muscle. It’s remembering that Kateri was the most loving, thoughtful, honest… sometimes brutally honest, and simply the most beautiful person I have ever been fortunate enough to meet, to be friends with, and to share my life with (of course, she’s basically the only one I’ve shared my life with!). It’s remembering sitting on that couch being comforted by friends I love. It’s remembering walking over to my wife to hold her… crying… knowing she was going to die… knowing… Kateri was going to die… soon. It’s remembering a time… when she was alive.
(before anyone says anything about her always being around, will never truly be gone, she’s in the wind and yada, yada, yada type stuff… I get it… I’m not talking about that stuff)
It’s been nice going through some old pics, but really it’s not the time. It’s hard, but the memories of Palliative Care are really what are consuming my thoughts right now… and I’m OK with that. That’s what was going on a year ago. I feel it’s only natural that they would still be ever present in the ol’ noggin around the first anniversary. And quite frankly, I believe it was probably the most intimate experience Kateri and I had together so I’ll just roll with it. Being with the person you love more than yourself when they are in pain, when they are sick, when they are told there is nothing that can be done to save their life… and them looking to you for comfort… them looking to their husband… looking to the love of their life… well, that’s when life shows you a bit more of what love is.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
I need to remember those times without trying to pile on what I was going through after she had passed. I mentioned that I need to take the next couple of weeks and mourn the loss of Kateri, to remember her, and this experience. I just can’t do that while posting and thinking about the time right after she passed. It’s just too much… and it takes away from the uniqueness of each experience. I feel it would diminish them… to just notes about an experience. Writing and this blog has shown me that.
Soooo, after reading my notes from Day 15, I thought it was fitting to pause the “Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning” notes here (I’ll still be posting other things) until after the 22nd, and to remember not only the last two weeks of Kateri’s life… but the 44 other years we were all so lucky and thankful to have her in our lives. For me, I just want to remember the last 20 years… my life with Kateri… and not the life without her.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning
Day 15… woke up at 8:00am… got out of bed at 8:45… just needed to be horizontal a little longer.
As I get ready to go back to work, I decided to shoot the entire company (for some reason) an email to show my gratitude. This is what I sent out.
Good Morning Everyone,
As I try to reintegrate back into life I was going to write to my crew, to my peeps, to our department, to say “Thanks!” for supporting me and for picking up my slack over the last however long when I realized that I needed to thank everyone who makes up this company. What I just went through (and am still going through) requires support from all sorts of different angles, from all sorts of people who are in my life in varying degrees. I don’t know most of you and I’m sure most of you don’t know me, but we have KA that connects us and right now those connections are helping me as I try to navigate, cope with, and live with this new life that was thrust upon me. My wife, Kateri Marie Damato, died 2 weeks ago after a four month and three-day dance (she considered it a dance… not a battle, not a fight… although she fought hard) with Metastatic Malignant Melanoma in the brain at the age of 44. She had a rare mutation in the disease that was just absolutely brutal to her body. She faced it head on and with that “Kateri” approach to life. She never asked for a prognosis, never took narcotics for the pain because they disgusted her, she never said the “woe is me” type stuff, she never stopped living her life or being who she is when faced with an obstacle that would have left most of us destroyed on the floor and unable to function because of the weight of it. This has been the absolute worst thing that has happened to me in my life so far. I have never felt so saddened, so scared, so sorry for someone else. I have never felt so many different emotions, so much pain while… numb at the same time. It is a strange thing to go through losing a spouse, a partner. Two weeks ago, I went from traveling through this life and all that it brings (a home, experiences, travel, friends, moments, chickens) with someone who I planned on being old and wrinkly with… to instant independence and all the challenges that that brings emotionally, physically, and financially. To say the least, it has been a bit much.
The point of this email is not to list all the horrible things that come along with a big pile of shit like this, but to shed light on the amount of beauty that I have seen while going through this experience. The amount of love and support from friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances, and strangers has been simply overwhelming. The conversations, the phone calls, the texts, the emails from all sorts of people in our life from all sorts of places has made some of this bearable and the rest of it not quite as daunting. Life doesn’t stop for any of us roaming this planet, but sometimes we need to stop and say “thank you”. I thank everyone for giving me time to be with my wife as she lived with cancer, to care for her when it got rough, and for the time to initially cope with my life after it had taken her’s. I thank you for providing me with the memory of being treated as a person, not an employee, in a time of adversity. I thank you for the opportunity to look back at this and say, “Ummm, that went as well as it possibly could… for a big pile of shit”.
I am just one person within this company and I know we all have a different experience with it, but I felt the need to share part of my experience with all of you because it has been a positive one… and this is what it’s all about. We are a company made up of people who are all just living life… it’s as simple as that. I look forward to using some of my new-found time to get to know some of you a little more. You can check out my FB page if you want a fuller story of our life recently and in years past (I’m cool with friend requests at this time… filling voids n such), and I’ll check out yours. If not, that’s cool and groovy… we don’t all need to be friends. More importantly, please just be kind to one another, respect each other for being here, and support the people who you are surrounded by every day because that is the way life should be lived, that is the way people should be treated, and that is the experience that you have given me.
Regards,
Darren
a. I’ve gotten some replies already and they make me feel hesitantly better.
Called Consolidated
a. Paid the bill, my name is nowhere on the account, they transferred me to CS… got sick of waiting and have to wait for death certificates anyways.
b. Haven’t gotten death certificates yet… kind of annoying, but not really. Doesn’t really matter at this point… I’ll get them at some point.
Set up the new phone.
a. Kind of a fun little new thing. I like that it is black like the router… sorta blends in, doesn’t stand our as much as the white.
Keith came over and we chatted on the front deck for a bit (left at 3:30ish).
a. The sun was nice. Had to open up the umbrella.
b. First time I hade cried in a bit. It feels good to be able to cry when he visits, I’m finding I get more emotional when other people are around
c. He’s gonna start working 5 days a week…
Drove up to Burlington for Penny Cluse’s 20th Anniversary. It was something that is uncomfortable for me… social situations… alone, but I wanted to congratulate Charles and Holly and say thank you for being a part of my life. It is still one of my favorite restaurants and I hold Charles in such high regard as a cook/restaurateur
a. Didi and Nick pulled up besides me as I was texting with my dad about places to stay when they come out.
b. I felt awkward about going in, but I felt pretty secure with my actions… I knew I needed to go in and I knew that I really did want to see people. (It didn’t feel weird)
c. People I saw: Didi, Nick/John, Charles, Holly, Tracy, Stasia, Dan Marshall, Moira/Joe, Andy, Carlton, Juan, Sabra, Betzida?, Ruslan/Emily, Dale, James, Clarence/Sandy, Jake/Kristen, Gardner, Sipha,….
d. Stayed longer than expected, but was gonna roll with it anyways. I’m glad I stayed as along as I did to see the people I did and to have the conversations I had.
Drove home, talked to my folks about some Freedom Farm house (looked it up when I got home… hopefully they can book it).
a. I had to just get off the phone with them considering my father kept running downstairs to the computer to get information on it… I was trying to get home… and it was late already, but that is what makes it interesting and entertaining.
Read cards from Leo and Heidi, and Nancy D.
Went to bed at 2:10am…. First day of work tomorrow. Another first day of my new life… more Dr. Phil moments to come.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
Work is a huge part of a cook’s life… it’s a huge part of my life. Kateri and I were a cook and a flower farmer. We were worker bees… the drones… like so many in our circle. We rely on work out of necessity for survival… it’s paycheck to paycheck. Now, I’ve made it no secret that I’m kinda over being in kitchens… 24 years is a long time to do anything and I just wanna try something new… but the comfort I found just sitting on a stainless steel table, talking with my chef… with my friend, on a day when I was seeing my co-workers… some for the first time after losing Kateri, was the perfect place for me to be. I found warmth surrounded by the hum of refrigeration, sitting on a cold metal table, and having someone listen to me as I tried to explain what I was going through.
I am forever grateful to my place of employment and co-workers for one reason (there are other accolades I can give, but this is the big one)… they gave me time to be with my wife when she got sick… they gave me time to be with her when she went into Palliative Care… they gave me time to be home in our schoolhouse after she passed. It is because of that time that I am able to look back on this horrendous experience and recognize that there are good parts imbedded in those memories. It is because of the time given, that I have the memory of holding Kateri’s hand and arm… when she took her last breath. To have the memory that I was with Kateri at the very end of her life… at the very end of our life… is something I will always cherish… no matter how hard it is to think about. That is what the gift of time can give someone… when time is running out.
For the past couple of weeks I have been humming and hawing over if I should be revisiting these notes right now, but that is one reason I think I started writing this blog. It has sorta guided me through this process. It has given me some insight to what it is I’m doing and what got me to this point. It has forced me to reassess decisions and to adapt so that I can keep moving forward… so that I can keep waking up each morning and keep putting on my big boy pants (Dr. Phil moments). In the last week and a half, it has shown me that I need to take the next two weeks… and mourn the death of Kateri. I need to put everything else aside, I need to focus on myself, I need to stop worrying about all the things that life has thrown at me, I need to stop trying to figure “everything” out, and I need to simply slow down… and mourn my wife… because I want to.
I have tried to be overly positive throughout this process because I needed to… to survive… literally. In no way have I ever had thoughts of suicide, but to this day… I still don’t want to live a day without Kateri… and that is a hard thing to come to terms with when I know I will never have another day at the beach with her. There won’t be another afternoon of working in the yard or in the gardens. She will never again be laying in bed next to me… drinking coffee… on a Sunday morning. As I’ve been faced with that reality, I had to overcompensate with “The Good” in the world… I’ve relied on it. But now… I just want to remember my wife… how much I love her… and how much I simply miss Kateri.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning
Day 16… First day of going back to work… first day of the rest of my life. Woke up @ 7:35ish
Couldn’t really jump out of bed. It was nice to have to get motivated to go to work, but I wasn’t in a hurry. It took a little longer to get out of the house as well… hesitant.
Eric texted if I wanted to go to A-Street first, so I drove there.
a. I like that I went to A-St. first… it was a nice warm up… a toe in the water.
b. He mentioned working in a day of rest in the middle of the work week for now… which I think is a great idea. It helps relieve that stress of making it through a work week. I’ll probably work Tues/Wed, off Thurs, work Fri/Sat. Who CAN’T work 16 hours without freaking out?! Of course, I may have a moment of freak out.
Went to Camelot.
a. Jason was there. We chatted both in the kitchen and up at my desk. Work shit.
b. Talked with Diane… I love my desk neighbor. She’s just a pretty cool lady.
c. Brock was working on the dodec and came over and gave his condolences. I like that dude, too. Just seems like a nice guy. Don’t know if we would have ANYTHING in common, but I would have a burger with that guy.
a. I’m trying to figure out who I want to maybe spend more time with or not while trying to figure out how to interact with people at the same time.
d. I had a bowl of chicken salad.
Went back to A-St. to chat with Eric and to see if there was anything I could do to help. Portioned chicken salad, turkey, roast beef… then pretty much left.
Chatted with Eric for a bit after everyone left.
Came home, swept the breezeway, cleaned bathroom/bedroom screens, got chicken water, cleaned the grill, replaced a burner cover (I thought there would be four in the case… nope, just one). Cleaned up the kitchen, dishes, and called Consolidated Communication and paid off bill.
Drove to Bradford to get some smokes.
a. I need to stop… still. At this point, I am also thinking of how she would deal with stuff.
Ate some spaghetti and meatballs
Watched some Kitchen Nightmares (which I don’t really care for), but it’s noise. Looked for lawnmower baffle and new cook shoes… couldn’t do either, but that’s OK.
My folks rented the Airbnb on Bloodbrook. I think that will be better for everyone.
I simply can’t do this anymore… I gotta sleep. All in all, it was a nice first “back to work” day. I’m feeling OK, but still know the challenges ahead me… there will be some new things/new emotions coming down the pike (?).
Going to sleep at 1:00am on the dot.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
ps… Go ahead, don’t be scared, you can follow the blog through email… there’s a button somewhere on here! It just feels good. I guess another reason for the blog… positive reinforcement. (You don’t even need to read them!… just delete them right away!)
I was gonna write about all sorts of stuff… but then I read how long this thing was and decided against it… because I can do that. Looking back on this day (and I remember it clearly)… is just kinda weird. I remember wanting to be strong and positive. I probably overcompensated on the positivity, but I needed to at the time…… And then I fell asleep on the couch (seems to be a theme). Yup.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning
Day 17…. Woke up at 7:25, stayed in bed until 7:37am
Day number 2 of work:
Started at Camelot.
a. Went through emails. Never suited up, stayed in 501’s/Cedar Circle Hoodie/Green John Deere hat.
b. Talked with people. Angela (might be going to Sheboygan), bakery Jim, Lindsay, Tony (from Jersey).
c. Put Trampoline in Jessica’s car and saw Karen, Suzanne, Ralph, Brock sitting on the picnic table, they came over to see how I was doing.
d. I did try to hit the major points of this experience and what my approach currently is towards the challenges that I’m about to deal with. I feel as though they were impressed with how I am dealing/coping with everything.
e. It felt nice that they took the time… the “Big Wigs”. I am/feel fortunate to work for this place. It is filled with people who are being sooo supportive of me as I go through this.
Went to A-St.
a. Eric, Gil and I went through the schedule for the summer to look at coverage.
b. Happens every year… the question of what to do with staff and how to reduce labor when Baker closes.
Went to that new building.
a. Spoke with Chantelle about insurance. She was awesome. Might leave me at Silver… why not, I’ve definitely hit the out of pocket maximum.
b. Barb came out and we chatted for a bit. It was nice to talk with her, she has been great through this… both supportive and responsible.
c. Gave Suzanne another hug and Ceal came through.
Went back to Camelot.
a. Hung out in the front for a minute.
b. Talked with Michelle… she’s just so nice
c. Had a conversation with J. He just became a US citizen (don’t know where he is from), but he said it was an amazing experience. He loved the diversity of the group that was there for the ceremony.
Called Knights’s funeral home from the park n ride in Thetford. Rich said they are gonna get some more death certificates and just mail them to me.
a. When I got home, there was a message from Stuart saying they were still waiting for the Williston PO to send them back. I felt bad calling them before I had heard that message, but it’s been over two weeks and I am ready to have the certificates in my possession so that I can take care of some stuff.
Went to the store. Was gonna pick up some hot dogs, but on the way there Michelle texted asking if I wanted to come over for dinner and have hot dogs!
a. I didn’t get much stuff, still not in a routine of meals and I don’t wanna throw shit away or spend money just to throw something away.
Came home and washed the jeep. It’s kinds fun washing your own car in your own driveway. It’s probably a strange sight in WFC, also.
a. Went to clear spam from Kateri’s email and saw the one from Kit again so I clicked on it. He had sent it (titled Thinking of you) on the morning of her passing at 10:57am. In it was a few pictures and a link to a video of me proposing to her at Mcguckin’s (Love in a hardware store).
b. I watched the video… it was rough, but I watched the whole thing. It just brought up so many memories and feelings.
c. It made me really miss her touch. I miss the feeling of her arm, her skin, her hair. I sat on the pink box (which is now purple) and cried for a bit. I went out and sat on the porch and just had that “missing her” feeling… it was overwhelming. All I wanted to do was to feel her again… and I know I never will.
When I was about to leave for Keith and Michelle’s, Michelle from Ptown messaged me thanking me for my message.
a. It felt good that she reached out. I really dug her, and it was my first experience meeting someone new… albeit, she was a bartender and working.
b. The conversation was just so easy and nice and she was so welcoming that I needed to thank her.
c. I kinda hope she stays in contact… I think it could be fun to see where that relationship goes (she is a lesbian with a girlfriend, so I don’t mean in any sexual way). I’m guessing this is what it’s like to meet friends and foster those relationships… or not.
Went to Keith and Michelle’s.
a. Hung out with just Michelle for a bit. It was nice.
b. She asked about “bartender Michelle” … that’s when I informed her that she was a lesbian, yada, yada, yada.
c. On the back deck I got emotional when talking about the challenges ahead of me. It’s nice to have them in my life. They provide me with a level of comfort that I just don’t get anywhere else.
d. Keith came home towards the end of my tear factory. He looked like he should be on a college campus with his button up short sleeve shirt, shorts, and name tag.
Came home. Closed up chickens. Heard a deer fawn in the woods somewhere to the north. They have that distinctive little whine/cry/noise. I didn’t go investigate, but it reminds me of Starksboro when we heard a mom giving birth and East Thetford when there were two in/around Sarah’s arena and by the gator.
a. Played a little guitar. It’s nice that my fingers aren’t hurting quite as much now that I’ve been playing more. It doesn’t help with the going to bed part though… It’s been nice being able to pick it up whenever… which just happens to be late night most of the time.
b. Watched a little Netflix… honestly, don’t remember what I watched (I am writing this the morning after because I fell asleep on the couch).
c. Texted with Matty for a minute. He was asking about places to stay. It wasn’t until the morning that I realized he should just stay here… or at least be given the option.
d. Smoked copious amounts of weed trying to get me to go to bed… but over did it and crashed on the couch.
e. It has been kind of nice not worrying about falling asleep on the couch when I don’t have to get up the next day. It doesn’t bother me… I’m still getting sleep… and it reminds me how I would always tell Kateri, “I don’t mind sleeping on the couch… it’s like camping!” I heard that as part of a joke from some comedian years and years ago… sorry dude, don’t remember who.
f. Ate some Cheetos and a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups because I had them. I feel guilty eating that shit, but I get enjoyment out of it also because I never really have had them in the house… at least the Cheetos… but I need to stop eating the crap.
I feel as though this was the first day that I have felt that “serious sadness” that is gonna be coming. Right now, it’s all still pretty raw, but when I had that feeling of just wanting to touch her, to hold her, to feel her hair in between my fingers I knew that a shift was starting to happen in the way I have been dealing with all of this.
And yup….. fell asleep on the couch… at some point.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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.
Some other times, I just want the night to last another twelve hours so that I don’t have to get out of my cozy bed… and start a new day. But then… then… it begins anyways.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning
Day 18… woke up at 6:12 on the couch… went up to bed until 8:00am
Had a lazy morning… didn’t do much.
At 11:00ish I got a newspaper (still haven’t read it) and went to the farm.
a. Got a Mocha and a blueberry muffin. Talked with someone who I couldn’t remember their name.
b. Talked with Anna on the picnic table about what’s going on. Maya came over on her way to lunch. She was stylin’ with a “Wolf” hat (almost airbrushie), grey long sleeve, swim trunks (palm leaves type)… Anna said she wants to do a photo shoot with her on “Farm Style”.
c. Saw Michelle. We caught up. She gave me a Rose of Sharon (Kateri wanted her to order them) and some kale for chickens. We cried next to the Jeep.
d. Went to the house to see Adie. She has to leave in a week to help with her father. Much earlier than expected which is hard for her.
e. Chatted with Dave and Luke for a bit about drinking and shit.
f. Saw Double E. We’ll get together and eat or play disc golf
Went and got Death Certificates. Rich came running down the hill with them. He is a very nice guy.
a. They looked fancy.
b. It’s kinda strange having them.
Saw Eric at the light in Norwich.
Decided to go to Best Buy and get a camera for the computer.
a. Passed Eric in W. Leb
Came home and raked the rock walls and area next to the road. It was quick and easy
Played a little guitar. Played a little Mappy/Pole Position/Galaga/Ms. Pac-man.
Dinner: Hippie cup of noodles, iceburg salad, orange, Cheetos.
Talked on the phone with Nate D. Jared/Double E/Nate were all texting me at the same time… spoke with Nate.
Fell asleep in the chair from midnight till 2:00am.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
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 remember this day. I like this day. It was an ok day with lasting ramifications. As a widower, I have to deal with balancing this new life with the old. It’s hard to have to sometimes push Kateri aside just so that I can get through a day. Shitty way to put it, but bill collectors don’t care that your wife died and I can’t cry all day at work… or at the store… or at the dentist… or hole up in my little schoolhouse wearing comfy clothes with a year’s supply of ice cream (in convenient pint sized servings).
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.
Lastly, it’s just really cool to be able to look back on my own experience and see myself doing OK… that I was challenging my norms… that I was living my life… and… missing ours. Sometimes flinging shit against a wall pays off.
There… that’s all I wanna say.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning
Day 19…woke up at 7:20ish
Tried putting down as much notes as I could remember quickly about yesterday because I fell asleep in the chair. Yesterday was just one of those days. Wasn’t very motivated to write shit down.
Went to work today. Got there just before 9:00am.
a. Chatted with Eric for a bit. Did pars, plugged in Ian’s requests, told him we didn’t have coverage for one of the days… life doesn’t work out sometimes… he was cool.
b. Annie got me by the front doors and said how she just felt like… she knew Kateri and I were soul mates. (sometimes I feel like that isn’t a fair term for the living. Grim future type stuff)
c. Work…. Well, it’s work. I enjoy it and I’m excited to get back into it, but I’m just not there yet. I’m pretty much going through the motions. I may jump in the kitchen tomorrow… but I haven’t yet.
Left work around 1:00pm… I’m sticking to the four-hour day for this week. To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to full days next week, but I’ve gotta get into it.
a. Came home to get gas can. Got it and went to Farmway to see if they had any shoes for work… they didn’t. Mainly it was because I’ve got tiny feet and they didn’t have any 7.5’s in clogs or “dress shoes”. It didn’t really surprise me… that’s part of being small! (needed a little excitement).
b. Mowed the yard. It felt good. Mowing the lawn is one of those instant gratification type things. It felt good to get the leaves out of there… to see mainly green. It neatens things up. I’m gonna try a new pattern in the back yard on the hill… it’s a bitch to mow and I don’t feel like dealing with it this year.
c. Gave Rob a call… left a message. I feel weird not connecting with him yet… we’re not tight, but he means a lot to myself and he was something special to Kateri. She was just so proud of him and impressed with him. He held a special place in her heart.
d. MPH called while I was taking a dump. I rushed and wiped because, I thought it was Rob returning my call… it wasn’t. We talked for almost an hour. It was nice to catch up with him. I’m really liking keeping in touch with people. It also feels good to have friends check up on me and then tell me they think I’m handling things pretty well. It was also nice just meandering around outside while chatting on the phone with a friend.
e. Took a shower (because I was disgusting from mowing… fucking dust and leaves) and ordered a pizza and tiramisu from Colatina Exit. Ordered an All the Way (supreme, deluxe, everything… whatever you wanna call it). That’s one of those things that brings me a little joy… the fact that I can order a pizza with a whole bunch of toppings… like mushrooms and bell peppers.
f. Went and got the pizza.
When I got home I decided to play a little guitar before I ate.
a. Decided to try and record what I was playing. Figured why not, there’s the technology… it might help me improve if I could hear what I was playing.
b. Then…. THEN, I started talking to the camera and I realized that it helped me, it was some sort of release, some sort of coping mechanism since I don’t have anyone to talk to at home anymore. It felt good and exhilarating.
c. Recorded three videos. Different degrees of breaking down between the three of them. Might do a fourth and think about posting it.
d. It made me think about doing a bloggy type thing or just using Facebook about what it’s like to go through this process. I think I would have to start tomorrow, though. I would want people to see as much as possible of this figuring it our shit.
e. I’m hoping that other people dealing with/coping with shit would get some sort of strength from seeing that someone else is dealing with shit, too.
Ate pizza and watched some Altered Carbon. I don’t know what’s going on, I haven’t been paying attention, but it’s science fictiony and it’s something on while I putz.
Decided to go to bed at midnight. Then decided that I should play some Mappy… so now it’s 1:22am. That’s part of the whole Instant Independence… I can play a game of Mappy at midnight and go to bed afterwards!… and then be annoyed with myself that I played a game of Mappy and it’s 1:23am.
Goodnight.
I’ve been doing things for the past 346 days just to try and feel better… maybe to push a bit of the pile of shit off to the side for a while… to hide it. In 19 days it will be the anniversary of Kateri’s passing. It’s 8 days until she went into Palliative Care… 6 days until we found out there were no more options… or chances of her beating this thing. Her dance was gonna end… soon. I remember I even tried to prepare myself for what I knew was coming… but it was sooner than I expected. Decades sooner than I wanted. And simply… too soon.
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)
That being said, being really sad does get really old really quickly! So I’m gonna go let the chickens out on the strip of grass exposed between the snow banks, so that I can see them run. If you haven’t seen a chicken run… it’s funny. (And now I’m thinking about Kateri’s imitation of a chicken running… which was also funny… crap)
ps… the evening got much better… in bed by ten!… and I’ve just spent 4 minutes and twenty-one seconds reading “much better” over and over again asking myself… “Does that sound weird?”.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning
Day 20… (Saturday, May 12, 2018) … alarm went off at 7:00am.
Couldn’t get out of bed until 7:37am. Doesn’t give me too much time in the morning, but there IS enough time to do what I gotta do. I also haven’t been making lunch in the morning since I’m just doing halfish days.
Got to work. Just Eric up on the dodec.
a. Caught up with him a tiny bit. Let him know I was doing OK, but there have been some rough spots in the last couple of days.
b. It’s good for me when its just us catching up with no one else around. I’m comfortable with him. I value his opinion… I guess that’s what friends do. I figure I’m also lucky that my friend is my boss.
c. Actually, touched a knife and an onion… three of them, and blanched some spinach for the Mother’s Day quiche special thingy. It felt good to do some chopping and sautéing. Didn’t talk too much…
d. I did the US Foods order… like riding a bike.
e. I have a more positive approach to how to handle things. I’m gonna try and be helpful, how do I help people move forward a bit.
Left work and just came home. I was gonna go to the store but figured we/I (I accidently wrote we out of habit and didn’t want to erase it so that’s what you get… a we/I thing) have enough food to survive a night so might as well not spend the money.
a. Stopped at the Thetford Village Store to get a couple of sodas… they didn’t have Sunkist in the bottle so I got a big can of Sunkist and a same size can of Cherry Coke… nostalgia I’m guessing. Also bought a lottery ticket… with power play… why not?
Got home and decided to suck it up and sand the bathroom. It took me a bit to get situated… putting on coveralls…. Finding hats… safety glasses… etc. Then it moves to the excitement of working on it… getting it just a little bit closer to being a full functional bathroom.
a. Had to break out the electric hand held sander… it was taking a little too long for my tastes and my shoulder was gonna feel it (in a bad way) if I did it all by hand.
b. I used the little speaker for music. I put it under the piece of plastic covering the bath… that was good… taking advantage of what we had.
c. Dust got everywhere. I mean, everywhere. I’m gonna have to get out the mop and sponge and water at some point.
d. Shop vac’d as much as I could. I’m going to have to do it again… which is fun (not really, it’s kind of a bitch).
Took a shower, Facetimed Maria, watched something, smoked some smokes, smoked some stuff, chilled most of the evening. Started watching Bojack Horseman… per MPH’s suggestion.
a. Maria got to Jamaica today. She brought a little of Kateri. She’s kinda considering the trip a pilgrimage for Kateri.
b. She smoked a joint in the kitchen by the back door. Shut the glass door to “block” smoke from going into the front room since she was waiting for dinner to be delivered
c. Maria Facetimed with Keith and Michelle and they watched the sunset together.
I left the chicken coop door open and didn’t check eggs this afternoon. I’m not too worried, if something can get them through all the mesh and wire fencing…
It’s 2:10am and I’ve gotta go to sleep. This is my problem. I am lost through out the day and find myself just standing or sitting and either staring off into something (or nothing) and by the time I need to write shit down I can barely keep my eyes open… or function.
Thought about posting videos of what I am going through on Facebook.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning 