Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning

A widower at forty-two. What Kateri gave me… what cancer took away… and how I'm coping with life from the woods of Vermont
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning
  • Bloggery
  • My 30 Days of Mo(u)rning
  • A Letter to Kateri
  • Random Widower Thoughts
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  • What’s Going on Here?
  • Tag: thirtydaysofmorning

    • Three Days of The Moon…

      Posted at 6:48 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on January 31, 2023

      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:

      • Sometimes life can bruise you up… sometimes pretty good. Just remember that bruises only grow for so long. At some point they plateau… stop spreading… and simply begin to change as they heal. It may take longer for them to mend than it did for the bruise to show up, but they do diminish over time… all the way to where you can’t even see them anymore. You may still feel the effects of the bruise, but at some point, you realize you’ve made it through the blunt trauma and frequent pain and are now simply living with the memory of the bruise… and hopefully you’ve learned to check for stumps…!
      Day 7

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      Posted in inspirational, Uncategorized, Widow, widower, widowhood | 9 Comments | Tagged IHopeIDon'tGetInTroubleForPicsofMyButt, thirtydaysofmorning, ThreeDaysoftheMoon, widower thoughts
    • Sledding, Stumps, and Butt Cracks…

      Posted at 9:51 am by Darren Lidstrom, on January 25, 2023

      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.

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      Posted in Uncategorized, Widow, widower, widowervideos, widowhood | 10 Comments | Tagged sledding, SnowDays, thirtydaysofmorning
    • A Widower Thought and Keanu Reeves…

      Posted at 12:29 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on January 15, 2023

      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”…!)

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      Posted in Uncategorized, Widow, widower, widowhood | 12 Comments | Tagged KeanuReeves, loss, thirtydaysofmorning, widowhood
    • Loss Popping Up Unexpectedly…

      Posted at 10:27 am by Darren Lidstrom, on October 30, 2022

      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:

      • Recognize and cherish those little moments in life… in the future they may not seem so… mundane. Or don’t… I’m not gonna tell you what to do… even though I just did.

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      Posted in death, grief, loss, Uncategorized, widowhood | 2 Comments | Tagged mymom, playingtheguitar, thirtydaysofmorning, video, widowervideos
    • The Envelope of Loss…

      Posted at 11:03 am by Darren Lidstrom, on October 16, 2022

      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:

      • Life is different once it’s touched by loss. I still find enjoyment and happiness here and there. I love my family… and my friends. I love my girlfriend and our dog. I love my home… and am grateful to have it. I love playing my guitar in the garage or on the front porch. I love seeing the fireflies on warm summer nights and my breath on cold winter walks. I love mowing my lawn and waving to people as they drive by… and then motherfucking them for driving too fast and coating everything with dust from the dirt road. I love corndogs… with nothing but yellow mustard. But…. I go through times with this strange kind of “whatever” feeling to my existence. My goal isn’t to build a future, I don’t have many Hopes n Dreams, and I guess I don’t really feel as though I have much “Purpose” in this world. I’m existing… getting through the day… one step at a time… sustaining. I’ve grown accustomed to this life and am comfortable enough with it. In my Widowhood, I don’t wish for death or an end to it all, but I understand that it’s coming at some point. Sometimes I get into a quasi-funk and it doesn’t really matter to me when that is. I’ve learned we don’t always have any control over it… and that it can come at any moment. It’s just weird living a life where there are moments that if someone said, “You have cancer and it’s terminal.”… I’d be like, “OK.” and then quit my job, go home to my Little Red Schoolhouse, have a fire, and ride it out. Thankfully… for today… that is not the case.
        • This was written at a specific time in my life (a few months ago) where this is what I was feeling. It’s completely fine to feel certain ways at certain moments. Our life is a continuum of emotions that we learn to live with… with the hope that we are able to recognize and manage them. A vast majority of the time I try to have a positive approach to life and be a good person while also knowing that sometimes I simply get that feeling of… blah.

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      Posted in death, loss, Uncategorized, widowhood | 4 Comments | Tagged FeelingBlah, loss, thirtydaysofmorning
    • Power Tools & A Picnic Table… what this widower did on his 5th Widowed Wedding Anniversary.

      Posted at 11:34 am by Darren Lidstrom, on September 29, 2022

      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 Tuesday, the day before my Wedding Anniversary, I was standing in the back yard taking a moment and I started to feel some of the emotions that come along with Loss bubble up. And then I thought about the fact that my Wedding Anniversary was Tomorrow… and not Today. Although feelings and emotions come when they want, I had to remind myself that I was still living in the present and before I could really let myself get immersed in the life and loss of Kateri… I needed to thank someone for always being supportive, for being understanding, for being a caring and giving individual, for being there for me, and for loving me. I needed to take a moment… be in the present… tell them, “Thanks”… and, “I love you.” We carry the past with us, but that’s not where we live.

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      Posted in anniversary, Uncategorized, wedding, Widow, widower, widowhood | 2 Comments | Tagged 5thWeddingAnniversary, thirtydaysofmorning
    • A Year With Xander… a few thoughts.

      Posted at 11:17 am by Darren Lidstrom, on September 26, 2022

      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

      • By the time I get home from work Xander has been cooped up in The Schoolhouse for 9 to 11 hours so when we go for our afternoon walk I want to give him… time. Time to run. Time to be outside. Time to be a dog sniffing, digging, patrolling, and playing in the woods and yard. On one of these walks I found myself standing there… for I don’t know how long… as Xander was tearing apart a rotting stump and digging deeper and deeper along it’s roots. It was hot… which in Vermont also means buggy… and I was just about over it. At that moment I recognized just how much fun Xander was having trying to get at whatever it was he was fixated on. I wanted him to stop so that we could keep on our walk and I could get to my evening tasks. And then I thought about how he spent the day surrounded by walls with only a view of the world outside the windows. So I took a breath and pushed my thoughts of evening chores to the side and took in the scenery and sounds of the woods while I waited… and waited… and let him be a dog.

      Responsibility

      • When Kateri died, I was thrust into this weird “Instant Independence” kind of life. I was responsible for only myself… and Kateri’s chickens. When the last three chickens (Lil’ Bitch, Chicken, and Chicken) got eaten by raccoons (bastards), I was the last living animal left at The Schoolhouse besides the mice, snakes, and other country creatures. The moment Amanda and I told Judy we would take care of Xander and he could live at my house, I assumed the responsibility of providing the best possible life I could for him. I was responsible for his health, his safety, and his happiness. It’s a responsibility that fills me with warmth every day when I come home and can see him through the big ol’ schoolhouse window sitting on the end of the couch with his paws hanging over the edge just waiting for me to walk past so that he can run to the door to meet me. Of course, sometimes I see him on the couch and by the time I open the door… he’s not there. Nope, sometimes when I open the door I can hear him in the dining room crunching away at the food in his bowl leftover from the night before. Yup… gotta say… sometimes it hurts just a little knowing that food is the bigger priority for him than seeing me at that moment!… but I’ve accepted it.

      Unconditional Love

      • There have always been dogs in mine and Kateri’s life, but we never had one of our own. We moved around a bunch… and were renters… and just thought it would be easier to pick up and start another adventure if we didn’t have animals. Once we bought our Little Red Schoolhouse, once we had our own land, once we had our own Home… that’s when things like pets, chickens, Hopes n Dreams would really start to take off. That first Spring in our first home is when those Hopes n Dreams started to take shape in the form of 8 chickens. And then two Springs later… Kateri died… and things like Hopes n Dreams turned into a cloudy and muddled view of life, love, and the world in which I was living in. Over the last four and a half years some of those challenges that come along with Widowhood have eased and some of those cloudy views have started to clear up a bit. Love is a complicated thing. For an emotion that can make you feel as though you are on top of the world… there are also circumstances where it plays it’s part in making us feel completely isolated… and alone… even when we’re surrounded by loved ones. A dog… Xander… brought life back to my Little Red Schoolhouse. A dog… Xander… has provided me with companionship, friendship, and love every single day over the last year. A dog… Xander… lost his person. Xander lost the life he knew and was thrust into an unfamiliar world… my world. Judy entrusted Amanda and I with the love of her life… and she gave me the opportunity to feel loved every morning as Xander nudges his way under the blanket for warmth an hour before my alarm goes off, every evening I come home from work to a wagging tail and the funny hoppity hop around the living room, and every night he makes his way up to the bedroom with that familiar clickity clack of toenails on wood floors… fashionably five…ish minutes after I have crawled into bed. As her life was ending, through her asking for Amanda and I to bring Xander into our lives, Judy gifted me with the feeling of Unconditional Love at a moment in time I needed to be reminded of it.
        • Loss in life is simply a hard thing we all go through at on point or another in varying degrees, but we need to remember that we’re living in a world where beauty, love, and happiness still exists and hopefully we have people in our lives that can remind us of that… even after they are gone.

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      Posted in anniversary, Uncategorized, Widow, widower, widowhood | 4 Comments | Tagged AYearWithXander, thirtydaysofmorning, widowhood, xander, Xanderandme
    • My Sister Visited!!… and I had an extended vacation.

      Posted at 11:27 am by Darren Lidstrom, on August 8, 2022

      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.

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      Posted in Uncategorized, widower, widowhood | 4 Comments | Tagged COVIDcation, FirePits, SisterVisit, thirtydaysofmorning, WoodPiles
    • A Widower’s Thoughts On… oh, fuck it… THERE’S A SNAKE IN MY UPSTAIRS BATHROOM!!..!

      Posted at 8:17 am by Darren Lidstrom, on July 24, 2022

      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:

      • My sister is still coming to visit… pretty sure.
      • The headlamp was for seeing into holes in walls and dark spots… where snakes can hide.
      • There is now more spray foam in my house… and less duct tape on the roll.
      • Word.

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      Posted in inspirational, Widow, widower, widowhood | 2 Comments | Tagged DealingWithIt, TheresAsnakeInMyBathroom, thirtydaysofmorning, widowhood
    • I Finally Went… to the store.

      Posted at 2:04 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on June 12, 2022

      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:

      • Widowhood can be an overwhelming, confusing, relentless part of life that forces you to live in The Present, with challenging daily reminders of The Past, while accepting the the fact that to a degree… The Future is really just an idea. (Deep Thoughts by… by Darren)

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      Posted in Uncategorized, widowhood | 10 Comments | Tagged Challenges, DeepThoughtsbyDarren, JungleRules, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, xander
    • Widower Day… 4 Years.

      Posted at 2:40 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on April 22, 2022

      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:

      • A neighbor of mine lost his husband and he recently wrote a blog where part of it was about how people kinda go away after a while… they stop “checking in”… they simply go on with their lives. Widowhood is an isolating experience, even at the beginning when you are surrounded by friends and family. Even though I understand that people love me, care for me, and are there for me whenever I may need them, I still have that sense of being left… “alone”.
      • I’ve known Kateri’s Death Date was coming up, but I haven’t really been able to give it much thought until today. With my Mom dying on February 27th, Kateri’s mom passing on April 1st, and with the normal wear and tear of the daily grind… I just haven’t given it the time. I guess that’s one of the reasons I took today off…!.. I wanted to take the time… and to have the space… to remember Kateri and my life with her.
      • Kateri taught me soooo much in life. I’m not the same person I was when we met. Kateri showed me how to be a better person. Kateri gave me daily examples of how to treat other people, how to find beauty in unsuspecting places, and what the important things in life are. One of the things I love about Kateri is that she didn’t change much throughout our life together. She didn’t need to. She knew who she was, what was right, and she stayed true to herself throughout her life. She was an impressive woman.
      • The time she rode a bucking bronco, flannel shirts & hoodies, “Balls!”, flowers and flower gardens but not tulips in a row, The Band, outdoor showers, long walks on dirt roads, Hopes n Dreams, chickens, “Yes please!” and “Who makes the best coffee in the world?!”, Lippy/Lipper/Lipstorm… but not Lipstick, a Toyota with a wooden bed, bowling balls on the side of the road (fyi… it costed around $23 to mail a bowling ball across the country in 2002… and she called it a “gutter ball”), bathtubs deep enough for boobs to float in, yard art, sufferin’ succotash, going to the beach in the summertime… going to the ocean in the off season, mini-Fridays, overalls and Darn Toughs, New Hampshire is a state… Vermont is a state of mind, the floor couch, “pills” & Pocket People, 1973 Super Beetles that were five different shades of orange, Dancing the Trump away, Dancing in the car/dancing in the living room/dancing in the kitchen or anywhere and at whatever time it needed to happen…….. Kateri’s Dance with Cancer. My life with Kateri was cut short by powers beyond my control, but I have a million and a half memories that remind me of why I loved her so much and how much she gave to the people in her life.
      • I’m gonna have a good day today… I am. I mean, I’ve already shot the shit with the dude who is gonna tattoo Kateri’s Birthdate and Deathdate up and down the spine of my back, I got outside and walked The Loop with Xander… and he didn’t run off!, and after a nice little drive through Vermont… I’m gonna spend the evening with people who have a deep love and steadfast bond with Kateri.
      • Life can be sad, challenging, confusing, and overwhelming… but that’s just part of the gig. It may be hard to see at times, but there are some pretty cool people, beautiful moments, experiences, and adventures mixed in there, as well.

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      Posted in cancer, grieving, Uncategorized, widower, widowhood | 10 Comments | Tagged 4Years, anniversary, thirtydaysofmorning
    • He yelled, “GO HOME!”…

      Posted at 1:32 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on February 19, 2022

      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.

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      Posted in cancer, grief, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower, widowhood | 15 Comments | Tagged goingtoseemymom, grief, loss, mom, thirtydaysofmorning, widower
    • Losing People You Love is Hard…

      Posted at 2:20 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on February 16, 2022

      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.

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      Posted in cancer, grieving, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower, widowhood | 16 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, loss, mom, thirtydaysofmorning, widower
    • Happy New Year!… blah, blah, blah.

      Posted at 7:18 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on January 6, 2022

      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…!

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      Posted in Christmas, music, New Years, videos, widower, widowhood | 8 Comments | Tagged Christmas2021, NewYear2022, playingguitar, thirtydaysofmorning, widower
    • Next Year’s Wood… stacked.

      Posted at 9:15 am by Darren Lidstrom, on August 31, 2021

      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.

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      Posted in grieving, inspirational, Uncategorized, Widow, widower, widowhood | 8 Comments | Tagged IthinkI'mgettingold...mybackhurts, stackingwood, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widowhood
    • I Moved the Piano… to make room for the stove.

      Posted at 11:17 am by Darren Lidstrom, on August 8, 2021

      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:

      • I love listening to the sound water creates in the woods as it makes it’s way from the tops of the trees to the bottom, jumping from leaf to leaf, after a night of rain.
      • Yup… I found a perfectly preserved mouse skeleton when I was cleaning the stove. It was kinda cool and gross at the same time. And yes… I threw away the moving blanket it had been wrapped in (the stove… not the mouse skeleton) for the last however many years.
      • Moose also gave/lent me their riding lawnmower since they didn’t have a place to use it yet. In my day to day life… this is huge. Trying to take care of everything after going from a two person household to one has been quite challenging. Cutting down the time it takes to simply mow my yard every week or two is super helpful!
      • For the record, Todd (who’s like 6’5″ and could probably do it himself!) offered to help move the piano a few years ago… but it wasn’t the right time.
      • I’m sorry I haven’t been very participatory with my blog, but I appreciate everyone who still visits and checks in. Please know that you help make my life… better.
      • I hope you have a good day!

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      Posted in grief, loss, music, Widow, widower, widowhood | 4 Comments | Tagged movingthestove, oldassMagicChef, pianointhegarge, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widows
    • 2 Days After My 3rd 4th of July… a widower moment.

      Posted at 8:07 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on July 6, 2020

      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.

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      And now… a video… about a memory… that keeps coming back.

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      Posted in loss, videos, Widow, widower, widowervideos | 6 Comments | Tagged fourthofjuly, grief, loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, video, Widow, widower, widower thoughts, widowerthoughts
    • I Started on the Spare Bedroom… 2 years, 2 months, and 7 days a Widower.

      Posted at 8:47 am by Darren Lidstrom, on June 30, 2020

      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!)

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      Two of our closest friends gave us that dresser… I doubled checked to make sure they were cool with me putting it on the side of the road with a Free sign.

      • I’ve been wanting to move that thing for months! I couldn’t get it downstairs by myself and I didn’t want to start on the room until it was out of there. It was sooooo annoying! I even thought about chopping it up in the bedroom and taking it down in pieces! That’s one of those weird widowhood things… it’s much easier to move big things with another person.
      • That dresser spent less than 24 hours sitting in front of my house! (awe… Vermont) I went to work, came home… gone! It was perfect. They even took the plastic I had tucked it in with the night before! (I wanted it to stay warm and dry if it rained!)

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      Kateri bought that pillow specifically for when she had cancer and was spending a ton of time in bed… trying anything to make life a little better… there’s even a hole for your ear! That pillow… along with the large foam wedge one… had been in that room for over two years. I’m glad they’re gone.

      • I sat on my bedroom floor and Facetimed with my sis-in-law as I opened wooded boxes containing some of Kateri’s jewelry, pins, and little knick knacks. It was pretty cool. Plus, I could always hold the little mask thing (from our wedding) up to my face if I wanted to change things up!
      • I gave Kateri the “Dance as if…” tile thing back in ’08 or ’09 when we lived in Ned. Kateri gave me the “answer my smile” wood thing…. at some point. Unfortunately… I didn’t remember that. For some reason, over the last two years I have thought it was a gift I had given her!… and then I turned it over.
      • The picture with the bed..?  That was some fun stuff to go through. Stuff such as, the picture Kateri loved of her standing next to her little sister… who is picking her nose. Or the Mad Hatter hats we made for Tracy’s Mad Hatter Retirement Party. And of course… the plastic bracelets that the hospital gave Kateri each time she was admitted… among other things.

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      Kateri gave me that box for Christmas in… 2002..? She got it from a bartender friend of ours I worked with.

        • That is Kateri’s knife… she kept it in her truck.
        • Kateri gave me the little blue guy… he dances. I would carry him around with me at work and if someone was having a bad day I would simply wind him up, set him down in front of the person, let him start wiggling… and walk away. It was generally their’s until they didn’t need him anymore. And then… we found one with a skirt!
        • In the time we were living above a garage (’02), I made a bunch of origami flowers and situated them all over the floor of our little studio apartment… where we had only a microwave, hot plate, and toaster oven to cook with… and slept on an air mattress. There’s an orange one in the box, as well. I’m glad I still have them.
        • It’s basically a wooden box… filled with tattered cigar boxes… filled with letters……. and memories.

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      Yup.

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      Painting!… it’s Whitewater Bay. (I know you were wonderin’!) FYI… Kateri was the painter of the household. Yes… I taped… even though it doesn’t look like it in spots!

      • I love how a new coat of paint simply cleans up a space. Plus, you get that light headed fuzzy feeling if you keep the fresh air out!
      • I decided to change up the quilt on the bed. We have never used this quilt. It was a birthday present from a friend when Kateri turned 44… a month before she died. Really… I just thought it had a nice weight, nice pattern, and it fit the bed!
      • I like how the room has turned out so far. It’s a little dark for the lighting I have (there are only lights in the closets in the bedrooms…?), but just another reason to find some new lamps!… for my new room!… in my new life……..!
      • That is Kateri’s Pooh Bear. Back in the day, we would lay in bed and read the stories to each other. Then it somehow turned to just me reading to her. She loved Pooh… and Piglet… and their friendship. When we cremated Kateri, I took a page from the first book, Winnie-the-Pooh… and placed it in her pocket.

      img_3587This 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.

      ps… you can hit the “like” button if appropriate… and you still have time to follow the blog for the chance to randomly see it pop up in your email inbox! (it’s kinda sporadic… and not very focused… or professional.)

       

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      Posted in cancer, loss, videos, Widow, widower, widowervideos | 15 Comments | Tagged cancer, goingthroughshit, letter, loss, painting, sparebedroom, thirtydaysofmorning, videos, Widow, widower, widower thoughts
    • Kateri is gonna get her wish… with the Wishing Well.

      Posted at 12:17 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on June 7, 2020

      May 11, 2018

      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.

      img_3298When 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.

      61308828066__3bb1aa51-3c9b-42ae-84eb-a52a843b28e8After 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.img_3306

      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:

      • I’ve started making my bed again every morning… most mornings.  It just feels better.
      • I still haven’t gotten used to the whole being alone and thinking about what would happen if I… say… tripped and broke my ankle, or fell off the roof, or slipped in the tub, or put the chainsaw in my thigh, or had a heart attack, or fell down the stairs, or was mauled by a bear, or if a swarm of bees attacked me while I was sleeping, or my lawn mower blade flew off and took out my shins… or something. Then what would I do?img_3230
      • In general, I feel as though I am happy. But I also feel as though it’s still a subdued happiness… like there’s this weird blanket of “meh” on everything.
      • I pulled out the last trash bag from the box Kateri and I bought from Costco, which was probably four years old. It was strange thinking about how that box of trash bags was from my life with Kateri… and that was over two years ago. Yup, it took me about two weeks to get it to the recycling bin.

       

       

       

       

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      Posted in grief, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 11 Comments | Tagged loss, thirtydaysofmorning, Widow, widower, widowernotesnthoughts, wishingwell
    • Chickens, Coops, and a Raccoon I thought was a Bear..!

      Posted at 10:55 am by Darren Lidstrom, on May 31, 2020

      img_3198It 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?!25055f29-58d0-4b44-96ce-95004a6154a4 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. img_3216I 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.

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      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. 

       

       

       

       

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      Posted in Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 7 Comments | Tagged chickens, loss, thirtydaysofmorning, Widow, widower
    • Our ’73 Super Beetle… and a song.

      Posted at 1:16 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on May 16, 2020

      img_2337We 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..!img_4803 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:

      • Last night I realized I had stopped counting how many days Kateri has been gone… how long I’ve been a widower… and I was comfortable with it. I figured it just meant other things were starting to fill my brain in this new life. Transitioning… or some crap like that. Then I rambled into my phone… and played a song.

      ps… you can follow the blog if you want… there’s still time! Just hit the follow button… or share it if you like!

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      Posted in loss, Uncategorized, videos, Widow, widower, widowervideos | 2 Comments | Tagged guitar, loss, mourning, SuperBeetle, thirtydaysofmorning, video, Volkswagen, Widow, widower, widowernotesnthoughts, widowerthoughts
    • Two Years… a Widower.

      Posted at 1:19 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on April 22, 2020

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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.

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      Yup.
      Yup.
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      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.

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      This has been out for years on tables n shit. It's the day after I told her I needed space... and she gave me 2,100 miles.
      This has been out for years on tables n shit. It’s the day after I told her I needed space… and she gave me 2,100 miles.
      Tea Cups at Disneyland... a while ago.
      Tea Cups at Disneyland… a while ago.

      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)

      Wedding Kateri with Wine
      Kateri in the Bathroom
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      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • I was able to Zoom with two of my sister-in-laws last night. It was fantastic and a pleasant surprise. It was also weird when someone mentioned it was midnight… and now the actual day Kateri died. It hit me instantly… unexpectedly… and I cried.
      • I decided to work on the yard and flower gardens today to hopefully get a sense of connection and closeness with Kateri on this date… but nature decided to give us a couple inches of snow last night to start this Earth Day off!… so now it may just be a bath, a joint, some music, and inside stuff! Maybe I’ll give the plants a shower!… I know Kateri would do that once in a while… and I haven’t done it yet!
      • I’m gonna try to fix Kateri’s truck this spring/summer… myself (I need it to move wood!). I’ve been watching car remodeling shows on Netflix… it can’t be that hard to at least get it runable!… says the cook.
      • As a widower, you learn to do all sorts of things… while crying. After two years of not knowing when emotions will pop up, you just kinda roll with it because you still need to get things done! Let me tell you, crying in the shower as you are frantically washing soap off of your face and out of your beard because you realized you didn’t close the damper on the wood stove… and not skipping a beat… is a skill.
        • Being a cook and cutting thousands of pounds of onions is also good training for widowhood!
      • I’ve decided to start the process of going through some things around the house and to maybe move some shit around. I haven’t done anything substantial in the last two years… I feel it’s about time… and I kinda want to. I understand it may be slow going.
      • I still put the toilet seat down… yup, trained well.
      • I am older than Kateri ever made it to… that’s kinda fucked up… but bound to happen in these situations.
      • A couple of things I’ve learned in the last two years:
        • We can adapt to adversity… as much as we don’t want to.
        • Kateri made me better. It’s a simple fact.
        • Life is a lot easier if you surround yourself with good people… and if you put the work in to being a good person who makes decent choices. Luckily, I have a lot of wonderful people in my life.
        • Priorities… what’s important… to me.
        • How to cook for one…ish and to make half a pot of coffee instead of a full pot.
        • There are loving, supportive, empathetic, and caring strangers out there… some you will never meet even though they might’ve played significant parts in your life.
        • Plants… yup, they pretty much need water and sun. Trimming would probably be helpful… but I haven’t learned about that yet!
        • If left to my own devices for nourishment… I make bad decisions… but they’re tasty.
        • How to set up my own blog!… which has been a wonderful tool throughout this process, even if it has been sporadic as of late.
      • Two years… basically, there’s a ton that has happened. Some good… some bad… some challenging… some whatever. That’s life, I guess. There are things we can control… and there are things we can’t. Although it can be frustrating, I’ve learned to not sweat the things I have no control over (most of the time!)… it’s just a waste of energy. There are plenty of things in this world that we do have control over… I’m just gonna try to focus on those and if I need to take a step back from time to time… I will.
      • I just miss Kateri so God damn much. After two years… it still has the power to floor me… and I expect it will for quite a while.
      • I hope you are all well, safe, and not making stoopid decisions in these uncertain times. Just as in my situation, time doesn’t stop and we’ll all find ourselves talking about The Pandemic of 2020!… as we shake hands hello… and give hugs goodbye. Love to all y’all.img_2349

      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.

       

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      Posted in anniversary, cancer, grief, loss, Widow, widower | 12 Comments | Tagged anniversary, cancer, earthday, grieving, loss, melanoma, mourning, randomwidowerthoughts, thirtydaysofmorning, Widow, widower, widower thoughts, widowernotesnthoughts, widowerthoughts
    • St. Patrick’s Day and the Virus… Happy Birthday Kateri!

      Posted at 6:15 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 17, 2020

      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!

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           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.

       

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      Posted in grief, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 9 Comments | Tagged birthday, grief, letter, loss, marriage, mourning, SaintPatrick'sDay, StPatty's, thirtydaysofmorning, Widow
    • Widower Day 22 months… on 2-22-2020… that’s sorta funny.

      Posted at 10:19 am by Darren Lidstrom, on February 23, 2020

      img_2047Today 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.img_0921 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:

      • When your wife dies, make sure to change your W-4 from “Married” to “Single”. Your employer won’t do it for you… and it sucks when you find out 22 months later that you never made the change and you’ve been “under reporting”…?… and all that shit. Just a friendly Widower PSA.
      • Wedding ring status: still off.
      • Hope you have an inspiring day!.. or at least a good one!
      • I have no idea if this is kosher, but this is what started my infatuation with Tones and I:

      https://youtu.be/4iQxG8ZjYO8

      ps… you can follow the blog by email or WordPress if you hit the little button. Then I wouldn’t need to keep throwing these up on Facebook to feel good about myself! (don’t worry… I’ll feel ok about myself even if you don’t!)

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      Posted in grief, loss, music, Widow, widower | 3 Comments | Tagged grief, loss, music, thirtydaysofmorning, TonesandI, Widow, widower, widowernotesnthoughts
    • Widower Day 666… creepy, cuz I just went to Salem!… last week.

      Posted at 10:30 am by Darren Lidstrom, on February 17, 2020

      img_1853I 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!)

      Salem, MassThe 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.img_1930 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.

       

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      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.

       

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      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • Dating as a widower is a huge, complicated thing. For all you widowed people out there… just be true and honest to yourself and the other person… and fuck whatever issues and opinions other people have about it… they really don’t have any idea of what you are going through.
        • It’s hard to balance the wanting to spend time with someone, but also wanting and needing to spend time alone… again, complicated.
      • Sleep is still a strange thing. During the work week I do okay…ish… 5-7 hours of sleep depending. I generally wake up on the couch between 2:23 and 3:47 on the weekends…. and then crawl into bed so that I can have that feeling of waking up in bed.
      • Cake Pops. No matter what… they make things better. (unless you have diabetes… then they probably aren’t that great for ya)
      • Six Hundred and Sixty-Six days in… It’s still hard to come to terms with the fact that Kateri isn’t here. I miss her. I miss our life. I miss our future. And when I think about it… it makes me cry. At this point though… I generally cry alone.
        • wow… that sounds ridiculously sad.
      • Remember, we are surrounded by both “The Good” in the world and “The Bad”.img_1338 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.
      • I haven’t worn my wedding ring for 16 days.
      • The beard is getting a little old… and itchy… but I just can’t get rid of it yet! (because it’s still kinda fun)
      • I hope you have a good day!

      ps… You can follow the blog if you want! I promise! Unless you’re a dick… then you can follow some other blog.

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 10 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, loss, melanoma, mourning, Salem, thirtydaysofmorning, Widow, widower, widowernotesnthoughts
    • I Went Through the Kitchen… Widower Day 637.

      Posted at 11:59 am by Darren Lidstrom, on January 20, 2020

      The fridgeWell… 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.The Fridge after!  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!

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      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:

      • The wedding ring is currently back on. I put it on for my second therapy session… just felt right… and haven’t taken it off, yet. I’m gonna take that one as it comes. Some days I’ll wear it… some days I won’t… just depends. I’m good with that.
      • A friend introduced me to Chubby Hubby… that might not have been a good thing… health wise.

      ps… hit the “follow” or “like” button if ya want!

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      Posted in inspirational, loss, videos, Widow, widower, widowervideos | 4 Comments | Tagged goingthroughshit, grief, loss, thirtydaysofmorning, video, Widow, widower, widower thoughts, widowernotesnthoughts
    • Widower Day 630 … Me and My Therapist.

      Posted at 10:49 am by Darren Lidstrom, on January 12, 2020

      img_1575Well… 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:

      • I took my wedding ring off on Friday evening and haven’t put it back on yet. I used a work function as a testing ground on how I would do with not wearing it out in public… I survived. Of course, I took a picture of it to reference… again… just as a reminder that it was safe on my dresser at home… next to Kateri’s engagement and wedding rings. Fucking… weird.
      • I still haven’t watched a scary movie by myself…
      • I always had Kateri to talk to… to guide me… to bounce thoughts off of. I had never felt the “need” for a Therapist… I had her! When you lose an aspect of your life like that… and your world becomes silent… it’s a hard thing to process.
      • I have what I’m calling “Nub Nights”. Since I have to cut down three cord of wood to fit my new wood stove, I’m left with all these nubs about two inches thick. So, I put those in 5 gallon buckets and on days I’m feeling lazy and don’t wanna cut wood… I have a “Nub Night” and burn all the ends! Yup… they burn, too.
        • I like inserting little “holidays/theme nights” into my day to day life… it’s fun.

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      Posted in cancer, grief, inspirational, loss, videos, Widow, widower | 14 Comments | Tagged grief, grieving, guitar, loss, mourning, sundaymorning, Therapy, thirtydaysofmorning, video, Widow, widower, widowernotesnthoughts
    • It’s a New Year!… (widower day 623…)

      Posted at 11:12 am by Darren Lidstrom, on January 5, 2020

      img_1522So…. 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:

      • In 2019 I got a snow blower! (my back thanks me… and yes, I’m excited about it enough that I had to mention it! People talk about how their cats or dogs or lizards are their “children”… which is kinda stupid… so I’m gonna start referring to my snow blower as part of the family. I think our relationship has grown enough over the last 12 months to make that leap!)
      • I pissed some people off in 2019… some of those people I love… which sucks, but it’s gonna happen. Luckily, we all survived.
        • I’m also not everyone’s cup of tea… I’m cool with that… I’m not a huge fan of tea, either! Of course, I still enjoy it once in a while… it just needs honey… lot’s and lot’s of honey.
      • I don’t really look at time in the yearly chunks anymore. In my brain, it’s still based off of the day Kateri died.
      • I haven’t changed anything in the house yet, but I’ve gotten used to everything I see being a reminder of Kateri and my “Old Life”.
        • I have decided to start that process in 2020, though! You know, redecorating and going through some stuff! I’m ready to start putting together my home… my life…. and figuring out how to keep Kateri a part of it.
      • 2019… I went from YachtRocks/Hits 1/Pop2K to Lithium and SoulCycle… with a bit of Caliente.
      • (I just got off the phone with my sis… love ya sis.)
      • In 2019 I learned that I’m gonna need to do more… which means I’m gonna need help… because I wanna do more… because I need to.
      • I need to be healthier… not much more to say about that!
      • I took my wedding ring off for more than 24 hours over the New Year’s holiday… for the first time… it’s currently back on.24 hours of it off... New Years 2020
        • It was odd… both the fact that I couldn’t feel it on my finger (it’s heavy and I use my thumb to adjust it a lot throughout the day!) and… well… it just wasn’t on my hand! It provides me with a huge connection to Kateri and I simply don’t wanna lose that. It made me soooooo happy that we got married… that we made that commitment… that I had a wife… and that it was Kateri. In this new life…. I had a wife… and that’s not what my life is now. (Although… Kateri will always be my wife… she just won’t be out front digging in the gardens or blaring the B-52’s while tidying the house or laying next to me when I begrudgingly would come upstairs because she said it was time for bed. Damn… I wish she was here to tell me it was time for bed!)
      • It’s easier to remember the cloth KAF shopping bag when going to the store. When shopping for one… I generally don’t need more than a bag and it has become routine to grab it from the pocket behind my driver’s seat. Look at me saving the planet!
        • If I was someone who bought six packs… I would still be cutting the plastic rings so that the penguins and baby seals don’t get their heads stuck in them.  My mom taught me that… in the 80’s… so some of you may not have any idea of what I’m talking about!
      • In 2020, I would like to be a little more focused… in everything… this blog included.
      • Since Kateri died, I’ve been on a quest to simply make things better or easier… hence snow blowers, woodstoves, and chop saws… proper tools for the job and better efficiencies. The quest also includes working on me… becoming better myself. Better at this new life, better at my relationships with friends, family, coworkers, and strangers, better at getting things done, better at taking care of myself. Basically… be a better person than I was yesterday… just so as to live a better life while I’m chugging along in this current one… and to stay on the rails most of the time!
      • Straight up… Happy New Year… on the 5th!

      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.

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      Posted in loss, New Years, videos, Widow, widower | 7 Comments | Tagged Lizzo, loss, mourning, New Years, randomwidowerthoughts, sunday morning, thefirstthirty, thirtydaysofmorning, video, widower, widowerthoughts, widows
    • Christmas…! (widower day 612… uh huh)

      Posted at 12:35 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on December 25, 2019

      2014?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. IMG_3933I’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!

      Christmas Tree 2019!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:

      • I’ve only opened 2 Christmas Cards before today. I figured I would save them for Christmas Morning so that I would have a few things to open up!
      • I left the lights on the tree plugged in last night so that Santa could see his way!… but I forgot milk and cookies! I think he took it personally.
      • I know this morning sounds sad and lonely… and it is… but I’ll also be spending time today with people I hold close to my heart!… along with someone I don’t really know.
      • Almond Rocca!! Man, I wish I had gotten some Almond Rocca.
      • People (widows/widowers n shit) talk about starting new traditions, holding on to old ones, and everything in-between. Personally, as my brain has been filled with all the other things that consume my life, I decided that I couldn’t worry about those types of things right now… things will go how they go. Sometimes, things/life/time naturally forces you in a certain direction or helps you answers those sorta questions.
        • For example, the fried dough thing. Yes, I wanted to get some dough from work and fry it up this morning… but I forgot to get the dough!IMG_3926 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.
      • This is my 100th blog post!! I’ve been thinking about all sorts of things I wanted to ramble on about… what it was I felt the need to share… what could be helpful to someone?… to me?…and… well… this is what I wrote instead!
      • Finally…. Merry Christmas Everyone. Straight up… I’m not religious or anything, but this truly is a wonderful time of year. When you take out all the bullshit and get to the bottom of it… it’s simply…….. be good to one another.Christmas 2019 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.
      • OK… I gots to get my Christmas on!

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      Posted in Christmas, grief, loss, Widow, widower | 8 Comments | Tagged Christmas, loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widows
    • Widower Day 588… just got through a birthday, Thanksgiving… and now it’s Monday…!

      Posted at 11:24 am by Darren Lidstrom, on December 2, 2019

      December 1st, 2019Awe… 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:

      • I’m actually getting a little excited to decorate for Christmas, but I rearranged the living room and don’t have as many flat surfaces for my little village! Don’t worry… I’ll figure it out.
      • I went through Kateri’s basket… the one that’s been next to her chair for the last 588 plus days. I’m glad I did… but it was weird. I just didn’t feel the need to see it every day anymore. One of those taking steps in this new life type things… creating My Space.
      • Now I wish I had shoveled the icy/wet/slushy crap that fell from the sky two and a half weeks ago… my driveway is 63 feet of frozen H2O! Good for sledding… not for walking.
      • I’m settling into this living alone thing. Last week, I moved a single roll of toilet paper from the upstairs bathroom to the downstairs bathroom probably 9 times instead of going to the store to buy more… and I was fine with that. And yes… it might’ve been a little embarrassing when I had company in the downstairs bathroom… and the toilet paper was in the upstairs one!… but we all survived.
      • I had my first outside fire in a while yesterday afternoon/evening… I need to do that more. Now that there’s snow… I won’t worry about burning down the hillside! (it’s the Westerner in me… fear of forest fires!)
      • Aaaaaand…. I hope whoever is reading this is having a good day! If not…?… well, find something good in it… maybe it’ll snowball from there!

      ps… follow the blog… or hit the “like” button thing… if ya want.

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      Posted in loss, Thanksgiving, Widow, widower | 5 Comments | Tagged Thanksgiving, thirtydaysofmorning, video, Widow, widower, widowerthoughts
    • Widower Day 581… my birthday!

      Posted at 1:16 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on November 24, 2019

      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:

      • It’s been heartwarming receiving little messages and phone calls from friends and family wishing me a Happy Birthday! You…. are awesome!… and thank-you!

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      Posted in loss, music, videos, Widow, widower | 11 Comments | Tagged birthday, grieving, guitar, mourning, music, sunday morning, thirtydaysofmorning, videos, widower, widower thoughts, widowerbirthday, widows
    • Widower Day Whatever (Sunday), but on Tuesday… I Chased the Moon… and talked to my phone about it.

      Posted at 10:15 am by Darren Lidstrom, on November 17, 2019

      img_0921Generally, 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:

      • The snow is here. We had a storm come by last week and I debated shoveling the driveway, but there was a layer of icy/slushy crap beneath a few inches of snow so I figured I would just let the sun do it’s thing and it will melt away over a few days… maybe a week. Ummm… it hasn’t gone away. My entire property is still covered by a few inches of snow… and I’ve just been creating a nice, slick, shiny sledding run down my driveway.
      • I’ve decided that it’s time to start going through a few things in the house… probably this winter. Although I love our home… I wanna start making it a bit more “mine” in a way that let’s me keep Kateri… and our life together… relevant and tangible while providing me a space to grow in.
      • I love my new wood stove!… but I’m pretty sure I now need a new chimney… or liner… or something. There’s been a learning curve. One thing I’ve learned is that when a 6 inch pipe goes from the stove and into an old masonry chimney built in the 60’s that rises 25 feet to clear the roof line… there ain’t no draft! Ah, the joys of homeownership… and figuring things out as you go.
      • I miss our friends, family, and life together. I miss Kateri… and it’s hard.
        • Whenever I hear/see/watch anything where death is involved… my brain still instantly goes to holding Kateri’s arm… and hearing her last breath.  It’s kinda rough when I’m just chilling and watching a movie to lose myelf in a story… and someone dies… and I think of that one moment in my life… the end of Kateri’s.
        • It’s also a strange experience as a widower when new friends who didn’t know Kateri… meet old friends. It’s a weird collision of lives that brings up all sorts of things.
      • I absolutely hate the fact that there is currently Christmas music being played in stores. It’s simply gross and just makes me think about how materialistic we are as a society.  Yes, I love the holidays… and my house will once again be Christmafied… but it’s not even Thanksgiving! The only reason business’s do it is to get people into the “shopping” spirit.
      • Happy Sunday everyone… make it a good one… I know you can!

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      Posted in inspirational, loss, marriage, videos, Widow, widower | 2 Comments | Tagged chasingthemoon, grieving, thirtydaysofmorning, video, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 567… a good run of numbers.

      Posted at 12:45 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on November 10, 2019

      img_0978Kateri 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:

      • Kateri’s plants… I still view them as her’s and not mine. Broadly speaking, they provide me with a living connection to her that I need to pay attention to, take care of, and keep alive… which provides me with a sense of accomplishment along with being surrounded by other living things.
      • I grabbed a coat from a closet and saw Kateri’s mustard yellow and redish coat. I haven’t gotten rid of or packed her coats away, so they have just been hanging in the spare rooms. This specific coat always made me think of how un-Kateri it was. It was kinda new, kinda stylish, kinda modern. Kateri was most comfy in well worn clothes and flannels, but she also really liked getting dressed up… it made her feel good… and she always looked good no matter what she was wearing!
      • My guitar has provided me with an escape from the crushing onslaught of emotions, thoughts, and memories the death of Kateri brought into my life.59443070664__ecc1a93f-b10f-4f0d-ab32-a54de9e6d62e 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.
      • The cold toilet seat-I took a crap the other morning in the downstairs bathroom and the toilet seat (and bathroom) was a tit bit nipply… almost to the point of invigorating. As I sat there, it made me think about how we put the portable radiator in there when Kateri was sick so that it would keep the space… and toilet seat… warm, since she spent most of her time downstairs next to the wood stove when cancer first appeared… and we were remodeling the upstairs bathroom. (the bathroom in which she put the first hole in the wall… but never saw it finished… or took a bath in her tub surrounded by subway tile.)
      • I’ve been falling asleep to music lately… Tom Waits. I haven’t been able to listen to the Allison Kraus/Robert Plant album… we would fall asleep to that album or Neil Young’s Harvest Moon quite a bit. I just can’t do it… it feels too weird. It’s weird enough that the music emits from the little JBL speaker I had bought for Kateri when she was in the hospital so that she could listen to the Dali Lama chanting as she tried to relax and rest.
      • Squishy… I sleep with Squishy every night. Squishy was one of Kateri’s pillows. She called it Squishy because it was… Squishy. I still only use the pillow case with the three flowers on the front for it… any other pillow case just doesn’t seem to be the right fit. I still use my pillow… Squishy just happens to be crammed under or behind it, as well.
      • Food storage containers-Kateri bought us a bunch of food storage containers for our first Christmas in our first “Home”… the Schoolhouse. Every time I open the bottom drawer and grab one to put half an onion in, or maybe some leftover roasted root vegetables, it makes me think of that Christmas… and her. .
      • I was so proud of myself for getting the studded snow tires on the Jeep before the first snow flew. Then I drove over a screw and had to use my un-studded full size spare for 4 days… and it snowed. Luckily, I only had to buy one new tire and not four.
        • Kateri bought these current snow tires… our first ones studded… which is one of those weird memory type things. She bought them almost two years ago and I remember she had a doctor’s appointment the same day because of the headaches she was having… which turned out to actually be tumors.0bb7f48f-821b-4d58-aea1-f2b3de05ec26 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!)
      • I hope you have a wonderful Sunday… and thanks for stopping by!

      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!

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      Posted in grief, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 2 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, loss, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 562… just a video… about a list.

      Posted at 11:27 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on November 5, 2019

      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.)

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      Posted in grief, loss, videos, Widow, widower | 0 Comments | Tagged mourning, shoppinglist, thirtydaysofmorning, video
    • Widower Day 560… A Nice Sunday Morning… and Fire.

      Posted at 11:54 am by Darren Lidstrom, on November 3, 2019

      img_0787I 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.img_0933 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:

      • My Brother-in-law called last night. We spoke for almost 2 hours. It was fantastic. One of the weird things for me is how with Kateri not being here, neither are her family members as much… physically/phone calls/or texts. She was one of 8 kids… and she was like Switzerland. There was always someone calling, visiting, living with us from time to time, helping us, us helping them, etc., etc…. and now… not. I understand it’s just a normal part of this experience and something I will get used to… but it’s weird… and I miss them.
      • I took my wedding ring off last night when I took a shower. It felt strange. The other strange part was I kept forgetting to put it back on… for like 8 minutes. I had put it on my dresser, but it wasn’t until I got downstairs and had gone to adjust it with my thumb and noticed it wasn’t there! I went upstairs and put it back on.
      • I’m getting my license renewed tomorrow. It’s been making me think about Kateri a lot. She got her license renewed maybe a month or so before she died. I had to work, but she was with the perfect person to take her… someone she loved… a lot. The story is entertaining… if you knew Kateri… and the story. It’s a good memory for me from a time that sucked balls.
        • Although the memory puts a smile on my face… the Crocodile Tears are currently commencing. (a good time to check the status of the stove!.. and get more coffee!)
      • I’ve decided to start going through the house this winter and taking stock. I haven’t done anything yet… because it’s filled with 20… 43 years of my life and I can’t just approach it as “old life/new life” type stuff, but I do wanna take some more steps to sorta start putting my life together. Create my space… starting with our stuff… because I like our stuff!… (yup… stuff).
      • Ummm, that’s about alls I gots. I mean, I there’s more… but now I do feel like I need to get motivated and get outside!… and I’ve drank 3/4’s of a pot of coffee so sitting here is starting to become a challenge! I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday… and it’s filled with things that make you feel good!

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      Posted in cancer, grief, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 1 Comment | Tagged cancer, loss, mourning, randomwidowerthoughts, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widows
    • Widower Day… 559.

      Posted at 6:13 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on November 2, 2019

      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!)

      img_0919

       

       

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 4 Comments | Tagged loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widows
    • Widower Day 557… Halloween Memories..! (because it’s halloween)

      Posted at 8:28 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on October 31, 2019

      IMG_2585It 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.

      Chef...ish
      Creepy

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • Now I’m gonna eat and try to watch a scary movie. We’ll see how that goes. I’ve already been asked if I’ve seen the ghosts of dead children in the schoolhouse… I haven’t… and hope I don’t! (And I don’t think I’ll watch a movie with creepy children.)
      • Yes, I bought Halloween Candy. No, I won’t have a single Trick or Treater.
      • I always think of my mom on Halloween and her giving treats (candy) to hundreds of little humans who knock on the door. I like how there is generally a run to the store by my father for more supplies, but it always gets to the point of the lights being turned off, the shades being drawn, and hiding from the masses commences on the couch… maybe with the TV on… quietly.
      • Happy Halloween people! Hope you have a good one whatever you do!

      ps… you can hit the like button if ya want!

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      Posted in loss, marriage, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 0 Comments | Tagged grieving, Halloween, loss, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day… 18 months.

      Posted at 7:36 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on October 22, 2019

      Kateri Apple Pickin'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:

      • I haven’t redecorated or changed much in the house because I realized… it’s my house… and I like how Kateri and I have filled it with things from our life together. Just because she’s gone doesn’t mean I’m starting from scratch. Yes, it’s hard to be surrounded by 20 years of life together… the relentless reminders… but it’s still 20 years of my life.
      • I’m writing this in “Kateri’s Chair”. She spent a lot of “Cancer Time” in this chair… I don’t sit in it much anymore.
      • The last movie I went to was Star Wars Something (I think The Last Jedi..?)… on Christmas of 2017. It was in Idaho… Kateri was in Vermont… and it was 6 days after we found out she had melanoma in her brain.Our first piece of furniture!
      • Kateri’s and my first piece of furniture… a stool we bought in 2001 from a store called FolkHeart in Bristol when we were living in a studio above a garage… attached to a big ass empty house in Monkton… is starting to unravel.
      • A positive in this shitty experience… I.. love… to… hit… SNOOZE! Really, I do… I’ve mentioned it before. It simply was not an option with Kateri… mostly if I had to get up before her.  She was not a morning person! I mean, she liked the morning time once she got up, but she wasn’t getting up until the last possible minute. Of course, it was also because she had never been a good sleeper… and now I’m thinking about how I miss hearing her sleep……… fuck.
      • I bought an amp for my guitar yesterday… it makes me happy. That’s about all on that…. I just needed to get back to a happier place!2e71f4de-b4c0-4ad3-b461-b8fc7cc72cd4
      • The constant feeling of being behind gets old… that probably sounds obvious.
      • In the 18 months since Kateri died I’ve basically gone from crushing pain in the beginning… to just a dull, foggy, muted existence most of the time. I wanna say that that sounds worse than it is… but it’s pretty accurate. Yup, still have times of fun n shit, but losing Kateri….
      • I totally need to go through my freezer… and cupboards… and chest freezer… yum.
      • My house was 68 degrees this morning! (that’s a good thing)
        • I’m pretty happy with the new stove and it feels good knowing Kateri would be happy with it, as well. Now… all I need to do is take 2″ off of three and a half cords of wood. Helloooo CHOP SAW!! (ya, ya… “miter saw”… but “CHOP” is more fun)
      • The things I’ve used to help me get through… to provide comfort… the things I’ve come to rely on are my friends and family, my job/profession/and co-workers, music, and my home. It’s mostly been the schoolhouse as of late… it’s just cozy.
      • I still wear my wedding ring. Will probably test the waters of taking it off soon… but I’ve been saying that for a while now! Sheesh, it’s odd just thinking about not having the weight on that hand!… and I play with it a lot!img_0791
        • So I just wrote how I play with it a lot… (never mind the sexual innuendoes some childish people may be snickering about)… and then I looked at my ring. I felt it, spun it around my finger, moved it up past the first knuckle as I always do (just because it feels good to let the skin beneath feel some air), and thought about everything that went into our wedding rings… what they are. Our wedding rings have significance, meaning…. weight. Although I miss being able to say “My wife” or Kateri calling me “Her husband”… I’m glad we played the parts the way we did… it makes me feel good.
      • Simply… which, come to find out isn’t so simple… I’m sometimes just tired of being a “widower” and dealing with everything that comes along with it. At 18 months… a year and a half without my wife… I feel I’m doing… ok. Sometimes I think about all of the things I should or want to do… and then literally say to myself, “Just get through today.” I actually said that at the grocery store this evening, which is why I’m writing it down now! Sometimes, that’s good enough for me. At other times, I guess I get tired of “just getting through the day”… and it’s a good kick in the butt to get something done… like making logs two inches shorter!img_0805
        • Just to put it out there… I think at 18 months I’m gonna start writing about some of the more uplifting and fun things happening in my life in between the piles of poop. I mean, it’s about balance right…?! (yes, I feel as though the one big pile of poop has been divided up into smaller piles of poop… but they’re all still poop.)

      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!

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      Posted in cancer, grief, inspirational, loss, marriage, Widow, widower | 10 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, loss, marriage, melanoma, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 540… Wood Stacking on 39… yay!

      Posted at 10:53 am by Darren Lidstrom, on October 14, 2019

      img_2351So 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.

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      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.

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      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:

      • It was also nice seeing a co-worker and friend drive by my house in his little red Mazda Miata with his wife as they were out for an Autumn Sunday drive. Yup, there was a honk… a wave… and he kept driving!
      • It’s always fun to try an figure out how many wheelbarrow loads you have left when the pile starts to get to the end!… Bobbi and I where way off. img_2350
      • I understand that it’s all part of my life… but I’ve really had to separate work life/life with Kateri/life without Kateri just to keep my head on my shoulders. It’s all sorta mingling together, but each needs their own times of attention here and there. That whole “Balance” thing can be a challenge sometimes.
      • Luckily, I only saw one 8 legged demon while stacking the wood… and spent the entire time freaking out about the possibility of one attacking me while I hurled logs into the wheelbarrow!
      • A hot tub would be nice right now… I could dig it.

      ps… to let you know… it makes me feel good when people follow the blog… just sayin’.

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      Posted in cancer, inspirational, loss, Widow, widower | 5 Comments | Tagged grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 537… Simply, a Widower Thought.

      Posted at 7:59 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on October 11, 2019

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • One hard thing I’m realizing is the fact that when you are in a relationship that spans a considerable amount of time… 20ish years for me… it is natural to go through those intense, passionate times along with those times where you are just good with life and kinda plugging along. I loved our life together. I loved the exciting and adventurous times. But I really loved the plain ol’ day to day. It was comfortable… it felt good. Kateri and I spent pretty much all of our time together and some of those times we would just be doing our own individual thing.Making Breakfast!... in '07. 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.

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      Posted in grief, marriage, Widow, widower | 8 Comments | Tagged marriage, randomwidowerthoughts, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 536 Days Into This Bullsh……. it.

      Posted at 8:55 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on October 10, 2019

      (Just to put it out there… I still haven’t experienced that “Anger” at the situation feeling, yet… I just REALLY like to swear.)

      img_0700Ok. 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:

      • People go away. Some just because it’s part of the experience. Others… just because. But it’s interesting that the “lonely” factor, feeling, and level hasn’t really changed. It hasn’t gotten better or worse… just still kinda there. People aren’t gonna help with taking away that loneliness because that loneliness is… the loss of Kateri. I expect it will get better in time, but it has definitely held on… and it’s tiring.
      • I love fall.  The smell of the wet leaves. The colors. The hoodies and heavier comfy clothes. I also can’t wait to be able to say that it is now “Fell”… or “Stick Season”… it reminds me of Kateri.
      • 536 Days… the phone is still in Kateri’s name!
      • I met some more neighbors! Sat on their porch and chewed the fat for a bit! A friend and I were going on a walk, and a wave turned into a talk.img_0735 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!
        • Just part of the life of a widower!
        • And it was actually a wonderful 45ish minute visit!
      • Yes, I got a new woodstove! Yes… I love it! (yes… I have 3 and a half cords of 14-16 inch logs… and it only takes 14″. Again… fun)

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      Posted in inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 8 Comments | Tagged cancer, loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day… well, yesterday was my Wedding Anniversary.

      Posted at 12:46 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on September 29, 2019

      img_0686I’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.

      Mama Cruz's Huevos Rancheros!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.  img_0658Well, 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.

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      Driving south, I thought about food again and decided to take myself out to a nice “Anniversary Dinner for One” at a friend’s restaurant in my area… well, close to my area. Again… it was wonderful… and kind of just what I needed. Good food, good atmosphere, good conversation, and a couple of hugs.

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      I wish my day yesterday was filled with nothing but the joyous and celebratory memories that our wedding provided us for years… but it wasn’t. They were there, but the pain of losing Kateri and the complicated life that that loss has created is all consuming. I guess it’s the whole, “We hurt so much because we loved so much” type shit… and I just haven’t gotten past the pain that these dates periodically insert into my new life. For now, in my new life, they are just reminders… that I don’t have Kateri by my side. The passage of time has helped with some things and I suspect it will help with this. I won’t know for another 365 days… but I look forward to seeing that day come… and to see what fills the other 364 days.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • It… fucking… hurts… today. (September 28th)
        • It doesn’t hurt as much today! (September 29th)
      • The memory of Kateri telling me, “I don’t want to die.” one day in the schoolhouse and her saying, “I love you.”… in that weak, soft but scratchy voice while in palliative care four days before she died… the last time we would say it to each other… was almost debilitating as I was driving up to Burlington.
      • The memory of Kateri shouting, “Just let her go!” as we would crest a hill while driving our 5 Different Shades of Orange ’72 Super Beetle through the Green Mountains of Vermont on a Sunday afternoon… well… that put a smile on my face.

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      Posted in anniversary, inspirational, loss, marriage, Uncategorized, wedding, Widow, widower | 5 Comments | Tagged anniversary, loss, marriage, randomwidowerthoughts, sunday morning, thirtydaysofmorning, wedding, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 17 Months and a Day (now plus 2)… September 23, 2019… I’m vested!

      Posted at 11:03 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on September 25, 2019

      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:

      • Who do I want to be? Who am I?… me?… now that I’m by myself? (yup, still me… but it’s different)
      • Where do I want to be?… Vermont?, Rockies?, somewhere completely new and/or different? Travel? Stay put?
      • What fulfills me?
      • What do I enjoy?… What puts a smile on my face?
      • What options do I have for any given obstacle?
      • How will I keep my home?… Do I keep my home? (definitely yes. I’ve answered that one on multiple occasions from a couple of different angles for myself… and plus… my house is totally fucking cute)
        • Then… How will I make more money?… doing something I wanna do!
          • I’m actually willing to do things I don’t wanna do… I’m just not willing to do them right now! I’m not there yet… and I’m not gonna start there, neither!
      • What do I want to do professionally?… Hmmmmm. (I still enjoy what I do and take pride in my work, but 25 years is a long time to do one thing!)

      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:

      • I’m getting a new woodstove tomorrow…! I’ve been super excited about it and I’m sure I’ll share at some point, but it sorta just hit me… I have some pretty significant memories attached to this woodstove!… (like Kateri laying next to it… on a pad that a dear dear friend had made her… as she lived with cancer… the last four months of her life.)
        • She kept the fire going. It kept her warm. It made her feel good. She was there a lot.

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      • Yup, totally had one of those sobbing moments with those memories tonight… and then I realized how much I’ve adapted to those things as I was crying away while getting the fire going. Still got shit to do!… wet face action or not!
        • There was no real need for a fire tonight except for the fact that I wanted to have one more!… for Old Times’ sake! I’m sentimental n shit.

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      Posted in anniversary, cancer, inspirational, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 3 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day… 17 months. Where’d the summer go…? (stoopid time)

      Posted at 11:52 am by Darren Lidstrom, on September 22, 2019

      img_0576We 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:

      • One pot/pan dinners… that’s usually my goal… if I’m not eating Gas Station Chinese food or pizza. I’m trying to eat better, but I’m also just kinda over doing dishes.
      • 50 Followers!… (I think that’s WordPress..?) and it only took a year!…ish… might’ve been a bit longer… but 50!
      • I’m getting a new wood stove on Thursday. It’s the first “major” purchase for the house without Kateri here and although I’m excited about it… it feels kinda strange. I decided on a Vermont Castings because of  sentimental reasons… and I think Kateri would be proud of my decision.
        • Side note… it’s always fun (sarcasm) when you think about new woodstoves and it reminds you of your wife laying next to the old woodstove on a cold winter day… on a pad that a friend made… knowing she has cancer… and knowing it’s not good.
      • I have now heard the terms “Axeless Mountain Dwarf” AND “Hermit” to describe me or my tendencies… and I’m ok with that.

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      Posted in cancer, grief, inspirational, loss, Widow, widower | 4 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, loss, mourning, sunday morning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 513… People I love were just touched by death.

      Posted at 9:59 am by Darren Lidstrom, on September 16, 2019

      img_0465I’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.Lake Fairlee

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • T—-I’m so sorry you won’t be able to hold your mother anymore or call her up or hear her voice in the other room. I’m sorry that you have to feel this loss. I’m sorry that it hurts. I’m glad that you have my sister by your side and family to help ease the pain. I love you. I wish I could be there and give you a hug. I wish I could be there for you… for my brother.
        • I still love the memory of when in my senior year of high school you let me borrow your jacked up Nissan for a graduation event/party and at one point the grill went flying into the front yard when we couldn’t get the light fixed or something! (don’t actually remember what the issue was, but it was exciting!)
      • Death is complicated. Death and how it affects family and friends is complicated. Death and how it affects relationships is complicated. There’s so much that goes into the experience of death that the best description I have been able to come up with is… it’s complicated. Well, traumatic… and complicated.

      ps… Remember, you can always follow the blog! Just sign up! It’ll just go to your inbox! Don’t even need to read it!

      pps… and I hope you have a good day.

       

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      Posted in inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 4 Comments | Tagged Dali Lama, loss, marriage, randomwidowerthoughts, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day… 506. 505 was thirteen years without drinking… yay!

      Posted at 9:54 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on September 10, 2019

      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.

      The only time I have been sailing. It was fun... but freaky... Especially when I couldn't see land! (glad we had beer at that point!)
      The only time I have been sailing. It was fun… but freaky… Especially when I couldn’t see land! (glad we had beer at that point!)
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      Yup, I 100%… 96%… 89% believe I could have a drink and not watch my life spin out of control, but I just don’t feel like risking it. I always told Kateri I was gonna start back up when I retire so that I could sit on our porch in my rocking chair with my dog, my shotgun, and my whisky. (I know… how many times have you heard that?! I think that’s a lot of guys’ idea of retirement!) I don’t have any idea if any of that will actually happen… or if that’s even how I envision “retirement” these days. I don’t really think about that far off anymore. Those thoughts and stipulations were when there were two rocking chairs on the porch… and one was Kateri’s.

      (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:

      • I got four pieces of mail today. Two for Kateri, one for Gordon (original owner) or current resident, and one for me… Denzel (I’ve mentioned him). Just kinda funny… I’m the only one who lives here… but gets 25% of the mail!
      • Just food for thought about the strength and pull of the drink… I broke both my legs (femur in half/compounded tibia and fibula) when I ran into a mountain after a night of drinking in town, flipped end over end a couple of times, and did this to my Jeep.

        1999... Drinkin'

        Broke both my legs. I know, I know… impressive and looks fun!… but I don’t recommend it.

      • That was 7 years before I quit. (I will say being young and stoopid didn’t help!) I actually have another picture of it with my mom holding a togo coffee cup in the background with her arms folded and head slightly tilted down. My mother and father were on their way to the hospital in Wyoming from Idaho and the wreckage was on the way. I keep that image to myself… but you can just think of your mom (or anyone you love) in her place if you are on the fence about some of the choices you’re making with drinking. Ya… don’t put them through it.
      • Ummm… now that’s all I have to say!… for reals.

       

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      Posted in Drinking, inspirational, Sobriety, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 2 Comments | Tagged anniversary, grief, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, video, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 504… worried about losing the memories.

      Posted at 11:40 am by Darren Lidstrom, on September 8, 2019

      img_1599I’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.

       

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      Posted in cancer, grief, inspirational, Uncategorized, videos, Widow, widower | 5 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, loss, marriage, melanoma, mourning, sunday morning, thirtydaysofmorning, video, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 500… A Video… with you widows and widowers in mind.

      Posted at 11:09 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on September 4, 2019

      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:

      • Honestly, I kinda enjoyed Widower Day 500… it was kinda funny. (you should’ve seen my “recording” set up!… entertaining sight I’m sure!)
        • I’d just like to say that I still wish I lived back in the old timey days before all this technology… like the 1800’s… minus all the bad stuff.

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      Posted in inspirational, Uncategorized, videos, Widow, widower | 3 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, loss, mourning, randomwidowerthoughts, thirtydaysofmorning, threfirstthirtydays, videos, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 497… Where I wake up… every… single… morning.

      Posted at 1:59 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on September 1, 2019

      42ab0e7a-6f4d-4506-83d6-5d3c2e394651I 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.

      img_0222
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      img_0234

      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.

      img_0238
      img_0236
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      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.

      img_0251
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      58870843928__e48079f9-354e-40e0-ac29-a0cae1068952

      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 saw a Pella Windows truck the other day and it reminded me of when Kateri would always say how fancy their windows were.
      • I miss the Rocky Mountains, ranches, and The West.
      • There is a red ’57 Chevy for sale down the road.  I think it would look great parked in front of my little red schoolhouse… just sayin’.
      • Loggins and Messina-Danny’s Song… yup, that just about destroyed me as I was driving home the other day. Don’t know why… I don’t even really know what the song is about… wasn’t paying that close of attention!
      • I just need to figure out how to get what I want…  I know the solutions are out there!  I guess I also need to figure out what it is I actually want.  All I really know is that I need some change. Some big changes… some small… some change.
      • I hope you have a wonderful day!

      First hole in the bathroom wall
      Kateri in the Bathroom

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      Posted in cancer, grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 1 Comment | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, Lizzo, loss, marriage, mourning, sunday morning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 490… 16 months was three days ago.

      Posted at 9:37 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on August 24, 2019

      August 25, 2019... Sunday morning.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 Our wedding, September 28, 2011cool 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:

      • Yup, I’ve made it to the point where after placing my order the lady at the Gas Station Chinese Food place actually said to me… over the phone… “I know you!… ha ha ha… see you soon.”… now that’s building community!
      • The dishes in the sink are piled to the highest point so far in this new life! I’ve been okay with it… until today.
      • I’m getting Kateri’s truck towed today to hopefully be able to get it running so I can use it for moving wood n stuff… we’ll see what the mechanic says! It’s gonna be a long process… Kateri’s truck… it needs some work… which costs money… but she’ll be on the road again!… sooner or later.
      • I’ve gotta say… I’m loving that the nights are getting cooler.  I’m not ready for summer to be over… but the changing weather is nice.
      • Widower Day 490… wow. That number doesn’t feel like it’s accurate. Like the truck… this is gonna be a long process.
      • Now I’ve gotta go clean the house!… and mow the yard! Awe… Sunday.
      • Hope you have a wonderful day!

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      Posted in anniversary, cancer, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 3 Comments | Tagged anniversary, grief, marriage, melanoma, mourning, sunday morning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 483… Friendships, Relationships, and Sex…!… in this new life.

      Posted at 3:22 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on August 18, 2019

      The PorchUmmm… 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.

      img_5662Sex. 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!

      Cake Pops!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.

      Kayaking on Lake Fairlee
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      Evening at the fire pit
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      Fairlee parade on The 4th!

      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.Lil' Bitch and Chicken

       

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • So I just got a new phone… my second one in just over a month… long story. My question is–On the iphone 8’s keyboard (when texting) the “123” is on the outside and the little world thing is to the right of it when the phone is verticle. When you rotate the phone, the little world thing is on the outside and the “123” is to the right of it… Why do they switch positions?!! (These are the things I wonder about)
      • A few people have checked in with me to see how I’m doing since I haven’t been on here lately.  First, I can’t tell you how good that makes me feel… the support. Second… Thank you. Please know you’ve made an impact on my life… even if I don’t show it all the time.

      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.

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, Widow, widower | 10 Comments | Tagged friendship, grief, grieving, loss, melanoma, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 485… the roller coaster and missed opportunities.

      Posted at 6:42 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on August 15, 2019

      North on 91I 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 Our Bed... my bed.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:

      • I absolutely love driving on a newly grated dirt road!
      • There are more and more new people in my life… people who never knew Kateri… people who don’t really understand what I’m going through.
      • I should have a piano moving party!… and a wood stacking party!
      • I’ve started the process of fixing Kateri’s truck! Well, I washed off the dirt and talked to my mechanic. It’s gonna take some time… and a tow… she needs a little work. But she’s clean!
        Cleaning Kateri's Truck
        Kateri's Truck Ready for Watson's
      • Some plants need more water than other plants… but I guess they all need water!
        • You can move inside plants outside… but outside plants will grow in the inside pots… which are outside.
      • There are more spiders… than I feel are necessary… around my house.
      • Wow… I’ve written over 57,000 words!… boy are my arms tired! (corny… I know)
      • Kateri named the pillow with the flowers “Squishy”… because it’s squishy. When she got sick she would ask, “Will you grab Squishy for me?”… and I did.

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      Posted in cancer, grief, inspirational, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 4 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, loss, marriage, melanoma, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day… 15 Months… and a day.

      Posted at 6:59 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on July 23, 2019

      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”!

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      img_5591

      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 i