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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  • Tag: widower thoughts

    • 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
    • 10 Minutes Each Day… starting the fire.

      Posted at 8:29 am by Darren Lidstrom, on February 8, 2021

      In the winter time, when I get home from work one of the first things I generally do is get the fire going. (Kateri would’ve followed that line up with, “In my loins!”… but I’m not talkin’ about that kinda fire.) Sometimes I need to cut wood first or maybe snow blow/shovel the driveway, but invariably I end up sitting in front of the wood stove on my little stool that Kateri and I got in 2001 (maybe ’02..?), when we lived above a garage in Monkton, as I get the fire going for the evening. I enjoy this part of my day. It’s a built in time/task that sorta forces me to just sit for a few minutes. Of course, when I just sit for a few minutes… I think… about all sorts of stuff!… like how the stool I sit on was Kateri’s and my first piece of furniture!… and I hope it doesn’t spontaneously collapse on me as I’m starting the fire! But it hasn’t yet and I’m glad… because once the fire is going I absolutely love sitting on that stool and letting the wood stove heat my knees, hands, face, and top of my head that used to have beautifully thick hair keeping it warm. It provides me with space… to think… to remember… to reflect.

      Sometimes I sit there and think about heavy things… when heavy things are going on. Other times I think about other things… when other things are going on. And sometimes I think about things and have no idea why I’m thinking about them! So… over a few days of sitting there on my stool as I got the fire going, I thought I would make a few notes of what it was I was thinking about as I lit old newspaper I had crumpled up and stuffed under my methodically stacked kindling.

      Random Widower Notes n Thoughts… as I get the fire going:

      • Kateri would get excited and announce when she got the fire going by using only a single piece of paper…!
      • I think a lot about how I want to remember my old life… my life with Kateri… instead of just remembering.
      • I’ve always wanted to be a truck driver. I still wanna be a truck driver. I just don’t wanna quit smoking weed.
      • Road trips… adventures… ones with Kateri… ones without her… and ones I have yet to go on.
      • I’ve been sad lately. Sometimes I can sit here and just be… sad.
      • Cars should have a little icon of balloons, streamers, and champagne bottles pop up on your odometer when you hit 100,000 miles… and every 100,000 miles after that!
      • I’m actually pretty happy I don’t have chickens right now. I loved them… miss them… miss the eggs… but I don’t miss the chicken chores… or poop.
      • I bought a new coffee maker and grinder. My old coffee maker was… well… old. The coffee grinder I just didn’t like so I went and got a different one… which I like less than the old one. So… I’m going back to using the old grinder.
      • I would love to see Europe, but don’t know how I feel about flying over the ocean and one of my biggest fears is drowning in cold water so I don’t know how I’d do on a boat thousands of miles away from land… it’s quite the conundrum.
      • I still haven’t seen Tik Tok or know what it’s all about… which sometimes makes me feel older than I actually am. (I’m still young damnit!… but in a “middle-aged” man’s body. Or maybe I’m just immature.)
      • I think about my mom… a lot. This week I’ve been thinking about the tumor on her adrenal gland that has grown significantly. After talking to my sister, I’ve been able to also think about how the tumors on her spine and in her lungs haven’t grown… and after months of being off of chemo, there aren’t any new ones! Cancer… it fucking sucks.
      • I think about next winter when I won’t have to cut each piece of wood I burn so that it’ll fit in the stove… it’s gonna be glorious!
      • I think about shaving, but I haven’t seen my face since Kateri died and am kind of afraid that I’m gonna look gaunt and sickly since my healthy eating and sleeping habits went the way of the Dodo… for the most part. Fortunately… I like the beard.
      • My land line and internet are still in Kateri’s name… I really should deal with that, but I like my phone number and don’t wanna lose it!
      • Friends… I miss them, but I understand we are all simply living our lives… and we’re currently in a pandemic. Luckily, I’ve hit that point in life where I feel as though the friends I have will always be a part of my life… whether the last time we spoke to each other was last night, last week, last month… or in 2007.
      • I sit and think about life. Sometimes it’s complicated. Sometimes it’s not. And sometimes I just need to sit… and get the fire going.

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      Posted in grief, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 1 Comment | Tagged justsittinonmystoolthinking, startingthefire, widower thoughts
    • Living with Sadness

      Posted at 6:36 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on February 2, 2021

      I’m sad.

      Sometimes that happens.

      I don’t need anything from you. I don’t need you to do anything. The things I am sad about can not be fixed… they can not be changed… they can not be taken away and hidden from me… because they are a piece of who I am.

      Sadness is a part of life… it’s a part of my life. Sometimes, I force myself to get up on the right side of the bed. Other times, I just let myself be.

      Sad.

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 8 Comments | Tagged grief, sadness, sadnesssucksballsonceinawhile, widower, widower thoughts
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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 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 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
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      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.

      img_0674
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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.

      043f9096-bf84-400e-9ad2-69e412ac2ce2
      40a0bf47-8558-43cc-893b-11ee9afca5b2
      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.

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      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.

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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.

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      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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      We were actually quite proud of ourselves for using what we had! I had leftover lumber probably from the chicken coop. In one of the little plastic bins/cups that Kateri had gotten for me when we bought our house… with the hope of providing me with an organizational tool for the garage I was so excited to finally have… we had found a couple of hinges. For the top…?… it only seemed appropriate to use one of the many old windows we had laying around.  (We had windows because in 2011 we had gone around picking them up from various strangers so that we could build our “church” for our wedding. No… neither one of us is religious. Kateri always said she was a “recovering catholic”). And Kateri had some garden mesh/fabric stuff… because she gardened… to line the box with. We had all the fixin’s to build our cold frame! And there was no need to leave the hill!

      It was a good day.  Nothing special. Nothing really out of the ordinary. Just a Monday. We were so proud of ourselves for just making do. Kateri was so happy to have a cold frame where she could grow things next to the front deck… and beside her gardens. She was putting down roots… at our first home. It made her happy. It made me happy to see her and to help make her happy.  Life was good… and we were happy together just doing what we did… on a Monday.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • I was gonna write something yesterday for 15 months, but there were other things I wanted to do. Of course, I kinda wish I wrote about a Monday… on a Monday. (I know… kinda weird)
      • The Beastie Boys will always remind me of Kateri.
      • I finally hung the lady in the bathroom.  Kateri loved the lady in the tub.The Lady Taking a Bath
      • 15 months and I’ll admit… I’ve been a little rough lately.  Most the time everything is basically fine.  Most nights of the week… I have cried.  Sometimes… a lot. It’s hard trying to get excited about life… this new life… when the crushing reality hits that I simply miss what my life was before April 22, 2018. I miss Kateri sooo much… it just sucks.
        • I hope you have as many good people in your lives as I do… whether that’s friends, family, or co-workers… I’ve got some good ones.
      • Yup, the cold frame kinda took a beating this winter.  Glass and eight feet of snow don’t always mix… but shit still grows!

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      Posted in cancer, grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 5 Comments | Tagged Beastie Boys, cancer, grief, loss, marriage, melanoma, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 449… I started this blog a year ago… and made a video today… there’s a tractor… briefly.

      Posted at 5:52 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on July 12, 2019

      img_5502Well… as of today it has been a year since I started jotting some thoughts down pertaining to this whole widower thing on this little bloggery I have called Thirty Days of Mo(u)ring. Yup… a year.  I have published 74 (75 now!) posts, learned a bit about how these things work, learned a bit about myself, have gotten some lovely words of encouragement, and have had strangers come into my world that I would now consider my friends… ish. I had absolutely no idea what I was gonna be doing with this blog, how I was gonna do it, or really even why (still don’t), but a few people have reached out to me to say “thanks for sharing… it has helped me get through my shit.”… and I can’t tell you how much that warms my innards.

      There are so many things that I want to share, but being a widower is hard… and it takes time away from life. A year. It’s weird to think about all that has happened in that year… and all that I thought would happen. At this point last year, I hadn’t yet finished the upstairs bathroom that Kateri and I started to remodel before cancer… but I finally did… and I took a bath. I hadn’t yet rearranged the living room into a configuration that Kateri would never see. I hadn’t yet gotten on Widow/Widower support groups to try and promote my blog… and then find out that I didn’t wanna share it on that platform because it felt more like self promoting than being supportive. I hadn’t yet gotten on dating apps because of the curiosity… and crushing loneliness. One of my best friends hadn’t yet left Ned for Arizona… cutting off one of our last connections to a town I absolutely loved. Our closest friends here in the Upper Valley (the one Kateri always wanted to live next to, to be neighbors with until we grew old) hadn’t yet decided to start taking steps to relocate for other exciting opportunities. I hadn’t yet been to Atlantic City where “Angel” approached me asking if I wanted to “conversate” in my hotel room (I didn’t).  My boss and good friend hadn’t yet left work to make another go at opening another successful restaurant. Old friends hadn’t yet come to Vermont to sit on my porch for the first time… solely because they knew I needed them. My mother had cancer in her brain a year ago… and doesn’t as of today!… (now we’re just waiting for it to clear from her lungs… CT scan today). There have been a lot of changes and learning experiences in the past year. On this day last year… it hadn’t even been three months since I heard Kateri take her last breath as I held her arm with two of our best friends sitting next to her… and holding me.

      I wish I could say I’m in better shape than I was a year ago, but I’m not too sure I can say that. They say time heals… but so far I still feel it just changes things. Personally, I’m constantly overwhelmed, constantly worried about money and everything attached to it (I’m a worry wort), constantly trying to “figure out” things that can’t be figured out, constantly trying to do things that make me happy… and always trying to find more hours in the day to fit it all in. Just because I have moved further away from that horrible horrible date, it hasn’t exactly made it easier. I have been forced to manage my grieving and sadness because life doesn’t stop.  I still have to go to work, take care of responsibilities, take care of the house, the chickens, deal with the blah, blah, blah… and fit the emotional stuff in when I can.  Sometimes it will just show up and I have to either suppress it because I’m about to go back into work or I’m at the store or something. Sometimes, I’m in a place where I can let it go… like sitting in my car in my driveway when I just get home… or in my bed writing a blog. Either way… it’s a hard thing to manage… and a stupid thing to have to manage. It also doesn’t hurt less… it’s just more sporadic.

      I know this all sounds pretty depressing… as if there was very little joy in my world… but that’s not the case.  It’s a very manic experience being a widower… kind of all over the place emotionally and psychologically. Which just means there are times I’m doing well and feel pretty good about the direction I’m going… and then there are times I need to take a break from writing blogs or thinking about whatever to just go outside and dead-head the daisies in the planters on the porch… because it provides me with a sorta connection to Kateri… she loved dead-heading flowers.  She would say, “Pop their little heads off” or simply “Off with their heads!”… and it made her happy.  I loved seeing Kateri happy.

      I guess that’s one goal of sharing your life with whoever in whatever capacity… to see them happy… which makes us happy. It doesn’t always happen… and sometimes things happen that we just can’t be happy about… but they’re gonna happen anyways. Sometimes, there are days where we just want to stay in comfy clothes, smoke a pinner, eat ice cream, and watch re-runs of Friends. But the joint burns out, the ice cream gets eaten, Friends move on to short lived spin-offs or other endeavors… and we all have to put our pants on to start a new day.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • I should probably take the home phone and internet out of Kateri’s name at some point… but I’m really afraid of losing my number!
      • I look down a lot when I walk… so I miss shit.
      • I’ve been wanting to get Kateri’s truck up and running. I loved seeing her in it… and currently it would be helpful to move wood!
        • Kateri’s dream car was a Toyota with a wooden bed… such the Vermonter!
      • I’ve noticed I’ve been able to remember some of the fun stuff from before the pile of shit… which is such a nice corner to turn within this process. It doesn’t happen a ton, but when it does… it’s just so warming.
      • Yup, I could eat better, sleep better, and just take care of myself better… but I’m doing good enough.
      • Thank you to everyone who has checked my shit out! It makes me feel warm and fuzzy…. even though it’s hot and humid.

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      Posted in anniversary, cancer, grief, Uncategorized, videos, Widow, widower | 3 Comments | Tagged cancer, Dali Lama, grief, marriage, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, video, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 444… The Beard… got trimmed.

      Posted at 9:33 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on July 10, 2019

      Part 1

      img_4545I haven’t actually made it to the upstairs bathroom yet… might be dragging my feet.  I have decided to trim the beard down to a less “mangy” length… as a friend had described it.  I personally like to think of it as “shabby” or “unkempt”.  Whatever you call it… I rather enjoy it.  Unfortunately, it’s also hot… and I work in kitchens.

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      It feels a little strange to think that I’m about to take clippers to the face.  I’ve talked about it a lot… trimming… just haven’t found the time… or at least the right time. I’ve become attached to the beard as it has grown since Kateri’s death.  As a widower, it has sorta helped me feel better.  It makes me feel different than I was in my life with Kateri… because I look different.  There was a point last summer where I found myself looking in the mirror and I didn’t recognize myself… not my face… not who I was… not my life. It was an odd experience… and not just because of the beard (which was obviously shorter then). But I found comfort in the fact that Kateri would’ve loved how long my facial hair was getting as well as it being something new in my new life… and I didn’t have to do anything!  A year later… I feel as though this is almost my identity now… the small guy with a big beard!

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      If you’re a widower… I suggest you grow a beard… unless it’s patchy or you aren’t allowed to because of some stupid shit like “work”.  I simply think it is a fun way to get a little different perspective of yourself… as you are trying to figure out who you are in this new life. Sometimes, you’ll get past using the beard as kind of a crutch (sounds silly… I know… but in many ways it’s true)… and trim it when you are ready for a change… or because it’s been in the 80’s for more than a week! (FYI… I don’t plan on going shorter than an inch… but we’ll see..?!)

      Part 2

      Yup, now I’m gonna start to grow the beard back out!… I miss it.


      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • It’s weird to think there are people in my life now that only know me with a beard.
      • Yes… I pretty much wear either my red or hunter-orange stocking cap when it’s not warm… or my John Deere hat the rest of the time.  I’m pretty exciting.

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 3 Comments | Tagged grief, grieving, loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 2.78.443… The Fourth… Flat Tires… and a card.

      Posted at 8:55 am by Darren Lidstrom, on July 7, 2019

      Lil' Bitch n ChickenWell, currently sitting in my garage because it’s cooler than the front porch right now and I don’t wanna be inside.  I just let the chickens out so that they could feel the grass between their toes… and eat all the ticks. Today is one of those days that I’m willing to risk having to deal with death so that the chickens can enjoy being chickens.  (when you live in the woods… there are creatures that rather enjoy eating chicken for dinner… hopefully not tonight, though!) Yup, today I’m just going with the flow.  It’s kind of what I’ve been doing for the last week or two… which has been both good and… well… aggravating on some fronts.

      img_5435-e1562711902808.jpgIndependence Day was fantastic.  A friend and I had a wonderfully Vermonty 4th of July with parades (well… a parade), swimming holes, creamies, grilled burgers, macaroni salad, homemade key lime pie (not my home), fireworks and all! It kinda sucked getting a flat tire on the way down to the fireworks… and having the wheel decide it didn’t wanna come off for a bit even though the lug nuts were on the asphalt… but the spare made it on and we made it in time to watch shit explode! Personally, I love the fact that we both sorta rolled with it.  We tried something with the tire… didn’t work… I tried it again! Oh hey, my AAA is non-existent…?… let’s try yours! Once we actually got to the point that a tow truck was coming, I just started to kick one side of the tire and it popped off! So we canceled the wrecker, threw on the full size spare (thank God… or something… that it was full size), drove to the town just south of the parking lot we were in, and enjoyed the rest of the evening! Rolling with it!… until it cost me $303 to throw 4 old tires on the Jeep and to replace the sensor that the flat tire destroyed. (Actually still rolling with it at that point… just reluctantly)

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      A couple of days later, Saturday, I woke up with tears puddled up on my eyeballs and lids. Now… I just need to say… this was one of the stranger “Widower” experiences I have had.  I guess it isn’t really all that strange, but it hasn’t happened to me much… if at all… until Saturday. Oh, I’ve woken up and then started crying… but this was different.  There was accumulation of salty water on my closed eye lids! When I moved my head I could feel the streams roll over my cheeks into my beard and ears.

      I don’t really remember what the dream was about, it wasn’t anything serious or big, but Kateri was in it… both of us were… together. The odd part for me was that I was sorta watching this dream as a third person. There wasn’t a big event happening or anything… it wasn’t like it was our wedding… Darren2 and Kateri were for the most part just going about their lives.  It was the fact that I was witnessing these two people just plugging away… and it crushed me.  Neither one of them had any idea of what direction their life was gonna take… they had no idea of the pain that they both would face. The physical, psychological, and emotional pain that cancer was gonna cause Kateri… and the pain of having to live a life I (he… Darren2) didn’t plan on… nor care as much for. Seeing Darren2 and Kateri happy without the big pile of poop… before the big pile of poop plopped down… just sorta crushed me in my dream… which is something I guess can make you cry while your asleep.

      And now!… I’m gonna go do something else… where there’s less mosquitos! (I feel like mosquitos should stay out of garages! Little bastards.)

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • The whole widower experience has this loneliness thing attached to it all the time… it’s just there… hanging with me.
      • I found this card from Kateri yesterday as I was making two stands in the garage.  It was in the coffee table that Trilla had given us eons ago.  It didn’t hit me hard when I found it… I wasn’t emotionally floored or anything… it just kinda made me feel good. It felt nice to see her handwriting and to think about what was happening at that time (there was a reference because she always dated notes and cards).  It was comforting. It was good to feel the love I have for Kateri take the lead… instead of the sorrow that comes along when you aren’t able to tell someone you love them because the world had other ideas.
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      • I feel like I just need to keep going… keep moving… I haven’t been doing that. I’ve been doing what needs to get done and that’s about it. There’s this lack of motivation which I think is feeding into the whole “not feeling so great” all the time. I’m thinking it’s still part of the whole overwhelming aspect of this life of one.
        • I’m pretty sure I would be a good recluse… who welcomes visitors.
      • I wish I didn’t love my house or have so many attachments to it.  I would sell it in a heartbeat, load up the Jeep, and just start driving. That’s the challenge with living in a cute little schoolhouse as a widower… there’s no way I would ever be able to buy something like this on my own… so I’m not giving it up!… which means no loading up the Jeep… yet. (Hmmm, I wonder if I have lost it in the noggin enough that I would take Lil’ Bitch with me on a 6 month long road trip…? Just me and my chicken!)
      • I bought a new phone!… and miss using my old one.
      • Wow… this seems like a very Eeyore… ish post! Besides being somewhat overwhelmed, somewhat numb, and just kinda blah… life is actually pretty decent.
        • FYI… I can hear my chickens pecking at the paint on the side of my garage. Awe… I’ve got smrt chickens!

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      Posted in grief, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 6 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.71.236 (central time)… Old Newspapers… and Bunting!

      Posted at 12:27 am by Darren Lidstrom, on July 3, 2019

      July 1st, 2018 Unpacking Boxes in the GarageThe other evening I was going through videos on my phone that I had made last summer… when I was trying to figure out what the effe just happened to my world… and I came across this picture that I had taken on July 1st, 2018. Sooooo, that would’ve been Widower Day 70… and it’s weird to think I’m at 436 now partly because much of the last 14 and whatever months are in some ways a blur… and foggy. But I remember taking this picture because of the significance of what the date on the newspaper reminded me of… April 22nd… the day Kateri died… 70 days earlier.

      It was hot that week… a year ago. Come to think of it… it’s hot right now a year later!  Hmmm, maybe we should track these trends…? Anyways, it was hot… like real hot. I lost img_5366a chicken that week… Taco. Although she wasn’t my favorite, I thought she was the most beautiful. She just looked like a picture perfect Silver Laced Wyandotte. Bright white and black with the really red comb thing… like the ones you see in the movies! (really… I have no idea what a good looking Silver Laced Wyandotte looks like… but she sure was a purdy chicken. And… the chicken in the picture is Lil’ Bitch… she’s my favorite) Yup, poor Taco. I opened up the door to the coop… and BLAM!… dead chicken… mostly in the nesting box… little head hanging over the edge……….. it was hot. I felt pretty bad there for a bit, and then just thought… it’s a chicken… and had to move on.

      Anways, while it was sweltering outside, I remember it felt somewhat nice in the garage standing on the cool concrete. I had built shelves on the east side with the hope of getting organized. My “nesting for one”. I was going through boxes that Kateri and I hadn’t yet unpacked from the move back from Ned. We always had an idea of what was in certain boxes and I when I came to the large rectangular one housing the King and Queen I decided I’d like to see them out again. These were from Kateri’s life prior to meeting me, so they had always been a part of OUR life… hanging or leaning here or there… and I just kinda thought they would be fun to have out in the schoolhouse (currently… they are in my front little plant room).

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      They were wrapped in newspaper… the one with the date… which is the fun part of moving from place to place… sometimes you get to be reminded of specific times in your life as the memories attached to those times get pulled from the vaults with the unwrapping of that protective layer. Sometimes you get to open up a box from multiple moves ago… like this one… which was four ago.

      We had packed that box eight years ago and July 1st, 2018 was the day it was gonna get unpacked! When I noticed the date… it was just… kind of a flood of emotions and memories. Honestly, I don’t remember exactly how I reacted… I don’t think I lost it or anything… but I probably did. The one thing I know for sure is… I wasn’t gonna hold onto that crumpled up piece of eight year old newspaper for the rest of my life because it had the date Kateri died on it!… so I took a picture of it… that I’m now afraid of losing.

      I’ve come to expect these little unexpected things that pop up. I’m glad that I took a picture of that newspaper and came across it a year later.  I’m also glad I came across that picture… a year later… and could recognize a few of the changes I have gone through in this experience. Yes, the picture definitely made me emotional, but it was nice to think about my life with Kateri in a different time… in a different place. It made me happy. Those were happy times in 2010. Hell, I had just asked her to marry me when we were packing those boxes… we were moving back to Vermont to set roots! It was exciting! It was fun! And ya… this aint what we planned… and not what I expected… but I’m grateful for the life we had because it provides me with countless memories (in vaults somewhere) that simply put a smile on my face.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:img_5409

      • I put up bunting this evening! I used the ones Kateri had gotten us… really for me. She knew I was fascinated by it… bunting… don’t ask me why. I bought some serious bunting last year… 6 feet across!… real fabric of some sort and all! But it just seemed a bit much and I’m not sold on them yet… so I went with the nylon or polyester or whatever smaller guys.
      • I wish everyone in this country a Happy Independence Day!… in two days. If you’re new here to the good ol’ USofA… Welcome!… sorry for the assholes… they’ve been fucking shit up for all sorts of good people since the beginning.

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      Posted in inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 4 Comments | Tagged grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.66.431… Crap, I don’t know what to call this… “Crying Over a FB Post!”… maybe…?

      Posted at 8:00 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on June 27, 2019

      img_5327I’m just gonna say it… I just lost my shit (the emotional sobbing type) after reading someone’s post on FB. Yup, lost it. Loooosssst…… It. I was just so surprised by what this person had written! It was beautiful! It was powerful! It was posted by someone who was a part of my life in a time when I wore much smaller shoes. (well, not much smaller shoes… but smaller…. I was a kid) The post was touching, I had an attachment to the person… and there was a picture! It had all the makings of a moving moment! And then… then!… I realized it was one of those “copy and paste if you stand for/care for/believe in/proud of/hashtag whatever” things!… and everything changed.

      Now, I need to say thanks to whoever wrote that little note… it was fantastic… but it was kind of a weird experience. I found it amusing that I put soooo much into that post… emotionally… in the beginning. One moment I’m losing my mind thinking about how beautifully my friend had shared their feelings about this or that because it made me think about Kateri… and then the realization came and it all stopped… and I laughed at myself. (memories of the person and her age now, her family, how the words made me think of Kateri, the wonderful picture of this woman and her big ass smile… all played a part in my dramatic reaction… I think)

      Part of it is my lack of social media participation in the whole “copy this” or “play that” scene. The other part is it went from all of that… everything that I had attached to the post… all the nostalgia… to simply words on a screen that someone took the time to copy and paste. Still a moving post… just not the same… for me.

      Just so the record is straight… I love that this person copied/pasted/and participated with this particular post. And the reason the post meant so much to me at first is because of my love for this person and I could see them sharing the wisdom themselves. It was just funny to me how my mind went in one direction… and then abruptly stopped. It just sorta slammed on the brakes so that it could see where it was… and then it realized it was on the good ol’ trusty roller coaster again.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • Michelle helped me plant up Kateri’s pots this last weekend.  It was much more emotional than I expected.  I don’t know why… I mean, I went into Kateri’s Potting Shed to get Kateri’s planter’s and pots so that I could go to Kateri’s work to plant them up so as to put them on our deck… which is now mine. Hmmmm… didn’t see that coming!
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        • I pulled over in front of my house to take the pic of the empty pots in the back of the Jeep… and two cars drove past. I wondered if they thought I was a tourist taking a picture of my house… and then I realized I wasn’t parked in the safest place.
      • Quiche. Friends that make quiche… keep them around… they sometimes give you some.

      Quiche!

      ummm… I’m the one who over cooked it when I was heating it back up

      • I’m still not sleeping. I’m getting about 5-6 hours a night… until Sunday comes around. Not because of anything in particular… just can’t put myself to bed. Sometimes it makes me feel like a kid… staying up. Sometimes I’m doing something that makes me feel good like playing guitar or catching up with a friend. Usually I’m not doing anything except thinking about a million little things… or at least 23 little things… maybe 5 big things… and it’s kind of annoying.
      • I’ve read and heard that the second year of widowhood is harder than the first…. and I don’t know if I agree with that… yet. It’s just different. The shock is wearing off and reality is setting in a bit more. I can somewhat rationally think about things… which can be sorta difficult to deal with.
        • The first year is simply fucked up… but I was also sorta numb through it. The second year (I’m at the start of it), you are able to understand just how fucked up it is as your mind gains a smidgen of clarity.
        • As more hours and days have piled up behind me, at least I don’t have to worry if I remembered to put pants on… I’m usually pretty sure that I did!
      • Yup.

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      Posted in grief, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 2 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.59.424… A year ago tonight… Kateri’s Kick-Ass Party… and I have no words.

      Posted at 10:59 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on June 20, 2019

      This simply… hit me. I miss her. And right now… it hurts.

      Wedding Kateri with Wine
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      CHICKS!... 2016
      CHICKS!… 2016
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      Kateri in the Bathroom
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      Denver Botanical Gardens '09ish?
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      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • img_5299I wish I could fill in the details of what all that evening entailed… a later date perhaps.
      • It was an absolutely beautiful experience. It’s a beautiful memory… minus… you know.
      • For me… it had kind of a similar feeling as at our wedding…sorta… ish.  I/we were surrounded by nothing but friends and family who were there because they loved us… and there was a celebration!… with American Flatbread… and Zero Gravity beer… and Luke cooked a mammal over a flame… and a lot of the same people. A lot of good… good people.

       

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      Posted in anniversary, grief, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 8 Comments | Tagged anniversary, grief, grieving, Kateri'sKickAssParty, loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.51.416… ESOP!… yes, esop.

      Posted at 10:07 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on June 12, 2019

      img_5256I just got home from spending the day at an ESOP Conference up in B-Town. What is an ESOP you ask? Employee Stock Ownership Plan (look it up!). Yup, I work for one… and went to a conference where they had seminars and stuff about them… which also had me start my day at 5:30am with a nice little drive across The Green Mountain State. It was one of those beautiful drives where you would crest a hill to see a bed of fog at the bottom of a green valley. It’s funny to think that the hills are gonna just get more green… “make you thirsty” green. Anyways, the hills made the postcards proud this morning.

      Honestly, I’m not exactly sure what this is about. I was about to go play some guitar in the garage… because I’m sure my neighbors really enjoy it when I do!… but just felt I needed to get back to this… Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning. I had a thought I wanted to get down, but by the time my computer got all booted up… it was gone… or at least morphed into a mish mosh of 25 other thoughts! That seems to happen a lot lately. Almost 14 months into this and the overwhelming/confused/sorta lost aspect of losing Kateri hasn’t diminished as much as I expected. The loneliness aspect is starting to set in again. I’m staying on top of everything I need to and there are things I enjoy… but it currently still sucks balls.

      I was going to throw something on FB saying I was heading up to see if anyone was around… but I didn’t. Then after the conference I was gonna text this person or that person or swing by that family’s home around the corner… but I didn’t. I just wanted to get home. One strange thing about this experience is I want to reconnect with so many people… I want to start spending time with friends and meet new ones. I want to do fun things like camp or hit a show or simply have a nice dinner. I want to keep people in my world and not let them slip away because we were all just “living our lives”. But at the same time… I want solitude. I want to be alone to have the peace and quiet as my mind tries to wrap itself around what it is that I’m actually doing with my life… what it is that makes me happy.  I feel I need time to take care of all the things that need attention, which cuts into time for other things… like people. It’s kinda messed up.

      OK… back to the ESOP Conference (Yes Keith… ESOP). I really enjoyed it. It was informative. They had comfortable chairs. I liked everyone I was there with. It was nice to change up my week. I learned something at every workshop that I’ll be able to take back to work with me and hopefully have a positive impact on my department as well as the company. But what has been on my mind since the last twenty minutes of the last workshop was… the last twenty minutes of the last workshop.

      The Best Way to Engage Employee Owners: Tell a Story… that was the last workshop. In the last twenty minutes, the last exercise was that we were to tell our partners our story of why we work for an ESOP… why we stay working at an ESOP.  Jay told me a story that happened the other day which reinforced his reasons of why he works at our company and when it was my turn… I told him I would have to go with what the company was able to give me when Kateri was sick, when she passed, and afterwards. Time… and that whole story.

      After this little exercise is what has been on my mind. Once the room settled down and was quiet again, one of the speakers asked if anyone wanted to share their story… silence.  You could see the panic in some people’s eyes… and I heard my muffled name come from the peanut gallery behind us as a fellow KAFer egged me on to tell a story. The speaker took a few steps up the center aisle and asked, “Is there anyone willing to tell their story?”. Again… silence… and I said fuck it! (I didn’t literally say it… just in my head) I figured this was an opportunity to see how I would do standing up in front of people… while talking. It was an opportunity to push the ol’ comfort levels. It was an opportunity to share something that adds humanity to the conversation of business. And to be frank, if I want to see where TDoM takes me…? if I really do want to get my story out there…? I need to tell it… so I took the opportunity to do just that. When not a single other person even made a hint of wanting to ramble off a random story…  that they had just formulated in the last five minutes… in front of 40-50 people… I did.

      Now… I think it may have been a little heavy for the audience.  I don’t think anyone was expecting an Axeless Mountain Dwarf to stand up in front of them and start with, “I came to an ESOP for the benefits, quality of life, blah blah blah…” and then take the turn into how our company, “gave me time… when my wife got sick. They gave me time to hold her when she took her last breath. And they gave me time in the weeks afterwards.” I spoke about why I am forever grateful to the people I work next to, day in and day out, who have supported me through this big pile of shi… poop… and why I believe the culture an ESOP fosters is just as important as the retirement fund it creates. Nope… I don’t think they were expecting that. But neither was I.

      I’ve gone back and forth for the last few hours wondering if I should’ve just sat there with the rest of the crowd… but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m happy I did it. It was a good thing for me to do. Although I hope I didn’t put a damper on everyone’s day, I’m comfortable with the experience. After the workshop was over, I was approached by Barbara as she thanked me for sharing my story.  David (the other speaker) also stuck around and the three of us had a conversation.  David has authored a couple of books and after my whole blog and “book” idea (which I haven’t done anything about) came up in the conversation, he gave me his card and said I could use him as a resource… networking!

      The conversation with Barbara and David after getting up in front of strangers to tell my story is one of the reasons I’m glad I decided to say “Fuck It”. Was it a bit much of a story for that environment?… maybe. Do I regret doing it?… no. Do I think it people took something away from it?… yes. What that is?… I’m not sure.. but by the looks on people’s faces… it made an impact!

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • My phone says the Bruins are still playing… so I can’t trim the beard.  I still have no idea about hockey.img_5253
      • I haven’t checked to see if Kateri’s emails have reached 6,000 yet.
      • Fire pits are wonderful things to sit by and think. It doesn’t hurt that burning things is fun.
      • The geraniums finally went outside and I cleaned up the front room… and then brought one geranium back in… because I’m afraid of killing all three! (picture is before I brought it back in… there aren’t any geraniums in that picture. There’s a Brugmansia, Hibiscus… if I remember correctly, Aloe that I finally put in a pot… but no Geranium)
      • Being alone kinda sucks, but its probably for the best when you can smell your own feet… and it grosses you out.

      ps… yup, smack the little follow button if you want…? or maybe the like button…? maybe…?

       

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 11 Comments | Tagged grief, loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.41.406… A Year Ago, I Finished My TDoM Notes… some observances at 13 and a half months.

      Posted at 12:10 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on June 2, 2019

      img_2337First, I just need to say that this post is pretty much a “Widower” post… not sad or anything… it’s not reminiscing about how great and wonderful and beautiful and honest and perfect Kateri was (is)… it’s about after that.  For the last two days I have been copying, pasting, increasing indents… still gotta add some pics, and trying to finalize the little “My Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning” site page on this here bloggy website thing a ma jig. Which meant… I read my notes. And we all know what that means! Actually, there weren’t any waterworks the last two days… or maybe just not the last day… but, it was really kinda nice going through the notes and being able to just… remember… ponder… compare times… to simply think about them… without any convulsing, sniffing, or snorting of snot. (Kateri would always say, “Out is better than in!” if I decided to suck the snot in… instead of destroying a kleenex)

      Long story short… here’s a list of observances and epiphanies (not many epiphanies, but it sounds good) and some things that have just been swirling up in the ol’ noggin… at 13 months a widower.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • I think I’ve eaten enough Smarties to tell if they are “fresh” or not… it’s a texture thing.img_4337
      • I feel as though the further away I get from the day that Kateri died… the more I’m able to think about her.  I mean, at first it was all I could think about… but it included everything!… the whole situation! I look forward to just rememberin’ Kateri… and the life we had.
      • I still haven’t gotten “angry” at the situation. At first, I think I tried to be overly positive.  Partly because I just went through an overly negative experience and I was trying to compensate.  More importantly, and a bit more on the “Who am I?” question side, I just saw some of the most beautiful things during a time filled with the most horrendous… I simply like the good shit more. That’s the train I wanna be on.
        • Point 1-I’m also still sorta numb and in a fog… not fog… but fog. With the loss of Kateri and everything that has come along with it… there just aren’t too many “Big Deals” in my world.  I mean, the are “Big Deals” (Food, Schoolhouse, Car, Warmth)… and then… teeny tiny issues that may pop up.
        • Point 2-As more and more time comes between today and the day Kateri died, it makes it harder to keep that train going… being positive all the time. Fortunately, I still find it easy to recover from a negative experience, situation, or thought… I just lost Kateri… Helloooo?! Whatever the issue is… it ain’t a Big Deal to me.
        • Point 3-Pants on?… check. Good enough… for a lot of the time.
        • Point 4-It’s a learning thing.  I still take a step and if it’s good?… take another.  If it’s not good?… maybe don’t do that again… but there’s always another step coming.
        • Point 5-When one of your points are still “Point 3″… 395 Widower Days later… it makes it easier to try and enjoy the rest of what’s going on around ya.
      • Everything that I have done… and am going to do with the yard will have Kateri in mind. Last summer was a bust.
      • Sleep… I have gotten comfortable with 5 hours of sleep a night. It’s not that I don’t sleep, it’s that I just can’t put myself to bed! Once in bed… horizontal… out like a light (that has been turned off), but getting to the horizontal stage is the challenge.  There’s just too much that I feel I need to do… and want to do.  I think it might be part of the whole “I don’t wanna miss out on life” thing. I was given a lesson on how quickly things can end… can just go away… and I wanna fill my life with as much time awake doing things I wanna do that I just can’t put myself to bed.
        • I also made the decision at the beginning of this big pile of shit that if I have the opportunity to have a conversation with someone… to have an interaction… to connect with them for whatever reason… I was going to.  That connection is more important to me than sleep.img_0780
      • The loneliness a widow or widower feels is one of those significantly unique things in life that only a person knows when they lose their spouse… and it is the worst feeling I have ever felt.  There are just soooo many things that goes into that loneliness… that it physically hurts. Here at the schoolhouse in the woods, the stillness and separation from people can be both therapeutic and calming… or deafening and crushing. Just depends on the day.
      • The overwhelming feeling hasn’t gone away, but I feel I have learned how to manage it better.
        • Another sucky thing about these types of experiences… I have been forced to learn how to “manage” things… like emotions… so that I can simply function in life. At the beginning, I didn’t care who saw me being emotional and I didn’t care where it was… still don’t… but it does get to be a little old.
      • Although the cliche sayings (Maria’s and my “Dr. Phil Moments”) bug the shit out of me (time heals, one day at a time… one hour, it’ll get better, it’s different for everyone, she would want you to be happy, pants on—check)… they still have value and are quite accurate.
        • I’m sorry, the whole “they would want you to be happy” thing is nice and all, but there are complicated topics to face as a widower. Such as, I know Kateri would not want me to be having Naked Sexy Fun Time… with anyone… but hopefully I still have a long life ahead of me… and I have no plans on becoming monk. (I had a thing about priests right here on the original post… but thought better of it and decided to not offend a pretty good sized group of people… I hate growing up)
      • I have been simply amazed by people. The love and support I have gotten in the past thirteen and a half months from varying places, friends, family, new friends, and strangers has been heart warming, comforting, and sometimes unexpected.
      • I should have paid better attention over the last 20 years. There are things in my house that I have to ask, “Where did we get that?” or “Who gave us this?”.  At times, my brain actually goes, “I should ask Kateri where/when/who…”, and then I remember she’s not here to ask. That’s one of those all sorts of fucked up moments.
      • I’ve learned that even though we may go through some pretty horrific experiences in life that seem to be all consuming, we still have things of value that we are able to share with other people who are searching for their own answers.img_1149
      • After thirteen and a half months… I simply miss everything about my life with Kateri.  Although there are good things in my new life, I feel it was just better with her… and that makes it bit hard to get excited about the future… but I tell myself that I am.
      • I’m still wearing my wedding ring, but have started thinking about weening myself off of it. Thinking about… just can’t do it yet.  It’s the one thing that provides me with the most connection to Kateri… to my wife… to the commitment I made to her… to the love that I have for her… and the love that she had for me. I’m not ready for that weight to come off of my ring finger.

      Yup, that’s enough sad widower shit for a Sunday morning… I gave it it’s time.  Now, it’s time to get excited about friends coming to make cookies and family coming to catch up. It may be a horrendous experience losing a spouse, but cookies and conversations help ease the pain and burden of having to go through it… and I’m thankful for the people who help me get through the day… one day at a time. (stoopid Dr. Phil Moments!)

      ps… follow the blog if you want!… or not.

       

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 2 Comments | Tagged grief, loss, mourning, sunday morning, thefirstthirty, thirtydaysofmorning, threfirstthirtydays, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.37.402… I built some chairs.

      Posted at 12:43 am by Darren Lidstrom, on May 30, 2019

      The Old! 5-27-2019Yup, the ol’ Adirondack Chairs that Kateri and I had bought 15 years ago from The Christmas Tree Shop finally bit the dust. Well, one of them had a run in with a chunk of snow that jumped off the roof this winter… I probably should have moved it before then… oops. In all honesty, they lasted ten years longer than we expected them to! Of course, we treated them pretty well.  In the beginning we would bring them into the house as our “winter furniture”.  We didn’t have anything else besides a papasan and the stool (our first piece of “furniture” which I still use by the woodstove) and if you add a cushion to an Adirondack Chair… they are quite comfy to sit back in and watch a movie!

      It’s a little weird seeing something that has been a part of my life… a part of mine and Kateri’s life… start to go away… and I’ve realized I’m not exactly ready for that.  So I decided to take apart the broken chair, trace each piece, cut ’em out, sand them, and reassemble the same Adirondack Chair… with new wood. I wanted to keep the memories, but needed to replace enough of the chair that I decided it was a good opportunity for a fresh start… and for a project. It was fun blaring music, setting up saw horses, and pulling out the old power tools. A friend had just come and helped me organize the garage the day earlier so it was nice to have an open work space after the winter, too! I hadn’t work in the garage since last fall (it’s kinda cold out there in the winter) and it just felt a little bit like summer… early summer… late spring with fires still in the woodstove. It felt good. Comfortable.

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      I’m glad the chairs will have an attachment to my memories with Kateri… that I didn’t just go and buy some random piece of patio furniture because it was convenient or inexpensive.  Kateri would have dug the fact that I took apart a chair and built new ones.  If she was around she would just let me go and do my thing in the garage while she would dig in the dirt. I would proudly bring out the finished product and place them on the porch… and we would sit. I can picture her sliding her dirt covered hands back and forth on the arm rests… leaving little dark trails on the freshly sanded wood. All part of testing them out… of breaking them in… of enjoying them and the things they provided us.

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      Yup, Kateri would dig them and that puts a smile on my face. That’s the “widower” sad side of the chairs (filled with a ton of good memories and stories), but we live in the present and I’m walking into the future. I look forward to sitting on the porch in one of those new Adirondack Chairs, maybe for hours, and maybe in silence. Then again… maybe not! I did make TWO chairs! That’s the perfect number of chairs needed for a conversation on the porch! I mean, there are other seating options and space to accommodate at least 4 other people… but I’m not making another chair for a while. And just so you know, if you are ever sitting on my porch with me… you will witness me wave to every car that drives past. Except one. I have my reasons. 61a40127-a872-42b2-88ef-ab51d95ca1cc

       

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • Hours… I just need more hours. But, don’t we all?!
      • I’m not trimming the beard till at least the 12th… because of hockey… or some shit. I don’t have any idea about hockey. Kateri was always impressed by how light on the ice such big men could be, but past that… not a part of our life. Someone at work told me I couldn’t… so I figure it’s been 9 months since the last trimming… what’s another couple of weeks?!
      • Goodnight.

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 8 Comments | Tagged grieving, marriage, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.31.396…Thirteen Months… and a day.

      Posted at 9:08 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on May 23, 2019

      img_5107I actually started another bloggery thing the other day that I meant to finish and throw out to the ether yesterday.  The whole 13 months gig… a year since I finished my Thirty Days of Mourning notes… reading through them… just made me want to share my thoughts on that day!… but I didn’t. And I’m not gonna today, either. (neither?)

      My evening last night was instead filled with friends showing up on their motorcycles right when I told my mom that I didn’t have company… and then me calling her back at the end of my night. It was a wonderful and entertaining visit… it always is. I texted with besties about steroids. I ate a strip steak that had been cooked to a perfect 125 degrees… sliced… and served over pearled couscous and steamed broccoli that was almost not over cooked. I’m happy I’ve spent 24 years in kitchens… and that I have a thermometer… and seasoning salt! (Having the ability to cook for yourself is quite beneficial as a widow/widower. Actually doing it?… that’s another story!) There was some guitar… but just some. There was a text… followed by five more… one being a picture of Kateri and the Text Sender in front of the Text Sender’s family’s sugarhouse from a few years back.  Both of them with winter hats, scarves, and smiles… two, big beautiful smiles… because they were happy. Kateri was happy.

      Kateri loved this woman with a huge chunk of her heart. She was proud of her. She trusted her… with her life (there are examples). And the text sender loves Kateri (yes, there are examples of that, as well). For me last night, it felt nice to sorta remember some of the good shit (just starting to be able to do that… one of those kind of fucked up things as a widower) and to remember there are a lot of wonderfully caring people that the loss of Kateri has affected. It also just felt nice to feel that love myself… in a picture sent from one side of Vermont to the other, with words on a little screen followed by little hearts, and from the 18 years of friendship that preceded the Text Sender sending the text last night. The Text Sender was sad because she loves Kateri.  She reached out last night because of her love for me. Yup… that’s “The Good” in the big pile of shit.

      Ya… so, last night was filled with people… and that’s what I needed. I’m sure I’ll finish the other post sooner or later. Tonight though?… it’s rainy, windy, and now dark… the perfect combination for comfy clothes and mindlessness!

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:5-22-2019

      • I just wanted to throw in a picture from last night of me taking a picture of the chicken who thought it was a good idea to eat the paint off of the deck… which I call my front porch… that happens to be on the side of the schoolhouse.

       

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      Posted in grief, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 1 Comment | Tagged grief, grieving, loss, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.27.392… Snow, who’da thunk?… and a Video with Sump Pumps.

      Posted at 11:04 am by Darren Lidstrom, on May 19, 2019

      img_5059Now… I’m just gonna say that I’m one of those people who actually enjoys it when they look out the window and sees a little bit of the white stuff on the grass in the Spring. No, that isn’t some hip and modern drug reference I frequently use in this rock star life I live… it was just snow… in the yard… and it was kinda nice to see.

      Wow. It just took me waaaaay too long to write that paragraph… and I need to eat.  Aaaand… I need to come clean. There are actually no sump pumps in the video. It’s just me talking about my sump pump and how a simple thing like a sump pump provided me some comfort. The sump pump is in the sump under the house through the bulk head… where there’s spiders… and snakes… and other evil things from evil worlds… so I don’t hang out down there making videos. Sorry you won’t get to see the sump… or the sump pump… maybe some other time!……………………………….. sump pump.

      Intermission

      Ya… so… that was all written a few days ago… the snow is gone and it has actually been a beautiful couple of days here in the Northeast weather-wise.  Life on the other hand, well…. it’s been good, but a little rough on both the professional and personal side.  All just part of the process… and life I guess.  I’m not sure if acknowledging the challenges makes them any easier, but I feel being aware helps me get through the day as I’m trying to look to the future. The future… hmmm. For right now, I’m starting to think about it… have to… but mostly, I’m still just figuring I’ll see it when I get there.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • One challenge of being a widower is that people try to protect you by not wanting to put more on your plate. Although I find comfort with the intentions, it doesn’t help… it just pushes things off  for a while.
        • Without kids, Kateri, animals, or neighbors… I’ve got a lot of time to think about this stuff… to be self reflective. Because of that, I feel I have been able to handle the multiple piles of shit that had plopped down in my life as of relatively recently.
      • For the last year, I’ve been filling my space with things that help push some of the pain and sadness away… and I kinda don’t wanna do that anymore. I sorta wanna just miss Kateri, remember Kateri, remember what made our life so great… and try to save a bit of that to bring along with me into my new life.
      • I’m about to mow the yard for the first time this year. I’m so fortunate to have our home to heal in and I’m gonna try to keep the yard and gardens up to Kateri’s standards (which she made seem effortless… not talking about the sweat and dirt that would cover her hands and face… which she loved). As a widower it’s also weird to be thinking about making your home beautiful… in case you have to sell it. I have no plans like that, but it pops into your head to be prepared.
      • Sometimes… things come into your life that provide nothing but joy… like Ben & Jerry’s Milk and Cookies Ice Cream.  Yes… it helps… because that’s some good shit!

      PS… follow the blog if you want…?…! And please share if you think someone would find useful or enjoyable!

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      Posted in inspirational, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 2 Comments | Tagged loss, thirtydaysofmorning, threfirstthirtydays, video, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.20.385… Blippidy, Blah, Blah… Sunday… Mother’s Day.

      Posted at 11:42 am by Darren Lidstrom, on May 12, 2019

      IMG_5021(Yup, when I started this post it was NOT Mother’s Day… and now it is) Simply… after the one year mark… things are different… I feel different.  I was gonna go into all the ways “this” has changed… or how “that” has been replaced by “those”, but there will be other times for all that jive. I just felt the need to say that through this experience, every once in a while there is a tangible feeling when a shift takes place.  Kinda of like on the first day I didn’t cry… or when six months hit and I felt like I had a little bit of control over my life… and had to make decisions for myself.  Although there is no destination, there’s this tedious little march going on that keeps pushing me forward and with every step, I overanalyze it… and then adapt to make the next step.

      As I have flubbed my way through this, there are times that I just feel lighter.  Sometimes it’s happens when I come to a realization of something that has been weighing down my brain. Sometimes it was just getting through a holiday or birthday or our anniversary. For right now… for today… I attribute my “I simply feel a little better!” state of mind to two main things… getting past a date… and a text saying, “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!”.

      Now, there are actually a gazillion little things I believe that contribute to noticeably feeling a little better… i.e. getting most of the yard raked, not needing to build a fire every night, rearranging the living room, meeting new people from all walks of life… in my new life, SPRING!!, the fact that I’m still on top of sh… stuff, that I haven’t acquired some strange illness that causes a baby’s hand… and arm… to grow out of the top of my head! (although… could be useful) Yup, there are a bunch of things that come into play, but currently it’s the continuous passage of Time during my tedious little march that helps me get through certain checkpoints. For me, hitting the one year mark without Kateri felt like I was just gently pushed into a new chapter of life. Of course, it might just be a new paragraph, but might as well use the universally accepted homogenized term to reference a point in the story line. Hopefully it’s a long story… and as long as there are more pages to turn… I don’t really care what chapter or paragraph I’m on!

      The text… “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!”… came from my father… and he wasn’t lying. We found out that my mother had cancer (lung cancer that had also traveled to her brain) 4 or five months before we found the sh… stuff (really trying not to cuss!) in Kateri’s head.  For me, it has been quite the experience having to process and accept that the two most important people in my life were handed the cancer card…. and cancer is a fucked up thing. Once you live with cancer in your world, you begin to see not only how prevelant and inconsistant the disease is, but also how many people it simply affects.  It’s a strange trip.  When I got the phone call that they had found something in my mom’s lung… I was devastated.  When it hit Kateri… and then she died… well, I didn’t think about what was worse than “Devastated”, but I felt it. Luckily… time does help.

      Sometimes, you just have to hold on for a while and let the time pass.IMG_5004 If you do, sometimes the big pile of shit get’s a couple of shovel loads taken out of it by three simple words… written in all caps… with exclamation marks. Sometimes… “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!” pertains to the best news you’ve heard in a year and 19 days… at least for me. What’s the “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!” you ask? The docs could no longer see any tumors in my mom’s brain!… yup, and we’ll take it!

      Honestly, it’s been one of those roller coaster months, but for now I’m just gonna allow the “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!” to stick around for a while and give me another thing to smile about. Today is Mother’s Day…. and I feel fortunate that when I’m done here I have the opportunity to pick up the phone… and talk to my mom… because I love her. (yes… I’m a momma’s boy.  When I was a kid, I remember crying after a swim lesson… not because I was afraid of water or got it up my nose or anything, but since I was having so much fun in the water… I forgot about my mom… and I didn’t like that.) There’s a lot of crap out there, but the good is hangin’ around, too. Sometimes it’s so good… you have to say it twice.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • A commercial with LL Cool J came on last night talking about how his wife “Beat Cancer Like a Boss”.  I think it’s great that she is an ambassador for the American Cancer Society and for the positive message of facing adversity with a positive outlook, but it just kinda hit me strange and it’s been swirling around in my brain.  At first, I was like “Well, Kateri dealt with this experience with strength, courage, empathy, grace, and love. She never even took anything for the pain besides weed. She still supported other people. She still lived life and tried to control what she could… and what she thought she could.  But… she still died.” Last night, I took the commercial as saying that if you try hard and have positive thoughts… you can beat cancer… and I don’t fully subscribe to that train of thought. Thinking more on it and actually looking into it a bit… I saw the commercial in a different light… and realized that that’s not what the commercial was saying. Cancer does what it wants… and it doesn’t give a hoot who you are or how much you wanna beat it. Yup, cancer kills…. but the message is more about how are we gonna live with it… that’s what we have control over… and I’m glad LL (we’re not really on a first name basis) still has his wife… and that on Mother’s Day, their children still have their mom.
        • I think there is some “bitterness” in my brain about this whole experience which makes me initially look at things from certain angles…. which aren’t always completely accurate.
      • Although I feel sorta “better”… this is still an overwhelming experience… life is complicated.
      • I bought a toilet brush for the upstairs bathroom.  That may not seem like a big deal, but it is. I’m starting to bring things into my home… for my life.
      • I raked the paths on our land yesterday (6.5 acres). Although Kateri sorta laughed at me the first time I did it… she still enjoyed walking on them! Nowadays with Kateri gone, I sorta feel like the crazy ol’ widower on the hill raking the woods!… the beard, John Deere hat, and rubber boots don’t help that image.

      IMG_5008
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      IMG_5028
      IMG_5043
      IMG_5042

      • To all you mothers out there… the ones who are supportive, encouraging, and present… thank you. Having a kid gives you responsibility. Loving and nurturing that child… for the rest of your life… makes you a mom.

       

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      Posted in cancer, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 5 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, LL Cool J, loss, mother's day, mourning, thirtydaysofmorning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • 2.6.371… Sunday Morning and Support Groups.

      Posted at 11:43 am by Darren Lidstrom, on April 28, 2019

      IMG_2342I’ve been thinking a lot about other widowers and widows lately… more so than in the past. I think that the whole “Time heals” bullshit has something to do with that. Plus, I belong to two support groups (1 just widowers, 1 widowers/widows) and it’s kinda hard not to feel for people who are going through… or who have been through… what I’m experiencing when they pop up all over your Gosh Darn (trying to be respectful) Facebook feed! In all seriousness, I’m not exactly a “support group” kinda guy and I definitely don’t engage as much as other people, but the names on the screens and the words of support I see them write to strangers has provided me with an unmeasurable amount of encouragement for not only my life to keep moving forward, but for theirs as well! It has just been one of those things that has pleasantly caught me by surprise.

      I’m at a point where some of the fog is starting to lift and my mind isn’t fully consumed by figuring out how to just “survive”… the shock is dissipating, I guess. A few other people who have lost their loved ones (spouses) have reached out to me… and I can’t tell you how wonderful that makes me feel… that they found some sort of connection to what I was saying or that it put them, at the least, a little bit at ease knowing they weren’t the only ones going through this horrendous experience.  They could see there are other people who somewhat understood their pain… which is unrelenting at the beginning of this life changing event.

      Soooo, on this beautifully overcast and chilly Vermont Sunday morning I decided to jump back on the ol’ blog and update the “My Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning” page with adding the first 6 days of notes from my experience being alone in the world again after nearly 20 years with Kateri.  I’m currently in the first anniversary month of my Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning and it’s nice to use it as sort of a gauge to how I’ve changed, coped, and dealt with this slap in the face from life.   I’ll admit… it’s a little strange looking back at these notes a year later, but I love the fact that I can remember most of it so clearly. Of course, revisiting pictures makes for a lovely emotional Sunday morning… but it’s nice to recognize that it’s a different time, it’s a different space, and that I’m different. I don’t know if I can say “Better”… there’s a lot that goes into that… but I can definitely say things have changed… and that I’m ok. I’m may even be good… ish… and I hope you all are, too.

      Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning

      Widower Day 6… (April 28, 2018). Woke up at 6:58am on the couch… in the same position.

      Took truck to recycling in Thetford

      a. Broke the law (not my town’s dump… shhh), saw Joan, she turned right. I figured if she was going to the orchard that it would give me an in… so I followed her, so I could meet a neighbor. Laying down foundation.
      b. John and Peggy
      c. Beautiful view
      d. Sprayed me with tick shit. New thought… I am going to constantly be paranoid of ticks since I now don’t have that person to Tick Check me (Tick Check Yourself before You Wreck Yourself…).

      Took Jeep to Kmart for more green bins. (For Kateri’s clothes)

      Drove to Hannaford’s in Bradford. Figured I should have at least a little bit of food I know I would eat, but don’t have to make.

      a. Interesting how I’m a cook, but I was buying things I only needed to heat up.
      b. First real shopping trip shopping for just me… odd sensations, realizations.

      Went to Local Buzz for a sandwich.

      a. Abby made it for me. Came up from behind me.
      b. Same approach as Wild Hill Orchard… I need to step out of my comfort zone if I want the keep the same types of things that Kateri provided for me. I would pretty much never go get a sandwich by myself and bring it home to eat.
      c. Got a pack of smokes from The Bliss (not sure if that is the name of it).

      Called Will… he and Kate came over.

      a. Brought enchiladas, mole, guac, beans, chips
      b. Chatted in the kitchen and then on the deck… sunny, warm
      c. Will called an hour later mentioning that he can always come over and we can just smoke a joint.

      Tidied the garage.img_2408

      a. As I type this, I realize it is giving me “purpose”… something to do, something that keeps my mind going… even if it is about what I am going through.
      b. Built a support for plywood. Moved wood to middle so that I have space to move around and to start setting up the garage for the beginning of my life.
      c. Threw scrap wood in black cart, baby rocker to shed, wheelbarrow.

      Flipping through pictures, I came across the 3 I had taken of Kateri (the morning she died)… didn’t shock me as much as I expected it to. I was conflicted about taking the pictures, but I felt I need to have the option of being able to see her… I find the picture beautiful with the army blanket… I just love her and found it to be somewhat peaceful.

      a. Deleted one photo
      b. Didn’t take any other photos at Palliative.

      Had a Fire.

      a. Figured… why not? I’ve got a fire pit. Burnt all scrap wood from garage except planter box and piece of house (would be good to start the next fire).Solo Fire 4-28-2018
      b. Light out for the whole thing. Sun just starting to go down. Chickens just roosting up… I watched them march to the coop.
      c. Used old gasoline to start… ya, stoopid… but kinda fun (kept thinking “WFC Style”). It got a little big at one point… need to expand the ring.
      d. Looked around—this is all mine… just an odd feeling and made me think about the fact that I wouldn’t have this without Kateri… no bank would give me a loan off of what I make. Lucky that I have all of this in a time I am dealing with such sorrow and loss. I’ll figure the money shit out… hopefully.

      Took a shower. Facetimed my P’s. Planned on watching Justice League (Kateri loved superhero movies… those where really the only types of movies we would go out and see… “big screen movies”), facetimed with Keith.

      a. I haven’t really been able to cry when I’m alone. Talking with my P’s and Keith I got a little weepy… I was able to release a little. It’s strange all the different types of emotions and angles and just “things” the brain does as it tries to cope. I feel mellower emotionally, but I can’t tell if it’s any easier.
      b. Fell asleep on the couch again (I’m writing this from bed on Sunday… at 12:30pm. Came up at 6:30 for a “Sunday morning” and haven’t really left except for 2 smokes… and had to wash my hand after each one).

      Some thoughts during the day/night:

      a. Willing to invest my personal time in KAF if they are willing to invest in my future… hell, I can work at home on shit and it won’t take time away from Kateri these days.
      b. I still get a kick out of numbers (1234) and remember how we would text the time back and forth.
      c. Realized I haven’t looked at myself in the mirror for a while… don’t even know the last time. I looked hairier to myself.
      d. People are telling me “You did good”… no regrets type shit, but I don’t really care that they feel I have been a good husband/partner/”soulmate” through this and through our life. I only care about what Kateri would think… and I will never be able to ask her about that, if I gave her enough love/support… if she was proud of my actions through life and through this big pile of shit. (I am now crying). Just one of those mindfuck type things. The tears feel good.

      IMG_0883

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • It’s nice that there is no more snow at the schoolhouse.  It’s not so nice that winter beat the crap out of my chimney, gutters, siding, and GAS GRILL! A few learning experiences I guess… and I get to get a new grill!
      • When I came out of the grocery store yesterday, I had: Milk, Cheese Dip, a frozen Chicken Pot Pie, and Oreos. Yup… my professional title is still “Sous Chef”.
      • The sump pump is going off every 8 minutes and 44 seconds.  It was every 2 minutes and fifty seconds. We’re going in the right direction!

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 3 Comments | Tagged grief, grieving, loss, mourning, sunday morning, thefirstthirty, thirtydaysofmorning, threfirstthirtydays, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 350… Remembering 16… The First Day Back to Work.

      Posted at 11:06 am by Darren Lidstrom, on April 7, 2019

      Making Steamed Buns at Penny Cluse for our WeddingI’m a cook.  It’s in my blood at this point… it’s part of “who” I am.  We are not “Home Chefs” or tell people that, “I just love to cook!”… we are a different breed and unless you are one… you just don’t understand… like being a widower/widow. You may get a glimpse of what/who we are… but you never get the full story… there are too many details.  Now, I do believe that that goes for any personal experience we humans go through.  I may know that you are hurting, or are faced with the challenge of losing a loved one, or that you are an accountant and have to face Tax Season!… but I don’t know what that feels like for you… I don’t know what you need to do to get through your challenges. Nor, do I need to know. I just need to know that there are challenges in your world.

      Work is a huge part of a cook’s life… it’s a huge part of my life. Kateri and I were a cook and a flower farmer.  We were worker bees… the drones… like so many in our circle. We rely on work out of necessity for survival… it’s paycheck to paycheck. Now, I’ve made it no secret that I’m kinda over being in kitchens… 24 years is a long time to do anything and I just wanna try something new… but the comfort I found just sitting on a stainless steel table, talking with my chef… with my friend, on a day when I was seeing my co-workers… some for the first time after losing Kateri, was the perfect place for me to be. I found warmth surrounded by the hum of refrigeration, sitting on a cold metal table, and having someone listen to me as I tried to explain what I was going through.

      I am forever grateful to my place of employment and co-workers for one reason (there are other accolades I can give, but this is the big one)… they gave me time to be with my wife when she got sick… they gave me time to be with her when she went into Palliative Care… they gave me time to be home in our schoolhouse after she passed.  It is because of that time that I am able to look back on this horrendous experience and recognize that there are good parts imbedded in those memories.  It is because of the time given, that I have the memory of holding Kateri’s hand and arm… when she took her last breath. To have the memory that I was with Kateri at the very end of her life… at the very end of our life… is something I will always cherish… no matter how hard it is to think about. That is what the gift of time can give someone… when time is running out.Denver Botanical Gardens '09ish?

      For the past couple of weeks I have been humming and hawing over if I should be revisiting these notes right now, but that is one reason I think I started writing this blog. It has sorta guided me through this process.  It has given me some insight to what it is I’m doing and what got me to this point.  It has forced me to reassess decisions and to adapt so that I can keep moving forward… so that I can keep waking up each morning and keep putting on my big boy pants (Dr. Phil moments). In the last week and a half, it has shown me that I need to take the next two weeks… and mourn the death of Kateri.  I need to put everything else aside, I need to focus on myself, I need to stop worrying about all the things that life has thrown at me, I need to stop trying to figure “everything” out, and I need to simply slow down… and mourn my wife… because I want to.

      I have tried to be overly positive throughout this process because I needed to… to survive… literally.  In no way have I ever had thoughts of suicide, but to this day… I still don’t want to live a day without Kateri… and that is a hard thing to come to terms with when I know I will never have another day at the beach with her. There won’t be another afternoon of working in the yard or in the gardens. She will never again be laying in bed next to me… drinking coffee… on a Sunday morning. As I’ve been faced with that reality, I had to overcompensate with “The Good” in the world… I’ve relied on it.  But now… I just want to remember my wife… how much I love her… and how much I simply miss Kateri.

      Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning

      Day 16… First day of going back to work… first day of the rest of my life. Woke up @ 7:35ish

      Couldn’t really jump out of bed. It was nice to have to get motivated to go to work, but I wasn’t in a hurry. It took a little longer to get out of the house as well… hesitant.

      Eric texted if I wanted to go to A-Street first, so I drove there.

      a. I like that I went to A-St. first… it was a nice warm up… a toe in the water.
      b. He mentioned working in a day of rest in the middle of the work week for now… which I think is a great idea. It helps relieve that stress of making it through a work week. I’ll probably work Tues/Wed, off Thurs, work Fri/Sat. Who CAN’T work 16 hours without freaking out?! Of course, I may have a moment of freak out.

      Went to Camelot.

      a. Jason was there. We chatted both in the kitchen and up at my desk. Work shit.
      b. Talked with Diane… I love my desk neighbor. She’s just a pretty cool lady.
      c. Brock was working on the dodec and came over and gave his condolences. I like that dude, too. Just seems like a nice guy. Don’t know if we would have ANYTHING in common, but I would have a burger with that guy.

      a. I’m trying to figure out who I want to maybe spend more time with or not while trying to figure out how to interact with people at the same time.

      d. I had a bowl of chicken salad.

      Went back to A-St. to chat with Eric and to see if there was anything I could do to help. Portioned chicken salad, turkey, roast beef… then pretty much left.

      Chatted with Eric for a bit after everyone left.

      Came home, swept the breezeway, cleaned bathroom/bedroom screens, got chicken water, cleaned the grill, replaced a burner cover (I thought there would be four in the case… nope, just one). Cleaned up the kitchen, dishes, and called Consolidated Communication and paid off bill.

      Drove to Bradford to get some smokes.

      a. I need to stop… still. At this point, I am also thinking of how she would deal with stuff.

      Ate some spaghetti and meatballs

      Watched some Kitchen Nightmares (which I don’t really care for), but it’s noise. Looked for lawnmower baffle and new cook shoes… couldn’t do either, but that’s OK.

      My folks rented the Airbnb on Bloodbrook. I think that will be better for everyone.

      I simply can’t do this anymore… I gotta sleep. All in all, it was a nice first “back to work” day. I’m feeling OK, but still know the challenges ahead me… there will be some new things/new emotions coming down the pike (?).

      Going to sleep at 1:00am on the dot.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • Yup, crying is a pretty normal occurrence these last few days.  Usually starts when I get close to home… and then throughout the evening with moments of reprieve. It’s strange to cry so hard… but to feel “ok”.
      • I’ve been writing mostly about my “widower” stuff.  I’m kinda hoping that when I get to the 1 year mark I can start writing about some of the things that made Kateri’s and my life so wonderful… the things that made Kateri… well… Kateri.
      • I love Saturdays (my Fridays).  Going into my weekends are the only days where I don’t feel rushed to try and get everything done.
      • Ann stopped by last night.  I met her when she knocked on my window looking for help with moving a log out of the road during a storm one night a couple of months back.  She wanted to introduce me to her husband… Frank.  They were fantastic!
      • Another random dude also stopped by last night looking for a road… because he was supposed to pick up his daughter from a birthday party… but was lost.  It was quite the social evening at the schoolhouse last night!… which wasn’t anticipated.
        • It’s always fun as a widower… who likes to self medicate with certain weeds… to have random people just stop by.  After going through notes and having a few “moments”… I’m pretty sure I looked like a crack addict that lives in the woods… in a cute little schoolhouse.
      • I think I said, “first day of the rest of my life” because of the insertion of work back into the day to day activities instead of just focusing on the ol’ private life.  It was the start of me having to live in this new reality… of having to balance things.
      • Yup, I’ve stopped going through Kateri’s emails… should probably do something about that!

      4-6-2019

      ps… Go ahead, don’t be scared, you can follow the blog through email… there’s a button somewhere on here! It just feels good. I guess another reason for the blog… positive reinforcement. (You don’t even need to read them!… just delete them right away!)

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 7 Comments | Tagged grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, thefirstthirty, thirtydaysofmorning, threfirstthirtydays, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 348… 18.

      Posted at 3:30 am by Darren Lidstrom, on April 6, 2019

      img_4732Sometimes, the ol’ balance scale is off kilter and I have to focus on whatever carries more weight. Sometimes the balance scale… feels like it has 7 arms.

      Some other times, I just want the night to last another twelve hours so that I don’t have to get out of my cozy bed… and start a new day. But then… then… it begins anyways.

      Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning

      Day 18… woke up at 6:12 on the couch… went up to bed until 8:00am

      Had a lazy morning… didn’t do much.

      At 11:00ish I got a newspaper (still haven’t read it) and went to the farm.

      a. Got a Mocha and a blueberry muffin. Talked with someone who I couldn’t remember their name.
      b. Talked with Anna on the picnic table about what’s going on. Maya came over on her way to lunch. She was stylin’ with a “Wolf” hat (almost airbrushie), grey long sleeve, swim trunks (palm leaves type)… Anna said she wants to do a photo shoot with her on “Farm Style”.
      c. Saw Michelle. We caught up. She gave me a Rose of Sharon (Kateri wanted her to order them) and some kale for chickens. We cried next to the Jeep.
      d. Went to the house to see Adie. She has to leave in a week to help with her father. Much earlier than expected which is hard for her.
      e. Chatted with Dave and Luke for a bit about drinking and shit.
      f. Saw Double E. We’ll get together and eat or play disc golf

      Went and got Death Certificates. Rich came running down the hill with them. He is a very nice guy.

      a. They looked fancy.
      b. It’s kinda strange having them.

      Saw Eric at the light in Norwich.

      Decided to go to Best Buy and get a camera for the computer.

      a. Passed Eric in W. Leb

      Came home and raked the rock walls and area next to the road. It was quick and easy

      Played a little guitar. Played a little Mappy/Pole Position/Galaga/Ms. Pac-man.

      Dinner: Hippie cup of noodles, iceburg salad, orange, Cheetos.

      Talked on the phone with Nate D.  Jared/Double E/Nate were all texting me at the same time… spoke with Nate.

      Fell asleep in the chair from midnight till 2:00am.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • The perfect gift for a widow/widower?… a back scratcher! It’ll change their life… and save their door frames.
      • It’s nice to look up and see the Rose of Sharon from the notes… in my living room. Six months ago I thought I had killed it!

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, Widow, widower | 0 Comments | Tagged grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, thefirstthirty, thirtydaysofmorning, threfirstthirtydays, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 340… 26.

      Posted at 9:48 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 28, 2019

      img_2482
      img_2496

      Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning

      Day 26… Got up at 7:37ish… I knew I needed to sleep a bit more… and it was comfy.

      Ran over a squirrel with a nut in it’s mouth on the way to work today. That kinda sucked… and popped.

      Work was fine, nothing to write home about. It was a desk task oriented type morning. I was pretty subdued and just wanted to get some things done. Not in a bad mood or anything.

      a. Ya, work was work. It’s still a little weird seeing some people, talking to some others… it’s nice.
      b. Chatted with Tami for a minute as I was leaving. It was also nice. We don’t chat that much just the two of us that often (at all really) so it felt good to fill her in a bit and to let her do what she needs to do so that she doesn’t feel weird being around me.

      Came home. Planned on maybe going to the Dinner Under the Balloons, but wanted to paint the bathroom and make some phone calls.

      a. Called knights funeral home about death certificates being mailed back and picking them up next week. Asked about money owed and he said no worries (not those exact words).
      b. Put the second and last coat of primer on in the bathroom. I didn’t do some of the lower section… running (ran) out of paint. It’ll get covered by wainscoting. Its looking good. I feel good about where it’s at and I’m confident I’ll be able to start setting it back up a little soon.
      c. Called Paul. He was fantastic. He told me that he and Rob feel as though they would like to throw the party. Their generosity is amazing and is just another part of this whole pile of shit that is good. June 20th… Flatbread.
      d. Decided to have Friday night pizza so I ordered one from Colatina E. I had enough credit things that the girl asked if I wanted to use them for a free pizza?… HELLS YA! It was fantastic. Threw in an orange soda and my bill came to $1.94
      e. Came home. Played a little guitar. Was about to hop in the shower and then got a little disgusted by it so I cleaned it. I threw away the whole chain thing because it disgusts me a bit, but the whole shower was pretty disgusting. It felt good to clean it.
      f. Played a game of Mappy… and Pole Position. Lea Jae texted me, just checking in. She’ll be stopping by at some point. Glad I texted her back… still trying to stay on top of things, of the people.
      g. Threw on a documentary on names and the effect they have on us. Names as in funny/challenging names. Like “Dick Large”. It was cool, but it also made me realize there are people out there just trying to figure out the next step in the movie process. (a note from today… I have no idea what I meant right there!)
      h. Texted with Matty for a bit… because it just feels good sometimes. I wanted to talk to my parents but didn’t.

      Having to call it a night at 1:35am… it’s just too much right now

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • I actually really enjoyed reading those notes… and love that there was a squirrel in them! (not so much that it popped… that was disgusting)

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      Posted in grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, widower | 1 Comment | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, thefirstthirty, thirtydaysofmorning, threfirstthirtydays, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 338… Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning… 28.

      Posted at 6:22 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 26, 2019

      Lil' Bitch!
      Lil’ Bitch!
      Grass!
      Grass!
      ummm... Chicken!
      ummm… Chicken!

      Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning

      Day 28… woke up early but stayed in bed until 9:40ish… in and out of sleep. It was a cloudy/drizzly morning which makes it hard to get up… bed is just so comfortable on those mornings.

      Had a pretty lazy morning with David. We hung out, put music on the TV.
      He gave me body work at noonish.

      a. It felt really nice getting some work done from him. He is really good at that shit. I started face down and after a bit my head just filled up with snot and I could breath through my nose or swallow… takes away a bit of the relaxation.
      b. When I flipped to my back, the relief on my head was fantastic… relief from snot, not my mental well-being… that was good too.
      c. It was a little hard just laying there because your mind does start to wander. Although the massage is relaxing and you focus quite a bit on that, the fact that your head can think about anything meant that it was gonna go to some sad places as I laid there.
      d. When I was getting off the couch and taking my clothes off to get on the table my right elbow got tweaked and still hurts… it’s called getting older.
      e. He did a combination of massage and Reiki… I don’t really know when he was doing the Reiki… I’m guess at those moments when he stopped rubbing me.
      f. Afterwards, we had a smoke, cooked some bacon, and made some egg tacos.
      David left around 3:30.

      I went to the store quickly to grab a few things: soda, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, milk, seltzer, fruit, etc.

      Sean, Angela, and I were gonna go for a hike, but it was rainy all morning. We decided they were gonna come over here and make tacos around 6:00.

      When I got home I thought I could bang out painting the bathroom before they got here… I was wrong. I did get quite a bit done, so when they did arrive I just covered brushes and paint and shit and left it for after they leave. (Independent… I can do it later… at night)

      a. I have been finding that although I want to get projects done and shit, if I have the option of working on something by myself or hanging/talking with a friend… I’m gonna go with the contact with friends… that’s what I REALLY need right now.
      b. They came up and saw the bathroom… could smell the fumes.
      c. I rolled a joint and we went out to the front deck to smoke, catch up a bit, and to enjoy the evening… then the cool wind came up and we went inside to start cooking… well, Sean started getting everything ready. He has done this for us twice and I have to say… he has it down (bringing shit to someone else’s house).
      d. Chorizo/chicken tacos with guac, he brought pickled cabbage, cilantro, tomatillo salsa, corn tortillas… it was fantastic.

      a. I felt good about my eating the last two days. Going out and then having people bring you food is very helpful.

      e. It was a very nice evening… I like hanging with them, it seems kinda easy and laid back which is what we/I like. It was nice to get to know them a bit more.

      a. Angela mainly worked for/with family in Wisco until coming here, Sean grew up in Miami (gross), they worked at The B@#$%^& (which I don’t really know what that place is about), they wanted a BnB also, they want to buy a house (but don’t know where yet), Sean went to culinary school, they may need to move since housemates are having a baby… but is supposed to move out in December when their house is built (not Sean and Angela’s), Angela was sort of a wild child… said she would love to go back to high school!… said she could do whatever she wanted to!… Sean and I are not those people who would go back to HS if given the chance.
      b. As Angela and I were talking, Sean went to the kitchen and made caramel popcorn… love having cook friends!

      f. They took off and I finished the painting the bathroom.

      It was nice having both David and Angela/Sean visit. I’m still not very emotional when I’m alone, but when I get around people I love, it lets me release a little.

      Busy day, but a good one with good people. I fell asleep in the chair until 4:28am, had a smoke, washed up, and crawled into bed. I set the alarm for 7:30am because I am still trying to get back to a normal schedule.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

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    • Widower Day 337… Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning… 29.

      Posted at 7:40 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 25, 2019

      img_4586It’s the second day of my weekend and after staying up way too late last night… but enjoying no alarm!… I decided to try and pluck some things off of the “To Do” list today.  You know, those little things that you just keep meaning to get to… or are blatantly disregarding?! So I did chicken chores, replaced the Daytime Running Light on the ol’ buggy, brought wood over from the potting shed… with help from said buggy… and a sled, changed out the drip pans on the stove because the old ones had literally disintegrated, and then… well… I rearranged the living room.

      Now changing up the living room was no where near my list of things to do today, but I am actually almost giddy thinking about sitting back on the couch in comfy clothes… chicken pot pie on the lap… and getting lost in a movie in my new surroundings!… a whole new experience! It feels good to have done something today, spur of the moment, that will also provide something new… a little variety… in my day to day.  It is kind of a strange feeling sitting here in a space in which Kateri has not seen set up this way before. It’s a moment where the Old Life and New Life overlap in my head… but I feel good about it. I also feel good about the fact that I still have two Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for my movie!

      Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning

      Day 29… woke up at 7:30am to my alarm, snoozed until 8:15ish.

      Made coffee and crawled back into bed to write notes for yesterday. I would really like to get to the point where I am going to bed earlier and spending time in bed writing.
      Went to Randy and Vicky’s to drop off my drills. They were gonna mend their garden boxes.

      a. We hung out behind their garage and smoked a joint away from O#$%^… who was in the house.
      b. They had been having a rough go at it the last couple of days. Stress of everything (Kateri) kinda bearing down on them. Randy wanted to drink a bottle of whisky the other night. Thankfully he chose not to. Although, with how well he has changed his life around, I don’t think tying one on is the worst thing in the world.
      c. Randy mentioned that he had been getting angry lately.

      a. I don’t have any room right now for the anger. Once you get into anger… it can lead you down some deep, dark paths.
      b. They asked that I check out a screen door for them at LaValley’s…. I never got one… or went back to their house.

      Went to LaValley’s and Home Depot

      a. They didn’t have the wainscoting I was looking for so I just went to Home Depot to see if they had anything.
      b. They had sheets of bead board which is what I was looking for. I had to have them cut them in half hoping they would fit inside the Jeep… they didn’t. I had to strap them to the top… and then pull over at the Powerhouse Mall to redo it so that they wouldn’t fly off and go through someone’s windshield.

      I was able to get them up on the wall. I don’t know how well they are attached… a lot of nails just went into drywall. I didn’t glue them or anything in case I needed to remove them.

       

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    • Widower Day 336… Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning… Starting with 30.

      Posted at 2:47 am by Darren Lidstrom, on March 25, 2019

      img_2349I thought I was gonna write something a little more in depth of what I’m about to do for the next thirty days, but it’s 11:41pm and I got home a little later than anticipated… and I’m… well… kinda tired.  A friend and I went up to BTown for a get together of absolutely wonderful people who wanted to show a friend of ours that we love him… that we support him… that we are there for him as he does his dance with cancer.  This is a man who I met when I first came to Vermont… who I have cooked with and for… and who Kateri considered one of the early “Pocket People”… which should tell you something about this guy.

      I wanted to explain in detail what is going through my head and my plans for this bloggery in the immediate future, but being in the same space… in a wonderful space opened up by wonderful peeps to all of us “Industry People”… is the thing that took priority this evening for multiple reasons.  The main reason, I wanted to show my friend I cared for him… and to tell him I love him.  Luckily… these are my peeps… and I got to tell more than a couple of them that I love them.

      Sooooo… here’s the gig. March 24, 2019 starts the last thirty days before the 1st Anniversary of Kateri’s death. In thirty days will come Widower Day 365… one year without my wife.  I am going to share my Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning (my notes from the first thirty days without Kateri) for the next thirty days starting with Widower Day 30 (I don’t know if that’s a little odd to start with 30… but, I’ve got my reasons. They may not be rational… but they’re reasons!).  I’m gonna also put those notes in the “My Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning” site page area thing… just in case someone wants to see how this widower dealt with being sucker punched by life. FYI… I’m giving myself leniency if circumstances don’t allow me to get to posting blogs n things. The notes aren’t very exciting and there are some things I don’t feel comfortable sharing out of respect for people in my life, but I feel I sorta wanna to get this all out before the start of “Year 2”.img_1599 You are more than welcome to share any of this if you feel it may help someone out who is going through their own shit… to show them that they aren’t alone in having to cope with such a gut wrenching, confusing, scary, and lonely time. I don’t know how this will all go, or what going back to these notes will bring up, or if I should wait till after the year is up… or if I wanna even do it! But here it goes anyways!

      Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning

      Day 30… Tuesday May 22, 2018.

      Woke up around 6:30 so that I could get to work. It’s a strange day for me. I gave myself 30 days to write about this experience. Part of it was I don’t want to forget some of the things that have happened over the last month, part of it is I wanted something I could look back on as a reference (how was I feeling? Simply what did I do on ___day of this process, part of it is I want to write a book because I feel I have a story that is interesting… I have an experience which was/is horrible, but I’m living through it, I hope that my story could help someone else going through their own shit storm, I hope enough people would be interested in what I have to say that they would give me $ for it… with the hope of keeping my life as I know it together.

      It was a strange day at work.

      a. Although I was aware of what I was going through and that it had an affect on my attitude, I was still kinda hypercritical of a lot of things at work. Some of which I feel was justified, but for some things I definitely could have dealt with a little differently.

      This is what I posted on Facebook after I made 7ish videos to share what I was going through after I had sat in the car for 25 minutes crying and not being able to get out. I wanted to share my experience and be in the moment, but I also realized I wanted to be happy with what I was going to purposefully send out there.

      Widower Day 30… In the last thirty days I have felt the love and support from friends, family, and strangers. I have been trying to get to a “starting point”. I have come up with terms like “nesting for one” and used terms like “little victories”. I have tried to stay busy to keep my mind off the sad shit. I have pushed my own comfort zone out of fear for the future which I have been given. I have laughed… and I have cried. I also made a video where I say I’m a widower at 43… I’m 42. This is what happens at the end of what I’m calling my 30 days of Mourning. Yup.

      a. I am happy that I posted this. It was on the liberating side of things.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • Ummm…. “Widower Notes n Thoughts” aren’t part of the original notes… and I’m not changing any parts of the originals (unless it deals with respect and/or privacy issues)… which is quite the challenge… I’m pushing comfort levels!… it’s sorta  embarrassing.
      • I wanted to attach the video I posted on Facebook… but now it’s 1:59am… and I don’t know how to get it on here! Yup… me smart! I’ll add it in when I can… later…  at some point… somehow.
      • I kinda laugh when I look back on this day… it was a different time… I was different. Some things just change.
      • Goodnight (technically, it’s Widower Day 337!… Soooo, Good Morning!)

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    • Widower Day 327(today is 8)… The End of My 3 Day Weekend.

      Posted at 9:29 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 20, 2019

      img_4535I took an extra day off at the tail end of my weekend because… as I figured… Kateri’s birthday was probably gonna be the peak of the emotional mountain expedition. (no… I’m  not a mountain climber or have any desire to scale Mt. Kilamenjaro or anything. Walks though… those are good)  I wanted to make sure I had a little extra time so as not to have the sense of rushing it… and I’m glad I did!… cuz it’s been rough! I mean, yes it’s been rough, but I have come to expect that. However, I was surprised by the amount of crying I did. I was surprised by how early the water works and the “I miss those days” reminiscing started… a couple of weeks prior to her birthday. I was surprised by just how much… how many emotions… I had pushed to the side as I try to figure out how to maneuver, how to live in the present, how to get everything done in this new life… without her. And I knew I was gonna need a couple of days to recover from the onslaught of everything on Kateri’s birthday… on St. Patrick’s Day.

      Yesterday, I basically tidied and cleaned the house.  I wanted to for that whole “organized” feeling it brings me. It’s in my head that if I keep my house in tip top shape, if I don’t let things turn into “piles”… mail doesn’t count… (and piles is in quotes because I refuse to define what a “pile” is), if I stay on top of most stuff then… well… I should be good! Or, at least I think it helps. So yesterday was my “Gettingshitbacktogether Day” before I’m to be reintroduced back into normal life… and today… I went for a drive.

      5b7e4f0c-8231-4ab0-8e2e-5791a1bba4f5I had gotten up around six and hit the road at 6:30am for breakfast at George’s… in Gloucester… two hours and forty-three minutes away.  It was gonna be my “I’m taking Kateri to the ocean for her birthday” end to the weekend, but when you drive for a few hours by yourself… the brain kinda does it’s thing! (having control over the radio has it’s advantages, though) As I thought more and more about it, I wasn’t taking Kateri to the ocean… I was taking just a part of Kateri to the ocean… and I was taking only a tiny fraction of what is left of her physical body… that which we cremated. I could try and make myself feel better by attaching her… by attaching Kateri to my little road trip, but she wasn’t by my side.img_4533  She didn’t order bisuits and gravy or shoot the shit with line dude. She didn’t feel the ocean air on her cheeks. And I didn’t take a selfie of us on the beach with her in the background doing some funny little kick… or doing anything at all. Yes, Kateri was with me in my memories, thoughts, emotions, and spirit as I drove 71 miles per hour across New England, but she wasn’t by my side… and I realized I just needed to cover some ground for myself as I remembered my wife… and all the wonderful “Let’s go to the ocean!” adventures we had.

      img_4536So I had breakfast, I saw the ocean, I sat and thought about life. Luckily, Kateri’s birthday was the day for bawling like a baby so the last two days of my 3-day weekend were a little more manageable on the tear factor and I didn’t have to tell myself, “I don’t care if people see me crying on this bench… as I stare at the water”… while other tourists snap and bark at their partners because they aren’t holding the paper doll cutout correctly while posing beneath the memorial to fishermen lost at see! I mean, I got emotional here and there, but it has been a much mellower couple of days.

      This whole gig is just a matter of getting through… of holding on until that one day… that one good day.  After one of those days came for me… I waited for another… and it came. I’m still in the time of “firsts”… birthdays, holidays, wedding anniversaries… the first March 20th without Kateri. As I thought about it on my drive home… from not taking Kateri to the ocean… I realized all these firsts are basically the same on some levels… and on the most basic level.  “Widower Day 1” came the day after Kateri passed away.  Just the same as “Widower Day 244” came the day after Christmas or Day 211 showed up right after Thanksgiving… and 156 didn’t care that our wedding anniversary was on 155. Some dates are harder than others, sometimes the emotions are a bit much, sometimes the date has nothing to do with the emotions!… but it’s all a challenge…….. and tomorrow is still gonna come. Although I would not say I have a bad life, the hope is that tomorrow is in some small way… just a little bit better.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • A men’s rest area bathroom on a Tuesday morning reminds me of why I will never have a roommate… the noises alone!
      • I didn’t really think about the fact that I took my drive on the last day of winter… I just kinda like the attachment to the whole “change of season” thing.
      • I don’t know how I feel about this, but I found myself bobbing my head to… The Jonas Brothers.
      • The snow is melting! I’m so excited to hang out in my garage!… and I just can’t hide it.img_4562
      • I’m up to between 3 or four pints of ice cream a week… finally might need to cut back a bit… but the shit keeps calling me man!
      • PS-I was gonna go to the ocean on Monday… but a half hour in I realized I had forgotten Kateri.  Yup, the brain has been a little scattered.
      • PPS-My buddy replenished the “pill” supply… I love that man.

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      Posted in cancer, grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, widower | 1 Comment | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 325… Straight up.. St. Patrick’s Day/Kateri’s Birthday=Long Post.

      Posted at 7:44 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 17, 2019

      img_4484“YOU’RE AS OLD AS JESUS!”… Kateri loved to take advantage of any opportunity where she was able to say that. If it was someone’s birthday and they were turning 33… well, she would start with a, “Happy Birthday!”… and finish with, “You’re as old as Jesus!”… and then the birthday boy or girl would stare at us like, “What…?”. Now, I’m not a religious man and although Kateri grew up Catholic (she said she was a “Recovering Catholic”), she wasn’t very religious… spiritual, but not religious. So the addition of Jesus into the well wishing on birthdays is kind of a conundrum to me of how and why it started, but really it was just a fun little quirky thing that she brought into my life… that has been there over the years… that has put smiles on friend’s and strangers’ faces… and something I will probably say to every 33 year old I cross paths with on their birthday till my birthdays stop coming. (ps-I guess JC died at 33… how’s that to make you feel unaccomplished in life?! Jesus… he was a go getter!)

      img_4489It seemed only natural to incorporate the whole “You’re as old as Jesus!” into the day when Kateri turned thirty-three.  We were working in Burlington slinging “breads”… pizza… and we were renting a little cottage in the Green Mountains 50 minutes away that looked at the back side of Mad River Glenn. Life was starting to roll… we were at that stage in life where old friendships were solidified in their place and we were meeting wonderful new people to start new friendships with… people who became a part of our family.  I wanted to capture some of those people… some of those memories from “When we were younger” to look back upon… decades down the road.img_4485  So I asked a friend to make a sign and I drove that sign to other friend’s houses and to their places of employment. I carried it with me in case I ran into someone on the road so that I could snap a picture of them holding it and wishing Kateri a “Happy… you are as old as Jesus… Birthday!”. I developed the pictures (yes, they were taken with a camera… with film) and grabbed a stupid little photo album to put them in.  When I gave it to Kateri I watched the corners of her mouth turn upwards to a smile as she flipped through the pics and saw her friends and their well wishes.  With every turn of the page, I got to see that simple smile turn into pure innocent love for the people who were holding that cardboard sign. Unfortunately, since that album was made, we only got a decade and a bit under our belts to do the whole “Remember when” thing together… to reminisce about turning thirty-three.  Now I use the gift I gave her not so much to remember our friends… but to remember Kateri… and she’s not even in the album.

      img_4491
      img_4493
      img_4492
      img_4490

      A year ago, our house was filled with some of the most amazing and wonderful people in our lives.  With family… with friends. It was the end of February, right after Kateri was discharged from the hospital after her colon had given out… and she was taking 135 milligrams or so of steroids to keep her going.  That is when I witnessed Kateri accepting what the reality of the situation was… that she was probably going to die.

      I had been sleeping in the spare bedroom because she needed space in our bed to be comfortable.  On Sundays I would wake up, grab a couple cups of coffee, get her pill regiment ready in the fancy little dish that her father had given her and place it on the tray with her breakfast of Cheerios and almond milk… in the specific little glass pitcher because it held the perfect amount… and bring it all up to the bedroom so that I could crawl into bed with her… and we could just be together (I’ll admit… it kinda sucks writing this in our bed… on Sunday morning).

      Her brother had called this one morning and we were all talking about him coming out for a visit, that maybe it would work out so he could be here for her birthday.  This is when Kateri said, “I think I wanna have a party.”  I just looked at her… scared shitless… and said, “But you don’t like parties?”… and it hit me. Kateri knew what was up.  And now I knew that Kateri knew what was up. On the inside… it destroyed me. Kateri didn’t want to party because it was St. Patty’s Day or to celebrate her birthday.  Kateri wanted to see people she loved… she wanted to hug them… she wanted them to be in her home… she wanted to hold them one more time because she knew time was running out.  So, we had a party in our little red schoolhouse on St. Patty’s Day 2018… we had a birthday party for Kateri.

      Although Kateri never really cared for parties, she loved her birthday and we always took time to celebrate it… usually with a trip to the ocean. Good thing about traveling to the coast of Maine or Massachusetts in March… hotels are inexpensive! And if your birthday is on St. Patty’s Day?… there’s usually music or festivities going on somewhere.  One year, we were eating breakfast at George’s in Gloucester (go there… the people are fantastic)… it was St. Patty’s Day… and Kateri and the dude cooking breakfast didn’t agree with the selection of Irish music that the owner had chosen. So Kateri and the dude persuaded Dean (owner) to put on The Pogues!… which made for a different, but much more entertaining ambiance to shove hash browns in your face to.

      img_1832Sometimes, the plan was to just hang in a certain area and relax… or do something fun and fancy like go to a piano concert in some historical and beautiful concert hall or theater that overlooks the water. You know, pretend like we were fancy as we rubbed elbows with fancy people. Sometimes we would bring our espresso machine with us on these trips, set it up on the dresser in the hotel room, and drink cappuccinos on the porch as we looked down the line of empty rooms and listened to the water as it tried to run up the land… thinking about how lucky we were not to have to share the space.

      One year, 15 years ago, we went to the Dominican Republic! I had never been out of the country… except for Canada… which doesn’t really count… and we took advantage of the opportunity of having time after one job ended and before the next one began.  It didn’t hurt that we had also just gotten our tax returns!… so why not blow it?! Kateri planned it so that we would fly back into Boston and be there for the St. Patrick’s Day festivities.  Which, if you aren’t aware… there are a few Irish people in Boston… and they like to party on St. Patty’s Day! She wanted me to have that experience considering the fact that I grew up in Idaho… where yes, they party on St. Patty’s… but it just doesn’t compare! Unfortunately, halfway through our stay in The Dominican… Kateri started getting the belly cramps and shits… and by the time we were back in the states she was in no mood to party. That didn’t stop her from telling Alex to take me out on the town so that I could have my “St. Patrick’s Day in Boston” experience. So after some pizza and Survivor (he was addicted to Survivor… we had never seen it)… he took me out… and we got smashed… as Kateri was curled up on his floor in Cambridge… trying not to crap herself.

      We never actually found out what caused the belly issues… we thought it was the water! Unfortunately, whatever it was also decided to make her kidneys shut down for a bit. What a way to ring in your Thirties, huh! Although we never got an answer to what happened, she recovered after a stint in the hospital, we changed certain habits, learned a little bit more about taking our health into our own hands, and things kinda went back to normal.  (Funny how time makes that happen… returns things back to normal… or changes them into “normal”).  It was also the moment when Kateri really started looking at “alternative” medicine and found her “Witch Doctor” (that’s just what she called Donna… who she absolutely loved). After having a bunch of White Coats stand over her and just shrug their shoulders… she was done with them. Ten years later, when she was 40… she had to put her trust in the White Coats again… because that is when they found melanoma on her arm… and when this big ball of shit started rolling.

      I could write about so many of Kateri’s birthdays and fill paragraphs with stories of friends sneakily decorating apartments in East Thetford with green streamers or giving her gifts of jewelry like the necklace I asked a friend to make her for her fortieth… and then asked him to write a paragraph on the back of something which is the size of a dime!img_4149img_4151  I could write about the debates birthdays created between friends pertaining to when your “Mid Forties” start… and no, they don’t start at 41! There are a lot of good memories accumulated over the years I could share, but today is the first time in nineteen years that I’m not spending Kateri’s birthday with her… because life decided it was so… and presently I don’t have the time or energy to remember twenty years of good times that are simply all just memories now. That’s what I’ll use the future for… to remember the past.  Today… after I write this, I guess… I’m just gonna sit in the present for a bit and see how it goes.  Being a widower is rough… it’s hard… it’s emotional. Jesus Christ!… it’s emotional.  Losing Kateri is harder… she was a part of me… and still is… because I love her… and I miss her………. so much.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • Kateri would always make sure I wore something green on her birthday… I currently am.
      • The phone rang a couple of times and my cell went off with notifications from friends and family as I wrote this, but I didn’t answer anything until I heard my mom’s voice on the machine. It was perfect timing and I instantly fumbled for the phone.  I needed to talk to my parents. At 43… I needed to talk to my mom.
      • Today… I’m just rolling with it. I’m allowing myself to be emotional, to not worry about this or that for a day, to do whatever I feel I need to do at any given time. This is the only “First Birthday as a Widower” I will have to go through so right now I have no reference.  I figure, if I have no idea of what to expect… might as well just go for the ride… and hopefully enjoy the relief after I realize I made it through the loopy loos with just some tears… and not throwing up or going off the tracks!
      • Being sad sucks… it sucks balls.
      • Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
      • Happy Birthday Kateri! (I don’t know how I feel when people do shit like this… wish their deceased a Happy Birthday and all… but I did it anyways)

      (I was gonna post a video here of me reading this blog post… but it was like 10 minutes long… and I haven’t figured out how to get videos like that from one place to another!)

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      Posted in anniversary, cancer, grief, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, widower | 2 Comments | Tagged anniversary, cancer, grief, grieving, loss, marriage, melanoma, mourning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 323… it’s Friday… and that has nothing to do with this post.

      Posted at 8:53 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 15, 2019

      img_4392I had to leave work early today.  I knew when I was driving in at 7:24am that I probably wasn’t gonna make it that long. I knew at 6:50am that I was probably gonna be useless.  As well as at 6:15am when the first harp started the progression from a musical instrument made to create beautiful sounds… to a car horn made to scare the shit out of someone who is unaware of the tin can behind them. It’s my version of the “Sunrise Alarm”… something which I will never own.

      At 5:04am, when I woke up in Kateri’s chair, I really just didn’t want to go to work.  But… you know… sometimes we have to do things even if we don’t want to… so I bounced my way up to bed, to at least get the feeling of waking up under the cozy covers!   Wrapped in perfectly weighted sheets and blankets with just the right amount of chill in the air… yes please!  And just made better by the pressure on the feet and ankles from the king size duvet. (Which… FYI… doesn’t help the “Seize the Day!” motivational side of things) A duvet that somehow got packed into our belongings when we were leaving a ranch gig over a decade ago.  And by “somehow”… I mean “Kateri stole it”. (Now before you judge us too hard… the people were dishonest, disrespectful, assholes who used inappropriate words and sometimes threw temper tantrums… just take my word for it. Ya, ya, ya… they had some good qualities too, but c’mon… there are some things you just don’t do… or say)

      The last little stretch (week… and a half… ish) has been kinda rough for me.  Kateri’s birthday is coming up on Sunday… St. Patty’s… and I think it’s been bringing up a lot of things.  I’m gonna write something on her birthday so I’m not gonna get into that right now, but Kateri loved being half Irish and being born on St. Patty’s Day. Her birthday had a big role in her life… and it was a big part of ours’s, as well. These types of dates… the “first ones as a widower” types… are always emotional to some degree or another, but I think this one kinda put me in a funk. It has made me miss Kateri more… because there is so much attached to the day… the memories… the meanings. I’ve been emotional… I’ve been sad… and I’ve been crying a lot. I’ve been crying… more.  It’s somewhat annoying.

      Part of what I’m having a hard time with is the “All-Inclusive Experience” being a 6c58dbed-8b08-4c7a-95b0-557042579241widower provides.  It’s relentless.  The brain just doesn’t stop.  There are periods where I can balance the “loss” and “living”. There have been times where “living” overshadowed “loss”! Other times… not so much. Right now, it just so happens to be a “loss” time. Yes, there is still “living” happening… just not a ton… and mostly in comfy clothes.

      There is a numbness I have felt all through this, a kind of floating/zombie like thing.  It was definitely stronger at the beginning, but I have noticed that it’s still there.  Once in a while it will go away when I’m focused on something like snowshoeing, work, or eating Chinese food, but it’s still present.  It’s a fog that doesn’t allow me to see things.  I can tell that the light hitting the naked birch trees from the west and casting shadows on the snow covered ground is a beautiful sight out my windows, but it just doesn’t impress me the way it used to. I have stood between the schoolhouse and the chicken coop to watch the sun go down… and the sunsets were gorgeous, but then they end and I’m like, “Yup, that was a sunset.”.   Of course, one time I turned my head and saw all the ladies huddled in the corner of their yard next to the coop and the picture it provided me brought up so many memories of Kateri… good memories… fun memories of chickens in trucks, on decks, and in bathrooms… that I realized I sorta rely on them when I feel lost and lonely.  They help me temporarily clear a bit of fog and see a little bit of beauty. And then I get closer to the coop and remember that they also crap everywhere and are pretty much just looking to me for food… and water.

      Although I talk to the chickens every day, I haven’t really talked to many people… or been social. I’ve been keeping to myself lately.  Not really sure why… just have been.  I’ve had ambitions to go out n about… to drive up to BTown and drop off a thank you “card”… to ask a friend about engraving something… to randomly stop by a friend’s work in Essex and snag a hug… to see a friend who’s doing his dance with cancer… and to give him a hug. I wanted to stop by a studio… a kitchen… a restaurant.  I actually drove up there… it was a beautiful drive… and then never got out of the Jeep except to get some gas.  On the way home I wanted to stop by a friend’s soon to be restaurant!… didn’t even do that.  I had intentions!… of course, intentions only go so far when it comes to seeing people. Yup… I’m a jerk and didn’t even say hello!

      (A jerk is a tug, a tug is a boat, a boat goes in water, water is nature, nature is beautiful… thanks for the compliment!)

      img_4460Well there… all of that sad shit just to get to a point where I could raise my spirits by giving myself a compliment! In actuality, I don’t need to give myself compliments to try and make myself feel better.  I’m a lucky person and have some good people in my life who are supportive, loving, and fun. There are a shit ton of things in my life that I am grateful for.  There are a lot of good things in my life… many more than horrible ones.  The horrible ones are just… well… kinda gross.  This is a hard experience to go through and there are a lot of challenges, but people have been going through it ever since the first Pat fell in love with the first Pat… first Pat loved first Pat back… and then first Pat died from Metastatic Melanoma in the brain… with mutations. People survive death. It just kind of sucks that it’s a part of the gig.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • It’s good to know people who can make pork and shrimp dumplings… and who bring them to your house… who eat them with you… and then leave you big bags of them. I’m in a pattern of 5 a night.
      • The snow is definitely melting.  Kateri would want me to hook up the sump pump… I should probably do that.
      • I miss holding Kateri’s hand… always on her right… as we made fun of couples doing the uncomfortable walk. (It’s not comfortable… don’t do it… your partner will thank you. They don’t think it’s comfortable either… they’re just being nice)
      • I have a hard time watching anything about losing a spouse/partner/parent/kid.img_4465  New show on Netflix?… nope! Hell, I’m getting emotional during sitcoms about high school kids, puberty, and first loves!
      • There are four packages of pills (Smarties) left in the house…  I don’t know how I feel about that. (I know there are only two in the picture… I put two next to Kateri on the jelly cupboard… just because)
      • I still can’t make myself go to bed. I always plan to hit the hay early… I just don’t.
      • Smoliver… I miss Kateri calling him Smoliver… and all her little nicknames for people she loved.

      IUBVE8087

      ps. share if you want.

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      Posted in cancer, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, widower | 7 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, loss, marriage, melanoma, mourning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 313… Love Strings.

      Posted at 1:29 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 5, 2019

      img_4343.jpgI slept in until 9:24. Well, I first woke up at 5:04am on the couch.  One of those open my eyes… realize I’m still downstairs… check my phone to see what time it actually was… and then listen to the Smarties that were on my belly… from when I fell asleep… four hours earlier… roll across the hardwood floor as I stumbled to throw a couple of logs on the fire… before I stumbled up the stairs and flopped into bed. It’s a pretty normal occurrence these days on my Fridays (your Mondays)… the pile of Smarties just hanging out on my belly for 4 hours… not so much. For whatever reason, I have a tendency to want to stay up late… and if I have the next day off… helloooo couch-bed!  I don’t know why I keep doing it.  Every night I say to myself, “I should go to bed earlier!”… but I don’t listen.

      Today… I just needed to catch up on some much needed shut eye.  I haven’t been getting much shut eye this week.  Work has provided some challenges recently and I have been in one of those “Sad/What am I gonna do?/What do I want to do?” cycles… which has been a fun combination to try and navigate… without losing my shit.  I’ve done pretty well, but I think it mainly has to do with the fact that my perspective on life has been changed so drastically since the loss of Kateri… my perspective on what is important… that I kinda have been floating through it in a numb state… with a laissez faire attitude.  Of course, chaos and heartache are still taking turns giving me noogies.

      54648317156__b0f88c47-92b0-4b26-9264-2f80ee161f42

      Who’d a thunk this would provide so many great memories?!

      I’ve come to expect the unexpected emotional roller coaster, which sounds like it would make it easier to deal with situations when they arise… but sometimes those unexpected emotions are REALLY unexpected… like when I’m trying to free up space on my phone by deleting pictures and I come across the one taken on April 26, 2018… four days after Kateri passed… of her hair stuck to the side of the downstairs shower that we had been using since we were still trying to remodel the one upstairs at the time of her passing.

      I remember that moment from ten and a half months ago. I saw that clump of hair… of her hair… right there!  A physical part of her that I could see and touch… just hanging out on the side of the shower… and I wanted to hold on to how that made me feel.  I guess that meant I needed to take a picture of it… so that I could go through all that again 10 and a half months later when I needed more storage on my phone.

      In a previous life, a life before cancer, I wouldn’t have thought anything about it.  I would’ve grabbed some TP (I don’t know why I never just used my fingers… it’s just hair) and thrown away the clump of hair.  This time… that clump of hair had significance… much more than I ever expected a clump of hair to have!  It was a physical reminder of our life together.  It was the catalyst to my brain remembering when I would pull a piece of hair off of my shoulder… or out of my much shorter beard… and Kateri would say, “Those are my Love Strings!”. Man I miss those Love Strings.

      Other times, after Kateri would drag her fingers through her hair and she was left with a nest of black, silver, and grey Love Strings… and she would make a little bow out of them. I remember some of her siblings… one in particular… being somewhat grossed out by these festive little hairy homemade neckties. So, over the years, we had done what we needed to do… and from time to time would mail them to her.  I mean, who wouldn’t get excited about getting a clump of hair in the mail!… in the shape of a bow! At the time, it was just a funny kinda thing.  Nowadays, it’s a wonderful memory of Kateri that puts a smile on my face… I mean, once I finish with the waterworks… because I even miss the clumps of hair in the shower.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • I honestly don’t know if I’m repeating myself with a lot of this stuff. I tried going back and seeing some of the things I had written before on this ol’ blog… but that was a little rough… so I stopped it.  Awe… memories.
      • I sometimes worry about “What if this breaks or that stops working?”. I simply just don’t wanna have to deal with it. I don’t wanna be forced to have to deal with a lot of things… but I am… and I do.
      • Mary J. Blige has been the recent “go to” music station.  You just can’t help at least bobbing your head when Family Affair comes on.  (And just now I remembered when Kateri wanted that song on the play list for when we threw her “Kateri’s Kick-Ass Party”.  Either she or Maria wrote it down next to all the other songs Kateri had picked out)img_4337
      • The Smarties are almost all gone.  I saved two rolls and set them next to Kateri on the jelly cupboard… she loved her “pills”.
      • I still sit in my car… sometimes for a while… when I first get home.  If I glance at those big schoolhouse windows and lose my shit because it reminds me of how good life was not so long ago… I sit a little longer.
      • Recently, I’ve been crying a bit more… the quick and intense kinda crying… mainly 57334671038__390d2704-bee2-4386-a18f-adc0f8f4ba40at home in the schoolhouse… and then I move on.
      • I finally washed the three dozen eggs that have been hanging out on my counter.  I may not be right on top of everything… but everything still seems to be getting done! (and I should start eating eggs)
      • I’ve realized I’m probably gonna go through some strange shit for the next couple of months… with Kateri’s birthday coming up on St. Patty’s Day… and the  1st anniversary of her passing in April.  You know… those types of dates. (That might explain some of the things I’m feeling!)
      • All in all, though… life is better than bad.

       

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      Posted in cancer, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, widower | 1 Comment | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, loss, love strings, marriage, mourning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 312… A draft I found from 246… 3ish days after Christmas.

      Posted at 11:06 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 4, 2019

      66 Days late… but it still looks like Christmas! Well, minus the tree, presents, ceramic villages, big red bows, Christmas cookies, kinda creepy/kinda fantastic little wooden Carolers, stockings, Christmas lights… besides the ones lighting up the chicken coop!, ornaments, Elf, and fried dough. So really… there’s just a lot of snow… and it’s cold.  Both of which I’m fine with. The wood stove helps.

      I opened my computer to make some notes of things I didn’t wanna forget… and then found this little gem… and have since forgotten what it was I didn’t wanna forget. I’m sure it was some sort of… “I was watering her plants and it made me think of when she would… blah blah blah” thing.   You know… when you think about how you can hear your wife’s laugh in your head… and then realize you will never hear it again unless it’s in some video or some shit. Or maybe I was thinking about Kateri and her invisible suit. The one she would put on when she didn’t want anyone to see her… at least the people she didn’t want to see. I would look over at her in the passenger seat as she scanned out the window for possible unwanted sightings… from unwanted people.  She seemed so innocent to me at those times. She was like a kid. She found enjoyment in pretending that people couldn’t see her… all because of her invisible suit.  And that smile when we got through town?!  Hell, Kateri’s smile… and that laugh!… simply beautiful.

      All of that to say I saw this draft and just wanted to make sure it made itself onto the old Bloggery.  Merry Christmas!… in March.

      Widower Day 246… First Christmas Alone… But Another One With Maria.

      I was gonna document on Christmas… but it just wasn’t the time. I was gonna document the day after… but then I de-Christmafied. Plus, Christmas was definitely one of those emotional roller coaster type couple of days that leaves you wanting to just lay on the couch and flip through Netflix for 73 minutes trying to find something mindless to fall asleep to. Of course, I have fallen asleep while looking for something to watch on more than one occasion. Long story short… Christmas was exactly what it was supposed to be… just not how I would’ve preferred.

      I’ve known for quite a while that I was going to be home at the schoolhouse for Christmas. After being in Idaho last year and Kateri staying here… I just needed to be home. I’ve also known that I was either going to be alone or Maria would be here… and thankfully, I got to spend it with Maria. Kateri loved Christmas… and if you threw Maria into the mix during the holidays… Hark the Angels I tell ya! Definitely “Festive to the Left!”. Kateri, Maria, and I have spent more time together during the holidays than we have with anyone else (in “Adult” life). For this Christmas… I feel Maria and I both needed to spend it together… at the schoolhouse.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • It kinda grosses me out that I can just hold my beard up to shave my neck… it’s getting hairy!… and I honestly don’t know if I have changed my razor since Kateri passed.
        • March 4, 2019-Ok, so the beard has… well… gotten longer. I was gonna say that I have definitely changed my razor in the last 66 days… but I can’t do that in good conscience. I’m not saying I haven’t changed it… I’m just not sure if I have.

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      Posted in cancer, Christmas, Uncategorized, widower | 1 Comment | Tagged cancer, Christmas, grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 309…

      Posted at 9:33 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on March 1, 2019

      Sometimes… I think to myself, “I just don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”


      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • I was forced to buy the 8 pack of soap. As a widower… even one that cleans himself regularly… it seems a little overkill. (yes, it’s non-hippie soap, but the only kind of non hippie soap Kateri would use… if forced to).

      (This is where I was gonna insert the artsy picture of the Lever 2000 eight pack sitting on Juanita… that’s the table’s name… with my cute little rubber duck in the background, but I didn’t know if you get in trouble for doing stuff like that on bloggery things!)

       

       

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      Posted in cancer, inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, widower | 2 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 302… Ten Months.

      Posted at 5:31 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on February 22, 2019

      img_1599I’ve been on a little “lists” kick lately. I feel like there’s just so many thoughts running through my head… and I don’t have Kateri to blurt them out to anymore! That, in conjunction with the whole “feel like you’re running out of time” gig you get when life seems to be overwhelming… well, lists help me organize… and remember.

      There’s so much that I wanna do, but I’m in the time of frantically doing just a bit of this… and then just a bit of that… with long pauses in between. I look forward to swimming… and not treading water. Plus, it’ll be warm… because you swim when it’s warm… and hopefully without little blood sucking slimy things… they’re gross.

      So this is just me at ten months a widower… 10 months without Kateri… making notes of a couple of thoughts.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • Part of the pisser is that it’s all just kind of a big let down.  It was twenty years of build up… stopped in it’s tracks.
      • The image I have of her in my head… of Kateri in her hospital bed at Palliative Care… on that last day… has been the one that has been popping up… and then down I go with sadness.
      • Sometimes, the tears feel cool on my cheeks… I can see them weighing down my eyelashes… notice them drip through the beard… and it feels as if I just splashed water on my face… it can be refreshing.
      • I say, “Goodnight Ladies!” to the chickens. Every……. single……. night.
      • I’m gonna miss hearing Kateri say, “Go Speed Racer! Go!… Speed Racer!”… adding a cute little lispy thing… when she didn’t approve of someone’s driving. I definitely heard it the most, but that’s strictly due to the fact that we spent a lot of time together in the car. Much more than in other people’s cars. It’s a numbers game…and also, do not drive like Speed Racer! I’m more of the turtle. It was always entertaining for me when I would hear her start the little ditty in a friend’s car. Or if a sibling was driving?… Forget about it!
      • I couldn’t just throw away her shampoo… but now, sometimes I get a whiff of Kateri from my beard. That’s kinda fucked up… but at least I wash myself!… and have a vitamin enriched and rejuvenated beard that smells like coconut.img_1073
      • Ten months… 302 days. Sadness and pain has touched me on every one of those three hundred and two days, but so has love and compassion. Happiness, Joy, and Excitement poke their heads in from time to time… sometimes for a little bit… sometimes, for not long at all… but I suspect they’ll return for longer stays in the future.

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    • Widower Day 300… A Good Even Number.

      Posted at 9:06 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on February 20, 2019

      Straight up… just a list of things I’ve been thinking about.  300 seemed like a number to do something on! I mean, besides work, kindling, chickens, baths… well, bath. I took a bath… not the chickens. (It’s too cold for them to take baths right now… and they don’t have towels)

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • I’m not going to experience sitting on my porch when I’m old… in the evening whenimg_4264 it’s cooler… and the sun is running to the west providing another spectacular Vermont sunset… and feel Kateri’s skin as she holds my hand.
        • But, I am going to sit on my porch when I grow old… maybe with a dog… I’ve always said with a whiskey (I’ll be real old… old enough to not be worrying about the booze! Probably worried more about “accidents” in public places and obstacles on the floor like… carpet)
        • Also, I’m still going to enjoy my porch while I have it. Kateri and I spoke a lot about growing old together… and it literally hurts to think about… but, I’ve got our porch now… today. I plan on having it for years to come, when I am old… and hopefully retired… financially stable wouldn’t hurt. Kateri would want me to enjoy our porch… and grow old… and I wouldn’t mind, either! So why not? The sun will always run to the west. Sometimes, it’s cloudy and it just goes from gray to black… good for scary movie nights.  But sometimes, as Kateri would say, it provides us with a Maxfield Parrish sky… and those show us there is still beauty in the world… and I’d like to see quite a few more. (I had no idea who ol’ Max was until I met Kateri… he’s from these parts or something… pretty pictures)
      • I’m never gonna have to go to a store in a mall to buy Kateri a hair clip as a stocking stuffer ever again.
        • But I am always going to remember which ones are her favorites… and for what occasions. (and they are currently in my bathroom… in her purple bag)
        • And I ‘ll always remember how she would joke that she could use the carved img_4266.jpgbone hair stick thing as a weapon… and TSA never questioned it.
        • Her hair in braids… two braids… after about a day… are still my favorite.  But I like the clips over the hair ties.
      • Kateri and I are never going to write our book, “How We Think You Should Raise Your Kids”.
        • But I’m glad the man and woman who were the inspiration for us to come up with a title for a book… while we were in bed… laughing at the situation… because we’re judgmental… I’m glad those people will always be in my life.
        • Kateri and I talked about a lot of things we wanted to do. We were dreamers.
        • No… we don’t have kids.
      • Kateri and I are never going to go to Ireland for a two week vacation… and never leave.
        • But I still hope to go to Ireland! (Don’t know how I feel about flying over water for however many hours, but might be worth it?)
        • Although I don’t really like being away from home these days… kind of my comfort zone… I still love a road trip.  Kateri and I drove across this country many a times and every time was an adventure. I love the short ones… a couple hours and a night… maybe two… simply for a change of scenery. I’m gonna keep having adventures… just not in airplanes over giant bodies of water for right now.
      • Sometimes, I can’t get out of the car when I get home and I lose track of time… then I remember I have ice cream in my bag. (Ben and Jerry’s… Mint Chocolate Cookie that day)
      • I feel there are some things that are kinda cyclical in this process… they come and go.  I’m currently in the one where it’s hard to look at random shit in my house.  A Shel Silverstein book caught my eye on the way to a bath… and I was just hit with memories… and sadness.
        • It’s sorta like walking around with tunnel vision… foggy tunnel vision.
        • Yup, took a bath. No bubbles… just a bomb. A bath will always remind me of Kateri.
      • I walk past shit all the time!… like past my destination!  Oh, you wanna go to the coffee table? Nope!… now you’re in the kitchen! Put wood on the fire? Crazy talk!… How about stare at the washing machine instead and try to figure out what it was img_4263you were actually hoping to do! It’s kind of annoying… but has also made me chuckle out loud a couple of times.

      Being a widower is hard, but losing Kateri has been harder (it makes sense to me). Either way… it’s apparently not the end of the world.

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      Posted in inspirational, loss, Uncategorized, widower | 2 Comments | Tagged cancer, grief, grieving, loss, marriage, mourning, widower, widower thoughts, widows
    • Widower Day 299… FB Thought I was Spam… I’m not.

      Posted at 3:21 pm by Darren Lidstrom, on February 19, 2019

      img_4254It was quite the psychological and emotional hit when Facebook started sending me notifications that only I could see my posts because I had “Violated Community Standards”… and then they removed them from my page.  Those little messages brought up all sorts of questions for me… questions about my blog and it’s content.  Did I infringe on some Trademark? Did I offend someone?… (Which I don’t really care if I do.  I just don’t wanna say something and have someone think I’m trying to be mean or malicious. I know I can be a jerk… but I’m really trying not to be!) Questions about technology! Did I not set something up correctly? Why do these sites/apps/corporations work together, but these other ones don’t? Where do I go for help?

      I’ve never really been a tech guy.  I can check my email on my phone, post pictures on Instagram and have them show up of Facebook. I’ve only seen Twitter because of this blog.  When I was setting it up, it asked if I wanted to link it to my twitter account… or create one or something.  I thought, “Why not?! That might be useful somehow, right? I can tweet!”.  So, I’ve now got the app.  I know I set up an account.  I know I have one Jamaican follower… pretty sure… but I haven’t done anything more than that! Haven’t even seen it for months! (You kids with your dancing and your Rock n Roll!) Kateri and I were just doing other things. “Screen Time” (besides the boob tube) was pretty darn minimal… compared to a majority of the country. But things change… and the loss of img_2692Kateri has had a profound affect on me and my life. There are things I want to do… and there are things that I need to do. If dipping my toe into the modern digital world will help me overcome some challenges and obtain some goals… well… I’m not afraid to download the app! (Until I delete it because my phone keeps harassing me that the storage is full with the gray bar… not the blue, yellow, or red bars… and I don’t know what “other” means… so I just start deleting shit)

      Now back to Facebook, Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning, and the thoughts and emotions that an algorithm forced me to face. Initially, I thought I had done something wrong like mention a card company… or boobs. Then I thought maybe I had said something or mentioned someone that someone was offended by.  Or maybe something was taken as a threat… like me mentioning I hope I don’t see certain doctors outside of certain walls… which I don’t. I had no idea how I had “Violated Community Standards” and it was frustrating trying to find answers. No, I don’t want to ask “The Community” how they had to deal with this same issue… I want to talk to the person/company who took down my links! I just wanted someone to tell me… specifically… what the violation was so that I could fix it! (Sorry, I’m getting all worked up!) It was frustrating, but my lack of computer skills, my limited social media/blog/internet skills, and Facebook’s limited communication skills gave me the opportunity to overcome a challenge. It also gave me the opportunity to see that people care about me and are there to help, to give guidance when I am faced with those challenges. That part was awesome.

      It was one of those friends who mentioned to me that after they had done a little research… read some blogs… that maybe Facebook thought I was Spam. Me?… SPAM?!… but it made sense. The social media world is all just algorithms… and I knew I had recently posted a ton of links to my page.  Plus, I remembered seeing a little “This is not spam” or something button, so I was just gonna go with it… and it made me feel better about the situation. When I saw that the same thing had happened to a blog I follow (From Cave Walls… I dig it) I decided that I just wasn’t gonna worry about if I had done something wrong or what not.

      img_2349I feel the need to share a bit of my thought process on Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning, the timeline, and some of my intentions with sharing the experience of losing Kateri.  At first, at the very beginning, it was as simple as “I don’t wanna forget”.  So on that first night, after I crawled into our bed for the first time in months… for the first time alone… I wrote shit down. Now comes a little insight into the mind of a widower… well, I guess into my widower mind.  When I first lost Kateri, right after watching cancer cause her physical pain and force her to live with an unexpected outlook on life… after seeing it create the worry in her eyes… and me trying everything I could to hold on to the last experiences I was going to have with my wife… I was confused, lost, scared, and felt absolutely alone. I freaked out. My brain was going 8 million miles a minute… but through the dense fog that cancer creates when it comes into your life.  And when it took Kateri away, for me it blocked out all those other good memories that were on the other side. Writing things down helped me cope with some of the ugly emotional stuff.  It helped me be reflective on this experience. It helped me remember. And I hoped it would help make room for some of the other twenty years of good memories.

      As I was trying to maneuver the gauntlet of grief that life had slapped me with, it also reminded me that I live in the real world and there are other challenges besides just the emotional and psychological ones.  I was worried about my future (even though the future was a hard thing to think about right after losing Kateri).  Through the thoughtfulness and graciousness of friends, family, and strangers I didn’t have to worry about the immediate future of my finances, but it occurred to me that I needed to figure out some way to make up for going from a two income household to one… so I thought about what is was that I wanted to do… and started flinging shit against the wall hoping something would stick. Hence, Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning. All I felt like I had was this experience… so maybe I could take it and turn it into something positive for my life. Maybe there would be people out there who were interested in what I had to say.  Maybe those people would get something out of me sharing what it was that I was going through. Whether it be entertainment, inspiration, reflections on their own their own lives, or just a check-in from a friend. I felt Kateri’s and my life was a good story… a very sad story… but a good one. Why not share it? I also wanted people facing adversity to see that they’re not alone. So I started the process with a blog. (well, I started by emailing Ellen DeGeneres asking for help, but she didn’t respond… so I went with the next logical thought of, “maybe I’ll write a book?!”… which also hasn’t happened)

      img_4257.jpgCreating this blog has been a learning experience.  It has been therapeutic. With each blog post I learn a little bit more about who I am, who I want to be, what it is I want to do, and how I am going to do it.  Every time someone visits Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning… I feel good.  Every time someone likes a blog post or leaves a comment… I feel good. When someone I have never met emails me saying that they can totally relate to my words because they just lost their husband or wife and it has helped them… I feel good.  This blog has led me to Widower/Widow forums and support groups which have been fulfilling, insightful, and have provided perspective… which has made me feel good.  So when Facebook’s algorithm decided I was spam and I thought I wasn’t gonna be able to share my story on the one social media platform I know… it was kind of a personal and emotional hit. Although I don’t really know where this blog or experience is gonna take me or what doors it may open or how long it will keep going… I do know that it feels better when 47 people check out a blog post than when 3 do! (That whole positive affirmation thing)

      The lesson I learned through Facebook blocking my posts (for whatever reason) was that I still have hopes and dreams.  They may change here and there or may be tweaked because of this experience or that, but I still have them… even on days I don’t wanna get out of bed or mingle with society.  I have been given a new life and I am in the process of relearning what those hopes and dreams are. I have goals… and there will be challenges I face as I try to attain those goals, but I’m not going to give up on those goals until they just aren’t a possibility anymore. Some of my ideas may just be pipe dreams.  Some might be straight up irrational.  But my life… this new life… was unwanted and unexpected.  So what do I have to lose?!  I don’t exactly know what I’m doing with this new life or how I’m going to do it, so I’m just gonna keep flinging shit against the wall… and see what sticks.

      Widower Notes n Thoughts:

      • Have goals. Have Hopes and Dreams. They don’t all have to be big ones. Hell, feeding yourself as a widower is a good goal… and pipe dreams are just always fun to think about! (That’s why we all talk about what we would do if we won the lottery!)
      • You’ve read enough… and I’ve gotta water plants… so I hope you have a good day!

       

       

       

       

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