Generally, once I start a blog or video I just go ahead and either post it or trash it. Well, there’s actually a fair amount of videos on my phone of me playing guitar or rambling on about whatever that I had full intentions of posting to YouTube and just haven’t because I either lose motivation, run out of time, or simply second guess myself about throwing things out into the world… which is why I like to just write/record and then post… no time to second guess! After 97 blog posts and something like 9ish videos saved to YouTube… nothing horrible has happened to me yet, so I’m kinda keeping on that train of thought with the option of posting something after the fact… like I’m doing right now… from my bed… on a Sunday morning… with coffee.
So here I am on Tuesday evening, rambling on about something I did… which made me feel somewhat silly… so why not share it with the world…?! (or with whoever can find it in the sea of digital memories.)
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
- 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!
Kateri and I weren’t exactly “texters”… or really even cell phone users, but for some reason I had started texting her when the time was 1:23 or 12:34 or 3:45 or 2:34… you get the idea. I’ve always enjoyed numbers. At the ranch where Kateri and I met, there really wasn’t much to do in the winter if you weren’t working, or snowmobiling, or snowshoeing… or any of the other things you do when there’s 5 feet of snow out the window… with another 4 feet on top of that. So I watched movies here and there, put together puzzles, hung out with the other seasonal riff raff, and read a few books. Some of those books were filled with stories, some were filled with history, and some were filled with exciting tid bits of information like how the Fibonacci Sequence shows up in the arrangement of the seeds of a sunflower. Over the years I have read less and less about “math” as my interests turned towards other things… like cooking, guitar, and hanging out with Kateri… and now I think I’ve dumbed myself down to where I simply get excited when I look at the clock and it reads 4:56! Which I guess has nothing to do with equations or mathematics… but it’s a fun little observance that has absolutely no real significance in my day to day life… and I guess I thought Kateri needed to know when the numbers lined up!
It provides me relief. When she first died and I realized I was playing almost every day… I bought myself a new guitar… a new sound. It provided me change, but with the comfort of familiarity. This year, I thought I would take advantage of my solitude and buy myself an amplifier because of the whole “I’m not gonna bother anyone”… and plus I needed a little personal growth with my hobby. I wanted a few more options with how my “Escape Time” sounded as I searched for relief from the swirling thoughts… and it has been working. Like everything else in this new life, I try to fill time and space with people and experiences that make me feel good… with the hope of dampening down all the crap. Unfortunately… the crap is always there. But fortunately… I can sometimes swap it out for a few moments of “The Good” in the world through walks in the woods with neighbors, conversations on the couch, Stewart’s Orange Soda, Ben and Jerry’s… or simply the strumming of strings.
It’s a hard memory for me because I remember not being very sympathetic to her headache. It was before we knew what was going on and I thought it was just a headache that would go away in time… but it never did… and I’m reminded of that morning by stupid studded snow tires… two years later. (I’ve written this down before and I just find it interesting how it’s one of those recurring memories that is time specific. I wonder if this memory is gonna visit me every year when the weather changes and the people start freaking out with the first forecast snow. I swear… people lose their minds!)
I established a draft! Yup… it’s pretty exciting! Not like a draft in the writing sense of the word… with my new woodstove and chimney. If you don’t know what I’m talking about… you’re missing out on one of the best things about cold weather… a hot spot to stand next to! It’s been kind of a fun challenge dialing in the new stove, but also kinda frustrating when I can’t get it to burn as efficiently as it should. Plus, when it’s 26 degrees out, like this morning… I wanna be all toasty and warm!
You know, do some shit outside… clean and organize the garage, take down window boxes, try to leaf blow the leaves from my yard to the empty land across the road without “Sunday Traffic” seeing me!… while periodically coming in to stoke the fire to keep The Schoolhouse nice and warm. It’s the first day in a bit that I would have this opportunity so I thought I would just go with it, go slow, relax, and enjoy the Sunday Morning doing a few things that would make me happy… like drinking coffee in bed as I hear the tick of cast iron warming my home.
It was the Halloween of… ummm… 2003 maybe..? Could’ve been 2004 or 5. Well, up to 2007… but one of those years. I know we were living in South Starksboro in our cute little cottage with a loft and a woodstove… it was pretty cool. (Our first stand alone home together… rented from a couple who became very special to both Kateri and I… and who still are. It’s weird to think back at those memories right now. I wish I could get everything that is bombarding my brain right now down on paper… but I can’t… and I’m trying to get to what it is that I wanted to write about! But now… I’m thinking about how Kateri called our back yard the Dagobah System. You know?!… Yoda n shit… and it kinda was.) Anyways, I know it was within that range because on one Halloween we used the tiny bedroom downstairs and the loft you couldn’t stand up in… where we slept… up the ladder… as the places to “design” and make our costumes for the evening. We weren’t going out. We weren’t having a party. Well, I guess we never really had parties… but the point is, we were just gonna be hanging out at home that night and Kateri had a knack for coming up with some fun things to do.
It’s been a year and a half since Kateri passed away… that just seems all sorts of fucked up to me. It’s weird because at some points it seems like it has been that long (whatever that means)… and at other times it seems like yesterday. Actually, anytime I think about Kateri it seems like yesterday… which is hard… and the main reason why I have to try and manage my emotions much of the time. I can function in society without breaking down in the grocery store or coffee shop… but I still don’t care if I do. Although I haven’t become comfortable living my life without Kateri (I just want her back)… I have become more comfortable with my situation… and all the bullshit that comes along with it. Mourning the loss of a spouse is one of those “Big Life” experiences that happens to be somewhat complicated and I realize I am just settling into this whole grieving process… because it’s gonna be around for a while! Oh, it’s gonna change here and there… maybe it’ll even take a break once in a while… but it’s not going anywhere. I’m just learning to live with it.
So yeah, I’m just gonna say it… my body hurts!… but all my winter wood is neatly stacked and tucked away in the lean-to keeping it safe from the rain… and snow… and out of site! I’ve been looking at the piles on the other side of the driveway for about two months now. I was just never motivated enough or had the time to stack it, so I made it The Agenda for this weekend. My plan was to get out there just after the sun came up and have it done by early afternoon, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. However, I’m happy with how the day went… besides being reminded that I’m getting older and that I haven’t taken care of my body in the last year and a half or so! Oh well, that’s why I did it yesterday… so that I could recover today.
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.
Ok. So all I really wanted to say is that… for me… 536 days into this experience is about the time that I needed to make the decision to start looking at the future a tiny bit more. I’m tired of the “routine”. Yes, there are things I have been doing that provide me joy (guitar, sitting by the fire or on the porch, eating cake pops, etc.), but those things are literally to get through the day. Losing a spouse is crushing… in every aspect of your life… at least it has been for me. We do things… anything… to just… not… hurt. (To give you a glimpse into the emotional state of this widower… I saw Kateri’s name in a sentence I wrote… and now I’m a wreck. I love her name… how it looks… everything that fills those letters and the spaces in between. That it was who she was.) But getting back to the point… I’m ready for change. I feel the need to make some small changes… and I’m ready for some big ones, as well. (ummm, FYI… not toooo big of changes… or too many!… or ones on a whim! Even though whims make for good adventures). I just feel the need to take a step back, take a moment, and move forward with a bit more focus on having my happiness and well being in mind going into the future.
The friend I was with was female… (ummm, and she still is)… so when R. asked if we were The Schoolhouse people it made for an interesting introduction when I had to explain that the schoolhouse was mine and my wife’s first home… that my friend is not my wife and that I live alone… because my wife died from cancer. Fun!
I’m just gonna preface this with my Wedding Anniversary was actually yesterday, I’ve been horrible at planning things lately, and at 10:08 in the morning… I’m still in the same comfy clothes as last night because I fell asleep on the couch! (I like to think of it as me being efficient… this way I don’t have to get undressed just to put them back on for a Sunday morning!) Long story short… well, abbreviated… this is what I did.
It was a beautiful drive… cloudy… cool. I took the dirt roads for the first bit and just got in the right frame of mind. When I hit Montpelier I thought, “I should probably eat breakfast…?!” and then Penny Cluse in Burlington instantly came to mind… because I love it there. As I got a little further down the road, another thought popped into my head that put a smile on my face… we cooked a majority of the food for our wedding in the Penny Cluse kitchen!… how fitting that I would be eating there!… today! It’s that whole attachment to experiences thing that I seem to keep trying to do, but it worked for this! So I got to Burlington, ate my Mama Cruz’s Huevos Rancheros, caught up with a couple of people, gave and got a hug from Charles, and moved on to the next phase of the journey.
Well, yesterday was a Saturday… and even though we got married on a Wednesday, most people get married on Saturdays… so the thought was, “I wonder if there is gonna be a wedding going on when I pull up?!”… there was. At least, that’s what I’m assuming… because there were people milling about as if they were getting ready for a wedding!
We were talking in the kitchen the other day how we couldn’t believe September is more than halfway over! Seeing the trees already trading in their bright green leaves for the vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges of Autumn Time in New England (well, Vermont) came up a bit quicker than expected… but then again… I don’t know where the summer went… or the last 17 months.
I’ll make this short n sweet since I had no plans on opening up the computer in bed when I woke up this morning! It was a Facebook post that sorta hit me… and I subsequently sorta lost it. It was from my sister and she was talking about how you don’t just marry your spouse… you become part of a family. She posted this because my brother-in-law’s mother passed away… her mother-in-law… and it just made me think about how death touches us all the time… from all sorts of different angles.
I’ve been kinda freaking out about losing pictures and videos… memories… as the time keeps piling up so I started going through them in an attempt to organize them… it’s a slow process. I realized we all get a YouTube account with our google account so I figured I would at least throw the videos I have hanging out on my phone on there so that they are consolidated, I could expand the sharing of this experience, and I could learn a bit more about this technology stuff. Again… slow process.
I took three days off of work last week… I felt that I needed to. I’ve been trying to take some time off during the summer, but it just didn’t really happen until this week. I’ve been feeling like I need a bit of time to address some of the obstacles this new life has put in front of me. It’s strange for me to think that it has 497 days… because I face it every single day. So at points it still feels like it literally just happened… and other times I can feel the space growing between points in the timeline. Either way, at the beginning of my Mini Vacation I had no plans on painting my bedroom… but I’m glad I did.
I left work an hour early on Thursday to unexpectedly drive up to B-Town for something. Work was fine, kind of a normal Thursday for me… did some ordering, sent off invoices, had a talk or two… but it wasn’t until I got up north and was sitting at my friend’s that it hit me… 16 months… since the death of Kateri.
cool that he was the one I was with when I realized the date. It’s stoopid little things like that that I have come to absolutely love… the cool little memories some situations have given me since the passing of Kateri. They provide me comfort… when those things happen. It makes me feel good. Whether it’s accurate or not… it gives me another reason to think, “It’ll all be ok.”. Sometimes life takes away the things we think we can’t live without. When it does, sometimes it gives us back tiny little things that help us keep going… we just need to make sure we are paying attention.
Ummm… I should mention that “SEX!” was the original title of this entry but it is really just a small part of this post… although, it was the catalyst to just about everything that this post is about. Really, I don’t even know how to start this thing sooooo… we’re just gonna get into it.
Sex. I was on my front porch (go figure) when that question popped into my head. The widower thing is weird. It’s just odd being thrust into this new life… alone… where I don’t have to let anyone know when I’m on my way home. That instant independence took a bit to get used to… even though the night Kateri died I took advantage of it by pulling out my laptop in bed to write notes. We never had “screens” in bed and it was the first thing I did that was… different… and for just me. A few months later as I was pondering sex questions on the porch I also thought, “How does a forty something year old man who’s been in a committed relationship for the last 18 years, who doesn’t drink, who doesn’t really wanna leave home for more than what is necessary, who doesn’t really have the energy… or desire… to “Play the Game/Field” meet someone?… who will also maybe have sex with them? Let’s see… hmmm… how about… DATING APPS!
I attribute quite a bit of my happiness in this new life to this new friend. She has given me much more than I feel I could ever give her in return. I think a lot about my situation and the obstacles I face, but I also think about how my situation affects her… and am continually impressed with how she deals with it and approaches it. I am amazed by her understanding. I am thankful for her support… and not with just the big things. She has also brought so many beautiful things into my life like s’mores in the woodstove, cake pops, Detroit style pizza, hot dogs grilled at the fire pit, long conversations in the living room, long walks around Portland… Maine, text message acronyms like DTR, kayaks, Criminal Minds, and once in a while… lazy mornings with strong coffee and comfy clothes.
I guess this is just me giving an example of why some people compare the effects of traumatic experiences to roller coaster rides. My last blog post was pretty darn positive… the good shit in this new life! I’m actually trying to be a pretty darn positive person… but sometimes things pop into my head on the 40 minute drive home through the vibrant green hills. Like memories. I’m gonna keep this short.
needed the space to try and be comfortable. Somewhere in the last of month of her life, I was tucking her into bed when she said, “You can sleep in here if you want?”…. but by the time I was done trying to figure out hospital stuff, insurance stuff, cancer stuff, life stuff… she was asleep, looking as comfortable as she could be, and I didn’t want to do anything that would ruin that. So I laid on the bed above the covers, held her for a bit, and simply kissed her goodnight.
Well… as of today it has been a year since I started jotting some thoughts down pertaining to this whole widower thing on this little bloggery I have called Thirty Days of Mo(u)ring. Yup… a year. I have published 74 (75 now!) posts, learned a bit about how these things work, learned a bit about myself, have gotten some lovely words of encouragement, and have had strangers come into my world that I would now consider my friends… ish. I had absolutely no idea what I was gonna be doing with this blog, how I was gonna do it, or really even why (still don’t), but a few people have reached out to me to say “thanks for sharing… it has helped me get through my shit.”… and I can’t tell you how much that warms my innards.
I haven’t actually made it to the upstairs bathroom yet… might be dragging my feet. I have decided to trim the beard down to a less “mangy” length… as a friend had described it. I personally like to think of it as “shabby” or “unkempt”. Whatever you call it… I rather enjoy it. Unfortunately, it’s also hot… and I work in kitchens.
Well, currently sitting in my garage because it’s cooler than the front porch right now and I don’t wanna be inside. I just let the chickens out so that they could feel the grass between their toes… and eat all the ticks. Today is one of those days that I’m willing to risk having to deal with death so that the chickens can enjoy being chickens. (when you live in the woods… there are creatures that rather enjoy eating chicken for dinner… hopefully not tonight, though!) Yup, today I’m just going with the flow. It’s kind of what I’ve been doing for the last week or two… which has been both good and… well… aggravating on some fronts.
Independence Day was fantastic. A friend and I had a wonderfully Vermonty 4th of July with parades (well… a parade), swimming holes, creamies, grilled burgers, macaroni salad, homemade key lime pie (not my home), fireworks and all! It kinda sucked getting a flat tire on the way down to the fireworks… and having the wheel decide it didn’t wanna come off for a bit even though the lug nuts were on the asphalt… but the spare made it on and we made it in time to watch shit explode! Personally, I love the fact that we both sorta rolled with it. We tried something with the tire… didn’t work… I tried it again! Oh hey, my AAA is non-existent…?… let’s try yours! Once we actually got to the point that a tow truck was coming, I just started to kick one side of the tire and it popped off! So we canceled the wrecker, threw on the full size spare (thank God… or something… that it was full size), drove to the town just south of the parking lot we were in, and enjoyed the rest of the evening! Rolling with it!… until it cost me $303 to throw 4 old tires on the Jeep and to replace the sensor that the flat tire destroyed. (Actually still rolling with it at that point… just reluctantly)
The other evening I was going through videos on my phone that I had made last summer… when I was trying to figure out what the effe just happened to my world… and I came across this picture that I had taken on July 1st, 2018. Sooooo, that would’ve been Widower Day 70… and it’s weird to think I’m at 436 now partly because much of the last 14 and whatever months are in some ways a blur… and foggy. But I remember taking this picture because of the significance of what the date on the newspaper reminded me of… April 22nd… the day Kateri died… 70 days earlier.
a chicken that week… Taco. Although she wasn’t my favorite, I thought she was the most beautiful. She just looked like a picture perfect Silver Laced Wyandotte. Bright white and black with the really red comb thing… like the ones you see in the movies! (really… I have no idea what a good looking Silver Laced Wyandotte looks like… but she sure was a purdy chicken. And… the chicken in the picture is Lil’ Bitch… she’s my favorite) Yup, poor Taco. I opened up the door to the coop… and BLAM!… dead chicken… mostly in the nesting box… little head hanging over the edge……….. it was hot. I felt pretty bad there for a bit, and then just thought… it’s a chicken… and had to move on.
I’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.
I wish I could fill in the details of what all that evening entailed… a later date perhaps.
I’ve gotta tell you… I meant to post this Yesterday. I felt good Yesterday. Yesterday was a good day… for no particular reason… just one of those nice, early summer days. Yup, good ol’ Yesterday. Now, Today is good, too. There isn’t really anything I could say that put a damper on Today… no big emotional moments… work was kinda fun… heck, I’m currently on my porch again… while listening to chickens as they scratch about… hopefully eating up all the ticks in the yard! Actually, I’ve had a good couple of days. I’ve been wanting to share some of the “Big Life” questions that I’ve been tackling lately… those that come along with losing your spouse… but I haven’t really had the time that I would want to devote to those topics.
I just got home from spending the day at an ESOP Conference up in B-Town. What is an ESOP you ask? Employee Stock Ownership Plan (look it up!). Yup, I work for one… and went to a conference where they had seminars and stuff about them… which also had me start my day at 5:30am with a nice little drive across The Green Mountain State. It was one of those beautiful drives where you would crest a hill to see a bed of fog at the bottom of a green valley. It’s funny to think that the hills are gonna just get more green… “make you thirsty” green. Anyways, the hills made the postcards proud this morning.
First, I just need to say that this post is pretty much a “Widower” post… not sad or anything… it’s not reminiscing about how great and wonderful and beautiful and honest and perfect Kateri was (is)… it’s about after that. For the last two days I have been copying, pasting, increasing indents… still gotta add some pics, and trying to finalize the little “My Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning” site page on this here bloggy website thing a ma jig. Which meant… I read my notes. And we all know what that means! Actually, there weren’t any waterworks the last two days… or maybe just not the last day… but, it was really kinda nice going through the notes and being able to just… remember… ponder… compare times… to simply think about them… without any convulsing, sniffing, or snorting of snot. (Kateri would always say, “Out is better than in!” if I decided to suck the snot in… instead of destroying a kleenex)
Yup, the ol’ Adirondack Chairs that Kateri and I had bought 15 years ago from The Christmas Tree Shop finally bit the dust. Well, one of them had a run in with a chunk of snow that jumped off the roof this winter… I probably should have moved it before then… oops. In all honesty, they lasted ten years longer than we expected them to! Of course, we treated them pretty well. In the beginning we would bring them into the house as our “winter furniture”. We didn’t have anything else besides a papasan and the stool (our first piece of “furniture” which I still use by the woodstove) and if you add a cushion to an Adirondack Chair… they are quite comfy to sit back in and watch a movie!
I actually started another bloggery thing the other day that I meant to finish and throw out to the ether yesterday. The whole 13 months gig… a year since I finished my Thirty Days of Mourning notes… reading through them… just made me want to share my thoughts on that day!… but I didn’t. And I’m not gonna today, either. (neither?)
Now… I’m just gonna say that I’m one of those people who actually enjoys it when they look out the window and sees a little bit of the white stuff on the grass in the Spring. No, that isn’t some hip and modern drug reference I frequently use in this rock star life I live… it was just snow… in the yard… and it was kinda nice to see.
(Yup, when I started this post it was NOT Mother’s Day… and now it is) Simply… after the one year mark… things are different… I feel different. I was gonna go into all the ways “this” has changed… or how “that” has been replaced by “those”, but there will be other times for all that jive. I just felt the need to say that through this experience, every once in a while there is a tangible feeling when a shift takes place. Kinda of like on the first day I didn’t cry… or when six months hit and I felt like I had a little bit of control over my life… and had to make decisions for myself. Although there is no destination, there’s this tedious little march going on that keeps pushing me forward and with every step, I overanalyze it… and then adapt to make the next step.
If you do, sometimes the big pile of shit get’s a couple of shovel loads taken out of it by three simple words… written in all caps… with exclamation marks. Sometimes… “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!” pertains to the best news you’ve heard in a year and 19 days… at least for me. What’s the “GOOD, GOOD NEWS!!!!” you ask? The docs could no longer see any tumors in my mom’s brain!… yup, and we’ll take it!
I’ve been thinking a lot about other widowers and widows lately… more so than in the past. I think that the whole “Time heals” bullshit has something to do with that. Plus, I belong to two support groups (1 just widowers, 1 widowers/widows) and it’s kinda hard not to feel for people who are going through… or who have been through… what I’m experiencing when they pop up all over your Gosh Darn (trying to be respectful) Facebook feed! In all seriousness, I’m not exactly a “support group” kinda guy and I definitely don’t engage as much as other people, but the names on the screens and the words of support I see them write to strangers has provided me with an unmeasurable amount of encouragement for not only my life to keep moving forward, but for theirs as well! It has just been one of those things that has pleasantly caught me by surprise.
I’m not gonna do this for the next fifteen days or anything, but I figured it was kinda cool to revisit a year ago… that whole, “look at how much has happened since then” type thing. This has been an emotional three days, but they’ve been good. Emotional… but not exactly too much more than any other day or what was to be expected. The flood of love and support is somewhat overwhelming… in the best possible way!… but definitely adds to the waterworks.
It’s 7:35 in the morning… I’ve been up for about 47 minutes… and I don’t know what the fuck to say. I do know that the first text of the day came in a bit ago… and I’ve been crying those good ol’ crocodile tears ever since. Although I don’t really care if people see or hear me being emotional, I am sorta glad that I don’t have people walking past my house on their way to work or school hearing me as I sob uncontrollably while making odd noises through my mouth because my nose is so plugged up with snot! Kateri always said, “Trees make better neighbors!”… and right now I’m glad they are the ones right outside my window listening to me cope and come to terms with the fact that I haven’t been able to hear her laugh, hold her hand while walking down the dirt road, or kiss her goodnight… like I did every… single… night. It has been a year since Kateri has not been on this earth. For 365 days I have come home to an empty house filled with memories of a life that life decided to take away from me… from all of us. It hurts. It’s painful. It’s something I don’t want… but it’s what I’ve got… and I’m glad life didn’t take away the memories.
In the winter of 1998/99… December… Wyoming… I watched Kateri walk from The Chalet (female employee housing) down to the lodge, from the window of The Stables (male employee housing). She had on her blue snow pants, her white winter coat with the god awful neon patch work, and her funky hat from Nepal or some place (I should remember where she got it… she told me… it’s just not coming to me!) keeping her head warm. Kateri would sometimes tilt her head as she walked. I found the image to be calming. We didn’t really know each other at the time… we had just met. At the time, there weren’t any romantic inclining’s yet… she was just someone I found to be interesting. She was unique. There was something different about her. Thankfully, we got along and became friends!
For the last 365 days… and for the four months and three days before that… I have been consumed with either the experience of watching and being a part of cancer ravish Kateri’s body and brain, the loss of Kateri, or trying to figure out how to survive without her. It’s been a struggle. I don’t eat, I find it a challenge to put myself to bed, I’m stressed out worrying about my future, my job, my home. I’m sad, I’m confused, and I hurt… this process physically hurts… but I’m here. I’m here surrounded by the memories that Kateri and I made with each other as we built our life together. She gave me twenty years of memories to draw upon when I feel the need to be close to her. She filled our home with relics which are attached to experiences over those twenty years which I can hold in my hand, I can feel, I can smell… I can touch. Kateri will always be with me… a part of me. That’s just what happens. This last year has sucked balls, but the great things that Kateri brought into this world… into my world… are still here… even if she isn’t. That is how we hold on… to the people we love more than ourselves. That is how I hold on to Kateri… because I miss her… I love her… and I always will.
Last year, Easter fell on the 1st. It was actually three weeks before Kateri passed. It’s weird to think about… she wasn’t in Palliative Care yet. Heck, we hadn’t even received the bad news of no more options yet. Maria had just gotten to our house the day or two before… I think. She came to help… and to be with her sister. It was the three of us for the last three weeks of Kateri’s life… going through it… together. I am forever grateful to Maria for being here for many reasons, but it really comes down to the fact that I think Kateri needed her to be here. Kateri needed Maria to be with her as she was preparing to leave this earth… she needed her help… her support… her love. And Maria… needed to be with Kateri.
I didn’t remember the video when I stumbled upon it trying to clear space on my phone, so it sorta caught me by surprise. It’s hard for me to see Kateri in the “Cancer Time” and it’s quick, but it’s Kateri… through and through… in a space she loved… with people she loved.
This is kinda one of those “spur of the moment” posts. It’s cloudy and a bit chilly…. with large patches of snow adding to the coolness of the image out the ol’ schoolhouse windows. I’m still in comfy clothes… from last night… because I fell asleep on the couch after watching the first scary movie… alone… in said schoolhouse… since Kateri passed away (“The Silence”. At least it wasn’t a ghost/paranormal/psychological sorta movie. And… I survived!). I actually woke up at 6 something, but was comfortable enough and warm enough, so I just decided to stay horizontal… till 9:13!… (a.m.)… and not trudge upstairs. It’s been one of those slow moving/Tupelo Honey on the radio types of mornings… and it feels good. The coffee tastes nice, dark, and strong… and I’ve already gotten to have a nice visit with a friend from down the road. I even got to pull out power tools!… and use them in my front yard while still in those comfy clothes… with the addition of rubber boots! It was literally just replacing a couple of straps… but some people… well I… will take any opportunity to fix something using tools.
I had told myself… and I guess the digital world… that I wanted to take these next two weeks (the last two of the first year without Kateri) to mourn the loss of my wife. The other day, at the end of a conversation with a friend, he asked me, “What does that mean to you?”…. and I realized… I have no fucking idea! But I figure rememberin’ has somethin’ to do with it so that’s what I’m gonna do a little of and see how it goes. I mean… we’ll see… it took me three days, 2 baths, a pint of Ben n Jerry’s, two hours and 23 minutes of Aquaman, and 13 packages of pills (Smarties) to get through 8 photos! (yup, the kind you can hold in your hand)
Each with an arm wrapped around my shoulders… a hand on my leg… one on across my chest. I remember them just holding me as I was processing what was going on… while they were processing what was going on… and I just remember saying to Keith… “This is it. We’re here for a reason…. right?… this is it?”… and all he had to say was, “Yes.”
There’s a strip between the coop and the house… which I was excited about… and then the chickens crapped all over it! (At least they looked happy!)
It hit me last night… I’m trying to jam “healing” into a time frame and attaching it to all sorts of things. This is one reason I’m thankful I decided to use writing, to start a blog, as a tool for myself as I go through this process. Recently, my plan was to just get all those things that I associate with “widower” stuff on the blog by the one year anniversary of Kateri’s passing. I wanted it all there… consolidated… organized… so that I could start year 2 with a fresh and brighter outlook, but I can’t do it. Tomorrow is the anniversary of one of the roughest days of my life… the day we found out there were no other options (two immunotherapy treatments which had two drugs at each treatment… along with one radiation session… did absolutely nothing). The day after that is the ER. The day after that… Palliative Care.
We were progressive n shit. (Actually, we didn’t like the idea of changing her name… Kateri Lidstrom wasn’t who she was… and it sounded stupid)
I’m a cook. It’s in my blood at this point… it’s part of “who” I am. We are not “Home Chefs” or tell people that, “I just love to cook!”… we are a different breed and unless you are one… you just don’t understand… like being a widower/widow. You may get a glimpse of what/who we are… but you never get the full story… there are too many details. Now, I do believe that that goes for any personal experience we humans go through. I may know that you are hurting, or are faced with the challenge of losing a loved one, or that you are an accountant and have to face Tax Season!… but I don’t know what that feels like for you… I don’t know what you need to do to get through your challenges. Nor, do I need to know. I just need to know that there are challenges in your world.
I was gonna write about all sorts of stuff… but then I read how long this thing was and decided against it… because I can do that. Looking back on this day (and I remember it clearly)… is just kinda weird. I remember wanting to be strong and positive. I probably overcompensated on the positivity, but I needed to at the time…… And then I fell asleep on the couch (seems to be a theme). Yup.
Sometimes, the ol’ balance scale is off kilter and I have to focus on whatever carries more weight. Sometimes the balance scale… feels like it has 7 arms.
All I wanna say is… I really enjoyed reading through these notes… looking back on this one day. At the time, the day itself was just kinda meh… and I’m sure I was just floating around in a daze. But reading what I was thinking about and recognizing the mood I was in as I wrote down ideas… as I was first trying to figure out what it was that I was gonna do in my life… to survive (because that’s what it feels like)… it felt good. Instant gratification. A talk with a friend. Looking for good in… whatever. Saying, “Fuck it”… and doing whatever it was that I felt I needed to do to feel better.
I like these notes because I can see a little bit of both chapters of my life in them and it was a “typical” day for me.
For 346 days I have been filling time with projects, with work, tidying, cleaning, organizing, removing stuff, chickens… and chicken chores, moving wood piles, remodeling bathrooms, acquiring things to help in the future (I’m getting older… and definitely over shoveling snow off driveways!), watering plants, rearranging living rooms (just last week!… I like it, but there’s a strange feeling sitting at home in a space set up in a way that Kateri has never experienced), seeing friends once in a while, meeting new people, seeing family even more once in a while, taking baths, playing guitars, keyboards, or blaring music when it’s significantly past the one-two. I’ve tried to fill time with actions that would help me in the future and/or make me feel good… or better. Right now though, right this second… I just want to stop… and sit… and feel the sadness that the loss of Kateri has given me… because it’s the closest I’m gonna get to her. When I can feel the pressure in my temples, when I have to breath through my mouth because my nose is all snotted up, when the words are blurry after a good ol’ “moment” (like this one)… when it hurts the most… I can see her the clearest. I can almost feel her… feel her skin… her hair. Her beautiful black and silver hair. Again… almost. Now, tell me that’s not fucked up!… (it’s not)
Well… I’m heading back home to Vermont! It was a quick trip to Boise to see my family… specifically my mother… but, I am soooo happy that I did it. The look on her face when I walked through her door I will cherish forever. The fact that I have never done something like that (surprise my family… or anyone… by just showing up) has made me think about the life I have coming up in front of me… this new life where I am solely responsible for what I want to do… and how I want to do it. My perspectives have changed on everything. What I view as important has changed. My goals in life have changed. All because my life has changed with the loss of Kateri.
Those worrisome images that had found their way into my head a week ago have been replaced with relief and the expectation that there will be more than a few other trips for us to chill with each other because… well… she’s doing fantastic! I mean, she’s not running marathons and we won’t be doing any bungee jumping any time soon (I don’t think), but she’s doing much better than… you know… I expected!
It was a good day… I mean today was. Looks like Day 24 wasn’t all that horrible, but I’m talking about my day in Boise. Aaaand… I ate a banana for breakfast… I hate bananas.
When I walked past her window and she saw my Cedar Circle sweatshirt… she knew it was me! My father… well, I just walked into his office while he was on the phone with a client… and then caused him to fumble over his words for a second! I’m sure the client was like, “ummm… you ok?!”. My mother… well… the look on her face when I walked into the house… it simply filled me happiness.
It’s the second day of my weekend and after staying up way too late last night… but enjoying no alarm!… I decided to try and pluck some things off of the “To Do” list today. You know, those little things that you just keep meaning to get to… or are blatantly disregarding?! So I did chicken chores, replaced the Daytime Running Light on the ol’ buggy, brought wood over from the potting shed… with help from said buggy… and a sled, changed out the drip pans on the stove because the old ones had literally disintegrated, and then… well… I rearranged the living room.
I 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.
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!
Yup… I didn’t really realize it until I was driving home from work that today was the eleven month anniversary of Kateri’s passing. I felt a little off today, but didn’t think much about it. Plus, coming off of Kateri’s birthday and the ringer that that put me through, I was actually just looking forward to a little bit of a mellower time for the following few days… hopefully weeks… and so far it is. At this point, having gone through birthdays and holidays and anniversaries of cancer stuff… the month anniversaries are just a way to track time. Compared to Kateri’s birthday… or the date of the diagnosis of Melanoma in the brain… or the anniversary of her death coming up in a month… all the other months have just been a countdown to that 1 Full Year moment. So, for me right now… it kinda sucks to think that Kateri has been gone for eleven months, but I’m emotionally hung over… wanna take a breather… and just prepare (if you can) for 1 year. (wow… that just fucked up to think about)
I took an extra day off at the tail end of my weekend because… as I figured… Kateri’s birthday was probably gonna be the peak of the emotional mountain expedition. (no… I’m not a mountain climber or have any desire to scale Mt. Kilamenjaro or anything. Walks though… those are good) I wanted to make sure I had a little extra time so as not to have the sense of rushing it… and I’m glad I did!… cuz it’s been rough! I mean, yes it’s been rough, but I have come to expect that. However, I was surprised by the amount of crying I did. I was surprised by how early the water works and the “I miss those days” reminiscing started… a couple of weeks prior to her birthday. I was surprised by just how much… how many emotions… I had pushed to the side as I try to figure out how to maneuver, how to live in the present, how to get everything done in this new life… without her. And I knew I was gonna need a couple of days to recover from the onslaught of everything on Kateri’s birthday… on St. Patrick’s Day.
I had gotten up around six and hit the road at 6:30am for breakfast at George’s… in Gloucester… two hours and forty-three minutes away. It was gonna be my “I’m taking Kateri to the ocean for her birthday” end to the weekend, but when you drive for a few hours by yourself… the brain kinda does it’s thing! (having control over the radio has it’s advantages, though) As I thought more and more about it, I wasn’t taking Kateri to the ocean… I was taking just a part of Kateri to the ocean… and I was taking only a tiny fraction of what is left of her physical body… that which we cremated. I could try and make myself feel better by attaching her… by attaching Kateri to my little road trip, but she wasn’t by my side.
She didn’t order bisuits and gravy or shoot the shit with line dude. She didn’t feel the ocean air on her cheeks. And I didn’t take a selfie of us on the beach with her in the background doing some funny little kick… or doing anything at all. Yes, Kateri was with me in my memories, thoughts, emotions, and spirit as I drove 71 miles per hour across New England, but she wasn’t by my side… and I realized I just needed to cover some ground for myself as I remembered my wife… and all the wonderful “Let’s go to the ocean!” adventures we had.
So I had breakfast, I saw the ocean, I sat and thought about life. Luckily, Kateri’s birthday was the day for bawling like a baby so the last two days of my 3-day weekend were a little more manageable on the tear factor and I didn’t have to tell myself, “I don’t care if people see me crying on this bench… as I stare at the water”… while other tourists snap and bark at their partners because they aren’t holding the paper doll cutout correctly while posing beneath the memorial to fishermen lost at see! I mean, I got emotional here and there, but it has been a much mellower couple of days.
“YOU’RE AS OLD AS JESUS!”… Kateri loved to take advantage of any opportunity where she was able to say that. If it was someone’s birthday and they were turning 33… well, she would start with a, “Happy Birthday!”… and finish with, “You’re as old as Jesus!”… and then the birthday boy or girl would stare at us like, “What…?”. Now, I’m not a religious man and although Kateri grew up Catholic (she said she was a “Recovering Catholic”), she wasn’t very religious… spiritual, but not religious. So the addition of Jesus into the well wishing on birthdays is kind of a conundrum to me of how and why it started, but really it was just a fun little quirky thing that she brought into my life… that has been there over the years… that has put smiles on friend’s and strangers’ faces… and something I will probably say to every 33 year old I cross paths with on their birthday till my birthdays stop coming. (ps-I guess JC died at 33… how’s that to make you feel unaccomplished in life?! Jesus… he was a go getter!)
It seemed only natural to incorporate the whole “You’re as old as Jesus!” into the day when Kateri turned thirty-three. We were working in Burlington slinging “breads”… pizza… and we were renting a little cottage in the Green Mountains 50 minutes away that looked at the back side of Mad River Glenn. Life was starting to roll… we were at that stage in life where old friendships were solidified in their place and we were meeting wonderful new people to start new friendships with… people who became a part of our family. I wanted to capture some of those people… some of those memories from “When we were younger” to look back upon… decades down the road.
So I asked a friend to make a sign and I drove that sign to other friend’s houses and to their places of employment. I carried it with me in case I ran into someone on the road so that I could snap a picture of them holding it and wishing Kateri a “Happy… you are as old as Jesus… Birthday!”. I developed the pictures (yes, they were taken with a camera… with film) and grabbed a stupid little photo album to put them in. When I gave it to Kateri I watched the corners of her mouth turn upwards to a smile as she flipped through the pics and saw her friends and their well wishes. With every turn of the page, I got to see that simple smile turn into pure innocent love for the people who were holding that cardboard sign. Unfortunately, since that album was made, we only got a decade and a bit under our belts to do the whole “Remember when” thing together… to reminisce about turning thirty-three. Now I use the gift I gave her not so much to remember our friends… but to remember Kateri… and she’s not even in the album.
Sometimes, the plan was to just hang in a certain area and relax… or do something fun and fancy like go to a piano concert in some historical and beautiful concert hall or theater that overlooks the water. You know, pretend like we were fancy as we rubbed elbows with fancy people. Sometimes we would bring our espresso machine with us on these trips, set it up on the dresser in the hotel room, and drink cappuccinos on the porch as we looked down the line of empty rooms and listened to the water as it tried to run up the land… thinking about how lucky we were not to have to share the space.
I could write about the debates birthdays created between friends pertaining to when your “Mid Forties” start… and no, they don’t start at 41! There are a lot of good memories accumulated over the years I could share, but today is the first time in nineteen years that I’m not spending Kateri’s birthday with her… because life decided it was so… and presently I don’t have the time or energy to remember twenty years of good times that are simply all just memories now. That’s what I’ll use the future for… to remember the past. Today… after I write this, I guess… I’m just gonna sit in the present for a bit and see how it goes. Being a widower is rough… it’s hard… it’s emotional. Jesus Christ!… it’s emotional. Losing Kateri is harder… she was a part of me… and still is… because I love her… and I miss her………. so much.
I had to leave work early today. I knew when I was driving in at 7:24am that I probably wasn’t gonna make it that long. I knew at 6:50am that I was probably gonna be useless. As well as at 6:15am when the first harp started the progression from a musical instrument made to create beautiful sounds… to a car horn made to scare the shit out of someone who is unaware of the tin can behind them. It’s my version of the “Sunrise Alarm”… something which I will never own.
widower provides. It’s relentless. The brain just doesn’t stop. There are periods where I can balance the “loss” and “living”. There have been times where “living” overshadowed “loss”! Other times… not so much. Right now, it just so happens to be a “loss” time. Yes, there is still “living” happening… just not a ton… and mostly in comfy clothes.
Well there… all of that sad shit just to get to a point where I could raise my spirits by giving myself a compliment! In actuality, I don’t need to give myself compliments to try and make myself feel better. I’m a lucky person and have some good people in my life who are supportive, loving, and fun. There are a shit ton of things in my life that I am grateful for. There are a lot of good things in my life… many more than horrible ones. The horrible ones are just… well… kinda gross. This is a hard experience to go through and there are a lot of challenges, but people have been going through it ever since the first Pat fell in love with the first Pat… first Pat loved first Pat back… and then first Pat died from Metastatic Melanoma in the brain… with mutations. People survive death. It just kind of sucks that it’s a part of the gig.
New show on Netflix?… nope! Hell, I’m getting emotional during sitcoms about high school kids, puberty, and first loves!