CARIBBEAN BLUE

I skipped my Sunday~Funday outing this morning, and decided to stay-in house today. (1) because I have been out and about several times this week already (2) I have an allergy related headache from my walk in Kelso yesterday. There wasn’t much scotch broom in bloom, but there was enough that I am feeling the effects today.

So, around 10:30 AM, I put a pot roast in my slow cooking oval crockpot and got that underway - the carrots had me momentarily catapulted back in time, because the date on the baggie read: 8-26-18. They had been harvested and bagged for the freezer 4 days before the stable axis in my life was seriously tilted; I shook the memory from my thoughts … staying in-house, I can’t let myself be tripped up by memories that will take me down a path I don’t need to go down right now. I also took a pumpernickel roll out of the freezer to thaw:

Pot Roast w-whole yellow baby spuds, 1 large cubed yam, and 6 medium carrots.

A little later, feeling boredom niggling at me, I pulled the flamingo chair pads off the closet shelf and tied them in place …

Then I got my shoe box of art paint supplies out of the cupboard, and started work on my driftwood garden art project. The driftwood is very dry and porous, so it will need a couple coats of paint – I like the blue color, and who knows … the driftwood could have drifted to the river beach of the Columbia River from the Caribbean ;-)

First coat of Caribbean Blue acrylic paint.

Hmmm; I am sensing a theme here – flamingo chair pads, Caribbean blue driftwood art, and parrot tulips. And a memory came to mind. I had kinda teasingly/seriously mentioned to Bob one day while we were sitting around the house, that I’d consider getting on an airplane to go to Jamaica to sit on the white sands in beach chairs and drink blue-tinted pina coladas after an authentic Jamaican meal. We loved eating a variety of ethnic foods – and I hated flying. Bob liked flying, and only had 20 more flying hours to complete to get his Pilot’s Licensing during his first marriage … but his ex-wife slept with the instructor to spite Bob; so that ended that – he never did complete the course, even though I encouraged him after I found the papers while cleaning the house after we married. But he loved to fly. And I really would have considered flying to Jamaica for Supper – we were retired with time on our hands, and the airfare was reasonable. We laughed at the idea of flying to Jamaica for supper with calypso music on the breeze (we both like calypso music), and then flying back home to go to bed: and our lives went on as usual. 

When Bob was in the local ER/ICU Ward the first time fighting for his life, September 1^st, 2018; and the drugs the doctors were pumping him full of bloated him – threw him into a drug induced hallucinogenic state, and sent his body into full-on shut-down … the doctors were doing everything they could to rectify the situation, bring him around, and keep him alert. One doctor asked him, “Bob – stay with me Bob, what would you really like to be doing right now.” Without thinking about it too hard or too long, Bob looked at me and smiled and said, “Right now, I’d like to be sitting on a white beach in Jamaica drinking a pina colada with my Baby.”

Bob in local ER/ICU Ward; September 1st, 2018. He made it through the night when doctors had said he wouldn't.

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalms 73:26)

The doctor burst out laughing, and said, “Me too, man. Me too.” I smiled through tears – I thought Bob had forgot all about that convo. But I should have known that Bob never forgot anything concerning me. Bob loved me. And if there was a way to make that Caribbean fantasy a reality … he would have moved heaven and earth to do it.

Bob did not fully recover. Three and a half months later, his physical body died at OHSU, in Oregon at 8:05 AM, December 14^th, 2018.

That Jamaican fantasy will never happen. Bob is no longer here, and his physical presence was a major part of that fantasy.

In my now, while the painted driftwood on the dining room table was drying, and I sat down to drink my coffee; I happened to glance out the window and saw that the yellow Parrot Tulips I had bought last March (and repotted last Fall) were blooming on the front steps – and the clouds in the sky had rolled back to show a hint of Caribbean blue, too:

I hope there are white beaches in Heaven with beautiful Caribbean blue waters :-D