Last year, today, it was very icy, very snowy, very cold, and very miserable here: I was 58 days into widowhood, and just as far into a bout with influenza complicated by walking pneumonia. I didn’t know that at the time – I thought I was just dealing with acute bronchitis, which I deal with on a regular basis. I could barely function, I was so sick: but I attributed that to my new status in life … missing the love of my life. I thought I was just run down from sitting death watch since September 3rd. 3-1/2 months I sat death watch, barely eating, rarely sleeping (only when my body gave out did my eyes close). Even when I passed out, standing up too quickly, I never suspected I was desperately sick. I just knew I was desperately missing Bob, and attributed my weakened state to that new emotion, my new life, and my new reality – I hauled everything into the bed with me (laptop, phone, bottles of water, and a bag of yarn to complete the lapghans I was making), and camped out there for a couple days. It wasn’t until March, when I felt strong enough to stand and go to ER (a friend drove me), that I was diagnosed with the tail-end of influenza and pneumonia. Everywhere outside was white: street, rooftops, yards, vehicles … and Bob – was clothed in a white robe in his new home beyond the clouds; Bob always did look good in white ;-)
Today, this year, I’m actually quite healthy and in a better frame of mind, but I do feel like an old vinyl record, with a groove so deep the diamond-tip needle is stuck in the plastic … and keeps playing the same line over and over and over again, with an annoying static crackle backup.
The song used to be a good one – but it’s ruined now. In memory, it’s still good; in real-time-real-life, not so good anymore.
The needle is stuck.
I don’t deliberately sit around torturing myself with memories; but I have learned that memories – whether thought about, or not – will come on fast and furious when triggered. And it takes so little to trigger a memory: Bob gave me LOTS of memories. All good; but that needle gets stuck, and it’s hard to get back on track.
Valentine’s Day is 3 days off.
Closing in fast.
Last year, I was numb to it – this year, I’m dreading it.
December 14th ended all holidays, Valentine's day before December 14th, 2018, used to be enjoyable: Bob and I would spend a leisurely morning cuddling in bed, whispering sweet nothing in each other’s ears and softly chuckle the way lovers do, exchange cards, Bob would {spring} a box of chocolates on me, we’d make plans for a Chinese Supper in Kalama - or a Thai Supper in Longview; and get the kids and grandkids quickly off to bed in the evening so we could have more leisurely loving moments together. The way lovers do. The passion never cooled, even after 44 years together. We were blessed in our love, and in our marriage. Having each other was ‘gift’ enough.
Last year on Valentine’s Day, my SIL, Merry, was helping me transfer Bob’s cremains into his cremains box and individual Remembrance Urns for the kids, grandkids, and me; that arrived on the 5th – my husband’s cremains, with his Death Certificate, arrived 4 days before Christmas. I was so out of it all, in 2019, that it didn’t even dawn on me until last week how hard it must have been on Merry to help me last Valentine’s Day; Bob and Merry were close. But I wasn’t thinking of that last year – I was in survival mode: I really wasn’t thinking at all on much of anything last year. I didn’t want to feel … I didn’t want to think. So, I didn’t.
Valentine’s Day last year was not a happy one.
And I don’t expect Valentine’s Day this year to be much better. I still feel like I am living someone else’s life.
Valentine’s Day is a day for lovers to celebrate their love and devotion … my lover is no longer available; he resides in another dimension.
Valentine’s Day pretty much glorifies youth, young love, unbridled passion, and in some case, unrequited love. When my husband was still here, walking among the living and loving me like a man, he still made me feel like a young bride – we always saw each other through the lens of love; the toll of aging didn’t hit home to either of us until the Fall of 2018 when in November, Bob noticed more gray in my hair caused by the stress I was going through … and I was shocked in December to see his hair was white (he’d kept his head bald for 2 decades) when it grew out in the lengthy hospitalizations. We knew we were aging – our birthdays were yearly reminders – but we didn’t act old.
We didn’t think old.
We just were.
And we were enjoying out life together.
Very actively.
We were, in the Fall of 2018: 69 yo, and 61-3/4 yo, respectively. We never saw ourselves, or each other as “old.”
And even now, when I have aged significantly in the 1 year after Bob left this Earth; I don’t think of myself as “old”. I am now 63 yo (I turned 62, 15 days into my new life). I still feel like I did when I first met Bob at 17; I’m still that same person inside this aging body – I am surprised every morning when I wake up and remember that I am a widow now: a {mature} woman. A Senior Citizen too; to boot. But, I am still ME; and yet, I am not.
I will probably be a little startled by those revelations for the rest of my natural life.
I have tried to keep my regular schedule as consistent as possible … but even that has severely altered. Though I can – and sometimes DO – do the same things we did together: it just isn’t as much fun anymore. Those are things I wanted to do with Bob: only Bob. Things we enjoyed doing together, just isn’t as exciting as a solo lobo. Something as simple as a walk, now, just feels flat and mundane: Bob is not here to hold hands with, to talk with, laugh with, share a private joke with, to point things out to me (like a turtle sunning itself on the riverbank). A drive is not as appealing either – and I like to go for leisurely drives in the countryside; but my conversational companion is no longer with me, holding my hand atop the center console between seats, laughing at inside jokes, singing songs with me, springing spur-of-the-moment ‘side-spur’ drives on me: solo drives are not so much fun anymore.
My emotions have pretty much flat-lined.
My life is totally unrecognizable.
And Cupid no longer knows my address.
My lover resides in another dimension; Bob is truly “out of this world”.
And I feel like an old vinyl record, with the diamond-tip needle stuck so deep in a groove, the same line keeps playing over and over and over again, with an annoying static crackle backup.
“IMISSBOBIMISSBOBIMISSBOB……”
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