GRIEF IS A HEARTBREAKER

I am listening to Grand Funk Railroad tonight – I always liked their music and had every one of their LP’s – Bob never like them. But I did, and I played those LP’s back-to-back just about every day. If I had them playing when Bob came home from work and turned down Una Street towards our driveway on Beal … he’d just keep on going down to the Marina and sit the album out before coming home.

I played the stereo he bought me our first Christmas that loud :-D Strangely, the speakers held up – not a bit of static over the years of steady usage and amped volume: Bob bought me a good set of quadrophonic speakers ;-)

Some people would say Bob spoiled me rotten … I prefer to say Bob loved me. A lot.

When I drive to Eden Valley, sometimes I’ll stop by Cathamet at some point. Our old house – the house Bob spent his early teen years in; and the house I came to as a new Bride, and lived in with Bob for 18 years, before we sold it and moved has been remodeled inside and out by new owners. And they’ve taken the old antique apple (not sold anywhere anymore), antique plum (not sold anywhere anymore) & pear trees out; the antique rose bushes are gone too, now (the ones with velvet buds and leaves – not sold anywhere anymore); they’ve raised the ground level along one side of the house, added a side porch, and blocked the wrap-around driveway with a crappy looking wood shed. It has a metal roof now – I remember Bob, his parent’s, and his brother ralph laying roofing tiles down the year Stacey was 3 years old.

1963-64. Bob about 13 or 14 yo.  (L to R) Merry, Bonnie, Bob Sr., my Bob, Kerry, Rose & Ralph - rosie wasn't born yet. Sitting on the front porch of the Cathlamet house.

1982 - the year following Bob's 2nd death (he had been dead and declared dead after a 25 minute no response to CPR. He had gone fishing with his father and brother. They are showing off their haul before cleaning the fish at the half-way mark between the brother's House lot divisions of the Cathlamet property. (L to R) Bob, ralph, Bob Sr.

It hasn’t been ‘our house’ for a long time, but the changes still make me sad when I see that house now.

When I walk past that house, my mind is suddenly flooded with memories. I met Bob in that house. I came to that house as a bride; I became a mother in that house. I grew up in that house.

In my mind’s eye, I can still picture Bob walking through the front door the night we met for the first time face-to-face 46 years ago. And Bob walking through that door after work, and grabbing me for a kiss as he set his thermos and lunch pail on the kitchen counter. I still hear kid’s running through the rooms. I can see the door jamb where I marked each kids’ growth inches – and dated the notations. I see myself looking out the large antique-beveled & leaded-Livingroom picture windows at the Columbia River. I know where our bedroom/each kids’ bedroom was … and where the kitchen door was before the remodel that removed the door and put a window in its place. I remember buying the large Blaze King woodstove and removing the old brick chimney and having a new up-to-date chimney reconstructed and rebuilt up to 1980’s fire code: Bob saved those bricks and built a BBQ firepit.

Our old house, in Cathlamet. Kitchen door used to be where the 3rd window from the right ... and a pink shrub ... is now.

Everything about the house and property is different now - it's dark and gloomy looking/feeling: like no one really lives there anymore. Sad - there was SO MUCH LIFE there when we lived there; openness to let the sunshine in, trees to climb and give us fruit (cut down now); swing sets and play gym, bird houses/feeders, rose bushes, lilac trees, a garden ...

When I got my driver’s license and Bob bought me my little Burgundy Horizon hatchback, I practiced backing up and down this driveway for weeks … using the side mirrors only … until I could do it with my eyes closed. I wanted Bob to know that I HAD BEEN listening :-D

Bob bought my little car right off the showroom floor: he wanted me to have a new car, so me and the kids would be safe. My husband cherished me; and loved his kids.

The 3^rd window from the right corner is where the front porch and kitchen door use to - Bob carried me through that door on our Wedding Night. Now it is no more, just like Bob. The upper windows on the front of the house was Alex’s room when he came to stay weekends, and summers with us. The upstairs dormer windows was where Stacey’s bedroom was – they looked out on the river: and the chimney ran along one side of her room to keep her warm, on cold nights; I remember how she’d always sneak a kitten upstairs to cuddle with before she fell asleep. The bottom window, barely seen now through the wood shed was our bedroom – a lot of happy memories were made and enjoyed there. It had a river view too.

So many memories of a lifetime; a lifetime ago.

Grief is a heartbreaker.

But I am not going to cry … I’m NOT.