Wedding Song - God Knew That I Needed You

Thursday, October 8, 2020

OUT WITH THE OLD~IN WITH THE NEW

I’m trying.

Honest to God; I am.

I was just finishing up my exercises …

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjHCKDF0Z5o)

… when I got a morning text, telling me my new glasses had arrived for pickup:

I picked up my new glasses this morning.
Another adjustment in a loooong line of adjustments 
Hopefully the vision will balance out.

Another adjustment severing yet another tie to the past.

While I was downtown, I thought I’d swing by Winco and grab some powdered sugar and creamer to make a batch of Homemade Cocoa tomorrow – this recipe is better than any sleeping pill.

In fact, hot cocoa is all-around-GOOD, healthwise šŸ˜‰

(https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cocoa-powder-nutrition-benefits#TOC_TITLE_HDR_5)

I bought a sandwich too, to eat, there.

I then drove to Lake Sacajawea Park.

Bob liked this Park – me, not so much: it’s too busy for me.

But … I’m trying.

I have to take diversion where I can find it.

Old pleasures have fallen by the wayside; in this new life unfolding, I have to make my sunshine where ever I can.

Every time I come here, thoughts of Bob immediately come to the forefront of my thoughts.

Longview was Bob’s town.

His chosen place to live.

Always.

I yielded.

He gave me so much of my wants.

His essence is everywhere, here.

He liked this Park.

I can’t separate him from the Park.

Geese & ducks on Lake.
Ducks on Lake.
Bob loved to watch the squirrels – he always filled his pockets with peanuts when we came here.

We came here a lot in the first year of our life together.

We came here quite a bit with the grandkids.

Hmmm; a Basketball Court going in at the Lion's Building.
I do like hearing the bells ringing ...

Coming here always makes me think of Bob.

Even the nightmare memories of the hulking, spectre hospital, can’t overshadow the good memories of Bob here.

The spectre Hospital.
Snagged fishing line waving in the breeze.
Italian Sub Sandwich on a Pretzel Hoagie Bun

Bob like Rootbeer. This is SO SWEET! Like sugar water. YUK! Between the sandwich and drink, I've pretty much maxed out calories allowance today.
A riskily carved playgirl Invite - not a safe thing to do.

In my posts, I usually highlight two specific dates as my “luckiest” days (April 19th ~ our 1st Date, and August 27th ~ our Wedding Night); but it is more accurate and more honest to state that every day of our 44 years together were “lucky” days.

I got to enjoy 16,060 days/nights with the love of my life – my best friend; my soul mate.

My “perfect match”: and Bob told everyone the same thing; even those who attended him during the final days of his life on Earth.

It took a while (seven years, to be exact) for us to find each other and seal the deal with a forever promise. We were riding Cloud 9; we felt we were the luckiest couple alive.

And people who watched us together, verbally confirmed that.

Bob was my best friend, my cheerleader, my gentle critiquer – who always, always encouraged me (especially when he knew I was ‘winging it’ and had no fricking idea what I was doing – he never made me feel inadequate): Bob was my person; who accepted me in every way.

Throughout our 44 years together, we enjoyed a lifestyle of silliness and indulgence with each other; we basically grew up together, though Bob was 7 years older than me. Our time together was enjoyable, loving, passionate, adventurous, explorative, appreciative, and exciting.

On all levels of our relationship.

I miss that.

I miss him.

With anyone else, that time spent, would not be as meaningful.

Bob was the thrilling component that made {me} want to become a ‘WE’.

Bob felt the same way about me.

We married in a fever the evening of August 27th, 1974.

And Bob was ready to do it again, August 27th, 1994.

He said he “wanted to do right” by me “this time around” and have a minister officiate.

I said, “Thank you, Babe … BUT … the first time around was perfect. I don’t feel anything was lacking. You were there, I was there: it was perfect just the way it was.”

And he knew I was talking Truth.

He knew he had been my Dream Man.

He knew, because I had told him that before we started dating.

He knew, because I told him that every day for 44 years.

The afternoon started warming up.
A Great Blue Heron touched down.
A serene moment ...

On his birthday, August 30th, 2018, we opened our eyes at the same time, and said simultaneously, “I love you” with sleepy smiles over the head of our 4-year-old grandson; who had crept into our bedroom in the early morning hours, and Bob lifted him up to lay between us.

By noon, I was rushing Bob out to the car and burning up the highway to get to ER as legally as possible without collecting a speeding ticket enroute.

On September 3rd, 2018, Bob had his first massive heart attack due to the morphine the ER docs pumped him full of in ER when his heartbeat “fluttered” and gave the medics there, cautious concern – the drug both Bob and I told them he could not have administered to him because his body didn’t handle morphine at all. Bob had had that drug only once in his life, in 1981, and it messed with his body, then, too.

They turned a deaf ear to us.

They administered morphine.

Which immediately sent Bob’s body into shock.

Which immediately gave the medics real concern.

Bob was immediately transferred to ICU.

The damage was done.

As well as suffering a massive heart attack (his reading was well above 400!), his other organs started shutting down too. And he puffed up – he was a big man to start with, but the drugs they were giving him made him considerably bigger in size.

Sept. 3rd, 2018: Bob in ICU – we almost lost him.

When he stabilized, and visiting hours were over, I slipped quietly out and came home until morning visiting hours.

When I showed up the following morning, his first words were a confused heart-cry, “Where were you? You left me here to languish …”

I cried.

I cried because he woke up alone.

I cried because he looked so uncomfortably bloated and miserable.

I cried for the frustration both of us were feeling.

From that day onward to December 14th, 2018, our lives instantly turned into a whirlwind of medical activity, drug interventions that made his situation much, much worse; tests, conflicting diagnosis’s, in-and-out-hospitalizations, final directives, false hope, end-of-game-acceptance … aside from the empathetic compassion shown us at OHSU when Bob finally secured a bed there … all of it was unnecessarily unpleasant.

ALL of it.

But through it all, Bob kept smiling.

The first 2 months, we made his illness a part-time-gig; we took it seriously, but we did not let it dominate our time together. We told inside jokes that only we would ‘get’; we laughed at silly antics to buoy our spirits; we celebrated every good report that side-stepped negativity. We were good at making good times out of bad times.

Eventually, though, we couldn’t be silly, or laugh, anymore.

Eventually, fighting pancreatitis and creeping edema, took over our lives.

It got bad.

Then it got worse.

And Bob kept smiling.

Even when violently throwing up the bagged liquified food he was fed through a nose tube.

Even when he was only allowed 3 meager ice cubes to quench his thirst.

He was SO thirsty; I begged for him to be allowed 3 ice cubes.

Even when his body was shutting down due to that cruel and rare illness (stress-induced-pancreatitis) that inevitably led to dehydration and starvation.

Bob playing Solitaire on his laptop. Aside from his painfully bloated stomach and legs swelling with edema, his frame was skin and bones.

Which inevitably led to his physical death.

No water.

No food.

No life.

Visions of Bob smiling through hellish episodes of his ebbing life that I will never be able to eradicate from my memories.

Through it all, Bob reached for my hand.

Through it all, Bob smiled.

I cried when he underwent tests.

I cried when he slept.

I held his hand … gently squeezing in love code: ‘I love you’.

I matched his smile when he smiled at me.

He smiled for me; I smiled for him. Love was the catalyst.

December 13th, 2018, he stopped smiling.

It took all his flagging energy to breathe.

In the early morning hours of December 14th, 2018, he stopped struggling to breath Earth’s oxygen.

In the early months of widowhood, I struggled to breathe myself.

I struggled to breathe without hyperventilating and choking on throat aching sobs.

14 months into widowhood, I actively engaged in seriously rebuilding my shattered life again.

There are always going to be 'firsts' in Widowing; done Solo Lobo.
Most ‘normal’ people have another ‘someone’ to bounce things off of.
Most people don't ‘get it’ …

It is an exhausting undertaking.

Grueling.

Challenging.

Frustrating.

A dizzying roller coaster.

It took me 12 months to learn to smile again.

When I heard myself laugh, it startled me.

I’ve learned to feel again (more than stabbing heartache-pain), these past 9 months.

Maybe 2021 will teach me how to cry a little less in my forward moving steps into a new life I am begrudgingly engaging in.

Someone described working through widowhood as “the dance”: steps forward, sideways, and backward – I like that analogy! I like that description because there are no negative moves in dance steps … even the backwards ones are just part of the process šŸ˜‰

I am trying.

New dance steps is always difficult for me.

But I am giving it “all I’ve got”.

And while it won’t be what it once was … life, in a different form, can be beautiful again.

I have to believe that.

Turtle sunning itself.
Geese along the trail.
Young Greater White Fronted Geese. I never knew they existed, until today (https://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/learn/identification/swans-geese-ducks/greater-white-fronted-goose.php).
Canoers on the Lake.
A Yellow Jacket in the Highlander!

I got new glasses, but I am keeping the ones Bob pointed out to me 3 years ago – and I bought.

I will smile when I see them.

I will laugh when I tell people about them.

They will comfort me, and warm me with loving memories.

Out with the old ... in with the new: story of my life lately. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz9RTOKpLsM)

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