LIFE AIN’T ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL ~ BUT IT CAN BE INTERESTING

I finished the ‘Tyrannosaur Canyon’ novel tonight; it was a good read, and I know Bob would have enjoyed it too. I liked it because it involved my favorite dinosaur, T Rex – and Bob would have liked it for the man stuff woven throughout the plot.

(https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2020/01/glenwood-res-dino-landscape.html)

Bob taught me math concepts, and I taught Bob to spell and read; he was passed in school because of his athletic abilities, but he was pretty illiterate: I realized this one morning when he left a note for me. Bob was dyslexic, and no one had bothered to take the time to help him. So, when he insisted I finish High School after we were married, and keep the checkbook balanced; I struck a deal with him when he got home from work, the day of “the note”: I would suffer the kitchen table math lessons, and he would learn to spell and read ;-)

And that is what we did for the first 6 months of our marriage.

We were always a team, pulling together.

Once Bob grasped the concept of reading and spelling fluency … he was off and running! And competing with me in speed reading :-D I like to read, and am a voracious reader: I was reading a novel in a day then, because once I started reading, I never put the book down – I read sitting, standing, walking, riding in the car, cooking, loading the washer and dryer, and sometimes in bed if the book really grabbed my attention. Bob got as hungry for reading as I was – his first jump in the water was the book ‘Papillon’ – and that was a read! But Bob never did anything half way; if he was going to do something, he was going all in ;-) He read that book without any struggle. I am a GOOD English and Literature teacher: LOL! And then it was on to Word Search books (which he switched back and forth between, while reading my KJV Bible front to back/back to front after coming home to recoup and heal following his second death in 1981); and later, he started playing computer Word Games (Book Worm, Flip Words). He uploaded the Alpha Betty app onto his Smart Phone. And, he even did a Word Search book and Flip Words during blood transfusions at OHSU, when there in December 2018:

Bob doing a Word Search book.

Bob doing Flip Words on the iPad.

But, our favorite pastime was reading all the 6 Jean M. Auel Earth’s Children novels; starting with ‘The Clan of the Cave Bear’, which kickstarted the series in 1980 … and I snapped the rest up at garage sales when I found them: we’d read them over and over again; the story line never got old. The 1985 third novel in the series, ‘The Mammoth Hunters’, really got to Bob – that one took him a while to finish because the storyline was so upsetting to him. And I cried the whole way through the book too: it was a very emotional storyline, and touched every nerve. We couldn’t wait to get our hands on the follow-up book to see where the story had gone. Ayla and Jondalar’s Cro-Magnon love story really captured our attention, and we found ourselves rooting for them in every book and anxiously awaiting the continuing storyline. We were sadly disappointed to learn that ‘The Land of Painted Caves’ would be the last book in the series … but at the point in time, Jean Auel was 75 years old, and ready to retire from writing.

The Clan of the Cave Bear – 1980 * The Valley of Horses – 1982 * The Mammoth Hunters – 1985 * The Plains of Passage – 1990 * The Shelters of Stone - 2002 * The Land of Painted Caves – 2011

Life, lived in real time; or fictional, like the novel plots mentioned in this post … and sung about by Gary, “ain’t always beautiful”.

But it can be interesting :-D

Life Ain’t Always beautiful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VDNMtn0t2A

MONDAY, MONDAY - CAN’T TRUST THAT DAY …

Mondays have always been a crap shoot.

But since being bumped from Wife to Widow, the untrustworthiness of Monday has been ratcheted up.

Possibly because my new life modus operandi has completely deviated from my old life’s living patterns. The most obvious and major change, is of course, that Bob is no longer here – and that significantly changes how I view, and deal with, Mondays. Bob was always my steadying factor for whatever Mondays threw at me. And back then; in my old life, as compared to what Mondays are throwing my way now, in my new life: Mondays then were pretty mild … compared to the ramped-up ordeals of Mondays now.

Mondays, always, since December 17^th, 2018 (3 days into widowhood) seem to tortuously assault my thoughts with unwanted remembrances. Mondays have become a cruel silent-movie-drama observance I don’t seem to be able to rein in and halt the reel. It’s not that I want to observe the silent viewing: it’s that my mind replays it regardless. 

Whether the Grief imp is androgynous, or not – it is a bitch just the same.

All day long.

And being held hostage to the silent showing, that fills my mind’s eye with remembrances of death/grief/trauma related images; and makes my heart feel heavy, and thump uncomfortably – makes me want to run and hide.

But there is no hiding from Grief.

That imp will find you, and plague your thoughts relentlessly until you are a pain wracked mess of sobbing flesh.

Yesterday – Sunday Funday 6 – was adventurously bold, and satisfactory enjoyable.

(https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2020/01/sunday-funday-6.html)

But this morning - like clockwork, before dawn had even lit the sky, the torture began.

Pricks into my memory cells probed the possibilities that Bob actually knew he was seriously ill and kept that fact from me. The pin-prick of hazy 7 year old memories before he retired, started the ball rolling: I’m not going to go into details. I’m just going to state what I now believe – having relived these slideshow trauma dramas for the past year: h.e.k.n.e.w.

That’s why he told me in the car as I was rushing him to ER in August 2018, “I don’t think I’ll be coming home this time, Val.”

That’s why he was able to face his impending death so calmly: he NEVER broke down. Ever. He stoically digested what the various physicians were telling him, and calmly got his spiritual situation in order.

And daily asked prayer for me.

His only concern for those 4 months he was hospitalized and undergoing rigorous testing, and that failed surgical procedure at OHSU, was to prepare me to emotionally and spiritually let him go Home.

I’m thinking he probably knew after we left Kirkpatrick’s office 7 years ago. And he never went back to another doctor. Until I forced him into the car and rushed him to Peace Health’s ER Ward on his 69^th birthday, the end of August 2018.

I believe now – being forced to watch the silent showings every Monday that he guessed how seriously ill he was. He chose to live his life full-on, no-holds-bar. And the little signs I missed then, have slowly been coming into focus; in bits and pieces, every Monday – forcing me to KNOW.

This would be the ONLY THING BOB EVER KEPT BACK FROM ME. In 44 years, this would be the only time.

He didn’t want me worried. He didn’t want me curtailing our life to settle for a life less lived. He would not give the Grim Reaper a single moment of surrender, until absolutely forced to – and even then, Bob went out under his own terms: making sure I was prepared for his exit in December 2018: there would be no sudden snatching this final death; Bob would not leave me in despair. The other two deaths (1978 & 1981), were sudden deaths, and he was returned back to life: we enjoyed each other for 37 extra years.

As a Christian, and as an adored and deeply loved Wife, I know in my widowed heart that there is nothing I could have done to change the outcome of the events that unfolded, and concluded at the waning of 2018. Neither one of us could have controlled the situations – Elohim was always in control of our lives, and of our life together: there is no arguing that fact. Bob understood that; and I understand that. But, just the same … when Grief visits me in the dark before dawn, and invades my thoughts on Mondays, {knowing} does not help.

But Elohim is compassionate.

Elohim is faithful.

And Yeshua, well acquainted with sorrow Himself, does not let my heart get overwhelmed with sadness during this healing process where I have gained enough in soul strength over the past 478 days (since the beginning of our medical nightmare), that the revelations Grief is forcing on me can’t destroy me. It just reinforces how much Bob loved me, and adds more steel to my backbone.

I am blessed to have been honored by Bob’s incredible love towards me. In all things, my husband was a dying breed: to the day he expelled his last breath, he was a man of chivalry.

Some people … and Mondays … may try to cast doubt on Bob’s character; to question his wisdom in keeping this one thing back from me, and consider that personal decision a flaw in our marriage; but I KNOW the facts of our life together. Bob always told me, and said so many times to his attendants and visiting physicians, that he considered himself lucky in love to have me for his wife. He would hold my hand as I stood beside his hospital beds, and tell them, “I’ve put my little wife through a lot, these 44 years; but she’s stuck. She must love me an awful lot. I know I love her”. And then he would squeeze my hand and smile that sexy smile at me.

And in the end, then – and at the end of every Monday, now: that love Bob honored me with is all that really matters.

It doesn’t matter that h.e.k.n.e.w.

It doesn’t matter that Grief is forcing me to know that he knew.

All that matters, is that we loved each other fiercely. And I love him still.

Physical death sucks.

Grief is a pain in the ass.

But love is powerful.

And my life is blooming again in brilliant color BECAUSE of that love, so fierce and protected.

Would it have mattered if he told me what he suspected and deemed prudent to hold back from me? All I can say to that question is - the choice was his; and I respect that. Bob did what HE THOUGHT BEST for him. For me. For us.

Mondays may be untrustworthy, but Monday’s silent slideshow stirred up by that jabbing imp Grief, can never undermine my husband’s love from me.

Bob wanted to make sure I had my wings before he walked with Yeshua through Heaven’s Pearly Gates.

It took a year for me to learn to ride the updraft.

And Bob’s love still fires my jets.

I love you, Babe.

Always.

OX