KISSES FROM HEAVEN

Yesterday I went into town to the Dollar Tree Store to get some flowers for Memorial Day arrangements to take to Eden Valley:

Assortment of silk flowers for Memorial Day Arrangements for 3 family plots: Bob’s grandparent’s, his father, and ours – where Bob’s earthly remains now are.

There was only 1 cemetery vase, so I snapped it up to place at Dad’s headstone placement; and I improvised with a vase to place at Grandma & Grandpa’s headstone placements – the improvision is a bit gaudy, but it’s the only thing I found that I could use: so, I bought it and asked Bob’s sister, Merry, to drill a hole in the bottom that I could affix a sturdy plastic straw through to poke into the ground so it wouldn’t blow away …

FLOWER HOLDERS. Bob Sr. & Grandma-Grandpa Smalley

As I was leaving Merry’s with my improvised cemetery vase, I noticed her front flowerbeds – there was a new arrangement in the upper corner:

I think this is an ornamental Dogwood tree. Very pretty.

Various flower arrangements in this border.

This used to be nicely pom-pommed tree, but after Merry’s injury a couple years ago, it has not been trimmed back; and Merry calls this her 'punk rock tree' now. LOL

I like the bright green contrast here.

I didn’t visit the cemetery last year for Memorial Day because I was a new widow, and I still had Bob’s Cremains Box on our dresser where it was the last thing my eyes would see it every night, and the first thing my eyes would see every morning. Bob’s Celebration of Life was August 30^th, 2019 ...

(https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2019/08/between-now-and-then-until-i-see-you.html).

But this year, I will be going to Eden Valley Cemetery on Memorial Day to visit 3 family plots: Grandma & Grandpa Smalley, Bob’s Father’s placement, & our plot where Bob’s earthly remains now lie:

Grandma & Grandpa Smalley plot. I loved Bob's Grandma - she liked me; and she was good to us.

Dad's headstone. I need to make a point to keep this plot up too when I come to visit our plot. I loved Bob's Dad.

Bob’s spirit isn’t at the cemetery; but I still want to honor the remembrance of the earthly vessel I loved – and that his spirit loved me so well with.

After I got back home, and was putting things away, my middle SIL texted me some pictures of Bob, and I just wanted to look at the pictures … and remember the timeframe they represented: so I did not post a post here yesterday.

My eyes were starved – they were hungrily eating up his features in every picture.

Hebbie (Bob’s father’s youngest brother), my Bob, & Bob’s brother Ralph. Eden Valley. I like seeing how Bob was as a child. This picture made me laugh - I can just imagine 3 boys around 3 ducks ;-)

1961-62. Bob & his siblings: Ralph, Kerry, Merry & Bob. Bob was always smiling. Always ... from the moment I met him until his last day on earth. Always smiling.

1962 – Bob & his siblings: Bob - Merry - Ralph – Kerry (maybe).

1963 - June. Grandma Smalley, Bob, Bob Sr. ... don’t know who the other one is. I don’t know what’s happening in this pic, but my Bob is wearing his frustrated expression.

1963-64. Bob & his family. Merry, Bonnie, Bob Sr., Bob (about 13 or 14; there’s a 10 YR dif between him and Kerry), Kerry, Rose & Ralph. Cathlamet

1966 - August. Bob holding Rosie, Kerry & Bob Sr. Also, the red-white '56 Ford. Upper end of Cathamet property. Bob owned the Ford when we met in 1974, and we had it until 1978.

1973. Bob & Alex. Bob & Rose's Rosburg house. Bob & Gloria had separated for good around Thanksgiving in 1973. Bob and I met in March 1974; 4 months later.

Bob Sr's full-dressed-Harley: once Bob found out I loved being on a motorcycle, he borrowed this motorcycle every other weekend while we were dating in 1974. We took it to Mt. St. Helen’s, Longbeach, or on a circular roadtrip from Longview-Longbeach-Astoria-Longview. It was a nice, cushy ride :-D

1974 – August 27^th. Wedding Pic with Bob's parents. Happiest time of my life.

1975. Bob & Rose's 25th Anniversary. Bob and I had been married about 10 or 11 months; Stacey was still an infant. Brenda was 2 weeks older. Alex was living with us because Gloria was on a military base in Germany with her 2^nd husband.

1978 (1st time Bob had died: after leg surgery to repair a broken thigh bone, a blood clot passed through his heart and killed him right in front of me during visiting hours) – Both Bob’s on crutches (Bob Sr. hurt his leg at work). Bob, Bob Sr., Kerry, and Grandpa Henry Smalley. Bob’s parent’s house in Longview.

1980. Smalley Reunion. Rosburg Hall. Grandpa Henry Smalley died in 1981. And Bob's job started taking out-of-county logging bids - Bob was living away from home 5 days a week, coming home Friday nights and leaving again Sunday afternoons. Bob also died (for unknown reasons) in September of 1981 - he was dead for 25 minutes: 2 ambulances coded him (he died on Toutle/Longview County Line). 

. 

1982 (a few months following bob's 2nd death: he was dead for 25 minutes/doctor's never did find out why he died and was resurrected on gurney headed to mortuary). Stacey, 7-Bob, 33-Alex, 12 & me, 26. Bob’s parent’s house in Longview - this was our first "outing". Bob had worked hard during self-isolation to learn to talk fluently and coherently. Doctors told me to "find a good nursing home Mrs. Hargand, your husband was dead for 25  minutes: he will be in a vegetative state the rest of his life" - DOCTORS WERE WRONG!

1984. Stacey, 9. Me & Bob. Easter at Bob’s parent’s house in Longview

1996. Rose, Bob Sr., Alyna (6 MO), Bob & me. Merry’s house in Longview. Doctors had told Stacey at 16, that she'd never have natural children of her own ... GOD HAD OTHER PLANS. Doctors were wrong about Bob, and doctors were wrong about Stacey: Bob had a full recovery from his 2nd death; and Stacey had 2 children NATURALLY - without fertilization procedures. ELOHIM WAS FAITHFUL to restore my husband to me & to give me grandchildren :-D

1998. Our 1 and only attempt at getting the family (both sides together for our own Family Reunion (NO ONE from Bob’s family came, though they were all invited): it went well with those that came, but with Bob's family's blatant snub, we never attempted another family gathering. Our daughter, Stacey, Cody, Me, Bob, our granddaughter Alyna (18 MO), Bob’s son Alex, Chelsea. Rainbow Park, WA

2002. Bob, Me, & Alyna at Bob & Rose's in Longbeach. I don’t know why we were so happy … but, it must have been hilarious. LOL

2003 Family gathering at Merry's house. Alex, Bob & granddaughter’s, Brianna & Alyna; I was home with allergies that had me laid low. Bob brought 1 of Michelle's cat's kitten’s home.

2003. Bob - family gathering at Merry's house.

2004. Bob, Alyna, Me at Bob & Rose's in Longbeach.

2005. Us at Bob’s parent’s property in Kelso. My wolf, Precious, 6 MO-Me-Bob-Alyna-Merry. We had gone grocery shopping in Vancouver ... and came home with a new car for me ;-) Bob was a good man; and he always treated me like his Queen.

2006. Bob, Bonnie & niece Michelle’s 1^st son, great-nephew, Christopher. Merry's house.

Hargand Reunion at Cliff’s in Warrenton, OR

My eyes were fed, and my heart hurt … but in a good way: I didn’t cry. I smiled. A LOT. I think I even laughed once ;-)

Receiving these pictures was like getting kisses from Heaven :-D

ECHOES

Everyone is having them now … not just the widowing.

Everyone is missing their old life … not just the widowing.

Everyone wants to escape their houses to distance themselves from the silent, haunting, echoes that reverberate loudly of the walls that are hemming them in … not just the widowing.

Echoes of a life they once knew.

Echoes of happiness they once enjoyed.

Echoes of memories that are not enough to live on when life in the present must be lived to its fullest.

Echoes of yesterday that threaten to steal the joys of today.

People today with relationships, marriages, and families still intact are getting just a small taste of what the widowing experience every second of every day … sans broken relationships, dead marriages, and distancing families, that 95% of the widowing have been going through for months and years; that have nothing at all to do with covid-19.

Death happens.

Death was happening before covid-19: and death will happen following covid-19.

Death happening “in the now” because of covid-19 is not unique; it’s not even, historically, “extraordinary” – despite what political talking heads and their owned media sources continually bark out at the public.

Death happens.

Spouses die. Parent’s dies. Grandparent’s die. Aunts & Uncles die. Cousins die. Children die. Friends die. Neighbors die – everyone eventually dies.

And echoes are the result.

Widows and widowers are not the sole recipients of echoes.

But sadly. The widowing are almost always let to flounder alone.

Alternately clinging to, and actively distancing themselves from, echoes.

It’s a delicate dance that demands occasional sit-outs.

Silent, haunting, echoes that reverberate loudly off the walls that are hemming them in due to arrogant, ignorant, overzealous politicians who have irrationally distanced themselves from the realities of the orders they impose on the already suffering socially distanced.

Political orders putting a Nation under house arrest that have not stopped the ever-growing echoes across the Nation.

Echoes the widowing, all too often, cannot effectively distance themselves from as they are forced to endure hours, days, weeks, months – even years – in their homes without reprieve from encroaching memories.

Prodding echoes of a life they once knew.

Probing echoes of happiness they once enjoyed.

Cherished echoes of memories that are not enough to live on when life in the present must be lived to its fullest.

Bittersweet echoes of yesterday that threaten to steal the joys of today ... when we are fordidden by governor decree to leave the confines of the house under threat of incarceration.

Healing cannot effectively take place when we are politically hamstrung from distancing that really matters.

Echoes that may very well be more damaging to the widowing than the pandemic the politicians are claiming they need saved from.