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:
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 😉
(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.
We came here a lot in the first year of our
life together.
We came here quite a bit with the grandkids.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Even when his body was shutting down due to that
cruel and rare illness (stress-induced-pancreatitis) that inevitably led
to dehydration and starvation.
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.
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.
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 😉
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.
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.
