KATPILOT

Those days are always hard Polly. In the future it will happen again that something will need to be dealt with that connects you to Richard and with that comes a flood of memories. I have learned to appreciate those times because it reminds me of just how important they were and still are in our lives. That love never ends. "ever" We could write chapters about this subject right? To love again, to live again is a very big deal. If there is one thing that gets me it is the fear of loss. We tend to be gun shy when we've lost before and lost with such pain. The hard part is allowing yourself to be vulnerable. I know I keep referencing the book "The Road Less Traveled" but in it is a chapter "Risk of Loss". I know that you cannot love without risking loss. How you accept that is thing. For me, that is my biggest challenge. There are people right here on this site who are grieving for the second time. Is it courage or perhaps just not stopping our inner voice? I know I have very little courage. I also know I allow things to just happen. Kathy always said, "If it was meant to be, then it will be". I get that now. When I surrender myself to fate or destiny, life does indeed happen. In fact, no matter what we do or feel, life will continue to happen.

It looks like we have a place secured and the POD with Patty's kitchen in it is being delivered to the space tomorrow. That of course means the horses will leave the gate and we will understand what "busy" looks like. Speaking of anniversaries, we never get over them no matter how long it goes on. Those are days we should remember with love and joy as the day they chose to spend the rest of their lives with us. You would think it hard with a complicated life of new marriage and love but somehow it is not. It does however bring about a feeling of joy more than sadness. I remember two years ago I was in Maui for my anniversary. I know I had driven past Maui Pasta during that time unaware what was soon to happen. I was not yet connected to a man inside who was soon to die of cancer yet not even aware of it. I only new my own loss being on the island knowing it was one of Kathy's favorite places on earth. Funny how lives are connected and destined for something so incredible. I had only been there once on Kathy's fiftieth birthday and if not for her most likely would never have been there. It is interesting to think about the two of us both with our hearts torn out and never looking to find another love yet brought together on this very grief support website.

So much has happened since I last posted and free time has become quite a rare commodity. Hopefully we will have time in the future but opening Maui Pasta is no small task. Hopefully we will have a lease that we can live with by the end of next week. Patty is understandably gun shy when it comes to landlords. I wonder why. In dealing with simultaneous grief and love we had our first experience when my wedding anniversary came up. So we went out to dinner instead of years of me going out by myself. Those days will still come and they will always be a part of our lives so it helps that we can be together for each other. I am grateful that I do not have to deny that part of my life. This Saturday we will go out to celebrate the one year anniversary of the day we met. That would be the day before last years art auction. I cannot believe how fast this year has gone. Who would believe that all this could happen.

Yes Tom that first year birthday is tough. I would never have made it if not for my family and since it was also Christmas which was so important to Kathy and I that I got through the whole season. (lot of tears but I got through it.) Sometimes we have to lean on others to survive. And that's just okay. Happy birthday.....just the same.

Sometimes things don't make sense. We are so sorry for you Butch and your family

I love that cause it is so true. Some time in the past I looked in the mirror after months of tears and I didn't even recognize the face as being me. Years after that I looked in the mirror and realized that I looked different. I was a product of Steve and Kathy. She changed my face. Grief changed my face but I don't mind the mileage. It spoke to a man in love with an angel. Somehow I see her in my own image. Or do you think that years of grief made me go mad?

I know what you mean George. Kathy made me a better person. No one else could ever have gotten to me like that but I took away those lessons she taught me and try to hold onto them still. By my third year of being widowed I started to notice I was slipping back into some old behavior patterns. I didn't have her with me any longer to give me reason to try harder. I became angry with my lazy self for I knew I was a better person than who I was returning to. I stopped the trend and held on to why I liked being who she helped me become. Now I am changing again. I am with a person who elevates me even higher for it comes with understanding what love and beauty is. And I want it. I look across a room at my new wife and wonder where I will be tomorrow. When I was a younger man I hated change. Now I embrace it and I love how life keeps evolving around me. I remember a saying I first came upon in those early weeks of my grief's journey. It said in part that I will survive until I survive and one day I will find myself alive again. I find myself now still very much alive. Yes George the best way to honor Rose Anne is to let her see you growing in life. We must never give up for one day we will discover that we are indeed alive again and that can put a big smile on your face even if it comes with a tear in your eye.

Thinking of you Butch. Our prayers are with you and your family. Patty and Steve

That's a really good thought. Once you have been there yourself you always wonder what any stranger might be enduring. One who has never lost someone would never think to cut a person some slack. I wore my brides engagement ring around my neck for a while after she died and most people recognized why I did that. They tend to give you a little kindness when they know you are grieving. It doesn't work on every person though. There are always those kind of jerks. Someone posted this before on our site but it rings quite true in this case too.

Thank you Marty and do stay safe. We are all here for each other.

Things change so quickly. It looks like Irma is now going to effect Sarasota big time.

I am married again but the ring stays on and so does my brides ring from her marriage. So the four of us are connected and it could never have been any other way. When Patty and I married on a beach last month the reverend said something I specifically asked he not. He said "Till death do you part". I actually smiled holding back a laugh thinking how little he knew. A ring is a symbol. It says so many things but the most important thing it says to me is "For all of time". I never took that ring off after Kathy died except for Patty to have it engraved and I replaced a stone in Ron's ring to Patty so we share those rings between the four of us. It seems so right. It feels so right because it was Kathy and Ron who brought us together.

Oh how I get this. I am living in a foursome too.. And I look at Kathy's urn on Patty's dresser along with a piece of Ron's ashes and I think about the odyssey that I am on. The one big, big, big advantage I have is that I am fortunate to be able to share that journey with another person lost forever in their love for someone they love so deeply. You realize that you have become part of something bigger than yourself. It's a sharing without feeling jealous. If anything the love for Kathy and Ron just leads us deeper into a love between the two of us. Polly you wonder if they had anything to do with you meeting? Let me just say I believe it. I saw it in dreams. I felt it in waking moments. We still feel their presence about us. Being the fatalist that I am, I know in my heart that there is a reason for all this. I just don't get to know the specifics. I gave up questioning why months ago. I'm just living the dream.

One of the hardest things about the business of grieving is what we have to hear over and over again. I have learned to smile when I hear those comments now because.... What can you say? The more years that pass bring more bewildered expressions from the "over it yeters?" and so why bother to explain. The beauty of true love is how nothing can kill it. Our memories of the love we shared stays with us and so it fuels grief. That is not as bad as it sounds for even though we may be stronger as the years pass, some form of grief remains and perhaps when we accept it, we can let the good memories control how we go on. I am happier now than I have been in a long, long while and with good reason but my new bride and I will always talk about how we miss them and give each other a hug when it hurts. I cannot see that ever ending. There is a trick and a learned behavior in how we deal with those comments but remember this. There will always be those in our lives that get it. Hang on to those people for they wear a badge, a very special badge.

I love it! We draw our strength and courage from wherever we can. And yes, sometimes it has to be enough.

The last two weeks have been wonderful and as I said to Patty, "We deserve a little happiness". July 18th 2017 Our day. This begins a new chapter of our lives and even though we parted in San Francisco yesterday I will be going back to Maui on August 4th to bring my bride back home for good. On August 9th the pod will be picked up containing the Maui Pasta kitchen bringing it to it's new home here in Scottsdale and we already found a place with a good landlord and five months free rent to get it established. What a difference a continent makes.

It has been a busy week so I missed this on Friday. A great post by Kelly. I am happy for her for it takes courage to go down that path. 　She wrote: "Its such a strange feeling. I have been in love before. My husband was my best friend, my forever love. But I am different now. I have crawled out of the grief of this loss as a different person than the one I was when I married Don." 　 Different would be a good way to describe someone after six years along grief's journey. We are not the same person who was left behind those years ago. A good thing to remember however is how we may have crawled out of despair we live forever in a valley of loss. That loss can never be erased by time or even new love. I spent much of yesterday cleaning out dressers and cabinets to make room for Patty in this house, our house. Last trip with Patty we took another large load of Kathy's clothes to the White Dove keeping just a few items which mean so much to me. They now hang in a closet along with a few special items of Ron's and it seems simply perfect. When I was cleaning out some more things yesterday however I came upon a stash of hidden triggers I forgot were there. At the same time I was doing that Patty was melting down with her own stash of triggers clearing out her house on Maui to pack and discard. Since we Skype almost all the time we could share with each other the anguish we were feeling. It doesn't go away. There will always be times when it hits you even after six years but you have to know that going in. If you can't share that with your new love I would fear what that implies. Patty and I are not the kind of people who can keep emotions a secret. We also have to have those little meltdowns to be ours alone. Sure you can talk about it but they are still yours to own. 　In reading Kelly's blog I remembered her years ago, newly widowed and hardly looking for a relationship. We do change however and for her it seems she has been looking for such a relationship for a couple of years now. That is her path. That is her grief. Mine was so different in that it was not at all what I wanted or sought..... But it happened just the same. Now I realize something quite important about what I feel. It came from my discovery of the snow globe Kathy and I bought at Disneyland when we got married. It is also a music box that played a song which dug deep into my heart. I have been aware for sometime that like Kelly the love I have for Patty came quickly yet was not rushed. What I also realized is that I love Patty more deeply than anyone I have ever loved before and I know why that happened. Kathy taught me how to love and had she lived it would have been deeper and stronger than at the moment she left. If it had not been for her I would not have been able to go deeper today. She made this all possible and it does not discount or lessen the love I have and always shall for her.

Great way to look at it Darrel. One step at a time. That's a good way to work your way up. I find that taking breaks after each little climb renewed my energy to climb even higher.

Good words Kay. We do and must take what we can and leave the rest. I like hearing about George and the man he was. Smart guy. That's why he connected with you. I know from my own life's experiences that I would never have been right for Kathy had I not grown the way I had before we met. The same feeling goes with Patty for we both were so different just a few years ago and how we grew to be open to melting into one another. I'd like to think I am learning to be a better person and pray I don't quit striving for that. I laugh to think of the tools I used as a young man. Took a long time to realize that you don't turn a screw with a hammer.

Most of my adult life I have employed a simple concept of using the right tool for the job. I enjoyed working on my cars and my airplane doing as much as I could do with the knowledge I had gained and I have collected quite a few specialty tools to do just one certain task such as say a torque wrench for the correct pound pressure for different bolts. I preface what I am about to say to that single concept. Over my griefs journey I found tools in this same fashion to help me grow and hopefully be less sad. Early on I found grief counseling and then support groups. Soon after I found books and articles that helped me deal with the loss I was enduring. Then of course I discovered this wonderful place and shared while listening to others my experience and sorrow. Going on seven years now I can say the machine is running much better but it still isn't perfect. It still hurts and I still miss her. What is different is that I have grown and I am stronger. I don't cry often but I know now that if I do let myself have that cry it becomes a tool in itself. I took a class in becoming a grief support group facilitator recently with the idea of adding another tool in my griefs tool box. What it did was remind me that everyone's grief is different and the same tools for me don't always fit others. It is like the difference between metric and standard wrenches or a phillips screwdriver as opposed to a flat head, or nitrogen as opposed to oxygen. "The right tool for the job". I took the class to learn what not to say but I learned even more about myself. I learned that in trying to help others I was helping myself. I picked up a few new tools to help me let go of guilt and after all these years I think it is about time. But time is the thing you see. In this class I was instructed on how to recover from grief in eight short weeks. Egad.! That was where we parted company. I understood the concept that was being directed but I knew in my heart of hearts that you just can't pay money, do the homework, read the books, and walk away healed.Grief is not a bomb you can disarm by following the instructions. I was the only member of the class not there to find a new source of income so I kind of stood out. I wanted to stand up and say that after the years I have had since my wife died I would never change a thing. For me a lesson that you take time learning is a lesson well learned. Sure it hurt but I kept on working and even in my sorrow I found ways to smile. When I was told about the seven lies in grief and one in particular was "Time heals all wounds", it had me starting to stand up, say "That's it. I'm out of here", and walk away from it. I'm glad I chose to stay. Time though is a funny thing. It may not heal "all wounds", but it was most certainly my friend and time allowed me to heal. It was right for me. However we choose to learn, grow, and yes........heal, we must do what is right for us. We need to go to the tool store and find what our machine needs. One thing is for certain. We are not new machines. We are older, tried and tested, and always remember. They don't make them like this anymore.

Just a friendly reminder that the donate button could always use a little pushing. We did good with the auction but it is only one way to help fund this discussion group. Friends let's always remember what we would be like without it. Bless you all for what you are going through and what you do to help each other.

Marita that is about the most profound description I have ever heard describing this sanctuary.

As I write this Patty is half way across the pond heading back to Maui to start loading the pod to ship the restaurant and her house to Scottsdale. She made it through her daughters graduation which I was blessed with the chance to see. I met her daughter for the first time. Ron had paid for her college education and I know it hurt Patty for him not to be there to see but I think he was and I bet he did see. He was proud as heck. I am certain of that. Now comes the next hard part which is the dismantling of home and business. I know this will be a difficult time as well but by mid August it and she will be calling this place home. Of course I didn't tell her much about the heat. It's supposed to reach 120 by Wednesday but who can tell right? In four weeks we will be married on a beach in Maui and that is like a dream come true...........a dream neither of us had, wanted, or expected but it happened just the same. I know all of this happened for a reason, a reason bigger than ourselves.

The fact is Ron will be there Patty. He wouldn't miss it for the world. In reference to the "the business going down" ? Not hardly. Maui Pasta and Ron's dream continue. It's just moving to a new location. In the words of Jim Lovell, commander of Apollo 13, "Our mission was considered a successful failure". Maui Pasta will indeed fly again. I wanted to post this picture at Ron's ceremony when his ashes were placed in the warm Maui ocean and I hope you don't mind because it shows the love and the loss for both you and your daughter for a good and loving man. He was for certain the father she knew and loved.

That is so cool Laura. Does she need a social security number now?