Patty65

on Tuesday, my daughter Catherine will graduate from drexel university with a degree in film. I leave tomorrow night, steve will meet me there tuesday for the ceremony and meet Catherine for the first time. there is joy. there is pride beyond measure. but there is more that barely has words. because that pride was ron's too. he would tell everyone he saw that his daughter - what he called her despite being stepdad - was in college, in film school. he was proud of her, always. he was proud to have - at all costs - financially gotten her through college, with loans, with some of his retirement, taken early and bulk to help her and Maui Pasta. he was so excited to go to her graduation, we'd been planning it since she started college. ron had a master's degree - he fought tooth and nail to get himself through college, his family no support, to raise him out of a rough childhood... "no matter how hard it is to pay it, nobody can ever take away your education from you" he would say. she almost would not finish her last year because ron was not here to sign the loans I could not get because i had defaulted on my student loan when i had cancer 10 years ago. But she did so well there, that when I told the school the situation, she received endowment grants to cover her senior year tuition. She will be debuting her senior film, "the blank page" on monday - about a woman, on her deathbed, flashing back her life from birth. The moral - living an authentic life. the quote on her film bio reads, " we only get to be in our bodies a limited time, why not celebrate the journey instead of merely riding it until it is over? - Jen Sincero" the loss of ron has shaped her work. a key scene in this film is the loss of the woman's husband. a milestone is here. and ron is not. i'm afraid of ruining the joy with sorrow. with grief. with non-existent memories of what we had planned. don't get me wrong, i am so lucky to have steve and his love and support. but there is a gaping hole in the milestone where ron was supposed to be... how - just how - do you get through these milestones... when the unstoppable object of joy crashes into the immovable object of grief? The depths that I keep falling to between the business going down, the packing up my life, the graduation... omg. thanks for listening... please forgive me for not posting more to everyone over these last few months... patty

I've been dreading this moment, the pain, the rekindled grief. I wanted to share with you my love letter to Maui, our Customers, and Ron that I just posted on the Maui Pasta Facebook page. I want to share more. But I'm in the throes of the last 3 days of Maui Pasta, Maui. So many ways Grief washes, freshens its grip, takes me. Please send me your strength as I try to make it through the last three days of Maui Pasta, Maui. Our legal battle is over. That's all I can say. It was nasty to the bitter end. But no trial -- we settled -- it had to be over, it was not necessarily in our favor, or theirs... it is just DONE. This is a love letter to Maui.pdf

Dear Marie, I think you are right -- the depth of our love, everyone here, brings us to the depths of despair -- it was 15 months yesterday for me -- and it seems to me, it may be just my impression right now, that we carry this cloak - albeit most often invisible - of being a widow, wherever we go, whomever we are or will be... it reminds me of those license plates "combat veteran" that you see when driving around. When I see that -- I ponder the depths of what they have experienced, and I respect them for their courage amidst great suffering. And just like them, we carry on somehow. Even when we think we can't anymore. Take care, Marie, Patty

Your thoughts and support help so much. The ordeal cost us over $7,000 we don't have, that we can only add to the law suit we can't pay for. The landlords sent an electrician that pulled out all sorts of breakers from the box, about 5, that were smoldering, and said, ok, you are good to go. All our major equipment plugs were part of the damaged 5 breakers, and were of course still not working, and the landlords said their electrician said everything was fine, so anything else we wanted to do or fix was at our own expense. So we got our own electrician quote, one with 32 years experience -- he said it would cost $1000 to replace the old, broken down panel and every single breaker. And we did not need a permit to do so. We had to! It was the only way to feel safe in the business. We could not open for 3 days. We lost a couple thousand dollars worth of products, a few thousand in take-out and retail sales, etc. etc. I feel so walked all over, and like they would never, ever would have done that if Ron were here. The anger overwhelmed me. I posed my finger over a scathing text back to them, but luckily I came to my senses and just deleted the message. It would only damage our case, especially with what I wanted to write. I hold the anger in, the anger of all the injustice of Ron going, never reaching our dream... how hard he worked with no reward... how cruel it all was. Then it starts to creep into my consciousness in the form of anger at the landlords. Ron's love gave me confidence. It radiated at me, it made me strong. Maybe it is a strength I should have had on my own, but I hadn't had it on a personal level perhaps. I was proud of his love, I was proud of what I accomplished and what we accomplished together. He knew me SO well, he loved me, he knew how I thought, what I would do, we could finish each other's sentences. Either one of us could start talking about the same idea the other was only thinking about. There was a power to it all. A depth to it, after all those years, even if 10 years is not a lot to have had together. In losing it, my confidence in everything, how I do things, who I am to others, the future, my decisions, my work, my choices -- has plummeted. And I hate to admit that, cus I know the people in my world will negate those thoughts... and its NOT what I am fishing for... I'm not fishing at all. I am just trying to understand why. Why. Why. Why. Why. I am not a fearful feather, yet so often I feel like that inside now. I can put on a good face at work most of the time these days, but so often my insides feel like they are crumbling as I look around this island, so strange, so alone here, so incomprehensible that he is not here with me to boost my soul that he knew so well. It is so hard to find again. Thanks for listening to my ramble. Patty

Last night at Maui Pasta, while I was starting my teaching at the local university, my evening class, I got a call from Maui Pasta that the fire department was called, due to electrical burning smell and a very hot wall around the electrical panel. I left class to find the fire department had shut off power. "Luckily" we avoided a full out fire - my staff did. When the electrician showed up, he gave the ok to turn on partial power, but the breakers that were fried, and not tripped properly, cannot go back on, including our pasta maker and chef's refrigerator, and display refrigerator, the main components to our business. We have a FULL walk in full of products to go out for delivery. We managed to save that, The landlords want us out, the legal battle is stewing, and now he has his reason. I've talked to a cousin who is a lawyer in New York, because our lawyer is a friend - a parent from my daughter's youth - is not equipped for heavy litigation, and the lawyer who is quite brilliant to handle the June 5 Eviction Trial we are fighting will cost $10,000 for a retainer. My cousin says all sorts of stuff we need to do -- file an "order to show cause" for a "constructive eviction" because we are now unable to run the business. I've been sick in the bathroom all morning. I have no idea what we will do. I'm almost done with the fight. It looms too large. I will have to face the landlord this morning. His only defense will be to blame us, ours to blame him, and we are so out of money to fight this. Please hold me and Maui Pasta in your thoughts. Trying so hard to hold on through this nightmare. So much for saving Ron's legacy. Patty

I was able to not say a word -- despite my racing heart and shaking, which apparently nobody could see. The landlord was there, snickering - that's what my business partner said, I took the advice not to look at them - their attorney was aggressive, "objecting" to what our lawyer was saying. The judge was fair, and a trial was set for June 5. It may get pushed farther ahead if we are awarded a jury trial, which we have asked for. The judge recommended mediation, but when our lawyer asked their lawyer about it afterwords, she said that mediation was not "ordered" just "recommended" and they wanted to go straight to trial. The whole thing was awful. Sometimes I want to give up the whole business and run away. Like today. They tried to get us out immediately. The judge did not allow it. I don't know, I just don't know anymore. How much longer I can hold on. I just worked a 15 hour day with the court in the middle of it because my chef got sick. It's the nature of this monster and I'm just getting overwhelmed. My business partner is leaving on a 6 day trip to give her daughter a baby shower. Not sure how to survive, but somehow I must. Sorry for the whining I know Ron wouldn't want this but I just can't find the path to a more reasonable existence.

Gosh thanks. Its been a very long, hard grief night. Today is a first hearing on the last year of Ron's life at Maui Pasta. I'm praying it will be quick and I will be able to keep my teeth grit without saying a word. Because they would overflow with grief in how my poor Ron spent his last year in battle with these people to get our doors open. I will post what happens. Patty

We are counter-suing though! We will find out tomorrow if there is any hope for any of our arguments. I have spent over a year now, with an anger at one thing "hospice" -- unjustified, of course such an important place for the world, but for me it represented everything that is death, Ron's death. But I've just looked at that feeling, and let it be. My therapist told me it will take time for that trauma of it all to heal with time and the anger dissipate. But there is now a relationship with Ron's death, anger, and the landlords. Their negligence held us up from opening up the store for 9 months, his last year of life, all our money invested in this place and unable to open. We went through every penny of our investment money to survive, with nothing left to open the store, so we went to the ReStore and bought used counters and Ron built them from remnants just to open up. Ron and I worked so hard, every single day, to try to hold on, to the point where he would not take his herbal medicines that had saved him before and gotten him clean PET scans, because they would make him sleepy and he would not be able to work as hard. We had to work so hard because we only had a small portion of our wholesale business while we could not open the retail store for so long. I do not do anger well, I do not know how, and it comes out in bursts of overwhelm. I have trouble controlling what I say. It's intensity is new to me. That is the scary part about it. I am afraid of the rage I could feel confronting this situation in court tomorrow. It is not rational to blame the landlords for Ron's death, I know I don't REALLY blame them, but it was part of the equation, or at least in my mixed up fearful mind it is. I will find a way to show up. And hopefully keep my mouth zipped closed and let the attorneys do the talking. While Steve is back home now, I know he will be with me in spirit. I hope you all will be too. I know with certainty Ron will be. Patty

OK well. As some know, this is the reason it has been difficult to post here, yet I miss it so. I never intended to "date" again, let alone find myself in a relationship a year after my beloved Ron died - the shock, the sudden loss just 55 days long, the fact that we loved spending every minute of every day together at Maui Pasta. Even if I had a thought that maybe in 10 years I would find companionship for the "alone", I would admonish myself for such a thought. But when Steve and I found ourselves falling in love, it seemed impossible, but it seemed also that Ron and Kathy had brought us together. It is the four of us now. It was like an escalator -- we were standing completely still and yet we were moving towards each other by a force beyond us.There is not a conversation that goes by where they are not mentioned, remembered, loved. Our tears flow... mine a bit more since it is so raw. But, how do I face the world with such a thing, to my family, my staff, my customers, all those who have lived through my utter devastation by my side? Barely a year? Really? I am still working on this. As has been said in this thread, how can you be in such complete ruin and loss, and love, too? Smile, laugh, too. I don't know and yet here it is. It brings me to tears as I write this -- I think what I fear most deeply is for anyone to doubt -- for one iota of a second -- my love, devotion, devastation to and about Ron is not True, deep and endless. That every word here I have written about Ron and my pain is real and ongoing and that I miss and long for him every hour of every day. That I am still deeply grieving. That I am depressed, angry and full of anxiety from the grief and trying to live on without him by my side -- and not just the business. Especially not just the business. This, for me, is a lesson in duality. Holding two opposites at the same time. Steve is on a plane coming to Maui for a few days right now. Tonight, we will sit and watch sunset at the beach where Ron is - his eternal reef and where we held his service - and then we will go to dinner at a restaurant on the same beach and celebrate Kathy's birthday.

((((Gwen)))) Oh how proud I once was of my gardens, too. Now, just a literal overgrown jungle Do I really want it back the way it was? Would it be too hard to look at what used to be? It's just not in the cards right now... gotta eat my pride every time I pull into the driveway, looking at the disaster... Patty

OMG How scary for you Marita! I too ask for Ron's help... I had been a single mom for 9 years before I met and married Ron... and I was so happy to have someone to ask for help... to take over tasks... used to do everything myself... now things are falling apart in shambles in the house I am never at. I guess I COULD do the yard blah blah. Gosh I just can't get the will to. Besides too much work, the memories of him doing it -- I haven't quite gotten past it enough. So glad too that everything worked out ok! Hugs, Patty

That is written in the lease that we have the option, but it is written in to buy it for 1.7 Million! It is not worth it, the building is actually illegal in so many ways, these are really landlords who try to get away with everything. The only way we got the water permit was for the landlord to "promise" to get the whole building legal again, which they never did. They are billionaires as well. I've never been part of a court case with a jury, but that is what is being recommended. Since I was young, the thing about death that always was... unfathomable I guess... is all the knowledge that is lost... a lifetime of acquiring, then gone. All the things Ron knew and felt... just gone. At least from sight. If there was only a way to tap into all of that. I could so use that right now. I knew this was coming. It's just. How to survive now that it is here.

Thank you Marg. I have recently talked with my therapist about how I have felt so unlike who I used to be through all of this. So short with people at work, I look at them blankly without feeling... I say things without filtering through my "nice" filter anymore. blunt so as to feel mean. I don't like who I've become. Maybe I have to use that to my advantage with this legal situation.

I have been gone from here a long time, several months, but it is almost exactly a year ago that I joined this site. There are several reasons why it has been hard to post. It is also hard to explain those reasons for right now, if that is ok, I will just let that be. I have passed the year mark of Ron's death. I have passed the year mark of his service. And four days later, last week, Maui Pasta was served its eviction notice to the property Ron and I dreamed of and rented a year and a half prior to his passing. It is not for lacking to pay our rent. It is about a dispute over them raising our rent while at the same time disrupting our sales and business by putting For Sale signs all over the property. And it is about the first 10 months of our lease in which we couldn't use the property due to issues on the property we had no control over... and rent abatement as we started up finally, which they are renegging on. It's just that. I'm hurting. I'm aching. Ron and I had always talked about these "what ifs". All the documents I am trying to find to prove our case are ones we did together. I don't want to be without him in court next Monday. Tears my heart out to think of and go through everything we've been through here. Looking through all those documents, our "dynamic duo" "two musketeers" fight we had to get this place going. I don't want to face this. I don't want to face a move of the company, I don't want to face any of it. There are so many people who helped save Maui Pasta since Ron died. Sometimes I want to Run far away from it all, but I have to do the right thing, and make sure the investors' money is protected. At the same time, we just got into Safeway, and other stores, and we cannot keep up with demand. And this hits, and there is just no place to move the business to, and the landlords are blocking and threatening to keep us from signing new leases, which will be hard enough given it has been such a rough financial year without Ron. Every second of dealing with it feels like torture and reliving what should have been. Oh, it hurts. I never used to exactly understand what it meant for the second year to be so hard. For that reality to just dig in so deeply -- or more deeply than I thought it could even go. For Denial to still hit me, and make me rattle my head in disbelief, shaking off a reality that just cannot be. It still can be so hard to believe, that those dreams that we were working so hard for, a simple easier life, a business to be proud of together, that they have vanished. Poof. Gone. Oh how I need my Ron to do this court fight with me, he would know just what to do, he knows these landlord jerks, he had ideas and was even planning for this contingency, he would be able to fight them to help me save what little we have left of our dream. If that is what I want, I just don't know anymore. Thank you for listening. I've missed you all so. Patty

For a long time, Marty, long before all of this year, my therapist would explain -- how feelings that seem opposite can coexist together. To be in anguish and rejoice all at once? It seems such an abstract theory at best. I want to be here. I need to be here. I need here. I almost feel guilty to, yet the grief is still sharp and biting and everything it can only be. Yet my love for Steve is an unexpected rainbow -- it exists by the volition of the beautiful rays of sunrise catching the mist of rain after a devastating downpour. I will still keep trying to find my way here. Because I love you all, you all have saved my life, in the most ultimately alone and lost days that have ever existed for me. Much, much love, Patty

"I love you. It is as simple and as complicated as that." I have gone from here, And I am still here. I am in deep anguishing grief, And I am in love. They are opposite, and they are the same. Am I still a "widow" if I am in love? Can I find joy and hope with new love, And sob in anguish for my lost love, In the same day, the same hour, the same minute? With a note of music or a glance of memory? I have never known the anguish of this past year, I never knew it could exist, it did exist. I still fall deeply, and I want to run, to die, to crumble. I wonder how I could be loved in this state, And yet I am, and I love. I miss him with every fiber of my being I miss everything we were, and Everything we were to become. I ache for the life he deserved, And lost too young. His bravery in death Is my bravery to live. I have been graced by an open window, To love that does not die, And can still exist, here and now. Can this be true? It must, because here I am. As simple and as complicated as that.

Thanks, Steve. Some days, I just don't think I can go on with all this anymore. Today is one. Just want to go running and screaming as far away as I can, and its not far enough since I live on an island. The bad-now and the bad-last-year are colliding. Hard to reach out. Hugs everyone.

Hi AB, Last week in therapy I confessed how much I have been just overwhelmed with memories of last year at this time. Today is 11 months for me. And with work, my concentration, all my self-proclaimed failures, how hard I am on myself. She told me of a story -- I think it is Greek in origin. We go through these horrible traumas, and it is an arrow that is shot in our heart. As it lay there within us, another one comes, but it is from ourselves... the arrow of our reactions to our own pain from the first arrow, the arrow of guilt or blame or 'we should be doing better with an arrow in our heart'. Our goal is to not let that second arrow in. The first one was plenty. It is not an easy task, but since then I have been thinking alot about the image of that second arrow. You are not a failure--- you are, we all are, terribly, terribly injured. Take good care, Patty

Hugs, Maryann... I'm so glad you are ok. I hate storms without Ron. We had one too the other night, I heard all sorts of things flinging around and dropping... I did not go and look. How did your Dr's appt go? Patty

I don't either -- in my daily world, if I have to go to a store for work, I survive it. Other than that, it is straight to work, straight to home (or therapy), no extra stops - ever. Stopping at the ATM yesterday was a big ordeal. My therapist says, when the pain of doing something is less than the pain of not doing it -- damn this 'alone' is so painful either way -- then I will do it. Until then, I'm just letting it be.

That's so good that you could laugh and not feel guilty, Wolfskat! So many times I have felt guilty... and sometimes just that it is just wrong... wrong to smile, wrong to laugh... even in my need to greet customers. It's like, in a world turned dark and upside down and cut in half, how could I be smiling? But I know Ron wants me to laugh again. I just know it. Because a real, guiltless smile is an echo of our love. And precious and rare in this grief struggle. I think "guilty" is just the broken promise of "should" and in an ideal world, we'd just jettison all those "shoulds" away. It's the last thing we need on this path. Patty

Such, such a beautiful Heart, Steve... Thank You. Yes, Marg, she is a cracker jack. I thought for sure she would want to bow out of the business now, but she doesn't. Sometimes I wonder if anyone will believe me, as the drama and triggers and things going wrong won't stop. When the business was failing at hospice, and Ron, and the car was stolen, even hospice could hardly believe it. Sometimes I feel cursed... Everyone, stay away from Patty, she's just cursed! Sometimes I think Maui Pasta is lethal. And basically, I am Maui Pasta. Maybe I should just stop. I don't know. I think the numbness of helping my partner at the same hospital as Ron is wearing off. I just want a break. When I have alone time, last-year-now pours in. This is like the endless carousel ride from hell here lately, and I JUST want off. Sorry. Will try to stop the tears, still at work. After all, we are all going through this nightmare in our own journeys of loss.

Just need to vent this horrible saga, with such a fear that Maui Pasta just can't survive this much drama. I really could lose what Ron and I worked so hard for. Or have to start completely over, with just a recipe book under my arm. Every day I struggle with my own anxiety when money troubles or landlord troubles show up -- which has literally been every day. The landlords want us out because they want to sell. They are trying to evict us based on a dispute about raised rent when they put a "for sale" sign on our building which damages sales every day, among a million other things. Sometimes I really feel they think they can do this because Ron isn't here anymore. The man isn't here anymore, how can the woman possibly run the business by herself? Maybe not. Sure feels that way. Last weekend, they randomly kicked us out of our employee parking lot to re-stripe it, and randomly cut our number of parking spaces in half, so our employees would not be able to park. then today, one of the landlords came by to inspect -- inside and out. Their biggest complaint -- that I don't communicate enough with them. Huhhhh? Why would I want to when they are so hostile, and besides which, I've communicated with hardly anyone here in my grief. besides, our lawyer said not to! Outside, she tells my employees (I refused to be in her presence, per our lawyer), that they have to remove their cars. I told them not to, we have a right to those spaces. Some move their cars anyway in fear of being towed, because a TOW TRUCK shows up! My business partner goes out there, and starts videoing. Long story short, the tow truck driver interacts with her taking offense to the videoing and touches her person in an angry state and gets in her face. She calls the police. After the police leave, my business partner has a panic attack, and she has a heart problem, and I am rushing her to the ER. The same ER ron landed one year ago. We were two rooms down from the horrid spot I heard the news about Rons brain tumors after he collapsed. My business partner is OK. I don't even know how to begin to recover. I just want peace. I just want to heal. I just want my Ron back to protect me and help me. Or at least be out of trauma enough to feel his spirit near me. We are obviously going to have to move, and we don't have the money to move. I have to lean on those I Love to help me hold on. It's so damn hard to have Maui Pasta in jeopardy at the same time Ron was leaving me last year now. Because those memories, they flood. And flood and flood. Thanks for the vent Patty

Yes, Kevin, It was just so bright this morning, I took a picture of it. Here it went had a mystical interaction with the clouds as if a message. The early morning for me too is the part of the day that I can bake alone at the kitchen and listen to my music, and it gives me strength to get through the day when it crumbles around me. I count on it.