Patty65

Oh Gwen, yes... Protection and feeling protected, even knowing that I lived plenty of years as a single mom on my own until my daughter was 10, is something I struggle with daily. Monday night, teaching the night class that I do, I left my keys in the media center while xeroxing homework for the students -- and did not realize it until it was 9PM and the campus was dark and empty. "Ron would have picked me up" I thought, panicking. And not even judged, knowing my forgetfulness. Last night there was flash floods everywhere, that I had to drive in to get to therapy. "Ron would have driven me," I thought, slowing down through the almost two feet of water on the roads. It's so insanely miserable to know nobody has our backs anymore. Depression, illness, scary situations, and just plain life. Just to know they are worrying about us, that in this physical world, they care, they love enough to worry and protect. And the thing is, we know first hand how dangerous this world is in all those things, we experienced it to the bitter end. I guess no wonder it is so scary and miserable.

Yes, she is... This life is such an intense journey. The right is at the service, when my friend was playing "Anticipation" the song that spontaneously played by itself on Day 3. She is the love in my heart that keeps me going through this now.

((((hugs)))) WolfsKat. We are all here with you today. I hope you can feel that.

I can't get rid of Ron's truck either. He was SO proud of it. It has new tires. The big off-road ones that he wanted. When I finally gave in and he got them, boy did he beam for a week, SO proud of them. "Arrr, Arrr, Arr!" he'd laugh, like the guy on Home Improvement. We had just finished paying it off. The last resort was going to be to sell it to pay for (part of) my daughter's last year of college, but the school came through with Endowments and Scholarships because of our situation. I also found out that the $160K in Parent Plus student loans he took out on my daughter's behalf for the first three years of her college are now TOTALLY forgiven because he is gone. I literally high fived the air above my head when I found out. He would have loved that I don't have to stress about that for years to come. He had no life insurance. The truck is hard to drive emotionally. The smell of it. The memories. But it does come in handy for the big pasta deliveries... the big off-island deliveries no longer fit in my red "pasta-mobile" Kia Sportage that he bought me on Valentine's Day the year before.

I have no idea for how long -- but how can we not have it on the forefront of our every thought? It still is for me. All around me all the time. One day about a month ago, I let my business partner take me to this place called "The Sacred Garden". It was to do a full moon labyrinth walk in a giant labyrinth. We didn't end up staying for it because there were too many people and I started losing it a bit. But before I did, I noticed that every time I tried to open my mouth to say something about the evening or event or place, the sentence was going to begin with "Ron..." or end with his name, or be about him or whatever. I could not be in that moment, maybe because I am still in his, or our, moments. I finally zipped my mouth closed and just listened, nodded, and struggled through one of my first "social" events. The details paramount in my mind are sure to be mundane to others who do not understand how all-encompassing this loss is. The pain and endlessness is so maddening, but I'm told if I get mad at being miserable and grief-stricken and in pain, then who am I really hurting? Only myself, and none of us don't deserve any more hurt. We don't even deserve this hurt.

When my daughter Catherine was 9, she had "Historic Halloween" at her Montessori school. She wanted to be Jane Goodall. So, going too far as usual, we made a life-sized chimp out of paper mache, lol. I sent pictures to Jane Goodall. She wrote back! I have it somewhere.... Someday I'll find my way back to my art therapy...

From my journal last week... I felt the need to sleep on his side of the bed. Without thinking, I said to him - "you MUST be here, I NEED you here." I heard in my head, so clearly, "I am here." "What is it like??" I said in my head, reaching to turn off the light and hoping I could find a vision of him. I felt him though. "I can't wait for you to see" he said. The way I felt him around me enveloping me gave me a flash of the Knowing moment -- the moment we first met in person, after a 3 month phone romance -- the moment I knew he was my soulmate. I said, "Show me!" He said, "Watch Avatar - the trees..." I had wanted to watch that movie again, but the love story, the memories of watching it with him... I had taped it but decided I couldn't handle it. But I watched it. And cried. And I saw the trees -- the trees whose roots are all connected on the whole planet, all connected to the Tree of Souls. Yet even connected to the Tree of Souls, Sigourney Weaver's character could not be saved. She was not strong enough. Her injuries too severe. I've been trying to hard to connect with him -- I just don't know what is wishful thinking, what may be his messages to me, or if it even matters which it is. I've been doing an 8 hour sleep meditation audio book that in the middle of the night when you are sleeping, it brings you to a place of connection. But instead of feeling better, and more rested, I just feel more and more depressed. I'm trying not to give up on it, but I just don't know if I am treading water in the middle of the ocean thinking that rescue is on the way, when it is not. Such a hard road. Grasping to hold on and keep going. But today, on the way to work, I was listening to NPR and the CEO of Canter Fitzgerald, who lost his whole company to 9/11 including his brother. He was trying to convince his sister to go talk to the other families, but he said she was curled up in a ball her heart completely shattered, and she kept saying NO she could not. He said to her that -- in order to talk to those grieving shattered hearts of the families, it should come from someone who has had their heart shattered broken too, otherwise, that person's voice would just sound like tin. And I thought of everyone here as I cried down the highway. So much of the voices around me sound like tin. But not here, not anyone here. There is such a deep resonance to every word. ((((hugs)))) Patty

So, so cruel, Gwen Patty

Oh Mitch, I totally understand. The joy truly has the flipside woven into it so, so tightly. Last week my business partner and I went to a liquidation sale. In the lobby they had a sample of the beds from the rooms -- high end resort. $225 for a full king set looking brand new. How long we had searched, not wanting to spend $5K on a new mattress set. I sat on the bed, excited at the price. Then involuntarily I cried out, in front of everyone, "OH Where is my HUSBAND???" and started crying. My poor business partner. It's random, but it's not. It is just woven into EVERYTHING. Hugs, Patty

I love it! Yellow being my favorite color and all ... You did a great job recreating the Yellow Submarine!

It looks beautiful It's exciting to have a gicle made of it! Patty

Yes, me too... the friend whose been frustrated with me for not "being better" stopped by the other day at the shop. "You're so skinny!" she said happily, three times. My response is a shoulder shrug each time. She obviously wanted more of a response. I have no words for that. A customer who knew the situation said the same -- I said nothing, shrugged my shoulders, and she said, "grief will do that." I nodded. Number one, I'm a normal weight, I was a little over before (and fine with that), and number two, I COULD CARE LESS what I weigh! I had been holding my own for a few days. Home hard as ever, but a few small things accomplished, cleaning up after the new water heater replacement flood zone, cleaning out a refrigerator that had not been touched in 8 months. I actually went home early because work seemed so hard to not fall apart in, despite a day with our biggest shipment in two years, back to full production for the first time, going out perfectly. Maybe the victory seemed mute because Ron wasn't part of it. I went home to dig out boxes in two storage rooms for the accountant. I opened the door to one of them, and I am slapped with Ron's Farmer's Market money boxes, all his stuff, his fishing rods, on and on. Everything and anything was impossible to even glance at and I curled up on the couch for hours and hours and hours into the night and sobbed at the utter aloneness that this life has become, all the dreams gone, nobody to hold me in my pain. "You're having a pity party" "You are feeling sorry for yourself" in my head. I know I'm not supposed to listen to those voices in my head, but it is hard not to. Maybe that's what you guys call a grief attack. Seemed to come from nowhere as I was in bad shape and cried all the way home from work about how "successful" I was in raising such an independent, strong daughter who at 21 is charging into her senior year of college about to write and direct a near feature-length "senior project" film (having been given a full tuition endowment for her good grades and because of the situation of losing her dad. Well, step dad, but really, her dad.) But we don't talk much, but when we do, it is for an hour, and it is a deep conversation about life. Her film will be about an older woman who is lying in bed alone, about to die, watching her life flash before her eyes. It's about that life. Last November she made a short film about grief, having never experienced it before, and before we knew Ron was sick. It was released shortly after his death, and she won an award for it, "Best Microbudget Film" at her school's film festival, right after she left for a 6 month internship in NYC at an underwater documenatary company. I am so proud of her, and so, so, SO lonely for her. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1rxKGZpA8LdV29NWnQ2YmNZS00/view

I'm at 6 1/2 months and I'm pretty sure I'm changed forever from this pain and loss. A few months ago, I felt I had no strength anymore for the grief battle, or life even, really. But I'm not sure I see it as a battle anymore to win or lose. When the deepest, darkest storm hits, I see it more as survival than a battle. And this feels like the biggest, darkest storm I've ever experienced. Will I be swept away in the tornado, or is there some pole stuck in some cement that I can chain myself to in order to hold on? (this place has been that for me). Will a tree come crashing down on me in a hurricane? Sometimes I want to just walk out into the storm and let it take me. But somehow we are all still fighting, I believe with help from our other halves, even when we wonder - why bother? We keep waking up, and another day passes. Life will never be the same after the storm. We will never be the same. So, I think I'm seeking out the cemented "poles" lately. So, wherever I have to go, if the tornado comes, I have a place to go hide and hold on in the dark. I have found over the last couple of months that there is a few hours of respite from the storm every now and again. What I'm trying to understand now is the devastation when I think "oh maybe I can hold on now" and then the storm comes again, just as strong as before. Yeah, the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome. If I have some respite from the storm of grief at the shop, I often go home, with a glimmer that tonight can be better. Maybe the house can be tolerable on some level. Maybe I can do something there besides crawl into bed. But alas, just my own personal "crazy" expecting a different outcome, and the eye of the storm lives inside in my alone home world. But there have been some nights now where I can find my numb, at least for a few hours. And even a connection to Ron in rare, special, but emotional moments. At work, I've been given a gift that seems to be -- something that carries, its memory of the day, to give me strength. And that is a baby in my office. We have a young intern who is trying to get practical Quickbooks experience, she is working for free for a while, training. And I told her that her daughter is more than welcome, and knowing her daughter is welcome, she is able to come in a lot more, not having to pay for childcare. 9 months old. It's a gift because it makes me smile. Smiling has VERY been hard-won. A real smile, anyway. Maybe because she smiles at me, which gives me hope that if she can smile at me, I am not as broken and beat up from the storm as I feel. Keep holding on with us... Patty

Yes, (((Marg))) that is the right word for those moments... or days... or long nights... so indescribably excruciating when its inkish blackness washes over, there is nothing else. Like a deep well with dark, slippery sides on a moonless, starless night. I'm thinking maybe many of us here get stuck in those wells of anguish of losing half of ourselves, but maybe they are dug close together, those wells, and maybe we can hoot out at each other so while solitary, we can know we are not the only one, too. Hoot, hoot. Patty

I like the that this photo shows the ghost of the light via the smoke. We may not see the smoke for long as it dissipates but those particles are always out there. Not the beautiful warm flame anymore, which is what we love and miss the most, and those particles are so invisible. Faith that those particles are out there is such a hard thing.

Steve, The amount of framing you are putting into this is such a huge gift for ALL of us. Thank you! Patty

I see the stars, radiating out a rainbow, with the background the deep universe, with the patterns of white on black being eternal and infinite stars

Just need a place to vent more about this anger and this injustice... and even picking a fight... oh a hard day. Two incidents today. This afternoon, I'm in the back office, where I am liking staying after my morning baking-alone time, and my young Chef yells, "Patty, Call the Police, Alex won't leave!" I go running. There's a 20-something kid who lives behind the shop, behind a gate, where there are two apartments and a house. There are quasi-assigned parking spots. He has his. He's a druggie - small, thin, pale, dark circles under his eyes - scary looking but not all that threatening in size. After bugging the landlord for months about a leak in my office, and with a big hurricane coming, a roofer came over to fix it, and parked in his spot. By the time I got out front, he was leaving. Shortly after, I was standing outside, and he came out and was walking by. I picked what I knew would be a battle. I said, "Alex, that was a roofer the landlord called that was in your spot". He flew off the handle and I knew he would. He started yelling. I was loud back -- but "calm and firm" IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, ASK FOR ME - DON'T COME IN MY STORE YELLING IN FRONT OF CUSTOMERS AT MY STAFF. I kept it up as long as the kid did, until the young chef stepped in and told him not to talk disrespectfully to a woman. Any of this SO wouldn't have happened if Ron was around. But I knew it would happen, and I chose it. I didn't have to, the druggie kid is moving out anyway. The second one -- I teach enough credit hours at the local college to get health insurance, and some money this year so my daughter can finish her last year of college. It's the only way to make it happen. Hopefully the shop can pay me soon. Over the summer, I typically don't have health care unless I pay Cobra, which I never do because it is expensive when I'm out of a job with no teaching in the summer. But this year they offered me a contract of guaranteed credits, and taking the cost of insurance down a small notch. It basically is a "leave without pay" situation. But, I got the letter at the beginning of the summer stating what I needed to pay to keep health insurance and I never paid it. Nor did I send in the paper saying I didn't want coverage over the summer - because I lost the paper. I got no further notices or bills, and like every other summer, I would just resign up for health insurance for September. I went to do that yesterday, and I was told that I had to come up with $800 by next week because I did not sign the form saying I did not want summer coverage, or I cannot get insurance until the next enrollment period NEXT JULY. Nobody ever told me that health care open enrollment switched if you have a contract. It's all Union crap, I called my Union rep who totally supported the school (it's a State school). I also get back a letter from Kaiser saying that my insurance was canceled as of May 31, and I'll be responsible for any medical I used (which was 2 emails and 2 prescriptions). So, they are going to make me pay the money, for coverage that they did not pay for, and POCKET the money! Plus I will have the Kaiser bill, which was the only one I was expecting. The Union Rep said it was administrations fault for not telling me the ramifications of the contract -- the contract itself did not. He said he would talk to administration. Administration called me today (they know the situation with Ron and what happened, its a small island) and offered me "a deal" of paying a cashier's check immediately for $400, and then the rest would come out of my next three paychecks. THEN they would reinstate my health insurance. I flipped out on the poor woman. I told her it was ILLEGAL for the school to not offer health care for a full time employee -- that they could not "punish" me for missing the form signing by doing something ILLEGAL. She kept saying it was in the booklet -- and I kept saying just because its in a booklet doesn't make it legal. Then what I thought was righteous anger turned into tears and shaking voice and misery and anger all mixed together. But it's the government. They are "the law". They fricken make their own rules. I don't want to pay it. I SO don't want to pay it. But I may just be hurting myself by not having health coverage when I need it. I have an autoimmune thyroid condition, I'm fighting away diabetes, and I'm a kidney cancer survivor and need regular bloodwork and scans. Right now, I care less about that and more about the fight of it. The injustice of it, the wrongness of it. The control and power they have. Can you see the steam coming out of the top of my head??? There are incidents every day, and if there is not, I seem to seek them out. I'm in the boundaries of justified battles, but I'm looking for them, it seems. I swear whatever this is, it is not my old personality. What our moms told us... "You get a little bit of honey goes a long way"... Man, am I out of honey. I've never been like this in my life. Thank you so much if you made it this far in my diatribe. Just needed a place to get it out. I have no idea what is next, I'm thinking, contacting the Department of Labor. If they turn me away though I'll really blow a gasket! Grumpy in Hawaii

You stand in front of the bidding board with your lower lip extended in a pout

What????? That's crazy!! Yes, you definitely don't need that one! I'm not only wearing mine, with scotch tape around it to keep it on since I've lost so much weight, and then I had Ron's resized to fit behind mine. So I'm wearing more wedding bands, not less! I actually came here to talk about "embracing my angry" -- that was a good start My normal temperament is quite the opposite of angry. The psychic (who was off about 80% and scarily correct in ways she could not have guessed aout 20%) told me that I had to let go of my anger. I told my therapist that I wanted to tell her -- OK, as soon as I find it! I have not done angry well or at all for most of my life. Now I am not recognizing myself. But I've decided to embrace it, hopefully constructively. Fire Protection people came in to the shop and "failed" us saying the hood duct wasn't clean enough, and the stove was 2 inches not under the hood, then walked away, did not talk to me, and charged me an arm and a leg. So he's gonna charge me to fail me (and this a voluntary service) and not offer a solution? I don't THINK so! They got a good piece of my mind this morning. Then the accountant who came in to talk about us hiring him to get our taxes caught up for the business, I'm sure it was not fun for him to hear my defensiveness -- I had to defend all the things we did -- and especially Ron did -- he got an earful... then there's the employees that I'm so frank with, and the bank and, and, and... OMG I have no tolerence at all. So, I'm figuring this is the anger part of grief popping up, and I'm just trying to direct it constructively. Witnesses to my bursts tell me with wide eyes "you go, girl!" and I'm like, "Damn right!" Yikes! But I am not angry at Ron, not angry at life, not angry at god... not even angry at the situation. I've just got this incredibly low tolerance for incompetent behavior and actions around me -- or unjust behaviour or actions. Does that make any sense in this grief world? Is it misdirected? I just don't know. And then there's all this really, really weird sensory things that are happening that are SO REAL but they are not. Especially visually and with sound. The back yard has LITERALLY (what seems empirically) sounded deafening. Two nights ago, I SWEAR I heard a woman running down the street and then run over. I hear phones and buzzers and go look for the source to find none. I'm seeing things. I so feel like I'm going crazy. My therapist tells me it all has meaning that my subconscious is trying to work out. Gosh I'm starting to not recognize myself. Patty

Here's the messed up thing. Last night, I realized that from the time Ron got sick at Christmas, until literally two days before he was gone (after 3 weeks in Hospice), I didn't even CONSIDER that he was going to die. I didn't even CONSIDER it! I swear. Talk about the godly power I thought I had! I thought he was choosing not to speak because he was so depressed and HE was thinking he might die, when in reality he COULDN'T speak. Much more than a word or two. The last full coherent sentence he said was, "Oh, I was worried about that!" (about the business, when I was explaining that we were making it and holding on even though he wasnt there right then. The next closest was "Messy, Messy Patty" when I explained why I came in covered in sauce or something. (I now TOTALLY embrace my messiness). Everyone knew but me. We never talked about it -- because he couldn't and I didn't consider the possibility. I believe now it was our unspoken contract, that it happened the way it had to happen, with both of us in denial to the end because we couldn't fathom life without the other. Because the pain was just too deep to even consider. And so, we just didn't. It was our way to survive the unfathomable. Now I'm finding the consequences are all the unanswered questions.

How many times I throw my arm over to his side of the bed... still... to nudge him about something on TV, to laugh with him... the laugh isn't there, but the arm motion is still. I've noticed recently I've started talking to him out loud. It feels crazy -- I try not to judge it (as that then takes me out of the message that I needed to tell him at that moment) -- I've heard its not all that uncommon. About 20 minutes after he was gone, the alarm went off on my phone at 1:34PM. It was not one I set. I fumbled to turn it off in my hysteria, and within a day or two turned off the "repeat daily" that it was set to. It was too hard to hear that every day. But last week, I turned "repeat" back on, and every day, it goes off at 1:34pm, I turn it off, and blow him a kiss. I think I'm just so desperate to stay connected. So desperate, so alone.

YES exactly the right term.

Where beer comes from Since I'm only home after dark, this is the night "bloom" ...

I will! I'll show you. And just now, I went to deliver a catering order. I put on GPS, pulled up and realized it was the same house that Ron and I did a giant kick-butt Christmas catering order, the last one he ever did. I was already falling apart because our weekly wholesale production doubled this week back to the level we used to do before Ron got sick. We got it all out and delivered, 1254 products (690 last week), a huge victory but It was totally bittersweet, and he should have been here for it. It doubled because we were asked to be a premiere vendor at a Grocery Store opening next week, where our products will be featured. These are all the moments we dreamed of together. What good are the good moments with nobody to share them with? I need his hug. I need his physical presence. I need to hold his hand like we always did, like the couple I just saw walking their dog like we did. It just aches inside. I understand about the game. We were like that watching poker matches. We were both really into it. It's actually the last thing we did together on New Year's Eve before he was too sick with headaches to do anything. I don't think I'll ever watch or play poker again. The History Channel, his favorite and I would roll my eyes (and then enjoy it with him), will probably never play again in my house either. I think it is ok to stay out of the way of triggers we know are there. We certainly have enough that catch us off guard.