Patty65

Hi Terri, It's been 3 1/2 months for me. Just last week I finally cancelled his cell phone. That was so fricken hard. I only did it because, after failing several times, I had to go to the Verizon store anyway to get a new plug for our business phone. I need to be stronger. I need to figure out what's going on with this bill or that bill. I need to take care of things at the house before things are really ruined. And I can't. I go home and I'm paralyzed by pain and memories and a million other things, including feeling sorry for myself and how alone I am. My one and only friend got quite upset at me the other day for not taking her advice on things, and missing telling her happy birthday. And because she sent me a photo of her son with a puppy that I didn't respond to. I should have, but I was triggered by Ron's love for those puppies. Now apparently we are not talking and it hurts. I don't mean to hurt anyone. As far as sparing you the agony. Wow, the blunders that happen. On the day Ron was going, I got an insurance call about my car that was stolen from Hospice three days before. I told her I could not talk, that my husband was dying. I was blunt. And she could hear him in the background. She called back the next day, knowing he had gone. Her first question - "Marital Status?" OMG to say the word "Widow" for the first time, and so close. I burst into tears saying that. Do you want me to call back, she said. No, I want to get this over with! I hate dealing with the world now. And I hate that I hate it. I was independent a long time raising my daughter to the age of 10 on my own when I fell in love with Ron. I was so PROUD to have him to depend on. To actually give up control and not have to do every aspect of life all by myself. And he was proud to be depended upon. I hate being back there. I guess I hate a lot of things today. My mother always taught me never to use the word "hate". But sometimes, there's just no other word.

Appearances... When Ron was in Hospice and the community was helping with the shop, a woman volunteered to help out, I put her on the register one weekend. I ran into her last Saturday night at my first "crowded" business event since all of this (ended). It was horrific to be there, in a crowd, a new batch of condolences, all those people. Even some that asked how he was, and others who wanted to know how it happened But I ran into that woman. I was blabbing on with her about my loneliness, the slow tourist season between winter and summer travellers, the problems with our business location, and that it might be time for me to think about having a partner in the business so we can make some changes. Later she came back around, and said she was interested, and Monday she came to the business to talk about it. Here she is, fairly well-off, working at a legal firm, wearing perfectly manicured everything, and a smart, modern dress -- and there I was in clothes that are now too big, cargo shorts and a flour dusted Old Navy T-Shirt. What an odd match. (But we got along great) It reinforced how much I'm just not paying attention, and I don't care that I'm not, and I probably should, given I'm the owner of this joint now, all on my own. No make-up, just a pony tail and whatever T Shirt and Shorts won't fall off of me anymore. Not that I was ever that stylish, Ron loved me just the way I was, but I did throw on a little makeup back then etc. Who cares anymore? I guess maybe my customers. Maybe I have to come around, it just never makes it to the top of the priority list. Pretty much nothing does related to my personal life. So hard to care in the exhaustion of just making it through another day. I used to lighten my hair a bit from its dirty blonde color. Before we left on on Christmas trip when Ron got so ill, he said, hey, you should think about dying your hair again before our trip - so its not two tones for your family, he joked. I never did, and I still never have. Every time I look in the mirror (once in the morning), I think about him saying that. Now it feels wrong to color it, and wrong not to. So I ignore making a decision, and go on to the next issue of the day.

Oh me too, Joyce. At the end of my long days, I go home and have all these plans of things I will try to make the night more bearable. When they don't happen, that's exactly what I try to / need to say. I'll try again tomorrow. That does take courage, I'm not always successful. I guess there's a fine line between crazy and courageous.

A lot of times what I write is what I need to hear more than anything else. I often think about what my therapist would tell me when I am caught in the grips of my own head. I've said similar things to her -- IF IF IF... I had this or that. The thoughts are there. The beliefs are there. We observe them. We try not to feed them, because... "are they coming from a place of loving yourself?" If they aren't they are not a voice to listen to. We've been through enough, we've been through too much. Why beat ourselves up more? Yet I do it all the time. Give me a big ole mallot and I'll knock the top of my head a few times, and think I'm making myself feel better. We were so helpless when they faded, or when they went quickly. No wonder we want to figure out what we could have done differently. Nobody bears "helplessness" well. And here we are, helpless to change it all now still. There are a million times I think about all the things I could have done or tried to keep the melanoma from coming back. Not just at the end, but long before that. Regrets. Giant huge life-altering regrets. My therapist actually didn't know how to answer. She said "everyone has regrets". Another old college counselor said "you'll always find a way to make yourself guilty, and you probably could not have made him do something he didn't want to do". Even if all of those things are true, which they probably are, I am still haunted. I guess it is a small comfort that by putting it out there, I know that even if hold onto all the WHAT IFs, those who love me don't believe in them. I also believe that Tammy -- and Ron -- and all our loved ones -- would not want us to torment ourselves with it. And knowing us like they do, they also know we still will.

And mine is like a pressure cooker, about to explode

About a month ago, I burned many of my journals, Marg -- I understand. I went down to our fire pit, where we would sit and gab just the two of us for hours, and I burned and burned so many of them. I'll never read them. I didn't want them around. I didn't want to think or worry about them knowing they were out there. A little extreme but... hey, I heard I have a "crazy pass" for as long as I want it.

Just checking in on this apt topic on the "holiday weekend". I am keeping our store open just so I have somewhere to go. So far, two customers, and two staff here, keeping themselves busy with the wholesale production side since there are no customers to serve. Nobody wants pasta on a grilling holiday. I skimmed through everyone's talk of grilling - Ron's favorite thing - to cook me a grilled meal on Sundays and Holidays since, back when he was here, I was the one doing lots of the cooking for the business (I never cook or eat at home now). I got to work before any grills could be fired up to smell, and I will leave after they've all been put out. I'm so sorry you lost your cat, Kay, we've lost most of our pets now too -- the last one was Ron's black lab -- lost to the busy road in front of our house on Ron's last birthday. It's an extra punch now every time I walk in the house -- not only is Ron not there to greet me -- he always got home first -- but no dog to slather all over me and howl while he laughed at the scene. The silence is deafening. Our favorite song was "Our House" by Crosby Stills Nash and Young... "With two cats in the yard..." we would sing it and say "With two cats and three dogs in our yard..." Down to one cat now. "... and everything thing is better 'cus of youuuu..." and he would poke me in the side and I'd jump. Every time. "One is the loneliest number..."

My favorite line, too...

Feeling him with me, I just don't know. I watched "What Dreams May Come" last night for the first time since all this, and I didn't like it. I think I started realizing that when the wife was hoping he was with her, and then realizing he wasn't (and so she destroyed her painting), and according to the plot, indeed he was not, he was busy in his heavenly world. he was staying away from her because he realized it was too painful for her. He left her for "heaven". Then to see the part where "suicides go to hell" because they are stuck in denial that they are dead and they could not even recognize their loved ones - yuck. I don't know what I want to think, and I realized that I want to believe he is with me, but I don't know, and don't feel it. If I do think I feel it, I end up sobbing, like when Robin Williams was close to his wife and it would make her cry. I think that's crazymaking. I think I saw it long ago not knowing what grief was like and it gave me beliefs I thought made sense, and they don't make sense anymore. Nothing makes sense. And I feel I have no beliefs, if they can change so easily. In all this hell, isn't it possible to feel them, even in our imaginations, and feel that old goodness and love? Can't that part be with us? That's supposed to be the eternal part, anyways. Bittersweet yes, ok. I'll take that. Just give me the goodness and love, just for a second. Something to hold onto, like an invisible version of our intertwined fingers. Please.

I was told almost 20 years ago by my therapist... she actually wrote it on a giant index card for me to keep.... and I've always remembered it: "What Other People Think of Me is None of My Business!" I actually quoted it back to her recently when I started seeing her again when Ron was in Hospice. We (actually) laughed. So, I don't think, Maryann that it matters what people think. I totally relate how it all looks and feels at work when we are in that awful place. I feel like I am infecting everyone around me. But my therapist tells me that how I feel and what I look like on the outside are not the same thing -- that nobody for the most part, except those really close and in tune to me (which is practically nobody now that Ron is gone) can really tell. Do you think your job will be affected so much that you need to tell your supervisor? Patty

Yeah, I talk little, I write and I paint. We do have to all find our own path. If I hadn't written it, I would not be able to talk about it with my therapist, just my process. Mostly the people who ask how Ron is are customers who come in, when I happen to be out front near the register (which I avoid). In my desperation to save the business to have something for Ron to come back to when he got better, I put out a "Gofundme" campaign and asked our community to donate to keep his dream of Maui Pasta alive, when I was so "not present" as much here at work when he was in Hospice. I stupidly believed I could still save him, even after he was admitted to a Hospice that only took patients who had two months or less to live. Now, it kills me that I am very well known on this island. Everyone still comes in and says "I heard your story". (it's not a STORY its my awful %$#$%# life) Some though didn't follow it - they saw it, donated, and didn't know how things turned out. I am so guilt ridden about having done all that now. and I H-A-T-E that everyone knows. Uggggghhh! It's EVERYWHERE i go. Especially with the drama of having my car stolen a few days before he died. And its a little red car that everyone recognizes now (the car pic went on social media too and everyone was helping me look for it, and a customer found it) And on top of that it went viral, they came to video me for MauiNow, and internet news source, the radio picked it up... One of the reasons I think I get to a point where I can't/don't want to keep it going is the guilt of feeling like it only exists now because he got sick and died. I wanted to save it as his legacy. I didn't want him to die for it to live. I know it gets twisted in my head. So I guess I deserve the customers coming in and asking how he is since I put it out there. I know not really, but it feels like that all the time. Time for Patty to shut up now!

Totally. It's why I'm not watching movies. It's everywhere -- its on regular shows as well. And other wrenching topics. Or memories of us watching together. We used to love medical dramas. No way, no how now. I called Directv the other day and cut down my package since I hardly turn the darn thing on anymore. But I kept it for the cooking shows "Give me the lowest package that includes the Food Network, please." Patty

That's beautiful Katpilot! You should explore your talent more! To me, the haunting part of her eyes in that image is that she is not looking right at you, it is as if she is looking at something right over your shoulder. I love the concept and metaphor of sticking around on a mission to find the 6th Borough!

Gwen, The memories are horrible. It's what I'm struggling with. It's why I'm told my world is "strange" and toy-like. The trauma of the memories. I could have never imagined, like so many of us, that when the ambulance came that he would never come home. I too create no new memories at the house, and can't imagine doing so. But I was compelled to write and write over the first month. Every detail of Ron's "Final 55 Days". It is 30 pages long. Every memory I had. It was brutal and hard, but I was compelled to. I wrote it and buried it. But in my strange accident-filled toy-like world, my therapist asked if we might read it together. She said if the details are shared, maybe I could be more safe. I don't know if it will work. And the first time we tried, last week, it was hell because I read and read it, numbly, and then went back to the house and fell apart (to put it nicely). And continue to. I don't know if it is worth it. She says sharing the memories will help, but it seems more than I can bear. I dread the day when someone might tell me it's time to find someone else. I am still at the stage where people are asking me how Ron is doing. I just shake my head and look away. Patty

Thanks for saying that Gwen - in the original, the one on the right looks sad, the one on the left looks- well like she is eyeing me and doesn't trust me, taking the photo. Now, the painting looks like love which is heartbreaking. It didn't used to mean that, not until he was gone. I didn't see "love" i saw two horses in our neighboring horse farm. We were in Ron's big ole truck, driving around the island just for me to take pictures of animals to paint, having a fun afternoon... he was so into it, so patient and accommodating. "Wait Wait Stop!" I'd say... and he would, safely, on a dime, happily. Damn its not fair

Katpilot, The image of afterlife comes in two forms for me. For me, personally, it evokes/used to evoke the movie "What Dreams May Come" with Robin Williams, with heaven being your perfect world, whatever you want it to be, and in one scene, it is a field of flowers that turns into a Monet painting, vivid and bright with beauty. The paint splashes as they run through the fields. So yes, the perfect day - life - environment "just as you want it" in eternal form. When I think of what Ron thought about it, I imagine him - his soul - traveling through the universe, discovering it all, just like all the "non fiction" tv he liked to watch. I used to call him "non-fiction man" for fun. He was fascinated by the endless space out there, that's what he would love. We would talk about the universe, the time warp of space, so many more "heavenly" topics in our nightly jacuzzi under the stars when we were all sore from a hard day's work. When I'm not in depressed atheistic misery, that is what I imagine for him. And why I look for him in the stars. I have moments when I can go there, but only fleeting, and hard to hold onto. My painterly personal image from the movie -- that's more like something I used to believe. I can't get to that anymore. Maybe I need to watch that movie again. But I don't know -- I feel completely cynical now -- that any "nice" image of a heaven gets wiped away with thoughts of that being only my own construct to make myself feel better. Fiction. Have you ever seen Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close? I didn't mean to watch it, I got hooked into it a few weeks ago, frozen, unable to turn it off. It is a movie about 9/11 but mostly about grief. To watch that emotion play out on the screen. Well. Anyway. There's a lot there with that one. I don't watch movies anymore - I don't know how I ended up watching that one. Patty

Yesterday the walk-in refrigerator broke, full of thousands of dollars worth of food. My cashier quit, the new employee didn't show up, and my chef left early. I also went out to lunch (first time) with a couple (first time) to talk about their distribution company promoting, delivering and distributing our pasta (good thing, could save the business, so I HAD to go). I fell apart inside with a smile on my face amidst cordial business conversation. Today I pick up the pieces. But it is the 3 month anniversary. 90 days. 2,160 hours. 129,587 minutes. You deserve the minutes counted, Ron. Every day is a groundhog's day repeat, intensity and pain. I didn't even know I had the ability to be so consistent at anything as consistent as this has been. I'm soooo tired of "being strong" if that is what you can call this. This is a picture of a painting I did in the first years of our marriage. It won an award, we celebrated together, and it hangs above the couch. Now when sitting on the couch it is right there, no longer a picture of two horses at the nearby horse farm, but it is a metaphor of us-gone-by. I want to take it down sometimes, but I can't, either.

Oh, I'm not the only one who fills up his side of the bed! Anything but empty. I have his pillows layered so high I can't see his clock, just like always when he lays there. If that's not enough, there's always my clean laundry, which never make it back to the closet before I wear it again.

I guess that's the hard part, George. Caring about myself enough to take care of myself. You're right, though -- Ron loved me SO much. I could see it in his eyes, and sometimes, oftentimes, he went on and on about it. And I believed him, and he made me feel worthwhile, after struggling with that for a good part of my life. It's one of the most devastating things -- to find a love that was so transformative to who I was, to give, and to allow myself to need and receive... to take care of myself now even though he is gone because he would want me to, and would not want me to suffer, is hard to remember and hard to believe in. Ew, I wonder if that sounds a bit pathetic. But our love for each other, of my love for him, was like that too. I guess we were from the Island of Misfit Toys.

Butch, I came home from work and went straight to bed, and wanted to write an email to the two women who are my support. I wanted to tell them about my day and about what was hurting so so bad at that moment. I couldn't finish it, it felt so repetitive, it sounded so whiny in my head. I admonished myself and rolled over, and told myself, yeah, just another sh****y night, what else is new. I think we share when it helps and doesn't cause more heartache, we sure don't need any more of that. Sometimes it's hard to share. Sometimes its vital. Sometimes its both. I go through the same thing with reading and not sharing, and even if "not sharing" is my prohibition to myself when I want to or need to, I can only do what I can do, and I have to let that be. What I find amazing about this place is how judgement-free it is. Patty

Hi Gin, Gosh sometimes it seems so random the things that set it off. I can never tell when. It could be a thought, it could be an action, it could be an object... I guess it's not all that random if it is just about everything, at some point. I bet if you used that vacuum 10 times, it may be survivable a few of those times, but you never know when it will creep in again (at least for me). It makes me hesitate with everything I do. Maybe that is why I get so little done when I'm at the house. Then again, even doing nothing sometimes sets it off. Patty

Hi Katpilot, Ron died in the middle of the afternoon with me two inches from his face, wondering if there was one more breath to come.. and there was, and there was, and then there wasn't. Uggh. I wish I could get it out of my head, and I don't want to lose it either. How do you think you messed up, by going right back to work did you mean? I think in our situation, we don't have a choice, losing more will only make it SO much worse for me, anyway. Today I took my two giant cheesecakes out of the oven with no incident. The other day, I spilled the boiling water bath everywhere and on me. So, I guess that is progress, this time around anyway -- I will be careful in my Night Kitchen, tears and all. Gosh it feels endless. Did you talk about Kathy to your employees after? I am constantly, and I know it makes them uncomfortable, but I don't care. Ron bought a Wustoff knife that he had been eyeing for a year, and it arrived just before Christmas so he barely got to use it. Everyone knows I'm the only one who can touch it. Today I told a new employee, OK here's the fly swatter, but ASK me for it and give it right back, it was Ron's. He had a war going with the flies that would show up in our kitchen and office. OK. I'm a little crazy, yes. Again, I don't care!! Patty

Mitch, Totally -- I swear my fridge is always a crack open, good thing I don't have hardly anything in there anymore! It's a given among all my staff that I will lose everything I touch. My cashier just left for a different job where she does not have to work evenings so she can be with her family more. To lose someone who knew Ron has been so hard, and to train someone to understand all the "intricacies" of this place and their boss (me) seems impossible... because yes, there seems to be nothing normal about me these days. At least the other woman knew I was once kind of normal. Patty

Thanks Kay, yes, my staff is taking hot things away from me and doing those things, having seen the condition of my arms and legs... I am usually quite numb first thing in the morning, and ok to drive, but the evenings after long days are where things get strange. What I've been doing is calling a friend (phone built into the car thingy) on my drive home. It backfired on me last night. I called my (only) friend on the way home, needing to wish her a happy birthday, and I was so messed up I said everything but "happy birthday" on the message and now she's all mad and offended Last night I somehow didn't sleep so the drive to work was not good. If things get worse though I will ask one of my employees who lives near me to drive me - he doesn't have the same hours but I guess I could come in late rather than cause more damage. Thanks for your suggestions!

It's been a good week since I posted. The last time I did, I was so severely hopeless. I keep trying to hold on -- hold on to the business, hold on to my self. I know part of this "strange world" problem is that I'm working too much - I get in early to the pasta shop, and usually cry through doing my early morning baking and cooking, while I am here alone. Then everyone arrives a few hours later, and I just keep going. Ron was my "speed control". When I started to get stressed and move too fast, I'd have accidents and he would make me slow down. I first noticed the "strange world" a little over a week ago. I was driving home from the class I was teaching at 9pm, and the normal route now seemed like toys. Nothing was real. Like a child's hand could come down and pick up the signs and buildings and cars. I had trouble differentiating the lanes - the shoulder seemed like a lane to me. On our shop's one year anniversary, a very hard day, I tried to drive home but had to pull over, I couldn't navigate, and then the sobbing came. I was on the side of the road for hours, and there was nobody anymore to worry about me, and where I was, which compounded my sadness and confusion. But most troubling of all is that I've been having a ton of accidents at the kitchen. They have mostly been burn accidents. I dropped a catering tray of lasagna that spattered up on my legs and arms, third degree burns and blisters. I burn my arms and legs taking trays out of the oven. And then this weekend I accidentally poured bubbling hot oil down my leg right over where the lasagna tray burns were. I've been inches from car accidents. My driver's license disappeared. I swear I'm not doing any of it on purpose. The world is just so strange. The other part of it is that although I'm extremely busy at work, Ron is right in front of me. Not by my side "in front of me" but images of his final days and death. I was with him alone, begging him to stay and go at the same time, and had never witnessed anyone die. I see the doctor screaming back at me that he IS going to die - the news that he was going to, that the cancer was all over his brain and lungs, the news that I would not accept because I still believed my herbal treatments were going to work. It's just there with me, intruding. Of his rapid improvement when he went on sterroids to get the brain swelling down, and then his rapid decline as the cancer took over again, all within a couple weeks. I drive by the hospice house every morning on the way to work, and I have daggers and tears in my eyes. It was only me through the whole thing -- only caregiver, only family, only everything. It was just us, the two musketeers, fighting and clawing to keep and grow our new business. Then it was only me, with this news that he was dying, and very soon, and the business, and, and, and. My therapist called my experience with the strange world I'm still living in "derealization". Next Monday Ron will be gone 3 months. I've been suicidal, with a plan, but I have pulled away from all of that with my therapist's help, as I have to find a way to help my daughter through her last year of college, and it would be cruel to leave her. My therapist believes the trauma of all the fatal news, his rapid decline, and watching him die while living with him at the hospice house, all in a span of 3 weeks, is causing my detachment from the world around me and contributing to all the accidents. Has anyone experienced this sense of detachment? Thanks, Patty