Clematis

I hope I can find some nice flowers to paint. It would be good for me to do some moderate exercise, but nothing too strenuous at this point. They are renting a car, which is very nice. Last year I was totally on my own with no car, and sometimes it was a little difficult, because I had to schlepp my painting gear a long ways in the heat, or I got bad information about where things were and had to backtrack or go way out of my way-on foot. Also, I went to an event at the botanical gardens for an evening event and was told that the walk back to the bus to go home, through chinatown was totally fine, which was true only until the businesses closed, after which the homeless people and drug addicts and whatnot took over the neighborhood. I made it to the bus stop and ended up trying to be casual while chatting with some people that-well, I'm not sure if they really were totally terrifying or just trying to scare me, and I used to work at a prison so I'm not easily unnerved. I finally decided that I would get on the next bus, wherever it was going. And all the scary people got on with me, and there were even more scary people on the bus! I was really happy to get back to my hotel neighborhood. So this will be great-to have companions and a car. Traveling with another person is so much easier than doing everything alone. Even something like using the restroom in the airport. If you are alone, you have to schlepp everything along with you, but if you have a companion, you can leave your stuff with them and just go prancing off to the restroom whatever and even grab a coffee on the way back! I imagine they will help me scout out flowers in the car rather than having to do it all on foot, and I'm sure they would drop me off to paint somewhere if they wanted to be going in a different direction. And I probably won't be out floating about alone at night either. That is probably a good thing.

Thank you, Kay-that is very sweet! I feel the same about you. And you are right, I do need the help. It is rather fortuitous that my two closest friends, Bonita and Greg, who also live fairly close to me geographically are in need of the work and the income, so they are helping me and I am helping them. Also, they work well together and we are all on the same page. Bonita and her husband are going with me to Hawaii, and Greg will be working while I am gone. He has been out of work for a while and his wife was pressuring him to come up with some kind of work, whatever it was, and he is reluctant to do so because if he's busy with a minimum wage job it will be harder to him to go back to his field when something comes up. So this takes some pressure to get a little income. It's also good that one of us is a man since a little extra muscle is needed here and there. Bonita just quit her job at the paper, where they were paying her peanuts and stressing her into health problems. She was supposed to be doing a little post-retirement job and not having the high-pressure full time job she ended up with. So she is happy to have some extra money as well. So, it's good for them and good for me. I am doing everything I'm supposed to do following the accident. And it will be good for me to have a vacation, huh?

Yesterday was a good day and my trip to Hawaii with friends next week suddenly started to feel real. I am so glad to be going with my friends Bonita and her husband. rather than by myself like I did last year. We booked this trip in October and I had some concerns about being able to go, because my dad seemed to be going downhill. We still both thought he had a few years to live and never guessed that he would be gone in less than three months. So now I am going and after getting excited about it, went to sleep crying into Lena's soft fur. She said, "that's ok, but would you please slip me a few cat treats before you drift off?" ...of course...

I'm making some progress with the help of my friends who are helping me sort and that kind of thing. I certainly couldn't be doing it all by myself! It's an overwhelming task. I'm paying them to help me because they need the money and I desperately need the help, but sometimes I wonder if I should be doing that with my dad's money. But what else would I do? It seems like I ought to be able to work on it by myself, but I don't seem to get much done alone...just go back to moping around. And having a head injury from a car accident didn't help me any. I feel so overwhelmed. It's not really as if my dad would be able to help me with any of this work, but still I miss him every day and every night. It's hard going to bed knowing he won't be here tomorrow either, and it's hard getting up in the morning knowing I'll never see him again. Going through his things is hard because he is not here. There are tons of his things here and many more questions than answers. I'll hold some little tool or item in my hand and wonder what it meant to him, what he did with it, why he saved these particular things and brought them to Arizona, but then never looked at them or used them or wore them or whatever again. What does that all mean? I think I'll never know. I think sometimes I wish I had asked him about all of these things while he was still alive, but I knew better to go down that road (I just wish I could have). He wouldn't have answered those questions even if I had asked him, and he wouldn't have wanted me "pawing through" his stuff-in his desk, his garage, all over his house-while he was alive. But now here I am, in his space with his things, and he is gone for good. I have felt closer to him here in his house, but maybe I'm not really. More like just shrouded in grief and mysteries that will never be solved.

That's a great idea, Kay! One of the people who is helping me with all the sorting and whatnot does estate sales. Right now we are sorting at both houses, but we could be sorting into Keep, Toss, Give to thrift, Sell and ??? categories. Whatever is left in the ??? boxes could go to the estate people. Maybe the Sell stuff as well...

Gosh, Mitch-that is terrible! How horrible and traumatic for your sister-and the whole family!

That is sure the truth! For some reason I had a bizarre belief that once I got hold of the death certificate I would feel relieved-like I could start getting some things done. Like I was trying to get some life insurance money loose so I could get some money to my sister because it was going to be foreclosed upon. But when I saw that piece of paper, it was devastating...I couldn't stop crying and felt like there was a cement truck on my chest that was keeping me from breathing. It was even worse than when I got his ashes. I thought then that it would be good to have some piece of him back. It was not. But it wasn't as bad as getting the death certificate...that was truly awful.

Thank you, Ana! I am still playing and I hope to be with Mr. Cello forever. I wake up breathing every morning even when it seems like a suboptimal plan. Mr. Cello and I missed celebrating our 5-year Celloversary- the anniversary of when we met and I began playing the cello. Our Celloversary was May 20, which was the day I was in the car accident. I'll have to figure out some way to make it up to him. Well, now that my MRI's are clear and I am off restriction, tomorrow we are going to join a group of musician friends in a park in Flagstaff to play music. It will be the first time we have been anywhere in a few weeks. Here is a picture of Lena listening to Mr Cello-you can see the music coming off of his strings and that Lena is listening to the music...this watercolor of mine was on one of the community orchestra's program covers a year ago. If you love strings, you should get an instrument and start playing it. If you are really drawn to it, you will find a way to learn to play. If you love the cello, you should get one and play it. Cello is actually easier to learn as adult than the violin. But if you love the violin, get one and you'll find a way...

Thanks, Anne! Four years...I have been at this for less than five months, and most of that time I was working and only had little bits of time. Now I've had almost three weeks off school, but I've been recovering from that car-related injury for those three weeks. It was just yesterday that I was taken "off restriction". I've been chomping at the bit to get going, although I have had some help and therefore some stuff has gotten done. It's really overwhelming. When my sisters were out here, one of them (the cold nasty one) said to me, "Look you have two condos that are less than 900 sq. ft. each-how long should it take to go through them?"891 sq. ft. each plus a garage on each of them that is pretty much packed. And the interior of each of them has way too much furniture and other stuff. It's a ton of stuff. The paintings you can see were all done by my mother except for the giant doll's face and that thing hanging off the left side of the pink wall.

Kay, thank you for your posts about your mom and also about the colors...you are always so thoughtful and have really interesting things to say! Marty, this was a lovely post and I think you are right-the most important gift was his love, the memories, and his inspiration throughout my life. The article was also very good. I am really stumped by things I come across, however. He had SO much stuff! I had no idea. He told me he left all his tools for woodworking, upholstery, etc. behind and/or gave it away. But there some enormous boxes of tools and stuff that I don't even know what it is-stuff related to tools and fixing things. Some of it is very cool-like a micrometer and a pocket-sized set of tiny tools in a red pouch that snaps closed. I found the workings of a swiss jeweled watch in a tin about the size of four stacked quarters-what is that about?!? Some of these things I can't even begin to figure out what to do with and don't want to just jettison. I have gotten rid of a lot of his things- and some of it like his most of his clothing was easy, but an unreasonable amount of it seems precious-just because it was his. I can't believe my sisters both said, "I don't want any of his stuff" -aside from the banjo, of course. I don't have room for boxes of tools and stuff that I don't even know what it is. But I suppose I have really only begun to work on this project and it may take me some time. Perhaps the thing to do is to set aside the overwhelming boxes of stuff I can't even figure out where to start on, and proceed with the stuff that I can handle. It's really overwhelming...

I miss my dad! And it is so hard gong through my stuff and his stuff and our stuff is so related because out lives became so interconnected! Sorting through things-some of this is easy because it's junk or trash. Some of it...do I really need dozens of pairs of scissors? yes because I need them constantly. "OK", say my helpers. And then there are the things that there like six of because I couldn't find it and bought another and then couldn't find either of them and bought another and lost all of them and then there were six. Well, that's embarrassing, but it's easy-I should keep one and give the others to the thrift store and take the tax deduction. The hard thing is that I would buy something and my dad would get one for himself because he liked mine so much. Or, he would buy two of a lot of things-one for me and one for himself. He would buy things he saw on TV, some of which were crap (that's easy), but many of them, when I see these two items side by side they are a nice little item, but they make me cry because they just remind me of him always thinking of me and that there were two of us. Two of us against the world, and now it's just me and Lena (and Mr Cello)... How do I deal with all those little pairs of things. It's a good thing I have a lot of help...

That is very sad about your friend Bobby. The problem with hope is that it's not 100% of the time, and neither is the despair. It seems to me that our feelings are in a state of flux and flow all of the time, and we all have times when the negatives seem so much more prominent than the positives-so much more prominent that you can't even remember that anything good ever happened to you. Well, if a person is depressed it seems like that; its totally myopic. I think that's probably why Bobby wasn't thinking about his dog, even though his dog was with him. When I was lying on the floor with Mr Cello, I wasn't thinking about my dad. I was thinking about my miserable self, and eventually it came to me that I loved that cello more than anything and I didn't want anyone to play him but me, and if I stopped breathing they would play him. I obviously got over that, and hundreds of people have played Mr Cello (with me there), mostly classes of kids, but also strangers I met at Wal-Mart, the GYN's waiting room, the park, some trail where I brought him on my back, and so on. I swear that cello saved my life... Anyway, I think that with the ebb and flow of emotion that we all have all of the time, we have to just try to keep the sunny side in view and look out for others in despair...

I was thinking it might be good for us to have a place to share things about our fur-babies that are keeping us together. Honestly, I don't know how I would be getting through this without Lena. She was also very helpful when my dad was alive, and really took care of him. When we got to his house, she would pitch a fit of meowing for me to hurry up, unbuckle, and get the ignition off. Then she would drag me to the door-cats can run about 30mph and I was way too slow. When we left I'd carry her over to him to say goodbye and he'd tell her, "Take care of my girl, Lena!" or "Take good care of Laura now" Toward the end, she really got involved, , lying on his bed, visiting at the SNF (skilled nursing facility), and being devoted and territorial about him. After his last bad fall in the house, I got him a pillow and a blanket, and Lena roosted on top of him while we waited for the paramedics. She didn't want to get off of him or let the paramedics near him. Here they are at home, and Lena is roosting between his feet at the SNF. He was at the SNF for five days respite for me and now we go there and volunteer. It's been six months since my dad was there, but she always stops at the door of the room he was in and has a look...

In case it might be helpful, here are some thoughts and experiences with suicide. I apologize for the length of it. I once worked in mental health in a prison, and since the risk of suicide in prisons and jails is very high, they had all of us who worked in mental health take turns doing trainings for the officers and other staff about suicide prevention-what to watch for and what to do. I did this for five years, and from all of it the biggest thing that I learned was that almost everyone who is suicidal is actually deeply ambivalent. There are rare individuals who are determined to kill themselves and they will try one thing after another until they are successful. Some people are successful on their first attempt. But most people think about it, change their minds and go 'round and 'round about it and may make many attempts or "gestures", all of which should be taken seriously. Most people who consider suicide are desperate and/or believe they cannot tolerate things any longer and there are no options. I really believe that many many people think about suicide at some point in their lives but don't act on it. I lost my job a couple of years after coaxing my dad out to AZ, and so here we both were with big fat mortgages and I had no job and people were losing their jobs right and left. My dad carried me throughout the whole ordeal while I did all kinds of things--taught ukulele lessons, played classical/jazz guitar and/or cello gigs, sold a little artwork, did home healthcare as a social worker--but made very little money. I wasn't sure if I could really count on my dad to keep helping me-I didn't know him that well yet. I also felt responsible for his being in the situation he was in. He really had to help me because he needed me to help him. I felt pretty desperate, and I was sure that I would never do any professional work again, but was too young to retire. I would sometimes lie on the floor with arm around my cello (Mr. Cello) at my side, and wait to stop breathing. I thought I could just stop breathing, but it never worked. After a while I would get tired of lying there, get up, and practice the cello. I spent some time contemplating if there was some way I could just die and take Mr Cello with me without hurting anyone else, because I was sure my life was over. Then one day someone hacked my email and emailed everyone I know (from me) a sales link to a weight loss product from China. Most people ignored the email, but a former professor from U of A sent me an email back, saying how nice it was to hear from me and by the way did I need any work? Well yes I did, as a matter of fact! She connected to me the guy I now do subcontract work with. I write this story because I think it's such a typical story of ambivalence and desperation (well, the part about Mr. Cello is not very typical). Well, I also had a rather non-lethal method (waiting to stop breathing is unrealistic for a healthy person in their fifties). But the ambivalence is classic-lying on the floor waiting to stop breathing and then changing my mind and deciding to play the cello instead. What if I had a gun when I was thinking all that? (A real gun and not the one I have that is made of wood and shoots rubber bands to amuse the cat). I had a close friend who killed herself years ago. She was a brilliant woman in medical school who had worked as a pharmacist before going to medical school. She wanted to be a psychiatrist. She tried over and over to kill herself via drug overdose. I was always glad she was unsuccessful, but I wondered why she couldn't figure out what it would take to kill a person-she was a pharmacist! Talk about ambivalence...I remember her telling me after many attempts that she was going to stop trying to kill herself because she was in medical school and it was embarrassing waking up in the E.R. with her classmates working on her to bring her back to life. She would try to kill herself and then a week later be totally obsessed about some exam or a weird color to dye her hair. I decided I needed to not be friends with her because it was just too much chaos, and half way through my social work program we went to San Diego and I really thought she was going to kill both of us (she was driving). I called my parents in a panic from San Diego (before the internet) and they helped me figure out how to find a travel agent in a strange city with no car, and I flew home alone. She did not kill herself then, but after several more years and several more attempts she was eventually successful. She was absolutely ambivalent, but she was also rather determined. This struggle of to be or not to be went on for at least a decade and she had a fabulous therapist-possibly the best in Tucson and even he couldn't save her... When I learned that she had killed herself, it made me wonder if I had contributed to her distress (by deserting her to save myself) or if there was something I could have done or should have done. But that was all rather unrealistic. It wasn't my fault and there was nothing I could to as her friend or otherwise. I really believe that my dad stopped breathing in his sleep because he knew we were at the end of the road with him living at home. I couldn't care for him alone and if he continued living, he was going to have to live in a facility, and we-mostly me-would have to figure out how to deal with his condo, his possessions, etc. He didn't want to do it. And so he gave up, stopped breathing, and was able to pull that off because he was 88 with Parkinson's Disease. I absolutely believe he died voluntarily because he didn't want the alternative. I couldn't make him want to keep living, and it's not my fault. I did everything possible for him, but he decided he was out of road.

I wasn't sure where to put this, abut wanted you guys to see it. Lena is near the end looking very clever, and wearing an alien tag as she appears to be driving the car..

I have no idea...I guess not everything shows up on an MRI. Perhaps my groovy and brilliant doctor will be able to opine upon that with insight and gusto when he gets back from Budapest and wherever else he is. Hopefully he will return quite refreshed and not as cranky as he was when he left and was obviously overdue for a vacation! I have no idea what went on. In spite of my studies, I really have only a vague idea of what goes on in the brain. Also, you know, they keep telling us that it's all connected... the ankle bone is connected to the leg bone, the leg bone's connected to the knee bone...hahaha and all that. But really, it's connected. I would have gone to a chiropractor right off, and that might have helped the ongoing headaches. Easing the headaches might help some other things. I have always noticed that I am a lot more likely to hit my head on something when I already have a headache and especially don't want to hit it on anything except maybe my pillow...very slowly. Anyway, I will see Sue the SLP for some cognitive-linguistic therapy secondary to TBI, and Sue will start off with some assessment; that might provide a clue as to why I have been scrambling words, talking about the backyard of the car, and so on.. She works at a place called EntireCare-they have SLP, PT, and OT there, and most of those people know me because I brought my dad in to see all of them. I have been seeing Mark the OT there for a hand injury, and I have an appointment with Mark tomorrow. I'll talk to him about the balance/proprioception problems and he will decide if that is in his realm or the PT. And they may be able to figure out why I am running into doorjambs and that sort of thing. The thing that is certain is that everyone who knows me personally or professionally has noticed that I am not quite right. Even Lena seems to be staying clear of me a bit when I walk around the house.

p.s. I'm going to Hawaii...or did I already say that?

My doctor got my results (in Budapest) and the MRIs on brain and neck were both negative. So now I am clear to drive or do whatever else I want to do, such as go to Hawaii. I guess my only guide is how I feel and if it seems like a problem. He also approved my getting the cognitive-linguistic speech therapy and that I could go to Chiro and/or PT. Might be good to do both. Chiro is good for the muscles that get twisted up in an an accident, and I don't know-maybe PT would be good too. I don't know. The OT, PT, and SLP are all at the same place and these people know me, mostly from my bringing my dad in for therapy. I seem to be having some coordination problems related to proprioception, such as walking into door jambs, missing a container I am pouring into, almost falling over every now and then, and that kind of thing. I don't know if that's OT or PT, but they'll know, and it's good that they know me over there-from before the accident. I know that I wasn't pouring stuff all over the counter and walking into door jambs before the accident.

Thanks, Marty, I appreciate that-and the article. I can't imagine leaving his condo-it just seems heartbreakingly impossible. I know I will have to but it's hard to imagine. But my friends and I are working hard on cleaning up my condo and after it is cleared out I will get the blue carpet laid and then the plan is that I move in. His condo is a mirror image of mine and I am hoping that if I arrange the living/dining/great room just like his is now, it will feel familiar and like his house and mine together. Maybe then I will feel ok, because the main room will look like his did, except i mirror image and with blue carpet. It's funny-I have told people that I'm getting blue carpeting and they gasp in horror about the resale value. I am probably rolling my eyes and grimacing and about to cry all at once because they stop right away and say, "oh that's ok". I will have a whole collection of my mother's paintings, that really feature blue, and all my floral paintings...the blue carpeting will really pull it all together. Also, my dad's favorite leather armchair where he spent all his time was navy blue, and my maternal grandmother's persian rug is a blue based floral. And as if I needed any other reason, cats only see two colors-yellow (which means danger) and blue! If it weren't for Lena I might be practical and buy a wood laminate, but Lena would hate that. So why not buy carpeting in my cat's favorite color? At least I'm not painting the walls lime green and hot pink like my sister did...I miss my sister...this is her house, and you can see two of my mother's paintings. The green-walled one has a portrait of me-with the long dark hair-in the back right, and the pink-walled one has a portrait my mother did of my sister over the piano. See the blues that my mother loved? I have a bunch of her paintings that have this same blues scheme. Don't you think they'll look great with a muted dusty blue carpet? Well, maybe Lena and I will both feel better about it all with the blue carpeting...

That's great!

I remember my father telling me when I was about 14 or so, "No one will ever love you more than your parents do". I remember thinking I was in for a bad time if that was true because I wasn't sure they really loved me all that much and I hoped I would have a husband and/or children or someone who really loved me and more than my parents did. But he was right-especially him. My ex loved his dope more than me, I never had children, and other people came and went. But my dad-yeah, he really really loved me and it was unconditional. The most devastating thing about his loss is realizing that he was right, and since he also became my best friend and confidant at the end of his life, the loss was even greater. I also lost my safety net. The world will never be the same place again. I feared that my dad would have a pathetic little service with hardly anyone there because all of his friends were either dead or across the country, and he really didn't make friends while he was here, as friendly as he was. He just did't make the effort to follow through with people. Lots of people really liked him but they weren't really friends. So I planned a Celebration of Life with a slide show of his life, followed by a potluck with a band playing (that I play with), followed by a contra dance for which another live band played (another of my groups). Since there were two bands, a dance, a slide show, and a potluck, it was well attended. I thought the only thing to do was to send him off in style, and since he was cremated I had the luxury of time to plan all of that. The event was held two months after his death. I am still thinking about writing an obituary... And when will he end up in the ground? After my sister decides to have a relationship with me again, since it my dad wanted to be placed in the same grave as my sister in the town where my older sister lives. Who knows when that might be...

I love this! It was true for me as well with my dad...

It sure does...my sisters didn't care about my dad or me. Now that he is gone it is very apparent that they were being nice to me while he was alive to encourage him to direct money towards them, and now that he is gone, they have alternated between being nasty to me or ignoring me (the executor). Basically they want me to hurry it up so they can get their part and as soon as possible. One sister demanded that I give her the family banjo, which he had given me eight years, and my younger sister protested her share of his life insurance being smaller than the other two parts, which he decided 9 years ago after she spirited over $100K out of his pocket over a house she got him to buy for her. I didn't even know he had life insurance but she did. How is that my fault? They both demanded to know what happened to the money that he got from selling his house in PA before moving to AZ. How would I know...it's not like it's sitting in my bank account. He lived for 11 years with Parkinson's disease on a fixed income...

I talked to my doctor's office staff this morning to see when I might get results and they said probably Tuesday because they will run it by my doctor before telling me anything. He is in Budapest and they are 9 hours ahead of us. By the time they get the results and get it to him, he will no doubt be asleep. I gave them the info about the referral I want for speech therapy for cognitive-linguistic secondary to TBI, so they can get his ok about that at the same time. Sue, the speech path where I am doing the OT for my hand and arm has known me for about two years and she thought there was something definitely off about me-something for which she has interventions. I think he'll agree to sign off on it for me. I am doing a lot better since the car accident and head injury, and seems odd, but I wasn't having a lot of strong feelings about my dad during the last two and a half weeks. It is like my little brain had enough to do and gave me a little grief vacation. But now my head is better and the grief is back. Near the end of my dad's life, I was worried about him being home alone while I was at work and eating nothing but pudding. So I had Meals-on-Wheels start (and had a Knox Box installed outside where emergency people can access a key if he can't get to the door. He usually picked at the food-and then had some pudding, but he loved having them come by! Some time between Thanksgiving and Christmas they brought him a gift box with staples, treats and some useful items. One of the things in the box was a towel and washcloth, tied up with a bow-a special "quick-dry" set the color of the edge of a nicely baked sugar cookie. It just sat there until Andrew, about the sweetest guy alive, who did showers for the Hospice group, started coming by. I handed the towel set to Andrew and that was my dad's only towel from then on. I've never used it, but there is has been in his bathroom, next to my colorful towel, since I moved into his spare bedroom. I see in every time I walk in the bathroom, but this morning I saw it and couldn't stop crying...

Thank you, Marty!I guess I just wished than as I wish now that I had understood more about what he was going through and struggling with. But I suppose the truth is that he told me what he wanted me to know...it wasn't from my lack of trying that I didn't know more. When he was alive I frequently was irritated and defensive when people told me he should be in assisted living. But neither of us wanted him there and we stayed on the "Home" route until the last possible second. I never quizzed him about his assets, life insurance and what to do when he died. I just focused on him and what would make him as healthy and happy as possible. Every day... Marty, do you know what scares and grieves me most about this summer? When all the work is done clearing out the junk at my place, and the carpet installed, my junky furniture jettisoned--well then all of his furniture & all the stuff (both of ours now) that is where I am now living will be moved over to my condo, which is an exact mirror image of mine. Then I will have to let go of his house, his home, and him, I think. Someone else will eventually be living here and he won't be here anymore. Ever...