WWBD

[Margm]

Okay, I got up this morning with sort of an attitude.  You see, if you look in Wikipedia for the word procrastinate, you will find my family's picture, all of us.  The whole bunch.  Billy wanted to leave this house.  We bought it to make a stable home for our granddaughter, who was born in 1999.  She was a precious gift to the whole family.  My daughter was a nurse and helped deliver her.  My daughter had had an unfortunate disease that made her unable to have children, so this child, born on her own birthday and given to her by the birth mother, who was giving her up, was a wonderful addition, a most welcome part of our family.  Billy became her first Nanny/or Manny, which ever you prefer.  This child would not have been ours anymore if I had borne her myself.  She was the light in his eyes and he was her "Dade."  Things change, conditions change, people change, and she went to live with her mother right before she was 16.  I accepted it more than Billy.  That was his baby.  I won't go into details anymore but those two loved each other beyond reason, as do all his grandkids and two grown children.  He was a kid's champion, a child's protector always, even when they got to be 53 and 48 years old.  Always his babies.

I woke up this morning, gave a kiss to the cold urn, and it went through my head.  Not WWJD (what would Jesus do), but WWBD (what would Billy do?)  I am not trying to be sacrilegious.  I am trying to reason out the life I have been given, the one living without Billy.  Okay, first off, as many times as I tried to teach him, as much as he loved numbers, he had no interest in paying bills or balancing the budget.  I am no whiz either.  It has always been my thought that if there is $500 left at the end of payday, I have to have somewhere to spend it.  My mama would have it put back in a savings account, buy bonds, or whatever it is people do to save money.  Now, he would have taken my ashes along with him, but he would have gone to parts unknown in the RV that we already have.  He would have gone to the woods, to the mountains that we both love.  He would have no need for conveniences, he would become the mountain man in the books he read.  Always the mountain man, woodsman, bayou man.  I don't know to what part of the country he would go, he would just......go.

The fact that we have to put the house on the market would not matter with him.  If they could not find him, they could not catch him.  Still, our retirement checks come from the State of Louisiana, so I am sure the debts would find the source of his income.  I do  not have the luxury of doing this.  I have to pack all of his belongings into boxes.  All of the notes he figured line width and weight and methods of fly fishing.  I have all his precious obsessive notes.  I will pack all away in boxes and when I find my place to live, I will move them all into a room, and one of these days, I will go through these useless notes, useful only to him, but too precious to me to throw away.  I know the bills have to be paid and the State of Louisiana told me his checks will be "retroactive."  Is that the word?  Might be two months.  In the meantime, I have to get rid of all our junk.  Not his junk, I am not ready for that.  But, I have lots of junk to put up at the thrift store and the dump/trash site.  People wait for the junk I get rid of.  One man's trash is another man's treasure.  

So now, this morning, thunder in the distance, light rain, no sun, I will get ready to leave this house that neither of us wanted.  We wanted to be "on the road."  But sometimes family  is more important than "what you want."  My WWBD, has to be what Margaret has to do, and I will do it.  Today, tomorrow, and whatever time I have left.

   

[Guest]

Margaret-

I don't see WWBD as sacrilegious in the least.  My motto for the past fourteen weeks and one day has been WWDD What Would Deedo Do simply because she was as close to perfect as any human can be.  She was the patient, understanding and compassionate one.  I was the one with the biting tongue when dealing with people over the phone.  You are showing Billy your love and paying him a great tribute by adopting a WWBD attitude.

[Margm]

I look at the "stages of grief" and know they do not come on in any order.  My mom took anger as her chief emotion.  One of my best friends took anger as first emotion.  Anger at him for leaving. (Like they had a choice), but again, anger is an emotion.  I have a distant cousin, a handsome fellow with a stormy marriage.  The first week after he was gone, and it was a long tempestuous marriage, that first week there was not a speck of him living in their house, everything of his was gone.  The funeral director with his pasted on smile after losing his love of over 66 years; well, we all handle things different.  I have anger at the ER, at the big hospital I took him to that hurt him physically.  I knew what a teaching hospital was, I retired from one.  I question myself for taking him these places, for starting the useless chemotherapy of only two sessions.  I question so much of what I did, because he trusted me.  I am so beyond intelligence to be trusted.  I can only hope I did not cause him too much pain.  I know it was the cancer.  I know we did not go through months and months of torture for him like our own father's did.  Both of our father's hit the stage where pain was all they had and they could not give them enough pain medicine to prevent the pain.  We could put ice chips on their lips, nothing else, just watch them suffer for days and days.  I know I should be thankful he did not suffer long.  But, why wasn't I holding him when he left me?  Anger is truly an emotion, but it is turned inward.  Some days I can get the final picture out of my head.  Some days I can lose myself in a TV program for a few minutes.  Anger, yes, it is an emotion meant only for myself, by me. 

[kevin]

I am definitely in the getting rid of"stuff mode"........I reversed the process that fits with your operation. Angela's special belongings are all being placed in special plastic containers/drawers.......Now we have 30+ years of legacy trash that I am throwing out......cloths to Thrift store, books to Library, and all my stacks of crap in my office to the dump.......Still going to have a Garage sale (maybe two weekends in a row)in the Spring....Must have 200 VHF tapes........My quota is 100#'s a week out of the house...two big Orange Garbage bags.......I was taught early in life," begin with the End in Mind"...Stephen Covey.....sorta gets your head around things. Margaret, sounds like your on your game today.....good luck......PS Snowing outside in my neck of the woods.....Southern BC Canada......

[Margm]

Well Kevin, you live in the "neck of the woods" Billy and I always wanted to RV in that direction.  Rain and gloomy here.  I type a good game, now if I can live up to it.  

[Gwenivere]

Margaret, I have so many What Would Steve Do moments.  I think that is natural as we had them to talk to about decisions.  Steve said he often thought that himself about me when I wasn't around.  

[kevin]

Just got back from Super Market, ran out of large Trash Bags....buying 40 at a time now......Margaret you missed your calling, you are a regular Tony Robins type Motivational speaker.......(typer)...I ran out of gas only after I had one box for the Thrift store and two trash bags started.....PS....even made the bed today.......Tomorrow will slowly continue with the Trash project........

[kayc]

Margaret, Well Billy might have liked Alaska...it's the last frontier.  Oregon and Montana maybe a close second, depending on where you go.  Sometimes I think most of us feel like getting away from it all...

[Margm]

Thanks Kevin, I just think I talk too much sometimes.  Poor Billy, I did let him talk some.