Missing Him

[brat#2]

Brad, I get how it is a symbol of not very happy times, but I just can't bring myself to get rid of it, since during the unhappy times, it brought him such joy.  Silly, I know.

Joyce

 

[Guest]

Joyce - Not silly at all.  It brought Dale joy.  Deedo was so frustrated with herself when she couldn't find them.  I cherish anything and everything that brought a smile to Deedo's face those last seventeen months.  Keep that nose for as long as it brings a smile, no matter how bittersweet.

Brad

[KarenK]

I quit wearing makeup(except for lipstick) back when Ron was diagnosed with cancer. We averaged 8 doctor appointments per week and it was less time consuming just to skip it. Although I'm sure it enhances my appearance , there is no one left that I'm trying to impress. I do take the time to use it for church and doctor appointments. I don't want to scare anyone too badly.

Joyce & Brad, I remember the "red nose" promotion and will also think of Dale & Deedo when I see it. There is nothing wrong with "silly". We all need more of it.

[Patty65]

9 hours ago, Marg M said:

I find it terribly liberating in this trying time to say to hell with makeup.

I'm with you Marg.  I gave up the week before this nightmare started.  Haven't worn any since, except on the day of his service, and that was only to please my daughter who was here for a week for the service. 

[Gwenivere]

Make up?  What is that?  I know I have some of that stuff in a drawer, but beyond some lipstick now and then so I don't look as dead as I feel, it's slowly decaying away in there.  Clothes are for comfort now.  I only wear nice tops with my jeans on volunteer days.  I have skirts,my couple dresses and nice shoes that I know I'll never wear again.  I miss having the interest of my face and body beingb'canvases, but the person I showcased them for isn't here to see it.  The most I do (and this takes massive effort) is still touch up my roots because my hair is so long, I dont know how they would put it back to normal with the gray in there.  

Even having to blow dry my bangs after sleep annoys me.  The dogs have yet to make my comment on my appearance.  I'm not scaring the populace tho, so I guess slacking off just makes me a simpler apparition.   

[kayc]

I have always worn makeup, since I was 13, even camping, even when sick, even though I won't see anyone all day...I do it for me, it helps me feel better about myself...but I have streamlined it as I've gotten older, I don't want to be a garish old lady!

[iPraiseHim]

I haven't worn make up in a long time.... LIKE NEVER!!! I thought I would bring some levity from the other side. 

Every fall for the last six years, I grew out my beard.  I would color it black otherwise I would look like an old Santa Claus/  Rose Anne really liked the change in look.  When I asked which di she prefer, she just said I like your look how ever you look.  She would run her fingers through my soft beard.  I had a beard when she passed and shaved it off a couple of months later when it started to get warm. I did not grow a beard this last fall because it reminded me so much of her.  Besides I had no energy to keep coloring the beard.  There was no reason to have one.  Interesting memories these posts provoke.  Shalom - George

[KarenK]

This is a crazy memory about makeup. My father died in '77. My folks had been married for 32 years. During those years, my mother was never without makeup. When he had an abdominal aneurysm and was being rushed to the hospital by ambulance, I followed right behind. She stayed behind and took the time to dress properly and put on her makeup and then Ron brought her to the hospital. I could never figure that one out and I didn't ask. Some time later, I was relating this to my cousin. She said my father didn't like for my mother to go ANYWHERE without makeup. I know she was in shock and guess that she put makeup on to please him. Unfortunately, it made no difference. He spoke his final words to me in the driveway when I said "I'm right here, Daddy" and he answered "I know you are".

[Margm]

My mom lived by the code "a little red paint never hurt any old barn."  She always wore her red lipstick and painted on her eyebrows.  I inherited whatever gene it is that gives color to the lashes and eyebrows, we both did not have that, and she was a brunette.  My friend, who has been a widow for 7-8 years, she never gets out of the house unless every hair is in place, her outfits match all the way from the shoes to the purse, and I have got to say, over 50 years out of high school, she looks better than she did at age 17.  She is now 100% deaf, I don't know from what, but she looks good in every picture.  I hide in pictures.  I hide from  mirrors.  I am 17 again, as long as I don't look.

[kayc]

George, Gotta love your sense of humor!   And your Rose Anne loving you any way you looked, well, that's how it was with George and I.  He worried about his false teeth and balding and I worried about my weight and greying hair, and really neither of us ever even SAW the flaws in each other!  We saw the person, and I swear we had rose colored glasses on!

Karen, It's funny how we have our rituals, but I'm sure she did it to please your dad.  Not sure I'd care about makeup under the circumstances, but if it was for the other person, who knows?  I'm not sure I could even think under the circumstances...

Margaret, I don't like pictures either, I always think, "I look THAT bad?!!!"  Try to avoid the camera.  (Where were all the picture-takers when I was a 110 lb. hottie?)  Haha, just saying, I think people like to take the worst pictures possible of us!  I have to have earrings on that match whatever I'm wearing, I've been known to turn my car around when I've gotten down the street and discovered I forgot them.  Stupid, I know!

[Margm]

Sometimes I feel like I have crawled into a bed of fire ants.  It is true, you should not do anything for a year.  But, I just don't know how many years, months, days I might have, none of us do and Billy went so fast.  I cannot leave this mess for someone else to hurt and clean up.  Scott was cleaning out the garage and he said he heard a little voice in his head saying "I am not going to use them anymore," (his dad), but he heard a louder voice in the front of his head telling him there would be hell to pay if he got rid of them. (His mom, me).  Billy used to get on the computer and order stuff.  He ordered baits, things to tie flies with, reels, rod blanks, rod wrapping tools, thread, the shiny stuff you stick it all together with and then painted the rods with Sally Hansen clear nail polish.  As soon as $ store got a new shipment in of Sally Hansen clear nail polish, I would buy them out.  The boy (Billy the Kid) would wait for that brown truck every day he expected an order in and he was like a kid.  Just the most stupid things meant something to him.  How can I discard all those stupid things that meant something to him.  All those reels that he waited impatiently for, the beautiful rods he would wrap.  I will have to get rid of them eventually. Billy sometimes was a selfish kid, he did not like sharing things.  But he is not here, is he?  Dammit, maybe this is why you don't make any big moves, your heart just cannot handle it and your damn insane brain cannot decide what to do.  So, I will just pack all this stuff in the extra bedroom. Maybe Billy won't be so selfish next year.  Bless his heart, he loved his toys. .  

And I have changed the subject entirely.  Makeup is not on my mind, but I guess "missing him" must be.  I did a lot of business today.  Slowly switching over credit unions.  Successfully switched for retirement checks but not yet for my SS.  I had some things coming out and found out today that the insurance Billy had been paying $4.50 each month on was for accidental insurance.  It was scheduled to come out soon and I just dropped it.  I wonder if Billy knew it was accidental death insurance.  i'll never know.  But my 0 balance was going to cost me an overdraft charge and I could not have that.  When does this death business ever get over with.......at death I guess.

[iPraiseHim]

I still see "us" as we were in this profile picture.  I prefer to remember us this way. Shalom - George 

[Gwenivere]

Steve was a big kid too.  Always ordering things and delighted when they came.  I finally put him on an allowance per month for toys.  Marg, I made an executive decision as I am not moving and have gotten rid of medical stuff that was useless and a bad memory.  I have no plans to do anything with the rest of Steves stuff.  I leave that to the executor when I check out.   There is just enough of him around so the place is not sterile, but not so much that I feel he is actively living here because that I could not take.

[Margm]

I know this might be silly, but I still sleep with his pants rolled up with pillow.  I plan on hanging all his clothes up in and between mine.  Symbolic togetherness.  I won't miss this house though.

[mittam99]

1 hour ago, Gwenivere said:

 There is just enough of him around so the place is not sterile...

It's interesting that you said that Gwen. I was just thinking about that earlier today. Every time I move something of Tammy's it's very emotional for me. Do I need to leave her toothbrush there because she somehow still uses it? Does my brain think this is all some awful dream and I'll wake up and realize this was all a bad nightmare? Moving Tammy's things and especially tossing her stuff out is a painful exercise in ambivalence.

But, there's another more practical reason I need to keep most of Tammy's things here. Let's call it character or personality. Before I met Tammy I was a bachelor and my house looked the part. Not that it looked like a man cave, just that it had a masculine look. When Tammy moved to live with me in Maryland, she brought many of her nick-nacks and some of her furniture from her apartment in Illinois. She loved country style and things like frogs and her precious moments sculptures and sock monkeys and her crosstitch. That stuff really wasn't my thing but over the years I began to appreciate all of it.

I realize now when I put some of those things in a closet the house loses some of it's charm and personality. It feels too pristine and sterile. I loved everything that Tammy brought to my life, to my world. Being surrounded by her stuff makes me feel like her personality and her personal touches live on.

 

[Gwenivere]

There is nothing else I will throw out.  I only rude the place of med supplies, boxes of outdated computer parts and donated his clothes except for 4 things that are so Steve.  His bathroom is still his bathroom only barer for the missing med supplies that never were there before.  Every time I try and move anything else now it feels wrong.  So it stays.  Everything you said makes absolute sense, Mitch.  It's tangible evidence of thier personality and how they made our lives the one e so dearly miss now.

[Margm]

I knew from the day he left I could not stay here.  I cannot keep this big place up and all my friends and family are 175 miles from here. (Neither of us wanted to keep this place up, it was bought so our granddaughter would have a stable home life.) The solitude is such that I will be gone for days and maybe my neighbor would check on me, maybe.  Moving from all this solitude to a place where I have to be seen scares me too.  The only thing I am sure of, the only positive thought in this big upheaval is that I cannot stay here where the quiet is deafening.  Billy would have already been gone in the RV.  The business part of death  would have caught up to him while he was on the road somewhere.  

But that was just us.  Most people were not gypsies like we were.  

[brat#2]

Gwen and Mitch - I too have not done anything with any of Dale's stuff, except medical.  It's almost 10 months and I have not gotten rid of one thing of his or for that matter moved anything from where he put/left it.  I just can't do it, like you said, it wouldn't be home without his things being here.  Maybe some day I will and if I don't, I really don't care, let the executor worry about it.  It's hard enough getting through each day that I'm not going to worry about moving or giving his stuff away.

Joyce

 

[mittam99]

Joyce, I've moved around some stuff and put some things in closets (like medical) and in drawers. But, beyond that everything is where it was. I haven't touched Tammy's clothes or her huge collection of pocketbooks purses (Tammy always got on my case for calling them pocketbooks ). I had just bought her a brand new laptop and a tablet a few months before she died and I haven't touched them. She had just gotten a new phone and it sits on her nightstand. It's so painful knowing that I redid our living room to include this really awesome and beautiful craft center/sewing table setup and Tammy never got a chance to use it. You may remember, it took me a year to finally move the plates I used for our lunch on March 6th, 2015.

Our life was changed forever when our perfect soul mate died and these little changes are another painful reminder of our loss.

[Margm]

"I wish" we had never sized up after getting "off the road."  I like what my mom said "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."  I live what my mother-in-law said "wish in one hand and s_ _ t in the other and see which one fills up the fastest."  Crude, but true.  The difference between life before Billy left and life now. 

[Gin]

At Al's memorial service, his humor was something that everyone mentioned, even the minister.  When Al had his last heart attack, the cardiologist told me to go into the cardiac lab to see him.  Surgery would be immediate.  Al told me to get the cardiologist because Al wanted to tell him a joke!  He absolutely insisted and the doc came over to hear the stupid joke.  He had a quick wit and loved humor.  I miss his stupid jokes.  I do not think I would look at them as stupid anymore.  I would love them.

Gin

[Margm]

21 minutes ago, Gin said:

 I do not think I would look at them as stupid anymore.  I would love them.

It took me at least 50 years to ask Billy about the annoying habit of laughing at himself when he did something stupid.  His simple answer was that he had to laugh at himself before someone else did.  I wish I could listen to his stupid laugh that went from annoying to adorable.  So much we miss, so much we would change.  

[brat#2]

Mitch, I know it is hard to like you said to even "move" anything of theirs to another spot, because it is not where it belongs!

Gin, I miss Dale's humor also, he was always quick and had such stupid little crazy sayings (but I don't think they are stupid now, I MISS them).  Sounds like Al and Dale would have gotten along, just like the red nose he wore to all his doctor appointments the week after I bought it for him, it made everyone laugh.  They would probably try to see who could out do each other!

Joyce

 

[Margm]

I may be wrong, but I think men have more dignity than we women have.  Billy was emptying my bedpans with the birth of Scott and it did not bother him at all.  I threw up through the whole pregnancy and he went behind me and cleaned it up.  I could not clean up "throw up" for my own kids.  When Billy got sick there was never a moment my mannerism changed.  There was nothing repulsive about him.  I could have picked up his whole 6'2" frame with my 5 feet total.  I had strength that came from some place I had never been before.  But, his dignity was destroyed, even knowing I did not consider him dirty.  I think men die when they have to give up their dignity.  My dad did.  He had to have his male parts removed because of the cancer.  My loud mouth aunt (mom's sister, all uncouth women) yelled "Elvie have they cut off your _____s yet."  My dad was such a dignified man and Billy never wanted me to clean him or hold him up.  I had enough strength nothing hurt me except his going so fast.  I would have carried him, but at what cost to him.  It was always "that's my job."  He never had any kind of distaste or disgust changing out or cleaning my tube after the colon burst, never minded cleaning up my throw up or emptying bedpans.  So, my dignity was not embarrassed.  He would have made a good nurse.  .  

[Gin]

 We used to be greeters at church.  The new pastor would come in and Al would say, "so glad you could be with us today".  Every week!