Uno!

Fridays are “Family Fridays” – a tradition started after Kim’s diagnosis where the kids make an effort to come to the house and one of them is the “chef du jour,” creating the meal for the entire family on that day. Kim loved it. She saw it as bringing the family closer together. As mentioned before, we’ve kept the tradition. The kids still come by every Friday, and someone is “chef du jour” – sometimes more than one person! – and some delightful meal and gathering results.

This week was to be Jeanette’s time in the galley, but she was scheduled to work. No worries! I had purchased some “emergency provisions” just the week before – there were some Gorton’s fish fillets (curious where they find such uniform fish…) and some breaded shrimp. Jessica was charged with bringing a bag of Tater Tots to round out the offerings. A veritable “sea of beige” came out of the oven. I also threw together a coleslaw (which the kids invariably fight over who gets to take the leftovers home…) and a tartar sauce for the fish. It was all actually quite delicious!

But that’s not the purpose of this post.

Following dinner, the girls, Jessica, Jillian, and Tiffany decided to play some Uno at the kitchen table. It was a loud, ribald gathering, and I constantly found myself looking over at them and smiling. I could literally hear Kim joining in on the fun – she loved games, and we would play Uno literally for hours with our granddaughter, Vanessa. Kim would have been right there in the thick of it, just as loud and boisterous as the girls were. Sigh.

She loved games. Clue was her favorite. We have no less than five copies of the game in the house of various “flavors.” There’s a 1960s or 70s copy on the shelf in our bedroom (along with my copy of Risk). There’s a “Harry Potter” version. There’s one with an “alternate crime scene” on the flip side of the board. (Well, one less: Jessie took one home with her Friday night.) Board games saw a lot of use when the kids were small, but not so much once they hit their teens as they started developing interests outside of the home. And, unfortunately, due to a penchant for playing them and then leaving them out, there are many that are missing their pieces.

Little bits of memories. Little reminders of how this house bulged and bustled with the lives therein. Memories that make this house my home.

Types of grief

It seems that a lot of content I write here starts its life on one of facebook’s widow(er) groups anymore. Today, there was a question regarding whether, having been Kim’s caregiver, that the time of grieving after she passed is reduced since we knew for so long what was coming. My answer is “No; not really.”

Though we who were also caregivers knew our spouse was going to die, our spouse was still with us. There was grief at the knowledge of her imminent death, but it is not the same grief as induced by the finality of the actual loss. While Kim was still with me, I could talk to her, care for her, hold her hand. There was an air of sadness about the whole affair; however, there was also hope. While she was still alive, she could have had months remaining; she could have had years – the endpoint wasn’t defined. And: where there is life, there is hope. We constantly hoped and prayed for a miraculous cure for her, even up to her last breath. When she had passed, that hope for a miraculous cure passed with her (though, yes: God is capable of anything). There was a permanence about the loss that did not come with the foreknowledge while she was still alive.

In short, I believe that you really cannot prepare for the sort of grieving that comes from losing your life’s partner. No amount of forewarning prepares you for the experience of literally having half your heart and soul torn away from you. The grief experienced by one who was a caregiver is really no different than that of one who was not. Even the shock of the actual loss I experienced sounds a lot like that of those who lost their spouse quickly or, even, suddenly. I guess if anything, those whose spouse’s passing is expected get a little extra dose of grief through the forwarning.

Constancy and devotion

Yesterday, I was reminded of something my sister said to me – actually, a combination of things two of my sisters said – when Kim passed: “You stood like a loving sentinel over Kim, standing at her side with constancy and devotion. No woman could ask for more than that.”

It’s high praise, and I hope that it felt that way to Kim. It certainly didn’t feel that way to me at the time.

The term “constancy” also relates back to several other posts in which I’ve discussed our relationship. We each stood by the other through various trials with constancy. Though we had our doubts regarding the soundness of doing so at times, we never wavered from our commitment to each other; we stood by each other, sometimes angry, sometimes hurt, but always in and with love.

I related in the past how the social worker assigned to work with Kim and me through her hospice told me of families that sequestered their dying relative, removing them from the centrality of their family. This is inconceivable to me. Kim was hospiced in the front room of our hour – the living room. This offered some challenges to the management of our home; however, it allowed us, as a family, to be with her constantly, and it allowed her to be with us. She wasn’t behind a closed bedroom door; she was right in the middle of things. No-one could come or go without seeing her, and she loved it. We were able to sit with her and watch her favorite movies with her. We could involve her in everything, even when she could no longer walk around the house with us. To me, it just felt like the right thing to do, and my role felt like my duty to her.

The house, even to this day, has not “recovered” from the living room being converted into Kim’s room. The furniture that was discarded in order to make room for her bed has not been replaced. Eventually, it will be remade; remodeled – but today, it still serves as one of many witnesses that Kim was here. A reminder of all that went before, and how, at least in this life, it ended.

Good news!

Today was the follow-up with the ENT who was treating me for the balance issues I developed while caring for Kim. The vestibular therapy is complete, and I am very nearly back to normal – I get a little “queazy” when moving my head certain ways under certain conditions, and have issues still when one or more of the vestibular inputs are removed (amazing, the things I’ve learned about how we sense balance!), but as functional as most, I think.

The doctor was much more personable today than he had been – this could have been because he had a medical student in tow, or maybe the former “professional detachment” had to do with his expectations for my recovery, but it was a very pleasant visit – my last with him!

I was surprised by what he had to tell me. And, I think, he was probably more surprised by my progress. As he put it to me, he didn’t want to give me his prognosis at the time, but he wouldn’t ordinarily have sent me for therapy: the threshold for therapy is 23% difference between the two ears. I was at 38%. He told me that he frankly did not expect that I would ever recover my balance.

So good news! I beat the odds! Thank you, Lord!

They say that the typical widower will suffer some major health setback or other within the first year of widowhood. The likelihood of something untoward occurring, though, decreases as time goes by. Hopefully, this was mine, and I’ll remain sound going forward. God willing…

But grieve we do

Simple things get us. Stupid, silly things send us spiraling down to where we can only stand in place and sob. Tonight, as I was putting away the dishes from the dishwasher, I was thinking how I never had any doubts about Kim when we were dating. I never had to guess if my feelings for her were reciprocated. And then, picking up a packet of graham crackers that she had received during one of her chemo visits to throw away, I broke. “She loved me, and I ruined her,” I sobbed. And “How could this have happened to her.”

In analyzing my feelings after recovering myself, I find the first lament is related to her alcoholism. No matter how much I’ve read and have been told that an alcoholic is the only one responsible for their alcoholism, I cannot help but think that I had a big hand in triggering its onset. The time away from home for my job had to be incredibly hard on her. My response to emotional displays – to clam up and run away – was likely another. My manner of focusing so keenly on tasks to the exclusion of all external input is another. I know she was jealous of some of the women who worked around me in our early years, too – having an absentee husband can play havoc on a woman’s mind. But, again, I remained faithful to her through the whole time, and she remained married to me – feats that many of my contemporaries and their wives did not achieve.

The second lament is similar to something I voiced to her shortly after her diagnosis: things like this aren’t supposed to happen to us. We were to grow old together, getting along through retirement as our parents did before us.

And the lever that opened the floodgates was a simple packet of graham crackers…

For what do we grieve?

The thought occurred to me that grief is a manifestation of self-pity. I know that is a significant oversimplification of the maelstrom of emotions that we, the bereaved, face in our grief – but what, exactly do we grieve?

We grieve our loss. OUR loss. Something that happened to us. This thought occurred to me yesterday and immediately took residence, continually popping up like a bad neighbor peeking over the fence. What, exactly, are we grieving? Our spouse is beyond the suffering of this vale of tears. There is no more pain for them. We grieve the loss of someone in our life, a partner, confidant, lover…

Again, an oversimplification. Kim died of a horrible, painful, wasting disease. I feel great sadness thinking of her last months of life; that she was uncomfortable and in pain and couldn’t enjoy the things she loved to do. I feel sadness at how that disease robbed her of everything before finally taking her life. But, in grieving over her death… again: is it just self-pity?

An article I came across discriminates between the two by saying self-pity has to do with the want of something we need (or, I’d argue: simply want,..) but cannot have, and grief has to do with the loss of something you had. Sounds a bit like splitting hairs to me. This one does a little better job, perhaps – even so, it seems there is ample overlap.

So it’s a question, I guess, to be explored by brighter minds in psychology than mine. Maybe now that I’ve written it down, it will stop shaking my mind like a puppy shaking its toy.

Who paints the clouds?

I have always been a cloud-watcher. As a kid, I’d lay on my back for hours staring up at the clouds. As an adult, I’d point out the things I saw in the clouds to Kim or the kids as we were driving along from wherever. Finding things in the clouds became a favorite pastime for the kids when I’d drive them home from school, and it was a great exercise for their developing imaginations.

God's Stallion © 2020 Pat Babcock — “God’s Stallion” ©2020 Pat Babcock

When Kim was in the hospital last August to have a stent put in her bile duct, the clouds put on quite a show – we spent a lot of time looking at the clouds through the 11th-floor window, and I took tens – maybe hundreds! – of pictures. The picture of Kim in the header of this blog is a composite I made with one such picture. In fact, the image of her I used in that composite was captured as she was looking out at the clouds as I described what figures I could see in them.

Clouds have always been beautiful.

I noticed a “new creativity” in the cloud patterns after Kim passed, reminiscent of obvious brush strokes. The following pictures are details from a single photo taken on my way home from some appointment or other 10 days after Kim passed.

Sketch lines in the sky ©2020 Pat Babcock

The clouds today were a masterpiece: at the same time dark and brooding, but with pondwater-like waves that exposed cheerier, sunlit clouds in an almost unnatural pattern. It is my conviction that God gave Bob Ross some time off, and Kim is now brushing the clouds. In any case, I look up at them and invariably smile – so, at least to me, it is the truth.

Old rooms, old memories, and old sea scows

Kim’s Dad is back from his sojourn in Florida and Georgia, so, after Mass, Vanessa and I (Jillian is at a pageant in Tennessee) made our way to his house to accompany him to Holy Sepulchre to visit Kim’s grave and her Mom’s grave as has been the practice since Kim’s mom passed in 2019.

Afterward, in his house, it seemed I was viewing it through AR lenses: everywhere I looked, I could see the house as it was today and as it was when Kim and I were dating and first married, so many years ago. I could see where the couch was that we would plop ourselves on after I picked her up from work on each weekend day. I could see the bedroom that was hers as it was when we were first dating, and then the one she later moved to in the front of the house. I could see her sitting in front of the fireplace to distribute Christmas gifts as was the tradition in those early days. I could see her sitting there as our children, nieces, and nephews took over the role as they grew. I could see Kim working in the kitchen with her Mom and sister at each holiday family gathering. So many memories. So much captured in the vaults of my mind.

It can be maddening at times.

A few years back, we were having a conversation regarding retirement, and how we would get along during it. During the conversation, as we were discussing the things we’d like to do when we no longer had to worry about going to work, she stopped and smiled and said that she believed we would get along just fine…

As the song says: some loves are meant to last forever. Despite the issues we had in our life together, I believe we had that. It definitely had its downs, but we weathered them. Sometimes weathering the storms was easy; other times weathering them was exhausting – but we made it through each one with our marriage intact. The ship of our marriage, a shiny, white, and sleek craft when we launched it, was battered by time and became dented, worn, and rusty – but it remained afloat, and definitely remained seaworthy. We would have been just fine through retirement if only she was allowed to experience it.

Where were you…

I was asked today “what were you doing a year ago today?” An innocent enough question brought on by the commemoration of a grandnephew’s first birthday combined with the comment of “Where does the time go?”

Where does it go, indeed.

A year ago today, Kim was in Florida at her sister-in-law, Vee‘s, condominium with her sister Rhonda; they had accompanied their father there so he could visit and clean out his trailer in Florida with the thought that it would be sold. She would go the next day to Harry Potter Land at The Universal Studios theme park, Harry Potter being one of her favorite things of all time.

I was at work in my office on this day. We wouldn’t have been sent to work from home due to Covid for another week. At home, I would recommence work on the annual torture we’re put through by our benevolent government: our income tax return. I spent the weekend on them while watching Bohemian Rhapsody and The Mandolorian to help ease the mind-numbing tedium which is tax preparation.

It would be another month and 12 days before we would receive the news that destroyed life as we had known it. All of our pettiness, all of our little squabbles, all of our irritations with each other still thrived. Oddly, that’s what I remember most about this time: despite my cheerful replies to her texts, I recall feeling irritation over that trip. Irritation with the cute texts she would send me featuring Hufflepuff, the stuffed purple unicorn that Kenny got her for Christmas, at each of their stops and in the car along the way. Irritation that they were going to the theme park. Irritation…

It’s interesting how the passage of time and the accompanying revelation of life’s events changes perspective: those are now some of my most cherished images, and I would give anything to have Kim having fun in Florida while I do the taxes at home right now.

Command of space and time

Many of us dwell on things – both good and bad – that occurred during our marriages. It’s natural. It’s also natural for some that the “bad” incidents cause great remorse, making us wonder what we could have done differently. But remember: you cannot change the past. You cannot command the future. You have only today. So don’t squander it ruminating over past incidents and don’t waste it in trying to force the future to your will. Plan what needs to be planned for maintenance of life and living. And let the past live only in memory; not in the forefront of your thoughts. Lessons of the past can only inform the future; they cannot be changed.