Worst of Times, Best of Times

I stopped blogging in May of 2020, and just started blogging again by recounting the biggest event in my life of the last several years…

To be honest, I don’t think much happened of note between May 2020 and when Paul died in January 2024.  So I’ll just start from there. 

After Paul passed away, I had to come to grips with the fact that I was now alone.  After you get past the initial shock of loss, you have to start formulating a way forward. 

I decided to use my own mother as an example of WHAT NOT TO DO after you lose your spouse.  My dad died in 2007, after which, my mother curled up and died…figuratively.  She was only in her mid-70’s (which is only a few years older than I am now), but she really had no life except for her dogs.  She sat in her house and watched TV.  I think she had been experiencing the early stages of dementia, but then her memory loss really started to accelerate.  It wasn’t too long before I had to place her in an assisted living facility for her own safety and that of others, because she was still driving.  And she was a menace on the road, believe me.

She seemingly didn’t have much purpose, other than ruminating on how unfair life was.  So she spent most of her time bitching and moaning about everything to anyone who would listen.  That was usually just me, because she alienated everyone else, including my brother.  She was miserable but I honestly think she relished her misery. 

SO...I decided that was not going to be my life.  I was going to make my life as a single person as happy and fulfilling as I could make it. 

The first part of that process was realizing that I didn’t have to ask anyone for their input or “permission” to do anything.  Paul never told me I couldn’t do anything, but of course as a married couple, you make decisions together.  Where to go, what to do, what to spend money on, when to do anything. 

I guess you can say that life after loss is a dichotomy.  It is freedom with seemingly contradictory qualities.  Charles Dickens put it best, I think…“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

There's darkness.  You just lost your person, your soulmate.  You’re adrift without him, yet there is so much to take care of.  The funeral, military internment, dealing with probate, paying bills, and especially getting maintenance and repairs done to the house.  Paul was the one who used to get all that stuff done, he had all the contacts.  But now you're doing it all alone.  That’s the absolute worst of times.

Later, after your shock and grief subside a bit, you start to see the possibilities of living a life so different from anything you ever imagined previously.   The light starts to creep back in.  That “can be” the best of times.   You just have to be open to the good things that the future might hold.

I've had some really good things happen to me in the past year and a half.  So I'll write more about those things soon...

An Experiment

Hard to believe I haven't posted in over 5 years! So this is an experiment to see who, if anyone, is still out there and might want to read this little blog. I'm not sure why I started thinking about Grace Notes. It may be because I have time to think about a lot of random stuff these days. 

I had trouble logging in, thank goodness I had a note in a folder where I keep passwords, that told me which email I used for Blogger as well as the password.  So I was able to get in! 

I think I might just start up this blog again. I remember originally it was therapeutic to write about my eating disorder and general anxieties. Well, now I need a bit of therapy, but not for that. 

When I last wrote, it was in the start of the pandemic, which is now a distant memory. I had just retired and was trying to adjust to life at home, because we really couldn't go anywhere. Remember Quarantines? Lockdowns? Anyway, for me it was a double whammy. Covid Lockdown and No Job. 

Well, here it is over 5 years later. Lots has happened in my life. 

I guess the biggest thing is I'm a widow. 

Paul, my husband of 32 years and the love of my life, passed away suddenly in January of 2024 of a massive heart attack, also known as a "widowmaker."

He hadn't been feeling well for a few days, and was on antibiotics for what we thought might be a sinus infection. The antibiotics were making him a bit ill so in retrospect. I believe I missed the REAL signs of what was going on with him.

That morning, I had gone to the store to get some things for him, soup, cold medicine, etc., and to do some other errands. When I left, he was relaxing in his recliner, watching a movie on TCM and doing some things on his laptop. When I got back about 2 hours later, Jennie our dog came running to me.  As usual, I asked her, "What have you and Daddy been doing?"  

Then I walked over to him.  When I first looked at him, he was so still, I thought he was asleep. He was as I had left him, laptop in his lap.  But something seemed off.  When I approached him, I saw his face was slack and he had some foam coming out of his mouth. I shook him and started yelling, "Wake up, Paul!!!" There was no response at all, and he was cold to the touch. 

Of course, I called 911. The dispatcher asked if I could get him out of his recliner on to the floor to do CPR. Unfortunately, he weighed too much for me to move him, so she said the paramedics were on their way.  Our house is notoriously hard to locate, so she told me to go outside to direct the ambulance. I ran outside to run up our driveway.  Then I saw my next door neighbor in his kitchen window so instead, I frantically ran to their door and cried out, "I think Paul's dead!" 

The rest is kind of a blur. My neighbor went to direct the paramedics to our house and I went back inside to be with Paul. 

When the paramedics arrived, they got him onto the floor and started to try to revive him. I think they worked on him for about 40 minutes before they gave up. My wonderful neighbors stayed with me for the whole time.  We waited in the kitchen, and I could hear what was going on. Once it sounded like they actually got some heart activity, and I felt momentarily hopeful! 

But finally they came and told me he was gone. 

They said the coroner would come soon to take him away, and so I could spend some time with him if I wanted. He was lying on the floor, covered with a sheet.  They warned me that his face would look strange from the efforts to revive him. So I only looked at him very briefly, covered his face again, and then held his hand.  I knelt next to him on the floor and talked to him until they came for him.  

Through tears, I told him how much our life together had meant to me. I told him how much loved him and would always miss him. 

I'm not sure what possessed me but he always had such beautiful hands.  So I decided to take a photo of us holding hands. 

It seemed a bit of a macabre thing to do, but I'm glad I did... 

I've never shared this photo with anyone before

 

Well, that's enough for now. Writing this is bringing up all sorts of feelings so I'll write some more soon.