Life after two-and-a-half (almost) years

So here we are. Today is two years, five months since Vic went to be with Wags at the Rainbow Bridge. My old standard response to “How are you doing?” (often accompanied by the sympathetic head tilt) was “I'm OK, ups and downs.” My new response is, “Not great. I'm fine.” Think “Sorry/Grateful” from Company:

You're sorry-grateful
Regretful-happy
Why look for answers where none occur?
You always are what you always were
Which has nothing to do with
All to do with her

“Nothing to do with, all to do with [him].” Yeah. I mean, things are actually pretty good, right? Food on the table. Roof over my head. Bella by my side. Friends and family who care. There's just that one thing that isn't great. My husband is gone. Just that one little thing. But it isn't a little thing, is it? It's a big damn thing that is always there. Usually underneath, sometimes on the surface, but always there. So I can be “not great” and still be “fine.”

Certainly I'm “fine” because I come from sturdy, resilient pioneer stock. I'm a latchkey kid who had to learn to do things on her own and play by herself. I am a realist who married a realist who knew this scenario, widowhood, would come to me before it came to him, and we prepared for it together, with love and humor. (Please, please tell me you have not forgotten the “I'll love you 'til I croak” card he gave me on our first anniversary only a month after he “died” in the Apple store.)

But as surely as I know that, I know this: I am “fine” because of you. My friends and family who lift me up. The friend who comes over for walks with me and Bella. The friend who comes over and lets Bella out when I have to be away from home for more than four hours. (The importance of this cannot be overstated.) The friend who started crochet date night for me and helps me make the appetizers I take to Christmas dinner. The friends who come to crochet date night and chat with us while we do this—and while we all sit around crafting for three hours every other Friday night.) The friends who check up on me when something happens that they know will probably have some kind of effect on me. The friends who check up on me for no particular reason. (I mean, other than the obvious reason.) My friends who help me do things around the house—especially “man” things. (And I can say this without being sexist, because although I call them “man” things, it is not always men who help me with them. I get it—women know how to wield a hammer.) The friends who don't give up on me when I don't answer their invites for lunch for six months—or more. The friends who take my hard-to-recycle items and my compost to the Waste Diversion Center and set up my electronics. My manager and my teammates who are all also my friends and have helped me in countless ways both professionally and personally. I'm in a widows/widowers group on Facebook, and I can tell you that not everyone has that support at work.

And I know some of you will see yourselves in this description and think, “Meh, I'm not doing that much.” And it may not seem like it to you, but it is. From this side, it's everything.

As I was going through my pictures for the 2023 not-Scallion, I came across two pictures that reminded me of things that deserved special mention, and I wanted them here, on The Widow's Peek, because they're more about my life as a widow than my life as a person—and those are two very different things..

One:

Shortly before Vic passed away, his sister, Alice, showed me a pillow she'd found that was made out of the clothing of a person who had recently passed away. I'd seen things made out of clothing—a wall hanging made of ties, a blanket made of skirts—and always thought that these were meaningful ways to use things that you didn't want to give away but you didn't want hanging in a closet. Alice asked if she could make a pillow for me out of Vic's flannel shirts.

Oh, Vic and his flannel.

If you ever met Vic in the winter, chances are you saw his flannel. He loved those shirts, and he wore them until they were threadbare. But before they became threadbare, they became soft as butter.

So my answer was, immediately, yes.

I hadn't thought much about it—I'm the kind of person who isn't going to pressure someone when they're doing something nice for me; it'll come when it comes—but one day, Alice came up with not one, but two pillows made out of his favorite favorite flannel shirts. (Yes, he had some that were his favorites, and he also had favorites out of those favorites—he had a whole shirt hierarchy.)

This one has her favorite e.e. cummings poem embroidered on it as well as two camera pins.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

This one just shows all the wonderful things Vic was to people. 

I love these pillows. They have been hugged, cried on, and hugged some more.

Alice didn't end up using all the flannel shirts, so she brought the rest back to me. One day, my friend-through-Laura, Chris, was at the house. Chris is also a quilter, and I wondered whether she could use the flannel shirts. They are cotton, after all, and she knew Vic, too. He thought she and her husband, Larry, were the bee's knees. My intention was simply that she might like some cotton fabric for her quilting. She, of course, asked me what I wanted her to make for me. I feel like this is a very quilter thing to do.

I have (almost) given up talking people out of doing something nice for me, so I tried to think of something that would be simple. (To be clear, people who don't do a craft do not know what “simple” is. Something that looks simple can be quite complex, and something that looks intricate could be easy as pie. Which, side note, is not necessarily that easy. Have you ever made your own crust? Pie can be very difficult!) Anyway, I selected a table runner—straight edges, probably a lot of patterns available. I thought I could drape over the lateral file that sits by the desk in my office. I'm there a lot, and it would be nice to see it every time I walk in. Chris took some measurements and the bag of flannel and went on her merry way.

Once again, I didn't give this a second thought. Then one day, I got a text from Chris wanting to confirm the measurements for the table runner. Exciting!

Two weeks later, she and Laura came to the house. She gave me the table runner, and it was magnificent. Click on these pictures—you'll want to see them full size.

Front

Back

Things to notice:

• Some of the strips have the buttons from the shirts on them, and some are made of the cuffs or collars or even the seams.
• The denim—I had forgotten that there was a pair of his blue jeans in the bag with the extra flannel.
• That classic Levi size tag is attached to the front side of the runner.
• The binding around the outside—it's made of little strips of all the shirts and the jeans.

But that's not all. Chris then presented me with this:

As you can see, this little dog is also made up of scraps of flannel and Vic's jeans. This fella—whom I have named Patch—also has the watch pocket from the jeans, into which is tucked one of Vic's handkerchiefs.

Where Alice's pillows comfort me at home, Chris's Patch comforts me on the road. Although I don't mind going places alone, I don't like going home alone. If we drove home at night, Vic would drive because he knew I didn't like driving at night. If I was driving, he might pick songs off the iPod to play if I was getting sleepy. We would talk about the movie we just saw or the dinner we just had or the people we'd just seen. In the later years, when I went to more things by myself, I was driving home alone, but he was there waiting for me when I got there, eager to hear about whatever I had done. So I often take Patch with me, because feeling that flannel ... it's almost like Vic is there.

I think Vic would approve of what his flannel shirts and jeans have become.

Two:

(Remember waaaaaay up at the top when I said there were two things that deserved special mention? This is the second thing.)

This actually deserves its own blog post, but I know Laura would be the first person to say, “Don't waste your time on a blog post all about me.”

That's right. The second “thing” is a person—my sister, Laura.

We have always loved each other. We weren't the inseparable sisters that twins might be, or those closer in age. She had her friends and I had mine, but we also did a lot of things together. (I'm looking at you, Grease seven times and a Lifeguard/Orca double feature at the drive-in.) I feel like we might have fought a normal amount, but I honestly don't remember our relationship as contentious. And how we happened to end up in Colorado from Nebraska at virtually the same time is anybody's guess. We saw as much as you can see of each other when you both work. We saw each other a little more when the kids were born, because I made it a point to go to Denver once a month. I wasn't going to miss out on a growth spurt!

But when the kids got older and we all got busier, we didn't hang out as much. And in the days before cell phones and texting, it was harder to stay in touch.

It was Mom, Laura's retirement and cell phones that brought us back together. The kids had moved out, Laura was retired, and Mom needed help. Laura and I coordinated our activities to provide the care Mom needed (as well as some care for Dad). We talked more. Texted more. Did more things together. Grew closer.

And then Vic died.

And there she was, getting me hot chocolate. Helping me sort through things and making lists of all of Vic's possessions that I wasn't planning to keep so that Bryan, Laurie, Patty and Alice could take whatever they wanted to remember him by. Taking household donations to ARC, books to the library, recycling to the recycling center—whatever I needed. But also staying away when she knew Vic's sisters and I needed to do things together, like planning the service. She came up once a month for several months to help me do the chores I didn't have time to do after I went back to work.

Then I put the house on the market. Even though my Realtor told me in February that I needed to “declutter” (whatever that means—I 100% did not have clutter!), including taking down the Christmas tree (yes, my first post-Vic Christmas tree was still up in February—you wanna make something of it?), I did not. I mean, when am I going to have time for that? I'm now holding down a full-time job and running a house where before I was only doing one of those—Vic did everything else around the house.

So up came Laura, pulling down the Christmas tree while my friend Paulette came over to “declutter.” Then they both decluttered—taking three days to do what I should have done little by little over three months—while Alice worked on my planters and ground cover garden to improve my curb appeal. And what was I doing? Working, of course. New client + big project = no time for Patty.

When the house sold, Laura came up to direct the movers or the carpet guys or the guy who came to take away my junk—whatever I needed. She didn't laugh at me when I said I wanted to go through each room in the old house and thank it for giving me a home for all those years—in fact, she went with me through the rooms and made it a solemn occasion. She stayed with me on overnights so she could be here first thing in the morning to get started and last thing at night so we could get as much done as possible. We didn't even watch much TV!

Things wound down, and I didn't need as much help. I went into the abyss and didn't tell anyone. Laura got back to her life and took care of some health things that had taken awhile to get diagnosed.

But one day, she said she missed me and we should do one of our overnights. I had the first week in September off, so we decided to do it then. I still had two major chores that needed to be done: My books had been unboxed, but I hadn't put them in any kind of order. (What, you don't put your books in order?) And the storage area was a hodge podge of stuff that, when I moved in, I said to the movers, “Just put that in here; I'll take care of it later.” I even went downstairs to start on both chores, but when you don't know where to start, you just throw your hands up and watch Schmigadoon. (No? Just me then?) So I sheepishly asked Laura if we could do one of those chores on her overnight.

Did she sigh in exasperation and say, “Fine,” dripping with sarcasm? Did she say, “Sometimes I feel like you only love me for what I can do for you”? Did she refuse? No. She said, enthusiastically, “I don't see why we can't do both!” And both we did. I wish I had taken before and after pictures, but I didn't. Just the after ones:

And now, every time I go downstairs—every time—I see those neat bookshelves and that spacious, organized storage area, and I see love. The love of a sister. My sister. Like I said, I could devote a whole blog post to her, but I have bills to pay, and Bella is nudging me to take her for a walk. Time is no longer an infinite resource for me.

Thanks for traveling this road with me, Lau. I could do it on my own, but I'm so grateful I don't have to.

I'm also grateful to have all of you on this sometimes bumpy, sometimes up a steep hill, sometimes slippery journey.

And chocolate. I'm grateful for chocolate.

But mostly for all of you.

The terrible twos

That's right, today is the two-year anniversary of ... well, you know what. Do I have to say it all the time?

As you might have guessed from the dearth of posts on this blog, I'm fine. I've settled into the house (it's been a year now), I've stayed out of the abyss, I'm healthy.

Every day is a regular day—I wish Vic were still here, but he's not, so I get over it. There are “good” things (e.g., being able to watch whatever I want to watch whenever I want to watch it without worrying about whether he wants to watch it or whether he likes it) and bad things (not to be a broken record, but he's not here).

But the biggest “first” happened just recently—I took my first vacation without Vic in 38 years.

We went a lot of places in those 38 years—we traveled well together. But one place we did not go was Alaska. Hawaii was our first bucket list destination, and we loved it so much that whenever we had enough money for a bucket list destination ... we went to Hawaii. But my dad went to Alaska when I was 12, and I always wanted to see what he saw, so I would suggest Alaska every once in a while. But we both kept choosing Hawaii.

My friend Amanda used to live in Alaska, so one day we went to lunch and I picked her brain about where we should go in Alaska and what we should do. I came away with a long list of things that I talked to Vic about. He was ... let's just say ... not quite interested. My friend Dawn's husband went to Alaska for an extended period of time and took a lot of pictures. One day we were at her house, and I mentioned what David had done and showed Vic some of David's pictures. He was ... let's just say ... not quite interested. And one day, we were visiting my friend Mary, whose friend Sandy was a park ranger at Denali National Park and Preserve. I mentioned wanting Sandy to take me on a behind-the-scenes tour of the park, and that's when he said it. “I'm just not that interested in going to Alaska.”

WHAT? Not that interested? But ... but ... the wildlife! The scenery! The Northern Lights! The tallest mountain in North America! ALASKA! Nope. Not interested. So I joked with Mary, “We'll just have to go after Vic dies.”

Side note: “After Vic dies” was a common refrain in our house. Vic was not afraid of death, and he figured he would die first, and he figured I would continue to live my life, so it was just a thing we did. Don't have a cow.

Anyway, Vic died, and Mary planned a trip to Alaska for us (adding her friend Sue to give us a cheaper rate!), and I just got back from that trip.

It was gorgeous and fun and filled with adventure. But it 100% wasn't filled with Vic. The injustices started at the airport, where I had to find my way around alone—I haven't traveled by air for almost a decade, and a lot of things have changed at DIA. It was my first time using TSA PreCheck, so I wasn't sure how that worked. I had to eat breakfast by myself. And I had to take all my carry-on luggage with me every time I had to go to the ladies' room.

I always packed snacks for us—cashews for “protein” and Peanut M&Ms for “dairy” (there is milk in chocolate, right?). I would buy a container of cashews and a family bag of M&Ms and then split them in two—one for the trip out, one for the trip back. I put the “trip back” snacks in our checked luggage and the “trip out” in my carry-on backpack. So I did the same thing for this trip ... but ... I forgot that I was the only one eating them, so I brought the same amount, which was twice as many as I needed. Plus I was sitting next to a complete stranger, and I didn't want him to judge me for eating too much, so I ended up having a LOT of airplane snacks left over, and I have been eating them for three weeks.

We started our trip with a cruise. Not a Love Boat–type cruise, but an “expedition journey.” We didn't wear a lot of fancy clothes—we wore expedition clothes. And at our first “meeting” on the ship, I noticed how many men were wearing shants. Yes, I said “shants.” If you watched Modern Family, you know what shants are—but we knew what they were long before Phil Dunphy wore his. They are pants that have a zipper around midthigh so you could zip off the bottom and have shorts. Shorts + pants = shants. Vic loved his shants. Wore 'em all the time. Zipped 'em off, zipped 'em back on. So seeing all those shants on the cruise made me miss my shants-wearin' man.

Side note: Vic would not have enjoyed the cruise—although it was basically a floating boutique hotel, when we were in the ocean, the ship rocked quite a bit, and he would not have fared well with all that rocking. He also did not like being around a bunch of people, and he did not like group outings.

All our vacations were documented thoroughly through Vic's skillful photography. I took pictures with my phone. I took some pretty good pictures, as a matter of fact, but if you've ever tried to take a picture of a humpback whale breaching, an otter playing or an eagle on the other side of the river, you know the value of a long lens. Vic would have taken some astounding photographs on this trip. He also would have taken a fair number of pictures of me, but every time I wanted a picture of myself, I had to take a selfie (which I am not good at) or ask someone else to take it (which I am not good at). Not having anyone around all the time to take pictures of me is something that bothers me even when I'm not on vacation, but drop me into a beautiful place, and it's just all the more noticeable. Vic. Is. Not. Here.

While I was on the plane reading my book and listening to my music, one of our wedding songs came on. Although this was not vacation-related, it still broke me a little bit.

Finally, we took a train from Anchorage to Fairbanks. There was an annoying lady who was not following the rules, and the bartender had to scold her—twice—and that was something we would have giggled about and made fun of for the rest of the trip.

There were a lot of tears on this trip. All the things he would have loved, all the things I would have loved doing with him, just the idea of never taking another vacation with him.

But.

(There's always a but.)

I took a vacation by myself. Sure, not every moment. Mary and Sue and I did a lot of things together. (We were very good traveling partners, actually.) But I figured out the bus system in Vancouver and ... uh ... visited some yarn stores. I walked through Ketchikan alone and ... uh ... visited a yarn store. I went to a bear observatory and a glacier on my own ... no yarn store. I ate dinner alone one evening when Mary and Sue were both feeling poorly. And after they went back to Phoenix, I drove to Denali National Park and Preserve on the rarest of rare sunny days (there are an average of seven in July) and saw Denali. By. My. Self. I met a number of Alaskans who said they hadn't even seen Denali because it's just usually socked in. (And then ... uh ... I visited a yarn store.)

These were all pretty scary for me, emotionally. The idea of driving to Denali was particularly fraught. Alone? In the middle of nowhere? What if I got a flat tire and missed my flight home? What if I went all the way down there and saw nothing?

But what if I went home and didn't try at all? How long would I kick myself for? (Forever.) And what would Vic tell me to do? He would tell me to go for it.

So I did.

And now I know I can take a vacation without Vic, and I can walk in a strange city alone, and I can ask people to take pictures of me, and I can rent a car and drive to Denali on the same day as my flight home.

I don't want to take a vacation without Vic, but that's not an option anymore, so at least I know that I can.

I will write more about my vacation on my other blog, Love Talk, including a lot of pictures, but I'll leave you with a few of my favorites.

This bear is about 10 feet from me, we are separated
by a wooden fence around a viewing platform.

This humpback whale just breached over and over and over. 
I got video of him doing it nine times. NINE TIMES!

This is Dawes Glacier. It is at least 300 feet high 
and approximately 1/2 mile wide.

Me, in the classic “point at the sight” pose.

NOT a wild moose—this little lady was
at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

Ditto‚ but this is a musk ox, gender unknown

That little white cap in the background is Denali.
I asked a complete stranger to take this picture.

This is also Denali ... from the plane. It seemed
like we were close enough to touch it.

Moments of grace and unexpected joy

“Moments of grace” is a post I started in August, before heading into the abyss. I never posted it because: abyss. But this week, I found myself utterly joyful, and when I came to write about that, I found this post again, and it seemed like a good combo. I'll start with the joy.

I found myself inexplicably sad on Wednesday. (I know, I said “joy” and I'm starting with “sad.” Bear with me.) Not overwhelmingly sad, just a little down. I thought about that first hummingbird who visited me and how I hadn't seen a hummingbird since (although many others have, and I've received many hummingbirds from friends, so I am surrounded by them, and they all bring me comfort). I said, “Would it kill you to visit me just once?” I laughed, because the thought that he could just visit me on demand is amusing. I read a chapter in my book, turned out the light, and went to sleep.

The next morning, I got up, showered and went to my home office to start the day when I heard a jeer. I peered outside and what did I see? No, people. Not a hummingbird. It's the dead of winter! It was a blue jay. BUT. We had blue jays at the old house, and whenever Vic didn't get the peanuts out in time, they would jeer and jeer and jeer. (Yes, I looked it up. That angry, “Hey! Mister! Where are my peanuts???” cry is called a jeer.)

So I knew it was Vic. 

I called. He came. Thus began four days (and counting) of unexpected joy. And not big things, like “I won a million dollars”or “I won a million dollars” or even “I won a million dollars.” 😉 But little things, like:

• I saw a hot-air balloon on my way to breakfast yesterday. Vic loved hot-air balloons, and I have a million pictures of them on his hard drive. So every hot-air balloon reminds me of Vic.
  
• I heard the song “I Hate Love Songs” by Kelsea Ballerini. I love that song, but more to the point, when I first played it for Vic, he said, “Hey, that's our love song.” Yup. MFEO. (Google it.)
  
• Then I heard the song “Nutcracker” by Straight No Chaser. This is a song about a guy who takes his wife to the Nutcracker every year. He hates it, but he does it because he loves her. It made me think of all the things Vic has sat through with me or for me, including every performance of the play Noises Off that I was in in the early 90s and every concert I sang in when I was in the women's chorus at CU. He never tried to get out of any of them, and he never complained about it.
• The show Ghosts showed up on my DVR, thus ending my holiday Ghosts drought. (If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it—but you must start at the beginning.)
• I received a gift from a neighbor whose driveway I've been snow-blowing. I don't make a big deal out of it, I don't ask if she wants me to do it, I just do it when I'm doing mine. I don't expect a gift for taking care of a neighbor—other neighbors take care of me, so I feel like I'm just doing my part—but, I mean, it was Godiva chocolates, so ... joy!
• I saw an older woman struggling to clear ice on her sidewalk yesterday during my Bella walk. Having a north-facing driveway S-U-C-K-S  B-A-L-L-S, so Bella and I crossed the street. I took her off the leash and took the ice chopper from the lady. I would chop some ice, and she shoveled my chips off the sidewalk. Many hands make light work. Her husband recently had spinal fusion surgery, so he could not help, and it made me feel good to help her. Bella alternated prancing around in the snow and standing in a sunny spot the whole time. She's such a good dog.
• Friday was crochet date night!

I know there were a bunch more, but I didn't write them down, so I don't remember them. I often say gratitude begets gratitude, and to this I add joy begets joy. You can't always choose happiness—depression and other physical ailments often get in the way—but recognizing joyful moments can be a big mood lifter. My friend Julie said that Vic was a joy spreader and immortalized that (via one of his hummingbird pictures) in her art. So finding some joy after those months in the abyss was a real treat.

Now, about those moments of grace. These are moments when people do things for you that you just do not expect. They are almost always small gestures, they are often performed by complete strangers, and they always make me cry (no kidding). For example:

• One day I went to Five Guys. I ordered a large drink because they have the machines there and I can get a Caffeine-Free Diet Coke. I prefer Pepsi to Coke (I don't want to hear from you Coke lovers), but to be able to get a caffeine-free diet soda is ... well, it's a joy for me. Anyhoo, the woman at the counter only charged me for a medium drink, and when I pointed it out to her, she said, “I know, but I liked your mask.” (I was wearing my lion mask at the time.)
• I went to Michaels to get glass for a frame. In her excitement to go for a walk, Bella knocked the frame off the table it was on (there's a shocker), and the glass broke. I was just going to buy a new, cheapie frame and use the glass from that, but none of the glass was JUST the right size, so I went to the frame shop. The woman behind the counter took my order and said she would cut it herself and would call me when it was done. I didn't ask her how much it would be because it didn't matter—I needed the glass. How much could it be, anyway? I went back to Michaels when she called, and she gave me the glass. I got out my credit card. She said, “No charge.” I said, “What's that now?” And she said, “There wasn't a spot in the system to input glass this small, so I just did it off the books.” She could have figured out a way to charge me for that glass, but she didn't.
• As I was preparing to move to my new house, I felt like I was betraying the old house of 18 years—and more, like I was betraying Vic. I remembered an Etsy shop where the maker commemorated houses, graduations, weddings, anniversaries, retirements, etc. in watercolors, so I sent her a picture of the house and some pictures of Vic and Wags because I wanted them in the picture. I mentioned the bird feeders and the hummingbirds and asked if she could include them in some way, and I also sent her a picture of Longs Peak that Vic had taken. You can't actually see it from the street view, but I asked if she thought she could figure out a way to use it. I ordered an 8x10 but said I would pay for a larger one if she thought it was necessary. Not long after I sent it to her, she sent me a pencil sketch. We went back and forth a little bit on that, and I approved the sketch. Then she sent me a picture of the painted version—again, we went back and forth a little bit on that, and I approved the painting. When I received it, I noticed that it was 9x12. I messaged her and asked her to send me an invoice for the difference (about $25). She said no, she really enjoyed my project and just wanted me to have the one I really needed.
• Hey—let's go back to Etsy! After I moved in to my house, I wanted to buy a gift for my Realtors. They had gotten me my perfect house, sold my house for more than I ever thought I could get, found perfect financing for me—even loaned me a wine refrigerator when my old fridge crapped out. I know they get a nice, fat commission, but still. So I decided on a Yeti mug (you're in the car all day, it's nice to have a mug with water that stays cold or coffee that stays hot) engraved with this saying: “Please don't confuse your Zillow search with my real estate license.” I placed my order from this Etsy shop—without a proof, because proofs cost extra, and how hard can it be to copy and paste? So imagine my surprise when I received ... a proof. I messaged her and asked her to send me an invoice for the proof (twice), and she said no, it was her pleasure working with me.
• When I called Xcel for my my move, I ordered their HomeSmart service. It's a maintenance contract where they'll come out and inspect your HVAC systems and do repairs and whatnot. I'm sure they would have been fine, but my friends Larry and Paulette use TNT Home Services, and I'm always a fan of referrals, so I signed up with TNT. Then I called Xcel to cancel the HomeSmart service. Unfortunately, I was five days over the cancellation period. Now, I never expect people to bend the rules or give me something I'm not entitled to, and I am very accustomed to “I'm sorry, the system just won't let me do it.” But not the lady I talked to. She said, “Well, since you're so close, I'm going to go ahead and cancel it for you.” I mean, one day over the cancellation period, I wouldn't be too surprised to get that response, but five days? That's grace.
  
• When I was getting the old house in shape and then when I was getting it ready to sell, I called up my neighbor down the street, Ray the Handyman. In addition to being our neighbor for 18 years, Ray is also a friend of ... Larry and Paulette. So I knew he was my guy. I had a long list of things, and we scheduled them out, but every time he came over, I noticed that more things had been taken care of that weren't on the list. Things that also weren't on the invoice. Not to mention that he always gave me great hugs when he was done. I'm a hugger, so that's a big add-on to me.
• One time when we had one of our big snows, I got the driveway shoveled out (or should I say my next-door neighbor got the driveway shoveled out) and the sidewalk cleared (or should I say my across-the-street neighbor got the sidewalk cleared), but there was a mound of snow by the mailbox. I kept trying to get out and get rid of the snow so the mailman didn't have to roll through a huge snowdrift or, worse, stomp through three feet of snow to get to my mailbox. And I just did not get to it. So one day when I saw him, I apologized, and he said, “It's OK. You don't have to do it. You have enough on your plate.” This was not much more than five months after Vic died, and he knew that. I don't know why that “OK” meant so much to me, but it sure did—and does to this day.
  

I'm sure there are more, but again, these are the ones I wrote down. Recognizing these moments of grace, no matter how small, always buoyed my spirits—as did remembering them (and my moments of joy) today.

[insert the passage of about 30 minutes]

I had this whole blog post written and just needed to add pictures, but I was watching the temperature and the sun get lower and lower, and I needed to get out to give Bella a walk. Wouldn't you know it? I had two moments of joy and one moment of grace in the 30 minutes it took us to do our loop:

• The first moment of joy was five minutes in. Bella suddenly got alert. This almost always means that someone is coming up behind us. She does not like having people behind us. So I stopped and did some balancing exercises while I waited for the guy—a runner—to pass. To my surprise, he stopped, said “Happy new year,” and then, “Would you mind if I pet your dog?” I said I wouldn't mind, but she might because she was painfully shy. So he crouched down to get onto her level, put his hand out, and waited. Wouldn't you know she went right over to him and let him pet her. As he was down there, looking at her and not at me, he said he had recently lost his dog and was just longing for a little fur on his hands. I wasn't crying (I was totally crying) and said, “I'm so sorry for your loss. My heart knows how yours feels.” He finished petting Bella, got up, said nothing as he looked in my eyes with a hint of a smile on his face, and just started jogging away. I was absolutely not crying (I was absolutely crying). Bella then jumped three feet into a snow bank and peed, as if she hadn't just healed a tiny crack in a man's heart.
• Next was our moment of grace. We reached the corner of 21st and Alpine. Not the busiest intersection in town, but for some reason, just car after car after car kept us from our appointed destination—across the street. Bella was sitting like the good girl she is, and I was swaying to “Winter Wonderland” by the Eurythmics. (I listen to the music in my Christmas library until I finish it all—I am up to the Vs, because of course I listen to my music in alphabetical order. Shuffle. Pshaw.) We weren't in a hurry. But then I noticed that one of the cars at the intersection had stopped, and the lady inside waved us across. She smiled, and we smiled (well, Bella trotted across the street—and peed), and we all went on our merry way. I noticed three more cars going south on Alpine that we would have had to wait for if that Good Samaritan hadn't waved us across.
• Our final moment of joy happened just a few minutes later. I see a man holding a dog as he walks across Alpine (there were inexplicably no cars hindering their crossing). When he reached the other side—after going through a slushy part, a puddle, and an ice floe (or maybe it was a glacier, I don't know), he put the dog down. This corgi and its fluffy butt just started jumping around like being outside was the best thing it had ever done in its life. It twirled a little bit, and then hopped a couple of times, and then twirled again—and it just kept doing that for the entire block we were behind it. Bella was unimpressed. I'll bet you can guess what she did. Anyway, it made me joyful to see that corgi having so much fun—and knowing that its guardian loved it so much that he didn't want it to cross the street and experience leftover Colorado snowstorm.
  

So now I can finish my blog post, which traditionally will end with me expressing my gratitude for all the joy you've given me and all the moments of grace you've been a part of—and pictures. 😁

I think I've shared this before, but this is the painting my talented friend Julie created:

I may have shared this before, too, but this is the painting I commissioned from Etsy:

Hard to see on a small scale, but Vic and Wags are on the porch, where they would be as I drove off to work (when I did such things), and there is a bird feeder hanging on the tree with a hummingbird at it and two small birds on the branch above.

My Realtor cup—the saying is just too cute not to share:

As usual, here are some new year pictures of Bella (and me). I was trying to get just a picture of her, and this was that effort:

I don't know why, but this one tickles my funny bone most.

So I ditched that idea and took a couple of her and me. I was making kissing noises on the first one, which she did not like, and on the second one, I just feel like that's a total eye roll from her.

Ope! I almost forgot to include a picture of my lion mask! Vic bought us these matching masks at the beginning of the pandemic. We used to wear them whenever he had medical appointments where we wanted to be strong, like lions. (Yes, we were those people. 🙄) Plus, it's nice to get a picture of Vic in the blog. 😀💑🥰

Happy new year!

The story of the abyss

It has been more than four months since I posted here. Me. The talky, chatty, tell-everyone-everything person.

TL;DR: I'm fine. Now. But I spent quite a bit of time in the Pit of Despair, emotionally, as well as in a funk physically. And it has taken an additional amount of time to find the energy to tell you about it.

So now, the full story.

Sometime not too long after the one-year anniversary, I just stopped being ... me. No gratitude. No strength. No resilience. Crying just walking from the couch to the kitchen, which is all of about 20 feet. One day it just dawned on me: I am alone.

Vic and I hit a rough patch about seven years into our marriage. It wasn't a seven-year itch—no one was looking to stray—it was just ... I was on a path of self-discovery and he already knew who he was. It was when I was in college, so in addition to pulling away emotionally, I was also pulled away physically while I spent all my evenings and weekends studying. One Valentine's Day—because this is the day you want to say sad things to your wife—Vic gave me a card that said he had often been alone, but this was the first time he had felt truly lonely.

Talk about a dagger in the heart! And yet ... it still took a couple of years before we were back to that nauseatingly in-love couple that we had been at the start. And once we got back to that couple, we stayed that way for the rest of his life. Whew!

I only tell this story because where I am now is just the opposite—I am not lonely, but I am alone.

I have just enough social interaction to make me feel loved (any more would push me out of my “extroverted introvert” comfort zone). If I want to take a walk with someone, have lunch with someone, go to the yarn store, I have a Rolodex of people to call. (Youngsters: a Rolodex is a round thing with paper in it on which you write addresses and phone numbers.) If I feel the least bit lonely, someone will be here in an instant.

But in the end, I am still alone (as we all are, really). And feeling that absence—instead of not feeling the presence, which is a very different thing, at least for me—started me down a heartrending path.

Combine that with hot sleeping.

I am in menopause. It's not something that gets talked about, as if there's something to be ashamed of, but I'm not, so we're talking about it. My menopause has not been horrible—think minor, infrequent hot flashes; minimal mood swings; other things I won't mention because men read this blog—but in September, I started “hot sleeping,” which is a thing. Look it up. I was so hot that I couldn't be under the covers, but if I took off the covers, I would be freezing because my skin was so hot that the cooler air felt even colder. Many nights, I didn't get into a deep sleep until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning but still had to get up at 8 a.m. to “go” to work. (I still work at home almost all of the time.)

Combine that with COVID. You may remember that I had COVID in June. I recovered, but still had a cough some days, a headache other days, the sniffles, breathlessness—just symptom after symptom day after day.

Combine that with my lump. (Remember what I said at the top: I am fine.) One day in October, I found a lump on my neck. Although I wasn't smart enough to go to the doctor for any of the previous symptoms, I was smart enough to get that lump checked out. “Probably just a thyroid nodule,” my nurse-practitioner said. “Nothing to worry about.” She recommended an ultrasound and took my blood to check my thyroid levels.

Boy, howdy, was my thyroid out of whack! I immediately stopped taking my thyroid medication—which I was taking to increase my thyroid activity. Thyroid medication takes a ridiculously time to rid itself in your system, so I didn't even start to feel relief for almost a week. But finally, some of my symptoms started to abate. Less hot sleeping. My heart rate—which had been racing whenever I exerted myself at all—went back to normal. My headaches stopped.

But then there was the ultrasound, which I went to alone. The first time I went to a procedure that might find something real wrong with me without Vic since I was in my early 20s. My sister would have gone with me, as well as a number of friends, but I opted to go by myself. Why? Because I cannot guarantee that someone will always be available to go with me somewhere, so I need to be able to do things alone. It actually gave me strength to do it—albeit only a tiny bit, since I was by that time firmly in the abyss.

They found not just one nodule but four—FOUR! The one I could feel and three others. The three smaller ones were unconcerning to the doctor, but the fourth one was just big enough to give him pause. He said I could just monitor it, or I could get a “fine needle aspiration.” I've had cysts drained before—it is painful, but not excruciating. I'm sure I don't have to mention that Vic was always with me. Anyway, I thought I could survive a fine needle aspiration by myself, until I realized that they weren't draining the nodule—they were doing a biopsy and checking for cancer. (Remember: I am fine. I do not have cancer. This story has a happy ending.)

Obviously, I opted for the FNA. Here again, I decided to go by myself. I called to schedule the appointment, and I couldn't get in for more than a month. A MONTH! Like I'm supposed to let cancer cells grow in my body for a month???

And this is where I hit bottom.

I wailed. You might even say keening, if you were melodramatic, which we all know I am not.

OK, I was keening!

So much so that Bella came over to me. Bella is not the intuitive dog who comes over and puts her head on your lap when she senses you need her. But I knew I must be in bad shape if she was coming over to me. She bumped my head with hers (because I had my head in my hands and it was at just the right doggie height)—and then she turned around, as if to say, “Would it make you feel better if you scratched me on the butt?” It was almost enough to stop the keening, but not quite.

After about 20 minutes of keening (no lie), I Slacked my boss. (It's like texting, but with Slack.) At this point, I should mention that only three people know about any of this—my boss, because I always want him to know what is going on; my sister, because she is my sister; and my friend who walks Bella with me, because we get into a lot of stuff on those walks. I had told some people bits and pieces—I haven't been feeling well, I have been hot sleeping, I have been sadder—but only three knew everything.

Anyway, I told my boss that I had scheduled the biopsy but it was a month away, and I said, “Just for that moment, when I thought I could have cancer growing inside me for a month and NO ONE WAS HERE TO GIVE ME A HUG, I had a total meltdown. Why did he have to die, Andy? Whyyyyyyy?”

I have never asked that question. I know why—he was 75 years old and he had a bad heart and he had a bunch of cancers that ruined his body. But from the abyss, nothing makes sense.

And this was when I felt most alone. Even though I had some support (the three whole people I told), I did not have the support of the one person I most wanted it from. The person who probably would have told me to go to the doctor long before I did. The person who probably would have helped me remember all my symptoms when I went to have the lump checked out. The person who would have said, “You know, I had lots of diagnostic tests that were scheduled far into the future—but you were able to get them moved up for me. Let's see if we can do that. But in the meantime, here's a hug.” HERE'S A FUCKING HUG. I don't think it's asking for too much to just have my person here with me when I need him.

But then I turned off my emotional brain and turned on my logical brain—one of Vic's favorite things about me. One of the options from the ultrasound was to just watch it, so waiting a month shouldn't be a big deal. But I also called my nurse-practioner to see if I could get a referral to another hospital—just to see if I could get in earlier. She gave me one, and lo, I was able to schedule a biopsy three weeks earlier. I went alone, again, to build character. I only cried a little. And the results came back benign.

So here's what happened after the biopsy.

• I started to open up a little more. Told more people more of the story. Honestly, I'm not sure why I didn't do that to begin with. I always turn outward when something is going on. I overshare. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I don't keep secrets. But this time I turned inward. I don't know why—my friends and family lift me up. I am buoyed when people are inspired by my strength and resilience. I don't want people to pity me. I don't want people to see my struggles (at least not without the happy ending—yes, I'm sad, but ...). And I don't want people to get tired of me. (OMG, when is she going to get over this? It's been a year! We all have problems!) But when Andy asked me, “When you think about those who you've been able to lean on, who comes to mind?” I childishly answered, “I don't want to lean on anyone else anymore. I want to lean on Vic. I'm tired of not having him here.” So opening up helped me find my way out of the abyss.
  
• The dread wore off. I'm not sure I was even conscious of it, but when I got the results, I instantly felt lighter and started to find my way out of the abyss.
  
• At the same time, my thyroid medication had gotten almost completely out of my system, so I was feeling better physically. We always said we were great—when things were going well. When one little thing goes wrong, we lose it. In the days before GPS, we drove to Jacksonville. I had mapped out our route, made hotel reservations along the way, printed out directions for each leg. We were ready. But we left after work on a Friday and arrived at our first destination in the dark. I didn't see the street sign where we were supposed to turn until ... after we passed it. Vic said something snappish. Instead of stopping and immediately turning around, he went around a block—but didn't end up on the street where we were supposed to be. I said something snappish. We snappishly found our way to our hotel, snappishly checked in and snappishly went to our room, where we snappishly went to sleep. Vic only ever needed to sleep on an argument for it to get better, so only I snappishly awoke. But then we got back on the road and everything was OK. So this hiccup of not feeling well just made me snappish, and when I started feeling better, I started to find my way out of the abyss.
• I heard a song that gutted me—but also helped me. I am a fan of Taylor Swift, although I came late to the party, so I was able to buy two of her albums that she re-recorded after a dust-up with her former record label. One of these albums featured a song that did not appear on the original (OK, both albums have songs that did not appear on the original, but I'm just talking about one in particular) called “Ronan.” The first line that I really heard was “You were my best four years.” With Taylor, that could be about an old boyfriend, although if you read or watch virtually anything, you know that Taylor absolutely can't keep a boyfriend that long. (🙄 She would say haters gonna hate, but I say they're just a--holes.) I didn't really pay attention to the rest of it (I was walking Bella, so not focusing on the music), but I was kind of curious about it, so I Googled it when I got home, and that's when I found out that Ronan was a little boy who got cancer when he was three years old and died less than a year later, just before he would have turned four. Taylor found the blog of his mom, Maya Thompson, and wrote the lyrics based on words she read on Maya's blog. (Maya is listed as a cowriter of the song.) Although the song was about a little boy, there were pieces of it that just spoke to me—in my mind, I changed “four” to “for” (you were my best for years), and especially “What if the miracle was even getting one moment with you?” I listened to Taylor's beautiful, soulful song on repeat and watched this beautiful video for a week. I read Maya's blog. I marveled at her strength and her honesty and her vulnerability, and I started to find my way out of the abyss.
• I started reading again. First up, My Steve, by Terri Irwin. Vic was a huge fan of the Crocodile Hunter, and we had started watching Crikey! It's the Irwins. I marveled at Terri's resilience—her husband died when he was 44 and she was 42. She had an 8-year-old and a 2-year-old who depended on her. She couldn't crumble. And she made the most of a shitty situation. Reading about their love story nurtured my soul, as corny as that sounds. But here again, one particular line in this book really spoke to me. The night Steve died, as Terri lay in bed, she watched the clock. “Here is another minute I have survived without Steve.” This book was published just a year after Steve died, which means she had started working on it even earlier. We were in the same space-time continuum of widowhood. And this just really reminded me ... sometimes, we just have to take it one minute at a time. And this is the thing that literally pushed me out of the abyss.

So here we are, back to my “happy” ending—I'm healthy physically and emotionally. I even had a session with a grief counselor who said I didn't need a grief counselor. (Reminiscent of the psychologist who told Vic he didn't need a psychologist after his big tongue cancer even though I and many of his medical professionals pushed him to see her.) But I've also learned a lot of lessons: Grief doesn't end on your timetable. It's OK to be vulnerable. My friends and family will always be there for me when I need them and will never find me annoying—at least about this. My food peculiarities will continue to vex some. And they would all rather hear the truth if I need to speak it. I am not the only person who lost someone—draw strength from their experience. Go to the doctor. Take a list of symptoms so you don't forget them. Scratching Bella's butt does make you feel better.

Thank you to all who have stuck with me during this dark time and are still with me on the other side.

Here are a few of the pictures I took during this time that made me smile:

Bella also needs tummy tickles.

Shopping with my sister for her birthday.
Don't you think these fluffy Kate Spade bags are the bomb?

A pillow made for me by Vic's sister—
from his flannel shirts.

Ahhh, Bella found her sun in her favorite chair
with her favorite blanket on it.

The family together for Vic's sister's birthday!

A baby blanket I recently completed.

Ummmmm, all the yarn I bought this year.
Don't judge me. I'm grieving. 😂

Lessons from Nightbirde

Many of you may know that today marks the one-year anniversary of the loss of my husband, the irreplaceable Victor R. Love. 😉

I actually don't know what to say. I know! Me! Without words!

So instead, I'm going to tell you about Nightbirde.

One of the things Vic loved doing at night before he went to sleep was watch YouTube videos. He would often watch photography videos or videos of rafts he wanted to buy or even vacuum cleaners. (The man was obsessed with vacuum cleaners.) But then he discovered Britain's Got Talent.

Neither of us love reality shows. Let's face it—they're not real. And although talent shows are more real than, say, The Bachelor (sorry, Bachelor lovers), they still have a lot of filler. So Vic found the videos that just showed performances, and he was hooked. I cannot tell you how many times he watched Collabro sing “Stars.”

And you know how YouTube works. You find one video to watch and YouTube tees you up with 100 more similar videos. “5 auditions that broke the internet,” “10 most viewed America's Got Talent auditions 2021,” “10 unforgettable auditions that got Simon Cowell's Golden Buzzer on Got Talent” and the like.

That's how we found Nightbirde. Nightbirde was a singer who auditioned on America's Got Talent in June last year. She came out and did the chitchat with the judges and mentioned that she would be singing an original song called “It's OK,” the story of her life for the past year. Her demeanor was positive, and she always had a smile on her face. Eventually Howie Mandel asked her what she did for a living, and she admitted she hadn't been working for quite a few years because she'd been dealing with cancer. She said she was OK, but then Simon Cowell asked her how she was now, and she said that the last time she checked, she had some cancer in her lungs, her spine and her liver. Howie said, “So you're not OK.” And she said, “Well, not in every way, no.” But she continued: “It's important that everyone knows I'm so much more than the bad things that happen to me.”

Then she sang her song. She sang it with so much joy and emotion, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Silence when she finished, followed by cheers and a standing ovation. The judges loved her. Even Simon was in awe of how she had sung so beautifully after she just told everyone what she'd been doing through. And she said, “You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy.” But Simon, he's always the hard ass. And even as he was choked up, he said he wasn't going to give her a yes. He got a lot of side-eye from Sofia Vergara, let me tell you. But then he gave her the Golden Buzzer instead—where a judge presses a big gold button in the middle of the table and sends the contestant into the next round regardless of whether the other judges were going to vote her or him in. It was magical. We watched that audition quite a few times.

But like I said, we don't watch reality TV, so we didn't know what happened to her after that. And then Vic ... you know ... died. So one day I Googled her to see what was happening. Alas, she had had to drop out of the show only two months after that breathtaking audition. She felt she needed to focus on her treatment. She joined the show by video, still smiling, grateful and overwhelmed that her little song touched so many people. She was thinner. She looked frailer. But her demeanor was still strong, positive. She was a fighter.

When July 8, 2022, arrived—the one-year anniversary of the day Vic came home to hospice—my demeanor faltered. I was sadder. Had more spontaneous outbursts of tears. Wasn't able to turn a “sad because it's over” memory into a “smile because it happened.”

On Monday, guess what appeared on my shower playlist? “Stars,” by Collabro. I thought about all the times we watched that video together and sobbed in the shower. But that night, I decided to go traipsing around YouTube, just like Vic used to. (I mean, not just like Vic, because I watched about five MsMojo videos about Grey's Anatomy.) Including that “Stars” audition. It was fun reliving that moment, even though I missed watching it with Vic.

And then I thought about Nightbirde. “I should check in on her,” I said—out loud—to no one (because Bella is still spending about 20 hours a day in my closet). I found that great audition video and watched it again. But it didn't tell me what she was doing now. “Doing now,” present tense, because she was strong. She was a fighter. She was positive. I was sure she had beaten the odds (2%, she said at her first audition).

Alas, she had not beaten the odds. Jane “Nightbirde” Marczewski passed away on February 19. She was 31. I watched the news announcement in a video from Entertainment Tonight. In it, Nightbirde was clearly even more depleted. Yet she was still smiling, and still inspiring others. She said, “Just because you're sad or grieving doesn't mean that you're not grateful and it doesn't mean you're not hopeful. ... It's all real, the joy and the pain; it's all real, and you don't have to pick one or the other—life is beautiful or life is garbage. It's kinda both sometimes.”

Let us all practice what Nightbirde exemplified: courage, joy, acceptance of the good and the bad, hope and gratitude.

So I am still sad, and I am still grieving—the one-year mark didn't turn off a switch as I'd hoped it might 😂—but I am also grateful and hopeful. Grateful for my family and friends (all of you). For Bella. For random people who are kind to me. For the build-your-own mac & cheese from Longmont Public House. And hopeful. Hopeful that I will live long enough to crochet most of my yarn stash. That I will finally clean off my DVR. That more bird families will make their home on my porch. That I will have many more years with Bella.

I leave you on this one-year anniversary not with a picture of Vic or by Vic, but a picture of me and Bella under a tree in the back yard of our new house. Vic is here—he's everywhere in the furniture we picked out together, the photographs on my walls, the ring I will always wear on my finger. But Bella and I are moving forward, and we are doing that without the physical presence of Vic.

It's all real, the joy and the pain. But I am so much more than the bad things that have happened to me. And I am not waiting until life isn't hard anymore to decide to be happy.

The beginning of the end, one year later

I love Facebook memories. I get a notification every day that I have memories to look back on. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes there is a video of Bella or Wags or one of our fosters. Often they remind me of something sweet Vic did.

For example, from 2017: Love is ... when your husband turns on American Top 40 on Sirius 70s on 7 KNOWING that you are going to sing at least one song (and almost certainly more) as if you were the artist—and then compliments you when you sing said song. (Today's song: Paper Roses) #grateful #TrueLove

Or this one, from 2015:

Me, at Hobby Lobby: See, this is the yarn for ...
Vic: The Dusty Snowflake.
Me, jaw dropping to the floor: What?
Vic: It's the yarn for the snowflake blanket.

Reason #1,386,452 why I love my husband—he knows the names of crochet patterns I'm thinking of making.

There are usually a variety of memories: a meme I have posted, a meme someone tagged me in, a picture someone tagged me in, posts about work or food or something that annoyed me.

But today, every memory was the same: 11 years of Vic's rebirthdays. That's right, folks. Twelve years ago today, Vic "died" in the Apple store. But for the swift and expert actions of doctors and police officers and firefighters and paramedics, he would have stayed dead. But it turned out he was only mostly dead, and Miracle Max (and all those other people I just mentioned) brought him back to life.

Last year I wrote a light-hearted post about how he was now old enough to go to Hogwarts, but I knew something no one else knew—at the time I posted that, he was in the hospital emergency room refusing treatment for his pneumonia.

So although today was his second birthday, it was also the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the end.

Perhaps that is why I locked myself out of the house today. I was never very good about locking the door at the old house. It was a quiet neighborhood with no through traffic, and I felt safe there. I feel safe here, too, but there is a bit more traffic, and there is a lot of construction going on across the street, so there are people in and out of the neighborhood who don't live here—meaning that a stranger doesn't stick out as much. So I have been steadfastly locking all my doors. Even so, when I take Bella out for a walk ... I usually leave the front door unlocked.

Except ... tomorrow is trash day, so I took Bella out through the garage. I even popped my head around the corner to make sure the front door was locked. So proud of myself. Safety first! And I have a garage code, so I knew I could get back in.

Except ... yesterday or the day before, I was messing with the garage code, trying to change it to a new code. Everyone in the neighborhood has this garage code, so I've been told. I followed the instructions on the PIN pad, but they didn't take—the new code didn't work. I never checked to make sure the old code still worked. As I found out today, it does not.

I know the neighbor has the garage code; might she also have a key? She does not. She thought the former owner's sister might have a key. She did not. She sent her partner over to see if he could figure something else out. Any windows open? No. Can you get in through the basement windows? No—the cover is locked from the inside ... and so are the windows. He walked around and checked all the doors. No joy. Did my Realtor still have a key, or another suggestion? He did not. My sister has a key. In Littleton. She started driving up. In the meantime, I called a locksmith. 20 minutes and $150 later, I was back in my house, feeling about as stupid as could be. My sister turned around. I'm still gonna have to buy her dinner.

So, yes, I will deposit a key with my friends who live 0.3 miles away. I will put a house key on the keychain with the key that I take to the mailbox every day. I will fix my garage code this weekend. I can fix stupid. I don't know what to do to fix sad.

Except ... there's a little birdie outside of my office window sitting on a nest. I have named her Ladyfinch. (I am very creative with my naming. My first doll was named Dolly.) Vic would have loved this. Our first year in the old house, we had a robin nest under our deck and a finch nest in our hanging planters. He loved watching mama birds sit on the next and then feed the baby birds, and then he loved watching baby birds fledge. I still have a picture of one of the baby robins nestled in the branches of our Scotch pine. I think she is here for me, even though I know she is not. Still, it's a nice thought.

So I will leave you with a picture of Ladyfinch (not a good one—I don't want to scare her off). I also would have included the baby robin, but I just finished moving and the hard drive the photo library is on is still packed. I hate moving.

Sorry this post was less positive than previous ones. I am very tired from the move. I hate moving. And also I had COVID two weeks ago, so I am still very tired from that. I hate COVID.

The last of the firsts™

Today was my birthday.

Many of you may remember that I don't just have a birthday, a birthday week or even a birthday month. No, I have a birthday season.

Birthday season starts the day after my stepson's birthday. It's not right to celebrate my birthday before his birthday is over. (But apparently, I have no problem encroaching on his birthday month. Sorry, Bryan.) And technically, I could claim “birthday season" all the way up to the day before our anniversary, which is August 13. If I wanted to do something Vic didn't, I'd say, “But it's my birthday season!" I didn't—I usually stopped being bratty at the end of June—but I could have.

But in the past few years, even I grew weary of birthday season. We scaled back our celebrations and really only did stuff on the week I took off from work—and even then, it was just a cake, a nice dinner, and a card. (Presents came whenever I would show him something I liked, and he would say, “Would that make a nice birthday present?")

It certainly made getting through today easier. That and the busy-ness of the move.

As I was talking to my friend Michelle, I mentioned that the one-year anniversary was barely a month away now, and she observed that this would be the last of the firsts—I've now been through my first anniversary without Vic; my first Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day; my first time not celebrating his birthday; my first time not getting a card from Bella on Mother's Day. And she suggested that we should trademark that. The last of the firsts™. 😂

I wasn't really dreading the day. As with all my other firsts, Vic was such an attentive, loving husband, that every day was like my birthday. In that regard, this day was no different than any other day since he died. I bought myself an extravagant present—a new phone, which I was certain if I had pointed it out to him, he would have asked, “Would you like it for your birthday?" I spent his money on it. (Yes, I still have our money separated into his, mine and ours. Don't judge me.) I bought some chocolates. I had cards from friends and family as well as a few presents. I didn't buy a cake (mostly because I just didn't have time to pick out the perfect one—one that he would have gotten me, because he was always the cake procurer, as my friend Seth called it), but my neighbor brought one over for me. (Why am I leaving this neighborhood???) I got lots of calls and texts and emails. I took the night off from working on the move and just watched a movie and had some cake.

It was a good day.

 

I made it all the way to almost 10 p.m. ... before I started sobbing. It was at the part of the movie where the two people who had fallen in love were parting ways—him back to England, she staying in the States—and I was sad for them, so my eyes were already welling up. (It's not a good movie if I don't break out at least one tissue.) I don't know why that was the moment when my thoughts turned to my wish when I blew out my candle earlier in the day (yes, I put a candle in my cake, sang happy birthday to myself, and made a wish). It came out of the blue: “I wish Vic were here." I didn't think much about it at the time—it was such an obvious, pedestrian wish—but all of a sudden, I just became acutely aware that he was not, in fact, here. My wish did not come true, even though I blew out all my candle! 😉

Then I pulled myself together and reached into my gratitude bin for the 36 birthdays he was here. I went back through his pictures to find birthdays past, and I found years and years of ice cream cakes, poppy seed cakes with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting, and even a sticky bun (not a whole cake, just one delicious sticky bun). My favorite:

Years and years of perfect presents (he had a knack early on of knowing what I would like, which turned into taking me on shopping sprees when I quit my job to go to college and didn't have any money to go shopping, which turned into just buying things online when we both got too lazy to get out of our sweatpants). My favorite:

(This is a Time Turner from Harry Potter. He purchased it early in the year and hid it. We had to schedule a major heart surgery for him on my birthday that year, and the afternoon before we left for the hospital, he was running around like a madman. I asked him why, and he wouldn't tell me. I asked if I could help, and he said no. Finally, I heard an “aha!" from the basement, and he came trotting up the stairs (we were both able to trot up the stairs at that point), already wrapped present in tow. “Your birthday present. In case I die." (We were always very pragmatic about the fact that either of us could die at any time.) He asked me to get myself a salted caramel cake from Robin Chocolates and bring my present the morning of the surgery. He had been blabbing to all the nurses about my present the entire time he had been in the hospital and wanted to show it to them before the surgery. You know. In case he died. I opened it to find the Time Turner—a device that Hermione used to go back in time—and he said, “If I had a real Time Turner and could go back in time, I wouldn't change a thing. Happy birthday.")

And years and years of lunches, and trips to the Botanic Gardens and the Zoo and Estes Park, and chocolates (they were never part of the presents—always just an extra thing).

We didn't have parties, although we always celebrated with our families. He didn't get me elaborate presents or try to surprise me with some big thing. It was just like every other day: He was there, making me feel loved.

In all those years, I found one single picture with him in it.

He was always my best birthday present.