My search for grace and meaning after a former care partnering life with a wife who suffered from Parkinson's disease and dementia giving her a confused and disorienting world.
“Winter is coming!, is a line repeated often in the Game of Thrones series. In the middle west, here in southwest Ohio, many are highly focused on the weather. It is the only reason I turn on the TV news. The weather guys and gals have the same message, precipitation of some sort is coming. Saying that out loud though is undramatic. “Pink!”, John Gumm (the gummer) says to the side of the camera while he points and gestures and gives a short lecture on various weather models.
Donald Trump tried it years ago while talking about hurricane tracks. He was not nearly as effective as John. John is good at it. Other weather folks merely report that we’re all gonna die. John is able to explain with confidence the amount of death that will be achieved and how you will perceive your own death while you are dying.
Right now at 4PM the sun is shining. It is cold outside so any of the singing birds are shivering while they sing. The smart ones have left for Florida. Tomorrow at 10:06AM, death will come.
“Winter is coming!”, screamed the knight staffing the wall. He then politely bowed his head as the king cut it off. The king remarked to his sons that he had brought with him, “If you sentence someone to beheading, you should be the one to do it.” Is there honor in there somewhere? It is a gruesome series.
Keep up the good work , John. It is going to snow here maybe. It will be inconvenient for a few hours. The internet might die if a tree falls on the wires outside.
This time of year many make resolutions for the new year. Me too, of course. My resolution to myself is to be a better me. And I have no idea what that means. Yet, the idea that I want to be a better me implies I know myself now and there are improvements that can be made for the better.
Do we ever really know ourselves? How old does one have to be before acceptance as is becomes the norm?
This past year as I passed through three quarters of a century and Cheryl did not, I began to emerge from a deep funk, a depression, the sadness of her death, the gladness of her death, half a decade of overwhelming anxiety about her care and looked toward an open road and at the new sunrise and wondered, what next?
A new person entered my life who knows me only as me, a man, single, a writer that exposes his emotions to the world, who tries to be of service to others around him, and maybe shares too much of himself. She does not seem to mind my nuances of self. Like everyone I have many of those nuances, sides, aspects. We seem to fit.
Another resolution, perhaps a better one is; stay in the moment. Being a better me is a look into the past and attempting to improve. Staying in the moment is not looking back. Nor is it planning for some future that may not come. For now fitting is enough.
These are thoughts that come to me as I think about a new relationship.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. (Max Ehrmann)
I opened this page to write about my thoughts and feelings this Christmas Day this year this 2024 this time without Cheryl. How do I feel?
Rested for one. I had an enjoyable dinner with my son and his wife and their two sons. I left their house in time for Rudolph and the team to get started without me watching. Here at home I read for a short time and went to my bed with visions of sugar plums, etc. You get it.
I feel a definite lack of enthusiasm in me. I suppose that is normal.
The apparent traverse in the sky of the sun has changed but the morning light is gray. It is overcast and still dark. Thank the lord for Rudolph’s nose.
It will take an extra effort on my part to get my mood out of the doldrums.
I am not feeling it yet but when I think of the saying framed on my granddaughter’s apartment wall in Chicago “Carpe the Damn Diem”, it makes me smile.
I have wrapped all the presents that I have to deliver today and stopped to think of each of them while I was cutting and folding and taping. They are very special to me.
I miss Cheryl today. That is normal. I do not feel bad or sad or anxious or down. I miss her and her holiday enthusiasm.
(“Sometimes love does not look like what you had in mind.” – Anne Lamott)
Perhaps this is one of those days. Perhaps love will surprise me if I look for it in those around me. Perhaps it will wash over me if I let it. Perhaps.
It just is harder. Several times over the past few days I have been blindsided by my own emotions. A hymn in church, a song on the radio, a picture on the Frameo, a note in a Christmas card, any of these and all of these bring to mind memories of glad tidings gone by. If I am completely honest with myself, I started it.
A good friend asked what my favorite song/hymn was and I responded “Hallelujah” and could not immediately remember Leonard Cohen wrote it so many years ago. It was often used in the closing scenes of the show “Criminal Minds.” It is a haunting tune, at least it is to me. I think the rendition that is used on the show is the one by John Bon Jovi. I am unsure of that fact but it haunts me and reminds me of Cheryl and our younger times together.
When that happens I just let it roll over me. It is disappointing that Cheryl is no longer with me but we had a great life together. More than fifty years of love, children, busy, travel, learning, excitement, anguish, grace, parties, dinners, Christmases, Easters, egg hunts, summers and summer vacations, it was a wonderful time. We argued too but we never took that to bed with us. She supported me and I supported her.
Today as I put my last stamps on my Christmas messages I set Spotify to play “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. After that it wandered off to play a not so random collection of songs from various albums. Yusaf (Cat Stevens) started playing and suddenly I was 25 again. It is interesting to me how that happens. Cheryl has long hair and the kids are little. Yusaf is gray these days, as am I.
And though you want to last forever; You know you never will; (You know you never will); And the goodbye makes the journey harder still – Cat Stevens “Oh Very Young”
It is good to remember those times we had.
Time only moves forward. The Christmas greetings are in the mail.
There is always a tug-of-war between what needs to happen and what I want to do.
The first of the Christmas messages is folded and noted and almost sent. It will need a sticker from the government before I can put it in the mailbox. Cheryl sent a hundred or so Christmas cards out to family and friends. During the past few years it became my job to do so. I automated that process by ordering the cards preprinted with a message and a picture. Envelopes were printed with a return address. I knew how to do a mail merge on the Avery labels. Last year I did not. It was simply way to hard.
This year I am sending notes of my own design. Not so much of a Christmas greeting card, that sentiment seems very commercial to me. My notes are more of a generic thanks for your interest and I am doing okay note. Looking at my 75 year old handwriting sends me to the laptop to type. And my hand does not ache when I am done.
I plan to stick with this theme for years to come. We have abandoned personal letters in favor of SMS messages and email. Handwritten notes are more rare. I started writing those to my granddaughter, typed of course, when she started into college last year and she replies by hand in various colored pens and tells me about her experiences there.
I will change my message from year to year. Perhaps I will start a folder on this laptop and fill it with stories and commentary so that all I will do next December is edit and print. Doesn’t that sound organized? Sometimes I amaze myself.
The first note is still laying on the table by itself, lonely with no companions, while I write about writing notes.
“No matter what happens between now and then, tomorrow is another day” said the news anchor on “The Day.” I think, “Absolutely and thank you mister obvious.” I suppose it was his intent to sound profound. Walter Cronkite used to end with, “And that’s the way it is…”
I started using Carpe Diem a few years ago at the end of my commentary as a way to remind myself of the potential available to us to use each day. And yet, at the end of the day I spend little time reporting to myself the high points of the day. I also do not focus on the low points.
There are many things to think about at the end of the day. Am I brave enough to love again? Am I too open with others? What great things happened today? What did I learn today? What should I think about avoiding if I can next time? At the very end, I push all those and others away by reading a novel. It is a habit I developed over the last few years. About half of the time it worked. I was tired and Cheryl was asleep or mostly so when I came to bed. These days it always works. I have also become a critic of some fiction that I have selected to entertain myself.
Before reading some novel or ones that are not novel at all to me, however, other actions take over my interest. I am in charge of myself and what I watch and what is entertainment and what is not. I was disappointed in the movie version of “Wicked” for example. I think there was a rush to get a snippet of a story onto the big screen that is in many ways incomplete. Money people for movie producers need a return of money to keep going. I think I was greatly disappointed. The singing was great but the story line went nowhere. I have some of these projects.
Quite often but not when I was working I did not finish some project. I have many of these little abandoned projects (mostly little electronic things) scattered on my work surface in my office. I have a pleasantly cluttered office and once in a while I straighten things for a bit in order to find a place for another soon to be abandoned gizmo. And yet through it all I am able to keep track of important actions that I need to do to take care of myself – pay bills, cook, shop for food, laundry – the mundane tasks of life. It may be that I am not so disorganized as I perceive myself to be.
Sometimes my blog is a stream of conscience construct. This may be one of those times.
Many people I have known were, or seemed so, very organized. I am not – at least in my mind I am not. Is it okay to be un-dis-mis-organized? (Cheryl was so good at organization.) The answer is yes. Mis-organization, as I like to call it, indicates to me that I am often not satisfied with the path I have taken to somewhere. Something does not feel quite right. I look at it as taking the next fork in the road. How many forks are there in my road? Where is this trip around the sun taking me?
It may be that I am merely constantly learning about myself and this new life without Cheryl.
Yesterday my nephew, Jeff, and his family came to visit. It was a spontaneous phone message in the dark of the movie theater. “I’m in town for a few days on business. Can we get together for breakfast or lunch?” He lives in California and I have not talked to him face to face since his wedding three years ago. I invited him to my little condo and spread the word to my kids. It was a wonderful spontaneous family gathering.
When I mentioned it to my neighbor Jane later she remarked, “Serendipitous!” Yes, it was.
I made a quiche out of some random components that I had in the refrigerator. Quiche and frittata are in the same category of use what you have, I think. And of the two I think quiche is better. It could be the pastry crust that is required for an excellent quiche. One can make a crustless quiche but that is just lazy and in that other country it is called frittata, so, go over the mountain and call your crustless quiche by the correct name.
Jeff told me that no one had ever made him a quiche before. (It made me feel good inside. I was proud of myself.) The title for this essay jumped into my head after they were all gone yesterday. It is from a satirical little book that I recently found was written in the 80s. (Wow, I am getting old. I thought it was written just a couple years ago.) I had almost said it to him when he said, this is pretty good.
This quiche was bacon, Italian sausage, broccoli and onions with sharp cheddar and mozzarella, eggs scrambled with a little sugar and buttermilk over a pie dough made with flour and butter and a little salt. It was good.
Sometimes us real men eat quiche and pronounce it to be good. The accompanying picture is AI’s version of real men eating quiche. You can tell they are real people because they are washing down their quiche and other green substances with lager. (Never mind the fact that they all have the same mother and they were all born within 15 seconds of each other.)
Beer and quiche, Could be the breakfast of champions.
Early in the morning after awakening I find coffee and turn on a newsy program to get information about the latest weather history. This time of year and on this day that Google Calendar tells me is Native American Heritage Day but the sale folks tell me is Black Friday, the weather folks are doing their best to get us out to shop before the temperature gets to absolute zero. In between the commercial advertisements are entertaining.
A cute little girl asks her mother, “Do crabs have eyebrows?” Today it made me laugh. Why did I laugh on this day?
Who knows? I certainly do not. I tripped over a Spotify playlist of Lindsey Stirling and her high speed electric violin playing and it picks up my spirit today.
And the ads have made me think of Christmases past and hope for Christmases future.
Perhaps I need to be in a crowded place with a hot chocolate in my hand.
The bear got his hat out yesterday. Maybe his friend the elf will show up and help celebrate soon.
On this day, however, this day before Thanksgiving Day I am thinking about our life, Cheryl’s and mine, and what a gift it was to us. Tomorrow is the day to count blessings and be thankful for what we have. For me I am also thankful for what we had.
I do not have Cheryl with me any longer but what I have instead is the knowledge that she is not suffering with Parkinson and dementia. I am thankful for that knowledge.
I do have three well educated and successful children who have built successful careers. All of the grandchildren in all of the families are healthy and happy. Some have moved into careers themselves. Some are still figuring it out for themselves but they are all self reliant. Their parents are excellent teachers. I am thankful for the family Cheryl and I made.
I do have my own health. My knees do not hurt constantly like other friends that I have. My hips do not hurt when I walk like others that I know. I was still able to hike four miles up and down the face of a wooded cliff-side in Kentucky. (My legs complained a bit afterward but the bourbon worked. I bought real hiking boots when I returned home.) In the summertime I spent many days riding 15 – 20 miles on my bike. (I am not fast but I can keep up 12 – 15 mph for long stretches. I am not in a hurry. I like to look around me while I ride.) I would like to lose a little weight but my physic will probably never be like what I was at twenty-five now that I am seventy-five. I am thankful for my health.
My sister and I have become much closer. Only she and I are left from our original family. She and I are both widowed and that is sad but it seems like we lean on each other a bit and that is helpful to both of us. I am very thankful for our relationship.
I am thankful for all the help we received from friends and family this past year as Cheryl’s health rapidly declined. I am thankful to all the kind folks at Bridgeway Pointe and Queen City Hospice that took care of Cheryl as she faded. Thank you all.
I am thankful for new friends and old friends who have helped me through the past year.
I am thankful for kindness in the world.
I am thankful that mom taught me a few basic cooking techniques when I was younger and I did not realize she was doing it.
I am thankful that I like to cook and that I like my own cooking. (See the physic comment above.)
I am thankful that things always seem to work out.
I am thankful that I am getting better at staying in the present and not experiencing anxiety for the future. This quote from Matthew pops into my head sometimes (it is true!) when I think about what comes next. [“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.”] I thank Cheryl for teaching me this concept of staying present and Mom for pointing out self-reliance goes hand in hand with that.
Mom left me with a gift that I will always be thankful for. I wrote this paragraph sometime ago: At the very end of her life my mother awakened for a few minutes as I was sitting with her in her room at Bridgeway Pointe which is an assisted living community where she lived out the last fifteen months of her life. When I walked into her room Mom was quietly dozing in her bed. I sat in the usual chair I sat in and waited to see if she would awaken. It was after her dinner time and she often took a nap after dinner. After a few minutes, maybe half an hour, she woke up and looked over at me. She did not have her glasses on but she said, “Paul, is that you?” I replied, “Yes it’s me.” And then she said something that I was not expecting. She said, “Thank you for all your help.” After that she dozed off again. It was the last conversation I had with my mother. She passed away a couple days later. It still makes me cry.
I am thankful that I was helpful to Mom. She acknowledged that to me. All I could say to her was, “you’re welcome.” And I sat in her darkened room as she dozed off again.
We should always be thankful for what we have and what we have had and what we may be given. When someone is helpful to you, acknowledge it and say thanks to them. (Do not whine about it if they are unhelpful – reread the Matthew quote.)
Is the answer to life and the universe but what was the question? Deep thought…
However I got there originally I rediscovered the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Doug Adams (H2G2). His trilogy of five books (yes, five) I read partially earlier in our married life. The children where small. Life was chaotic as it often is with small people around. I never finished the 5 before now. And the story has reappeared in my reading list. It takes me off of life for a bit. Its depiction of the universe is philosophical and geeky, perhaps even, odd but why not? The story is chaotic.
My life currently seems odd to me without Cheryl. It is time to shake it up.
A big part of life is the journey. It is the part of life that is often ignored. It is important to get there fast. Wherever there is and sometimes when there only disappointment is available. At this time I resolve to enjoy and document the journey. It is early for resolutions.
I am just thinking about what I am thinking about. And putting my notes out there for all to see.
The Deep Thought in the book says that the answer is 42. It also says that the question is unclear. Suppose I plan a bit for the future but do not be consumed by planning. Tough for a retired engineer. We’re trained planners. A good job is a job that has few to none awshits due to excellent planning.
No plans exist in H2G2. The characters are given to chance in the universe. Ford, Arthur and Zaphod are off to get something to eat.
Adjunct_Wizard 