Tom Sonday

When I got home from work today, I was greeted by a beautiful yard … if you look beyond the brown grass, sticks, rocks and other winter detritius.  The crocuses bulbs that Tommy and I embedded year after year in the lawn had come up and were open in the unusual warmth of a Michigan March.

A photograph doesn’t do their vibrant delicacy justice, but here’s one anyway …

There are three different groups of them — Tommy and I put in bulbs each fall — Tom insisting on using a variety of fertilizers and other nutrition agents to ensure they did their best.

The most brilliantly color group (upper right, and the most spectacular only because it is the newest) was slammed in by me alone last fall — without any special supplements other than perhaps a few tears.  Tommy had purchased bulbs last Spring for fall planting, and I put them in begrudgingly, because I couldn’t return them without a receipt.  (BTW Tommy– check ‘em out.  You don’t need all those high-end bulb fertilizers!)

I’m glad I put them in, as they are a most welcome sight.

It’s like Tommy “brought me flowers.”

Probably because I finally got the taxes done! 

Thanks Tom!

(With sugar and honey on the top!)

I’m keeping myself (waaaaay too) busy by going with 13 hives of bees this year, and setting up a charitable foundation so all honey profits go to Tom’s favorite charities.

In investigating honey containers, I found some new ones, so our theme-dressed bears now include large ones, and two small ones that are way too cute (not practical, but way too cute.)  I need your input, but first — some background.

The “regular” bears hold 12 ounces; the giant bears hold 24.  While they look the same as the 12 ounce, their size makes them rather formidable, so Tom’s Mom crocheted incredible hats to soften their image.

So the giants have hats and scarves, the regulars have scarves — what do I do with the 4 ounce baby bears, and 8 ounce adolescent bears?

I can make them graduation bears … what do you think?  Any other ideas?  And if you like graduation bears, what’s a reasonable price?  (I’m thinking $9, $5, $4 and $2.50 for the 24, 12, 8 and 4 ounce bears.)  Do I offer different color tassles and mortarboards?  Other than the forthcoming foundation website, how else can I market them?  Your thoughts please, and thank you!

Last August, I brought my husband of 28 years home to die from the cancer he’d been fighting for 18 months.

It was the most horrible thing.

I’ve got some distance on the nightmare now — almost seven months — but I have much to emotionally work through when I open the lid on last August’s box of heart-piercing memories, and it makes my stomach churn and my shoulders tighten to even write this much about it, and the oxygen is suddenly awfully thin in the room.

It was hell on the kids and I, watching the strong, capable man we loved die by inches, being executed by failure of cells and then organs as the cancer internally rampaged.

Yet, given that hell, it was such a blessing.  I am grateful that I had the ability, resources and support to bring Tommy home to die.  And the weeks that the kids and I stumbled around as numb zombies — laughing, crying, freaking out, occasionally hating each other but really just the circumstances we were in … we’re better people for it.

Surprisingly, because it was anticipated and I thought I was very strong, Tom’s death shattered me.  “Shatter” is such an appropriate word:  my volume was still here, but for the first many months I was a bunch of disconnected pieces, and disconnections make it difficult to remember things easily or clearly.

Shattered pieces also have sharp edges that are painful, and shattered pieces don’t easily fit together again.  I’m still working on assembling the pieces and reconnecting them in a functional fashion.

Someone told me that things like the death of a spouse can make you bitter or better, and most days, “better” is winning.

I’ve had discussions of that concept with all three children lately.  We concur that it sucks that he had to die, we are better people for having been what we went through, and a better family unit for having stumbled through it together.

About midnight last night I got home from Ann Arbor, where youngest daughter Becca attends the University of Michigan.  I’d made this two-hour drive for four main reasons:

1. the high-mileage car (Tom’s) that Becca was driving was dead by the side of the road, and while this Mom can’t help with the issues that arise when your father dies your senior year of college, or tough classes, I could help get the car to a garage
2. I need to occasionally get away to keep from slipping back in to the depression that lurks in my life,
3. Becca has joined the Peace Corp, and there was a meeting to explain to us parents what our kids have gotten themselves into, and
4. while I’m still in denial that a year from now she might be in Mongolia or Mexico or India or whever, I figured I’d better take every chance I have to see my baby.  (Yeah, I’m freaking out a little bit.  OK, alot.)

There was an email from Becca awaiting me when entered the dark, empty house.  Addressed to me, and her brother and sister, it said simply:  “can I get an amen since we have the best family in the entire world?”

Amen.

And, a happy face! 

I’m not sure what warranted that shout out — my paying for a new alternator?  Having a long lunch together at her favorite vegetarian restaurant?  Not freaking out (visibly) at the Parents of Peace Corp meeting?  Whatever it was, I’ll take it.

Things like that help glue the pieces back together, even stronger.

First, thanks all for your supportive, insightful comments regarding my last blob entry.  That one was tough but therapeutic to write.

In response to it, a friend sent me the following, which is very appropriate for me:  ”She wasn’t where she had been. She wasn’t where she was going… but she was on her way.”

I’m on my way, and continue to do better since returning from vacation.  Part of that is undoubtedly the scent and sounds of spring (!!!) in the air, and some of it is because I’m keeping myself terribly busy out of fear falling into that depressed rut where I was prior to vacation.

Now that my head is generally above water again, I’m trying to find the blessings in my “situation” (being widowed at age 48, when I was planning on growing old (older?) with my spouse.)  One of those blessings happened today–the census form.  It claims it takes an average of 10 minutes to complete.

Hey — when there’s only one person living in the household, it takes only about one minute.   Ha!  What will I do with the extra 8.5 minutes that most of you won’t have?!

Well, I could do the taxes … because someone around here has to do them, and I’m the only warm body in the house with opposable thumbs … so that leaves, um, just me.  (Hey, I was already busy as I’m also the only one to do laundry, rake the leaves, grocery shop, clean the fridge, etc.  I really have to do the taxes also?!)

For about the last decade, we always had our taxes “done” — which I took to mean “someone else did them.”   Tom always coordinated it.

Well, having spent a couple hours going through the extensive tax preparation booklet the tax-doer-sort-of sent me, I think I will rephrase that “we had our taxes done.”

About half the taxes will be done by this person who calls herself a “tax preparer.”  The other half — the “crap, I didn’t know I needed that!  Is it in the pile where the cat sleeps?!” … the really hard half I must do.  Sorry Tom — did I ever thank you enough for doing “our” half?

To assist in doing (her half of the) taxes, the preparer sent me a handy little preparation-organization booklet — which I am to complete.

Sure, I could complete it, if it wasn’t so doggone incomplete.  There are lots of  tables to fill in, and lots of “YES” and “NO” boxes.  But, there is no place to answer the questions with my true responses, such as:

• I have no idea–you’ll have to ask Tom.
• Really?  What the F is that?
• You’ve got to be kidding me.  I was supposed to track that??!!

Sigh.

Only death and taxes are certain, right?

That sounds fairly ominous … because I think doing taxes is going to kill me.

Daughter Gigantor, who didn’t cruise with us last week, had suggested I take a few of Tom’s ashes to sprinkle overboard.  In the nearly three decades we were married, Tom and I, and various family members and friends, enjoyed many cruise vacations, thus scattering some of his ashes would be appropriate.

I found a small plastic vial, and Bec moved ashes into it.  That didn’t go as easily as planned, and she noted that Tom was really messy.

Some things never change. 

Our insane sense of humor keeps us rather sane, so there were plenty of other wisecracks — about things like how to transport ashes internationally, and their resemblance to substances of a higher street value.

When I hooked up with son Ben in Florida, we discussed spreading the ashes, and decided to share the option to participate with others in our party.    You never know how people are going to react to handling of someone’s remains, so we tried to be a little sensitive about tossing parts of Tommy overboard into the frothy seas … especially knowing Tommy would’ve preferred to be tossed into a vat of frothy beer, given the choice.

On the Charlotte emotion-meter, the cruise was harder than I thought it would be.  While I knew there’d be alot of memories because we were travelling in a very familiar mode, I thought having so much of Tom’s family around me, and a different cruise line, would make it different enough to not expect to see Tom around every corner.

Wrong, again!  When cruising, Tommy the night owl and I (who goes to bed with the chickens) generally did our own thing, hooking up for dinners or occasionally unexpectedly in the cabin during the day.  Bopping about the ship on my own was nothing unusual.  As I wandered about (constantly searching because I swear they relocated my cabin every few hours), my mind would often float off.  Unfortunately, that meant practically every time I (finally) found the cabin or the dining room–and I realized Tom wasn’t there–it was a blow to my heart.  When I went on excursions, I found myself thinking “I’ll need to show Tommy these pictures when I get back,” or “I should buy this for Tom” followed by the piercing recollection that he wasn’t lounging onboard in a deck chair.

The other thing that was harder than expected was seeing couples.  I don’t begrudge any of them … even when they’re embarrassing themselves by squabbling in public over stupid, pointless things.   I just miss having someone to throw their suit jacket around me when I’m chilly, remember where our cabin is, and squabble with in public over stupid, pointless things.

Anyway, we decided to scatter the ashes before dinner, the 5th night of the cruise.  We would do it from the balcony of Tom’s Uncle Tom’s stateroom as we cruised out of Cozumel.

At the appointed time, we all met in Uncle Tom’s stateroom, and opened the door to the balcony overlooking the amazing turquoise waters.

The 40-mph winds blasted us back into the stateroom.  Even in the best of circumstances getting those ashes to drift down eight stories would be questionable — the severe winds made it out of the question.  Having Tommy with us in dinner would’ve been awesome, but only if he was there in person, not in pieces on our clothes.

So, Plan B — scattering the ashes off a lower deck from the back of the ship after dinner …

About every 30 feet on the deck rails is a placard that says do not throw anything overboard.  Of course, we respected that.  And you might want to stop reading here.

For those of you still reading, we temporarily ignored that.  Assisted by gusty winds (thank goodness for our huge meal so we didn’t blow overboard), we strolled to the back of the ship.

I was too emotional to speak.  So, while Ben and I were group-hugged as we stood poised over the protected-from-the-winds railing, Tommy’s Uncle Tom led us in a salute to a bee-loved husband, father, son, brother, nephew, uncle and friend, in that surprisingly calm area of the ship.

I then scattered the small container of ashes overboard, expecting them to drop down.

The ashes did.  The dust–which was significant–did not.  Instead it hovered in the air above our heads for a looong minute.

Nine-year-old niece Squamantha said “look everyone, a heart!”  and she was right.  The shimmery grey ashes reflected the running lights of the ship as they formed an undeniable, perfectly heart shape that stretched about ten feet wide, ten feet above and away from us, just off the stern.  Hallmark could not have formed a more perfectly shaped heart.

Just then, eight-year-old niece Squidney, in her endearing, matter-of-fact melodic little girl voice said without hesitation: ”We love you too Uncle Tom.”  There was no doubt in her mind that it was a message from the uncle who loved her, and all of us, immensely.

I don’t doubt it either.

We tried to photograph the heart, but the camera couldn’t capture it.  Some things defy photography, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

And, some things defy explanation, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real.

We love you too Uncle Tom.

I’m back — and I’m not at all happy about it!  I just spent 6 days cruising the Caribbean with 16 family members and friends.  Sure, it was a very emotional (and sometimes very hard) vacation (Tom and I cruised often, and often with many of these same people), and it was unseasonably cool.  (I only wore shorts two days there, and that’s because I’m from the midwest where 62 is a heat wave.  The Mexicans were wearing winter coats.) 

Even with those shadows on the vacation, I wasn’t happy at all about returning.  It is better feeling alone while surrounded by thousands of other people on a cruise ship in the Caribbean — than actually being alone at home in March in Michigan … especially because many of those thousands of people were bringing me food or drinks.

The Caribbean was unseasonably cool — the same as it is here.

Some of you are going “wait a minute!  We have 40-50 degrees and sunshine …”

Sorry — let me clarify.  I wasn’t talking about outdoors, but instead in my house, where the thermostat says 62 even though it is set at 70.   Sometime while I was gone (must’ve been fairly recently as it is still 62 in the house) — the furnace stopped working.

Daughter Gigantor (Becca) spent her spring break from U of M at home, babysitting three dogs and Melvin the gigantic cat.   When I got home late Saturday night, I sensed immediately the house was chilly.

Becca hadn’t noticed, not surprisingly.  She usually lives in student ghetto housing; 62 is toasty to her.  And, she babysat three medium to large dogs. all who think they are lap dogs.  Becca never had a chance to be chilled (or sit alone in a chair.)

So, I checked the breakers … everything looked good.

I stared at the furnace … everything looked normal.

I called 1-800-Wayne, who wandered over at 11 p.m.  in a sweatshirt because it was 40 degrees in Michigan.

Fortunately Wayne feels the same way I do, which is that 40 degrees outside is acceptable — but 62 degrees inside is not.  He stared at the furnace for a while as well, and then opened it to do some of those mysterious things taught at Man Camp.  It wasn’t long until there was warm air magically blowing out of the floor vents. 

It was the first warm breeze I’d felt in over a week!

Turns out there is some furnace switch that must still be on vacation, but nothing a little duct tape couldn’t override until Monday.  I’ll post more ramblings when my fingers thaw out.  But, for now, that’s a picture of me rock wall climbing aboard the Independence of the Seas.  Yes, I made it to the top.  And yes, I was wearing long pants, a thick sweater, and three shirts!

Below is a photo of (back row left to right) Tom’s sister Sooz, Tom’s brother Jim, our son Ben, and then niece Squidney, Tom’s Mom Nelda, and niece Squamantha.  Tom’s little bro Jim married my little sister Linda (legal … weird, but legal.)  Linda and I huddled together for a photo as well.

Weather permitting, and with ample helpings of God’s grace, 16 of Tom’s relatives and friends and I will be on a cruise starting Sunday for a week.  I am so looking forward to spending time in a different climate.  Even if I spend the week at the Fort Lauderdale airport awaiting my luggage, it’ll be a great change of pace.

Daughter Gigantor has come home to care for the critters, mine and Tom’s brother Jim’s canines.  Someone asked if I’d be worried about her being all alone for a week.  Well of course, because Moms worry about everything.  And well, of course not, because she won’t be alone.  Fluffy, Puffy, Shiloh and Melvin the 800-pound cat will follow her from room to room.

I took off my wedding bands Thursday; that was a huge step.  What precipitated it was the engagement ring getting hung up on the interior fibers of my glove yet again.  I removed the glove with the ring still caught inside and spent a while untangling it — a long while, which gave me time to reflect.

As it has been pointed out to me, the vow was “to death do you part.”  We’re parted.  The ring seems to have a greater attachment to my glove than it does to me anyway. 

But seriously … this was a small move but emotionally huge.  Removing the rings has everything to do with me starting to come to terms with the fact that he’s gone and I need to remake my new life, and nothing to do with wanting to pick up sailors on the cruise.  As it has also been pointed out to me — wedding rings never stopped anyone from picking up people, and that’s not my style anyway.  Plus, logistically I’m not sure how I’d pick up a sailor, what with sharing a cabin with my son, and my mother-in-law and Tom’s brother in the cabin next door! 

So … I’ll blob with y’all in a week or so.  Thanks for your continued support.

Charlotte

Hello faithful readers.

Please recall the post of about a month ago, where I shared that we’d lost three hives. 

That’s the bad news.  But, the good news is — there’s honey available!  Daughter Gigantor helped me extract and bottle, and even though we saved over half of those beautifully filled honeycombs as a “welcome to your new hive” gift for the newbies (new bees?) that will be arriving in April, we still have several dozen containers available.

My daughters and I have been busy working on a new charitable foundation website, from which it’ll be easier to obtain honey and make donations to Tom’s favorite charities.  But, it isn’t done yet.  (I must’ve gotten distracted by extracting and the activities that inevitably follow extraction — cleaning honey off of every door knob, railing, light switch and handle.  It happens no matter how careful I try to be, but in looking for the blessings in it — finding the cat is easier when he’s stuck to the window ledge.  (The cat was never really stuck to the window ledge, he was just a little sticky and will use any excuse to lounge for hours in the same location.))

If you’d like to obtain some honey in exchange for a donation to Meals on Wheels or Loaves & Fishes, contact me via a comment here or primahub at aol, and I’ll tell you how it works currently.  (I’ll post here when the new site is up.)

Last fall Jim, from Illinois, had obtained some honey, and asked me to let him know when more was available.  I emailed him this afternoon, and was delighted to see his request for several more bottles tonight.   A smile broke across my face, and I turned to my honey after reading the email to tell him that his honey was beeloved by others … and then reality set in.  Tom’s laptop is still sitting next to mine, but his chair is empty.  Sigh.

But, I’m happy to say that the realization that he’s gone didn’t floor me.  Progress in dealing with this?

And I’m happy to say that I felt, well, happy!  I know that somehow Tommy knows this honey-for-charity thing is working and is pleased.  Not only will it help feed hungry folks, but the words of encouragement that Jim sent fed my soul also, and so maybe Tom’s making me take over his bees was his way of ensuring that I find people who keep me going in this sometimes-struggle to define my new life.  I’m not in this alone, although sometimes on a dark, snowy night with an empty chair beside me it feels that way.

Perhaps I should put some honey on the chair and stick the cat there …

Last week I would’ve said I was having a meltdown … except it was too doggone cold for that to happen!

“Torpedo’d” is a more apt description of what went on:  Like a boat in rough water, I was slowing moving forward (although sluggishly and often in a choppy seas), when out of nowhere something took me down.  That “something” was grief, coming at me in high velocity because some of the other defense mechanisms that may have slowed it down were not working. 

You see, one of the silver linings in death for those of us left behind is that life goes on.  We still get up, eat breakfast, laugh — and those all take on a joy in their simple normalcy as well as providing heightened enjoyment.  (Once I started actually tasting food again — a couple months after Tommy died, I was amazed at how good it tasted.  (And I haven’t stopped eating since!))

One of the downsides of death for those of us left behind is that life goes on.  We have to do the normal things like change the furnace filters and pay the bills, in addition to lots of non-normal things like retitle a car, decide it is time to stop smashing the coat closet door closed and finally sort (very sadly) Tommy’s winter boot collection, and change the furnace filters with no one to stand next to you holding the flashlight in that awkward, spider-filled space.  These little “life goes on” events — normally not waves that would knock me over — knocked me over when coupled with bigger waves.

The bigger waves included a lost cell phone, kids who were hurting because their Daddy is gone, car trouble, my own father’s health challenges.  Normally I could handle any of them (mainly because life doesn’t give you a choice), but when they all came at me at once, and all came at me the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, I was torpedo’d.

Why did I smack bottom on Valentine’s Day?  It wasn’t that I was missing Tom because it was the day of romance and chocolate.  (In fact, I didn’t miss his ranting about “it’s a made-up holiday for the greeting card companies and florists …”)  It’s because of historical events.

On February 6, 2008, Tom finally saw a doctor after years of putting it off (and nagging from many concerned people.)

On Friday, February 8, after reviewing the lab results, the doctor scheduled Tom for the first available colonoscopy on Monday.

That Monday the doctor performing the procedure said there was tissue of concern and to schedule an appointment with his office in a week.

Twenty-four hours later the doctor’s office called and said he needed to see Tom asap.

When I came home from work on February 14th, 2008, (Tom refused to let me go to the doctor with him), my husband “greeted” me with the news that he had stage IV colon cancer.  Happy F-ing Valentine’s Day.

So, of all the holidays and firsts that have passed since Tommy passed, why was I torpedo’d by the days leading up to February 14th ?  I think it is because Valentine’s Day marked the 2-year anniversary of when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the life Tom and I had envisioned would never be.   I have a girlfriend who lost her husband to a car accident.  The day of Joe’s death is when her life veered in an entirely different direction.  Valentine’s Day 2008 is when my did.  I very strongly suspected (and probably knew deep down) that Tom would never see our grandchildren,  take our niecelettes fishing, or haul that truckload of dirt he had dumped in our back driveway to the new garden spot.

But, I was hopeful and helpful following that news — and joined Tom in the fight.  Sometimes during those 18 months we were even optimistic.  But, that Valentine’s Day, 2008 — I knew life would never be the same.  I’d ridden the no-cure-for-this-cancer roller coaster for three years with my Mother.  The roller coaster can level out and you can coast from time to time, but — in Mom’s case, and in Tom’s case — you could never get off the ride and the seatbelt just kept getting tighter around your lungs.

So, after thinking about all this (and blobbing it, because blobbing helps) I understand why I’m grieving so much this time of year.  My grief therapist affirmed that this was all part of “getting through it,” and loaned me an awesome book (“Loving Grief”, by Paul Bennett) that noted that pain submerged is pain left to do “anonymous mischief.”  Pain has to work its way out somehow.  So, better tears than tension headaches, losing your car in the parking lot, punching a wall, and / or cracking your tail when you slip on ice in your driveway because you were too distracted to notice it.  (All things, except for punching a wall, that I did last week.)

The book also likened grief to an undertow.  You’re constantly fighting grief with emotional energy whether you realize it or not … and you can run out of energy before you realize how much you were expending.  Like fighting a rip current, only when you give in and go with it for a while can you gradually start to get out of it.

I’m swimming out of it now.  A trip to Ann Arbor helped — not only to see daughter Becca, but also because there’s a Baskin-Robbins (which I visited both upon arriving and as I drove out of town.)  Blobbing about it helps, as has curling up with the cat and vegging in front of the Olympics.

Anyway …  if you’re still reading this by now — please don’t worry.  It is all part of this my awesome grief therapist tells me, and I’m doing much better now.  I’m sharing this only because you might have wondered about me (if you were one of the people I cried all over last week), and in hopes that I can help someone else (sometimes you have to give in to the grief), and because … who knows?  Maybe Baskin-Robbins will read this and open a location in my living room.

Earlier this week I did “bee outreach,” speaking at a local preschool about our friendly insect friends.  I thought I’d be talking to about 15 kids (one of whom is a friend’s daughter.)  Instead — because of the interest — I was swarmed by 60 little very cute but very wriggly, very inquisitive children.

A bee hive’s population starts out about 5,000 in the spring, and can grow by 10 times throughout the summer.  Same with preschoolers.  Within 20 minutes there were seemingly alot more of them, or maybe its just that they were all sitting waaaaay closer to me.  Corporate execs I can handle.  Non-stop sneezing / coughing / jumping-bean children?  Aaaaahhhhhhhh!!

They were a wonderful group.  I read them a story (Bee and Me), and did a show and tell on what’s inside a hive, what honeycomb looks and feels like, why I wear a bee suit and what it looks like.

At this part of the presentation I usually put on a hood, and then ask the kids what else I need to protect me.  The hood kept falling aside, so I removed it, saying “Let’s pretend my hood is still on.  What else do I need?” and waved my bare hands around.

“You need to put the hood on!” the chorus said.

“OK … let’s pretend it is on.  What else do I need to cover?” I said, again waving about my bare hands.”

Again:  “you need to put the hood on.”

So much for our game of pretend.  I put the hood on.

I had two dozen dead bees mounted in closed, clear containers kids could see if they wanted to do so.  Most kids were fascinated, and scrutinized them.

Some kids didn’t watch to hold a dead bee, even if it was inside a plastic vial.  Understandable.

A couple kids asked if they were candy.

Actual honeycomb got passed through 60 sets of hot sticky hands, and actually came back looking mainly like honeycomb!

I then asked if there were any questions … and this is where things sort of fell apart.

Q:  “How do you get bees?”

A:  “I order them from a catalog.”

Follow-up Q:  “What’s a catalog?”

Or:  “My sister is allergic to bees.”  And:  “I once saw a bee in my house.”

One of the teachers stepped in about then and reminded the kids what a question is, and we got back on the right track with “how do bees make honey?” and “how do they get in and out of the hive?”

Those are questions I can answer.  I know it is silly, but when a little boy randomly asked me “do you have an orange watch,” it stumped me.

Turns out his brother has one, in case you were wondering about that.

The relevance of that to bees?  Well, that’s what I’m wondering about!