To Go on Without You

In the first year of widowhood lacking motivation to do anything but cry and feel sorry for myself, somehow I managed to take care of essentials and my critters, just barely.

Plans and organization, always big in my life, failed me. I planned to help my friend, who has a shelter here in Puerto Rico.

Amigos de los Animales does good work, always support them, so I ran a photo day with modest success. For me to focus and plan a fundraiser in the first few months after my husband’s death took more than I had to give some days.

The tape in my head said, “Your husband’s dead. Kiss him good bye and life, as you knew it.”  Listen the owner of the fundraiser venue gripe about the rotten lover who left him and was therefore dead to him or the tape. Pull the covers over your head is option number three. Let’s forget about four.

To work for the benefit of anything, when you've just lost the one you love above all, is difficult. That’s just what I had to do to rescue the caring in my core.

First year the darkness grabs you. I've always felt the forces of the universe to be impersonal; shit happens, but looking at the face of darkness taught me that it is personal. When you’re attracted by love and light, the dark sneaks in from the oblique. So out of my mind with grief I almost missed it in the corner, but saw and felt it’s cold.

Twenty months of living without Kirt, I can’t believe it. The thought still stuns; I am at a loss, but no longer lost.

No longer lost seems like a place to begin.

My Soul Screamed

Mourning can become a way of life. When I picture myself as sad and lonely, the dark energy grows. How can I not remain focused on my loss, when the loss of my husband was the loss of the greatest gift of my life?

I’ve lost the best of everything in my life: my husband, my best friend from childhood, my best mother, my godmother. That doesn’t even include what I lost in the “great” recession. How do you come back from all that loss not a looser?

Loss felt like my spirit was being drained away, as my husband lost body parts to diabetes. I mended parts where my energy leaked on the hospital floor. My heart stopped when my darling looked where his leg was no longer. I watched his face as he internalized his loss. Being part of we, I felt his pain deeply.

Through it all, I never thought about losing him. I only thought about how we would handle the next problem. We were focused on his recovery. He exercised for the first time in years, so he could get ready for his new leg. Hell, I was getting him signed up for stem cell research to re-grow blood vessels in his legs.

The day he died I gave him mouth to mouth resuscitation, but it was as if every move I made to save him was being countered by God. The scream in my soul reverberated for well over a year. To say that every day in that time frame was torture does not exaggerate.

The question is will mourning become my way of life; or will I find my core wellbeing?

My niece, Rachel, put it on the line when she said, “It’s time for you to start a new chapter; start a new book.”

Before I can really heal this soul scream needs to stop.

Widow Journey

Screaming pain became sad and lonely.

Sad and lonely can become a way of life in widowhood. 

Just don’t care fits right in there.

End of last year all that grabbed me by the ass and grew roots to the sofa. 

Laying around on the sofa begets a weak, achy back, and more little aches than you can count.

This is the tunnel which leads to the exit sign.

Fighting the sad and lonely, I just don’t care blues; yeah, it’s fight or die.

I can’t crawl in the tomb with him. I had him cremated.

Time mutes the pain of loss.

Thank God!

Happy Birthday Honey

Good morning, my Honey, happy birthday!

Wherever you are, I hope you have both legs, all toes, and no backaches.

Remember, the year I bought you Tyr, our beautiful Rottweiler, the one that turned out to be my dog. I always had so much fun buying stuff for you on your birthday. The look on your face gave me great joy, my Honey.

After a lifetime shared with you, going it alone tends to be a bittersweet journey. Since this birthday fell on a Monday, I celebrated for us last night listening to music at the place that gives the trail rides.

The same couples, we watched bumping and grinding on the dance floor, were getting it on. A young woman looking like Latina Jessica Rabbit danced with a handsome, muscular guy, who had moves of his own. They won hot couple of the evening.

A spunky little woman from North Carolina danced with me. We won in the category of not a clue of how to dance salsa, but wiggling anyway. The merriment climaxed in a fish feast.

I enjoyed your birthday, which I will celebrate always. Thank your ma for the gift she gave me. Tell her I said she was right; I was wrong. She’ll know what I mean. Today I have the chores and errands of everyday life at my heels.

Dancing Ford Pick Up

My gift to you this year is that I can feel the ups and downs again; not just the flat line of death.

Happy birthday, my love, be blessed.

My Road Back to God

Every day I talk to my husband. After his death in July of 2013 I didn’t know how to go on without him. It’s a bit disconcerting when you’ve spent a lifetime as half of a we, and then it’s only me. If this has happened to you, you know the agony.

Wandering down the valley of the shadow of death the first year or so was the worse year of my life, ever. In that first year have you ever wondered how you were getting up in the morning? Moving could be torture; why didn’t I just die? Often I thought myself e real f’ing coward for not just “doing it.”

In less than five months Kirt will be dead two years. To say my life is different states the obvious, but the nuances of the change is the gift.

I can’t thank God enough for the gift of a life with a man, who loved me as much as I loved him. We made the best of everything life shot at us, and had fun doing it.

Pissed with God is not a good place for a creation to be. Kirt and I found happiness with each other, so how are you expected to feel towards the one doing the removing? Come on! Nightmares of the dark night of the soul are made up of angst like that.

I prayed to get over my mad with God. How could I realize how arrogant it is to be mad at the creator, and yet still be so pissed?

As a routine in my life I talk with God rather than pray as the form of communication. During the storm in which both God and my husband were lost to me, I prayed.

I talk to Kirt, the manifest of God I love the best, but best of all I’m talking to God again.

God will be happier, if I ever freakin learn to listen.

Y’all enjoy your day

Que Pasa Cuba

Hi,

Friends, who read this blog on a regular basis are wondering:

what in the hell happened to her?

The short answer is Cuba!

Yeah, no kidding; I really went to Cuba to visit a sister of my heart, who just happens to be the vice president of ANIPLANT, the association in Cuba, which advocates for animals and plants.

On Saturdays, in a park west of Habana, any number of people bring their dogs to train, and visit with other “dog” people.

After about thirty years of earning my living as a professional dog trainer, I consider myself a connoisseur of dog training styles, so watching competitors preparing for the Pan American Dog Show was a lot of fun.

The heady days of Cuba’s capitalist past peek out through once grand town homes divided into apartments. People, dogs and cats hang out in the streets.

For old car fanatics, Cuba is the best. My husband, Kirt, would have been toe tapping excited to the sherbet array of colors an old Chevy can come in here.

Coming from the USA, aka the land of billboards in your face, I missed all the roadside sales pitches. Fidelism’s grace Cuban roadside billboards.

I have many stories to share with you. It’s good to be home with Smoki, Blondie, Chi-Ping, Robert Redford, and Lucky. We’re expecting company next week, so I’m going to make every effort to get organized. Smile.