March 2012

It has been two years since Charles and my mother died. I thought I had everything under control and I find that I still slip into my state of just wanting to be by myself and not being around anyone. This year, though, I’ve tried to keep busy—but to no avail. So, I’ve been thinking of all of the good times I had with my mother and Charles.

I miss Charles going to the pool hall, because on those nights I would go get my mother and we would go to Hamricks. In the past, gasoline was a lot cheaper in Georgia, so that was my excuse. One month Charles looked at the credit card bill and said, Hamricks, Hamricks, Hamricks, Hamricks. Is there a reason why you go to Hamricks every week? I answered that I go get gas. He looked puzzled. I then said, if you stop shooting pool, then I will stop going to Hamricks. Hamricks is on my way to get gas. Hamricks was never mentioned again. You may be thinking, what is Hamricks? It’s a clothing store and I believe my mother and I had everything in the store memorized. The first time I went to Hamricks after she died, I found myself looking for her. I miss being able to pick up the telephone and calling her and telling her about my day and asking about hers. But, I missed her a long time before she died. With Alzheimer’s they slowly drift away…..

I miss Charles a lot when I’m paying bills. We always did that chore together. We did everything on line and now I do the whole process by myself. I miss Charles when I’m working in the yard. He used the riding lawnmower and I did the trim. Now I do it all. I miss Charles when I want to tell him crazy stuff. He understood me and didn’t judge me for all of my silliness. I miss the silly songs that Charles used to make up and sing to me. I miss the poems Charles used to write to me. No one really knew the soft, romantic side of him. I miss his hugs, because he hugged me all of the time. I miss the dry humor Charles had. I just miss him!

Today, as I looked outside and saw all the trees budding out and the dogwoods in bloom, I realized that this is my third summer without the two of them, and my first summer without my dad. I know I have my daughter and family, but it’s not the same. No one really knows and understands until they have lost their parents and their spouse. It gets a little easier, but the loneliness is still here. My hope is that I will see them again. My strength and courage has come from God who is with me everyday, hears my prayers, and sees my tears.

DR
3/25/12

Valentine's Day - 2012

I know people say the big occasions when you miss someone are Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, or the day when someone died. This year I am especially missing you, Charles, on Valentine’s Day. To the world you didn’t seem like a very sentimental person but I knew the sentimental, romantic you. I looked forward to my poems that you wrote to me. I knew that you had to spend time in writing them. I miss your hugs, your phone calls to just tell me that you loved me, your waiting for me when I would come home from a difficult day, your off the wall comments that would always make me laugh, and just so many other things that you did that made up the person I will always love.

Well, it has been almost two years and it still seems like yesterday. Sometimes I can still hear your voice and sense your presence in the house. I have kidded that we “meet” at Hobby Lobby because they have played your favorite song, “Lord of the Dance”, when I’m there. When it comes on, I just stop dead in my tracks.

You told me before you died that you wanted me to have fun. You even bought me a “fun” car with everything I wanted on it. It took me a while, but I am having fun. Thank you for teaching me how to take care of myself, and how to be independent.

Tomorrow, I will remember all of the wonderful Valentine Days that we had together and just be thankful for those times. I had a once in a lifetime love—thank you!

DR
2/13/12

Hope for the Future

Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, Plans to prosper you, plans to give you hope and a future.” I have depended on that verse for a long time, and now I’m really beginning to understand it. As I sat up and watched the “ball” drop in Times Square, I thought that 2012 is giving me a new start, a new beginning, and hope for the future.

I miss my husband, mother, and daddy, but I know that they are way happier now and that gives me peace. I have sat up at night worrying so much. For my dad who was left for a year and 9 months without my mother, I saw him so lonely. I know that feeling because I have it a lot. You can be with friends and even with my daughter and feel so alone. No one really knows this feeling until they have experienced it first hand. I have friends who have lost their husbands and I never really knew what they were going through. Yes, you see my “happy” face, but what you don’t see are my tears when I’m driving home to an empty house. I can sit here at my computer and see my husband everywhere—the clocks he made me, his chair and his computer right beside me and sometimes I can even feel his presence. If you’ve lost his spouse, you know what I’m talking about. But, we do have hope for the future. We are still here and our work here on earth is not done.

I hope I can help someone else who is experiencing what I have gone through for the past few years. I hope I can make their life easier. There are so many emotions that you go through and so much guilt that is associated with it. I can only say that I know that I did the best that I could. It’s similar to being a parent and you look back at all of the mistakes you made in raising your children. We didn’t get a handbook for this—we just do the best we know how and trust God that it worked.

DR
1/2/12

My Dad

Today I say goodbye to my dad as I have known him in this world. I know I will meet him and my mother again, but today is a sad day. The past few years were really hard for him and he just could not accept the fact that my mother was sick and that he was not able to take care of himself any more. They were both very independent people and I’m the same way. I know for me it would be hard to start depending on someone else for everything. But on to happy memories….

My mother and daddy didn’t have a lot of money, so when I was little my dad worked the first shift and got home in time for my mother to leave for her second shift job. My dad and I spent most evenings reading. I knew how to read when I entered first grade. I don’t know how I learned to read and my parents couldn’t remember either—they just said I started reading. In the second grade I came home and told my dad that the guy at the bookmobile wouldn’t let me check out my books. We went back up to the school where it was parked and my books were still stacked there. My dad asked him why I couldn’t have my books and the man told him that I was too little to read them. My dad asked him if he let me read on one of the pages and he said no. My dad opened one of them and I began to read. After that I never had any trouble. I am an only child and I loved to read.

One evening when my dad was sitting on the porch and I was playing with my little red wagon, I begged him to leave to get a snowball. He finally gave in and we left. When we came back our yard was full of people and a car had run into the corner of our porch and demolished the chair my dad was sitting in and destroyed my little red wagon. It was not our time to go yet. That had to be more than 60 years ago. Oops, telling my age.

One Halloween night my dog, Rusty and I were standing at the door waiting for the “spooks”. Back then we had a screen door and we also did not have air conditioning. Well, a group came up on the porch and I don’t know who was more scared--me or Rusty. We ran to the kitchen and my dad had soaped up the floor (it was linoleum) and we slid all the way across. My dad couldn’t stop laughing.

My dad always took up for me and I guess you could call me a “daddy’s girl.” After I was grown, we could sit for hours and never really talk, but we could both say we had a great visit. He wasn’t ever much of a talker.

Yes, I have some good memories.

DR
12/27/11

Thanksgiving - 2011

Thanksgiving started on Monday of “Thanksgiving Week” for me this year. I help in the kitchen at The Crossing and on Monday we cooked about 80 corn muffins with celery and onion already chopped up in them so the dressing would cook without any of us worrying about whether the onion and celery would be done. Christi prepared two turkeys that were donated and she prepared her basting consisting of orange zest, mandarin oranges, orange juice and I really don’t know the rest. All I know is that I cut both of my thumbs while “zesting”. Ed really got a kick out of that and, you know, you shouldn’t make fun because guess what? He cut one of his fingers. Oh well, so we’re old and we have accidents. If you’re wondering, no there was not any blood or lost band aides in the food.

Tuesday we finished the meal. We had Turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, rolls, and Jonathan and I made “little Turkeys” for dessert. I melted chocolate and heavy cream and dipped Oreo cookies into the mixture. Jonathan did most of the decorating of the cookies—candy corn went around the edge, a yellow candy disc in the center with a red jelley bean for the nose and we made “eyes” with the chocolate. Jonathan said he never wants to see another candy corn!

Wednesday, I rested! I had to, I couldn’t walk. My feet hurt when I stand too long.

Thursday, Christi and Jonathan went with me to assisted living to eat lunch with my dad. He didn’t feel very well but he sure cleaned his plate and ate his piece of cheesecake. The food was good and everyone seemed to have a good time. A lady was at the table next to us and she went ahead and ate her lunch, but her family never showed up. To me that was so sad. The funny thing was that she told us that she and another lady had had a fight over my dad and when she left, she leaned over to him and said, Bye Honey.

Friday, was Thanksgiving over at Christi’s. I have to confess that she is a marvelous cook! Turkey, dressing, corn casserole, broccoli casserole, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes with fresh green onions mixed in (fresh from Leon’s garden the night before), rolls, sweet tea, coffee, pumpkin pie, coconut pie, pecan pie, and egg custard pie made especially for Scott’s mother. Kila brought a strawberry dessert and her famous pretzels wrapped with bacon. Jonathan made the potatoes and two of the pies. He is really getting good. Alex joined us, which also included Ed, Kila, Reba Underwood, Scott, Christi, and Jonathan. I missed Christopher, but he was working!!!! Scott took him a plate to his work.

I really enjoyed Thanksgiving this year, but I have to admit I miss Charles and my mother. I know they are both in a better place, but this year I had a harder time with it than last year. Maybe it’s the realization they are really, really gone. The good thing is that one day I’ll see them again!

DR
11/26/11

Family

I’ve been thinking a lot about family lately. On my dad’s side, there is no one left but me and my daughter. Everyone is gone. I can’t imagine how he must feel outliving everyone in his family, including his wife. My dad grew up without a father. He was two years old when his dad died from TB. His 22 year old sister also died from TB and he really never knew her either. I grew up with no brothers or sisters and I swore I would have more than one child—well, that didn’t happen and so I have only one daughter.

My mother was the oldest of 13 children. Now, there are only 6 left. After my grandfather died, it seemed that the family never got together again. My grandmother died when she was 88 years old, but she didn’t seem to want everyone together. There were times when she didn’t even speak to my mother. They had a disagreement about something and my grandmother had a tendency to hold a grudge for a long time.

My husband, Charles, has 4 daughters and after his divorce from his first wife, they were all older and never really had anything to do with him. When he first got sick in 1996, I really didn’t know if I should even call them. My mother told me, he is their dad and they need to know—so I did. One daughter started coming to see him almost every year and then when he went on hospice she came down and seemed to act strange. When she got home she wrote him several emails that were so horrible—how he was such a terrible dad. Charles never got over those emails and never mentioned them to her. The youngest daughter drove here from Florida to ask her dad to forgive her for never getting to know him. They both cried. All 4 daughters came to his funeral, how I wished they had come together to see him before he died. The one who wrote the emails told me that they didn’t want people to talk about them if they didn’t show up for the funeral. It’s funny how people think.

Now my dad is in assisted living—if you can call it “living.” He’s in diapers now. He can barely walk some days. Sometimes we can carry on a pretty good conversation, which is better than I could with my mother. He couldn’t accept that my mother was sick. I knew she was but never in a million years would I think that when I brought her to my house she would be here less than 24 hours. She had fallen—not broken a hip—but couldn’t walk. She had Alzheimer’s/dementia and usually didn’t know many people. That evening she knew everyone and kept saying how thankful she was that I had brought her “home.” She visited with 2 of her sisters, some nieces and nephews, and my cousin brought Charles downstairs to see her. He was in a wheelchair then. He rolled right up to her and she said, Hi Charles, how have you been? My mother ate her last meal of fried chicken, gravey, creamed potatoes, homemade biscuits and ate another biscuit and gravey before she went to sleep. She never woke up the next morning. Two weeks later my husband died.

Family—what does that word mean to you? I sit here all alone and most of my family is gone. Thank goodness I have a daughter who means the world to me, but she’s not here in this empty house with me.

I thought I was the only one with a dysfunctional family—but I have learned a lot in the past few years. There’s a lot of you out there. Brothers and sisters who hate each other, sons and daughters that seem to hate their parents.

I go to assisted living and some of those poor people have nobody. Yes, it’s hard for me to see my dad like that and I usually cry all the way back home.

This Thanksgiving what are you thankful for? Are you thankful for your family, or are you holding grudges against some of them?

I see a lot of people on Facebook telling daily what they are thankful for, but are you really thankful? Life is short. You’re only a breath away from eternity. I’ve seen it and I know. This year, call somebody and tell them you love them. Better yet, go see them. Go visit a nursing home and then you can truly see how thankful you are that you have good health.

Family—how is yours?

DR
11/14/11

Riley

Riley was my mother’s youngest brother, and he was three years younger than me. My mother was the oldest of 12, well 13 if you want to be really accurate. One brother died right after he was born. After my mother was living in assisted living, I would go over and sometimes a plaque would be off the wall. I would ask her why and she would say that, well you know Riley lives upstairs and he took it off and I don’t know why. Well, Riley was guilty of many things while she was there and she never knew why he did those things. The good part is that he was always there visiting her. You need to know that Riley did not live there and he did not do any of those things and I guess I will never know who did, but I find comfort in that she was never lonely. I know she loved Riley. I have picked Riley to talk about today because he got killed by a car two years ago today—his 61st birthday. What a shock to all of us. I could never tell my mother or my dad about Riley. My dad had all of his senses, but he could never accept that my mother didn’t and I knew that he would tell her and I didn’t want her to get upset. I’m sure my mother was surprised when she entered heaven and there stood Riley. I miss my mother, but I’m glad that she’s with her mother, dad, some of her sisters and brothers and of course my Charles. Happy Birthday Riley—you’re missed. DR 11/9/11