Nazgul

 It's October 10.  I last posted August 22, saying farewell to Wilhelm.  There has been no closure.  I still call him.  I still check the pictures on the shelter website several times a week.

A lot has happened since then, and I will have to catch up.  But there is more pain to get through first.  Much as I really really do try to keep a positive attitude, to keep moving forward, it's hard.

Especially when I lose friends.

I lost Nazgul.

Nazgul was 14, one of those "never goes to the vet except for annual shots" cats.  When he went for his checkup in July, the doctor noted that he had lost about 3 pounds from the previous year, but that's not too surprising in an older cat.  It was a couple of weeks after that when Wilhelm disappeared.  Nazgul started acting a little off.  He had been buddies with Wilhelm, and I thought he just missed him.  But he continued to just be too quiet and not wanting to eat.  I took him back to the vet.  Bloodwork showed some anemia, not bad, everything else seemed OK - but he had lost another 2 pounds in a month.  That's extreme.  He got shots to improve his appetite, steroids to help the anemia and perk him up, antibiotics just in case.  But he just got quieter an quieter and didn't eat.  I called the vet - we both agreed that it was probably cancer.  I could have taken him in for X rays to confirm, to see what was wrong.  I didn't.  Because if I had seen a tumor I would have felt the need to go ahead and let him go, and couldn't bring myself to do that.  He didn't seem to be uncomfortable or restless, or in pain.  Just rested.

Finally, on Friday, Sept. 11, I came home from work and realized it would be soon.  He didn't want to be held, but I lay down beside him and kept my hand on him for a couple of hours until he stopped breathing.  I held him and howled and felt so alone.  Then I buried him under the gardenia.

Nazgul first showed up as a "black cat-shaped hole in the universe" that would disappear when we looked at him.  Over the course of a year, he would creep closer to the house.  One night I looked out the window and saw glowing green eyes looking through the cat door onto the porch.  "Bob", I said, "There is a Nazgul on our deck".  Within a month or so after that, Bob could scratch him.  Soon after he lost his wraithlike look, gained about 10 pounds, and decided that he liked being an Owned Cat.  When we got the kittens RiverSong and NokoMarie he would lie in the hallway and let them use his belly for a trampoline as they ran down the hall.

When Bob and I were in Gainesville the other cats eventually accepted our housesitter, but not Nazgul.  He just stayed under our bed (Mac would peek under to take pictures and make sure he was all right).  When I came home for two days in February, he immediately came out and spent the night headbutting me and patting me with his paw.  Then, when I returned to Bob, he returned to under the bed.

He emerged when I came home alone.  Slept with me.  Let me hug him.  He was happy that I was back

And now he is gone, and I miss him.

Goodbye (?) Wilhelm

 On April 30, 2014, there was a major storm.  Not a named one, or an official tropical storm, but a mighty deluge.  And someone from Parking Services showed up at Bob's office with a tiny wet kitten, maybe two weeks old, that someone had grabbed from a gutter.  We never did find out who, or who passed it on, or who asked the guy from Parking Services to take it to "that guy in Environmental Studies who takes care of animals."

So, thus dramatically, young Wilhelm entered our lives.

We tried to name him equally dramatically.  Walpurgis, for Walpurgisnacht, a night of wild magic (which is on the night of April 30, the day we got him).  Nope.  Prospero, for the tempest in which we got him.  Big no on that too.  Then, when he was demanding his bottle, he let loose with a huge yell for such a small kitten.  "What's with the cat Wilhelm??" I asked. And there it was.

[digression:  In movies, the characteristic scream of someone falling off a cliff or a horse is called the Wilhelm scream (you hear it a lot in Star Wars). By extrapolation, the iconic cartoon sound of a cat scream, usually from an alley, is called a cat Wilhelm.]

Any vet will tell you that bottle babies often turn into somewhat neurotic cats.  So it was with him--sweet and loving, but also easily over stimulated and prone to using his teeth.  Got frustrated at being kept indoors.  Tended to get stressed out and nip ankles.

Of my 9 cats, 5 are strictly indoor cats.  Three of the others (Nazgul, Hamish, and Apache) just showed up as adults, used to being outside.  My plan was to have Wilhelm as an indoor cat, but he was having none of it.  I understand that there are dangers to letting a cat out.  But there is also a great deal of joy in having one that wants to follow you around the yard, that comes running up when you step outside, or trots to the car to meet you when you come home.  Maybe it's because of the trace of the wild that all cats have.  There's magic in the bond.

He was a homebody.  I could always spot him anytime I stepped outside (if not, he would trot up from wherever if I called).  He was the main one who would run to the car to greet me.  

You may notice that I'm speaking in past tense.  The outside cats (known collectively as the BoyCats) come in at night.  If cats are going to wander, night is when it happens.  We also have critters like coyotes around (although I haven't seen any lately).  Come nightfall, they trot in.

But two weeks ago, August 7, he didn't trot in.  I had seen him about an hour earlier.  The other three cats were behaving normally.  I didn't think anything was amiss, and figured he would show up soon.

But he never did.  Something happened to him, and I might never know what.  It's the not knowing that hurts so much.  Did he get stuck somewhere?  Injured? Trapped? Attacked?

People have tried to console me.  "Cats can take care of themselves" (that's a myth.  No they can't, if they've been used to being fed their entire lives.)  "Oh, they just wander off - he'll come back someday "(another myth--cats are territorial and come back to home turf).  "Oh, he probably got himself adopted by another family" (as Bob and I were pretty solitary, he was *very* spooky around strangers.)

And yes, I've done flyers and social media and I check shelter pictures every day.  But I have to accept that my little furry friend, my Mama's boy, is gone.   And I don't even have Bob's shoulder to cry on.

I miss you, my little one (yes, he was still called the Little Cat, at some 6 years old and 15 pounds).  I pray that you didn't suffer.  I love you.

Reef Deployment

 Last May I wrote about building Bob's memorial reef.

On July 17 it was lowered into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

I wasn't there.

We had fairly short notice.  On July 10 we were told "sometime next week".  On the 15th the notification was "it will be the 16th or 17th."  By the afternoon of the 15th the email said 7:00 a.m. on the 17th.

It was to be a family funeral of sorts.  We would all meet very early at Della and Don's at Mexico beach (it takes time to load and unload a boat and and get out to the site).  I realized that in order to get there on time I would have to leave by 4:30 in the morning.  I don't like driving at night, and much of the drive is through isolated areas where many deer would be feeding, so I planned on going down the evening before and spending the night there.  Amanda, Robert, and the kids would join us the next morning.

About an hour before I left, I got a call from Amanda.  Two of her lab partners were sick and being tested for Covid.  And one of Dane's co-workers had tested positive.  We talked for awhile, and admitted that she had to do the adult thing and keep the family at home.  So it would just be Della, Don, and myself.   I got out my suitcase.

Then realized I couldn't do it.

One of my co-workers was also out with a respiratory illness.  She gets one every year about this time, and while her Covid results hadn't been returned yet, her doctor was pretty certain it was a bacterial infection.

So I don't know if I used her illness as a reason or an excuse.  But I called Della and told her I wasn't coming.

The truth is that I realized I couldn't handle it.  I couldn't go out there, watch his memorial be winched down into the water, and then drive home alone to an empty house.  I hurt enough; I didn't have to beat myself up more.  And, for me, the pouring of the reef had been his funeral.  I didn't need a second one.

The deployment didn't go quite as planned.  The ship with the reefs got caught behind a coal barge that had grounded so was four hours late.  In that time a squall came up which knocked Don's boat around a lot, but fortunately cleared within an hour, and they watched the reef being deployed.

I felt calmer after that.  I didn't realize that I was stressing over something left undone, that another milestone had to be passed.  But wistful and sad.

The head of the artificial reef association (Bob Cox) had let me know that he would take pictures and videos of the deployment.  I did not know that he would edit and set to music a very lovely video of the reef in place. It was posted last week.

Of course I cried.  But the part that was uplifting, that actually gave me happiness, was the school of little fish that were dancing around it, claiming it as their new home.

A pyramid of cement and limestone rocks may not be everyone's idea of a memorial.  But I think of the graveyard scene from Phantom of the Opera:

"Passing bells, and sculpted angels

Cold and monumental

Seem for you the wrong companions

You were warm and gentle"

Yes, Bob was warm and gentle, and welcomed all life.  This is where he needed to be.

July 9, 2019 - July 9, 2020

OK, been sitting here for an hour, playing online solitaire, and wondering what to write.

Because I feel I should write.

Because it's July 9.

July 9, 2019 was the watershed day.  We had spent a few weeks being confused and concerned because Bob's "routine" checkup showed oddities in his blood count.  He stopped taking his gout medication (which can cause a disruption in his blood count) and had the tests taken again.  Still weird.  We had met with an oncologist, who had looked at his count, looked at his eyes and fingernails and gums, looked at me and said "doesn't he look pale to you?"  and in that light, well, yes, he did.  But I always thought of Bob as ruddy.  And he was acting normal--we had even been swimming on a regular basis.  But we ended up staying there another 6 hours because Dr. Nair decided he needed an emergency transfusion.

A few days later there was the bone marrow biopsy.

And we had an appointment on the morning of July 9 to see the results.

Fiona had not been feeling well for a few days.  This happened periodically; she had kidney problems for several years but usually responded to having fluids infused.  This time she hadn't.  And we got up that morning and looked at her--and her face was puffy, and she couldn't eat or drink, and we knew the kidneys had finally quit and the old cat was suffering.  Bob said he would have to call and reschedule his appointment; I put my foot down and said no, this appointment was important.  We called the vet and they agreed to slide us in as soon as we got there.  We held her while the doctor put her down, then left her tiny body there for cremation.  We sat in the car for awhile and cried.  Then we drove to the clinic.

We sat in Dr. Nair's office, trying to keep our act together, grieving for the loss of a 20 year old furry friend, wondering how such a small animal could leave such a big hole in our lives.

Dr. Nair came in, pulled his chair close to us.  Sat down, holding papers.  Looked us in the eye and said "I'm sorry.  It is leukemia."  Not "it's".  Each word separate.  A Pronouncement:  It. Is. Leukemia.

I can't remember how we reacted.  I remember that we tried to explain that we were in grief, that we had lost a friend an hour before.  I think he was confused and wondering why we were talking about a cat.

And I remember nothing about the rest of the day.   I remember being at the vet, and I remember being in Dr. Nair's office, and I don't remember anything else.

July 9.

Hallam Died

In the early 90's I took a seminar in Victorian Literature.  It was a small class, only 11 of us, taught by an amazing instructor.  Who *really* loved the Victorian era, and wanted us to learn, well, everything.

It was exhausting.  The class met once a week.  We were supposed to have read that week's novel (have you ever read an 1800's novel?  Really really long,  Really really involved.  Lots of sturm und drang and angst.  Every single adjective they could think of. ).  In addition, we had to research some aspect of Victorian life and write an essay on it.  Of which we made copies for everyone and were expected to have read the other 10 essays from a previous week.  And do at least one long class presentation each.

As the term wore on, we all began to look like Victorian waifs--hollow cheeks and shadowed eyes.  Came the class where the reading assignment had been Tennyson's "In Memorian" which is a poem of grief over the death of his friend Hallam.  A very long poem.  A poem that goes on for 90 pages.  Most people will recognize one line:  "'Tis better to have loved and lost; than never loved at all."  That's one line.  There are a couple of thousand more.

Dr. Fenstermaker opened the class.  "All right.  "In Memorian."  Who would like to start?

Crickets.

Finally someone spoke up.  "Hallam  died."

Dr. F:  "Would anyone like to expand on that?"

Another student, who had been resting her forehead on the table, lifted it: "Tennyson mourned."

Dr. F:  "Perhaps a bit more?"

Another voice:  "A lot."

Dr. F:  "Come on--let's get going."

We all looked at each other. The consensus was that we had about summed it up.  Tennyson had lost a friend, he grieved, and the rest was commentary.  A *lot* of commentary.


I've decided that grief is like any other major life event--endlessly fascinating to the one who has experienced it, and to everyone else--not so much.

I was at a party once, and ran into a woman I had known a decade or so earlier.  We had both been secretaries in different departments but sometimes borrowed each other's professors.  My point is that we had never been particularly close but we knew each other.  So of course, "Hey, --how have you been?"  Well, turned out that her husband had died several years earlier, and after 45 minutes of hearing about it I was feeling like one of those animals that chew off their own leg  to escape a trap.  Not that I wasn't sympathetic; it just wasn't what I had come to the party for.

I'm trying not to do that.  People ask how I'm doing; I say I'm hanging in there.  And then talk about something else.

How am I doing?  I didn't know that someone could hurt this much and for this long and still function, that's how.  And I know I've got a lot more to go.

So in the privacy of my own home, with only the cats to annoy, I can wallow.  Tennyson is bit lofty, but I've been indulging in Andrew Lloyd Weber.  "Til I Hear You Sing" is a lovely song and in my head I alter the words "hear you sing" to "hear your voice".  (If you want to be able to hum along, the song is   Til I Hear You Sing (on youtube--search it if the link doesn't work).   (BTW, the singer, Ramin Karimloo, has a helluva voice)

                              "The day starts, the day ends; time crawls by
                                Night steals in, pacing the floor
                              The moments creep, but I can't bear to sleep"

Still pertains.  For two months I slept on the couch.  I'm back in the bedroom, but I have to pile stuff (like laundry baskets) on his side of the bed.  I rarely get to sleep before 1:00 a.m.  To sleep, you have to let your guard down, so I have to wait until I'm totally crashing.

                                 "Weeks pass, and months pass, seasons fly
                                     Still you don't walk through the door"

There are many time I hear the cats in the next room, and I somehow think that's the sound of him coming in the house. Or I was working in my cottage the other day, and somehow expected him to drop by for a visit after working in his barn or the garden.

                                      "And sometimes, at night time, I dream that you are there
                                          But wake holding nothing but the empty air"

Yeow!  Need I say more?

                                             "Years come and years go; time runs dry
                                              Still I ache down to the core
                                             My broken soul can't be alive and whole."

No.  I wrote about that in April, when I discussed the Venn diagram of overlapping lives.  There's a big chunk of me missing.  And that's permanent.

                                                   "I turn and it fades away
                                                      and you're not here"

Still not here.  I keep thinking he'll show up somehow.  Maybe when all this COVID weirdness is finally over and things crawl back to some kind of normal.

                                                "Let hopes pass, let dreams pass
                                                  Let them die
                                                 Without you, what are they for?"

That might be the subject of a future post.

                                            "I'll never feel
                                              No more than halfway real"

I spent the last 48 years with Bob becoming the person that I was.  Now somehow I'm becoming someone else.  Just no sure who.  I still often say "we" and, to use modern parlance, I still identify as being married.

So that's the wallowing.  I've earned it, and I'll wallow (and cry) all I want, as long as I'm not pinning someone else in a corner while I do it.  And the fact that Tennyson or Lloyd Weber or Shakespeare can express this for me shows that my sense of loss is universal.  I may feel terribly alone--and trust me, I do -- but this is a path many others have trod before.

And even now what one of my professors called "the dry AED wit" rears its head.  The link to the song above is just the lyrics.  While you're on youtube, you can also find a video of it--complete with puffy shirt, tears in eyes, and the lost love wafting about.  Even I can't wallow quite that much. It's just a wee bit too over the top.  And even though Karimloo has a gorgeous voice, he also has a cute little baby face that's just a little bit at odds with the whole gestalt.
     

Strange Maskings and a Small African Drum

Living out here in the swamp, it's easy to think that I'm the only one whose life has been irrevocably changed.  That "out there" people are going about their normal, everyday lives.

But sometime I have to venture "out there" and it's a little weird.  I had my first appointment with my new doctor (my old one had the temerity to retire on me).  Online.  Me at home on my computer, her at the office (I suppose) on hers.  That was my physical exam (I guess I looked OK).   But I did have to go in because I needed shots (anti pneumonia and shingles ) and to get my blood work done.  So at least they don't just mail the needles to you and tell you to do it at home.

I went to the new clinic (The Center For Aging---ack!).  Sure is different.  My old one you'd go in and read magazines in the waiting room until they call you back.  Now you call them when you get there--and sit in the car until they say you can come in.  Then you pop on a mask and go in (where the first thing someone says is "did they tell you that you could come in?")  Got my shots, and then I was allowed to go into the lab (instead of back out to my car) where 2/3 of the chairs were roped off, everyone was masked . . . and no magazines.

So strange.

I've decided that I need a djembe (small African drum) because why not??  I'm starting to realize that it's going to be a long time before I can go take an exercise class, or sit on the porch at the Museum farm with my friend and spin, or anything of that ilk.  And I want to do more than sit around the house and mope.  I should learn something new.  Join a drumming circle.  Well--watch a drumming circle on youtube (I recently posted on FaceBook that I'm back to playing with imaginary friends)

So I contact the wife of a co-worker who is a belly dancer because I figure she might know some drummers who could advise me on a good beginner drum.  Lo and behold, she had a friend who wanted to sell hers.

In the "Before Times" this woman and I might have met at a coffee shop or equivalent and chatted for a bit.  But that was then, and this is now.  We arranged to meet in a parking lot.  We got out of our cars - both wearing masks - and violated the 6-foot distancing rule for a few seconds to exchange drum for cash, and then both back into our cars to drive off.

So now I can have one-woman drum circle.  Not exactly ideal, but it will have to do for now.

Building the Reef

If you build it, they will come.  This is definitely true for sea life; you can have a relatively bare space of ocean floor, but put something out there (say, sink an old car or a ship) and within months it will be teeming with barnacles, seaweed, fish and other creatures.

There is a company in Alabama (Walter Marine/Reefmaker) that makes cement and stone artificial reefs.  They are large (8 ft. high, 1500 pound) three sided pyramids.

And, if you like, you can buy one, personalize it, and turn it into a memorial.  And this is what I did for Bob.

Early morning on May 26, I got up and drove to Panama City, where our friend Kim lives.  God Bless her, she wanted to drive me to the Reefmaker for what is called "the pour."  I'm not sure what we were expecting, (after all, we were there to part with Bob's mortal remains)  but it was not to drive up to a chain link gate in a cement yard.  But why not?  And as we walked around, I felt good about the place.  A funeral home with a coffin and people in suits and dresses talking in hushed tones would have seemed out of place for Bob.  But this place would appeal to the inner 8-year-old.  Lots of big equipment and metal and rocks.  Bob was a maker (as am I).  And this was a place where things were being made.

Seahorses for an underwater museum

And where I would take part in the making of his memorial.  I had brought along Bob's ashes and other items to embed in the cement.  A doll to represent his famed "Island of the Dolls" scene on the haunted trail.  One of his scale models, and a first-place prize medal.  A packet of Panzit noodles, for his love of the Philippians.  An amulet from his sister.   A copy of the Shakespeare sonnet 116.  And the ashes of his cat, Fiona.

And here are the two of us (well, the three of us.  Fiona is in the box with him), on our last road trip together.

Yes, that's a wheel weight in the middle.  Bob always picked them up because the lead was good for casting bullets.  Got a little obsessive about it.  And Kim happened to have one in her car

The three large frames are laid out, the cement poured in, and then it's time.  First, Bob's ashes.

Then, personal items.

Finally, I read the sonnet ("let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments").  I had planned on reading it with grace and sorrow, but the truth is that I broke down completely and could barely choke the words out.

But then a lovely thing happened.  There were two more memorial reefs being poured that day, and a woman from one of them came over to talk to me, crying hard, because she could see how much I was hurting and wanted to give her condolences.

I wish I could thank her, and tell her how important that was.  Earlier this week I was listening to an NPR article on grieving during the pandemic.  It said that two things were needed:  Time to grieve alone and time to grieve in public.  To many in isolation with family, the alone time is hard to find.  But I've had that in abundance.  But the other, the public grief, I haven't.  The article said it was important to let people see your pain, to bear witness to your loss.  And mostly, the rare times I've been around other people (like at work) I haven't shown it.

I finally felt that I had given Bob his funeral.  And my hand, in a final farewell.

(with Kim's thumbprint for good measure.)

We were through by noon.  My mind, always clicking, thought we could be back at her house by three or so, and I could be back home a couple of hours later.  I reined myself in.  I needed time to decompress, to process.  I asked Kim if we could take the coast road home (shorter in distance but much longer in time).  The coastline is lovely here, and we found a place under a shelter to picnic (and make snarky comments about the people crowded far too closely on the beach).  I spent the night with her and was more prepared to go home the next day.

*******Nothing in my world is ever totally serious.  Two funny events that day.  One--when we were going to our reef molds, the family on the other side (not the woman who came to see me--this was the third group) was starting to put the ashes in the cement.  At first it was the father, but his wife started whanging at him "you're spilling him!  you're spilling him!" and grabbed the bag and distributed the ashes herself.  But when she was finished, she started shaking the bag to get the last bits out--and poor Kim happened to be slightly downwind and got enveloped in a gentle cloud of Dave and quite possible breathed some of him in.  (This is probably funnier for me than it was for Kim).

The other was a picture that Kim couldn't resist taking because she has a dirty mind.  The final pyramid will have a central support.  Glad you're happy to be here, Bob.

What am I doing?

It's difficult to move this blog forward.  How to return to the mundane "this is my life" after something so momentous?  I take a lesson from my favorite blogger, the Yarn Harlot.  She blogs about knitting, and her life.  She has written about the death of her mother, and recently of her new granddaughter, who came into this world perfect and then died for no reason two days later.  And then . . . she writes about knitting.

The big question for me is "where am I going?"  It's away from my life with Bob, and I don't want to go.  But Jeff put it so well.  "Don't be the Widow Durham,"  he said.  "Be Ann."

Not quite sure how to do that.

So what I can say is What Am I Doing?

Because obviously I have to be doing more than just sitting and grieving.  No, it's not that obvious.  I cry.  A lot.  Every damned day.  Sometimes for a reason--something has hit me - and sometimes I just drip maybe walking across the yard.  I cried when I made a salad and used the wooden salad claws that we got from the raptor rescue center in Sitka, Alaska.  We were there for a friend's wedding, which was small and beautiful and held on a boat with the smell of spruce and the best salmon I have ever eaten or will eat in my life (gravlax!).  The next day we went to the raptor center and they took an eagle out to play.  They put him on a long leash and let him go into the shallow stream and we sat on the rocks and watched him play and snap at gnats and splash in the water.  And in the gift shop we bought the salad tongs.

And it hit me that I've lost 48 years of shared memories.  I can't say "remember when" and he'll say "yes" and then maybe add something I've forgotten and then more of it comes flooding back.  That will never happen again.

So things like salad tongs make me cry.  I'm getting used to it.

I went back to work at the museum after a couple of weeks.  It gets me out of the house, doing something I enjoy with people I like.  Like everything else, It's Not The Same.  The volunteers clean the pens and cages, but we no longer convene afterwards in the kitchen to prepare the diets, which was the fun part, where we chopped and chatted.  But the staff have to be separate from the volunteers, and we stay outside.

I take care of the cats, and clean up after them.  Ditto the chickens.  Feed everyone.  Feed myself.

I've gotten a little strange about the latter.  I've always been food oriented.  I like cooking.  I like eating.  We liked eating.   Now?  Difficult.  Especially that I do fix every meal myself (I've had one sandwich from a food truck, and had lunch at Rob and Jeff's (more about that later) and that's it.  Mostly I have breakfast, and then somewhere around 2 or 3 I realize that the hollow hurting feeling that I have inside All. The. Time. might actually be hunger, and I eat something.

My obsession is my Misfits boxes.  Misfits takes organic produce that isn't pretty enough for stores and boxes it up and sends it out.  I used to look at their ads while we were in the hospital, and I was living on cafeteria food and microwave soups.  I gazed at pictures of fresh vegetables the way some people look at porn, imagining some candlelight and Barry White.  "I have broccolini, ladies."

So I signed up, and every other week I get way too much food for one person who isn't eating much, and I love it and arrange it and take pictures of it.

And a couple of times a week I roast a bunch up, and when the hunger hits I make some eggs or pasta or polenta or toast and heat up something.  I don't know that I really enjoy it, but it tastes good.

What else?  The last 2-3 weeks, too much paperwork, email exchanges, and phone calls to take care of legal matters that could have been done in a fraction of the time if I could have gone and met with people.  And meeting with people, I might have been able to keep my act together a bit more.  As it was, I would fill out forms until it hurt just too badly, then stop for awhile.  But that's mostly done (mostly, because now I'm waiting on people to send stuff back to me.)

Walking:  One habit of mine for years now has been taking a daily walk around the property (3 loops around = 1 mile) while spinning on a handspindle.  In the last couple of years Bob joined me (when it wasn't too hot and buggy).  It became a morning ritual:  take care of critters, have breakfast, take walk.  It was a time to chat, admire the daily changes (what's blooming, say hi to turtles, admire birds) and plan the day.

But a week or so before he died, he looked at me oddly one day, and said "I can see you."  I was confused.  Of course.  I'm right in front of you.  "No,"  he said.  "I can see you walking.  Walking and spinning at home.  I can see you at the museum.  I can see you at a party at Rob and Jeff's.  But I can't see me.  I'm not in the picture."

So now doing it is just so hard.  I need to walk (my back and I are sometimes not on speaking terms).  I need to get out and move.  I love the handspinning.  But can't quite do it on the path yet, or maybe one lap.

Gardening:  The garden is a wreck.  We couldn't really keep it up last year because we were trying to dig the rest of the yard out from the hurricane.  And then the weather got hot, and he got diagnosed . . .

And it all looks like this.  And the garden had become Bob's thing, mostly putting in a ridiculous number of pepper plants.  There are about 16 raised beds out there, that I laboriously terraced when we first moved out here.  At first I wasn't going to do anything, but I thought I might be sad later if I didn't.  I compromised on cleaning up two beds, one for tomatoes and one for peppers.  Then one day I looked at another bed, and realized that in among the weeds, the jalapeños from last year had survived, so I cleaned them up.  And now the plants are loaded with peppers.  He *loved* to make stuffed jalapeños for dinner (normally such a thing would be an appetizer).  We would get a big stack of tortillas and beer to cut the fire and work through a whole cookie sheet of them, whooping a bit.

Eating Outside/ Watching TV :  More of one, less of the other.  Bob and I ate most of our meals in the den.  At breakfast, he would turn on the TV and watch the news and then whatever was on.  I would check my email and facebook.  To be honest, TV was a contention between us our entire lives together.  He liked to have it on, whether he was watching it or not.  I found it annoying.  After we got the firestick, he could spend what I thought was an inordinate amount of time just clicking around to see what was available.  Now I rarely have it on during the day, and I take my meals on the back deck, with the squirrels (I put out sunflower seeds), watching the wren raise her chicks, and listening to the high pitched squeaks of the hummingbird, and the surprisingly low hum of his wings.   At least I did--May and biting fly season came and has driven me indoors..

Other viewing.  Bob and I always watched Jeopardy together (and he always was better at it).  I thought watching it alone would be a wrench, but not as bad as I thought.  Sometimes I watch it, sometimes I don't.  What surprises me is other things.  We always watched any videos that Adam Savage put out, and also Punished Props (cosplay with Bill and Britt Doran).  I've watched just a but of Adam and none so far of Punished Props.  Odd, because that one is largely about foamsmithing which is more my thing than his.  I think it's because when they first came on the screen, for some reason he would call out "Biiiiill!  Briiiitt!" as though he were greeting old friends.  It will be hard to see them without hearing that.

Hummingbirds.  That's another thing.  Bob fed the hummingbirds.  A month or so ago I saw one and had to go find the feeder and now remind myself to keep fresh sugar water in it.

Ripping a Tree From Limb to Limb:  After 7 weeks of isolation, Rob and Jeff thought I should come over for a socially distanced lunch (the social distancing was eventually violated.  At one point we were talking about Bob and I broke down and looked so pathetic that they hugged me.  That felt so good.  Bereavement in isolation is miserable--this is a time in a person's life when they *need* hugs and I've had none).  I was so looking forward to this.  It's been nice to be back at work at the museum, but it's not the same as just sitting around and chatting.  And I hadn't had anyone to chat with for those 7 weeks.

So when I headed out and saw a tree down in the driveway, I was royally pissed.  And stuck.  Upset.  Then angry.  The tree wasn't big.  But I'm not comfortable with the big chainsaw (heck, we had a rule that Bob couldn't use it if I wasn't at home).  But I did have my big lopping shears, and I was able to find the limb saw in the barn.  I changed into work clothes and started tearing that thing apart (I didn't think to take a before picture--in this one I had been removing limbs for about 20 minutes).

In about 45 minutes I had it down to the bare trunk which I was able to grab and drag out of the way.  And had a lovely social (if not properly distanced) outing.

Sewing:  Did an odd bit of sewing.  While I was gone, the museum lost their old female goat and got a new baby one.  At least they thought she was a baby; she's very small.  But two weeks later there was an even smaller goat with her.  He's adorable, but within two months there was a problem.  He's a randy little guy, and he started tupping his mother.  Bigger problem: a male goat shouldn't be neutered untile he's 6 months old or it can cause problems with the urinary tract.  But they can be viable at 3 months.  Really don't need yet another baby goat.  And keeping him separated all the time was a problem because goats are herd animals.  So they asked me to make him an anti-mating apron.  Yep.  It is a thing.  You can buy them, but they're expensive and In These Days shipping takes longer.  So I looked at pictures, and I had some heavy vinyl, and I made one.  What's really funny is that I read that they're weighted so that when he stands on his hind legs the apron falls down to cover what is necessary to be covered, and what I had handy was a handful of marbles.  The thing is totally silly, but it works.

The other sewing, is, of course for anyone who sews, masks.  It's really a good idea to wear a mask when you go out in public (like a grocery story) these days.  So I've made a few dozen--for friends at the museum with extras to pass out, for Rob and Jeff, for Amanda and her fellow students (who just found out they can go back to class next week but need to be masked).  I have limited fabric, meaning I have tons of fabric but not of the right kind.  So my masks have been mostly of the Vincent Van Gogh paints the Tardis, and Day of the Dead.

In general, it's just easy sewing (if a bit fussy).  But sometimes I have to press down the feeling of horror that I am making masks to try to keep my friends just a tiny bit safer.  And sometimes I come home from the grocery store and grab the disinfecting wipes to wipe down my purchases, strip off my clothes and toss them into the washer, drop my mask into a sink of soapy water, and take a shower.  And wonder how in the hell did this ever become normal?  And because brains are pattern making organs, mine wants to put this story in with losing him.  If he hadn't died, maybe the world wouldn't have stopped.  (I also wonder how he would have felt about All Of This).

So yes.  Keeping Busy.  Like eating, it's in an oddly detached sort of way, just going through the motions.  Something I feel I should be doing.   There's a lot on the docket for today and tomorrow, and it's important, which is why I felt the need to spew this out and get it out of the way.

I really wish I had A Project.  Sometimes I do something obsessively, like the recent cape or my clay watcher statue.  Something I can throw myself into.  But I can't come up with anything.  I am spinning some, and I started winding the warp for some more dishtowels (but haven't finished).  But I want something big and weird.  

Something Ann.

Farewell, Little Pookha

Pookha was a second-class citizen.  She would have told you that, had you ever asked her.  Poor Little Pookha.

December, 2003.  It is early morning, and I am sitting on the toilet.  Bob walks in, with a little meowing kitten at his heels.  I look up.  "What the hell are you thinking?  We *really* don't need another cat!"

He logically pointed out that he himself was still in a state of undress and had not really gone out shopping for a kitten.  Rather, he had looked out, seen something on the hood of the truck, and when he opened the door this kitten, about two months old, came running into the house.

It was not an auspicious beginning.  I pointed out that I was now in graduate school, was going to start teaching for the first time in a few weeks, that I had too much on my plate, and not ready for another kitten.  Who meowed piteously.  Who seemed really really sad that I didn't recognize her as my cat.

So of course after the usual round of posting flyers and trying to find her a home, we adopted her.  But I don't think she ever got over that original sense of rejection.

She was the neediest cat we ever had.  Meowed constantly, always wanting attention.  Many is the time I would hear Bob yelling in the kitchen "Dammit, Pookha.  I've given you dry food, canned food, special treats, and some cheese.  Just what the hell do you want???"   And, of course, the answer was that she wanted attention.  When you were trying to cook she would paw at your back.  If you were on the phone, the other end could hear her meowing.

Pookha trying to get Bob's attention

The only time she was happy (or at least somehow contented) is if she were being held on my chest.  Not my lap, but my chest.  She would be on my lap, but then reach up, dig her claws into my right shoulder, and haul herself up.  Most of my T-shirts are ripped on that shoulder, and I have permanent scars.

If we were feeling mean, we would stand slightly out of her reach, and then start consoling her with "Poor Pookha.  Poor sad little Pookha.  Pookha thinks nobody loves her.  Pookha thinks nobody cares for her.  No one ever pays any attention to poor pathetic Pookha."

And by then she would be going bat sh*t crazy and practically screaming.  And I would cuddle her and she would dig her claws into my shoulder.

I would sum her up at the vet's office.  "She's a crazy-ass neurotic little cat.  But she's MY crazy ass neurotic little cat."  My little gray cat with the big emerald eyes and little brick nose.

Pookha passed away a few months after Fiona, before we went to Gainesville.  And like Fiona, we didn't want spreading her ashes to be a rush job, distracted by Bob's treatments.

And suddenly the house was a little bit emptier, and a whole lot quieter.

Fiona is going with Bob, but Pookha was my cat (crazy ass neurotic, but mine) and is staying with me.  The butterfly garden hadn't gotten it's usual winter cleanup, but I've been spending some time out there getting last years dead stems and fallen branches cleaned up.  Today her ashes went under the gardenia, and I'll think of her when it blooms.

Goodbye, little Pookha.  The scars on my shoulder will heal, but you will always be in my heart.

Major Deaths

In a moment of self-pity I  was texting a friend yesterday the "timeline of my mourning"

And I just realized that I need a better term than "major deaths" because that would automatically make any other "minor deaths" and that's not how I view anyone's life.

But until a better term comes along . . .

A "major" death is that of someone close to you.  Your lives are involved with each other.  Losing them is like losing a limb.  It's usually a family member or a close friend.  And you never really stop missing them.

So--the self pity?  Or maybe just the feeling of eternal mourning?

January 1, 2005.  Jed O'Connor.  We had been close friends for over 20 years.  Sudden heart attack
April 24, 2008.  Bob's mother.  Long term illness; amyloidosis. Was sick for four years
December 9, 2009.  Bob's father, COPD.  Ill for about a year
December 8, 2012.  My mother.  Had had issues for several years; final decline took 6 months
December 17, 2015.  My father.  Just gave up after my mother died.  Broke his ribs a few months
                                  later and just stayed in bed for the next 2.5 years.
March 30, 2020.    Bob died after 8 months of treatment.


The math major in me kicks in (both my brother and myself tend to quantify things)

January 1, 2005 to March 30, 2020 is what?  15 years and 3 months, aka 183 months.  Of that time, there were 3 years and 7 months (aka 43 months, after my father died and before Bob's diagnosis) that we weren't visiting ill parents and spending time in hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics.  That's 76% of that time, or 11 years, 8 months of dealing with illness and death of  six people close to me.

I am very grateful for 3 years and 7 months I had with Bob after we thought it was all over and we could relax for awhile.  I'm very very happy that we retired early so basically had a vacation for that time.

But maybe the statistics show why I just feel so broken.  But also why I realize that I am actually quite a strong person.  As I promised Bob--for his sake, if not for my own, I *will* build a new life, and I will try to make it a very good one.

Where Do I Go From Here?

Honestly, I don't know where to go from here.

There are the clichés:  Get back in the saddle.  Move forward with your life.

In the saddle??  Hell, I don't even know where to find a horse.   Move forward?  We're in shutdown.  I can't move anywhere.

Monday I will have been home four weeks.  The days are long, the nights are longer--but it seems like no time at all has elapsed since I said goodbye.

The first week was a fog.  I was emotionally and physically exhausted.   I was used to being on edge.  And there were things to do.  For one--when the Rob and Jeff brought me home, the AC was dead.  Men came out the next day to look and Wednesday I had a new unit put in.  Reddbugg got a UTI and I had to go get antibiotics for him.   There was a lot of banging in the water pipes so I had to remember how to bleed the excess air from the water tank.  It occurred to me to check the tire pressure on the Honda that hadn't been driven for months.  A couple of tires were low; I went to the gas station but they don't have an air pump anymore, so I scrounged in the barn and found the portable one.

Yes, I can take care of things by myself.  Just wish I didn't have to.

And I kept thinking that I needed to Move Forward.  I had Things To Do.  The cats are due for their shots (uh, not now.  Pandemic).  I had that tooth pulled before we went to Gainesville--now I can finally schedule the replacement (nope, pandemic).  I can visit my friends that I have missed so much (nope).  Getting harder to read street signs when I drive--should schedule that eye appointment (nope, not that either).  Maybe I could take an exercise class, or an art class (nope nope nope)

See where I'm going with this?  Nowhere.

There were people to call.  Forms to fill.  And I bit the bullet and went through Bob's clothes.  God knows how much I loved him, but he was a hoarder when it came to his clothes.  Hundreds of pairs of socks, hundreds of T shirts.  Over the next three weekends I took some 30 trash bags of stuff too old/grungy to donate to the dump.  Which killed my little environmentalist heart.  I would have liked to find a place that recycled textiles -- Goodwill does, but not In These Times.  I still have six overflowing laundry baskets of stuff good enough to donate when we're allowed to donate again (some of it never worn), and it all needs to be washed (some of it's been hanging in the closet for 20 years.)  These are shoes and boots he hadn't worn for years because they didn't fit him:

And now I look at the empty shelves and the empty closet and it just tears my heart out.  Was it too soon?  Don't know, and it's too late now.  I've talked to people who have waited a year or more to clean out--and apparently it just hurts all over again.  I did save a couple of T shirts to cuddle and a few jackets to see if our great nephew Dane wants them.

I made marmalade and started some limoncello.  Sort of a random thing to do.  But there were still some lemons on the tree.  Bob would have hated to see them wasted.

But forward?  Even baby steps?  I don't want to.  Every baby step, every day, is a bit farther away from my life with Bob.  And I really don't want to leave that behind.  Especially now, when there seems to be nothing in front of me.

Amanda sent me a journal:

Like the rest of my journal collection, I might never write in it.  While I write here, in the blog, it's not the same as committing to paper.  But I like having it around.

And I found a postcard stuck on the wall in Bob's room:

That's a keeper.

Bob's room.  Who knows when I'll be able to tackle that?  People have asked me if its hard to go in there.  Oddly, no.  I've always liked being in his room (he enjoyed visiting my cottage).  His ashes are on his workbench.  I'll have to give them up in a couple of weeks for the reef, but I'll miss them (I might keep just a little, as a keepsake.  I also plan to spread some around here.)  But when I open that door I know that it will be Essence of Bob in there.   It's the unexpected that gets me.  I was rummaging in my knitting bag this morning and found his cell phone.  That took me to my knees for a moment.

I cleaned a lot of pictures off my phone today.  Pictures that were going to be part of the "Bob survived cancer" story.  They're not gone; the story is still there, so I have archived them.  But I don't need the sadness of carrying them around with me.

But I did keep one of him in the hospital.  Still had his hair (although I had cut off his braid before we left so he wouldn't get bed head).  It's the day he got his first transplant; hence, the Mardi Gras beads and gift bag.

Zoom in.  Look at those eyes.  That was always how he looked at me.  So gentle.  So. Much. Love.  A bit of humor, like we had a secret joke between us.

How can I take even baby steps away from that?

Pandemic

Soon after Bob went back in the hospital again, we started hearing news of strange happenings "out there."  "Out There" referred to the world below us, sequestered in our room on the 7th floor.  Some sort of virus from China.  Some people in the US were coming down with it.

It didn't affect us.  We were in a hospital room.  Everyone who came in put on sanitizer when they entered and washed their hands before they left.  If I stepped out of the room, I used sanitizer (or washed my hands) and put on a mask.  This was normal behavior.

But up there in our bubble, we heard of things.  Stores being stripped of toilet paper and chlorox and rice and pasta.  I called my brother on his birthday (March 13; Bob was in intensive care).  He and his wife had planned on going out to dinner, but she had a cough (allergy season) and didn't want to panic people in a restaurant.  Better to stay home.  Bob was in intensive care; I was in a hotel.  The next morning I go down to the hotel breakfast and the waffle station wasn't there, nor the oatmeal or the fruit.

 I saw a little of it. One of the things that Bob could keep down was tomato soup.  He could get it on his tray but it was thin and watery.  I would go buy the microwave soups that were thick and tasty and had lots of calories.  I ventured out to Publix.  At first it all seemed normal--the deli counter, the produce section.  Then I went to get the soup--and it was rationed at 2 cans per customer. I turn down the paper aisle and the shelves were empty.  Odd.

A few days later I went to WalMart.  There was a limit on how many people could go in, carts were wiped before you got them.  As in Publix, much of it normal, much of it very odd.  No ration on soups but there weren't many on the shelf.  No human check out--it was all self serve.

But I still thought of it as "out there."  It would be all right when we got home.  Although Gill told me that her husband was now working from home.  Her pool had closed.    I heard of restaurants closing.

It moved in.  I had to wear a wristband to show that I was allowed to be in the ward.  If I left the building I had to have my temperature checked to come back in.  The boxes of masks that used to line the hallways were gone.  People had been stealing them so instead they were doled out as needed. (stealing them??  Seriously?  You're stealing them from people who are seriously immune compromised?).

I had thought, when Bob insisted that I keep the hotel room, that from time to time I could use the gym or the swimming pool.  But they closed.  There were fewer and fewer cars in the parking lot; the hotel smelled of disinfectant.

After Bob died, Rob and Jeff came to get me.  They called when they arrived because Jeff didn't want to come into the hotel.  We have been friends a very long time.  And I had lost my husband and their friend.  But there was no running to each other.  We had to pause and think about hugging (Rob shamed Jeff into hugging me.)

They brought me home, where I wanted to be.  But it's not normal.  Not that it could ever be, with Bob gone.  But it's not normal at all.  There should have been people coming to see me, or asking me to join them for walks or lunch or tea or just to hold me and let me cry.  There should have been a memorial service and casseroles.  But I'm just here, alone with the cats.

Oddly, my mind tries to connect the two (because minds are storytelling machines).  I feel like a pariah.  An outcast.  I am a bereaved widow, therefore no one should see me or talk to me or, especially, touch me.

I am untouchable. Alone.

Timeline and Pandemic

I've been trying to get my head around the three months that I was gone.  Sometimes it seems like a piece of time was lifted out of my life.  That Gainesville was a dream and now I can wake up.

I look at the calendar on the wall.  It still says January.  I was cleaning out a kitchen cabinet and was wondering at all the opened partial bags of dried fruit--raisins, currents, pineapple, apricots.  Then I remembered--they're the remnants of Christmas baking.  Normally by now they would have been used up on cereal or oatmeal or sweet breads.  I'm waiting for winter--but it's over.  Wondering when the azaleas will bloom--but they already have.  Why are the peacock's tails fully grown in? Usually in January they're just starting to come back.

Trying to fix a timeline.  January 7 we went to Gainesville.  He had chemo for four days; Della came to donate her bone marrow and he received that on the 13th.  After that it was simply a matter of waiting.  The chemo had destroyed his bone marrow and the new cells had to start growing.

He got sick, as expected (chemo is brutal).  He lost his hair (but could really rock the look).  The beard followed a few days later.

Jan 23 he got sick with a viral infection.  He recovered, but it delayed the graft.  Finally, after 19 days of 0 neutrophils (the important white blood cell count), the numbers ticked upward.  When they hit 1000, on Friday, Feb. 7, he was released and on the road to recovery.

We still had to stay in Gainesville; he was still very ill and had to be seen every day.  Things immediately went wrong.  On Saturday his count was 487.  Sunday 250.  A few days later, back to 0.

More waiting.  More going to the clinic every day--for platelets, for transfusions.  Waiting for the numbers to tick up again.  Another bone marrow biopsy showing that the graft had failed.  A call to Della to donate again (stem cells rather than bone marrow this time).  God bless that woman--she came immediately.  Waiting for her tests, for her pretreatment, for her two days of harvesting.  He went back into the hospital on February 26, went through 5 more days of chemo, and received his second transplant on March 4.

More waiting.  Stem cells are more aggressive than marrow.  His bones ached, he spiked a fever, and ended up in intensive care on the 13th.  Two days, then back on the ward.  Kept getting sicker--kept being told he would feel better when the graft took.  Which should take 1-2 weeks after the transplant.  Then 2-3 weeks.  By 21 days at the latest.  He did vent frustration-- "they keep moving the goal post!"  He developed a bacterial infection in his blood, a fungal infection in his lungs; the drugs to control those took down his kidneys and he went on dialysis.

His team of doctors still thought he could recover, after the graft took.  But day 21 (Wednesday, March 25) came and went with no shift in numbers.  Another bone marrow biopsy was scheduled for the following Monday.  We asked the doctor what would happen if it showed the graft had not taken.  We got, in response, a poker face and the answer "we'll see what the biopsy says."  After she left, we looked at each other and said "we don't think there's a plan C".  Thursday, March 26, we began to accept that he was not going to survive.  Friday he was back in intensive care.  We were waiting until Monday, for the biopsy, and then for Wednesday, when the results would be back in.  When we would know if there was a chance for survival.  Saturday night he sat up and yelled "WHY DO I HAVE TO WAIT??"

I asked him what he meant.  He said that he was too broken. That even if the graft was taking, there would be too many months of fighting for recovery.  That he was too tired.  That he couldn't fight anymore.  That he didn't want to wait for someone else to tell him it was over.  That for once, he wanted to have control of his life again, if only to leave it on his own terms.  That he wanted me to let him go.

So there is my timeline.  Maybe now it will stop its eternal running in circles in my head.

I was also going to write about the pandemic, how that timeline was woven into his.  Next post.

Love Alters Not

Shakespeare's Sonnet #116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

I was going to write about how, as time went on, Bob and I loved each other more.  Time took away parents and friends.  Knees weakened, stamina lessened, various body parts drooped.  And yet, we would look at each other almost in wonder that after 48 years we were still together.  

But my words can become maudlin. Shakespeare said it better.