January 5, Remembrances and Ramblings

 I've continued to get outside work done.  After doing the butterfly garden fence (a rather large job) and then working at the museum, I was going to take last Friday off.  Maybe just sit around in my jammies all day, drink tea, and read Frankenstein.  But I noticed that there were a lot of leaves on the front deck - and it was forecast to rain on Saturday.  Wet leaves are a pain to sweep.  So I thought I would take a few minutes to sweep the deck.

But then I tried to remember the last time I had swept the roof - it probably had a foot or two of leaves on it.  So I got dressed, dragged over the ladder, got the roof swept, then all those leaves that I had to dump from the roof to the deck swept and carried off.  Then as long as I had the ladder there I might as well clean the gutters.

While I was up there I snapped a picture.  Sometimes people wonder at me, living out here.  But this is my "back yard."  I don't think I could tolerate living in a neighborhood where I would be in amongst dozens of houses.

At least all that work let me finish my first Conqueror virtual walking challenge - the 98 mile tour of Oaxaca.  I found that I really enjoyed it.  It seemed silly to pay to keep track of my walking - but there was a definite satisfaction to doing a daily log in, and seeing where I was on the map, and hitting milestones.

  So I've started the next one, joining a friend in England who is doing the Fellowship of the Ring walk from the Shire to Mordor.  The whole walk is some 600 miles, but fortunately broken up into sections.  I've started the walk from the Shire to Bree (145 miles).

Today was more yard work (it's scheduled to rain for the next week).  It was a beautiful day, cool, with brilliant blue skies.  I actually like this sort of work - building a fire, dragging up the deadfall, seeing the yard start to look a little better.  Of course, the most enjoyable part is when it's time to take a break, read a book, and let the fire burn down a bit.  There's just something so peaceful sitting by a fire in the woods.  Of course, I can't help but remember the dozens (hundreds?) of times that I sat there with Bob.  Seeing him laugh at the minuscule but fierce baby praying mantis on his arm.  Or that day when a coyote trotted by, about 20 feet away but totally ignoring us, disappearing into the trees.  At some point we would often roast some hot dogs, or even make s'mores.  I miss all of that, but I still enjoy just sitting by a fire.

Except that from time to time, I wept.  I try not to dwell on the past, but this is January 5.  On this day in 2020, it was just as beautiful and clear as today.  At one point, I brush out his "magnificent silver mane" and had him stand in the sun.

 Later on, I braided it - and then cut it off.  He was going to Shands the next day, and would be spending a great deal of time in bed.  Also - we knew it was going to fall out, and thought it might be easier to take a bit at a time.  My heart still aches to think of it.

January 5, 2020.  Four years ago now.  The last full day that he spent at home.  We were trying to get everything set up to leave for three months.  Notes for the housesitters.  Packing.  Trying to think of everything except why we were going.  Cutting his hair.

Sometimes my mind still runs around like a rat in a maze with no exit.  I try to come up with different scenarios. Did we do the right thing by trying to save him?  After our consultation at Shands, when we said we would try the bone marrow transplant, one of the doctors said she was glad that we did.  She couldn't say it beforehand, so as not to pressure us, but at the rate the leukemia was progressing, he would have maybe a year.

And sometimes I wish we had taken than year, rather than put him through two rounds of the brutal chemotherapy and the two transplants, and the killing of the kidneys.  We could have had a year instead of those too-few months.  I could have had him awhile longer.  We could have stayed in Tallahassee, at home.

Then I give myself a reality check.  This would have been hanging over our heads.  Our time would have been spent at the oncology clinic.  He would have gotten sicker and weaker, needing more and more transfusions.  His immune system would have failed.  It would be a longer, slower death.

Four years later, it's still hard to accept.  This was his last day home.  He thought that he would be coming back, but he never did.  He died.  Every alternative that I ever come up with has the same outcome.  I can never get it right.