Where from here?

Is it time to move on to new horizons and a new blog?  At what point is my journey no longer about recovery but about my life as it goes forward on a different journey?  I am single.  It's a fact!  I no longer reach across the bed to make sure my partner is there or hesitate to turn on the light in the middle of the night.  Going out to dinner with the Watercrest gang this week really drove it home.  I was the only one who was there alone.  A few weeks ago I was the only single woman who went to the baseball game with the group.  That surprised me.  But I survived! 
And I have a lot more to say, I do.  Look at the environment!  the President!  the health care system!  dating!  life among the elderly!  I'm not ready to shut up, that's for sure.  So look out folks, the old lady ain't done yet!  It ain't over til the fat lady sings.

And who is she now?

It's November and finally a bit chilly but rainy here in San Antonio.  September was the rainiest month on record here in the hill country.  So we carry umbrellas while California burns.  So crazy!

So what's the old gal been up to in her recovery?  Well, damn if her eyes still leak like crazy when the guest musician plays "Can I have this dance for the rest of my life" or "Waltz across Texas".  My friends are used to it by now and just hand me a tissue.  Do I want that to go away?  Yes and no....I love those beautiful memories of being held close and moving across the dance floor.  It was one of those things we could do together until the very end.  But I remain hopeful now that I will once again have that experience with someone else.

I have had a few dates that have been a lot of fun and have joined a couple of dating websites. OMG has that ever been an adventure and hilarious at times.  Gee but it is a lot of work to put yourself out there.  Nothing of real interest has shown up so far.  My girlfriends say all these guys lie about their age....really?  Why would anyone lie about being 86 years old?  One guy's picture shows him with an oxygen tube in his nose.  Geezus!  I have this fantasy that Prince Charming is just going to show up at the right time if it is meant to be.  In the meantime I need to get on with my life and get involved.

Life here at Watercrest at the Dominion as improved considerably with the appointment of a new director...some of the growing pains of a brand new community have been resolved though there will always be some.  I now serve on the Advisory Board of the Resident Association as others have stepped up to tackle responsible positions...a big relief.

In the meantime I have moved out of my box into a larger apartment, two bedrooms and two baths so now I have an office/studio to work in and I love it.  The move here was so chaotic... you understand if you have read my earlier writing.  The sudden death of my husband at the edge of our move forced some fast decisions on where to go and what to do.  Not knowing exactly what my financial situation was going to be I chose a smaller one bedroom apartment...it was the right decision at the time but now I am on firmer ground hopefully making better choices and I love the new balcony overlooking the hill country.  Looking back at that difficult time had we not been packed and ready to move, it probably would have been wiser to stay put for at least a couple months to get my feet back under me.with the support of friends as well as family.

In June I was able to go to Loveland to visit my in-laws who moved there and my wonderful nieces and then go on to Boulder to work with my writing coach, Max Regan, for 10 days of a writing retreat...especially fun as several of my writing buddies from Houston were there.  I'm finding editing a lot harder than writing.

Last month I joined 3 girlfriends from here on a river cruise beginning in Slovakia, then Vienna, Germany and ending in Amsterdam.  It was great to get away and visit parts of Europe I had not been to....disappointing in that we were only able to be on the ship for 7 days as the extreme drought has lowered the level of the Danube and Rhine to the point they are not navigable.
So this gypsy soul has been fed, at least for the time being.  A change of scenery does help move the grief to the side and I recommend it.

I always enjoy your comments if you have managed to read through all this.
Thanks....

Finding a new me...wooo hooo...who is she now?

It has been a year now since your passing and it will always leave a void in my heart, a blank space in my soul.  I read over my memories of  your last days and weep but it is getting easier.  And I have come to realize that I really was feeling the loss of you years ago when Alzheimer's began its claim on you and our life together.  And I was grieving long before your passing.  In this new community of retirees I watch with compassion as I witness other wives caring for husbands no longer remembering what they had for lunch.  I know what it is like to hang on to the last threads of your partner as their memory fades.  I still lose my composure when the band plays "Can I have this dance for the rest of my life?"  It was our song and we danced to it time and time again. 

So I have filled my life with writing and activism serving as vice president of our newly formed Residents Council , a sounding board for residents and liaison with management.   I hang out with family when they are available, play cards, go out to eat, go to water aerobics, plan trips, shop online and go to doctor appointments but the longing is till there.  I try to fill it with TV and Facebook, poor numbing substitutes. 

And now a new dilemma...a man has stepped into my life, a man who describes himself as a tall, dark and handsome who can drive at night and in the rain, a definite plus with old ladies.  And he has a sense of humor, a huge hook for me as laughs are a premium asset to any friendship in my book.  I'm terrified!  Not of him, he has been nothing but kind and cautious but this new awareness of how desperately lonely and vulnerable I am is frightening.  I don't know if I can trust my judgment on anything but I do know that now for the first time in a long time I am capable of pure joy, laughter and a sensuality that was long forgotten.  And I am enjoying it.  Wow!  Who woulda thunk! 

Damn Alzheimer's!  It takes such a toll on the caregiver as well as the patient.  We lose parts of ourselves without even knowing it.  I am damn lucky to be rediscovering some.

A celebration of life

At long last the tree at Johnson Center is planted and the ceremony went very well in spite of the cold weather.  About 40 attended, many of whom were co-workers of my husband and it was such an honor that they took the time to come along with family members.  I surprised myself and see it as a marker of healing that I was able to get through the whole thing without breaking down.  Here is what I read:

Today We Celebrate a Life

           " A year ago today Ken was fetching and lifting helping me recover from a hip replacement and prepare for the move to San Antonio to be near our son and his family.  The move had been in the works for months while we waited for our designated apartment to be finished.  We were moving around boxes in our apartment full of the treasures and crap we felt we couldn’t live without.  Ken had done an amazing job of reducing his paper piles to a single box.  And those of you who had seen the piles know what a job that was for someone with Alzheimer’s.  But he did it well and seemed to be really on board for the move.  The movers were scheduled for March 1.  Ready, set, go.

A week later was a different story.  In spite of the flu shots and pneumonia shots we both came down with the flu that was going around our retirement community.  Ken’s cough sounded awful.  Karen took him to the ER on February 22^nd where he got antibiotics and I was told that if he developed a fever, bring him back.  He did and short story even shorter, he was admitted to the hospital, diagnosed with pneumonia, put in ICU, went into cardiac arrest, was resuscitated and passed away on February 27^th.  Holy moly!  Talk about a game changer!  Karen with her ironic sense of humor said to him in the hospital, “Gee, Dad, if you didn’t want to move, all you had to do is say so.”  Our son Chris was there to the bitter end and was the rock we all leaned on and still do.  His twin brother, Keith, and his wife, Sue, were angels taking care of me.

So here we are now a year later.  I went ahead with the move though delayed a few weeks.  I am so grateful for all the support all of you have given me.  It has been amazing and such a demonstration of your connection, love and respect for this amazing man.  It has given me a year of gratitude in so many ways.  Grief is so weird and comes in waves and moments of reflection or just out of the blue.  Your support pulls me through.

Ken loved his work.  He not only loved his work but lived it.  He was excited about the space program when he first came to work here in 1964 and never lost that enthusiasm.  Wouldn’t he love the Space X launch this week! He was a futurist; he was always looking out into the years beyond at the potential of moving and living in space not just next year but in twenty years, thirty years.  He wanted a long-range plan step by step to make living in space a viable option.  He was an organizer with a following….me included…touching many lives, mentoring with kindness and patience. 

There was spiritual side to Ken that I was privileged to witness on many occasions.  He went to conferences on creativity and consciousness where he served on panels with people like Barbara Marx Hubbard, Rupert Sheldrake and Jan Phillips.  Ken loved music, all kinds of music and he loved to dance.  Did you know that?  He wasn’t a great dancer but he loved to get out on the floor and boogie.  Waltz Across Texas became our song and I have a melt-down whenever I hear it.  We held Lifetime tickets to the Kerrville Folk Festival supporting Rod Kennedy and the gang from their beginnings in the Kerrville Auditorium all the way to Quiet Valley Ranch.  Every Memorial Day would find us camping near Kerrville through the mud and the crud, rain or shine rocking to Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary or Kinky Friedman and strings of others.  Ken loved them all and loved sharing this love with his children and lastly his oldest granddaughter.

And politics?  Oh my, he was fascinated, spellbound and never hesitant to jump in with his opinion.  He served on the Charter Commission to get Nassau Bay incorporated as a city.  He served on the Vestry at the church and helped lead the struggle to remove a priest who was not performing ethically.  At one point years ago before NASA he served as a Precinct Chair and much later behind the scenes supported Sissy Farenthold in her failed attempt at governor.  As his Alzheimers progressed, he stayed glued to MSNBC covering the last Presidential election and I frequently wonder if he may have checked out because he felt he couldn’t tolerate Trump as President.

I am so very grateful to have shared a life with this geeky guy with the crew cut and glasses who when we first dated gave me an invitation to a St. Swithins Day party written on toilet paper.  His sense of humor had me hooked from the beginning.  We had millions of laughs following.  He was funny, smart and sensitive.  Who could resist a guy who can shed a tear in a movie?  What a combination we were…the engineer and the artist.  At that St. Swithins Day party in that tiny cabin midst the cedars in Austin I had no idea of the adventures ahead and the places this man would lead me.

He never failed to support me or our children in whatever crazy thing we wanted to do.  You want to play soccer?  Okay, I’ll coach the girls’ team even though I’ve never seen a soccer game.  You want to go to grad school in Georgetown?  Great, we’ll help.  You want to buy property for a studio in Webster?  Here’s the money.  You want to build a big gas kiln?  I will haul the brick.  You got a teaching offer in Australia?  Go for it.  He gave us the courage and confidence to go for it and we will be eternally grateful.

Thank you for being here today to celebrate a life well-lived.  It is so appropriate to have this lasting growing memorial for a man who dreamed a presence in space for years to come.

God bless NASA, the space program and all of you."

It feels as if the last piece is in place now and I am sleeping better than I have in months.  For some crazy reason I feel I can now get on with my life whatever that may turn out to be.  Ken will always be a part of my life and amazingly I lunched today with new residents who worked for NASA and knew Ken.  Small world and interesting timing.  He will always have a huge part of my heart but now my role is new and different, perhaps as support to others who are walking the path of caregiver.

Whoa....where did that come from?

Good heavens!  Where did that come from?  Am I nuts?  Is this what grief looks like?  I'm sitting watching some benign show on TV and all of a sudden break out into racking sobs...deep, heavy body shaking racking sobs for several minutes.  I finally get a grip, grab a tissue and then here they come again.  What the hell?  Where did that come from?  For the life of me I can't figure out what triggered this.  The whole episode was over in about fifteen minutes and then it was gone.  I felt a sense of relief when it was all over.  January 22?  Is that an anniversary of some event I can't recall?  Last year on that date I was still in rehab so who knows.  Is this the way grief works?  Wow!!!

Here come the anniversaries.....

It has just been a year ago this week that I went under the knife for a replacement for my right hip.  The plan was to get this done with full recovery before our big move to San Antonio.  The surgery went great but I guess my plan to be the "poster child" of hip replacement was a little too much for the 79 year old body.  I pushed myself out of rehab a couple of weeks early as sweet hubby was with caregiving relatives and I needed to get home to take over that job again and prepare for the big move and the 80th birthday party.  Rehab was set up at home and went well.  I can truthfully say that I am recovered.  I'm on my way to becoming a bionic woman...new lenses in my eyes, metal in my knees and hip.  Now it's my back that needs attention...this aging is hard work.  If it ain't one thang, it's another.