I had some strange dreams last night. One was about an elderly couple. The wife was crying that her husband hadn’t kissed her in something like a year. As it wound up, they a one-year-old baby, which the woman had born. For some reason, kissing on the mouth was not on the husband’s list as one of the best things in life. I can appreciate the woman’s tears. It is one of the things I miss the most with Mike’s absence.
People say how evident our love for each other was. I think it was clear because we were affectionate. I don’t think it is possible to compare one couple’s love for each other with another by behavior. Hollywood movies have to show couples being affectionate to show how they care for each other. The subtle stuff is too hard to script.
Affection was a biggy for Mike and me. Yvette commented recently that our public shows of affection were always innocent. It was a way for us to drink in the other’s energy. That was the first thing that worked in our relationship- that energy exchange; it lasted until the day he finally gave up on living and retreated. That was the Monday before he died.
I remember leaving the hospital room without kissing him good night and telling him I loved him. I felt bad and went back to do it. But the connection wasn’t there anymore. He had left. Even as he was dying, there was not that connection. I think he hung on for eight hours after they took him off the life support because he had fun hanging out with all of us: Yvette and me in the room, and Damon, Cylin, and August on FaceTime. When he was gone, we all left the scene as if something ordinary had happened and went on with our lives. No drama. I’m not the emotionally suppressed type. There really was no drama.
I am noticing that I am, if anything, more peaceful than when Mike was around. I like being alone. I like being with my own thoughts. I know before he died, I noticed this in myself and worried about becoming totally isolated. That wouldn’t be good. I remember, hopefully correctly, saying something about my concern to Yvette. She assured me that she would make sure I wasn’t completely alone. That was comforting.
I expressed my concern that I was more peaceful without Mike than with him. I was wondering if something was wrong with me. Paulette and Judy assured me that this was normal. Even in the best of relationships, there’s the burden of expectations. I know that the burden was not heavy between Mike and me, but there were unresolved areas. Paulette told me that she felt that way after a while when her husband died. She didn’t at first because the responsibilities that he carried became all hers. In my case, I had been assuming those responsibilities more and more over the last year as Mike got sicker and sicker with his kidney disease. He loved that I took over. He found it relaxing.
I think of all the good things I shared with Mike. The energy exchanges were the big ones. Sometimes I sit and think of him hard and can feel his energy fill me. It is just wonderful. There were many good things in our relationship and no deal breakers.
I’m thinking of deal breakers as I observe another couple. I’m thinking of two young people who would be perfect together, but there is a deal-breaker in there that makes their relationship impossible. They define the terms of a relationship so differently that they can’t make it work. You don’t just marry a person; you marry a lifestyle.
When I was single, I kept a journal; then it stopped when Mike and I got together. I have about 20 notebooks filled with my ‘thoughts.’ Most of the writing helped me deal with life crises in intra- and interpersonal relationships. As you can imagine, there was a strong philosophical overtone. It wasn’t the “yesterday I did” type of journal.
I have taken up journal writing in the form of this blog now that he’s gone. I started it as a way to keep everyone posted on his condition once in was in the hospital. Several people told me that I should make it into a publicly accessible blog. While I have a name for the blog, “With Mike; Without Mike,” it hasn’t yet been posted online. I was led into writing again. Very weird how it came about. I doubt I would be as diligent about keeping it up if I didn’t know that I might have an audience waiting for the next edition. However, I am often surprised to find that people do read it occasionally, if not regularly. Either way, it is a good outlet for me, as it was when I was a young woman before I met Mike. People think I’m so busy. No, no. I don’t have a full-time job on top of what I write.
For all of you out there, if you feel you do nothing, keep notes on what you do every day. I started writing down everything I did to combat depression when I was in my twenties. It worked like a charm. “I got up; I had a cigarette; I brushed my teeth; I made some coffee; I drank the coffee; I washed the cup; etc.” You’d be amazed at how well this works when you think your life is nothing. Whatever it is that you do, it adds up.
Yesterday, I contacted a medical alert company, as per John Zim’s suggestion and Judy and Paulette’s reinforcement. I had already felt some concern about my willingness to wear the damn thing all the time. If it’s a necklace or a bracelet, I probably won’t. I wear a clip-on pedometer regularly. There’s room on my garments for another clip-on. I contacted the company Mobile Help, listed as the #1 company on some readily available list.
When I wrote to John about deciding to go for it, to relieve the concern of friends as much as for my safety, he told me a story of a medical alert failure. A guy fell in his house and lay there for a day and a half before someone found him because he wasn’t wearing his medical alert device.
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