Sunday, March 17, 2019

Good news: Status quo

Bad news: a little sadness

    

    I got up at 7:30am because I wasn’t doing Bikram today. Today, I was going to church, doing what Mike always hoped I would do.  I took Elsa on her walk.  I followed her lead. She took me on a long walk around one of the big blocks in our neighborhood instead of just up and down the street.  These hills are great for strengthening my legs.  For those of you that don’t know it, if you’re facing the ocean or have your back to it, you are always walking either up or down a fairly steep hill.  As I pointed out before, we don’t have mountain peaks on the Big Island; all we have is hills.  Our hills are 10,000 to 14,000 feet, but they are still just hills, continuously moving either up or down with no jagged drops. This is because the Big Island is still the baby of the islands, the last to be made and, therefore, with the least erosion.  

    The Hawaiian Islands aren’t formed by earthquakes pushing two continental plates together as they are on the mainland or in Europe.  No, our islands are created by the earth spewing lava up, and then up again, and then up again, building a hill, and then a mountain from scratch.  The lava comes out of a spot and then runs downhill like melted ice cream.  You may not know it, but the tallest mountain in the world is here on the Big Island.  It’s a mere 14,000 feet from sea level, but that’s not the base of the mountain.  The base is at the bottom of the ocean. “Measured from the base of the ocean floor, it rises 33,000 feet, significantly greater than the elevation of Mount Everest above sea level.” (Wiki) We had a visitor from Princeton who asked if they had to clear the lava before they built the airport. Mike and I laughed and explained that the lava was forever.  All the beaches and the surrounding ocean floors were lava from the base of the mountains.  It’s a foreign concept when you’re used to thinking of mountains rising from a continental plate.

    When I got home, it was back to daily chores: taking out food waste for composite and writing. Judy and Paulette were going to pick me up at 9:30 for the 10:00 mass at the Holy Rosary Church.  I was so busy writing that the time slipped away. Fortunately, Judy called me, woke me from my concentrated state.  I jumped in the shower and got dressed in 10 minutes flat. Who has to dry first?

    Being in church makes me feel sad, both because I’m more aware that Mike isn’t there and because I don’t completely buy into the belief system.  I came to Catholicism on my own, not because of Mike.  My conversion started when I was 12. Long before I met Mike. 

    My family took a trip to Quebec.  While we were there, we took a side trip up to Saint Anne de Beaupre, a healing church filled with crutches.  My father wanted me to see how silly the whole thing was.  He was a committed agnostic if not an atheist.  However, when we got home, I experienced a physical change that was a surprise.  I suffered badly from warts on my fingers.  They suddenly disappeared.  My father said, startled, “I lit a candle for you.”  I could see that he was a secret believer even though he didn’t want to be. 

    I felt more attachment to the church earlier in my life than I do now.  Now, I actually believe this was a setup.  I was being used to facilitate Mike’s conversion and religious life.  If that is the case, I accept it.  Being a Catholic and a deacon in the church brought him endless joy.  I loved it when he was truly happy.  But once he had what he wanted and needed and didn’t need my support anymore, my interest fell away.  I want to go to church to give him what he wants and for the community.  I will have to find my own way to be a Catholic.

    On Facebook, I discovered that 30 people had donated in Mike’s name. Although I can’t find any information on who they are and what they donated to, I suspect they all donated to the national Habitat for Humanity.  Unfortunately, that means that little or none of that money will be seen by the local organization Mike was involved with.  My sister said she donated to the local one.  She found the site and made a contribution that way.  When I asked for the information from Mike’s Habitat colleagues, they only gave me the hard mail address.  Who uses checks anymore?  It makes me sad that Mike’s favored organizations will not receive these benefits.  It would be his gift to the people he worked with in the church and at Habitat.

    More housekeeping: Set some soiled clothes out for the sun to bleach out the stains.  It may take a few days, but the system works better than any other I know of.

    I started a new procedure in the blog writing process: I jot down notes about what happened in the day.  That way, I don’t have to reconstruct the day from memory.  I can still pick and choose what to write about. 

    Around 4 pm, Judy and Paulette came over to start cooking dinner for St Patrick’s Day. My idea of guests: they bring their own food, cook it, serve it, and even do some clean up as they go along.  Today, they brought paper plates because Judy feels guilty about leaving me to clean the dishes. I can’t seem to convince her it’s fine with me.  I like washing dishes.  Also, I don’t do them if I don’t feel like it. I don’t ever have two weeks of dishes stacked in the sink.  I mean, I do some when I want to.  I almost always want to wash some dishes. 

    Where Friday was just a nonspecific feast, today was a St. Patrick’s Day Feast: corned beef and cabbage and Irish soda bread, all homemade.  Fantastic!  Besides, Judy, her sister, Paulette, there was Judy’s husband, Howard, her son, Adam, Adam’s wife, Jasmine, their sons, Leon and Luke, and their tenants Brian and Amanda.  When Adam and Jazzy and the kids arrived, their dog Bones and their cat Shifu were right behind them.  Bones actually pushed his way into the house.  He is a lovely dog that arrived at their door one day when they lived in the boonies, starved with an abscessed tooth. Bones runs loose.  They tried to confine him to the house, but he just broke the door.  They’re too busy to build the fenced-in area they are planning on.  Bones seems to be doing quite well wandering the neighborhood.  I think we’re all used to him by now.  When I walk Elsa, he always comes up and greets us.  Once he’s through sniffing Elsa, he comes to me to be scratched behind his ears. 

    Judy used Mike’s hot pot.  He never got a chance to use it himself.  She has one at home, but ours was a little different from hers. She used it to prepare the corned beef. When it was done, she released the steam. It spewed steam for 2 to 3 minutes.  It was a little scary, but the meat came out wonderfully.

    It was quite a crowd around the table.  I was placed at the head of the table, where I never sit.  I have to remember not to allow that to happen again; it made me feel like I didn’t belong.  Not a nice feeling when it’s in your own home.  If Mike had been here, he would have been involved in the cooking and hosting.  While I was delighted they were all here, I felt the bonds of their relationships with each other. I was aware there was no one there for whom I was the primary person or even one of their primary persons.  I will have to get used to this change of status.  This does not mean I’m invisible to these people, or some sort of third wheel; it’s just that they don’t think about me the way Mike did, and I feel the loss.

    While the food was being prepared, I took care of all sorts of chores.  I walked Elsa and found our marriage certificate, which I will need for Social Security.  My accountant told me that all my expenses on Oahu will be tax-deductible because I had to be there.  Really?  I thought the only one who had to be there was Mike, but I’ll take it.  Figured out how to get my Airbnb receipts, the hotel receipt for one night when I had to wander the city to find a place to stay, and I tried to get the Turo receipts.  No luck on that yet.  I have the written directions, but I don’t know how to apply them to the Turo Website. I will try again.

    When Judy and her family left, Elsa kept rushing out the door to go with them.  I thought she was saying, “Take me with you!  This woman is horrible, and my nice daddy is not coming home.” But when I took her for her evening walk,  she had the longest pee I had ever seen.  The poor girl had to go to the bathroom. Yikes!  

    The truth is she is slowly adapting to the reality that it is just the two of us.  She’s not sitting in the same spot on the rug where she can watch the front door and wait for Mike as much; she’s coming to the side door when I come home to greet me; she’s sitting near me when I work; and  she sleeps on me when I take a nap the way she used to with Mike. Slowly, the two of us are adjusting to this new reality.

    I watch some TV, brushed my teeth, did the facial treatment recommended by Colleen, and went to bed.

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Good news: Status quo

Bad news: None    

    I woke up this morning to a spasm of self-hatred.  I had that a lot when I was 13.  I remember that year.  I walked around, hearing, “ David, I hate you.”  David is my maiden name.  I was at camp, and we were all referring to each by our last names that summer. While I suffered from self-depreciation most of my adult life, those spasms are quite different. They’re small electric shocks surging through the body.  This one included some thoughts that I might be responsible for Mike’s illness and death.

    Just before he died, I went on a ridding jag.  I wanted to get rid of all the surplus.  I cleaned out the shed; I cleaned out the toolbox. I got rid of anything we hadn’t used, and I couldn’t imagine needing in the future.  Habitat for Humanity was the primary beneficiary of all this surplus.  In cleaning out the toolbox, I came across several old prescription bottles with screws and nails carefully sorted.  I recognized my father’s hand.  He died in 1956.  My thinking, if we haven’t managed to use these in 63 years, it would be safe to assume we could get rid of them without regret.

            Mike wanted to keep them.  If one of us was going to use a nail or a screw, it would more likely be me.  I’m the family handyman.  He was the cook and host.  The question: was I sending out some message that Mike had become access baggage along with those nails and screws.  I was becoming more self-reliant with his more frequent absences, mostly for diaconate weekends, and taking over more of our joint responsibilities with his illness.   I know this is totally ridiculous. I also understand that it is common for people to wonder what they could have done differently when someone dies.  Except for pushing the doctors to have his bile fluid continuously drained with the NG tube to prevent the aspiration pneumonia, I can’t think of anything else I could have done.  And I did ask the doctor about it after his death. He said there were risks either way.  He could have even choked on the tube somehow.

    Except for these painful thoughts, before I rose, my sleep was good.  I was able to get up at 7 today because the Bikram class is at 8:30 instead of 7:30. I got to class early, just in time to get my spot in the back of the room.  I needed to brace myself against the wall and hold on to the ballet bar.  When the class started, there were 21 people in the class.  The largest class I’ve seen so far.  And, someone was standing right in front of me.  I said, “Bruce.”  He turned around saw he was blocking my view of the mirror and moved to the back of the room by the door.  I saw him move his arms to the side and realize that he didn’t have enough room to get a complete range of motion.  He might as well have stayed where he was.  The teacher stood in front of me the whole time, blocking my view in the mirror.  He made sure not to block Yvette’s view, who was also standing in front of the teacher’s platform.  Now Yvette is a gorgeous woman about his age with an incredible yoga practice.  Talk becoming invisible as you age! The truth is: I don’t feel invisible for the most part.  I am lucky I live in Hawaii. The elderly are respected here and a very active part of the community.

     Right after class,  I headed off to the hula rehearsal to learn the dance I’m planning to do with the group for Mike’s funeral.  This is their regularly scheduled practice time.  I had never had a conversation with any of the participants. There are two young girls, but most are well over 50.  There is one haole in the crowd.  Haole means those without breath and is a prerogative term for white people.   While white people who come here often have money, they are clearly not the majority.  The Asians and Polynesians are. The political system is pretty much run by the Japanese.  Mike liked to say that the Japanese needn’t have bothered invading Hawaii, they would take it over in time anyway.  I really don’t know how accurate this is, or if he just meant it as a joke appreciating the irony.

    Everyone in the hula group came up to hug me, except the youngest of the two young girls.  One of the elders gave her a look, and she moved to approach me.  I assured her that her gesture was unnecessary. She took me at my word because she backed off with impunity. One of the women told me how Mike had approached them and told them that I was considering joining the hula ministry, and he was so excited.  Yes, there is literally a hula church ministry, just like there is a choir ministry.  The hula group only performs on special occasions, but Mike just loved it.  And, he very much wanted me to join.  I was reluctant because of my hip problems, but I had just been noticing that the older ladies didn’t bend down as much as the younger ones.  Maybe I could get away with it.  My arms are still good.  

    They had already developed a choreography to the song I selected.  This would be easier for them than the Ava Maria, which we had initially proposed doing. First, they demonstrated the dance while I videotaped it. Anita, who heads the ministry, slowly started teaching me the dance.   Now certain parts of it I could pick up quickly, but I was surprised about how awkward my arms felt.  My arms have always been the strong suit of my dancing.  My legs were never something to write home about.  Anita broke down the dance section by section. Then, I videotaped the oldest of the young girls separately, who is lovely to watch.  Her arms have the flowing motion, which makes hula so entrancing, and she coordinates her knee bends with her arms organically and effortlessly.  Watching her is like watching a boat rock gently on waves.

    On the way home, I stopped off at Long’s to take advantage of their ‘extra bucks.’ I don’t know about you, but I never get to take advantage of these offers.  Either I forget altogether, or I remember too late.  Ah, but today, I planned it.  The item I really wanted was on sale already. Good enough! I bought it and a CVS version of the same product with the extra bucks, and of course, a Hersey Milk Chocolate with Almonds, unfortunately not with whole almonds.   I have noticed that the old smaller version of those chocolate bars, with whole almonds, has disappeared off the shelves. Neither Target nor Longs carries it anymore.  I was able to buy it at Safeway, where I stopped off to buy more packaged kale salad, my mainstay.

    Then off to Kaiser to pick up my new prescription of Lexapro.  I think I’ll stick to taking a whole pill for the time being, even though I don’t have to take it for Mike’s anxiety anymore.  Afterward, I drove to Costco next to get air in my tires.  I had the attendant check the tire treads at the same time.  My regular mechanic had told Mike that I needed four new tires.  Yvette and Josh were concerned about the safety of those tires.  It winds up the criterion for judging the tires was the date on them, which is written in code.  The idea is the tires need to be changed every 5 years or so.  Learn something new every day.  The fellow said I had some more to go before I absolutely needed to change them, but better sooner than later.   I have a rebate from Costco for $100. I know where that is going.

    But then I have a lot of returns to make to Costco.  Mike and I were both into buying in quantity.  Our house has the space for us to indulge.  I have something like 8 cases of Pellegrino.  Mike drank it, but I can’t stand the stuff.  However, I would buy it whenever it was on sale. There are other unopened cases of things, but the Pellegrino outstrips them all.

    When I got home, I finally had breakfast, my usual: a cup of miso soup with tofu and some greens and a Juice Plus smoothie made with almond milk.  I posted Thursday’s journal entry and worked on Friday’s.  Doing this is vastly superior to the many other things I could be doing to distract myself.  Much, much better.     

    Saturday is NPR day.  Love those Saturday shows, mainly “What Do You know,” “Moth Radio Hour,” and “TED Talks.   I napped, walked Elsa, ate dinner of kale salad, leftover salmon and mash potatoes from yesterday, and finished off the Haagen Das vanilla ice cream.  I found a new English murder mystery series, “Suspects.”  I think Mike might have enjoyed this with me.  He liked anything English. 

    I picked up the mail on my way back into the house.  Another bill telling me that we hadn’t paid last month and owed ungodly amounts of money in late fees and interest.  I paid the fines and terminated the card, which is only in Mike’s name. 

    I finally sorted the pictures and letters into piles.  There are 40 pieces of correspondence my mother had saved, many of them from friends and family in Germany. They must have been written during WWII because they are marked “Opened by Censor,” in both English and German.  Does anyone know someone who can translate from German to English?  I understand the handwriting may be a problem.  The handwriting of my grandparents is very different from the handwriting of today in Germany.  The difference between then and now in English script is not nearly so great.  

    I took Elsa for her last walk of the day, did my facial routine as recommended by Colleen, and went to bed.

Friday, March 15, 2019

Good news: Status quo, roughly.

Bad news: None. 

    I got up at 6 am, walked Elsa, did my oil rinse while I did the dishes, drank two cups of water, changed into my yoga clothes, and left for Bikram.  It was a surprisingly small class, only 6 people where before I left, the class ran between 12 and 15 regularly.  Apparently, the snowbirds have left.  Why would they leave so early? I guess it is spring on the mainland, but not here.  Here, it is still winter.  I am often spending time in fleece pants, a shirt, and two sweatshirts, and that’s comfortable. 

    Judy learned that one of the songs we selected was secular and could not be used for the funeral mass.  The musical director, Walter, has this amazing voice and sings that particular song beautifully. (Not naming it because of copyright problems.)  I had already called the director of the hula ministry to arrange for them to dance at the reception on the lanai and dance to the Ava Maria.  I had been told that they couldn’t do it in the church because of Lent.  New information:  they can’t do it on the lanai during the reception because there won’t be enough room; they can do it in the church after the final blessing and before the recession. I am planning to participate in this performance.  Mike always wanted me to do this.  He loved the way I moved.  I did a lot of amateur dancing until just before I met Mike.

    As a child, I did a lot of improvisational dance – in my mother’s living room.  She was a control freak and always wanted to know what everyone was doing.  My paternal grandfather sat in her living room from 9 in the morning until my father took him home, sometimes as late as 10 pm at night. 

    I may have told the following story before in the journal. Sorry if I did, just skip it.  My father’s family was upper class Jewish; my mother’s was lower-middle-class Lutheran.  My father left for America a year and a half before my mother, who only arrived here in December of 1937.  My grandfather knew that my mother was planning to join my father and marry him.  He contacted my mother in Berlin behinds my father’s back, met with her, and basically told her that she wasn’t good enough to marry not only his first-born son but the first-born son of his generation in the family. My mother never told my father; my grandfather never apologized to my mother.  

    I would dance in the living room for my grandfather. Therefore, my mother knew what both of us were doing.  I doubt she would ever have let me have that much expressive freedom if it didn’t suit her needs.  My parents tried to enroll me in dance classes when I was 6.  I hated it. Dancing for me wasn’t learning a discipline; it was releasing the stress which came from living with her and her incessant criticism.   Both my sister and I must have received something like 50 to 200 corrections or corrections a day.  That wouldn’t have been so bad if there were occasional positive comments and if the comments weren’t delivered with spitting contempt for our inadequacies.  Dance kept me sane. 

    I did my undergraduate degree at Cortland State Teacher’s College (now part of SUNY).  Each of the different teacher’s colleges (all now part of SUNY) emphasized a separate discipline of the teaching profession. Cortland specialized in Physical Education.  They had a great dance department.  I started studying.  I continued studying in New York City at the New Dance Group, traveling in from Northport Long Island every Saturday to take classes, and then at the University of Wisconsin.  No, I wasn’t a dance major.  I was an English major who took dance classes and participated in concerts.  I was considered good because I could express myself through dance, but my technique was lousy – at least in my estimation. I subsequently learned that I was dealing with a spinal curvature.  That limits what I could do, severely.

    I finally started the house cleaning, which I had scheduled for January 26, which Mike so rudely interfered with.  Judy and 5 additional members of her family were coming over for dinner. Yes, they were bringing their own food and cooking it.  The advantage of doing it at my house: they got to use Mike’s fabulous kitchen. (Again, I am so happy he got that kitchen.  It made him happy.  I loved making him happy.) I washed the kitchen floor and just vacuumed the hallway. I also did a better cleaning job on the table in Mike’s library, where I spilled the soup yesterday.  I still have to finish sorting those pictures.

    Judy and her family arrived to do the cooking. I took Elsa for her early evening walk. As I left the driveway, I heard my next-door neighbor, Ronen, call my name. His father-in-law had gone fishing and caught a local fish. Did I want some?  I told him that I still had a refrigerator full of food that others had brought over.  I assumed that I would run out at one point.  He said his family had it in mind to step up and help out once the rush of offers slows down.  Another strike of generosity.  When I came back from the walk, there was B  walking toward me with a package in his hand.  He was offering me fish, too.  He explained that Ronen had just passed it to him over the fence.  Now, B should know better to than to offer me raw food I have to prepare.

    I helped set the table, but Judy, and her son, Adam, who loves to cook, were the main chefs for the evening.  Paulette, Judy’s sister, helped prepare the food.   We had salmon, with a lilikoi sauce, mash potatoes with a 3 oz. package of Boursin cheese mixed in, and asparagus.  Dessert was Haagen Das vanilla ice cream with fresh raspberries and chocolate sauce.  Only Adam, Leon, his 4-year-old son, and I indulged.  The left-over food wound up in my refrigerator and freezer.  

    Jasmine, Adam’s wife, spoke to me about how strong I am.  Now, she has a baby who is severely disabled. He is over a year old, and he still has trouble holding his head up.  He has made progress;  he can get his finger into his mouth, grab hold of his own foot, and now seems to be able to focus his eyes and smile.  There is no hope that he will ever walk, talk, or think. Yet, she thinks nothing of what she has to do as a mother for him, and she considers me strong.  I believe anything done from love is easy. Now, I didn’t have that long haul with Mike.  Would my patience have run out?   Yes, in a blink of an eye if he didn’t allow me to love him.  Could he have blocked it?  You better believe it. Some people feel invaded by the love of others; some people feel they don’t deserve the love of others.  I was looking at Mike surviving pancreatitis and having a long, long recovery period and probably never wholly regaining his old life.  If he rejected my love because he thought of himself only as a burden who didn’t deserve it, or if his self-hatred for his condition won, that self-hatred would have created a block to my expression of love.  It would have turned a joyful process into a tedious one. 

    My guests left. Adam and Jasmine picked up some friends from the airport that had just flown in from Alaska.  They have a house here but have been gone for a least half a year.  They fish the Alaskan waters to earn money.  Their house sits right at the edge of the Kilauea lave field.  It was spared, but there must be some impact. 

    I just wrote tonight, no T.V.  I walked Elsa and went to bed.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Good news: Status quo

Bad news: None. 

    People are coming up to me and saying how strong I am.  Nothing I have done over the last seven weeks has required what I consider strength or sacrifice.  It all just seemed right, organic.  An act of true self-sacrifice for Mike’s sake would have been traveling to Scotland as a tourist.  I don’t like being a tourist. It’s a meaningless activity to me. Everything I have done since Mike got sick is full of meaning and love, love for myself, love for Mike, honoring Mike’s love for me, and indulging my love for Mike.  I can’t think of a place I would rather be.

    I had no trouble getting up this morning at 6am.  Made it to Bikram. The class wasn’t as great as yesterday.  My accomplishment, keeping my thighs locked, is getting old. On to the next challenge. 

    When we moved here, Mike’s intention was to do nothing but concentrate on me, besides finishing off his book on theology and volunteering to run the distance learning program for the Josephinum.  We managed to go to one mass, where he was still anonymous.  During that mass, the pastor, Fr. Lio, told us that he was so understaffed he was going to have to cancel the Sunday noon mass.  He also said that his father’s dementia has progressed to a point where he didn’t recognize him anymore.  He choked up.

    The next Sunday, Mike went to mass alone.  At the end of the mass, he walked up to Fr. Lio and said, “I’m a deacon.”  Fr. Lio said, “Don’t move.” The rest is history.  Fr. Lio knew he could rely on Mike to do the sermons for any mass he did.  I am under the impression that Mike was helpful to him in a lot of ways.  The request for donations to St. Michael’s debt reduction fund is an attempt to relieve Fr. Lio of some stress since I can’t return Mike to him. 

    There is a legend that the island decides who gets to stay here and who gets to leave.  I have seen situations where living here was made impossible for people.  When Mike and I arrived, we felt the island was saying, “What the hell took you so long?!” This has worked out perfectly for us.  Our house is perfect.  A Bikram studio opened shortly before we moved here.  I found a school setting to work in where I am valued.  Mike started working as a deacon for the local church.

     After Bikram, Yvette came up and did some more Graston on me.  She threw in a little massage.  I am very enthusiastic about doing work a little bit every other day instead of just meeting with my chiropractor once a week for half an hour. Also, Yvette is gifting me.  

    While I was working on paperwork and writing this blog, someone came to the door.  It was a woman I didn’t know holding a flower arrangement in a pot.  Ah, someone from the church brought me flowers- not.  She was just delivering the plant.  The card said it was from my buddies at Licking Heights South.  

    Until this year, Mike would travel to the area to do some work for the seminary, and I would go and visit the teachers I had worked with.  Working at the Licking Heights School District was the highlight of my professional career.  Here I was 65, working part-time, teaching a peripheral subject, English as a Second Language,  never participating in school meetings, and still accepted as a valuable member of the teaching team.  Trust me that doesn’t happen everywhere.  

    The woman at the door with the pot in hand owns a flower shop, the Kona Flower Shoppe.   While we can’t have a lot of flowers at the funeral because it is Lent, we can have one small one.  I thought, “Wouldn’t it be perfect if we had the same gorgeous plant Damon ordered for Mike when he was in the hospital.”  Mike was able to enjoy it briefly.  It soon became hard for him to see it because he had his eyes closed all the time. Then once he was moved back up to the ICU for the second time,  we had to get rid of the flowers.  They aren’t allowed there. No flowers, no fresh fruit.  Fear of contamination.  I  showed the woman the pictures of the arrangement.  She said she could do that, but she would have trouble finding the coconut vase.  She would work on it.  I called Judy to tell her about the development.  She said she had such a vase – if she could find it.  Wouldn’t that be great!

    I sent the draft of the obituary for the West Hawaii Today newspaper.  It had to be in by the 15th, two weeks before the funeral, and one week before it’s publishing date.  She told me it would cost $410. This was the long version that I posted on Facebook.  This was a short version that included information relevant to folks here on the Big Island. We planned to add a photo.  I gave Damon the email address of Norma Adamson-Fetz on the obituary desk at West Hawaii Today.  

    I wondered how Norma coped with her job.  She is always talking to people who have just lost someone they care about.  I don’t remember what she said, but I have some sense that she saw this as an important service to the community.  She did a great job dealing with me.  She didn’t make me feel like just another customer, but a person with her own interesting story.

    I had my first haircut appointment since Mike’s death today. I am slowly resurrecting myself.  (Wish I could do the same for him.)  First, I got back into my Bikram classes, then a facial and now a haircut.  Mike loved my hair short.  Randee Jennings of Salon Muse rocked my cut.  While Mike never noticed the impact of a facial, he always noticed my haircut.  Unbelievably, Randee gave me the haircut as a gift.  I can’t imagine this happening anywhere else other than Hawaii that I have lived.  It’s the spirit of aloha.

    I checked my phone before I left the beauty shop.  There was a text from Yvette telling me the mailman had just delivered Mike’s ashes. Okay.  I called Judy immediately and asked her to meet me at the house. When I arrived, there was her car in the driveway. She was sitting on the sofa.  And yes, the package was a box with his ashes and 10 death certificates.  No, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be.  Reducing that body, I loved because it contained Mike to a bag of ashes was a tough decision, even though it was the only one that made sense. Everyone on all sides of the family has been cremated for generations. He was going to be cremated eventually. I had pretty much adjusted by the time I got home.

    Sandor called to ask me about the design of the plaque for the burial box. He had written “Deacon Michael David Ross, Ph. D.”, and the dates of his birth and death.  How did I feel about the Ph.D. after his name?  Damon and I agreed that it would be great.  He was deeply invested in education. Then I thought it should say, Ph.D². The students at the Josephinum would call him, “Doc Squared,” or “Double Doc” because of his two Ph.Ds.  Sandor also said it was a tradition to put a star next to the date of birth and a cross next to the date of death.  How did I feel about making the star a Jewish star?  Perfect. How anyone makes all the decisions on their own is beyond me. 

     I took a satisfying nap after Judy left. Then, after walking Elsa, I made myself some dinner. I wasn’t very hungry, just a bowl of that great veggie soup and bread and butter.  I carried the hot bowl of soup wrapped in a towel in one hand and something else in the other. When I went to set down the bowl on the coffee table, it did a perfect flip.  I landed completely upside down.  What a mess!  To boot, I was working on sorting photos I had found.  The soup didn’t touch one of them.  

    I cleaned up the mess, refilled the soup bowl, heated it, and had better luck getting it safely onto the table.  After finishing that, I went to work sorting the photos.  I knew there were some old photos from Germany, but what I discovered was a trove of letters.  Some of them marked by the censor. These were written from people in Germany during the war.  They’re all in German so I can’t read them, but they are historical, like my father’s letter to my mother, which my sister found in her possessions. I have to do some more sorting and send the letters to my sister, Dorothy, to get them translated.  I’ll share them with all of you if they prove interesting.  Some of the letters may be between my mother’s friend, Lotte Levy, who was the correspondence go-between my mother and father before my mother immigrated to join up with my father.

    Lotte’s story:  My mother and father tried to get her out of Germany.  My dad found someone through connections who was willing to sponsor her.  My parents couldn’t do it because they weren’t citizens yet.  Sal Diamond provided the affidavit for Lotte.  Everything was in place: the affidavit and the visa.  But she didn’t come.  My parents were frantic, Why wasn’t she coming?  She waited until her visa had expired before she told my parents.  Her mother, a wealthy woman who would have paid for her trip to America, refused to give her money.  She felt it was Lotte’s place to stay and take care of her mother.  My parents were very saddened by the situation.  They both told me that they would have found the money to pay for it themselves if they had known.  Both Lotte and her mother died in the Holocaust. 

    Sometime during the evening, Damon wrote that he might want to say something at the eulogy.  I was told that we only had 15 minutes to speak. We had to end promptly at 10:00 am for the mass to start.  Now, my speech was something like 5 minutes; Yvette’s looks a little longer, and now Damon’s on top of it.  We had to end promptly at10 am for the mass to start.  I was more stressed out over this situation than anything that has transpired so far.  I started worrying about how long it would take us to get up on the altar, how long the transitions would take from one speaker to the next, how long an emotionally driven pause would take . . . You get the picture.  I had an easier job dealing with taking Mike off life support. 

    At the end of the day, I watched some Vera reruns, walked Elsa, went to bed.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Good news: Got the songs picked out for the funeral. Damon and Cylin are taking charge of placing the obits. 

Bad news: I play too much FreeCell.

    I dreamed about Mike last night, holding him and kissing him. Boy, I will miss that. I used to tell him I loved him so much, it was silly. Now, we weren't like that every hour of every day of every year, but there were more minutes out of every day of feeling that way of late. It was so much fun.  I still feel I can love him that much. I just I can't hold him and kiss him when I tell him so.  

    My terms for his recovery, which was going to be long and difficult had he survived, were: he had to let me love him, he couldn't abuse me when he got frustrated, and he still had to think I was funny.  Reasonably demands I felt.  

    I had slept well, enjoying lying in bed.  I didn't want to get up; I hit the snooze button when the alarm went off at 6 am.  Then I said to myself, "Oh, grow up!" and got myself out of bed, walked the dog and drank my two cups of water, got myself dressed and went off to Bikram.  I didn't know how I would do; my back had been limiting me.  However, the class went very well.  The Bikram dialogue is "lock your knees." Actually, what you have to do is contract your thighs. Some people overextend their knees instead and put them in jeopardy.  I have been very careful not to do that.  Is still have a good set of knees; I want to keep it that way. For the first time, I was able to keep my upper thighs contracted for an extended period of time. Just when I think I'm going to do poorly, there is an important step forward.

    I headed to Target to pick up a belated birthday card for my grandnephew who just turned two, more Salon Pas for the back, and, of course, Hersey Milk Chocolate with whole almonds.  But, Target doesn't seem to be carrying the latter anymore. Bummer.

    Then I stopped off at Kaiser to pick up some prescriptions. They had my steroid cream for these rashes I've been suffering from; it seems to help. These started some time last year, I think.  I have no idea why I have this problem.  They didn't have my prescription for my Lexapro, which I took for my husband's anxiety.  That is really why I did take it.  Whenever I became a little hyper, he'd have trouble.  His mom was like that. She got very loud and over the top.  My behavior reminded him of her.  Not an endearing quality.  

    While in Honolulu, I discovered high blood pressure when I used Jean's blood pressure monitor during her first visit. I asked my doctor for blood pressure pills, and friends recommended that I get medication for my anxiety. I had been taking half a pill a day of Lexapro; I upped it to a whole pill.  When I tried to renew my prescription, it didn't go through.  When I stopped by today, they explained that it couldn't be renewed until the 18th.  Duh!  Of course, I'm going to run out of medication if I take more than the prescribed amount.  I had emailed my doctor to get a new prescription at the higher amount. I guess she didn't get it.  The pharmacy contacted her, and  I can pick up the pills tomorrow. I'd like to say that all this medication is helping my blood pressure, but the monitor seems to be stuck around 155/ 90.  I can get it down with repeated tries to as low as 135/85, but not down to 126/75, which I was running shortly before all the excitement started.

    The librarian at the New Orleans seminary returned my phone call.  I told him who I was. He sounded blah.  I can imagine how he would feel being stuck with another 3,000 books to sort through, knowing most would be unusable.  I told him John Coughlin's find, a system for scanning books into a program that categorizes them by their ISBN number.  I told him he could select books from the list.  With this he sounded a little more enthusiastic. Then I told him I would pay for the shipping.  Now, we had a change of tone. I wouldn't call it down right enthusiastic but pretty darn close.

    I had sent Damon and Cylin the shortened versions of the obits I had formulated, but I hadn't heard back from them.  I got through to Cylin who said that she thought she and Damon were taking care of placing them in the newspapers.  I thought I just asked them to take care of the NY Times. Cylin said Damon had decided he didn't want to do that.  The announcement would only be 4 lines long, cost $250 and no one would see it.  Gee, I was thinking of the nice long articles I read in the last section of my Kindle editions of the NY Times.  I don't know, but I think Mike deserves a place with the greats.  Oh, well. Guess not.

    Cylin passed on the articles to a friend of hers who is a professional editor. There is one whopper of an error that I didn't catch.  Jean modified some of the article. She wound up writing the following: "Deacon Mike is the proud parent of his beloved son Damon Ross, whom he cooperatively co-parented with his wife Betty David Ross, Damon's first wife and birth mother, Jean Ross, and Jean's husband, John Womack." Anyone see the problem?  I didn't.  Jean is Mike's first wife and Damon's mother.  No, this is not some perverse Freudian slip.  She is continually mixing up names between Mike, her second husband, John, and her son Damon. It's somewhat of a random shuffle.  No telling which name will come to the surface at any time.  Since it was clear to me what she meant, that's what I read.  

    Sandor, the man who helped me scan all the photographs to send to Damon so he could make the photo panels in time for the funeral, called. When they were here that night, his wife suggested an urn in the Hawaiian tradition, a wooden box.  It took me a while to process the information, but I decided I liked the idea. I called Sandor and told him I wanted to take up Mealiinani's suggestion.  He sent me three pictures of boxes.  I decided on the one made of Koa wood.  That is an absolutely beautiful Hawaiian wood from --- the Koa tree. I asked him how much it would cost. He said nothing. His father-in-law, Mealiinani's father, is a carpenter, had been a member of St. Michael's Church all his life, and is currently an usher.  Sometimes I feel that I am being struck by bolts of goodness and generosity. They are small shocks; it almost hurts it is so wonderful.  Beautiful wood, crafted into a hand-made box by someone who knows Mike and honors him.  It leaves me speechless. (Well, almost speechless.)

            On the other hand, Sandor told me that one of Mealiinani's first cousins, a 45-year-old man with five children, was killed in some sort of altercation.  Besides being entirely out of character, he was just struck in just the absolutely wrong way.  Besides being struck by goodness, I am being hit over and over again with stories of the sudden onset of serious illnesses and death. It's enough that I need to make a list.  

    Judy and Paulette came over later in the afternoon to go over the music selections for the funeral. Judy knows a lot to start out with and did some additional thinking and research. How could I ever have done this myself? Apparently, there is a funeral committee that takes care of some of these matters.  I suppose there are some standard formulas. I also suppose we are not that far off from the usual formula, but the choices are all made from the heart.  There is so much love for Mike and me.  Mike has put all this support in place for me.  I imagine after the funeral, there will be a letdown.  Then normal life will start again. We'll see what happens.  Will I be reduced to a FreeCell playing slug or will I become more productive?  I won't have Mike to kick me in the butt. 

    Sandor also said that he wanted to help me convert my journal into a blog.  He feels that what I had to write would be helpful to others.  That would be wonderful.  Judy also encourages me to do something with what I have written.  She says my writing has become even better, more interesting since Mike's death.  I have to hang on to writing this for myself for the sheer pleasure of it.  

    The usual nighttime routine: walk Elsa, eat dinner, watch an English murder mystery, go to bed.

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Good news: I’m doing fine.

Bad news: None

    I’m getting comments from people about how strong I am.  Don’t feel strong.  I just have a long list of things to do, and I’m getting them done.  My strength shows in my screwing my courage to do things I haven’t done before.  There is that inner voice that haunts me which says, “I can’t do it,” meaning I’m not capable of doing it.  Most annoying.  I’m rational enough to know that I’m a capable and competent woman.  The likelihood of my not being able to navigate submitting appropriate obituaries to newspapers doesn’t make a lot of sense.  I keep Mike’s voice in my head, “It’s just a problem to be solved.” It’s not an overwhelming disaster that I can’t possibly overcome. I face some of the most mundane tasks with that voice inside of me.  As a child, I dealt with it by putting myself into overdrive, so I could move faster than my fear.  While I can get more done now, I still see myself drop a task and turn to comfort myself with FreeCell.  I hope I can overcome this resistance on my own without Mike’s raised his eyebrow when he saw me playing my computer game.

    Writing this blog helps.  I can easily believe that this must come as a surprise to many of you who read it. But I got tricked into doing it.  I had thought I would like to do something like this. I love articulating my ideas.  I have been told I should write, but it felt like an overwhelming task.  I would be writing for my own sake.  That’s where the trick came in.  I started it to keep others who were interested in Mike’s situation, not to express myself.  Six weeks of doing it, it became routine. I am aware that I have continued it, although Mike’s outcome is no longer an issue.  I just love doing it.  It’s certainly better for me than FreeCell.  Here is another gift Mike has given me.  Is this a trick he played on me to get me to do what he knew I wanted to do anyway?  He is one sneaky dude.

    I woke up in time to go to Bikram, but I was having such a sweet sleep. I  chose not to go and enjoy my bedtime.  I got up at 7:30 am instead of 6.   I set my alarm for 10:20 to make sure I left the house in time for my 11 o’clock facial. Yvette’s esthetician, Colleen,  is a greeter for the 7:30 Sunday mass. She offered me a free facial, a gift to Mike’s widow.  

    Yvette had given me the address and directions for getting there.  When I arrived, I saw an office with a doctor’s name on but nothing else. It didn’t make sense that she would be in that office, so I walked into the main house.  Figured she was working out of her home.  I walked in, called her name, but no response.  I saw an appointment book.  I saw things which let me know she was involved with the Catholic church, I concluded I was in the right place and took a seat in the living room.  Finally, this woman appeared. I had never met Collen, so I had no idea what she looked like.  I was surprised that she was Filipino.  I said, “Colleen?”  The woman said, “She has an office downstairs.”  Oops! I apologized and went on my way.  I  figured the woman meant on the first floor.  “She said the other front door.”  I was supposed to go into the ‘doctor’s office’ door.  I found out afterward that there had been a sign up with Colleen’s name on it until the day before. Someone who shared her office space had moved out and taken the sign with her. 

    When I did meet her, she greeted me with tears in her eyes.  So many people are saddened by Mike’s loss.  She spoke about how he would kid her as he was waiting at the back of the church to process to the altar at the beginning of mass. He saw her. He laughed with her. 

    Colleen isn’t just a garden variety esthetician, she’s a medical esthetician. Wow! What a facial!  When I was finished, I called Judy immediately to tell her how great my skin looked. I drove right to her house to show her. Usually, it would be Mike I would show it to.  Judy saw the difference.  I can just imagine what Mike would have thought. He would have squinted and said, “I guess there is a difference,” meaning if you say so.  God bless the man who thinks his wife always looks the same – great- no matter what she looks like at the moment.  

    Mike saw my acne scarring as texturing, and he loved it.  He wasn’t kidding.  When I went to have a facial, he was concerned they would get rid of it.  I assured him the scars would remain intact, I would just be getting rid of the extra bumps.  He was relieved.  I also have pretty pronounced spider veins on my upper thighs.  He described that as marbleizing and also saw it as an enhancement rather than a deficit.  What can I tell you? 

    I spent most of the day when I got home from the facial making calls. The first thing I did was call the New Jersey State Retirement Office to inform them of Mike’s death and find out what this meant for me.  I know that we designated me as a beneficiary, which reduced the amount of money he collected monthly.  But, I also remember something about the beneficiary benefit clause was void after the primary recipient had received retirement benefits for 10 years.  Mike collected benefits for 13.  I won’t get my answer until I submit the necessary paperwork to prove he’s dead: a death certificate or an obituary. 

     I spent most of the day finishing the obituary.  First, I had to call Columbia and get the information on the date of Mike’s Ph.D. and what it was in.  The name  Michael Ross is as common as dirt. Not even giving a middle name helped.  Narrowing down the date to either 1972 or 1973 did help.  Finally, she found the information which clearly seemed to be Mike.  Well, even it applies to some other Mike Ross that got his Ph.D. from Columbia the same year, it will do. Close enough. 

    Then I had to send out the obituary. I sent it to Chris Schreck, the rector of the Josephinum Seminary in Columbus, I issued it on Facebook, I asked Damon and Cylin to handle the NY Times, I called the Columbus Dispatch, the West Hawaii Today. I sent it to all the folks on the email list for my blog, which is not really a blog, and posted it on Facebook.

    Let me see, if I had the Columbus Dispatch print the full obituary as is, it would cost a mere $1000.  Hmm, I love Mike to bits and pieces. I think he was terrific in so many ways.  But $1000 for an obituary? Maybe not. So, I spent a good part of the day cutting a lot of the information out and creating versions for the different places where he had lived and worked. The Columbus Dispatch’s obit emphasizes his time at the Josephinum, the one for Princeton, his time as a deacon at St. Paul’s,  and the one for Hawaii, his role as deacon of St. Michael’s and president of the board of directors of Habitat for Humanity. I sent the abbreviated versions to Damon and Cylin for review. 

    I received an email from the librarian of the Josephinum Seminary yesterday telling me that they had no use for his 3,000 plus books. What a surprise!  I don’t know if Mike had a clue.  I made a point of assuring him I was taking care of it as he was dying.  I think the truth would have broken his heart.  Such a naïve sweet man!  He lived in an alternate reality when it came to scholarship.  He should have been born a medieval monk.  I called and left a message for the librarian of the seminary in New Orleans.  I figure if anyone can use books, they might be in need after their Katrina driven losses. However, I could also picture that everyone who was trying to get respectfully rid of books was sending them off to that seminary.  

    While I didn’t hear from them today, I did hear from John Coughlin, the head of the diaconate formation program for Hawaii, and the first person I called the first time Mike went up to the ICU.  He had taken action on his own.  He called the New Orleans Seminary, Notre Dame.  The librarian said, as I expected, people have been sending the books, most of which are of no use to them.  Many times, they don’t even open the boxes.  I do not want this to happen to Mike’s precious books. This app will allow those interested to pick out which books they want from a list instead of dealing with boxes, and boxes, and boxes of unidentified books.

They also said they can’t afford the shipping fee.  I  planned to pay for the shipping. 

    Then John told me that he found an app that scans books and catalogs them for a mere $14.   Would I mind if he came over to my house to do the scanning?  Really?!!!  I assured him that the library was out of the way from the rest of the house, and if I needed to, I could cover the glass panel in the door to the library with a cloth.  I’m kidding.   I think I’ll get the app and help.  Whatever they don’t finish, I can do a little at a time.  I was thinking this would all fall on me to take care of.  I had no idea that anyone else was thinking about it, no less assuming they should do something to help me get those books distributed.  My relief is beyond words.  

     I spent the early evening finishing the blog for Monday and starting on Tuesdays. Then I ate dinner, salad, and some of the remaining Thai food.  There is still more Thai food to go, but two containers got thrown out today.  

    I watched some TV, walked Elsa, treated my face to some special follow up treatment, which Colleen gave me, and went to bed. 

Monday, March 11, 2019

Good news: I'm doing fine, and more support coming out of the woodwork. I am so lucky.

Bad news: None

    I went to bed with my body pounding away from the shock of that late-night phone call.  Thought, "Now, how am I ever going to get to sleep?" Applied my meditation skills, eased my body back to a relaxed posture, and fell asleep.  That was a scary moment.  I do not want to repeat two years of insomnia, which happened after my father died.

    I set the alarm for 6:00 am so I could make it to Bikram.  I hit the snooze button once but pushed myself up.  This was the first morning my rising time was dictated by an alarm clock in over 6 weeks.  I made it through the class without any breakdowns.  My big problem is my back.  This problem set in some time around week 3 of Mike's hospitalization. I'm not sure if it was because I was trying to do passive movement with Mike on my own, without any training, like raise the bed before you lift a limb, or from stretches, I did in the shower that changed the alignment of my back.  It certainly isn't from my hip, which has no cartilage.  

    The doctor who looked at my hip X-ray asked how I was even walking.  Surprise!  Maybe the problem isn't with the hip.  Yes, the X-ray clearly shows I have severe arthritis, but I have made improvements over the last 10 years since it was diagnosed.  I appreciate that not many people are willing to go my route. I've been slowly, very slowly, been making changes in my body over the ten years.  When I first experienced severe pain, I couldn't sleep more than 15 minutes without having to shift, and I couldn't make it to the end of the driveway without being in pain. No more.  Why?  No one really knows, but I think arthritis carries too much of the blame for the pain.

    There's a joke story that illustrates this idea:  A man comes across someone crawling on their hands and knees in the dark, obviously looking for something.  He offers to help. "What did you lose?"  "My keys."  "Where did you lose them?"  "Over there," pointing to a spot several yards away. "Why are you looking here if you lost them there?"  "The light is better."

    While my hip is well illuminated and offers an easy solution, the misalignment of my back and muscles do not. They require slow, deliberate changes requiring concentration on everything I do, how I sit, stand, lie, cut onions, etc.  Every move I make has to be changed.  I enjoy the unspooling of the problem.  I do love details.  Have you noticed?

    Because of my back, I still have to be hauled up off the floor at the end of the class. It took two men yesterday.  Jeff, one of the students, figured out how to do it alone today.  After slowly moving myself to a kneeling position from a prone one, Jeff hooked his arms under my armpits from behind and lifted me up.  By the way, it is not my lower back, which hurts.  It is some muscles on my left side between my hip and my ribs.  Go figure!

    The 10th of the month is my date for giving Elsa her heartworm and applying the tick and flea protection.  I managed to give her the heartworm yesterday but not the protection.  Opening her collar is a problem for me. That was Mike's job.  I took on the challenge and did it with ease.  She wasn't keen to sit on my lap and have a cold liquid poured onto the back of her neck, but she sat still and didn't complain. 

    It spent most of the day working on the obituary.  It was done by the end of the day except for some information about Mike's Ph.D. from Columbia.  (Ph. D. number one.) I had done the basic framework.  Cylin looked it over, made a few changes, and pointed out a lot of missing dates. Damon and Cylin pronounced it adequate but boring.  It was sent to Jean to add some information that she might have had.  She put in some of the meaningful comments about Mike being a good person who cared about others.  That is more true than words can possibly convey.

    Judy and Paulette came over in the late afternoon to help me decide upon the readings for the funeral mass. Clarence, the head of the diaconate program for Hawaii who will be delivering the homily, sent me some suggestions.  Judy had done her research before coming over and had three selections to offer for each reading.  I picked the ones that were the most meaningful to me. Working with them was fun.  All these difficult activities are fun because I'm not doing them alone.  Not only I'm not alone, but I am doing them with people who loved, and love, Mike, and know me well enough to like me if not love me. I'm benefitting from the love overflow since they don't have Mike to shower it on anymore. I'll take it. It's genuine. That's good enough for me.

    I got rid of Mike's underpants, undershirts, and socks. These are things second-hand stores don't take. Judy and Paulette work with the homeless here in Hawaii through the church.  Once a month they prepare a huge meal for I don't know how many people.  I asked them if they thought underwear would be useful. I gave them two large bags.  Mike had everything in abundance.

    They also checked out my freezer.  Mike, with his need for abundance, always packed the freezer to overflowing.  We were warned that overloading the refrigerator and freezer could cause it to break down.  I tried to restrain him.  I would be successful for a while, and then . . . Judy thinks I have enough food in there for a year. We're planning a joint feast for  Friday.  The meal will be cooked here in Mike's kitchen.

    We redid the kitchen when we moved here. Mike loved to cook and was good at it. He got the kitchen he always wanted. I am so happy he had that.  There are so many things that worked out well for both of us with this move to Hawaii.  We had a spectacular contractor/ builder, Ken Kilkuski, who designed and built the kitchen with Mike and me.  I don't cook. It is wasted on me.  But anyone who wants to come over and cook a meal is welcome, as long as I can be included in the guest list.

    Everyone who knows me is concerned about getting me fed.  Cylin said that Damon, Mike's son, can prepare a freeze some food for me while he is here for the funeral.  Good luck finding enough room in the freezer.  Maybe by then, I'll have emptied out something. I'm still working on the food Brenda brought me my first night home.  I have most of a roasted chicken left and the second quart container of soup. I also have a little bit of the Thai food Sandor and Mealiinani brought over the night they scanned the pictures.  I hope people don't give up on me.  Cylin, God bless her, said she doesn't know what she would do if Damon wasn't there. Another woman who doesn't cook.  But August, his son, is learning from Damon as Damon learned from Mike.  I guess August will have to find a woman who can't cook too. 

    I ate dinner, a big bowl of salad, which I couldn't complete and put half back in the frig, some leftover Thai food and some chocolate covered mac nuts. Yvette came up to do some bodywork on me.  She now does Graston. She's going to work on me a few minutes every other night. It feels great. Let's see if we can resolve those trouble midback muscles.  I walked Elsa and went to bed. 

Sunday, March 10,2019

Good news: I'm functioning pretty well.

Bad news: There were a few moments today. I'm sure there will be more.

    I had a bad night's sleep, never sunk into that deep, restful kind.  Sometime in the middle of the night, I found myself mentally revising Mike's obituary. I had made a few changes yesterday and passed off the responsibility to Cylin, my daughter-in-law, a professional writer.  I felt it was just too much for me to be able to organize it.  I called her when I got up, concerned that she had already started on it when I now had my own ideas.  She and Damon were busy working on the picture panels for the funeral. 

    Damon wound up with 150 pictures to select from 60 from me, 1/3 from him, and the rest from photos that people from the church emailed him directly.  Some people included condolences and thoughts about Mike. It was meaningful to all of us.  Damon is amazed by the responses he is getting from people who knew Mike and old friends who he hasn't heard from in years who heard about Mike's death through social media and reached out.

    I had plans to skip Bikram today and go to mass at the Holy Rosary Church, a small building that seats about 50 people, with Judy and Paulette.  I was ready, but not out front as I should have been. Paulette had to come in to get me. 

    We got there early enough, so there was some chat-chit.  The lady sitting next to me asked me where I was from. "Here."  "Oh, I've never seen you before. Are you new to church?" "I'm Deacon Mike's wife." How's that for a sock in the jaw. 

    Father Joe Badding was saying the mass.  He said a few words before the procession. As his eyes wandered over the parishioners, he spotted me and stopped dead in his tracks.  He said something about, "Sorry, Betty." I told him to carry on.  He was up there before the mass for the very purpose of announcing Mike's death and funeral arrangements.  He asked me if he could continue.  I nodded, yes. 

    This was a hard moment. Not because of the announcement, but because I never went to church without Mike being there.  He was either on the alter or by my side, but one way or the other, he was there. Now he wasn't.  I thought, "I'd better start carrying tissues around with me." At least there wasn't a repeat of the breakdown I had yesterday at Bikram. 

    My body feels so different. It's like something's loose that shouldn't be, or at least wasn't there before he died.  Mike and I functioned as two independent people who whole-heartedly supported each other if we thought it was for their best. It didn't feel like we were sacrificing ourselves to do this.  It always held the promise of personal enrichment. After 45 years of always considering Michael, I now have lost that landmark, that boundary. I feel like I'm fishing around in empty air to find out where I am. It's scary.   I haven't just lost Mike; I've lost part of myself or the person I used to be in relationship to him.  It is a freedom; it feels like I suddenly have the power to walk through walls.  I don't like it. I'm sure it will eventually regulate. How long does it take? My guess is, from all I've read, a full year. Oh, dear. 

    In the meantime, there are so many doors that have opened for me.   The generosity of others is joyous and not overwhelming.  Most people respect my boundaries and offer love at the same time.  Pretty remarkable.  

    One of the benefits that came out of this tragedy is this blog.  I started it because it was easier than calling all the people concerned about Mike individually, repeating on the phone over and over and over got tired quickly.  As you can tell, I'm a thinker. Like Mike, I love the life of the mind. I find it a fascinating place to be. Unlike Mike, I can be in my mind and pay attention to the world around me.  One of the issues between us.  Sound familiar to any other women out there?

    When I got home from church, I did some writing and took a satisfying nap.  Yay!  I was afraid I was facing a long bout with insomnia. That's what happened after my dad died.  I had terrible sleep problems until the day I went off to college.  However, I'm not leaving this house. I have to figure out some way to get good sleep.

    I walked Elsa before dinner. I've been buying packaged cut kale salad from Safeway.  Besides that, I still have enough cooked food for a while.  Tonight,  besides the remaining salad, I finished off one of the vegetarian soups that Brenda picked up from Costco and some warmed buttered bread and cheese.  Hmm! Bread with butter just hits the spot these days.  

    I am slowly putting things away that are out.  I had to put away the pictures I pulled out for Damon.  I still have a little bit of unpacking to do. Haven't been throwing things away yet except for those tee shirts Mike used for the gym, which looked like they had been hit by acid rain.

    I watched some TV. I'm not watching the shows we were watching together.  I can't quite do that yet. I'm rewatching English murder mysteries we watched together and enjoyed, Vera in this case.  The Lewis series came to an end. I think the lead performers chose to take a year off, but they are planning to come back and do more episodes. Hope so.   

    While I was watching, my phone rang. My whole body responded  before my mind could intercede, "Mike." Whenever Mike was away, he would call before he went to bed to say good night.  My external body sat calmly, but my innards leaped with joy. "Mike was calling to say good-night and tell me that he loves me." This man told me I was beautiful and that he loved me every day of our marriage until the sedatives silenced him. 

    Many years ago, when we were living in Princeton,  we did a presentation for a marriage preparation class program on communication.  We each gave a speech.  I started mine with, "You may not know it, but I'm the most beautiful woman in the world." I expected people to respond somehow. Titter, turn their heads away.  But no, everyone remained rapt. "At least, that's what my husband tells me every day." Still no real response. "If he didn't do it on his own, I'd be willing to pay him to do it." Finally, laughter.  I hoped those kids got the point.  Say nice things to your partner, gratuitously nice things, randomly nice things, whatever.  Be generous.

    Mike and I both came from backgrounds where we didn't hear a lot of nice things.  My parents were always civil to each other, my father was to my sister and me too, but my mother didn't understand the concept of talking civilly to children. She actually believed it was harmful to us. 

    After my mother moved in with Mike and me in our Princeton house in 1983, she said something stunning. "I know I shouldn't tell you this.  It isn't good for you. But I've been telling everyone what a good daughter you are." Huh?  Well, that explains a lot.  I was told by a woman of my generation that immigrated from Germany that my mother's ideas were German but writ large. She was an extreme example of this concept of child-rearing. 

    We know now that constant negativity takes a toll on a child's development.  We also understand that no criticism but constant praise has the same effect.  I heard years ago that the children of extreme poverty and the children of extreme wealth both suffered in similar ways.  Sounds like honesty and balance is always the best choice.  There is also knowing when to offer criticism. Sometimes it not only falls on deaf ears, but it raises a person's defenses so they can't hear even when they are somewhat ready.  Again, as in comedy, timing is everything.

    Mike's mother yelled at everyone. She doled out unpleasantness equally.  This is not to say that there weren't good moments with her.  I enjoyed watching tv with her.  When she was up, she was safe. I think the difference between our two mothers was that my mother was a genuinely loving woman, at least to her children. She wouldn't show it to us, but there were many times we would turn to catch her looking at us with love pouring out of her eyes.  

    I don't think Mike had that with his mother.  She resented him for being male. She told me that when he was born, she promised she was going to make damn sure he never thought he was a prince.  Now aside from the fact that all babies think they are the absolute center of not only their own universe but everyone else's, what baby comes out thinking he will be better than everyone else, particularly women.  They don't even know there is a distinction. 

     She got this bias from her background.  In her home, the men were superior to the women.  The men got to do 'what they wanted to do. Not really.  They were confined by tradition just as much as the women were. It was just that the women thought it looked better on the other side of the fence. And, the men were raised to believe they had the better deal too.  But when you have half the population oppressed, no one is truly happy. Doesn't work that way.  

    Actually, I read something which contradicts the idea that the oppressing group doesn't benefit more recently. There are two ways to induce oxytocin release: one is bonding with members of your own group, and the second is attacking those who are not of your group.  Both serve to strengthen our sense of our place in our own group. But in today's world, like it or not, or lives are all linked intimately. There is no functional 'other' anymore. We're interdependent. We're in many ways all part of the same group. 

    I think the rapid dissolution of tribal identities is one of the reasons for the rise of nationalism and tribalism again. We've changed a little too fast.  Our identifies feel too loose.  Some can cope with it and those who can't.  We all need to have some compassion for each other.  Some believe it was our lack of empathy and respect for a group needing more stability, or our denigration those with a less complicated vision of the human condition, which has now contributed to the political mess we are in.  I admit to being part of the group of intellectual elites who judged others for their ignorance, lack of sophistication, and intolerance rather than have some compassion for their plight.  This, by no way, means that I condone this rebirth of tribalism, just that I understand it.  We all have to look for an alternative to help us all have a secure place in our social world, that is held for us we deep respect for our humanity.

    Mike and I managed such a respectful relationship with each other. It didn't fix the whole world, but it was a start in our little corner of it.  Shortly before Mike met me, he asked a colleagued what he should look for in a partner.  He said, "a worthy opponent." Mike saw that in me. He told me that he saw me as someone who would take care of herself and  be equally concerned about his needs. Well, this is certainly how I like to see myself.  What a smart man! I assure you others in the world are not as 'smart' as Mike was. Some are in my family. But I did have that with Mike.  We worked well together.  He liked to say that our relationship worked as well as it did, "because there was always one adult present," and it wasn't always the same person. Neither one of us could appropriately address the other's needs consistently, but the respect for our needs as expressed was there. Neither of us took advantage of the other's generosity, either.  

    When we first met, I helped establish a way to set boundaries.  We had come from homes where there was no such respect.  If one of us didn't like what the other was doing, we would give a 'lifesaving tap." The lifesaving tap was something I learned in a lifesaving class. (The only course I failed in college because I didn't study for the written exam.) 

    In a water lifesaving class, you partner with another person; one of you is saving, and the other is 'drowning." Now, people who are drowning struggle.  They are scared and desperate; the 'drowning partner' has to act scared and desperate. Well, what if one of the pair in the practice session is really drowning. You can't speak as say, "Get off of me." Ergo, the lifesaving tap. You tap your partner underwater, and the exercise comes to an immediate end. Mike and I had a deal: if one of us delivered it to the other, that person would stop what they were doing immediately unless it was a life or death matter.  It made both of us feel safe. And, neither of us ever abused it.  It took me years to realize that someone could use it abusively.  But there is no silver bullet for nice.  What a shame!

    There was an advantage coming from such difficult backgrounds. We were continuously grateful for the kindness and respect of the other.  Again, was our behavior always perfect.  Absolutely not!  Not even at the end, after 45 years of marriage had we ironed out all our difficulties, our annoyances.  It was just that we were both committed to working on them, not only for the other's sake, but with the clear understanding that each of us would benefit from these changes we made.  I live by that creed. 

    Back to that late-night phone call:  My body was bounding.  God, I miss him, and I'm going to miss him so much more. What am I going do without his daily dose of love? It was part of our ritual.  I don't know if we loved each other more than any other couple. But I do know that objectivity we showed that love more than most couples.  Is it because we didn't have children of our own?  I think some people have children just to experience that delicious feeling of pouring out unconditional love with abandon.  You only get that freedom with a child for a limited amount of time.  If you share it with an adult, it goes on for years and years and years.  Again, I am so lucky that  Michael chose me, and it was he that chose me.

    I looked tough, but I was one frightened girl.  I do well, have always done well, at getting to know people casually wherever I go.  I also do well in strong intimate relationships.  The easiest thing for me is to move in with people and work on the relationship. (I understand this is Nicole Kidman's approach to marriage too. Get married and then worry about the relationship.) I had just resolved to date anyone who I didn't think would do me bodily harm.  The bar was pretty low.  And then, I would do exactly what I wanted to during the date.  I would only date someone once a month, and speak to someone on the phone a maximum of once a week.  I was setting old-fashioned boundaries.   I never had more offers of dates in my life. Go figure.  

    Mike and I met the Wednesday after a July 4th weekend in 1973 in a therapy group in Manhattan.  It was my first time with this particular group. ( I had just been kicked out of two others.  I have and had my own ideas of what therapy should entail and strenuously disapproved of a lot of the tactics at the time, but it was what was available. Note: the profession has come around more to my way of thinking, I am told.) He came in late in a suit carrying a briefcase.  I thought, "He's cute." He explained that he was late because he was visiting his girlfriend in the hospital after having had a hysterectomy.  Well, that ended that.  Wound up, he was breaking up with her. Not because of the hysterectomy.  

    November 8th was our first date.  We went to the Library, a restaurant on the upper west side of Manhattan. Things clicked.  He seemed to see me as I saw myself and wanted to be seen; I was comfortable with that vision.  The coins kept dropping on subsequent dates.  I wouldn't have described myself as madly in love with him; I just knew this was right.  It was in February of the next year that I accepted him as my life partner. I don't mean it was the first time we were intimate.  Nor did we get married.  I mean I knew this was it, period end of sentence.  I had looked at him and thought, I can live with what he as is even if he never changes.  

    Oh, there were revelations of personality that were a surprise to both of us.  Those jokes Mike told, putting people and their ideas down, were not jokes.  He was genuinely arrogant.  Of course, as I looked back, his arrogance was one of the things that attracted me.   He reminded me of my beloved father. I think I reminded him of his not so beloved mother, too.  Like her, I am an expressive, loud personality.  Not exactly the shy retiring type.  I don't know about his mother, but I'm perfectly prepared to make a fool out of myself for any number of reasons: humor, safety, justice, concern. I suppose we can say for now that the rest is history. I hope to fill these pages with more "Michael  and Betty stories."