Bits, Pieces and Bright Futures

Times flies by but I often wish it would take the train instead. A slower pace, not as scary in this day and age of Homeland Security trying to keep us safe from hijackers and sabotage. I’ve only been on three trains in my life and two were just short sightseeing trips pretending to give its riders a taste of the past. One even had pretend, gun-toting bandits riding horses alongside the train in an attempt board the train and rob the men of their pocket watches and the ladies of our wedding bands. Fall often reminds me of those color tours by train they have up in Canada. The video clips and still shots are beautiful…until they show the train trestle bridge in Alberta over the Oldman River Valley. It’s over a mile long and supposedly its the highest trestle bridge in the world. I don’t know where I’m going with this post but it won’t be over the Oldman River. I’m afraid of heights. I’m afraid of a lot of things that keep me from being a world traveler. Like getting diarrhea on a plane or getting lost in the back alleys of Calcutta or having Homeland Security not let me back in the country because my last name is a common one in Central America.

One of my Gathering Girls pals just got back from a ten day trip to Africa. Talk about a world traveler! She’s been all over the place including the Amazon---the forest, not the online store. She apparently sold a large parcel of land, then a farm and has no money worries. Along with taking a couple of trips a year, she also bought herself a cherry red Trans Am convertible. Boy, does she turn heads with she parks it off all by itself and gets out. She’s a little bitty thing, my age and not at all what one would expect paired with that car. But is she any happier than I am? Who’s to say? She’s got a couple of kids who look after her interests and a new condo to go along with her car. But I was surprised to learn recently that she and another one of my Gathering Girls pals are going weekly to a widow’s support group. I’ve never been to a widow/widowers support group but my brother went to two or three meetings. He said he couldn’t take all those crying women. Fast forward a couple of years after his wife died and he managed to find himself not one but two girlfriends. Life goes on for those who are not afraid of their own shadows. (I've often wondered if one of us was adopted. He's been fearless since he was four and rode his three wheel bike off a six foot high porch.)

I went to another meeting of my future neighbors at the continuum care complex. Our independent units aka the three story apartment buildings will break ground later this fall at which time there will be a party and they’ll collect another $20,000 check from each of us. How scary is that? The media will be at the ground breaking so someone watching the local news that night might be able to pick me out of the crowd and I will probably go home tired from trying to always stand sideways to the cameras in an attempt to make myself look skinner. They had new schematics for us to view on a large screen that showed the removal of a building they’ve taken out of phrase one and in its place is a green space with walking paths and a Michigan wildflowers and butterfly garden. That will be my new view for the next 10-15 years. Now instead of a community of 72 units we’ll have 52. 

They had a question and answer session while we ate from beautiful trays of hors d’oeuvres and drank wine. One future resident had a mini melt down when she asked about the shower stalls and found out there won’t be built-in shower chairs. I asked if we’ll get to customize the placement of the grab bars…and the answer was ‘yes’. A couple of the guys had questions about financing this 3 million dollar building project and tipping points and if the non-profit parent company is picking up any short falls caused by dropping the 4^th building. Others wanted to know about fire walls and heat run walls and one bright and shining star kept raising her hand and each time she was called on she’d say, “I just want to move in tomorrow” and then there would be a few amen callers responding with, “Me too!” She is petite and sweet and she pulled if off like she was Gracie Allen standing alongside George Burns. 

The management also brought to the meeting copies of their sixteen page, by-monthly newsletter that covers the activities on their other two campuses plus articles. I’ve always found looking at a community newsletter to be a good way to judge a place. Once our campus is up and running we’ll be included in this newsletter because if you live on one campus your ID will get you into activities at all their campuses. Apparently anyone one of us will also be able to submit articles to the newsletter. Oh boy! And there was a whole page devoted to an upcoming residents art and quilt show. Double oh boy! Reading that newsletter made me want to move in tomorrow. © 

NOTE: At the top is a drawing of the complex I'll be moving to. The building to the back left is the one that's been eliminated and replaced with walking paths and wildflowers. The two buildings in the foreground face the lake. Those units are all two bedrooms and the one bedrooms with a small study, like mine, are on the back side of those two buildings. The first floor of the building on the right towards the back is community stuff like the restaurant and cafe, the mail room, concierge service, etc., and there more units on the top two floors. The private street and sidewalks along the buildings will be heated to melt snow and the parking is underneath the two buildings along the lake. A mile long, paved walking trail goes around the lake and connects the old section of this complex.

Where Do I Go From Here?

“No more running. It’s you and me, that’s the way it’s going to be, and pretty soon you’ll see it’s you and me, that’s all there’ll ever be.” Jack Wagner of General Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful fame wrote and sang those lyrics in The Wedding March, a 2016 Hallmark Channel movie. The storyline of the film reunites college sweethearts, twenty years after they parted, when a venue owned by Jack’s character is booked for his ex-girlfriend’s wedding to another man. Each has a teenaged daughter who helps engineer them back together. Do things like that happen in real life? If someone said to me, “Pretty soon you’ll see it’s you and me, that’s all there’ll ever be,” I’d worry that he’s a psychopath who’s going to lock me up naked and cold in an underground bunker. On the Lifetime Movie Network or in a James Patterson thriller that would be a logical next step.

But for a widow like me who has a predisposition toward melancholia during the month of April, hearing “...it’s you and me, that’s all there’ll ever be” so near my husband’s birthday was a queue to turn me into Sarah Sadness. This is all there’ll ever be. Yup, my time has passed. There’s no do-over to make me feel loved and needed again, no lost love out there to rekindle. That’s not exactly true. I had several serious romances before I met my husband but---jeez, I’ve evolved since my twenties and I can’t imagine in my wildest dreams ever being attracted to same people I was back then. And that, dear readers, is why movie plots like that in The Wedding March brings out the cynic in me. Thomas Wolfe got it right when he wrote, “You can’t go home again.” Did you know that title, that phrase was suggested to Wolfe by the widow of another writer? Ah, yes, another bit of useless trivia to clutter up our brains.

Since Mr. Wolfe used that iconic title it's become a metaphor or shorthand for stating that once we’ve moved forward into the more sophisticated world of adulthood with all its ups and downs, heartaches and headaches, joys and disappointments any attempt to relive our youthful memories will always fall flat and fail. Nothing ever stays the same and we all have to acknowledge that with a blending of sentimentality and longing or loathing---depending on what the world has brought into our lives or we left behind before our coming of age.

In Wolfe’s book is a passage that speaks to me as strong-but-aging woman and widow: “The human mind is a fearful instrument of adaptation, and in nothing is this more clearly shown than in its mysterious powers of resilience, self-protection, and self-healing. Unless an event completely shatters the order of one's life, the mind, if it has youth and health and time enough, accepts the inevitable and gets itself ready for the next happening like a grimly dutiful American tourist who, on arriving at a new town, looks around him, takes his bearings, and says, ‘Well, where do I go from here?’”

Where do I go from here? What widow has not asked that question of herself? What widow gets a clear road map in her head that answers that question? And when do we quit asking ‘where do I go from here?’ Thomas Wolfe had some wise words that could help: “Make your mistakes, take your chances, look silly, but keep on going. Don’t freeze up.” 

Not freezing up is the secret, isn’t it. Even if we have missteps after losing a spouse like me spending a year volunteering at small town museum only to learn it wasn’t a good fit for me. Even if I spent an entire summer looking at condos only to learn I’m not ready to pluck myself up from the known and plop myself down into the unknown. Even if I’m in a perpetual state of unrest. I may not know where I’m going but I’m moving forward, didn’t freeze up. I try a little of this, a little of that and I take away a better understanding of myself and the world around me. And sometimes in my search I leave behind a trail of crumbs in the dust in case I want to back-track to something that intrigues me more than another…like my copy of You Can’t Go Home Again. This is the fifth time I’ve written about Wolfe’s can’t-go-home adage in the five years I’ve been keeping this widow’s blog. This is the fifth April since I met Don in 1970 that we don’t get to celebrate our birthdays together. I don’t know what all this means in the grand scheme of things but if the past can be used to predict the future it’s a safe bet that I’ll be quoting Thomas again same time, next year.  ©

Three Full Years a Widow

The third sadiversary of Don’s passing is coming up soon and I don’t know how to feel about that. I do know that I’ve let him go and I am at peace with where he’s at. But I still think of him daily. How could I not? I often feel him still around me. It may seem overly dramatic to quote a well-known poem here but I’m going to do it anyway. It was printed on the remembrance cards handed out at Don’s memorial service and sometimes when I read it, it speaks so softly to me I can barely hear it; other times it shouts out, ”Listen, widow lady!----”

I give you this one thought to keep –

I am with you still--- do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am a diamond glints on snow,

I am the sunlight on ripened grains,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush,

I am the sweet uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

The soft stars that shine at night.

Do not think of me as gone,

I am with you still in each new dawn.

Many widows know exactly what I mean when I say sometimes I feel my deceased husband around me. It’s a palatable feeling that probably comes from having known another person so well, you know exactly what they’d say and feel in any given situation. But I’m willing to believe it could go deeper, more mystical than that. If a 3-D copy machine can make real, three dimensional things like car parts---and they can---then why can’t the universe turn three dimensional living beings back into energy forces that can’t be seen? If Man can build a ‘magic machine’ like that then why should we put limitations on what Mother Nature can do? Spirits on another plane of existence? Why not? 

At my first sadiversary I pronounced that my first year of widowhood had been all about survival and as my mission statement for the second year ahead, I proclaimed it would be a year for rebuilding a social life as a single woman. My success at that mission was a mixed bag, given the fact that often it’s a hollow feeling social life that I created with no deep attachments formed. But I get out of the house, see people, and have a little fun here and there. I don’t stay at home doing comedy acts in the dark on the off chance they might entertain a ghost in the house. Recently a fellow blogger posted a comment about my failed attempt to find a few close friends that is worth repeating in this post. Jean from Step Into the Future wrote: 

"After my marriage ended when I was about thirty, I went through something similar regarding friendships. I kept trying to create a single ‘best friend’ pair bond that would have all the emotional characteristics of a good marriage -- one person that, above all others, you can confide in and rely on in the world. It took me many years to realize that friendship is different from marriage and that I need different friendships for different aspects of my life, needs, and interests. It can be an uphill battle, though, because I think our culture is always telling us that meeting our needs with many relationships is inferior to meeting them with just one primary relationship.” 

She is one smart woman and I’m so glad she shared those wise words here. I get it now, you can’t replace a soul mate like he/she was just goldfish floating at the top of the tank.

At my second sadiversary (a year ago) I wrote a new mission statement: To seek contentment and I’d give myself a C+ on reaching that goal. I have lots of room for improvement but I don’t have to hang my head in shame. I didn’t stand still emotionally this past year while taking up space here on Widowhood Lane. I feel calmer inside, more in control of managing my expectations. Less desperate because I realize, now, that “being alone in the world” is a false perception that I’d nursed to perfection since Don passed away. It was never true. Family, old friends---they’ll be here if I truly have a need. They can't walk my walk, but they'd be here....

This week I’m at the dawning of my fourth year of widowhood and I’m still working on a mission statement for the coming twelve months. The fact that I don’t have one might actually be a good sign? Maybe deep inside I know I no longer need a mission statement to motive myself to put one foot in front of the other when I get up in the mornings. I’m tying up loose ends from the past and I’m moving forward into the future. But make no mistake about it, Don may not be here physically but he is woven to the fabric of my life. For better or worse, that will never change and that is something that all widows understand. ©

This is my favorite photo of Don. It was taken in 2003, a few years after his stroke, when I had a Red Hat Society party at the house. It was at the tail end of the party after half the women had left when he came wheeling out of the bedroom where he'd been the whole time. One of the ladies still there made him an honorary member. I like the photo because it shows his great smile, twinkling eye and sense of humor. He couldn't say (or write) more than 15-20 words back then but there is no denying that he could still communicate with his expressions.