Soulmates, Reoccurring Dreams and one Regret

 

I've had the Winnie-the-Pooh quote at the top of my blog since sometime in 2012, the year my husband died. "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard" made sense back then on a widow's blog but lately I've been think about giving my blog a makeover to better reflect where I'm at in life now. But a quote or meme of a grim reaper peering down my neck would scare off too many people. Except for Dawn, of course, author of the Bohemian Valhalla blog. She has what she herself describes as gallows humor and her images often have me scrolling as fast as my little fingers will go to get past the sculls and other dark-side photos she shares. We live entirely different lives but she's one of my favorite bloggers. 

But I'm getting off track because today I want to explore the idea that maybe I still haven't said goodbye to my dearly departed husband? And do people in the form of their soul-energy stick around after they give up their physical bodies? Enough things happened in the first couple of months after Don died that had me convinced souls to have as much trouble letting go as those of us left behind do. For example I rarely wore my wedding ring when we were married. I kept it hanging on a pin inside my computer wardrobe and Don would remind me to put it on when we'd go out. In all the years it hung on that pin it never fell off…until the day a minister came to the house to help me plan Don's service. After the minister left I found the ring on my keyboard, right in front of the monitor. It fell off that pin several more times under similar circumstances in the first few months after Don died. How could I not believe in signs from the other side after that? It was either believe in and be comforted by the signs or use my sense of logic which finally kicked in and told me to suck it up, that I was slamming the computer door harder and faster for the first time in over a decade and that was causing the ring to bounce off the pin. Still....

In the past few months I'm getting signs again that he's close by and I'm wondering if this is common with widows this far out from Death Day or could it just be common with people who are entering the dying process. (No, I don't have an expiration date prognosis, I'm just feeling old and worn out.) Maybe our dying is more than just the dying of the physical body. Maybe the body and soul parting is a reversal of our nine months in the womb sort of thing? Back when Roe vs Wade was debated in the Supreme Court I followed the testimonies of leading scientists and scholars from the major religions in the world that helped the justices decide the case. None of those experts could agree on when life begins and when a soul enters a fetus to make it human was a big part of the discussion. Scientists have a better understanding on the physical side of the equation now but religious leaders still don't agree and they never will because they are basing their opinions on various ways to translate the Bible. So it stands to reason no one really knows when a soul departs our bodies at the end of life either. And whose to say that it happens at the exact same moment for everyone. 

My dreams about Don are increasing in frequency---almost nightly. But I don't know if that means anything because I'm also dreaming about the dogs I've had over the years as well. I get the dog dreams. In my daytime hours I find myself longing for the companionship of a dog. I watch too many Facebook Short Reels of dogs and I have five dogs living in my building that I see daily from a distance. My next door neighbor has a dog that looks similar to my Levi. He was a Schnauzer and Robbie is a Scottie Terrier. But it breaks my heart that Robbie doesn't like me. To be fair he doesn't like most people but he literally leaves the room when I come into their apartment. Maybe the reason I've started reading romance books again is a longing for the found-your-soulmate vibes you get from those kinds of books? Two people fitting together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, what's not to like? Don't read that as I want another man in my life. No! Way! Jose! Great relationships take time to build and I'm running out of time.

Sometimes when you read a widow's blog you can get the impression that the marriage was all hearts and flowers and hand holding. I call it the 'Pedestal Versions' of the marriages that widows tend to present. And I was guilty of doing that, of writing mostly about the peaks and ignoring the valleys. But damn it, in our defense those of us with Pedestal Husbands found out that when our guys were alive we often took them for granted and all those annoying things we might have complained about simply were not important in the grand scheme. (Let that be a cautionary tale if you still have a spouse.) My husband was far from perfect. He did stupid guy stuff like hold the blankets over my head while he farted in bed. I read a scene like that in romance book last month and I burst out laughing, then I almost cried. Who would have ever guested you could miss a fart! 

But the worst guy thing Don ever did was once he yelled at me (instead of a neighbor) when the neighbor backed his car into my parked car, doing hundreds of dollars worth of damage. “You should have known better than to park directly across from a driveway!” Don shouted. The next day when I called him out on the fact that I was legally parked he said words to the effect that he was just trying to use it as a "teachable moment" for the teens who were helping us paint a house that day. "Sure, Don," I shot back. "You just taught them its okay to raise your voice to a woman, you yo-yo! And for a stupid-ass unfair reason!" Those teens were fatherless boys who looked at Don as a role model. And to this day I regret that I didn't defend myself on the spot and that he unfairly pinned the blame of the accident on me in the first place. I console myself with the fact that for three years we could barely ever leave the house without those neighborhood boys tagging alone and with a few notable exceptions, we role modeled the hell out of them as to what a healthy male/female relationship looks like.  ©

Whining Old Woman with Questions…

Spoiler alert: A personal blog is a place to keep our memories and record our feelings with a little self-psychoanalysis thrown in. It's National Whine Day here in River City so get out the cheese and join me if you’re willing to listen to me complain about feeling older than the rock of Gibraltar. What? You don't see the resemblance? That monolithic promontory has 100s of caves and my bones are honeycombed. All I'd need to match Gibraltar is a few migratory birds sitting on my head. I hate feeling old! Have I mentioned that lately? I hate knowing that one careless fall could break a hip and put me in a nursing home for the rest of my life. Ya, I know from reading the blogs of my peers that I'm the odd man out on this aging with grace thing. Most of you are doing just fine with that whole concept. But a few of you---you know who you are---are in complete denial. Hint: age IS more than just a number, even if a bottle can give you the same hair color you had in high school. I try not to complain too much in public but behind closed doors sometimes I can’t help feeling sorry for myself. Sorry that I’m in the last chapters of my life and I have nothing important to show for all my years on earth. Sorry that no matter how much Cher and I wish we could turn back time, it keeps marching forward. 

Wondering if we’ve wasted our gift of life is a common thread with many/but not most people in my age bracket. For those of us who do wonder, we bemoan the fact that we haven't lived up to our youthful dreams and aspirations and even fewer of us have soared beyond them. Not everyone can be an astronaut, for example, or be another Stephan King or travel the world without having to join the Navy to do it. Not everyone gets to be a cowboy or a princess or to run away with the circus. Does that mean we’ve wasted our lives or opportunities? I don't know, I'm so confused! Maybe it just means we have to reassess the yardstick we are using to judge ourselves? Or maybe we shouldn’t be judging ourselves at all. Maybe that is best done by the people we have touched, loved or inspired. And isn't it a royal bummer that they don't mention any of that until they eulogize us at our funerals. Funerals should come first, then dying! Anyone on board with signing that petition? We never know how far our sphere of influence goes which is so aptly illustrated in the Jimmy Stewart Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful life.

I can’t complain about the course my life took, I can’t brag about it either. I guess that statement in itself is something to slap on a road-side billboard. Vanilla living means I haven’t walked on the dark side, haven’t done things that could put me in prison or cause others to curse my name. There’s still time, I suppose, if I want to live in infamy but who would take care of my dog if I got taken down in a hail storm of bullets if I tried to avenge our Founding Fathers by rushing the White House? “We all end up dead, it’s just a question of how and why,” Mel Gibson’s character said in Braveheart which is probably not far down the list from his best known line of: “Freeedommm!” Nope, if I were to rewrite the text of my life I’d be more like Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Principled and idealistic, I’d take down the corrupt politicians with the power of my naïve dedication to Truth and Goodness.

With the direction that last paragraph took it makes me wonder why I never had a crush on Jimmy Stewart. He sure took some great roles in his career. His 1950s movie, The Greatest Show on Earth planted the seed of romance I had with the circus that in part led me to apply for and be accepted into the Ringling Brothers School of Art and Design. Not starting their fall semester in 1960 is the single most debated ‘what if’ question that takes up space in my head as I age into the home-stretch of living. Turned out I might have just graduated from high school but I was still a naïve kid who was too scared to leave my family’s womb. (Ya, I used the word 'naïve' twice in the same blog; sue me for liking that word and knowing how to use it.)

I don’t waste a lot of time with other ‘what ifs’ in my life. With the exception of the Ringling Brothers decision, I’m happy with my life choices, most of which I made with my eyes wide open and my list of pros and cons clutched firmly in my fist. Oddly enough, I truly believe I still would have met my husband if I had altered the trajectory of my life back in 1960 because he actually spent time down in Sarasota (where Ringley’s is located) when I would have been there and we would have been hitting the same places for night life. I believe we were soulmates, destined to meet over and over again until we recognized each other. I believe that because ten years before we started dating our paths briefly crossed when we were both going to different high schools. It was at a drive-in restaurant where one summer night Don and I sat on the hoods of our cars practicing our flirting techniques. It was documented in my diary then forgotten until it was rediscovered many decades later. Ya, Don and I would have met in Florida and again back here in Michigan after we both had grown up enough to quit sowing our wild oats.

Will we meet again in the Great Unknown? The pragmatic side of me says probably not while the romantic side of me says, “Hell, Yes!” The bigger question, though, is which side of me is more naïve? Okay, I agree, I'm pushing it with this third and now forth 'naïve'. I should back space this paragraph out of this post but I'm in a silly mood today and I want to share the silly. "Are you with me, Simipkins?" Only true fans of Jack Black in The Holiday will get why I'm using that quote here. ©
 

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.