The Christmas Craft Show Tour in Widowhoodville

I must be a glutton for punishment with no more sense than an amoeba living in a back yard pond. Today I decided to do the annual craft show tour, hop scotching around town to see what the various fairs had to offer to the early Christmas shoppers. It was a tradition Don and I acquitted to support the union retirees at one place and the senior citizens hall at another and it grew from there, adding three more stops on our tour. Don loved the crowds and the homemade baked goods for sale and we’d always ran into people we knew.

As I backed out of the driveway the radio was set on the Prime Country [cry-your-eyes-out] station and as the Chief Glutton for Punishment in the car I didn't switch the channel. When will I ever learn? It wasn't long after that Dolly Parton was singing:

“Why'd you come in here lookin' like that
In your cowboy boots and your painted-on jeans
All decked out like a cowgirl's dream
Why'd you come in here looking like that?”

Damn it! Those words reminded me of Don all dressed up in his favorite attire and that was enough to put his ghost riding shotgun in my passenger seat. By the time I got to my first stop, the senior hall, I wasn’t even sure I could go in. But I did because I’m a super-duper trooper, don’t you know, and who cares if you're misty-eyed at a craft show? Inside, I collected a hug from the center’s director---she cared---and I bought an item from their garage sale room for fifteen cents. It was a wire wreath to hold Christmas cards. I came close to buying one just like it, only new, a few weeks ago but I didn’t like the $25.00 price tag. Okay, that didn’t turn out so bad, I thought. Things were looking up.

The next stop was to the retiree’s hall where I knew quite a few people and several mentioned missing Don. One vendor who had sold Don a handmade item last year that I hated on sight couldn’t say enough nice things about him and that made me feel guilty about giving the piece to Salvation Army a few months ago. Another vendor who is old enough to be my mother talked to me about finding someone else, “It doesn’t have to be the same kind of romance or love,” she said. “It’s just nice to have someone to be with.” “I know,” I replied, “but I’m not ready for that.” Darn those damn tears! They started in again and I had to leave her booth. Whose stupid idea was it for me to go there today? Oh, ya, that would be my own stupid idea.

Back in the car the cry-your-eyes out radio station was blasting out Mickey Gilley singing Stand by Me. I sighed deeply. Instead of bringing tears, though, that song brought a wave of peace over me as I listened. It's always had that effect on my emotions.

“When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me”

For months on end I played that song every night at bedtime and Levi knew that was his clue to do our version of dog-dancing. It served several purposes one being human-to-canine bonding, another being human and canine exercise, but the most important reason---at least now in hindsight---was that our antics never failed to make Don laugh. Gilley’s version isn’t my favorite cut of Stand by Me, but I can honestly say I’ve never heard a version I didn’t like. When the piece ended this afternoon in the car, I looked over at the ghost riding shotgun in my passenger seat and I said, “Let’s go home. The Christmas craft shows suck this year.” ©

Below is a link to my favorite version of Stand by Me. I love how it keeps building as they add street performers from around the world. If you're not award of the 'Playing for Change' project here is what they say on their website: "Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world."   Playing for Change

Widows Write

To succeed in life, you need three things: 

 a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.

Reba McEntire 

I bought a book written by a woman slightly older than me, a widow who wrote journal style about the challenges of the first few years without her spouse. Since that’s what I’m trying to do with this blog, I thought it would be interesting to compare our experiences only to find we had very few in common. For example, she had a daughter to lean on. Don and I never had any kids. She struggled with house maintenance issues. I’ve been doing those sorts of things the past twelve years since my husband’s stroke. She had a core group of lady friends to pal around with. I don’t and I am struggling to build new friendships---when you’ve been a caregiver for as long as I was friends fall by the wayside. 

But one thing she said had a solid ring of universal widowhood truth. “Like motherhood,” she wrote, “there are rules for widowhood that you are supposed to grasp instinctively.” Why is that? Why is it that the people around you think that coping with widowhood comes naturally or you can just read a few grief books and get the basics? It doesn’t work that way. You can read all the self-help books on widowhood out there and still not get a clear road map to follow. And I’m guessing that’s because each widowhood experience is as unique as each marriage on the face of the earth is unique. The type of relationship you had with your spouse, your faith, your level of coping skills, your finances and support system all feed into the equation as well as the events that lead up to the death. But the bottom line for all widows is that one day you’re part of a couple, the next day you’re alone and you have to forge a new path all by yourself.

The book’s author also describes the conservations she has with her dead husband---God, I do that, too! How do you stop doing something that had become second nature, in my case, for 42 years? And she describes going to social events where most of the people are paired off in couples. I was recently invited to an event like that where I’d be a lone stranger in a sea of people who’d glide into the place like Drake swans about to board Noah’s Ark and that morning my body said: Hey, you’ve been dreading this for two weeks. How about a little sciatica nerve pain to keep you at home? Coincidence, or are our bodies capable of manufacturing good excuses for things we really don’t want to do? Either way, does anyone know how long I’d have to wait to claim an un-given wedding present for myself? I could use a good set of knives. Darn it! Ms. Manners would probably say I still have to give it the bride and groom.

I did manage to move past one widowhood hurtle last week while my friend was visiting. We went to a restaurant I’d been avoiding. It was my husband’s favorite place and now I think I’m ready to try going to Applebee's alone. Even though people usually eat there in pairs, I can take my Kindle and pretend I’m sharing a meal with the “ghost” who is always sitting across my dinner table.

As I said, the author and I didn’t share a lot of the same experiences and I was somewhat disappointed in her book because I didn’t find the ‘wit’ promised on the cover. However, I admire that she managed to not only write a book but she also got it published. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to do that. And I’m jealous that her book has an entire chapter devoted to the fan letters she received in between the first and second printing.. I’m having trouble just getting people to sign my new guest book. Woo is me ---that’s one of my longtime favorite phrases.

The phrase quoted at the top of this blog entry is my newest favorite phrase. As I face each new widowhood challenge maybe what I need to ask myself is: What do I need most to get through this---a wishbone, a backbone or a funny bone? Like tonight, my first Halloween without Don to pass out candy. I should clutch my funny bone and come up with a costume in keeping with the few tears that might fall. ©

On the Corner of Memory and Widowhood Lanes

While waiting at the airport for my long, lost friend to arrive it occurred to me that it took a leap of faith on her part to trust that I’d be there to pick her up. After all, I’m old and old people forget things. Old people also get lost on the way to airports and IN the airports. And we’ve been known to die unexpectedly leaving people stranded and fuming on concourses. Okay, I admit it, I’m a worry wart and worry warts can come up with a 100 troubling scenarios when we have too much time on their hands. Was I waiting in the right place? Would we even recognize the wrinkled versions of our old selves? At one point I even worried that maybe she’d turned into a serial murderer and was coming to poison my pudding, pretend to be me and empty out my bank account. Worry warts are right at home in airports where an intercom voice is constantly implanting paranoid ideas about strangers who might ask you to transport “packages” in your carry-on. And I quickly got the idea that if I accidentally left my purse on the window sill some seriously tense young man from the bomb squad would be in charge of returning it.

But all my worrying was for not. My friend arrived and she was still the same warm, gracious and vivacious person I had met in grade school. And I was there to greet her---me, the same eager-to-follow-her-laughter-anywhere girl I was so many decades ago. Growing up just around the corner from one another we were two peas in a pod and practically inseparable for nearly two decades until college where she found her self a great boyfriend, married the guy and then followed his career across the country.

This week I found out that nine months out from Don’s dying was perfect timing for me to journey to the intersection of Memory and Widowhood Lanes. As time passes, we widows all regret that we get fewer and fewer opportunities to share memories of our spouses and it’s healing when we have a willing listener like my friend was this week We ‘played’ together in the stores, toured our local tourist attraction and took a ride up north searching for the past only to confirm that Thomas Wolfe was right: you can’t go home again---buildings get torn down and others take their places. And through it all we talked non-stop about everything and anything: how our lives and families turned out, the highlights and low points of decades past, our hopes for the future, the world and politics. With a little wine, a few tears and lots of laughter we swapped stories, just two old friends with years of ‘girl talk’ to catch up on.

At one point she said she refuses to admit that she’s getting older, which I found highly amusing because sometimes I pretend I’m older than I really am. Why not? It gives me an excuse for the mistakes I make like this week when I asked someone for directions to the tramp station. “The tram station,” he replied, “is just around that bend. You might find a few tramps over there.” But I see my friend’s point of view on not allowing yourself to think like an old person, let the years hold you back from what you enjoy doing. Back in my forties I was on a kick where I’d tell my nieces to remember I was doing screw ups (like my tram/tramp mix up) all of my life and not to rush me off to a nursing home when I do it in my Medicare years. Some things you definitely don't want to rush. Nursing homes and rusting in place are two of those things. Stay active, stay tuned in. Betty White, I'm coming to audition for your TV series, Off their Rockers.

In the coming of age movie, Stand By Me, the last lines were, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” To that question asked by Richard Dreyfuss’ character, I’d answer, “No, no we don’t.” When you share so many ‘firsts’ and coming of age experiences with another person, you bond in a unique way and that bond is very special, giving you the ability to pick up right where you left off decades later when you meet again in an airport. My visit with my oldest and dearest friend was worth all the worrying. Our bond came with a life-time warranty. ©

second grade, 1950