Or as we used to say when I was young, “King’s X.” The weight of the world’s problems is so great, my own personal situation pales in comparison. But both keep me awake at night.
Lately it has been my home. I had to have a new dishwasher installed. Replaced a burned out microwave. Twice. Had the washing machine fixed. The hall and laundry room floors replaced after a water heater leak, numerous trees trimmed, a new garbage disposal installed. And I need a new roof. my insurance company will replace part of the cost of the floor and the roof. But that leaves a lot emptying my pockets.
The shootings, cages filled with live bodies, children crying for their parents, people losing their homes and possessions due to fire and floods. the. Homeless. The hungry. The sick. All are so much more serious than my own personal worries.
The universe is hurting I do what I can, which is so little And I try to connect to the good news which I know is out there. It’s GOT to get better!
Another mass shooting. This time in Dayton Ohio. 9 killed, 26 wounded. What is happening? Will this be the time that Congress and Trump will be moved to DO something? Or will the NRA win the day once again? The country is grieving. Many are fearful. No place in the USA is safe anymore.
Another shooting! this time in El Paso, Texas. The third in a week’s time. 20 people killed, 26 injured. Another hate crime
When will the government DO something? The gun lobbyists own the Republican party and Mitch McConnel won’t allow any gun reform bills to move through the Senate. It’s depressing.
Each time this happens, Trump offers his prayers and condolences. Is that all he has? DO something! YOU have the power. For starters, stop spewing your hateful rhetoric, your messages of hate. You are a piece of work. In my 92 years, I’ve never seen anything like you.
Yes, tonight I pray for the dead, the wounded, their families, for El Paso and for our country. That’s all I can do for now. That’s all I can do until I get to the ballot box.
That’s what Karen calls them. All the things she gives. All the things she does. I’m overwhelmed with all the love. Don’t know how to handle it.
Karen arrived Tuesday with burgers from my favorite restaurant, Taylor’s. The best burgers in town from a restaurant my husband and I frequented when we ddated over 70 years ago. She also brought vegetables from her neighbor’s garden.
Since Karen arrived, she’s made macaroni and cheese, tomato soup, guacamole, and cucumber salad. She bagged much of the food for the freezer to use later. She wants to know what else I’d like her to make.
She thoroughly cleaned my kitchen, including the floor.
She sees problems and solves them, went out and bought a small doggie bed and a shower curtain liner to protect me and the bed from Jenny’s nocturnal incontinence.
She bought a pole and humming bird feeder and another hanging…
February was a difficult month, physically. Had some setbacks, saw a lot of professionals in the medical community. No one knows what is causing my problems, so they don’t deal with it. In the meantime, I just sort of ‘exist.’ Since I don’t get out, except to keep appointments, my life is rather dull.
I’ve lost a couple more friends. Each time this happens, I’m filled with fear and dread. Don’t think I need explain.
The brightness in my life has come from reading and writing. I’ve joined an eight week writing class on Writers On the Nert called ‘Shadow Writing,’ which is digging deeper to help us get in touch with our authentic selves. We’re in the sixth week. I find the classes help motivate me to write. I haven’t posted here for a while, but if it wasn’t for the class, I wouldn’t have written anything at all. At least I have produced something for the class.
But the big news is that my last name is once again officially that of my husband of 51 years. My lawyer called me today. Now I just need to get a new social security card with my ‘new’ (old) name. Hooray! I can’t say how relieved I am. It’s like coming home. The other name felt so foreign and uncomfortable. I can rest easy now.
I walked forty steps with my walker today. Breathless afterwards and had to rest, but it’s a beginning.
The past few weeks have been brutal, physically. Today was more of the same but I decided I can’t go on like this. I have to do something! So I pushed through discomfort and fear, clenched my teeth and just DID it! Jenny walking beside me. The sun is shining, the weather is mild. I’m alive again!
I started the process today of having my last name changed. This is the story behind such an action:
I was married to Forrest for 51 years. He died in 2007. I was lonely, met Richard and married him in 2011. Just weeks after our wedding, Richard fell ill and he died six months later of pancreatic cancer. We spent a lot of time with hospice health care givers and Richard’s family and friends. The circumstances prevented us from developing the give and take of a real marriage.
I was able to keep Richard at home, which was his greatest wish. He died in his favorite chair in the living room with his family and friends around him and me holding his hand.
I knew that Richard’s first wife had been the love of his life; I placed her photo on the mantel where he could see it and just be with her as he watched TV.
I’m glad I was there for him and able to help him die at home, but now I want to finish my life with the name of the husband I grew up and shared my love and most of my life with. I spoke with a lawyer today and the process has begun. I feel as if I’ve taken the first step of coming back home.
Yesterday was your birthday, Scott. You would have been 50. Thinking today was the 10th, I’ve thought of you all day, trying to picture what you would have looked like and what you would be doing.
I can’t believe you’ve been gone 14 years! It doesn’t seem nearly that long.
You once told me that if you killed yourself, I’d get over it and go on and live a happy life. You were wrong, Scott. I haven’t been happy since you did that unthinkable act. Yes, I’ve gone on with my life. What else could I do? And there have been some moments of joy, not in living, but in nature.
I have not felt happiness in a long time.
Last Thursday, Beulah, one of my closest friends died unexpectedly. I’m still in shock. Then Connie, another close friend, was admitted to the hospital with clots in her lungs. Wednesday, your brother, Ken, found out he has a hole in his heart. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s wrong with him.
I’m not so well myself.
All this makes me wonder about life, it’s purpose, and what happiness really means. And what difference any of it makes since it all ends and is repeated and ends again.
I resent it that we have to die, that we go through life with ambitions, dreams, desires, failures, accomplishments and then have to go and leave it all behind. We take it with us, as if we had not walked on this earth, breathed in the air, watched the grackle with the broken wing, read Mary Oliver or Thomas Merton, seen “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off” three times or eaten that piece of cherry pie. Two hundred years from now, none of it will have mattered. Sometimes I think of those who lived hundreds of years ago and I honor them in my heart.
This day is almost over. I’m relieved. Next month, we have to get through the anniversary of John’s death. And so on. It seems that every month, there’s a hurdle to get over.
I’m trying very hard to find pleasure in something. To experience faith, and hope, and love. To enjoy giving while losing so much. To find a reason for it all.
I’ve been a giver all my life. What happened? The well has run dry.
Beulah, one of my closest friends, died unexpectedly Thursday. I’m still in shock. Skip, her husband, has been ill for several years and everyone thought he would go before Beulah. As a matter of fact, he’s been in ICU for over a week.
I don’t have details. Don’t know if she had a stroke or died of a heart attack or what. She was home alone. Her daughter found her.
Beulah was such a lovely, caring, upbeat person. When she walked into a room, the sun came with her. She worried about her husband so much and I think she must have neglected herself. She seemed well and always said she felt fine when I asked how she was. She was taking meds for hypertension, but all my friends do that, as do I. We talked about two weeks ago and I’ve been thinking about calling her. Procrastinating, as usual. I’ve done that so much, you’d think I’d learn. I feel such a void in my life.
I talked to Connie, another friend, today. She’s just been discharged from the hospital where she was being treated for a cluster of clots in her left lung. She’s on coumadin now.
And Ken, my son, is going tomorrow for a test to determine if he has an aortic anuerysm.
Beulah, bless her heart; I can just imagine, with Skip in the hospital, how she went back and forth to be with him, probably not eating right, getting too much salt, being stressed out because of his illness. I feel so bad for her. The world is not the same without her in it.
I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. I wish I had a strong faith to get me through. I’ll work it out. I always do, but I do have issues with death and loss and being alone. At my age, loss is inescapable. Always knocking at my door.
Rolling In 