Tag Archives: widow

Let There Be Light

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It is December, with the winter solstice approaching, the season of light!

But I am having trouble producing light here on my hilltop. 

First it was the four walk lights edging the pavers leading from my car park. All four lights were working, and then suddenly one evening, they were not. 

I went out to the electrical corner the next morning. The transformer was plugged in and its face was glowing, meaning it was getting power. I tried turning the switch to off and then on again, and the walk lights came on. I set the timer to six hours, and that evening the walk lights worked. 

But two nights ago, the walk lights were off again. I tried the same rescue operation, and last night the walk lights were shining again. For how long is anyone’s guess. 

Inside the house the Christmas lights are frustrating me. The set of wax candles on the mantel has fresh batteries but I can’t get the remote control to turn them on at five pm, for six hours.

I am having the same problem with the battery-powered candles in the windows. They all have fresh batteries, but I can’t get the remote control to work their timers either. Two worked, but not the other ten. 

Yesterday after reading the manufacturers’ instructions online, I learned the secret: you have to turn on all these candles manually at the base first before using the remote to set the timers. I waited until almost five pm, and then followed the instructions. And it worked. The house was lovely with flickering light. I will write a note of instruction and put it in the storage boxes, so that next Christmas I will not be frustrated. I am almost 80, and I forget things.

Yesterday I also brought the Fraser fir inside, set it in the stand by myself, and put on the strands of small clear lights. First I plugged in each strand to be sure the whole strand of 100 was working. But when I got the first strand carefully draped around the top most section of the tree, the second 50 lights were dark, so I had to take the lights off, muttering and climbing on and off the step ladder, and replace it with a new strand. 

Finally I had all the lights on the tree, and I sat on the couch to admire my work.

Bill had always put the lights on the tree, and Bill had set up most of the window candles—his favorite Christmas decoration and one that he was not in a hurry to take down after Christmas. Sometimes the window candles were up until Easter; they were the old plug-in kind.

This is my thirteenth Christmas without Bill, and it is hard even after this passage of time to make the light shine without him.  

I sit in the dark living room, the lights shining on the tree, the candles flickering on the mantel and in the windows, signaling to the dark sky and to the stardust that I am here. 

December 12, 2022

Making My Bed

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I am making my bed tonight, with the freshly laundered duvet cover. It is a queen size duvet and it is a struggle to get the duvet cover onto the duvet single-handedly. I struggled with this job the first four years after Bill’s death, and about six months ago I searched on YouTube for a solution.  There had to be an easier way. You can find almost anything on YouTube, from cleaning patios with a power washer to cleaning out plumbing lines to getting a duvet into its cover single-handedly. 

Bill and I used to do this job together, each of us grabbing a lower corner of the duvet and then quickly stuffing it to the upper corner of the cover. Then we would race to button the buttons on the opening, each trying to beat the other to the center of the row. Finally, together we would grab the corners of the duvet in its cover and shake it vigorously to fluff it out. The whole process always felt like a timed competition, but we got the job done.

Tonight I follow the directions from YouTube:  I lay the inside-out duvet cover on the bed, with the opening at the bottom of the bed. Lay the duvet on top of it. Tie the cords of the duvet to each loop of the four corners of the duvet cover; mine has cords and they keep the duvet from sliding around. Then I start at the top and roll the duvet and cover, like a jelly roll or burrito. When I reach the bottom, I reach inside and pull the cover over each of the ends, and then start rolling it back to the top of the bed-—this last part is the tricky bit and confuses me, but it comes out all right in the end. The duvet cover is on the outside, and I slowly button the buttons on the opening, working from right to left, calmly, quietly. I am reminded of the tea ceremony Bill and I  attended in China: every movement calm and measured.

At last I grasp the bottom corners of the duvet and gently fluff it into the air, white against the peach walls of my bedroom. It settles quietly on the bed and lies still. My bed is made.

Road Trip

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A few days ago I returned from a road trip that covered over three thousand miles, from my home to northern Minnesota and back. My thirteen year-old granddaughter Emma was with me.

 It was a trip that Bill and I had taken many times over the years, and that I had driven one-way a few times when our children were in their teens. Bill was always the principal driver; I was the relief pitcher, who took the wheel during the long boring stretches through western Indiana. Once in a while I drove more challenging sections, but Bill always did the tough parts, like getting through and around cities.

I thought about that as Emma and I tried to make our way through Indianapolis, where I think the motto must be “You Can’t Get There from Here.” But we did it, after heading up the wrong interstate and having to reverse ourselves. I tried to keep each day’s drive to eight hours of driving time, maximum, having learned my lesson from last summer when I drove ten hours one day.

new car

On the return trip, we took a two day break, something that Bill and I never did. We dipped south and spent two days at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, patting the soft faces of many mares and geldings. In a way, the trip symbolized the strong independent person I have become. I can drive every mile, even the toughest ones.

Easter Song

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April 20, 2014

When we moved into the townhouse
 We exulted in our garden
 The earth called out to us
 And we replied

We planted dwarf fruit trees in one corner
 And called it our orchard
 And in the center we planted a crabapple
 Whose purple blooms filled our spring

And later at our house on the hill
 Barren from years of neglect
 We brought home in the trunk of our car
 Cherry, plum, and apple trees,
 Maple, magnolia, willow oak,
 Pear and crabapple

We took turns wielding the spade,
 Tamping down the earth, watering,
 And then we waited

Thirty-seven years later
 The fruit trees have withered and died
 But the crabapple by the well
 Stretches out its dark arms with purple blossoms

And the pear tree exults above the little house

And the maple
 And the willow oaks
 Unfold their tender leaves
 Lift up their arms to the sky
 Singing Hallelujah

And in the chorus
 I hear your voice

Hallelujah!

 

 

 

 

Technology: Trials and Triumphs

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I grew up with manual typewriters and mimeograph machines. I remember staying up late during my college years, typing my English composition essays, only to have to start over with a new page if I made a mistake, so I blessthe personal computer and my ability to write and make changes and corrections quickly and easily. With my flatbed scanner I can scan and save old photographs, color slides, and documents, and then send them by e-mail around the world. A year ago my children gave me an iPad, and this winter I bought an iPhone—two items I considered gadgets but now am finding indispensable.  In the small package of my iPad, I have books, movies and television shows, a compass, a calculator, a scanner, a camera, a file of photographs, e-mail, a GPS, weather reports, and much more. And when everything works, life is grand. It’s a brave new world indeed.

 When everything works….ah, there’s the rub. About a week ago my beautiful 14-month old iPad Air started malfunctioning. It went to sleep, and I could not turn it back on. I searched on the Internet for solutions and posted questions on my Facebook page. I tried rebooting, and sometimes that did the trick for a minute or even two, but then the iPad would turn itself off again, as though the Genie inside refused to wake up and work.  Finally I made an appointment with a Genius at the Bar in the local Apple store. (Instead of serving drinks at the Bar, they serve solutions.) The e-mail confirming the appointment warned me to back up my iPad to the iCloud, and I tried to do this via iTunes but got an error message part way through. 

The next day just before my appointment I made a last-minute attempt to wake up the iPad, and it roused just long enough for me to back it up to the iCloud.  A small triumph! But the Genius (a guy who looked about 18 years old) could not fix the iPad. The Genie inside was not asleep, but dead. I must have looked ready to cry, because the Genius said he was sorry, that they could not fix iPads the way they could iPhones and Apple computers. And my iPad was out of warranty. Only solution:  a new iPad at a reduced price, with all my old applications and files (music, photographs, documents, etc.) restored to it. Not exactly the ending I was hoping for, but better than it might have been.

To build a fire

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January 25, 2014

I remember years ago reading the classic short story by Jack London entitled “To Build a Fire.”  It was the story of a man hiking in the Yukon in 50 degrees below zero, needing that essential element fire to survive. Tonight as I struggle to get a fire going in the wood burning fireplace insert, I feel something of that man’s frustration but not his desperation. Mostly I am irritated that the fires I have been building the past week are very slow to catch and require many trips to the fireplace to poke logs, adjust the air flow, and sometimes start all over from the beginning.

Build is the operative word. I try to build a base of several sheets of crumpled newspapers, a few pieces of fat wood from LLBean, and kindling that I have gathered from outside. On top I place a fire starter or two. I frame the base with two short logs on each side and two longer logs across the top. I have learned that after lighting the fire I need to keep one of the glass doors slightly open for the first five minutes, and not to choke back the air intake lever too soon. This is a new skill I am learning, or reviving from my Girl Scout camping days at Ft. Knox. Bill was the one who built the fires here. It was a guy thing. I just sat back and admired.

I think part of the problem right now may be slightly damp wood. Before the snow fell on Tuesday I filled up the wood rack by the fireplace with dry wood, but for the past few days the logs that I have been lugging inside were at the top of the snow covered pile by the kitchen door. I knocked the snow off but the logs still were damp. I guess I need to buy a tarp. A year ago that stack by the back door was five feet long and five feet high, split and expertly stacked by my friend Alan. I burnt most of those logs last winter, and now the stack is almost gone, meaning I will need to push the plastic lawn cart out to the horse barn where I have two full racks of aged split logs. After multiple trips I will have a new log pile outside the kitchen door. Wouldn’t it be loverly if there were manor house servants here to take care of these jobs?

If damp wood is the problem, how did anyone in the wilderness survive? And I know that the man in London’s story did not have fire starters or fat wood from LLBean or an infinite number of matches, nor the oil furnace that is the principal source of my heat. If you have forgotten what happened to the man in the Yukon, here is the link to the full story: http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html

But I the meantime the fire in my fireplace is sputtering and needs attention, and I must return to one of the most basic tasks of humans through the ages:

Building a fire.

Stagecoaches and Roller Coasters

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January 23, 2014

Almost everyone has heard of the stages of loss and grief: denial and isolation; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance. This model was introduced by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying and was meant to explain what terminally ill patients experienced as they faced their own impending deaths. Later the model was expanded to include other losses, including the loss of a spouse.  These stages were not intended to be linear, as though we are riding in a stagecoach, stopping at inns labeled Denial, Anger, etc., but that is the way many people think of them. Another way to look at grief is the roller coaster image: we are on a rollercoaster that drops into abysses of sorrow, but gradually over time the drops are not as severe and there are more spaces between. 

I know for me the first year after Bill died really was The Year of Magical Thinking, as Joan Didion titled her book about her husband’s death and the year that followed.  I read that book the second month after Bill died, and found myself saying aloud, “Exactly! That is exactly how it is!” From the outside I think I appeared strong and calm and highly functioning, but on the inside I wailed.  And at night when I was alone I wailed aloud. All I wanted was for Bill to come back. A friend who had been widowed two years earlier said to me sadly, “We think if we do everything right, they will come back.” Widows are advised not to make any major decisions in the first year, and that is good advice. In fact, make as few decisions as possible. I had a memorial garden created for Bill on one side of my driveway, with native plants to attract butterflies and birds. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but in reality it cost much more than I had budgeted and is very difficult for me to maintain.

 The second year is almost harder than the first, because by now we realize that the one we love is not coming back. It is going to be like this forever. At about the two and a half year mark I began to wonder if I had lost not only Bill but my essential self, the woman who was happy and optimistic, who made silly jokes. I felt as though I was wrapped in a gray mist. I knew I could not get Bill back, but what about me? Fortunately my church for the first time offered a grief support group that met for eight sessions. It was for anyone who had suffered a loss, so there was a mix of people, some very recently bereaved. I realized that I was further along the path of sorrow than I had thought, and I could reach out and help others. Before the third anniversary of Bill’s death I could feel myself whole again….as whole as one can be who has lost her beloved life partner.

 Denial, depression, acceptance…and a tumultuous ride on the rollercoaster of grief.

“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.” Joan Didion

“Time Spent with Cats is Never Wasted”

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December 28th, 2013

Yesterday my daughter had to euthanize her beloved cat Roo who had been born of a feral mother in my daughter’s back yard. She rescued the little black kitten and he lived a full and wonderful life in her home with the other resident cats, occasionally catching the reckless mouse. Roo was a beautiful sleek black cat, very suspicious of strangers but loving with his family. He lived for fourteen years before the tumors of oral cancer invaded.  I know the pain of losing a beloved cat, whether to natural death or to the saving grace of the veterinarian’s drugs, and I grieve with my daughter for the loss of her beautiful and loving cat.

So what do we learn from cats, besides the certainty of heartbreak and loss when these small creatures that we love are destined to live much shorter lives?

We learn how to relax and how not to hurry, how to stretch out and luxuriate in the sun, how to be utterly at peace with the world.

We learn how to walk in beauty, every step a lesson in grace.

We learn how to launch ourselves without hesitation into the world in one mighty jump, and how to curl up so that our backs create a circle that echoes the globe.

We learn how to focus, until the molecules of our bodies form an arrow of concentration on one small sparrow.

We learn that the pat of a velvet paw, all claws sheathed on our wrist, and the tiny lick of a raspy tongue on the inside of our elbow can signify a salute from one small nation to another larger one.

And we learn how to give our love and grieve and give our love yet again throughout the longer days of our lives.

Time spent with cats is never wasted.

 

Changes

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Today I gave a holiday party for my memoir writers’ group. We meet at my church the first and third Friday of each month, and have been doing this for over ten years. For the past four or five years, on the third Friday of December, we have held a holiday party after our meeting, sharing food and enjoying talking to one another in our church meeting room. Last year I had an inspiration and suggested that we adjourn from the church to my house, about five minutes away, for our holiday party. My little house was decorated for Christmas, there was music and candle light, and all thirteen seemed to enjoy the setting. So this year, I invited the group to my home for the party again.

 The thing is… if Bill had been alive, I doubt I would have invited them. This house was our home, and inviting a large group of people late in the afternoon close to what Bill considered dinner time (5:00 pm) would have been infringing on his space. Perhaps an extrovert would have been just fine with a late afternoon party for twelve strangers, but Bill was not an extrovert, although he was a very generous and warm host. It would have needed the kind of delicate negotiating act that any spouse in a marriage of many years would recognize.

 But now this is my house, my home. I can invite anyone here, any time that I choose. But oh how I wish that were not the case, that I could turn back the clock and have Bill here to say to, “What do you think about inviting my memoir writing group here for our annual holiday party next Friday? I think there are some guys you would enjoy talking to.”

 Now as I extinguish the candles and clean up the dishes, I think about loss and change, and I wonder how other widows view the bitter sweetness of new freedoms.

 

CAR TALK

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CAR TALK

                        I have never been fascinated by cars and how they work. I just want the car to run. And I really would like to go back to the days when you pulled into a filling station, and a happy attendant ran out, put gas in the car, cleaned the windshield, and checked under the hood if you asked. And put air in the tires if needed. Remember those days?

Putting air in the tires is the job I dislike the most. You have to almost stand on your head to do the job, and the tire pressure gauge is hard for me to read. And the one parking spot by the air pump at the local gas station is usually taken. So when the little symbol on the dashboard popped up yesterday, I groaned. Of course first I had to dig out the car manual for the list of all the little symbols that light up, but I was pretty sure this symbol meant low tire pressure. And it did.

Rather than drive down to the gas station, I dug out the air compressor and plugged it into the charger. When it was charged, I lugged it out to the car and dutifully checked the pressure of all the tires with the tire pressure gauge, squinting at each reading, and added air from the compressor. The dial on the compressor was a mystery to me, so I had to keep checking the pressure with the gauge. None of the tires seemed particularly low. I turned on the engine. The little symbol on the dashboard glowed. I said a bad word.

So today I decided I would have to throw myself on the mercy of the local gas station mechanics and ask them to check the tires. I hated to do it. I knew I would feel very stupid, and my banner of independence would droop badly. To my surprise, the parking spot by the air pump was empty so I grabbed it. Maybe I should just try adding more air, I thought to myself. The left rear tire was a little low, the other three were fine; I added some air, coiled up the air hose, and got back in the car. I turned on the engine. The little symbol on the dashboard was gone. I drove home, humming a happy tune.

I think it will be easier next time, but I still hate standing on my head.