On Being One...

I am no longer a couple.  No longer are there two of us, nor can I say, "both of us" or "ours".  I am now one.  I cannot classify myself as single, no that’s not me.  Single was me at age 38 after my divorce, then I was able to say I was a single person.  It wasn’t easy but it somehow seemed easier than saying “I’m divorced”.  Now is it easier for me to say, “I’m by myself” or “I’m alone” than call myself a widow?  I suppose I knew, but never realized there was such pain in being one.

Going to the grocery store is now a whole new experience.  Shopping for one is challenging.  Dated things expire more quickly than one person can use them.  Dairy products, orange juice, there’s always too much bread, why can’t I buy four pieces of bread like I can buy four pieces of fruit?   

Then there’s the background music that plays continually in HEB (San Antonio’s only grocery store--Really?!?!)  Songs like “Hello Again” by Neil Diamond or “You are the Sunshine of My Life” by Stevie Wonder.  Don’t they know their store is filled with widows and widowers walking through their aisles listening to every word of those beautiful songs?  Our hearts ache and rip just a little more with each note sung as we tighten the grip on our shopping carts and the food items blur through the tears slowly building in our eyes as we are driven to continue to walk up and down those long isles.

Dinner time...oh the dreaded sundown.  What does one cook for a person?  I have yet to solve this dilemma.  Do I cook?  Nah, too much trouble for one.  Do I eat take-out food, well sometimes, but that gets rather old?  Do I bring home extra food left over from lunch that I had with friends that day?  That’s the best so far.  Then there are those nights I simply open the frig and graze...for now this seems better than sitting at a table and having a meal by myself.

I have been so fortunate to have had many dinner invitations (this is NOT a plea for invitations, really!) with many of our (see I still can’t just call you my) couple friends.  Here’s the scenario, the three of us walk into a restaurant.  The host seats us at a tabletop for four, there are no three toppers.  The waiter comes up and usually looks at me and asks, “Will there be another joining us tonight?”  Knew it was coming.  The poor couple looks aghast and as I have learned to do, I place an entirely too large and uncomfortable smile on my face and quickly say, “No, just three thank you” with my voice squeaking two octaves higher than normal.  The waiter swiftly clears the fourth place setting and as Steve used to say, I know that waiter’s thinking, “Whoa, there’s a story here.”

That waiter would be right, there is a story here.  Steve always made me laugh when making that statement.  He would say it when a situation was a little unusual, or different from the norm, or when someone would say something quirky that caused you to wonder what in the world lead him to say such a thing?   It was then Steve’s eyes would grow large and round, his eyebrows would go up and with that dry, flat tone he would look straight at me and out would come…”Whoa, there’s a story here!”   

My story, is that I am one, alone not by choice but for reasons that will someday be made clear to me.  I can’t say I’m single because I’m not.  I still say "our home, our friends, our electric bill."  Once said I find myself backtracking, flustered, embarrassed saying, “I mean my home, my friends, my bills.”  There is no more ours, or is there?  

I find I still sleep on my side of our bed.  Steve’s side remains made, pillows in place and often I fill his side with whatever I’m reading or doing before going to sleep.  Turning out the lights right before going to sleep is the hardest part of the day for me.   It is here that I turn my thoughts to Steve.  Telling him I had wished for him that day.  That I wanted him with me when I played with our grandchildren.  It is in the dark when I tell him he was the best and I was so fortunate to have had him in my life.

Stop!  Rewind, strike through that last sentence.  You see, I decided soon after Steve’s death that I will never use the past tense when I speak of Steve.  I will always say I love Steve.  I will always feel he is the best husband in the world and that I am so blessed that I can love him all my life. I will always tell our children and grandchildren how proud he is of them and how much he loves them.  I want to always speak of Steve in the present, because of my faith Steve is simply on a different journey for now.  One day I know I will be with him again and it will be as if we had never parted.

So for now I am one.  I know there will be a time when I will grow more comfortable with that term.  I will learn to say my and mine instead of us and ours.  I am finding what it’s like to be one and while I have my moments...I also have my memories, a heart full of them.  Memories that will enable me to never be alone, memories that cause me to smile, to laugh out loud and to know that my life is full.  Memories that will and are enabling me to walk into the future knowing that being one is okay.  Knowing that in time I will find my way, my purpose in being one and I am waiting patiently for God to show me where that path will lead.

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.” 

― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

My Grandmother's Hands

Just a few evenings ago I was reading to Harper.  As she sat in my lap, my hands laid on top of the oversized book I read to her.  My concentration was in the words of the book, trying to allow my voice to emote the feelings of the characters and what they were saying and feeling.

It was a few minutes into reading that I felt Harper’s little fingers outlining the tops of my hands.  No longer did she seem as interested in what I was reading as she was in my hands...her grandmother’s hands.  Harper’s small fingers traced my thin skin, the veins that I suddenly noticed were beginning to show, the wrinkles and age spots that appeared overnight.  She was gentle, curious, memorizing these hands that she loved so much, yet whose hands were so different from her own, from her younger mother’s.  She said nothing, I kept reading but in my mind I remember that moment so poignantly.

I loved my grandmother, Minnie Momma, dearly.  If she were still alive today she would be around 125 years old, but even to my young mind’s eye Minnie Momma was always old.  She was a very poor woman and had nor needed little.  She grew up in the country in East Texas. Her mother died when she was 8 years old, her husband died at 42 of tuberculosis as did her eldest daughter about 10 years later.  Minnie had a tough life, she took care of the family farm and her younger daughters until moving to Houston.  Minnie never drove a car, never wore polish, never wore a bra...simply a full slip under her dresses.  She was a quiet woman, soft spoken and kind, but she had her faith and she had her opinions and she would speak her mind when the time was right.

As a small child I would spend a week at a time with Minnie Momma in her small unassuming home.  Oh how I loved it there.  She had no air conditioning instead open windows framed in crisp white crisscross organza curtains.  Big box fans blew the warm humid Houston air through her little home and living right by railroad tracks the sounds of slow moving trains and their long whistles continues to be soothe my soul.

I loved sitting in my grandmother’s lap snuggled beside her in her oversized rocker.  She would sing hymns, gently talk and read to me.  I strongly remember holding her hands in mine as I sat so placidly still.  

I remember her hands...her thin fragile skin, almost translucent.  I remember thinking how different, how special they were from anyone else’s hands.  The tips of her fingers, soft and pillowy, when I pressed their tips they would stay indented for just a moment too long.  She wore two small diamond rings on her wedding finger, they were loose and she would always twirl them unconsciously between her small delicate thumb and ring finger.  Why were my grandmother’s hands such an important part of my memory?  Why when Harper and I had our little exchange several days ago did it touch such a cord within me?  I began thinking of the significance of hands all that they can convey, all that they are capable of doing.  

For several years I took American Sign Language classes, thinking I might like to be an interpreter for the deaf.  I loved those classes.  I love that there is a beautiful, rich, complete, silent language that totally relies on ones hands for communication.  I’m still enthralled watching interpreters speak this wonderful language to the deaf, it is like watching a graceful ballerina’s feet describe music in an entirely different manner.

Hands convey love, they express directions, commands, enhance emotions. Hands are our tools, think of a world without hands...building, art, cooking, writing, hugging.  How important to a small child would a life be without guiding hands, loving hands, mentoring, teaching hands?  Hands are the part of the body that displays the greatest sense of touch they are how we reach out and seize and embrace life and all that is most precious to us.

Sadly there are also hands that cause harm.  Abusive hands, angry hitting, slapping, shoving hands.  Those are hands that cause such damage to our small fragile children, oh how we must guard our young ones, all of them, from hands of hate and anger.

When I think back and picture myself as that small little girl, sitting in my beloved grandmother’s lap, her voice has fallen silent in my mind and at times her face has become dim over the years but it’s her hands that are so vivid to me. I can see and feel Minnie Momma smoothing out my dress, running her soft gentle fingers through my hair, ever so gently caressing my shoulders, back and hands with hers.  It was here I felt peace, love, comfort.  It was her hands that gave me confidence that she would always do everything possible to protect and encourage me.  I will never forget my grandmother’s hands, they taught me much.  

I am a far cry from the humble unassuming woman that Minnie Momma was, but I pray that in my own way my grand children may find the same legacy she left me.  I pray that as Harper looked at my aging grandmother’s hands she felt all the love that I have in my heart for her.  

I know that as she grows older she will no longer have the desire she does now to crawl up in my lap and allow me to hold her, run my fingers through her curls, pass my hand up and down her little back nor play with my hands as she does now.  But perhaps someday in the far distant future, as she is holding one of her little grandchildren in her own lap she too will find the legacy that lies in the amazing warm and tender touch of a grandmother’s hands.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.” Henri Nouwen

Psalm 90:17 “May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;

    establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.”

I gave this entry to Brooke last week and she published it in Alamo City Mom Blog.  I asked her if I could share it here as well, so some of you may have already read this entry.
A little side note, I'm so proud of Brooke's new endeavor in starting this city wide blog for not only mom's but it's a great source for grand mommies as well .  A resource of what all San Antonio has to offer and a look at what a mom's life is like--uncensored.  Just thought I'd throw in a little advertising for the girl!!

My Heart has Room for More...

I think it was several weeks after Steve’s death that I began questioning my timing.  I was finding the house so empty, I was feeling the need for companionship of my own and felt a little sketchy about going on line, but knew people had and had good results in the past.

So I took a deep breath and I just dove in.  I signed up, filled out the 12 page questionnaire (no exaggeration) and hit enter.  It took several days for Tonya (the staff woman with the agency) to give me a call back.  After 30 more minutes of in depth questions she said she felt a match for me might be rather difficult considering my situation but, she would do her best.

You know it’s meant to be when you receive a call from Tonya less than 20 minutes later saying, “I found a match for you, I think it’s perfect!  Go on line and look at the picture I just sent.”  Not knowing Tonya, I still remained a little skeptical.  I pulled up the picture and oh, my heart melted...it was the huge brown eyes and long sandy blonde hair that got me.  

A little side note here, the first time I really met Steve, he was taking clothes out of his dryer.  Bos and I walked into his backdoor and our eyes met and as corny as it sounds, my heart literally skipped a beat.  I remember thinking, oh whoa what is this feeling?!?  Well, this recent photo encounter was not quite on the same level as seeing Steve but it made me realize my first impressions are spot on.

I fell in love right then looking at that sweet picture.  I called Tonya back and said, “I want her!”  That’s right her, oh didn‘t I mention I was looking for a rescue dog?  A Wheaton Terrier in particular. You know like the dog in “Annie"--Sandy.  I must admit I’m feeling a little like Little Orphan Annie right now and the thought of wrapping my arms around a “Sandy-like dog” just makes me want to start singing, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun!”   But, I had very specific expectations:  she had to be great with small children, good with other dogs, housebroken...no not a puppy, no I didn’t want siblings, no behavioral issues, just an older (like 4-5 year old) dog.  

Well, it turns out Lucy Bell a.k.a. Bella (Lucy comes from another long story about Steve that just wouldn’t translate here, but it’s worth naming a dog after) is 8 years old and will turn 9 on November 7^th...we will celebrate our November birthdays together--perfect.  I want this precious dog.  She came from a family that once divorced, the mom and child moved to a home without a yard and the dad had no time for Lucy Bell, thus deciding to give her up to S’Wheat Rescues.

The process of adopting a rescue dog is worse than adopting a large child.  I filled out the aforementioned online form on findapet.com.  Then Tonya called, from there the match was made. Tonya called 2 of my references, my vet, I had a home visit and paid $300 for an almost 9 year old dog that I had to drive to Dallas to pick up and sign a contract saying I will “love, honor and obey this dog until the day I die” or something to that effect.

Want this dog?  It is in my DNA.  Our family always has had dogs.  My earliest recollection was of our Welch Terrier, Tippy.  I would dress that poor sweet dog up in toddler clothes and make her walk around on her hind legs...she was my best friend (kind of pitiful really).  Then there was Tosha.  My eldest sister, Barbara was teaching school in Houston and brought home this fluffy little black mix puppy giving it to us, saying we needed to replace Tippy.  My mother said, she had just gone through a terrible time putting Tippy down and wanted NO MORE DOGS.   My father, (I have his DNA) couldn’t stand that Tosha was locked up all day in an apartment while my sister taught and apprehended the dog and she became ours.  Tosha would ride on the bow of our boat while my father would fish the day away.  

The Family with Tippy

Tippy

My Dad & Tosha at the Lake

We loved our dogs.  The day came when my mother had to put Tosha down and she was adamant...NO MORE DOGS.  So my father began collecting, rather fostering lake animals.  There was an old lab he named “Old Yeller” (never knew their real names).  My father would stand on the shore of our small lake and call to him and he would swim across to my dad and spend his days with him.  Then there was Blue (so black he was Blue), then there were a variety of kitties, and even some ducks that my father named and would call in the mornings so they could be fed.  

As an adult I have always had a dog or dogs, usually schnauzers.  When Steve and I finally put our last schnauzer down Steve said, “You can have me or a dog…”  We were traveling a great deal of the time then so I reluctantly agreed and Steve had that doggie door sealed before I could blink.

I went to Dallas on Sunday.  Spent the night with Bos and Robert.  Bos and I went to a vet in Highland Park to pick up my new ward.  We were issued back to an examining room to visit with the vet.  Dr. Smoctor entered asking if I had had a chance to go over “Bella’s”medical history...uh oh…”No, I wasn’t aware of any complications.”  Bos is starting to laugh as only Bos can.  

Dr. Smoctor ever so gently begins to tell me that Bella a.k.a. Lucy Bell has chronic allergies, seeping ear infections, that she is on steroids and anti-inflammatory meds and I will need to see my vet to check on what type of diet she will be needing.  Oh and she has numerous tumors that I might want to have biopsied for cancer.  I can’t even look at Bos at this point and she’s a huge dog-lover.  “Oh and the only other thing is that Bella has some real anxiety issues.”  End of Dr. Smoctor’s report.  

My throat becomes thick, I think in my heart “don’t ask, don’t ask” but I know in my head I have grandchildren that are too precious to me as I blurt out, “What exactly do anxiety issues look like in a dog?”  Well, in Bella’s case, because she was neglected she would dig her way out of penned confined places and run off...okay, no biting, I can do this, I can love this animal into being the animal she is meant to be!  As Dr. S. is walking out to get Bella she says in an extremely too calm voice, “Bella is a very fine dog...she just has special needs” she shuts the door.

I look at Bos and we both burst out laughing...this is what I really need right now, a dog with special needs?  We both know Steve is looking down at me and shaking his head saying, “Janet, Janet, Janet…”

In bounds Lucy Bell!  She prances up to me like she’s known me all her life.  She nuzzles into my face and I’m a goner, lumps, bumps and all.  Everyone says that 60 is the new 40, well in dog years I think 9 will certainly be the new 5.  I am Annie and Lucy Bell is Sandy and now we can sing, “When I’m stuck a day that’s gray and lonely, I just stick out my chin and grin and say, Oh the sun’ll come out tomorrow…!”

Lucy Bell and I made the drive home smooth as silk.  We went to see our vet today and she thinks her allergies were due to fleas!  She is on heartworm meds, flea/tick meds, fish oil and glucosamine chondroitin, which by the way so am I (the last 2).

We are home, we are happy and we will grow old together and love one another and be faithful to one another...and she better quit peeing on my carpet!  

Oh I’m glad my heart still has room for more. 

 

Lifelong Friends...

“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.” 

― William Shakespeare

It’s been 50 years since I was in the 3^rd grade.  We celebrated our 40^th high school reunion last October.  I believe God began planting seeds of friendship over all these years for just a time like this.

Four of us, Donna, Ann and Louann and I just returned from a wonderful trip to St. Petersburg Florida.  Three of my lifelong friends from elementary school through high school planned this trip as a gift to me, a get away from the reality of my life these last few months...maybe even years.

We haven’t really kept in constant touch over the years.  Each of us has lived in different cities.  We married, had careers, children.  We would see one another every ten years when a reunion would roll around.  We would get together and amazingly, as good friends always are able to do, we would pick up right where we left off.  We could laugh about old times, share heart aches, the pains that life had brought us and always comment on how blessed we were to have each other as friends for life.

Last summer and fall as our 40^th Reunion began taking shape we all began communication again.  We would call, email, text about how excited we were to see one another, we caught up with each other’s lives and made plans to meet Friday night before the big event on Saturday.

These conversations however were different from our past years had been.  My three wonderful friends came to understand more of Steve’s cancer and the rocky road we had been traveling the last 4 years.  It was then that I noticed that deep, abiding friendship from years past began to surface.  I started to see ripples that formed, as when a rock is tossed in a lake start slowly at first and then begin to widen and grow as they embraced their love and concern for Steve and me.  Telephone calls became more frequent.  Care and support grew strong and deep and my heart opened to these three amazing life long friends.

The Reunion came and went.  Fortunately I was able to attend as Steve was in a place where I could leave him for short intervals.  Oh we had fun reminiscing!  Then too quickly it was time to leave, to go back to our homes, our lives, our husbands.  I felt an emptiness as I drove home that day, a feeling that these friends who had been a part of my past, my childhood, my easy going teenage years were now to be lost for another ten years.

But as Shakespeare said these “friends understood where I was” and they did not abandon me.  They called and wrote often after our October Reunion, God’s seeds were sprouting.  The love and support was there throughout some of the toughest times I hope I will ever have to go through and they remained constant.

The evening before Steve’s Memorial Service we had friends and family gather at our home.  I will never forget looking up and seeing the familiar faces of Donna and Ann standing there with tears and visible pain written all over their faces.  

There is something unexplainable about the death of someone you love with all your heart.  When that separation occurs you feel like the entire world should stop because your world has stopped.  Time stands still and all that matters, all your focus is on your incredible loss, that void, that hurt.  So when others who care and love you draw near to you, when they take the time to come and stand along side you and want to share your pain and are willing to allow their world to stand as still as yours has--well, that is love, that is friendship at its finest.  This is a gift that will never leave your heart.

Louann was heartsick that she was unable to attend.   Her calls and outpouring of love were present throughout.  I believe it was because of her inability to come to Steve’s service that the idea of the trip began to take root.

It was a matter of days or maybe a week before this wonderful get away way was put into motion.  Donna arranged all the plans, Louann provided 1^st class plane tickets...all I had to do was show up...what a gift!

Donna and I drove into Houston early to meet up with the others.  We had some time to kill and decided to drive through our old neighborhood.  We drove by our childhood homes, our elementary school, junior high school.  We stopped and walked through our neighborhood swimming pool.  We talked and talked about the memories that surfaced as we drove.

An odd melancholy settled over me, I felt like I was rewinding a movie of my life in slow motion.  I felt an ache for my parents, who are now both deceased, remembering them as I did when I was a little girl.  I felt a gnawing of tenderness from the innocence of my youth and days that were so simple and uncomplicated.  I’m now 58 years old.  I have been through a divorce.  I’m a widow.  I have two grown children and grandchildren.  Where did the time go?  How did those endless days of my youth seem as if they had happened to someone so unlike the person watching this movie of my life unfold?

Finishing our tour of the past, we drove to meet Louann and Ann.  I shook the cloak of melancholia off and brought myself back to the present.  I found myself smiling because I realized it was all those years in between my childhood and my what? now middle-age that had molded and shaped me into the person I am today.  Have I had some rough times in life, of course, haven’t we all?  But the blessings, oh the blessings...my children, grandchildren, 18 of the most wonderful years of life with Steve and my friends.  My friends, both those of my past and of my present “have accepted who I have become and still are allowing me to grow.”  I never want to go back and relive any age, but instead, find joy in whatever my future holds. 

Our trip to St. Pete’s was tremendous!  We stayed at a beautiful refurbished hotel, The Renaissance Vinoy.  We ate at fun and exotic restaurants.  We spent a morning under a cabana by the pool, there was never a moment of silence as we had way too many years to tackle.  We sat for hours in big comfy rockers on the wide veranda overlooking the bay, drinking wine, laughing and crying.  This is where we again found that deeper level of kinship that women are so good at achieving, when friendships are so very remarkable.

 

I will admit, it was difficult to say good-bye.  This was the first time I had taken a trip and come home to an empty house.  Steve was no longer here to welcome me, to ask me all his funny questions about how much trouble we’d gotten ourselves into.  I found the house, my home echoed with emptiness.  This is something that will take time to overcome.  This is my new normal.  This is my life now, but it’s a great life and one worth living every moment to the fullest.

Thank you Donna,  Ann and Lou for blessing my life with your friendships. 

As A.A. Milne wrote “We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet.  Even longer,' Pooh answered.”