The Day Will Come

The Day Will Come

I knew—I knew the day would come

That you would leave me here alone

I knew—but I didn’t think

About the pain, the deep hurt

I would feel every day

At every turn

You left me with memories—good ones

And I realized at the time we lived

Together we made good loving

Good memories, good for us

Good for the grands

Even good for those who knew us

The waitresses come and hug my neck

The woman at McDs smiles twice—she knows

Even Mother remembers and talks of you

And Dad asks if all the machinery works well

Not that he could fix it—but he asks in your place

For you—he misses you, too

The house is quiet, too quiet—no squeaks

No footsteps down the hall

I only sit in your chair once in a while

But the cat and the dog still need

To be touched, reassured

They still need to be loved—like me

The day will come—I know it

My tears won’t happen as often

Or as unexpectedly—but the memories

I don’t want them to stop—ever

I still love you—always will

"Old-Fashioned" or Just Old?

Blogger has decided to change the way we get into the new posts, and I have a considerable amount of difficulty remembering from one time to the next how to start a new post without the 'old' interface. Eventually I will either have to learn or have to change where I blog. But I am probably the only 'old fart' to have this difficulty. It seems that every person I see of any age is running around with an i-phone or some new technological wonder in his or her hands. My new phone does have a camera, and I can manage to send pictures to the children's phones. That is at least an improvement. The phone has a slide out keyboard, so I can also text. Glory be!

It is almost--almost nearly, that is, funny that the 6 and 8-year-old grands know more about technology than their grandmother. I sent a picture of our parents to my brother the other day where he lives in Arkansas. His older neighbor gets a big kick out of the little gizmos and phones, so he showed Sterling how to get the pictures that I sent. Sterling is a bright guy who is very versatile in just about every area of life, but computers are just not his cup of ---well, not instant coffee, for sure! His grandchildren would be happy to show him how to use his phone--if he could stand having them 'teach' him about the features.

If one of our grandparents or great-grands were to suddenly come to life in this world, not only would the area we live in appear totally different, but the technology would be just as strange as the landscape. Over 50 years ago, this area had some rivers and trees and a few main roads. Now we have roads, fly-over bridges, expressways, and frontage roads that would boggle the mind of our older generation. And then there are the 'planted' trees and shrubs in all the medians. Flowers were a nice touch in some of the yards of the wealthier folks along Silk Stocking Row, but not in the middle of FOUR lanes of traffic! Roads like Southwest Parkway with three separate lanes going each way would be just about scary for the older generation. Of course, when I drive in the DFW area, it scares me today and I am accustomed to the traffic and new roads. So maybe it isn't just the roads that are scary. The speeds alone would make a normal person a bit nervous, but on the highway where folks run 80 and 85, it truly is frightening!

Once upon a time we thought the local K-Mart was a BIG store. Now we have a super Walmart with everything from bird seed to oil changes. One of our grands made the comment that a person could buy anything at Walmart except a real live chicken or a bathtub. Give them time....They already sell live fish. But truly things are changing as quickly as our needs have changed. However, I wonder if we really 'need' all of these things sometimes. Our daughter walked down a sale aisle with me one day and there were some little plastic handled sponges on a rack. We both looked at them and then laughed. The purpose of the little sponge was to remove the lint from the dryer vent screen. How do WE do it? We lick a finger and run it over the lint and ball it up before tossing it. The little plastic sponge was priced at 50 cents. Jenn giggled and said she now knew she was using a 50 cent finger swipe each time she removed lint from the dryer screen. Some technology is just not worth the trouble it would take to use it. And a person does not have to be old to understand that concept.

New NORMAL?

A friend of mine who has been through some grief and mourning in her life told me that I was on a journey to find my "new normal" right now. But she did not tell me that the pain would stop any time soon or that I would stop bursting out in wild weeping at the drop of a hairbrush. The grief counseling classes I have attended so far have reassured me that I am not totally crazy, but I am still shaking with some kind of fear that I will make the wrong decisions--and I never seem to be sure that I am even making decisions until I have already done something. Now, that may not seem very clear, but let me present an example.

Monday I took our Dickerson grandson to Bowie, TX to meet his mother so that he could begin his music lessons the next morning. Then I returned to Henrietta and visited my parents for about 30 minutes at the nursing home. That was not too difficult. Then I headed on over to our doctor's office to ask him to help me with the muscle spasms and pain that just about makes me miserable right now. Even though I am not sure it is a pulled muscle that seems to be causing the pain from my head down to my hips and slightly below, something has to give! This kind of pain won't quit until it is either deadened with pills or until something makes me go to sleep. So, now I am dependent on something to kill the pain. Is that a decision? Even though I have seen the chiropractor and she told me that my muscles are tied in knots, I somehow feel as if it is my fault--that I am to blame for the pain! Go figure.

And then there is the king-sized problem of buying a new mattress, box spring, and frame. It will be expensive. Even though I have the money, it was never our habit to just go buy something without a thorough consideration and lots of shopping around. So, tomorrow before the youngest son gets here on Saturday, I will do the 'shopping around' part so that will already be done. I can compare prices and find out which stores will deliver and carry off the old mattress--for free or otherwise. When Fang and I bought the one we have now, it was on sale and not very expensive. We should have known better when the delivery guys told us to turn the mattress regularly or it would develop 'valleys' in it. Oh well. Live and learn.

But the question remains in the back of my mind that it might not really be necessary to change out the mattress just because my back is killing me. What if it is "just" stress? A new mattress might help, I suppose, but should I do that just because I am currently hurting so badly? See, decisions--even when prompted by well-meaning children--are not easily made at this point.

If a woman who has been through this process of grief and mourning finds herself crying again after four or five years, how can I expect to go shopping without crying about things after less than a month after Fang's death? So far I have managed to go to Walmart without crying the last few times, but the first time I went alone...well, it is a good thing no one I knew saw me and stopped to chat. I probably would have blubbered all over the person.

Next Thursday would have been our 44th wedding anniversary. I guess the new mattress will just have to be our anniversary gift to me. Now if I can just sleep on it without crying through the mattress protector....

ALMOST FOUR WEEKS

On the 18th of May (2012) I became a widow to go along with the other titles I have had over this lifetime. This was definitely not one I sought or especially appreciate, but it is so true that it is better to have loved and lost someone as kind as Lewis was, than to never to have known true love. While I attend grief counseling classes and try to spend as much time as possible thinking about positive things and staying busy with the kids or grands, each day brings reminders that he simply is not here in quite the same way. I hear him in my head telling me 'That's the way to do it' or something of that nature. I make my decisions based on how we lived together for all these years. After nearly 44 years, my mind is part and parcel with the way he thought and did things. I don't regret that in the least.


In 2010 I wrote a book called Destinations and had it published at SlightlyCreaky.com, and now it is an e-book on Amazon available as a Kindle book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0089E41MW  I know Fang would have wondered why I waited this long, but I had to re-read and edit it before I was satisfied. Also, my brother finally was here and read the manuscript and thought it was as good as any he had read. SO, I finally sent it in. One of these days soon I will see about getting it published in print. I personally prefer a printed book, but I am learning to enjoy the Kindle our daughter and her family gave me for either Mother's Day or my birthday. That entire month is a bit of a blur. We have several May birthdays. Jennifer had her birthday on the 17th of May and her daddy managed to wait until 12:30 to actually die on that night so it was May 18. He probably planned it that way, knowing him. He had us give ourselves a birthday party while he was still able to watch us and celebrate with us. Then, after Jennifer had gone home and was still feeling terribly weepy after his death, he came to her bedside in a dream and talked to her. She knew after that 'dream' that everything was going to be ok.





I suspect that my next book may be about grief--not mine, necessarily, but the mechanism and how grief and mourning are so very different. I had never in my entire life realized how totally draining grief could be--even before someone actually dies. When my brother and I had to put our parents in a care facility (read nursing home), we both were grieving the loss of our parents as we had known them. It has been nearly two years now, and we still MISS our parents even though they are still alive and in the same place as they were when we left them there. Parts of our life are just supposed to always be there for us--whether or not the people in it live in memory or in fact. Some of us who are older look back--not with longing for those days when we were young enough to jump fences, but for the attitudes that allowed us to easily love the times and the people we knew then. Oh, it would be wonderful if I still had the toned muscles and the bravado to take a horse over a fence, but now I would just love to have the courage to be able to face each day that comes my way without feeling as if I am all alone. Oh, others are here and around. But the love of my life no longer tells me how much I mean to him each morning and every night. Maybe in another four weeks, or four months, or four years...No, I will always miss him. Time is not going to change that. And maybe that is a good thing. Imagine how much God must love us to allow us to learn how to enjoy life with another person so closely that the person's absence makes life feel incomplete! After all, we are incomplete without God's love!

Communicating or Just Sayin'

Lately my dad has called our phone on an average of three or four times a day. He has a hearing aid and might be able to hear some of the words if I care to shout them. The phone we have in his room at the nursing home has the amplification turned up to the utmost. It's quite possible that the nurses down at the central station can hear me when I try to tell Dad something. However, Dad always asks Mom if she heard what I said, and then he promptly tells me again that he can't hear a word I am saying so I will just have to tell Mom. This type of so-called conversation has prompted me to turn on the answering machine and the 'do not disturb' feature on our phone. It is impossible to communicate over a telephone when one party cannot hear--or won't listen.

Now Fang finally decided to get a hearing aid for both ears when he kept having to wonder what the grandchildren were saying to him. Mind you, he could manage to ignore whatever I was saying. In forty-three years of marriage, he has probably heard whatever it was once or twice already. But it has been nice to know lately that he can hear me when he has his "ears" on. Being ignored is one thing, but being told that I haven't said anything to him all day is something else again.

Over the years we have come up with a fairly good way of handling decisions around our house. I talk about things and make plans; then Fang decides what HE wants to do and does it. It may be a little one-sided on the decisions, but at least one of us is usually satisfied. This might not sound like a good form of communication, but it has worked wonders for our marriage. If a mistake is made by the decision maker (guess who), the other party can smile and say (or think), "I told you so." As I said, at least one party of the first part gets to be satisfied.

Now communication is supposed to be a two-way situation. At least that is what most folks take for granted. And perhaps it is just as true for my parents as it is for Fang and me. One of us talks away while being ignored--in both situations. Tonight my dad left a message on the answering machine telling us that they are ready to go home. It was so easy to erase the message. Now if it were as easy to get it across to Dad that he IS at home where he currently resides, then maybe we could just talk about the wonderful fall weather and the recent rain. Somehow, ignoring his message happens to be much easier than ignoring the fact that he wants to go home. Children--at least Dad's children--were reared to try to please their parents and do whatever they asked of us. Not being able to do what they want of us is just as hard on us as it is on the parents not to get what they think they want.

It may be that in the future our children will have to tell us to just be still and stay in the car, chair, bed, nursing home, or wherever we need to be. It is NOT easy being the child who has to tell a parent what to do. When children have to 'parent' the parents, it is awkward at the very least and emotionally trying at the best. It would be wonderful to be able to just do for them what they have always done for us without all the complications of personality and stubbornness. And maybe that is possible for some children and parents. Maybe God will bless our children so that Fang and I can be less of a problem and more like old friends who live in someone else's house. But since one of us likes to talk and the other likes to make the decisions, who knows what kind of problems we will make for others. Maybe the kids won't put a phone in our room--just sayin'.

Followers and Readers

Every once in a while I log into this account to read what Robin and Jim have posted on their blogs. Both of them come up with some pretty neat comments and ideas. I still wonder if Jim's Russian tomatoes produced anything in the heat we had this summer. And I am ready for Robin to post a good list of things that we CAN buy that are made in America. One likelihood is just about as good as the other. The heat probably cooked Annie's purple tomatoes, and we would have to weave our own cloth to sew our own clothes if we want some made strictly in America--and that's IF we could find thread still made in America. [My Singer sewing machine was made in England, by the way.]

Not to sound too pessimistic here, I realize that some of the BEST things in life are still made right here in the US of A. Fang believes that most good ideas start here at home in this country--no matter the racial or ethnic background of the idealistic person who comes up with the ideas. The CLIMATE of this country--and no, I am not talking about the temperature or the rainfall--is very conducive to innovation and invention. Oh, now there are those who say that one state is more innovative than others. My brother Sterling says that the toothbrush was invented in Arkansas. If it had been invented in Texas, it would have been the TEETH brush! Shaking my head and smiling at the thought. I have heard that in the typical doctor's waiting room in Arkansas one can find enough teeth for an entire set. That is about enough said to get me in trouble for today.

No place on earth is perfect for every situation or person. My friend Bill Turley and his wife Gloria live in her home country of Colombia. Where they live in Somondoca must be pretty ideal as to climate. Bill does say that Gloria gets a little tired of cleaning up after their big bull mastiff because it rains nearly every night and the big dog tracks in the mud. But they also have wonderful water--free right out of the mountain--and hummingbirds and exotic flowers all around their home. If a person wanted to retire to an area where each dollar counted for the very most, it seems that the Emerald Mountain of Somondoca would be the perfect place. On the other hand, Bill is always happy to talk to me--in ENGLISH. Most of the townspeople he sees speak only Spanish. And while he has no trouble making himself understood, I can just imagine how much trouble I could get into with my two-word Spanish vocabulary.

Our children have mentioned a couple of times that they wished we lived closer to the Metroplex--that is the Ft. Worth to Mansfield [north-south] area. We don't like the traffic or the general attitudes of that area, and we are quite happy to live off in the boonies here in Wichita Falls where we generally know most of the neighbors. Fang and I like to read about or see shows about other areas--particularly those about Scotland and places in Europe like the Normandy area where Fang's ancestors originated. It seems to me that my ancestors thought that the air might be a bit more inviting in America, and for all intents and purposes, it has been the best breathing air we could ask for in our lifetimes. At any rate, we won't be leading any waves of descendants back to Europe to establish roots. We will probably content ourselves with reading about the land and the people while sitting in our own living room. But it is always nice to dream of other places and other folks and how they live THEIR lives. And truly, Texas is big enough for just about any dream.

Death Night

Death Night

I heard my horse scream and could tell she was running full speed around her pen. It took some help from a friend who was visiting for us to be able to catch her and hold her. It was when we finally had her by the head that we realized that the screams were coming from a fire-engulfed two-story house just over from ours on the cross street. We knew the man and his parents well. Death had never frightened me, but that night dying became a terrifying reality.

Only years after the fact did I think about what she might have told her dad about how she came to be pregnant. All I knew for sure was that no marriage took place and the baby boy had been adopted by her aunt. Gossip in small towns is similar to what happens when a rancher keeps the breeding bull one season too many—everyone is related to someone on one side or the other of the herd. So many people knew something but hardly everything, but what was unknown was great fuel for the gossip fire.

I met her for the first time that summer. She came down to stay with her grandmother and brought her horse with her. We rode some together and then she stopped riding up to our place, so when I saw her up the street talking to a neighbor and one of the kids who was a bit younger than me, I asked her when she would be available to go riding again.

“Oh, I guess I won’t be riding for several months now. I am going to have B’s baby.”

I asked her if she were kidding, and she told me what she planned to name the baby and that she would soon be Mrs. Looking over at the man who was supposed to be the other half of this conversation, I saw a man who wanted to run or duck or something. He just backed against the wall where he was standing and slowly shook his head. I reminded her that he already had a son by that name; he was, in fact, the father of two sons already. Why would he want another baby?

The younger man who was leaning against the rail of the carport laughed and said, “Well, not every baby is planned or every marriage either. I will be married soon, and the baby is already on the way.”

Shock was still within my abilities, and I asked that young man who was the mother and intended and learned that incubation was taking place merely another block away in the other direction. Yes, the heifers were running wild that year and the fences were down in every pasture in the county.

It takes time for babies to come into the world, and it takes time for families to accept the idea that their precious children can very quickly become a source of either pride or embarrassment. In those years, a child born out of wedlock was definitely an embarrassment; and sometimes a quick or quiet marriage was plenty of reason for gossip—whether or not a child precipitated the event.

She left town soon after, or at least her horse was not in the corral by her grandmother’s place. Of course, her dad could have taken the horse back to her hometown. I never knew for sure and didn’t ask her grandmother. Sometimes it is just better not to ask questions if the answers might embarrass old friends. And her grandmother was, in fact, an old friend of mine. Years later, with tears in her eyes, the old woman told me that her son could not come to see her there in our town. That was the day I realized that the two men who suddenly left town after the fire were friends of her son. And it was later still that I wondered what the young woman had told her dad.

The adoptive mother is gone now; the grandmother long in her grave, but a certain sound in the wind, or a glance up the street when I go back for a visit are reminders of that night. The younger man died on a curve when his brakes gave way. It could have been just a simple accident, but his child never knew him as a father. And the girl left town with her family—probably before the gossips could talk about her. But the other death—that one was premeditated and horrific. And that man/child would know by now that it was murder. Whether his adoptive mother told him the ‘who and why’ can only be guessed. And whether his birth mother told her dad that she was raped or seduced doesn’t really matter now. It is not only men who are oversexed and under-principled.