daddyotho

[daddyotho]

end of the road

[daddyotho]

37 degrees, a light frost on the windshield. The Moon watches over me with interest as I do my pre-trip. It always amuses me when she gives me enough light to see then whispers, "Good morning Driver."

Good morning, Darlin'."

[daddyotho]

There are times when this still reaches up and grabs me by the throat. It still hurts. As the other post says though, I used to scream her name to everybody that would listen. I was very afraid that people would forget her, and that was one of my biggest fears. Time has softened the pain and I realize that those who truly loved her will never forget her.

Things have changed a bit over the past 7 years. Memories, thoughts, pain. It's all a bit different now. It is morphed from something tangible and loud and crass, into the fondest of memories, and a softer dull ache that still reminds me from time to time.

There's no way I could have come this far by myself. I had an incredible amount of help from a lot of super people. Much wiser than myself, they picked me up off the floor, hugged me, smacked me around a bit when I needed it, and gave me a little push to get things done. Each of them adding a bit of what made them so special in our lives.

Thank you each and every one.

[daddyotho]

   You know...the stuff nobody knows.....

    So I'm tired, so very tired. Tired of being strong for everybody. Tired of making all the decisions and carrying the weight of my wife's very life in my hands.  I don't mind that part.  I'd do it for her again over and over. I mean mentally, physically exhausted. More people keep coming.  They keep her busy.  I've just told the kids and her parents of our decisions. I gotta bail. I go to the galley under the pretext of getting coffee. I really can't keep it together in front of everybody.

   There is no coffee. I make the coffee. I stand there crying while I wait for it to brew. Just hanging out. Such a loss, I'm numb.  They will later tell me that shock sets in. Literal shock. Like a car wreck or being traumatized. I guess so. 

   Again, we are back on the 8th floor...cancer ward...home again.  I said long before that it's somewhat comforting (stupid idea?) because everybody is going through the same thing....different stages, different degrees, but the same end result for most.  There is a lady comes in in a robe looking for coffee or pudding cups or whatever. She looks at me and we wait for the coffee to finish.  I cover up, but apparently not well enough. Memory is foggy at this point. She says what's up or something and I tell her they're sending my wife to hospice this afternoon and that I'm not ready.  She takes me to her room (832 - some things are vivid). We talk, she says she's going to hospice on Friday.  They've given her a couple of weeks.  She says her husband doesn't know yet, he's at work. But he's not prepared, doesn't know how to "take care of himself."  She's kinda on the other spectrum, being the patient and still having to take care of things. I don't remember much else, or how long I stayed there.  We wished each other well, I suppose and I put on my armor again and went back to Tina's room.  They'll come later for her and I got things to take care of.  She always says somebody else somewhere always got it worse.  Hard to see sometimes.

[daddyotho]

I married Paulette. Here's to another 80 years.

[daddyotho]

NOTE FOUND

November 14, 2015

My dearest husband...

This last week has been so very shocking, confusing and stressful for us both. So many tears and so much anger over WHY?? Why is this happening to us??!

Truth is...none of us have ALL the answers we will want. Ever...I suppose, so we just try to stay sane and take one day at a time.

I'm going to do my very best to fight on and stay around to "nag" you as much as I possibly can! I wouldn't be a good wife in many other women's minds if I didn't. LOL

All I do know is I love you so very very much baby. One day at a time...keep on keeping on.

Wife

[daddyotho]

I think I'm starting to fall for Paulette.

[daddyotho]

I waited two days and then got tested. After 3 days sitting in the hospital room with her I still tested negative.

Have come to a conclusion. I don't think that it's this extinction level event they told us it was. And it is more contagious than they let us to believe. People in my circle are starting to become infected.

[daddyotho]

I'm sitting by my mother at her deathbed (literally).  She had another stroke yesterday morning and on top of the damage the seven previous strokes they don't give her but a day or so. Watching her labored breathing. Everyone is gone and I sit with her by myself. I've done this twice before.  Several questions come to mind. You know how I get...

The nurse woke me up at 5 to tell me that her covid test had come back positive.  Just would have been nice to have known yesterday before we cycled everybody through.  We had hugged her and talk to her. I wore a mask, but admittedly it was ill fitting and not following strict procedures.  Had I known I maybe would have paid more attention.  Questions: was the exposure too short? Is the chair I'm sitting in far enough outside of the radius? She's having breathing problems, is she not expelling the full six feet? Should we put a mask on her? Did I just get lucky? If I have it I guess nothing I can do now. If I don't have it I can continue to minimize exposure. The consensus among the nurses seems to be wait two weeks and if you have any symptoms get tested.

So back to bedside... Breathing is labored ..there doesn't seem to be any pain. They assure me it's just a matter of time but who knows how long she could go on like this. She's already beat the 24 hours. So while I sit here I have plenty of time to think. Everybody said oh she's up with Pop and Tina now. Having a great time. Tell me her and take care of her.

 Okay so shift back to now. Does that mean they're sitting here watching me? Waiting for me to screw something up?  Eyes on me as I make more more decisions. They sit around a table afterwards during the meet up having coffee and discussing passing judgement on me? Still waiting for somebody to speak up and throw a shoe at me; let me know that I'm doing okay. I see the arrival/departure board at the airport.  They look up at it  from time to time to see it shifting.  Then they show up to greet her? I also see one of those old twilight zone shows.  Room set, with open top and they sit in the audience looking down on me and observing.

They said it won't be long now.  This one appears to be easier than the others. She's been unconscious the whole time. Just a matter of monitor her breathing. Until it slows and then stops.  All I have to do is wait? Charlie's on his way.

[daddyotho]

What’s next? What do I do now?. She’s certainly left a hole in my soul. Her fingerprints are all over mostly the last third of my life. We loved. But it wasn't a just we were married and together love. It was much deeper than that. She is embedded in my heart. She was intertwined into my soul. I know I keep saying it, but she was the left side of my soul. It hurt to lose her. I did a year. A year of Darkness. A year without her. The year were my deepest wish was just to crawl in there with her. To be with her forever. A year of hiding under the bed in the dark. The year of booze and pills and self-pity. The year of feeling like my whole world the crumbled and collapsed. A year of not wanting to go on. But, as she said, I got sponsibility.

So on April 5th, I buried her again. Also buried part of me. The dark part. The part that she wouldn't​ have liked. We're not doing that anymore. We're not crawling back into the s***. I'm still grieving, I'm not moving on or getting over her. But as I said, she wasn't about hiding or stewing in the funk. I'm getting up, I'm opening the door and turning on the lights. She's still in my heart and soul. But I am stepping out into the light. The grief is no longer crippling. When it does rear its head, I am still able to function. My love for her has not diminished, to the contrary all of my memories grow fonder.

I've got a Tumblr account but I haven't been in in a bit. I found 24 drafts in there of things that I wanted to write about. Things like the loneliness, the darkness, the pain. I would rehash the last year, but that will only serve to provide you some measure of understanding. Most of you already know either from talking to me or having been there yourself. I'm not going to perpetuate the grief and the Darkness. I do know that I can't keep going on the way I was. I'm not going to be drug back down there. rather I'm going to embrace the light. That is what she wanted. She still Walks With Me.

I don't know what's next.I'm going to start exploring the fourth third of my life. New adventures await. Maybe I want to help people. I Feel good again. I'm going to be okay. Last one out, turn off the lights and lock the door, will you? I'll be around.

[daddyotho]

Veuveperdue:

I haven't felt a need to write in a while, but this kind of plucked the strings.

I was going to post this in reply to your Old Widow New Widow, but agree it's that something maybe everyone could see.  Maybe somebody will finally write the handbook.

First let me say that you all express yourselves so well. Eloquent and flowing, as opposed to my ramblings which just spew out and splat up on the page. Just a dumb old trucker. But I got some s*** too.  Observational grief? I went through our conversations  and reread a lot of my old posts and many of yours.  Let's step back and see if I've learned anything.  

I've just hit four years without Tina. Holidays were big, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New year's not to mention birthdays were always a spectacular. So I'm about to go through it again as we entered year number four in March.

You are right, it has gotten softer, much softer. But it has evolved too. First year I got drunk and cried every night. You know that friend with the dog? I also had the divorced friends say pretty much the same thing. I know exactly how you feel. Now 4 years later, I get by. No longer is it vines wrapping around my heart and ripping it out through my chest. But it still hurts... a lot.  There are days where I get twinges and the tears well up. But it is admittedly softer. More of a fondness  than a ripping and tearing. She is still in my heart. I don't share so much anymore. At first I would shout it out to anyone that would listen.  I was so terrified that everybody was going to forget about her.  Now I mostly keep her to myself. A lot of the recent stuff I put in here is from Facebook posts that I'd forgotten.  I watched an interview a month or so ago with Olivia Newton-John and she talked about the death of her husband.  She said people expect you to move on or get over it.  But we can't do that.  The best we can do is to move forward.

Tina was always the left side of my soul.  When she got sick and left (I still have trouble saying died), there certainly was a big hole.  A little bit ago I met Paulette.  She makes it softer. She fills a big chunk of that hole.  She makes it so it doesn't hurt so much. I'm not moving on. When Paulette's not there, Tina is. I wish I could draw. In my mind there are two lush green fields with a dirt road dividing them. I'm standing in the middle of the road between the fields. Walking constantly back and forth between them.  Hours spent in both of them, separately, each getting their own time. I only hope that I'm not taking away from the other.  Sometimes I have the feeling that I'm having an affair, not cheating so much as taking away from the other or not giving enough equally. This goes both ways. Lessening the memory of one while not spending enough attention with the other.

As far as how to talk to new widows, for me it just takes time. No advice did any good. Nobody made it better. I had to get there on my own. I don't know if everyone is different, but I think, for me, I just had to work some s*** out. And I'm still not there. You got to take what works for you and let go of the rest.

I have a standard disclaimer when somebody new asks me how I do it. I really don't do so well.  I just tell them, "I've got nothing that's going to make you feel better, but this is what happened to me..."

[daddyotho]

So you think it's over. Your mind is still reeling, you're still in shock. I mean literal shock. Your lips are numb. Everything is surreal and dreamlike. Exhausted. She's made this fairly easy. She gave me a chunk of money and a book of instructions, one of which was this is what I want, but don't overdo it. I haven't worked in a couple of months and this was the last of our savings. Darlin', it doesn't work that way. In addition to the shock there still a shit-ton of guilt over having unplugged her. The four people that I had to go out into the hallway and confess this to are now sitting around the table with the planner. The planner is very compassionate, very patient and very understanding. No high-pressure sales. I really tried to give everybody a say and considered all of their opinions.

She leads us through the checklist. We pick out an urn, select the right Flowers, I let the kids pick out jewelry which will contain her ashes. Nice little things for them. She wants a viewing so that people may say goodbye. In that case even though she's going to be cremated, she has to be embalmed. For the viewing, do we want to put her in a cardboard box? Or we can rent a casket from them for 2800. As a side note, this cannot be used again and since she's going to be cremated, by law, they will have it crushed and sent to the landfill. Another WTF aside, I got a call about a week later from her asking if I would like to donate it to the drama Department at the local College. Visions of her casket setting in a frat house full of ice and beer doesn't really convey the dignity I had sought for her. I said crush it.

Of course we want a nice obituary. Who wouldn't? 500 bucks. This is the same paper we've been getting for 50 years. Last time I placed an ad to sell a motorcycl,e it cost me $7. Must be paid today. No problem a little more than I had thought, but it was awfully nice. And she does tell me that they have a payment plan. Even better.

She has a night gown picked out which is in the shopping cart and I realize I forgot to order. That's okay I can bring it in. I finish tbe order when I get home and hope it arriives in time.

Death certificate. $20 each. Everybody is going to need one. We order 6 with the understanding that we can get more later. As it turns out nobody really needed one. They just needed to see it, and they make their own copies. The only one that needed one was her credit union in Virginia for her car loan and they mailed the original back when they were done.

She informs me that the cemetery plot has to be paid for before the funeral. 1800 bucks + 400 to put her in. My stomach is dropping a little. But there's no way I'm going to let these guys down again. I just killed their mom and their daughter. The feeling is like being at the grocery store and having your card declined or having to put stuff back on the Shelf.

She runs the total. $9,000. I tell her that she didn't give me that much. I'll have to take the payment plan. Somewhere along the line she is taking off the compassionate funeral planner face and put on the school teacher face. She tells me that that is fine, we can do that, and that by the way, we require a third down. Quick truckers math I realize I can't do it. I send the kids out of the room. No way I can tell them they can't have their jewelry, or that I can't afford to do this. I tell her I only have about half of that, if I have to pay for the cemetery today and I already paid for the obituary. We sit there in stunned silence. I am in tears again, on the verge of letting her down again. What happens now? The look on their faces is, Well we're waiting. What the hell am I supposed to do? Put her in the garage until I can come up with the money? I don't know what I'd havedone if her dad hadn't spoken up and offered to cover the rest and that I could pay him back whenever I got it.

Long way to go for a punchline. Backstory laid again.

Tina has one last zinger left in her. I often bemoan the fact that she doesn't give me signs or visits. However, this may have been the first. I left everyone at the funeral home and went out to the cemetery to pay them their stuff so if she's not sitting in a parking lot somewhere. I'm still tearful and the people there are terrific. They have all the Paperwork ready and I gave them my credit card. Declined. They ran it several more times and in each case it was refused. I did the math. With what was left from the I should have had enough with a couple of hundred left over. I didn't understand it. I was a total wreck by this time. They said the only thing I could do was call the bank and see what was up. It didn't make much sense to me but I did. Over the course of the years, she handled​ everything financially and I just trusted her to give me what I needed. Apparently somewhere along the way, she placed at $2,500 per day limit on my card, With the obituary, and the deposit at the funeral home I had already exceeded it. The bank raised the limit temporarily so that I could get her into the ground. I'm sure she had a good laugh over that. God I love her sense of humor although her timing sometimes left a bit to be desired.

[daddyotho]

Paulette started moving in today. More on this later.

[daddyotho]

We moved her to hospice this afternoon. Multitudes of family and friends visiting all day. No definite timeframe but they say hours or days. Lots of comforting and ensuring pain free medicines. Thank you all for your support and prayers. In her world, she is a rock star and loved by thousands. Your outpouring of support and love has at least made our pain a bit more bearable. We thank you.

Tina G's husband

[daddyotho]

A bunch of old girl friends from middle and high school stopped by to see her. They made a regular girl's party of it. She perked up greatly while they were there and had a very good time.

[daddyotho]

I've taken a couple of days to try and put some perspective on this. Not looking for sympathy or absolution. Just my way of getting it out, of dealing with the anguish and pain.

Nothing is quite as simple or as elegant as we’d like to remember it. Tomorrow, we are sent to hospice. As much as I’d thought so, we did NOT dance in there thinking they were full of shit. I’m looking at pictures of then and it’s totally different than I remember. She’s tired, worn out and done with fighting. She’s gained about 40 pounds through fluids and her kidneys can’t get rid of it. She’s grown about 30 years older. A bit confused at times. She’s not so coherent now. I’m not so sure she totally knows what’s going on. There are no more notes to me, journal entries or Face Book memories.

The DNR was discussed again and we feared we’d made a mistake. She does not want to be hooked up and kept alive with machines for the next 10 years or whatever. But we do want them to make some effort if she should fall down or something. We question it and are assured they are not just going to let her lie on the floor if she were to sustain an injury. Things sometimes get a bit crazy in your head at this time. Still not knowing what to expect. The doctor comes in and says since I’m the power of attorney, I need to decide how much effort they are going to be expected to put in. He gave us about an hour. The room cleared and we talked. She doesn’t understand some things and I have another hardest thing to explain to her. She wants to know why they’re going to send her to hospice tomorrow. That’s for people that are dying. I have to tell her 3 or 4 times that they say that they cannot do anything else for her. Anybody else have to explain over and over to her that she’s going to die and she’s not getting it? She’s crying…I’m crying. She hugs me and says, “I don’t want to die. I’m not ready for this. I’ve still got things to do.” I just keep brushing her hair back and hugging her and telling it’ll be ok. I’m so helpless by this point. I feel like the bad guy. I feel like I’m lying to her. I am so very ashamed that I haven’t protected and taken care of her. Made it all ok. This is my wife. We were supposed to grow old together. She had plans for our 75th anniversary.

Ashamed, helpless, useless. After I get her calmed a bit and let the doctor know what we decided, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do (again) is to walk out into the hallway and tell our children and her mom and dad that I had made the decision to not plug her into life prolonging machines – essentially to let her die. Oh they’ll make her comfortable and pain free, but nonetheless, she’s going to die. I could not keep it together by now. They’ll come for her sometime tomorrow to take her to hospice. I am saddened. This is my wife, my world, my everything.

[daddyotho]

This is from Steven's note to me at the one year point. I'm going to include it so it's not lost.

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of my mother’s death. These are some of the thoughts that have been running through my head this past year. I tried to make them flow together as well as I could, but I quickly gave up. This is an extremely long post, and I'm sure my thoughts jumped around quite a bit, probably to the point where some sections don't make sense, but if you want / can, bear with me and read it all.

This past year has been a roller coaster of ups and downs. There are so many things that I wish I could tell my mom, but have to just accept that she already knows. While it's comforting to know that she knows what's been going on in my life, it doesn't make me feel better. I just want to call her, hear her voice, and let her know what's been going on up at UNI. I can’t remember if I told her, but I applied for a job working at Skechers last summer as a manager. I got the job and have loved nearly every moment working there. This summer, I’ve applied for, and have an interview lined up, for a job developing website for UNI. I know she’d be so proud of me, everyone tells me this, but I just want to tell her and hear her voice again.

I spent some time reading through my dad’s posts today. He mentioned that she had aged another 30 years in just a few days, and looking at the pictures that were taken, I have to agree. She aged quite a bit in just a few days, to the point that I mistook one of the pictures to be my Great Grandma Emily. I remember her looking herself, but tired. No... She looks like she's been fighting a losing battle for the past 5 months.

No one will ever know how much I loved my mom. She was my best friend. I could call her at 2 AM any day of the week, and after being asked if I got my homework done, I could talk to her for hours, and she didn't mind. She had restless leg syndrome, which kept her awake most nights. Then she got diagnosed with cancer, and due to a vast number of things happening to her body, she had an even harder time getting to sleep. Whether it be her chemo port bugging her, her RLS acting up again, her body itching because of a reaction she was having due to the chemo, figuring out how she was going to make this easier on her kids, or so much more. I often would call her 5 times a day just to talk, and she didn't mind.

I often called her when I was walking to my first class of the day. I always said the same greeting "Goooooood morning beautiful!" I don't know what sparked me saying this, but after I went to college I always greeted her this way. There was a brief period when I stopped, coincidentally it was right before she got diagnosed with cancer. Keep in mind, she wasn't telling me that she had cancer at this point. She wanted me to hear it from her first, in person. So I still didn't know yet. Anyways, a few days after I stopped greeting her in the usual way and a few days after she got diagnosed, my dad texted me and said her face brightens up drastically whenever I greet her with “Goooooood morning beautiful!". So I immediately called her and said the usual. I didn't know at the time, but my dad was doing everything he could to see her face brighten up and to see her happy again. When she was in hospice, she wasn’t herself. She was almost always out of it, and didn’t know exactly what was going on. There were some things that would bring her back. One of those things was me telling her “Goooooood morning beautiful!” Her face lit up and she said good morning to me as well.

When we moved her into hospice, the amazing nurses there gave us a tour of the building. It’s a beautiful place, and the staff were so nice and helpful. In the main living room area there was an electric piano. I asked the staff if we could move my mom out to the living room area so I could play piano for her. They said absolutely. A little while later, Emily, my Aunt, and I went home so we could grab some things because we were going to be spending every minute there. By the time we got back, the staff had moved the piano from the living room area to my mom’s room. I played the piano the day before she died and she loved it. Like I said, she was out of it for the most part, but she came back when I started to play the piano. It sounded terrible, as I was crying nearly the entire time I was playing, but she absolutely loved it.

On that topic... she hid the fact that she had cancer from nearly everyone for about 1.5 - 2 weeks because she didn't want me to find out from anyone else but her, and she wanted to tell me in person. She was very careful with what she told me, so as not to set my mind ablaze with thoughts that something might seriously be wrong with her. After she got admitted to the hospital, she accidentally told me the doctors found some spots in her lunges. I told her to let me know what they were as soon as the doctors told her. I knew in the back of my head that it was cancer, but I refused to accept it. A couple days later she got released from the hospital and was sent home with oxygen. She told me this, and I asked her what the spots were in her lunges. She said they were fungi from an infection she got, and that's what the oxygen was for. The oxygen was going to clear up the infection in her lunges. Now, I'm not bragging or anything, but I'm a fairly intelligent person. I have a basic understanding of how medicine, viruses, bacteria, and some medical procedures work. So I, now at least, know how ludicrous that is. However, my mom never lied to me (and it has been proven time and time again) so I didn't question it. Why should I? She said that's what the doctors told her, so I took it at face value and accepted it. That first weekend after she got admitted to the hospital, she asked me if I was coming home. I said no, because I had Rite of Passage for my fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon. I couldn't miss rite of passage, it's a huge no-no. But, because it's my mom, I said I wasn't a big deal if I missed it (I figured I could explain to our Chaplain later, hoping our Standards Board and Executive Board would understand). I said I could come down, she said no! It wasn't a big deal, just was curious if I was coming down. So I stayed up at UNI that weekend and went through with rite of passage for SigEp. It was a great weekend, and I don't regret staying up at UNI that weekend. So the next weekend came, and I'm fairly sure it was the weekend before spring break. I went down to Des Moines and got to see my mom and family again. We talked about how she was feeling, wondering if the oxygen was helping at all in clearing up the infection (Still wasn't really thinking how ludicrous that was). Little did I know, Emily and her were texting while I was talking to her. Emily kept bugging her about when she was going to tell me. Her plan was to wait until the next day so we could just have a regular night before my entire world came crashing down around me. Mom finally caved in and told me. I kind of chucked and said "You're kidding right". She said "Oh honey... I would never joke about this". I glanced at Emily and she ran out of the room (Later, she said it's because I gave her the look that said "Get out"?? IDK Honestly) After Emily left, that's when it sunk in and I realized the full extent of what was going to happen in the next few years. I cried harder than I ever have before, I screamed and I yelled loud enough to hear it outside of the house. Finally I just collapsed into a ball, laying on my mom while she hugged me.

That's a small portion of what's been going through my head this past year or so. Again, sorry that it is not very well written and thought out.