what is a wife with a dead husband

I read about a man whose son is killed in a car crash. a drunk driver runs a red light and slams into the boy and he's dead at the scene. and now it's 4 years later and the dad can't get over it. here's the problem, he's a dad, but his child is dead. so what does that make him? how can he be a dad without a child? he's like a living dead dad. he identified as a parent, and now that identity is dead.

the day before gordi died he and i had a spat. and we never fought. we were amazingly compatible. but of course we were in a horrible situation. he was at home but very sick and he said his sister was coming over. (and i was fine with that. i love his family, and they have been so good to me. they continue to include me in family events even though gordi's dead. they continue to treat me like family. they invite me for christmas and took me out on my birthday. my family would not have done the same thing. if i had died they would have never thought about gordi again.) then he said his sister wanted to help. she wanted to clean up the kitchen. and i threw a fit. i said, just let her come and sit and talk to you. don't let her clean. what she's saying is that i'm not a good wife. i can't clean, i can't take care of you. i can't heal you. your family thinks i'm a bad wife and has to come and take care of you because i'm no good.

and of course i was a terrible wife. i'm sure you can imagine what a terrible wife i would be. i can't cook. i can't clean. i can't do anything. and in our relationship, gordi cooked and cleaned and took care of the house. i made the bed in the morning (because i was the last one out) i could put my dishes in the dishwasher, but i was not allowed to unload the dishwasher because i didn't know where gordi kept his cooking utensils. i could not fold laundry because i couldn't do it right. (oh, and watching him fold a fitted sheet was a sight to behold. it was like magic.) on garbage night i took the garbage down to the garage and he took the cans out in the morning when he left for work. i was supposed to corral my clutter so the public areas of the house were acceptable for company, but i could have my office as messy as i wanted.

when i said, your sister is saying i'm a bad wife,  he said, my sister just wants to do something. she wants to feel helpful and this makes her feel like she's helping. he said, my family loves you. (and they've proven that). he said, your family hates me. and i tried to deny it, but i couldn't really. and everytime i've told this story, and i have told this story, i've thought that was the point. but the real point is how am i a wife if my husband is dead. i'm a living dead wife. and i never aspired to be a wife. i always thought i would never marry. who would want to marry me? i would so obviously not be a good wife. and i'm not really pretty. and i didn't marry until i was 44, which is statistically rare. and i never really identified as a wife (gordi was a much better wife than i was) i didn't take his name. i was not a good wife. we were only married 3 1/2 years when he died. but it was the only happy time in my whole life. it was the only time i felt connected and complete. it was the only time that felt real and right. and what am i now with him gone?

I had a houseguest coming for Easter so I had my house cleaned, and that whole process upset me more than I thought it would. I probably used to be a hoarder. I would have called myself a packrat, and I’m better now, but still the place had gotten quite cluttered. My husband used to do the cleaning and I’m really not very good at it.  But having the house cleaned was really awful. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how much I love my house. It’s practically in Fontenelle Forest and the whole back is windows to a view of my wooded back yard. But now it just doesn’t feel like mine. It doesn’t feel like home. All the surfaces are cleared, and there’s nothing of me here. I feel erased. I can’t find anything I want or need. Every place feels too bright and too big. All the coziness is gone. All the personality is gone. It feels alien. And I don’t feel like I belong here. I didn’t clean my home office, so I’ve been spending a lot of time here at the computer. It’s the only place that feels like home. When my guest leaves I can ‘cozy’ the place up again, but right now it just all feels so wrong. I guess I didn’t handle Spring cleaning very well. I’ll probably try to keep the dining room clean for when the CultureQuest team meets here. And even before the clean up it wasn’t hoarders bad, but it was comfortable, and now it’s not.

Tattoo two

i got another tattoo. it's not quite as meaningful as my first, but i like it. it's on the inside of my left forearm. it's a quote from vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five. in the book, it's said every time anyone or anything dies. After the bombing of Dresden, nearly everyone was dead. so it goes. on the night Billy is abducted by the space aliens he is holding a flat bottle of champagne. all the bubbles were dead. so it goes. it's what the Tralfamadorians say when they see a corpse. they see in four dimensions and do not understand our limited view of time. when they see someone dead, they acknowledge that this minute isn't his best, but there are many other better moments when he is just fine. we should focus on those. it's also possibly the best translation of "amen." it's synonymous to the phrase "so mote it be." Stuff happens. So it goes.

locks of love

I cut my hair and donated 14 inches of hair to locks of love! I had it in my will that i wanted my hair donated, but i was a little afraid my wishes wouldn't be carried out. and my hair was getting unmanageable, but i was afraid to cut it or shape it for fear that then i couldn't donated to locks of love when i died. plus, i sort of wanted to keep using my hair while i was still here. then i came up with the idea to cut part of it and keep part of it. i usually pull part of my hair into a half-ponytail sort of high up. i think it's technically called a half-up. so i had them cut off that top-layer half-ponytail, and then sort of blend it in. my hair is way too thick anyway. so my hair is still half way down my back, but some poor bald cancer child gets the benefit of my extra hair! it's win-win. i got to donate a lot of hair, but i still have some left too. this pic is after the hair cut.

My dad died last week. He’d been sort of sick for a few months, but only really sick the week before, so it was pretty unexpected. He was 71: his birthday was the day before he died. Father’s day was three days later. He’d had a heart condition and heart problems all his life. He had his first heart attack when he was in his twenties, so I guess that forty-some years or so we got after that was bonus. But it wasn’t his heart that killed him. It was blood cancer and the ensuing anemia and pulmonary distress. But his life is way more interesting than his death. He was a jack of all trades. It seemed he could do anything. He could fix cars, and fix things around the house, he could paint and make picture frames and carve wood. If he wanted something or wanted to do something, he figured out how. He had to drop out of college when he ran out of money, but he made sure I made it through (and then some). Academically, he was my biggest taskmaster and cheerleader. He worked as a private investigator on the side, so he had cool surveillance equipment. He used it to help me cut my first record. And we had the most popular slumber parties around, because when we had a séance, we always got a real ghost. It made it hard, however, for me to sneak out to meet a boy or sneak in after curfew.

My folks welcomed our friends and the neighbor kids and any kid who needed some love. All they wanted from life was to be parents and they were great parents, to us, and to our friends and to my sister’s kids, and to their friends.

He could sell anything, but that also made him a very savvy purchaser. He knew all the sales tricks and demanded the actual best price for anything. And he usually got it.

He was personality plus. He had a huge collections of jokes and would come up with a joke (or two or three) appropriate for any situation. When things seemed too serious at his funeral, I knew the perfect joke from his repertoire, appropriate for the situation: There was a man, a dying man. He was weak, on his death bed, when with nearly his last breath he smelled something wonderful: his wife’s famous chocolate chip cookies. His favorite! He got out of bed with his last bit of energy and crawled to the kitchen, ready for a bite of delicious warm cookie. He gathered all his energy and reached for a cookie, when his wife slapped his hand and said, “They’re for the funeral.”

Bodies

I just went to see the Bodies exhibit downtown and i thought it was fascinating and interesting. i bought the audio tour as well and listened to the adult and children's commentary (i always want to get my money's worth). there are several whole bodies and lots of parts all dissected in someway to show muscles, tendons, internal organs, veins etc. i especially liked the circulatory system. they have a special procedure where they fill the veins with a colored polymer then chemically dissolve the rest of the body around it so all you see is where the blood was. it was fascinating and very pretty. the other sliced up stuff was interesting but not always pretty. but it is intriguing to see how we're all put together and what all it takes to get and stay alive. i suppose it's not for the more squeamish, but it's pretty cool stuff. and it's all very scientific. the parts are labeled. the placards and the audio commentary talk about the anatomy and the physiological connections. it's interesting to see how it all fits, and how it all fits together.

hospital

I was in the hospital recently for a blood clot in my arm. and it was a horrific experience! i was sort of familiar with the hospital experience from when Gordi was sick last year, but this time it was for me! i was appalled at the level of incompetence and neglect. i was at a prominent teaching hospital for 2 days (1 night) with a blood clot in my right arm. every time someone came in the room, i had to keep them from doing something detrimental to my situation. every aide tried to take my blood pressure in the right arm. i kept offering them the left arm. they kept wanting to use the right arm. i reminded them there was a blood clot in the right arm. the response was usually, oh, that would be bad. thanks for telling me. my thought was, this is why i am here. you should know this. after the first time, a sign was placed over the bed saying not to draw blood or take blood pressure on the right arm. no one looked at it. every 6 hours they drew blood. every 6 hours i had to keep the lab tech from taking blood from the right arm. i know the iv was in the left arm (because there was a clot in the right arm) i know there were no more veins in the left arm from which to draw blood -- believe me, i know that. but that doesn't change the fact that the right arm had a blood clot, and so they couldn't draw blood from it. i had to keep a lab tech from drawing blood at the wrong time. i had to stop a doctor from giving me blood pressure medicine. i had to stop a nurse from giving me a wrong iv. i totally had to be my own advocat, and i knew from Gordi's experience about that too. but i worried about people who were incapacitated (and there are people like that in hospitals) and couldn't speak up when someone was trying to do something wrong. but also, lots of people expect that the people in hospitals actually know what they're doing and don't argue with them. what if i had thought, well, the nurse (or aide or tech) is the professional and knows what to do. if i'd let them do what they wanted, i'd be in worse shape right now. i have to go back for blood work like constantly now to check the blood thinners etc., and today at the clinic that works only with people on this blood thinner for clots, the lab tech tried to take blood from the right arm even after i told her there was a clot there. she said, that won't make a difference will it? i made her get the more experienced person, who agreed with me that it would be a very bad idea to draw from the arm with the clot. i knew the hospital experience would be annoying and frustrating ( and they would not let me sleep -- they were in at 11 and midnight and 1:15 and 4:30 and 5:00 and 5:30 and 6:00 and it never stopped after that.) but i had sort of thought that it wouldn't be as dangerous as it could have been. i shouldn't have had to stop EVERYONE from doing things that were directly detrimental to my condition. it worries me.

time does not heal all wounds

people all kept telling me it would get better with time, but i never really believed it. and it's coming up on a year now, and it's not any better at all. the pain is just as harsh as the day it happened. today i was coming home from the movies and drove past my old house (as i do sometimes) and thought of the time gordi came to see me and then got stuck in the snow and it took him an hour to get himself out of the parking place. and then i suddenly start sobbing and i can't breathe and tears are running down my face. for the past 11 months i've been getting up in the morning (or afternoon) and doing what i have to do like go to school but there isn't a minute i don't miss him. there isn't a minute i don't wish we were together. it hasn't gotten any easier. it hasn't gotten any better. i still cry every day. many days i still sob, i'd say 'like my heart would break,' but of course it already has. i know people feel like they have to say something, but all along i felt that saying it would get better was not only insensitive but incorrect, and so far that's still my experience. it doesn't get better. it can't get better. it isn't any better.

river of gold exhibition

the new exhibitions at Joslyn are awesome.
there's more info at www.joslyn.org
the river of gold is gold artifacts from Panamanian pre-Columbian burial sites. the gold stuff is pretty and fascinating. the details is amazing -- they did lost wax casting, and used copper alloys -- and this is all over a thousand years ago. the burial site in question had 23 people buried there -- around an obviously important man. like in Egypt, when someone important died his servants and wives were buried with him to be with him in the next life. I hope Gordi doesn't think i didn't love him enough to go with him like this chieftan's wives did, because i really would have. i wanted to. He told me to wait. i would go with him in a second. i can't wait until we can really be together again.

The other current exhibit at joslyn is Mexican folk art, which is delightful. it reminded me of shopping in the border towns. There are day of the dead figurines, tin-work toys, papier mache, masks, pottery all in bright colors and designs.

There's also an exhibit of religious iconography from New Mexico -- fasinating depictions of saints and angels and the virgin mostly painted on wood. The three shows complement each other well. i was quite impressed. I spent a very lovely afternoon at the museum.

tattoo

I got a tattoo. since gordi's been gone, i've known i wanted his name over my heart. but a tattoo is a permanent commitment. i was sure about the sentiment, but i wanted to be sure about the design too. i knew i wanted the name. i thought about a scorpion, since he was a scorpio. i drew on some stuff with a marker so i could see if i liked it. i tried it with the name facing out and i hated it. i went to an ambigram generator online to see if i could get a design so i could read the name but it would also read upside down so someone looking at it could read the name, but i couldn't find a design i liked. i tried it with the name so i could read it, and liked that best. and it's for my benefit, no one else's. it's not a show-off tattoo. then i put a heart around it so it wasn't just a name, but more of a design, and liked that ok. i had the general design drawn on me with a sharpie for about three weeks before it got it so i could see if i would want to live with the design. i didn't actually go out with the idea of getting the tattoo that day. i went to watch Melissa get her full back tattoo finished, but came home from the place with my own. the guy at hebe gb's was great and drew several different designs and we put them on as stencils first to make sure it was where i wanted and at a good angle etc. you want to be sure with a tattoo before you start with the permanent ink! it didn't hurt that much getting it. i was sort of achy afterward, and it's been pretty tender the next few days since. but i really like it.

Neil Young concert

The Neil young concert was Another great concert. Gordi and i bought tickets last summer to see Neil young -- he was supposed to have been here in November, but the show was postponed until April. by then of course, Gordi was gone. but i had the tickets to the show, so i went and took a friend. The show was great -- sort of long; with two opening acts, it started at 7 and got over around midnight. we got our money's worth. i thought Neil was awesome. he played some of his old stuff and some good new stuff. i like the new song about change. I was sad that Gordi wasn't in the seat next to me, but i felt his presence. We haven't been to a bad concert yet. Neil himself played like two and a half hours. when he was coming back for the encore, i think everyone thought he would play 'Rockin in the free world' -- he hadn't yet and that was one of his big hits. But when he came back i recognized the opening chord immediately. he was doing a Beatles cover. It was "A Day in the Life."
Years ago, before we could even have any inkling that Gordi was sick, he said he wanted "A Day in the Life" played at his funeral. I misheard and thought he said "In my Life" -- since that seems like a good funeral song, but he had heard of a musician having "A day in the life" at a funeral and thought it was cool. so when i had to arrange a funeral, i did what he wanted. The song that started Gordi's memorial service was the Beatles "A day in the life." so when i heard Neil Young playing it for his encore, I was like a sobbing mess. and i figured that Gordi had something to do with it. He was telling me that he was at the concert with me. then i thought i might be making too much out of it, Even though like no one covers that song, no one plays it live -- the Beatles never even played it live. so i went on line and checked out Neil Young's set lists for the tour -- and he hadn't played it at all on the whole tour. He's been singing "Rockin in the free world" or sometimes "all along the watchtower" for his encore. Omaha was the first time he played that song all year. (he played it the next night in Kansas City, but Omaha set the precedence). which made me believe even more that it was Gordi. Since we had so been looking forward to the show, I'm glad he was there with me. and i'm glad he enjoyed the show. It was outstanding.

Lucky

I know most people would not consider me lucky -- since my husband of three years just died after a brief battle with cancer. And i certainly wish we had more time together here. but i do know how lucky i am. i'm so lucky that gordi and i found each other and spent the past almost ten years together. We started dating in July of 1999 and married in September of 2005. i'm so lucky we had that much time together. i'm so lucky he married me and we found this wonderful house and had so many great experiences together. we travelled around the country and had an amazing time where ever we were. i wish we'd gotten to banff and to europe and to machu picchu, but i'm so grateful for every where we did go. we went to vancouver and fargo and chicago and colorado and hannibal. there was a whole world we wanted to get to, but we really enjoyed the parts we saw together. we had the happiest marriage i've ever even heard of. most of the people i know have something or other about their spouse they would like to change. we were in almost perfect synch. there wasn't anything i would change. i don't know for sure he felt the same, but we got along wonderfully. most people don't get that. i'm so lucky i did. and even though he's not physically here, he is still here, around me all the time, and still talking to me. and i know that not everyone gets that, so i'm extra lucky. i'm very lucky i found the love of my life and i honestly mean it. tennyson was right, "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." But of course, our love is not lost. it's still here. and i am so lucky.

cheech and chong

Our first concert for the year was great. Cheech and Chong were wonderful. It was totally an R-rated concert experience. there was adult language, adult situations, and drug references -- because it was Cheech and Chong. they did several of their classic bits from their albums and films. Tommy Chong's wife Shelby was the opening act and did some situational stand-up comedy. In between the skits Tommy also talked about his time in jail on a drug paraphenalia charge and the need to legalize marijuana. There was some good music from "Blind Melon Chitlin" and "Alice Bowie" -- in fact many of their characters made an appearance. There was video enhancement in the background, but the best part was just cheech and chong doing what they do. I did think the sound was too loud, but maybe most of the other old folks there had ruined their hearing at rock concerts in the '70s and needed it that loud. I think the "light up america" tour is a success.

New Year's Eve

We have a tradition on new year's eve -- we go to the market to the mongolian bbq early, then go see the fireworks, which are at 7. i guess omaha is really that provincial that we have the fireworks at 7 instead of midnight like real people -- it's for the families. but anyway, that way we can get home before there are too many crazies out and then just watch tv or something until midnight, if gordi can stay up until midnight. so that's what we did again. and the mongolian bbq was great. and the fireworks were amazing. we were very close and they were all very boomy. the concussions set off all the car alarms in the area -- so we had noisemakers all around, from the fireworks and from all the car alarms. it was cool. then came home and watched the ball drop in times square at 11 (central time) and gordi did fall asleep before midnight but at midnight (central time) i made sure he got a new year's kiss. happy new year.

i've unofficially started Oscar-quest. the nominations do not come out until January 22 so i have to guess what might be nominated. i'm looking at the Golden Globes as possibilities and checking out the buzz. This week i saw Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Milk. and i thought they were all great and Oscar-worthy. Slumdog Millionaire really blew me away. it's about a poor kid from the slums of Mumbai who gets on a game show and knows all the answers. the host thinks he must be cheating, because how could an uneducated kid from the slums know this stuff, but then we see in flashbacks from his life how he knows the stuff. it's fascinating. I had thought Benjamin Button might be hokey, but it wasn't at all. I'd also heard that Kate was great and Brad wasn't all that, but i disagree there too. i thought both acting jobs were wonderful and you really get the sense of the despair at the futility of the situation. and the acting in Milk was great too -- Sean Penn was wonderful in the title role, but Josh Brolin was also amazing as the antagonist, i ended up seeing him as a victim too. Even if these films are not nominated (but they probably will be) i don't regret the time spent at the movies. Last year gordi complained because all the Oscar movies were really depressing, and while all of these have their happy and sadder moments, they are not depressing at all.

bob the bridge

We walked across the Bob bridge today and it was cool. we were singing, "we're on the road to nowhere" while we did it, but we still had fun. it's about a half mile bridge, so parking at lewis and clark landing, walking to the bridge, across the bridge, pausing a minute in Council Bluffs then walking back across the bridge and to the car was about a mile and a half. There were lots of other people on Bob, the bridge to nowhere, along with us. It was really windy, but lots of people were walking, walking with their dogs, riding bikes, skating or skateboarding, pushing people on wheelchairs etc. I can't say for sure it was worth everything it cost, but it seems to be a popular destination for a windy sunday afternoon.

Alice Cooper

My very first concert ever, when i was 13 years old, i went to see Alice Cooper "Welcome to my Nightmare." it set the bar pretty high for future concerts. My second concert, when i was 15, i went to see KISS when they were in full make-up. i've seen tons of concerts since (6 this summer) but i always had a soft spot for Alice, since he was my first. So when i found out he was coming to the casino this summer we bought tickets as soon as they were available. and the show was great! Maybe the best show we've seen this summer (and we saw Ringo and Tom Petty and Neil Diamond). it was outside so they couldn't do quite so much video/lights stuff. but there was action. alice changed costumes at least partially 5 or 6 times (including a bit in a straitjacket). there were 2 'executions' (one followed by a rousing crowd chorus of "i love the dead"). the band was awesome. the lead guitar guy was amazing. Alice's wife and daughters were the backup dancers and they were great. His daughter Calico is the main dancer and choreographer. He sang his big hits ("only Women Bleed," "No More Mr. Nice Guy") some stuff from the new album ("Vengeance is mine") and ended the encore with "Elected." I'd vote for Alice -- he's a troubled man for troubled times!

computer update

ok, i've calmed down a little since my last post. gordi fixed it so my stuff looks way more like it used to. i'm tweaking the preferences to get them the way i like them. there are still a few differences and glitches, but i don't hate the new computer update. and i finally got all my emails out of email limbo and that makes me feel tons better!

computer update

we're updating my computer, and i know it really needs it and it's overdue, but i hate it!! i hate xp. i hate the updated firefox and thunderbird. i hate the updated office. everything looks so weird and ugly. i can't find any of my stuff. every time i want to read an email i have to click like twelve things -- are you sure this isn't junk? if i want to download images i have to add sender to address book -- there's at least 3 more clicks. every time i send an email i have to click whether to send it plain text or html (how outdated is that?) it kept trying to put my new message at the bottom where no one could ever find it. everything used to be so easy; now nothing is easy. i used to love my computer. i loved spending time with my computer. i would spend hours playing on the email, surfing the web. it was like a ballet -- we were in total synch. now everything is icky and awkward. nothing looks right. nothing acts right. i don't have any of my bookmarks. i don't have my address book. i seem to have misplaced the past 4 years of emails. and i really need some of them. i want my old system back. i want my old life back.

concert time

we've been to 4 concerts in less than two weeks. and they were all wonderful. we started out with feist free in the park. and feist was good -- we like that 1234 song fromt the ipod commercials, but i thought the opening acts were at least as good. the first act was a local band called 'the good life' and they were sort of punk-emo and very engaging. then juana molina, an Argentinian folk singer, came on and she had a beautiful voice. we went to her website and got some free downloads, so now we have a free mini-album. www.juanamolina.com
then the next day we headed up toward minneapolis to the ringo starr concert (and i've blogged that trip on my website). the concert was amazing. ringo was wonderful. the all-stars were: edgar winter, billy squier, colin hay (from men at work), hamish stewart (from average white band), gary wright. ringo did some ringo solo stuff and some beatles stuff. all the all-stars did some of their own stuff. everyone played for everyone else. edgar winter did a really kick-ass 'frankenstein.' the concert was two and a half hours solid, and every minute was great, but it would have been great if it was even longer. i would have been happy for some more ringo stuff, but i wouldn't have wanted to miss any of the all-star stuff either. it was all good.
then we had tickets for Tom Petty in Omaha the next week and Steve Winwood opened for him. and Winwood was really great. after the hour opening set Gordi said he thought we got our money's worth from the tickets. but then Tom Petty came on for two hours and it was very great. he did most of his old stuff, and some new stuff (and Steve Winwood's new stuff is very good too. i think we will get his new album). there was a screaming girl sitting behind me, which was the only downside. it was sort of noisy. the show was very energetic. the light show/video show was pretty awesome too.
then i got free tickets to see neil diamond thursday. i had seen neil diamond a few year ago (also on free tickets) so i knew he was a good show. he did not have a stage back, so there were seats right behind the stage too. and he had mostly lights for his show, but they did some additional video stuff on the jumbo-trons too for a couple songs. he sang some new stuff and some old favorites. i liked the old stuff best. and this was weird -- we'd seen 4 shows in the two weeks -- one a festival in the park, three rock bands, and neil diamond -- you would have thought the park festival or the rock bands would be the rowdy crowds with security issues, but at neil diamond, a couple drunk guys came in late and sat in our row, and then in a bit a woman rushed out of the row and came back with two security officers saying that the drunk guys were being rude and obnoxious and pawing her -- but the cops didn't do anything. they looked over and said the guys looked liked they'd quieted down (sure, with the cops there) but the woman was afraid to go back to her seat, so she sat on the aisle for a while and then found an empty chair from someone who left early. and that was the other thing -- people kept coming and going from the diamond concert. no one it seemed got to the concert and stayed -- they were up and down, coming late, leaving early, going to the bathroom, going to get snacks. it was a continuous flow. it was nuts!