Time Goes By So Slowly

 It seems only yesterday when Mike passed.  Has it really been almost two years?  I purchased a winter bouquet saddle for the gravestone and that opened up a mass of memories.

One would think that my grief would begin to wane now, but it's still fresh.  I don't want to die, but I do. Talking to the pictures every day really doesn't help with my healing, I'm thinking.  But I don't want to take them down.  Not just yet -- maybe never.

I am beginning a major cleaning out now.  I will discard something every week.  After my fall last week, I realize that I will not be able to handle the house and live on my own for ever.  I'm going to have to consider assisted living sometime.  But the house is full of things Mike and I collected through the years.  It is time for someone else to love them.

I have mentioned to Kelly that she may want to look over what is in each room --  slowly of course -- so that I have a firm idea about what has to go.   She's so nice and doesn't want to think of the idea just yet. 

Lately, I've been wondering what shape I will have when I pass out of this time and space.  I don't think I'll become a little green man!  Will I have a body or just be a mind?  I'm beginning to think of death as a moult where I leave this body and at last return to my real self.   A butterfly analogy.  

I'm nearly 85 for goodness sakes!  Is there still something I am supposed to do or realize or experience before I pass?  I'm still hale and healthy -- not really death material yet. What a mystery the end times are!  Each day brings something different.

This year the maple trees have succumbed to something and have been dropping dried and tar-spotted leaves. The street maples are almost bare. They won't be giving us any autumn glory this year.  Is this a sign of climate change?  The earth is going through great changes right before our eyes.  

 

Filling In Time

 Sometimes I awake in the morning and think, "What's the use of getting up."  Geordie is not here and living is meaningless without him.

Imagine --  it's been a year and a half since he passed and I still cry.  I try to busy myself with things and find myself stopping in the middle of a job or an activity and giving it up.  I tell myself that I should be getting over Geordie's passing, but it's just as fresh and sore as it was last year. 

I wrote about the picture I had, but haven't told you I have a "Geordie wall" with five pictures of him hanging on the wall down the hall.  When I pass the them in the morning or at bedtime, I talk to each picture.  Sort of a sick routine. 

My "garden" is a mess.  Along the side where the fence will be replaced is full of Physalis (Chinese Lantern) and Virginia creeper waiting for me to pull them.  Virginia Creeper is a tyrant creeping low and close to the fence and popping up in unexpected places.

The Trump Vine that I planted so many years ago and dug out when it began to creep is still in my back neighbour's yard untended and allowed to grow where it will.  And it wills to come back into my yard via the back fence or underground right into my gardens. It can travel underground for several feet and then show itself  and grow vigourously where I don't want it.

 It's been too hot for me to weed this week. That's my latest excuse.   My days just pass.  I eat at prescribed eating times and sleep in the afternoon. I go in for a visit with Kirk and Kelly every afternoon just before supper and stay for supper for 3 meals a week.  Cooking for one is difficult.  I stick to easy things like peanut butter sandwiches or scrambled eggs.  The meals I have next door I pay for -- only $40 a week, but I don't eat much.

Because of the daily visits, I keep myself clean with regular showers and laundry washing.  The routines make me do something that I probably wouldn't do otherwise.  I tell myself Geordie wouldn't like the rut I've gotten myself into, but he's in a non-judgmental place just waiting for me to finish up this living requirement. 

Well this had been a downer of a bog note, hasn't it!  Perhaps I'll feel better next week. 

Happy by Design

 It's been six months since Geordie died, and I am still looking for a happy day.  Have decided to manufacture happiness. 

I'm happy that I contracted with another gardening group to clear the overgrown weeds growing where the old pond was.

I'm happy that I let a burdock plant grow so I could see what it was like in maturity.

I'm happy that there are two big clumps of goldenrod in the old pond area.  They are lovely and showy, 6-foot high specimens as long as you remember not to notice the plants they have overtaken. 

I'm happy that the worker didn't do a perfect job weed-whacking the path.  Now I have a small, manageable areas to whipper-snip instead of one large one.

I'm happy that I sprained my hip.  Now I have a good excuse for not doing much for days and days.

I'm happy that I put the pictures of Mike on the hall wall.  Now I can see him and talk to him as I pass going from room to room.

I'm happy that I'm learning not to care who judges me.  It's nice being a solitary person. 

There are so many things to be happy about that I can almost give up being sad. 

 

Just Like Me

 A quote from Hila Colman: "She felt tears dripping down her cheeks, and she wondered if anyone would ever miss her if she simply sat here, drinking coffee for days and days, years and years."

And that's about it -- even though my daughter lives just next door and drops in to make sure I'm all right, I feel alone.  And I want to be alone.  Kelly is so kind and will do just about anything to ensure that I am happy, but only I can make me happy. 

It's hot , never the less I intend to work in the garden this afternoon.  The morning glories need to be planted -- the over-wintering ones are just starting.

The green growth in the stone walkway is ankle high and needs attending to.  I will weed-whack some this afternoon.  "Small, achievable goals." 

Still Missing Him

Friends tell me that time will reduce the pain.  It's been 5 months and still I cry.  When will I be able to have a whole day without tears.  I am trying to stay busy but loneliness overwhelms me without warning.  It catches in my throat and then the tears come.

Days fold into nights and into days again.  Time goes by but the pain persists.   Maybe tomorrow will be better.  I have a lovely picture of him in the hallway.  Whenever I pass it, I speak to him and beg him to answer.  Imagine talking to a picture on the wall!

If anyone else talked like this, I would've told them to get over it.  Is this intense grief another learning experience?  Today's lesson:  don't judge until you've experienced it.  I'm 83 for goodness sakes and still having lessons on being human.  

Mike Died

I want to write a piece about my feelings and my experience but right now as soon as I begin to write, I get all snively and  can't see the keyboard.  Perhaps I can finish the article next week

More To Do

 

I let my gardens go fallow this year – partially because I couldn’t bring myself to garden and somewhat to see what would grow without attention.

Now into July, the garden is a mass of weeds.  Garlic mustard is holding sway in the apple tree bed.  I really intend to pull it our before it takes over from the Trilliums.  The Solomon’s Seal in that same bed needs cutting back.  The hostas are lush.  Echinacea is blooming despite the lack of care. Goldenrod has reseeded itself all over. The glorious red Daylily has spread and is blooming like mad.  Rudbeckia is popping up both in the back and the front yards.  In the veggie beds, quack grass is in a race to cover any tiny veggies that the squirrels haven’t dug up or the rabbit hasn’t bitten off.

The pond remnants are almost gone. What’s left is a fairly large hole with two or three very large boulders and three plastic boxes full of water put there to take up space in the stream iteration of the pond. Also exposed from the former pond/stream is quite a bit of rubber pond liner and the cushion liner underneath it.  I need a knife that will cut through the exposed liner.  I’m thinking that the knives that carpet layers use might be the knife to use on the liner.  Maybe Home Hardware or Irvine Home Decorating would have such a tool.

Taking out the three basket-like plant boxes is a bigger problem.  I’m thinking that the contractor that reduced the pond to a stream used them  as filler. They are full of old water and some stones and are very heavy,  It will take some work to get them out.

Those plastic baskets and the two very large boulders still in the hole are all that I intend to take out now.  Those jobs and the task of cutting out any exposed liner will end the job of clearing out the old pond.  When they are done, I can then move the earth from the high point of the former pond out over the garden to make one large fairly level planting area..

In my dreams of redoing the space of the former pond, I see an area with some large boulders and some smaller river rocks spread haphazardly over the area with little patches of Sedum Acre growing among them.  I thought it would take about a year to accomplish this.   Now I’m looking at over two years.  I always think that I can find a happy worker to help, but I’ve not found a worker willing to tackle the job.