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.