I love that Gary would see things like this story out in the wild, and think of me.
I miss that. That encyclopedic knowledge of another human that you get when you pay the fuck attention and give a shit.
Missing you today, as always, my love.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/hayleycampbell/when-doves-type?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bfsharecopy
It’s a French toast kind of day.
It’s also the first meal I’ve cooked from scratch, from ingredients, since Gary died almost six months ago. It was one of his favorite things that I made.
I used an entire challah, cut up what I didn’t eat, put it in containers, and dosed it with real maple syrup to have for later.
PS: if you want to know what makes this French toast “world-famous”, you’ll have to ask Josh, or Lynn, or David, or any other of the lucky folks who’ve tried it.
Here’s the recipe! https://goo.gl/g4opVM
Because sore throat and a bad cold or not, firewood doesn’t haul itself.
Just another day in this widow’s life.
#stronggirls #liftthingsupandputthemdown #oldhouseproblems#workingfireplace #keepmyoilbilldown #sistersaredoingitforthemselves #thisiswhat49lookslike
As I close in on fifty, I welcome it.
My style has evolved over the years and is as mercurial as my moods. Casual comfort, ease of wear and movement, and most of all, washability. I don’t buy things that are dry clean only, I pretty much spend my big bucks on good, solid shoes (no more Manolo Blahniks), and I don’t try to dress like a woman half my age. I dress like me. If I can’t curl up on the couch in it, it’s not likely making into my closet.
As a childfree newly-single “woman of a certain age” I laud Stacy London for her astute take on the “experienced woman” (wink, wink). As a fairly new widow, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what anyone may think about my thinking of myself this way, acting this way, being this way. No matter how long you’ve known me, how close you think we are, I will always surprise you.
Here’s to turning fifty on the second of May.
Trying as hard as I can to move through the pain, silently mouthing my mantra “the only way forward is through”. Not believing in ghosts because SCIENCE and REASON but knowing I am haunted beyond that very reason by the echoing absence of my husband.
Your sister, Lynn, was here Sunday. We spent time together, talking about you, about me, about life in general since you’ve been gone. I showed her the meager progress I’ve made with the house, Teaz’ka and Mojo surprising her with how much friendlier they’ve become. They don’t have you with them all day anymore, and when I’m home they spend as much time as possible in my lap at the very least and pinning me to the bed when they can.
And Penny was here on Wednesday! We talked for hours, moving through the house, talking, sharing. We got to your office, to your computer. After a few hitches she got into a terminal window and your code flooded the screen, beautiful and clear and concise. My eyes filled, so did hers.
She saved your last commands; you’d never logged out that last night you were home, the night you got shocked. I gave her Beautiful Code and Beautiful Data, knowing that those books will be as loved and treasured by her as they were by you.
There’s no one to bug me about getting things done; the upshot is that things *are* getting done. Slowly, painfully slowly, to be sure, but little by little. Remember when we bought the house eleven years ago we wanted to elfa that little alcove upstairs? It’s a linen closet now! And I only *almost* killed myself. Just a concussion, NBD.
There was a couple in the shop yesterday, married sixty-five years. She’s 88, he’s 92. They’re both fairly fragile now but he’s more so. She’s looking after him, caring for him. I gently encouraged her to have someone in to help, to not have it all on her shoulders. She said, “I have to take care of him. When you love someone as much as I do for so long… you have no other way.” I had to bite my lip to keep from weeping in front of her. I told her that her husband was a lucky guy. She said, “I’m a lucky girl.”
Tomorrow, Valentine’s Day, it’s going to be hard. I was trying to not be alone but it looks like I will be.
I miss you, my love. I consider myself to be a lucky girl for the time we had.
Gary and I shared a love of boxes, containers, the *perfect* container to house some precious thing or collection of preciouses. I don’t remember whether he had this sliding-lid box when we met all those years ago or whether it was one we bought together along the way but it matters not. I’m cleaning, tidying, encouraging spring (so not like me) and took this wonder down from his shelves in the bedroom. A Freud action figure. A sample of Glastonbury shave soap. A pad of graph paper with his notes about things I have no clue (especially “Remind Russ, Lysa”). A Metro-North receipt from a trip to NYC two years to the day before the day he died; ostensibly for lunch with his friend and colleague, David Ewalt. And then, the page I tore from a small pad of love notes, the perfect one for how I was feeling that day, some shitshow of my illness intruding into our lives, again. One that I left on my pillow for him to find after I’d left for work. One that applies today, and every day since he had the incredible breakthroughs he had only days before he died. It reads:
“This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind. Let it be something good.”
On the reverse, I wrote in pink ink: 9.25.12 I’m trying for a good day. I love you. bisous — glitter 🙂
I’m still trying for a good day. Every day.
13 January 2018 · Peekskill
Gary, my love.
Four months ago today you left this Earth.
There is not a day that goes by that I don’t miss you, that I don’t think about you, that I don’t have something to share with you.
I’ve grown stronger, and softer, and wiser. I’ve grown in ways you would expect, be proud of. Become even more resilient, because I’ve had to. You always had my back even when neither of us knew it. Even when it was too difficult to say so, to share so.
I’ve met people who you would like, who you would love, and I’ve told them so. I’ve made changes; some small, some not-so. Evolved, mostly. Become, more. The way The Velveteen Rabbit Became.
Anyone I let into This Widow’s Life has to measure up to your memory, is judged against your bar, and a very high bar it is indeed. I can reach it on tiptoe, in bare feet. You remain the smartest man I’ve ever met. The most difficult partner I’ve ever had. The most worth-it partner. You had to be, we had to be, for me to not give up, for us to not give up. And we never did.
I tolerate less, and more. Funny, that. I’m not afraid to speak my mind, stand firm, hold my ground. I give no quarter; this far and no further.
Those I have let in, those few, I think they know, I think they realize what a gift it is. You did. Even though it wasn’t until the very-very end. So bittersweet; but I am not bitter.
I love you, more.
Always,
Glitter 💜💜
5: It’s been a truly shitty morning, day. Dealing with one fucking idiot after another.
Then this.
Weeping. I just can’t today.
Gary used to ask me why I liked listening to this song* when it made me cry every single time. “Because it’s beautiful. It makes me feel, sharply.”
“Don’t you do that if I go first,” he said. “Don’t you follow me into the dark. Stay bright, stay glittery. Stay in the light.”
Goddammit I miss you.
*https://youtu.be/aoR0mGq_z2I Deathcab for Cutie “I Will Follow You Into The Dark”
6: From yesterday.
I was at work, dealing with grief and a hefty serving of mixed state depression/dysphoria. It’s lifted, some, but lingers.
Let’s do this* again.
Although this year was the most difficult year of my life, the most difficult year of my nearly half-century on this planet, I have learned, I have been shown exquisitely just how much I am loved and cared for and supported. All of you who are still here, all of you who are still friends have shown me so much care, so much kindness, so much tenderness that it makes me weep.
Although my house is so much quieter without Gary here to fill it with his big, booming voice, although it is colder, without Gary here to fill it with his constant stoking of the fireplace, it is still mine, and will remain so. One of the things on my list for 2018 is to make it more cozy, to make it more snug, to make it a more comfortable place for me and the kitties and for you guys to come and spend time.
I’ll be ringing in the new year across the street at the home of dear friends. Although in my heart of hearts I am wishing that Gary could be with me, I am truly okay. I am comfortable in my own skin, I am as much at peace with myself as I ever have been. If sharing our saga, our story, what has become This Widow’s Life helps anyone feel seen, feel heard, feel less completely alone, then I am grateful.
The only way forward is through. Forward, ever forward, into the new year, into my new life.
Welcome 2018.
*this is in reference to a FB post at the end of 2016 that went like this: “Everyone comment about the good things that happened to them, instead of drowning in all of the bad things that happened in 2016.” It ended up to be really positive when all we wanted to do was sheetcake*
The Salty Widow 