Changing Seasons

A few months ago, I reached a new level in my journey: resignation.  It probably sounds strange, but it took me that long to really, viscerally become resigned to the fact that my life was no longer about being part of a marital team. For instance, I noticed that instead of saying we—like “we moved from Louisiana to Georgia”—my accounts were taking on a more single perspective—“I moved from Louisiana to Georgia.”  The first time I caught myself doing it, I felt a tad guilty for leaving Bunny out of the story, but I felt less so as time wore on.  

Maybe what I call resignation is really the acceptance level of grief, but I don’t think acceptance adequately describes what I feel.  Can a person ever truly accept the loss of a spouse, or of any loved one?   A person can, however, become resigned to the loss, realize that life goes on in spite of it, and move forward as best as she or he can.

My grandparents’ home was a small, wood-framed affair, with two bedrooms and one bath.  They lived there for about 40 years.  It lacked central air conditioning for the sweltering Louisiana summers and was so drafty that the space heaters provided little warmth during the freezing winters.   Even with its shortcomings--or perhaps because of them--twice every year, my grandmother redecorated her house.   These home improvements usually involved enlisting my sisters and me to move the furniture around.  I also recall painting the kitchen cabinets several times over the years.  Another way she changed the environment was by getting new bedspreads or making rugs. 

Regardless of how much I complained at the time, Grandma’s s redecorating habits took root in me.  Over the years, Bunny and I continuously made changes to our homes.   His specialties were furniture placement and floral arranging, while mine tended to fall on the more extreme side of environment-changing, like painting and tiling. 

Up until yesterday, the living room looked the way it did when Bunny was alive.  In other words, by Grandma’s standards (and mine), it was long overdue for a change.   In my fairly new resigned state, I decided that I would redo the room the way I wanted it, since I no longer had to make compromises.  I started with the pictures.  Bunny loved to have framed photographs on every surface, and it seemed a harmless décor choice.  I like a more minimalist approach; now, there are two clean-lined framed photos in my living room.  Just making that simple change opened up the room a lot more.  Plus, it’s now going to take about half the time to clean the room as it did before.

I also eyed a book shelf that was taking up a lot of space.  I didn’t need something so big, and I had a smaller one in the house that would be just perfect.  The problem was, the perfect book shelf was in Bunny’s office, which I still haven’t gotten around to cleaning out.   I’ve studied up on this particular problem, and it seems I’m not alone: people who don’t absolutely have to clean out a departed’s special rooms generally don’t do it for a very long time, if ever.  There’s absolutely no logic to it; you just feel like cleaning out the room is like erasing your loved one, piece by piece.

I have, however, made several attempts at cleaning it, or at least going in it. I’ve mentioned it before—Bunny was a hoarder, and I tried to keep the majority of his “collections” confined to his office.   The first time I went in it was last summer when my sister Julie was visiting.  I needed  a DVD player, went in to get it, and came out a sobbing mess.  The clutter alone sends my rabid claustrophobia into overdrive, but last summer my grief, itself, was still fresh.

Then, last fall, Trinity and I took a stab at cleaning it.  We got about three feet in and made great progress, but I was slowly becoming unglued.  I tried to hold them back, but fat, hot tears trailed down my cheeks.  Trinity has an amazing sense of empathy for anyone, much less an eleven year old, and she patted my arm gently.

“It’s okay,” she said.  “Poppi would want us to do this.”  How sweet she is!  I nodded but laughed to myself, because I knew how Bunny hated people touching his stuff.  The last thing he’d want us to do was clean out his office.   Even before cancer, it used to make him extremely anxious if I so much as moved something of his.

“I know where every single thing is,” he’d say, waving a hand over stacks of papers, magazines, and God-only-knows-what-else.  “If you move it, I’ll never be able to find it again.”

Since then, I’ve only done little bits at a time when I had a chance.  In other words, most of the room is still like he left it.  I know that he’s no longer here to be upset that something’s been moved, but in the office-cleaning-out game, emotions still beat logic every single time.

Now, though, with my hereditary redecorating traits beckoning me like a siren’s song, I am making more frequent forays into the dreaded office.  Yesterday’s mission included emptying the bookshelf I wanted and boxing its contents.  Emboldened by my dry-eyed success, I brought out a plastic tub of miscellany and sat on the floor to go through it. 

One of the quirky parts of Bunny’s collecting was that there was no reasonable order to any of it.  A Publix receipt from 2007 would sit on top of a paper with important information, like account numbers.  In other words, I can’t just dump boxes and drawers into garbage bags, because there’s no telling what important information I’m throwing away.

So as I was going through this hill of paper yesterday, I found a Post-It Note with a phone number and an e-mail address.  It was the contact information for Bill, a co-worker from Atlanta.  John and Bill had worked together for years in the IT Department at the same hospital where I worked.  Bill was a little older than we were, and had a humorous, gentle, sweet personality.   I used to love to go up and visit them on my breaks, because they always seemed to have so much fun.  They’d stayed in touch over the years, because Bunny would tell me when he’d spoken with Bill.

I’d last spoken to Bill in December of 2011, when Bunny began his series of steep health declines. In all the shuffle of the day, I later lost his number, but I thought about him often.  So yesterday, I had the missing information in my hands, and called Bill.

He asked how I was doing and how Joey and the kids were doing, and we made small talk.  Then he told me how much he’d enjoyed working John, and everything he’d learned from him.  His words were so reassuring and kind that they made me cry.  Fortunately, Bill is training to be a hospital chaplain, so he’s got a  good handle on dealing with grief. He assured me that John would want me to move on, even if that meant making a bonfire with his stuff. Talking to Bill helped me see that all these things can disappear and Bunny would not care. Bunny’s on to newer and better things, probably making new collections in the afterlife.     

Then he told me a story about how Bunny was doing his computer savant stuff, and Bill asked how he knew everything he did.  “He said, ‘I have a highly developed Pineal Gland.’”  I laughed so hard: it was a classic Bunny response.

I hadn’t planned to cry when I talked to Bill, but his admiration for John was so sincere, and Bill was from a time in our lives were we were young and relatively carefree and very, very happy.  So I cried like a big baby.  It was just so overwhelming to talk to someone we’d both known and loved, and hear that he’d felt the same way about us.  I told Bill that I thought Bunny had guided me to his number, and he agreed.

So now, with each new foray into THE ROOM, I should get stronger and stronger.  For right now, THE ROOM sits menacingly quiet, like a toddler who’s up to something.  I’ll plan clean-outs for a minimum of 30 minutes a night, and before I know it, I will have conquered it.  I’ll have a whole new room to decorate, and Grandma will excitedly smile down from Heaven 

Cat-astrophe

I thought that I’d gone through all the “firsts” since Bunny died, but there was one I overlooked: veterinary crises.  I suppose it’s a testament to my cats’ good health that that none of the four needed major medical care in the past year and a half.   That streak was broken Saturday evening, when I rushed one of my babies to the emergency vet.

My cats are Bono (male, aged 11), Kieran (male, 8), Sierra (female, 5) and Shiloh (female, 5).   I’ve had cats all my life, and though Bunny had never had a cat until we married, he loved them as much as I did.  The most we ever had at a time was five, when we lived in Georgia.  In May of 2008, the last of our Georgia cats (Penelope) died.    After a few months, we made a trip to the local animal shelter to look for a baby girl.  I’m not averse to adopting older cats—Bono was a year and a half when we brought him home—but I’ve found that the newcomer is better accepted if he/she falls at the bottom of the chronological totem pole. 

Even though Bono was considered older (by shelter standards) when we adopted him, he was a spring chicken compared to Penelope and Lilah, the matriarch of the Georgia cat family.  We used to joke that the three of them were like the cast of the old Cary Grant movie, Arsenic and Old Lace.  Bono was the young man and Lilah and Penelope were the elder aunts.

Of all the cats we’d lost over the years, Lilah’s death affected Bunny the most.  Lilah was, hands-down, the smartest cat who ever lived: I’m not exaggerating when I say she was more intelligent than most people.    Within a week after we moved to Georgia, Bunny had chosen her from the litter of cats one of his co-workers brought to the office.  She was the runt, and Bunny had an affinity for underdogs—or undercats, in this case.  Ever the nerd, he was also immediately impressed with her intelligence, and showed her an inordinate amount of favoritism.   She was 18 when she died—a respectable old age, by cat standards—and Bunny grieved her loss until his death.   He wasn’t happy to be dying, but he looked forward to reuniting with Lilah on the other side. 

Because he’d had such success at cat-picking in the past, Bunny always insisted on accompanying me when we added to the family.   It always breaks my heart to go into animal shelters—so many beautiful animals, all wanting a home.  How do you choose?  I never leave a shelter dry-eyed or empty-handed.   On that day in August, we walked into the cat room and looked for a kitten.    On what would prove our last shelter visit together, it didn’t take long before Bunny spotted a tiny little Siamese-looking fluff ball reaching an arm through the cage door to get his attention.   He called me over to look at her, and I noticed an equally small, solid gray, furry ball huddled at the back of the cage. 

“They’re litter mates,” the shelter attendant explained.

“Aw!  We can’t split them up,” I lamented.

“We’ll take them both!” Bunny said, with great authority.   I later joked that he sounded like the Rockefeller of cats.

We brought (Siamese-looking) Sierra  and (furry gray) Shiloh home a week later, after they’d had been spayed and vaccinated.  Kieran took to them fairly quickly, but not Bono.  He was NOT happy that we’d brought these two adorable little mischief-makers into his domain.   I was surprised at his reaction, because almost three years before he had immediately accepted Kieran and had even tutored him in the fine art of lizard-catching. 

Finally, Bono warmed to Sierra, but he’s always been a bit aloof toward Shiloh.  It’s almost like he decided that the boys would form teams, with Sierra on his side and Shiloh on Kieran’s.   The dynamic is like this: the boys will fight (wrestling that gets too aggressive), and each of the boys will occasionally hassle the girl from the other team, but the girls do not pick fights with the boys, or with each other.   Overall, though, they get along well.

Back to Saturday evening:  I had just fed the cats, and they were all fine.  After they ate, Shiloh and Kieran moved from the kitchen to the dining room chairs.  To digest, I suppose.  A few minutes later, Kieran came into the living room with Shiloh trailing him, limping.  Strange—she had been perfectly normal a few minutes before.

“What’s wrong with your leg?” I asked.  I watched her for a few seconds more; clearly, she was in pain.  Then she started wailing.  Sierra and Kieran rushed to help her, and she swatted them away.  Even Bono came to offer his assistance, but she hissed at him.   My sweet baby girl would never have done that under normal circumstances: she wants everybody to love her, especially Bono.

I picked her up to assess her leg, but didn’t see anything wrong.  No blood, no foreign objects, no swelling.  When I touched the leg, she screamed even louder.  I anxiously loaded her into a pet taxi and headed to a local veterinary ER.  This was hardly my first trip to a pet ER, but it had been several years since the last one.   To me, it’s much more traumatic having an injured pet than an injured child: the child can tell you what hurts, and understands that you’re taking him/her to the hospital, and can be comforted, at least to some extent. 

In the past, I’d very rarely gone to the pet ER without Bunny—if he wasn’t with me, it was because he wasn’t home at the time.   One of us would cradle the patient and the other would drive.   Now, without anyone to comfort Shiloh, I wove through what seemed an extraordinary amount of traffic as she wailed as loudly as an ambulance.  My ears were ringing and my nerves were badly frayed by the time we arrived.

From her symptoms, I figured she’d fractured a toe or two, though I couldn’t understand how. The x-rays proved me partially right—she’d fractured all the toes on her right foot.  She spent the remainder of the weekend at the hospital, comforted by kitty morphine.  She had surgery on Monday—the fractures were fixed and secured with a metal plate.  Yes, my cat now has a metal plate in her foot.

Some of you (and I know who some of you are) may now think I sound like the stereotypical cat lady.  You know what?  I don’t care.  Anybody who knows me knows that I am very attuned to how my cats—or any animals—feel.   While Shiloh was in the hospital, I was less worried about her than I was about Sierra.  The girls had never been apart in their lives, and they spend a good deal of their time together.  Sierra is the bold, adventurous, independent sister; Shiloh is the cautious, sweet, loving one.   When they were babies, Shiloh would watch anxiously as Sierra blazed trails, and would only attempt the new activity once she saw her sister complete it successfully.    

     

Sierra was unusually subdued while her sister was away, looking out the front door from time to time, as if she expected her to pull up in a cab.  Likewise, Kieran was more quiet than usual, and at bedtime he snuggled more tightly against me than normal.   I visited Shiloh several times during her hospitalization, bringing her news of how much her siblings missed her, even Bono.

Finally, she came home today.  My sister Jan, also a cat lover, had warned me that the others would probably hiss at her once she came back, because she would smell like the vet’s office.  I was already anticipating this response, so I reintroduced her slowly.  I left her in the pet taxi for awhile, so they could sniff her and kiss her through the bars.  After that, I moved her into her recovery suite—the master bath.

She is very slowly adapting to her cast—at first, she growled at it so much that I called the surgeon to ask whether she didn’t need more pain medicine.  As it turns out, cats don’t like casts.  She also has a Cone of Shame to wear when I’m not around to watch her, in case she tries to chew off the cast.   She’s nowhere near mastered the art of walking with the cast, and gets around mainly by rolling on the floor.  I know that because I peeked in the first time I heard the clomp-growl-clomp-growl combo of the cast hitting the floor and Shiloh growling at it.

Her siblings are being incredibly gentle with her.  I think they’re still a bit intimidated by all the growling.  We will slowly get back to normal, having weathered the latest crisis.   In fact, as I write this, Shiloh has rolled her way over to her favorite sleeping spot, under my bed.   Now, hopefully, any other firsts I haven’t thought of are only good ones.

Treading Water

Yesterday, I read a story about a recently married young couple who, in their 20s, had each lost a spouse.  It’s a really interesting story:  http://gma.yahoo.com/widowed-20s-couple-finds-love-again-212043491--abc-news-health.html.    Other than being a widow, one of the things I have in common with the couple is that they both blogged about their respective losses.    Just reading the article had me teary, and I should have known better, but I decided to check out the wife’s blog. 

Did I start at the happy, newly married part?  Of course not!  I went to the beginning.  Big mistake.  Even though she had lost her first husband in an accident (her new husband’s first wife had died of cancer), the things she described—the emotions, the problems, the interactions with other people—were nearly identical to mine.   I only read three or four of her earliest posts before I totally melted down.

Later in the day, I Skyped with my friend William.  I told him I was feeling blue because of the story I’d read, and gave him an abbreviated version.

“That’s a happy story!  They found love again,” he growled in his Larry King-like voice.  He was right about the happy ending, of course, but I wasn’t in the frame of mind to appreciate that angle.    

“It’s not happy—they went through so much pain, and so young!”  I had fallen into a deep pool of empathy for these people, and it had spilled into the river of my own pain.  It’s impossible to explain how it feels to people who haven’t been through the loss of a life partner, but the wife’s posts had struck such a chord with me that her words could have been my own.

“Maybe you’re just sad because you haven’t stumbled over your next husband yet,” he teased.    He can usually manage to piss me off just enough to snap me out of a funk.

“What-ever!  I don’t even want a husband!”

“Then I’m not seeing the problem here.”  I’m going to have to get him some suspenders for his Larry King days.

Even before Bunny died, I said I didn’t want another husband.  He of course, fully expected me to re-marrry one day.  He didn’t want me to be alone and unhappy, and he was sure I would eventually change my mind.  If I had been the departed one, Bunny would have remarried in shockingly quick fashion.  He loved to have a constant audience for his musings and his nearly incessant chatter, and he wouldn’t have been able to tolerate the loneliness.  

My thought—at the time and now—was that marriage is hard work.  Don’t get me wrong—Bunny and I were very happy together—but the reason we were happy is because we worked at it.   On our twentieth anniversary, I told Bunny that on the day we married, I couldn’t have imagined loving him more, but that I had hardly loved him at all in comparison.  We both had our faults, of course, but we managed to work around them to make our relationship flourish. 

For example, when Bunny was ill--even with minor ailments--he demanded a lot of attention.  Kidney stones equaled child birth to him—there was a lot of loud moaning and groaning and lying around until the delivery, when he would proudly show off his newest baby.  When I was sick, Bunny would do things if I asked him to (usually after giving a big, put-upon sigh—which I promptly imitated), but he rarely did them of his own accord.

Cancer made him, at times, nearly impossible to live with.   I welcomed visiting family members with more than the usual amount of enthusiasm, because their presence gave me a respite from being Bunny’s only source of attention.   During what would prove to be the last week of his life, my sister Julie came to visit.  Within hours of her arrival, I became violently ill with a stomach virus.

As soon as we got home, I took to my bed, head pounding and stomach churning.  Bunny was happy to have a fresh set of ears to bend, and I was quickly forgotten.  I fell asleep almost instantly, and was awakened about an hour later when Julie tiptoed into the room and placed something on the nightstand near me.  She slunk out again, unaware that I’d seen her.  As soon as the door closed, I opened my eyes to see a tall glass of Sprite (one of our grandmother’s go-to remedies for upset stomachs) waiting for me when I woke up.  It was such a simple gesture, but I couldn’t have been more grateful: someone was taking care of me, unasked.  It made me feel like there was hope that things would get better, even if only for a little while.  Of course, we all know how the story ends—Bunny took his final turn for the worst a few days later.

It’s possible that I’ll change my mind about marrying again, because I’ve done it before--which Bunny well knew.  Back when I was a young divorcee, I told everyone who would listen that I was done with marriage.  Never again, thank you.  When one of my good friends, Cheryl, sang the praises of her organic chemistry lab partner (Bunny), I cut her short.  For weeks, she badgered me to meet him.

“He’s perfect for you!  Just come to dinner with us once, please.  People are going to start talking about this married woman out with this young, single guy all the time.”  I knew how easily gossip flowed in the community, so I relented.

“Fine.  Just to shut you up, I’ll go.  One time.  Then I don’t want to hear about it again.”   We were married 11 months later.

The difference in my attitude about remarrying now--aside from the hard work involved—is fear.   I never again want to love another man so much that I’m left this scarred by his loss.  We’ve all heard stories of elderly people who die a short time after losing a spouse, and now I know why: their hearts literally break.  There is no way to adequately describe the grief: how, even a year and a half on, I will suddenly be seized by fits of despair so overwhelming that they leave me breathless.

Imagine your worst break-up ever: you are in love and content with your relationship, and then, with no warning, it’s over.   You are powerless to stop the ending, and you can do nothing to get the relationship back.  The other person—your other half—is irretrievably lost to you forever.  Your heart would feel as though it were thrown out of a car going at full speed.  Now, multiply that pain by a hundred, and you have some idea of how much it hurts sometimes.  It’s no wonder some people’s hearts simply can’t take the strain.

Since I jumped back into the dating pool, I’ve made it clear that I’m not interested in marriage--maybe a little too adamantly at times.   For now, at least, my no-marriage disclaimer is a defense mechanism to keep anyone from getting too attached.  Realistically (God willing --knock on wood, three times), I’ve probably got another 30 or so years left to figure out if I ever want to dive back into the marriage pool.  Until then, I'm just treading water. 

The Final Frontier

To say that Bunny was obsessed with space travel is about as huge an understatement as I can make.    From childhood, he studied every space flight—U.S. and foreign--and knew minute details about each one.   If anything happened in space, he knew more about it than any reasonable person should. 

Space was one of the interests that Bunny and I did not have in common.  When we were in the second grade, I was writing protest letters to President Nixon about the space program cutting into the Saturday morning cartoon line-up.   Hey—Saturday used to be the only day of the week when cartoons were on!   Meanwhile--a town away--Bunny was writing letters to astronauts, asking questions and making suggestions. 

Over the years, he met real astronauts and actors who played astronauts.   Once, we went to an event in Atlanta where several of the Gilligan’s Island stars were appearing.   As we stood before Bob Denver (Gilligan) and I shook his hand, Bunny raved about his work in Far Out Space Nuts.  I’d never even heard of that show, but Mr. Denver was clearly pleased that someone knew him for a role other than Gilligan.  For years after, Bunny would brag that he’d made Gilligan say “Wow!”

In the days before cell phones had cameras—even before everyone had cell phones—Bunny used to keep a disposable camera in the glove compartment of his vehicle.   The camera wasn’t there in the event that he got into an accident and needed to document the scene—it was there in case aliens landed anywhere near him.   His plan was to snap photos and then either try to capture an alien or jump onto the alien ship and fly away.  If he disappeared without a trace, at least the camera would be left behind to show where he’d gone. 

The original Star Trek was his very favorite science fiction show.     I’d grown up watching it and enjoying it as well.   “Space, the final frontier…” William Shatner’s voice would boom from the television, and my sister Julie and I would sit mesmerized for an hour.   Bunny’s love of the show was extreme; he knew the name, number and plot of every episode of the original series and of Star Trek, The Next Generation.  Saturday Night Live once did a skit about Star Trek fans (Trekkies) at a convention, and I teased Bunny for days afterward, because they acted exactly like he did.

Back in 1997, I heard about Celestis--a company that was sending cremated remains (or cremains, in funeral industry-speak) into space.   The cremains of Gene Roddenberry—Star Trek’s creator—were on Celestis’ inaugural flight.  Later flights would launch Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett (Star Trek’s Nurse Chapel) and James Doohan (Chief Engineer Scott).   Long before cancer came calling, Bunny knew that when his time came, he wanted his cremains on a Celestis flight.

After he died, I sent away to Celestis for the transport capsule that would take a portion of Bunny’s cremains to space.  I booked him on the first flight out—in October, 2012.  I even started making plans to go to the launch site—New Mexico—to watch the launch.  About six weeks before the planned launch, the company notified me of a delay with the NASA approval.   

Then, another proposed date came and went.   I wasn’t worried—I knew that, eventually, the flight would take place.  Normally I’m as impatient as anyone can be, but I just knew that the flight would happen.  Some of my friends weren’t so sure, and weren’t shy about telling me so.  Undeterred, I insisted that Bunny would eventually make it to space. 

Finally, about two months ago, I started getting notices that the flight was set for June 21, 2013.  I wasn’t going to get all psyched up again, but as the date got closer, I grew more excited and optimistic.  Yesterday, with no launch cancellation on the horizon, I posted the flight details on my Facebook status.    In no time, I was flooded with love and support from my friends and family.  I was more teary than I’ve been in quite a while, overwhelmed with the knowledge that Bunny’s fondest wish was finally coming true.

So now, as I write this post, Bunny’s cremains are circling the Earth.  He truly has reached the final frontier.

Competition

Last year, I wrote about my trip with my cousin Bonnie to my hometown for Mother’s Day weekend (Country Comfort, 5/17/12).   I hadn’t seriously entertained the idea of returning to Mansura for the Cochon de Lait Festival this year until my friend Kelly called a few weeks ago.   I’ve mentioned Kelly before—she’s a classmate and one of my oldest and dearest friends.   Our hometown is small, but we lived at its outskirts, down the winding, roughly horseshoe-shaped Petite Cote Road.   The “‘Tite Cote,” as it was called, was as rural as rural got.  Kelly lived about two miles from me, and today she lives right next door to the house where she grew up.

Over the years, no matter where I’ve been, Kelly has always kept track of me: she knows everyone in town--or if they’ve moved away, where they are and what they’re doing.  “Are you coming?  You have to come!  You have to defend your title.  I’ll get a bunch of people together.  We’ll have fun!”  Kelly is great at organizing—I think she’s been on every class reunion committee we’ve ever had.   The next day, I called her back to let her know I’d made my plans.

Word traveled quickly—the next night, I found myself Skyping with Michelle, another friend, fellow classmate, and ‘tite Cote native.   Michelle, newly divorced, had moved away from Virginia and was living with her dad, two doors down from Kelly’s parents.   Michelle and I have kept in touch sporadically over the years, but haven’t gotten to see much of each other, since we were usually in different parts of the country.   One of my favorite of Michelle’s traits is her outspokenness—like me, but totally unfiltered. 

We plotted our takeover of the Hampton Inn: I would have a room for me and whatever cousin I could wrangle into coming along, and she would have a room where she and Kelly would stay, as close to mine as she could get.  We hoped more friends would follow suit, but regardless, we were all-in.  The Hampton Inn is right across the street from the casino, which is the social hub of the parish: we could ride the shuttle, walk, or crawl back to our rooms when we were ready to go back.  Side note: the casino has done more to develop the parish than anything I can think of--it was built in the early 90s on pasture land.  Bunny and I used to joke that it looked like a space ship had come from Mars and just dropped it there.  Now it looks less foreign, because national brands have sprung up a presence around it.

Last Thursday, Kelly called and instructed me to meet her at the ice bar as soon as I got to the hotel.  I’ve noticed a pattern over the years--everyone meets at the ice bar, then moves to another bar or restaurant, if necessary.  The first time she ever told me to meet her there, I spent a good 30 minutes looking for a place called The Ice Bar.  It doesn’t exist: the meeting place is actually called the Atrium Bar.  Like most people and many things in Louisiana, it goes by another name; the actual bar is made of ice—like a mini skating rink. 

I got to the ice bar after driving hours through torrential rain, then the most pitch-black darkness I could remember seeing.  After you’ve lived away from The Country, you forget how dark it is there: miles and miles of feeling like you’re immersed in a giant vat of tar, except for whatever meager path your car can illuminate for a short distance in front of you.  When Kelly called at one point to find out where I was, she laughed at my complaints of how dark it was: “You in The Country now, girl!”

I got to the ice bar, where none of the usual suspects were to be found.  Finally, I caught sight of them at a table away from the ice bar, but still in easy distance: Kelly, Michelle, Cindy and Joel.  The same crew from my last casino get-together (see I Know Why the Irish Drink, 2/2/12), with Michelle substituted for Greg, who Kelly hadn’t been able to reach.  

Cindy isn’t technically from the ‘Tite Cote, but she had grown up right across the far point of the horseshoe, where it intersected with the highway.  She lives about a mile from where she grew up.  She, Kelly, Michelle and I (plus two other girls) had carpooled to practical nursing school during our junior and senior years of high school.  We graduated from high school in May, and nursing school in June.  Cindy was generally the most serious, most quiet of the bunch, but she was always down for a good time, and she has a wicked sense of humor. 

Joel (pronounced Joe-El) grew up in town.  He’s sort of the male equivalent of Kelly: he keeps tabs on the boys and some of the girls, and he’s on most every reunion planning committee.  Now, he found himself with four women for whom no topic was off-limits.  Most guys might have shrunk from the task, but as I remarked later in the evening, he kept up with everything we threw his way, and threw it right back.  We started with the serious topics—aging or deceased parents, grandchildren, family—and quickly progressed to the light-hearted, boisterous banter that you can fearlessly have with people you’ve known all your life.  We talked and laughed and carried on like we always do when we get together. 

Early on, we discussed the ladies’ beer drinking competition, to be held the next day at the festival.  Joel hadn’t seen my medal, but I won the contest last year, when Bonnie and my step-father, Donald, had dared me to enter.  This was the title I was defending.  Michelle had seen my medal when she asked me about it during our Skype session.

   

Kelly works with a woman named Allison who had won the two consecutive years prior to my victory.  Her cousin, Jeff, had gone to school with us, but wasn’t coming in until Saturday afternoon.  Allison hadn’t competed against me, so she had peppered Kelly with questions all week about my technique, my time, and anything else she could plug into her strategy.   Kelly didn’t know any of the details—I didn’t even know those kinds of details—but at any rate, Allison was undecided about entering.

I mentioned that my sister, Julie, was considering challenging me, but she drinks about as much beer as I do—practically none.  If my cousin Norman came up from New Orleans, though, I was going to try to talk his wife, Lisa, into competing.   I had been talking with Norman for the better part of the week as he decided whether he was going to make the trip. 

One of the beauties of Facebook is that you can keep up with people you rarely see, and get to know people you’ve never met.  I hadn’t seen Norman in at least seven or eight years, but he’s one of my Facebook friends.   I’d never met Lisa, but from getting to know her on Facebook, I knew she drank beer and that she looked to be the competitive type.  If she showed up, my money was on her.  All the talk of the family competition seemed to create great excitement in the group.

The next morning, I met Julie and her family at the parade.   Donald’s daughter, Lisa, had come up for the day.  Another potential competitor!  She demurred, but said she’d do it if Julie would.  Julie was still on the fence, but her husband (Todd) and I were able to swing her over to the competing side.  Now we three sisters would compete.  I knew Norman and his Lisa were on their way, because I’d talked to Norman about an hour earlier.

Toward the end of the parade, they joined us, with their son, Harley, who is a year younger than Trinity.  This was the first time I’d met Harley, too.  Typically, my first questions on meeting a new-to-me family member don’t involve beer drinking competitions, but this was a special occasion.  I explained the contest to Norman and Lisa—two cans, as fast as possible, and boom!  Family competitor number four was on board.

I’d been running into classmates and Facebook friends all morning, which was fun.  Everyone wished me luck.   It had rained a lot the day before, so the humidity was quite high.  As we walked around after the parade, Harley told me I’d have to win.  I told him I didn’t expect to—last year’s win was just a fluke.  He is such a cute kid—much quieter than his dad at that age, and very polite and smart.  Since I wasn’t really serious about the title, he hoped his mom would win.  I love this kid!

Finally, 1:30 p.m. rolled around and we took the stage.  Twelve of us sat down initially, and were joined near the start time by two additional women.  Julie and Sister Lisa sat on left side, and Cousin Lisa and I sat in the middle of the table.  From the crowd, Kelly caught my eye, pointed to one of the newcomers, and mouthed “Allison!” I leaned forward and looked to the right side, where a young woman in a blue shirt was doing the same thing, looking my way.  We waved at each other, then made fighting gestures and laughed.  I told Cousin Lisa it was on!

We got our beers and listened as the rules were explained: drink two beers, one at a time, as fast as possible.  Turn the cans over as you finish each one.  No spitting, no spilling, no excess beer from the turn-over.  Cousin Lisa made a remark about not swallowing, which the MC overheard and repeated.  I loved this cousin, even though I’d just met her!

Before I knew it, we were off.  The beer seemed even colder and more carbonated than I remembered it.  I finished the first one with only one pause, turned it over and started the second.  At this point, my focus was laser-like: I didn’t look around at all—not at the big crowd, with lots of family and friends, and not even to Cousin Lisa, who was right beside me.  For me, there was only one person in the world, on the stage, and I was sitting in her seat.  The second can was much more difficult: much, much more difficult.  I stopped several times, but pressed on, turned my can over and began to stand.  I felt Cousin Lisa doing the same, a fraction of a second before me.

I looked around, and four women—Allison, a young woman near her, Cousin Lisa, and I--were standing.  Slowly, others stood.  The young woman near Allison was disqualified—she’d left a big puddle under one of her cans.  Allison was first, Cousin Lisa was second, and I was third.  Third place!  Yea!  Two of the three placers were Chatelains.  Even bigger yea!  Cousin Lisa and I hugged. 

We stood before the now huge crowd to get our medals and be introduced. When the MC said her last name, Lisa looked confused.  She’s from New Orleans, so she’d only heard the city pronunciation: Chat-a-lane.  In The Country, it’s Shot-Lan.  Harley Shot-lan reached up to the stage to high-five us.  As I came off the stage, he was the first person I saw: “You see, it wasn’t a fluke!”

Michelle, Kelly, Cindy and Joel had all been in the crowd cheering for me.  I ran into Greg, who’d come with his father, sister and daughter.  His daughter goes to school in Tampa, so I’d met her last year when he brought her back to school.  His dad told me that they’d all been rooting for me.  I saw all my family there—cousins, niece, nephew, step-father, brother-in-law—who’d had divided loyalties, perhaps, but were supportive and proud of us all for competing.  I’m having a ggggrrrr moment as I realize that we should have taken a group photo of the four of us: fierce women warriors of the family.

As I was leaving a message for Daddy, Julie said, “Tell him I’ve shamed the family.” We laughed so hard over that!  Norman, Lisa and Harley were going back to the city that night, so we said our good-byes.  Then, we all parted ways to rest up for the evening.  There would be a street dance at seven, and everyone was sweaty and hot and tired. 

As I showered before climbing into bed for a well-deserved nap, I reflected on the day’s events.  I hadn’t won the contest, but I had placed. The family honor was safe.  Even more importantly, though, I’d had all the support I could have asked for—and that’s better than any medal ever hoped to be.   

  

Weathering the Circle of Life

My weekend adventure to The Country was a roller coaster ride of emotions.  First, excitement—the airport in New Orleans has undergone a quasi-mid-60s face lift—it looks a bit like a “Mad Men” set, done on the cheap.  I love mid-century modern furnishings, subpar materials notwithstanding.  Then frustration—torrential rain, really bad drivers who don’t use signals, clearly impaired drivers weaving from side to side, and Baton Rouge traffic.

Finally, I arrived at my father’s house, which was the mid-point in my journey.  By then, the sky had cleared, but I knew it would be awhile before the traffic followed suit.  I visited with him and my step-mother for a while, catching up on the latest news and events, before starting the final leg of the trip. 

As my father walked me out, he gave me some of his usual cautions.  If there’s even the slightest (and by slightest I mean one in a billion chance) potential for a disaster of some kind lurking, he’s sure to point it out.  My mother also veered strongly toward pessimism, so it’s a wonder their kids made it to adulthood without being totally impaired by anxiety.  Usually I just nod and play along, but this time, he said the most obvious thing one could say post-monsoon that it took my breath away.

“Be careful now.  The roads are really wet and it’ll be slippery.”  I think my jaw went slack from sheer astonishment that he’d felt the need to vocalize this statement.

“Dddaaaddd-dddyyy!  I’ve been driving for a really, really long time,” I responded, probably rolling my eyes in the process.  He gave me a shy little grin.

“I know--but you’re still my baby.”  That’s one of the sweetest things he’s ever said to me, even if he was just BSing me to cover his tracks.  I’ve said before that my dad is quite Spock-like: all logic, rare emotion.  My mother was just the opposite—she wore her heart on her sleeve.  I was totally taken aback by this unexpected infusion of tenderness.  I was immediately reminded of the commercial where the dad is giving his daughter the car keys: viewers see a teenager and he sees a little girl.  I’m sure I do the same thing to Joey, I just hadn’t realized it so clearly before. 

Soon enough, I was on the upswing and having fun with my friends from high school.  I’ll write about the fun parts of the weekend in another post, but I do want to take a point from an early part of the discussion we classmates had: how hard it is to lose our parents and to see them getting older.   Some of us had lost at least one parent, but all of us had stories to tell about how our remaining loved ones were slowing down.

Sometimes I feel that I haven’t fully grieved my mother’s loss.   I think it’s because she died so soon (27 days) after Bunny did.  If you asked me most days, I’d say that losing my husband has been so much harder than losing my mother that it’s not even a close call.  Yesterday, though, was different.

My mother and I weren’t always close, but in the past 15 years or so, we had grown closer than we’d ever been.  Even though she couldn’t travel during the last few years of her life, we talked at least weekly, and when she finally learned to Skype, we saw a lot more of each other.   She was always full of wry (or snarky) observations.

In the past, whenever I’d come to  my hometown and attended an event, I’d go to my mother’s house the morning after (usually a Sunday) and fill her in on all the details: who I’d seen, what we’d done, what was said—no piece of information was too small to mention.  She loved to interject tidbits of gossip she’d heard about the various players or places and ask questions to wring even more information from me. 

This year, I saw so many people that I’d have had hours of stories to tell her—we could have revisited the tales for weeks to come.  When I drove up to her house on Sunday morning to visit my step-father (Donald) and my visiting sister (Julie) and her family, I was fairly bursting with stories.  Telling them to Donald would have been largely useless, because he wouldn’t have known many of the people I was talking about.  I had to scale down the stories to the people he knew.  On the plus side, he’d been with me for part of the day, so he had his own observations to share about the people and events.  Julie had been with me for the better part of the day and night, and we’d caught up on-the-fly, so retelling the stories would have been repetitious for her.

The first thing I saw as I drove up to house was my mother’s dog, Honey.  My mother felt as strongly about her pets as I do about mine: they’re like children--absolute members of the family.  Honey is a 13 year old, honey-colored Pomeranian—she looks like a little fox.  Except now, she looks like a lion, because Donald took her to the groomer recently. 

Mama used to have Honey groomed like a lion for the summer: a big mane of hair around her face, buzz-cut body hair, and a poofy tail.  During her last hospitalization, my mother had joked to a neighbor that she wanted to go home--not because she missed Donald, but because she missed Honey.  I thought of that story as I reached down to pet her.  When she’s excited—like when visitors come--she usually runs around in a circle until she gets dizzy, but she wasn’t doing that now.

A bit later, as we sat on the patio catching up, I caught sight of my mother’s humming bird feeder.  Then the squirrel feeders that Donald had built for her.  I hadn’t even gone inside the house yet, and I was surrounded by reminders her.  Going inside was worse—the house is virtually identical to the way it was before she died.

Alone for a minute, Julie and I talked about a conversation with our former neighbor, Michael, whom we’d seen the night before.  Michael was telling one of his co-workers stories about the old days, when his family moved down the road from ours; our parents were freshly divorced.  His family had seven kids altogether, but the three eldest were much older than the rest of us.  The remaining four were either our ages or close enough to them, so we all grew up together.  Football, baseball, basketball—you name the team sport, and we played it, usually in their back yard.  When it was cold or raining, we gathered at our house to play board games indoors.  Michael’s youngest sibling, Lisa, was one of my bridesmaids when I married Bunny.

Eventually, Michael’s account turned to Mama, and how she’d raised the three of us as a single mother until Donald came along.  Everything Michael said was complimentary of her, and very true, but I think it had the same effect on Julie and me—it was a bit of a downer on Mother’s Day Eve.   Still, it’s sweet that he thinks so highly of her, even to this day. 

As I got ready to leave, I went to powder my nose.  In the bathroom, in the middle of the floor, was a shiny penny.  I picked it up and brought it outside to show Julie.

“So?” she said as I presented it with great flourish.

“It’s Mama!  She’s telling me hello!” I said.  Julie gave me her trademark cocked-eyebrow, half-smirking look of skepticism. It’s the same look she gave me when I told her what Daddy said when I was leaving--I told her she was just jealous.

“No, no.  It’s true—she used to tell me about letters to Dear Abby she’d read about pennies from heaven—they’re a sign from the departed.” (See Signs, 2/21/12 for the whole story—which my sister has apparently forgotten.) Then Julie told me her story about her signs from Mama over the weekend.

Shortly after that, we all headed out.  As I backed my car away, I caught sight of Donald and Honey waiving us off.  Now Honey was doing her dizzy-spinning.  Immediately, some primal instinct overtook me and I burst into tears: I missed my mom so much—more than I ever had before.  I didn’t stay sad for long—like on a Florida summer afternoon, this little outburst was just a sudden shower on an otherwise gorgeous day.  The forecast for rain on Mother’s Day was probably pretty high anyway.

Expectations and Adventures

Last night, a friend reminded me that I haven’t posted to my blog in a while.   In truth, as I told her, I’ve been struggling to find a transition from talking about all the firsts involved with the first year of Wideauxhood to more positive postings.  Emotionally, the day-to-day has gotten easier over time, but there are still moments when I feel Bunny’s loss as acutely as ever.  His birthday--April 20^th—was one of those times.

Another was Easter, which I didn’t celebrate at all last year: it was just too soon after his loss to celebrate a holiday that Bunny loved so much.  This year, I planned the usual two days of events for the girls and their parents: egg dying, egg hunting, egg knocking and a big Sunday lunch, complete with deviled eggs.  Without going into the all gory details, things did not go as planned.   At all.  By the end of Easter Sunday, I swore off putting on any more holidays altogether.

It took me awhile to come to this realization, but one of the main reasons I enjoyed holidays so much was because Bunny enjoyed them even more.  Watching him dye eggs was as fascinating as it was entertaining—he and Trinity would spend hours carefully mixing colors and patterns to see who could make the most beautiful eggs.  They were artists at work, happily chatting and borrowing each other’s techniques, each making suggestions to the other on how to improve the eggs.

Likewise, his absolute delight in his Halloween preparations was a sight to behold.   He had to have the right candy, the right decorations and the perfect set-up for everything.  He would practically skip to the door to greet the little monsters and witches and ghosts, and complement each child’s costume as he handed out fistfuls of candy.

This year, when each of our Easter traditions toppled like dominos, it reinforced his absence.  After doing things a certain way for 25+ years, it’s a bit jarring when the procedures are changed chiefly because the one person who enjoyed them most is gone.  Until the end of that weekend, it hadn’t occurred to me that I couldn’t recreate the happiness of years gone by, and that the holidays as I had known them would never again be the same.  Some might say I had unrealistic expectations going in, and maybe I did.  Even so, it hurt to have the point driven home.

On a happier note, in late January I decided to start getting out and doing things.  I’d heard radio ads for a group called Events and Adventures.  It’s a singles group that has at least one event planned every day of the month.  If you like the event or adventure du jour, you sign up in advance.  You show up, meet other singles interested in the same activity, and have a good time.

So far, I’ve gone to more events than adventures: mostly cool restaurants around the area.  I’ve met some nice people and had fun, which is the whole point of the group.  Developing friendships or romances is a bonus.  Adventure-wise, I’ve gone sailing and on a brewery tour and a brew bus, which stopped at four area breweries.  The breweries were geographically spaced apart—Tampa, Dunedin and Clearwater—so there was lots of time to ride on the bus and dance in the aisles as we drank bus beer. 

Tonight’s adventure was something I’d barely heard of, and had certainly never done: stand-up paddle boarding.  It works this way: you kneel on an oversized surf board and use a special paddle to navigate around the body of water.  The body of water in question: The Hillsborough River.  When you get some momentum going, you stand up and paddle from the standing position.  Sounds easy, right?

My success at water activities is hit-or-miss.  Sailing?  Love it!  Waterskiing? Can’t do it to save my life.  Literally.  I’ve tried many, many times.  I went into tonight’s adventure expecting I’d be able to paddle from a kneeling position with no problems.  The trouble, if any, would come in trying to stand up.  I also optimistically expected that I wouldn’t actually end up in the water, but had realistically worn a swim suit top under my tee shirt.   I couldn’t find the suit bottoms, so I wore Burmuda-length jeans (ending just above the knee).  Naturally, I didn’t wear shoes.

We got our pre-instruction, were measured for paddles, and were assigned boards.  We made our way down to the water, got on the boards, and started paddling.  Piece o’ cake!  I was probably one of the older members of this active little group of 12 or so, but I managed to keep up with the head of the pack.  Two of the pack members mustered the nerve to stand, and by then, emboldened by my paddling expertise, I carefully made my way to the crouch as previously instructed. 

In the meantime, the wind had picked up slightly, and my momentum had slowed because of the wind and because of my caution with the first-ever attempt at standing. I didn’t realize how much momentum I’d lost—I was focusing on my standing form.  Soon enough—bam!  I was standing.  Yea!  Just as soon—bam!  I was in the water.  I wasn’t so surprised that I’d ended up in the water, but I was surprised that it tasted salty, and that it was quite a bit warmer than I’d anticipated.  As soon as I came to the surface, I yelled “First!” as I pointed the number 1 sign heavenward.  The people who fell in after me could now say they weren’t the first to have done it.  Bonus: I didn’t lose my sunglasses.

One of the instructors swung around on his board to tell me how to get back on.  Again, not as easy as it looks.  You have to make sure your board is pointed in the right direction, get to the center of the board and grab the opposite side (or as much as you can, because it’s as long--if not longer than--arm’s length.  Then, you have to pull your midsection up onto the board.  In my case, there were two impediments to this procedure—a kind of spikey, rubbery mat on the very part of the board you’re supposed to pull yourself up onto; and the infamous Chatelain boobs.  It’s got to be much easier for the less well-endowed to drag their chests over spikey rubber to get on the board.

Nonetheless, I managed to get my midsection onto the board without too much difficulty.  The second part of the procedure: swing your leg up over the board.  In other words, like mounting a horse who’s floating in the water.  I managed that part of the procedure, despite the soaking wet half-jeans, which probably weighed at least five pounds by that point.  Note to self: wear only swimsuit bottoms next time.

Back on the board, I resumed kneeling paddling and caught up with the group.  The wind was sustained now and it made forward momentum a bit difficult, but going back would be easy.  I decided to give it another try on the easy part of the ride.  We paddled under the bridge—you can see the cars rolling over your head through the grate in the bridge—and paddled a short way on the other side before turning around.

Floating along with the wind to my back, momentum was easier to achieve.  My time had come.  As I got into my crouching stance, one of the instructors told me not to look at my feet.  “Keep your eyes on the horizon.”  I looked to the horizon and saw the beautiful Tampa skyline, which nearly always hypnotizes me, especially when I can see water in conjunction with the buildings.  I quickly rose to standing position and started paddling.

“Yea, me!” I called.  I rocked!  It felt almost like I was flying through the water.  I was elated with my success.  I was happy with my sense of accomplishment.  I may even have done a little excited wiggle or two.  I was back in the river within two minutes.  Crap!  But I had done it—I had done stand-up paddle boarding!  “Yea, me!”

For the moment, I held onto my board like it was a piece of flotsam and I was a Titanic survivor.  I was a bit tired from the first plunge into the river and the paddling up and now down the water.  Plus, I felt even more soaked-through than I had the first time.  On the plus side, though, I still had my sunglasses. Score!

This time, the remount was a bit more difficult.  It took three attempted heaves onto the board and two attempted leg swings before I was back on my board.  For a few seconds, I just stayed prone on the board until I caught my breath, then I knelt and paddled.

When I got to the dock, I found a few women who had never mustered up the courage to attempt a stand-up. Other people drifted in after me—some damp, some dry..  Everyone looked really happy for the experience.  I had exceeded my expectations, so I was thrilled.

Next week: rock wall climbing.