Just Like a Baby

All of my life I've been a good sleeper. As a child I had a set bedtime and didn't fret when time came - although I liked it best when someone read me to sleep. When a teenager, if left to my own devises, I would have slept until noon everyday, even after having gone to bed at a decent hour the night before. As a young mother, I learned to nap when babies napped, and go to bed earlier at night so I could cut short those "stay in bed" hours in exchange for some peaceful, quiet, awake times before 3 sets of little feet hit the floor. Even as an adult, I've gone to sleep and stayed asleep (except for those occasional trips to the loo - what IS it about seniors and the bladder urge in the middle of the night?) At bedtime -usually before the late news - I'd climb into my side of the bed, scoot toward the middle, wiggle into that warm, snuggle spot and be asleep instantly. Then, retaining the habit of rising early, at 5:00AM sharp, without need for alarm, my eyes would pop open ready to begin another day. No tossing and turning. No deer eyed stares at the ceiling. No bad dreams. Just a good sleep.

Things aren't like that anymore. The awfulness of spending six months beside my husband's hospital bed, respirator wheezing, little red lights blinking, alarms beeping, and nurses constantly in and out of the room for blood pressure checks and meds, took it's toll on my good sleep habits. Sleep came in fits and starts - minute naps and not the power kind either. It was nearly three years after I became a woman who had outlived her husband for me to regain some of my former peaceful, restful sleep.

Today, I sleep some, read some, get up and use the loo some, read some more, sleep some more... My reading light is clipped to whatever book I'm reading. Off. On. Off. On. If the neighbors could see through the window blinds, they might think I was practicing Morse Code. On those rare occasions, when I go right to sleep and am oblivious for the next six or seven hours, I'm as proud of myself as though I'd lost 10 pounds - well, maybe just two pounds, but it truly does feel an accomplishment. Are you a good sleeper?

Sandy

Trick or Treat

Halloween is just around the corner - never my favorite holiday. I don't like masks, even those half ones that only cover the eyes and nose like the Lone Ranger wore in the Saturday matinee serials. I want to see animated faces, not flat, blank stares. While some of the costumes are clever, especially on the little folk dressed like bumble bees or ladybugs, there's something eerie about teenage boys (girls too) who are taller than I am, showing up in expressionless Scream masks or dressed as zombies and mummies. So, when the night arrives, I turn on the outside lights, turn off the inside lights, bolt the doors and head to my daughter's house. It feels safer there.

Before I became a woman who had outlived her husband, Trick or Treat night was fondly anticipated. Not because I liked masks any better then, but because my husband was the biggest kid on the block and he made it fun. We'd sit on the front porch, candy bowl in hand, and wait for the hoards of ghosties to arrive. He'd place handfuls of goodies into their bags, admire each and every outfit, even the blue jean overalls and straw hat of the "farmer", and he'd greet the parents standing on the sidewalk with a hearty "Happy Halloween". We gave out good candy like mini-Snickers and Hershey bars - not those awful Gummy Bears or Sweetarts. Have to admit, we didn't give out ALL the good candy. There was always a dish inside the house where our personal stash was kept.

This year, as I have for the past nine years, I'll leave my house before the "witching" hour (pun intended) and head to my daughter's. Her husband and brothers will accompany the grand kids around the neighborhood pulling a wagon just in case the littlest one gets weary before the evening's over. (The wagon is also a good spot for the required beer cooler.) Daughter and I will take turns minding the candy bowl on the front steps and stirring the chili on the stove top. We'll enjoy the evening because we have a chance to visit with each other between visits of witches and goblins and jack-o-lanterns too.

The men will come home with tales of the other guys they've met along their route with whom they may have shared a brewski. The kids will be wired from all the sweets they've already devoured. We adults will eat our bowls of chili while the munchkins empty their pillow cases of sugary treasures into piles on the floor and the trading will begin. Halloween night is not the same as it once was, but it's good... really good to be with family. I never have to worry about any of them wearing a mask.

Sandy

Someone else is driving

Normally I'm considered to be a relatively self-sufficient person, but in the first couple of years after I became a woman who had outlived her husband, I was mush. Couldn't make a decision, lost things I'd had in my hands only the minute before and even forgot the names of long time friends. Foggy. Unfocused. Looney tunes.

Thinking back, I'm fortunate not to have been robbed, or worse, attacked by some intruder. Can't count the number of times when I finally located my house keys, they were firmly installed in the lock - on the outside of the back door. Or, how often I'd awaken and look outside to see the detached garage door standing wide open. Bad enough the "people" door to the garage was never locked, but leaving that gaping hole of a garage door in the open position was an screaming invitation to "Come in, steal me blind." Apparently I didn't own anything worth stealing - or I had a guardian angel looking after me in my deranged state.

I'd put sugar water on to boil for the hummingbird feeder, get muddled-headed and leave the house, only to return an hour or so later to charred sugar in the bottom of a pan and a really smokey, smelly kitchen. The attention span of a ripe grapefruit! I'd go to the basement to transfer a load of clothes from the washer to the dryer and return upstairs with a screwdriver to tighten a screw on a receptacle cover. More than once I had to rewash laundry because I'd left it sit in the washer until it soured. To be honest, I STILL go from room to room with a mission in mind and when I get there, I wonder - "what in the hell am I doing in here?"

In talking with other widows, this Sister Mary Amnesia syndrome - nice house, nobody home - is commonplace. There's such a disconnection with reality, a feeling of disorientation. The worst part is we don't even react to our stupid attacks, just shrug them off or simply not acknowledge them and go on to repeat our foibles. We're heard saying, "I haven't lost my mind, I've only lost my husband." Only? Maybe not so much.

Sandy

My hat man

Some people are so comfortable in their own skin. They never get embarrassed if they fumble and stumble - just pick themselves up, dust themselves off and start all over again. That's how it was with my spouse. He often said, "I'm just me." That he was. Unique, different, his own person, special... My daughter's description was so apt. She said she had the brains of Albert Einstein, the looks of George Bush, Sr, and the personality of Barney Fife. Please, only one bullet!

He loved hats. A favorite was a Panama Jack hat that he donned once a year at a Festival where we had set up a craft booth. He'd stroll up one side of the street and down the other getting acquainted with the other vendors. They'd say, "Here comes the Colonel". Why the tag, Colonel, I still don't know. He'd stop and chat, and within minutes had learned where they'd came from, what wares they sold and how long they'd been participating in the festival. He made friends as quickly as gnats find ripe peaches. That same hat served him well at one of our themed Christmas parties when he dressed as an Aussie from the Outback, the hat festooned with corks dangling from string to shoo away the flies when he shook his head.

At another themed Christmas party called South of the Border, he latched onto a huge sombrero and drank one too many Margaritas. We found him slumped him in a corner, sombrero fallen forward to cover his face. Perfect rendition of siesta time in old Mexico. The dandiest of dandys was the "hat" given to one of my sons at a "let's see who can give him the raunchiest gift" birthday party. This hat was rubber and ordinarily worn on a another part of the anatomy, hopefully with complete privacy. You get the picture. No one else at the party would have dared, but when you're okay with who you are and you love hats...

Sandy

Percy, the concrete pig

Did you ever spout off some inane remark that came back to haunt you? I have a friend in Florida who is very fond of flamingos - no accounting for some people's taste. Anyway, she made the mistake of expressing this fondness in front of another friend of ours. The mutual friend's penchant for mischief got all riled up, and the next thing you know, first friend woke up to an entire front yard filled with plastic pink flamingos. A virtual forest of the long legged, sharp beaked beasties. A sea of pink. Hysterical laughter passed over the phone lines from neighbor to neighbor as word spread, reminiscent of the Norman Rockwell painting on a Post magazine. Cameras clicked. Some folks even got creative in the "arrangement" of the plastic pretties. More cameras clicked. Friend one and friend two remain friends to one another - no accounting...

I also remember when a neighbor of mine set out a cement goose as a yard ornament. As the seasons changed, so did the outfit on the goose. I thought it was kind of cute and said so to my younger son, who in return said he'd never visit my home again should one of those "cute" critters show up in my yard. So, the point is, I don't do lawn ornaments - not deer, or raccoons, or the Seven Dwarfs. I'm a dyed in the wool snob about the presence of petrified critters.

Except for... Percy, the concrete pig.

In relating my aversion to unnatural lawn decor to my husband-to-be, he teasingly remarked what he'd really like to have in his yard was a concrete pig. I was on a mission. I found the perfect pig at a roadside junk store (nearly ran off the road getting to it), tied a red kerchief around its neck, sat it in his backyard beside the tomato patch, and left this note, "I'm Percy, the concrete pig. My name comes from a word my mistress often uses in describing you - stubborn. Oh, excuse me, "Persi"stent. I hope you don't mind my being here. It's my job to remind you how happy you've made my mistress, with your stubborn, persistent... oh heck, pig-headed resolve to live and love again after your open heart surgery last year. Be nice to me. My mistress is rather fond of me and she doesn't take kindly to having anything bad happen to those she cares about." He called me at work, laughing so hard I could barely understand him. In a scrapbook, beside Percy's picture, I wrote, "Percy is symbolic of our concrete relationship."

Percy proudly joined us in the backyard of our home once we were married and when I moved, he joined me here... sans kerchief and note. One day I noticed an ear had broken off and it made me sad, but super glue worked its magic. After all, it's just a silly lawn ornament.

Sandy

Friends and fade aways

Couple friends are an odd lot even when you're still a couple. Most "couple friends" become so because one of you had something in common with one of them. My dearest friend and I met at a New Neighbors program about interior decorating. I remember asking the speaker, short of tearing out bathroom fixtures and starting over, how I could somehow make a pink toilet and bathtub surrounded by slate blue tile be at least a little bit palatable. I don't remember the suggestion, but my new best friend came up to me after the meeting to commiserate as she, too, had faced some interesting interior decorating challenges. We laughed, joined the same bowling league and couldn't wait to get our husbands together. For the next several years, the four of us, plus our combined seven kids, spent nearly every weekend together before career transfers moved us to opposite sides of the country. We cooked a lot of meals - I still use some of those recipes; played hours and hours of bridge, and the guys became golfing buddies. One time, when they were visiting us at our new home, each husband come from the shower wearing the identical outfit - tan slacks and bright yellow shirts - Frick and Frack. That was over 40 years ago and although she's on the west coast and I'm in the Midwest, she's still there for me whether I'm half of a couple, a single, a couple again, or a woman who has outlived her husband.

It's different when the one who introduces his best friend into a relationship is no longer living. No matter how welcomed I was or the fun times we had together, when I was the "left behind" part of the couple, the threads of connection were severed and the friendship unraveled. It simply faded away.

Despite the theory that new friends come about because one of you had something in common with one of them, there is that rare occurrence when both parts of a couple meet both parts of another couple and an instant bond is formed. The common denominator here, at least for me, is a place. I think of it as my Cheers place - where everybody knows my name. These friends stay friends - no fading away. They will value the memories no matter who outlived whom.

Today's friends mostly aren't part of a couple. Like me, they're single, coping with a couple's world. They understand the dirty little secrets of widowhood and they'll talk about ANYTHING! There's a whole 'nother world out there for those of us who've outlived our husbands. I don't wish the title on anyone, but know there's a sisterhood of genuine friendship among us - no fade outs.

Sandy

It's that time of year

It's that time of year when dust, pollen and mold spores (in my case from that miserable mountain of mulch in my driveway) is in the air; when sneezing, snorting, coughing and dripping define the season. It's also an I can feel it coming time. Autumn. The end of summer. The dying back of brilliant colored annuals, the dormancy and drying up of perennials.

I've never liked Autumn, and now that I've reluctantly joined the ranks of women who have outlived their husbands, I like it even less. When my husband was here to share my allergy to Fall, I was less vulnerable to the anxiety it created. Together we appreciated the riot of color at leaf peeping season. Our Indiana countryside rivals that of New England with it's spectacular artist's palette of bright yellows, vibrant reds and vivid oranges. The air can be crisp and clean and invigorating for its last hurrah. But...

Autumn makes me feel vague, on edge, a bit unsettled. I am not in control of this impending season change - not that I ever was, but my coping skills were better honed when my encourager was alive and well to shoo away negative thoughts. My well-being seems threatened. The days are too short. The dark is too long. Like a Blue jay with a bad attitude, I'm irritable, restless and down-right cranky. As the adage goes, "This too will pass". It just can't pass quickly enough for my liking. What is your emotional response to this time of year?

Sandy