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