Joanne's House

Well, things are quite different and something totally bizarre and tragic has happened.  About a week ago, I had a friend over, we had a fire in the outdoor fireplace.  The wind picked up the embers and blew them under the deck where a fire started while I was sleeping.   I lost my entire house and one of my beloved dogs.  To make the story even a little stranger, there was no water pressure in any of the hydrants in my neighborhood so when the fire department finally got water 1/2 hour later, they had to save the two houses next to mine and let mine burn completely to the ground.  Oh yes, this actually happened.

There's been an outpouring of community support and of course, my life is extremely busy trying to get my life back to normal.  There is only one thing left that is the same as before Larry died.  My second  job.

Right now I'm living at friends of my parents who are away so Oakley and I are guarding their house. In a few weeks I will move into a townhouse in Princeton Junction for nine months.  My needs now will be different than my needs in a few weeks which will be different when I have to move out of the townhouse and get my own place.  Which leads me to Joann's house.

I spoke with the mayor of our town who was fairly unsympathetic  The fire department offered space to store furniture and offered to try to find Larry's ashes.  Oh yes, those are gone too.  The same day, a woman with whom I have a casual working relationship invited me to her house to see if I could use some of her furniture so I said sure.

Her style was really similar to the kind I like, the house felt energetic and cottage-like with a hand-made charm.  I loved almost every piece she offered.  I was kind of shocked at how easy it was to settle down in her home, let her whip up a simple dinner and share thoughts.  But she reads this blog and the few who read it really like it and I realized that she knows some pretty intimate stuff about me that helped her be comfortable with who I am.  The goal of this blog was to help other widows and widowers, but like the fire creating a clean slate, life is taking unexpected twists and turns and I'm so happy that I have a place to voice the good, the bad and the ugly.  

The one strange thing is that Larry's death left me feeling abandoned.  The fire is completely the opposite.  The neighborhood children canvassed for funds for me in the bitter cold last week, complete strangers give me funds on my online go fund me page.   Life feels unsettling, but I feel more connected to humans since the fire.    

Icebergs

Sometimes I feel frozen from making a decision.  I've always been a little plagued by making the "right" decision but  the amount of frozen I used to be felt like melting an ice cube and since Larry's passing, I'd say making a decision feels like melting an iceberg. And there's so many decisions to make!

I made the decision to release my leased car and purchase a used one.  This took many phone calls and explanations to come to this decision but finally, I am waiting for a call from Toyota for them to arrange a time to pick up the car. 

Today some friends started to convince me that maybe Toyota could make me a deal on the current lease or new lease and encouraged me to go to the Toyota dealership.  After thinking that I should just lease a new car because there would be less mileage and I would potentially be safer with no surprises, I called my Dad who encouraged me to buy a used car which was what I had intended to do before going to the dealership.

Ultimately, I think that a used car will last me longer for the same amount of money.  Leasing a car might affect my credit score which I've worked so hard to build so I think that's my final decision.  Iceberg melted for the time being. 

Tip:  Free credit report is not free...Credit Karma is free. 

I hope some other widows find this blog someday and I hope it helps them feel connected.



 

Tolerating Blandness

I went to a zen meditation last night.  After one meditation, there is a lecture.  The lecture was about people's tendency to want to chase away the blandness of life.  I think that is why it is hard for a lot of people to sit with grief.  Grief feels to me like waiting for things to get better than bland.    Tonight I made a kale soup for dinner and it was just ok.  Nothing to write home about.  And I am going to try to be ok with that instead of chasing it with other food that may or may not be tasty.  I'm full so...  It's really hard for me not to overeat right now.  It's where I've always gone to try to get excitement.  Hey, I tried to cook a healthy and economical meal and be responsible for my health and my money instead of take out.  As I was eating, there's a simple grey bird that is in New Jersey for the summer called the catbird.  It sounds like R2D2 from Star Wars, but it ends it's song with something that sounds like, "Larry" (sometimes it sounds like meow--hence the name).  Every spring Larry and I (I turned Larry into a birdwatcher when I met him) would wait for "Larry" and one of us would say, "catbird is back".  Catbird has been back for quite some time, but caught me off guard tonight and felt bittersweet.  

I will forgive myself if I have the last of the blueberry pie later.

Hi,

I'll start from where I am.  My husband died last month.  He had just turned 59 two days prior.  I am 49.  I live alone with two dogs.  What is hard for me today is that I am making space for a housemate.  A housemate that I don't really want but I have bills that I can't pay without that housemate.  And so I'm cleaning out the downstairs bathroom closet.  It feels good to be clearing clutter.  When Larry was alive, he was such a pack rat that I felt like I didn't know where to start.  He left so much stuff.  Ugghh.  Grief experts say that you should go slow, but these grief experts don't acknowledge that you might be in financial circumstances that you have to go fast.  It's so strange to come across things that were left as if Larry intended to keep on living.  I just came across his summer pool backpack.  It had New Yorker magazines in it given to him by a friend at the pool, a book he was reading, flippers and goggles.  He loved the pool.  Even if I had the money to renew this year, not sure I would.  I'm annoyed by the public having fun.  I need lots of quiet time and time to cry when I need to.  I cry every day and I make sounds like nothing I have ever experienced.  But I do think it's absolutely essential to cry and shut yourself off for as long as needed.  Otherwise, you skip the grief process and don't heal.  I went to a grief group last week.  I didn't really feel a strong connection with the other women so I don't think I will be going back.  At the end, one of the women said to me, "You never get over it, but it becomes tolerable."  Tolerable?  Since I'm left behind, I'd like it to be more than tolerable.  I have to go on living, not walking zombie-like through life because my husband died. But for right now, it is perfectly ok to be a zombie.