After weeks of procrastination I finally gathered up my courage and donated the bulk of Michele’s clothes to Goodwill. As a therapist with a private practice she had amassed quite a collection of very nice clothes; dresses, dress suits, blouses, and skirts.
In all the four huge trash bags had over 125 items in them. I wasn’t able to donate her everyday clothes yet. Those still hang in her side of the closet in our room. I know that I will need to part with them too, someday. But for now I can’t bear the thought of seeing the empty space in the closet. I also wasn’t able to do anything with her wedding dress. Since she had no daughter there’s no one to pass it on to, and eventually I suppose I will have to leave it behind too.
The sobering aspect to this is accepting one more piece of reality - the reality being that she isn’t coming back. Intellectually I know she is dead. Emotionally I am coping with her absence. However, there is a part of me, my soul, my inner child, I don’t know what, that still believes she will come back. And getting rid of her belongings feels like I am betraying that part of me.
Michele would have donated these clothes to Goodwill herself, were she here. They weren’t something she was going to use again and she would rather let someone in need get use out of them than keep them in a closet. I can hear her voice saying, “Someone will get a job because they had good clothes to wear to the interview.”
Still and all, I’m very sad right now. I miss her so very much, and letting go of anything that was hers is painfully hard.
Yesterday I decided to get a new battery for my favorite watch. At one time I had a real fetish for watches; I must have 5 or 6 good ones just in the top drawer of my desk. One in particular has long been my favorite. It’s a Seiko Chronograph with a brass tachymeter and brass dials. Very classy and functional.
After arriving at the jewelry store, and while I was waiting for the watch to be returned to me, I asked about having our two wedding bands melted down and made into a celtic knot. The head clerk was very helpful and explained that I would need to find a reputable goldsmith. It seems that gold wedding bands have more than just yellow gold in them. There are some trace amounts of alloy and if the ring is simply melted and cast into an ingot, the alloy with taint the color, most likely turning it a dull gray color. The metals have to be separated in order to prevent the “tarnishing” from happening.
She also indicated that I would likely need more gold added to the resulting supply in order to make the pendant I desired. And she warned me to check references before choosing a goldsmith, that because the rings, and therefore the gold in them, had great sentimental value to me, I should make sure the goldsmith returned my gold to me once he was done.
All of which was rather off-putting to me. I’m not ready to give up the two rings, especially hers. I carry them with me everywhere I go in my shirt or pants pocket. It maybe that I’ll never feel like transforming them into something else. Like donating her clothes to Goodwill made me feel like I was betraying her memory (and these were clothes she had stopped using), not having her wedding band to hold anymore would be very difficult to accept.
For now, I’m keeping the rings, just as they are.
Everyone has nightmares from time to time. The culturally common one is the “falling dream” where you dream you are falling uncontrollably and wake up suddenly, hopefully, before you smack into the ground. Years ago when I was into downhill skiing I used to have what came to be known between my skiing buddy and I as a ski-mare: dreaming you were rocketing down the slopes uncontrollably.
I, however, have another recurring nightmare, one I’ve had periodically since childhood. In this one there is a hand, or hand-like thing, under the covers with me. Several times while Michele was alive I had this dream intensely enough that I jumped out of bed screaming and pulled the covers completely off the bed. She was comforting and reassuring in the night, but I never really heard the end of it.
Last night, for the first time in years, I had a recurrence of the hand dream. Even thought Michele wasn’t there to be woken by an agitated full-grown man having a child’s nightmare, I could see her gentle smile and hear her soothing words as I tore the bed apart making sure there wasn’t anything in it with me other than the cat. She also suffered from occasional nightmares so she never teased me about them. But she wasn’t above a slightly-mocking sigh of resignation as we went back to sleep after I’d leapt from bed yelling, “the hand! the hand!” As I drifted back to sleep early this morning I could hear that soft sigh again in my ears.
Like most couples, Michele and I had a number of dates each year that were anniversaries of one kind or another. Certainly big ones like birthdays, or our wedding anniversary. But also smaller ones like buying our first house, or the first time we met face to face, or when I asked her to marry me. The very first important date we shared was today.
December 28, 1995 Michele and I met in a chat room on America Online on a Thursday in late December 1995. At the time I was heavily into the martial arts, and Thursday was a workout night for me. I was rarely online that day of the week. Thursday that year feel between Christmas and New Year’s, so the dojo was closed and I was at home. Our chance meeting resulting in the best ten years of my life, and, even though she has moved on to a level of existence that I can’t access, I don’t regret any part of our time together.
At her memorial service in October one of our friends said that she had opened my heart, looking back I see that he is correct. I often told Michele that she took my black and white world and added color to it. The colors are muted and changing now, but they are still present. She gave so much of herself for me, and ultimately (I think in her mind) laid down her life so I could have mine. I cannot imagine a greater gift, my goal is to not squander it; although I do not know what that means yet.
I do know that December 28th will always be special to me. In a very real sense it was the first day of the rest of my life.
From AlterNet comes this:
See for yourself.
Most of the past weekend was spent making and consuming food. Friday afternoon after work I went to the grocery store and bought what I thought were all the ingredients for Cuban style chicken and rice, chili, breakfast casserole, and tacos. After getting it all home and put away I promptly went out to eat. Go figure.
Saturday I was up early and tackled the breakfast casserole. First I browned and crumbled half a tube each of mild and hot sausage. After removing the sausage to my casserole pan, I finely diced a large potato and browned it in the drippings plus a little olive oil. Meanwhile I scrambled a dozen eggs and got out a package of shredded Colby and Jack cheese. Once the potato was browned it was sprinkled over the sausage. The eggs were poured over the whole thing, and then even covered with the cheese. Into the oven for 35-40 minutes at 350, until the cheese was golden brown. It is surprisingly rich, so this one 13x9 casserole is going to last for a week or ten days.
Saturday afternoon I made the chicken and rice, and a quick trip to the store for the forgotten lemon and diced tomatoes. As usual it was very good.
For lunch I made tacos using the Old El Paso kit. Quick and easy. The leftovers would serve as Sunday lunch and Monday’s dinner.
Sunday morning I made chili. The last time I added a single teaspoon of red pepper flakes arbitrarily deciding that would be mild. This time I added two teaspoons of flakes, one to the meat while it was browning, and a second to the mixture after the tomatoes were added. Mild plus perhaps. Next time I’ll add three teaspoons worth ~ a whole tablespoon.
Monday I baked a chocolate cake and made butter-cream frosting from scratch. Since I had the last of the taco kit for dinner I was quite full and actually didn’t sample the cake. I’ll have the first piece this evening. The rest is going with me to dinner at a friend’s house Thursday evening.
Making the food was fun and it helped to center me in a weekend full of emotions. It is both difficult and rewarding to cook now. Michele and I shared so much of our large dish cooking over the years that I feel sad doing it by myself now. But I also feel it is a living memorial to her and our time together. She would be very upset with me were I to give up cooking. And the best part is it gives me a ready supply of great lunches during the week. Today’s menu is left over chicken and rice. Mmm-mmm.
Christmas alone.
It just occurred to me that this is the first Christmas I’ve ever spent alone. Now before anyone runs amok with that statement, I set this weekend up to be by myself. The actuality of being alone for Christmas hadn’t occurred to me before today. I’m not terribly upset by it or anything, it’s just the first time in my life this event has happened.
It is also the first Christmas I have spent without Michele since 1997. Christmas 1996 she was still living in Colorado; it would be another six weeks or so before she moved to Illinois. Michele very much wanted to come to Illinois for Christmas but I was reluctant to expose her to my family around that holiday given the darkness that comes with the anniversary of Amy’s death.
All told Michele and I shared eight Christmases. The first in Illinois with my family, then one in Vancouver, one in South Carolina, four more in Illinois, and the last one here in Kansas a year ago. Twice we took trips for the holiday, traveling to Tampa in 2001 and Hawaii in 2002. We really hit our stride in terms of decorating the house, and celebrating our way in the last couple of years in Illinois. We decided to make the central theme Santa Claus and we collected many different Clauses including a two-foot tall Scottish one. Each year after Christmas we’d go to the upscale interior decorations store and buy hand-blown glass ornaments at steep discounts. Consequently I now have a collection of beautiful ornaments; maybe I’ll get them out next year.
Later today I’ll get out A Christmas Story and It’s a Wonderful Life and curl up on the couch with the cats and try to touch the magic and wonder of Christmas that Michele showed me.
Show Of Hands
Pointed.
Since her birthday was December 24th, Michele rarely had the attention a June or October birthday might garner. Instead her celebration was often rolled into the holiday or skipped altogether. Throughout our relationship I tried very hard to make her birthday special. I know that her birthday in South Carolina in 1999 was the low point in the years we had together. Perhaps the high point was December 2003. You see, that year I managed to pull off a surprise party for her which was attended by her three best friends.
It all started in January, 11 months earlier, when I had the idea of inviting her three best friends to come to our house in Illinois for a weekend in December to celebrate her birthday. Emails were sent and calendars marked; every one agreed to come. Now I just had to keep my mouth shut for a year. The first few months were easy; it wasn’t until September and October when flight plans were solidified that I had to really work at not saying anything that would let the cat out of the bag.
The weekend of December 12 -14 finally arrived and the surprise was complete. Never had I seen her so completely shocked and overjoyed at the same time. She just could not stop smiling and laughing. As luck would have it one friend was unable to travel on Friday, so I got to surprise her again on Saturday when Laura arrived. The four women sat and talked, cried, laughed, and communed with each other for hour after hour that day. The conversation lasted well into the wee hours of the morning. It was truly a glorious celebration centered around Michele.
On Sunday morning, before shuttling her friends back to the airport, I snapped this picture. This was the last time Michele saw her friends, and I am very glad they all came to spend a snowy weekend together.
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In the two years or so that I’ve been hauling my Powerbook back and forth to work I’ve always managed to remember all the extras; the mouse and the power supply. Today I broke that streak as I have the computer and mouse here but no power supply.
Nuts.
I recently bought a sleeve style bag that is just big enough for the computer itself, with no extras, and I’ve been tempted to carry the machine back and forth to work using it. However, I’d need a second power supply to leave at work to really make this minimalist approach work. Perhaps leaving the power supply at home is a sign. Maybe a sign that I should get a spare power supply, maybe a sign that my short term memory is going.