Diary of Not a Wimpy Widow

Author: kcmoyer65

  • Beauty Before Me, Beauty Around Me

    August 29, 2014

    It is hard for me to sit down by my swimming pool, put my feet up on a stool, and look at the beautiful garden without seeing all the jobs that I need to do. I can build to-do lists in my head without any paper. On this late afternoon, I look across the rock-edged pool to the two sharp-leafed yuccas at the shallow end of the pool. At their feet the bright yellow black-eyed susans hold up their sunny faces, like children to school teachers on the first day of school. Nearby a humming bird is loving up the red blossoms of the cardinal flower, and next to them the crape myrtle is shedding its bark to reveal beautiful layers of dark red.

    But my eyes move behind the two yuccas to the tall weeds that need to be yanked out. And further behind them to the dead tips of the low growing cedar hit by rust; the dead branches need to be cut out before the disease advances further. In the background on the grassy slope of the hill, the late afternoon sun lights up the gray leafless branches of the cherry tree stricken by fire blight. Bill planted this tree, and our daughter picked cherries from the tree to bake cherry pies for him on Father’s Day. Now the tree is almost entirely dead and needs to be removed.

    And in that moment, a bluebird flies into the dead tree and perches on a gray branch. It is as blue as the cloudless sky above. All I can see is beauty.

    Beauty before me, beauty around me. All I need to do is stop and look.

  • “That’s Where the Light Shines In”

    August 27, 2014

     A few months after Bill’s death from cancer in 2010, one of my ministers in her sermon told the story about a young man who was severely injured in a motorcycle accident and who lost his leg. He was very bitter and angry. During art therapy, he drew pictures full of darkness. One day he drew a picture of a large vase with a jagged crack down the center. But in time, he grew less angry, and he began to reach out to others who had suffered similar accidents. During one of his visits to the hospital, he stopped to say hello to the art therapist who handed him the folder of his drawings. He opened it and thumbed through the drawings, then stopped and drew out the drawing of the broken vase. “This one is not finished,” he said, and picked up a yellow crayon and began to fill in the crack with yellow. “There,” he said, “that’s where the light shines in.” 

    My eyes filled with tears as my minister ended the story. Perhaps in time the light would shine through the terrible hole in my heart. I did not see how.

    But four years later, I think it has. I like to think I have always been a compassionate person, but I believe I have become more attuned to others’ grief. One of my young friends gets angry when told that suffering makes us more compassionate. We do not have to suffer to be compassionate, but unless we roll into a ball of grief and never uncurl, in time our grief and loss softens our hearts. We better understand the pain that others carry, and we realize that everyone we meet is carrying a great burden of some kind.  

    I just finished reading a Washington Post article about Anna Whiston-Donaldson, who has written a memoir Rare Bird about the loss of her 12-year old son in a flooded creek. “Perhaps, she says, her story will offer help and hope to those in mourning, and soften the hearts of those who cross their paths.”

     May all of our hearts be softened and may we reach out to those in need.

     

  • Sorrow’s Cat

    When first you arrived
    Your claws were sharp
    And pricked my skin

    You howled in hall and den
    And study

    And I howled too
    Not knowing how

    We could go on

    But now

    Time has passed

    Grief runs more quietly in our veins

    You curl upon my lap
    My hand rests on your sleek fur
    And within

    Under my fingertips
    The tiniest breath of a purr

    Begins

     

  • Dinner for One

    For me, dinner time now is the hardest part of the day. During my 45 years of marriage, dinner time was not just consuming food, but a ritual, a time for the family to sit down together at the dining room table, to eat and talk. Sometimes there were arguments, but we were together. After the children were grown and out of the house, Bill and I continued the traditions that we had begun in our first year of marriage: lighting two candles, saying grace, having dinner together, whether soup or hamburgers or something fancier that Bill who was the more daring chef was trying for the first time. The radio would be on, playing classical music, but the television never was on during dinner time. 

    Now my dinners are very simple—a frozen pizza, a scrambled egg, prepared soup from the grocery store. They certainly are not well balanced. A nutritionist would give me a good scolding. Sometimes dinner is microwave popcorn. (I was relieved to hear from another widow that she often eats popcorn for dinner.) Food is not very interesting when you are the only one eating—at least that is what I have found. Sometimes I sit on the couch and balance a plate of food and my iPad, watching a TV show via Netflix.  Other nights I sit at the dining room table, in one of the comfortable teak chairs I purchased after Bill’s death with a book by my plate. I cannot bring myself to light a candle, though I light the candles when family or friends are here for dinner. And how pleasant those gatherings are! Also wonderful are lunches with friends. I usually eat enough at those lunches that I don’t need any dinner.  

    I am interested in hearing how other widows or women who find themselves alone after a divorce cope with the dinner hour.  Perhaps in time I will be able to light the candles for dinner for one.

  • Easter Song

    April 20, 2014

    When we moved into the townhouse
     We exulted in our garden
         The earth called out to us
     And we replied

    We planted dwarf fruit trees in one corner
         And called it our orchard
         And in the center we planted a crabapple
     Whose purple blooms filled our spring

    And later at our house on the hill
         Barren from years of neglect
     We brought home in the trunk of our car
     Cherry, plum, and apple trees,
     Maple, magnolia, willow oak,
     Pear and crabapple

    We took turns wielding the spade,
     Tamping down the earth, watering,
     And then we waited

    Thirty-seven years later
         The fruit trees have withered and died
     But the crabapple by the well
     Stretches out its dark arms with purple blossoms

    And the pear tree exults above the little house

    And the maple
     And the willow oaks
     Unfold their tender leaves
         Lift up their arms to the sky
     Singing Hallelujah

    And in the chorus
     I hear your voice

    Hallelujah!

     

     

     

     

  • Technology: Trials and Triumphs

    I grew up with manual typewriters and mimeograph machines. I remember staying up late during my college years, typing my English composition essays, only to have to start over with a new page if I made a mistake, so I blessthe personal computer and my ability to write and make changes and corrections quickly and easily. With my flatbed scanner I can scan and save old photographs, color slides, and documents, and then send them by e-mail around the world. A year ago my children gave me an iPad, and this winter I bought an iPhone—two items I considered gadgets but now am finding indispensable.  In the small package of my iPad, I have books, movies and television shows, a compass, a calculator, a scanner, a camera, a file of photographs, e-mail, a GPS, weather reports, and much more. And when everything works, life is grand. It’s a brave new world indeed.

     When everything works….ah, there’s the rub. About a week ago my beautiful 14-month old iPad Air started malfunctioning. It went to sleep, and I could not turn it back on. I searched on the Internet for solutions and posted questions on my Facebook page. I tried rebooting, and sometimes that did the trick for a minute or even two, but then the iPad would turn itself off again, as though the Genie inside refused to wake up and work.  Finally I made an appointment with a Genius at the Bar in the local Apple store. (Instead of serving drinks at the Bar, they serve solutions.) The e-mail confirming the appointment warned me to back up my iPad to the iCloud, and I tried to do this via iTunes but got an error message part way through. 

    The next day just before my appointment I made a last-minute attempt to wake up the iPad, and it roused just long enough for me to back it up to the iCloud.  A small triumph! But the Genius (a guy who looked about 18 years old) could not fix the iPad. The Genie inside was not asleep, but dead. I must have looked ready to cry, because the Genius said he was sorry, that they could not fix iPads the way they could iPhones and Apple computers. And my iPad was out of warranty. Only solution:  a new iPad at a reduced price, with all my old applications and files (music, photographs, documents, etc.) restored to it. Not exactly the ending I was hoping for, but better than it might have been.

  • A Room of One’s Own

    March 17, 2014

    When I was growing up, I seldom had a room of my own. For a brief time when I was ten, I had a room of my own, the alcove off the living room. During my high school years, I shared a large room with my younger sister. In college, I had a single room my freshman year, but after that I shared a room with my roommate.  And of course after our marriage, I shared a bedroom with my husband Bill, first in apartments, later in houses.

    Two months after Bill died of cancer in our bedroom, I had a strong compulsion to re-decorate the room and I went about it without stopping to figure out why. I brought home samples of peach paint and painted sections of foam board so I could move the boards around under different light. I removed as much furniture as I could and painted the ceiling a light peach and the walls one shade darker. I painted the already white woodwork a crisp white. I replaced the pleated white window shades, dingy from years of use, with Shoji style shades made of paper and bamboo. I ordered a white and brushed nickel ceiling fan, and my son installed it for me. I bought sliding mirror doors to replace the heavy wooden doors on the closet. I did not rearrange the teak furniture, only moved the bed slightly closer to one wall—Bill’s side of the bed.  A friend helped me re-hang the oriental artwork, and I found woodcut style decals of three swallows to put on the walls.  I worked very hard for almost a month.

    At the time I did not puzzle about why I was painting and redecorating. Only later did I wonder, and discussed the compulsion with a friend. “You had to make it yours,” she said. I think that is right. The room had been my room and Bill’s for thirty-three years, and now I needed to make the room mine, in order to stay in it. I needed the room to be familiar and yet different, more feminine.

    Now in the morning I wake up and admire the peach walls and ceiling as the sunshine gradually fills the room. The sun shines through the eastern window that Bill gazed at during his last days. I turn my eyes to the opposite wall where the Chinese calligraphy that I ordered from Hong Kong now hangs above the mirrored closet doors. The calligraphy offers a blessing for a long, healthy, and peaceful life. May it be so.

  • Grow Old Along with Me

    February 9, 2014

     Bill and I were married 45 years, and on the whole they were happy years. Of course there was sturm und drang especially during the children’s growing up years. But the years after Bill’s retirement were especially mellow and happy.

     Before he died of cancer, Bill said he was sure that men would be buzzing around me like bees around a honey pot. I guess that was because he thought I was special. But no bees have shown up, and I have not gone out looking for any. I was lucky to find the best man in the world for me when I was only nineteen—that is how old I was when Bill and I met. There may another man out there for me, but frankly I don’t have the energy to go look. One widow I know said she had started dating again, and I felt an involuntary shudder. To start dating again at the age of 71! It was terrifying enough the first time around.

    Several widows I know have remarried. One met a man in her new neighborhood a few years after her husband’s death.  They enjoy travel and golf and their blended families. Another remarried a year after her husband died to the new man next door. Another much younger widow has found a new love, and I am very happy for her; she is way too young to spend the rest of her life alone. 

    But I am content to walk this path by myself. Bill is gone, but not his love. It was his love that helped me to be the strong resilient woman that I am. I look at the bird bath sundial I gave him for an anniversary gift one year. Engraved on the rim are the words “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be…”

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • To build a fire

     

    January 25, 2014

    I remember years ago reading the classic short story by Jack London entitled “To Build a Fire.”  It was the story of a man hiking in the Yukon in 50 degrees below zero, needing that essential element fire to survive. Tonight as I struggle to get a fire going in the wood burning fireplace insert, I feel something of that man’s frustration but not his desperation. Mostly I am irritated that the fires I have been building the past week are very slow to catch and require many trips to the fireplace to poke logs, adjust the air flow, and sometimes start all over from the beginning.

    Build is the operative word. I try to build a base of several sheets of crumpled newspapers, a few pieces of fat wood from LLBean, and kindling that I have gathered from outside. On top I place a fire starter or two. I frame the base with two short logs on each side and two longer logs across the top. I have learned that after lighting the fire I need to keep one of the glass doors slightly open for the first five minutes, and not to choke back the air intake lever too soon. This is a new skill I am learning, or reviving from my Girl Scout camping days at Ft. Knox. Bill was the one who built the fires here. It was a guy thing. I just sat back and admired.

    I think part of the problem right now may be slightly damp wood. Before the snow fell on Tuesday I filled up the wood rack by the fireplace with dry wood, but for the past few days the logs that I have been lugging inside were at the top of the snow covered pile by the kitchen door. I knocked the snow off but the logs still were damp. I guess I need to buy a tarp. A year ago that stack by the back door was five feet long and five feet high, split and expertly stacked by my friend Alan. I burnt most of those logs last winter, and now the stack is almost gone, meaning I will need to push the plastic lawn cart out to the horse barn where I have two full racks of aged split logs. After multiple trips I will have a new log pile outside the kitchen door. Wouldn’t it be loverly if there were manor house servants here to take care of these jobs?

    If damp wood is the problem, how did anyone in the wilderness survive? And I know that the man in London’s story did not have fire starters or fat wood from LLBean or an infinite number of matches, nor the oil furnace that is the principal source of my heat. If you have forgotten what happened to the man in the Yukon, here is the link to the full story: http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html

    But I the meantime the fire in my fireplace is sputtering and needs attention, and I must return to one of the most basic tasks of humans through the ages:

    Building a fire.

  • Snow Fall

    January 23, 2014 

    This week about six inches of snow fell on my hilltop, with record cold temperatures. When a snow was predicted, Bill used to put the snow shovel by the back door, bring in some fire wood, and park the truck and car so they aimed downhill. So on Monday, I got out the snow shovel, brought in fire wood, and aimed the car and truck downhill. In addition I bought fresh gasoline for the snow blower and got it out of the horse barn.  

    I wish we had had a snow blower in February 2010. That was the year a record blizzard hit our area, dumping more than two feet of snow on top of an earlier snow so that accumulations were almost four feet. A lot for the Mid-Atlantic area. Thousands of people lost power to their homes, including Bill and me. We were without power for four days.  We had a portable generator, but during our storm preps we had neglected to move it from the horse barn to the back door of the house before the storm hit. Bill who had stage IV cancer had to dig a wide enough path to get the generator out of the barn and up to the house, so he could plug it in. That meant digging a 20 foot path through four feet of snow.  We had only one large container of gasoline for the generator, and thus could only run the generator for limited periods of time.

    On Day Two after the storm, we were relieved when our son and one of his friends came slogging through thigh-high snow with four full containers of gasoline; they had hiked in from the nearby subdivision through unplowed roads, a real act of heroism and stamina. With the new stores of gasoline, Bill and I could run the generator for a limited number of circuits, but at least we had running water and some heat. We cheered when the power company crew appeared on our lane. Even after power was restored, we were snowbound until the snow plows cleared our road.  

    Five months later in the month of June, Bill started the process of having a whole-house stand-by generator installed at our home. He died of cancer a week after the contract was signed.  

    When snow falls, I no longer have to worry about being in the dark and cold alone, or going outside in the middle of the night to add gasoline to a portable generator. That stand-by generator was Bill’s last gift to me. Thank you, honey.