a routine of GRATITUDE

The bags were heavy.  I was carrying my purse, (that is much like hauling a load of bricks around my neck), my bag from work, a laptop, two heavy bags of groceries and a jug of almond milk. Teetering on the first step under the weight of the load I thought,  It's all about core strength. 'Got none. Get up these steps.  Then I adjusted the load, evening out the weight from hand to hand.  Grunting and pure grit got me up those steps.

With the food put away.  I thought about the morning.  Coffee.  Fill the decanter.  Nearly empty. Not enough for a cup.  I saw a pound somewhere. The cupboards opened and slammed  in a fury.  Where is it?  I don't see it anywhere.  'Should have bought some.  Just in case.  My mind whirled and swirled in the vortex of panic. Ahhh, no coffee.  Can't be. Store's closed. The search continues.

I dip the stainless coffee spoon into the aromatic grounds measuring two heaping spoonfuls. The water hisses.  The microwave beeps.  Two steps to retrieve the almonds milk warmed.  Then the electric kettle clicks and the water is poured into the tube holding the coffee until the liquid reaches the top.  With chopstick near, I stir the mix, let it sit for a varied amount of time.  Sometime seconds or sometime minutes.  This is a gauge of patience or how late I am running in the morning. Then I use a plunger in the tube to force the liquid passed the grounds and into the mug.

The device is engineered for small hands whirrs with the push of a button.  I remember the first time I tried the frother.  It did nothing.  My husband interceded and showed me how I had to aerate the milk from bottom to top and back and forth until I got the right amount of creaminess.  Now I am a pro. The white billowy froth seems to sit atop the coffee.

I am strangely grateful for this routine every morning.  Each step is a delicate orchestration.  With a sprinkle of cinnamon, I grab the pottery mug (a gift from my late husband) and I sit, breathe and watch the birds.  Morning gratitude begins with a prayer and a homemade latte.  All is right with the world, when there is coffee in the house.

Talk

Recent widows talk a lot or not at all.  When we talk we talk about the pain.  We talk about the empty feeling in our gut that just won't go away.  We talk about how we fill the loneliness and how we cope with the brain fog.  We begin to talk about our cats and dogs with such love and animation, stories about them rival tall husband tales.

"Oooh, I am devoted to you.  I love you so." looking into his brown eyes I coo.  He was silent, but suddenly without warning leaping legs landed on my chest.  His tail wagged, zigging and zagging the third back end of his body.  Rex loves me.

My feet, two little ice cubes most winter nights, I would start with my big toe and run it up and down my husband's legs, just to acclimate him to what was to come.  He was a perpetual furnace willing to keep me warm.  I never slept well unless I began by draping my arm across his torso, our bodies melting into the other.  Warm. Together.

Now his body presses into mine.  He does not tolerate diving under the covers. I have tried.  Instead he sleeps on the top making the sheet, blankets and comforter taut, because of this my body is routinely held captive under the load of downy fluff as I try to roll over.  He is near.  Prone on his back, his legs splayed I rub his belly.  He smiles.  He actually smiles.  This becomes a pleasurable experience for both of us.  I am in love.

Sitting in my chair sipping my morning coffee, he is under my feet.  Always close. Never far.  My first and last kisses of each day come from the one with brown eyes and a cold moist nose.

Recent widows talk a lot or not at all.  We talk about pain.  We talk about our dogs or our cats.  They fill the loneliness.

A Perfect Marriage

                                                                  Sample fare.

Sweet onions are diced and the organic carrots become small chunks plopped into a bubbly brew of split peas.  The bay leaves float until I stir with my smooth wooden paddle that fits just right in my hand, a gift from my husband.  It is Sunday.  This day has become a new tradition to cook for the masses.  Soup fills the biggest pot in the house with the intent of having some through the week, a portion is reserved for a friend who has not been well and the rest for supper with my eldest and his girl.  He is baking the bread.  This day becomes a perfect marriage of culinary delights and precious time with family and friends.  We talk.  We eat. And talk some more.  Just perfect.

A Testimony

In the darkness of a fall morning, he drew his last breath and squeezed the hand that held his.  


Days on the oncology ward were filled with family and friends who traveled more than five hours to be with him.  The stream of visitors was steady.  The nurses commented one after the other about how unusual this was, "You must be quite a guy," they all remarked to my husband.  "This is a testimony to how you live your life."

Those days in the Boston hospital stretched into just short of a month.  The days turned into nights and my husband began to confuse night with day.  Sometimes he would wake at 2 in the morning having slept on and off through most of the day.  I reverted to my days of acclimating my sweet newborns to regular wake sleep patterns, but my efforts in the hospital did little to ignite any predictability as to when my husband would sleep or I as the caretaker should doze myself.  So I slept when my husband slept.

My husband was never alone; our eight children, spouses and dear friends each stayed at the hospital through all those nights.  We all found that the tiny little built in couch in the hospital room was quite comfortable and when we moved to a health care facility closer to home, the staff gave us a room with an extra bed.  Our friend Stanley said he wanted to stay.  

A cancer-surviving almost 80 year old dynamo, he sleeps little. Sedated my husband was lulled into a pain-free sleep after a nearly 6 hour bumpy ambulance ride from Boston to our little coastal island. I was relieved that my husband was no longer crying out in pain, but sleeping.  I would see him in the morning and plan to spend the night with him after some sleep.  We both needed sleep after the journey.

No surprise Stanley slept little that night.  Instead he held his beloved friend's hand.  This rough, but gentle lumberjack of a guy held my husband's hand and spoke of love until the end.   This a testimony to my husband and the unquenchable power of love between men.

Today's Top Ten Reasons to Be Grateful Arranged Without Logic or Reason

10.  Geraniums blooming with outside temperature recordings in the teens.

  9.  Rising before sunrise for prayer and breakfast in observance of the Bahai Fast.

  8.  Visiting with friends this evening and swapping Jerry stories.

  7.  Listening to the howling wind.

  6.  Morning, afternoon and evening wet kisses stolen by Rex.

  5.  Sipping afternoon tea with a froth of Almond milk.

  4.  Playing Parcheesi.

  3.  Children who check on their Mama.

  2.  When I ask for help, I receive it.

  1.  MDI boys are Class B State Champions in Basketball.

  

Ready for Anything

The ravens sounded from the edge of the thick woods, one swooped in front of me landing on the high branches of a bare deciduous.  The sky was a cloudy gray in parts with a mix of blue sky.  I paused to observe and listen.  My eyes squinted in an attempt to locate the other squawking bird. Bare branches mingled with dense conifers which made spotting him a challenging task.  Unresolved observations did little to slow me down as I walked on the edge of the woods along the long paved driveway; the ground was far too wet and muddy for me to venture into the dark cool forest.  The forecast I heard was for clouds.  No mention of precipitation.  At the far end of the drive, fat raindrops pelted me.  It seems they came out of nowhere, and then I remembered the gray skies.  I kept walking thinking it only a shower, after all blue was over my left shoulder and the report was clouds. A few steps more the wind began to pick up.  Still I walked.  Then it began to hail.  Tiny little balls of ice stung at my face and bounced off my head, my shoulders and my chest.  They stuck in my hair and began to melt. Water dripped down my face and soon pants were drenched too.

I held my cell to my left ear, my hand frozen. "It is suppose to get really cold this afternoon, into tonight." my friend offered during the rainy portion of my walk.  Little did I know that  temperatures would drop and that I would return to hours more of school drenched, and I feared very cold.

I dried quickly and without cause for alarm.  I must remember that each walk I take is an unpredictable series of happenings.   I just have to be ready for anything.

Dodging and Facing

The wet gravel shifts under-foot making what was to be quiet walk, quite loud, adding to the chatter in my head.  I am overwhelmed.  Counting on the mental health benefits of movement-I walk.  I pray too, while I walk.  On this cold, drizzly first day of March, I stuff my hands into my fleece jacket, lower my chin, and raise my shoulders to my ears to buffet against the wind.  I walk alone.

His hand slipped into mine and we darted off the sidewalk and into the street to get past the tourists who were walking three by three, shoulder to shoulder making it impossible to walk around them.  It was our summer game.  How long could we maintain our walking speed without tourists' obstructing our path?  And what was the fastest way around them? Together we zigged.  We zagged.  Sometimes hand in hand and other times we would traverse separate routes to see who would emerge from the crowd first.  Heads tipped back, our laughter drifted toward the strangers we left behind; our path clear ahead.

Today I walk alone in fog and heavy drizzle; the rain pools on the side of the road.  March means mud.  Soon the tourists will return in throngs-that will not change.  What will change is that I will dodge the summer masses alone.  My husband's rough hand in mine leading me,  guiding me, only a memory as I face life's obstacles, without him.  I am overwhelmed.