Becky Glover's Open Salon Blog

The Storage Unit

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 14:08:15 -0400

The Storage Unit

Today, I finished cleaning out the storage unit. I had wonderful young friends to help. We started about a month ago and off loaded quite a bit but still had quite a bit to go. Sooooooo:

We started this morning and it took 4 pick-up loads to put all that stuff in:

My living room

My dining room

My foyer

The back porch

The patio covered with a tarp.

My house looks like a hoarder lives in it. This is going to take months to sort through, give away what I haven’t already given away, sell, and throw away.

As long as I focus on “It takes time”, I’ll be ok. Right now, I feel overwhelmed because it’s overwhelming. So much of this man in my life even now or especially now.

Later I come in to find the bag of his clothes that we brought home from the hospital, I fall apart once again.

This is the most devastating thing that has ever happened to me. I can only imagine one thing worse.

John and Martha Mitchell

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 18:08:33 -0400

The Mitchells

Before Jeff died, he was feeding “Gray cat” a little stray that has been hanging out around our house. He fed him in the little garage that is falling down but belongs to the house next door. After a while, we noticed that the cat’s water was black. Someone was washing his/her snout in the cat’s water and turning it black,but what? So, Jeff sat up on the patio and waited one evening. He didn’t have to wait too long before a raccoon came around the corner of the house to get the cat food we had put out for our cats. It just so happens, we have 2. I told him we had to stop feeding the gray cat and not feed our cats outside anymore. Well, no, we didn’t and we don’t.

Sooooooo, I’ve named them John and Martha Mitchell. I have taken to letting the cats eat in the kitchen and then put them outside. But what to do about an upcoming trip to GrannyLand? I call animal control. They do not handle raccoons and refer me to Game and Wildlife. The Game Warden I talk to tells me this:

Me: I have raccoons on my back porch. What shall I do?

GW: You can live trap them but then you must dispatch them.

Me: You mean shoot them.

GW: Yes

Me: While they are still in the cage?

GW: Yes.

Me: That’s rude.

GW: Yes, but it is illegal to trap them and relocate them. You are

merely relocating a nuisance.

Me: Would that be a felony or a misdemeanor?

GW: A misdemeanor.

Me: Good to know.

GW: I am going to have a local warden call you. He will come out and

trap the raccoons for you.

Me: But then he would kill them.

GW: Yes.

Me: While they are still in the cage?

GW: Yes.

Me: You know, every time an animal has a confrontation with a

human, the animal loses. I am interested in a win-win

situation here if at all possible. So let me think about it.

Later, I call a young friend that trains coondogs for a living. He’s good at it. I tell him my issue and he offers to trap the coons and release them way out in the woods where he trains his dogs. He calls it restocking. I call it a fighting chance. We will see.

Dismantling A Life, Or Two, Or Three

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:08:31 -0400

I am not only dismantling his life, I am dismantling mine. And our life as well.

In this house lived 3 entities (I’m not talking about those cats), Jeff, me and our marriage. So it makes sense that I am dismantling 3 lives. This is beyond heartbreaking.

Today, I fill out the 401k forms to roll over his 401k to my IRA. Then I take them to Mr. Kegley to sign and mail in.

Tomorrow, I meet with our attorney to get a handle on what to expect in the future. Jeff died without a will and although that won’t affect me much. We were able to take care of a lot of stuff before he died. But the one thing we didn’t do was get my name on the titles of his cars. He has 5! I have 2. So there are 7 cars at this house!

Every week, I fill up a couple of garbage bags and put them in the trash. But, really, I haven’t made a dent.

I think, “I will never hear him say, ’you look beautiful today’. Jeff Blackwell said something nice about me to my face every day of our marriage. How cool is that? He washed my car and told me when I needed new tires.

I told him a few months ago that he has spoiled me rotten. He took care of me and not only that, he loved just being with me. Jeff got me even when I was “just too precious for words”. That was mostly during menopause when, according to Jeff, “You tell that Doctor you are having the worst peri-menopause of any woman, ever and to give you some goddam hormones and something that will make you want to have sex. I want my wife back.” That didn’t happen. This is the same man that sent me flowers when I realized the warmings around my neck were beginning hot flashes.

The remotes are on the love seat now and my side of the bed. I talk to myself out loud now. I couldn’t before because Jeff would always say, “Wha? What?” Maddening then. I will never hear his gravelly voice saying on the phone when he calls me, “This is your husband”. Always sent a little thrill through me. I loved him so……

I break into a million pieces daily.

I Beat Up The Stove

Tue, 7 Aug 2012 22:08:17 -0400

I Beat Up The Stove

Well, it had it coming. Or I had it coming. Sunday, I drop a cutting board on my instep. As I pick it up, the thought comes to mind. “I want to hit something.” So, I flail away at the stove top. When I am done, there is a beautiful starburst pattern on it (it’s a glass cook top). But, amazingly, my chest loosens up, and I can breathe again. Lord, I haven’t been able to do that for 3 weeks. I breathe and cry and cry and breathe forever. Feeling self-centered and sorry for myself.

I say to myself over and over “I will never see his face in this world again, never.” But then I find myself waiting for him to walk through the door. It’s not going to happen. I think I am sorrowing.

I just hurt plain and simple. No appliance is safe, really.

Widow 102

Thu, 2 Aug 2012 22:08:32 -0400

I change my Facebook status to “widow”. With this change, I attain label nirvana. Single, married, divorced, married, widow. The only thing left is deceased.

The shock of his sudden death is staggering, although with Lung Cancer, I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it at some point. But I wasn‘t in any way expecting him do die after working the week before. Jeez. I thought he would “dwindle down”. We thought we would have until the fall before he became disabled. I thought, I thought, I thought…..I have been gob-smacked.

I go out into the back yard. It’s beautifully lush. When my daughter and I moved into this house, there were plantings on the side but the back yard was entirely clear. You can’t see the back alley now. There are trees, flowers, bushes, and a rose garden. Most of the trees are what he called “Bird Trees” meaning birds brought them. My back porch is filled, hoardedly so, with yard and plant supplies. (I recall that my back porch is the first indicator that Jeff had entered my life to stay. Once, when we were dating, I looked out on the porch and there were 3 lawn mowers out there. I didn’t own a lawn mower.) There are some things that need doing but what I don’t know. He worked in the yard a lot. Spending most days he was off and weather permitting out in the yard for all of our marriage. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what he did. I know the cherry tree needs spraying and a lot of things need pruning but exactly what, I have no clue.

This man feeds the birds 365 days a year. Around 4pm, the pigeons line up on the phone wires across the street and wait for him to come home and load up the feeders. We have the fattest pigeons in Abingdon and because of that, we frequently feed a hawk. We find these piles of feathers but never remains. We think the cats are killing the birds but they would leave remains somewhere. One day Jeff comes across the parking lot carrying a 50 pound bag of bird seed. The pigeons float down and begin pecking at the seed falling out of a hole in the bag. Jeff sees a brown streak drop out of the sky and hit those pigeons, smack. That’s when we know about our hawk. Jeff once saw him go across the yard horizontally and take a squirrel. I think I will feed them in the winter only. Light Milling Feed & Seed may go out of business. I know I will save $35/month in bird seed.

He is everywhere I look in this house. That’s why these past 2 weeks, I haven’t been in it much. I can take it for brief periods but then I have an imagined errand I simply must run. Fortunately, I spend a lot of time at work catching up on things not done the 2 weeks I had taken off. It will get better, but when?