It's a Long Way to Tipperary

Now you do all realize that I have no idea where Tipperary is...someplace in Ireland I've always thought. Never bothered to look it up though....it always just seemed like it was a long, long ways away. Well, now I'm on my way to that place....somewhere that I don't know where is, but I do know it's a long way away.

I have my choice of directions to start off. Since I don't know where it is, does it matter what direction I go? Hmmm....interesting query. As I sit trying to plan my trip, I try to decide which way to go. Perhaps all roads are going to lead to Tipperary....for I cannot believe I won't find it. As with most who have no clue where they're going, I have great difficulty stepping out, but I do. Seems I get only a little way down the path before I come face to face with an insurmountable wall. No gate, too high to climb over, no end to go around. I have to turn around and go back to what seems like the beginning of the journey. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe it isn't the beginning.

Let me step back and look again where I am....sure enough, I'm not at the beginning; but, rather, have made it a few miles down the path. Now I look forward again, and the path seems clear--there's no wall in sight. The wall must have been imaginary--of my own making. Isn't it amazing how we set our own walls across our paths?

OK, now I've figured out that the path is clear, off I go again--on my way to Tipperary.

One More First--Done and Over!

Well, our 23rd wedding anniversary passed by last Sunday. Rather uneventfully. There were no longstem yellow roses, no dinner at Grey Moss Inn with Moet Chandon White Star champagne (yes, the whole bottle just for me! LOL). No mushy or funny cards....and most of all, no Larry. Instead it was dinner at Karen's with Leslie & Kyle & the kids. And nobody even mentioned that it would have been our 23rd anniversary. Guess they didn't want to "upset" me, or else they just forgot. An easy thing to forget...somebody else's anniversary.

There were yellow roses, but this time I did the giving...and they were silk bunches poked into the styrofoam in the little brass vase stuck in the little brass ring on his crypt--poked way down to try to keep the wind from blowing them away.

I go out to that cemetery and climb up on my step stool (yes, he's still 'so tall' that I need a step stool...he can't very well bend down to me anymore! [crypt is so high I can't touch it if I stand on the ground]); anyway, I get on my step stool and I reach up and touch that cold, cold granite, and my hand slides over the letters of his name--and it still doesn't seem real. I know it is, but it's all surreal. Like I'm in a dream (or nightmare, as the case may be.); or maybe a fog and it will lift any minute.

We're all there, Charlotte (his Mother), and Karen (who loved him nearly as much as I did) and me. The women in his life...I look at their faces and I see the sadness, but it still doesn't seem real. How can my wonderful 'widdle' husband (aka WWH) possibly have gone without me? It just can't be true, it just can't! If he'd just told me he was going, I'd have gone too. But he didn't so now here I am--all by myself, even in a crowd.

Alas, it is all too true. So, I put the flower vase back in it's little ring and climb down. I stand there at the base of the crypts and have a cigarette for him and then we go home...everybody but him. I wonder who will do this for him when I can't get up on a step stool anymore?

So much for wedding anniversaries...

A New Year--A Fresh Start??

Well, New Years has come and gone--made it through the holidays without having a nervous breakdown (well, maybe a little one. I did stay in bed for 2 days after Christmas--but just 2.) Even managed to put flowers out at the cemetery without too much bawling and squalling. Came home and closed a house New Years Eve and then went to friends'; New Years Day was OK...went to friends (different ones) and had blackeyed peas, champagne cabbage & pork sausage--so I'm fixed up for luck, wealth and strength. I was ready for the new year to give me a new start.

I shouldn't have been so optimistic! It has gotten worse by the day. Sleep eludes me...it's so darn cold that I had to get out my heating pad...I'm used to having Larry, who was always warm! And of course, our 23rd anniversary would have been January 17...next Sunday. Then it dawned on me that I'll be 60 in less than a month. (I wouldn't be thrilled about that even if Larry were here...but it wouldn't seem quite as awful!) Then there's valentines day. Larry always said I got my "gift getting occasions too close together"--Christmas in December, anniversary in January, birthday & valentines in February. He was right--only now that he's gone, it makes it really, really tough!

To top it all off, last Monday I went to probate court to probate Larry's will. A couple of days ago, the company that the funeral home assigned my insurance payment to hadn't been paid. Well, of course they haven't...I gave them 30 days to file their assignment and then filed on the life insurance policies. Duh! There goes that little "black cloud" again. Now I've got to write them a check...if it's not one thing then it's another!

Everybody keeps telling me that this will get better as time goes by! Time keeps going by...Wonder when the "getting better" part starts...so far it just gets worse by the day. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd run away or hide my head in the sand, or at least move to Costa Rica! But I know one of y'all out there would catch me and drag me back to reality.

So, I just keep getting up every morning, getting dressed and going out to face the world. I just keep thinking that if I just keep "faking a normal life" eventually I'll have one. Whatever normal is going to be....