a rumor of angels

in 1832, five years after Beethoven's death, a German critic compared the sonata to the effect on Lake Lucerne, and the interpretation became so popular that, by the end of the century, the piece was universally known as the "Moonlight Sonata." Beethoven himself had attributed the emotion of the piece to sitting at the bedside of a dear friend who had suffered an untimely death.

my beloved Dragon died on the full moon. widely known if you've read my missives before.

i had yesterday off from work and today. miraculous as i have been working week after week straight through with maybe one or two days off a month. the moon is coming full. that's it tonight up there in the big photo. the last two days i've been cleaning out files. i deleted my Dragon's email account, personal and business. there just is no need to keep them up anymore. it's not a step forward. it's just a step. maintenance of my life. i also wrote out everything my children will need to know for when i die. more maintenance of my life. making it easier to clean up after me.

in going through files, tossing things out, i found his EKG strip from the night he died. i didn't know i had it. i don't know why they thought i would want it. the strip no more verifies his death to me than the death certificate. his absence alone is enough for me.

i love him. i thought about it again when someone came into the store and casually asked when i would ever take off my rings. this man's sister had taken hers off 3 months after her husband died. she put herself on the dating websites at 6 months. she has been married and divorced twice since her husband died. it will be two years for her April 1. his off-the-cuff casual remark was, "i mean, God bless her, at least she's trying to move on." he was a customer and i had to treat this forced upon me conversation with care, but i did manage to say, "maybe the reason she's had two divorces is she is looking for her husband in every man she meets. it is possible that she is moving on in the wrong direction, or too fast."

it never ceases to amaze me how people feel they can impose their judgments upon strangers. now it has become water off a duck's back. i let it slide off me without leaving a dent. after 3 years of this, of failing at every attempt at grief groups and talking to people, i just let it go and go my own way. there's no one to really sit and talk this out with, not for any long kind of conversation, or frequent one where the whole story gets told in confidence.

parts of it are floating around out there in places where it will never come together in any significant way to help me get past it faster. so i am taking this journey sort of on my own.

"lead, kindly light, amid th'encircling gloom,

lead thou me on;

the night is dark, and i am far from home;

lead thou me on;

keep thou my feet; i do not ask to see

the distant scene - one step enough for me." ~ John Henry Neuman

i do sort of look for signs that i have help. angels. i have two cameras at my ready hand because of two angels. Sandy and Dan. i have a job i work hard at and am recognized as "Bunny" by my co-workers who have given me positive reinforcement. angels all.

i have my two fuzzy puppies who love me and need me. i am needed. two fuzzy angels.

i work very hard at my sewing. i have talent with a needle that is not common. it is appreciated by those who have asked for my work. they are angels for giving me something else to work on.

i do not worry anymore about living up to the expectations of others. i will never meet it. i need to feel comfortable. i need to feel safe. i. me. i do not have the strength to make legions happy. i do not have the desire. my strength is saved to fight the spiritual battles of my nights. and the nights that hit me during the day. i am older now and physical strength is allocated for stamina at work.

"one aspect of deep grief is loss of imagination. one cannot imagine a time when one is not in pain.

how many times have i sabotaged myself by leaping ahead of my own healing process, trying so desperately to 'feel better' that i make myself feel even worse because i have added to my primary pain the new complication of failure. in cheating myself of the necessary time to feel bad i have cheated myself of the only process that could really heal me. ultimately, the only way to get through something is to get through it - not over, under, or around it, but al the way through it. an it takes as long as it takes." ~ Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Ph.D
"not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows." ~ Charles Reade

my Dragon was a great man. no one could take note of his deeds for they were done in secret. his patriotism left no mark that anyone can point to and say, "he fixed that," "he saved them," and "he helped the world." all secrets. all being pushed into a file to be forgotten forever.

he spoke great words ~ of love to me, of dreams he wanted to see fulfilled, of sweet nothings that mean everything to a woman like me.

he suffered in silence the pains in his body from living a lifetime as a warrior. his death was a sneak attack.

have there been signs from him? i don't know and i do let myself think maybe, just maybe. it could also be my guardian angel. maybe there is something else for me to do. some lasting legacy i need to finish. more quilts. more sewing. more heart ceremonies. more growing up to do. more penance for a misspent life, or.....

maybe there is more beauty for me to see: clouds, moons, grandchildren ~ graces all.

i still miss him. i still love him. i still wear my rings. i still talk to him every day. i still talk about him if someone asks, only if someone asks. my life is a lonely one without him here at night, in the dark, in bed.

i know humans can never become angels, but maybe there is an angel who represents my husband who comes in during the night to sit and watch over me. maybe that angel was the one who gave me the strength to slowly move my hand over the can, slowly open my fingers holding that strip of paper, that EKG with the little flat line all the way across it, and then turn away and not watch it fall into the trash.

"the sight of stars always sets me dreaming just as naively as those black dots on a map set me dreaming of towns and villages. why should those points of light in the firmament, i wonder, be less accessible than the dark ones on a map of France? we take a train to go to Tarascon or Rouen and we take death to go to a star." ~ Vincent Van Gogh referring to his painting, "Starry Night."

when i lost him, i lost me.

don’t shake your head at me. please, first, just read what i have to say.

there are some who have nothing lives; lives that are only survived rather than truly lived and enjoyed. as a child i was deathly afraid of my parents. i wasn’t what they wanted and my personality was not confrontational or rebellious. also, i was too afraid. corporeal punishment was not a theory with my mother. she believed in it. i was not a bad child. i simply loved being outdoors searching for rocks, drawing what i saw, wading in the creek, patting the cows on their noses, cloud watching, star gazing. i was a geeky kid who loved riding my horse and found i could escape that way or through books. i wanted to be a child and to grow up in peace. instead i was molded and criticized and threatened and pounded into something i could never be. i was never her dough to be shaped. i was a human being and all that shaping hurt.

my first husband never loved me and i was too naïve to see through the lie until it was too late. marriage can be a trap and one partner can evolve into a POW. that person may have to wait for the right opportunity and become the collateral damage to keep children safe. appearances can be deceiving and some of the prettiest people are wearing mask upon mask upon mask to hide what really lives inside. i tried once and tragically failed to escape. the cost was untold, to this day. i know what it cost but i can never tell. cost untold explained.

and then i was allowed to have my Dragon.

i will never meet anyone like him again. there isn’t anyone like him. he is the last of a breed that the world will probably never need again. even when he was in his prime, there were not that many who did what he did and now, the way the world addresses war, everything is different. he’d tell me his stories and i’d be in awe. i could see in his eyes that sometimes he was in awe of the fate that kept him alive out there to come back.

there will never be anyone like him for me for a myriad of reasons not the least of which is the kind of person i am. if my own parents didn’t like me, my brother abandons me because of my conversion to Catholicism, and being quiet and polite didn’t make my mother-in-law like me any better than my husband, how can i believe there will be someone like my Dragon who will see me and care about me? Dragon is one of a kind and how he fell in love with me is beyond me but i have seen small miracles.

i’m not down on myself exactly. i have simply learned from history that i do not grow enough on people for them to want me as anything more than a supplier of goods, an armchair therapist, and/or a crutch to use for a while and then discard.

my Dragon stayed with me. he believed in me. we were two halves of a whole.

i know what is said to those who are grieving. “You will want to put them on a pedestal, but try to remember that they were not perfect. They had flaws and so did your marriage. If you glorify them, you will never get past their death to move on.”

i get where this is coming from and why it is put out there but what about the tiny few of us, me for instance, who already had their spouse on a pedestal? i already had my Dragon in a sacred place in my heart. our marriage was great. our lives were hard financially but our love was true and good and everything i’d read and heard love could be. our marriage was poetry. after living as i had in fear and pain, to be the Dragon’s wife was akin to believing God had suddenly remembered i was here and wanted me to have a gift. my children were gifts but worked so hard to protect them. in a way, i still do, just no longer in the physical sense. but mental abuse is just as tiring. just as exhausting.

my Dragon was a gift in that it seemed he was solely there for me. he loved me. he had flaws, sure, but i loved his flaws so to me, they were just part of being with him. i knew what he’d been through as a Marine and how it had changed him. i love him for all of it. he is the most incredible person i have ever met and yes; there is that pedestal that i will always make people walk around. i kept it dusted and taken care of while he lived and i will do it now that he is dead. in essence i haven’t changed at all.

people, you have to understand. he loved me and for someone like me you don’t know what an incredible thing that is. he valued my opinion. he thought i was smart. he loved my art. he loved my heart and my mind. he thought i was pretty. can you imagine that? me. he thought i was pretty, beautiful in fact. “My lovely bride.” my own mother didn’t think i was pretty until she had dressed me and tried to put make up on me. i thought i looked like a six- dollar whore and was one of those girls in the restroom at school, though i was rubbing it all off rather than putting it on. from that i got the nickname Fluke. i wasn’t into fashion and makeup and didn’t start reading Vogue and W until i got a job as a fashion illustrator and it didn't coerce me into wearing makeup. i still do not wear it.

my Dragon taught me about sex and making love. i had three children, one of whom had died, and i knew nothing about sex. i’m not going into it other than to laud my Dragon. for him, with him, because of him, i did it right. making love with him was exciting and i was allowed to instigate. he rejoiced when i gave him my trust. he was in a quiet rage at the scars under my clothes but he never scared me with it. he told me those scars were not my fault. he accepted what i looked like because he saw more than my shell. and we did it like, well, like rabbits. i was trying to make up for lost time and he was more than willing and quite happy to…. let's leave it that his appetite for me matched mine for him.

he loved me. i was important just because i was breathing. i had been born and for the first time, that was a good thing.

he protected me and i’ll never have that again. not in this life.

i read in one book that, “one day, he will become a wonderful memory of a wonderful time in your life.”

he is a memory now and putting a label on him – “good memory” – and being set upon the path of relegating him to my past as a “wonderful time” in my life demeans what he meant to me and what he gave me. my life, my whole situation was out of the ordinary and what he did for me, how much he loved me, can’t be put in a box. what is it about death that makes people want to label it, put it in a box, and put it away on a shelf in the closet so they can “get on with their lives?” why do people expect that as the Golden Rule of Grief? there should be no rules or expectations that are supposed to be applied universally. i am getting on with my life but that includes thinking about, continuing to love, and missing my husband.

and for probably the first time in my entire life, and you’d have to really be privy to some delicate knowledge, i will not apologize for loving him and missing him. in honor of my Dragon and all the kickass things he did, i am not going to apologize for keeping my torch for him lit.

i have failed at so many things in my life, daughter, sister, first wife, friend, and at the widow’s group. each failure hurt deeply but i have the knowledge that i did not fail in loving my Dragon. i love him so very much. i miss him deeply. he talked to me and i got to talk to him. we valued each other. i was seen. no one saw me like that. i have never registered for long on anyone's screen. now that he’s gone, i am gone. i am the same person but without an advocate. i do not have him beside me gazing at me lovingly. i am not noticed in stores. “Excuse me” doesn’t draw a single bit of attention to me. i am back under the control of the “Umbrella Corporation,” as it were. i plead. i receive. i work. i market myself. i wait for commissions.

pass that bit of information around, please.

see that face? see how serious i am? see that anxious expression? i can do so much more than the Memory Quilts. www.renaissanceartist.webs.com go to the photo gallery. i can do very pretty things.

i need the VA to hurry. i need more work. i need to escape this “Raccoon City-esque” life i’m back in with He Who Shall Not Be Named.

i want my Dragon. oh, God, miss him.

he protected me. i can’t get that back. for years i protected my children. i deflected rage onto myself while trying to find someone who believed in my theory of masks and men who look like choirboys but are not.

one of the widows from the group called me on February 9^th. i had not heard from her since before Thanksgiving. i picked up only because she had called from a different number or i would have ignored her call. she has told me i am her last resort, back up buddy. she wanted me to talk to her because all her friends were busy and she was suddenly missing her husband. he’s been gone now for over three years and “you just don’t know what it’s like for them to be gone so long. the third year is worse than all the others.” she wondered why i wasn’t talking enough to her and i told her, “today is the first year anniversary of my husband’s death and i have been crying all day.”

her reply? “That’s nothing. Try three years. I’m really down and ……..”

yes, you have deduced correctly. i hung up on her and added that number under her name to ignore.

“The death of a husband gives the new widow a chance to fulfill her dreams in a new life, free, happy with the memories of her husband but ready for her new life that is being born.”

i started laughing when i read this. who knows what this woman’s marriage was like for her husband’s death to warrant this bit of insight. if it had been my first husband, i have to admit i could have gone along with it but i would never had said it out loud. i cannot disparage someone who would not be able to defend himself. the level and type of grief depends upon the relationship. my relationship with my Dragon was different so my message is different.

i am who i am. i lived and tried to fulfill my dreams, reach for love, and leave a legacy of some kind however small. if i am not who i started out to be, i cannot go back to that girl. i don’t want to. she didn’t know the Dragon. she never knew love.

i have had a nothing life that i have only survived. my legacy is my children and my art.

if anyone looks at the signature on my work, it is not my name. it is explained on my website. if they forget me, then that signature will end up being a mystery. but not to the eternal energy that will outlast us all.

i love my husband. i am not “getting over” his loss quickly. when i have the money, i am going to buy myself a widow’s ring from a website i found. thirty-eight dollars. it’s not much but to me that’s about four or five meals. but i will get it. i want it. for some reason to me it feels like a statement. in my head i hear, “back the f*ck off, you f*ckers. i love my husband and i am grieving for him. he saved me. he loved me. so f*ck off.” yes, i have a breaking point. i can get mad. however, what i'll say is, "yes, i am a widow." that's all they get.

i still love him and i believe he still loves me. death does not end a relationship but transforms it into something on another level. i’m living in two worlds. i’m alive here and working, making quilts, asking for more. but i am looking at the sky, at the sun and stars and at the moon. he’s up there. he’s waiting for me.

i am not who i was meant to be because he died. i am a reflection of what i could have been. he saw me and i was part of the world. now i am a ghost because i am not seen as a person. i am talked down to or not spoken to at all. my few friends are virtual. my life is in a small apartment. i live mostly in my head with fantasies of an island, of my Dragon, and of the moon.

16 July 1969 ~ NASA

North Pole moon ~ unknown

when i lost him, i lost me. i’m like a kite whose string has been let go. my Dragon died and the string was dropped. i’m on my own journey and i don’t know what i’ll see but i know i’ll never be seen again like i was by him.

he saw me. he was mine. i lived a whole lifetime of love in just eight years. i am his widow. i’ll never be the same.

Bunny and her moon

Bunny has been keeping track of the moon. it's waxing again. she is an avid stalker. when her earth turns to a position that puts the moon out of sight from her balcony, she silently slides outside to continue her vigil.
she stares at the moon, taking photos until she is comfortable that she has a good selection from which to glean the right one. the one that speaks to her. that one moment when the moon and Bunny, and her tortured camera, were one. sympatico.

Bunny loves the moon. it's her tether to the next life. she hopes that when she dies, she will fly through the sky to the moon. she wants to stop and rest there. see, Bunny is tired.
first to die was her mother. then her grandmother. her beloved grandfather. her son, her "little love." her father. then her stepmother. an assortment of feelings of grief registered through her mind and her heart. her soul was damaged by the deaths of her grandparents and her son. but then came the death of her Dragon. and her soul was ripped down the middle. it was akin to someone sharpening a knife and wanting to show off it's razor-like abilities. this someone takes a piece of paper and slices it in two with the knife. Dragon's death was like that for Bunny.

her heart cried out but nobody heard. it splintered into a million pieces and slipped out through the two pieces of Bunny's soul. she gave up her heart and soul on that night to her Dragon so that he would have those pieces of her to keep until they could be together again.

so now she wants the moon. she wants a vacation. she doesn't want anything or anyone to hurt her anymore. she wants a break. so when she dies, Bunny is politely asking God to let her Dragon come get her and take her to the moon. she and he will sit there and stare back at the earth, the big blue marble. and though she will think it's very, very pretty with all it's oceans of blue and it's swirling, twirling clouds of white, Bunny will never want to go back. because nothing can compare to being on the moon with her Dragon, resting for a spell, until she isn't so tired anymore. then she'll let her Dragon take her to the gates of Heaven so she can sink to her knees for permission to enter.

Bunny isn't a complete doormat. she believes she has an inside connection. her Dragon. her husband. her love. the one who has her heart and soul in his safe keeping.

Adventure Days

i call them Adventure Days. they are my daughter's one day off a week and we have adventures. Michael's for floss. maybe Target to just walk around. Wal-Mart, of course, for the food. but there's the talking, the talking, the laughing, the talking, and of course the talking.i'm up on those days in anticipation of being out. as in away from the apartment. i check the weather for what shirt to wear. i have 6 long sleeve shirts, all his. i have 9 t-shirts, mixed his and mine. i wear the same pair of jeans always. my others have gotten to large, or i've lost weight. i'm not sure. but it's always exciting to know that my daughter is coming to get me.

i'm a cartoon. there was the single panel cartoon that appeared in the "New Yorker" years ago, really, seriously, years ago. i don't know why i remember it but it impacted me a lot way, way back then. an elderly woman was drawn standing up from her chair. doillies rested on the arms of the chair. it looked quite comfy. the woman's knitting was beside it, needles resting for the night. with one hand she was clutching her shawl around her, chilled a bit with the movement of her getting up and walking about the little room. her other hand was patting her television. she had a soft, lonely expression in her ink drawn eyes and underneath the cartoon it was written that she was saying, "Night,night. See you tomorrow."

i feel like that sometimes. i sew until very late. i'm in and out the sliders to my balcony taking photos of the moon. and then i walk the dogs one last time. i come in and take off their leashes. i pull my Dragon's bag of climbing ropes in front of the door as a B&E deterrant. and then i turn off the television. i don't yet say, "night, night," to it. but i think i'm close.

i've become a cartoon.

oh, well. here are more moon photos. i'm that pathetic, and devoted. one negative thing. one positive thing. so they cancel each other out and i'm okay.
the setting moon yesterday morning.
the rising moon last night.
the moon at apex for me. the earth turned and he moved and it looks different. he'll be back tonight.

i'm thinking i'm going to end up taking his photo each night until after Valentine's Day. to assist me with a goal to focus on until Valentine's Day/my Dragon's funeral anniversary is past.

and now, it's Adventure Day. i'm going to go brush my teeth. psssst. we may get hamburgers.