touch

it is the 9^th month of this year and it is the 9^th of another month. 19 months today. i still mark time. i feel things deeply on the 8^th/9^th of each month and during the week of the full moon.

it has been 19 months since the last time i touched him, since he touched me. i feel every one of the days, every minute that has passed since i was lying in his arms in bed with my hand on his chest over his heart. it was so sudden. i still cannot get over how sudden it was. i could not believe it when it was happening and when i failed to save him, well; there is nothing more to say than this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. to have him die under my hands while i tried to save him. to try and breathe for him. to call to him. to feel the kind of cold you cannot ever get warm from. he died while i was trying to save him. i lost him.

i love him. it has not lessened with the passing of this time. i realize it has only been a year and seven months, but i am not doing any better. the only thing is that i am more awake to feel it. i am now able to feel how hollowed out i am from the anguish of his death. i miss him and i feel every day that passes as if it were an Exacto knife cutting my flesh. the blade slices through and at first you do not feel the pain. what you feel first is the cold that antagonizes the exposed tissue. then the burning pain hits. my grief can be like that for me.

we were very involved with each other when he was alive. i have never felt more alive than when i was with him. now that he has died, i feel like an empty form of the woman i could have been allowed to be, just waiting for the plaster to be poured inside, only the sculptor has died so she will remain unfinished. i am not the person i was when my Dragon lived. had you met me once bDd and then met me now, these 19 months later, you would be truly shocked. day and night.

if you have actually met me now, you know i am not as pretty as Bunny; the fuzzy stuffed one that is my stand-in. what life has done to me is etched on my face. the wretchedness i feel is apparent in my eyes. desperation can be heard in my voice. i am at the lowest point i have ever been in my entire life, both financially and in the way i feel about myself and if you had the Cliff's Notes of my life you would realize how low that is. before he died, when i was with my Dragon, i was something. when he looked at me, i felt like he had touched me. his smiles gave me the same thrill that i got when he would run his fingers over my face. every glance he gave me was akin to being touched by him.

he has magic hands. they are so rough that they are smooth, like fine sandpaper. his grip was always firm. when he held my hand, he never lost it even when our hands were sweaty. he held onto me as if he were afraid to ever let go. it was as if holding my hand was all the joy he needed from life. and when he held me in his arms, he held me tight. he loved me and he conveyed it through the power of his touch.

the mere brush of his lips to my cheek, my wrists, my palms, and onto my own lips could penetrate down to my soul. our eyes were always closed his lips touched my skin. i cannot put words to the feelings that raced through me. i felt wanted. i felt beautiful. for the first time, i felt like a woman and i could tell i was truly loved. he did not ask anything of me other than to be with me, and me with him. all we wanted in this world was to be together.

how do i live without him? how do i breathe? some nights, some days, it all feels too much. it is too hard to accept a world without him in it. i would rather be asleep, half dozing, and dream he and i are together by the ocean, in the mountains, hiking, planting a garden, lying tangled on the sofa reading together, or in bed. “to sleep perchance to dream.”

he is my first love. i know how sad that sounds, and unreal. but it is true. he is my first love. he is the first person to love me and it was such a powerful thing. it was tangible. you could hear the music of our love when we talked to each other. you could see the electricity between us. constant touching. fingers laced. quick kisses snatched in public places. silent communication exchanged in looks at each other. we were meant to be together. i wish we could have been allowed to start much earlier in our lives.

i will never be the same. my Dragon and i are like a Fisher-Price puzzle for preschoolers. there are four pieces to the puzzle. there are 3 pieces that form a triangle around a center piece. the daughter piece on the lower left touches the son piece that sits on the lower right. both of these pieces reach up to touch the wife/mother piece. the shape of a Dragon is in the center and that piece is now missing. and the wife/mother piece of this tragic little puzzle has had to swap places with the daughter piece for the simple reason that she has fallen to her knees in such grief that she cannot stand it sometimes.

there times when it is almost too much to bear. like now. tonight. all i want is to be touched by my Dragon again. i want to be enveloped in his big strong arms and feel his lips on my ear; his breath whispering to me that this has all been a bad dream. i want to hear his deep whiskey voice tell me that he is “not going anywhere, love. I will never leave my Bunny. Dragons live forever, remember?”

“hey diddle diddle the cat in the fiddle is a lie like all the rest. the astronauts killed the man in the moon and growing up took care of the rest.”

“Dragons may live forever but not so little boys.” they grow into men who have to die and leave their Bunny. do you see that? Dragon died. Bunny lives. can you hear that Sesame Street song play in your head? “one of these things is not like the other. one of these things just doesn’t belong.” Dragons are strong and eternal. Bunnies are weak and are supposed to only cry once, on the moment they are killed. i am crying all the time. okay, not every minute of every day, but every day i cry for him. if he could hear i wonder if it sounds like bunnies dying all over the place?

i have cut up a lot of his clothes for two quilts, the one on the wall that i need to fix and the one i just finished, plus the pillowcase i made for me. i cannot throw anything away. off and on i have worked on this late at night. i am piecing all the bits and pieces together, for a quilt? it is going to be another quilt. i plan on embroidering flowers on a whole bunch of the pieces to follow a poem i wrote to him a long time ago. this quilt will recite that poem in the language of flowers. this will convey a deeply personal message.

one day it will amount to something very special, like I never did, except that a Dragon once loved me.

i pray he does not see this hollowed out woman in the shadows that i have slid back into being, but i also pray that he is waiting for me. i pray he will come and get me when it is my turn to fly to the other side of the moon. i pray i will feel his warm, steady touch to guide me along. and finally, once again, and this time for all time, i will be allowed to be who i am. i will get to be wild and free. i will be safe. and most definitely, i will be loved.

Bunny's quilt

Linus had his security blanket. now Bunny has her quilt. i made one in the first 6 weeks i was here but, to be honest with you, it is not square. maybe because i quite literally do not remember making it. i only remember snatches of my life after he died right up until Thanksgiving.

this quilt has been carefully sketched and planned since then. 10 months i have worked on it, set it aside to work on commissions, and then come back to it. i finally have it finished. my quilt.
i quilted stars to represent Heaven where my Dragon now lives and hearts for mine that i gave to him when he "flew away" that night. it will be 19 months on Thursday. i have my quilt.

here is what i did first. i sat and wrapped it around myself.
then i laid down with it, holding my Cube of Love and my Tribute Tile.
the funny thing is, with the scraps and all his other clothes, i have 4 more quilts sketched. two for my two children. my daughter bought me a t-shirt that says, "blessed are the children of piecemakers for they shall inherit the quilts."

i love my Dragon. i love him so much that it swells inside me like a song; a sad song, but a song nonetheless. he is all i wanted in this life. he is all i will ever want. at this point in my life, he really is, and i sincerely believe, he is all i will ever want. i miss him so much.

i am in mourning. i am grieving for my Dragon. i finally have my quilt; my quilt that shows through art, my grief.

sucked down

my digital camera died last night. it is the one that my Dragon bought me before we moved to Rockport. it is the one that took all the photos of my harrowing road trip away from the ocean to move here. it is the one that has kept vigil over the moon. and now it has died and i am sad.

i know it is an object, but it was a link to bDd (before Dragon died). it is as familiar in my hands as a needle and thread, and floss. as familiar as a paintbrush or a pencil, or a woodcutter's tool. i have lost my friend and i am devastated. i have put it on my mantle which has become a shrine of sorts. i even have empty pill bottles with his name on them. my daughter brought over her camera to me this morning on her way to work. bless her.

i have finished the last bag E. wanted. it has passed the Bunny Weight Test. i also put pretty ribbon on it and embroidered the "life is crap" stamp to make it visually appealing.
i hope she likes her bags.

it is after September 1st. after 27 years in New England, i know that Summer is packing up fast to move south. Fall can come early up there and i miss it. this will be my second without seeing those changes. it was pretty here last year, but, i don't know. my heart longs for the coast and all the vines around the driftwood. i long to smell salt air and that snap of cold that makes your skin tingle. the talk of frost on the pumpkins will begin in a few weeks, maybe sooner depending on nature this year. i miss it so much that i feel hollowed out by what has happened and how it came to pass.

memories assail me lately. at moments i feel overwhelmed with them. i feel like i could get sucked under if it do not fight it off and yet the call of these memories is a candle flame to my moth. not all the memories are good ones and i guess it is the residue of having been recently lectured and questioned as to why am i still here. please don't ask me to explain. i wrote it only to quantify the level of self-worthlessness i am made to feel and have to fight against.

one summer when my children were 11 and 9, my father-in-law asked where we were going on our family vacation. my ex told his dad that we did not take vacations as they were a waste of money. his dad scoffed and prodded me, thinking ours was a marriage where i had any say. he was the patriarch and it was only respectful that i answer him. i told him i had always wanted to go to "Cape Cod." i really had always wanted to find a little shack of a vacation beach house to rent north of Orleans so that the children and i could walk along the beach, the eastern arm of the Cape where Henry Beston had spent a year alone. i knew the storms from the Atlantic threw all kinds of wonderful treasures along it. my father-in-law had been and we started conversing about how austere and beautiful it was out there. talking to him was always easy. we were of like mind. but when i turned and saw his face, i knew there would be hell to pay.

we had to go now. instead of letting me make the plans, he did it angrily. he got us a room at a Holiday Inn in Hyannis and every morning he got us up for breakfast, took us to the beach, and then took us back to the room with take out. he stayed on the phone a lot, or brooded. he was pissed at spending the money.

there was this one day of terror where he took my son out too far in the water. there was a storm less than 50 miles offshore and waves were high. flags were flying for dangerous surf and you were allowed to wade up to just above your knees, wherever your knees fell, but no further. he said he hadn't spent money to just wade in the ocean, so he took my son out to make him body surf. the tide was coming in and the waves were building. i told my daughter to sit with our towels and went to pace the edge of the water. i couldn't let him see me be anxious because that meant i was making my son into a mama's boy. i could not defy him but i kept watch.

when i saw them go under i went in after my son. i got to him and treaded water with my knee bent so he could sit on it and catch his breath. i talked to him, told him how to swim back in letting the waves carry him, and then get to his feet at the last minute when the sand was almost scrapping his knees. don't fight it but try to keep his head above the surface. where we were, the water was deep enough that my toes could not touch bottom. my son was strong. i told him to go and that i was right behind and beside him where i could see him. if he faltered, he would be pulled in my direction and i could again give him a rest while i treaded water. i was a strong swimmer. his dad? already on the beach toweling off. he had seen me go in.

i kept my eyes on my son. i saw him catch a crest that i missed and get a pretty good ride actually to shallow water where he got to his feet and ran onto the beach. his sister had his towel waiting. i was still further out and i got sucked down into the draw. i was turned and rolled and slammed hitting my head on the bottom. i saw stars. i swallowed water and it felt so warm inside. i choked and coughed and more water got in since i was still rolling underwater. i fought it rolling to my side and then pushed myself up to try to stand. i was in water just under my armpits. i coughed up the water i had swallowed. my stomach recoiling from the salt and my fear. both my children were standing at the water's edge calling to me. i glanced behind me as another wave was coming in and i caught it. i was drained. i needed the ride. my arms and legs were cold and tired and felt like noodles. as i got closer to the beach i felt a strong hand catch me just above the elbow. the young man who was life guarding that stretch of beach helped me out. my daughter had gone to get him after her brother made it to the beach. the lifeguard saw that i was okay then promptly walked over and wrote a ticket to you know who. yeah, they can do that.

i'm telling this story to help with the metaphor for what i mean when i say i feel like i am being sucked down. i have memories like this day at the beach that suddenly appear like a flashback. but then i have the memories of when i got cut off taking pictures and my Dragon waded in frigid water to get me, laughing, making jokes about "calling in the Marines." there was (is) so much love between us. i have been having nightmares that started the day before the lecture and also dreams that my Dragon never died. i cannot control them. they just come. i try to control what i do after they arrive and cover me, and roll me over and over.

i am trying to get to my feet.

after i got the borders pinned, i did have to fall on it and smell it. it has been almost 19 months since my Dragon wore any of these clothes, yet i know i can smell him. tonight after i stop doing some embroidery i have been commissioned to do, i will walk over and hand sew some of the border down. i will have my quilt. i need it so badly; much like a small child needs to hide under the covers believing in their power to keep the bad things away.

i wish whoever reads, peace.

glass, wood, quilts, and grief

i write for an online magazine-style website on a broad range of topics. photography, poetry, the history and geology of Cape Ann, architecture, art, and, yes, i write about grief. i received an email from a reader who was reflecting on one of my grief articles, Hitting “the Wall,” who said this:

It is hard for me to understand how you could be so sad and write something so full and beautiful. It's like a photonegative. I am seeing some glimmers that you might be starting to break the surface of your loss. You create such beauty, I hope that you would heal and continue to create such beauty. ……... So I truly hope that this is that wall that you will break through, and not the wall that keeps you from moving on.

i have been reflecting on this while i worked on a quilt today. the quilts are art. i am an artist. i write a blog titled, “The Art of Grief” but it was not meant as an advertisement for my art. i meant it as a metaphor for the art it takes to live with sorrow and the work it takes to strive to accept the scars it is going to leave.

then, as minds will do, my thoughts leapt to what it takes to create art, the particular mediums i use to create my own particular art.

stained glass: first, the colored glass is made using the float glass method. a continuous ribbon of liquid glass in a molten tin bath flows unhindered under the influence of gravity. glass has natural impurities but to get other colors, minerals or purified metal salts are added. then the top surface of the glass is subjected to nitrogen under pressure to obtain a polished finish, or something close to that. when i draw a design for glass, i have to stay aware that glass will only cut one way. curves can be done, but within the physics of glass. i draw wax lines on the glass and then cut it, snap it apart, and place it on my drawing like a puzzle piece. to weld the glass together, i cover each piece of glass with copper, flux it, and then heat the solder, melting it on the copper thereby joining the glass pieces to create my design. in short, fire, glasscutters, and more heat is what it takes to make a window.

carved wood: i get a piece of wood (or as photographed below, i am allowed to utilize a wooden beam) and select a tool to carve in or away the design i want to reveal. which tool i select depends upon the gouge or cut i wish to make. veining, fluters, chisels, skews, back bent or long-bent gougers, the main gist is that each one of these tools cuts deeply into the wood. i brush away the curls of wood that i do not want in the design, and they are tossed on the floor for later disposal. i literally cut the wood apart to find the vision i saw in it when i first picked it up.

quilts: i can make baby quilts for families whose babies have outgrown their adorable little clothes, wedding quilts out of brand new fabrics bought specifically for the occasion, and quilts from college t-shirts for the young man or woman who is graduating. i also make quilts from the clothing of the deceased. in all these cases, i have to cut the fabrics and clothes apart. i look at the piece and decide how it best fits into the design i have drawn. the only difficult quilt is the memory quilt. to do what i believe is honor to the clothes; i have to learn about the person who is no longer here to wear the clothes. to be blunt, someone has died.

my Dragon died and i am off alone on a flight i never wanted to take. for the rest of my life, there will be times when i go into myself to find him. he is my love, my inspiration. he is the one i always wanted to impress. i would sew or paint, photograph or carve, or build a stained glass window and could not wait to show him. i wanted to see his delight. i wanted to see his approval. i wanted to see him see me. and he did. he saw me before he knew what i did, but when he saw what i could make, it thrilled me to see him be in awe of me. no one has ever been in awe of me. it was so nice. and he knew my tattered self-esteem needed it. he never ever put me off. he always set aside whatever he was doing to come see what i had made.

i really miss that.

i need him so i have to go where he still lives - deep inside me. to express all the complicated feelings that go hand-in-hand with this sorrow, i am compelled to create things that i hope will withstand time.

to create all this art in these different mediums, if you look close enough, i have to cause damage. i have to break glass and then melt solder to bind the pieces. the wood i use is veined, gouged, and carved. the quilts are created by cutting apart the fabrics and clothes. each verb is a destructive verb. and that is sort of what life, and death, have done to me.

i kept thinking about what was written in the email, that i am sad yet my writing, to this person, is beautiful. it is hard for this person to see how it can be done. first let me say i am always humbled when anyone finds value in my words much less beauty. i write from the deepest well of sorrow and yet i know that some of the greatest works of literature are founded upon enormous sadness. i am in no way comparing my writing to the likes of Lewis or Twain or Beston who are only a few who have written eloquently on grief.

i believe all who write from the source of any intense pain and sense of loss write from their hearts and from that beauty and hope can be seen as we all struggle to accept what has happened. it is always my hope that sorrow does not keep anyone from expressing their thoughts. i have always believed that in shining a light into the darkness, the darkness cannot hide its cruelty. exposing it and acknowledging it means it can be dealt with and, with effort, controlled.

death took my husband. we had a deep and intense love. we flirted daily. we touched each other constantly. we talked all day every day. the handful of times he left the country to serve his country were our only separations. i am bereft without him yet i have to find my way. my way is hiding myself behind my art.

along this life without my beloved Dragon, i am discovering the hidden truth about grief - it alters a person at the very foundation of their being. whether a person appears to have "moved on" or is "getting better," at the core of them, they are changed. damage has been done to them, much like a woodcutter’s tool is damaging the wood that once was. a part of them has been carved out of their lives and they are different. this has to be accepted at the very least by the intimate survivor of the deceased. it would help if friends and family could see and accept it as well.

the author of the letter to me mentions the hope that i am “breaking through the surface of my loss.” i am still swimming. it has been 14 months now and the times of going under, to continue the metaphor, do not come as often, but they are still there. i have "gone under" twice yesterday and once today. having said that, i can see that i am improving.

i have heard it both ways. “The greatness of the love of the couple helps to heal the survivor more quickly.” and in another book by another expert on grief it was written, “The depth of the love between the couple can hinder the one left behind in getting over their grief. It may take years for them to claim true happiness again.”

see? no one knows. i do not know and i am living it. i do not know what is to come for me. i know only that i am now damaged. but i can still remember love, and express it. i can try to make something good because he lived. i have known a love i know will never come again. i can express it through my stained glass, my woodcarvings, my photography, my writing, and my quilts.

i have no idea what "moving on" means. where do i go from here without him who meant my whole world? if i am "moving on" it is a different person than the one before the moment of his death.

as for hitting the wall, it is a wall that will always be before me. i will come across over and over as i continue to have to live with my Dragon. it was there during my daughter’s wedding. it will be there again when my son marries. i may see it on a random day, some beautiful fall day with swirls of leaves falling in a crisp wind. the wall will be there each Christmas Eve when i lay down alone, year after year. and i may hit “the wall” when i am faced with my own death however it comes. if it is in any way a lengthy process, there will be times when i am left alone and i will see it as an insurmountable obstacle. my fears of dying alone, since he is not here to sit beside me, will make that wall seem to rise up into infinity. and i will have to climb it alone.

for now, i continue to walk forward through this different life alone, one step at a time. i will continue to create art and to create it, there will be, in a sense, some destruction. i will continue to write and it will be founded in pain. it is more a thing of who i am than what i do. i get ideas. i have to create them in whatever form seems to express them best.

from destruction can come beautiful things. fire creates glass. carving wood can give it a shape and form that is magical. fabrics and clothes have to be cut to sew and quilt a lasting, tangible memory. some of the most profound writing comes from authors expressing what their pain feels like. sadness can be a catalyst for deep introspection and out of that can come writing that can help others find their way.

and that is all i am trying to do. i hurt because i miss my husband. his death changed me. i am continuing. i am creating art. it is art born out of my grief. but i am enduring it. i feel burned, drowned, carved, and cut apart. but i love him. i want him to be proud of me. i do not want my children to worry about me. the art of grief is what i am doing with my sorrow. it is all done with my Dragon in mind.

it is what it is

"i sat evaluating myself.

i decided to lie down." ~ Rod McKuen (i think. it's been a while since i read it.)

i've been sewing like crazy on a quilt for Suddenwidow. one for her eldest is finished. one for her youngest is in the works. i break after 9 PM now so i can sew for myself. i've been working on a gift for my two fairy godmothers to take with me to Camp Widow in August to thank them for getting me there. that's what Bunny is working on in the blog photo. i have no fear that they will be able to figure it out from that photo. =0)

sewing/quilting as a profession is not like being an art director at an advertising which i've done. it's not like working the stock room at a department store or being a sales associate, both of which i've done. it's not like being a SPED teacher of EH boys, which i've also done. all those involve constant interaction with people.

sewing/quilting as a profession is closer to plowing a field or bailing hay, both of which i did on my father's farm during my childhood and teenage years. it's closer to working flowers and plants at a nursery which i have done. you're alone a lot of the time in a very solitary pursuit except driving a tractor and planting, growing, and culling flowers and plants is all done outside, or in the greenhouse. but the common thread is you're alone with your thoughts.

i know how to be alone. i'm not afraid of it, but having come from an intensely close bond, one in which, once he retired from his job, we were never apart, my solitude has been difficult to accept. i'd go down to the cove alone sometimes. he'd run to the grocery store, but beyond an hour here or there, we were never, ever apart.

i wonder if not having my own home, having my things in storage, not having a car, and being anxious about food and making sure i don't make my ex angry, might be making it hard for me to move forward at the pace i would have normally.

i haven't been able to tell my story. except here and here is not at all like talking to a person sitting with you. it's not like sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and chatting with someone with whom you feel safe. so i talk to my daughter.

she told me she thinks my situation with money, or without it, and lack of mobility has prevented me from finding friends. we're working to resolve the car thing. maybe the VA, when i get approved for something, will be enough for a little car for me. maybe i'll get a book published and i can get some breathing space. maybe ..... ah, forget it. i'm just working on trying to figure something out on a wing and a prayer.

my daughter believes that once i get mobile, i can start going to church regularly again and maybe volunteer again like i did before. maybe, maybe. if wishes were horses then beggars could ride. but if we give up on our wishes and hopes and dreams, then we live for nothing. she and i feel that one day, someday, something good will happen to me again. but i told her that we had the Dragon and that's more than we had ever hoped for. we both got teary. he is a constant wish/hope/dream/memory for the both of us. girls and their Dragons. when a bad boy reforms, oh, Lord, there's nothing quite like him. if he is all i get, i have been blessed.

it's been mentioned that i'm sounding stronger. i'm not any stronger, i'm just settling in. the years i have left without him stretch out achingly long. because of how i was raised and then what happened during my first marriage, i have no sense of entitlement that my Dragon and i will be allowed to see each other again. i will not risk challenging God for something that may not be my place to ask for. there is not enough of me left to think that the deepness and profoundness of our love for each other will carry any weight in the afterlife. having said that, i love my Dragon far too much to stop humbly praying for him and i to be together.

working as i do, writing the letters for my allowance for bills, food, etc, have not given me any revelation that i'll be okay. i am simply settling into what life has dictated to me. i carefully fight for little i have left of myself. my Dragon so wanted to see me come back from what life had done to me. i work. i research for help, Medicaid, VA, grief counseling. i make calls. i try. i am swimming upstream and, though i'm not loosing any ground, i'm not making much headway. but i don't think i'm failing at how i am grieving as it has been suggested, it just is what it is.

wishes? i have several.

hopes? i have a few of those.

dreams? i have two. i'd like a small little townhouse with a walled courtyard to release my little dogs into to play. i could paint the walls and get my things back from my ex. it can become mine in a way that an apartment never will.

and two, i'd like to be granted the blessing of being reunited with my Dragon when it is time for me to leave here.

it's good to have dreams. only in our dreams can we be truly safe, love conquer all, and Dragons live forever.

the moon is almost full again. i'm not going to ever apologize for my relationship with the moon. grief be damned. the moon and i will always look at each other.

Floss and Beaded Gypsies

it was my husband's birthday this past Wednesday. i didn't know what to expect. i didn't fall asleep until 3 AM and my little dogs have little bladders so i was up at 7:30 AM. first thing i did was get hit by a wave of pressure on my throat. my chest started heaving and the tears came flowing, exactly like they had done when the ER doctor and nurse took me in to see him after he was pronounced dead. i lay there for i don't know how long. eventually my little Scotties dancing and licking my face forced me to get up. they had to go out. they day had to start. both my children called me several times that day. my son who lives in Florida especially felt far away from me. his voice broke on the phone when he knew i'd been crying. "mom. i wish i could be there with you. i miss him so much. i sometimes don't know what to say. i love you, mom. i'll be up for a visit soon."

i bent my head and worked all day on quilting the current Memory Quilt that's in the frame. i went back and forth between it and the embroidery work for my daughter's wedding. but i ran out of floss. i switched back to the Memory Quilt and worked until after midnight.

then it was Thursday, my daughter's day off. we went to a discount fabric store that sells embroidery floss 3 skeins for $1. i bought 48 skeins - getting all the colors that i had in my head for the design i needed. if you click on the photo you too can delve into my tiny wonderful world of floss. i got back home and my daughter had to return to her home. i was alone again so i bent my head, as i do every day, and worked.

today my daughter stopped by before she went to work. she had been cleaning out a drawer that had her old jewelry box in it. she opened the box i had gotten her as a young girl and the little ballerina in the pink tulle tutu twirled on her little gold spring. and lying on the pink felt inside was the beaded gypsy earrings and bracelet that my Marine had made for her when she was still in high school. she gave me the earrings and wants me to keep the bracelet with her wedding things. she's going to wear the bracelet when she changes into her going away clothes.

i cried when i saw it. another punch to my stomach. so much love and thought went into his beading these little things for her. he knew her so much better than her own father. my Marine is Native American and Russian heritage and he had attended powwows where he danced. [he had always said he was just an Indian but i am trying to be correct as not to offend anyone who may stop by to read this.] he knew my daughter was a free spirit, artistic, emotional-heart on her sleeve kind of girl. he knew i had called her my wild gypsy baby when she was an infant and toddler. he found the pattern somewhere and beaded it for her 18th birthday. that photo also enlarges with a click.

and now we have it again. her finding it was a lovely surprise. we both cried as we looked at it and touched it. he's here in so many ways and yet he's gone from me and all these lovely memories come up and slam into me. but i wouldn't trade the tears and pain for not having had him in my life. he gave me everything. he gave me hope and gentleness. he gave me laughter and love. i could go to him at anytime and say, "i love you so much. i just need you to hold me for a minute," and he would smile. it always reached his eyes. he would open his arms and i would sit in his lap or he would come lay with me on the sofa or bed and we would just hold each other and talk quietly about the most important thing in our universe. not money. not our what the future will bring. we talked about how much we loved each other.

next Tuesday, August 11th, is our wedding anniversary. if his birthday hit me like a seizure i am not going to try to imagine what i will awaken to on Tuesday. i'm just going to bend my head down and quilt, and sew, and embroidery. i'm just going to dream of him whether asleep or awake and i'm going to keep going.

i told someone that i will be grieving for him for the rest of my life. i will get past this painful gut-wrenching part eventually. i will keep working. i will do things. i will laugh. but there will always be a part of me that is with him in a very profound way. i've been through too much with the first marriage to have to tell someone else what happened and why i have so little self esteem and too much happened that i could not not tell. there are too many very obvious scars. and my marriage to my Marine was too deep, too wonderful to be repeated. he was too much of everything that is good and decent and loving to ever replace. no one that moves into my field of vision could even slightly dim the vivid memory of his smile, his touch, and his voice in my head and heart. i adore him. i miss him.

so, the floss and the beaded gypsies came at a good time. i've come up for air between his birthday and our anniversary. i'm going to wear the beaded gypsies all day Tuesday. and if you're reading this and all set to worry about me, don't. Tuesday is my daughter's day off and after she goes home and i am alone, i have my Marine living in my heart. i'll never leave him.

a bridal quilt, a dead husband, and a can of Raid

while i work on the Memory Quilts for the widows and widowers who contact me, i've been working on my daughter's bridal quilt. it's almost finished, still in the frame being quilted and i hope i can get it finished for her wedding day. Sept. 12.

it's a pretty dove and heart design i found in a book a long while back and started for her. everything is hand-appliqued and then the quilting. i must have a million and a half stitches in this thing. she's told me she doesn't care if it's finished in time for the wedding, to show her guests, but i want it done, and for a purely selfish, childish reason. her father and stepmother are coming to the wedding. and i want two things done before then. i want the quilt finished and i want to drop another ten pounds. or maybe it's one thing. i want to feel better about myself. i'm not demanding it but it would be nice. just a little bit of the worth i felt because of my Marine. *sigh*

i had an old fashioned conniption yesterday afternoon late and it all rolled into this one concept. i have to live without him. he died and there's nothing i can do to alter that reality. life will forever be like this, this alone stuff, this facing life's little problems by myself. i have to deal on a day-to-day basis with all the crap that life brings as a little gift to remind us that we can be toyed with.

i was so tired at 3 PM yesterday because i'd not fallen asleep until after 3 AM and was up at 7 AM. no reason. just couldn't sleep, again. i broke down and took a Tylenol PM and blessed sleep came , but the dogs had been sleeping fine long before me and needed to go out. so i'm up. i worked on the quilts until i simply needed to nap. i have my mattress by the window so i can watch any lightning storms at night. well, there were these little tiny ants on the sill, on the glass, on the sides, crawling around like a Sci Fi Channel Most Dangerous Night on Television. i pulled the bed out. i used a sponge and Comet and a vacuum, and they the stragglers would wiggle out from a crack in the wall by the window. i got so upset for some reason. i guess because it hasn't been a week since they supposedly sprayed.

i ripped my thumbnail. did i mention that? i hit it and it ripped straight down, not across, straight down into the cuticle and it hurt like a (insert your favorite curse word here). oh my good Lord i cursed and it bled and i cried and i, yeah, i wanted him there.

i was hurt and upset and those stupid ants were making a mockery of my efforts and i wanted him there so badly that my chest hurt, my throat hurt. my heart broke all over again.

i cleaned the entire apartment. everything got vacuumed and wiped with Comet and then sprayed with that Febreze stuff and i lit candles and cried the whole time. but the whole thing broke me when i saw those little black ants still poking their enduring heads out, then one-by-one start coming back. i broke down and called my daughter. she was getting off work in half an hour and i asked her to bring me a can of Raid.

she brought it and helped me finish up. then she made me promise to not do anything else for the rest of the night. so after she left, i made garlic toast and mac and cheese, covered it in catsup - the mac and cheese not the bread , that would just be gross - and ate.

then i worked on chillinwithlemonade's quilt back.

all this quilting keeps me occupied, brings me much needed money, and gives me self-worth. i am doing it for myself and love doing it for those in mourning for reasons that i feel deeply about. as i see it, i take clothes, adrift now without an owner, and create something that can be held, stroked, and wrapped around the left behind.

i've been left behind. that's sometimes how it feels. i feel lost, adrift, isolated, and lonely for him. so lonely for just him. he made me feel special. he loved me. i could see it in his eyes. and i've never had that before. not from my parents' and not from my first husband. my children love me, yes, but now that they're grown and have their own lives, it's a look over their shoulder or to their left or right kind of love. it's a "okay, there's mom and she's doing alright so i'll go back to doing this" kind of love. they're looking forward. i remember feeling that way, right up until my own mother was diagnosed with cancer and i quit college and moved into the hospice to live with her while she died. something like that jerks you up short. i don't want to jerk them up short. i'm here. i'm enduring. i'm just sad, sad, sad. did i mention that i miss him to a degree i never thought a human being was capable of?

so not in defiance of my daughter's wish for a restful night, it was out of a need born in loneliness that i worked on the quilts. i need them as much as the people who want them do.

they are my self-worth. i have to give it to myself now that my husband has died. and i need all the self-worth i can gather. because the creep and the creepess of Maine are coming to my daughter's wedding. they've already started emailing with how we should do things and all the wonderful things the creepess would like to see.

i'm ignoring everything. my daughter is ignoring them. i'm going to bring the can of Raid.