Square Pegs ~ Camp Widow 2010

or Bunny tells it her way.

Bunny was there

but Bunny was square

She wasn’t the life of the big party.

Bunny was shy

but she’s always been shy

and she didn’t feel all that hearty.

see Bunny’s still sad

yes, very, very sad

she misses her Dragon so much.

she had hoped Camp Widow

would be her big chance

for kindred spirits’ minds to touch.

but there were lectures

talking faces galore

so she kept her little mouth shut.

the stars were out

the paparazzi in tow

Shy Bunny got lost in the glut.

now Bunny’s not one

to impose on those

she doesn’t really know at all.

so Bunny hung back

and only talked to those

who saw Bunny with her quilts by the wall.

Bunny took quilts

Bunny took sock friends

she took all the things that she sews.

and there were those

who smiled and chose

to talk to Bunny and that made her glow.

it was worth the trip

it was worth the time

it was worth swallowing all her fears.

to go and be seen

yes, people saw Bunny!

and she’ll be warm from that memory for years.

"Sock" Beach Bunny with her Tribute Tile from Camp Widow that she cried over when she first saw it, and a sea urchin that her friend, Boo, bought her when they walked by the water.

and with her trusty pad of paper and pencil.

well, hell. Bunny may as well use a chisel on stone.

all the tweets and uploads that were going on around her,

and Bunny uses a pencil and spiral to jot her thoughts down.

give Bunny a second as she bolsters herself to face the inevitable teasing to come.

what can I say about Camp Widow and not be BURNED AT THE STAKE? {can't you just hear that judge raising his voice from Ghostbusters II?} i know what i can say. *ahem* *cough* *delaying tactics* “it was the best of times. it was the worst of times.”

THE BEST OF TIMES

1. it was located in a beautiful place. it was by the ocean. my room was on the 18^th floor and i sat out there a lot. fresh air with a tinge of salt in it. wind. gulls. fog. oh, my Lord, it was all there. *big drum roll here; timpani drums and cue words* the Pacific!

have i ever told you that my Dragon trained over the Pacific? and by over i mean he did his first HAHO / free-fall at terminal velocity for night insertion qualification -- thingy (he laughed when i didn't know how to finish something he had told me that i wanted to make it sound so big and impressive so "thingy" was how i finished it -- somewhere out over the Pacific? he had to hit the deck of a ship at sea that was running dark. he did it the first attempt. how flippin' cool is that? Dragon silently swooping in from twelve o’clock.

i

went to one workshop. the first one. it wasn’t what i expected so afterwards, i went to sit at a table reserved for me for the rest of the day. i knew i wouldn’t be missed. they didn’t take roll.

{INTERRUPTION: note how laidback Bunny is being. she’s using contractions. Oxford rules be damned. Bunny had a very, very, (okay, Dan, i remember i was gasping to breathe so one more) very tearful epiphany and she is, no she’s ~ she’s going to try to remember it’s okay to use contractions. breathe, girl. just breathe.}

2. sitting at the table with quilts, handkerchiefs, sock animals, a pillowcase i’d made as a surprise gift, purses out of jeans, and a little photo album as portfolio that my daughter made up for me, people trickled in and out. there was the chance for that much welcome one-on-one sharing that i really needed and had hoped would have been the rule. most came in actually during lectures they snuck out of saying, “it wasn’t exactly what i had thought it would be.”

if the women that swore they wanted quilts do what they say they will do, i will have 5 quilts to make. my fingers are crossed. i'd cross my toes but then my shoes won't fit.

also, in choosing to sit in the room with the other vendors, i got to talk to these women who trickled in and hear their stories. how this man died. how that family got to say good-bye. what this man meant to his family and all the shirts he had that she still has and doesn’t know what to do with. this woman liked all the randomly placed embroidery. that one cried when i showed her how i can make a shirt be sewn into a quilt and a person still be able to slip it on, to feel it against their skin and then, with the arms through their beloved’s sleeves, bring the quilt around them and hug themselves, to hold themselves, to keep all the fragile pieces of themselves together. i listened and offered peace. i heard the timbre of their voice and offered my hands and my ideas for them.

when they walked away with one of my brochures talking with their friend or simply looking at the photos and reading it, i felt like i had helped. i told myself, when they go home and look at all the clothes they’ve been saving and commission me for a quilt, i can give them something that gives them a bit of peace.

i know. it's right out of the 60's but i mean it differently. peace of mind. peace of heart. the peace of being still inside yourself and just breathing. reliving a memory and it not tear you apart. inner peace.

for example, i made a pillowcase as a surprise for someone there. i typically do not, i mean don't, i don't get to see the faces of the people i send the finished quilts to. this time i got to see. i brought the pillowcase to this person and when this person saw it and realized it was my gift…..the eyes say it all, and the embrace. some things are too powerful for words. that look. i got to see it. that moment when they hold a quilt, or in this case, let a pillowcase i’ve made from the rest of the clothes touch their face and know they can rest their head on it, breathe it in from now on, i feel a little bit more like the real person my Dragon saw.

3. Boo, Dan, and Deb were there. oh, my, the feeling of finally meeting people you trust. little note, the word trust. it will come up again. only those who have been taught the hard opposite of that word can truly appreciate its value.

{INTERJECTION: note there is only one photo of Bunny here and it was not taken at Camp Widow. Bunny has almost 200 photos from Camp Widow and she is still color correcting the images. sadly, aside from being born reserved, Bunny was born a perfectionist. color correction is critical to her. Bunny loves color. she was gifted with her first color wheel in an art class in second grade and never let it go. besides, most of Bunny’s pictures are of the water and the architecture, a random seagull that flew overhead that completely fascinated Bunny and took her mind away from reality for a second, and the following: Boo. Dan. Boo & Dan. Deb. Deb & Boo. Deb & Dan. and the always popular Deb, Dan, and Boo. none of the previous names are in any order of ranking so do not try to read between the lines. Bunny wrote it by sound and beat. she likes the way it rolled off her tongue, the one in her head that she listens to when she writes. it’s the one that told her, "now this will sound good when they do the Broadway play of your life." see that? see that there? Bunny can be funny. now back to your regularly scheduled reading of Bunny telling it her way and trying not to be BURNED AT THE STAKE!!!!! you can hear that judge's voice ~ that actor from Ghostbusters II, can't you?}

THE WORST OF TIMES

okay, it was not the worst of times. Dickens and his gift for hyperbole. men can be such babies. but it fits, in its own way. i had gone there with expectations and my expectations were not realized. t

hey say if you don’t take Paris with you, you won’t find it there. i went to Camp Widow with the expectation of being with people who would be able to look at my face and see how i was doing. they had all be through it. they knew the signs. they knew how hard things could be. they understood the Almighty Calendar of the Passing of Time. birthdays, anniversaries, wedding anniversaries. it’s been 18 months today. a year and a half. a year and six months. however you say it, it's been too long without him.

i thought they would see it in my face, in the quietness of my body, and i thought they would remember those times that they had survived. i thought they would accept my little smile and nod. i thought they would stick around to talk to me. i thought they would care. i told the strangers i met there. his birthday was the day before the flight. the 18 month anniversary of his death was yesterday/today since he died 3 minutes after twelve.

timing matters. ask an emergency room doctor trying to save a patient on Christmas Day. i wonder, if you get them drunk enough to loosen their secrets, if any of them would admit to cheating on the time by a few minutes for the the death certificate so that the family doesn't remember Christmas Night as the night they lost their dad/mom/son/daughter.............

this anniversary, these Dragon days reminds me of when i fell victim to a medium case of hypothermia one winter day, and my Dragon's panic in trying to get me warm. he had his cell in his pocket ready to call 911, the car keys in his pocket to wrap me up and run for an ER if the shower didn’t work take, if the whiskey-laced hot tea didn’t perk me up, if the hot stew took too long bringing color back to my ashen face. he finally got me back and we laid together ~ entwined ~ on the sofa…………

and he whispered in her ear, “i don’t know what i’d do if i lost you. you’re my very soul.”

Bunny needs to take a short break right now. she’ll finish this later on and post it separately. she’s a little overcome with melancholia and memories. and if she is going to be true to herself and not be BURNED AT THE STAKE!!! {don't tell me i can't entertain myself}, she wants to be clear-headed when she finishes this part.

"Sock" Beach Bunny

i call her "Sock" Beach Bunny. she isn't as lovely as my store-bought Bunny. she looks more like me. her stuffing has shifted with age. she's not as thin as she used to be. she looks a little care-worn. she is definitely more me.

i made her from the pair of socks my Dragon wore the day he died. i cannot tell the story of how this certain pair of socks became so important. his birthday is Thursday. i fly out on Friday morning. i'll cry if i type it and i have sewing to finish up today. i got my hair trimmed yesterday. i have a shaggy bob whatever the hell that is. tomorrow my daughter is coming over to highlight my hair. she insists i do it. she says it will make me feel good. i just like it when she comes over.
i hand-appliqued a silk dragon on the back of her little jacket. Dragon has her back so anybody who wants to be mean, beware. "here there be Dragons." =0} Bunny has a rough, tough Dragon who, though he is not really here, his love and her love for him keeps her getting tougher every few months....you know, these things take time, and i miss him a lot...... *sigh*

i embroidered {tattooed?} a purple heart to her chest since she has been "wounded by life."

she's going to Camp Widow. she will be in the pictures i do not want to be in, or am too self-conscious to be in.......i need a rum and coke. i always look better to everyone after they have a rum and coke.

Beach Bunny signing off until next week.

peace.

abandonedsouls

i have food again. i made a box of Cheerios, two heat and serve bags of white rice, one bag of yellow rice, and 3 eggs last for 8 days. and green tea. lots of green tea.

i think it's been harder lately because i haven't eaten much. but yesterday, he went ahead and sent the funds so i could get food. my daughter had to intervene. she had to beg him. because it isn't the first of the month yet.

i have food again. i was so careful while shopping. i decide meals for each day keeping in mind the two keywords: leftovers and rationing. small portions. two meals a day. when my daughter and i brought the grocery sacks inside the apartment, we both sat for a minute, and i cried. i have food again. she cried, too, from frustration, from the relief that i was going to be able to eat a real meal last night. i ate it too fast and almost got sick. but it stayed down and i am so grateful. i woke up this morning and i had one egg and a piece of toast with jelly on it.

i am grateful yet i often bury my head in my hands and sob. i wish he hadn't died.

i'm having a harder time budgeting $200 a month for food. yes, i've applied for food stamps. for some reason though, my being honest and telling them i have applied and am waiting on the VA holds up the process. maybe next week. maybe next month.

my Dragon never let us go hungry. no matter that we paid for colleges, apartments for the children, cars, insurance, medical, and the debt that my ex ran up, his fines, the trouble he caused with the IRS and an insurance company, everything he did to me and left me with, we got it paid for and still had money for food and a roof. my Dragon is my rock. and without my rock i am alone and tired, and scared, and fighting bureaucracy.

they went ahead and closed the VA office closest to me so i am having to start over and get on a new list somewhere for one-on-one grief counseling as the wife of a veteran. almost 18 months out and i still cannot find anyone to talk to. by the time i find someone to talk to i'll be dead myself and it won't matter.

i read about so many people with support ~ friends, family, options for grief counseling where they get to talk and be heard. i am feeling hostile and i wonder if it's lack of food and/or terror at what else life will dump on me. there was just a note posted on my apartment door. in this day of every office trying to go paperless, they have just stopped online rent payments. they want bank checks now. they tell me this on the 29th. i don't own a car. i sold it to pay off New England bills and to get moved here to be close to my daughter. now i have to call her and tell her that either today or Monday, the 2nd, i have to be driven to the bank to get a check. i'd cry but it will only give me a headache and i've had too many of those lately due to lack of food.

i feel surly at times. i think i may want to give up being online. i can't see the point of this anymore. other than trying to network for commission work, it's been upsetting for me. it has been a reinforcement of what one widow from that old group i tried had said to me. of all the things two of the women felt i needed to hear, this is what hurt the most, or i stupidly let it hurt, but it reverberates in my head still, after all this time because nothing has changed.

"the only reason anyone from the group was keeping up with you was because they were waiting on their quilts. once they get them, they go back to their lives. you have no life. if this were India, you would be an Undesirable. you have no money to spend on anyone and you have no car. i'm not coming over for you to cook me dinner anymore. there are people who bring me better food to my home. i'm tired of always being served eggs at your place."

that really hurt and it still does. i do not have what it takes to be a "good friend" to this woman and i do not want to, and yet, this is the bar to which i feel i am measuring myself, or am being measured. this is not the south of my grandmother's era, or even my mother's. i feel like i need to produce a commercial and post it. "why i can be a good friend even if i don't have a car and cannot buy you things." what i am doing is filling my time here on this earth creating a body of work that will outlast me.

and i am a good mother. and i am a good wife. i love my husband. yes, he's dead. i know this better than anyone. but i still very much feel like i am his wife. and my love has not dimmed in the face of all this misfortune. he is a Marine and Marines aren't wealthy. and there will be money from the government. they just take their time.

this is my fault really. i had expectations of meeting people and making some friends, of finding a friend, just one. but i now see that i have come into established lives where there is no room for someone like me. this is a big city. if my daughter had lived in Rockport, i could have stayed and walked everywhere. i would have been seen. i could have joined the "library ladies" that met once a week in the basement where all the old, really cool stuff like maritime maps and ships papers were stored. all of them were widow women and gossiped like it was 1955. it was wonderful down there. and they knew me and my Dragon because we love, love, love maps and we were there all the time. they would have hugged me and chatted. we would have sat and brought our sewing and talked and talked about "our men." it was such a lovely and diverse group of women. widows who had lost their husbands to the sea. widows who had lost their husbands through long, drawn out illness, or suddenly, like i had to face.

they would have made a home for me there in the basement with all those old books and maps. and i wouldn't have had to pay them anything.

if i have commission work, i don't need people. and i can create work to build inventory. so i guess i don't need people. ah, here it comes full circle. i don't really need anyone. it would just be kinda nice to see someone sometime. but then they will just tell me how disappointed in me they are, which will disappoint me in the state of the world.

i guess what that woman said to me was true. once i've made the quilt, (with 2 exceptions ~ Deb and Dan), i don't hear from them anymore. especially the people i've made quilts for who live here in this city. they are gone forever even though they came to my apartment and sat and talked about their losses, and i held their hands, and i took on their grief to make their quilts. they did not reciprocate. they did not see my own sorrow. she was right. they did not see me as a possible friend even though i sat with them at that group. i was nothing more than a vendor.

the shop i was going to open on the Neck was going to be called AbandonedSouls. my Dragon and i both came up with it. it came from the idea that i would collect what the ocean threw back on the rocks and make things out of it. driftwood carvings, sculptures, chisel my designs in the stones, etc. all the things i worked with had been abandoned. there were other reasons for the name that are exclusively between my Dragon and me. philosophical pillow talk. we are both deep thinkers. maybe someday i'll have a shop. or not. but the name will be forever mine. at least in my head. maybe someday i'll go to a beach somewhere and find a beautiful old piece of driftwood and i can carve the name in it.

i miss him. i need him back. or i need to stop letting the awful things that i've been told stop getting to me. i feel raw, but i should be feeling better. i have food now. the awful thing is i had thought widows protected each other. for a while i bought into that saying of they "get it."

these are the "life lessons" my daughter told me yesterday that she has observed through my experiences:

just because someone may understand the death of a spouse but that doesn't mean they will be nice to you about your own loss.

it can be like high school.

even if people know how bad it is for you, you can be forgotten.

if you bring nothing to the table but your battered soul, people do not have to be kind to you.

my daughter says i am stronger than i feel inside. she said my Dragon would be proud of me. i asked her if she would stay for supper with me last night. she said she would stay but she did not want to take any of my new food. she watched me eat. then she watched me get nauseous. she quickly went to her place and brought back a few packages of Alka-Seltzer for my stomach. it was upset because it wasn't used to actual food like chicken. she stayed with me until it settled down.

and she cried. she misses her "dad." she misses seeing me smile. she says she clings to her husband every night and tells him how much she loves him because she knows i did that with our Dragon. she knows that having the knowledge of that in my memory is what carries me through some really bad days. my Dragon knew how very much i love him. he died within 10 minutes of me having whispered it in his ear.

i am a shadow without a Dragon to stand beside. i am an abandoned soul. we had been abandoned together. two souls tossed out towards the sea who hung together along the rocks.

it is becoming more and more comfortable to accept that he is not going to come back. i will always miss him deeply. i will always grieve for him. no one can take his place. i have no heart anymore. i gave it to him to keep until we are together again. and he is too much of too many things i ever wanted and needed; he is too much my fantasy. i know i will not ever want to date. i write this knowing people might read this and say, "she's speaking too soon."

fine. whatever.

but you didn't know us. you didn't see us together. you didn't see us kiss.

you didn't see us hold hands.

and you didn't see us look into each other's eyes. and smile.

the first time i loved forever

was when you whispered my name.....

what grief will make one do

i miss my Dragon. i have almost finished the top of my own quilt. i am bringing it to San Diego, just the top, unfinished.

i read the words of widows and widowers online. it is my window to a world that is too busy to see me looking out. i am a little worried that i am not trying anymore. i am envisioning myself sitting at a table at Camp Widow alone, waiting for someone to stop by and look, to talk to me. i see myself sitting there while people team up for lunch, to hug and laugh, and i will not have the social skills to walk over much less speak. the last 17 and a half months have taught me that i am easily discarded.

i have had 3 people string me along for commissions. waiting. waiting. each time they email it is, "i'm mailing it this week." 2 weeks pass, 5 weeks. i cannot harass but i need work. i need to eat, to live. i can get angry but i have no voice. so complicated. things i cannot say. no one to say it privately to.

i miss him. he is my best friend. he would talk to me, listen to me, all day, all night, every day, every night. he noticed me. he cared about me so much. he liked me as well as loved me. and now i am silent for hours and days, weeks and months. my daughter calls every day, but we do not sit and talk for even 20 minutes. she checks in on me and then has her life to tend to. the accumulation of my silence is a weight on my mind.

with him alive, i was never alone, even when he had to leave for a mission i was not alone. he was out there loving me.

i can sometimes feel;

i tell myself;

i believe he knows i will never get over losing him.

he knows we are two who are more than a couple.....
we are one.
i miss our days together. i miss his friendship. i miss walking with him, exploring with him, living with him.
i miss our nights together.

and rising out of the heat of the day, it comes.

i have nothing to say that has not been said before. i have no new photos except for one. the moon. time passes and i grieve. i have nothing new to offer. nothing has changed for me. this is what grief will make one do. i reach out to a world that is aloof. i write to anyone and no one.

that's not true. i write to him.

maybe he knows. surely he knows. i pray he understands the power he had over me, the magic he shared with me, and the love he wove around me. i cannot breathe without him even though i do. i cannot sleep without him though i do rest upon occasion. i cannot live without him even though i am still existing.

Dragon days are coming and i am having a hard time. his birthday, our wedding anniversary, our first date. all in August. the month of my Dragon.

and 18 months ~ a year and a half. i will be alone for it. flying back from San Diego surrounded by strangers. trying not to cry. shit.

surely he is waiting. please, God, just this one thing. let him be waiting for me. i need the comfort of his embrace, his smile, and his eternal love.

i need my magnificent Dragon.

prose poems

a visual image of me is a woman sitting in an open boat with her hands in her lap. grief has etched her face with lines her husband would be unable to recognize her through. she is willing to row, and row she does at times, but mostly she is drifting because her options have rendered her powerless to set a destination.

so she writes. and draws. and sews.

no matter how hard life becomes

no matter how lonely i get

i will not risk

changing any one thing

if it might change what i had with you

your name will forever be on my lips

memories of you are my crutch

i won't improve

my life one bit now

if it would alter my before with you.

the sorrow i feel is a gift

this grief is a blessing for me

it honors the us

the you and i

it is proof of the bond we shared.

i miss you

in the morning

i wake to

ineffable sadness

the new and enduring

constant.

i rise

in physical pain

from aging,

that feels harsher

without you.

i miss you

in the afternoon

when the length

of the day

stretches out

interminably

as the cruel sun

shines down

on my life

and my future

without you.

i miss you

in the evening

when the stars

shine coldly

on a Dragon-less world.

deepening shadows

cannot shroud the grief

etched on my face

as i endure the close

of another day

without you.

i miss you

in the night

when dreams of you,

or the lack thereof,

wake me to an

empty bed

and i become

intimate

with a longing

that can never be healed

without you.

the lingering cloud

i am bumming. this whole week. bumming. i found out the extent of my poverty has been made a little bit more public. it makes me sad, and, do i say it? ashamed. i do not know why i am ashamed because i have no regrets. i love him and the choices we made were made for our children. what happened to us was beyond our control. we were so happy. we felt such peace together.

i was also told that, still, there are people who choose to judge those who "put their families through divorce." there is a chasm that splits the "divorce isn't the answer" group to the "why do you go back to him if he is abusive? group." in making the decision, i sought help from my priest and a doctor. it was taking into consideration the fears and pleas of my children and my own fear and exhaustion after 20 years of pain that i made the decision. when i am judged as "putting my children through a divorce," i remember what our lives were like and how hard i tried for all those years. i recall a night when my daughter sat with me and begged me to leave him before she left for college. she was worried about me. so those who stand on that side of the fence, judge away. i did what i had to do in accordance with my beliefs and in adherence to the Church. comply, comply, comply. i did it all. what i did not do was make the decision lightly. it was 2 years in the making.

no regrets. i found my Dragon, or was found by him. and i was safe. i was whole. i had warmth and love, so much unconditional love. he always called me his bride. he whispered in my ears how happy he was. he crooned to me about where i was and who i was with when i had flashbacks. i know it is from a movie and sounds cliche but it is true. "he saved me in every way a person can be saved."

and now he is gone and i am as alone as i was before he was in my life. and i miss him. at times the sorrow of his death seems unconquerable.

i need to find my way out of this lingering cloud i am in. but to get out of it i need to keep going through it. if i suppress what i am feeling, ignore it, or shove it aside, it will only come back to me in spades. so i am going with it.

and to that end, here is Wordsworth. it is one of my favorites. and while the new tune is playing, i am working on my own quilt now. finally. i have some time to myself while i wait on another commission. maybe that is why i am hurting so badly. i am asking myself the same questions i ask everyone i have made a quilt for. the difference is, this is my journey, and there is not anyone here to hold my hand like i try to be there for the ones i make the quilts for.

i wish he were here to whisper in my ear.

she dwelt among the untrodden ways

beside the springs of Dove,

maid whom there were none to praise

and very few to love:

a violet by a mosy tone

half hidden from the eye!

---fair as a star, when only one

is shining in the sky.

she lived unknown, and few could know

when Lucy ceased to be;

but she is in her grave, and, oh,

the difference to me!

she danced with the dogs and then she cried

it’s been 17 months. i can still hear his voice in my mind. i can still smell his scent. his eyes, his laugh, even his walk, his stride ~ it is all still so crystal clear in my mind. nothing has faded. no memory has started to fray. his body language for all of his moods is still right there for me to visualize. i only have to call it up. our daily routines call out to me to perform making a mockery of my life now.

i vividly remember how we would wake each morning. no matter how large the bed, we woke pressed against each other ~ entwined.

during the day we both had our individual pursuits but we were nearly always pursuing our pursuits in the same room.

nights still crush me. i used to love going to bed because i went to bed with him. now it is a task to perform, like laundry, or eating. i turn out the light and i can see his broad shoulders next to me. his arms are open waiting for me to curl against him, to be drawn into his embrace, to be warmed by his love and lulled by the sound of his lovely, lovely heart beating strong.

i know him so well. i know how he thinks, and if he could see me now i know what he would say to himself………

She’s just going through the motions of living. She looks so tired, so hollowed out inside. It’s been 17 months that we’ve been apart and she looks like it has been 17 years.

So this is the face of grief. This is what I would look like if it had been me who was left behind.

She’s exhausted with worry. The dark circles under her eyes only come and go with intensity, but they never go away. She needs sleep but her worries and stress keeps her from getting anything that closely resembles healthy sleep. When I was alive and she was worried I would take her in my arms and make love to her. I would soothe her. I would lull her into a deep sleep with the knowledge that I was there watching over her; with the promise that I would never leave her. She trusted me. Now she trusts no one. She believes she will be hurt, and she has, over and over again. She has no one she can call on to come over like women do. She has no friends. Only our son and daughter are there for her and she’s fighting against being a burden. So she doesn’t tell them how bad it is unless she is falling apart, when it’s almost too much for her to withstand, when it’s real work to ease her anguish.

She talks to me a lot. She talks to God all the time. I don’t know if these kinds of conversations are prayers. It's more like she thinks God is the only one who will listen, and care about what she says. I listen, too, but she doesn’t expect an answer from either one of us. Her voice just trails off.

She tries so hard. She works so hard. She sews and sketches. She thinks if she suddenly dies like I did that when they find her, there will be all this work around her and people will suddenly see she had some value. It breaks me to know that she has fallen back in to her old way of thinking. She told me once that I was the only one who saw that she had any value. She said the children love her because she is their mother and she protected them. But that I was the only one who thought there was a reason she was here. I know now she thinks her reason for being is over with. She thought her reason for being was to love me. And it played out that I had to leave her behind, and she is devastated.

When I died she sat utterly alone for 20 hours until our children could get there. No one scurried over to help her, to sit with her, or to feed her. There was no influx of casseroles or soft voices as background so she would know she wasn’t alone. She simply sat and stared out at the ocean. She watched the sun rise and climb the sky. She saw the shadows of late afternoon reach across the snow. And she saw night drag its blanket of stars and the full moon back to watch down on her while she waited for our children. She had only moved to walk the dogs. She had not fed herself nor even gone to lay down to ease her stiff spine. She was alone until our devastated children came, and she is alone still.

She is retreating into her shell again. I see it more and more every day. The children are worried about her and what they don’t know is she acts the most alive in their presence. They don’t see her there alone hour after day after week after month.

But she does try, just not overly so anymore. Every once in a while, blue moon or so, one or two from that group drop an email, or send up a flair. 'How is she doing?' 'Thinking of you.' And she is always so quick to respond to them, but then nothing. It’s like their obligation is done and if anything bad happens to her they can safely say, 'Well, when we checked, she was fine.' They go back to their busy lives with their friends and family while she sits alone sewing, day after night after day after night.

She's saving for a car so she can go to Church and maybe make friends there. I would love to see that happen for her. It's in the works. All she needs is the VA and more commissions.

She’s trying. Today she danced with the dogs. A song came on that she liked. Its melody was catchy and the lyrics were fun. She tried to create a moment of whimsy. She picked up Scootie and danced with him. She cuddled him and twirled around. Then she set him down on the sofa and picked up Carmen. Crazy Carmen put her paws on my wife’s shoulders and licked her ear. She laughed. I heard her laugh for the first time in a long, long while. She sang and spun around and her eyes settled on the folded flag in its case on the mantle. Her mind flashed back to a time when we danced.

I used to love to dance with her. When I met her, she hadn't danced since high school. I’d sing and pull her in my arms and we’d dance ~ in the kitchen, in the living room, the bedroom, and always on the beach. I even caused a scene by dancing with her at the end of Bearskin Neck on our anniversary in front of a whole bunch of tourists. She wasn’t expecting the dip and she squealed. People clapped and smiled. We love each other so much. It was our last anniversary together.

Our second anniversary apart is coming up and I know that’s what she was thinking of. She was dancing with the dogs and then she cried. She had to sit down. Missing me caused her such pain that even after 17 months of enduring a life without me, she isn’t there yet. And I know I wouldn’t be either.

She’s still breathing for me and for our children. She’s sewing to try and leave a legacy, something of herself behind when she goes, or comes to me, depending upon how you choose to look at it.

My wife looks broken in half, but it takes a strong person to continue to live with a broken life and a missing heart. She wrote about it once and it is very true. I have her heart. She did, indeed, give it to me. And she was right; I do need it because I'm not as strong as she is. I cannot live without her. She is so utterly alone, and with the knowledge that there is no one out there who will come sit with her. But she is so strong. She has no options to live any differently. I am so proud of her. She is making such beautiful things to leave behind her. Her daughter and son are also very proud of her and a little in awe. They are of an age now where they can appreciate her art.

I miss her. I love her. I worry about her. But she is my wife, and I know she uses her powers of memory and her deep love of me to bring forth images of our life together. She’ll survive.

~

that’s what he would say, or something very close. he has said it to me before in one way or another. as i have written, our life was financially very hard due to bills and putting the children through college. but our marriage is everything I had ever dreamed of.

it is my belief that i will never feel any intense joy again but i have felt the stirrings of happiness. i was happy when my son and daughter and i were all together for the July 4^th holiday. i am back to the monotony of every day life and almost robotic motions of getting through it. but i try at whimsy. at times.

i will go to Camp Widow and put my best foot forward. i am praying for commission work that can build up and carry me through. and then i’ll come back and settle in to work again.

i will always actively miss him. if that’s not “transitioning and empowering myself through the healing power of embracing my widowhood” then so be it. i will join the minority of those who cannot do anything more with grief than endure it and try to get by. i sew for others and that to me is a good thing. i do make pretty things. i will sit in my cave and create things. i will write because, like a burp, it is better out than in. who knows, maybe i will find some wisdom in all this solitude. it worked for the Oracle of Delphi. Jesus went out into the wilderness alone. Thoreau did okay as did Beston. being alone is not scary at all. with the exception of my intense love and life with my Dragon, i have been alone my whole life. for me, it is the awareness that i have been seen by possible friends, but then passed over. that has hurt deeply.

i hope God sees me. i hope He knows how hard it is and is proud of me making the Memory Quilts, or trying to. i hope St. Jude (you know, lost causes), makes a pass over Camp Widow and there will be interest that grows and grows, because it does not have to be quilts for the dead. babies are born every day and couples get married all the time. children grow up and go off to college and need a quilt made from things from home to help them through their homesickness. i can make quilts for anyone for any reason.

i will try for a moment of whimsy again someday. i will dance with my dogs again, but i know i may cry. missing my Dragon is an art form in and of itself. many artists suffer for their art. i can do no less.