Love

A Long, Hard Year

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“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
― Kahlil Gibran

I sat with a group of friends at a local café. It is usually a time of joy, sometimes when I need it the most. This was one of those times. It is March and I have begun to contemplate the past year since Linda left me.

My friend Val, the eighty-two-year-old teenager, asked how Linda and I met and cautioned, “If it is too hard to talk about….”

“Val, I never find it hard to talk about Linda,” I answered. It is never too painful to talk about her. It is the dark, quiet times when I am alone with my darkest memories that I find hard. A vibrant, loving woman reduced to an urn of ashes is what is hard. Still, I left our gathering smiling, my mood lightened, even if it was short lived.

I only share the good times when I talk about Linda. There were thirty-eight years of good times. Tales of our first meeting and the winding road that we traveled trying to acknowledge we were in love were the subjects of the day. The meeting on top of a football field’s press box or was it when she stood with an inflated pumpkin on her head? The trip from hell to Charleston with her then boyfriend, my roommate. A trip to a local dive, The Casablanca Lounge, that brought love more into focus. In that conversation with Val, I realized I had an anodyne for the deep darkness I have been feeling for the past twelve months.

I have an old photograph of Linda being Linda. I keep it close by to remind me of who Linda was…not what she became. Hands apart, she is sticking her tongue out. The photo is dark but not as dark as her curls, the dark curls I loved and remember most. This is Linda, the Linda I must remember. The Linda that still makes me smile.

I must also remember the Linda of the last year of her life. I have no choice. Even in the darkest moments there were pinpoints of light. No matter how weak she became, there was still a light that shined brighter than all others. She struggled with names and called everyone “Baby” and told them, “That’s alright, it’s okay” even when it wasn’t.

Still, the darkness encroaches along with the bitterness I feel. Life played such a terrible trick. From the joy of being told, “You are in complete remission,” to the stoke a scant week later. Four months later she was gone…four months that seemed like four lifetimes for all the wrong reasons.

Despite the photography, I don’t think I will ever get over the bitterness. Despite the wonderful memories, I find myself angry. Sometimes, I get angry at myself. I get angry at God. I could have done more. I could have held her more, danced with her more, kissed her more.

God could have not been such a hateful trickster. Why did you take her from me in such a painful manner?

Selfishly, I feel robbed. She is gone and I am left to act as if I am still alive.

The lyrics of an old tune popped in my head, “Don’t it always seem to go. That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” I always knew what I had, and it made her loss even greater. There is a hole in my heart I never want to heal.

Even with bitterness there is room for joy. Life without Linda is a two-sided coin. Bitterness on one, the joy that was Linda on the other. I find that there is always something to smile about even in the darkness of absence.

What Ifs

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“I’m always wondering about the what ifs, about the road not taken.”
― Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

“What” and “if” are two words if taken alone, are benign. Just don’t put them together side-by-side. When taken together, they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life. “What if…?”

I am attempting to “get on” with the rest of my life after loss of my beloved wife but find myself dwelling on a myriad of “what ifs.” Is this what haunted means? I spend too much time dwelling in the dark place that is my head.

My “What ifs” come calling during the darkest part of the night, usually around the witching hour. Many come after dreams with a reoccurring theme. I am lost in familiar surroundings and can’t find my way. I should find out what my dreams mean.

It is normal, after experiencing a life altering event, to assess where you are in your life. I truly try to focus on “what is” but I can’t seem to keep “what was” from creeping into my thoughts. It doesn’t take long for “what is” to morph into “what if.” I should be concentrating on “what will be” but can’t seem to move on.

What I wouldn’t give for a mulligan. What if I had a chance to do it repeatedly until I finally got it right? Or do it wrong again? What if I came to the fork in the road and took it ala Yogi Berra? What ifs are driving me a little crazy.

I realize now, a lot of my what ifs have to do with focus. Retirement brought a lack of focus. Linda dealt with it better than I did. She focused upon helping aging family members and friends, buying plants, and buying anything that might be on sale…whether she needed it or not. I focused on her and became her enabler.

Aside from her buying habits, she was the rudder to my dingy and my rudder is now missing. The way my head is, I fear stormy weather is ahead with no way to steer to avoid it. “What if…?”

Somewhere along the way we lost our spontaneity. I enabled that too. Was that because we grew older? I don’t think so…I think “what ifs” took on another meaning…an even more negative meaning. It is as if we grew scared to take chances.

The Linda I fell in love with never liked anything scripted. She was fearless. We dropped a hat and took a road trip to Georgetown to celebrate our anniversary…not realizing it was also the weekend of the Fourth. We found the last room available in Georgetown County. That “what if” was epic.

Traveling at the drop of a hat worked out more times than it didn’t. I can’t remember any that didn’t work out…Well, we should have never made that side trip to Memphis…the barbeque just wasn’t worth it. We dropped our hats and traveled to New Orleans to celebrate an anniversary and later to Omaha to see the last College World Series played at Rosenblat Stadium. We didn’t think twice about it. What happened to us? Why didn’t we take more chances? “What if…?”

What if Covid hadn’t hit. What if we had discovered the cancer earlier…what if I had found her sooner after her first stroke when the “clot buster” drug could have been administered. What if I could hold her one more time? What if I could kiss her one more time? I think those last two are the what ifs I’m mostly dealing with.

Before Linda passed, I wrote “Food for Thought.” It is more about thought than food but there are plenty of recipes too. Available in paperback and download at http://tinyurl.com/yrt7bee2 .

It was the Kiss

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“Okay, this was kissing. Serious kissing. Not just a kiss before moving out, not a good-bye, this was hello, sexy, and wow….” ― Rachel Caine, Glass Houses

I’ve got Betty Everett’s “Shoop, Shoop” song playing in my head. If you don’t remember it, there is a Cher version that is slightly younger. The reframe, “It’s in his kiss, that’s where it is” is on auto repeat in my head. I am changing the pronouns from his to her.

Today would have been thirty-eight years…our anniversary. Unfortunately, it is exactly three months to the day since you left me. It is exactly three months not using the “d” word. Saying you “left” implies there is a possibility of reunion. Using the “d” word implies finality and I can’t use it. The truth hurts too badly.

This past weekend I decided to take a drive. I needed to get out of the house and a walk in 95-degree weather didn’t seem prudent. I decided to retravel some of the old pig trails we once traveled together in the comfort of our air-conditioned Jeep. It was a mistake. The pig trails mean nothing without you.

My drive did trigger memories of a time now past. The good old days…late 1984.  Pig trails meant something then.

I danced around you for a year or more while you dated Jim, my roommate. We became great friends that year. We grew close but there was no dancing together. You tried to “fix” me up with all your friends, but all your efforts failed. The joke was that you failed so badly you took mercy on me. Thank you for that mercy.

I think my subconscious knew you were the one. I recognized there was a spark, a tingle whenever our fingers might touch but you belonged to another. That’s not true, you never belonged to any one person, not even me. The problem was that I was loyal to a fault even to a person who didn’t deserve it or you.

Later that year, there was the inflatable pumpkin on your head in the fall and a major reaction when I came home and found you helping Jim wash his boat that spring. That two-piece… ala Jimmy Carter I sinned in my mind. In between there was the ice storm power outage and Jim’s stupidity putting a puppy dog under the house to keep warm with a five gallon can of kerosene. I don’t know when we laughed so hard, and Jim didn’t appreciate it or deserve the puppy…or you.

With summer came the road trip from hell. I was a tag along…a third wheel as I had been all that year. If a film or fifties TV show had been made of the year, I would have been Pat Brady to Roy Rogers or Jingles in Wild Bill Hickock…funny but safe.

Jim was forced to move to Charleston because of his job but your relationship with him was already unraveling…had been unraveling for a while and that trip to Charleston brought it into focus.  I had nothing to do with the fraying even though Jim believed otherwise.

I don’t remember what threw us together without Jim that Saturday afternoon in Charleston, but I took you to the market. What an afternoon. That is when it dawned on me that you might be special. Confirmation would have to wait until Jim’s final straw broke your back.

After your breakup, I continued to dance around until you took the initiative. We found ourselves dancing together for the first time at Bennigans. Serendipity put us together, and like the stray animals you love to adopt, I followed you home. The pretense was to get you safely home but there was the goodnight kiss…and I knew. There might have been several kisses at your doorway, but I knew after the first one. You were the best kisser…the best friend…the best lover…the best everything. I think heaven will be like that first kiss.

Dusty Springfield has replaced Betty Everett, “That ever since we met you’ve had a hold on me, it happens to be true, I only want to be with you!”  And now I can’t. I can only remember your kisses…and the way your body fit perfectly with mine when I held you close. You took spooning to a grand level.

I think about all the mistakes I made before we found each other. You made a few mistakes too. Our mistakes were fate’s way of preparing us for kismet. We talked about it often, sometimes karma isn’t a bitch.

The night I followed you home I wanted to protect you. I have wanted to protect you for thirty-eight years. When it came down to it, I couldn’t protect you from what I couldn’t see or touch. It isn’t logical but I still feel guilty.

Happy Anniversary my love. I miss you terribly. Truely, the guilt is real. So is my love.

Do I Want it to Get Better?

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“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime and falling into at night. I miss you like hell.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

It has been two months, ten days and a double handful of hours, minutes, and seconds since you left me. I do miss you like hell. You were my sunshine, and the skies are much grayer since you left.

Family and friends check in to make sure I’m okay and always ask, “How are you doing?”

I appreciate their concern, but I don’t know how to answer the question. “I’m okay” is the lie I often tell them because I don’t think people want to hear, “Somewhere between numb and devastated.” Whatever I answer, I usually get the unsolicited but well-meant comment, “It will get better over time.” Will it?

I appreciate the advice but one of the voices in my head asks, “Do you want it to get better and for clarification, what is ‘it’ exactly?”

An honest question deserves an honest answer. I don’t have one. I’m at a loss. I want the pain to go away but I honestly don’t think I want the hole in my heart to heal. I think for the pain to go away memories must fade like an old black and white photo. You were so much more than a faded black and white photo. You were my “technicolor” darling.

My life was without color, and I was never whole until I met you. You were the tie that binds and a colorful psychedelic painting. I’ve gone back to incomplete and unraveled and as bland as boiled chicken. I don’t like the feeling that I’m not dead but not alive either. I am in a halfway house for grievers it seems.

Truthfully, I don’t want to not be thinking about you. I don’t want to not be missing you. I want you to be the first thing I think about when I rise in the morning and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep. You deserve that along with the thoughts that come to me throughout the day and in dreams at night.

I’m sure people are worrying that I’m spending too much time alone wallowing in self-pity. I’m not. I’m not alone. You are still here. I carry you with me, right next to the hole in my heart.

I remember going to parties or gatherings and following you around like one of our puppy dogs. We would always find ourselves in an unpopulated corner of the room talking to each other, ignoring everyone else. You were always the most interesting person in the room and tit was comforting feeling your hip pressed against me and your arm hooked in mine. I carry you with me but the thought that I will never hold your hand or hug you brings back the unfathomable pain.

I try to stay busy. You certainly left me with a gracious plenty to do but as I work my way through bins and boxes, it is like one of our adventures. I never know what I’m going to find next, I just know it will remind me of you or something we did.

“So”, the nagging voice in my head asks again, “do you want it to get better?”  No, I don’t if it means the memories of you will diminish in any way. Maybe I can just hope for getting different rather than getting better.

***

Just before my wife’s passing, I published a “cookbook of stories” described as being Southern fried in the renderings of fried fatback. These are short essays and recipes from the South. Download or purchase in paperback. Food For Thought. http://tinyurl.com/yrt7bee2

Bumping into Memories

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“There are memories that time does not erase… Forever does not make loss forgettable, only bearable.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

It has been a month and a half since Linda left me. I struggle most days…attempting to come to grips with my new normal. Friends and family check on me. I say what I think they want to hear but truth be known, I am struggling.

I try to stay busy putting one foot in front of the other. It is easy to stay busy…I lived with a hoarder. Just a fact. Not recrimination. I allowed it. Thunder just rumbled. I’m sure it is just Linda’s “heavenly” reaction to hearing the word “allowed.”

We often talked about decluttering but never moved past conversation. I once attempted to put my foot down and exclaimed, “You can’t bring in anything new until you take out something old.”  It had no effect because I could never say no to her. She just stomped the foot I had put down.

Linda could throw nothing away and why buy one item when a dozen of the same item is a dozen times better. A bag full of broken sunglasses, other bags with the remains of broken drinking glasses or dishes. A bag with a dozen brand new baseball caps. Bags full of…bags.

In my head I heard, “It didn’t matter if I needed them or not, it mattered that they were on sale and I might have needed them.” I admit the thought brought a smile to my face.

I have taken garbage bag after garbage bag of clothes to a women’s shelter. Most were sweats or active wear and many still had tags, clothes she intended to wear but never got the opportunity to. Clothes she put away for a rainy day not knowing that day would come too soon. I still have many garbage bags to fill.

I pause to look at a beautiful purple dress with a colorful, matching wrap and a butterfly necklace hanging on a door frame. The outfit still has a tag on it. I’ve paused every time I’ve walked past it. It is so beautiful, so Linda. I can’t give it away…at least not now. I wish I had had a chance to see her wear it.

I took two large trash bags of stuffed animals, still with tags, to be given to the needy. I cried. I know there is a reason she bought them. I just didn’t know why. She never told me why.

In my head I ask for the hundredth time, “What did this (insert whatever) mean to you? Why was this little curio important to you and what should I do about it? I’m as bad as you are. I can’t just throw away for the sake of throwing away.” I should have paid better attention. I should have asked more questions.

I still have five rooms of memories to work my way through. I wonder what I may find. Blackbeard’s lost treasure may be lying under one of the beds surrounded by the other treasures you stuffed under them.

I bump into memories every time I turn around as it is. Bumping into memories is not a terrible thing. Sifting through the “treasures” saved by a hoarder is not a terrible thing if that hoarder’s name was Linda Gail. One woman’s garbage is another man’s treasure.

“For where thy treasure is, there also will thy heart be.”
― Anonymous, The Holy Bible: King James Version

It’s Alright Baby

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“Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

Memories are odd as I am finding out. Memories will turn a frown into a smile or, just as quickly, a smile into a frown.

I am fortunate. I am surrounded by memories. I am also cursed. I am surrounded by memories. I can’t turn around without bumping into something that reminds me of you. As painful as it is, I don’t think I want it to be any other way.

To paraphrase your favorite NCIS character, Mike Franks: When talking about ghosts. Franks said to Gibbs, “But the memories we make. We fill the spaces we live in with them. That’s why I’ve always tried to make sure that wherever I live, the longer I live there, the spaces become filled with memories.”

My space is filled with memories but Franks said nothing about the emptiness that shares the space. The space I live in is filled with both memories…and emptiness. When you left me, you left behind wonderful memories but there is a tradeoff. There is a huge hole of emptiness where my heart once was.

Franks didn’t mention the bad memories, either. The last eight months have been hell on earth for you…and for me. I watched you fight and struggle. How many times did you try and uplift me? “It’s alright baby.” Those memories try to elbow their way in and are too successful.

I found an old flash drive with a folder labeled Photos and decided to relive the memories from days past thinking that if I filled my head with those, there would be no room for the bad ones. There would be no room for the emptiness. I was wrong.

I found out that I am a lousy photographer and that you just didn’t smile enough. You smiled for the photo but it was your fake smile. Your “say cheese” smile. You had a wonderful smile when you let yourself go, when the camera caught you unawares, playing with the grand babies or the puppies, smelling a flower or showing me a butterfly.

As I ruminated, I went to the more recent photos and videos, the bad memories, and found that you smiled more when you were at your lowest, when you were trying to convince me, “It’s alright baby.” You lied; it is not alright. Not alright at all.

So many mornings I came in to your hospital room and you smiled. Your true smile. When a visitor or a nurse came in, you smiled and tried to convince us that “It’s alright baby.” Even those terrible shots in the stomach earned the nurse giving it a, “It’s alright baby.”

I don’t know what to do. I try to busy myself but you elbow in between the words that play in my head. I spent thirty-seven years trusting you. I’m going to trust you one more time. I’m going to allow the memories to sustain me until “It’s alright baby.”

***

Thanks to all who attended and participated in Linda’s Celebration of Life. It was a special celebration for a special woman.

With a Little Bit of Love and Luck

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“Everybody needs a little good luck charm
A little gris-gris keeps you safe from harm
Rub yours on me and I’ll rub mine on you
Luckiest couple on the avenue” Jimmy Buffett, Love and Luck

I’m trying not to focus on bad luck. I’m waiting on Linda to ready herself for an unexpected trip to the hospital for an ultrasound. Her foot and leg are swollen and while swelling can be a byproduct of chemotherapy, the oncologist is sending us just in case. Don’t need a nasty blood clot…sometimes you get what you don’t need.

It would be easy to wallow in self-pity and rue the hand Linda and I have been dealt. It is hard to go with the flow when you worry the flow might be circling the toilet. As I question the direction of my flow a lyric from a Jimmy Buffett tune plays from my earbuds, “Mysteries, don’t ever try to solve them. We’re just players in this game and no one’s keepin’ score.“

Life is mysterious and not only is no one keeping score, no one knows the rules of the game.

Buffett left for “one particular harbor” Friday, luckily his music is still around to provide soothing anodynes when needed. He wasn’t the best singer or guitar player but there always seemed to be a message that rang loudly…even if it was a party tune. When not singing sea stories, or party songs, he shared his poetic philosophy set to his music. I felt profoundly uplifted when Love and Luck came up on my play list and it has been playing in my head for the last few days.

The first time that I heard of Buffett was from the juke box in a “ne’er-do-well”, hole in the wall bar in the mid-Seventies. It was a perfect Buffett venue. Low lights, a small bandstand, and the smell of beer and cigarettes…maybe “funny” cigarettes hung in the air. We were loud, at best tipsy, and laughed at Let’s Get Drunk and Screw.

Still, he didn’t speak to me until I was walking past a now closed record store in a now closed shopping mall. I had no intention of purchasing an album but after standing and listening to A Woman Gone Crazy on Caroline Street followed by My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don’t Love Jesus being piped through the speakers, I was hooked and walked out with the album Havana Daydreaming. Several more albums followed.

“Better days are in the cards I feel, I feel it in the changing winds, I feel it when I fly. So, talk to me, I’ll listen to your story, I’ve been around enough to know there’s more than meets the eye.”

Linda has had a hard week and I’m trying to believe there will be better days. I really am. I’m trying to believe we’ll get to act like the crazy teenagers we never got to be once we get this craziness under control. Even if it is just in our heads. Boat Drinks and Gumbo in New Orleans again…but my knees won’t let me chase the street cars or fast dance to Freeway of Love. Walks along Fort Walton Beach…any beach. Any little seacoast town will do, the seedier the better.

So many sweet memories embrace me…am I retreating into the past too much with the ghost of Buffett riding as my navigator? We’ve had a good life. Am I wrong to want more?

“So have your fun, go ahead and tell your story. Find yourself a lover who will glue you to the floor.”

Life is a mystery and the near future even more so. There must be time for a story or two and a little bit of fun, a little bit of luck, a little bit of love.

I’ve found my lover but at my age, I’m not sure I could get up off the floor, glued or not.

Update

Monday’s ultrasound found a “nonoccluded” blood clot. Nonoccluded means that it is not obstructing blood flow but is still concerning. Linda received a shot of anticoagulant and we both received instructions on how to give the shot which must be administered daily, in the stomach, for a yet to be determined period. So far, I have administered two of them.

Tuesday, we had a surgical biopsy that we probably won’t know the outcome of until Wednesday.

Another battery of labs is scheduled for Thursday. We began the week with only the biopsy scheduled but that fell apart quickly.

Next week we have our second round of chemo.

My bride is still in good spirits through it all…well most of the time. I must remind myself that my fear is only surpassed by hers and sometimes frustrations get the best of us both. I’ll do my best to remember:

“With a little love and luck, you will get by
With a little love and luck, we’ll take the sky
In this megalo-modern world, you’ve got to try
Try a little love and luck and you’ll get by”

This post was written before the news of Jimmy Buffett’s passing on Friday September 1. It had to undergo some verb changes. I feel I have lost an old and dear friend. Jimmy has accompanied me on many long runs and walks, on trips, during backyard cookouts, and a party or five. His “drunken Caribbean rock and roll” coming to me through earbuds or speakers. So glad I got to see him in concert. His spirit and philosophy will continue to live on. “But there’s one particular harbor/ So far yet so near/ Where I see the days as they fade away/ And finally disappear.”

Image of Buffett from the New York Post September 14, 2018. https://nypost.com/2018/09/14/jimmy-buffett-went-surfing-just-before-hurricane-florence/

Love and Luck by Jimmy Buffett
Track eleven on Boats Beaches Bars & Ballads produced by Michael Utley & Russ Kunkel

Don Miller writes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Walk of Life

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“If you seek creative ideas go walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” ― Raymond I. OD Myers

I am sitting here, coffee in hand, waiting for the angels to whisper and watching the glow of the impending dawn.  I am up for no reason other than I woke up, but my creativity is still asleep.  My alarm is set for 6:00 but it never goes off. It is set because there are medications to be dispensed but I wake up ahead of it.

Every day at 5:00 plus or minus fifteen minutes I meet the day.  “Bright eyed and bushy tailed” or as a coaching friend used to yell to his charges “Another day in which to excel.” The puppies, now awake, look up at me as if to say, “Another day, already? Can you at least feed us?”

During better days, I would be off and running or walking in the dark, my headlamp bouncing and holding back the monsters I might encounter along the road. My own form of “the walk of life.” I was creative during those runs. I don’t know if it was angels whispering or trying to think about anything other than the hill I was about to climb.

My bride, Linda Gail, and I greet the day differently.  I am up and ready to go. “Hit the decks a runnin’ boys and turn those barrels around.” (From an old Johnny Horton tune) She on the other hand is “sorta” awake and pissed off about it.  Linda Gail likes to ease into the day…over an extended period.  “Bring me my coffee and then shut up!  Do not talk to me!”  Thirty minutes later I check on her…with another cup of coffee to replace the one now cold on her bed side table.  Thirty minutes later, she is ready to talk about everything she has been thinking about the last hour. 

When we retired, I decided to use her “ease into the daytime” time as my exercise time.  As you might surmise, I am ready to go to bed about the time Linda Gail is hitting her second wind and fighting sleep like the child that she is.  Sometimes I don’t understand how we have survived each other.

I once used my running and walking to declutter and silence the voices in my head. I also used it for creativity, going over plots in my head or waiting for divine enlightenment from my angels of creativity…until Linda Gail got involved. The way we meet the day really wasn’t as big an issue when we both worked…well it was when we decided to do our exercise walk…together…before we went to work…in the dark…while she was pissed off.    

At first it was due to her fear. I had a heart attack and for six months she was fearful about letting me walk and run alone. During the summer it was not a problem but when the school year began our schedules had to change. I would ease out of bed at four-thirty. I would then wake Linda at five-thirty, bring her coffee and a banana and take off for a thirty-minute run with a plan to meet her for a thirty-minute walk at six. A shower at 6:30 and plenty of time to get to school by 8:00.

That was the plan…which, like well-made plans sometimes do, went asunder.  Usually, I would continue to walk or jog back and forth over the short Airline Road until she showed up…fifteen to thirty minutes late, coffee in hand…and I did not dare make a comment.  The one time I commented did not go well.  On those mornings she showed up early I knew I better be quiet and just walk.  It didn’t matter, any day I should just be quiet and walk until she began to initiate the conversation.  “Why are we whispering?  Are we afraid we might wake up the bears?”

Linda Gail and I didn’t exactly walk for the same reasons.  She walked totally for her head to battle depression…with a cup of coffee in her hand and with frequent stops to point out plants, animals, or reptiles.  In other words, a stroll to “elevate her mind.”  I did it for my head too, but I also walked for exercise.

We haven’t been walking together lately…despite being “yoked” together for thirty-seven years. The brutality of life has intervened along with the brutal heat; our walks have slowed almost to a stop. We finally ventured out to the path around the lake at Look Up Lodge.  A nice slow, reasonably flat stroll on one side of the lake.  A short walk to build up her strength. It proved what I knew, “I have missed our walks.”  I have also missed our talks although I did ask if I had her permission to chatter…old habits, I guess.  Comfortable old habits.

Update on our Walk of Life

Linda is much stronger but battling her neuropathy and foot and leg swelling that sometimes accompanies chemotherapy. We saw a cancer surgeon who muddied the waters a bit. He feels she has been misdiagnosed as to the type of cancer and has scheduled a new and different type of biopsy next week before her next chemo treatment the following week. I’m unsure as to what this means if anything. The plan is the same, continue the “walk of life” as long as possible and as long as it is a quality walk. To all who sent their support and cards of encouragement, thank you. They mean a lot.  

Obviously, this has nothing to do with Dire Strait’s “Walk of Life” but why should I let that bother me? Thank you, YouTube. Besides, I’m not even sure what Dire Strait’s song is about. Enjoy.

Some neat 80’s sports bloopers as a bonus.

Don writes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

The Girl with the Pumpkin on her Head: A Love Story

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“You fell in love with a storm. Did you really think you would get out unscathed?”
― Nikita Gill

When attempting to decide what kind of writer I wanted to be, I authored a book that was a collection of stories about my life with Linda Gail in the foothills of the Blue Ridge entitled “Through the Front Gate.” The book was a collection of stories, no rhyme or reason, I’m not sure I had any goal in mind. Most of the selections centered around the woman I married and the ancient farmhouse we bought. I think I’m going to rewrite it. I’ll have a goal this time…and I hope I’ve grown as a writer. Yes, there is a rewrite in my future.

***

My Birth

“Maybe love at first sight isn’t what we think it is. Maybe it’s recognizing a soul we loved in a past life and falling in love with them again.” ― Kamand Kojouri

I was born in the fall of my thirty-fifth year in 1985. I say this because my “real” life didn’t begin until she said yes.

I hadn’t planned to ask her to marry me. I thought I was too scared to ask as in “already twice burned” scared. As I asked, I looked intently into her hazel eyes and noticed they turned from gray green to bright green. I have learned over the years that green doesn’t always mean GO! Sometimes it means run like hell and be prepared to duck while you are doing it. This was not one of those times.

It was a spontaneous moment. I hadn’t really contemplated asking until I asked. It was a simple…almost casual, “Why don’t we get married.” As the request came out of my mouth, I knew it was blessed by the “gods of matrimony.” She must have thought so too, she said yes.

We weren’t young, I was thirty-five, she a year younger. We were both old enough to know better. Many friends were shaking their heads in disbelief. I had a couple of failed excursions into matrimony, she had never been married. She had been asked more than once but was still holding out for “mister right.”

When I asked for hand, her mother looked me straight in the eyes and without much expression of support said, “I’ll pray for you.” Her father’s comment foretold the future, “I don’t know why you are asking me. She’s never listened to me before.”

I don’t know when I first met Linda Gail, my ex-roommate’s on again, off again girlfriend. If you believe in reincarnation, I may have met her in a previous life. It is as if she has always been around.

I remember her in a striped bikini top over purple shorts as she helped my ex-roomy clean his boat. I noted she was a fine figure of a woman. I found out later she baits her own hook and will take off any fish she catches.

Later there was an early football season encounter on top of a press box before a football game.

We disagree on the moment we met, but I know when I was first smitten. She had an inflated pumpkin on her head preparing to celebrate Halloween.

She was a well-put together, remember the bikini, petite little girl with curly brown hair and twinkling hazel eyes. She had prominent cheek bones but was missing a spray of freckles across her nose. Her smile might be a bit off kilter and she never smiles enough.

Linda doesn’t just enter a room; she explodes into the room. Motion in several different directions as she talks more with her hands than she does with her mouth.

We would become fast friends with a heavy accent on friends. It would be the following football season before I had enough nerve to say yes when she asked me out. I was slow to act because of my relationship with her ex-boyfriend but the action was rapid once it began.

Slow to act but quite interested. I’d like to say that the relationship took off when the ex-boyfriend was transferred to a city three hours away, but the truth is we continued to dance around each other for six months before we finally decided to dance together.

There were friendly “flare-ups” until she took it upon herself to invite me to see an old friend of hers singing at a hole in the wall named the “Casablanca.” It looked nothing like “Rick’s Place” in the movie, but the singer/piano player might have been better than “Sam”. Ronnie didn’t sing “As Time Goes By” though but might have banged out a version of “That Old Time Rock and Roll.”

Yes, a rewrite is in order with a few more added stories.

Update:

As I write this, we are exactly one-week past Linda Gail’s first chemo treatment. I now know that if you have never been through chemo or supported a loved one going through chemo, you have no idea how painful it is.

For two days after, my bride was frantically manic and then the wheels fell off. There was a great deal of pain we weren’t expecting, and she is quite tired and weak. Emotionally, late in the day she grows fangs and bites. Thankfully, there was no nausea.

She is weak but has grown stronger and we have two weeks of reprieve to get stronger until the next one.

It is a learning experience. I have also found out that this disease is not just limited to the person who has it. It is a family disease.

Don’s books may be purchased in soft cover or downloaded at Amazon.com: Don Miller: books, biography, latest update

To Puppy or Not to Puppy, that is the Question!

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“I wish I lived in [a]world, where it’s sunshine and puppies all the time.”
― Charlotte Huang, Going Geek

I fear the question is not “to puppy or not to puppy.” More likely it is, “Will there be one, two, or three puppies?” We are going to visit puppies today.

My bride and I have been surrounded by animals during our near forty years together…except for the previous two years. The pain of losing our darlings of fifteen years, Maddie, and Tilly, has been too much. We’ve mentioned inviting a fur baby into our lives and then listed a litany of reasons why we shouldn’t. That may be ending…maybe.

A friend of mine thinks we need a puppy and continues to send links to local shelters. I love her and hope she continues but I’ve been able to avoid the cuties until early last week. Three sisters, little balls of fur, big ears, and sad faces. “Come on old man, come get us!” We are supposed to ‘visit’ today.

Maddie and Tilly were Cattle Dogs, Blue Heelers. These are Heeler mixes and I’m in love. I just wonder. Heelers are high energy and I fear my tanks are running dry.

Tilly and Maddie waiting patiently for a checkup

Puppies, Bubba, Brodie, Bogie, Sassy Marie, Jackson, Maddie, and Tilly, short for Madeline Roo and Matilda Sue. Kitties Minnie Muffin and Santana. A myriad of goats with N-names beginning with the first, Nannie. Bunnies with B-names, the first, a gift for my wife named Buster. A one-legged rooster named Boomer. Their graves surround our home reminding us of love and commitment.

These don’t include the wild animals that grace our homestead in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. All are welcomed and make our lives richer…even the bear that occasionally tears down my fence and steals my trash.

I’m reminded of the possum gifts Maddie and Tilly would bring us. To my knowledge not one was injured or died. They really do play possum, especially the one that tired of “playing” and got loose in the dining room.

Questions lead to more questions and will lead to decisions. One, two, or three? Do we need a puppy…or three? Do we have the energy to deal with a new puppy…or three? Will we outlive our puppy…or puppies? If they are as long lived as our last three, I’ll be eighty-seven. Does that puppy, or do those puppies, need us? Is it that I just want a puppy? Am I overthinking it all?

Henley

My bride is not helping me. I can’t read her. I know she wants a puppy but am I forcing the issue? Can she resist if they are not the “right” puppies? She has never resisted anything with fur.

Are we even set up to house a puppy…or three? Fences need to be mended, literally not figuratively. If we bring them in, we must declutter…whether we get puppies or not we must declutter.

Crate training and house training…sit, fetch, stay, roll over, play dead. Geez. The fact is they train us as much as we train them…and they are so loving and soooo much fun. There is nothing like a puppy asleep in your lap.

Haisley

They aren’t children…but like children they can’t be left to their own devices. Done right, they require care and commitment. If you think putting a puppy on a chain and leaving it outside is being a puppy parent, you are deluding yourself and making an animal’s life less worth living.

We have ninety acres of land with a large fenced in area around our house. Perfect, except for the wildlife that once ran unimpeded before puppies wanted to herd them. The squirrels, the raccoons, the possums, the bunny that is almost tame. The occasional snake. Decisions, decisions.

Hartley

Like children, they are expensive. They must be dewormed, groomed, their nails trimmed and treated when they get sick. They have accidents.  You have never lived until staggering downstairs in the middle of the night and stepping in a warm, squishy, stinky, goo. “Good morning to you!”

But there is soooo much love to be had…and given. That is the big question. Do I still have the love to give? I do, or I wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Addendum

Our trip didn’t bear fruits or puppies. Turns out that they weren’t as advertised. Do not despair for us because sometimes fate intervenes. We are hot on the trail of a heeler puppy that we will visit this weekend. Until then enjoy the video.

Blog image used from Pixels. Hendley, Haisley, and Harley copied from the shelter site.

Don Miller writes on various subjects and genres. Connect with him at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR3-vMhl68w_x0yUPu5L-_NRugT5oWoOBrlnr7QolweAJPyDHgcZP1qhayI