Family Man

9 years today. You'd think I have run out of things to say.

Apparently not.

May 24, 2002. 

Jim died as he lived….a family man.

The final 7 years of his life were spent making memories…particularly with our young grand daughter after his first 2 heart attacks. He said he wanted her to always remember she was loved. She has.

His last week was spent making roadworthy a pop-up camper that spent a number of years living abandoned in a field that someone had given my daughter and her then fiancé. The plan was a family camping trip Memorial Day weekend to end his week of vacation before returning to work.

His final moments were spent thinking of others, killing the snake that in the end killed him so that the children who played in our yard would not be endangered by it. At that point he did not know the snake that slithered from beneath the axle and across his hand had, in truth, bitten him and assumed the nitroglycerin would do it’s magic and he’d soon feel better.

The last seconds of his life he looked into his son’s eyes and heard the final words to pass his ears…”I love you, Dad.”

In the space between heartbeats…he was gone.

He was my husband, lover and best friend; father to our children and Papa to his beloved grand. My life changed the day he walked into it and changed again when he left it.

33 years from day one to day last…a lifetime of memories.  9 years…another lifetime without him. I will always love him and I will always miss him.

From Craig Campbell "Family Man" Lyrics

“They're a world my world revolves around
My sacred piece of solid ground
The flesh and bone that gives me strength to stand
They are a fire in my driving on
The drive behind my coming home
The living, breathing, reason that I am
A family man

What keeps me keeping the faith
What makes me believe I can
Family man

There's a fire in my driving on
The drive behind my coming home
The living, breathing, reason that I am
A family man.”

Today, I think and remember all that he was to all of us who were graced to have him in their lives and how his legacy lives on in the children we created together and the grand who was the light of his life. We were blessed and we are grateful.

To my Family Man…Jim Ingle – 12/3/1950 – 05/24/2002….you are loved and forever remembered. Your life does, after all, mean more than your death.

Family Man Video 

The Magic of Ordinary Days *

 Most people recognize days that are extraordinary either in their goodness or equal awfulness. They stand out as amazing in their impact or depressing in their having been survived yet again. They are stamped in the memory…burned in the brain.

But, what about ordinary days?

You know…the ones where you get up and you feel Ok, havva cuppa, pet the dog, go to work and it’s…eh…neither good nor bad…just another work day. You come home, have supper, maybe watch the telly a bit and then toddle off to bed. Perhaps you went shopping, stopped at the library, had lunch with a friend or walked the dog after supper.

One of those days you’d note in your diary with nothing much more than “it was Wednesday and nothing bad happened.”

There is magic in those days…those moments of no particular import…magic in that they happen at all, let alone rather regularly if you look on a year’s worth of them. They flow one into the other until you glance backward and realize a number of them have gone by almost invisible in their having passed.

When Jim died I thought for certain that every day following “that” day would rotate in equal measures of pain, sorrow and disbelief. It was simply unimaginable that a day…a moment even…would disappear almost unnoticed…and that I would find comfort in the retrospect of it.

Truth is that an inordinate number had gone by before I noticed that I wasn’t immeasurably miserable every freaking day. To be sure, there were stand out days in which I felt, saw or touched life with a sense of I AM going to survive this and I WILL be happy again…eventually. But, the equal truth is that they were hard to come by in the beginning.

It is those unremarkable days that segue us from one day of import to another. It is the unnoticed days that allow us to draw in rest, relax and rejuvenate our hearts and souls. It is those ho-hum days that allow us to have special, memory invoking or making moments to savor at a later time.

Here’s to the magic of ordinary days.

* from the 2005 Hallmark movie of the same name.

SNOW DAYS

  We got SNOW.

Beautiful, downy soft, powdered SNOW yesterday.

It has been years....Prince Regent was in grade school....since we had a snow like this.

It's been gorgeous to watch, though treacherous this morning as the scraped roads have turned to ice and the yards have a thick glaze on them.

Snow Days used to be ones full of kids...mine and most of the neighborhood...soggy gloves, coats and hats, boots strewn across the entryway, hot chocolate, grilled cheese and the sound of the same gloves, coats and hats thumping in the dryer.

It is quiet in this neighborhood now as most of the kids have grown and left the neighborhood. What few remain play on different streets now.

I realized yesterday as I sat by the window sipping my hot chocolate, wrapped in the soft silence watching the flakes gently coat the landscape as the cardinals played under the lone pokeberry bush overlooked in the fall clean-up that I missed the chaos and cacophony of children coming and going....reddened noses and cheeks punctuated by squeals of laughter across the yard. Even the dogs remained inside except for necessary trips outside.

I wasn't so much sad as reflective of the changes life brings us and smiled in the memories of days gone by. I thought of my widowed Tennessee friend who couldn't wait for her 16 year old son to wake up so they could go outside and play. She hates the cold, but she has found joy in bundling up and going outside rather than staying inside and whining about being cold. I admire this woman. I have watched her grow from frightened to fearless. I also love this woman. When I have fallen back she has helped pull me up just by her example as well as the occasional “get yer head out of yer ass” when I also needed that. She has told me it was OK to be weak and scared went cancer reared its ugly head, though she remained steadfast that the ugly toad would be beaten. It was and I’m glad she was there when the armor threatened to crack. But, I digress.

Eventually, Mr. Man went outside to finally have the chance to use that huge snow shovel he brought from NJ when he moved to NC and then here. I teased him about that. Now, I'm grateful he has it. Funny about stuff like that. As I watched him work I was struck by what a gift it is to have him here to share this part of our lives.

Some enterprising young man later in the afternoon got out on his bobcat and plowed all the roads here in our little ignored by the state and county subdivision. While it rather ruined the pristine look of the land, it will most certainly melt faster once we are above freezing again. Dunno who it was. He never stopped, never asked for money, just up and down and up and down until it ended up a pretty nice scrape job. Bless him for that.

 Tomorrow it will be back to the world of work and chaos of a different sort.

Snow Days aren't the same, but then neither is my life.

Still….it was a good day.

The Birthday that Was

Turning 60 was and wasn’t a big deal. I’ve spoken of that already….but have just a mite more to say.

Itza milestone, yet not in the same way it was a decade ago. 60 is now considered middle aged…having been 50…I don’t mind 60 is middle aged…I rather like imagining myself with 20 or so more years of actively living life in me. (though, I do clearly remember a not so long ago where that was not true.).

My mother is 81, and while admittedly more frail than a year ago, still going strong. Women on my mom’s side have always lived into their 80’s and beyond. Realistically, I can expect pretty much the same barring the universe having other ideas. (which would, clearly, not mirror my own.)

What struck me more about this birthday was the tenor of the cards I received from my grown children. The same smart aleckiness on the outside with more unexpectedly introspective thought inside than is their usual greeting card fare:

“Six-OH!! I can only hope that when I turn 60 that I can say that I have as much fun & adventure as you have had and are still having. You haven’t lost that sense of wonder & whimsy – I don’t think you ever will.” From my normally reticent 30 year old son. Thank you son. I think neither will you.

“Happy Birthday to my “hippie” mom. I thought of those patched up jeans you used to love to wear when I was a kid. They seemed to symbolize that bit of conventional rebellion you posses. Always something to add a “twist” to any outfit. Maybe a splash of color with your purple socks. You taught me to look at the world open and positively. All things are possible. The world wouldn’t be so colorful without you!!” From my 38 year old daughter. Ahem…’scuse me a sec…sniff, sniff…sumfin inna my eye.

Parents often wonder the impact they’ve had on their children. Mine could not have given me better gifts than their view of what the world looks like to them through my eyes.

In the years that have passed since Jim died in 2002, I have been challenged to consider how my actions have colored their own world. That they can still see some of that old me in the new one gives me hope that I have not done so badly in showing them that life is still life even through the life altering loss of their father in all our lives.

What ever happens next, my children have given me a beautiful gift in their words and I take some comfort in knowing I may have actually done good after all.

To life and love and laughter.

The Walrus & the Carpenter

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.” Alice in Wonderland

This particular verse from Alice has always spoken to me in times of reflection or change…it seemed appropriate to where I’ve been these last 2 weeks as I’ve been mentally walkabout sifting through thoughts, holding memories, wading back in time and touching places dear to my heart.

The time from Thanksgiving through pretty much past Christmas Day has power over me in that it brings back the year we met, shared 6 day apart birthdays, fell in love and began to make our plans for the day our lives would be lived as a couple. Thanksgiving 1969…I opened the front door to the next page of my life, which changed the instant I looked into those electric blue eyes and I never looked back until the day he died in May 2002.

I suppose my turning 60 yesterday and his being forever 51 had some small measure of responsibility for bringing on the thoughts more deeply than usual. Not so much that the number of my age is the cause…it’s a number and I have a wonderful role model in my 81 year old mother for why age and how you feel about it is often a matter of the mind…a number that represents the passage of time on this planet. It had more to do, I think with the fact that he will not see any of these years nor those to come.

Speaking to a dear friend, I told her that he was, at 51, in that place in his life where he was so content and comfortable in himself and in his own skin that he made others feel that way in theirs as well. I envy that a bit as I still, sometimes, feel alien in my own shell. Could he speak to me today, I think he would tell me, that all is as it is supposed to be and that his time had come to move on to what ever was next in this universe for him. He would tell me that life is out there and that I should reach out and grab it with both hands. That there is still magic and wonder to be experienced if I will let it be so. At least, it’s what I choose to believe.

8 ½ years now, I have been widowed…it once colored every aspect of my life…still does many. My children have flown the nest, making lives, mistakes and successes just as they should. And, though my grand still needs me for another year or so, it is time to figure out the next pages of this book and where the adventure goes from here. Time to make plans and dream dreams. That I get to do this with another heart once wounded as mine, feeling loved and being cherish, is a gift I never expected to share again. Once in this lifetime was something…but…twice…is…well…something spectacularly else.

I believe Jim would be happy Handyman and I managed to find each other in this oh, so crazy and jumbled universe by way of widowhood and WN. I know he believed that people can brought together though it seems they never should have met. He saw my graduation picture so many years ago…before he ever met me and 3,000 miles across the country from where I was…and told a friend “that’s the girl I’m going to marry.” I have to believe so too…I dreamed of him all through my childhood and teen aged years… a nebulous sort of shadowed being that filled my dreams at night…and never had the dream again the day I opened that front door…almost as if I’d dreamed him into life.

My Handyman was met on a whim of a trip to a meeting of also widowed in January, 2004. He touched a chord that drew us into a long distance friendship that changed to something else entirely the next time we met some months later. He took my hand to help me from the car, the electricity thrummed my skin and…oh, shit…I wuz 55 and gone again just as if I was 18. 6 years later, we are loving the life we are creating together and look forward to as many years as we are gifted to be together.

This year’s light melancholy has served well in reminding me of the joy of my past life and that of this current life. I am blessed to have both. All in all not such a bad ending to a 60^th birthday rumination.

OOOPS

Huh.

It wuz a bug...a glitch...a hic-cup...a burp...

In other words, FB screwed up...

Again.

Go figure.

And, just like the IRS and errant philandering BF's, no apology either.

Just...woot...and it wuz back again.

All in all, I admit I'm glad....I sorta missed it even so it was only for a day.

(I'm still not exactly kosher on the name, but....)

So...Hello, again FB...wanna wonder how long till the next glitch.

And, the universe moves on.

Pa rum pa pa pum.

One Year

"One year. 365 days. 8760 hours. 525600 seconds. Time, my friend, sweet sweet time." from my TN friend. Thank you.

 As today passes I was looking for a way to celebrate the one year mark of my cancer surgery wondering is it the date or is it the day? WTH…it’s my life…so I’ll just celebrate period. Thank you all for having been there from A to Z.

As it turns out, the universe has given me a gift of sorts of its own.

I have been a naughty girl, I knowingly did not abide by FB’s naming rules, got caught and find myself sent to “banned camp” as of this morning. Since I’m not willing to jump through their little hoop of sending them a digital copy of a government issued ID, I will not be begging to be unbanned.

Some will say why did I join in the first place when I knew the rules and purposely tried to circumvent them. Good question with no good answer beyond that I wanted some small measure of anonymity in such a global setting, it initially allowed me to do so and so I did. They caught up with it and that’s that. I will miss it, but not enough to give blood, pee inna cup or send them my driver’s license. After all the hoo-haa about information gathering issues FB has been having do I believe that there’s no way it would get loose out there? Huh…notta chance.

This is as good an excuse as any to make the time to do work at my blog, which has been more or less cast aside like yesterday rubbish out of pure laziness more than lack of material. Thus, like the mythical Phoenix, Camera Obscura will rise from its neglected ashes and find writing life again.

Bowing to the FB gods, I say…fare ye well FB…it’s been fun  and I’ll see ya somewhere in the slipstream. (My TN friend says her coolness factore just went up cuz she knows a REAL person banned by FB....this is why she's my friend...luv u gurl.)

Not bad work for a chilly, grey, rainy toos-day morning in mid-November.

"Live like you were dyin"....Tim McGraw

Happy Anniversary

"And this journey that we're on,

How far we've come,

I celebrate every moment.

And when you say you love me

That's all you have to say."

Josh Groban - "When You Say You Love Me."

Today marks 6 years with a man who has been a special gift on this journey to wholeness.

Thank you for your love, your care, your humor and your steadfastness in this in this life we share heart to heart.

I love you. 

"The Heart Remembers

The fires of youth may die away and sink to crimson embers. . . . The high romantic dreams may vanish --- But the heart remembers.

The heart remembers everything; the buried past is there. The rapture of loves first delight; the joy and the despair. The faces and the friendships and the names of long ago --- Lie beneath a drift of years like leaves beneath the snow.

The sorrows and the happiness --- Gay June and grey Decembers. The music fades, the roses perish. . . . But the heart remembers.

~ Patience Strong 1945 "

 

8 years.

 

Today I remember the man and the legacy he left.

 

I am a better person for having know him.

Jim Ingle...I will remember and love you always.

Happy Birthday, Jim

December 3, 1950...you were born.

December 3, 1969...the first of what was to be 32 birthdays together...age 19 to age 51.

December 3, 2009...the 8th one without you.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart...you will be forever 51.

I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

December 3, 1950 ~ May 24, 2002

Update

Today is 14 days since surgery.

It's been an up and down number of days since the allergy to the percocet showed itself Tuesday a week ago. Going cold turkey with nothing but ibuprofen for pain relieve was a little daunting, but it and the heating pad got me through the worst of it. Ridding myself of the allergy effects was something else. It finally took mega doses of benadryl assisted by the ibuprofen for me to quit scratching like a mangy dog. Still a few itchies if I get too warm, but since I'm mostly cold these days that doesn't happen too often.

The surgical staples came out yesterday and the results of ALL of the pathology tests were negative. What a relief. I didn't realize until the Doc said the words how much I had been dreading the test results.

His only area of concern had to do with the fact the cancer was more than halfway through the uterine muscle. There is no evidence that it breached the muscle to go elsewhere, but he gave me the option to have preventative radiation in the pelvic area. He recommended that I do some online research and talk to people who have and have not had the additional radiation; both for possible side effects and reasons to or not to do so myself. I go back in 2 weeks for a follow-up pelvic exam and we will talk some more about my thoughts on preventative radiation.

All in all I am feeling much better, particularly since I'm not being pinched by the darn staples every time I move. Yay...freedom.

Now I can begin walking more than just around the house and work to rebuild my muscle strength. I'm starting slow, so nobunny worry that I'm gonna do too much. Besides I have 4 watch dogs right here in the house making sure I behave.

Come spring we'll be camping and kayaking again.

2 months after diagnosis I am officially a cancer survivor...I stand amazed and grateful.

Hello...My Name is....

Pain...

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

I met pain today.

Oh, I’ve met it before to be sure…much of it recently.

Today was PAIN.

Pure, primal, soul deep, dark, roiling, bone scraping, grab you by the collar, teeth rattling, if you think… move…breathe…I WILL kill you…unadulterated…PAIN.

And, all I could do was lay flat, still, jaw clamped unthinking through the vortex until it spat me out the other side tired, sore and wondering WTF.

Before THIS pain, I only thought I knew what pain meant. I am left humbled before that pain and respectful of those who endure it over a long haul.

The Chinese have a saying that pain is weakness leaving your body…must be one helluva lot of weakness living in there.

Tomorrow’s another day.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

It dropped in for another round this morning…not as long, nor quite as hard, nor so deep…just a reminder I suppose that some weakness remains.

We'll try again tomorrow, 

More Thoughts from the Other Side of the Knife...

WARNING: TMI to follow…if yer not interested my current fascination with the workings…or in this case…NOT workings…of my body parts…stop reading now.
That having been said; one should not abuse a perfectly good and innocent cup of coffee in such a way, but I was in pain, so I did and it worked. And, I felt like my two year old “in-training” Grand Daughter, wondering “Hello…so I made in the potty… now, where’s my prize?”


OK…so, in a way, I got my prize; but you know what I mean.


Hey…I warned you.


I also have a not so pretty red rash, finally receding hives and the what remains of an irritating itch caused by an ALLERGIC REACTION TO THE EFFEN PERCOCET!!!


(No, Herr Doktor….Morphine doesn’t work and the patient is allergic to Percoset. What’s left?” OY)


Which is why yesterday, while not the worst day in the world, was also not the greatest day...going cold turkey off the stuff and all. Yowzers, Bat Man.

During the whole deal, the crazy thought would casually flit across my mind that maybe…just maybe…I could take one or ½ of one…just to get me through the rough patches, yanno, cuz they DID work as pain killers.


Somebunny, slap me….the stuff gives me hives and makes me itch…even my blinkin’ eyelids itched…am I nuckin’ futz?


Imagine, if you will, that I was really hooked on those things. (after 3 days, prolly, not, but my mind went there anyway.) What then? “Please, Handyman….just one?” You can use your imagination for the rest.


Sheez, lew-eeze.


So…it’s strictly ibuprofen for the duration.


Sneezing.


Welll…I hope not do to THAT again for a number of weeks. Nor coughing unexpectedly, neither, thank you very much. OUCH!!!!


Laughing.


OK...it hurts some…but, it also feels good. Does that make me masochistic???


What ever.


Laughing’s good.


Walking straight up and down is good.


Sitting more or less upright is good.


Sleeping on my side is very good.


Food is getting better. Fruit is wonderful. And, the chocolate someone from TN sent me is MAH-VEL-US!!!! (said in a high pitched sing-song voice)


So, all in all, and given the alternative…Life’s not so terribly terrible.


And, it could always definitely be worse.

Notes from the Other Side of the Knife...

1. Staples are stoopid sutures...they hurt and Doctors shouldn't do them. (That or they should HAVE them and then they wouldn't DO them.)

2. Morphine doesn't always work. (Atavan, howsumever, keeps you from stroking out when the morphine doesn't work, your blood pressure shoots up and you get all twisted out of your sheets about it.) Just ask me.

3. Percocet does...but it makes me itch.

4. Hospital food isn't...food, that is. I don't know what is IS. But, food...it's not.

5. The staff was wonderful...all the way to the lady who came in and cheerfully...really...mopped my floor every morning.

6. I don't want to be a recovery room nurse. If I said out loud what was going through my head when she asked me a) Mrs. xxxx? What is your name. (George Washington, of course) b) Mrs. xxx? What is your birthday? (Yesterday) c) Mrs. xxx? Do you know why you are here? (Don't YOU?)  d) Mrs. xxx...you need to breathe (No...I think I can probably not.) See what I mean? I don't know that I DID say what was in my head, but, I'd take money that there are people who do.

7. It is apparently unusual to pee 2 litres worth of liquid in the magic hat in the toilet bowl over night. I'f I had known that I'm sure I could have arranged to put some of it on the floor where I thought it was going any way. I mean, really, I walked in there under my own steam and without rining the bell. You'd think I could pee as much as I wanted.

8. Passing gas at will is not one of my gifts. Right now I wish it was. Ugh.

9. The Doc and his Resident (female) were cool...I actually like them...my purple hair didn't bug them and they thought my "fight like a girl" tee shirt and sock monkey jammy pants were alright.

10. I'm grateful for my life...my family...my friends...my Handyman...especially my Handyman...Thank You....I did not do this alone.

Today's Program...

is brought to you by the letter "S".

"S" is for surgeon whose hands will remove that fat, festering toad squatting in my southern hemisphere.

All prep is done...liquids drunk, Fleet's fleeted, hairs tipped in power points of brilliant Eggplant purple and all that jazz.

Here's to you Doctor, sir, to the return of health to this aging frame, to the man who shares my heart, to the friends and family who love me...

to...

Life.

Uterus Cakes....

Really....my son sent me this link this morning. Couldn't decide at first if it was an "ewwwwww" moment or an I wish I'd thought of that when I was having my "Farewell to Josie's Uterus" ta-kill-ya shots.

Uterus Cakes (click link)

OK...so actually eating it might be a mite..uhm..weird...

But...

Then again...

Very weirdly apropos, neh?

Eat the cancer that eats you?

OK...Maybe not.