The Other Side of the Story

In my last blog I wrote about dating after the loss of a spouse. Well, there is another side to that story; that of the dying spouse and how s/he feels about the whole thing.

In his last days, Doug never spoke about dying, nor did he speak about his life to that point, or our lives together, or what might occur after his death – with the exception of his burial. I could start talking about my life before and with Thierry now – to anyone (including Thierry) who would like to listen. The ups, downs, things I should have done better, could have done, etc. But then, what is the point? Is this a woman thing; the need to talk about your relationship on your deathbed?

As I sit here on my sofa in the living room I look around and see all of the things Thierry and I put together to create our home. When we made the decision to buy our condo, we also decided to rid ourselves of all our furniture and start fresh. Everything in here, with the exception of a few pieces of furniture and kitchenware (and bookshelves) is new, and we selected them together. We’ve roamed the streets of Rockland, Beufort and Philadelphia collecting artwork. We picked out our dishes and flatware, and carefully add pieces to our collections as we go along.

My sincere wish is that Thierry not spend the rest of his life alone. He is a wonderful companion, self-sufficient, interesting and smart. He is respectful and not the least bit condescending. He is neat, clean and never leaves toothpaste in the sink. (He can use this in his ad someday when posting on a dating site!)

Even though I know that he may likely find another mate, emotionally I have difficulty with the idea that someone will come into the home we’ve created and either settle in or start anew. Actually, I am okay if they start over – new condo, new everything (well, almost everything). Oh, alright, they can keep the condo – new everything else. I am sure whoever comes in here would want to do that anyway.

Fact is I won’t be worrying about any of this at that point. And the things I am talking about are just that – things. If it all went up in smoke tomorrow, there really isn’t too much I will cry over. So, instead of thinking about Thierry after Mary, I’ll concentrate on Thierry with Mary, and try to make our time together fun and memorable!

Yesterday we celebrated Mom and Dad’s 90th birthday. We had a catered affair at Lauren and Mike’s house. About 40 people came including Dad’s brother (and only surviving sibling) and his wife, cousins and their friends and neighbors. They both looked really well and happy. We are so fortunate to still have our parents with us.

Thierry is finally home – I picked him up on Thursday. The weather has been wonderful. It’s been a good week.



What is the Appropriate Amount of Time?

Last week I met a man whose wife had passed two months ago after a long illness. He is a fairly young guy – about my age - with grown children who live outside the area. He raised the question of when is it appropriate to begin dating after your spouse has died.

What a great question. I tried to do some online research to see if there were any professional takes on the subject. I couldn’t find anything, but did come across one writing that stated that men tend to remarry more often, and more quickly than women. I do know of several instances where a man who recently lost his wife remarried within one year of her passing. I know a few women who have lost their spouse. They had good, strong, happy marriages and mourned their deaths for years and are still single.

This is not to say that women are more devoted to their spouses or their spouses memory, it is just what I have experienced. The article I mentioned above did say that women are starting to remarry after the death of a spouse at a higher rate.

Doug passed after a relatively brief illness. It was the most stressful three months of my life. All I could think about after his passing was selling our house and starting a new life; one that did not necessarily involve a man. My business was picking up; I had new friends and a great new house. I also was very apprehensive about dating again, mainly because I felt old and out of shape.  After 19 years of marriage, the thought of taking my clothes off in front of a man scared the heck out of me.

My relationship with Thierry started some 20 years ago as workmates. Doug and I sailed with him over the years and he new my family. We started to see each other as friends about 4-5 months after Doug’s passing, and our relationship stayed that way for about 6 more months. While I was seeing Thierry (as a friend), I was conscious of the timing. I was concerned, somewhat, about what people would think.

Often people say “you should wait a year.” Where that came from I don’t know. I think every situation is different. When someone is suffering from a long illness, the spousal relationship goes through many changes, feelings and emotions, including a mourning period while the person is still alive. There are also those situations where the marriage may not have been the happiest. A death frees the survivor, who for whatever reason stuck with the relationship.

Then again, a person who has been married for say 30, 40 years, and had a relationship that was heavily dependent on their spouse is most likely the person to remarry quickly in order to recreate the environment they had and relieve their fear of being alone.  This, they say, is why men tend to remarry so quickly.

There may also be children to consider. However, I don’t believe that the decision to date or remarry should be heavily dependent on what the kids have to say. Yes, they are going through a lot of emotions and may be suffering a devastating sense of loss, but they have their own lives and their interference in their parent’s relationship is as warranted as a parent’s interference in their own. Often children are concerned about their inheritance, and rightly so. It is up to the surviving parent to be thoughtful of dispensing of heirlooms and if possible, taking care of financial arrangements.

Each situation is very different – and personal. We can’t judge someone else’s choices. I have two answers to the question, when is it appropriate to begin dating after the loss of a spouse. This first is, go with your gut – meaning what your conscience is telling you is the right thing to do. The second is, when in doubt, do nothing. Eventually the answer will come to you.

Thierry is finally on his way home. His two crew members arrived in Newport, RI this morning, and they shipped out mid-afternoon to take advantage of northerly winds. He sent me a lovely picture of a fish that they caught being filleted. It is time for him to be home!

I had my treatment yesterday and had lots of company. We played scrabble and the time flew by. I can’t tell you how special it makes me feel when my friends and family share their time with me on chemo days.

I feel pretty darn good today – tomorrow I have my scans. I feel positive, and will deal with whatever news I get. I am off chemo this week, and next weekend we have my parents’ 90 birthday party. It has been a great week, and I anticipate another good one coming up!

Now What Was I Looking For?

I took my dad to the auto body shop the other day. They have finally decided to sell their car which needs a repair before the transaction is finished. Dad handled the entire transaction/discussion and before we left, the shop-owner asked for his phone number. Dad rattled off the first 8 numbers without a problem, the last two were lost somewhere in the nether-land.

I stood there waiting for him to remember for what seemed like ten minutes, and then finally gave him the info. Dad doesn’t seem to suffer from memory loss, unlike my mother. Before I went away I had told my folks that we would go out to lunch. I told mom the night before and called again just before I left the house to pick them up. On the way to their home, I got a call from my sister telling me that mom was in the middle of making tuna sandwiches. Dad can rattle on telling stories from his childhood and working years. He also seems to be pretty aware of immediate things like doctor’s appointments and what day it is.

Two days after our trip to the auto body shop I was getting ready to go out and was packing a bag. I walked into the kitchen, wandered around for a minute with no idea what I was doing there. I left the house realizing after I got out to the street that I forgot to grab the cash that was sitting on the table.

I don’t believe any of our family members suffer from dementia or Alzheimer’s. We are fortunate that way. But isn’t that what we first think about when we can’t remember the right words to explain ourselves or someone’s name? I’ve been thinking about this for years, memory loss. It seems like it has been ages since I started to forget names of actors and the words I needed to finish a sentence. I originally blamed it on menopause, now I blame it on chemo-brain (a legitimate side-effect of chemo causing memory lapses, problems with concentration, etc.).

The reality is our memory actually starts to fade in our 20’s and progresses in our late 30’s and early 40’s according to an article by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin published in the New York Sunday Times Magazine (12/3/2004). Things like alcohol, diseases, head injury, stress, and lack of sleep can add to memory loss. According to the article, “middle-aged forgetting follows a pattern: people's names go first, because they are word symbols with no cues attached. Then there are difficulties with word retrieval. Instead of the phrase you want, you get what James Reason, a psychologist at the University of Manchester, in Britain, called ''the ugly sisters'' -- similar-sounding but frustratingly incorrect combinations of syllables.” I can really relate to this!

It appears that as we get older, prospective memory and working memory become more difficult. Prospective memory is remembering to perform some action in the distant future, like picking up something on the way home. Working memory gives us the ability to “manage several ideas or intentions at the same time.” No more multi-tasking!

There is a theory that when we get into our 60’s or so, forgetfulness troubles us less – I guess we learn to adapt or our lives become less complicated. But I know my mother (and us kids) is very troubled by her memory loss. Fortunately, they are working on a lot of drugs to help combat the problem, and many have proven quite effective – although they also have side effects. All in all, I am relieved to find that what I suffer from is so common. Hopefully by working on the puzzles in the newspaper and physical exercise will help lessen the severity of memory loss. At least I know I am not alone.

Since I got back from Maine, I have had energy and have actually been productive. I guess I am getting used to Thierry being gone. He actually is on his way home having survived the non-event hurricane. Friends will join him this Friday for the overnight portion of his trip south. It has been a good week, and my weeks will be even better when Thierry gets home!

No Regrets

I heard an interview on NPR a few months back with Lee Kravitz, former editor of Parade Magazine. After losing his job he began to reflect on his life and decided to make amends for the wrongs he had committed in the past and reconnecting with people in his life. This included his family that he had ignored for years because of his job. One of the people he reconnected with was a college chum who he borrowed $600.00 from and never paid back. When he contacted the friend, the friend had forgotten all about the loan.


It caused me to reflect back on my own life to see where I may have some unfinished business that should be taken care of before its too late and to identify any “regrets” that may be eating away at my subconscious. In all honesty, I couldn’t come up with too much. Does that mean that I’ve lead a good life or a boring one?

I didn’t have that many close friends in high school, yet have maintained contact with several of them. There were a few working relationships that occasionally went sour, but I either have lost contact with those folks or am totally at ease that these either never developed into true friendships or went by the wayside.

My first marriage was a disaster, but I have long ago come to accept my poor decision to marry this person and the life we had together for two years as a learning experience. I really don’t regret this relationship although I am sorry for some of the pain that I caused my family because of it. The silver lining to this saga was my daughter, Lauren, my life’s joy.

There is one debt that remains unpaid. That was a $1,000 balance on a lawyer’s bill from the lawyer that handled my divorce. I was receiving $12.00 a week in child support from my ex, paying $240.00 a month in day-care, plus rent, and was making about $18,000 per year (is this justification enough?). There was no money left to pay that bill. I have been thinking that I should take the money and make a donation in her name to some charitable organization.

I also feel badly that I never really understood how I contributed to the atmosphere in our home during my second marriage until after my husband had passed. I took the time to work this out and truly believe I did what I could at the time, and came to terms with my inability to handle things differently. I try very hard not to practice passive-aggressive behavior now, and believe that I am not repeating all of the same mistakes I made in those years.

Some folks suffer regrets over luxury-type things that one wishes they should have – or things they should have done, like buying that Porsche or traveling to some distant place, going skydiving or some other exotic adventure. I never had the desire to do anything exotic (would love to have had a little black Carrera), but did want to get to Italy, which I did. Thierry and I will be visiting the Grand Canyon by rail in November, and we will continue to look at the list of places we’d like to see while I still can. But in all honesty, I will not be sad when reflecting on my life that I never got to see some of these places. In the grand scheme of things, these things are not important.

So, is having few regrets due to living a boring life, a good life, or just learning how to deal with and accept those things that we did in the past, and putting them in proper perspective?

I returned home from Maine on Wednesday and got right back into my throne at the infusion center on Thursday. It took a wallop out of me, but I have bounced back today and took advantage of my renewed energy level and got some stuff done. I go for scans on the 11th, and we’ll see where things stand and hopefully identify some of the pains I have been feeling.

It’s been a good day, and I can honestly say, I have no regrets, and just a little bit of business to take care of.

Concentrate on the Good Things

We have had a great week exploring the “Down East” coast of Maine. The weather has been very good this year in Maine (the best in 10 years we’ve been told). We have done only a little sailing the last few days due to light winds, and managed to make way under some pretty heavy fog. Today we are in Rockland and although there was a lot of fog out in the bay, the weather inland is spectacular.


I am on my third book, The Constant Gardener, which has turned out to be a good read. I saw the movie years ago, but don’t remember the ending so the book remains a mystery to me.

This past week I have been quite pensive. I’ve had pains in various parts of my body, mostly around the middle and in my back. I have been working hard at trying not to think about them and what they could be. I concentrate on the scenery, or what is playing on the radio, or try to concentrate fully on my book. It works most of the time. So, rather than spend time writing about my pains, I will write about what makes me happy.

Flowers: especially in the winter when everything is so dreary outside. I always cheer up and smile when I look at a vase holding a colorful bouquet. The more variety the better, although I do like a vase overstuffed with just tulips or a bunch of sunflowers.

Maine: Relaxes me and continues to amaze me in its beauty. I really think I could spend the whole summer here.

Lauren: Although she sometimes causes me worry, she is my sunshine. She is funny, pretty, good-hearted, quick-witted and kind.

Thierry: My rock. Even-tempered, funny, and smart; I find peace when my head is on his shoulder. I will miss him when I go home next week without him.

My parents: Yes, at this stage of their lives they can be frustrating, but I never tire hearing my dad tell stories, and nothing feels as good as hearing them tell me that they love me – a phenomena that only occurred in their old age.

My sisters: Who anchor me and are there to support me when things are bleak.

My friends: So many beautiful, intelligent, witty and talented women (and men) that share our lives.

A Grey Goose Martini: Which I allow myself every now and then, mostly on off-chemo weeks. They never tasted as good as they do now.

Hot peppers from Dad's garden:  Aside from being a great addition to almost any dish, we have had more laughs over situations arising from those peppers!

A really good pastry: I’ve pretty much lost my taste for chocolate, but love a good croissant or fruit tart. I guess it’s the combination of fat, white flower and sugar that does it! Things I haven’t allowed myself in a long time!

Spaghetti and meatballs: Still my favorite meal, especially when Lauren makes it. (Sorry Jean, I haven’t had yours yet!)

Email: A great way to communicate, along with texting!

A good book: I can be entertained for hours with a good book. Fiction in particular can take me places where I don’t go on my own.

There are probably more things I could add to the list, but these jump out at me at the moment.  Plus it would probably get monotonous for my dear readers. I’ll continue to concentrate on the good things and being in the present – and with a little luck, my weeks will continue to be as good as this one.

A Maine Story

It is Saturday night, August 14th, and we just arrived back on Curlew after having drinks and dinner at the Islesford Dock Restaurant on Little Cranberry Island, Maine. (See Curlew’s blog if you are interested in hearing about where we’ve been the last week.) I just hung up the phone after talking with my parents who sound amazingly good and who were very chatty.


We were here several years ago, and it is interesting to see the huge houses that grace the shoreline of what once seemed like a remote, traditional Maine Island; inhabited in the summer by a few folks from away, lobstermen, and during the winter, by a handful of die-hards who manage to brave the weather and remoteness of the island.

Little Cranberry is to the south of Mount Desert Island and close to South West and North East Harbors, both on Mount Desert, but very popular and wealthy if you judge the real estate populated by the summer visitors and the boats that are produced here: Hinckley out of South West and Morris yachts out of North East. It is unfortunate that these islands are becoming places for the rich, displacing the locals who have lived here for dozens of years but can no longer afford the taxes which rise along with the million dollar homes.

Tonight, while dining at the bar of the Islesford Dock, we heard a story of a man who purchased several acres of property some 30 years ago from a woman who happened to take a liking to him, and built a house. According to our storyteller, she sold it for some ridiculously low price at the time. I can’t help but imagine what it is worth now, let alone hearing something like that happening today.

On our way back to the boat, we were guided by a crisp, crescent moon, accompanied by Venus gleaming brightly to its right. When I am here I am reminded of the many years we spent in the Adirondack Mountains. There you could see the Milky Way in all its splendor; a mass of stars so congested that they looked like a malted shake. A sight like this you just don’t see in the city or its surrounding suburbs.

This morning, before we left our last anchorage, we watched the scenery morph dramatically as the tide, which dropped some 15 feet, exposed the rocks and plant life that lay hidden upon our arrival. Thierry spotted two sets of seals sunning on the rocks and two swimming in the water, along with a loon and other birds. Maine always offers up something entirely new and wonderful.

Tonight I outdid myself. I had a Grey Goose Martini before dinner, along with a terrific mussel appetizer which Thierry and I shared. We then had halibut for dinner with a bottle of Sangiovese, both of which were very good! I haven’t drunk that much in a long time and I have to tell you, it feels pretty good. We’ll see how it all shakes out tomorrow!

Speaking of tomorrow, we may go back to North East Harbor to do some laundry and buy some food as we are out of fresh vegetables; or we may just decide to hang out and take it easy. Then we will make our way southwest to Rockland where we will meet our friends, the Davisons, for dinner and pick up Lauren and Michael who will join us for a few days. I will ride back with them to Philadelphia the week after.

Although I would love to chatter about something I’ve thought about this whole trip (regrets; you might ask where that came from!), I will save that for another blog. It has been a truly wonderful week, and a special evening. No regrets here!

Thoughts

It’s a rainy Monday in South West Harbor Maine (one of my favorite places), but that hasn’t dampened our spirits and excitement over the few plans we have made since I arrived on Friday. My flight to Bangor from Philadelphia was uneventful and even arrived a few minutes early. My taxi was waiting for me and we made the trip to Belfast in about 45 minutes. Thierry was at the dock, looking dapper and very tan!

I won’t go into all that we’ve done since my arrival – I’ll leave that for you to read on Thierry’s blog. Suffice it to say, we’ve had two beautiful days of sailing and are looking forward to a great week ahead.

For a few months now I have been wanting to write about a specific topic, but other ideas always came to the surface. Part of the problem is getting started – I guess I should just sit down and write when the thought first pops in my head – it would make things a lot easier.

A young woman I know told me a while back that she was leaving the area to move in with her partner, who happened to be a woman. I think maybe she was a little apprehensive as to what my reaction would be. I actually was pleased that she felt she could share this news with me.

I personally believe people should be able to live their own lives and be in relationships with whomever they choose, as long as they are loving, healthy relationships. I don’t know why I am still shocked when I hear blatant comments being made about blacks, gays and other groups. I guess I figure that we are a more enlightened, educated and mature society than we really are.

In some 34 states, employers have the right to fire gay employees for no reason – other than they are gay! I’ll stay away from the subject of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. People have been screaming that by allowing gays to marry in California, the sanctity of marriage is going to be ruined. Considering the high divorce rate in this country, I would think that the last thing to threaten the tradition is gayness! I know several gay couples that have truly loving, caring relationships that have endured for many years.

Why are people so threatened by something as innocuous as a same sex relationship? Is it the result of centuries of repression by religious leaders who perhaps felt the need to suppress homosexuals just like they did with females over the centuries, forbidding them to learn to read/write and participate in religion and government? Or maybe is it fear? Fear of what though; this eludes me.

We are who we are. It is what we bring to the table that defines our worth. To those who spout their Christian virtues I say start thinking like Christ, be giving, forgiving and welcome all of humanity into your hearts.

It’s a great day in Maine (even though they defeated same sex unions in 2009 – but only by a few percentage points!).