One More First Without You

Christmas was never your thing, except for the shopping. It was the one time of the year you would voluntarily go out into the stores. Last year you went and leaned on the cart  and rested a lot, and we didn't go far or for long. This year, had you gone, I would have Been pushing you in the wheelchair and you'd have been pushing the cart. Not for you those wheelchairs with baskets that the stores provide. You somehow saw those as an insult or a put down, and if you went, it would have been i n your own chair and under your own steam.

I missed our once a year shopping expedition, under whatever terms you would have dictated.

More than that, I missed talking with you as I wrapped the gifts for the babies. I never realized what a pleasant thing those chats were. Discussing the gifts, the possible reactions, what she would say and what he will do -- oh, those thousand hundred million little things that are everyday living.
Except that you are not living, and so we didn't have that this year.

I'd share pictures with you, but I don't have any yet. They haven't opened their gifts, for one thing. I didn't get to wrap them until Christmas Eve, after we took them home to Tam's and had Christmas dinner with them. Tam trying for a new tradition, I think.

We all missed you so.

But, this first Christmas without you has passed.
We survived.
I don't know that there is anything m,ore to say than that.

We love you.
We missed you.

Taking Care of Me

I didn't realize how much you actually did do to take care of me, in our day-to-day. I've made a couple of interesting discoveries there.

For one thing, yes, I will forget to eat, or put off eating until I am actually too weak to cook. Wish you were here to remind me, as you always did. I used to get so annoyed with you! "Do I look like I forget to eat?"
Guess what.
Not only do I really forget to eat, I still look the same. Haven't lost any weight from not eating. May have gained a pound or ten. (My weight is still bouncing between 260 and 270.) I know, it makes no sense to me either. And there's no sense in going to Dr. You know they will just say I must be wrong about that, because one only gains weight by eating too much and doing too little.

I miss you tying my shoes, too. After you helped me get my socks over my toes, which are so very far away from my hands. How did I never realize that you were helping me to dress myself? I feel so ashamed sometimes that I took that help for granted. I was under the delusion, I suppose, that I could do it for myself, it was just easier to ask you.
Not exactly a delusion. I can do these things for myself, but it takes a whole lotta work!

And this isn't exactly a taking care issue, but I thought you might like to hear me acknowledge that you were absolutely right when you said I could go for days without speaking to anyone. A recent bout of laryngitis proved that true. I went several days without talking to anyone.
The hardest part of laryngitis was not being able to shout out the answers on Jeopardy!

So, I miss you in a hundred little day-to-day ways. There's no surprise in that. We had so many hundreds of day to day days. Until you ran out of days, and mine continue on.

Until we meet again, sweetheart.

Tracy Going to School

You have a whistle now. Nice big gaudy loud one. Tracy got it tonight as part of her initiation package at Southern State. She brought it in to me and said "Look Mom, it's the whistle you wanted."

It made my insides curdle.

I said
I didn't  want a whistle, your daddy did." 

But she left it here for me anyway to see, to look at ; too little too late

and what good would it have done anyway?

Well, you might have had a few more breaths for saying please thank you and I love you, instead of wasting them for trying to shout when no one answered your bell. Would have come in handy about now, with Christmas bells on the commercials and stuff.

Yes, she finally got herself organized enough and is all enrolled in college, like you wanted her to do when she couldn't get work anywhere. She's doing better than I am, as far as that goes. I am failing at job interviews now.

I even had to miss one today. I am so sick with a cold, and it hurts to breathe, and I can't lay down without coughing or sit up without choking. My throat s full  of sand. I am taking your OTC meds, even the Alka Seltzers(TM), because I can barely stop coughing long enough to drive anywhere. 

I did drive her to school tonight, for her orientation. And then I sat there waiting for her for hours, but It couldn't be helped at the time. I'd have to go back after her and it saved gas to wait. Doesn't really matter much to me where I put my time in anymore, since no one wants me to work for them. And I couldn't right now anyway.

Tam says Bub's standing up on his own for minutes. Looks like he'll be walking by Christmas. I'll probably be crawling cross the floors by then -- what a switcheroo, huh? That's a joke, by the way. You know how damn miserable head colds make me before I get over them. Every day I feel bad is a day closer to feeling better.

I'm trying to do what I think you would tell me to, to get better and to fee better. I sure do miss you sitting in your recliner cheering me on in my attempts to return to health, though. Tracy nor Tammy, Jeanie nor Rita, while caring about my health, could ever care the way you would have.

Me, I just want to get well. 

And not be given a whistle for you that you no longer need.

Just Missing You

I've started talking to your empty chair. I know you aren't there, but you should be. If you were here, that's where you would be. I know you aren't there, but I need you to be.

Of course, some of the things I need you to be there for, I wouldn't need you if you were here, because they are problems caused by your absence.Money things, home insecurities, being sick.
That's another thing. If you were here, I'd have to stay away from you. I have a cold, a heavy cold, a horrible cold. coughing and sneezing and sore throat. I'd have to stay away from you, like I'd had to do the couple days before you went to hospital after we had that stomach flu.

God, how I regret those two days of not holding you and kissing you and sitting on or by your lap/leg. I was trying to keep you healthy, to keep you around. I hope you knew that. I think you did.

If we had known how little time, I think we'd have been together more closely those last few days at home.

I need you, Rex, and you aren't here. I don't know how to solve problems without bouncing them off you. I guess I have to learn a whole new way of doing, but I have so many things I'm having to re-do and re-organize everything else, how can I do so for the little things of day to day?

And yet I must.

You've pulled off a few miracles for us while you were here. I wish you were here for a couple of those now, or even just one small one. I don't know which one I'd pick, though. Maybe housing. I'd like to be in a more secure situation than I am in right now.
I don';t know how you could or would help with that were you still here. Although if you were still here there would be no need.

I don't know what to do or even where to start, Rex. I need to talk to you -- and listen to your input -- to even find a direction for me to go.

I wish you could be at peace, and how will that happen if I keep bothering you? I want you to be well and healthy and happy and not worried -- but I still want you here to worry with me.

I don't know what to do without you.
I don't know HOW to do without you.

Oh, God, Rex, what am I going to do?
And how?

Help me.
Help me.
Help me.

Another not-a-milestone

Turned the calendar page yesterday. One whole page of the calendar that you weren't here in your room, in your chair, living your life.
That's over and done with, and now there's that page gone and we're on to the next.

I had both the babies this weekend. First time I've had them both since you left us. The only reason I  tried was because Tracy had said that was what she wanted for her birthday, but once they were here she said she wanted them for me because they make me smile. Good to be thought of, but have a hard time with Tracy wanting something for someone else for HER special day doesn't ring true.

However, they were both here and it was not bad at all. Your little buddy boy had a cold -- Tam says it's not the same one, but that Hailey brings new ones home from school -- and he's having the ear-jaw-tooth pain that has plagued him for a while. (At least, that is what it appears to be. No one really knows but him, and he can't tell us yet.)
But, after a day, he chirked up and cheered up and the boy is happy now after getting home to "momomomomom." He'll be walking before speaking, and he'll be in school before he has teeth at this rate. Poor lil guy.

Hailey and I made a house from the kit I got. She had a blast, and was happy. Not sure if it was because we worked together (she said "Santa Claus will be so proud of us") or putting bananas on the roof. After it got all dry, she decided to put it in the living room, but brought it through to the front room. It is now framed in the window as Mammaw's decoration.
She decorated the tree, too. We have been waiting five years for that day, and you weren't here to enjoy it with me. Made me sad. But it was a delight to watch her so seriously consider and place and re-place the ornaments. You know how involved she gets with her projects!

Tracy is going to college. She thinks I should be all celebratory and throw a party or something, and all I can think of is how many times you tried to get her to do this exact thing and she had no time for it while you were here.  I suppose it's a reasonable alternative to getting a job, especially as she is still reasonably young. I don't know.
I had kind of played with the idea of going back to school,  one of the tech schools, maybe. But someone has to make a living and winter is hard enough with income. We can't neither one of us live off you in exchange for taking care of you  now, can we?

I sure would like to have those days back.

I sure would like to have you back.
That would be more.
Although we are getting a bit old for "we have each other; who needs money?"
Ahh, but I remember those days. We had 'em.

Anyway, we passed a milestone with the turning of the Rexless calendar page.
And the new page has started with babies and a birthday and a new venture for both of us here. (I have a job interview I'm optimistic about, as well as filling out applications still)

So, my dear, we go on.

It's not like we have any choice,