Tag Archives: Losing a loved one

Memories…Light the Corners of My Mind…

It’s my last day.  

Tomorrow, a new family will be buying our home.  I’ve lived on beautiful Norris Lake for 7 1/2 years.  Kenn and I lived and loved here for 3 1/2 years.  This is definitely a bittersweet move.  I am scared and excited and happy and sad all at the same time.

Memories are flooding back to me…..

How we fell in love with the house the moment we walked in.  

When we got married here in the great room, with the beautiful view as our backdrop.

The wonderful parties we had with both neighborhood friends and church friends.

Entertaining out of town family and friends.

Going fishing after dinner in our favorite cove.

Riding the mountain trails together in our Polaris side by side.

Enjoying the magnificent movie room Kenn built.

Bringing Kenn’s 18.5 foot canoe home on top of his 4 Runner from upstate New York.  

Holding my breath while watching him hang the canoe on the wall!

That last, perfect kiss goodbye….when he never came back.

The canoe is gone, the boat is sold, the house is empty of all personal belongings. A week from tomorrow, I will begin yet again in a new home back in Murfreesboro.  It’s the city where I was living when I met Kenn, 10 years ago.

I miss him every day and I know I will hold him in my heart and love him until the day I die.  But I know it’s the right time to let go of our house and move forward with my life.  I will be forever grateful for the love and laughter filled, beautiful house that Kenn and I were blessed to call home.

February 2nd—Ten Years!

February 2nd.  Groundhog Day,  Gary Snyder’s birthday (may he rest in peace), Jonathan’s new birthday—and 10 years after beginning my Act II.

Wow!  Ten.  Years.  Sometimes it feels as if it was a lifetime ago and sometimes a few months ago.  I remember hanging out in my room at my parents’ house when I was 12 years old and thinking ‘when will I EVER grow up?!’  It was taking SO!          LONG!

Now, at 66, the years dart by!  Yet, sometimes, the days drag by.  Next Monday would have been my 7th wedding anniversary with Kenn.  It’s hard to believe it’s already been almost four years since he left this earth.

However, my life is about to take a new turn.  I’ve made the decision to sell my current house and move back to Murfreesboro.  As I’ve told my wonderful friends here—I love my neighborhood, I love my church family, and I even love my house!  I just don’t love living here alone.  I’ve already had about a dozen people express interest in buying so hopefully, that won’t be a problem.  And I’m sure I’ll find a house that I love in Murfreesboro.  But I’m also sure there will be lots of tears leaving this place that Kenn and I called home.

I am so very thankful that God gave me the few years I had with Kenn.  And I am so thankful that He will see me through to the next adventure!

As a side note—

Beldar IV successfully entered my life on December 6th. I asked the doc if he would give me Beldar III after he removed it (after washing it well!) and he did. (Great coffee table conversation piece!) But Beldar III didn’t leave peacefully. The night after surgery, I was sleeping soundly, and around 3 AM, I hear BEE DEE BEE DEE for about 30 seconds coming from the other room! This repeated three times. I got up and wrapped a towel around it and fell back asleep. The next night—A REPEAT! I got up, took it into the study on the other side of the house (still wrapped in a towel), closed it up in a drawer, and shut the door. The following week, at my post surgery checkup, I brought it back with me and asked them to turn it off. The tech said she had never turned one off that was outside of a person’s chest so she had to call the manufacturer and find out how to do it.
It is now quietly residing on my coffee table!

Beginning Act 3…reluctantly

My son told me nobody blogs anymore.  Well, I guess SOMEbody does…..

May 15, 2019 began my Act 3.  I’m stepping into this new act much more confused and trepidatiously than Act 2.

May 14th was a great day.  Kenn and I spent the whole day together, going to Knoxville (about an hour away from our home) and we talked and laughed all day long about one thing or another.  That evening, he was driving up to Ohio to go to an eye doctor visit with his mom the next morning.  He wanted me to go with him but I had an appointment I didn’t want to miss.  As he was leaving, he came and kissed me goodbye, and it was a long, passionate kiss.  I was thinking, as he kissed me, ‘I miss you already’.  When the kiss ended, he looked at me and said, “I miss you already.” I smiled and told him I was just thinking the same thing, which happened often.  I would think something, then it would come out of his mouth.  He told me the only reason he didn’t want to go was because he hated being away from me.  I told him to come back to me as soon as he could and he said he would.  We said our ‘I love yous’ and he left.  And he never came back.

Early May 15th morning, he told his mom he was feeling weird around the base of his throat and thought he should get it checked out at an urgent care.  Kenn NEVER went to the doctor—didn’t take one pill.  He had a physical with bloodwork and an EKG less than a year before just because he was changing health insurance companies to get a lower premium.  Everything was perfect.   Anyway, they drove to an urgent care.  They both walked to the door and it was closed.  So they got back in the car and headed to the ER 12 miles away. Almost immediately, he leaned his head back and began making gurgling sounds.  They were about a block away from a fire station so his mom stopped there and got EMT’s out to help.  They had the very best equipment but, after shocking him at least six times, nothing worked.  And just like that, my beloved was gone. On his death certificate, there is a line that says ‘interval from onset of illness until death’ and it says ‘immediate’.

I knew Kenn five years, nine months, and four days.  We were married three years, three months, and nine days.  I’m sure, if I tried, I could calculate it to the minute.  I thought he was the most beautiful person—inside and out—to walk the face of the earth.  He made me feel beautiful, respected, loved.  After losing his first wife suddenly and unexpectedly, he often said we shouldn’t take one day for granted.  We didn’t.  Our disagreements were minor and over quickly.  We were together almost all of the time, and we both liked it that way.  We often told each other that home was wherever WE were.  We laughed every single day.  We both believed God led us to each other.  So I struggle with the whys.  When I’m in my most distraught moments, I pray (loudly) in my large, empty house GOD!  I DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!!  I know Kenn is OK….he’s where all of our souls long to be.  It’s me (and all those who loved him) who I weep for.

Recently, while resting, a scripture came to me suddenly that I know so well, but has new meaning for me.  I said it several times in my head, without consciously trying to, and before it dawned on me just how meaningful it was.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.  Proverbs 3:5,6

I don’t understand, and I may never will. But God has a plan for me.  I have no idea what it is, or even where it is.  I just have to trust Him to show me the way.

It’s The Little Things

As most, if not all, of you know, my sweet Momma left this earth Monday, March 20, 2017. Since then, I have replayed the last few months over and over again in my mind.

In general, I am not much of a crier. I know people who, upon seeing one tear roll down someone’s face, will burst into tears. I can get deeply moved by someone, whether in person, in a movie, or reading about them, and not leak. Sometimes I do tear up, but most of the time, I do not.

Losing my parents is a totally different story. When Daddy died, it was such a shock. He had a stomach virus one day, or so we thought, and he was gone the next. Not one day went by for over a month that I stayed dry faced. I am finding the same thing happening to me now.

Every day, around 11 AM, my iPad would ring for a FaceTime call. The silence at 11 makes me get wet eyed. I unpacked my overnight bag a couple of days ago, and realized it had lived behind my vanity chair in the bathroom, partially packed, since November. Putting it away in the closet made the tears come. Remembering how Momma loved the view from our decks, how she gushed about any little change I had done in my house and made me feel like the best decorator in the world, how she and Kenn would tease and pick at each other and the laughter that would follow. Realizing I am now an orphan. I want to tell her about the storm we had that knocked power out for many hours and knocked a tree down on a moving car, about the terrible fire in Atlanta that shut down the interstate that we drove on so often, that Casey is losing his hearing and is ravenous one day, and doesn’t care to eat much the next day, that we have bluebird eggs in one of our nest boxes. I want to ask her what arthritis feels like because two of my knuckles are hurting and I don’t know why.

I have little nigglings of guilt, too. I wish I had stayed the last time I was in Texas when Mom was alive. I would have liked to hold her hand and pat her face and tell her everything was ok. While I was very conscious of being patient with her as her memory was going, I wish I hadn’t gotten annoyed when she called the third or fourth time in a day, usually to tell me something she had already told me many times before. Even though I don’t think I let her see my annoyance (or I hope not), I wish the feeling wasn’t there in the first place. I wish she had let me take her to France. I think she would have enjoyed it, since she was 100% French. We discussed it several years ago and I urged her to consider it. But I think the idea of the two of us being in a foreign land scared her.

I know that time heals. God obviously knew what He was doing by putting our lives in a timeframe while He lives in none. Many years ago, I got my parents to fill out a book about their lives, as I did my grandmother before them. It’s my generation’s turn to fill them out. I remember the day when I could reread Grandma and Daddy’s book and smile instead of cry. I look forward to that day with Momma’s book. In time.