mhendricks1 – Page 2

New Norms can not be found at this time.

The pain of going home is becoming overpowering. The house has become ….. So much needs to be done, so many chores …… I cannot decide if it is better to sit at the office or go home and sit. The quite is the same at both places. Overpowering, suffocating and disabling. Almost seven months and it seems to have gone from lonely to confinement in solitary. I used to read Psalms of David as he cried out in the wilderness and could not comprehend what he was all about. Now I am scared to read those same Psalms because I feel as if not that they were written for me but more because I feel I wrote them. I thought watching Meredith die as I was her care giver and could not stop that horrible disease was the hardest task God could give me. But I was wrong. I knew Meredith’s suffering would end. I just did not know when. Now it my time to heal. My time to go back to being normal. That will not happen. What I witnessed for six plus years, the failing body, the abandonment by close friends, clergy, Church family is so painful as to resemble an open sore, but only seen and felt by me. How does one leave the dark part of the path I have walked with Meredith for so long and so alone? How does one “suck it up”? I have gone from the front lines with my soul mate to graves registration. Wipe the dirt from my hands, climb on board, hoist the anchor, turn into the wind, hoist the main sail, unfurl the jib, fall off the wind, trim em up, get a good beam reach set the heading to …… where? Time to go home. The dogs need to be let out. Weatherman says it will be cool tonight so need to start a fire in the wood burner. What’s for dinner. Forgot to thaw something. Not really hungry, had a late lunch. Alex, I’ll take Life’s Mysteries for 1000. Congratulations, you have found a Daily Double! I’ll go all in Alex. “Another word for Thesaurus”

I would go to my happy place but you can never go back and I really never had one to begin with. Maybe the sea. Yeah that’s it. The sea. Where it all began.

Six Months Later

I was always amazed when people would announce anniversaries down to the years, months and days of a meaningful event which occurred in their past. My memory banks were never programmed to be able to remember dates or names. The events which took place in the month of August, tho of different years, are the only events I can consistently bring up from the storage part of my brain. I can recite them with ease but would always recite them in order. Aug 1, quit smoking, 10th remarried to the Queen, (Her early moniker was “She Who Must Be Obeyed”), 16th my birthday, and the 30th my bride’s birthday.

I have added another day to the list which has suddenly superseded my paltry recollection of dates. That is the 7th day of the month. The celebration of that day actually begins on the the 2nd day of the month when The Queen had lost her ability to swallow. The Hospice nurse and doctor came. With uncomfortable stances and some shifting weight from left leg to right and back, they realized this conversation was going to take place with the queen present. They confirmed what I already knew. Three to five days. Dehydration. Q-tips dipped in water to keep the lips moist. Morphine drops to ease the breathing. Reliving it every month.

Friends, even those who are leaders of the church which abandoned her the last eighteen months of her life, tell me it will get easier, it will get better, the pain will subside. They are partly correct. It has gotten easier, and I am better at hiding the pain from them.

I saw a meme today. “I am a popular loner. I know a lot of people. And a lot of people know me. But my circle is small and I am usually by myself.”

Surviving in a fishbowl

Borrowed from https://johnpavlovitz.com/.

We recently lost a dear family member to a lifelong illness at just twenty-three years old. As his devastated father and I were exchanging dozens of texts during those first days following his death: details about the memorial service and speakers who would offer reflections and the minutia of the printing of the program—he interrupted the seeming ordinary of the conversation with a sobering two-word declaration.

This blows.

And then he returned to the logistics of the funeral.

That’s it. That’s the reality of this kind of loss. Despite what we may want to be true about grief, there really are no silver lining life lessons or detached moments of perspective that shield your heart from the scattering shrapnel of grief.

It’s just horrible.
It’s just a nightmare.
It just blows.

After you lose someone you love, people often tell you they admire your strength. They say it with great affection and with the sweetest of intentions. They say it because they genuinely believe it to be true.

They’re also always wrong.

The death of a person you shared your life with immediately places you in a very specific community: you become a survivor. This isn’t an accolade you earn or a title you work for, it’s simply your status now. Someone dear to you has left and you are still here—just trying to survive the horrible event of their departure.

A couple of months after my father died, my mother relayed a conversation she had while running into a distant relative in the grocery store. After an awkward exchange of small talk that eventually stumbled into the topic of the dead elephant in the room, the person complimented my mother:

“I admire you.” the relative said. “You are just so strong through all of this.”

As my mother later recalled the statement to me, she asked me with feigned curiosity:

“What choice did I have?”

We both knew the answer to that question.

The mistake people make when they look at you after you become one of the bereaved, after you become a survivor—is that they see you appearing to function and ascribe some lofty virtue to your efforts, not realizing that you are marshaling every available resource to simply appear normal while in their presence.

You’re doing your work and taking the kids to soccer practice and getting groceries and attending Christmas parties because you have no other options—and because those things are necessary distractions that busy you between those many private moments when your heart explodes once again, and you fall apart in quivering fits and floods of tears and curses at God—and your voice making terrible sounds nothing other than grief can produce.

And this is the truth about those of us who are living with the loss of someone we love. However together or capable or steady we might seem or be able to project in the small sliver of time when you see us on social media or pass us at work or run into us at the grocery story—we are far less together, capable, or steady than you think.

Regardless of the sturdy facade we put in place, we are likely falling apart just out of sight. We are shattered and pissed off and paralyzed with pain, and we are weak enough to be knocked down by a song on the radio or the sight of their shirt hanging on the door. We’re curled up on the bed we shared with them, or we’re staring at the empty chair across from us, and we’re as far from strong as we can be.

Because the reality of becoming one of the bereaved is that it isn’t poetic and it isn’t beautiful and it isn’t instructive—it just sucks.

Yes, you’re making desperately lemonade but it’s always going to be more bitter than sweet.

No, we’re not strong, we’re grieving.

We are the people our loved ones are survived by.

And we’re just trying to survive.

Christmas Eve Day

Also known as child exchange day. I am a product of this holiday event. My exchange day was on Christmas Day. For a couple of years I would be transported to the train station,, spend 14 hours on the L & N passenger train from Louisville to Atlanta or Atlanta to Louisville. Just a mirror image of the previous trip. As it was an overnight trip. I had a Pullman berth room which came with dinner and breakfast. Following my father’s departure from the train company I became a frequent flyer on Eastern Airlines for a couple of years. Then after leaving home the decision was always which parent got Christmas and who was the best cooking side of the family for Thanksgiving. And then, through divorce and remarriage, the confusion of scheduling was doubled. .Through all of this legal wrangling with ex spouses, (I always referred to my ex spouse as Meredith’s Wife-in-law) the entire reason for the celebration was completely lost. When Meredith was healthy we were active in the church choir. Starting before Thanksgiving, all the extra rehearsals with so much music to learn and perform was to say the least, exhausting.. I use the word perform because that is exactly what it was. A performance for the flower children of the congregation. Those are the folks who show up to church when the alter has extra flowers for decoration. Mainly Easter and Christmas. All this rant to say, this is the first Christmas without the Queen. It has been five years since Meredith was strong enough to attend Christmas Eve service. She missed gong five years ago. But not so much since then. With the way her church abandoned her, in her time of need, I do not feel the urge to return. But I digress from the title theme. All you couples with children who read this and are contemplating divorce, please hear my voice. At one time you promised everything to your spouse, had children together and now the road has gotten bumpy. Do your children a favor. Go to your lawyers, have them draw up the papers but date them for the day your youngest child graduates high school. That will solve the constant aggravation of child support. Trust me on that canker sore of divorce. Agree to never fight, argue or raise your voices in front of your children. Get twin beds. Do what ever it takes to put your hostilities for each other on hold until your children, God’s gift of life to the both of you, graduate high school. Take from one who grew up in this situation, raised a child and has grandchildren in this situation. You owe it to your children.

Halftime Show Friday Night Lights

MOCO was on the road last week, October 4. They traveled North to Carnesville, Franklin County. The sweet lady voice with the slight British lilt said it was 84.7 miles. Easy, only two turns. I-20 East to the Atlanta Downtown Connector, turn left, go North for 60 miles, turn right and “arrive at your destination, on the left.” Ms. Garmin said the entire trip would take approximately 90 minutes. Yeah, Right. The Northeast Corridor is the largest, longest parking lot on this Blue Marble we call Earth. To do this trip at 3PM on a Friday would take close to least four hours if traffic distracted by Car-B-Que, wreck, or the ubiquitous ladder or mattress in the roadway. So I took the one hundred mile southern route and arrived in just under two hours. As previously stated, I am the first spectator to arrive at the games. While sitting in the stands watching the jgoings on of getting the stadium ready to receive the spectators for the gridiron battle which was quickly drawing near ,I was approached by a young lady I had observed in earlier games as a member of the press corps. I found out later she is a media communications student at UGA and had selected MOCO Football team as her fall semester project. After inquiring who I was, who I was rooting for and why I was always early for the games, she asked if I would consent to being interviewed on camera. I did so she did her thing. https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fp%2FB3N55UYHdoi%2F%3Figshid%3D12xzafgpgv64v%26fbclid%3DIwAR1eLdVbJgY9bL1I2vubXUz-UUkuPkKvTsyLYaJRiTAuXHSUjp-fV1P_JIg&h=AT0W5yjaZhQaEGn-5Fvox2odsc8uE6yI8e8ELu3A-e8QXcwOW1t-ogGDolgvK57ywCwZo_eqVGBkfdoHiQGW6XtZI96xmVz_7rM0zZuxULuPwwjJgzZZ_CT1IKp00ynPocU. I had to copy and paste to get to the interview. The good guys won, the weather was great and the drive going back the short way was uneventful but interesting. All those 4 – 6 lanes of North bound traffic still trying to get home.

Legacy? How do want to be remembered?

Meredith and I always took the “Blue Highways”. For those of you old enough to have traveled from point A to point B before the age of GPS, you had to have a map. Dirt roads, if shone were printed in gray, local roads were printed in black lines, expressways were in double or thick red lines. That leaves the blue lines. The original path to distant destinations which indicated the best paved roads to travel. with the advancement of the Interstate Highway System, these blue roads faded away. They were no longer the quickest path between two points. They have become the forgotten byways of America. The “Path Less Traveled” so to speak. One of the first signs seen on the side of the road which would indicate your approach to town would be a cemetery. We would stop and explore the head stones. Family plots would tell some of the story of an early settler to the area. The size and engraving on the stone would be some indication as to the wealth of the family. The greater the difference between the B. and the D., the larger the stone. sometimes the stone would indicate a greater sadness such as children not growing old, or a notation of a young man whose actual burial was a distant place, like Shiloh, Gettysburg, Ardennes, Normandy, or The North Atlantic. But the story of who they were would be forever missing. A person’s legacy rarely extends past the second tier of the family tree. I bring all this up because I am having to clean out the house.

Meredith had three stages of her life before passing from my arms. From her birth to her 25th year when she first married, to her 38th year when our journey began which ended just short of the completion of her 72nd orbit around the sun. Meredith was a pack rat. I have found her elementary school report cards, Valentine cards from my husband-in-law, college art class notes, travel diary from her class trip to Europe, match books, ticket stubs for trains. All things which had fond memories for her. Her daughter was not part of those events. All of these events occurred prior to our journey beginning. She knew in her heart the story behind every scrap of picture, who was in the old picture and how the branches of the tree brought everybody together. All of the knowledge of her history died with her. I have one closet shelf filled with quilts. She knew who was the creator of everyone of them. More heritage lost.

To me, her legacy is one of love, fun, travel. All who knew her, loved her. Caring, helping and kind. Together we created memories. But sadly, tho her legacy lives in her daughter, the friends who knew her, it is rapidly disappearing.

Photographs and memories
Christmas cards you sent to me
All that I have are these to remember you
Memories that come at night
Take me to another time
Back to a happier day, when I called you mine

But we sure had a good time
When we started way back when
Morning walks and bedroom talks
Oh, how I loved you then

Summer skies and lullabies
Nights we couldn’t say goodbye
And of all of the things that we knew
Not a dream survived

Photographs and memories
All the love you gave to me
Somehow it just can’t be true
It’s all I’ve left of you

But we sure had a good time
When we started way back when
Morning walks and bedroom talks
Oh, how I loved you then

Bucket List versus Wish List

On an ancient wall in China, A brooding Buddha blinks
Deeply graven is the message
– It is later than you think –
The clock of life is wound but once
And no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop,
At late or early hour
Now is all the time you own, the past a golden link.
Go cruising now my brother
It is later than you think.”
(Author unknown)

A friend of mine went to a doctor for a diagnosis on an ailment which was giving him some mobility issues. When the doctor entered the room after studying the results of a battery of tests my friend asked him what was his prognosis. The Doctor paused and said “you are going to die. Not from this health problem but eventually you will die. That struck my friend like it did me. It is such true and obvious diagnosis as to be funny. He laughed with the doctor and thanked him very much for giving such an accurate and true, non-sugar coated medical diagnosis.

I had a similar conversation with Meredith. I received a call from her doctor after she had a scan done at the UAB Birmingham Medical Clinic in October of 2016. The big difference was she was going to die from her disease. No clue, hint, average life span of other victims, was offered as to a time line. New disease, not much data blah blah blah no medication, blah, blah, hospice blah, blah. Three years later, diagnosis proved accurate and now I am alone.

I am at a point in my pilgrimage on this blue marble we call Earth were I yearned to be. But in all my plans and dreams, “they were for “us”, not “me”. Part of the “New Norms”. It IS all about “me”.

Back to the heading. Wish Lists are Bucket Lists with out any planning. Simple as that. Bucket List “I sure would like to travel to a foreign country. Have you got your passport I ask. No. Wish list. One item on my Bucket List has been to see the Northern Lights. I have seen pictures, and more pictures of the lights. Like rainbows, the lights appear to be a gift from God. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling. God paints the Northern Sky. I have a passport. It has pages of entrance and exit stamps. It even has a visa granting permission to travel in Russia. I leave in seventeen days for Iceland. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1505/LakeMyvatn_Brady_1080.jpg

DUTY ROSTER

I am a product of the Boy Scouts of America. From the time I was eleven and living in France until I was thirty, married with a newborn daughter, I was involved in the Scouting program. If it were not for the Scouts, I would more then likely be waiting for my parole hearing about now. The Scouts was my refuge from a home life of not so much neglect, but the product of unprotected sex. When the Troop went camping, there was always a duty roster for each patrol. This roster started the week before the camp out to the last day of the event.When we were in the woods, the roster was posted on the tree closest to the center of the patrol area. The chores were the same for each meal. An example of my duty roster is listed below.

Firewood – Bert. Fire tender – Bert. Cook – Bert. Cleanup – Bert

I am a pretty good cook. When the Queen was with me, who ever cooked the other cleaned up. Meredith loved it when I cooked because when I was finished with a pot or pan, I always washed it. So when we were finished eating the only thing she had to do was rinse off the dinner dishes and load the dishwasher. Something she would do even if she had cooked. There is a lot of truth to the urban legend “Men are not capable of properly loading a dishwasher.”

The part that keeps the hole in my heart is every time I go to work in the kitchen, the dish drain has a has one plate, one bowl, one fork, one spoon, one kitchen knife and two travel coffee mugs. I have a stool in the kitchen so I take my meals at the counter. When we dated, we spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Meredith told me years after we got married, one of the reasons she liked to stand in the kitchen with me was I was always dropping something and would take a damp rag to clean up my spill. Unknown to me at the time, she would move a little bit to give me room to clean up my mess so the next spill would be in a different spot. She figured this way she would get a clean floor over a short period of time.

No music today. The pity parties are getting shorter. They hurt more, but do not last as long.

Orlando Group Therapy

I have history with Orland Florida. home of the big Rat as Mickey is known to the locals. My father settled here a wife and a life ago for both of us. He resides with his current wife in a modest ranch style house Dottie and her first husband built. About twelve years ago, my father started displaying signs of one of the many diseases which affect his memory. For several years Bill, I call him by his name as he no longer recognizes me as his son, would relate stories from his days in Korea, both before the conflict and during the “police action”. He had no clue who he was talking to but his memory was very detailed. As with most combat veterans, the light hearted stories were always the ones remembered. I would make the 464 mile drive, grab a hotel for the evening, meet him for breakfast at “The Clubhouse”, spend a couple of hours with him and then drive back. As Meredith’s disease progressed, Bill’s mind would slip ever further away. I am not going into the dark side of this situation which concerns the verbal treatment Bill receives from his wife.

I am going to explain the topic named at the top. People can not wrap their minds around the routine of driving for seven hours, crash and burn for eight in a hotel, meet Bill for a couple of hours and drive seven hours home. I do not do “groups”. I do not do shrinks, counselors, advisors, guides, or what ever the name de jure is this month. With Meredith needing 24/7 at home and Bill needing the same but is not receiving the care he needs, my therapy is the drive. I turn off the phone, top off the tank and head south. I really have to watch the speed, my little SmartCar really loves to go fast. Seven hours of God and me having a conversation. Letting my mind wander to far the reaches of the known and unknown. To the areas of what if, why not, probably a bad/good idea, lets work on it God, just you and me. Mile maker 27, I-75 South, we are half way there! Watch the gas level, do not run out like I did about four years ago. It has been almost four months since my last trip. I do not think it will be pretty.

“WHEN MEMORY FADES” — “When memory fades and recognition falters, When eyes we love grow dim, And minds confused, Speak to our souls of love that never alters; Speak to our hearts by pain and fear abused. O God of life and healing peace, Empower us with patient courage, by your grace infused. — As the frailness grows, and youthful strengths diminish, In weary arms, which worked their earnest fill. Your aging servants labor now to finish…. Their earthly tasks as fits your mystery’s will. We grieve their waning, yet rejoice, believing, Your arms, unwearied, shall uphold us still. — Within your spirit, goodness lives unfading. The past and future mingle into one. All joys remain, un-shadowed light pervading. No valued deed will ever be undone. Your mind enfolds all finite acts and offerings. Held in your heart, our deathless life is won https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDviBlRTQQQ

Still in the Fish Bowl

Attempting to explore my new path in life is very difficult. When Meredith’s journey with MSA started in 2013, all relationships with friends and family started to change. Contact with her friends became strained, less frequent, awkward, and for the last twelve months interaction ceased to exist. Meredith had become the person in the mirror we all know one day will be us. Nobody likes to see the real future. Meredith and I went from being in the parade of life to being on the sidewalk, silent and invisible observers. With the progression of the disease, Meredith had to have 24/7 care. With the need of this care and the logistics involved, the dinner invitations or “let’s get together” invitations had to be declined. Our standard excuses of the location is not handicapped accessible, would keep us out too late, or as the disease progressed, Meredith is on a special diet, so the invitations ceased to be offered. One pain Meredith had was the deep loneliness felt by the abandonment of her friends not changing their routine to just drop by the house and say hello. But her deepest pain was caused by being ignored by her Church. Meredith never missed church. She loved the music, liturgy and the message. She sang in the choir, served on Church and Synod councils, played and directed hand bells and worked on various committees. But when her time of trial arrived she came to realize how Jesus felt when Peter denied Him. But I digress.

I am starting a new journey. I have not walked with those around me for four years. This part of the journey reminds me of when I was growing up. I was an “Army Brat”. My family would trot off to a far away land for a few years. Swing by home for thirty or so days until the new location had been secured and then disappear for another stretch of time. When my father retired from the Army and we settled in Atlanta, I was thirteen years old I had lived close to six years out of country, and only eleven months in the Atlanta area. Every Sunday we would make the drive out to my mothers parents for Sunday meal. And then we moved to Louisville, Kentucky. By the time I came back to Atlanta I was eighteen, nobody in my family knew me or anything about me. Today I find myself in the same situation. After what amounts to four years of not being involved in any activities of those around me, I am back in the fish bowl.