Author: mhendricks1

Good Grief it’s the Grief Ccounselors

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Good Grief it’s the Grief Doctors

Here they come! Out of the blue on the eve of our anniversary, the grief guidance counselor called. Okay, she is paid by Hospice to do a call at one week, one month, six months and one year of date of death. She started with the worst question, the one everyone asks, everyone wants to know, but nobody wants to hear the answer. “How are you doing?”

From my side of the question, There are so many responses which explode like a Fourth of July starburst. And just as quick, they are smoke in the air. Over six years ago, Meredith started the transition from soul mate and wife to patient to making me guardian. How am I doing? How am I supposed to be doing? All those who were the caregiver for at least six years to their soulmate suffering from MSA or similar affliction, who have an intimate knowledge of Meredith’s and my psychological work up please send me your resume. Otherwise do not expect me to unload whatever it is you are looking for because the answer is real easy. I do not have a clue and I am not going to talk about how I am while standing in the parking lot, hardware aisle, etc. Ever since childhood, whatever “thing” scared us, hurt us emotionally or confused us become our fall back foundation for all reactions through out our life. Scary things and confusion can be overcome with learning what they are and how to deal with or figure out why they do these things to us. But the emotional one is a lot tougher, I have been dumped, divorced, and fired. But losing your soulmate. That is a different ball game. No past experience to draw from for guidance. With the exception of a couple of hours a day, Meredith and I were together. Same house, same work place, same vacations. I have arrived to become the “Stranger with the Melody”, I gave her the music son. She gave me the words together we’d write the kind of songs the angels must have heard.

So the real answer is “Considering the shape I am in, I am in damn good shape.” Edit Good Grief it’s the Grief Doctors

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Good Grief it’s the Grief Doctors

Here they come! Out of the blue on the eve of our anniversary, the grief guidance counselor called. Okay, she is paid by Hospice to do a call at one week, one month, six months and one year of date of death. She started with the worst question, the one everyone asks, everyone wants to know, but nobody wants to hear the answer. “How are you doing?”

From my side of the question, There are so many responses which explode like a Fourth of July starburst. And just as quick, they are smoke in the air. Over six years ago, Meredith started the transition from soul mate and wife to patient to making me guardian. How am I doing? How am I supposed to be doing? All those who were the caregiver for at least six years to their soulmate suffering from MSA or similar affliction, who have an intimate knowledge of Meredith’s and my psychological work up please send me your resume. Otherwise do not expect me to unload whatever it is you are looking for because the answer is real easy. I do not have a clue and I am not going to talk about how I am while standing in the parking lot, hardware aisle, etc. Ever since childhood, whatever “thing” scared us, hurt us emotionally or confused us become our fall back foundation for all reactions through out our life. Scary things and confusion can be overcome with learning what they are and how to deal with or figure out why they do these things to us. But the emotional one is a lot tougher, I have been dumped, divorced, and fired. But losing your soulmate. That is a different ball game. No past experience to draw from for guidance. With the exception of a couple of hours a day, Meredith and I were together. Same house, same work place, same vacations. I have arrived to become the “Stranger with the Melody”, I gave her the music son. She gave me the words together we’d write the kind of songs the angels must have heard.

So the real answer is “Considering the shape I am in, I am in damn good shape.”

Suck it Up Buttercup

August 16th My birthday shares some footnotes in history. On this day Mr Pemberton, inventor of Coca Cola, Margaret Mitchell, author of “Gone With the Wind” and Elvis Presley all died on this date. For my friends who. like me. enjoy putting a literal slant on things, they died in different years. But for the most part the only significant event which comes to mind, this is the day I made my entrance onto this blue marble we call Earth. Now at the completion of my sixty-sixth revolution around the sun I begin my sixty-seventh journey. For the first time since I was 16, I have no plans. Not a one year, nor five year, nor 10 year “what if” plan. I had over six years to be planning. Those long nights of watching Meredith sleep, those mornings when Natalya was bathing and dressing her in the mornings, waiting for her to wake up again to have breakfast. Watching her succumb to this disease by slowly “progressing”, (how I have hated that phrase”), getting weaker, loss of voluntary motor control, unable to swallow or talk. Knowing her pilgrimage on this planet was going to end before mine. Knowing this transition from care giver to widower was going to be difficult. But I had no clue as to how empty my life would become. So at the close of my first birthday as a widower, a single person who has garnered close to a hundred “Facebook click here to send greeting”, two cards, no phone calls, I am again in front of the computer. Tired of everybody I run into singing Carol King to me, “You just call out my name, anything you need just call me…..” Before Meredith passed, people would say “Is there anything you need let me know” and I started responding with my favorite Stephen Wright punch line “I need to paint my house.” Suck it up Buttercup, pity party is over.

Pita (Pain in the A**) Girl

Time for group therapy of one again. I have never been one to discuss my feelings with anybody. There is no crying in baseball. There is no open crying allowed by the manly man, son of a military warrior father, grandson of a Survivor of the Great Depression in rural South. Not allowed. There were times during the day when Meredith would have a cry. There are many different reasons for tears. Joy, happiness, laughter all can bring tears. Meredith and I shared tears of laughter during these last six and half years. There was the night many years ago when I was the sole care giver….I had finished changing her into her night shirt, brushed her teeth, put lotion on her face and body, wheeled her into the bedroom, transferred her into her recliner, tucked her in, hooked up the oxygen and gave her the night time dosage of pills. I was sitting at the foot of the chair and started massaging her feet because there was some discomfort in her ankles as the muscles were atrophying and turning her feet in. She started crying. Tears and sobs so hard she had trouble catching her breath. I had to ask several times why she was so upset. Between sobs she was able to work out the statement “I am such a burden to you”. I stopped massaging and moved my chair next to her, gave her a hug, she was still sobbing and I told her she was using the wrong word. She sobbed again. I said Meredith, you are using the wrong word. She turned her head in mid sob and had this incredibly confused look. I said “You are not a burden to me, you can be pain in the ass but I knew that before we got married.” And that was the night we started labeling things Pre-MSA and Post-MSA. When I fell asleep thirty minutes later she was still giggling.

Enough tears for tonight. It is very difficult to go upstairs. Even Stephen King, with all his mastery of the written word, can not describe the emptiness of this house. If I wasn’t already crazy, it would drive me insane. (Sorry Jimmy B. it just popped out)

Finding the “New” Norm

Today is August 10, 2019. I have never been one for “anniversary” but today is different from all the preceding August 10th’s save one 34 years ago. A hot sunny day when Meredith and I exchanged vows in front of about 50 witnesses and God. That morning ritual of matrimony was the kick off for the most incredible journey ever travelled by two people. We had rough spots as every couple does but the pilgrimage from the 10th anniversary until Meredith, (aka “She Who Must be Obeyed”, and “The Queen”) passed 5 weeks short of what is our 34th anniversary was filled with love, travel, and becoming soul mates with each other.

It is now the end of this anniversary weekend. Up until July7th, I had the same routine to my mornings. For over half my life it was rise, shower, make the coffee, finish dressing, pour my coffee, wake Meredith, go to our shop we operated together. For 34 years, we lived together, worked together, churched together and travelled together. The only thing we did not do was ride to work together. Three miles – 10 minutes – a person has to have their space. This routine is now history never to be repeated.

Time to do what?

Hello world!

The following pages are about a journey I (Bert Blood) was forced to take when my life’s plans were placed on hold some time between 2012 National Cat Herders Day and 2013 National Bobble Head Day. My wife of, at that time, twenty seven and half years was diagnosed with possible Parkinson’s Disease. I have had stretches of time in my life when I was alone. I am my best friend so I can say I was alone but was never lonely, That is until 00:50 Sunday morning July 7, 2019.