Journal: 04/28/06

The mortuary woman came by the front desk today and picked up the $200.00 for Joann’s cremation. At least Paul Mortuary knows that I’m not just going to leave Joann there, she’ll be coming home in a week, I hope. I’ll deal with the financial catastrophe later.

State of Grace

I was looking through one of the books Rose borrowed for Joann from the Harrison Library in Carmel, and it triggered a line of thinking/remembering about the last two months before Joann died. Joann had always told Bill and I that her disease would affect him and me more than it did her. That got me to thinking about "grace" as an aspect of dying. That is what Patricia Weenolsen’s book; "The Art of Dying" is all about, grace and dignity.

During the entire three years Joann suffered through her disease, she complained little, except for her frustration at increasingly not being able to do things or go places or perform tasks for very long before she had to sit and breathe. In her last two months, she didn’t complain at all, claiming that she had made peace with her fate and taking a breath exhausted her to the point where she was too tired to care anymore. At the same time, she did everything she could to make things easier for Bill and me. She never got depressed or angry, she simply weathered her perfect storm.

Those memories speak to me of "grace under fire," because she went on her way with complete grace. I don’t know why I’m thinking of these things now, maybe because she will be coming home soon. As her return nears, the depth of my memories grows greater and I want to get them down before old-age settles in.

Journal: 04/27/06

Slow day, Constant Reader, but then again, all my days are slow since Joann died. I realize that I’m deeply embedded in this rut where everything I write is about Joann, but I can’t seem to help myself. For me, everything right now is about Joann and how the loss of her in my life affects me. I’m sure that at some point in the future I’ll get out of the rut, but I don’t know when that will be, it may be a long time in coming.

I called the mortuary today alerting them that another $200.00 is ready for them to pick up. Bill agrees that half is better than nothing, and we don’t want Paul Mortuary getting the wrong idea.

Coasting On SSDD

Aside from the first ten days I was back behind the front desk, I usually work a six-day week, nine hours a day. It is the slow season on the Monterey Peninsula and there isn’t a lot of foot or reservation traffic. This makes for very low-key days with a lot of time on my hands. Normally, I work on some personal project I have going at the time, like the current book I’m working on. I am trying to get published and the only time I have to write is when I’m at the office. Not that I don’t do my job justice, but running the front desk isn’t exactly rocket science. Whatever paperwork I have to do takes about an hour every couple of days, and there aren’t that many guests now who pester me.

Since Joann died though, I have been just going through the motions of work. I spend all my time when not engaged with a guest or on the phone, reading the newspaper and surfing the web for more news to read. I guess I’m about as well informed about the world situation as anyone can be, reading news nine hours a day.

This is a departure from how I occupied myself in the past, pre-Joann’s death. Certainly I played games, BigJig, a jigsaw puzzle for Windows is my favorite time waster, but I hadn’t played for months until a couple of nights ago. Taking care of Joann occupied all of my time and when I came back to work, I just wasn’t interested. I spent a lot of time working on the current incarnation of my novel as well, aside from this blog though, I haven’t written a creative word. Again, I just wasn’t interested.

I do write and post a blog entry every day, sometimes I post two every other day. These five hundred to one thousand epistles have kept me focused on the present and not the past, but they don’t require a lot of creative effort as I’m simply reporting what I observe of myself. What I lack is a personal project to keep myself engaged with the world instead of merely coasting through it. Maybe this "coasting" effect is a form of depression, as is probably my lack of consistent eating, but I can’t seem to break myself away from the rut on the shoulder of my road of life. Even my work on the blog appears to be becoming less urgent and I have to prompt myself to put an intelligent entry together.

Everyone keeps telling me that "this too shall pass," and I do believe it. It’s just that when you are in this paralysis, it gets frustrating and there’s no way to work through it. Is it possible that this frustration with myself is a sign that I’m finally coming around?

Journal: 04/26/06

I moved a step closer today to getting Joann back home. Bill came up with $200.00 toward the $400.00 I still owe the mortuary for Joann’s cremation. Rose couldn’t come up with the other $200.00, but at least this will keep Joann in place until I can get the remainder on May 3^rd. I’ll have to pay it back when the monthly money shows up because Bill borrowed from our food capital, but I’m use to being broke and another month won’t make that much difference. At least Joann will be home.

I notice that I am both slipping back into my old habit patterns before I started living with Joann, and I’m not back to eating right. In retrospect though, there really wasn’t much change in the way I was living before Joann, and what took place when we started living together, she and I were that compatible. The only difference now is that I harbor a deep sense of loneliness, an emptiness that I haven’t had before, and I can’t seem to fill it. I keep thinking about her all the time, not as a distraction but as a constant and intruding series of memories that I attach to every small event in my day. Luckily, my job at the front desk doesn’t require any precision; otherwise, I might be seriously underperforming.

I seem to need a lot more space these days and that puts a strain on Bill. I was used to a lot of space before Joann, Bill and I moved in together and I seem to be going back to that way of life, functioning in a vacuum, acting as an observer instead of a participant. I think Bill feels shut out sometimes and I try not to do that, but I’m not being too successful at it. He was used to having Joann at home all the time, where now there isn’t anyone on the days I work, and I spend much of my off-hours sleeping or watching television. I try to be up for playing cards when I can, but that is getting less and less.

I’m also not eating well, at least not by historic standards. I’m not eating during the day much at all, though I take plenty to work with me. Dinner with Bill is usually light—for me—though I might have a snack before bedtime. I don’t think its depression; it feels more like "disconnectedness" and affects everything in my life these days, not just my food intake. This too will pass, probably like a kidney stone.

Laundry

I didn’t get the laundry done as I thought I would. So, I took the simple male way out. Most women know that when a guy runs out of undies that triggers a frantic call to "get the laundry done." Males living alone have a different perspective of the subject, sort of like sniffing our clothes to figure out if they are wearable or not. This drives women crazy. Women who have sons relate their significant other’s behavior to that of their male offspring whom sniff their clothes for wear-ability, washed or not. I used to drive Joann nuts by sniffing my socks and jeans. "Do the laundry!" she would tell me, and I would always say, "Tomorrow. I have perfectly good clothes I’ve only worn for three days."

I didn’t have a problem getting the laundry done after we moved out of the original Snug Harbor. We had a stackable washer and dryer there, but after we moved into a single room during the renovation, I used the motel laundry. Yet, I always waited until I had the last pair of undies on my hips before I carted the clothes to the washer. Now, the motel laundry we used was the maid’s laundry. Commercial machines that could take five regular loads at a time. I carted the clothes to the laundry, washed and dried them, and carted them back for Joann to fold and put away.

Sounds simple, but this time I couldn’t do it. Maybe it was the folding and putting away that foiled me, after all, that was Joann’s job. So, I decided to wait until next Monday, when I have my next day off. My solution? Buy more undies, which I did tonight. Problem solved.

Journal: 04/25/06

I didn’t do laundry today, I will try again tomorrow. So I think. Its all part of the duties that Joann did, the folding of the clothes and putting them away, that seems to have me in this mode of non-action. I know it’s not realistic, but I am having problems assuming the roles Joann played in my life. "Get over it," is what my brain tells me but my heart says, "Not yet, I want to hang on to her a little bit longer."

These conflicting thoughts seem to be coming with greater frequency, one part of myself contradicting the other. I know it’s not rational, but I can’t seem to help myself. It must be latent reaction, the time and distance from her death, starting to take its toll. I know she is always with me, especially right now. I feel her with me and know that she hasn’t let me go. So, I should be able to take some security from that, but I miss her so much. Low-key as it may be, my loss is intense. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing this blog every night.

Joann’s Purse

One of the things I uncovered yesterday was a purse I had given Joann for Christmas in 2004, that she didn’t use because it was too heavy for her to carry. Today I took a look at it, largely to clean it out because I thought one of the maids might find use for it. Inside I found the Catholic cross Joann wore around her neck constantly. I don’t remember when she stopped wearing it, but it must have been some time ago. The things in this purse were from a time early in our relationship. There was also the heart pendant and chain that her mother gave her on her birthday in 2004. The chain was broken and I guess that’s why she stopped wearing it, though I know that she loved the inscription on it: "If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I’d walk right up to heaven and bring you home again." A sentiment I didn’t understand at the time, but one I can be fully behind now. These things I will keep, or let her son David choose them. So long as they stay in Joann’s family.

I also found her wedding ring from her last husband. I was her third husband; her second died from a heart attack. When Joann and I went on a vacation for three days in November 2003, I bought Joann an engagement ring, with the understanding that we were going to have a long engagement. The "long" engagement turned out to be only nine-months, but during that time, we made sure that we were meant for each other. Part of the agreement when I bought her the engagement ring and put it on her finger, was that she take off her dead husband’s ring. "Leave the past behind," was the mantra; this is a new life for both of us. She put the old ring in the same box her new engagement ring came in and that was what I found tonight, stuffed in the purse she never used because it was too heavy. She used it for storage instead. I’m not sure what to do with the ring, I’ll probably take it to my jeweler, get it appraised, and use it to pay for the wedding ring I bought her, that I’m still paying for. On the other hand, it may be worth nothing, and that will be okay too, then I’ll donate it to a charity. It’s definitely not a part of my life with Joann.

Bill’s Car (Update)

Apparently, Bill’s car is ready to get back on the road. The mechanic finally diagnosed the problem as a short in the electrical system, which in turn blew out the computer modules. With a bit of money, and some time, the car will get back on the road. The question Bill has to come to terms with is whether to sell it, or keep it handy for future use. Frankly—and Bill and I discussed it tonight—the car doesn’t seem to be worth the trouble, better to sell it than pay the gas for it.

Bill is happy trucking around town using buses, and he knows the health benefits to walking. With gas at $3.00 a gallon and above, we simply don’t have the $45.00 to fill the car’s tank. Then again, he has to pay to get new tags on the car and insurance if he wants to drive it from Ron’s lot to the motel. Catch-22.

Right now, though, Bill is taking the high road. We talked tonight and the first priority is getting Joann home. We’ll worry about the car next week.

Journal: 04/24/06

Finally, a day off, but not to dwell, only to clean and sort. I never did get the laundry done, but I did get it ready to go. I’ll do the washing and drying some evening at work. It was a generally lazy day reading the newspaper, watching some uninterrupted television and eating the great dinner of turkey legs that Bill came up with. We didn’t play cards as I was tired and, after all, it was my day off. Bill complained that I was going back to my ways as a "hermit," but I pointed out that even when Joann was alive, she and I would sit and actually watch our favorite TV shows. I noted that when you work six days or so in a row dealing with guests at the front desk, you need a break from people. Joann understood that and was content to sit and space-out in the evening with me. Nothing hermit-like there, she and I both respected each other’s space, and that was one of the underpinnings of our successful relationship.

"Housecleaning"

The "housecleaning" is complete, or at least as much so as it’s going to get for a while. I attacked all of Joann’s hiding places where she had stashed clothes and hair-care supplies. She had a lot of clothes and shoes, and not just because she was a woman. Her mother brought a whole carload of things of Joann’s from Modesto when we were married. Joann never sorted through them and they lay in piles in our walk-in closet in the old apartment. When we had to move into a single room during the motel renovation, the clothes and shoes wound up in plastic garbage bags that we stored in the empty motel poolroom. After we moved into the new Snug Harbor, some of Joann’s things in storage migrated into empty spaces in the apartment. These were the clothes, shoes and other detritus that I was going after. The remaining bags in storage Bill and I sorted through and pitched a week after she died. Also, I was looking for some things like Joann’s memory book that Bill started keeping for her shortly after we moved into the old apartment upstairs, and where she kept every holiday and birthday card she ever received, as well as her marriage certificate and other mementos.

I found Joann’s memory book under her side of the bed after exhausting all other hiding places. I also cleaned out the laundry, the bottom of the closet, under the sink in the bathroom, and anywhere else I could think of. Two hours and five beers later, the job was finished with three large leaf-and-lawn bags full of clothes and other stuff in the garbage. I consoled myself that these were belongings Joann would never have found a home for and even though I assured her through our downsizing moves that she would never lose anything, that held only as long as she was alive. She had no use for these things now, and she didn’t in the past either. She had merely wanted to keep comforting and familiar things close because she had lost so much before in her lifetime.

I guess I made it through the "housecleaning" process okay and I wound up with several empty plastic containers I can use for other things. I simply went straight ahead and tried not to think much about what I was doing. Nevertheless, I still found myself recalling Joann’s passion, obsession, for her hair. She told me many times that due to her disease, caring for her hair was the one thing she had left that she could control. She’s gone now and so are the half-empty bottles of hairspray, coloring, curlers and nail files, but not the memories of the war she waged daily with her beautiful blonde hair. I kept one plastic crate of her things thinking her son David might like to find that special sweater of hers he thought he might want. There’s also a red lap blanket that Rose wants, and three books that go back to the Harrison Library in Carmel.

Looking At What Remains

There are still many pieces of Joann left in the apartment, primarily her childhood desk and typewriter, pictures of her with her mother and father and other small things. I think David would be interested in these items as they are from a time before Joann and I started living together. They brought comfort and peace to Joann in her last couple of months, a sense of being connected to her family, though her parents were both dead and her brother and sister turned out to be subhuman in the long run. One of these weekends David will come down from Sacramento, look through these leftovers, and take what he wants. For myself, I have plenty of pictures of Joann and I have her memory book. One of these days, I’ll even go through it and remember. Meanwhile, Joann’s presence around me is as strong as ever and I am grateful for that.

Journal: 04/23/06

Tomorrow is my day off and I seem to be hung up on the idea that I’m going to accomplish miracles of "housecleaning." I probably need to spend the day resting, blogging and zoning out on television. A ten-day run at the job is wearing enough, but having only one day off a week really doesn’t make for a descent weekend. Those tempting thoughts aside though, I do really need to get some things done. One of those chores is to get in touch with Paul Mortuary and let them know I’m still working on the money. Rose thought she might be able to loan me $200.00 and Bill could contribute the same. That would solve the problem with getting Joann home.

Clean clothes are also an issue, as is going through the apartment and finishing my "housecleaning." If I don’t get hung up on emotions, that would truly be a miracle.

Bill’s Car: Milestone or Millstone?

After almost a year in the shop, roommate Bill Walker may finally get his car back. The elderly vehicle, one of the very first Chrysler’s to sport a fully digital dashboard, blew it’s main computer controller. Once that happened, nothing in the car worked, so he took it next door to Ron’s custom auto service to see what could be done. Problem was that it was an old car and new modules were more than scarce. During the year Bill’s car sat on the repair lot, Bill cycled through Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP) twice and once through Monterey Pines, a long term recovery facility, for a total of two months. Meanwhile, Ron was busy and Bill’s uncertain return put his car at the bottom of the list.

Eventually, Ron located three different modules from junkyards across the country, only one of which seemed to work. Chrysler doesn’t make that particular module anymore, so wrecked cars were the only alternative.

This week Bill went to talk to Ron and discover the status of his car. Long ago Bill stopped paying for tags for the car, listing it as "undrivable" with the DMV for a small fee. Also in the intervening year, Bill has become used to taking buses and walking the short distances he would have driven the car before. Now, Bill is settled in his new ways and is having a hard time trying to justify getting the car insured, tagged and smogged, and paying the price of gasoline. According to Bill, the car has now become a burden where it wasn’t before when it was sitting on Ron’s lot.

Bill’s sentiments illustrate how far we have come in the last year. Bill has grown healthier by paying attention to his medications and getting exercise outdoors, I have grown enough that Joann’s death didn’t put me at the bottom of a bottle for months or years, and, of course, Joann ended her battle with her disease. In the end, only Bill can wrestle with the "burden" or "opportunity" of his car, but I’ll bet he takes the healthy option.

Still Smoking

Sad to say, but I’m still smoking, albeit at my pre-Commit® lozenge level of one an hour. When I went back on cigarettes after nearly a year of not smoking, it was to help moderate my alcohol intake, and to a degree, it worked. I thought I could get back to the Commit® lozenges after Joann died, but instead I have continued. Money is the issue at the moment. I liked that using the lozenges worked well and I could devote the smoking time to other uses. At least I didn’t have to get up every hour and go outside to smoke, as I do now. It costs me about $7.50 a day to use the lozenges though as opposed to $2.50 a day for cigarettes when I find them on sale or $3.50 if I don’t. It’s a weak excuse, I know, but I’m really poor right now and taking the path of least financial resistance. I’m looking forward to switching back to Commit® though, once my life settles down again.

Journal: 04/22/06

Seventeen days after Joann died and as I look back, I seem to be managing well. Other than the eight days immediately afterward, I feel as though things have leveled out and I’m ticking along nicely. Or, maybe I’m still coasting, it’s hard to tell. I get up every day at noon and hope to be surprised that some guest hasn’t stolen my newspaper. When I get home at night, I spend time with Bill playing cards and having dinner. The card games aren’t a nightly occurrence; we usually play every other night. With my strange hours (1:00 PM to 10:00 PM), I usually get to bed at 2:00 PM or 3:00 PM after posting my blog. My beer consumption is under control and my body doesn’t hurt the way it did the first few days after Joann’s passing. My stress levels are generally lower, or so I think.

Procrastinating

Procrastination is a big thing with me at the moment. I haven’t done any "housecleaning" for several days. Once I disposed of most of the obvious of Joann’s things, I simply stopped. The current fiction is that I’m waiting for my day off Monday to make big inroads on the remaining stuff that is hidden away (Joann used to stash her things) or simply not in my daily direct path. It may be that I’ve grown comfortable with an "out-of-sight-out-of-mind" attitude I seem to have adopted. There are still a lot of things I see daily though, leftovers from Joann’s final days such as adult diaper packs and packages of sanitary cloths in the bathroom, but they no longer register anymore. I still haven’t been under the bathroom sink, a location where Joann stored many of her personal things, and then there is the closet and its lurking stash of clothing.

I think I went as far as I could, emotionally, and simply stopped looking for Joann’s remainders. I know where several stashes are; I just don’t want to go there. I’m waiting until Monday when I have a day off, or so I keep telling myself. Only my Monday blog will tell.

Gearing Up for a Day Off

Laundry. I have to do the damn laundry. I haven’t washed any clothes since well before Joann died and I’m finally down to my last pair of undies (my usual marker for laundry necessity). This is one of three major tasks driving my goals for Monday, my longtime-in-coming day off. The other two have to do with more and deeper "housecleaning" and finding out where everything is that Joann and I moved into the apartment with on February 6.

Monday looms as a big day. It is the first day I’ve had off in awhile and represents a run of ten days straight working the front desk at the motel. Mostly, the long run was to appease the owners and show them that after more than a month off taking care of Joann and the aftermath of her death, I can get back into the swing of things work-wise. I have achieved that goal and now am safely holding on to my apartment and Bill’s room for the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, ten working days is a long haul and I could use the downtime, as well as getting to those household chores I’ve been procrastinating about. I’ll enjoy having dinner at a reasonable time too, instead of the 11:00 PM-Midnight timeframe, when I eat while working. I believe roasted turkey legs are on the menu.