Her name was Clara.  She starred in one of the great commercials of the last century.  It was a Wendy’s commercial.  Clara was 81 at the time.  She had a strong, harsh, manly voice.  She stood at the fast food counter a few steps back from it and in as loud a voice as she could muster (which was very loud) she asked, “Where’s the Beef?”  Wendy’s was, of course, making the point that they had more beef in their burgers than those other fast food places.

Where’s the Beep?? That is my question.  I would give almost anything to hear that beep again.  In the last weeks, maybe even months, Mary Ann could no longer manage to get the button pushed.  How I wish she would beep for me to come and help again.  I would give almost anything but not having her back to endure what she endured toward the end.

Not long before she died, I complained of all the beeps in our house.  Her pill timers at one point both went off one every two hours and one every four hours.  I used to see if I could push them at the exact same moment when setting them to see if I could get them to go off at the same time when the four hour and two hour times coincided.  I could sometimes do it.  I was so proud.

Then, of course, there is the microwave that beeps when it is done; the stove timer than beeps when the food is done; the oven beeps when it has finished preheating; the washer beeps when it is done; the dryer beeps four times, then later cycles a couple of times and beeps four times again.

Then there was the button.  There were actually four buttons placed in different locations, the living room by her chair, the bedroom by her bed, each of the two bathrooms within reach of the toilet stool.  There was one receiver that made two different electronic doorbell sounds depending on which button was pushed.  She was to push the button if she needed me.  It was a way for me to be out of sight doing something else while she was doing whatever.  The buttons provided me a bit of freedom.  When I heard the doorbell sound, I could come and help her so that she wouldn’t fall.

When the kids were all here, we were doing load after load of clothes.  The washer and dryer were going constantly.  After I commented on how tired I was of all the beeping, Micah turned off the beepers on the washer and dryer.  At one point after everything was over, I said that I never wanted to hear a beeping sound again.  I have now turned the washer and dryer beepers back on, and I wish, how I wish the doorbell sound would bring me back to her side.  Today, Micah took the buttons and the doorbells, along with the lift, the commode, the transfer chair, a shower chair, the support handles that were around the toilet stools, the ramp, the hair washing basin, and the ramps so that they can end up helping others (Craig’s List, Freecycle).

Every once in a while when I looked at the end coming from a distance, I wondered if I might get over her loss too quickly.  What was I thinking????  My usual pattern has been to live in the present.  I have never wanted to go back, once I have taken a step forward.  Not now.  I can see that this seems likely to take a very long time.  I remember often hearing people say that they had trouble when they would come upon something belonging to the Spouse who had died.  I empathized with them, agreed with them than it was a hard thing, assured them that it was very normal.  While I meant what I said, I didn’t appreciate just how powerful those little reminders would be for me.  Today I was getting rid of some old T-shirts to make room for some new ones.  The first two I grabbed were ones that we had split down the back when we could no longer move her around to put a shirt on over her head.  It is painful right now just telling you about it.

There is a bit of a pattern that I have observed in how the last few days have been going.  The first third of the day is more okay than not okay.  I usually am fairly busy doing things.  The middle third of the day has okay and not okay woven together in equal parts.  The last third of the day is more not okay than okay.  The pain is there most of the time, sometimes almost overwhelming.  These are not clean segments.  Any time of the day I can be okay, then not okay, then okay, then not okay again.  Right now “not okay” holds the strongest position.  I long for the day when “okay” will assume the place of prominence.  As I said last night, at the moment that day is nowhere in sight.

This morning I got up very early and left the house by 6:30am to walk at Cedarcrest. When I got home I showered and headed off for the Farmers’ Market.  What a busy place.  It must be two or three times the size it was the last time we went a couple of years ago.  There are food vendors, craft vendors as well as the vendors selling fresh produce.  I bought beets (with the greens), a freshly baked scone, a bottle of BBQ Sauce (Uncle Sunny’s), a breakfast burrito, five pounds of local honey, and a small vase of flowers (now that the funeral flowers are gone). The bright flowers lifted my spirit a bit.

I took all those things home and then went back out to Penney’s to pick up some shorts, T-shirts and short-sleeved dress shirts.  The shorts are Lisa’s suggestion.  She made the point that it was no wonder I was hot since I always wore jeans, hiking boots, a T-shirt and a casual shirt over it.  See, I can listen.  (You should see those shorts with the hiking boots — not really, I switched to tennis shoes.)

The dress shirts seem to me to signal one of the changes in my pattern of life.  I got them so that I could dress more appropriately for morning worship services.  When I was caring for Mary Ann, I didn’t care much what I looked like.  The Evening Service is “come as you are.”   I had a single center of my activity and purpose in life – taking care of Mary Ann.  Now I am being forced to look again at who I am and what I am about.  One thing is for certain, I need to be with people.  The morning worship services allow more interaction time with people who after so many years have become like family.

I made a another trip to the grocery store for something I missed yesterday.  I noticed that I am also now needing to engage people in conversation.  I noticed an accent in the speech of one of a couple of folks I ran into three or four times in the store.  She was from Germany.  I could practice the one sentence in German that I know.  It is the one that says that my Mother was born in Germany.  When I engage people in conversation, strangers or otherwise, I feel better.  They may be annoyed, but I feel better.

I worked some more on Thank You notes, then Micah came over to pick up the items from the garage.  We talked about a variety of things, but some of our conversation was processing candidly what we are experiencing and how we are trying to deal with it.  It was very helpful to me.

This evening Don and Edie had invited me for dinner.  As always, it was a great dinner with lots of good conversation.  All the activities today helped provide some normality.  The undercurrent and plenty often bubbling to the surface of the pain remained, but it helped to be pulled away from it so much of the day.  It still hurts as much as ever.  A good day doesn’t fix what I am going through.  It is not fixable.  A good day is still better than a bad one!

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