Has it been so long???
I realized as I was out enjoying a foggy, quiet September morning here at the "manor" that I hadn't even looked at some of my favorite spots on-line in awhile...but July 2004?
Wow.
I have let all the aggravations and tragedies of the past year clutter my routine with the things that keep me from those people and things and places that bring me joy, as well as some semblance of peace and harmony. No wonder, then, that I feel a bit frayed most days, and not quite grounded as I know I have been in the past. The months since that last post have brought a constant flow of loss for Andrew and for me. After Charlie Gorby passed on, my sweet grandmother began drifting farther away every time we visited her. (She was in a nursing home after suffering a stroke in May 2003) In October last year she left us, and much as I was prepared for it I have not lost the season of mourning for her. She raised my sister and I until we were in our early teens.
Within three weeks my former father-in-law was gone as well. He and I had remained close over the years after my divorce, and would sit in a room lost in an Alzheimer's fog until I walked in the room, and would sit up and start talking as if nothing were wrong.
And then our all-time favorite family pet died. He was 13 and suffering terribly, and coming so close to my granny's death made it even harder to handle.
And now my ex-wife, Andrew's mother, is gone. She had battled first breast cancer and then the spread of it throughout her entire body for two years. Her mother and our two children were with her the weekend of July 4, her birthday. She was sitting with them, laughing and enjoying their presence. She went to bed and never awoke, passing away on her 49th birthday. We were separated and divorced eleven years, but had found some grounds on which to be friends and get along quite well because of Andrew. It has been very hard on our daughter, Isabella. Andrew has been a rock through it all, and all my sorrow and sadness has been for him as we work through it together. He and I now share a common thing in our life, losing a parent at 18 just as life should become an adventure.
That is two months past. Andrew has chosen to wait a year for college, to work and explore and live a little to get over the loss. Bella will marry in October, and I get to walk her down the aisle to give her away. This I count a wonderful thing, and no loss, for my future son-in-law is a great young man, hard-working and will be the stable force she needs in life. I am embarking on a new course with my work, and trying to write again, something I purposely but foolishly have laid aside for two years while all this turmoil surrounded us. In all the sadness and loss I have described good things have sprung up, new growth and new friends to temper all that I have lost. For the loss is only of the physical presence of those people and things, and the memories I hold within are a huge photo album I draw from daily for many things. And I am preparing to work on a family history, thanks to my grandmother and her amazing 87-year-old memory before she left us. I intend to explore my native American heritage, and that of the 17th and 18th-century French nobility we discovered hanging in our 'tree'.
And I have missed so many people while I wallowed in my self-made mire these many months. Hello to my friends here who may still see this, I will make every attempt to be "in" here daily again, and trying to see where life has led you the past year. I have missed you, our communications, your stories and your lives.
Wow.
I have let all the aggravations and tragedies of the past year clutter my routine with the things that keep me from those people and things and places that bring me joy, as well as some semblance of peace and harmony. No wonder, then, that I feel a bit frayed most days, and not quite grounded as I know I have been in the past. The months since that last post have brought a constant flow of loss for Andrew and for me. After Charlie Gorby passed on, my sweet grandmother began drifting farther away every time we visited her. (She was in a nursing home after suffering a stroke in May 2003) In October last year she left us, and much as I was prepared for it I have not lost the season of mourning for her. She raised my sister and I until we were in our early teens.
Within three weeks my former father-in-law was gone as well. He and I had remained close over the years after my divorce, and would sit in a room lost in an Alzheimer's fog until I walked in the room, and would sit up and start talking as if nothing were wrong.
And then our all-time favorite family pet died. He was 13 and suffering terribly, and coming so close to my granny's death made it even harder to handle.
And now my ex-wife, Andrew's mother, is gone. She had battled first breast cancer and then the spread of it throughout her entire body for two years. Her mother and our two children were with her the weekend of July 4, her birthday. She was sitting with them, laughing and enjoying their presence. She went to bed and never awoke, passing away on her 49th birthday. We were separated and divorced eleven years, but had found some grounds on which to be friends and get along quite well because of Andrew. It has been very hard on our daughter, Isabella. Andrew has been a rock through it all, and all my sorrow and sadness has been for him as we work through it together. He and I now share a common thing in our life, losing a parent at 18 just as life should become an adventure.
That is two months past. Andrew has chosen to wait a year for college, to work and explore and live a little to get over the loss. Bella will marry in October, and I get to walk her down the aisle to give her away. This I count a wonderful thing, and no loss, for my future son-in-law is a great young man, hard-working and will be the stable force she needs in life. I am embarking on a new course with my work, and trying to write again, something I purposely but foolishly have laid aside for two years while all this turmoil surrounded us. In all the sadness and loss I have described good things have sprung up, new growth and new friends to temper all that I have lost. For the loss is only of the physical presence of those people and things, and the memories I hold within are a huge photo album I draw from daily for many things. And I am preparing to work on a family history, thanks to my grandmother and her amazing 87-year-old memory before she left us. I intend to explore my native American heritage, and that of the 17th and 18th-century French nobility we discovered hanging in our 'tree'.
And I have missed so many people while I wallowed in my self-made mire these many months. Hello to my friends here who may still see this, I will make every attempt to be "in" here daily again, and trying to see where life has led you the past year. I have missed you, our communications, your stories and your lives.