Love After Life

I had a very good day today.  Mike called me around 2 a.m. and we had a good talk and I told him to call me anytime, night or day.  Slept late after that, got up about 6:30, felt good, felt great all day.  Irene was here and we were in a "normalized" mode most of the day.  Able to say more direct things without getting choked up.  Sent a card to Helen (Irene's stepmother) and took one to Texas Oncology along with some snacks (they have free snacks for everyone getting chemo treatment, so I bought a few boxes of individually wrapped snacks), got pretty choked up about all that, but it wasn’t grief.  It was emotional but more empathetic sadness than my own because I knew how much the all loved Irene there.  Picked up 400 lbs of dirt for the pyramid that Ivori has been working on. She’s dedicating herself to doing the whole yard.  Something that occurred to me is that if I believe that Irene is in the next world actively working to help, surely I ...

At some point over the past few days I must have decided to get Ivori to do some gardening.  She’s really been excited about remaking Irene’s pyramid-shaped flower garden in the front yard.  I started outlining a new spot and today farther out in front and she went to buy some flower and gardening stuff for it before she came out.  Irene loves gardening and just didn't have the energy or strength to do it the past few years.  I have this idea forming as to what I want to do in the yard and in the house, kind of move it towards our vision of what we wanted it to be.  It occurs to me to try and get a new roof put on the house - something Irene always wanted to see happen.  It's a miracle we haven't had a problem with the current roof.  It's pretty bad. Ivori was really excited when she found all the gardening stuff on sale and on clearance and texted me pictures. I told her that was another special thing about Irene – every time I went to the store to...

I've felt so  miserable the past few days.  I'm so sick of being in pain.  It's like having a bad stomach virus where every few minutes you throw up uncontrollably, even after everything you have in you is long gone - only, you're not throwing up, you're sobbing so loud and pitifully the main thing you're grateful for is that nobody is around to hear this disgusting racket. I am so sick of myself.  I feel like I can't breathe - I've had to sleep practically sitting up even after taking an antihistamine.  I'm in a complete panic.  I don't even remember if anyone came over or called the past few days.  I sit and do work at the computer with tears rolling down my face whimpering like a beat dog.  Decided this morning not to put up with this sense of loss, pain, self-pity.  Fat lot of good it did me.  This grief doesn't care about anything I do or think.  It’s irrational and in charge – I know Irene is fine, that she’s with me, tha...

(5' tall picture board I designed and had printed on plastic for the occasion) Today is the day we have Irene's public Celebration of Life at the elementary school cafeteria (which the school rents out for private and public events). When I woke up I had dreamed of Irene and I had a song going through my head. While showering I realized it was the song I had forgotten on the way home from Freya's that was now one of our new songs – Reminiscing, by Little River Band.  Got it downloaded, played it a little but it was too emotional so I changed it to a metal rock song while I did some things around the house.  I have my media player set to random play and I have around 200 songs, and (now) 5 of those songs are our “Our” songs.  So the next song after the rock song was one of our songs; and then it played another.  I laughed at the end and said “Okay Irene, play “You’re Still The One” (by Shania Twain) and I’ll know it’s you.”  Boom, next song was “You’re...

I woke up about 2:30 in the morning.  Wasn’t in pain, actually felt okay emotionally.  About 10 minutes after I woke up Ivori texted me saying they had been up all night trying to fix plumbing – something I remember Irene and I doing a few times at our previous house.  I decided I’d better put some food in my stomach and take a couple more pills before I went back to sleep, so I heated up  a tortilla, sat down and turned on the TV.  Right at that point the Cowboys were next in line to make their first draft pick.  I couldn't believe it and laughed out loud thanking Irene. The pain meds  for my tooth seem to be dulling my emotional pain as well. I can feel it back in the background like a giant rabid bear ready to tear me apart, but it stays in the background as I function the rest of the day.  I pick up one of our other daughters, Freya, to bring her out  to the house for a visit. After I took her home, there was a song on the radio ...

I woke up 2AM with my tooth killing me.  It finally subsided and I went back to sleep but didn't rest well. I felt a little sad this morning for about a minute, but I think that has more to do with lack of sleep than anything else.  I couldn’t get a dentist appointment until Tuesday. They sent a prescription in for antibiotics, but I still had pain meds they had prescribed me before. Later in the evening both my tooth and my emotions erupted in major pain – tried every over-the-counter pain killer and combination including oral jel and the prescription pills and I couldn’t get it to stop.  I'm starting to feel grief - real emotional pain. It's not just pain, it's flat out panic and despair.  I've become someone else than I have been for the past couple of weeks.  I'm sobbing uncontrollably, kneeling beside my bed and praying desperately between convulsions of physical and emotional pain.  I wished that Irene had written me more a card or note or l...

Jessie, Robert's daughter (our granddaughter) came by to look through Irene’s things and she was looking for a particular little bottle that Irene used to tell her, when she was little, that a genie would come out of if she opened it. She looked through the bottles but couldn’t find it. Finally she just said that she really wanted that little bottle and was then led right to it in the nick-knacks where she didn’t think it was.  She also found the Batgirl mask that had been missing - we had looked all through that stuff when we were searching for it! I playfully talked to Irene about her hide-and-seek game with the mask, validating her.  I realize I may mistake a coincidence for a deliberate event, but she knows I'm doing the best I can.  I'd rather validate mistakenly than not say anything at all, if for nothing else to let her know I appreciate all she's doing. Today I have felt so good about things.  I’m much, much more comfortable with our (Irene and my) ...

At just past midnight this morning I woke up had another long mental/envisioned interaction with Irene.  Those interactions are so pleasant.  Later I started feeling sadness, like Irene wasn’t here.  I still didn’t feel grief, just sadness that she wasn’t here physically.  I miss her. Then around 6:15 I suddenly felt completely comforted by her presence again - like she had to have her attention elsewhere and now it was back. I was totally fine from then on. On Wheel of Fortune there was the old gray-haired guy named Karl with a K, like her dad.  I wondered if Karl was with her and around here. The rest of the evening I just felt that same protective barrier keeping my emotions normalized, which I know must be Irene, because I know what’s down there trying to lure me into it. I have something of a self-destructive streak I grapple with - I tend to think about things that cause me pain.  Irene would say she could see my gears turning and a mechanical ...

Today I went into Waco to pick up Irene’s death certificates that had finally been authorized, and place her obit placed in the a local paper.  I also stopped by and ordered  a new storm door for the front and after going home, walking the dogs and eating, went to Temple to get the obit placed there in the Daily Telegram. Irene was with me all day – literally all day long. I felt her presence all day and she touched me with that amazing contact experience several times. I’m starting to comprehend that sensation – in one respect it’s overwhelming happiness, but another part is like trying to explain an orgasm.  It’s just indescribable.  I envisioned her flirting with me and playing with me and it seemed she put all sorts of fun and cool images in my mind. I heard her voice several times in my mind telling me she loves me and making funny and sarcastic comments.  Sometimes she just sat next to me.  It’s really hard to express some of this ...

I had another short dream of Irene, she was in her blue overall shorts with a t-shirt and we were at the small house we lived in for many years and she was fixing something on the wall above the couch. She said something, I don’t remember what.  I didn’t even try to interact with her in the dream, just walked by into the bedroom. A couple of hours later I lay back down to sleep and I had another prolonged envisioned interaction with Irene, before I went to sleep, that was very vivid. In my mind I could see her and feel her for prolonged periods of time, much better than before.  Towards the end when I fell asleep I was remembering things about us that I had forgotten.  The pictures help with this, but I remember she would curl up in my arms while we were sitting on the floor or on a couch and I remember her wearing a white short-overall with a pink shirt and also a pink and brown top. I specifically remember being with her while she was in that outfit. This mo...

Ivori came out and Emanuel (her son, our grandson) was putting a new swing bench together in the front living room (the old one broke).  He needed an allen wrench. Usually, the boxes come with the tools necessary to put the thing together, especially if it’s an allen wrench.  I looked around for allen wrenches, literally pulling stuff out of my tool boxes and fishing around in them for about 5 minutes and didn’t find one. I called Robert and asked him and he said he’d round his up and bring them over.  Meanwhile, Ivori was standing at the cabinets in the hallway looking for an allen wrench and said out loud, “Irene, I know you have allen wrenches, show me where they are!” and she immediately turned and walked into the mud room looked down at the tool box I had just searched, and right there in plain sight, the first thing her eyes landed on was a whole brand new set of allen wrenches. I know I did not have those allen wrenches before. We were all amazed.  One o...

Either I am still in shock or Irene is still protecting my heart because I felt fine when I went to sleep last night.  I haven't had any trouble at all going to sleep.  I do leave the TVs on to channels I think Irene might enjoy watching - kind of a silly notion, but it makes me feel more connected to her.  I always talk to her as I fall asleep (well, I talk to her all day long), but so far no real pain or sorrow, just a kind of dreamy sense of love and connection.   Just before I woke up I had a few seconds of dream of Irene that I remember, she was in her shorts-overalls outfit from the big picture I made for the Celebration of Life and she looked like she did in that picture. She was coming in through a doorway saying “It got warm in here” – clear as a bell I heard her voice.  I was so excited I woke up. It jogged my memory that a few weeks before she passed I had a very sweet dream of us when we were younger that I told her about when I woke up.   ...

The past couple of days many events have happened in our lives that make us think that Irene is around influencing things for our good.  What I want to write about though is some of my experience so I can look at it at a later date. About a year before Irene passed she went through a very serious medical problem with her breathing and at that time the doctors told us she wasn't going to make it.  During that entire time I was fighting back a tidal wave of panic and grief and whenever I was alone I would completely lose it and crumple up and sob and cry out and beg God to not let her die.  I also remember back about two and a half years when we first met the oncologist and the first thing she said was that we should consider hospice at that time.  She took Irene out for an X-ray and I was in the office by myself and a wave of panic and great sorrow rushed through me.  The rest of the day I was fighting back tears at the thought of losing her. I write that...

I found a new “our song”.  It came on the radio as I was coming back from dropping Freya (another daughter - we have 7 children in all, including Jamie ) off yesterday – “My Best Friend”, by Queen.  Somehow it makes me very, very happy to play that loud and dance through the house talking with my soul mate like some crazy old man dancing and talking to himself.  You'd think it would break my heart, but I still feel I am being protected from any serious pain or grief at this time, and only continue to feel my great love for Irene and my happiness that she is no longer in pain and is still with me and will always be with me. I find myself torn about getting rid her immense collections of stuff, but we just can’t keep passing a ton of stuff around.  Someone’s gotta let this stuff go, and I feel like it has to be me to do it.  Of course we will keep all the good and meaningful stuff, but nobody needs to hold on to 1000 seahorse, cardinal, buffalo and whatnot tri...

Today I paused the TV to get up and get something out of the kitchen and the TV changes by itself to another channel. I was going to watch a recorded show anyway so I sat down and started a recorded show and watched it a bit, paused the recording and got busy doing other things. A couple of hours later I finished watching my show, then switched to live TV and realized it was on ID network – a network I haven’t watched in a week. Apparently Irene changed the channel to ID network right in front of me, I just didn’t realize it at the time. That was one of her favorite networks. When things like this happen I always acknowledge it. I talk to Irene virtually all day long every day, unless there are other people around. I've even started acknowledging and talking to other people who have passed who I think will probably be around - my mom, dad and brother; Irene's son Jamie; her biological dad Karl and mom Lynette; and her step-father Donnie. I also acknowledge the presence...

Our other son Mike and Gerra stayed at the house the rest of the week and Robert and another daughter,  Ivori, were over about every day. I spent the past few days getting some of Irene's affairs in order, such as applying for a death certificate and notifying doctors and services.  I also had the kids take things of hers they wanted. Today everyone had left and I was doing some work and cleaning up.  Gerra had gone through the desk by the bed and I wanted to find Irene's pocket calendars (which she kept years of, with daily notes throughout), so I could find some information about when our dogs might need flea and tick meds because summer was coming up. It's astounding how much information a married couple relies upon each other to have. Irene kept track of all sorts of things even while battling her illness.     Looking through her stuff was very emotional. How much every little thing means to you when a loved one passes!  I found an old notepad mark...

She had been laying the groundwork for weeks, consciously or subconsciously, by telling everyone that she was getting tired of the fight and the suffering, and we all knew that she was fighting so hard to stay for our sake because she knew how much we all loved her and how much her passing would hurt.  Irene went into the hospital on a day when some of the kids had decided to come up and cook some burgers. I rode in to the hospital with her in the Ambulance, my heart in my throat the whole time. After a scary day in the hospital with her wearing a cpap mask to force oxygen in her, she had gotten much better and had a great time with all the family that was gathered there wearing only her normal oxygen canula. While she was wearing the cpap and having trouble breathing, another daughter, Ivori, and her son Emanuel came to visit. Irene was in and out of consciousness at the time. Crying, Emanuel took her hand and she squeezed it, opened her eyes and as clear as day through the ...