THE DIFFERENCE IN TEN YEARS

I was sitting in my favorite spot in my living room this morning listening to an album that was released fifty years ago.  Steely Dan's "Can't Buy A Thrill" stared at me as the music wafted through my ears and into my head landing in the memory bank of my mind.  I first saw and heard Steely Dan perform "Do It Again" on "The Midnight Special" one Saturday night.  Donald Fagen had a distinct voice that caught my attention immediately.  It was a good song with good lyrics.  Back in the 1973 pop music was, in my mind, in the middle of the greatest decade of rock music in my lifetime.  The years 1965 to 1975 plus maybe a couple of years added to each side of that timeline took rock, country and jazz music through  a magnificent metamorphosis.  I can look back to the Top 40 of any week during that decade and my mind just whispers to me, "wow....".  As I scanned my memories from 50 years ago I started thinking what I was like 50 years ago.  Looking back 50 years ago even I wouldn't recognize myself.  I was a kid of 16 then with my whole future ahead of me.  I had yet to buy my 1967 Impala.  It was a time of transition for me from Debbie to Barbara with my last few months of freedom on that front being realized.  I had my career picked out but that was about the only thing of consequence I had accomplished.

My mind shifted to the changes my life had gone through in just the last ten years.  I thought about how I am now compared to just ten years ago.  "Just ten years ago".  During the ten years that followed 1973 I had graduated High School, married Barbara and adopted Brett.  I was in a job with a company that would see me through to my retirement.  In 1983, it still felt like I had my whole future ahead of me with a lifetime to go.  Time passes quickly though.  As I look back I can see that now and realize that life is ever changing and it doesn't stop until you take that last breath.  I am much closer to that last breath now than I was in 1973, 1983 or even 2013.

As I look back at myself in 2013 compared to today the changes are dramatic.  Brett had graduated high school 13 years before and had left Barbara and me with an empty nest.  Dutch never got over Brett not being there and go crazy wild every time Brett came walking through the door.  Dutch was only 5 years old at the time and still had his tank of energy at full.  In 2013 I would take Dutch for a weekly walk as I had Rudy before him.  I did not walk Dutch as far and as long on those walks as I had Rudy though.  Rudy had developed problems with his joints at an early age.  I did not want that to happen to Dutch.

Barbara's health was just beginning to slide on that downhill slope.  Her back was just beginning to bend forward as the fusion of her spine began.  She was able to still ride with me to Alabama to visit family but in 2013 we only ventured that direction once a year.  Mom and dad were still living in Kansas City but slowly their health was beginning to decline as well.  In three years they would relocate to Alabama to live closer to my sister.  When they moved was when my hands were full trying to take care of Barbara whose health was on a rapid decline, and dad's health was starting to fail as well.  As a family we decided that Elaine could take better care of mom and dad than I could while I was trying to take care of Barbara.  I think Barbara's last trip to Alabama was in 2014.  She made one more trip, that being to Texas for her nephew Travis' wedding.  As far as I know she never left Kansas City after that.  It was too hard on her back to even make a trip across the state to St. Louis.

We were on the last of the Saturns we would buy, Barbara driving a 2007 while I drove my precious 2006 Ion.  I think I loved that car more than any other car I had owned except maybe the 1979 Malibu that I had purchased brand new.

Barbara had returned to work and was happy with her job.  It would be the last job she held working for R. L. Stein Construction as an office manager.  In three short years, the spring f 2016, Barbara would stop working because of her health issues and begin the process of applying for Social Security Disability.  I was still working at Dit-MCO putting in my 34th year with the company.  I like to think I had attained the status of old-timer among the younger workers that brought a little respect for just staying around so long.

My health was not on the bight side in 2013 though it was much better than Barbara's.  I had two big wake up calls in 2012 and 2013.  In 2012 I had suffered my first heart attack.  It was the first sign to me that maybe I was starting to get old.  In 2013 I had my first colonoscopy where they found and removed several per-cancerous polyps.  This put me on the three year colonoscopy plan which I was thrilled about.  Since that first colonoscopy they have removed per-cancerous  with every procedure.  As you can guess, I am still on three year plan.

Ten years ago I was still fairly active though.  I broke my foot playing basketball with Brett that year and we never finished the game.  I claim the victory though since I was up on him as the time of the fracture.

The house had undergone a slight transformation.  After having carpal tunnel surgery on both my wrists, it was near impossible for me to paint the house.  Putting vinyl siding on the house became our first major improvement on the house other than a couple of new roofs over the years.  It improved the look of the house dramatically.  Barbara and I did not spend a lot of money ten years ago as we saw ourselves nearing our 6th decade of life and started trying to save a little bit for retirement.  Barbara was more concerned about our readiness for retirement than I was or so it seemed to me.  I didn't require a lot of money to keep me happy and I thought I would do very well keeping the standard of living we had then on into retirement. After mom and dad moved south, my trips to Alabama became more frequent and I depended upon Brett and our neighbors to keep an eye on Barbara due to her health.  I did not like leaving her alone with only Dutch to keep an eye on her.

I think it was around 2013 when my natural cynicism rose to a new level concerning events and life in general.  When President Obama was elected in 2008 I held out hope that he would be a good man for the job.  I even made an entry in this blog about my hope for the new administration.  By 2013, that hope had been obliterated.  My cynical side became stronger and I went int a phase of life of not trusting or believing anyone outside my own little family.  In 2013 I saw the world as a huge mess with respect being thrown out the window.  The youngsters of 2013 (under twenties) did not seem to take seriously anything.  They did not have respect for the country or the system that made this country as great as it is.  Ten years later I look back at those kids in 2013 and realize that they were not too different than I was in 1973.  Strange how that works.

Now I look at myself in 2023 compared to that person I just described.  I am calmer now than I was ten years ago.  I don't let my anger out hardly at all.  I tend to let things slide a little bit more.  I feel like I have come to accept the way the world is.  I do not understand a lot of things that go on in the world these days but things do not seem to bother me as drastically as they use to.

I am retired now after receiving a kind reminder from God that I am mortal by way of a second heart attack.  That heart attack the day before Barbara's birthday put me in the same hospital, in the same ICU just down the hall from where Barbara had died.  Those few days gave me plenty of time to think.  I thought about where I was and where my life was going.  I confirmed my thinking that life is indeed far to short.  I came to the conclusion that perhaps I had not lived my life to it's fullest.  Perhaps a little Charles Dickens crept into my thinking that I still had time, just as old Ebeneezer Scrooge had time to change a little.

I find myself in this phase of my life as entering the end game.  I am heading towards 70 now, an age I never could foresee happening.  I began my life with Barbara in the form of a first date 50 years go.  It was not always easy during those years.  There were plenty of rough times mainly because of myself.  We made it though.  During those last years with Barbara we grew closer to each other on a daily basis.

Now the nest is not only empty, my whole life feels empty at times.  The house especially feels so quiet and empty.  Dutch died last November, Brett of course is out making his way through life and Barbara has been taken to her heavenly home.

I find myself trying to learn how to live on my own by myself.  I have had to overcome my anxiety about making phone calls and still have a ways to go on that.  I have to learn how to keep up the house and keep it in order.  I have to learn to keep doctor and dentist appointments.  I have to learn to keep a healthy diet.  I have learned to keep myself busy and out of the house a day or two each week.  I have found a place to volunteer my time to helping others.

I have to learn to deal with the silence and the emptiness that I feel not only in the house, but in my heart. 

I guess the biggest change from 2013 to 2023 is that in 2013 I felt a purpose.  I was working.  I was taking care of loved ones.  I was being productive. In 2023 I am still productive.  I am still active.  I do feel that in 2023 I am being myself more than I ever had in the past.  I use to spend what seemed like every hour of everyday I was trying to do the right thing, to please somebody to do what was expected of me instead of what I wanted.  I feel like the vast majority of my life was not about me but what others expected of me.  There hasn't been a lot of "Bill" in my life.  I am trying to change that.  Still though there are times that when I do take a step in that direction, I suffer consequences from people who still have those expectations and there is nothing I can do or say to change those attitudes. Even now as I contemplate whether to publish this put it out for the world to read, I have a hesitancy because of some of those factors from long ago. 

But in 2023 I also realize I am aging and as time ticks away ever so quickly I age even faster.  There are times when I feel so alone in a house that in the past I had craved to be alone in once in awhile. 

I feel like I am existing from day to day to day knowing that one day that last breath with finally come.

This writing did not take the course I was thinking it would.  I strayed a little I think.  I do think I painted a picture, albeit a sloppy picture, of how I have changed from who I was in 2013 to who I am today.  I am a work in progress still.  

I keep moving forward.

BARBARA ANN CLARK - THE FUNERAL

 Today marks four years since Barbara's funeral.  I have written three previous pieces about Barbara and her life but have neglected to write about her funeral service.  I think it deserves at least a small writing.

In 1981 a gentleman arrived at our house and knocked on the door.  He was from Floral Hills Funeral Home and Cemetery.  He was calling on us to talk about pre-funeral planning.  I figure the reason why we invited him in to talk to us was that we had experience with the funeral home.  Barbara's mother was buried there and my Uncle Melvin was buried there as well.  He explained that the cemetery was opening up a new section of the cemetery with a new way of parsing out the plots.  It sounded strange at the time.  Instead of Barb and me buying two plots, this new system would allow us to purchase just one.  This is the strange sounding part.  The two of us would be buried together in the single plot, one of us over the other.  The result of this new area was that while it would cost more than a single traditional plot it would be far less expensive than buying two separate plots for the two of us.  After talking with him the both of us thought it made sense and so we let him talk further into the idea of pre-funeral planning.  He talked about everything that we could set up in 1981 so that when the time came when one of us passed away everything would be paid for and available.  He left us some brochures as we asked him to let us talk it over and set an appointment for him to return to talk to us in a few days.

We did discuss planning for the future in this area of life.  We were, after all, planning for our future in almost every other area of life.  We were putting money into a 401K retirement account every paycheck.  We had purchased our house from Mr. and Mrs. Allard.  He was a teacher and coach of my sister and he coached me in football and baseball.  She had given me piano lessons for several years.  We had just finished paying the first actual new car that we had bought.  I had purchased life insurance on myself in addition to the life insurance the company offered to protect Barbara and our future child.  We also had started the process of adopting a child.  The things that this man was laying out for us seemed like the logical thing to do. We decided to follow through on the pre-funeral plan and spent the next few hours going through brochures with him.  We picked out our caskets.  We selected the marker that would be placed on our plot.  We selected and paid for the cards that would be given to those attending our funeral.  Everything was paid for except for the renting of the chapel and the opening of the grave when the time came.  Barbara thought that we may want a funeral in a church instead of at the funeral home so we left that off.  Otherwise, everything was taken care of.  Barbara was 26 and I was 25 when we bought everything that would be needed for a funeral.  In about 15 years it would all be paid for and not a worry for whatever the future held.

Now we move forward to July of 2018.  Barbara was facing a surgery that was extremely risky.  Neither of us knew what the outcome would be going into that surgery.  During the month or so before the surgery Barbara began getting things in place.  She only discussed with me what changes would need to be done to the house and our schedules when she came home from the hospital after the surgery.  We made changes in the bathroom.  She had already been forced to store her clothes on a lower plane than she use to be able to have.  The kitchen had also changed since she started getting worse.  Cabinets we not used much.  The kitchen table became her cabinets.  To me it was a disorganized mess, but to her it was what she needed and she pretty much knew where to find things.  

The night before the surgery right before I went to bed, she called me over to her chair. I sat in my chair next to her and she turned her computer towards me.

"I have something on the computer I want you know about," she said very seriously. 

 She pointed to an icon on the computer.  Underneath the icon was a single word. "If".

She tapped the computer screen with her fingernail.

"This file is for you just in case."  As she said this her eyes never left me.  She wanted to be sure I understood.

"In case of..??" I asked, with an idea of what the "in case" was.

"You'll know.  I don't want you to open it until it is time to, ok?"  She was still staring at me so seriously.  I knew exactly what she was referring to now.  "If" things did not go the way we were expecting them to. "If" she did not come home.  I promised her I would not be opening that file.  Her eyes got a little wet and she patted my hand as I gave her a kiss goodnight.

As we left the house on the morning of the 16th of July, neither of us were thinking, or at least talking about anything other than the outcome being that she would come home. As she went into surgery and we talked for the last time, kissed for the last time and expressed our love for each other the last time, the knowledge of the "If" file left my mind.  

As the week progressed and the reality of what the outcome of this week was going to be I remembered the "If" file.  I would come home to take care of Dutch and rest a little before heading back to the hospital.  During those few hours at the house I would open her computer and stare at that icon with "If" underneath it.  I did not open it though,  It wasn't time to open it yet. I would return to the hospital still holding out hope that I would not need to open it although as the week progressed it became painfully clear that I would be opening that file.

July 22, 2018.  In the morning the the nurses were checking Barbara constantly.  The ICU doctor came in more than usual checking on her.  I stepped out in the room for a second just to think and was approached by the hospital chaplain.  She talked to me a bit although I can't remember what was said.  She was basically holding out a hand to me if I needed it.  That was the day that Barbara's vitals all crashed at once and I left the room while they tried to stabilize her.  That was the moment I realized I would be opening the "If" file.

July 23, 2018. The doctor came into Barbara's room and put her hand on my shoulder.  We talked about the situation.  All that could be done had been done.  They began to take her off of life support as I gave her one last kiss.

My mind was racing as I walked out of the ICU for the last time.  I was blessed to have my sister Karen there with me, my cousin Ellen and other cousins.  Barbara was gone.  I sought out Ellen and asked her to call Floral Hills and have them start getting the paperwork for Barbara's funeral arrangements moving, which she did.  While I was phoning Barbara's sister and telling her what had happened, Ellen was getting things moving.  She came back and told me the funeral home had the files and were beginning to get things together.  It was arranged that I would go to the funeral home ... you know I can't remember if it was the next day or the day after that.  

Anyway, I got home in the afternoon of the day that Barbara passed.  My neighbors were sitting out on the front deck of the house next door waiting for news.  I talked to them and that little group remembered times with Barb with me. It was something I needed.

It was that evening when I was alone that I reluctantly turned on Barbara's computer.  I stared at the "If" icon for a few minutes before opening it.  I won't go into detail about what she had written but it was an amazing file.  She started by telling me to carry on.  She was ok now.  She told me she knew I would think I could not do it, but I had to, if anything for Brett.  She said that mine and Brett's suits were in a dry cleaning bag in the hall closet along with our white shirts.  She had Lori take them to be dry cleaned. 

She asked if I would ask Keith to do her funeral.  Keith was Keith Gibson.  He had been in Barbara's first children's choir and had grown up to be a minister.  We had started attending his church several years before and he had become the man we knew as our pastor.  She listed the music she wanted played.  One of the songs, not surprisingly, was a song I had never heard of.  Barb was much more up to date on music than I was.  When it came to music for me, it had might as well been 1974.  She also said she did not want a lot of flowers because I wouldn't know how to take care of them.  Instead, she wanted people to make donations to the Missouri Baptist Children's Home, where we had adopted Brett from.

She had everything planned out "If".  

Karen went with me and Brett to the funeral home to meet with the funeral director and make the final arrangements.  I did not have to pick out a casket.  I did not have to do much of anything.  All that hard stuff was already done and paid for.  The funeral director asked me about flowers and I told her about the children's home, but I would like a spray for the casket but I had my own florist that I was going to use.  I told her I would be using Kamp's for the spray.  She looked surprised and told me that was the the funeral homes florist.  She asked me why Kamp's and I told her about my grandfather and our family history with Mr. Kamp. So the spray for her casket came from Kamp's and that was good.

I was also instructed by the funeral director to bring some clothes for Barbara the next day.  I had no idea what to do when it came to that.  On the drive home I tried to think about outfits that Barbara liked, but how would I find them?  Would I be able to put an outfit together?  When I got home I walked back to Barb's room to start trying to put something together for her.  I walked into that room and there, laying on the bed, was an outfit laid out.  I cried at that point.  She had thought of absolutely everything.

The funeral was set for the next Saturday July 28, 2018.  Keith came over to talk to me and Brett about Barb.  He pretty well knew a lot about Barb but it was good to talk to him about her anyway.  He told me he was honored to speak at Barbara's service.  This was the first inkling of the impact that Barbara had made on people's lives.

So now the funeral, which is what this was supposed to be all about.  It was sad but good.  We had rented the big chapel at Floral Hills.  I knew Barbara had a lot of friends, classmates from high school , people she had attended church with, I just had a feeling a lot of people loved my wife and would be there.  That feeling proved out on that Saturday.

I am not a good people person.  That was Barb's job in our relationship.  she dealt with people while I just followed.  That Saturday though I had to stand there with my son and sister in law as people came to pay there respects to Barb and to offer their condolences to my little family.  It was not easy.  There were people who I knew their names but had never met.  There were people I had known through the years with Barb.  There were a lot of people.  The showing of love that people had for Barbara was ... I guess overwhelming.

They played the songs that Barb had wanted and Keith talked.  Keith talked about Barbara and how he had come to know her as an adult.  He talked of her smile and her laugh.  He talked of her impact on his family, on his children.  He talked about Barb's love for sweatshirts that had funny sayings on them that referred directly to herself.  He spoke of her impact on so many peoples lives.  He finished by telling the story of Barb's faith and how anyone could have the faith and assurance that Barb had.  He spoke the Salvation message, which I was very pleased with.  Barbara would have expected him to do no less than that.

The plot that Barb and I have is not far from the chapel at Floral Hills.  We had decided to forego using a hearse to take Barbara to the site.  Our nephews and a couple of cousins acted as pall bearers and walked next to Barbara's casket as we walked out of the chapel, across the drive and down to the grave site.  Me and Brett followed them and all of the people who had come to pay their respect for Barbara followed us.  It was special.  I think Barbara would have loved it.

At the gravesite, Keith read scripture and talked more about what death is, what it means, and what comes out through death with having faith in God and the resurrection that gives that assurance.  It was a wonderful service and I can not ever thank Keith enough for his words on that day.

After the funeral family and friends went over to my cousin Ellen's house for a dinner that would allow all of us to remember Barbara.  To laugh about things she had done, to remember her and to express how blessed we all were to have had her in our lives.

I was exhausted when I arrived home that evening.  I sat up all night thinking about our life together over those 42 years.  I thought of good times, bad times, fun times and rough times.  We had been through a lot.  For some reason she thought I was worth working hard to stay together.  I honestly do not understand that.  

In the days following the funeral, I began to adjust to my new life.  Barbara's wish for making donations to the Children's home was followed as I sent checks totaling over $500 to the organization that had given her our son.

Dit-MCO had given me as much time as I needed after Barb's death and I took that time to accept my sister Elaine's invitation to spend some quiet time in Alabama while I made mental adjustments.  Eventually I returned to Missouri and went back to work.  I began to work on starting a life without her.  For the first time in my entire life, I was living alone.

Thank you to all of you who attended and for all the prayers given during that time.  Thanks to a special set of people who gave me support during that time.  My sister Elaine and brother Bob.  My sister Karen.  Cousins Ellen, Susie, Pete, Eric, Jerry and a special friend Phil Vinyard who was there at hours early in the morning to check on me and Barbara and for being there early that last morning of Barb's life when I was feeling so helpless and alone.

Barbara showed tremendous strength and courage to prepare for whichever way the surgery went.  I will always admire her and be thankful to her for that. 

I am continuing to move forward in life without Barbara.  I still love her.  I miss her.  I always will.  But I know that Barbara would not want me to sit and fade away from life.  She said so in the "If" file.

THE SECRET OF 42 YEARS

Yesterday was a good day for thinking.  I got a good nights sleep and woke up somewhat refreshed.  The sun was shining and although the air was cool the sunshine made it warm on my inside.  A blue sky after a Saturday of gray clouds and drizzle seemed to clear the mind for a fresh start to a new day.

What has become a weekly ritual for me over the last year or more was enjoyable.  Meeting Lisa for breakfast at Crackerbarrel was enjoyable.  The order was brought to our table as ordered.  As we do every Sunday morning we talked about what happened over the previous week and what we were anticipating would happen in the coming week.

After finishing breakfast we headed over to the church for Sunday morning services.  The pastor at this little church is not a great orator but he is a good preacher and pastor.  His sermons do get to the point he is trying to convey but it is a process in getting there.  On this Sunday morning my breakfast, the fresh air outside and the slowness of the sermon had the effect of making me drowsy.  Lisa nudge me a couple of times to keep me alert and I managed to be awake when services were over.  We then parted our ways as each of us went to our homes to finish this beautiful day that we were blessed with.

Returning home I sat down to watch Mizzou take on South Carolina in baseball to be followed by watching the Mizzou softball team play LSU.  Both games were disastrous if you were pulling for Mizzou.  Total destruction in both games, but it was relaxing to sit there and enjoy what we were denied having last spring because of Covid-19.

It was a quiet day in the neighborhood.  The gorgeous day had brought the kids on the block outside to play and their laughter was as lovely as the day was.  I had the house opened up.  The front door was open and windows were letting the slight breeze make it's way around the house as the temperatures warmed up into the 70's.

It was the perfect combination for my thoughts to be allowed to wander from the disasters unfolding on the TV from each of the Columbia's in the SEC.  As often happens when my mind wanders, it took me back to that week in July of 2018 as I sat and watched the life slowly slip from my wife's body.

My mind went to the Saturday evening before Barbara would slip away.  The night shift of nurses were coming onto the floor and our nurse was a different one for the weekend than the one who had spent most evenings with us.  These nurses are special in the cardiac ICU.  It takes a special person to do this job.  She came in to talk to me after the day shift nurse had gone home.  The way I saw it was that she was trying to open a line of communication between me and her as Barbara's condition had been continuously declining.  We both knew that anything left to try to help Barbara were becoming scarce.

During this talk it came up that Barb and I had been married for 42 years.   She sincerely asked me what the secret was to being married that long of a time since it seems that few marriages last that long these days.  I remember thinking to myself that I don't know.  I hadn't given it much thought.  I sat quietly thinking about it while the nurse waited patiently for what I would say.

I finally told her it takes a lot of work.  It isn't easy for sure.  You have to let your love for each other get you through the tough times to get back to better times again.  Life in and of itself is a roller coaster ride and marriage is the same way.  There are ups and downs all along the way and it takes two to work through that roller coaster to get to the end of the ride.  That was the short version of the answer I gave her but yesterday I delved into that question a little deeper.

The answer I gave the nurse that evening was correct but then the question comes to my mind how do you do that?  How do the two of you work through the ups and downs over a long period of time.

Realize that nobody is perfect.  We are all human and mistakes will be made.  Sometimes little mistakes that are easily dismissed are created but sometimes serious mistakes are made.  It is not easy but realizing that the wrong that was done was done by a flawed human.  Working through those mistakes are not easy but in the long run those major mistakes can strengthen the relationship.  I know I made some major mistakes in my time with Barbara.  I know that I hurt her.  I also know that somehow she managed to work past those mistakes and continued on with me.  I think that too often we tend to expect perfection from our partners in life when that is an impossible achievement.  Be willing to except the mistakes, whether they are brought out in the open or not, whether an apology has been made or not.  Forgive anyway and trust that a lesson has been learned by both parties and continue from there working to fix that mistake and increase the closeness and love that is there.

Respect each other.  Respect is important.  I had a lot of respect for Barbara even though I did not show or express that to her.  I felt like she had respect for me as well.  If that respect is there it serves as a foundation for accepting the mistakes that are made as the road of life is continued to be traveled down together.

Keep communication open and dynamic.  By this I do not mean to sit and let words be said and hear them but rather to truly try to understand what is being said.  Barbara was much better at this than I am. A common mutual understanding is critical to true communication.   Too many times words expressed by one person are floated in and out of the other's head and dismissed.  Too many times that this happens, it is important words expressing something that is critical to the one speaking.  This kind of listening is hard at times but when you succeed in this deep listening it seems to pay off hugely in the relationship. 

I do know this.  Barbara and I both made lots of mistakes over those 42 years together.  During the last 15 or 20 years of our life together, however, I felt like we could not get any closer or deeper in love than we were on that particular day only to wake up the next morning and find that on this new day we somehow were closer and deeper in love than the day before.  Our life together continued that pattern all along the road together that came to an end, on this earth anyway, on that hot July morning in 2018.

I find that our love is for each other still exists and grows in a way since July 18, 2018.  I feel it each time I visit her resting place.  I feel it in the quiet nights spent alone with Dutch as his only companionship in his eyes. 

There is more to it than those few thoughts I know.  Being best friends to each other is vital.  Being sensitive to each other's feelings is a given.  Neither of us were very good at following these thoughts I came up with, but we were just good enough at them to keep us together.  She better at it than I. 

No, it wasn't easy.  It was hard work.  In spite of all the mistakes that were made during those 42 years, it was so worth the work expended.

I am sorry for all that I put you through Barbara.  I miss you Barbara.

ONE YEAR AND THE PROGRESS MADE

It was July 23, 2018 when my wife of 42 years  left this world for the next.  At the time I had spent a week by her side while she lay in a coma.  God had given me the time to prepare for what I was about to go through.  A year ago last Sunday, on July 28, 2018, we laid Barbara to rest in a spot we had purchased when death was the furthest things from our minds in 1982.  It was the next day as I sat in my house alone for the first time that a new life began for me.  A life without Barbara.

As I sat there thinking the events of the last two weeks and the last 42 years over I realized I was not ready for this new style of living.  I didn't want this new style of living.  I wanted my Barbie back.  The reality of her no longer being with me hurt like nothing I had ever experienced before.  I did not think I was capable of taking care of things the Barb had.  I did not know how to pay bills electronically.  I did not know so many things about what Barb did during the day while I was at work to keep the house moving along in spite of her pain and fatigue.

I would learn though.  I had no choice but to learn.  I spent the better part of the year trying to straighten out her Social Security Disabled status and getting the billing for her hospital stay that week to the proper insurance companies.  It was frustrating.  It was hard.  On top of that I was still learning the workings of the house.  I had to learn the dog's daily schedule.  I had to remember to clean things once in awhile.  Apparently they just didn't get done by themselves.  It was during this time that I came to realize how dependent I truly was on Barbara for so many little things.  The time that it takes to get those little things taken care of add up quickly.  I am so very thankful that Lori was there on a daily basis to help Barbara and to keep an eye on her.  Lori allowed Barbara to do what she could so her self esteem would not drop but take over when Barbara could not do anymore each day.

It seemed that as each day passed without Barbara, my sadness and grief would grow.  For the past several years when I would come home from work each day, Barbara managed to get out of her chair and her and Dutch would go to the front door, open it up and greet me as I walked up the sidewalk.  I never realized how much that meant not only to me, but to Barbara as well.  It was something that she could do to make my day a little better after a rough day at the office.  Now as each day passed and I would come home from work walking up the sidewalk, the door would remain closed.  Dutch would be on the other side of that door waiting for it to open.  Each day as Dutch and I went through that new ritual I found myself missing Barbara just a little bit more.

As difficult as those things were, they were the easy part of learning a new life without Barbara.  The biggest event that happened was three months and two days later when my father was also called home.  When my grandfather and both my grandmothers had died, Barbara had been there to hold me up.  When my Uncle Danial passed away, who I had been so very close to, Barbara was there to hold me up.  When my sister Carol succumbed to cancer, again Barbara was there to hold me up.  Now daddy was gone and I sat at home by myself alone with not only the thoughts of Daddy, but missing the support that I always got from Barbara.  I went to Alabama to talk at dad's funeral service there and found myself looking for Barbara to talk to from the pulpit as I had at Dan's memorial service.  Barbara was not to be found though and I had an extremely difficult time getting through that talk without her.  It was the first time I had publicly spoken where I did not have an anchor to keep my emotions in check and I did not do very well.  I found myself looking at three faces to try to be that anchor, my nephew Bo, my niece Kimberly Joyce and my great niece Haylee.  However all three of those loving faces could not bring me the inner strength that the one face of Barbara had always brought to me.

I started writing this about a month ago.  I set it aside for a time in order to take a hard look at the progress I have made since July of 2018.  I think I have progressed fairly well.

Progress.  It has been small and slow steps.  I stop and think about it, and it is an entirely different life and lifestyle that I have never experienced before.  It has been a learning experience.

I have come to the point where I can look at pictures of Barbara and recall the memory that goes along with the picture.  I can remember it as a good memory and smile, enjoying the memory in the moment.  However, these moments are also still filled with sadness but it is no longer a crushing sadness of realizing she is gone.  It has morphed into a good sadness.  I can smile and still miss her.

That is the biggest part of my progress I guess.  Just being able to have memories and enjoy them a little along with the sadness.

I have begun to get out a little more instead of planting myself in the house.   I am getting more comfortable going to the grocery store and buying for one instead of two.  That is a more difficult than most people would realize.

Then there is the telephone situation.  I have not changed our outgoing message.  If you call me and I do not pick up, Barbara's voice will still explain that we are busy, please leave a message.  I am not sure if I want to change these recording or not.  On the one hand, I have a place that I can call and hear Barbara's voice whenever I want.  On the other hand, I have no idea how to change the messages.  This leads to my substantial progress in learning how to use the cell phone.  This piece of equipment was totally foreign to me.  I have learned over the last year how to actually use it in ways that help me get things done.  I have learned how to text, and I use to despise texting.  I have learned how to browse on it and how to use the calendar and clock.

The other side of progress on the phone is making phone calls.  I am not good at this.  I do not particularly like talking on the phone and I have a real problem making a phone call.  I can answer a call much easier than placing a call.  Anxiety over takes me when I try to do this.  For all those years I had Barbara there to take care of things over the phone.  She would make the calls and get things straightened out.  Now I have to do that myself.  I am getting better at it.  I have learned that it is better to just jump in and make the call and most of the time things will work out.  I used to procrastinate making a call until after it was too late to make the call.  I had to learn how to do this fairly quickly as I took care of all of the paperwork involving Social Security, Medicare, and all of the hospital bills that were created for Barbara's care.  I still freeze a little when preparing to place a call but I am much better at jumping in and just doing it.

I have progressed a tiny bit on going through some of Barbara's things and getting things in order by either getting rid of stuff or finding a proper place for what I want to keep.  Going through her clothes  is the toughest part for me.  I have yet to make a dent in all of her outfits but I am getting there.  I know what I have to do.  I know how it will turn out.  It is just difficult getting rid of anything of Barbara's.  It is something that needs to be done.  I know this.

Going through Barbara's clothes is one area where I need to make progress.  The other area where I feel like I have not made any progress is coming home and not being met at the door.  I find it fairly easy to leave the house but extremely difficult coming home.  I still want to be met at the door and I feel the sadness come over me each time I arrive home.  The house, other than Dutch, is empty.  Everything is exactly as it was when I left.  This is more or less an everyday thing that gives to me that cloud of sadness and loneliness.  The house is quiet as I go through the motions of letting Dutch out, putting things away. or doing whatever needs to be done.  When I come home from someplace, it is when I am the most lonely and sad.  I have not gotten use to this feeling, to the quiet, to the emptiness. This is what I am trying to work on now.

So I have made a lot of progress in little steps, but I have a long ways to go yet.  I still love her and miss her and I always will.  Changing your style of living after 42 years is not an easy thing to do.  The best progress I have made is being able to enjoy the memories.  We had a lot of good memories made during our time together.  I will always cherish those times.

CAROL JEANNE MEMORIAL - KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

I wrote this to read at my sister's memorial service in Kansas City.  Unfortunately I broke my leg the day before the service was to be held.  My sister Elaine was kind enough to read it in my place.

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The first thing I want to say on behalf of the family is to give thanks for all of the support that has been given to Carol as well as the rest of the family during the past year or so.  I understand that Carol was part of a church family in Georgia named The Grove that held her up in prayer and support.  I am sure there were prayers and support uplifting Carol in Alabama from friends there and Elaine's church.  My brother's church and friends in South Dakota lifted her up.  Prayers and support were given from all over the Kansas City area as well as family and friends in Kansas, Colorado, South Carolina and many other places.  I would be amiss if I did not give a special thank you to Karen Jones,  who was always there last summer helping to get Carol to her chemo sessions and giving strong support to Carol. Karen went out of her way to give mom and dad as well as myself the support we very much needed as we worked through getting Carol well.  Karen was such a blessing during that time.  Could not have done it without you.  There is not a doubt in my mind that Carol felt the result of all of these throughout her battle with cancer.  I know that Carol would want to thank each and everyone of you and the family does as well.  It was a great source of strength.  Thank you so very much.

We were lucky and blessed to have Carol here with us for 64 years.  There was a period of time when Carol seemed to drift away from us as she concentrated on her life in Georgia.  Eventually she decided to try to restore those strong ties that made us a family.  I think what she found was that those ties had never really been broken.  She floated back into the relationships with family members, cousins Aunts and Uncles, thoughtfully and easily.  She had rededicated her life and her faith and had a new insight on what was important to her.  She made the most of those things as she re-established her place in the lives of others.  She made new friends and this family of friends grew tremendously respecting her as the person she was.

Over the last week or so, I have tried to rekindle pictures of Carol in my mind from the past.  The most powerful picture that continues to come to me is seeing her standing there with good posture, her head tilted ever so slightly to her right a smile on her face and her hands, well actually her wrists resting on her hips with her hands pointing outward and backward and her feet turned slightly pigeon toed.  To be fair sometimes that smile was absent replaced by a stern straight tight lipped mouth depending on whatever was going on at the time but those hands and toes always seemed to be positioned the exact same way.

During that time I also thought about the kind of person that Carol was.  Carol was kind hearted, sincere, loving, caring, forgiving, supportive, strong, determined and dependable.  She had the gifts of being a good listener, someone who would reach out and help and a person who gave good advice.  She was a friend to many and as hard as I tried, I could not think of one time she held a grudge against any one person.

Here are just a few examples that show how those attributes played out in who Carol was.

I remember when she was working at Paul's.  I used to be addicted to "The Untouchables" television series that I watched late into the night on Fridays.  When Carol was working on Friday nights, she would come home around 12:30 to 1:00 in the morning to find me sitting on the floor watching the show while mom slept on the couch waiting for her to get home safely.  Carol always seemed to remember that I would be up when she came home and brought with her a greasy paper bag of cold  french fries and tator tots.  She would walk in and say "Here ya go" and drop them in front of me on the floor as she headed upstairs to bed.  She always seemed to remember and it was very special to me when she did that.

When her husband Steve passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, I arrived in Georgia to find my sister crushed and grieving but at the same time I found her to be strong and focused on what needed to be done.  Although she was hurting worse than she had ever hurt in her life, she carried on and found the strength to take care of things that she was use to having help from Steve in doing.  I am not sure that I would be able to find that kind of strength in such a situation.

Last summer when she was diagnosed with cancer, she gave pause.  She was scared and nervous as would be expected.  But then after giving it some thought she became determined to do whatever needed to be done to beat this thing.  She flat out told me, "We are going to beat this and then I going home to Georgia."  and the three of us, Karen, Carol and myself with some help from Elaine and a lot of support and prayers took to getting her clean of the cancer.  She never missed a chemo session, never missed a scan and did everything she was suppose to do.  The treatments worked and before long the cancer had shrunk to the point that she was able to return to her beloved Georgia.  I have never seen anyone so determined in my life.

After she returned to Georgia she continued her volunteer routine of two days a week at a nursing home giving care and support and love and kindness to the people residing there.  She was a blessing to those in the nursing home.  I believe she was born to do work such as that.

Then over the last couple of months, when the cancer returned,  she insisted that I not be bothered with it.  I was in the process of trying to get Barb a heart valve replaced and the situation had become extremely risky. Carol knew that I had to focus on Barb and did not want me to have anything else to think or worry about until Barb got well.  After the doctors did finally succeed in getting a new valve in Barb's heart, Carol called me.  She was afraid I would be mad or upset at her for not letting me know the cancer had returned.  We both knew the cancer would return, they had told us that last summer so it wasn't a big surprise except we had gotten use to the cancer not letting it's presence be known.  We talked awhile as I told her I appreciated her caring enough and that no, I wasn't upset.  I appreciated her sensitivity to what my situation had been at the time.  We ended our last talk together talking about her cancer.  We decided that she had to revive that same determined attitude that she had shown last summer and she said "yup, we're gonna beat it again."  Then after expressing our love for each other, we ended the call.  It was the last time I would talk to her.  After that call the cancer began to move extremely fast.  It was just a matter of a few days between that last conversation until Carol was called home. But during that last time we talked she showed kindness, sensitivity, caring, love, concern, support, and determination.

That is who Carol was.  Thinking of others. Trying to help others.  Giving support to others.  Raising her kids to be good people as she was raised.  Loving her grandchildren as only a grandmother could and celebrating the arrival of great grand children and loving them more than anything.

She was a good person.  A fine lady with class.  A good daughter, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister, aunt and friend.  Just overall as fine of a person as she could be.

That is how I remember my sister. That is how I remember my friend.  I will miss her as we all will.

OKLAHOMA TWISTER TRAGEDY

Every spring they come out of the clouds.  We never know where they are going to land.  Most of these terrors of the sky strike rural areas, but it seems like more often over the last four or five years they have been finding suburbia and cities to land in and they show no mercy.

Two years ago two towns that are pretty close to my heart were struck within weeks of each other.  Tuscaloosa, Alabama where I have spent a great deal of time visiting with family was struck hard.  A few days after that Joplin, Missouri which rests in southern Missouri right down the highway from Kansas City was devastated by one of these monsters.

As I have written a few times before, these tornadoes chill me right down to the bone.  I was raised in a tornado stricken suburban area and my whole life growing up was to spend the spring time preparing for another strike.  Many hours were spent in the basement during the spring time as tornado warnings and watches were released from the National Weather Service.  As a kid, just the mention of the word "tornado" would send me searching for cover.

Growing up in tornado alley gives you a special education.  You can feel it in the air if a tornado may be making a visit soon.  The heavy humidity, the winds churning up varying in speed from minute to minute.  The slightly green hue of the sky as you watch the clouds move quickly across the sky is eerie in and of itself.  Heavy rains come. blowing almost horizontal followed by hail that sounds like the little ice particles that range anywhere from pea size to baseball size  are trying to break into your house through the roof.  The sudden stop of the rain as all goes calm followed by a sudden cooling of the temperatures outside mixing with that fresh smell of rain just having passed.  The rain returning more softly this time as it seems to signal that the danger has passed.  In reality though, you never know if the danger has truly passed.  It could churn itself back up into a frenzy at any second.

The thing about about tornadoes is that if you haven't experienced one, the gut reaction is like any other kind of tragedy.  It happens everywhere else, but it won't happen here.  Then once it does happen "here" you carry with you the thought that it can happen here, and probably will.  There are few places that have been hit by multiple disasters in varying years though.  They will come close to the same area maybe, but actually hit the same place twice?  It doesn't seem to be the case in the history of a tornado.  Unless you live in Moore, Oklahoma.

Moore, Oklahoma is a small town of about 56,000 people.  They were hit by one of the largest tornadoes I have ever heard described.  It tore through the tiny town leaving a path two miles wide and seventeen miles long yesterday, May 20.  It hit at three in the afternoon, while all the schools were still filled with children.  It ripped through one of those schools and heart sickened parents began the task of trying to locate their children, hopefully finding them alive.

Like in Joplin, the hospital in Moore was ripped apart, leaving the residents to set up triage areas where ever they could find that would do the most good.  Today, they are still searching for the missing, and locating the dead.  They have not made an estimate yet as to how many lost their lives on Monday or how many just were injured.  The one sure thing though is that approximately 56,000 lives were affected with in a ten minute period of time.  It is heart wrenching to watch the footage being broadcast from Moore.

It could never happen here.  The thing is it did happen in Moore, Oklahoma.  It happened for the third time in a little over twenty years.  This small innocent town was hit in 1999 with the tragedy that comes with a large tornado.  After spending four years rebuilding the town, the people of Moore were hit by another tornado in 2003.  Then on Monday the mother of all tornadoes hit the tiny town for a third time and still, the forecast says there possibly could be more storms in the region around Moore.

It could never happen here.  Anything can happen anywhere.  I imagine the people of Newtown, Connecticut didn't think they would have to deal with a school shooting.  The people of Austin, Texas walked by and looked up at that tower on the campus of the University not giving a second thought to the idea that a sniper could possibly climb to the top and start picking off innocent citizens one by one.  Even though the idea that these kind of horrific events would never happen "here", when they do happen, you have someone to point the finger at and try to figure out why?

There is no "why" to be answered by the onslaught of nature though.  There is no "why" to be answered by the fact that the town of Moore, Oklahoma will be rebuilding yet again.  There is no "why" when a flood, hurricane, blizzard or a tornado hits and hurts innocent people who just happen to live there.  It happens, you take a deep breath and start to continue with life and that isn't easy.

 
Every year here in the Kansas City area of eastern Kansas and western Missouri we have at least a dozen tornadoes every year.  There is a lot of farmland out here, a lot of vacant spaces for tornadoes to land and not do too much damage.  It is something you get use to, almost complacent about when you live in tornado alley.  The farm land and rural areas are slowly shrinking though as the cities and their suburbs continue to grow and spread out.   The odds of a tornado hitting a town or city must be increasing every year, or so it would seem. 

When fellow citizens who seem so close to you, like in Joplin, Tuscaloosa or Moore, Oklahoma feel the wrath of these winds of destruction, it feels like they are zeroing in on areas that isn't farmland or rural.  It almost makes you convince yourself that, It won't happen here."  Then you take the case of that little town of Moore.  Three times hit in just a little over twenty years.  It has been 56 years since that huge monster tornado ripped through my neighborhood.  Thinking of Moore makes you wonder, "Maybe we are due for another one?"  Scary thought and one that I sincerely hope won't become reality.

JULY WAS LEAN ON BLOGGING

Well, July is almost over.  It has been the leanest month of blogging since I began this effort.  I don't particularly care for the lack of blog entries this past month.  I have tried to set a goal of a minimum of nineteen entries a month.  It doesn't look like I will hit that goal in July.  So what has happened to cause this?  Primarily there were three potentially life changing events that took me away from the bloggersphere.

The first event happened over the fourth of July weekend.  While trying to reach some of my stuff in the garage on the back of a shelf, I slipped and fell about three feet onto concrete stairs on my back.  It was painful and if you know me at all or have read much of this blog you know that I have a strong aversion to pain.  Pain and I do not get along very well and the fall brought about a considerable amount of pain to my back and my ankle.  I was in pain for over two weeks and found it difficult to concentrate on writing.  After a trip to the emergency room, I was given a prescription for some Oxycontin, a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory medicine.  All three of these meds tend to bring about drowsiness.  Along with these pills, I had to continue some of my head meds to keep myself from having that detached feeling and buzziness in my head that withdrawal brings about.  Also it kind of keeps my depression and anxiety in check so that I am able to reason out suicidal thoughts and stay alive.  It is extremely difficult to write when you are full of drugs of this sort.  So because of the fall I lost several days that I could have been writing.

The next thing that occurred was that I bought a new laptop computer.  I also bought a router, a wireless mouse and key board and ventured on my first trip into the technological twenty first century  by setting up a network in the house and going wireless for the first time.  The time taken just to get the network set up and running took enough time away from writing but there was more than just that.  I had to move hundreds if not thousands of music files off of my work computer to the new laptop.  That was almost three days of lunch hours that I was not able to write.  Now I am in the process of putting the rest of my music at the house on the laptop, again taking time away from writing.  In the end though, this new tool should give me the opportunity to write in the evening without taking any of Barb's time on the internet.  Now I find myself interested in checking out some streaming movies and television shows that are available through different services out there.  I will NOT be using Netflix in the near future as my own little protest of the rate hike they placed on their customers without warning or explanation.  Luckily there is a growing competition for netflix that should allow me to experiment a little with it.  This has also allowed Barb and I to agree with each other to drop HBO which will be a huge savings in our pocket.  This is very exciting for me and definitely should give me more time to write in the near future.

The third potentially life changing event happened just the other day.  My coffee pot died.  It was not really unexpected.  I had noticed strange happenings coming from the coffee maker as of late.  Going in and seeing the "self clean" light turned on for no reason.  One night I wasn't able to turn it off before I headed to bed.  Now it won't turn on.  When it was in it's infancy it was a zinger of a coffee maker.  It would grind fresh coffee beans throwing the grounds into the filter as it ground.  The result was a near perfect cup of extremely freshly brewed coffee. Entropy eventually was able to lay it's filthy hands on it as it does everything.  Now it doesn't work at all.  I am using a cheap little six cup coffee maker that my wife use to use at her office.  It is not the same.  Anyone who tells you that a coffee pot is a coffee pot doesn't know what they are talking about.  There is a definite difference in how coffee is brewed.  It is a formula that takes into account the temperature of the water, the size of the grind, and the rate at which the water flows through the grounds to brew the coffee into that delectable, taste bud exciting brew.  I miss my coffee pot already and find it difficult to concentrate on anything since it died.  It is like losing a best friend.  It is not easy to get over.  That coffee pot and myself have been good friends for a lot of years.  I can't bring myself to place it in the trash even though I know I must.  That will probably happen tonight.  Maybe after it is set in its coffin of plastic and set out by the curb for pick up tomorrow, the pain may have lessened.  For now though, I walk into the kitchen and see it sitting there, unable to perform what it was made to do and that is sad.  <big sigh here as I write about my little friend>

These three events add up to one simple fact.  I am having a difficult time coming up with topics to write about.  Each of these events has been a distraction for me and they all happened within a four week period.  That, my friend, is a lot of distraction to work through and come up with a topic for a blog entry.

Next month I plan on doing better.  MY back is pretty much back into shape with just minor pain every once in awhile.  The home network is set up and ready and I should be able to take advantage of writing at night instead of over my lunch hour.  Finally, the coffee pot will be replaced by next month.  This above all things will probably be the biggest help in getting me back on a decent writing schedule.

For those of you who have stuck with me during these lean days of July, thank you.  I know that my writing isn't great, but I think it is good.  The question becomes is my writing good enough to be patient through a small dry spell called July.  Well, according to my stats, there have been quite a few of you who think it is worth waiting for.  I truly appreciate that.  I love to write and it feels good to know that there are people out there who get at least a little something out of it.

For those of you who didn't stick with me through July, well you aren't reading this right now so I feel fairly comfortable in saying that you'll be missed and hopefully you will one day miss the blog.

If that isn't the case...... bugger off with you.  :)

BEEN AWAY - BACK AGAIN

I have spent a few days away from my computer.  Hopefully I have not lost too many readers during my hiatus.  There is a reason for the interruption in my writing and it is not a pleasant one.  If there was ever a chance of my playing a competitive game of any kind of ball, it is over now.  I don't see my body recovering at this point in my life to being able to take part in any kind of physical competition or activity

Last Friday night was the beginning of a long weekend for me.  Here at the company we have two designated floating holidays.  Each year the company looks at the calendar and finds how holidays land during the year.  This year Independence Day landed on a Monday and so the company decided that the Tuesday following July fourth would be one of the floating holidays.  I was looking at a relaxing four day weekend to get stuff done around the house and whatever or just to relax.

We had decided to burn some papers in our outdoor fireplace on Friday night after the sun went down.  They were private papers that had personal information on them and since we did not feel comfortable throwing them away we decided to burn them.  So when the sun went down and gathered a group of papers to take out side and burn.  I was having a tough time getting the fire to start and to keep burning.  It just couldn't seem to continue to burn.

I decided to put a little lighter fluid on the papers to get the fire started and so began my quest for the fluid.  I knew it would be in the garage somewhere, just wasn't sure where.  I looked all over the place.  I looked on shelves, on top of file cabinets, on the garage floor even.  It could be anywhere.  Then I saw it.  It was on the top shelf that bordered concrete steps that went down to the basement.  The only way to get to the fluid was to go back by the stairs, climb up on the railing and snatch it.  After you have retrieved the object you have to slowly make your way down, trying to land a foot on the top most stair that you can reach.  This was where my downfall was.

As I stretched my leg back I thought I felt my toe drag across a step and so went down to plant my foot and continue to climb down.  My foot missed however and my whole body went swinging forward as though I was on a set of parallel bars.  I knew at this point that I was going to go down and prepared my self in that second and a half to fall as well as I could.

A second and a half is not very long and before I knew it I was horizontal to the earth and falling straight down towards the concrete steps.  I estimate that I fell at least three feet straight down on the stairs.  The pain was excruciating.  I screamed in pain and continued to do so.  I did not know if I could move or not but I managed to crawl up the stairs and towards the kitchen door.

By this time Barb had heard me and had opened the garage door and allowed me to crawl in and collapse on the living room floor.  After a few minutes of intense pain and hardly being able to talk we decided a trip to the emergency room was in order.  Barb called our doctor and he instructed us to get to the hospital.  The next call was to my son who would come over and help me out to the car and take me to the hospital.  It seemed like it took him forever to get there.

The ride to the hospital was painful.  Every time the car turned or hit a bump in the road pain would shoot through my back. I did not know that the pain I was feeling now would get a lot worse by the time the evening was over.

We pulled into the hospital and using Barb's cane, I made my way into the emergency room.  A wheel chair was brought to me but it hurt my back to sit on it.  They did not waste any time getting me back to an examining room where I was expected to climb up on a hospital bed.  After I got settled and stopped moving around tha pain seemed to fade just a bit.

They gave me a tetanus shot and took a history of my medications that I currently take.  The doctor came in and did a little talking but I could not say who he was or what he asked.  The only thing that was registering in my mind was the pain that was ripping my insides apart.  The worst was yet to come though.  There were still x-rays that had to be take of my back to be sure nothing was broke or cracked.

A man named Andrew came to take me to x-ray.  The ride was a little rough and it hurt but at least something was being done.  Trying to get off of the bed and onto the table for the x-ray turned out to be a very difficult and very painful trial.  After a few x-rays were taken of my back I had to make my way back onto the bed.  It was worse going back to the bed than it was going to the table.  I eventually made it and Andrew guided me back to where Barb and Brett were waiting.

Not a lot to tell from here.  They gave me a couple of shots for pain which practically knocked me out.  It did make the ride home a lot easier on my back.

Prescriptions for pain pills, anti-inflammatory pills and muscle relaxants were given to me for the duration of the pain.  I took some of those pills but don't really like to.  the back is still in a lot of pain and I discovered two days later that my ankle was swollen and discolored.  They never took x-rays of the ankle.  Everything else was hurting so bad I had no idea that the ankle was even injured.

Well, that is where I have been over the last few days.  I haven't felt much like writing but just wanted to sit and relax and try to make my back not hurt.  I am back to writing now and the stories should continue now.

HOUSE FIRE ON THE BLOCK

The ranch house up the street was rather wore down.  It needed paint, new windows and some grass in the yard.  I didn't know too much about the people who lived there except from the stories I had heard around the neighborhood.  At one time it was a whole family who lived there.  There was a father and mother and numerous children all close in age to each other.

It did not seem to be a happy family.  More than once the wife was found sitting out on the curb next to the street crying and not knowing what to do.  She took a lot of beatings from her husband but always would refuse a ride to the hospital.  On occasion a neighbor would call the police but as far as I know she never pressed charges against her husband.  She continued to go back when he would let her into the house and the scene would be replayed in the next month or so.

Meanwhile the children were growing up and getting to the age of getting into trouble.  The kids starting getting into a little trouble by doing little things.  They would sit on their bikes in the middle of the street and not move for traffic trying to get by.  They became loud and boisterous cursing at each other and getting into fights among themselves.  When the fights started to progress to others outside the family you would see a police officer take one of them off in a car once in a while.

Soon the kids began cursing and making gestures at random to their neighbors for insisting that they not ride the bikes through front yards.  This progressed to breaking into a car every now and then and stealing something out of it whether it was worth anything or not.  Although no one knew for sure it was the kids doing the stealing we all took it for granted that it was them.  During this whole time the mother continued to be beaten upon and found sitting outside the house even on cold or rainy nights and still refusing offers from the police or rides to the hospital.

One day something changed.  No one had seen the mother for quite a while.  Personally I wondered if she was still alive or not.  The rumor eventually came to be that she had finally left her family.  She had been beaten severely one night and the police had taken her to the hospital where she decided she would not return to the ranch house up the street.

The kids were still there though and now they had grown to the point of being of age to drive cars.  They drove the cars fast up and down the street.  The cars were loud too.  Not loud like today with the thumping beat of bass music coming from them but noisy in the sense that there didn't see to be a muffler on any of the cars.  We had young kids living on the block about this time and it was a danger to let them out in the front yards while cars were racing up and down the street.

The stealing of things from cars became more prevalent and soon the police were hauling the kids away for more serious crimes than in the past.  When the kids would come back from where ever they had been taken to they would receive a loud curse filled lecture from their father often followed by a beating.  It did not take long for the kids to slowly disappear from the neighborhood one by one.   After a while it was just the man living in his house all alone.

I am not sure if he had a job or not.  I don't recall ever seeing him leave for work on a consistent basis.  You would often see him come home from the store with a huge case of beer.  It seemed like he was sitting up in that house all alone probably watching television and drinking himself to death.  As the kids left their father and moved on to different parts of the city things quieted down on the block.  The racing cars were gone.  All the late night cursing was gone and the beaten woman with no self esteem did not sit out in the rain anymore.  He had finally run everyone in his life away from him and it seemed his only friend was the beer.

The house caught on fire in the middle of the night during a cold snap in the fall.  No one really knew the house was burning until the fire trucks woke us up from our sleep.  All of the neighbors gathered in the street to watch as the fire grew out of control.  It began to take the shape of a homecoming bonfire on a college campus before long.  The firefighters began to change their strategy to protect the houses next to the inferno to keep the damage to a minimum.  The house burned for a couple of hours before the firefighters contained it and snuffed it out.

Word began leaking out through the neighborhood rumor lines that the husband had been in the house at the time of the fire and had died.  There were several different scenarios in which it was said he died.  One was that he was running a space heater because the electricity had been turned off and it had caught fire while he was sleeping in his chair.  Another tale included the space heater and a sleeping man in his chair asleep but added a cigarette that had fallen out of his hands while he slept and starting the fire.  Still another told the story about how he was sitting in his chair smoking a cigarette when he had a heart attack and died the dropping cigarette again being the culprit in starting the fire.

Any three of those explanations could be true.  The one thing that all three have in common though is that a man died while sitting in a cold house without electricity while smoking a cigarette.  The one factor that makes it a tragedy is that he died in that house alone after having destroyed his family by pushing them away through his violent temperament.

The house was razed and rebuilt.  On the lot stands a nice looking house now with a family living in it that seems to be everything the previous owners were not.  They are nice, friendly and are well liked in the neighborhood.  It would seem that the building of a new house with a new family would erase the past but it can not.

While it is easy to sit and say that the father brought it upon himself doesn't make it any more right.  It just makes the story of a sad family that much sadder.  I am not sure how long it took to find his kids to let them know their father was dead.  I know we didn't see any of them for at least three days after the fire.

Yes the father did bring it all on himself.  That fact being known doesn't change the fact that no one should have to die alone abandoned by everyone he knew.  Not the best of us nor the worst of us should face an ending such as the one this man faced.

LARRY IN TRACTION

Larry is a good friend of mine.  We met through church activities and became very close because of what we had in common.  He was almost two years younger than me but just a years difference separated us in school.  He was a big kid standing almost six feet and two inches and had a broad stocky body that made him a fairly good commodity on the pick up football and basketball games we would play with other kids from the neighborhood.  He wasn't a real fast person but quick enough to shove his way down the lane in basketball or dump a defender from trailing him in football.

We walked to school together everyday of our high school years.  We would leave early and arrive at school about a half hour before classes start to have some donuts and coffee that the special education class sold in the cafeteria every morning.

The build of Larry's body gave him problems.  His back was not very flexible as long as I could remember.  It never stopped him from throwing up a beautiful arced jump shot from twenty feet out though and he would hit them with tremendous consistency.  He seemed to always walk with a little hitch in his step as his back refused to flex enough to make his motion smooth and easy.  Still he never complained and kept attacking life on a daily basis.

There came a time during his sophomore year that the back finally gave out.  I am not sure if it was a slipped or compressed disk but suddenly the pain began to increase in his back.  He reluctantly went to the doctor to see what was going on and to his horror the doctor said he would have to be off of his feet for about a week and in the hospital.  This was going to throw a big wrench into our summer plans of playing basketball almost every night.  My girlfriend, Barb, would welcome the news in her own subtle way because it meant that I would have more time to spend with her instead of spending time on the asphalt of the church parking lot shooting hoops with Larry.

When Larry entered the hospital he was but seventeen years old.  The drawback to this was that he was put on the pediatrics ward of the hospital.  Not only was Larry confined to the hospital, he was confined with a bunch of little kids that took to wandering around and visiting with other kids during their stay at the hospital.  To make matters even worse, Larry was to be in traction for that week.  He was bed ridden with a series of ropes and knots attaching his back to some pulleys at the foot of the bed with weights hanging off the end of them.  It was not a very comfortable situation and not surprisingly, Larry was in a rather sour mood during this week of traction in the hospital.

I went to visit Larry a few times during that week in the hospital and during the time I spent there several kids would wander in the room.  Larry knew most of them and had made friends with the little ones who found Larry to be a nice man who happened to be the biggest and oldest person on the ward.  Most of them would come bay just to tell Larry hi and then leave to continue their socializing rounds among others more their age.

On The Saturday before Larry was to be released from the hospital I went to visit him.  As we were sitting there watching some baseball on the television a new kid walked in.  Larry had never seen him before and neither had I.  It was clear he was a patient at the hospital because the little six year old was wearing a robe and slippers that looked like they belonged to his dad.  HE was the kind of child who liked to ask questions and he began string questions together one after another.  What's your name?  How old are you?  Why are you on the kid's floor?  The questions kept coming at rapid fire speed and was starting to irritate both Larry and me as the kid continued his interrogation.

Larry and I began to drop hints that maybe the kid should be back in his room.  The nurses could be looking for him.  What if his mother came to his room and find him not there.  We tried everything but nothing would dissuade the boy from continuing his questioning.

Then it happened.  The boy was standing at the foot of the bed while I sat in a chair up next to the head of the bed where I could talk to Larry and see the television.  We saw it at the same time.  The kid reached down and picked up the weights that were pulling on Larry's left side.  Both Larry and I processed the situation at the same time and came to the realization that something very bad was about to happen.  We were both trying to get the words out of our mouth's to tell the kid to leave those weights alone when he looked at us and asked, "What are these for?"  As the word "for" left his lips he dropped the weights.  Larry's reaction was almost instantaneous.  He was expecting the pain, had prepared himself for the pain in that extremely little space in time but when the weights crashed down and stretched his back further than ever intended, Larry let out a yell.  I jumped up to lift the weights to relieve the pain a bit but it was too late.

The kid was startled by Larry's reaction.  He stood there for a second as Larry first yelled, then started cursing between deep breaths that his body had been shocked into.  The last I saw of the kid, he was leaving Larry's room, walking slowly backwards and trying to figure out what had just happened.  A nurse came in and I explained what had happened.  Very calmly she told Larry not to worry, it probably didn't do much damage to which Larry responded with a few more choice words.  He was definitely in pain.

We never saw that kid again and the incident did not extend Larry's stay in the hospital.  The nurse was right in the fact that it had not done any damage to what the traction had set out to accomplish.  Larry's back was more flexible after that and he moved with more of a swagger instead of the old stiff walk I grown accustomed to seeing him with.  After that shock of pain, I never heard Larry complain about pain again.  I guess nothing he would feel in the future would ever compare to the weights being dropped to stretch out his back for an instant.

Larry looked for the kid when he was discharged, but apparently the kid had gotten well, or had fled to another jurisdiction.