tiggerprr’s scratching post

When life hands you lemons…make lemonade.

Exactly one year ago, this very minute, I was learning of Ken’s death and that my family’s world was irrevocably changed. I often wondered how I would make it through a day, much less a year. They say that the first year after such a loss is the hardest. It sure wasn’t easy. I’ve written about some of the events that have transpired during the last 365 days, some good, some bad, some REALLY bad. I can honestly say that at the end of it all, I am a happier person, not BECAUSE it happened, but DESPITE it happening. It didn’t destroy me, when it could have. I’ve done things that I didn’t think I’d be able to do on my own…and I’ve done some things I couldn’t have on my own without the aid and love of friends and family and through God’s grace.

Probably the most valuable lesson I’ve learned is that time is precious and unpredictable. If you are feeling something, you should let it be known. We always say “Life’s too short…” but how many of us actually stop and practice life (because let’s face it that’s all we’re doing, practicing…none of us have it down pat) with that philosophy? I’ve been hard at work, once I got moved and settled, to embrace that philosophy. To tell the people who mean something to me, that they do. To live, to laugh and to love, fully with wreckless abandon. My life is fuller now than before, because of it. There have been huge losses and prices to pay for that and I think about those all the time, but sometimes truly, things have to get far, far worse before they get better. And sometimes, the thing that’s best for you, seems like the worst thing ever. The things we’re most afraid of, we should face head on. Situations that aren’t healthy for us, we need to find the strength to let go of. People who we love, we need to express it to…and we should be thankful for that which we have, not remorseful of the things that we do not.

I’ve had to say goodbye to more people than Ken. Some by my choice, some against it…and I think about those people all the time even still, hoping for the best but accepting that change isn‘t always by our choice.

We are never guaranteed tomorrow…but now, I look forward to waking up every day to see what life has in store for me…to see the people who make my heart smile, and oh how it’s smiling.

Embrace your life…the good, the bad, the ugly. You only get one, live it well and fully. Drink your lemonade.

“There are four questions of value in life… What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.” -Johnny Depp

Ashlyn posted this on her Facebook page yesterday. It resulted in a little discussion between her and one of her friends about the authenticity of “love” with her friend indicating his belief that love has been proven to be merely a product of chemistry. It was interesting to me to see this dialogue and started me to thinking.

Now, I’d like to point out that I’m not an ageist. That being said, I think that life’s experience can teach you a thing or two about emotions and what is real vs. not real. And moreso via the bad experiences than the good ones. The bad, paving the way for appreciation of the good.

I’m a huge fan of The Matrix movies. And there is one particular scene in Matrix Revolutions that contains dialogue that really affected me:

Neo: I just have never…
Rama-Kandra: …heard a program speak of love?
Neo: It’s a…human emotion.
Rama-Kandra: No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies. I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?
Neo: Anything.
Rama-Kandra: Then perhaps the reason you’re here is not so different from the reason I’m here.

Love IS just a word…used to describe the connection. Is that connection, chemical? Sure…the physical aspect of love is. But it’s foolish, or maybe just naive, to think that it ends with chemistry.

It goes without saying that the many facets of love cannot be put into a single box and tied with a nice ribbon. The love a parent feels for a child is one of the strongest emotions that living entities experience. I say living entities, because this love is not only expressed by human beings…it’s also exhibited by many creatures in the animal kingdom.

Equally as strong is the love that two people experience, this includes the chemistry piece…but it is also the emotion that compels one person to give another the power to break their heart into a billion pieces, but trusting and hoping that they won’t. True love, reciprocates that trust and hope by being careful not to abuse that power. It is also love that grants forgiveness when we are human and fail to keep that trust. We are, after all, fallible.

Chemistry, standing alone, cannot possibly be responsible for the myriad of things that love is comprised of. If it were, there would be by now real “love potions” to alter chemistry to manufacture true love. Most of us, spend a lifetime searching for love. Simple chemistry could provide a quick fix to that search…last I checked, most of us are still looking, kissing frogs and froglettes.

I think Mr. Depp is right. And I think Howard Jones says it best really…What is love, anyway?

What is Love?
I love you whether or not you love me,
I love you even if you think that I don’t,
Sometimes I find you doubt my love for you, but I don’t mind.
Why should I mind? Why should I mind?

Chorus
What is Love, anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?
What is Love, anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?

Can anybody love anyone so much that they will never fear
Never worry never be sad?
The answer is they cannot love this much nobody can,
This is why I don’t mind you doubting.

And maybe love is letting people be just what they want to be,
The door always must be left unlocked,
To love when circumstance may lead someone away from you,
And not to spend the time just doubting.
~Howard Jones

What do you think?

I’m afraid. One of those afraids you see in horror movies when you know that the killer is just around the bend about to pounce, and you freeze. But, since I am an adult and live in the real world, I know I have to move or just stand by and watch it happen. That can’t happen. So I have to be afraid, but do what I NEED to do despite my fears, instead of what I would like to do.

Sometimes life hands you options, sometimes it hands you ONE option. This is one of those one option situation. I cannot continue to pay over $1k a month to keep us all insured, the job market in Myrtle Beach doesn’t make it at all possible to stay here. So even though I WANT to stay here until the kids are out of school, I needed to find an opportunity where I could provide for us without having to live every moment of my life filled with dread that my house of cards would fall with any passing breeze. To that end I’ve found a position that is going to require us to move. Move before me or the kids want to, before I’m ready to do all the things that come with dealing with your spouse’s belongings after they pass, before I’m ready to leave the good memories behind me, before I WANT to go. This means I have to do all those things while it is breaking my heart to do so in so many ways it is nearly paralyzed with fear and adding more sadness to one that already feels like it’s killing me. This has left me unconsolable. I so much wish Ken were here to hold me and reassure me that everything’s going to be ok. Of course, if he WERE here, I wouldn’t have to make the decisions I’ve made, or make miracles happen in 5 weeks time…but if we did have to do that, I would find comfort in doing it together…we could make things happen when we needed to.

I know I need to suck it up and get things done…I just don’t WANT to. Therein lies the difference between being the adult and being a kid. Kids are so often motivated by what they want opposed to their needs. As a parent, you want to give your kids everything they want that isn’t harmful to them. But sometimes you just can’t, no matter how much it tears you apart. Staying here, in our situation, would be harmful to my ability to provide for us. My only solace is in knowing that someday when they have kids and are faced with life’s hard decisions to do things you need, instead of satiating wants, they’ll understand why decisions have to be made that aren’t always palatable. So I’m scared, I’m alone before I should be, I pray for the strength to do all that needs done, to get it done timely, for speed bumps to be surmountable and for my heart not die in the process.

And now for the warning… my husband died after a car accident…after we’d had an arguement of epic proportions…but, there weren’t any traumatic injuries resulting from the accident and toxicology tests had to be done. His heart had been racing for a few days so he’d gone to the doctor that day and gotten a prescription for Xanax when they couldn’t find any issues with his heart. When the reports came back this week…it showed that he had only the meds he was supposed to have, at the levels they were supposed to be at, in his system. The coroner and pathologist determined that Ken had End Stage Liver Disease. When you are in End Stage Liver Disease, your liver can’t filter out the toxins that your body naturally needs to expel, meds will affect you and poisons resulting from them stay in your system, your body eventually starts to poison your other organs including your brain which can cause you to have mood swings and display erratic behavior… Of course, they asked me if he drank heavily, he didn’t. He just finished a bottle of Crown Royal I gave him for Christmas over 5 years ago. Then came the next question…”Did he take a lot of acetominiphen or ibuprofen?” That’s when the light went on, Ken had a bottle of Extra Strength Excedrin in his computer bag, his office, his truck, the kitchen, our bathroom and on our headboard. He took them whenever he felt the slightest headache or felt any kind of ache. The warning is right there on the labels that it can cause liver disease. I never gave any thought to how much he took, but looking back, all I can visualize and hear in my mind is the rattle of the bottle, seeing me handing them to him, remembering how often I did see him take it, knowing that he took a lot of it that I didn’t see. Ken never went to the Dr. for anything. He’d only gone on Monday because the heart racing wouldn’t stop. I can count on one hand the number of times he went to the Dr. in the last 10 years because he wasn’t feeling well…so all through the last six months or so of his life his body has been tearing itself apart before our eyes, disguised…sadly I’m now seeing things and understanding some whys that I was oblivious to before. My warning is this…if you are, like me, one of those people that take 4 Advils when you have a headache, don’t. If you find yourself taking Tylenol or Excedrin all the time, don’t. It CAN kill you. My other warning is, don’t ever let yourself be so mad at people you love that you part with them angry, saying things you know in your heart you don’t really mean…and if someone you love starts to behave oddly, and it doesn’t resolve itself quickly, don’t assume that it’s because they are just changing…it’s far better to get them to go the Dr. and get checked out, than to lose them.

When we’re confronted with the turns that life’s road makes that lead us down a dark and dusty path, it’s really easy to allow it to consume you. It’d be simple to allow your soul to slip into a world of sadness and despair, anger and bitterness, loneliness and isolation…and who could blame you really? I’m not just speaking of death, though that’s my dark path for now…it could be something as simple as your job not being what you need it to be, your relationships not being what they could be (romantic ones, co-workers, even with your children) or even your relationship with your health as that’s often an unrelenting struggle for some of us. What gets lost sometimes, are the blessings that come from those hard times and situations.

Yes, there ARE blessings to be found in even the most dire moments of our lives. For me, those blessings come in the form of my children, in whom I see an unbelieveable strength and kindness as they help me, help us, try to move forward with life, as we MUST do. Simple gifts, like coming home to them, giving the house a good cleaning up without being asked to do so, or giving me a hug when I look like I need one, to expressing love more often and compassion. My other blessing of light in this darkness is the huge number of friends, both friends I know in real life and whom I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting, yet. I have been overwhelmed by the support and kindness of so many people who have no motive to help me as a friend, just BEING my friends and lending an ear, or words of encouragement or giving me something to do so that I don’t feel so dreadfully alone as I do at times. These things and people, give me hope that it’s ok to live, it’s ok to laugh, it’s ok to look towards the future, albeit a different future than the one I had planned.

These blessings are a gift…they comfort and assure me that though I am navigating a dark and scary path…that my kids and I are not walking it alone. For that, I thank you.

And so the next chapter of our lives begin… the one where we find the paths to happiness again.

I lie here in the dark, devastated
Thinking of you, and how things used to be
Wondering how you couldn’t see
I was just frustrated.

Why’d you have to go away?
Why’d you have to leave me here, insane?
A thousand apologies will not change that day.
A thousand tears will never wash away the pain.

Do you see me, do you see us?
Do you feel the love we felt inside?
I’m sorry for things I didn’t say.
But, you have to know I tried.

Do you hear our voices tremble,
every time we speak your name?
I’m sorry you got swept away,
in a sea of hurt and blame.

Do you know the sadness this has wrought?
Are you peaceful now, or do you regret?
I think of things I will see, but know you will not.
No matter how time passes, I swear I’ll not forget.

So I lie here still in the dark, devastated
Thinking of you, and how things should be
Wondering just how you couldn’t see
I was only frustrated.

Being the dutiful Def Leppard fanatic that I am, I rushed right out to get their new CD. I have to say that I love it. I haven’t always loved their more recent CDs as much as I did the ones from the 80s-90s. I absolutely love “Nine Lives”. I have to admit, that when I saw that Tim McGraw was featured in that song I thought they went the way of Bon Jovi and decided to put a Country vibe. I was pleasantly surprised to find that quite the opposite, it was Mr. McGraw who is getting his rock on. (I am hoping that last sentence doesn’t sound naughty.)

Joe Elliott’s voice sounds just as sexy as it did when I was younger. ::purrs::

I honestly feel that several of these songs could easily find a place on Hysteria or Euphoria. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Pyromania, that album was near perfection.

I can forgive them the debacle that was Dancing with the Stars, they delivered music I’m happily listening to over and over again.