I lost two important women this year
My mom died in March and my wife of 25+ years died in July. It's been a tough year.
I was not "close" to my mom, for a lot of reasons she was not a very good parent. We were estranged for many years, but when she needed help with dialysis, for about 18 months I picked her up from the center 3x a week, took her home, and made dinner for her. Then she moved to Assisted Living when she could no longer live at home, which became hospice in the same studio apartment. She had very nice attendants and could afford a nice facility where her cats could come live with her. I did not visit her often. I called her on her last birthday. All she was capable of saying was "OK" but I am sure she knew it was me and I told her I love her. That was my goodbye. She died about 6 months later. The day of her funeral, I had a terrible head cold and was gulping psuedoephedrine. She was buried in a cemetery in East Hampton, where we spent our summers in a little artists' shack she built with my father in the late 50s before I was born. When I was a little boy, Lisa De Kooning and I brought flowers to our mommies from the same cemetery across the street - we didn't know it was "wrong." My mom is buried about 50 feet from the boulder that marks the grave of Jackson Pollack, someone she knew back in the day.
My wife and I had a difficult marriage, we were homeless with our young child for about 5 years, and it was our education and motivation that got us back into "normal" life. First my wife got a job as a phone counselor for the official 9/11 victims hot line. I worked as a Substitute Teacher and learned to program web sites on my own. My wife also was a writer for the Jersey Journal newspaper, she wrote the Seasoned Sensibility column for seniors and the aging baby-boomers for a few years. She showed me a small classified ad in the newspaper one day, and she told me she always wanted to be a columnist. I told her to go for it. Colleagues from the paper were at her funeral. The paper eventually cut their writing staff, but for years after that we would go places and people would say, "I know you - you're the newspaper lady!" because of her photo next to her column. I became seriously ill with Bipolar Disorder about the same time we married. My wife cared for me, and our newborn, and worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. The strain was part of what caused us to become homeless. I outgrew the severe symptoms, and often worked pretty marginal jobs just to pay for a motel room for a week or a night and buy some food. About 8 years ago I went to a hospital to try to find medication that would control my symptoms better. We separated when I was discharged, and I built a successful Web Development business, and helped my wife with rent and money. A few years ago we moved in together in our current apartment, when she was losing the ability to live alone. In fair turnaround, I took care of her as her health declined the past two years and she was in and out of hospitals. I was with her when she died, we listened to our favorite musician John Lennon as she slipped away. After the funeral we had lunch at Arlene's favorite Mexican restaurant with about 20 family and friends, and I put together a playlist with John Lennon, Stephen Sondheim, The Jefferson Airplane, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, a song from Rent that she enjoyed with our daughter. Our daughter found a female rabbi to officiate; so appropriate, because we were married by a female rabbi.
Now I am alone, except for our 2 dogs and 2 cats, and my mother's two cats I took home after she died. I joke that my human contact comes from Amazon deliveries. I always liked keeping plants, now I am planning to get more serious with grow lights and organized routines, and I am also going to grow carnivorous plants - sort of a joke because I am vegetarian, like my wife, and our daughter is vegan. I am NOT going to raise insects to feed them - I figure bits of pet food should be enough for them. I also want to get back into my hobby playing music. I replaced my cello that was stolen from my NYC apartment in the 80s, and bought a glass flute. I have a very nice Ibanez acoustic-electric guitar I bought a few years ago - I taught myself guitar when I was 16, and had a punk band in college in which I played guitar and electric cello with a guitar strap and pick.
Also I speak with our daughter, who is married to a nice man, and working and starting college this fall. And my best friend Mario, whom I refer to as my "2nd wife" because my wife was jealous of him, but near the end she came to appreciate his loyalty and uneducated smarts. Mario is not doing well, his diabetes is worse, and he has been in and out of hospitals with infections and liver problems. I'm afraid soon I will lose my "2nd wife."
I am choosing that I am feeling "OK" because I am dealing with things. I listened to a song by Orianthi on the bus last week, "According To You" and it made me think about how my life changed when I met Arlene and she "got" me and appreciated me. I was bawling on the bus. Sometimes I like to go on YouTube and follow links to music videos. I usually end up with Hendrix, or Stevie Ray Vaughan, that is also how I discovered Orianthi, and I think she is the best guitarist to come along since SRV. She has soul, maybe because she is Greek-Australian, it's the Mediterranean blood in her. Lots of guitarists can "shred" but Ori "swings" too and Duke Ellington told us "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing - doowah doowah"
I have not been at my DBSA group for months, and haven't been at synagogue for over a year, except for a couple of days following my wife's death. Besides caring for my wife, I have been working 60-70 hour weeks, but that should change soon as I am training a new team for my client that can take some of the load. I calculated that in the month of August I earned a little more than 25% of the median US annual income in one month. That's a lot of plant food. I am going to make an effort to resume "social" things like shul, and my group, and professional meetups - they feed my soul.
My DBSA co-facilitator has been keeping the group going, but he is moving to Georgia soon to be near his kids who moved there already, and he found another person to co-facilitate. Also we are moving the venue - we have been meeting in a group room in the county Self-Help drop-in day program center, but we think the center is a bit intimidating for people who are not exposed to hard-core psychiatric and homeless cases. A church that is much closer to where I live has offered a meeting space, maybe that will help encourage people who are brave enough to come for the first time, without scary people outside the group making them feel uncomfortable. I am planning to donate much of my wife's clothes and things, and left-over medical supplies to the Self-Help center. Many of the clients do not have ANYTHING, and even if they receive Disability, you cannot "live" on those payments, just barely "survive."
That's my update. I don't come to Daily Strength much, but I recommend it to people in my group and also to anyone who needs a little friendly support. As we were told in group facilitator training, sometimes just knowing it's there helps me, even if I don't participate.
I was not "close" to my mom, for a lot of reasons she was not a very good parent. We were estranged for many years, but when she needed help with dialysis, for about 18 months I picked her up from the center 3x a week, took her home, and made dinner for her. Then she moved to Assisted Living when she could no longer live at home, which became hospice in the same studio apartment. She had very nice attendants and could afford a nice facility where her cats could come live with her. I did not visit her often. I called her on her last birthday. All she was capable of saying was "OK" but I am sure she knew it was me and I told her I love her. That was my goodbye. She died about 6 months later. The day of her funeral, I had a terrible head cold and was gulping psuedoephedrine. She was buried in a cemetery in East Hampton, where we spent our summers in a little artists' shack she built with my father in the late 50s before I was born. When I was a little boy, Lisa De Kooning and I brought flowers to our mommies from the same cemetery across the street - we didn't know it was "wrong." My mom is buried about 50 feet from the boulder that marks the grave of Jackson Pollack, someone she knew back in the day.
My wife and I had a difficult marriage, we were homeless with our young child for about 5 years, and it was our education and motivation that got us back into "normal" life. First my wife got a job as a phone counselor for the official 9/11 victims hot line. I worked as a Substitute Teacher and learned to program web sites on my own. My wife also was a writer for the Jersey Journal newspaper, she wrote the Seasoned Sensibility column for seniors and the aging baby-boomers for a few years. She showed me a small classified ad in the newspaper one day, and she told me she always wanted to be a columnist. I told her to go for it. Colleagues from the paper were at her funeral. The paper eventually cut their writing staff, but for years after that we would go places and people would say, "I know you - you're the newspaper lady!" because of her photo next to her column. I became seriously ill with Bipolar Disorder about the same time we married. My wife cared for me, and our newborn, and worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. The strain was part of what caused us to become homeless. I outgrew the severe symptoms, and often worked pretty marginal jobs just to pay for a motel room for a week or a night and buy some food. About 8 years ago I went to a hospital to try to find medication that would control my symptoms better. We separated when I was discharged, and I built a successful Web Development business, and helped my wife with rent and money. A few years ago we moved in together in our current apartment, when she was losing the ability to live alone. In fair turnaround, I took care of her as her health declined the past two years and she was in and out of hospitals. I was with her when she died, we listened to our favorite musician John Lennon as she slipped away. After the funeral we had lunch at Arlene's favorite Mexican restaurant with about 20 family and friends, and I put together a playlist with John Lennon, Stephen Sondheim, The Jefferson Airplane, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, a song from Rent that she enjoyed with our daughter. Our daughter found a female rabbi to officiate; so appropriate, because we were married by a female rabbi.
Now I am alone, except for our 2 dogs and 2 cats, and my mother's two cats I took home after she died. I joke that my human contact comes from Amazon deliveries. I always liked keeping plants, now I am planning to get more serious with grow lights and organized routines, and I am also going to grow carnivorous plants - sort of a joke because I am vegetarian, like my wife, and our daughter is vegan. I am NOT going to raise insects to feed them - I figure bits of pet food should be enough for them. I also want to get back into my hobby playing music. I replaced my cello that was stolen from my NYC apartment in the 80s, and bought a glass flute. I have a very nice Ibanez acoustic-electric guitar I bought a few years ago - I taught myself guitar when I was 16, and had a punk band in college in which I played guitar and electric cello with a guitar strap and pick.
Also I speak with our daughter, who is married to a nice man, and working and starting college this fall. And my best friend Mario, whom I refer to as my "2nd wife" because my wife was jealous of him, but near the end she came to appreciate his loyalty and uneducated smarts. Mario is not doing well, his diabetes is worse, and he has been in and out of hospitals with infections and liver problems. I'm afraid soon I will lose my "2nd wife."
I am choosing that I am feeling "OK" because I am dealing with things. I listened to a song by Orianthi on the bus last week, "According To You" and it made me think about how my life changed when I met Arlene and she "got" me and appreciated me. I was bawling on the bus. Sometimes I like to go on YouTube and follow links to music videos. I usually end up with Hendrix, or Stevie Ray Vaughan, that is also how I discovered Orianthi, and I think she is the best guitarist to come along since SRV. She has soul, maybe because she is Greek-Australian, it's the Mediterranean blood in her. Lots of guitarists can "shred" but Ori "swings" too and Duke Ellington told us "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing - doowah doowah"
I have not been at my DBSA group for months, and haven't been at synagogue for over a year, except for a couple of days following my wife's death. Besides caring for my wife, I have been working 60-70 hour weeks, but that should change soon as I am training a new team for my client that can take some of the load. I calculated that in the month of August I earned a little more than 25% of the median US annual income in one month. That's a lot of plant food. I am going to make an effort to resume "social" things like shul, and my group, and professional meetups - they feed my soul.
My DBSA co-facilitator has been keeping the group going, but he is moving to Georgia soon to be near his kids who moved there already, and he found another person to co-facilitate. Also we are moving the venue - we have been meeting in a group room in the county Self-Help drop-in day program center, but we think the center is a bit intimidating for people who are not exposed to hard-core psychiatric and homeless cases. A church that is much closer to where I live has offered a meeting space, maybe that will help encourage people who are brave enough to come for the first time, without scary people outside the group making them feel uncomfortable. I am planning to donate much of my wife's clothes and things, and left-over medical supplies to the Self-Help center. Many of the clients do not have ANYTHING, and even if they receive Disability, you cannot "live" on those payments, just barely "survive."
That's my update. I don't come to Daily Strength much, but I recommend it to people in my group and also to anyone who needs a little friendly support. As we were told in group facilitator training, sometimes just knowing it's there helps me, even if I don't participate.
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