It is my wish that most of these blogs I put up here
are blogs of light hearted commentary, light hearted levity and light hearted
humour. Blogs to enjoy and make folk
feel good. Feel good for me and feel
good for whoever may read them. Humour
is the quickest and easiest way to my own heart (no to those that think food is
the quickest way to the heart, caramel slices come second after a good laugh),
and where ever possible I do try to lift dreary souls, including my own, and
see something funny in most situations, especially ones that have me laugh at
myself. Indeed, the best belly laughs are
the ones when I laugh at myself.
But this blog today is not going to be light
hearted. I can tell. So click off now if you seek to be light
heartedly entertained.
It’s been a rat-shit few days. I don’t know how else to describe it. ‘Glum’?
That’s too light a word to use. ‘Hellish’? Maybe that’s too heavy a word to use. So ‘rat-shit’ fits somewhere in between
them. Guess the more polite way would be
to say it been an “awful few days” – but that doesn’t say it either. Because, they’ve been rat-shit.
And yes, to some degree it is self induced. I knew this period of time would not be a
happy or easy period and had long ago been dreading the month of March. Mind you, last year I was dreading the month
of July. And then the month of
Christmas. But this one, this March, has
been the most dreaded of all.
I guess it has been looming up in my consciousness
since March last year. The dreaded first
year anniversary of Tony’s passing. And
our wedding anniversary. The two dates
are only two days apart. 7th
March, our wedding anniversary. 9th
March when Tony passed away.
I am not a person who likes to be alone but I do
recognise that there are times when being alone is the best solution for myself
and all those who are normally around me or care for me; therefore had long ago
decided to prepare myself for this time, and save others the burden of yet
again trying to help a widow who seems endlessly to weep. I decided to take myself away from the home
environs, take myself somewhere as far away as I could feasibly go but
somewhere on roads that I had never travelled with Tony. For it seems that almost every road in New
Zealand has been travelled at some time by the two of us together, thereby
throwing me back into doleful melancholy.
We did do a lot together.
Thus, finding non-Tony-travelled roads has found me sitting
in an 8 foot by 10 foot cabin in a camping ground that is on the coast line of
Hawkes Bay. As I type I can hear the
waves breaking on the sands, not 200 metres from this little cabin. I hear fellow travelers sitting outside
talking and laughing in the early morning dark; puffing on their cigarettes and drinking from
bottles of local brew that they've been drinking all night, some actually are drinking coffee.
It’s rather an adventure really. Just me, sadly a 60 plus year old me, in a
camping ground surrounded by all manner of 18 to 30 year olds who speak
languages I cannot pin point. This
country certainly attracts thousands of young Europeon travelers each calendar
year but they certainly do not add great value to our GDP judging by what I
have observed in their meager spending on foods, travel and accommodation
here. The kitchen last night seemed to
have heavy odours packaged soups and noodles, and crackers. Interestingly some of that hideously horrid
food was taken in with bottles of cheap red wine. That would be a plus for New Zealand if it
were not for the fact that the red wine bottles I saw were of the cheap
Australian branded varieties that one can purchase at Pak n Save or the
like. So even the wine spending in the
best wine country in New Zealand is spent on cheap Aussie reds.
I have been travelling around the island since
departing Taupo earlier this week. Deep
in the central North Island was struck by the beauty of the dilapidated ruins
of buildings and towns that only 40 or 50 years ago were thriving little
settlements before the advent of modern day governments that depleted the
financial hearts from the towns and have seen them become visual historic
sites.
I didn’t stop for long in those places as the weather
earlier this week had turned cold, with winds that made standing still almost
impossible. And now I am in sun shining,
windless East Coast territory and will remain here until I feel the morbidity
of the present time has passed and I can return home.
Yesterday was and probably will be the worst day. No matter how hard I tried throughout the day
I could not stop myself from reflecting on the happiest day we ever shared
together only a few years ago. On a boat
on Lake Taupo, two days after we had both completed yet another Ironman, in the
presence of a handful of special family and friends. Dear friends officiated as celebrants to
legally bind us as husband and wife. It
was the perfect day. In every way.
There was no urgency for us to marry. We had both long histories of disastrous
encounters of the married kind and when we became a ‘couple’ some twenty years
ago had belly-laughed ourselves at the thought of adding yet another statistic
to our histories.
Then the years passed happily by. Until I was floored sometime in the late
1990’s when Tony literally went on bended knee and asked that we marry. It must be noted that not a drop of wine had
passed his lips that day, that he was completely sober and had long preplanned
to ‘pop the question’. Sadly, I said
no. I say sadly because now that I know
what the ending was, I should have responded with a ‘yes’ and had the benefit
of so many more years being known as ‘Tony’s wife’ and lived that many more
years in a happily married state.
I had said no at that time because of the fact we were
so happy and I feared that changing any status quo could put the hex of
previous pasts on us. This is a perfect
example of there being nothing to fear except fear itself.
Anyway, a few more years went by and the question was
asked a few more times and each time there was a less firm ‘no’ response, until
eventually I knew, really knew, it was time we formalised the informal
structure of our relationship. By this
time I knew we would be forever happy, that there were no cracks or fears in
our relationship, that our level of love and commitment was deeper and greater
than we could ever have previously comprehended. It was so very unique and special. We both knew that.
There were occasions when Tony would, at the oddest of
times, turn to me and ask, “Are you happy?” Even at our grumpiest of times it
would make me stop and take the reality check and always answer that I
was. I kick myself so much now that very
often my positive response to his question would be followed by, “I am so happy
that I have to pinch myself because I keep expecting some bugger to come along
and stuff it up.” Why did I say that!
That was such a dumb, dumb follow on.
Some bugger did, his name was Tumour.
Last year, after Tony had died, I found files on our
PC that had somehow been save to a temp file and had long been forgotten about. Files of Tony’s and mine; files that had me
spending hours going through and reading and resaving as so many were treasures
that we had both forgotten about. Many
were stories of Tony’s, of his life, his history. Others were my own files, boring, with the
exception of a couple. And one of them
was a note I had written to Tony on Valentine’s Day. I guess you could call it a love note. It was a hand written note that he had
scanned and filed on the PC.
As corny as it may seem for an older couple like us to
do, Tony and I always celebrated our love on Valentine’s Day. Come the 14th February each year
we would do something extra special, whether dinner in or dinner out, or lunch,
or brunch. There were always flowers and
cards. Always a surprise for me sometime
during the day. We were both romantics,
that’s why we were made for each other.
And we had both learnt through years of bad experiences that when you
know you have something special you make sure you keep it special. We never took each other for granted. And Valentine’s Day was just another day to
remind ourselves not to.
Sometime during Valentine’s Day in 2007, the February
prior to Tony being diagnosed with a brain tumour, Tony had quaintly asked me
the question of why I loved him. I sat
down and wrote on a piece of note paper the reasons why I loved him. Last year, among the files I found was the scanned
words I had written. These are the
words.
You asked
me why do I love you?
Well, let me count the ways.
I love you
because;
- You know me like no one else ever has;
- You know all of my vulnerabilities and
accept them;
- You see my strengths and admire them;
- You accept, and even choose to overlook,
my weaknesses;
- You often cannot see my weaknesses;
- But you always see my strengths;
- You give me strength, oh so much strength;
- Each time you touch me, hold my hand, hug
me, I still have those lovely warm fuzzies rush through my heart and most
importantly, my soul;
- When you hold me I feel safe and secure;
- When you cuddle me I feel and know I am loved.
- When I am upset, you feel for me and try
and make things better.
- You chose to love those I love.
- You accept me for what I am and do not try
to change me;
- You care for me above all other things.
- You laugh with me;
- You want to make me happy;
- You love hearing me laugh.
- You like being with me.
- You choose to be with me.
- You love the things I so love.
And most of
all, I love you because you love me.
That is why yesterday was such a rat-shit day.
I have lost that love.
No matter how much folk tell me that he is here, with me; that he will always be here, he is not. Yesterday just reminded me what I have lost,
what has gone. Yes, I feel sorry for
myself for it took 40 years to find it and only 20 years to lose it.
I do feel content that at all times I never took it
for granted. We never took each other
for granted. Life experiences for us
both had taught us to treasure the positive and eliminate the negative.
Only I am having trouble doing that at this point in
time. I have a lot to be positive about
but am finding it difficult to stop looking at the negative. For the negative was so positive.
Tony used to call me his ‘Maori Princess’. A friend texted me yesterday afternoon and
asked how the roving princess was getting on.
I responded that I was seeking a prince but doubted I would find one on
the banks of the muddy Wairoa River. As
I sent that I wondered at myself that I could and was so frivolously cheeky
when I had spend the day pouring buckets of tears over my lost King. But it served to remind myself that silly and
frivolous is positive. In the midst of
this deep, negative depression there is some positive. I can still dig up some humour.
I think it’s healthy.
But it’s still a rat-shit day.
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