It used to be so easy when they were little kids. The grandchildren. They came to stay for the summer, and my worst fear was forgetting one of them as I made my daily carpool rounds: science camp; theatre camp; sailing school; rowing camp. But time marches on, things change, and everyone starts to grow up. I've already "been there, done that." Raised three kids in relative safety with some pretty hard-and-fast rules about where are you going? With whom? Stay in touch. (We didn't have cell phones in those days.) And we were a fortunate set of parents - no phone calls from police or emergency squads, thank God, altho' we did attend more than the lion's share of teenage viewings and funerals. The vision of families mutilated by death is still etched in my memories.
Forward to 2012, and I now have grandchildren who drive - grandchildren who are more than 18 years old, and are very aware that in the eyes of the law, they are adults. Peachy. Except that they are staying under MY roof, and they have to abide by MY rules! And now I am alone, without the strength of a husband to back me up. It's scary enough to be responsible for someone else's children - even scarier when they are your precious grandchildren - and I'm just that much older and wiser and even more aware of the dangers lurking out there in the world. I'm not a total neurotic - really - nor am I a control freak. But I am a worrier, something I inherited from my father, over which I have very little control. And no one ever told me that parenthood, or grandparenthood, NEVER ends. I try to console myself with the knowledge that my driving-age grandchildren are intelligent, trustworthy people - but...but...but... there are deer, there are drunks, there are curves in the roads, weather conditions - and idiots.
And there is no longer anyone to share with me the anxiety of waiting for the car to come down the driveway - or to be flooded with relief when the door opens, and a grandchild walks in, safe and sober. No one to snuggle up with in the dark once everyone's home and the household can go to sleep. No one to share the sense of gratitude that we are once again whole, with the comfort of nothing to worry about.
This is a lonely, heavy responsibility - and it's at times like these when I miss my husband more than there are words to express. We were meant to parent, and to grandparent, together - and death has deprived me - us - of that experience. And I will never stop wondering why...
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Loose Ends
Here, just beyond the crest of 19 months as a widow, I am still tying up loose ends - and my life is ruled by paper. Paper. Mountains of paper. Statements, bills, receipts, records - paper and more paper. My late husband was a real 1950s-type guy. He insisted upon balancing the checkbook, paying the bills, tracking insurance policies and investments and staying on top of taxes. I was very spoiled, not because I wanted to be, but because he was adamant about handling all of this stuff himself. So for almost 47 years, I paid no bills, filed no tax forms, ("Here, dear. Just sign on this line,") and I only ran for cover when I'd overspend on our shared credit card.
The first clue that I was in over my head came just a few months after he died, when I stepped into what turned out to be an ice-cold shower. I can't begin to tell you how it works, but my hot water magically comes through my furnace and sprays its warmth through the shower head every morning - except for this particularly cold morning when I just couldn't seem to warm up - and I thought the shower would take the chill out of my bones. Shivering out of control and wrapped in a towel, I called our air-conditioning guy. He's a local - very friendly - long-married - and he was a big fan of my husband's. "Sounds to me like you might have run out of heating oil, Linda. Better check your oil tank. See if you can find your last fill statement."
Uh.....okay. I'll go check the oil tank, which sits in red-painted glory in a corner of the basement. I knew it involved a wrench and a stick - but for the life of me, I can't reach the nut to affix the wrench to - and the stick has no markings, so I wouldn't know what I was looking at anyway. I made a few calls, and learned that "Frankie" was the person I needed - the A/C guy said that if my tank was empty, the lines would have to be bled, and Frankie was the one to attend to this. Long story short: the oil tank was indeed dry as a bone - when I finally found the fill statement, it said 400 gallons had been delivered. Frankie came and bled the lines after the oil company re-filled the tank. Frankie, who turned out to be a very kind and understanding big bear of a furnace guy, also noticed my water softener was low on salt, and the filter was in need of changing - so while he was at the local hardware store buying a gauge to install on the oil tank, he also picked up some bags of salt and a new water filter. Who knew? In addition to not paying bills or filing tax forms, I was clueless about heating oil, (400 gallons sounded like an OCEAN of oil to me!), bleeding lines, water softeners and water filters. Jeeze, Louise! I have since put myself on a budget plan with the heating oil company, so now I don't have to worry about checking the shiny new gauge Frankie installed .
The second clue that, "Houston, we have a problem," was when an agent for my homeowner's insurance called to say that my homeowner's policy was going to be canceled if I didn't pay my premium. I vaguely remembered getting an envelope from an insurance company with a whole bunch of slick papers inside, in living color, which I pitched into the trash, because I thought it was promotional advertising. Whoops! I'd discarded my renewal notice - duh! - and the sympathetic agent said I could renew over the phone with a credit card. Whew! Another bullet dodged!
And the avalanche of paper continued. Statements about investments. Some guy who sounded like he was about 17 called to express his condolences about my husband - turns out he was the contact person for a money market fund - and he asked me if I wanted to inherit or assume the fund. "Beats the daylights outta me, Sunshine," I told him, feeling like I'd just been told to identify the parts of a jet engine, or something. He explained, in finance-ese, what the difference was, leaving me with a whirling brain and crossed eyes and no further understanding of what is inheriting and what is assuming.
I also knew, before he died, that my husband was a compulsive "filer." I had six filing cabinet drawers full of files, a veritable encyclopedic record of our life for almost 47 years in the form of bills of sale, receipts, very old bank statements, and God alone knows what else. I can still see the expression of dismay and fear on the face of my accountant the first time I stumbled into her office, bearing two huge file boxes of records. "My husband died in December," I said on that cold February morning. "Everyone said I should come to you to do my income tax." I dropped the boxes and ran like hell for the door. God bless her. She somehow made sense of all that stuff and all those files - and my filing went in on time, and I got a refund! I felt like I'd won the lottery.
So now, a year and change after that first baptism of fire - or ice-cold water, if you prefer -I'm beginning to get sorted out. No less paper, I might add, as it still gets stuffed into my mailbox - but I'm beginning to be able to differentiate between the bills and the promotional garbage - and I've just spent an entire DAY organizing my very own filing cabinet, and my own system for filing, so that my accountant won't be apoplectic the next time I walk in.
But I'm still surprised by the unexpected discoveries in all these papers. Little scraps with HIS all-too-familiar handwriting - little notes to himself. "Zing went the strings of my heart." It's almost as if he's still here. Almost. Sweet reminders of the lovely man who took such good care of me and his family - and a filing cabinet full of what I have and no longer have, if you understand what I mean.
And paper is, after all, what it comes down to, Birth certificate to death certificate, with all those papers in between. Something tangible to say we walked this earth at one time or another and then we ceased to live. I had no idea all this awaited me - and I hover somewhere between gratitude and aggravation - and short of origami and airplanes, I'll just have to deal with all this paper.
The first clue that I was in over my head came just a few months after he died, when I stepped into what turned out to be an ice-cold shower. I can't begin to tell you how it works, but my hot water magically comes through my furnace and sprays its warmth through the shower head every morning - except for this particularly cold morning when I just couldn't seem to warm up - and I thought the shower would take the chill out of my bones. Shivering out of control and wrapped in a towel, I called our air-conditioning guy. He's a local - very friendly - long-married - and he was a big fan of my husband's. "Sounds to me like you might have run out of heating oil, Linda. Better check your oil tank. See if you can find your last fill statement."
Uh.....okay. I'll go check the oil tank, which sits in red-painted glory in a corner of the basement. I knew it involved a wrench and a stick - but for the life of me, I can't reach the nut to affix the wrench to - and the stick has no markings, so I wouldn't know what I was looking at anyway. I made a few calls, and learned that "Frankie" was the person I needed - the A/C guy said that if my tank was empty, the lines would have to be bled, and Frankie was the one to attend to this. Long story short: the oil tank was indeed dry as a bone - when I finally found the fill statement, it said 400 gallons had been delivered. Frankie came and bled the lines after the oil company re-filled the tank. Frankie, who turned out to be a very kind and understanding big bear of a furnace guy, also noticed my water softener was low on salt, and the filter was in need of changing - so while he was at the local hardware store buying a gauge to install on the oil tank, he also picked up some bags of salt and a new water filter. Who knew? In addition to not paying bills or filing tax forms, I was clueless about heating oil, (400 gallons sounded like an OCEAN of oil to me!), bleeding lines, water softeners and water filters. Jeeze, Louise! I have since put myself on a budget plan with the heating oil company, so now I don't have to worry about checking the shiny new gauge Frankie installed .
The second clue that, "Houston, we have a problem," was when an agent for my homeowner's insurance called to say that my homeowner's policy was going to be canceled if I didn't pay my premium. I vaguely remembered getting an envelope from an insurance company with a whole bunch of slick papers inside, in living color, which I pitched into the trash, because I thought it was promotional advertising. Whoops! I'd discarded my renewal notice - duh! - and the sympathetic agent said I could renew over the phone with a credit card. Whew! Another bullet dodged!
And the avalanche of paper continued. Statements about investments. Some guy who sounded like he was about 17 called to express his condolences about my husband - turns out he was the contact person for a money market fund - and he asked me if I wanted to inherit or assume the fund. "Beats the daylights outta me, Sunshine," I told him, feeling like I'd just been told to identify the parts of a jet engine, or something. He explained, in finance-ese, what the difference was, leaving me with a whirling brain and crossed eyes and no further understanding of what is inheriting and what is assuming.
I also knew, before he died, that my husband was a compulsive "filer." I had six filing cabinet drawers full of files, a veritable encyclopedic record of our life for almost 47 years in the form of bills of sale, receipts, very old bank statements, and God alone knows what else. I can still see the expression of dismay and fear on the face of my accountant the first time I stumbled into her office, bearing two huge file boxes of records. "My husband died in December," I said on that cold February morning. "Everyone said I should come to you to do my income tax." I dropped the boxes and ran like hell for the door. God bless her. She somehow made sense of all that stuff and all those files - and my filing went in on time, and I got a refund! I felt like I'd won the lottery.
So now, a year and change after that first baptism of fire - or ice-cold water, if you prefer -I'm beginning to get sorted out. No less paper, I might add, as it still gets stuffed into my mailbox - but I'm beginning to be able to differentiate between the bills and the promotional garbage - and I've just spent an entire DAY organizing my very own filing cabinet, and my own system for filing, so that my accountant won't be apoplectic the next time I walk in.
But I'm still surprised by the unexpected discoveries in all these papers. Little scraps with HIS all-too-familiar handwriting - little notes to himself. "Zing went the strings of my heart." It's almost as if he's still here. Almost. Sweet reminders of the lovely man who took such good care of me and his family - and a filing cabinet full of what I have and no longer have, if you understand what I mean.
And paper is, after all, what it comes down to, Birth certificate to death certificate, with all those papers in between. Something tangible to say we walked this earth at one time or another and then we ceased to live. I had no idea all this awaited me - and I hover somewhere between gratitude and aggravation - and short of origami and airplanes, I'll just have to deal with all this paper.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
The Tractor
It stood useless for almost two years. No, wait a minute - not useless. Unused would be a better word. It was a big old Massey-Ferguson farm tractor, perfect for grading the driveway, or moving snow in the wintertime, or mowing vast fields of grass. It was my husband's "baby," purchased even before we built the house. His prized possession, complete with a roll cage and enough shifting levers to operate the Hoover Dam. I always said that if I ever tried to drive the thing, I'd be in Toledo, Ohio, before I could figure out what all those levers and gear-shift doo-dahs were for. It stood about 17 or so hands high, towering over me and thee - and the only other person who could understand how to drive it was my son-in-law, who said it was entirely too huge for any of his needs, plus the fact that he had nowhere to store it. And none of my other children had the space or the need for it. The left rear tire had gone flat as a pancake, and the one on the right was beginning to look a little deflated. The only "person" using it was a stray barn cat who slept on the comfy seat when it suited her, leaving behind mountains of cat hair.
So, my husband died almost two years ago, and the old tractor stood patiently under the shed roof of the barn. And one day my friend, Owen, who periodically does mowing and yard work for me, said, "Why are you keeping this tractor?" And I replied that I couldn't bear the thought of parting with it because it meant so much to my late husband. And Owen said, "Well, it would be a shame to let it just sit here and deteriorate." (Owen's a farmer by career, so is well-acquainted with all kinds of farm equipment.) His comment kept flying around in my brain, and the word, "deteriorate," kept haunting me. "You have to be practical," I told myself. "It's just a tractor, made of steel and pistons and God knows what else. It's not a living thing." Deciding to square my shoulders and to be a big girl and do the right thing, I reluctantly put the word out - and I had a taker within a month. By the light of flashlights and floodlights, a nice young farmer from somewhere up in Pennsylvania appeared one evening in a giant roll-off truck with a winch, loaded the tractor, and handed me a roll of hundred-dollar bills. The tractor started up without hesitation, and almost purred as it was being loaded, even with a flat tire, and it wasn't long before truck and tractor rolled out of the driveway, leaving me in the red backwash of tail lights.
"It's just a tractor," I sobbed to myself as I made my way up to the house from the barn. The memories rolled over me: the excitement of taking delivery of the tractor so many years ago; visions of my then-young and healthy husband riding along on the tractor with one or another baby grandchild on his lap, (the babies were either terrified or fascinated); mental images of my husband working with the tractor in all kinds of weather, bucket up, blade down, mower whirring, and he was grinning from ear-to-ear.
Then the realization hit me. It wasn't just a sold tractor. It was the end of an era, a machine wrapped in dreams and memories and hope and satisfaction - and it was gone, just as my husband was, never to return. I never contemplated this, this pain of letting go - this emotional trip-wire with Massey-Ferguson stamped on its grille. And it's just not within me to dismiss a piece of machinery, as just that, a piece of machinery. The tractor represented so many things - it was the beginning of our "golden years," when we bought our land and started building our house. Its sale marked the end of the "golden" period and the beginning of the alone-ness, the gold now chipped and tarnished with the reality of being one instead of two. Half of a whole. No more you and me - just me now - and it's such a sad and empty place to be.
Oh, sure - I know the pain of separation will lessen, and the day will come when I will be grateful for having one less "thing" to be responsible for. Intellectually, I know all of this. Emotionally, part of my heart went along with that tractor, which I pray will be a happy beginning for someone else - a machine to make dreams come true.
So, my husband died almost two years ago, and the old tractor stood patiently under the shed roof of the barn. And one day my friend, Owen, who periodically does mowing and yard work for me, said, "Why are you keeping this tractor?" And I replied that I couldn't bear the thought of parting with it because it meant so much to my late husband. And Owen said, "Well, it would be a shame to let it just sit here and deteriorate." (Owen's a farmer by career, so is well-acquainted with all kinds of farm equipment.) His comment kept flying around in my brain, and the word, "deteriorate," kept haunting me. "You have to be practical," I told myself. "It's just a tractor, made of steel and pistons and God knows what else. It's not a living thing." Deciding to square my shoulders and to be a big girl and do the right thing, I reluctantly put the word out - and I had a taker within a month. By the light of flashlights and floodlights, a nice young farmer from somewhere up in Pennsylvania appeared one evening in a giant roll-off truck with a winch, loaded the tractor, and handed me a roll of hundred-dollar bills. The tractor started up without hesitation, and almost purred as it was being loaded, even with a flat tire, and it wasn't long before truck and tractor rolled out of the driveway, leaving me in the red backwash of tail lights.
"It's just a tractor," I sobbed to myself as I made my way up to the house from the barn. The memories rolled over me: the excitement of taking delivery of the tractor so many years ago; visions of my then-young and healthy husband riding along on the tractor with one or another baby grandchild on his lap, (the babies were either terrified or fascinated); mental images of my husband working with the tractor in all kinds of weather, bucket up, blade down, mower whirring, and he was grinning from ear-to-ear.
Then the realization hit me. It wasn't just a sold tractor. It was the end of an era, a machine wrapped in dreams and memories and hope and satisfaction - and it was gone, just as my husband was, never to return. I never contemplated this, this pain of letting go - this emotional trip-wire with Massey-Ferguson stamped on its grille. And it's just not within me to dismiss a piece of machinery, as just that, a piece of machinery. The tractor represented so many things - it was the beginning of our "golden years," when we bought our land and started building our house. Its sale marked the end of the "golden" period and the beginning of the alone-ness, the gold now chipped and tarnished with the reality of being one instead of two. Half of a whole. No more you and me - just me now - and it's such a sad and empty place to be.
Oh, sure - I know the pain of separation will lessen, and the day will come when I will be grateful for having one less "thing" to be responsible for. Intellectually, I know all of this. Emotionally, part of my heart went along with that tractor, which I pray will be a happy beginning for someone else - a machine to make dreams come true.
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