Pat Bertram's Blog, page 104

Rebar

[image error]The construction workers were here today to put the rebars in the garage foundation. I’ve heard of rebars, and I even know what they do, but I didn’t know what the difference between a bar and a rebar is, so I did a bit of research.

You probably already know, but the bar in “rebar” is a bar, as in a rod rather than as in a tavern (though in the case of a tavern, I suppose you could still re-bar, as in bar-hopping and re-bar-hopping). The “re” part in rebar is short for “reinforcing” or “reinforcement.” Aha! So a rebar is simply a reinforcing bar. That part I get. The explanation for why a rebar is necessary is what strains my brain.

The forces of compression and tension always work together within an object. The force of compression squeezes things together, while the force of tension pulls things apart. Concrete has a high compression strength, but it has weak tension. (Apparently, concrete can stand up to compression, as when a building is built on a concrete foundation, but it can’t stand up to forces of tension, which is why the walls of my old garage kept sliding apart and cracking the floor. Even though the foundation was shallow, the garage might have held up if rebars had been used in the construction. Or so I understand.)

Although I have never specifically heard of the forces of compression and tension (or if I had heard, I’ve long forgotten) and don’t really understand how they work, I am familiar with the concept of opposing universal forces. Yin and yang, which is the ultimate example of forces that work together to make a whole. The nuclear force, which keeps nucleons in the atom’s nucleus together at the same time it keeps them apart to prevent an implosion. The push and pull of orbits that keep the solar system and galaxy in order. The give and take of relationships.

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It’s not really important to understand the concept of rebars as long as the workers do, and as long as the work passes inspection, which it did. So, next step — concrete!

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

A Taste of Spring

In five days, I will have been a house owner for an entire year. That year sure went fast! I came here just as spring was making itself felt, and today, as if in celebration, spring decided to make a visit. Sunny skies. Gorgeous weather.

None of my bulbs (except for that one intrepid snow drop that’s still hanging around) have put in an appearance, but if, as Aristotle says, “One swallow does not a summer make,” then I’m sure it also holds true that one fine day does not a spring make. So there’s still time for them to make an appearance.

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Still, bits of green are starting to peek above the dead leaves that didn’t get blown away last fall. Most of the green, I’m sure, are weeds of some sort, but until I find out for sure, I welcome the color. (And even if I do find out they are weeds, I am sure I will still welcome the color. I am a bit tired of the drab earthen tones of the winter, so new growth of any kind will be nice.)

I also found some green shoots that look as if they might be from bulbs, but I never planted them, and there weren’t any blooms in that part of the yard last year. Maybe they are a house anniversary present from Chloris, the goddess of flowers.

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The gift of greenery wasn’t the only present I got today. The contractor came to frame the foundation for the garage and he brought me some farm eggs. Such lovely colors!

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Whatever the coming weeks hold, I certainly enjoyed today’s taste of spring.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Author Dynasties

[image error]I don’t particularly like Sue Grafton’s books, but I do admire her — she left her legacy as is, her series unfinished, and would not allow anyone to step up after her death and keep her characters alive.

Too many authors didn’t make that decision before they died, so their heirs made it afterward. For example, some classics are being brought back to life when authors today write unsanctioned sequels to beloved favorites, such as those who pretend to channel Jane Austen or Daphne Du Maurier. 

One of the few times posthumous writing was warranted was when Robert Jordan died before he could finish his modern classic, the fourteen volume Wheel of Time series. Another writer was hired to work with Jordan’s wife and Jordan’s copious notes to finish the series. Can you imagine going through decades with all those thousands of characters and millions of words only to be left hanging on the wheel without a resolution? So yes, it had to be finished. But once it was, it was done. There will be no more Robert Jordan books.

But some stories and authors’ names that do not need to be kept alive are still going for no other reason than to milk the money machine. 

Some fellow is now writing Michael Crichton’s books. And another fellow is keeping Robert Parker’s Spenser alive. Who needs these books? They are not the author’s words, not the author’s vision — just some pale vision of the vision.

A new thing now is for the literary name is passed to the next generation. Michael Palmer’s son is now writing Michael Palmer books. Lee Child’s son will be taking over is father’s series.

And what the heck is going on with James Patterson? The way he’s spawning co-authors, his name will be one of the last words uttered when the earth falls into the sun.

This is what happens when an author’s name becomes a brand. I never used to pay attention to authors’ names except as a way of finding more books to read, and neither did anyone else, at least not to the extent that holds true today. The title was the main thing; the author’s name almost an afterthought. But branding and modern publishing changed all that. Now it’s the author who’s paramount, and no one cares what drivel is passed along to the reading public under the famous brand. (I got caught with a Michael Palmer book written by his son because the famous name was in huge letters, the title in a smaller type, and the writer’s name all but swallowed up in the graphic on the very bottom. So not nice!)

It used to be as one author’s star waned, another’s would rise, but what’s happened to all those non-rising stars? What will happen to readers when the brands finally are laid to rest? Not that it matters. There are plenty of books for me to read, and when there aren’t any more books that I like, I’ll write more of my own.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

 

Virus!

With all the talk about corona virus and how it’s probably a man-made (or woman-made, for all I know) organism that escaped from a lab, it would be remiss of me not to mention my own organism, the red death. The red death only resides within the pages of A Spark of Heavenly Fire, so it cannot harm you (though it might scare you), but it’s deadly for all that. In fact, it’s so deadly and spread so fast from it’s origins in Colorado, that the entire state is quarantined.

You don’t think that’s possible? The technology already exists, and where people manage to break out of the quarantined area, you better believe that people from the surrounding states would not hesitate to shoot an escapee.

Inside the quarantined state, hundreds of thousands of people are dying in Colorado this unstoppable red death, and though many people have given up hope, insomniac Kate Cummings struggles to find the courage to live and to love. Investigative reporter Greg Pullman, is determined to discover who unleashed the deadly organism and why they did it, until the cost — Kate’s life — becomes more than he can pay. This is a story of survival in the face of brutality, government cover-up, and public hysteria. It is also a story of love: lost, found and fulfilled.

So, if you wish to take a break from talk of the rather tepid coronavirus (the “normal” flu is much deadlier) and experience what a true epidemic would be like, you can read an excerpt of A Spark of Heavenly Fire here: https://bertramsblog.com/free-samples/a-spark-of-heavenly-fire/ and you can buy it from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1630663662/

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Inane Things to Ponder

Most of my life, especially after Jeff died, I pondered the big questions about life and death, love and grief, but recently, I’ve been pondering more inane things.

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I don’t watch television, so my life should be commercial free, but unfortunately, I sometimes play a particular game online. Supposedly, the game is free, though the site does exact the “payment” of watching commercials, and sometimes the commercials “cost” more than the game is worth. The worst, of course, are the drug commercials, which are often longer than it takes to play the game. And oh, are they creepy! They show happy families doing happy things, happy couples doing romantic things, happy individuals doing fun or challenging things — all accompanied by huge grins. Meantime, the crawl on the bottom of the screen lists ghastly, and occasionally life-threatening side effects. I wonder if anyone has done a study showing an increase is dissociative personality disorders since the onset of such commercials. For an extreme example, let’s say the side effect of an allergy medication is bleeding to death from internal meltdowns, and yet the person taking the drug is grinning, grinning, grinning as if being able to die in such a way is a glorious ending.

Then there’s a Home Depot commercial where a little girl can’t reach the top shelf of the refrigerator, so her mom goes out and buys a new refrigerator. Huh? Who puts drinks on the top shelf anyway? Why not put them on a lower shelf? And then, to make matters worse, they get the refrigerator and all the little girls reach in their arms and pull out plastic bottles of water. Um. Not cool. The whole thing smacks of arrogance.

In a commercial for the car Infiniti, the driver does not unsnap the seatbelt, but pulls her legs through the belt. This isn’t as horrific as happiness while being told of possible death, and not as ridiculous as buying a new refrigerator instead of moving the drinks, but still, I can only shake my head and wonder why.

Luckily, I have finished all the levels of the game I was playing, so I shouldn’t be subjected to these commercials anymore, but there are always other things that show up to baffle me.

I recently read yet another article about Ted Bundy (everyone’s favorite sociopath). The author made a big deal about him being clean cut and attractive, and yet what is the alternative? If guys who troll for female bait dressed to match their psychopathic selves — dirty and unkempt — there’s no way they’d ever get to be prolific killers. Anyone who saw them would be leery of them. And anyway, they’re not really that attractive, at least not to my eyes. So is it that their looks are at odds from what we think they should look like, so they seem more physically acceptable than they are?

And speaking of serial killers — why is it that women’s author photos, even those of women who write gritty thrillers, always look as if they have just come from the beauty parlor and are so very happy about it, but men often look like creeps who want to whack off your head to make you read their books. They don’t of course, because whacked heads lose the ability to read. The men who don’t look like serial killers, look like stereotypical bums, and those who don’t look like bums scowl. Would a smile really kill them?

What about you? What sort of inane things do you ponder?

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educato

 

 

The Winds of Eternity

In one month, it will be the tenth anniversary of Jeff’s death. I can’t even begin to comprehend what that means — is it a lot of time? A little time? It doesn’t seem possible that it’s been so many years since I last saw him, though looking back over the decade since he died, it’s obvious that a lot of time has passed. I’ve felt much, lived much, changed much.

My grief has changed over the years, too, from unimaginable pain to nostalgia, from angst to acceptance (not acceptance of his death — never that! — but acceptance of the reality of my situation). Grief now is the scaffolding of my life, forming the framework of who I am rather than being all that I am. (In the beginning, grief took hold, and it felt as if there was nothing else, would never be anything else. Grief is still there, deep inside, but is now only a piece of who I am, not all of it.)

The biggest change I notice is that the screech of death and the winds of eternity have receded once more into the background, and my life seems much quieter. When Jeff died, it felt as if part of me had died with him. A whole chunk had been amputated and I have never gained it back. For years, I felt as if I were standing at the edge of eternity the abyss yawning at my feet, the storms of time raging around me, one hand held out to try to grasp something, anything, to balance me and keep me from being pulled into the void where that amputated part had gone. I could feel the breath of the eternal, the awesomeness of life and death. I could feel—or almost feel—the driving force of the universe.

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That seems fanciful, and I suppose it is, but it’s also how I felt. Looking back, grief seems so . . . noisy. Sobs and gasps and even screams came from my mouth, and loud questions and clamorous confusion filled my head. Death is shrouded with an element of blank. It is the great unknown and unknowable, and our human brains are not equipped to handle the immensity. And yet, when we lose someone important to us, the very fact of death is thrust into our lives, forcing us to deal with it the best we can.

How do we bear the unbearable? How do we fathom the unfathomable? We don’t, not really. We grapple with the conundrums and wait until eternity recedes and our brains settle into new patterns of thought.

I used to miss the feeling of significance grief gave me, with its great emotion, crucial questions, and the nearness of eternity, but now I am merely grateful for the internal quiet.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Small Town Living

[image error]Small town living can be such a hoot.

I spend most of my time in my back room where I read and work on the computer. Because there are a couple of windows that face my neighbor’s house, I can hear the mail truck pull up to her place, but not mine.

Yesterday was exceptionally cold with a few isolated snow flakes and a lot of biting winds. (28mph). So when I heard the mail truck, I hurried to the door to catch the mail deliverer, bundled in a parka, hat, hood, muffler, heading up my neighbor’s sidewalk.

“Did I get any mail?” I called out.

“Just a flyer,” she called back.

Postal regulations put into effect right before I moved here require new residents to plant a mailbox along the street, though no such regulation targets those who lived here before the rule. Hence, my neighbor gets her mail delivered to her door. I have to walk out to the street. It’s not that long a walk, obviously, but it does entail putting on shoes and a coat and fighting the wind for possession of my storm door.

“So it’s not worth it for me to walk out the box?” I asked.

“Definitely not,” she answered.

We talked about the weather for as long as it took her to stuff my neighbor’s mail in the box, then she said, “You be careful. Don’t go for your walk today.”

I had to laugh at that. Yep. Small towns.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

 

Reflections of the Past

[image error]After Jeff died, I was sorry that I didn’t have a current photo of him. The one I do have had been taken ten years before, and it didn’t even look like him. Or at least not the “him” he was at the end. (It was a perfect image back when the photo was taken.) I refused to look at the photo, afraid I’d only remember him as the man in the photo, not the real person, but as the years went by, I realized that neither image — the one I had nor the one I didn’t have — told a greater truth. He was both. And neither.

Although we always feel like us, that “us” changes over the years. We adapt to how we feel, and it’s only later we get a glimpse of the changes we have gone through, whether physical or mental, spiritual or emotional. The person we are at the end isn’t more real than the person we were at the beginning. Each is a facet of the whole shimmering being we are.

Some people theorize that since time is mainly a construct of our minds, each of those people we were all exist at the same time, and it’s our brains that divide time into past and present.

Others theorize that time is a matter of distance. The earth hurtles around the sun at 67,000 mph. The sun hurtles around the galaxy at 140 miles per second. The entire universe is also moving and expanding, so today we are a very long way from where we were 9 years 11 months and 18 days ago when Jeff died.

But whatever the truth of time, for the purposes of our life on earth, the past, whether near or far, is always the same distance from us. We can no more touch yesterday than we can touch a hundred years ago or a thousand. It’s all just out of reach. Gone. Past.

So does it matter that Jeff’s been gone one year or ten? It matters to me of course, since it’s been ten years since I’ve seen him, but he was just as gone the moment he died as he is today. So any photo of him, no matter what age he was, is an adequate image.

Although he and I weren’t picture takers, never liked having pictures of us (or anyone) hanging around, I am grateful for that photo on my bedside table. He might be gone, far out of reach, but I take comfort in having this reflection of the past.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Bittersweet

Occasionally we meet someone with whom we immediately connect, as if they have always been a part of our lives. Although most of the people I have befriended since moving to my house now seem to have been in my life for more than the year I have known them, one woman in particular was in my heart from the first day we met.

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We have a bit of a language problem since English is not her first language, but if we miss a word or two here and there, or even a whole sentence, it doesn’t matter. Only the connection matters. And if words fail, there is the universal language of smiles and hugs.

I hadn’t seen her for a while, so when she and her husband stopped by yesterday to see me, I was delighted.

Until I found out what prompted the visit — they wanted to let me know she’s starting chemo.

This woman, so lovely, lively, charming, always smiling, always kind and caring, has been battling cancer for the past couple of years, and was about to begin a more aggressive treatment. My heart broke at the thought of the pain coming into her life — and her husband’s.

I wanted to scream, “No, no, no.” Bad things are not supposed to happen in this shining new life of mine. But this is not my struggle; it is theirs. All I could do was offer a couple of feeble words.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s life,” he responded. Then he added, as if trying to convince both of us, “This is a good thing. It means she can now get better.”

Even with the news shadowing the visit, it was great seeing them. She loved my house and said if she needed to be with someone when her husband was at work, she’d come stay with me. I hope she does. This feels like a healing place. It’s helped me heal. Maybe it will help her heal, too.

There’s no real ending to this blog. No moral, no hook, no lesson to be learned, nothing to turn it into more than it is — a glimpse at a bittersweet moment of life.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

An Unscheduled Life

A long-time friend wrote to tell me she’s been enjoying my posts about my new house, and spoke with awe about the success of my new life. Then she said she was going to make attendance at community events in her area more of a priority. I had to laugh at this, because I am doing the opposite — making community events less of a priority.

When I moved here, I made a concerted effort to be . . . not me. At least, not my usual semi-hermit self. I knew I had to do something to keep my concern about stagnating from becoming a reality. To that end, I said yes to every invitation, took every opportunity to attend community events, joined every group that expressed an interest in me, even played games — a couple of times at the library, most often at the senior center. (If you knew how little I like games, except perhaps the solitaire kind that keeps my mind occupied while I think, you would understand how big a concession this was.)

In the last couple of months, things have changed. Or perhaps it is I who have changed, reverting to my stay-away-from-crowds inclination. (I do best one on one. Being with two or three is acceptable, especially if the others are congenial, but more than that tends to overwhelm me.)

Although I did set out to get involved, I never actually set out to get uninvolved. It just happened. Any time someone ignored me, asked for one thing more than I was willing to give, said something that hit me the wrong way (or even the right way), it stopped me cold, breaking whatever momentum of sociability I’d built up. None of these things were important. None of these things hurt beyond the moment. None of them were things I couldn’t have easily shrugged off. But all of them, in that stopped moment, made me wonder, “What the heck am I doing?”

And so, the life I had built for myself slowly disintegrated. Well, not my life — that’s still intact, along with all the friends I’ve made — but my scheduled life is disappearing. I’ll keep up with a few things — Art Guild, the strategic planning sessions, and maybe an occasional potluck or other activity, but everything else that’s been a regularly scheduled event seems to have been wiped from my calendar.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with this newly unscheduled life. Exercise more, eat better, and try to lose the weight I gained by going to all those community events, of course. Visits and excursions with friends, I hope. But beyond that, I don’t know. (I suppose it’s possible — vaguely possible — that I’ll start writing a new book.)

It seems fitting, in a way, that this change is taking place now. The first anniversary of when I bought my house is two weeks away. A lot has happened in the past year. I’m sure a lot more will happen in the coming months, though I don’t know — can’t know — what. More hermitting? More socializing? More scheduling? Walking back to functions I’ve walked away from?

Since I can’t even guess who or what I will be, how I will change, or how I will feel, I’ll just have to wait to see how the future unfolds and trust that it will be good for me.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator