Pat Bertram's Blog, page 109

Going, Going, Gone

Another exciting day watching the deconstruction of my garage.

[image error]

Since I’d never used the video on my phone, I didn’t have time to learn how to take a video before the building came down, so all I have are still photos, which is okay. It was fun being in the moment and seeing the rickety old building go down. At first, inch by careful inch.

[image error]

A fast scurry as the deconstruction workers got out of the way.

[image error]

And then . . .

[image error]

I was surprised by how quickly the old concrete foundation was removed — not only was that foundation barely buried, the ground was sodden. (The only place in the entire yard where there was any moisture of any kind.)

[image error]

I love this stuff!

At one time (and maybe still today for all I know) lonely women of a certain age would frequent doctors to have facelifts and various other surgeries simply for the drama and attention. If I were rich, I’d be one of those women, though it wouldn’t be myself I’d be constantly reconstructing, it would be my house and property — there is something truly satisfying about watching people giving my place a facelift.

Luckily, good sense, a modicum of taste, and a lack of funds will keep me from creating a monstrosity like the Winchester mansion. And just as luckily, there will be plenty of work to be done for some time to come.

The only problem right now is that the “murder house” — the white building behind the tree on the right of the last photo — is in full view. (Supposedly, right before I got here, two drug addicts got in a fight, and one ended up dead.) The new garage, which will be moved to the left of where the old one was won’t do anything to block the infamous view, but planting a good-size tree would do the trick.

And that means more work for the guys to do! Yay!

***

[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.

Unbuilding a Garage

I had such an exciting day today watching the fellows unbuilding my garage. They started ripping off the roof early in the morning,

[image error]

spent most of the day tearing into that old building,

[image error]

And left the beautiful skeleton of the garage when they went home for the night.

[image error]

All that work in a single day, as well as making a couple of trips to the dump — amazing.

Tomorrow, even the skeleton will be gone. I’m glad I have this photo of the great little building in the setting sun, though I’m sure once my more functional and very stable new garage is built, I’ll spend little time regretting the deconstruction of this old garage.

As an side — way off to the side! — I used the term “fellow,” meaning “man,” at the beginning of this post because it seems a bit friendlier than “guy” and less formal than “man.” In Britain, however, “fellow” connotes a person of little or no worth, so I’ve been trying to stay away from the word to keep from offending people in other countries. But I like the word, and it is no insult because the people working here today had great worth!

I’m looking forward to seeing what the morrow will bring.

***

[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.

Fund Me!

When a friend told me about an upcoming move, she assured me she’d be setting up a GoFundMe account so that I could help pay her expenses. It stunned me not just that she would set up such an account, but that she would take it as a given that I would contribute, especially since she didn’t do a single thing to help me with my move.

For just a second (or perhaps two), I wondered if I were missing something here, perhaps an opportunity to get help paying for my garage. That bit of uncharacteristic greed passed quickly, and yet it made me wonder about a world that expects others to pick up the tab for things we choose to do. The friend chose to move. Though an increase in rent precipitated the move, she still chose to go. So why is that my problem?

Other people I know have set up accounts to help fund a book launch, wedding, and even a trip abroad, but again these things were a matter of choice: an expensive book launch rather than the do-it-yourself launch that most of us end up doing; an elaborate wedding rather than a more intimate affair; an overseas trip rather than something closer to home.

It’s not as if any of these things are life and death matters, where people need a helping hand. It’s not as if there weren’t cheaper options available.

In my case, a garage is not a life and death matter, though in the coming years, assuming I still have my car, it will feel like a lifesaver. It’s getting harder and harder to get the energy and desire to disrobe the car in order to drive. (Ever since I got my classic VW restored and painted, I’ve been taking special care of it, even to the point of using a car cover to protect it from the harsh sun and harsher winds.) A garage with an electronic garage door opener certainly would make things a lot easier, as well as give me a place to protect tools and equipment from thieving neighbors and passersby.

Even though my savings are limited, the garage is my responsibility. My choice. To expect others to pay for it seems not just greedy, but . . . crass.

How do people do that? Set up a public account as if they were a one-person charitable organization? (I know how it is done. I just don’t know how they make the mental leap to do it.)

[image error]I can see if someone really were in dire need, but even then, crowdfunding is not always the way to go unless some celebrity takes up your cause, you end up in the newspaper, or you have a lot of wealthy friends. (It’s no wonder that wealthy folk who set up crowdfunding accounts to help pay for catastrophic illnesses get way more than poorer folk who actually need the funds.)

But we’re not discussing calamity here. Just choice.

What’s the difference between crowdfunding and panhandling? None that I can see, except that in crowdfunding, the beggars are relatively well-to-do folks in that they at least have a computer, a good-looking presentation, and the skills to put it all together, and in panhandling, those with their hand stretched out, don’t.

But that’s just me. As I said, maybe I’m missing something here.

***

[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.

Someday

I need to drive my car approximately once a week to keep it running and to prevent the cheap modern gas from destroying the hoses, which works out well since I use the weekly drive to get groceries that are too heavy to carry on foot.

Today, however, I didn’t need anything so, out of curiosity, I drove the route I usually walk to find out my mileage, and I was shocked to see that I’d been walking less than two miles. (It felt much longer.) I drove around for a while, trying to find a way to extend the walk without having to retrace my steps, but somehow the new way turned to be not much longer — exactly two miles. Which is fine, if that’s all I wanted to walk.

Three miles should be easy and doable except in the winter and summer, and in this area, it seems as if it’s almost always winter or summer. Still, regardless of weather, three miles is not a hard walk. At least, it wasn’t. I sure hope I’m not already declining to such an extent that three miles is beyond me.

The easiest thing, of course, would be to do the mile and a half course twice. That course takes me by the high school, so I suppose I could do laps, but that would be even more boring than retracing my steps.

I like the walk I’ve been doing, despite the short distance. It skirts the town, so I have houses on one side of me and fields on the other, and it’s relatively quiet and dog free. It’s amazing how many people in this town have vicious dogs, and how many fences seem too low to keep the dogs inside. Some people don’t even have fences and merely put the dogs out on long leashes, and I fear even the chain link leashes won’t hold up to the strain those pit bulls put on them. The dogs have, in fact, broken the chains, just not when I was around. (Whew!) The problem is, the chains are very long, allowing the dogs to get fierce running starts, so I try to avoid those houses, as well as many others.

There is another walk I can take that goes out into the country, and I think it’s relatively dog free, so maybe next time I drive, I’ll check to see where my turnaround would be.

All this talk of walking reminds me of my hikes in the desert.

[image error]

I do miss living within walking distance of a wilderness area, even a tame one like my desert. I miss the freedom of the open spaces and following trails wherever they lead, but I suppose it’s not a bad thing, now that I’m growing older, not to have to navigate rocky paths and to stick to paved roads.

Mostly I miss the dream of an epic hike. Miss preparing to live on the trail for weeks or months. Miss the thought of going and going and going. The dream turned out to be truly impossible, and It seems as if when that dream dried, it took the joy of walking with it.

Someday, maybe, the love will come back and walking won’t be just a way of exercising or a means of getting from one place to another.

Someday.

Maybe.

***

[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.

Further Adventures of a Homeowner

Nothing has gone easy when it comes to fixing things on this property. For example, the foundation of the enclosed porch was basically nonexistent, and after the contractor and his helper put in a new foundation and installed the subflooring, we discovered that the sewer pipe under the house needed to be replaced. So out came the floor, and many more days of hard work were added to the toll.

Months ago, they’d straightened the listing garage and fixed the crack in the floor, but after a couple of weeks, that crack grew and grew and grew. One of the problems was that, like the porch, the foundation was mostly nonexistent. So more recently, they got a jackhammer, and pulled out the concrete floor. Yesterday they finally returned to dig out the foundation in preparation to putting in a new foundation and floor.

Remember what I said about nothing around here being easy? Well, every time I looked out the window, I could see the guys poking at that dirt floor and talking. Now, these are not people who stand around and chit-chat. They work. So I was not surprised when they came and told me the bad news.

Water.

The deeper they dug, the wetter the soil got. I realize this is the middle of winter when generally there is moisture, but we’ve had very little precipitation in this corner of Colorado, and the rest of the yard is dry and rock hard. We wondered if there could be a nea[image error]rby water leak, but then remembered that the water pipe comes in the front of the house.

Further digging in the middle of the garage floor, where no water should ever be, showed the same thing they found around the periphery of the building. Powdery soil and damp ground. And ancient sewer pipes. Putting those clues together with the hole they’d found under the porch several months ago, we figured someone had built the garage over an old septic system of some sort. No wonder the garage, though exceptionally well built with hard woods, is slowing sliding into oblivion.

We’re going to have to help speed up the destruction and tear out the whole thing because there is no way to fix that garage or even to build a new one in the same spot. (I say “we” but I have nothing to do with construction, though I did primer that old garage. It makes me glad I didn’t waste good paint or any more of my time painting a garage that will soon be defunct. I am disappointed, though, that the fake window I created will be destroyed, too.)

They’re scheduled to be here all next week, so who knows how far they will get, especially since now they will have to deal with permits and building codes and inspectors. They wanted to know if they should start some of the inside work, like redoing the bathroom ceiling and walls where the paint is peeling from the antique plaster, and I said, “Not way, not now!” With so many projects already started and unfinished, I can’t deal with one more long-term mess. Because even though the bathroom project seems simple, I know it won’t be because . . .

Yep, you guessed it . . . because nothing is simple when it comes to working on this house.

***

[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.

Envied

A friend whose life was recently disrupted told me she almost envied me. The “almost” was because of how I got to this place in my life. The death of my life mate/soul mate and other family members, the years of not knowing where to go or what to do, and the need to start over are all the unenviable things that pushed me in this direction.

Her comment made me realize that if I weren’t me, I’d almost envy me too. I seem to have reached a balance in my life. No great emotional swings, just a quiet contentment punctuated by a brief sad spell now and again. I still tend to occasionally get caught in a mind trap (you know — when a disgruntlement gets stuck in your head, and it keeps going around and around and around, and doesn’t seem to be able to find its way out). And I do have small infirmities that slow me down (such as knees that don’t work as well as they once did). And sometimes I get restless from being so settled down.

But balancing all of that is . . . a place for me. Not just a room of my own, but a whole house of my own. A place to be me. A place where I get to set the rules (or to set no rules). A place I can count on being for years to come.

And not just a house, but a community.

I don’t count the cost of how I got here since it wasn’t a choice, trading a life mate for a house. It was simply that he died, and years later, I unexpectedly ended up with a house. (Oddly, the other day, I found myself wandering through the house wondering where we’d put his office and all his things, as if his living here were a possibility. But it was just an idle sort of “what if.” Not a grief thing.)

I never expected to love a house. It makes me feel good, owning this house, like wrapping a great warm blanket around my life.

[image error]

So far, I feel safe inside the house, though certain neighbors make me leery, which is why I fenced the property. There is still a part of the back fence that isn’t finished since it will pass close to the as yet unremodeled garage (though the contractor is here at the moment working, and he plans to be here all next week. Yay!). I used a large board to block off the space between the fence and garage to keep people and dogs away, and someone stole the big board and left a smaller board in its place. Huh? Still mystifies me. But it does show me I was correct to have a fence installed, and once it’s completed, and the gates locked at night, I’m sure I’ll feel even safer.

So yes, though I never considered myself someone to be envied, I am envied, if only by me.

***

[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.

Grief: Not One and Done

When I was writing my second grief book, a blog reader did not like my working title and suggested “Not One and Done.” At the time, I had never heard of the saying “one and done” (never even knew where it came from until just now when I Googled it), so I thanked her for the suggestion and acknowledged that she was correct about my original title not being good enough. I eventually decided on Grief: The Inside Story — A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One since it was self-explanatory.

Now, however, I do understand what she meant by her title suggestion. Too often, people have the idea that we go through stages of grief — a simple, straightforward slog toward the first anniversary, and then it’s done, the slate washed clean, and we are ready to start to live as if we’d never been married, never had a soul mate, never had a child, never loved someone who was more important to us than ourselves.

The truth is much murkier than one and done. There are no stages of grief, just a chaotic mess of emotions, physical reactions, and spiritual torments that visit us over and over again in a seemingly unending spiral. The spiral eventually widens enough so that we can see the end to the pain, and sometimes widens so much that we are barely aware of our loss, but the spiral is always there, ready to snap back into place. Even years after we reached the point where we feel we have a handle on our grief, it can come back at us as if our loss had just occurred.

[image error]

Someone recently asked me if there was something wrong with him. His wife had died years ago, and he was happily remarried, but he went through a bad time at what would have been the twenty-fifth anniversary of his first marriage.

Someone else asked me what was wrong with her because she still couldn’t deal with the loss of her best friend, even though the friend had died in May.

It saddens me that people need to ask such questions. It saddens me that our present grief culture is so out of sync with reality it makes grievers think their feelings aren’t valid.

Grief is normal. Life-long grief is normal. Grief upsurges decades after the death are normal. Still dealing with grief a mere eight months after a significant loss is not only normal but to be expected. Oftentimes the second year after the loss of a spouse or a child is worse than the first because both the shock and the widow/widower’s fog have dissipated, and the truth — that you have to live without them for the rest of your life — slams home with a vengeance. This is normal. It’s all normal.

What isn’t normal is that the experts categorize our grief as to what is normal and is abnormal. Sometimes I just want to tell the experts they should hang their collective heads in shame for filling the heads of bereaved people with their ludicrous nonsense.

Even better, I wish my book Grief: The Inside Story — A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One was required reading for anyone, especially professionals and so-called experts, who deal with people who are grieving. Grievers have enough angst without having to worry about whether or not they are normal.

Admittedly, we who have lost significant people in our lives do learn to deal with their absence. Most of us eventually find a way to live that accommodates our loss. Many of us thrive. Many of us find happiness. Many of us find new loves. But always, somewhere deep in the recesses of our souls, we are aware of our loss.

Grief is not one and done. Grief is forever undone.

***

[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.

You Know You’re Not in California Anymore . . .

[image error]Jeff and I always brought our own bags to the grocery store even though it wasn’t mandated or even strongly recommended. We just did it because we didn’t need all those bags and didn’t want to have to worry about recycling unnecessary bags. After I went to take care of my dad in California, and the state outlawed single use plastic bags, there was no problem. I continued bringing my own bags. Once or twice I made an unexpected stop, and so went ahead and bought the multi-use bags that were available under the new law. These bags were said to be so much better because they were supposed to be able to be used 300 times. Um, no. I think I got about three uses out of them before they were rendered unusable.

Even worse, people on food stamps and other programs did not have to pay for those bags, so they used those heavy multi-use bags with the same disregard they did the old cheap ones, which helped the environment not at all since the new bags have a much heavier environmental impact than the original thin bags. Also people who used to use the single-use grocery bags for trash liners and such, now have to buy them, which does little to reduce plastic bag waste. (Studies also shown that since the ban, people buy more and thicker trash bags than they did before the ban.) Moreover, the cotton or polyester bags that people use instead need to be used 131 times before they break even in an environmental sense, and those bags — especially the polyester ones — don’t last that long. And you still need plastic for things like meat, because meat often leaks, and soiled bags can cause illness. Most confusing to me is that paper bags are given free if people want them, but the idea of cutting down trees just so people have things to carry their groceries in seems absurd (and wasteful) to me.

But that’s not really the point of this discourse. I was just reminded of the plastic-bag controversy when I went to a local store the other day, plopped the bags I was reusing on the counter, and told the cashier, “I brought my own bags.” He looked at me blankly, then threw them away. “I brought those bags to reuse,” I told him. “That’s what ‘I brought my own bags’ meant.” The kid still didn’t get it. He put a couple of my items in a new bag, and when I told him I didn’t want a bag, he started to throw away that unused bag, too. I said, “If you’re going to just throw it away, it defeats the purpose of not using a bag, so I’ll take it.” Another blank stare.

Yep. Not in California anymore. As ill-conceived as the California ruling is, it’s still a good idea for people to be more cognizant of excess plastic bag use. Some people are aware of the necessity of reusing bags or bringing their own, they just don’t do it. One older woman told me her grown daughter always brought her own bags to stores, but her daughter only had to shop for one person, and she had to shop for a family. I told her it was just as easy to bring ten bags as one, and she nodded, but the look she gave me was as blank as the one the kid had given me.

Colorado still allows single-use bags, which is nice for me — if I need wastepaper basket liners, I let the grocery stores put my groceries in their bags. That way I don’t have to buy any. Still, if it ever got to that point, I’d find a way since many stores are exempt from the ban, but I hope I don’t have to worry about it.

Legislation is never an answer. Being aware of the impact of one’s actions is. Not that I’m preaching. I just found these examples of not being in California anymore rather illuminating. Actually, I’m not really even in Colorado anymore, at least not when it comes to bag use. Stores on the front range (Denver, Colorado Springs, etc) and stores on the western slope (Grand Junction, Montrose, etc) credit people for using their own bags (it used to be five cents a bag), so that cashiers were at least cognizant of the idea of reuse.

Eventually, I’ll get people around here used to the idea that I don’t waste plastic bags. Already one or two cashiers automatically hand me my items. But I have yet to see anyone else bring their own bags.

***

[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.

Librarier

There is an anecdote going around the internet where a mother asks her little girl what she wants to be when she grows up.

The girl responds, “A librarier.”

“Don’t you mean a librarian?” the mother asks.

“No,” the girl says. “A librarier. Someone who goes to the library and reads.”

[image error]This could be a true story because kids can be that precocious, but even if someone besides a little girl made up the word, it’s a good one. And since I identify with the term, I would modify it to simply mean “someone who goes to the library.” I don’t do well reading in public — I need the mental space and freedom to relax into the book, and I can’t do that — don’t want to do that — when people are around. I feel too vulnerable.

Since I’m such a good and reliable librarier, I get to check out more than the maximum. (Being a “good girl” sometimes has its privileges!) But I still go quite frequently.

I have a friend who also reads a lot, but she does read at the library. She once said to me, “People always tell me that life’s too short to spend it reading. I say life’s too short not to spend it reading.”

That’s basically my philosophy. In my younger years, that’s what I did — read. It’s all I ever wanted to do. It’s not a good career choice since there’s no money in it (I could have been a librarian, I suppose, but then I’d have to watch everyone else read while I worked, and that’s not the same thing.) Still, I managed to mostly read my life away.

After Jeff died, everything changed, even reading. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t stand to read fiction. Too many books involved death, and I couldn’t face that faceless beast. Other books involved couples getting together, which was excruciatingly painful since I no longer had anyone. Still other books involved couples not getting together, which was just as bad, because it reminded me of my situation. And I was too unfocused to read non-fiction.

I did struggle with books for a while, but when the library closed for asbestos cleanup, I didn’t miss reading. I did buy an occasional book, but my finances don’t really lend themselves to such an indulgence.

Now, though my finances are even in greater disrepair than ever before, I have a library a few blocks away, a decade’s worth of reading to catch up on, and even better, death’s sting has receded.

So once again, I am a librarier.

***

[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.

 

UNFINISHED

[image error]

Amanda Ray thought she’d grow old with her pastor husband David, but death had other plans. During David’s long illness and his withdrawal from her, Amanda found solace in the virtual arms of Sam Priestly, a college professor she met at an online support group for cancer patient caregivers. Amanda thought that when their spouses were gone, she and Sam would find comfort in each other’s arms for real, but though David succumbed to the cancer that riddled his body, Sam’s wife, Vivian, survives. Vivian had been in the process of divorcing Sam when she fell ill, and after the diagnosis, Sam agreed to stay with her until the end. Since Sam plans to continue honoring his vow, Amanda feels doubly bereft, as if she is mourning two men.

Rocked by grief she could never have imagined, confused by her love for Sam and his desire for her to move near him, at odds with her only daughter, Amanda struggles to find a new focus for her suddenly unfinished life. As if that weren’t enough to contend with, while clearing out the parsonage for the next residents, Amanda discovers a gun among her devout husband’s belongings. Later, while following his wishes to burn his effects, she finds a photo of an unknown girl that resembles their daughter.

Having dedicated her life to David and his vocation, this evidence that her husband kept secrets from her devastates Amanda. If she doesn’t know who he was, how can she know who she is? Accompanied by grief and endless tears, Amanda sets out to discover answers to the many mysteries of her life: the truth of her husband, the enigmatic powers of love and loss, and the necessity of living in the face of death.

—

Although the feelings of grief Amanda experiences are based on my emotional journey during my first two months of profound grief, the story itself is fiction. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to deal with not only the loss of one’s mate, but the loss of the idea one had of one’s mate. Well . . . yes, I guess I can imagine how it would feel, because I wrote the novel! I hope you will read UNFINISHED. It’s an important book because too few fiction writers portray the truth of new grief, and that lack leaves the newly bereft feeling isolated and as if they are the only ones dealing with grief’s craziness.

You can you can purchase both a print version and Kindle version of UNFINISHED (published by Stairway Press) on Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1941071651/

***

[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.