Pat Bertram's Blog, page 117

Field of Hopes, Field of Dreams

A friend asked how many holes I’d dug, and what I planted. It was easier to answer here than as a comment, and besides, it brings me one day closer to my goal of 100 continuous days of blogging.

I must have dug a hundred holes. I had more than three hundred bulbs, and approximately three went into each hole (all properly spaced properly). In retrospect, it was silly doing it all in one day because I worked too hard and ended up with a bad cough that is preventing me from doing anything, especially not planting the last ten bulbs (lilies) that I’d planned to put along the fence in the backyard.

I really don’t see how I could have done it differently, though. I wanted the bulbs intermixed so that the yard will look less like a formal garden and more like a splurge of flowers in a field, and so it pretty much all had to be done at the same time.

I planted lots of tulips and daffodils. Anemones. Snowdrops. Crocuses. Dwarf iris. Larkspur. Grape hyacinth. Aconite. Bluebells.

And I planted hopes and dreams. Dreams of a lovely yard come spring. Hope that spring will in fact come, that the bulbs will flower, that I will still be here, that I will continue to find joy in the little (the best!) things of life.

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(The photo was taken this morning and shows the frost on my field of hopes and dreams.)

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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 Spattering of Snow

Some areas of Colorado got dumped on last night, but here in my neighborhood, we just got a spattering — more rain than snow, though there were enough flakes to settle in a few places.

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The snow is all gone, now. It was mostly just a reminder of the winter days to come. Am I ready? It’s been years since I had to deal with a true winter. I thought there would be time to get acclimated to chillier temperatures, but we went directly from 80 degrees to 60 degrees to 40 degrees in just a couple of weeks.

It will warm up, of course — Colorado always does. I remember occasionally playing outside at Christmas, then bundling up in heavy coats come Easter. Some Halloweens we wore just our costumes, other years our costumes were buried under layers of outerwear. I remember years of no snow, and years where snow was so deep nothing moved. I even remember a year where there was snow all twelve months — the last snowstorm of one winter came in July, the first of the following winter came the very next month at the end of August.

So am I ready? As ready as I ever was, and as ready as I ever could be in a place where you can’t really determine what the winter will bring.

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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 Momentous Occasion

Something momentous happened today, yet it seemed so insignificant and tedious that the momentousness all but passed unnoticed.

Years ago, right after Jeff died, I opened a new bank account in my name only. At the time, the woman who helped me suggested I keep the old account open a few more weeks in case there were outstanding bills.

But the weeks passed, and so did any desire to close the account. I liked that this bit remained from our shared life. Eventually, I had to take his name off the account, but I kept using the checks with both our names. (You can tell how few checks I write — I still have a bunch of those original checks.) I used the account as a savings account (for when I had savings) because it wasn’t attached to a debit card, so it seemed as if my savings were safer.

During all the years in California, I kept the same accounts. I knew I’d eventually return to Colorado, so it didn’t seem important to find a bank in a state I felt stuck in — I was there because of dance classes and my dance teacher, but mostly because I couldn’t find a way out.

Well, I did find a way out, and I did return to Colorado.

I opened accounts where I’ve planted myself (one for general use, one low balance account to connect to PayPal so that if there is ever a problem, my risk would be minimal). And oh, my! How convenient it is to have a bank located a thousand feet away rather than a thousand miles! But now I had little money and four bank accounts. I felt a bit silly keeping all those accounts and thought occasionally about closing the old ones, but considering auomatic deposits and withdrawals, it was easier to think about than to actually do.

Well, the old bank — Jeff’s and my bank — merged with another, and my online statements disappeared. (I’d just received a letter from them telling me to download the records, but by the time I got the notification, the merger had been done and the records beyond my reach.)

In the end, it became easier to close the old accounts than to deal with the merged bank.

And so, just like that, one of the last remaining paper connections to Jeff disappeared.

A momentous occasion, for sure.

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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.

Holes!

I dug holes yesterday. Lots and lots of holes!

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I’ve been told (and I’ve read) that one needs a plan when gardening, and my plan was to plant as many bulbs as I could as quickly and as easily as possible. There’s no real design to my holes — I just dug where it was easy to dig; if my shovel hit a hard spot where I planned to plant, I moved to another spot where the soil was softer. I don’t really care if there is any discernable design. I just want some color mixed in with the mostly brown grass. Also, once the flowers die and the leaves turn brown, the whole thing can be mowed, which seems like an interesting idea.

I’d gotten a bit carried away when ordering bulbs, and as it turned out, for the holes I dug, I got the right amount since the holes were big enough to house more than one bulb.

Of course, now my muscles are stiff and my throat sore, but it’s good to have it all done.

Now it’s a matter of waiting for spring to see what I have wrought!

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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.

What Did You Do When You Were Dead?

I saw an appalling movie last night — the 2004 film Birth with Nicole Kidman.

The premise is a perennially interesting one: a reincarnated soul remembers who he’d been and tries to reconnect with his old life. In this case, though, the premise is the only thing that was interesting. The movie tried to be a thriller (I think), and to the extent that it was a perfect example of a folie a deux (where two people share a delusion, and in the end they make each other crazier), it succeeded. It also tried to be uber mysterious and only managed to be annoying, especially with the long, long, long close-ups of alternately Kidman and the kid. The movie might have been fun if the kid had been charming, but he came across as an incipient serial killer. Which, I’m sure, was intended.

But none of that is important to this blog except as an introduction to the question the movie poses: what would happen if a ten-year-old boy showed up at your door and claimed to be your dead husband?

What struck me is that the kid, even if he were the husband reincarnated, would not still be the husband. Do the words, “To death do us part” ring a bell? And he’s a ten-year old kid. He might have memories of being someone else, but in the end, he’s only ten, and still needs his mommy.

If this kid came to my door claiming to be Jeff, I’d probably be interested, but in no way would we be able to continue the relationship we once had. He’d be ten years old, for cripes sake. He might have the memories of being Jeff, but he wouldn’t be the man I loved — wouldn’t have the same mind, the same smile, the same thoughts and inclinations. He wouldn’t be the mature, even-tempered man I knew. He wouldn’t be an adult, and by the time he was, I’d probably know first hand what it was like to be dead.

For sure, he wouldn’t be someone I could be the old “me” with. He might be resurrected, but the part of me that died with him would still be dead.

If he truly was Jeff, we would sit down and reminisce a bit, maybe catch up on what we’ve been doing the past ten years. “Hey, Jeff. What did you do when you were dead? How did death treat you? How did it feel? Did you have fun? Did you learn anything? Did my grief bother you?” But, wait — he’s ten years old, which means he’d have been immediately reincarnated. He wouldn’t have had a whole lot of experience being dead, which wouldn’t leave us much to talk about since I wouldn’t particularly care about his experiences in the womb or being a small child, or his problems as a young boy (except to hope that this childhood was more pleasant than his previous one).

If he were Jeff, he’d be glad to know I was doing okay, but he wouldn’t put me in the position of being responsible for him. He wouldn’t stalk me. Or make me crazy. There’d be no thriller, no chiller, no folie a deux in our reunion. Definitely there’d be no creepy bathtub scene. I don’t have a bathtub, and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. Taking off his clothes and getting in the tub with me would be the last thing on his mind.

We’d just talk, and when we finished our chat, he’d wish me well, tell me he loved me, and then he’d let me go.

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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.

Nest Building

I’d been counting the days until it got cool enough to start planting the three hundred spring bulbs I bought. The instructions said not to plant until the highs were consistently in the mid-60s or cooler, and today was supposed to be the day. A couple of times during the past weeks I’d almost given in to the urge to start plant, but considering what a non-green thumb I have, I figured I needed to give those poor plants the best start possible.

So I waited.

After a few unexpected (and lovely) eighty-degree days, the temperature did drop today as forecast, so I got all gussied down and went out to play farmer.

And then the winds came. Severe winds.

Being stubborn, I didn’t let a little — or a lot — of wind force me inside, but I postponed the precision work of planting the bulbs for another time. Just as well. The guys who’d put up the fence hadn’t yet finished burying the bottom of the chain link fabric, and they’d left the dirt they were going to use piled in the middle of front yard where I’d planned to plant. So I raked leaves away from the fence and moved the dirt — shovelful by shovelful — where it belonged. Then I gathered up the leaves, and smashed them to use for mulch.

Such excitement!

I’m laughing to myself. A friend made a remark the other day about certain blogs that said nothing important (she wasn’t referring to mine; she hadn’t known I had a blog), and well . . . I sure hope she doesn’t read this one. Talk about nothing important!

Not important in the grand scheme of things, that is. The job was very important to me — to be outside despite the wind, to work physically, to accomplish something. To continue building my nest. And that nest building, of course, is the most important of all.

It’s taken me my whole life to get to the point where not only could I own a house but that I wanted to. And anything I do for my home is a way of honoring the house, and me, and the painful journey it took to get here.

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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.

Light Entertainment and Heavy Thoughts

I went to lunch and the movies with friends today. Good food, good people, and a good movie — Downton Abbey. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the outing and admired the film as a period piece, I must confess I am a bit too much of an egalitarian to truly appreciate the nuances of the film.

I do realize the movie portrays the end days of an outdated class system, with everyone knowing their place, ingratiating themselves with those who rank above them and condescending to those below: the lowest servants giving way to the higher servants, the lowborn currying favor with the highborn, the highborn doing the bidding of the highest in the land.

There was no merit in any of the folk portrayed in the movie — the highborn were highborn for the simple reason they were highborn or married someone of the upper classes. They didn’t earn their exalted status. The lowborn, though perhaps good at their jobs, were actually no better — adopting, as well as they could considering their positions, the petty ways of those they served.

Admittedly, the movie is geared for lovers of the series, and I’d only seen a couple of episodes somewhere along the line. (Don’t know where because although I do have a television or two, I don’t prescribe to any television programming.) The plot was thin, a mere veneer, probably because the movie is more a showcase for the characters people had come to know and love.

Despite the hype of having to know who the characters are to understand the movie, it wasn’t difficult to figure out what was going on. Every character wanted something. Every character believed they are special. The idle rich believed they deserve their good fortune. The lowborn believed they are somehow enriched by serving these folks.

Even worse, for me, none of the characters were admirable or even charming. In fact, most were appalling. Well, except for Maggie Smith, whose appallingness was part of her charm

If I’m really honest, what we have in the USA today is rather a reflection of that same world, though we all believe we are as good as those who think they are better than we are, and that with a bit of luck, the riches will even out. (Which is why it is so hard to get people to vote for special taxes for the richest folk — most of us believe that one day we will be rich and so to tax the rich is to tax our future selves; the rest of us are afraid that one day we will be bag ladies.)

Still, such a world as depicted in the movie seems utterly wrong and phony to these eyes. Maybe it would even have seemed phony back in those days — it’s hard for me to believe that people entrenched in the system truly believed that the aristocracy was better than they were and so deserved their adulation and servility.

In the end, this is what makes Downton Abbey a good movie: a couple of hours of light entertainment, followed by a couple of hours of heavy thought.

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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.

Accolade!

[image error]I got a wonderful compliment yesterday. One of my new friends just finished reading A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and last night when we met at a community event, she raved about the book, and me.

She told she had a hard time getting into the book, not because of a problem with my writing or the story, but she kept being amazed that she knew the person who’d written it. She said, several times, “I didn’t realize I knew someone so smart.” Eventually, she said, she was able to forget that she knew the writer and was able to become immersed in the story. And she loved it.

Admittedly, no one who calls themselves my friend is going to come up to me and tell me I am a rotten writer. (Smiling here — I wrote the word as wrotten. Sounds like it should be a medieval form of the past tense for written?)

At least one person has told me to my face that they weren’t impressed with my writing, and another complained about typos, but neither of these folks are people I have any sort of relationship with. Still, I could see the truth in my friend’s eyes — they lit up when she talked about the book, and even better, she immediately borrowed another. (Several people each bought one of my books, and they are passing them around.)

Her accolade certainly put a smile on my face, but lest you think I’m am letting the compliment go to my head, I should confess I was immediately brought down to earth by a little girl, about ten years old, who told me to get out of her way. (I did because I was too stunned by her impertinence to do otherwise. I was even more stunned by her mother who just stared at me.)

Still, it does my heart good to know that some people are reading — and liking — my books.

If you haven’t yet read A Spark of Heavenly Fire, you can read the first chapter online here: http://patbertram.com/A_Spark_of_Heavenly_Fire.html

Buy it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0024FB5H6/

Download the first 30% free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1842

Happy reading!

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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.

And the Streak Continues!

It’s so nice of WordPress to let me know how many days in a row I’ve been blogging so I don’t have to keep looking it up. Though, to be honest, being able to post a tally of my blog streak only matters on a day like today when I have nothing new to say. (With today’s post, the streak will be 24 days. Yay! Well, yay for me. You might not think it’s something to “yay” about.)

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As for the work on my house: the two thick layers of concrete that comprised my garage floor are gone, and the poor neighbors are no longer being subjected to the sound of a jackhammer. We found a few more bones scattered beneath the garage, but nothing earthshaking.

The workers are at another job today, and oddly, I feel a bit lost without them here — the day seems so uneventful without holes being dug, fences being erected, concrete being broken up. But that uneventfulness is an illusion, a matter of all that energy not being expended around here.

I went to the historical museum this morning for a last meeting about the murder mystery, and in a little while, I will meet people at the monthly community dinner. So see? I’m keeping busy.

I am enjoying this last especially warm day of the season. 87 degrees! Next week it will be mostly in the sixties, cool enough to start planting all the bulbs I’ve ordered — so it will be me digging holes — three hundred of them! — creating (or destroying) my own energy.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

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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.

Social Calendar

It seems odd to have a social calendar. For many years, the only social activities I participated in were my dance classes, and from week to week, those classes were generally at the same time and on the same days. If I went to lunch with anyone, it was usually after class. Any other activity was easy to remember because it was such a rarity.

But now? After only seven months, I’m so entrenched in the community that without my calendar, I’d be lost. There’s always something coming up, such as a movie (Downton Abbey) and lunch with friends this Saturday, a meeting at the museum tomorrow to set out clues for the Murder at the Museum Night that will take place next week, porcelain painting classes, and a special note to remind me about Blogging for Peace next month.

It bewilders me, all of this. But then, much of my life bewilders me.

Was I really that woman? That woman who watched a man slowly die, who wanted the suffering to end, yet whose love was so ineffectual she couldn’t make him well or take away a single moment of his pain? That woman so connected to another human being she felt broken — and lost — years after his death? That woman who screamed the pain of her loss to the winds?

And am I really this woman? A homeowner? A part of a community? A person with a social calendar?

Apparently so, because there I was and now here I am.

It’s possible life will always bewilder me. I might never know the truth of any of it — life, death, purpose . . . me.

But that’s the beauty of a having social calendar. At least on those particular days, there are no questions or bewilderment. I know what I am supposed to do, where I am supposed to be. I even know who I am supposed to be — a pleasant companion, a kind friend, a generous volunteer.

The rest of the time? Well, if it’s not on the calendar, perhaps it’s not important.

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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.