Category: Life After Keith

I am the Mad Hatter.  I am living in an insane world and yet it all makes sense in my tam covered brain.  I almost delight in this insanity.  Keith is the white rabbit and he was late, late, late – – for a very important date – – and I chased him right down the rabbit hole.   Now I can think of 5 impossible things in every waking moment.

My white rabbit and I had already attended our tea party a couple of years ago.  It was Brandon’s birthday and we decided to take him and his friends to our local hibachi restaurant – In Japan.  The restaurant didn’t have birthday cakes so Keith and I slipped over to Acme to buy a cake and a really big obnoxious helium balloon.  We hopped into the van and with the first turn of the key, we both recognized the grinding tired sound of a dying battery.  Our window of opportunity was rapidly closing on us to get to the restaurant and hide the cake before Brandon got there.  A fellow Acme shopper came out to her car which was parked right across from us.   Within seconds of Keith explaining our dilemma to her, she promptly offered her jumper cables, moved her car into position, started us right up and we were off and running.  Well, we were off and running after Keith charmed her a little more with his usual wit and gracious thank you’s.  Despite the setback, we still managed to beat Brandon and his entourage to the restaurant.

The meal went well.  Then the time came for the big cake reveal and we were sitting there waiting and wondering what was taking so long.  Brandon was getting restless because he was planning on going to the movies because our local theater let you watch a movie for free on your birthday.  Keith kept stalling to keep him in his seat.  Finally, a manager came over to our table and announced that they dropped the cake and were in the process of replacing it.  Keith still held steadfast to making it a surprise and playing dumb, asked the manager “what cake?” and gave him one of those looks telling him to zip it.  It was too late though.  Brandon was clued in and the surprise was on us.  He sat tight as long as possible but had to leave with the entourage.  About 10 minutes later, our waitress Mandy arrived with the replacement cake.  She offered to go over to the movie theater to give it to Brandon and apologized for being the responsible party for sending the original cake to the floor.  She also apologized for taking so long getting the new cake.  Apparently, the cake decorator at Acme wasn’t available so poor Mandy had to write Brandon’s name herself.  We wrapped up the cake, paid the tab, and made our way home.  As we pulled in the driveway, we were greeted by Brandon (and the entourage).  The air conditioner broke at the movie theater so he couldn’t see the movie.  He would have to wait till next year to get a free birthday pass to the movies.  What to do?  Break out the cake and celebrate the many calamities of the evening – wishing Brandon a better birthday next year.

Just last summer, we went to my cousins Luke and Nicole’s baby shower.  My uncle asked for volunteers to hold a cloths line and our fearless Keith hopped right out of his seat and had a hold of one end.  As he looked down the line, his eyes met Mandy’s – our cake dropping waitress – and the look they gave each other was just shy of a cartoon character’s eyes popping out and jaw hitting the floor.  The first thing Keith did was point to the cake sitting on the table next to Mandy and asked the shower guests if they thought it was smart having her that close to it.  That’s how we found out that we were family.  She recently had a birthday and I couldn’t resist – channeling the twinkle in Keith’s eye, I shot her a message asking if she would like me to bring her a birthday cake while she’s working.

I was Alice then.  I marveled at the world, my life, my love, our children – curiouser and curiouser.  Now I am the Mad Hatter.  I leave keys in the door knobs.  I wander around my life untethered and adrift.  Days rush by too fast and the months drag on for eternity.  I cry watching a comedy and laugh at throats being slit in an action movie.  The other day I found a giant severed bird foot lying in the driveway.  After checking around for the witch doctor, I scooped it up and tossed it in the trash without another thought, as if it were just an empty drink cup.

I tripped and fell into the side of the house a few weeks back.  It left me with a nasty bruise and a swollen knee.  Instead of resting the knee, I take two extra strength aspirin and go on a walk.  The swelling rises the next day, and I take more aspirin and walk again.  The next day, I can hardly stand and I again take aspirin and go walking.  By that third day, I knelt down to pick up something off the floor and couldn’t get back up.  Meanwhile, I started smoking again, so I’d puff away after the aspirin and before the walk.  I promptly got on Chantix so now I don’t smoke but have never ending dreams – most are more sane and grounded than what my awake mind conjures up these days.  Mad indeed.

I was a passenger on the back of my friend’s motorcycle.  As we rolled down the road going to nowhere special, I could feel Keith in the wind, in the sun, in the sounds of road.  In that moment, I was living enough for both of us – he existed in every molecule of me, more than just a part of me – we were one.  The next day, I was looking through our wedding album.  One page is devoted to fortune cookie fortunes gathered over the years.  We used to have this running joke about adding the words “. . . in bed” to the end of your fortune so phrases such as “practice makes perfect” or “Share your happiness with others” or “There is someone owing so many thanks to you” take on a whole new comical meaning.  Try it the next time you’re dining over chopsticks.  One fortune floated off the page  – – it read “the one you love is closer than you think”.  Madder still.

Brandon and I struggle to find the peace we need between us.  It boiled down to a fight.  Brandon railed at me and stormed off.  I followed and he started to mumble to me that he was ok, he was ok, he was ok – over and over.  I stood there and said “you’re not ok, Brandon.  You are not ok.  Your father is dead and nothing will be the same.  You’re not ok.”  It sounded brutal and yet it rang true.  As I spoke the words, I could see the looking glass, my own reflection in it.  I am not ok.  My husband is dead and nothing will be the same.  Complete Madness, and yet true to my Mad Hatter nature, I am comfortable with it.  I can not change it.  I can not stop it.  What I can do is invite all of you to a splendid tea party, complete with cake, aspirin, and fortune cookies.  I’ll leave the severed jabberwocky bird foot with the witch doctor – maybe – or not – let’s see, shall we?

“Life’s all about moments of impact and how they change our lives forever.”   This line from the movie, “The Vow” calls to me.  I caught it with my ninja friend, Marcia.  We thought it would be sappy and were surprised at the fact that it wasn’t – no lost lovers racing across the fields into each others arms, no knights to the rescue, no deus ex machina – just an honest story with an open ending, one that hasn’t been written yet.

I haven’t written in a while. Mostly because I don’t know what I am feeling or where I am headed.  I exist in some sort of timeless place.  There is the past, and the present, but the future has fractured into two distinct timelines.  One that I will travel on and one that I imagine with Keith there – which is a dangerous place to be – one full of what if, what could have been.  I could use my own deus ex machina about now.  Actually, I think I got one in the form of a cold.  I have been on the go for two months now.  Every time I stop, Keith’s absence fills the space and I am surrounded by the silence.  So I go again.  To the movies with friends, parties, girls nights, watching bands, traveling to New York, going to my office headquarters in New Jersey . . .until yesterday when the cold I was ignoring finally landed me in bed.  Tonight, I want so much to get in my car and head out anywhere, somewhere, not here – but my body tells me that it has had enough.  I’m compounding the problem with a lack of appetite and a recent addiction to Keith’s cigars.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve been grappling with whether or not to hold on to the house, which in this real estate market, hangs on by a whisper thin equitable thread.  One day, I want to run screaming from this place and the memories swirling around me and the next day I want to cling to its very foundation as if to make it my shrine.  In the end, I’ve chosen to stay for two practical reasons.

The first being that it is financially more logical to refinance and stay with all the upgrades Keith made recently.  We just installed a new heat pump, a new stove, and it hasn’t even been 5 years since we installed new windows and built the sunroom on the back.  Cancer is a strange thing.  You have to carry with you all the optimism your spirit can muster while also preparing for what could be a finite ending.  Keith did just that.

The second reason lies in the fact that he was my loveable pack rat.  Brandon and I were standing in the garage recently, surrounded by all the EBay inventory.  Right under the opening to the garage loft hangs what we fondly refer to as “the cone of silence”.  A large plexiglass dome with wooden arms reaching into the center and input jacks for speaker cable jutting out of each arm.  It is, for lack of a better description, a directional speaker intended for use at trade shows.  The idea is that when a visitor comes to your booth, you can pipe your audio through the speakers and the dome will push it down while blocking out ambient noise.  Keith found it in a trunk on one of his auction scores and promptly hung it up as a conversation piece.  I always thought it looked like a prop from Star Trek.  We always intended to hook it up but never managed to get to it.

Brandon pointed to the loft door above the cone and said “See how that ceiling bulges”.  I certainly could see it.  “that’s where Dad put all the extra stuff when we moved in”.  Sheer panic struck.  In the deep recesses of my brain, I remembered Keith telling me that after his divorce he put everything he couldn’t fit in the house in the garage loft.  Already overwhelmed with all the things he had crammed into every inch of the house, I stood there, surrounded by boxes and bags and drawers of patches and pins and medals, staring at the bulging ceiling – well, lets just say I had a few choice thoughts that utilized most of the 7 words you can’t say on TV.

“Life’s all about moments of impact and how they change our lives forever.”  There it is again.  Sometimes when I climb into bed and roll over to fall asleep, I can almost feel Keith reaching his arm around me, pulling me towards him.  Just as we crest on that moment of complete spooning, he is gone.  I’ve heard that someone who has lost a limb still feels its presence and I imagine that this is a similar sensation.  “What if one day you could no longer remember any of them?” is the line that follows.  Would I trade in my memories of Keith to stop what I am feeling now?  What a tempting thought.  But when I think of all he gave me, all that I am because of him, and all I am capable of becoming because he was part of my life, it is worth struggling through this.  If nothing else, I can always sell the house, fully furnished – right?

Love,
Cherish

I have just returned from my first solo travel to visit Aunt Ginette.  It was long overdue and she can’t travel well, so she really couldn’t make it to Keith’s bed side in the hospital or to the memorial service  This “first” surprised me.  I felt accomplished, joyous, celebratory – especially at that moment when I managed to cross the Gothos bridge.  I always hated that bridge, even as a passenger.  Jersey walls squeeze in tight on narrow lanes with all the trucks blocking any hope of a view to the end of the bridge.  But I made it through and remembered each road and turn until I was sitting on Ginette’s doorstep in Flushings.  It was late so she was already in bed.  Henry let me in and I watched “The Bodyguard” with him and his girlfriend, Sylviane.  She only speaks French so Henry translated everything to her as we watched.  She calls home the Caribbean which makes their romance amazing in terms of the sheer distance between them.  Cow came out so he could get his photo op and let everyone know on Facebook that I had arrived safely.  I demonstrated Cow’s vocal talents to her and she fell in love with the little guy.  Such a charmer.

After the movie, I climbed into the spare bed.  This bed is two twin beds pressed together and whenever Keith and I spent the night, we always got stuck in the space between them.  We never minded being that close because we were snugglers, but we always reached a point where it was time to roll away from each other.  Needless to say, we couldn’t.  We would constantly shift and move until the wee hours of the morning, when I would realize I could lay across the two beds instead to avoid the space.  Come morning, I usually made my way to the foot of the bed with my pillows bunched up against Keith’s feet.  Of course, he was always up first and as soon as he’d leave the bed, I’d spin around and assume the proper alignment.  With no Keith on this night, I actually got a good night’s rest.  I almost felt guilty – almost.

Ginette and I got a great visit in the morning and she served me up cheese and a bagel.  I brewed the coffee which was something Keith always did.  Henry was telling me about a friend of his that belonged to the red hat society.  Reaching deep into the recesses of my high school french class data bank, I took my best stab at speaking french by pointing at my head and asking if that was “tete rouge”.  Sylviane nodded her head in agreement and Henry said that oh yes, that does mean red head.  Oops – red head, red hat.  “No, no Henry – red hat” I repeated.  OH! he tells me that is chapeau.  I was missing Keith at that moment, he always translated for me when everyone started speaking French.

Henry and Sylviane invited me to go to the mall with them.  I joined in and Henry drove.  One thing you have to know about Henry’s driving is that he used to be a New York cab driver.  The other thing you need to know is that he still drives like one.  I am probably the only person that loves riding with him.  My thrill seeking, roller coaster riding nature gets a kick out of it.  I’ll never forget the time he picked Brandon and I up at Penn Station several years back.  He had all the windows open and drove like a banshee out of the city, slamming on the brakes, weaving between cars, accelerating right up to a bumper only to dodge around a split second before he would have to stop.  Keith on the other hand, could never take a normal driver’s quirks.  In a vehicle with Henry, he’d have a death grip on the Oh-My-God handle, the whole while making commentary about how Henry was driving.

So the first thing Henry did when we got in the car was a spot-on imitation of Keith as his passenger.  “Don’t stop so close, why aren’t you turning here, don’t let that guy in, watch what your doing, you should have taken the parkway, look out, slow it down, you trying to get us killed . . . ”  Poor Sylviane looked over at Henry, perplexed by this animated rant.  He saw the look and immediately repeated it in French.  No doubt about it, Henry imitating passenger Keith in French had me in stitches.  One of the best laughs I’ve had in a while.

Later that day, I traveled to Oakdale to visit with Billy, Leslie – long standing school mates of Keith – and MaryAnn, his first wife.  Billy shared the story of how Keith had helped him move into an apartment in a less than favorable section of Manhattan.  As Billy and Keith stood on the balcony of Billy’s new abode, Keith questioned the choice to move to such unsavory and unsafe quarters.  A homeless man had chosen to relieve his bowels on the street right in front of them at this very moment, giving Keith the golden opportunity to point to the man for further proof of Billy’s poor judgement.  After Billy shared the story, he just shook his head and questioned the odds of that ever happening again.  Another one of the best laughs I’ve had in a while.

MaryAnn was wearing this beautiful heart necklace that her grandmother made using the stone from MaryAnn’s old wedding ring from Keith.  Leslie shared with me some of her experiences with the lose of her ex-husband when her daughter was only eight.  Often that day, I thought of Melissa, Keith’s niece, who lost her fiance to cancer just a few months ago.  I carried Ginette’s words with me too.  She tells me frequently – take care of yourself.  Before anything else, it is so important to take care of yourself.  No one can do that for you.

This widow world is strange.  It transcends age and time and marital status.  We all speak the same language that no one understands but us.  It is a language we did not choose.  I look to those that have spoken the language for longer – Ginette, Leslie – for guidance.  I reach out to Melissa as we move through this on the same time line.  Even widows I have never met speak this language to me and I understand it.  My college mate, Chuck, died in an accident in October of 2010.  I had friended his widow Sheila on Facebook a while back.  Shorty after Keith died, she sent me a message.  It included her phone number and she told me to call her any time.  We share this language.  There is no one that can translate.  There are no tense, clauses, conjunctions. It is spoken in stories and song and tears and reflection.  Simple phrases like “I know” or “I understand” carry with them a complex meaning that even we who speak it can’t explain.  Most importantly, it is in our moments of silence that we speak it fluently.

Love
Cherish

Here is Brandon’s first song:

“Shit Happens . . . Just don’t step in it”

There is so much to say,
But the beginning is so unclear,
Cause you were the one that kept me going,
You were the one that made me strong through all the fear.

I miss home, cause this house means nothing without you,
How am I suppose to handle this silence,
You made me smile
You made me laugh
Now reeks of sadness

How could you leave me now
How dare you say you would be there forever
Because I feel so wrongly cheated
I guess its true
The dead get off easy

20 years wasn’t enough
There was much more I needed to learn
I still need to grow
I’ve lost everything I’ve earned
You left me all alone

The pain I feel needs to go
It’s consuming me
Like darkness I can’t see
I’m losing sight of what I use to be

X2 –
How could you leave me now
How dare you say you would
be there forever
Because I feel so wrongly cheated
I guess it’s true
The dead get off easy.

I’m holding on tightly
There is nothing left to lose
Is this the price I pay
I wish you were a part of my life
I never thought I’d be this way

I’ll be as strong as I can
How long do I have to wait
to rebuild the life that you led
Because it’s never to late
to end this continuous thread

Shit happens – Just Don’t Step in It
Shit happens – Just Don’t Step in It

A few weeks ago, I caught my friend Neil’s band, Mike’s Garage, at Outta the Way Cafe.  My son joined me after wandering lost all over Montgomery County which prompted me to tell him it is time for a GPS for his car.  Enough of wandering lost and showing up when the party is almost over.  It was so great to see Zach though.  He really is growing into a very striking presence.  I had a blast dancing and one particular gentleman coxed me into dancing to every song – including Jethro Tull’s Aqua Lung.  Any of you familiar with that particular song can laugh now knowing that it doesn’t necessarily have a dancing beat.  He was goofy and nerdy and sweet and by the end of the evening, he asked for my email.  A few days later I got a message from Mr. Dwork.  The name gave me pause because it was fitting for this sweet dance partner.  He asked me out for coffee and I declined on the premise of living too far away.

My truth is so different from “living too far away”.  My truth is that Keith came into my life like a meteor, talking at NY speeds, constantly in motion both physically and mentally.  We meet on Yahoo Personals, an internet dating service.  The very first phone conversation we had consisted of Keith providing me a detailed description of his dating history, his daughter’s soccer games, his son’s compulsion for video games, and all the while he was barking orders out to people who were helping him pack up his mother’s house. Interspersed in his diatribe were questions about where I grew up, where I had lived, how old was my son, and did I like Chinese food.  This entire conversation took place as I was driving to Annapolis to visit my great grandmother.  In grand Keith fashion, he asked what I was doing and when he realized I was traveling, he would ask every few minutes where I was on Route 50.  He announced that based on my reports to him, I was making good time and then called me Mario Andrettie.

When I hung up the phone, Blue Oyster Cult’s The Reaper started playing on the radio.  I laughed out loud thinking if I ever get serious with this guy, this is one heck of a soundtrack for our relationship.  In hindsight, I still laugh at the absurdity of it all.  From that very first phone call to the first date at Masons, he talked non stop about the weather, politics, his children . . . until we looked over the dessert menu and as soon as I ordered the berry tart, he shared with me his disdain for all things berry.  That was his style – a no hold bar approach to life that left you always knowing exactly where you stood with him and where he stood on any issue.  I was in awe of him, drawn to his unstoppable force, pulled to his gravitational field like the moon child I am – – from that first phone call.  The Dworks of this world can’t touch that and I don’t want them too.  That is my sacred space, my secret heart.

What has transpired since dancing at the cafe can only be described as the abyss.  Both Brandon and I just couldn’t shake it – – that feeling that we were apart and separate from the world.  We couldn’t relate, connect, focus.  Grief hung in the house and we could hardly share what we were feeling with each other, because it offered no comfort to do so with someone standing in the same emotional mire.  He kept his friends at the ready and continues to keep constant companions and I am in their debt.  It isn’t like me to flounder when it comes to being strong and emotionally available to the people I love.  I am floundering with him and it frightens me that I might fail him.

In the mix, although Dad showed signs of recovering well from his surgery, he did have a short set back Tuesday night leading to an ER visit.  He continues to recover but in the moments between finding out that his boss was taking him in and the call from Mom letting me know he was ok, the disconnect from the world became complete.  The real possibility that I may need to get to the ER myself until Mom got there sent me down this path of chanting to myself the tasks that needed to be completed in order to get in the car.  Eat – – Eat – – finish edits on photos – – Eat – – pack – – pack – – finish edits – – photos – – pack.  It was a familiar thought process. One I had become versed in during the weeks leading up to Keith’s death and with it came the question “How strong is my spirit?” which followed with “At what point will it break?” followed by the concrete knowledge that I do not want to ever have either of those questions answered.

I could feel myself crawling out of the abyss last night.  Maybe it was a return to being a vendor at a fundraiser, forcing me to have my game on.  Maybe it was looking forward to having the nieces over this evening.  Maybe it was hearing it in his voice that Dad was hanging in there.  Whatever brought me back doesn’t matter.  All I know is that coming back to the real world is exhilarating.  I could feel every muscle, each breath on my walk.  I finally started playing on my new computer, truly enjoying my Facebook world as a few of us started posting photo booth alien photos to our profile.

I picked up my nieces on the eve of my brother’s big 40th birthday.  HA! he’s catching up with me again and his gift was from Keith – in the form of $40.00 worth of two dollar bills from the coin collection.  The nieces and I blasted ABBA songs on the ride home, singing Dancing Queen at the top of our lungs.  We made boiled oatmeal cookies and when Cow came out to inspect them, we decided they looked like cow patties.  After photographing Cow atop a cookie, I spoke with Mom and we are in agreement that they should always be called cow patties from now on.  I also filled her in on the fact that between me and the girls, we managed to eat all but 6 patties.  I actually have a stomach ache right now.  We wrapped up our girls night with a viewing of the Smurf Movie.  “Are you dead?”   If you are not laughing at that line, go watch the movie.  I confess that I actually liked it.  Then again, anything with Neal Patrick Harris in it will always be a hit with me.

I don’t know how long this joy will last.  I will soak it up into every pore of my being until I can’t hold on to it any more.  It will get me through the next abyss.  So much of who I am will always find the joy in dancing with a Dwork, eating cow patties, and having a smurftastic time with the nieces.  Even Brandon can’t stay in the abyss with them around.  He braved eating a patty at the insistence of Elise and got a big Bekah hug.  He also told me that there is a counselor at the college that he will seek out for the help he needs, relieving some of my fear that I am failing him.  Besides, if Keith were around I know he would tell us to knock it off already, and don’t eat all those patties or you’ll get sick, and turn that TV down!  What the hell are you watching anyway?

Love

Cherish

Let me start by introducing you to Cow. Everyone should have their very own sacred stuff totem animal – mine comes in the form of a 4 inch tall jersey spotted mad cow complete with crazy eyes and a tongue hanging out of his mouth. If you squeeze him, he laughs maniacally. Over the years, he’s been my travel companion. When Keith got sick, Cow was ever present. He swapped labels on the samples in the lab, he sat on Keith’s head after his colonoscopy, he brought fried rice and yogurt to the hospital, he ate the lemon merrange pie from the hospital tray, he brought back the rasta Tigger from Jamaica, and on the eve of Keith’s last day with us, Cow was the only one to get a reaction out of him.

I was explaining Cow to Keith’s niece, Mel, and to fully demonstrate Cow’s many talents, I gave the little bovine a squeeze. As soon as his crazy moo laughing started, Keith’s right eyebrow shot straight up into the air. All of us in the room were a little jealous of Cow for being the recipient of the most definitive reaction to anyone that day. It brought to mind receiving the same reaction from Keith when I went bounding into the sunroom in late October to show off my Fall fairy costume complete with towering gauze wings. I got the same eyebrow then and Keith said to me “please promise me your not going to do anything stupid while I am sick”. Me? Never . . . Silly, yes . . . Stupid, no.

Today, Cow traveled with me to UMMC to be by my dad’s side for his second procedure. It was a big day for us all. I’ll start with the good news before carrying on with the details. The doctors conducted an internal ultrasound exploritory procedure at the bile duct site where his original stent had been placed. They also did a biopsy and some scrapings. They did not see any tumors pressing on the site so we are one step closer to ruling out cancer. They still can not determine why the duct still remains constricted and did replace the old stent with a new larger one. Dad came out of surgery with a sore throat and a big thirst but otherwise is doing well. He’s catching up on his sleep as I write this.

So now for the details. Our co-worker Jay (yep, another Jay) drove Dad to the hospital while I drove over to meet them. We all got there way before the scheduled time and hung out in the lobby talking shop. Dad went to pre-op and Jay and I followed. Jay was indispensable. He was joking around and had us both laughing about Dad starting his own Barbie doll clothing line that could be called “the Lankford collection”. Dad shared the story of his allergic reaction to a muscle relaxer that is now so obsolete that one of the medical team tried to google it out of curiosity. Everyone in scrubs kept asking about his allergies to latex and eggs. Finally, after telling them he wasn’t allergic for the fourth time, they figured out that one of their staff members had misread the medical questionaire we had completed. One item on the form stated “circle all that apply”. Afterwards, there was a long list of medical allergies. We properly had completed the form by not circling any of them. The person transcribing the form didn’t catch the “circle all that apply” so they thought the list that followed was a list of allergies. Whoops!

We called Mom after talking with the doctors and she asked if I had Cow with me. Dad made the comment that the last time Cow made an appearance in a hospital, the patient he was with didn’t fair too well. We all started laughing, harder than even Cow would do. I told Dad that I had that same thought myself and that I didn’t want Cow causing any trouble till after the procedures. So Cow did remain in my bag until Dad was wheeled away. Of course, Cow joined Jay and I for lunch, and looked out the window in the waiting room, embarrassing Jay with a sudden outburst (now is that Cow or Cherish being silly?) and when Dad was in the recovery room, Cow snuck a peak at the charts. I can’t say for sure, but Cow may have even drawn a happy face on the discharge papers.

There has always been some strange medical connection between my Dad and Keith. They were travel companions from Colorado to Maryland in late August. Driving in the pouring rain, Dad was getting sick on the side of the road every few miles while they needed to make frequent restroom stops for Keith. Shortly after their return, Dad had his gall bladder removed on the same day that we got the first test results back indicating Keith had cancer. The Monday before Keith died, Dad sat in the ER, a lovely glowing shade of yellow. On December 15, Dad went into surgery that morning and Keith left us that evening. As Dad and I drove away from the hospital this afternoon, we talked about these odd connections. Dad said that the quickness that everything happened to Keith reminded him of the rabbit in that fable about the tortoise and the hare. Meanwhile, Dad is turtling along 5 years after his problems started and still trying to figure out what is wrong. The parallels between husband and father can be drawn, just on a different time line. We know how it turned out for Keith. I think that’s what makes all of this hard on Dad – where does the connection end? When do we stop stressing the similarities? I know we all think it and it scares us. What we all have to remember is one simple truth – the tortoise won the race.

Love,
Cherish

On the top of our headboard sit two military issue helmets.  These are no ordinary helmets.  One is a brilliant mirror finished silver and the other is gleaming pristine white.  They ended up on our headboard as a joke really. Love is a battlefield, all’s fair in love and war, and always wear your helmet.  It followed in line with Keith’s famous line “love is blind and marriage is an eye-opener”.

We ended up with these silly hats about 5 years ago.  I can’t remember what other treasure the Great Pirate Keith managed to unearth through Government Liquidators, an auction site that he often went to for his eBay fodder.  What I do remember was his return from picking up the treasure.  At the time, we still used our office as the staging area before taking everything out to the garage.  So with Keith’s normal over-the-top excitement, he proceeded to carry in one giant box after another into the already cramped space around our computers.  Some boxes were blackened by warehouse soot and crushed to the point of not sitting still on the floor or on top of other, more stable boxes but that did not slow him down.  So the Great Pirate Keith started to pull treasures out of the boxes as quickly as he brought them in.  I sat and watched him with my usual amusement – he was always the best show in the house – and as he got closer to the bottom of the boxes, he literally would disappear into them and pop up like a jack-in-the-box with more surprises in each hand.

Well, on one of these disappearing dives, he ran across the helmets. He practically beamed at me as he pulled them out of the box, the silver one on his head while holding the white one in the other.  “Here, wear this.” Although at this point I was laughing loud and hard at Keith with his silver dome, I dutifully put it on my head.  There we were, in the office, surrounded by a sea of treasure-boxes, wearing our helmets.  Keith went on to explain that he talked one of the guys out of these special hats because he thought it would be cool if we had matching helmets.  Keep in mind – this man was SERIOUS when he was telling me about the score of the century for his lady love.  The whole time I’m giggling and thinking that flower wielding, chocolate giving Casanovas could learn a little something about romantic gestures from this man, who always sternly informed me from the day we met that he was not romantic at all.

Keith continued to unpack the boxes and I started to lend a hand.  All of a sudden, he stood bolt upright, bags of patches in both hands and looked at me with that wide eyed oh-no look.  He looked to the window on his right then to the window behind him and then at me.  He took his helmet off and said “we’ve been running around this office with the shades up and these helmets on our heads.  What will the neighbors think?”  So I took mine off and we placed our new toys next to our respective computers, where they sat until the eve of our marriage.  It was my best friend, Kitson, who inspired us to put them on the headboard.  She saw them on our computers and she and I put them on.  I told her the story of Keith bringing them home and she said something about keeping them around cause you should always wear your helmet when your fighting with your spouse.  Little did either of us know that the real battle was Keith’s cancer.

I went to Night Cat to watch Harper Blynn Wednesday night.  Brandon joined me, as well as Marcia (A.K.A. Rick Springfield friend) and her husband.  June and her sisters were there and made ready dance partners.  So was Zach’s friend Nikki with her giant Pikachu back pack.  It really was a very celebratory evening being surrounded by these wonderful people, listening to a band who I credit with giving me a song to stay in the battle with.  For those of you not on Facebook – here is the song:Bound to Break.  Needless to say, music is a magical thing and I had already had a glass of wine.  I smiled.  I cried. I really cried.  Marcia was suddenly there standing next to me and we held hands.  She’s A. K. A. Ninja friend now because she did the same thing while I was on the cruise.

Leading up to the show, I was honestly just shy of a weepy wallowing mess.  I even walked by the living room and did a double take because I sworn I had seen Keith sitting in the little pink chair, dressed in that grey windbreaker jacket that hung on him even when he was healthy.  It was just a split second and yet it seemed so real and in that space of that second I was euphoric.  With each step back to look, I sank so deep I couldn’t feel myself breath.  I found myself in the bedroom, staring at the helmets with the emptiness of having just found Keith for one brief fleeting moment only to lose him again.

After the show, there I was again staring at the helmets.  I felt lighter though.  Like dancing and crying could really make it better for a while.  I feel lighter even now.  There is still a battle we are all fighting.  Its different than the one Keith fought, but a battle none the less.  A battle to keep moving into an uncertain future, to learn to live without the person I thought I would grow old with, to find a way to do it on my own, to create a new life on the knowledge that there are no guarantees, to carry with me the Keith I loved so that he can still live on.  Lucky for me, the Great Pirate Keith gave me a helmet.

Love,
Cherish

Tonight we reach another first – our one month anniversary of Keith’s passage from this world.   At the service, the Rabbi spoke of a need to return to normal for us morners, albeit a new normal.  It is happening, slowly but surely.  But this new normal is a strange thing.  Partly because it is so new.  Partly because there are pieces of my old normal, the me that existed before I met Keith, flowing into the me that existed as “us”, then flowing into each new day that moves me along my own path again.  

I ventured over to one of my first old normal “girls night in” on Friday and for the first time in months, I did not cry as I started driving out of town which was a refreshing new normal.  As I sit here and type this latest blog, I revel in my old normal of sipping tea on a cold winter’s night after spending the day doing old normal tidying up around the house.  This morning, I delighted in firing up the kitchen for an “us” normal big breakfast of potatoes, bacon, waffles, and fresh fruit and then banging on the bedroom doors to rouse Brandon and his friends who had slept over.  Brandon poured himself a big cup of new normal coffee and loaded it up with sugar and cream, just like his dad.  After lending Brandon’s friend a new normal pair of leggings, I was off on my “us” normal walk.  Bits and pieces of my life before and during Keith are swirling slowly together, like so many colors mixing together in paint, to create a life after him. 

I keep thinking about his spaghetti sauce.  Occasionally, a weekend would roll around and Keith would announce that he should make a big batch of red spaghetti sauce.  A couple of cans of diced tomatoes, one can of paste, lots of garlic, a couple of onions, a few pounds of ground meat, and several hours of simmering later – he’d grab up a slice of baguette, dip it in the sauce and announce that it was the best sauce he had ever made.  Then he’d point out that it would be better the next day.  Every batch, each time, was always the best sauce, better than before, and would be even better the next day.  That was his normal.  So it should be with me – alway the best, better than before, and even better the next day.

In honor of this first anniversary, here are the speeches from his memorial service:

Cherish’s Speech

Billy’s Speech

Cancer is so Limited – a poem by Robert L. Lynn read by Rabbi Peter Hyman.