I've been told that the death of a spouse is like childbirth used to be--no one talks about it. Those of us who have suffered the loss of our beloved spouse know what others think: "It's been 9 months, why hasn't she moved on?" The lack of understanding isn't really a bad thing. The death of a husband/wife is something that most haven't experienced. That's a good thing. Yes, it has been 9 months since my beloved died. And, no, I haven't moved on. What others don't understand is that losing the one you shared every breath, every moment of life, every joy, every sorrow, every trip, every life cycle event with is akin to losing your own life. In essence, you do lose your own life. The life you knew for years is gone. The light that illuminated your existence has been turned off as surely as if someone reached into your heart and flipped a switch. My life has no bright light. I live in a world shrouded with shadows. I say things and wonder if I said the wrong thing. I dress and wonder if this is the same thing I wore yesterday and, perhaps, the day before that, too. I go to the post office and wonder if I brushed my hair. I ask questions and wonder if I already asked it and forgot the answer. I ask a question of the original source of information, was deemed impolitic, and was remediated for it. I lock myself out of the house. I lock my keys in my car. For 10 minutes I sit in my car crying before I can go into class. I walk in shadow. No one knows it but me. Also, I break things. Somehow items slip out of my grasp. I've lost my focus. I'm distracted. I guess it had been at least 15 years since I broke a dish. But since my Ronnie died, I have broken every glass drinking glass I owned and at least half a dozen dinner plates. I have dropped jars of jam and pickles, 2 casserole dishes along with their matching lids, and numerous coffee cups. I am now relegated to plastic glasses and rapidly closing in on plastic coffee cups. I sometimes wonder if those who are so concerned with the smaller details of life know that they should be spending more time cherishing the ones they still have with them. Oh, if only we knew when the span of our life ended, we would spend the last days so very differently. Then again, it is best that we don't know. I have learned that much. No matter how we live, death hits us with a powerful, knockout blow. We are too stunned for the first several months even to talk about it. By the time we can talk about the pain we learn that talking to the living about death just is not done. Why should we impose our shadow on their light. More later....
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Homesteading: Preparing for Winter in the Heat
By the Fourth of July, canning is finished here in Northwest Florida. Gardens are dry and crackly and all fruits and veggies have pretty much been harvested and preserved.
A bushel of green beans becomes this.
225 lbs of tomatoes (minus the ones we ate)
turns into jars of canned tomatoes,
chili sauce and tomato juice.
4 dozen ears of corn get shucked
and await canning.
There's little opportunity for more canning this season. I'll make a few more jars of tomato juice, but the time for preparing for the winter months has ended.
The ant prepared while the grasshopper fiddled. Now I can spend a quiet
summer trying to escape the oppressive heat of the Florida panhandle.
Enjoy your summer!
More later.....
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