Disconnect

 Well, the five to ten centimetres of snow they promised us has dumped fifteen on my area so far, and the parking lot streetlights show no sign that it is slowing down, yet.  I feel rather a disconnect from the world right now: everybody else is freaking out over a) the arctic front and snowpocalypse, b) accelerating cases, testing capacity, and Omicron, and c) the fact that, here in BC, we are "delaying" or "phasing" the restart of school after the Christmas hls.  (The general public, of course, is yelling that "school is cancelled!")  To me these are inconvenient or annoying, in terms of the stuff I have to get done following Gloria's death and the move, but hardly important.

Maybe that has to do with being old and wise, but more likely it's simply my own selfish concerns about my own problems.  My biggest problem is that I don't have Gloria anymore, so everything else is seen through that filter.

Good grief?

 Grief manifests itself in many ways.  It hits on its own schedule.  It's idiosyncratic.  And this is not my first bereavement rodeo.

Still, I'm wondering if I'm doing it wrong.  I miss Gloria terribly.  I miss her admin help, in getting set up here in the new place.  I miss talking over, with her, all the new things I am learning, or have to learn about the new place and location.  (And roads, and stores, and ...)  I miss that I can't ask her what settings I should use (on the new washer) for different loads of laundry.  (She would know.  And I can't help suspecting that I did something wrong that caused the bathmat to come to bits, although it was awfully old ...)

I don't wake up, and then suddenly realize that she's gone.  I know she's gone.  All the time.  I woke up in the hospice, and she wasn't breathing, and since then I've known, constantly, that she was dead.  (I've only had one brief "Oh, I have to tell Gloria about that, she'll be interested" moment, when I read that FVRL is doing away with late fees and fines soon.  (NVDPL did it a few months ago, and we talked about the implications.)  I can buy almonds when I'm shopping.  I can vacuum when I like, and do the laundry without making her feel like she is/was failing in her duty.

I'm still crying unexpectedly, although it's down to about once an hour.  I called the hospice about their grief counsellor: nobody is on this week so I'll have to call again next week.  I've had a couple of semi-counselling sessions with a couple of people.  But, aside from feeling slow, and not getting as much done as I think I should be doing (and still seeing that massive "to do" list about all the things you have to do when someone dies, and the accounts that we didn't do all year because Gloria was so tired or ill and the end-of-life taxes for her and the taxes for me for which I'll have to revive the "self-employed" stuff and go back a few years to catch all the "business use of home" stuff and ...) I'm functioning.  Part of the slowness and lack of energy is probably depression, but I've been battling depression for five decades, so it's hard to tell if this is new or any worse.  Gloria would be able to give me a reading on it ...

I keep up with the email.  Yesterday I had a recruiter bugging me, all day, about wanting to propose me for a job.  I answer her questions, even though she has no idea who I am or what I've done.  It's annoying that she won't even realize that I'm probably one of the few people she's ever proposed, for any job, who has a page on Wikipedia, and what that implies.  But I send out emails to get her some references, and I jump through the silly hoops, because the job might be interesting, if the BC LDB can be convinced to consider a non-standard applicant like me, and I have to do something, after all.  She says she hopes I'm well, and I say that my wife just died, so not really, and she says she's sorry and goes right on.  She's a good little salescritter: focus on the sell, and don't let other considerations get in the way.  Maybe she can get the LDB to consider me.

I'm doing this blog.  The images were hard, and it took me three days to find others and add them in.  (And I'm still missing a couple.  As well as slow, I'm inefficient.)

I do chores.  Linda showed me how to use the washer and dryer, and I've done a couple of loads of laundry.  I'm sorting the garbage and recycling, and making occasional trips to the room where they keep all that.  I'm vacuuming about every three days: bare feet on bare floors, you know when their is any grit on the floor.

I got behind on the news.  The papers have piled up.  And the TV news shows that we watched are recording.  Over the past two days I got fully caught up with the TV news (that was easier, since all they've really been saying for the past week is that a) it's cold in BC, and b) Omicron is messing things up and we are running out of testing capacity), and I've only got two papers left unread.  (I haven't yet started going through the wider news that I get via Twitter, but it's a work in progress ...)

I'm getting out.  I've gone for dinner with family, and tea with friends.  (After driving to the hospital from Delta for a couple of weeks while we had gas restrictions, and filling up the tank every time it got half empty, just in case, I now get nervous if it falls even a little bit below full.)  I haven't yet gotten a schedule for a daily walk to the library, but I am getting that walk in every once in a while.  I'm stopping at the stores, getting take away menus from the restaurants.  (There's a place that does "all you can eat" fish and chips on Tuesday and Wednesday.  George loves C-Lovers ayce, and this is a dollar cheaper, and is reputed to be the best fish and chips in Delta, so maybe I can convince him to try it some time he's in town.)  Today I'll probably go to the enormous Walmart near here and try and replace the bathmat.

So I seem to be functioning.  But I'm wondering if it is all going to hit me, really hard, somewhere down the line ...

Hand in hand ...

 When Padre Duncan married us, he concluded with a recitation of a piece that ended with something about walking hand in hand through life, "until one shall lay the other in the hands of God."  So is that what I am doing now?  Or is Gloria laying *me* in the hands of God, since she has gone to a safer and better place in eternity, while I remain in the Vale of Tears ... ?

Images ...

 Because Tanis said I should surround myself with pictures of Gloria ...

The smile.

She always loved to laugh.

She loved pink.

She loved singing, but, even more she loved her family.

Of course, singing with the family was even better.

When she sang, she gave the most wonderful explanations of the songs.

With her Mum.

At BLTS.

With a new grandbaby.

And again.

And again.

Of course, they got bigger.  (And he continued to grow.  I inherited those shoes, when he grew out of them ...)

Great women raise great women who raise great women.

(Gloria loved the place God chose for her at Draycott.)

She used her home, when when K&L were at that age, as a centre for the community.

Gloria would maintain friendships over decades.

(Just so you know, she was sight-reading that piece, and had never heard it before.)

She could even laugh about chemo.

Laughing ...

Gloria really loved the little Android logo guy.  (No, I have no idea why ...)

Gloria loved to laugh at whatever was funny.  And, fortunately, she was intelligent enough to have a wide-ranging sense of humour ...

As evidenced by ...

Gloria's new hairdo (with Number One Grandaughter's help) during chemo.

Gloria wouldn't really let me take pictures of her, without the kids or some activity, so this must have been a Christmas present that she was trying on.

Gloria decorated the most wonderful Christmas tree.

She collected thimbles, and I was able to contribute a number from around the world in my teaching travels.

(Thank you to Linda for her contributions.)  (Among other things ...)