Memories

The one year anniversary of the beginning of David's eternal life. I don't have words for what it is like for me right now. So, I decided it is time to share one of those AMAZING stories from this journey. I think I will start with the end. Odd I know, but....
Many of you may already know this but here goes anyway. Somehow David knew when he was not going to be able to communicate anymore. His last words to me were "Get a Garmin, buy a beach house, I love you." For those of you who know me, I have absolutely no sense of direction. I think I may even have some kind of directional impairment. It was my habit to get lost often. Once cell phones became a part of normal life, I no longer had to stop and call David from a pay phone to ask how to get to where I needed to go or how to get home. It did not matter where I was, he could get me where I wanted to go. Even if I was in another city or state other than the one we were currently living in, David could help me figure out where I was and where I needed to go. Part of this skill had to due with the amount of travel he had done when he worked for American Golf Corporation. I merely had to spot a golf course, note the name and make the call. I honestly think he knew where every golf course in America was located. His directions NEVER failed me, not even once. Perhaps he had secretly implanted some kind of chip on me that enabled him to locate me no matter where I went. Seriously, how could he always know right where I was and how to get me to where I wanted to go. I bought a Garmin shortly after his last day on earth. Every time I use it I wish it was him giving me the directions. I guess in a way it is. True love is knowing someone so well and loving them so much that you tell it like it is, tell them what they need the most and seal it with love. I am so blessed to know for sure how much he loved me, not only the last day he spoke to me, but every single day of our days together.

Maybe not one you want to read - rated sad

I have avoided blogging recently. I don't want the world to see me as a sad person, but XXXXXX I am in PAIN. I am OK with anyone who wants to stop right here and not read on. Click away.

Lots of people have asked me to blog about my feelings. I try to highlight the funny or the deep or the thoughtful, but February is nothin but pain. God (and I do mean God) I miss him so much. February 25th will be one year of life without the love of my life. Valentine's Day will be my last first. In grief recovery (oxymoron by the way - there is no recovery) we talk about all the 1st you have to face after a loved one dies - the 1st Christmas, the first wedding anniversary, the 1st time the loved ones birthday rolls around. My last first will be Valentine's Day. Please put me in a comma that day! In fact just put me in a comma now. I walked the mall for exercise last night and stupid pink and red stuff is everywhere. Over and over my heart was attacked and bashed to pieces. I am not going back to the mall to walk again until March.

Here is one of the things I am facing for the first time in my life, OK one of the millions of things I am forced to face for the first time in my life. I have a prayer I know God will say "NO" to. I prayed it last night, cried it for hours last night. You may be saying to yourself "Oh Robi God might say "Yes" or "wait." No, he won't. I begged God last night ( and many nights before) to bring David back. I just want him back. But, I know that is not going to happen. David is gone and his body is now just ash. Please don't try and tell me, "Well you will see him again someday." I know that, but I want him now, like I have never wanted anything in my life. I hurt, all over, all the time. Sure I put on a good face, keep busy, try to be nice to everyone, but inside I am as raw or maybe even more raw than the day he died. I loved him for over 25 years and frankly one stinkin year doesn't begin to make it any better.

Let me say at this point to my readers - no worries. I am safe. I have surrounded myself with friends and professionals who are looking out for me. Really, I am safe. But trust me safe does not always mean OK or doing OK or pain free.

Anyway. I wrote on David's facebook while I was at the beach not too long ago, "Missing you at the beach. Missing you everywhere I go. Twenty-five years of marriage was not nearly enough. Eternity in heaven will make up the difference. Meet you by the gate. Bring JP (our dog who died a few months after David.)

I am not OK. I will survive. I am in pain. I will feel better another day.

There are so many wonderful things God has blessed me with in the past year. He is not going to answer my prayer and bring David back. There are wonderful things to come. Today, the truth is I loved someone with all my heart and when he died, my heart ..... I can't even put words to it, but it hurts, bad. Deep pain can be evidence of deep love.

Believe it or not, I still recommend you love deeply.

My Valentine's request. If you love someone, make sure you have a will and life insurance. If you are a man married to a woman and you don't - you do not truly love her. Nobody knows the number of days God has in store for them. The death of a husband is horrible enough. I can't imagine, but I have witnessed, what happens when a husband dies without a will or life insurance. Please, take care of the ones you might leave behind. The pain alone will be enough to deal with and survive.

Happy Deep Love Day. Consider the true meaning of love on February 14th, not just the colors, flowers and candy.

In Between

The season of Inbetween has arrived. For the month of January I have been in between Florida and Tennessee. I have been in between the Fall, J-term and Spring term. I kind of like in between. The motion of it suits me. Back and forth, up and down like I am being rocked in a cosmic rocking chair. OK, sounds good, but I am only trying to fool myself. I like a schedule, OK I like being entirely in control of my schedule and keeping it simple. Once school starts February 8th I will be on a schedule again. I love school. I even loved my intensive course on Law and Ethics. It was Law and Ethics for licensed mental health counselors. I wonder if loving a law and ethics class has a mental health diagnosis?

We are all in an in between time in a way. We are between life and death. No matter who you are the moment you are born the count down to heaven begins and you live between life and death. I find this so weird because we ignore this undeniable fact in the choices we make every moment of every day.

The moment David found out he had the worst cancer possible our lives changed. What had seemed huge became minucia and the menucia became huge. It is a different way to live.

Frozen

I do not like the cold. I distinctly remember (almost impossible for an ADHD person like me so it must have been big) watching the weather from my childhood home in Tulsa Oklahoma. The weather man was going on and on about how the cold and ice would be around for several more days. I asked my mom or dad (can't remember which) "Why does the weather man always stand in front Florida (OK I really said to the far right of the map. I was terrible at geography) when he is doing his report?" My dad said, (the answer sounds like him now that I think about it) "Because if everyone realized how warm and sunny it is year round in Florida, everyone would move there." Even at the tender age of really young I remember thinking "That is where I want to live."

Growing up I hated "car coats (short heavy jackets with a cumbersome hood)", stirrup pants (required if you were wearing boots), rubber boots ( mine were the most disgusting shade of brown ever. My mom bought them 2 sizes too big so the humiliation would last more than one winter), knit hats, and my all time least favorite - idiot mittens. You know the kind; the mittens with a string connecting both mittens so you don't loose one. I had never heard them referred to as idiot mittens until I heard a Bill Cosby comedy album recording (geeze that dates me) entitled "Why is there air?" Cosby describes idiot mittens as the kind where if someone comes up and pulls your left mitten real hard, your forced to sock yourself in the face with the right. Anyway, you have to put the mittens on first to make the whole equation work. Starting with mittens does not work. Without fingers, you can't zip anything, you can't pull on your boots (they are made entirely of plastic and mittens slip on plastic and you can't latch the little loopy, tightening, button thingy with no fingers), pulling a knit hat on with mittens on your hands causes static electricity in your hair (poof, hair clinging to your face and reaching up towards the top of the hat), and of course there is the inevitable problem that the minute you get everything on you then need to pee. I won't go into the details of mittens and uuummm toilet paper issues. Oh my gosh! I just had a flash back to the most horrible and funny childhood memory! This may be TMI for some people. OK, at the home where I grew up we had an electric heater. It was built into the bathroom wall - really! On cold nights my mom would turn the heater on just before I got out of the bathtub. That thing could cook the entire bathroom in about 5 minutes, so timing was imperative. One cold night I jumped out of the tub, ran dripping wet to stand in front of the heater, lost my balance and backed up into it bare butt'ed. It had a metal grill-like front cover. It had been on at least five minutes. I "ended up" with a grill like pattern burned on my back end. I slept on my stomach for two weeks. Ouch, that was miserable. I hated that heater after that. Back to the mittens. Oh forget the mittens, the point is I hate everything related to winter or being cold. Now that I think about it, maybe the third degree burn stripe scares on my ... are at the root of my problem with winter. Ha, winter was literally a pain in the ...

So, fast forward 40 something years. I am triumphantly sitting in my room in Florida. A childhood dream come true. Except I have on three layers of clothes, long sock, house shoes and I am huddled under three blankets because it is 37 degrees with a predicted low of 27 tonight. I'm watching the weather tonight to see where the weather man is standing now!

PS: Don't worry about me. The hot flashes in the middle of the night are like a short vacation to something akin to a Tropical Rain forest with temperatures to rival the Sahara desert. Toasty and wet.

2010

I spent New Years eve in a place I had never been before. Now that I type that I realize it has more than one meaning. I spent New Years eve in a suburb of Atlanta Georgia with Dale's girlfriend's family the Sisco's. I wanted to be someplace unfamiliar. Strange, when is the last time you wanted to be someplace unfamiliar? I was avoiding the memories, afraid of the memories actually. Memories are still so raw and painful despite my best efforts to either re frame them or just let them wash over me rather than fight or suppress them. As I already knew, you can't hide from grief, it is a companion. I do not remember anything about New Years eve last year, except that I knew it would be my last with David. My last New Years kiss with the one I thought I would spend forever with.

Instead, I watched my son have his first New Years kiss with the one I think he will spend the rest of his life with. I spent New Years knowing Penelope Drew Lipscomb was welcoming in her first new year. I spent New Years knowing DJ rang in a new year as a dad and Amanda as a mom. I was in a place I had never been before.

When I went to bed on New Years eve I thought about all the amazing blessings God had provided in 2009. I silently wondered if because I had, in my opinion, received more than my fair share of blessings in 2009 that his blessings would end as 2010 began. I am so thankful for all God did that I was content with the abundance I had already experienced.

I woke up on January 1 and welcomed in the first day of 2010 with a slice of spinach quiche. The evening before a friend of Sisco's had dropped off the quiche. I love spinach quiche, but never make it since I am the only one in my family that likes it (which of course now that I said that one of my sons will adamantly deny). I consider spinach quiche a personal treat! A blessing. Then I wondered, are there really more blessings or has something changed in me that just helps me recognize and claim blessings in a way that I did not before? Who cares! I got spinach quiche and I am counting it as the first blessing of the new year!

Merry Christmas. Yep, I said it. The first time I said it this year I fell apart.

2009 began what I thought would be the darkest year of my life. God promised joy in the midst of sorrow. I could not imagine how. In November I was miraculously chosen by the Ministry of Tourism of Israel to go as a guest on a Christian writers trip to Israel! The trip was beyond amazing. I felt unbelievably blessed. Israel was a respite from the pain. I came back filled with hope, but dreading Christmas. God has now fulfilled his promise of joy in the midst of sorrow. Her name is Penelope Drew Lipscomb, born 9 months to the day of David's birthday (12/21/09). Her mommy, Amanda and daddy, DJ found out they were pregnant a few months after her grandfather David passed away. Suddenly what I imagined would be the most horrible Christmas has become full of nothing but incredible, indefinable, insatiable, JOY! Each time I look at Amanda holding Penelope and DJ grinning at her side I exploded with joy and the pain of all my grief just disappears. I should have guessed God would use a baby to to bring joy to my world. It is not a new thing. 2000 years ago God delivered a baby to spread joy for all eternity.
Nothing is every truly lost, or hopeless, or dark. God can redeem everything and shine light even the darkest places.

I think I am finally ready to start sharing some of the off the chart God stories that I have experienced over the last 2 1/2 years. I am going to take it slow and I am not going in any order other than whatever is on my heart. It may get corny, it may not mean a thing, or it might mean something to someone. I have been on something way beyond the roller coaster ride of life. I would have loved to gotten off a few thousand times, but I didn't get that option. At the moment I am having too much fun to get off. Surprised? You obviously have not seen my new granddaughter!

Not ready for this.

I actually created this blog several months ago and then decided not to put it up. Well long story short it is going up now. Count Down to Heaven is a phrase God laid on my heart at that time. The phrase applied not only to David but to all of us. The day we are born begins a Count Down to Heaven whether we live or acknowledge it or not. What if we lived everyday with the knowledge that we are on a Count Down to Heaven? OK right there, that is why I am a blog skeptic. Phrases like that are so trite, too much to live up to, but there it is anyway. So, what was it like to be a part of David's count down to heaven? Pause, Pause, Pause...... I don't think I am ready to write about it all yet, but I know there are some amazing stories I want to share eventually - thus the blog.
For now just wanted to let friends know I am surviving.