Letters to Donna/from 4-19-06

4-19-06

Good Afternoon My Love –

Still stiff and sore, but not as bad as this time yesteday/ Tooth slowly, gradually improving.

Got a depressed email from Lisa. Wrote her back about the day many years ago, in Ware N.H., when I decided it was time for me to die. Had found a beautiful pond, surrounded by foothills, with a kingfisher — the only one I’d ever seen — working from bank to bank like a dark blue bullet. My life was in shambles, I’d lost my wife, abandoned my daughter, trashed my career. I’d bought a gun…sat there for a very long time…decided not to pull the trigger.  Told Lisa she mave have had something to do with my decision….Ended up calling my ex (still embarrassed by that, but who else was there then?), checking myself in as an in-patient, feeling less than a piece of shit….

A month later, my love, you found me.

And the best years of my life began.

Lisa called me at work to assure me she wasn’t at the brink. She has an appontment tomorrow with a prospective therapist. Put in a word, will you baby? We need that therapist to be as good as possible.

4-20-06

Good Morning Beloved –

You’re seven months gone today. Not so searing a day as previously, but bad enough.

Lisa actually had a pretty good day yesterday, with some positive feedback at work and a slight weight loss. Sees (I think) the prospective therapist tonight for an initial interview. I have my fingers crossed; see what you can do from your end, will you, baby?

Will take Tom’s offer and see where it leads, if anywhere. No I’m going to have to do backups, so have asked Lisa to walk me through it. You know I’ll keep you posted.

No word on Freddie. Plan to go down Sunday, or Saturday (since I don’t see Janet this weekend) if it’s not too late. Abra will have arrived by then. I hope he doesn’t linger. It’s time.

I start my other client this evening. Supposedly he’s pleasant enough when he’s not headed for the hills. As always I’m anxious starting a new person, but should be used to it by now….I’m not, of course, but I should be.

The back and sciatic (left) didn’t like me much last night. The feeling was mutual.

My landlord, Crazy Jimmy, is working on the heat. Even with the over going for hours, I was often quite cold this winter, especially in the bedroom, where it’s five or more degrees colder than the front rooms. Most landlords would be pissed about having to deal with this kind of problem, but Jimmy loves the challenge (while bitching about it nonstop) and will work at it until it’s right or becomes too draconian a repair job to afford. He’s like the Langers were, baby, except he’s a lunatic. Nice lunatic, but a lunatic nonetheless.

So the transition from a life of Donna-and-Larry to a life of merely Larry continues. I get more used to it, more comfortable with it, but in no way do I prefer it. Baby, when I’m on my way home my mind still slips into “How’s she doing? What treat can I get her? What little present would give her pleasure?” Not every day, but often enough. It’s as if some spectral surgeon performed an invisible amputation, and removed You from Us, leaving only Me. I still feel partial, incomplete. And like those phantom limbs that ache even after they’ve been removed, I still sense you inside, react as though you’re still there. I suppose eventually that too will pass, mostly, though I can’t imagine it ever going away completely. In fact, I hope not. As you knew very well, my reaction to past pain was to detach myself from it as much as possible, think as though it had all happened to someone else, and if the details faded, great. Different now. Don’t want to forget anything. If I detach myself, I’m detaching myself from the best I ever was, the happiest I ever was, the most loved I’ve ever been. Sure, it hurts — God, it hurts! But instead of the pain that came because I was abused by the grownups in my childhood, or because of my failures and shortcomings that passed my pain along to those who didn’t deserve it, my pain is the pain of having lost someone special, something wonderful, and to push it away means losing it all the more. I’m not being masochistic, I just understand now that the pain  and the joy of Donna-and-Larry are inseparable. And, in fact my love, it always was, with us.

I love you, my love.

                                                  L.

4-21-06

Good Morning Beloved –

The session with the new client went OK from my point of view. He was pleasant and gregarious and we talked easily. But he’s at risk. His short-term memory’s shot — lost his wallet last night, his lifeline the day before — and he’s not sure from one moment to the next whether this is his new home or whether he’s going home. Worse still for a flight risk, his facility isn’t designed for security. After 8 p.m., no one is at the front dest, and anyone can leave by going out the door — no alarms or inside locks. Talked to Home Instead already; they were told an Alzheimer’s unit should be — might be — finished by June 1, but there have been delays….He’s not stupid, and though he just arrived there, it won’t take him long to figure out he can boogie when he wishes. I really do fear for him.

As I say, a nice, affable guy. Contracter, carpenter, designed and made his own furniture, veteran of Guadalcanal. Sox fan. Old neighborhood guy. No meanness in him that I detected. Maybe — if the evidence on the back of his pants can be believed — a tad incontinent, though adjustinjg to a new diet may have given him the runs. He wanted to shave, had no razor, couldn’t find his wallet, poor guy — I lent him five bucks to buy a razor at the facility’s little store.

Lisa got caught in traffic, was way late for her appointment, though the therapist agreed to wait, and was thoroughly disgusted and negative. Left a disgruntled message for me as she crept toward her destination, and a terse email telling me nothing definite.

Nothing in Vegas seems to work out as advertized, at least for Lisa!

Hey — actually was able to eat a bagel today without my gums aching! First time in two weeks.

4-22-06

Good Morning My Darling –

  Talked to D. this morning. She spent the latter part of the week with Freddie, doing what work she could from her laptop. Bad days and not-so-bad days for Freddie. Has been so sick he couldn’t even keep his morphine pills down; finally they gave him a pump and he’s doing better re: pain. But it’s just a death watch now. I’m hoping any day that his strong, stubborn body and spirit will relent and release him into a coma, and beyond. D. is going down today, Je. tonight. I’ll go down tomorrow afternoon.

Today my oven didn ’t work. But Crazy Jimmy says it’s just a fuse or something. Hope it is so I have a stove/backup heat source; hope it isn’t so he’ll buy me a new stove. He continues to work on the heat in that explore-(and revel in)-every-possibility way of his. He has a worse problem: the front left corner of his beloved bronze four-door Chevy classic sedan got clipped during the night (first time in 20+ years, he says, that anything’s happened to it, parked in front of the house, proof-positive to Jimmy that everything’s going to hell), breaking the light and cracking the fiberglass front panel. Jimmy will be wild over this for days.

Had thought to register today for an intro. drawing class at one of the adult ed. programs, but will do it after work Monday. Gas is almost $3. a gallon, and I don’t want to drive any more than I can help. Mondays (for 8 weeks), 7-9 p.m., $118. plus supplies. Maybe I’ll be able to make things look 3-dimensional, and add perspective to my doodles!

(Jimmy just called. Stove working — darn. He said he’s working indoors so he doesn’t have to look at his wounded car — “I’ll get sick to my stomach,” he said.)

So far the day’s starting OK, physically. Mild soreness in the right sciatic, and the stiff aching in my left leg is better. Yesterday was pretty bad. But I hope I’ll never forget that what I endure occasionally pales beside what you went through every day. Damn, baby, you were so tough!

I felt as the years went on and disease forced us inside, isolated, more and more, that my life was increasingly led away from people, with fewer visits to or by folks, less going to movies or restaurants, to places like fairs and festivals. There was work, there was home, that was it. Contact was more and more by phone. Ja., D., they came over; George and Linda too until George dropped dead. But everybody else seemed to recede into the background.

And I wondered, when it was all over — as I knew it would be eventually, even before the cancer diagnosis — would I be not only without you, but without anybody? Would I even know how to function by myself? Lisa would be in Vegas, nobody would care about me once you were gone.

Oddly, my having to take on more and more of our ADLs, plus cleaning, sustenance — hey, plus almost everything — made self-sufficiency easy because I already was, perforce. And that I wasn’t quite as invisible to people as I thought on the one hand — B. and D. the bigger surprises — and on the other hand, I don’t need as many people involved with me as you did, though I’m not sure whether you needed them or simply responded to their needing you. It is my honor (by the way) that while so many seemed to depend on your courage, strength, odd wisdom and example, you depended on me, and — despite some wobbliness and missteps — I managed not to let you down. This has given me respite from my debilitating guilt, allowing me to like me (some) for once, and giving me a bit of stature in some others’ eyes.

It also helps that I never needed people, as some do; instead, I need persons, only a few. Always have, I realize. You of course were the one I needed most, but I don’t think that need grew the last few years; it was as if I couldn’t need you more than I did, and that need, having been fulfilled over the years, was simply satisfied, no longer…well, so needy. (And a small voice in my minds suggests I  needed release. I admit I needed it, even imagined it on occasion — I’m sorry if that sounds, or is, disloyal, but it’s the truth. One fact that saves me from that guilt thing is that I could wait for release until it came, and had it never come I could accept that.) Because you healed me in so many ways — all the while getting sicker ourself, at least physically — I don’t depend on people emotionally, as I did. Lisa’s about it, and even that dependency is tempered powerfully by her struggles to be whole.

I believe I’ve already admitted I’d like another good relationship with a woman. You should take that as a compliment: because of you I feel I have value to another. But in no way am I prepared to do anything to make a relationship happen. I neve was good at the early stages of the Mating Game, and if you add the facts that I’m cheap, shy and not particularly attractive, I’m figuring I’ll remain unattached for a long time, if not forever. At this point I don’t imagine doing anything proactive, anything to go out and “find” someone else. I’m going to take a class. Something might happen. Probably won’t. So be it. Que sera sera.

And of course, if there is someone some day, I’m inclined to pity her. How can she possibly measure up to you?

I love you, Donna.

4-23-06

Good Morning My Love –

Letters from Tom and Lisa this morning. Lisa not talking about her interview with the therapist, don’t know why. Sometimes she gets herself into a negative state of mind, internally chanting mantras of futility — “What’s the point? It’s hopeless anyway!” — that undermines her desire to get better emotionally; I just hope she’s not there now, which would mean she’ll find any therapist unsatisfactory. Of course, if they are unsatisfactory, she’s right to reject them….Patience, patience.

Tom (probably sighing deeply, Writing 101 stuff) instructs me to put my characters in scenes, step back and let them do their thing. Good advice. Make me trust the audience to draw independently the conclusions I’m aiming at. Asked him what scenes/characters he’d like to see first.

It’s 11:15. I’m trying to psych myself up to go out, get the paper, and ca. 2 p.m. go to see Freddie. Could be the last time.

4-24-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Freddie now looks like a concentration camp victim, nothing but bones held in by skin, and though Abra claimed his appetite was better — and he did eat while I was there, modestly — he threw up twice. He dozed/was spaced often, popping in and out of the conversation, which was pretty brisk since besides me and Abra, D. & M., and D.’s aunt Mary — remember seeing her a few years ago? — were there, with Mary telling stories to prove what a tough broad she is. Freddie responded to company, but he can’t want this to go on much longer. It’s as if all his working out and building up his body has made it strong, which is now, cruelly, keeping him alive longer. One of those nasty little ironies I keep running into.

4-25-06

Good Morning, My Love –

I registered for the Intro Drawing Class. The fools registered me in a class that began March 27, so I had to call them and have it changed, 8 weeks, beginning Monday June 5, 7-9 p.m. Can superior doodles be far off?!?

Had an idea that Jane’s death helped me prepare for yours. Except for seeing my grandfather die when I was in my teens, I hadn’t experienced death that way — well, your foster mother Tilly’s death, I suppose, but I had no direct emotional connection. With Jane there was the decline, the severe decline and then the death, all witnessed, and the searing aftermath. Jane prepared me for the way these things go down — the crisis, the options (none good), the Hospice-type control of discomfort, the tears through the waiting, the hush, the soft quiet slide into oblivion — so with you I wasn’t learning it all from scratch, but more importantly, I knew what it felt like to mourn, and so was prepared, as much as one can be, for it to be long and hard.

And I think your death has prepared me for Freddie’s — and all the others that will follow (except, I suppose, mine).

Never will forget Jane lying in that large oblong room in N.E. Med., a grey room, Jane looking so tired but with the air of someone who’d fought a long battle she knew she’d lose, but had fought well anyway and was satisfied to retire from the fray, defeated perhaps but still proud. Glad to be done with it. As you know, I’d wanted so much for her, imagined her last years filled with delights she’d access from a computer: the museums of Europe, the sights of England, all sorts of adventures I pictured her having from her room in the nursing home. (And you were my abetter in this, since you had the computer expertise to set it all up for her. As you were at my side when she died. Miss you, baby.) But she didn’t want to be sick any more, and she didn’t want to be alone, and I accepted that, albeit reluctantly. I had to let go. As I’ve had to let you go.

Letters to Donna/from 4-12-06

4-12-06

Good Morning My Love –

Christy’s boyfriend Thomas returned last night from The Hague in Holland, where he endured a six-hour interview for what may be the job of his life. I came in this morning expecting tales of a tearful, celebratory or at least carnal reunion.

But what poor Thomas got was a bit of a cold shoulder, and when he inadvertently woke Christy up during the night he got a reprimand. I’m sure it wasn’t as negative an evening as she made it sound; she likes to play Hard-Hearted Hannah sometimes, keepin’ the boys in line.

And I thought, my God, if that had been me, you’d have greeted me like a conquering hero, no matter how you felt physically or how tired you were. You’d have made me feel so welcomed, so loved, because expressing love, especially after a separation, was so important to you. And I realized again how lucky I was to be loved like that, so grateful you chose me as the recipient of that wonderful love — and that I’ll likely never have anything like it again.

Which of course trashed my morning completely and had me crying and sniffling all over the place,

I remembered my trips to Albany, and how happy you were when I’d return. Thank you so much, my love: you made me feel so damn special!

I guess the dentist beat me up more than I thought. Not only is my face still swollen on the left side, but a bruise has appeared just above my moustache. At least the tooth went down fighting.

Got a call from Pam at Home Instead, with a prospective new client. He’s actually here in town, at the extended care place on Reservoir Ave. Pam didn’t know much about him yet, except that he has memory losses and is a “flight risk” — can apparently walk quite quickly when he has a mind to, and then can’t figure out where he is. Pam assures me he’s easily turned around….Yeah, well, maybe. They’re covering him 9 to 9, 7 days a week, and she wanted to know if I could take a weekday 5:30 to 9 shift. I need the $, but can’t imagine what I’d do with him for 3 1/2 hours. Maybe walk! I think I might take the gig for the money and because it’ll be difficult for Home Instead to find enough baby sitters — uh, sorry, “caregivers” — to cover the time. But I hedged and asked Pam for more info before I commit.

Keep you posted.

Sciatic not too bad, but letting me know it won’t tolerate any pressure. Padded seat, or I stand. See lgmcd enter the Land of Old Fartdom.

Baby, in rereading the part about Christy and Thomas, I realized that there were times when I made you feel unloved, and I apologize to you for them. So many things in life that we do which can’t be undone, and we’re forced to live with the guilt of them. If there was ever a time you made me feel unloved, I can’t recall it, but I certainly recall times of great anger and anguish when I inflicted that on you. I was very wrong, and I’m very sorry.

Miss you a lot today, baby.

I just realized one reason why watching the M.s take all our stuff bothered me so. Remember “Zorba the Greek”? The most vivid scene in it, and one of the most horrible scenes in film history (in my opinion) is when the Russian lady dies and those ghastly black-clad village crones descend on her house like vultures and strip it bare. That’s what it felt like. Unfair to the M.s, since I’d asked them to do what they were doing. Just had no idea it would bother me so much.

You know, I find myself getting more like my mother: very emotional about matters of principle, weepy when someone shows courage and decency, angry when they don’t, even when it involves people long dead. Example:

Just after the Civil War, in a church in Virginia, the minister set out the utensils for communion. It was a semi-segregated church, with blacks standing along the side toward the back and whites sitting front and center.

Suddenly an elderly black man approached the altar and knelt to receive communion. Everyone else gasped; no black had ever taken communion with whites; they had to wait their turn, and use separate utensils (no white would drink from a cup a black had drunk from). The minister did nothing. How should he respond.?

Eventually a white-haired, white bearded Caucasian rose and he too approached the alter. Though he had recently declared himself homeless and penniless, he was held in high esteem by the community. Slowly he came forward, slowly he knelt beside the black man, and waited for the minister, who at last began to administer the sacrament — and gradually, the rest of the congregation joined the two men, and for the first time black and white shared communion.

The white man was Robert E. Lee.

The story brings tears to my eyes, as well as the Lee quote, from the first interview he gave after the war (to a northern paper) that the South was defeated as much by Lincoln’s goodness as by the Union army. What a remarkable, generous thing to say! I’ll have to read more about Lee, and Jefferson Davis, who, if he’d had his way, would still be fighting the war. Each of Davis’ generals, starting with Lee, chose to disobey a direct order from Davis, and told his troops to surrender rather than watch men be slaughtered on both sides for a lost cause. Now that took cajones!

4-13-06

Good Morning, My Best Baby –

I love you! — have I mentioned it lately?

The tooth isn’t quite as sore, though the bruise is a bit larger and I look like I have the mumps. I’ll try not to take a Percocet –

–because, as I learned from Tony the T (it’s later now; I’m back in the house), not only does it make you feel loopy and make you itch (everyone I asked who’d taken it had that reaction) it’s a de-inhibiter, making you more emotional. That was me yesterday. Relieved to know it’s the meds, and not me regressing.

We talked some more about Lisa. He warned me not to be too pushy, not to nag. Vital that the communication channels remains open. Reinterated her need for a good therapist.

And when I got home I got an email from her saying that the therapist she was to interview was part of a plan that had a $500 deductible — bad — and allowed a maximum of twenty visits a year — unacceptible. Of course she bitched about the money, which convinced me she’d cop out of therapy altogether. I wrote her back, saying that if she found a good therapist I’d pay deductible, co-pay, whatever, that I’d work an additional four days a week if necessary, that’s how important I thought it was. Will let you know how it goes down. 

4-14-06

Good Afternoon My Love –

Lisa demurred, of course, over my paying for her therapy. But she also said she’d found a practice — 3 women — who operate on a sliding scale, with a C-note up-front payment, which I immediately offered to defray. Catch may well be the sliding scale, considering her salery. We need get a break here!

Longish email from D., who thinks Freddie is sinking fairly quickly and should probably be in a hospice facility. Will go down this weekend and press her case, I guess. She figures Freddie may not be ready to leave home. I wrote her back that — in your case as well as his — choices are all he has left, his only control, and we shouldn’t take that away, even if it means he causes himself some harm. Not that we shouldn’t attempt persuasion….

She also voiced her feelings about Abra, which are mixed. D.’s grateful to her, as I am, but still upset because Abra once said Freddie had no family. She finds Abra a bit cold. I gave her my impressions of Abra, which generally agreed with D.’s. I’ll quote you that part of my reply later, when I have time to copy it.

I’m home right now — only a half day at ECS — soon to go back into town for PT at 5:15. I’m feeling better. Mouth not as sore, sciatic not as tender. Didn’t take a Percocet last night, won’t tonight.

I’ve told Pam at Home Instead I’d try the “flight risk” next Thus., 5:30 to 9. See if it’s feasible. Can use the money, so hope it works out.

Back again. Session went better than I expected. The legs took to the work well. Only bad thing was, the “check engine” light came on while I was in the tunnel, scaring the crap out of me. Car ran OK, the light went off after a few seconds, and I got to PT OK, and had no problems coming back. I see Patrick May 2, but if I have any more problems this weekend will take it in Monday.

This is what I wrote D. about Freddie, and Abra:

“We’re entering tricky turf here, as you know. When Donna reached this point, all she had left were her choices, as limited and tragic as they were, and she clung to them fiercely. Fortunately, she’d make those choices after we’d talked and researched and agonized, so I had some imput, which she valued. That way, we guarded against a choice that went against her best interest. But once the choice was made, she was ferocious about sticking to it.

“I think Freddie operates the same way, except he’s not used to having anyone share the process. We both fear he’ll act against his own best interest by staying home too long and causing himself more pain than necessary. But we may have to accept it, at least temporarily, because — as with Donna — choices are the only control over his life he has left. Not that you shouldn’t try, or that you won’t eventually prevail, but as you anticipate, he might have to get worse before he’ll give in.

“I’ve only met Abra once, when she was here last. But I’ve been trying to figure out the relationship since I first heard about it. The following is pure speculation:

“Abra, a bright and independent-minded young person, is studying at Harvard when she meets Freddie. She’s never met someone like him before: handsome, exotic, strong of personality with an incredible tale to tell, yet underneath very needy. She becomes drawn into the tale, fascinated by this unique individual; she’s drawn to him because she’s socially idealistic, intellectually intrigued, and he appeals to all her maternal instincts. Marriage. But she soon finds out that Freddie really can’t function in her world, and she can’t submerge herself into his. So they work out a deal: she’ll do what she can for and with him, but he lives his life and she lives hers. Peace Corps, and two kids, not his. (That part still bothers me, a lot.) But in her way she’s still loyal to and protective of Freddie, who probably gave her the impression he had no family, at least not any family he was close to at that point, so in her mind she’s his surrogate family, and his protector. These roles suit her mindset, which I read as quietly arrogant, though I believe her affection and regard for Freddie are genuine. Her very own Special Needs person. It was interesting to observe her with Freddie: she had the pleasant efficient manner of the professional caregiver. Under that I sensed some genuine warmth, but it was as if she’d seen the visit as a job that she had to do as well and efficiently as possible, and then leave.

“I remain grateful for her help, but she does creep me out a bit. And I do suspect she feels she knows better than anyone else what’s best for Freddie.

“I don’t think it matters any more. I don’t really care what she thinks as long as Freddie’s taken care of properly. And if she needs to be involved to achieve that end, so be it. I’d rather she not be…but it’s Freddie’s call.

“I’m guessing I haven’t said anything you haven’t already thought of and factored in.

“I’ll call Freddie tonight, and maybe you and I can talk, by phone or email, over the weekend.”

I know how important it was that you maintained as much control as possible. Freddie deserves to keep what little control he has left.

4-15-06

Good Afternoon Beloved –

When I got back from Janet, I found a message from D., who’d heard from Abra, who’d heard from Freddie, who’d had a bad night — so bad that he’s in a rehab place and very possibly facing the end. BP down; God knows what his blood counts are. D. gave me more details but I’ve forgotten them; it’s enough to know he might be dying right now. D. is down at the rehab place, waiting to hear something definite; she says when she knows the score, she’ll call me. Hope I can get to tell him again how fine a man he is, how the world is better for him being in it.

It hurts, baby. I didn’t know how I’d take it, but it hurts.

Just got a royal flush, diamonds. Poker has a sense of humor.

I’m going to ask one favor of Freddie, if I can: when he gets to where he’s going, could he please tell you I love you?

Just finished a long talk with D. She thinks it’s a matter of days.

After a good day, Freddie vomited all night and when hospice showed up it was clear he needed to get more than hospice could give. Not sure why the ER wasn’t chosen, unless it’s because hospice felt the ordeal of the ER was too much and the benefits too slight in Freddie’s position. In other words, the ER might have put him in the OR to deal with what’s likely internal bleeding, all for what? A few more days? And a hospice facility apparently requires an evaluation, and no one’s there to evaluate: it’s Easter effin’ weekend! Nothing till Monday. Christ! (It’s Passover, too, so no Jewish doctors are available either. Any Buddhist M.D.s out there? Shit.)

So he’s in a private room in a nursing facility. BP 95/64, heart 107, neither good, but not immediately terminal either. They fear the cumedin is responsible for the internal bleeding, so they’ve d-c’d it. Morphine every two hours, and in D.’s opinion it’s not enough.

She’s going down early tomorrow. I’ll call in the early afternoon, and unless what she tells me alters my plan, will go down then. It’s my fervent hope that you and he will see each other soon.

4-16-06

Happy Easter My Love –

Walked in the early afternoon, then went down to see Freddie. Ironically, he’s three doors down from where Linda lives. I can’t see him lasting until May, baby. He’s lost another 10 lbs. easy, and looks emaciated. Can’t even sip without his stomach rebelling. I embarrassed him again by telling him how much I respected him. Stayed three hours watching him doze in a very familiar j0hnny — do they all look alike? — trying not to show his Depens to his visitors. His voice is a hoarse whisper. He stays curled up in a fetal position. Thank God he sleeps most of the time.

Of course it takes me back. But I did ask him to tell you I love you. He said he would.

I’ve been bothered by a notion: why did you die? Compared to Freddie you were plump. You weren’t wasting away, as he is. You’d gotten a fairly good report from your most recent MRI. I know you were going to die anyay, but why then? Why, suddenly, did you stop eating and die two days later? Eventually I’ll see Dr. G. again and ask him. I don’t think anything was done wrong, necessarily; I just don’t understand.

4-17-06

Good Afternoon My Darling –

Morning spent playing poker, watching the Sox (losing, at the moment) and emailing Lisa, Tom and John. Told John about Freddie and hoped that he felt at least a little pride at being a part of a family that could produce two such remarkable people as you and Freddie.

Will probably walk a bit after the game. I’m OK, with the usual caveats and exceptions, plus the ongoing soreness in my mouth where the cuttin’ and sewin’ were done. Sciatic better, mainly, I think, because I’ve been sleeping on my back.

Not much to tell you, baby, except that I love you and always will.

And if your sweet belief in the afterlife is true, I know you and Freddie will be talking (nonstop!) and laughing together soon.

Back, pooped from my walk.  Baby, did you simply decide you’d had enough back in Sept. ‘05? Wouldn’t blame you, but wish you’d told me. I’d have respected and aided your decision.

On the walk I saw a little girl with your sweet happy/goofy smile. Started to snivel on the spot. Miss that smile so damn much! Later, shopping at the supermarket, found myself wishing I was still buying your flexible straws. Go figure.

4-18-06

Good Evening Beloved –

Stiff and sore from overwalking, but PT helped some. Did stationary bike work for the first time.

Don’t know what will come of it, but I may soon start working with Tom on writing. He’s been flattering about some of my descriptive skills, particularly character sketches, and in an email asked about writing together.

My response was that I could see him in the role of midwife. Ask me questions; I write out the answers; he comes back for more info or insight. We go back and forth until we have a draft, and then we tighten it up. Simple, huh? It would mean that Tom would be editor/muse. To my surprise, he OKd the idea.

Talked to D. No news of importance re: Freddie, other than hospice giving him two weeks or less. D. called Stevie, he of the dim bulb, who seemed shocked at Freddie’s downturn. Duh!

Letters to Donna/from 4-5-06

4-5-06

Good Morning My Love –

A bit better today, still feeling fatigued. Sciatic mildly unpleasant, though still enough to undermine sleep somewhat.

Snow showers coming in today. You’d have laughed; we’re just annoyed. I’m worried about the lovely little bulb flower in bloom outside my living room window. Can it survive our perverse weather?

Don’t know if you remember the Terri Schiavo case, one of those awful “pull the plug” cases that lasted years and brought out the worst in everyone. Hubby wanted the plug pulled, parents didn’t, right-to-lifers and the Religious Right got involved….Eventually, the plug was pulled and she died. Lately the hubby’s been talking, not that I entirely trust the man — but he said among the things he misses about her is the back scratches and the way she smelled. To that I can relate. You had a lovely slightly sweet, slightly funky smell when you’d just wakened that I loved and miss. These things are so subtle yet so pervasive; they lodge in crannies behind one’s mind, and it almost takes a replication of the stimulus (Proust’s blithering madeleines) to conjure them up. The little animal things: little touches, little sounds, the sight of you on the balcony loving the air and the sky; hearing you mutter to yourself as you moved around the apartment; the little odd passing caresses we’d share. How your skin felt (wonderful!). How you always seemed happy to see or hear me. So many vital invisible strings that tied us together, each broken, each intact in memory.

Just found out I lost Mel, my Sunday gig. He has an old friend who winters in Florida and is back now, who’ll cover the Sunday hours. Sorry to lose the bucks, but glad to gain the day. Can get to see Freddie more easily. But will try to pick up another client when I can, so my respite is temporary.

Only to you will I make this confession: I had a major brain cramp on ebay. Put a bid in on a Lalique frog without reading the description. Now I’m out $110 for a glass frog with a broken foot. Idiot! I’m so pissed with myself I could spit!

(Happily, the fates took pity on me, and in our P.O. box I found a check from Margery in the consignment shop for $87.)

4-6-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Saw Donna and Bobby yesteday. They’re OK. Their van shit the bed. They say that Brendan’s car is also in trouble, since he never did standard maintenance on it. Fran, apparently, extremely forgetful and contrary — Alzheimer’s? — and Brendan himself is bothered by foot and other maladies. That’s going to end badly, I fear, unless Brendan can accept that she must go into a nursing home. Very very sad. We did it better, baby.

Had worried, as you know, about a teeth flare-up, which didn’t happen. Until today. Biting into a bagel I broke clean off my upper left fang. Whole damn tooth from the gum up. Called the oral surgeon who yanked my last bum tooth two summers ago; I see him Monday at 2:15, with $270 in my pocket. Hope it doesn’t infect by then.

This may be the tooth, or lack of same, that hurries up my slow march toward dentures. Now there’ll be a gap between my incisors and first molar, and I can expect the teeth th shift. Wonder if I can rent it out as a parking space.

As usual, the tongue is going crazy trying to get used to the new feel in the mouth.

4-7-06

Good Morning My Love –

Waiting at Uno’s for salmon; got two more pair of pants at Burlington Coat Factory, for $20.

Lisa asked me what I thought of her long-term plan/notion to leave Vegas — debt-free, if she ever achieves such a state of grace. Inevitably, something unexpected and expensive will pop up….Anyway, I told her since Vegas and its denizens are all about glittering surfaces and what it takes to create same, and its “cultural” life has nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with making money, she — with significant self-esteem issues — can never measure up. Sometimes someone will make a facile comment about her looks, which flatters her a bit and which she almost certainly rejects later. No one is interested in her interior life. I told her I think she’d do best in a medium-sized city with a very good university and an active artiste community with a taste for the avante-garde. She’d find much to respond to in such a place. I think Vegas is empty for her, full of bad ghosts and no real hope.

Just called Freddie. Sounded weak and fatigued, but says he’s no worse except, possibly, for pain. D. and — I think — Je. will go down Saturday; I’ll go down Sunday. Says he’s getting out once in a while, and isn’t vomiting. Not sure I believe that last. Said yesterday was bad, today good. Can’t say he sounded good.

Love you, babe –

4-8-07

Good Afternoon My Love –

Busy morning and early afternoon; lazy evening. Did bill-paying, laundry, P.O., banking, grocery-shopping and home-visiting (Janet) by 3:30; now am playing poker, watching sports, doing email and vegging out.

At Stop & Shop I got some Haagen Dasz eggnog ice cream. You’d love it. Good strong true flavor. And of course the fair was still going on across the road; told you I’d take you there or anywhere if you’d just appear, but you didn’t, so I went about my business with drying tears. Can’t seem to help doing that to myself.

I’ll see Freddie tomorrow afternoon.

4-9-06

Good Morning My Darling –

Bad night. Right sciatic very sore. What sleep I got was on my back.

Lisa wrote that she’s having bad dreams and thoughts. Told her they reflected the levels of her underlying anxieties. Told her that she’s proven her strength; now she must prove her wisdom by committing herself to mental health as she committed herself to physical health. And I raised the issue of whether or not she is really committed to mental health, about which I have my doubts, though in true psychiatric circular reasoning I assume a weak commitment to mental health is proof of mental unhealth.

I also asked her if it was possible that she’s lost sufficient weight from her body’s health point of view, and might she consider her present exercise program a maintenance diet? So she could treat herself once a year? But I fear she sees it as the only thing in her life to be proud of, and couldn’t let it go even if she agrees with me.

Saw Freddie. Hurting with stomach pain. Acid reflux. Fixed him tea, two soft-boiled eggs, some ice cream. Would rather have given him bread, milk, a little fish. Otherwise much the same — oh, the swelling is down, almost normal. But he’s pretty miserable. I’ll try to get down next Sunday.

Love you, babe. Tomorrow I get the base of the lost fang pulled. Joy.

4-10-06

Good Morning My Love –

Rested a little better by doubling the pillows under my knees and putting pillows on either side of my head so I can turn it some without turning over and putting pressure on the sciatic.

Had the tooth, or what was left of it, pulled. Wasn’t easy. Came out in chunks, took twenty to thirty minutes. Happily the novacaine didn’t wear off too soon. Once it did, I’d just filled the percocet scrip, and have just had to take another one. But all in all it’s not too bad. Simply a matter of riding it out.

Not that it’s relevant, but I love you. Hey, you knew that….

Nina’s been writing. Bryan is no better. When he rages she has to bring the kids in the bedroom and lock the door. So she’s thinking maybe she should leave or kick him out. What is wrong with that woman? If she was FDR when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, she’d still be trying to decide what to do (and if it was Bush, he’d respond promptly by attacking New Zealand). I don’t even think she has any hope left for Bryan or the marriage, but she seems almost incapable of making and executing a decision.

She says she misses you soooooo much (a quote) and is no doubt sincere, but all she’d do was cry on your shoulder and ignore your advice.

4-11-06

Good Morning My Love –

Got through the night with Percocets. Might be mildly allergic to them, as I’m itchy across the upper back and down the arms. The area is swollen, as might be expected. Decided that heavy exertion might not help it, so cancelled PT tonight. Will have to pick up the exercises tomorrow, since it’s now five days since I did any.

It’s occurred to me that I’m writing less about us. I very much needed to earlier, to record as much as I could the special things we had together, to celebrate them before they began to fade. And when your life is almost completely wrapped up in someone else and suddenly that’s over, you don’t have much else on your mind. Now I’ve functioned and for myself for over half a year, and though you’re still woven into my life, mind, heart, soul and psyche inextricably, it’s in a passive way. You observe my life, not participate in it any more. Damn it.

I’m hoping that more time will bring different perspectives, and that I’ll see things I hadn’t necessarily seen before, and write about it.

You are still the single most important person in my life, the most important factor. And unless I find someone else — which is most doubtful — you’ll continue to be for the foreseeable future. That may sound odd, but it feels appropriate. You dead are still essential to me, more than anyone living, though Lisa’s a fairly close second.

It’s the Sox’ Opening Day, which you never gave two hoots about, not to mention how the crowds would freak you out. But residing inside me as you do, the crowds are no threat and you can enjoy the spectacle: the smells of Italian sausage and popcorn; the hawkers selling everything and even giving stuff away: schedules, signs, and cloth-flower leis, given by a whiteface clown in a Sox uniform, on stilts. Just hope he doesn’t end up as our relief pitcher in the 8th; the people carrying signs for, and asking everybody who passes by if they have a ticket to sell — and a block away, the scalpers selling tickets; the booming loudspeaker from inside the Park, competing with the brass band at the newly refaced Cask & Flagon or, further away, the bands hired by banks in the Square; the incredible number of cops, attendants and security guards, most of ‘em doing absoluthely nothing; the copters and jets flying over; the diners at the bars and clubs on the north side of Lansdowne St., while across on the south side, all the people who slept on the sidewalk overnight, now lined up hoping to score a bleacher ticket; all the people, so many in Sox shirts and hats, taking on the characteristics of moving water, with a current, eddies, flowing around obstacles, making miserable anyone trying to move upstream, all inexorably moving toward the ballpark; the kids, all sizes, but intimidated for the most part by the crowd, wanting to run and scream but fearing, as their parents do, being swallowed up and swept away by the human river; all the men talking wisely about baseball; even more men talking wisely about business; and, finally, the sounds of the game: the music, the sonorous P.A. droning on; the pause and swell of the crowd noise, sounding at first like the wind, then building to a roar as the play unfolds, then dying down again; and, if they win (they did, today) the psychic glow that settles over the fans and the area.

Just talked to J., who’s happy about the Sox’ 6-1 win, and unhappy with her neighbors. (What’s new?) Seems in good shape. When her bitching gets a frantic note, I might worry. But this is run-of-the-mill bitching, so I infer she’s OK.

Letters to Donna/from 3-29-06

3-29-06

Good Morning My Darling –

Have been thinking about the “little speech” I drafted yesterday. It marks, I think, a transition. Up to recently I’ve wanted people to know that you had died, that I’d been left behind, and the very special things were involved. Early on I think I was even pushing it in people’s faces a bit, talking about you, pain, loss, the “what now?” factor. I think I needed to do that, to keep from keeping too much inside, to vent. But I wasn’t so dense that I didn’t realize how uncomfortable it made some people feel.

So I’ve concluded that I must now be ready to answer a question about you/us (hence the “little speech”) but should no longer flaunt my loss, your departure et al. I realized this as I went back to PT and wondered what I should say to those there who knew me when you were alive. Welcomed the question/dreaded the question. Didn’t want to say, “Hey, since you saw me last, Donna died of a brain tumor after suffering terribly!” So I decided to wait — am still waiting — for the inquiry.

This — the “little speech” held in reserve — is how I’ll handle the matter  henceforth.

Lisa wrote a couple of letters, the first detailing the calculations of caloric intake and burn-off she goes through daily as she eats (or tries not to) and exercises. To call it obsessive understates. It was obvious that she believes only the most rigorous self-discipline keeps her from returning to blimpian proportions. I wrote that although I’d be horrified if she ballooned again, I’d love her just the same — though I had to explain later that my horror would be over the medical implications of morbid obesity, and that what I love most about her is on the inside, and that I wish she could accept and feel easy about not being physically perfect.

She wrote back an account of her struggles against binge eating. Apparently she’s a bet-you-can’t-eat-just-one type, who either eats no snacks or goes nuts. No middle ground. I suspect there’s a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy involved, but I know from my own eating (and I remember from yours) how hard it can be to limit your munchie intake. But the thing that troubled me most was her statement that she sometimes takes two to four antacids a night to control cravings. She’s risking acid reflux by doing that, since overuse of antacids can cause the condition they’re supposed to treat. Wrote a quick, non-accusative caveat about antacid abuse.

P.T. was a help. I was still sore of back, but I walked better. Today as well. If I can bring myself to do my exercises tonight, knowing that I go to PT again tomorrow, I’ll have exercised for four straight days, a momentum I can perhaps extend into the weekend.

The only bad moment, related to my topic at the beginning of this letter, came when my therapist, who’s never seen me previously, asked me where I was from. New York City, I said. Do you ever go back? And I had to say how I hadn’t in many hears. How I’d wanted to go with my wife, who was ill, but that we were never able to manage it. The clear implication was that you had since died. I didn’t cry as I said it, though you can guess what I’m doing now.

3-29-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Partly on the basis of what I wrote yesterday, I’ve decided to begin phasing out my sessions with Tony the T. Though, in my opinion, I’ll grieve you the rest of my life, I believe I’ve passed out of the initial acute state, and the “little speech” is an indication. Tony agrees. He feels we’ve achieved our therapeutic goals, but neither of us feels confident enough to end the sessions altogether. I’ll wait two weeks to see him next, and again a month after that. We’ve also agreed that, if I’m in trouble, I can call him.

3-31-06

Good Morning My Love –

In considering all the “diagnoses” I’ve stuck on Lisa in my mind, I recalled how dangerous such labels can be. Wrote her last night that “we are not our problems, maladies or illnesses” — remininscent of “I’ve got MS, but it doesn’t have me” — and we can end them, sometimes, without their ending us. That Lisa isn’t a depression, she has a depression. And can rid herself of it.

And I thought how you struggled with that concept, despite your tough attitude. How many times did you accuse your por body of betraying you, as though it had gone out and deliberately acquired MS et al; or how many times did you apologize, so deeply ashamed, for incontinence or some other problem you had absolutely no control over? And I’d say, you didn’t wilfully acquire this disease; it was inflicted on you, and your poor body. And I’d remind you how hard your body would struggle to cope with what was happening to it, and how many times it would bounce back for you, or tough it out just enough to get by. I hated it when you hated your body because you and it were equally victimized and should have cherished each other, as allies, because you both were fighting against the same enemies for the same goals.

With me, it was the perception of myself, reinforced by my youthful years of therapy, that there was something fundamentally wrong with me, that I was a “flawed vessel.” I think it’s very easy for someone in therapy, especially long-term, to accept the notion that s/he is basically unsound. I even think some therapists, consciously or unconsciously, reinforce this — this “I’m OK/You’re Not” game. And I wonder to what extent Lisa has labelled herself, as a binge eater, unattractive, unlovable. To a great extent, I fear. But if that’s all she is, she couldn’t function. The fact that she is functioning means there’s more, much more inside, and some of it is pretty good, pretty strong (maybe even pretty!). Trick is to get her to see it that way.

Have been hurting some with my exercises, and fear I may have aggravated the right sciatic. Jeff, the therapist I work with, says it’s a matter of seldom-used muscles complaining. Hope he’s right. At this point I see no improvement, other than the fact that I can do more reps now. I want to get an exercise mat I can bring into work, because I don’t want to get up a half-hour earlier to do exercises before work, and I have a very hard time doing them after work.

Stanley asked if having your picture as a screen saver might be too painful. Odd: when it comes up every morning, I tell you I love you, no problem; I tell you I miss you, big problem. Tears every time. I can’t let it go yet, but I may have to.

Tomorrow would’ve been 28 years. Baby, if I knew what the future held all those years ago, I’d have done it again: that’s how wonderful it was to live with you, in spite of everything. I would not deprive myself of the special pleasures of your company, my love. It was all worth it.

4-1-06

Happy Anniversary My Love –

In my mind I’m bringing you food you love, maybe if you’re up to it going to a movie, maybe if you’re up to it going to dinner (lobsters at Kowloon or the Mt. Vernon), coming home and making gentle, tired, sweet love. That’s our day, baby, and to hell with the rest of the world.

Instead, in fifteen minutes I have to visit Janet who, on her best day, is no Donna Boyce. Will shop afterwards, maybe see Mr. P for the last time, call J., Freddie and Donna S., just to see how she and Bobby are doing. None of these people or activities in any way, shape or form can begin to replace you. Baby, you’re irreplaceable.

Oh — and I love you, with all my heart and soul. That will never change.

Back from Janet. She’d spilled prune juice all over her kitchen, so I did a fair amount of housekeeping today. IHOP for brunch. They have a new shrimp and crab omelet — think you’d like it.

Got my exercise mat, did my grocery shopping. Baby, you have to come back today: there’s a fair running in the cinema parking lot! After, we could see a movie, then go to the Mt. Vernon on 1A (no lobster fest at Kowloon yet). and for dessert we can have some Haagen Dasz eggnog icde cream. Please, baby, just for a day, I have a wonderful day planned, and afterwards we can make love and sleep snuggled together like we always do. Please, baby? Just for today?

Finally heard from Debbie and Stevie, who are seeing Freddie tomorrow. They’re OK, just the kind of folks who procrastinated about calling back for six lousy months. Freddie says he’s better — got out to get a haircut — but later in the conversation said he’s having more digestive problems, so don’t know if he’s really better or not.

Called J. and Donna S., left messages. Talked with Lisa, who’s doing better this weekend.

4-2-06

Good Morning My Love –

I met Mel, my Sunday client, today at 12:15. A bit nervous, but think I’ll be OK.

Talked to J. last night. To hear her talk (and talk, and talk) you’d think her life was perfect. The odd thing is, it just about is perfect, if she’d relax enough to enjoy it. She’s got enough money, she’s got her health, a good challenging job, a snug dwelling that suits her (despite antipathy toward neighbors), friends, support, freedom from domestic responsibility. She can go to NYC, drop $2-3k, plan an even more expensive trip to England, contemplate relocating to N.C. (which I don’t think she’ll do since — as I say — she’s constructed a perfect life). Her only significant problem is her own screwiness, which makes her frantic for no reason and undermines hr relationship with her kids.

She still misses you. You understood her best. Plus, she glommed a fancy new computer system, and wishes to hell she could brag on it to you and go through all its bells, whistles and gewgaws with you. I will always be the poorest of substitutes, though I make up for it a bit by sharing baseball mania with her.

Anyway, I found her in very good spirits.

My first session with Mel is over. It’ll be OK. He’s 90 and his life is orderly and he relies on that. So when the Home Instead staffer and I arrived 15 minutes early, it threw him for a total loop. Didn’t get over it for an hour, and didn’t stop referring to it for three. Some of Mel’s mental gears are stripped, and slip, and repeating himself is one sign. Memory, especially with names, is another. Probably shouldn’t go out by himself because he’s easily spacially confused.

All that having been said, he’s a genial, decent old coot, like you very sure in his own space and place, and considering his age in quite good shape. Hearing and eyesight diminished, but he walks well, slow but steady; he works at memory and is good with meds, is proud of what he can still do and fierce about doing it.

What with the intro and its aftermath, and the fact that his granddaughter and her food-poisoned boyfriend (looking slightly green and popping immodium. Bad shrimp at Kowloon — glad we didn’t go there yesterday!) were visiting from California, it took us an hour to settle down. Then we went to Mel’s favorite eatery, Brothers, where he’s known and coddled. Nice diner-type place. OK food, cheap. Then to Shaw’s, then back so I could vaccuum rugs.

So if the repetition doesn’t drive me nuts, I’ll be OK with Mel. And Janet.

Afterwards I saw Mr. P for a couple of hours. Like I’d never left. He expected me to do the usual tasks and I expected to do them too, and they were done. I was still an employee. Brought him coffee and diet tonic, did what I could, shook his hand and left. Doubt I’ll ever go back.

4-3-06

Good Morning My Love –

I’m tired/sleepy/sore; it’s Monday; I love you anyway.

John sent a cd of pics of the craftsman house he’s flipping. It was a pigsty to start with, so comparatively it’s much better now, though I think another $1k in landscaping, trim and snazzier fixtures et all would’ve been a good investment.

This town may soon be called “the City of Murderesses.” A couple of years ago some woman killed her husband somewhere out west; the nationwide womanhunt ended where she was captured: here! And last week some woman in Epping N.H. murdered a companion on her farm, burned his body to a crisp, and lit out — only to be captured…here! Now I know why Sandy keeps coming back: peers!

I know I’ve said it before, but I miss so much your toddling up to me in your little girl mode, all bright-eyed and hopeful, and asking so sweetly, “Have you got a coo-kee??” And, when I did, to see your wonderful face light up with pleasure and anticipation. Miss it so much.

I have to add something to an earlier entry. I think one way of describing how I was just after you died: I got caught up in the drama of it. I was a tragic heroic figure, and I couldn’t help playing the role. I didn’t enjoy it, but I felt important somehow, living through the theatricality of our story. I’m a bit embarrassed by it. But I think I’m past it now.

Wish I was past feeling tired, sleepy and sore….

My mind keeps going back to “Do you have a coo-kie?” Baby, I have two of the wonderful Au Bon Pain oatmeal raisin (OK, if you insist, just raisin) cookies, and if you’ll stop by or let me know how to find you, I’d give ten years of what’s left of my life to give you a coo-kie. Please let me….

Forgive me, baby. It’s just a bad day.

4-4-06

Good Afternoon Beloved –

You and your damn cookie bedevilled me all evening long (I know, not your fault). Just a sad day. Woke up tired to raw rainy weather — so much for Spring — the rain much needed just now.

At work I’m wearing two hats (Andy C. out with one of his “headaches”) but the work’s so slow that I can do both and still find time to write.

PT after work, then another night with sore sciatic nerves. Hope I’m allowed to sleep better than I have been, since sore sciatics on both hips means I’m sore no matter what side I lie on, so end up on my back, which means snoring and less than stellar repose.

Not much to say just now. But I’m always up to telling you that I love you with all my heart and soul.

Letters to Donna/from 3-22-06

3-22-06

Good Morning My Love –

John called last night. Less bullshit than usual. He’s still three months away from selling the one flip project; the other is starting up now. So he’s on the money rack, being stretched two ways until the first house cashes in. Plus he’s vulnerable to worker problems. He’s using “undocumented” Mexican laborers, so is vulnerable to a dropped dime; and — according to him — he’ll do someone a favor and the someone will respond by trying to squeeze John somehow. No good deed etc. Is thinking of getting his labor through a contractor, which he figures will add 30% to his labor costs, but his alternative is to do the hiring himself and handle all the paperwork, including taxes, which will eat up all his free time and then some, double his hassles and — if it isn’t done right — will cause him grief for years. He could hire someone to handle the paperwork, and if he was a bit bigger that might be his best choice, but he may need a few more years before it’s worth it to him.

But the part of the conversation you’d have liked most, centered around Pierce’s version of the Terrible Twos. He’s about 4 now, and has discovered his own will and the word “No!” which he seems to enjoy using. John will take a toy away, but Pierce isn’t so easily beaten down, and is standing his ground — up to a point. Not easily intimidated. Working the parents (with John, defiance; with Nina, whining). But the parents still have the upper hand and Pierce ultimately capitulates.

Cold still in place, not bad yet. Has gone down into the vocal cords some, so I can now sing baritone. Maybe tomorrow: bass.

I believe we can stop genocide in one generation, if we’re willing to kill everybody off.

It’s taken me six months to fill this notebook. Reading it will be painful, and I won’t do it for a while. It started off as a way to express my love and my loss, to let you know you live on inside me, and to give you an idea of the aftermath of your passing. It has, I’m sorry to say, become more of a journal, but I guess that was inevitable.

But what it really is, is me howling at the moon, trying to grasp what had happened through all those years and what has happened since Sept. 20 — not the events, but what has happened to my emotional landscape as I travel from the wonderful, painful land of You to the bleak, painful land of Not You. It has become a record of a man trying to understand what has happened to him over 27 years, and what has happened to him the last six months. It has become a debate over possible answers to the question: when a person loses the most important element of his life (that’s you, baby) what does he do then? And what should he do? It has become a record of our past, our present, and my future. (“Our present”? Yes. This book is much more of a “we” book than an “I” book, though — as implied above — it inevitably must become more of an “I” book. )

But whether it continues as a “we” or “I” book, one thing’s for sure: I will never stop loving you, and you will live within me until my living stops. I may even find someone else to love, but that love — if it ever happens — will never supplant or diminish my love for you. Never.

By the way, Denise was able to reach Stevie. Says she told him Freddie’s situation but isn’t sure he fully grasped it. Stevie still sends a mixed message: he’s caring and wants to be involved with folks like you or Freddie, but the world overwhelms him and he wants to stay in his psychic bunker. Maybe it’s the death part that frightens him. I thought he’d handled your/his/Freddie’s mother Mina’s death pretty well, but thinking back, it was you who handled it well, and he just followed your lead and instructions. I believe now that he’s said he’ll vist Freddie, he will — but only once. Unless Freddie lingers a long time. Otherwise I think Stevie will do his duty and then crawl back in his bunker.

3-23-06

Good Morning Beloved –

I now have two new clients: Janet, in her 60s, for Saturdays 11:30 to 2:30, and Mel, 90, Sundays from 12:30 to 3:30. Could cut into my Sunday walking in the cold season, but that’s a long way off.

Was told a lot about Janet, since Ross, the Home Instead franchisee, has known her for a couple of years. She’s a retired teacher. Has been deeply depressed, though is better now, having moved into an elderly community. Can be a drama queen,  but like you, seems to cover up what’s really bothering her. Likes the Red Sox, crosswords, word games like Boggle, and going to IHOP. Is sensitive to criticism and negativity, even implied. Expects a gentleman to dress properly when visiting, even if she’s in jeans and a t-shirt. Will ask me if I hug. Has small housekeeping tasks for me, but it’ll be mostly companionship.

Mel is my other client, tall, frail, uses a walker, is getting forgetful, has dementia but I’m not sure what that means in practice. WWII vet. Loves to talk — mainly about his brainy Harvard-educated lawyer daughter, less about his wicca-priest son (oy!). Mostly a companionship gig. Some housekeeping, but has other people for that, I think. An everything-in-its-place guy, which I guess is good if you’re getting forgetful.

I’m not crazy about making commitments on both weekend days, but I think the time will go faster with these two than with the almost silent Mr. P; I won’t add a weeknight unless it’s easy, and I need the money. As it is I’m dropping three hours and will only get about $50 a week. But I’ll go with that. Eventually I’ll stop with Tony the T, saving $10 a pop, and will do PT once a week instead of twice. May start doing laundry again; there’s a new laundromat opening up across from Dunkin’ on Broadway where the old place burnt down.

(Incidentally, I’d hoped that the second job would give me less time to smoke grass, so I’d smoke less. Isn’t working out that way. If I was sleeping properly, it might, but I’m not, and when I awaken through the night I smoke a bowl or two to get back to sleep.)

I still have a slight cold but it hasn’t moved down and it hasn’t worsened. Knock wood, I think it’s not going to be too bad.

Did I tell you today I love you? No?? OK: I LOVE YOU DONNA BOYCE!!!

                                                      L.

3-24-06

Good Morning My Love –

My main concern today is Lisa. She’s doing everything that’s been suggested: got her own place, changed jobs, got out of the house and did stuff. But still she’s going through miseries. Of course the one thing she hasn’t done is get a therapist. Hope she doesn’t damage herself further. Fear she will.

For some reason or another, I focussed today on the traumas of my own childhood, after having been fixed on yours. I think the fact that each of us survived a horrific childhood without losing the capacity to love was one of the things that bound us together. More than survivors, we actually prevailed, succeeding in the end more than anyone who knew us growing up had any reason to expect. That we both were able to function at all is to our credit; that we often functioned on a high level is even better; and that our souls grew is simply astonishing and — I think — one of the great gifts we gave each other. For I believe each of us was the midwife to the best of the other, helping it emerge and flourish.

You know, baby, if you somehow appeared to me and said I could go with you into, as Dylan Thomas put it, that good night, I would take your hand and go. As I see it now, no future pleasure could equal the joy of being with you again, and always.

3-25-06

Good Evening Beloved –

My mother’s birthday. She’d have been 88. Another incredible woman I was lucky to have in my life, even when the negatives, and there were many, are factored in.

Started with Janet yesterday. The complex she lives in is fantastic, a self-contained town. Large, nicely landscaped campus, with a pond that sometimes supports swans. Groups of hi-rise buildings, grouped around a “clubhouse” that provides services and amenities, including a dining room that functions more as a restaurant, a convenience store, pool/game room, auditorium, salon, etc etc. And adjacent to the campus is a WalMart. Though the road past the campus is a traffic nightmare, within 2 miles is about everything you could ever want to shop for.

Will tell you more about Janet and the day later. But suffice it to say it went better than any day with Mr. P.

All in all, a good day. Love you, baby.

3-26-06

Good Morning My Love –

Nice long night’s sleep, so rare — a wrong number woke me at 10:30!

Am pokering now, but will walk. 20 minutes ago, Freddie called. D. and Je. had come down and done laundry and god knows what else. He wanted me to come down and I will. He sounded looped on meds, but if it keeps him pain-free, great.

Janet. Grey little Jewish lady. Brusque exterior over a more sensitive interior. Her place is neat, bright and simple. She wanted me to: put clothes in the dryer, make the bed (she does it like I do: bottom sheet, blanket, pillows), water her nice little collection of plants), sweep her kitchen — none of these tasks at all difficult. Then we went for coffee and bagels and crossword puzzling, then to Shaw’s for three bags of groceries, then back to the flat. Once there, put away groceries, split her English muffins (she has gripping and dexterity problems, though she’s fully ambulatory), and pour little shampoo bottles into a larger shampoo bottle.

And that was about it.

She’s one of those elderly folk who has said to herself, “I am what I am, I like what I like, I don’t like what I don’t like, and that’s how I’m going to live.” So she wants her pillows put in their cases with the zipper side facing out, want her coffee black, half-decaf half vanilla, etc. etc. Her prerogative. And is sensitive even to implied criticism. One of my predecessors fell victim to this characteristic, but at this point I side with Janet. It’s her life and her dime and she’s entitled. Sure, I didn’t like that she tipped a penny at the bagel place. Sure, I thought it was funny as hell, the whole bit with the shampoo. But it told me that either she was poor at one time or was raised by parents who knew poverty.

We got along fine. Part of my job is enabler. Handled the crossword puzzle OK — tricky, since I knew almost all the answers and tried to let her figure them out. Her frustration level is moderately high so sometimes  she preferred I just write in the answer. But we finished it, the first one she’d finished (she said) for quite a while.

I think we’ll do fine.

D. called. Said Freddie was more mobile, more energetic. Anticoagulents working, I guess. Eating better. Got nauseous after dinner last night. But it passed. Don’t know if he’s taking meds for that. And he just called, asking that I bring some Italian bread with me, because he’s got ziti down there. D. says the only problem is, he doesn’t want anyone to go home. D. and Je. escaped at 1 a.m. yesterday.

3-27-06

Good Morning, Beloved –

First, a confession: I didn’t write you on the 25th. Didn’t get to it. Faked the date, which I wrote the following morning. Ashamed of myself. I’m sorry, baby.

Went to see Freddie, who didn’t have anyone coming to keep him company, so he called me. I was going down anyway, if he wanted. Got there ca. 5:30, stayed till 9. Like a Home Instead visit: a little housekeeping (very little — he wouldn’t let me do much), a lot of companionship. We watched tv, ate some, shot the shit.

His right leg is still swollen, but not as bad. He gets around in short gimpy bursts, which tire him. He nibbles a lot, has some nausea, but keeps the food down. Has lost weight — he figures 20 lbs. Is beginning to think about what he wants to accomplish while he still has time, focussing mainly on getting the State legislature to cough up more money for the Fernald victims. Good that he’s turning his focus outward. He’s taking morphine/oxycontin regularly — like you wouldn’t, you yutz, so you had to endure too much pain. Freddie’s not as macho as you were, and keeps the pain under control.

And the poor guy’s been invaded, by carpenter ants. Exterminator due today, but I hope he’s careful about the fumes. Has to be done, though: the little bastards were all over his house.

I walked yesterday, the long one along Route 16. $4.37 found, a bit disappointing for that route. The day before, after leaving Janet, I stopped at Salvation Army (four shirts) and Burlington Coat Factory (underpants, a new winter overcoat to replace the ripped, unzippable and filthy blue coat, and two pairs of pants). Sorry,  baby, the pants aren’t tight. One, which I’d gotten strictly as work pants, I decided to break in on my walk. And, sure enough, 2-3 miles away from the car, I caught the left hip of the pants on some metal and ripped it from pocket to knee. Disaster. Happily I still carry safety pins (you might remember I’ve done this before on a walk), and I managed to get back to the car without exposing myself to most of this part of the state. You’d have laughed and teased me half to death.

Spring finally showed up, a week late. 50s now, 60s by week’s end. Two bad moments on the walk: one when I passed the pay phone I’d usually call you from so you’d know I was OK, and passing by the road we’d use to get to that greenhouse where we always got our geraniums. I’m going to miss the geraniums, their endless blooms, brilliant colors, and toughness. Delighted us year after year from April to October. I’m trying to figure some way of having one. Narrow sills and limited light — you know how they love light — are the problems.

Still haven’t done my exercises. Seem to be in one of those spells where I don’t want to do anything that’s not part of the day-to-day routine. Must reestablish that extra discipline, on top of that which gets me up and to work each day, to cover these extra s. Extras include: exercises; lyrics to your song (so afraid they’ll be inadequate!); pics of Chez McD for Lisa; non-daily chores like dusting and vaccing; putting non-skid strips in the tub.

3-28-06

Good Morning My Love –

Finally did a set of exercises. They hurt some, but I think they’re supposed to. PT this afternoon.

Yesterday was a painful day in general. Walking too far and not doing exercises made everything sore, and when I tried to walk at noon my left groin let me know how pissed off it was, and I couldn’t walk more than a couple of blocks. Gimped around off and on all afternoon.

Got a quesadilla at the 9s, still hurting, and when I pulled up to the house, I’d been kissing the butterfly pendant some, and talking to you a bit, and I said, “We’re home,” then thought, yes, we are home, because wherever I am, you are, besides which there are pictures of you, and butterflies, and sundry other reminders and symbols of you all over the house, which makes it our casa.

But I gotta tell you that kissing that pendant falls far short of kissing those wonderfully warm, soft lips of yours. You had great lips, baby.

And when your picture comes up on my computer at work, I always say, “I love you, babe,” then “I miss you, babe.” Then I cry. Still can’t help it. Miss you so much.

Walked at noon. Painful at times, moderately, but was able to complete the walk.

As I walked I rehearsed a little speech I’ll have to give every so often. It will be the answer to queries from people like Janet who don’t know me, or like some people at PT who haven’t seen me for awhile.

First, I’ll warn ‘em it’s a sad story, in case they don’t want to hear one. Then:

I’ve just completed a stage of my life that lasted a quarter century. It was my great good fortune to live during that time with a woman named Donna Boyce, one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever known. Our first two years together were pretty crazy, but the real story starts when she was diagnosed with Multiple Scleroisis. She spent the next 25 years living and fighting with that disease, and the others that followed, like diabetes, Graves Disease, Barr-Epstein, blindness and a few other problems. In all that time she never got bitter, she never felt sorry for herself, and she never gave up. She was my inspiration and my strength, and I like to think I gave her strength and love too. And in the end, which came last September, it wasn’t MS that got her, bjut a very nasty form of brain cancer.

What we went through during those years, and particularly at the end, was very difficult, very painful. But she never lost her spirit, and we never lost each other, and she died in her own home and bed, as she wanted, surrounded by people she loved and who loved her, as she wanted.

Now I’m trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life and how I’m going to fill this enormous void where she once was. But as long as I live I have the knowledge that I was blessed by sharing so much time with so extraordinary a person as Donna.

As of last Friday, Craig is a fathr. Born three weeks early, Dylan Ares weighed 5 lbs. 14 oz. at birth, was 17 1/2 skinny inches long, and is healthy. Mother is sore and tired. Dad is ecstatic and stunned. A bit loopy. Says the kid bellows in perfect pitch (Craig is a singer). Came home sunday. He emailed a pic: this tiny red creature, sleeping in clothes way too big for him, sweet as can be.

Letters to Donna/from 3-14-06

3-14-06

Good Morning My Love –

Saw Freddie. Looked gaunt when I arrived, even a little feral. Lying on a couch in his living room, a medical (grey metal, adjustable) cane within reach. He’s lost weight. Is in pain, taking morphine, and once it kicked in he did better.

His illusions and procrastinations are behind him. He no longer pretends his digestive problems are an ulcer (a prognosis he now ascribes to one of his doctors); he knows it’s the cancer. The right leg is somewhat swollen and inflexible from the knee down. He says he’s not eating, but while I was there he ate most of a meal Abra prepared, and with pretty good appetite.

He’s thinking that when Abra goes back to Oklahoma Friday morning, he’ll go into the ER so he can be sent to a rehab center to strengthen his leg. Not sure why he thinks it’ll go down that way, but hope it does, assuming he lands in a good rehab place. They can treat other symptoms as well. In the hospital he was found to be anemic and a transfusion was ordered, but he refused it, using Abra’s arrival as an excuse, but in truth Freddie has been objecting to numerous treatments out of sheer paranoid contrariness for a while now. Maybe in rehab he’ll get some of those treatments.

Assuming he does go into rehab, what happens after that? Up till the clot’s onset he’d intended to hit the carny circuit again but now believes that’s over. So if he’s infirm and alone in his house? Hospice can only be there for a couple of hours, as we know. Food? Cleaning? I think he should hire someone, and he may. He’s afraid they’ll try to stick him in a nursing home, and seemed prepared to accept that, but why should he? He wants to hang on to his money — that’s one of the conflicting motives he’s dealing with — for his kids, but I’m sure that, faced with institutionalization (the worst passible fate, in Freddie’s mind), he’ll loosen the purse strings.

Almost as soon as I arrived he told me he wanted to die, or at least be able to O.D. when he wants to. Wants to legalize euthanasia (told him they had, in Oregon). I let him know that it’s been going on here for a long time on the QT, that you’d committed your doctor to helping you when you’d had enough, and that if he’s very clear and forceful with his doctor, the doc and hospice will ease him out when the time comes. Didn’t seem to mollify him much, but by the time I left he was much more animated and upbeat (reminiscing). From that I infer that he’s better when people — people he’s comfortable with — are around. By himself, his fears may overwhelm him psychologically.

So I finally met his ex, Abra. She’s a plain thing facially, is shaped like a medium-sized pear. About as attractive as a pile of leaves. Bright manner but not smarmy. Knows how to appear to listen. Exudes warmth more than affection. Seems to have an efficient, detail-oriented mind. Socially gracious.

I think her ability to listen is, from Freddie’s point of view, one of her greatest sssets. Freddie more than anything loves to talk, and Abra makes an interested, attentive audience. How much she retains I don’t know, but if she isn’t retaining, she fakes it well.

I stayed two and a half hours. I’ll keep in touch and try to get down to him more often.

Before I saw Freddie I stopped by Linda’s. She’s lost weight; her teeth seem too big for her mouth. I guess her teeth have to go on a diet. Otherwise she looked OK, wearing black, and pearls, of all things! I gave her some grass and a hug.

Also had dinner down there, since Freddie (inexplicably) didn’t want me to show until 6:30-7 (I called him at 4:30) and my initial call to Linda found her not at home. Remembered an Indian place right at the storage building where George and Linda stored their, and our, stuff. Awful. Bread bland, entree way too salty, prices too high. I should’ve gone to the Friendly’s acrsoss the street, that’s how bad it was.

This morning I sent your pictures to Freddie; talked to Abra just now and she says they’re great, that they capture your personality and spirit, and baby, they do. So glad I have them, so glad I can share them.

One last note, of marginal interest. Remember when we’d first go down to visit Freddie? There was an intersection with a little quaint-looking shopping mall, then nothing as Rte. 53 headed north. The street which accessed Freddie’s neighborhood was just a poorly-marked little side street. Now there’s a Stop & Shop directly across from it; there’s a stop light at the street, which is widened, and the whole area’s built up and resembles its old self not at all.

Oh — almost forgot. Abra remembers fondly your talks with her when Freddie was undergoing treatment in Oklahoma. Thought you’d like to know.

3-15-06

Good Morning My Darling –

Remember when I was looking for work and I met that nice but somewhat loopy guy at the Starbuck’s? Liked his instincts, questioned his practicality. I eventually went with Home Instead instead. Anyway, the guy called Sunday night with a client…an hour’s drive away. Told him it was way too far. Then he told me it was a weekday morning gig. He’d never checked my availability. See ya!

Much of the talk at Freddie’s — apart from his reminiscences — was about you, what you were like, what you went through, what you accomplished. Because of Freddie’s clot, I talked about yours. Didn’t cry once. Couldn’t — had to stay focussed on Freddie. First time I’ve been able to talk about it without crying; hell, I can barely think about it without crying! But Freddie needs to be the tragic hero now; all tears are reserved for him.

He asked me if I had a message he could give you when he gets to heaven. Told him to tell you to get in touch. But if he really was going to see you, what would my message be? Will give it some thought.

Is a “schmick” an Irish schmuck?

3-16-06

Good Morning My Love –

Talked to D. last night about Freddie. Her idea is to bring him up to her neighborhood (30 miles north of where he is now), get him a 1-bedroom place, and help take care of him. It’s a good plan, but is based on too many x-factors at this point. The most obvious is transferring his medical support up D.’s area, a potentially daunting task. But, to me, the most important factor is Freddie’s willingness to cooperate in a plan designed to help him.

–He will not be happy about spending the money (though D. and I calculated that the cost of an apartment and of getting an apartment, as opposed to getting someone into him at home at $18.@hr. for 2 hours each day are about the same.);

–He won’t want to be in an apartment while his house stands idle;

–He won’t want to be away from his buddies, perceived or real, in his own neighborhood; it’s his stomping ground, they’re his pals, and Freddie requires that kind of familiarity or he’s perpetually uncomfortable;

–He won’t want to be helped, especially if he thinks he’s improving.

Of course, if he’s very sick and a nursing home is his other option, that could prove quite persuasive. But if he is that sick, an apartment may simply not be viable.

I think what happens to him in the next week will be important. If he can get rid of the clot, control his pain and improve his eating, he might want to go back on the road. If his leg improves and he can control the pain but the digestion is still bad, he may want to stay put. I think he’ll have to be essentially unimproved if D.’s plan stands a chance. As in your case, deep emotional issues guide Freddie’s decisions sometimes, and if you run up against them you’ll probably just have to accept the limitations they impose. We’d worked out most of your issues, by which I mean we knew what they were, and if you could deal with them you did, and if you couldn’t we modified accordingly. So your phobias were: hospitals and pain meds (Freddie couldn’t understand that one; taking a pain med for pain sems highly logical to him — and me!) were acknowledged and accommodated, while you yourself dealt successfully with your aversion to taking any pills at all. (You were so good about that. Day after day you took — how many? 10, 15 a day? Sometimes you tried to get out of taking one or two, and sometimes you succeeded, but you never lied about taking them when you hadn’t, never hid them, never threw them away. You were as good as you could stand to be and by doing so made my life a little easier. It was hard enough just keeping track of all the meds, sprays, shots, ointments, unguents and treatments; it’ve been murder if I had to fight you to get you to take them, as they do with Mr. P and as they’d probably have to do with some of Freddie’s meds.

(They’re talking about giving him chemo pills; don’t know if they’re the same as yours. But as I hear of this treatment, that proposed or considered med change, new problems, contemplated therapies etc. etc., I begin to get the same feeling I got as we finished June ‘05 and headed toward, God help us, Sept. 20: they don’t really know what to do, there’s little of substance they can do, and so they trot out the standard but — in your case, and probably his — futile procedures, or whatever they can think up to make it seem like they’re doing something, anything. They can’t just say, well, you’re doomed anyway, so to hell with it. It might be better if they could, followed by the requisite terminal morphine dose. I’d love to know how much money — and what percentage public — is spent on hopeless treatments.)

I’ll do what I can for Freddie. If he comes north I’ll try to take on more; a regular shift of visits and housework, as though he were a Home Instead client. If he stays south I’ll get down as often as I can.

3-17-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Today is St. Patrick’s Day (and the day of D.’s son’s hearing, will call her this weekend). Never been one of our favorite holidays. But I’ve been remembering our one foray into St. Patrick’s Day, Southie-style. Larry Berry invited us — when? ‘85? Cold, raw, wet day. We hauled your aching ass up three steep flights to the West Broadway flat they lived in, Larry in worse shape than you (he was over 300 lbs then, mostly booze. He’d work from early Monday to mid-day Saturday, and drink at the Triple Os — a favorite Whitey Bulger hangout — straight through Sunday night. Eventually, he had a sestupal bypass, or close to it.). You were in agony after that climb, crammed in with thirty people you didn’t know, but they were good and gracious to you and you watched the parade and — as was always the case — found something to enjoy. Love you, baby.

Thought I’d be introducing my replacement next week, but it went down last night instead. Glen, the new guy, in his 50s, nice enough, a bit beaverish with prominent front teeth. Mr. P immediately solicited him for extra hours, and having gotten the same kind of qualified “maybe” I gave him, seemed satisfied with the whole thing. One more session and it’s over.

And I will not miss Mr. P.

Start PT tonight.

R.S.’s mother died. Relief to everyone, including R.S.’s mother, who couldn’t understand why she kept on living. Also, Tom emailed me that Jeremy’s mother died. They’re dropping like flies….

I miss you, my love. I miss the craziness and fun of being around you. You were the perfect audience and foil for my wierd ways, and your cockamamie style of thinking and living always added a slightly bizarre element to our day-to-day. I enjoyed your company, my love. You made life always a bit loopy, a tad unpredictable. I miss that a lot.

Also miss being able to set you up. If I could think of a way of presenting something ridiculous in a logical context, you’d fall for it. “Tina and Tony’s Wedding,” the spoof of “traditional” Italian weddings complete with putana, flirting groom, fighting bridesmaids etc. The “service” was held in a Protestant church — that should’ve tipped you off — the reception in a nearby hotel. I told you it was a real wedding of acquaintances of mine, that I’d taken care of the presents (you’d never go to a wedding without a present, and I didn’t want you buying one for a phony wedding). You were skeptical about it, smelled a rat perhaps, but I got you to believe it was real…until some fool in the audience near us gave the game away. I still wonder if you’d ever have figured it out otherwise. But, baby,  either way we had a ball!

3-18-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Went to Walgreens for various nostrums, and a package of Peeps! Getting near Easter, so they’re here, and you’d have been ecstatic to see them when I brought them home to you. I’ll be thinking of you with every squishy bite, my love.

It occured to me this morning that, if I do sign up for the writing course, I have to get out and reread my journals to pull out those details that will make you come alive (lovely thought!) to a reader who’s never met you. That will be painful. But necessary. Actually it’s reassuring, because it’s like having my memory on paper, and I don’t have to worry that I can’t retrieve what I want from my mind.

I actually gave Lisa a hard time over a sweet, harmless comment. She said in an email she hears you commenting on things, saying “Good girl!” to her when you liked what she did. I just couldn’t help it; I wrote her of how I wish I could talk myself into believing I could actually hear you, would give what I own to have that experience, to see you again or be sure I would. I can’t seem to help but resent people like Lisa and Nina who talk about hearing you even if it’s just a manner of speaking or even a way of honoring you in memory. I also resent those who are so sure you’re in heaven waiting. I envy their certainty, which I cannot share. I cannot believe it, and so wish I could.

Began PT yesterday. My main problem is that exercises for the back tend to aggravate the hip, and vice versa. So I begin with exercises I do lying down, contracting the muscles near the hips to keep the back in ideal position, then working on strength and flexibility in the trunk. Long term, if those exercises succeed, I’ll be able to handle some of those back or hip workouts that are problematic now.

Just talked to Freddie. He’s doing a bit better. Abra set up Visiting Nurse and Meals on Wheels, and he’s got a bit more mobility, so he can wash himself and perform some ADLs. Has refused chemo, feeling if he’s going, he shouldn’t go vomiting. Can’t exactly argue with that. Says he has no energy, tires easily. Cancer is a wasting disease, but he’s hoping he can regain strength. Fears and figures he won’t. In his mind, I think, he’ll decide that death isn’t far off if he can’t get stronger. Probably right.

D. is seeing him today, and he’ll reject her plan. If/when he weakens, he might reconsider.

I think I should mention that you’re my best baby, the love of my life, I miss you and will love you as long as I live.

All done with Mr. P. Left him waiting to have his diapers changed. He actually thanked me; “thank you” are two words he doesn’t say often. Told him I’d see him again, and I will in a couple of weeks. Will spend an hour with him, probably April 2. I don’t want him to think I left because of him, even though I did, a bit.

Felt good. Did the job. Saw it through. Left before it damaged me too much. May even have helped the man a little, within the severe limits of his personality and the realities of the Don Orione. Drove to the 9s, got some Gold Fever Wings, drove home, cheered in relief and satisfaction (a sort of yelled “Yes!”), and as I pulled into my parking space, I said aloud, “We toughed it out! Like we always do!” — and started to bawl. Bawled all the way into the house. We toughed it out,  baby, like we always did. It’s still us, baby; you’ve been with me through this, you’re with me now, you’ll be with me always.

Left behind in the Don Orione: the man with the huge bloodclotted legs; the dementia guy who was always looking for a place to stay or for a job. When the Home Instead woman came to introduce Glen to Mr. P (who was with me in the smoking room) she found this gentleman in Mr. P’s bed; the black man who was always in the smoking room and never said a word; Billy the tatooed biker perpetually flat on his back in a wheelchair; the two anonymous floormates of Mr. P who didn’t say anything, just roared periodically, a raw, angry, frustrated animal noise; the legless man in a wheelchair whose crotch was always dark with urine; the blind man who always ate dinner at the table in the area near Mr. P’s room, and who’d invariably start to yell for an aide to put him to bed at 6:15 p.m., saying “What are we supposed to do?” every five minutes; the punch-drunk pug with the smashed nose who never wore pants, covering himself with a pile of towels, who’d get pissed off and start talking like Snagglepuss. The stinks and the cries. The staff, some alternately friendly and abusing, most doing their tasks but almost totally indifferent to the individuals they tend to.

Bye-bye Don Orione. Bye-bye Mr. P. 

3-19-06

Good Evening My Love –

Easy day. Walk, newpaper, grocery shopping, poker, tv. Life of Riley.

Today I’m not so worried about losing my memories of you, because yesterday I noticed the huge pile of journal notebooks in the bedside armoire. I’ll just need the courage to read them.

Tomorrow will be six months since you died. I’ll mark it by eating the Peeps.

Talked to D., who saw Freddie again today – and that’s a long ride for her. Said he’d thrown up again, as he did Saturday. Bad sign. She was struck by how strongly he wanted to be in his own house. Just like you, baby: “Die in my own home.” So he didn’t go for the idea of moving north. No surprise.

I just hope Freddie won’t have to suffer too much.

3-20-06

Good Morning, My Best Beloved –

I’m trying not to be too sad today. Won some chips this morning, brought upbeat, happy music to work. It’s the first day of Spring, so of course it’s in the 20s with a 20 mph wind. But…it’s Spring!! I survived my first winter without you.

So I have every reason to be happy.

Problem is, you died six months ago today.

Part of me hates going on. Part of me just wants/wanted to stop on the day you died and howl for the rest of my life, to say “Nothing is more compelling than this moment, nothing is worth marking or working toward. This is the ultimate event. I will not move from this spot,” and sit and clutch myself and cry until darkness falls in my mind and I’m carted away.

This isn’t what you wanted of me. You wanted me to go on. On to what remains unclear. So I’ve gone on. It’s hard when the best part has gone on before me, and there’s no catching up. But there are still things to do: lyrics for your song, whatever prose I produce to honor you, a play perhaps. And whatever unknown awaits.

Into that unknown I carry your memory and whatever spirit you imparted to me, squeezing it tight like a schoolgirl squeezes her books. You are there to protect me against my own old darknesses, my way-back voices that want to tell me my life’s worthless. You are my rebuttal. You are my proof that I can do the job, whatever it is. That can’t be taken unless I allow it to be, and I hope I’ll never let that happen. It was a house built strongly, on rock. We built it one day, one crisis, one pain at a time, and it’s solid. Thank you. You compelled me to be my best.

I know this will sound weird, but I want to give you something. Some things. Found ‘em on my noon walk and kept them for you, just like I used to. You’d be very pleased, look them over, admire them, thank me and kiss me, then put them in one of your myriad little containers and keep them there indefinately since, after all, you couldn’t really use them. But you were so pleased with me for finding them and thinking of you….

So here they are, my little gifts to my beloved, half a year dead: an elaborate dangle earring and a small pendant in the shape of a money bag with a $ on it. You’d have liked the earring, though it’s too small and not gold enough for you to wear. And the moneybag would’ve tickled you.

Baby, you were always wonderful to give things to. You always were a bit surprised, and very pleased and grateful, whether the gift was something you actually wanted or not. As though you’d never been given anything while you were growing up. Presents of food were the best because I could get you what you wanted and your delight would be palpable. Lord, if I could have you with me I’d bring home a present for you each and every day….

Je. wrote. Nothing special, except that she suggests we get together for lunch. I’ll tell her when I can do such a thing (Sundays) and hope it never get arranged.

I love you, my love.

3-21-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Found this heart pendant with inlaid red glass in the alley this morning. Seems to fit yesterday’s theme.

B. called last night — back from Florida, had a ball — and I had email exchanges with Lisa. My comfort for the evening. Greater comfort was a good night of poker, including putting a rude Aussie in his place and driving him from the table.

Tomorrow will go to Home Instead and find out about my next Home Instead client. Possibility of another, for three hours on Sunday. Don’t like the idea of seven days’ work a week, do like the idea of extra income. Will get what info I can and ponder.

Hadn’t done much exercising; went to PT at noon today. Have a better grasp now of what I’m supposed to do. The nex trick is establishing a routine and sticking to it. None of the exercises are terribly hard or long; I just have to make myself do them.

But am working up a good excuse: feels like I’m coming down with my first cold since you died, a cold long overdue considering all the sickness in the area over the last six months. Hope it’ll be a glancing blow, but if it goes into the lungs I won’t fool around — will call Dr. G immediately.

Lisa asked me yesterday about missing physical contact. This is what I wrote her:

“I miss physical contact very much, more the small touches and caresses and kisses than the sex. I miss the conversation. I miss her presence elsewhere in the apartment. But most of all I think I miss the idea of her being there, a phone call away, a few steps, a brief holler from another room. Her being in the world meant that, for me, there was love and comfort and someone to care for and someone who’d care for me. It meant laughter and surprise and goofiness; it meant that, when my courage threatened to fail me, all I had to do was reach out and my courage was restored. It meant that a fundamental goodness, a fundamental innocence, a fundamental decency still existed. It meant that the world, full of pain and cruelty, could still be good. That’s what I miss the most.”

Love you, babe.

                                                    L.

Letters to Donna/from 3-7-06

3-7-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Lisa not doing well. The high tides from the new place and new job have ebbed, leaving a smelly, glomy emotional low tide, which has her blue and crying through the day. This is the time I anticipated, the “dark night” of the soul — except it’s more than a night.

Decided to check the hospitals on Freddie, and he’s in South Shore. Spoke to him briefly. It’s a clot in the leg. He expects to be out Thursday. Don’t see why he shouldn’t be treated with blood thinners. But why a clot? Will call him tonight after 9, find out more, let you know. He sounded pretty good, actually.

Just read a cute little article which predicted that an average retired couple will pay $200,000. in out-of-pocket medical expenses by the time they figure out they’ve been scammed, and expire. I felt terribly clever, since by letting you die I’ve apparently saved myself $100,000. out-of-pocket. The Golden Years keep looking better and better, don’t they? Baby, if I get Alzheimer’s or am being forced into a nursing home, I check out, right?

Right!

I’d think about it hard right now if I was certain we’d be together. But I still feel — and oh, how it rips me up — that we’ll never see each other again.

Tired. Didn’t sleep well. Blue over Freddie, Lisa, the impending Mr. P Shuffle. I’m finding, so far, that Sunday and Monday are likely to be my best days. I’m sure the Shuffle has a lot to do with that, too. I’m glad for the money, but that’s all I’m glad for.

There’s an ad which shows a little dark-haired girl in a dress standing — or trying to — and sitting back down suddenly as her balance gets shaky (she’s just coming into toddlerhood). She’s watching the world with open-minded delight, and not even her sudden landing can spoil that. And I thought of you, your never-destroyed wonder and delight at the miracle of creation, thought expecially of the day before you died when you were so like that little girl and — baby – I just love you so much, love your strength and joy, love your beautiful jewel of a heart, your great gem of a soul. Love you, baby. Love you.

3-8-06

Good Morning My Love –

I have some good news, some bad.

I’m sorry to have to tell you that Christopher Reeve’s widow Dana died yesterday of lung cancer. And, no, she didn’t smoke. 20% of lung cancers victims don’t, which considering what we put into the air we breathe shouldn’t be that great a surprise. She was 44. I know you cared a great deal about the Reeves. Perhaps you can be among those who greet her.

Before I get to the better news: I talked to Freddie last night. The clot’s improving, he wants to get out Thursday because Abra’s coming up for a week. Not clear why the clot happened in the first place (he did have one before); his last chemo treatment was a couple of months ago, and he quit it after two or three days. So why he’s clotting is still unclear.

As he tells the tale, he didn’t get good primary care from his regular doc, but Freddie’s paranoid enough and scattershot in his explanations of things, that I’m not sure what happened. I do know that he had to wait one and a half days — yes, days — to get a hospital bed, time spent in the ER. Horrible. He believes he doesn’t have long, as you did; hope he’s wronger than you were, though if he has to suffer I hope it’s quick. Won’t see him until after Abra goes, but will check in with him next week.

OK. Good stuff:

Lisa actually open to counselling, since her insurance kicks in next month. Says she’ll research for the right person. Hope to hell she does!

As it looks like the Mr. P Shuffle will finally end, my last visit being Saturday, March 11. Message on the machine when I got back from work, and Home Instead apparently told his daughter, who told him, who as a result thought I wouldn’t show last night and was pleasantly surprised when I did. I spent much of the evening reassuring him about the transition, and he spent much of the evening trying to get me to continue with him in some capacity. Slightly tempted, but won’t.

I’m not euphoric, partly because it’s not yet a fait accompli, and much can still go wrong, partly because I don’t like giving in the way I have. It’s the right decision but it still feels like a failure.

My replacement, Mr. P was informed, can do Monday, Wednesday and Friday. My temptation comes from feeling he could use a weekend visit, but that’s now up to Home Instead to broker. Meanwhile, Mr. P thinks Home Instead charges too much and is talking about putting ads in the paper for someone cheaper. Good luck with that!

Worst part of last night was the strong smell of crap.

Now that my schedule is easing, I’ve made an appointment (March 11, 4:30) to start PT. Long overdue, very necessary.

By the way, I haven’t quite lost the Saturday lady as a potential client. I’d like to pick her up right away. Since she likes the Sox, crossword puzzles and brunch, and since she’s still at home, I’m hoping it’s a better fit.

3-9-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Yesterday afternoon my IBS flared up, probably due to the mortal sin of having had hot chocolate in the morning. Made for an unpleasant evening. Dined on rice, followed by rice. Pisses me off that I can’t have a lousy hot chocolate without problems. So far this morning am not too badly off, but the day is young even if I’m not. Legs pretty sore today.

Lisa continues to sound upbeat. Hard to be certain from emails, but her quick shift from very down to fairly bright makes me wonder. She says she’s chosen two possible therapists. Good!! Pray she makes a good choice.

Baby, it’s just wrong that you should be dead. It’s just wrong that someone who loved so well should no longer be able to express her love, that someone who gleaned so much pleasure from the sweet and beautiful things in life should no longer be able to enjoy them; that someone who fought so long and hard to retain her physical faculties should have them stolen; that someone who gave so much to others should no longer be able to give. The world still needs you, baby — needs your talents, your strength, your example, your love. To hell with the world: I need these things!!

We are all lessened by your passing. But the world is better because you lived.

On my walk I found a wallet with $69 in it. Once upon a time I’d have turned it in, but you corrupted me — actually, I corrupted myself and use you as an excuse. I am mailing the wallet/driver’s license/credit cards back to the girl who lost it. But I need the $, and she needs to learn a lesson. How’s that for lame rationalization?

It occured to me during my noon walk that the wrong person died Sept. 20. You should’ve jumped into my body, left yours for mine, and gone on. I’d have finally discovered how much it hurt to be you, but what the hay, I’d be about to die anyway.

Of course, the best thing would’ve been a miracle cure and our continuing on together. This separate stuff sucks.

3-10-06

Good Morning My Love –

Mr. P was on his best behavior last night: he slept for two hours. Watching him sleep made me think of watching you sleep, one of my small but significant pleasures. I’d come to the hospital and often you’d sleep, depending on what you’d had to endure, while I read, wrote or watched tv (and you). You hated to sleep while I was there, to waste precious time. But to me it was time — the only time — I could be sure you felt no pain, and I loved to look at the strain and care disappear from your face, replaced by the innocence that was always there, deep down. The sweet child.

To you, sleep was not only a waste, but dangerous: several of your early MS attacks happened in your sleep. But to me it was a gift, a respite from suffering and something in me always relaxed once you slept. It was the waking time when troubles began.

I know I’ve covered this before. Sorry. I’ve worried I’d begun to repeat myself, and I have. May continue. Please forgive. Age and grief.

3-11-06

Good Evening Beloved –

Today felt like Spring, 60s and just lovely. We’d have the windows open and you out on the balcony, watching the sky, feeling the sun, checking out the kids across the street. You’d have loved it. I’m incapable of enjoying this day as much as you would’ve. I miss you, and I miss that delight you brought to living.

Unfortunately for me, my day led directly to the Don Orione and Mr. P. My shift began at 3; by 1 I’d gotten together all the stuff I was bringing, as I would when you were hospitalized. I set my time to leave, as I would with you; occupy myself until the leaving time with things to distract me from what I might encounter when I arrive. Wait till the last moment to leave. Drive without my mind casting ahead. Focus on the road. On arrival, focus on the parking, the walk up to the building.  Then the psychic moment when I leave the world and enter the institution, which means entering a universe of pain, despair, neglect, futility, all couched in a brittly bright setting, replete with Muzak, designed to pretty up the miserable, like heavy makeup on a harridan.

As I walk into the Don Orione, as I did when I’d walk into Mt. A, I’d leave part of me behind, in the car. My focus is strictly on Mr. P, as it was on you. I was there to serve you, attend to your needs, amuse you, fight for you if necessary, be with you. Ditto with Mr. P, though with you my heart was in it, and with Mr. P, while trying to do a good job, it’s not.

I’m there, for him as I was for you, until it’s time to go. Of course I don’t mind leaving Mr. P behind, because in a general sense it’s the only place he could be. I hated leaving you behind, almost as much as you did. But I had to. I’m sorry, but I had to. Had to have a life apart from catastrophic illness and all the institutions, pesonnel, equipment, sounds, smells and sad sights that go with it.

So in a sense — not a good one — it’s like seeing you at Mt. A all over again. Except it’s not you. It’s Mr. P, who isn’t worth one tenth of you. Most of the pain, but none of the pleasure. No you.

All that having been said, it wasn’t a good day for Mr. P. He was tired on Thursday; he was blotto today. Just out of it. Hardly said twenty words in three hours. Didn’t take a sip of the fresh coffee I brought, a first. Went into the smoking room and was too spaced to smoke, also a first. Seemed to suffer some sharp pains in the lower left trunk, in the front. Must admit I’m concerned, though he was a bit less blotto in the last hour. Haven’t known him long enough to be sure this doesn’t happen to him occasionally, but if he’s still sub-par on Tues., will call Jane.

Talked to Sindy, who’s doing better with the mold. But is far from done fighting it. Also talked to Freddie. Abra’s there, he’s out of the hospital, probably against medical advice. But is in considerable pain and is moving with great difficulty. I may go down tomorrow. Sounds bad. Will let you know.

3-12-06

Good Evening My Darling –

Walked, but afterwards didn’t feel like driving down to see Freddie. When I called he had company anyway, so I’ll probably go down after work tomorrow.

Actually found a 1943 steel penny on my walk!

Now Lisa and Tom have heard the melody of your song. Lisa thinks it’s too sad, Tom thinks it’s too slow, and doesn’t capture your “life force”. I agree, but I think they’re asking a lot for a two minute plus song. As I told Tom, if anyone can capture your complexity and spirit, it’s me.

But I won’t be enrolling in a writing course to do the above any time soon. I’ve noticed how depression hurts my writing; how depressed might I be if I jumped into an intense writing project immersed in you? And, if having done so, nothing good comes of it? So I may take an intro drawing course instead. Need to upgrade my doodles.

“Spring” will only last two more days, then we’re back in the 30s, with snow possible Friday. OK — the real thing’ll come soon enough, and this has been lovely.

I love you, my love. I want what I write about you to be good and true. Hope you understand. Will continue to write these letters and explore my feelings and our history. Can’t promise you a finished piece –know my procrastinating self too well for that — but pray I can at least give it an honest shot.

3-13-06

Good Morning My Love –

Called Home Instead to check on my replacement. They’re still awaiting his CORI. Assuming that shows, I’ll be introducting him to Mr. P a week from today and, hopefully, beginning with the Saturday lady on the 25th, my mother’s birthday.

Am sending Lisa a glass vase, Japanese, an intense oxblood color, and as handles, two lovely little butterflies. You will be represented in Lisa’s apartment.

I guess I’m less tormented by your last days — our last days together. I say “less tormented.” Last night the memories came; they come now; they hurt. But they come not as often or as strongly. And I don’t feel so much as though I must stay in close contact with them or feel like I’m losing you all over again. Presumably this is a good thing, though when I want to reach for you in my mind, I have to dig just a little; you’re not right inside my skull, screaming — not that you every screamed, except when they were doing something dreadful to your veins. Perhaps it’s me screaming, screaming that you’re gone and it’s wrong and it’s right and I simply want to cry until there’s nothing left, nothing but us with no pain or illness.

Maybe I’m just running out of things to say about grieving and loss. Must either repeat myself or shut up. Maybe I’m reaching the point where the grieving goes from active to passive, the wound closes, the scars begin to form, and I take your last year and these last months and wrap them up in a bundle marked “Past” and stow them inside somewhere.