Soon it will be two years

Last night as I was driving home from town after writing group, I finally realized why I have been having troubles with my stomach again. Troubles reminiscent of last fall and winter when nearly everything I put in the mouth resulted in pain that eventually got so bad I was living off soda crackers and Cream of Wheat. The doctors diagnosed a malfunctioning gallbladder and removed it last November and while that did wonders, it didn't quite rid me of the stomach pains that stress of just about any kind has caused me since I was a teen truthfully. Last year this time was a difficult time in terms of my grieving for my late husband. All the big anniversaries, the first, seem to fall in the last two months leading up to the anniversary of this death. I got through it, just it seems, and since I have seen steady improvement though by no means does this imply that life has always been easy or magically free of the grief or other problems that crop up simply because we are human and live in the real world as opposed to a TV sitcom where troubles manifest and are solved within a 30 minute time frame.

The realization I came to as I drove down the pitch black road to Josephburg that seemed to be running straight into the star dotted night sky on the horizon was that in about 8 weeks my first husband will have been dead for two years. Now, I hadn't forgotten when he died but I had gotten so caught up in my present and planning for the future and loving my husband and caring and worrying for our collective children that I hadn't really been emotionally aware of the significance of some of the anniversaries that have been flying by like so many fence posts on the roadside. It will be two years is what my stomach has been trying to tell me for the past month. Two years.

Rob asked me if it will always be this way. The heightened emotions. The sadness. I think so though I haven't any real examples of this from my own growing up among, what I realize now, was a helluvalot of widowed people. If any of them were laid out by grief periodically every year, I never realized it because they never let it show. I think of my father's mother who despite losing a baby, her husband when still in their sixties and her youngest son who was just 39 when he died, was someone who concentrated all her love and affection on those who meant the most to her and her warmth and friendliness was given freely to just about everyone else. Despite a brief bout with depression a few years after my uncle died, I can't think of an anniversary or holiday that she didn't see as an opportunity to celebrate those she lost and count herself lucky for the love she received and gave in return. And I know this couldn't have been as simply or easy as she made it seem. I know that because I know what I feel myself. Still, it's a better example to work towards in my opinion, and I think I can acknowledge without falling prostrate and rending my garments and smearing dirt upon my face.

The truth is that I love my life and as much as I loved Will, I am more engaged in my now than in my memories of that long ago time when he was well and loved me and we believed that the future was ours. It doesn't mean that it is easy. That anniversaries or holidays or my little girl's struggles with putting her half-remembered memories of her dad in context aren't sometimes hard to bear. It doesn't mean that I don't fell my husband's struggles with his own grief or that I don't worry and hurt for his girls when they struggle. It doesn't meant that new losses, because they are part of life, won't bring up old grief. It does mean that I recognize that there is ebb and flow and on-going negotiations and incorporating and dealing and sometimes tears and I am okay with that.

Soundtracking Your Life

My wife Ann wrote a blog piece a while back about music and its relationship to and description of her life at various points over the, well, course of her life. She called it "Soundtracking My Life". I guess I can relate. Certain music pieces are forever associated with certain events and times in my life too. Sometimes the times were such that listening to those tunes can be a bit painful. Other times, the tunes can call up happy memories.

A couple of fairly recent examples, if I may:

I had started listening to some Coldplay in the last months before Shelley died. A couple of the more oft listened-to tunes were "Green Eyes" and "Warning Sign"; while the lyrics did not exactly fit the situation, I came to relate those songs closely with Shelley. Although I did not really think I would lose her as I did, I think subconsciously I knew it was possible. I listened to those tunes - a lot - in the weeks after Shelley's passing. There were others that became my grieving tunes also: "Gone Away" by the Offspring, "Slipping Away" by Sum41, "Do You Realize?" by the Flaming Lips (thanks to Jordan for that one), "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana, "I Am Mine" by Pearl Jam (thanks to Cory for that one), and a few more from Sum41's "Chuck" album. I actually created a CD entitled "Rob's Melancholy Mix" with these tunes on them. Nowadays, I find it difficult to listen to any of these tunes plus a few others. Mostly because they can catapult me - emotionally - back to that time when Shelley was wasting away and eventually left me alone in this physical plane.

Tool. I had been aware of Tool...well, that Tool existed...since the '90's when my girls - first Farron and then Jordan - became fans. They had tried to "convert" me, but I resisted. At the time I didn't give Tool a chance to prove that the music had redeeming qualities. In spite of the ravings of my then-teenagers. Then came the first Thanksgiving we had following Shelley's passing. The three of us trekked up to my in-laws to spend Thanksgiving with Shelley's family. "10,000 Days" had come out a little before that time and one of the kids had brought along a copy. We were listening to Farron's CD's mostly on the long drive up to the Peace River country and eventually "10,000 Days" made its way into the rotation. The stereo system in the old Avalanche was "pretty good" (6 speaker Bose) and we cranked it up. I liked it. I bought myself a copy of "10,000 Days" and listened to it day in and day out. The CD went with me on my healing road trip through November last year and it got a lot play during that month. When I returned home I went on-line to Amazon.ca and ordered up the rest of the Tool CD releases plus all the releases of A Perfect Circle (Maynard James Keenan's other project).

A Perfect Circle. The girls recommended "Mer de Noms" but I found that I really liked "Thirteenth Step". I listened to that CD a lot in the early months of this year. The time I associate most with these tunes is the weekend I met Ann for the first time in person. That was in Idaho Falls, Idaho during a wintry February weekend. The CD was in the player and we listened to it during the times we drove around during that weekend. I mostly remember the drive out to Menan and back; we went out to Menan to visit my friends Tee and Dee. I wanted Tee, especially, to meet Ann.

And so as it happens I was listening to "Thirteenth Step" this afternoon and in an idle moment I was transported back to those first days with Ann. When we started to really get to know one another. And when we basked in the natural feeling of being together. And feeling that we somehow knew each other. A feeling of being comfortable.

And I was compelled to write it down.

Tasers are the New Tupperware

Yesterday's Globe and Mail featured an article in its Life section on what it dubs "security moms" in the United States holding taser parties. At these festive suburban gatherings, women meet to try out and possibly purchase tasers (available in four designer colours). The company responsible for this scene out of a SNL skit is Taser International which began marketing its C2 model this last summer for a mere $299 and available in say, metallic pink or electric blue. Currently these parties are only being held in Arizona but should be available in all 36 states where tasers are legal for citizen purchase by the end of 2008. Wow. I don't know about anyone else but I feel less safe already. Just when I thought that British Columbian RCMP were the only ones to be wary of receiving a possibly fatal dose of electric shock from, I now need to avoid the well-heeled women of Arizona.

There are have three deaths by taser in the last month here in Canada, all at the hands of the police, and Amnesty International claims that about 200 people have died in the United States since 2001 by taser, which is what I am sure prompted this little article. That and, of course, the somewhat disdainful attitude many Canadians have towards Americans and are inane ways of dealing with issues like personal safety (think guns). Personally the whole taser thing scares me more than a little. People who are most at risk from dying when tased are those with unidentified heart trouble or irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias) which I happen to have. It's harmless. Nothing I need worry about unless I am perhaps tasered, which is unlikely but the Polish man who died at a B.C. airport after being tasered was the victim of an unlikely scenario too.

It's interesting to me to read about my homeland through the filter of another country's cultural mindset. Canadians are not the mild-mannered U.S. wannabe's that our culture makes them out to be. They are more like Europeans, in that they really think there is nothing about the lower 49 worth emulating save perhaps our mindless consumerism (which they don't get at all judging from what I have seen - their malls actually close on weekend days by five or six o'clock).

Tupperware giving way to the Taser Lady is something that should disturb us all regardless.

The Oprah Effect

Oprah is coming to Iowa on December 8th to campaign for Barrack Obama. Some people, I am sure, will be impressed. I like Oprah as much as the next person, providing that person is a double X genetically or spiritually and is okay with the fact that Oprah long ago ceased to be an Everywoman. Really though, why should anyone care that she supports Obama for president? Celebrity endorsements shouldn't carry weight in decisions that have such long reaching impact on what will one day be our history and our legacy to our children and theirs.

Living in a foreign country during the lead up to a presidential election is a little like being Oprah. People here in Canada can be very curious about my take on the campaign. I hate to disappoint so I try to offer as much of a synopsis on the whole things as I can, Truthfully, I don't know much more than what I catch on the Daily Show from John Stewart from time to time and what I read in the Globe and Mail which is definitely not American-minded in its assessment of candidates and who is qualified or not. My hair stylist is particularly interested in what I think about politics, Iraq and the whole dollar thing.

The truth is that I have never cared less about politics, Iraq and the whole dollar thing than I do right now. And, it's not because I am living out of the country, but because during my late husband's illness and my unwanted walk among those who must make use of Medicaid and Social Security, I learned a few important things. Chief among those things is that my government really doesn't care about the people it governs. Sure, there was more than enough evidence to support this finding before my life was turned upside down, but it wasn't until it was and I needed real help of the kind I could only get by accessing programs my government set up to specifically help people like me and my late husband that I could see what a sham it all is. And there is no easy fix. Electing a new president does nothing to change the infrastructure that now exists. It just gives the monster a new face.

Who do I think will be the next president of the United States? Who cares? Oprah? You? Not me. It doesn't matter and here's why, we don't demand anything from the people we elect. We go crazy with Caucus fever and primary fever and Super Tuesday fever and it's all a whirlwind of celebrities like Oprah in Des Moines. We elect people based on their personalities or the personalities who support them and at the end of the day he or she moves into the White House and emerges with a Stepford smile, ready to do the bidding of the beast. Nothing changes.