Marking this Day

 

Marking this day ... as ...  What? 

 

 I don't even know what to call this day. Is it a 'death anniversary'? That sounds morbid. "The date of my husband's passing"? Too long. "The day my widowhood began" sounds a bit dramatic, even for me.

Whatever you call it, the anniversary of the day Derek died marks a whole new chapter, or maybe even a whole new book of my life. 

I lost both of my parents much too early in my life. Mom died of lung cancer in 2007, and Dad of pancreatic cancer in 2015. Their deaths made me sad. I miss them very much. But other than not being able to go 'home' for a visit, or  pick up the phone and hear their voices, their passing didn't really change my life all that much.

          Thank God I have never lost a child. Many of my friends have, and I can't begin to imagine the pain of such a loss.

I have heard it said that the death of a parent is a loss of the past, the death of a child a loss of the future. But the loss of a spouse is in the here and now. This one event changed my life more than any other. When Derek died, I lost a partner, a provider, and a care giver and a lover. I lost the person who fixed my computer glitches, who got mad at me when I spent too much, who sometimes drove too fast for my liking,  worked way too many hours for my liking, and was always right way too often. 

    Sometimes I think I hear his truck coming home, eventually, just really, really, really late for supper. I catch myself thinking that I need to tell him something. I always felt like I was "off duty" when he got home. 

Whatever you call this day, it is going to come around once a year, every year, whether I like it or not.  

I have been trying to  think of a way to end this blog with some insightful, clever, maybe even devotional or inspirational thought. I got nothing. Maybe next year. Stay tuned.

Draft Dodgers

Draft Dodger: I am my own worst enemy.

Draft Dodging is my new term for my seeming inability to finish and publish any piece of writing, from these blog posts to my novels and other writing that I am working on. I take frequent strolls through my morgue files, in search of any lifesigns that I may have missed on the first ten or twenty times I re-examined these particular specimens. 

Some drafts just need a really good last line and some polishing. Every once in a while I get a burst of inspiration and I finish those. Most of the time I have no idea where I was going with that one. Problem is that these bursts seldom occur anywhere near my laptop, especially since my laptop isn't as portable now as it was when it had a battery. I have forgotten why Jed took the battery out, since I bought a new laptop, but then the new one was totalled as an unfortunate bystander during one of my falls. I have no idea how, but it went flying off my desk as I went flying in the opposite direction. Just as well, I hated that thing. Did one of my surviving brain cells plot revenge without my knowledge or consent? I wouldn't put it past me.

Where was I going 50 or 75 words ago? Oh yes, my draft graveyards. I was going to add to my excuse list my lack of any ability to save ideas the old fashioned way, by chiseling my ideas into a flat rock. No, I am just kidding, I am not that old. Back in my school years, we had already progressed to making marks on paper with a number 2 pencil. 

This post should probably go back to the morgue. I'm calling it: time of death, 6:45 pm. I brought it up from the morgue at around 11:00 this morning, so it is only getting posted because I decided to be more honest about how crappy my writing usually is.

Is there such a thing as a second world country?

You know, I have written and read a lot about First World Problems, and the gaping chasm that is the third world, but I don't know that I have read anything about the Second World. Is there such a thing? I could google it... everything is on the internet now, and there is no excuse for lazy journalism -- but I'm not a journalist, and this is not a research project for a class, it's just a blog and it's supposed to be stream of consciousness writing. Why is that? Why am I defending myself to myself? Whose voice is up there, arguing with me? And why have I gone so far down a rabbit trail that I can't even remember what I was going to say about the Second World?

Looking for a voice of reason, I don't think I will find one anywhere in my brain tonight. I should just go to bed now.

I remember now, why I was thinking about the gap between the First and Third worlds, so I won't go to bed just right away. I con't speak for everyone because I am just thinking random thoughts, but I am thinking that most people think that they are the Second World, like the geopolitical equivalent of the quintessential middle child. "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! If you are young enough to not get that tidbit of pop culture, then you are young enough to just google it. I am going to bed now.

He is Risen Indeed!

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

With these words, the Christian Church was begun.

It was very early, around sunrise on the first day of the week. For Jewish folk, it would have been their back to work day, like a Monday morning for us gentiles. On this particular morning, a motley little group of men were gathered in a borrowed room, with the door locked because they were scared of the authorities. 

I think I understand a tiny bit of what the disciples of Jesus must have been feeling that morning. I have had the horrifying pleasure of being in the room when a loved one dies three times: my mother in 2007, my dad in 2015, and then my husband in 2019. Sitting afterwards in the gloom of the "Quiet Room" in the hospital -- an exhausted, dejected gathering of family and friends. 

Back in the locked room: what could they say to cheer each other? They had been The Twelve!  They were only the eleven now, one of their members had betrayed Christ and then took his own life. Another had just denied even knowing the Master three times, he cried bitter tears. All of them had deserted Jesus in His hour of need. What were they to do now? They had thought that when the Messiah came, He would free His people from the oppression of Rome and set up a kingdom in Jerusalem. They had even fought about who would sit at His right and left sides. Were they wrong about their Master? Had they been duped by a false Messiah?

Meanwhile, a group of women carried a heavy load of spices to anoint the body of Christ. It was a hot country, before the days of embalming, so the custom of the day was to apply a pungent blend of spices and perfumes to cover the smell.

What happened next changed the course of human history. He was Risen! Jesus Christ came back from the dead, just like He had said He would, but they hadn't understood. 

And that's how Christianity began. Women were the first witnesses, unheard of at that time. Those cowardly men who ran away and hid for fear of arrest were transformed into Apostles who turned the world upside down. The one who had denied even knowing Jesus brought about 3000 people into the fold with his first sermon. Of the Eleven, ten were martyred for their faith, and the remaining one was exiled to a lonely island where he wrote the book about his amazing revelation. 

Two thousand years later, a deadly pandemic might close the doors of the church buildings, but it doesn't stop the church from meeting. God said that where ever two or more gather in His name He will be there. Even in cyber space. 

They may have been right after all....

Anybody remember writing Differential Aptitude Tests (DAT) in high school? 

I remember writing a DAT test when I was in the ninth grade. Basically, it's a tool for career planning. I had already decided that I wanted to be a teacher. Or a librarian. And a rock star. In grade nine I reasoned that I could teach during the school year, and spend the summer holidays touring with my band.

The results from my DAT test (I know that the T stands for test, so it is a bit redundant to call it a differential aptitude test test but that's what they called it. I don't make the rules.), anyways, they suggested that I could be a doctor or something in the medical field. I said, "ha" to that suggestion because "lol" hadn't been invented yet.

I didn't think I could possibly be a doctor or anything else in the medical field.  So I got my B ed, but I only taught for seven years, and then I had to quit that because of my health.

I got to thinking a while back, and made the connection, of my health problems and the career counselling way back in the ninth grade: I did have a career in the medical field! I am a full time, professional patient. It doesn't pay much, but the hours are pretty good. I can work from home or anywhere in the world, really.  So the DAT testing works after all. Huh.

 
  

Sometimes Late at Night ...

... I sleep-write!  (and then I somehow get it posted online! Oops!)

Thank you, Lord for enabling me to laugh at my own foibles. I will never run out of things to laugh about.

I am referring to my habit of staying up until way, way past mere nodding off at the computer. Case in point, the blog I apparently posted last night.  I found it this morning, as did some of you. Nobody commented on it, oddly enough. I don't even remember what the title was supposed to be. Only the vague blurry memory of not being able to type the word 'wasn't'. Easy word to type now, sure, on the Friday side of midnight.

Normally, I would delete such babel, so fewer of you would have knowledge that I sleep-write sometimes. I decided to leave it up because that is the real me. Some of you have had messages and comments from me that look like this: ???????????????The fewer the people who see the evidence of my social medium mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm somnambulism    kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkthe bettter...............................................................Yeah, like that.

I recently read on some medical site that employs writers who actually have the creds to know what they are writing about, (unlike yours truly, who can only relate my experiences) that people with Parkinson's are at a greater risk of dementia than normal people. That explains a lot.

Stream of Consciousness Writing Confession: I  just now remember what I was going to write about last night! I will make tomorrow's blog about that topic.

Now to get to bed before I fall asleep tonight. I have actually had two or three experiences of falling off my chair at around four am. One such occasion resulted in the demise of my new laptop. I had it for less than a week, but I didn't think it would be covered by insurace. There just isn't a category for damages due to somnambulism.  I would categorize it as a form of temporary insanity. "Honest, officer, I have no recollection of the events leading up to the damage -- I was asleep at the time  ..."

Well, dear readers, it is now the Saturday side of midnight. You can read this tomorrow, when yesterday's tomorrow is today.

This wwasn