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Today I have been thinking a lot about perception. I went to my nephews graduation party over the weekend and when I left alone I felt so depressed about all the couples that were there while I am so alone. But I was married for over thirty years and I know that I have gone places by myself before so what makes this so different? It is my perception I guess. I keep thinking of how different my life would be if my husband had not died. But I can waste my life with all these what if's so I have got to man up and deal with reality- maybe I need a few more days.

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I just reread my blog from yesterday and I realized how much Doug changed my life and our friends lives for the better. He was able to open up peoples eyes to the art world and enable them to see art from a different perspective. Whenever his work was in a show he would always invite everyone he knew to come and inevitably people would say to him how they never appreciated modern art until he explained it to them. When others would say I think I can do that instead of being insulted that they thought it was so easy to produce, he would be the first person to encourage them. I think he handled his death the same way. Never once in the year that he was sick did he say why me. He never complained about anything- he suffered indignity after indignity and he was always grateful to just have another day of life. He was still looking for the beauty in the world up until the day he died.

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With the passing of a loved one there is always the question- what is their legacy? I'm not sure that I know exactly what a legacy is. Is it something that the person has done of importance? Is it something that you will always remember about that person? Is it a truth that only they were able to see- maybe it is a combination of all these things. My husband Doug was an artist and that was not just what he did but it was the way he chose to live his life. He saw the beauty in everything even when it wasn't obvious to everyone else. He used to tell me that it is easy to find beauty in a pretty picture but it is harder to find it in something that is not so obvious- I guess that explains some of his paintings. But seriously now he could look at someone who the world might not consider conventionally beautiful and proclaim them to be exotic and gorgeous. He saw beyond the surface of things and found beauty where no one else did. I think that is his legacy- he taught the people around him to look at life in a way that they otherwise would not- to see beyond the obvious and find the hidden beauty in everyone and everything. Doug was never disappointed in anything because he found the best in everything and that is a gift that he gave to me and which I will be forever grateful for.

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I went out with a friend today and I found myself people watching and I noticed how many people seem to be going through the motions of living but don't seem to be particularly happy. I guess I notice it more now because I am more attuned to emotional issues with people. Before my husband Doug got sick I would never approach anyone and ask if they were alright. I always figured that it was none of my business and I did not want to infringe on their privacy. But now I have lost that gene that makes me not want to bother other people and I go right up to them and ask if I can be of any help. Some of them say no but so far no one has been offended by me approaching them. I just feel that need to reach out when I see someone who is obviously in distress. Many people reached out to me and I guess I just want to pay it back.

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My husband was an artist so when we went on a vacation to Paris we spent a lot of time in museums. One day we went to the Museum of Modern Art and they had a piece about man and machines. The room that we went into had all these robot figures sweeping up paper cutouts of men. My husband wanted to take one of the cutouts home as a souvenier but I told him since you don't speak any French you will probably end up doing hard time in a French prison for a little piece of paper. So he decided against picking one up but as we were leaving one cutout stuck to the bottom of his shoe. He was so excited and he put it in his wallet and didn't look at it again until we were on the way home. When he looked at it he burst into tears and handed it to me. There on the back of the cutout in a childs scrawl was printed the name Max- our son's name. My husband said it was Max's way of letting us know that he was always with us wherever we go.

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I started thinking today about how my husband and I tried to cope with our son's death hopeing that it would inspire me to deal with my husbands passing. I remember that after five years of really suffering I decided that if we were going to keep living then we needed to start again. It was easier because I had someone to help me keep going. We decided to start traveling- we went to Europe because we had never been there with our son so there were no memories there- happy or sad. It turned out to be wonderful therapy for us. We managed to go there every year until my husband became ill. We built up a treasure trove of new memories to look back on and replace some of the sadder ones. When I said to my husband that I wished we could have taken our son on some of these trips he said that our boy is always with us wherever we go. He was so right.

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I have been thinking a lot today about forgiveness. When a loved one dies you go through a lot of stages of grief. There is sorrow of course and loneliness and guilt. You wonder if you have done everything that you could to make your loved one's life the best that it could be. In the beginning I prayed every day for a remission for my husband. I made all the bargains with God that everyone makes- like my husband is such a wonderful person and me well I'm not so much so please take me instead. And when that didn't work I prayed that his death would be painfree and that he would not be frightened or alone- that I would be there with him to help him pass over. I did everything that I thought was right to help make this possible and if I missed something it was not because I wasn't trying just because I didn't think of it. Sometimes at night when I can't sleep I play that year of his illness over and over again in my head trying to make sure that I did things the right way for him. But today I realized that I must first of all forgive myself and know that I did all I could to make his death as easy for him as it could be. Maybe this will help me to move forward instead of being stuck in this limbo that I find myself in.

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Well I came home from one of my four jobs today to find that my lawn had been mowed. My friend's husband who usually does it for me is away so I could not figure out who had been kind enough to do it. I was standing outside looking at it when one of my neighbors ( whose name I don't even know ) told me that he did it when he did his own because he realized that I needed the help. After I thanked him I went inside and cried because I realized that this is something I can look forward to - the kindness of people.

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I think that I am in a slump and that I need to take a step back and reevaluate what it is that I have to look forward to. Maybe I am making the mistake of looking for one big thing to make me happy. Maybe happiness lies in the small things that happen everyday and don't seem to be of much consequence. Now that I am older maybe I have used up my quota of big things like love, marriage and children- I have done all that. So maybe now smaller happinesses await me and maybe I don't see them because I am too busy waiting for something larger to happen to me. I will take this tact and see where it leads me.

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I think that I need to take a clue from my blog title and just keep on going. I would like to find something to look forward to because I think that will give me some reason to keep on going. What do all of you out there look forward to? Someone give me some of your ideas please because I have used up all of my own.

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Lets get back to this idea of reinvention. All these people that I read about that are reinventing themselves seem to be bigger than life. I am no hero or should I say heroine- I am just a regular person trying to keep going ahead everyday. I try to put one foot in front of the other but some days I take one step forward only to later take two steps back. How do you keep going in the right direction when you are not even sure where that is? Do these people have some kind of internal compass that I did not come equipped with? Where do they get all this strength and motivation from? I never thought of myself as being weak but now I question myself constantly. Lets leave this for another day.

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I keep reading about how people can reinvent themselves and I wonder how to do it. At this point in my fifty plus years I am financially, emotionally and physically exhausted. I work four jobs just to keep my head above water and there seems to be very little time left for me. I know that it may not always be this way but I have a difficult time visualizing a day when it will not always be so. I guess that having difficulty seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is part of the grieving process also.

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Isn't it strange how at different stages in your life all your priorities change? I guess that is because whatever happens to you causes your priorities to shift and makes you look at the Big Picture more closely. Like people who have experienced a close call with death often change their life styles to reflect the fact that they have been given a second chance. Well I feel like that even though my own life was not in a perilous position. I feel like being so close to my loved ones and their destinies has rubbed off on me and I am determined to make the rest of my life count. But the question remains -what do I do differently now?

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Before my husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness I never realized that there are two worlds- the world of the healthy that most of us live in and the world of the people who are dying. I know - we are all dying but some of us know the name of the illness that will kill us and we even have a timeline or should I say a deadline awaiting us. This is something we rarely think about even though no one gets out of here alive but for people who know that they are dying and their caregivers it is all consuming. I always thought to myself when saying goodbye to my husband- will this be the last time I will say this to you or the last time I will see your face or the last time I will kiss you or hold your hand? It makes every word, every gesture take on a more important meaning. Maybe that is the way to live our lives by making every moment count, by making the most of every loving moment we share, after all you never know who you will spend your last moments with. I was lucky because my husband died in my arms just like I had spent the last year praying for. He was not afraid and he was not alone. He went off to join our son and all his family who had gone before him.

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Isn't it strange how one loss can bring back so many other losses in your life? When my husband died I felt the loss of my son all over again even though it had taken place nearly fourteen years before. The difference was that I knew my husband was dying and my son died in a car accident so I was totally unprepared for his death. When your parents die you are an orphan, when your husband dies you are a widow but the death of a child is such a horrible loss that there isn't even a word for what you are then. The world goes on and your world has come to an end. I think that is where the anger comes from that people often describe as one of the steps of grieving. You can't believe that the sun still comes up and that birds still sing and that people still celebrate Christmas and birthdays and that life still goes on. But it does and now you are part of the world but not really connected to it- you feel isolated and removed from what everyone else is feeling.

Day One

I am starting this blog not just for myself but for anyone who faces the challenge of starting over at some point in their life. Ten months ago my husband died after a year long battle with brain cancer. I thought something like this could never happen to me after all I had been through with the death of my only child I thought God could never be that cruel. But then I thought- why not me - who am I to be so egotistical to believe that I had used up my quota of bad things happening. Now the question is where do I go from here- I had been married for more than thirty years and my husband was my best friend- how do you get through life when you are used to being a couple and now you are a single. I guess the real issue is where do I fit in and who am I now. I guess we will see on another day.