"Family"

This Christmas was going to be the first.

The first time I (and Mr. X) went to Miami for Christmas since Roger's death.

The first time we were going to spend this holiday with Roger's family.

I was excited.

I was nervous.

I was looking forward to it.

I remember the Tuesday when the doctor wanted to speak to me in person.

The day when he told me all bets were off.

Roger was done.

"This is as good as it will get."

A million thoughts were running through my head.

And one big thought: I was going to lose Roger's family.

First, they would hate me.

Because of course this was all my fault. 

Second, they would leave me.

This wonderful gift of family that Roger had given to me was going to disappear.

But I was reassured.

I was told that would never happen.

"You will always be my prima."

"My niece, Star."

And I believed it.

Those who loved me before would love me still.

I believed it with my entire being.

In some ways, it is true.

Some of the family is still my family.

Like I feel so connected to Grace.

She is truly a big sister to me.

I can talk to her about anything.

I cannot imagine my life without her in it.

And sometimes, for a tiny, minuscule split second, I forget how we are connected.

How we both miss him.

How things would have been.

And in other ways, I feel the pulling.

Especially now that I am getting married again.

With June fast approaching.

Family that barely says anything to me when I am in the room.

Family that visits Orlando without even a peep. 

Family who will not even consider coming to my wedding to Mr. X.

So Gizmo's health this holiday season dictated that we would not go to Miami for Christmas.

We fear the stress of leaving her may hurt her kidneys more.

And I can almost feel the relief of some.

To know the Gringa will not be there.

Do they think I do not think of Roger daily?

That I have forgotten?

That because I am getting married I am over it all?

That I did not love him?

That I do not love him still?

That I cannot talk of Roger?

That they cannot talk of Roger?

Sigh... 

What would Roger think of you all now?   

My Gizmo

Gizmo.

Oh my Gizmo.

In the last few weeks, she had been super vocal.

Coming to the bedroom door in the early morning and begging to be let in.

Neither cat has done this in years.

Gizmo started following me absolutely everywhere. 

She wanted to be next to me all the time.

I knew something was wrong.

But I didn't want to know.

Not now.

Not as the one year mark of my dad's death approaches.

Not near Christmas.

Not ever.

But my poor Gizmo may have some kidney issues.

We must give her IV fluids for the weekend.

Then we will go back to the vet on Monday.

My cats have been with me through so much.

I do not even want to imagine my life without them.

Please be okay my Gizmo.

Please.

Semi-Empty

Tonight I came home to a semi-empty house.
Gizmo and Gadget are having dental cleaning done which means they need to have anesthesia.
No one was in the hallway to greet me.
No one begging for some dinner.
No one to (try to) meow at me.

Dropping them off this morning was so hard.
Gizmo cried the whole way there and as we waited to be checked in.
I felt like I was leaving my safety blanket and my heart at the vet.

Then I got the phone call.
They need to stay the night.
The veterinarian had an emergency come in and so he was not able to complete the cleaning.
The staff say they are fine and happy.
They are in a huge crate and even explored the clinic a bit earlier.

But I cannot help but be a little worried.
The cats have been with me this entire journey.
They have never spent the night any where but here at home.
I cannot lose them.
I cannot lose them this week.
In this month.

I will pick them up tomorrow afternoon.
And I cannot wait to see my kitties.
My lovely sweet kitties.

Happy Father's Day

One of my cats was undeniably Roger's cat.
Roger and I joked that she had his personality.
Where I like order, Roger did not mind chaos.
Gizmo's coat was anything but symmetrical or ordered.
One foot does not even look like it belongs to her.

Gizmo is not a huge lovie dovie cat.
Roger was not a hugely physically affectionate person.
Gizmo likes to be petted but not come and sit with people.
She likes to be challenged.
She likes puzzles like Roger.
She is quiet.
She stares with intensity.

She loved Roger.
She would sit near him and would greet him when he came home.

After Roger died, she became a little more attached to me.
Siting next to me.
Coming up on the couch to be near me.
Greeting me upon my return home.

However, since about six months after Mr. X started hanging around more, I become replaced.
Gizmo loves Mr. X.
She will abandon time with me to go wherever he calls her.
She will talk to him.
She will almost fall off the couch to get near him if he standing nearby.
She has become his cat.

And this morning I thought about how my cats are like my very furry kids, I wondered if my cats are now "step-children" for Mr. X.
He feeds them.
He loves them.
He plays with them.
And I was almost tempted to say "Happy Father's Day" from Gizmo.
But something would not let me go there.
Something felt weird to say it.

Sigh...

Disbelief again

It is a weird thing to be in disbelief.
I wonder how that I can be.
It has been seven months at the end of this week.
I should know by now.
It should be undeniably part of me.
It should be etched in my heart forever but for some reason it is not.
There are still moments that I forget.
I am not even sure if "forget" is the right word.
I guess unfathomable is a better word.

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep at 2am, I remembered the nights Roger would meditate before going to sleep and I would curl up next to him as he did.
I am not much of an all-night snuggler but I knew he would not meditate all night either.
He would sit at the head of the bed with his legs crossed.
And I would curl around his legs.
I miss that.
As much as it annoyed me at the time since it was not our regular snuggle position, I miss it.
I miss being annoyed.

Sometimes I hear the house settling near the bonus room and for a split microsecond, I think it is Roger upstairs.
Maybe he is meditating there or Tai Chi or maybe just working out.
Maybe it is the cats. He would let the cats come with him and they would be bouncing around the room.
They love that room.
And I think he loved having them follow him.

Then, like I have wrote about before, the whole getting ready process in the morning just sucks.
This morning I had to get up super early at the same time I did for work.
Yes it is easier without him.
Yes it is more convenient without him.
I no longer have to worry about waking Roger up or anyone for that matter.
Just the cats and they will patiently wait for me to open the door to feed them most of the time unless I start taking way too long.
I no longer have to worry about letting too much light into the bedroom from the bathroom.
I no longer have to grab my underwear and bra from the drawer in the dark and being super quiet.
Not that Roger ever asked these things of me.
Actually he did not care.
He could sleep through it and he needed to get up soon after anyway.
But I was being considerate.
And I miss that.
I miss having to be considerate.

I still feel like one day I am going to come home and he is going to be there.
He is going to be in the garage working on the aquarium stand.
Or he is going to be organizing the garage.
Or maybe he will be inside in his office.
But I am only greeted by the cats.
Which is nice.
They are great cats.

Then I think about the unimaginable.
Dating as a widow.
I can not believe I have to do that whole process again.
To start at square one.
I am in disbelief that I will have to do it all again.
Me.
The person who did it all right.
Me, the person who waited till I was truly ready for marriage.
Me, the person who picked the right person and did so much work to plan the perfect wedding.
Me, the person who worked through our (mostly my) issues and got to the ultimate intimate level with someone.
Me, someone who trusted someone else completely.
Just how did I lose it all?

It is just unbelievable.
Unfathomable.
Unreal.
Un-me.
I still feel the question of "Why me?" dwelling inside me.
And if I just close my eyes hard enough or sleep long enough or go away long enough, he'll be back.

Just completely and utterly at a loss that this is me.
That this is my life.
My cards.

Disbelivable.

Sweet Gizmo

Last week the painter guy finished with the most dreaded room for me [For him as well since it has carpet and not tile].
It meant all the furniture and pictures and just the whole room had to be disturbed.
And possibly some more of Roger's DNA may have been lost.
And as the widows and widowers know, this is a fear I have right now.
That one day no evidence of Roger's existence besides my memories of him will exist in my home.

So Friday night, the wedding photos in my room came down.
It was hard. It was a hard day all around but this made it even harder.
I put two of my favorite framed photos back up-the one I use for my profile picture on here and one from our trash the dress session where Roger is jumping over me (just watch the slide show, I know it's in there).
The other two I removed as I am making a headboard for the bed out of canvas but that is not the point here plus I just wanted to move them.
Out of direct view.

After all that painting plus the painting I did myself, I had a stack of frames with wedding photos and trash the dress session to do something with.
The something?
Well, I decided to hang them along the stairway up to the bonus room.
Roger's room-the one where he is currently located as well as where he had his meditation area.
It is also the room where I have been storing all other Roger related memorabilia and stuff from the wedding.

I came up with a very scientific way of hanging the photos that I know Roger would not approve of but he is not here to stop me so there.
There are 15 stairs up to the bonus room.
On stair eight, I hung the official wedding day photo. The one Roger picked out but I asked for it to be black and white.
On stair eleven, I hung another wedding one.
On stair four, I hung another one from the trash the dress session.
Then I put some small 4x6 photos in between that used to be in the wedding niche near the living room.

The stairway looks quite nice.
I can still see them as I come home but they are not in direct line of vision. I have to look for them. This is good.

Now, I must mention how much the cats love the bonus room.
They always have so it is not anything new, but they adore this room probably more than they love to eat.
I think it is because its just a big empty space to play and it has always been pretty much off limits to them. And of course they want what they cannot have.
Before they would meow for food, they would meow to go into this room.
They will beat anyone up the stairs if they even remotely hear someone climbing the stairs (I sometimes use this trick to find them when they are hiding in rooms on the other side of the house).

So when Gizmo saw me starting to climb the stairs, she raced to the door at the top.
"Are you going in there? Can I come?" I saw in her face.
"No kitty, I'm just hanging these photos."
And of course each time I climbed up and down the stairs she would carefully watch me.
"Are you going in there now? Can I come now?"

Now, after I was done, I was admiring my work while standing near the top of the staircase.
"Pretty good measuring system" I thought and probably said out loud.
"I think I really like these here" I said to Gizmo.
And being the sweet kitty and me being the insane widow I am, she was looking up at the frame in the middle-the official wedding day photo.
I asked her "Are you looking at the photo?"
She looked at me and then back at the photo.
She seemed like a small child looking up at something she could not quite see.
And yes, I realize I'm reading a lot into this simple gesture of a very curious cat, but it touched me.
It made me cry (surprise, surprise).

I went down to the eighth stair and we looked at it together.
She was not really moving.
So I picked her up so she could see the photo better.

My sweet sweet Gizmo.
I know she has no idea what she is looking at, but it did seem for about a second in my grieving head that she was looking at him.

I put her down and we both descended the stairs and went on our way.
Sweet sweet Gizmo.

Lifelong Learner

Now that I am in school to become a teacher I am doing lots of things including reading textbooks, studying, and doing homework.
I also moved out of my office into Roger's office.
I figured our house did not need two offices for just one person.

The other day I was reading one of those textbooks and I remembered all of Roger's studying.
He loved to learn new things.
He was always trying to get some new certification or taking some new class.

In high school, he did not like school too much.
He would tell me how he slept through school.
He hated it.
However, once he learned that he was dyslexic and he was not dumb as he previously thought, he adored learning.


As I sat in "his" chair in "his" office, I remembered all the times I found him sitting there staring over a book or the computer screen.
I looked around and saw all his certificates and diplomas.
I thought about how I would try to distract him sometimes just because I wanted his attention.
Or I wanted to talk to him.
Or I just wanted to see him react.

I remembered all the times I would strip and wait to see if he noticed I was naked. He always noticed.
All the times, I would just stare at him till he looked up.
All the times, I would IM him from the other room to remind him that I loved him and ask him if he missed me.
All the times, I would bounce into his office to see how he was doing.
Or maybe just bring him some water because I knew he was not drinking enough.
All the times, he would call me in there because he wanted my help or show me what he knew.
All the times, we would have family meetings and he would make me bring in a chair so we could discuss the budget or whatever.

The cats loved when he was in his office.
He would sit on the edge of the chair so Gadget could get behind him and put her feet on him.
He would clear off the area near the wireless modem so Gizmo had a place to lay.

Roger was going to be studying for a graduate certifcate.
And he was going to be programming a new database for his office inventory system.

Roger was a lifelong learner.
A person who was always wanting to do something new.
Maybe sitting in his chair will help me.

Living Alone

Sucks...
I have been eyeing my nice jetted bath tub all week.
It has been calling me after my first week back at semi-normal life.
All those nice candles in the jar and just nice hot bath, hmm.
Just to relax and be warm after all the cold weather.
So last night after finishing some homework, I went to run the water.
I decided to go ahead and get in while I waited for the water to fill the bath tub.
It felt so nice.
Warm water just surrounding me.

I had left the bathroom door open so the cats could come talk to me.
Its nice to have their company as I sit and relax.
They were quite amazed for the door to be open after 11pm.
They are normally locked out from the bedroom and master bath at nighttime just because they can become rumbustious at night.
They gingerly walked into the bathroom.

Gizmo was first.
I tried to play peek-a-boo with her but she kept getting distracted by Gadget following behind her.
They normally play in the bathtub themselves during the day when it is dry.
I could see Gizmo asking me why I was in there. What was I doing?
And especially why was I sitting in water.

Gizmo jumped up on the side to investigate and Gadget quickly followed her.
Gizmo is the curious one. Gadget will only follow after it is declared safe by Gizmo.
We are all chatting when it happened.
Gizmo slips.
She is falling into the bath.
Her hind legs are completely submerged in the water and I am trying to help her out.
She digs her back claws into my hand. Blood is coming out of my hand.
She is freaked out.
She is scrambling to get out of the bathtub as fast as she can.
There are rocks flying from the rock/candle set. [None of the candles were not lit.]
That big candle in jar... huge crash onto the floor.
Glass flies everywhere as both cats are running to get out of there.

Fuck.
Glass is absolutely everywhere. It is in a million pieces and slivers are everywhere.
It is in the bath rugs. It is from the bathtub over to the shower, in the water closet, behind the bathroom door and every inch in between.
I have not even had a chance to turn on the jets yet.
There is no one to call out to.
No one to hear the huge crash.
No one to come help me.
Why am I alone?
I am wet.
I am naked.
And I am trapped in my bathtub.
I am also not sure if either cat has been cut by glass.
I do not see any blood trail but they were running awfully fast. Poor kitties.
Poor me.

I run the jets for just about five minutes just so I am not wasting the water or the time.
But I immediately feel guilty for not finding out if the cats are okay.
I tip toe out of the bath tub, grab some flip flops, and grab a towel for Gizmo.
Its cold in my house tonight due to the low temperature outside.
I know she has to be freezing.
And I know any cat hates to be wet.

I find her on the dining room table shivering.
She looks at me with her big eyes.
She is still scared.
I grab her and start rubbing her down with the towel.
She starts purring immediately. I know why she is purring. She likes this. Roger would rub her down with a hand towel when she was sick and she covered herself in sticky orange antibiotics.
I dry her off as much as she will let me and bring her into my bedroom.

I then have the task, at midnight no less, of cleaning up a wet bathroom floor covered in glass.
The glass is absolutely everywhere. Even worse than I thought.
Not only from the initial crashing but also from both cats escaping the bathroom.
I pick up the bits of glass I can see. I use the paper towel trick to get some of the slivers up.
I get out their least favorite home appliance, the vacuum.
They run away again.
I get up as much glass as I can.

I am then guilted into letting them stay in my bedroom all night.
They were good as it is only their third time sleeping with me.
The did not wake me up until 9:15am to feed them.
And of course Gizmo sent Gadget in to do it.
I could see Gizmo sitting near the door waiting for Gadget to get me awake.

I really hate living alone. But not exactly the living alone part, it's the living alone without Roger.
I miss having my best friend.
I miss having my teammate.
I hate doing everything alone. Or rather doing things without him.