tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18325911641188187532024-03-23T16:09:09.739-07:00FALLING TO PIECES WITH JIM| blogging love and dementia |Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.comBlogger258125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-5867416944814216452024-03-23T16:08:00.000-07:002024-03-23T16:08:20.086-07:00another grievous loss<p> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Grief morphs and so do I. In some ways I am closer to you, further in other ways. But cognizant always of the void of you. Without your civilizing presence I am more judgmental and annoying yet more kitty loving (kitties for the Win!). Our Pat died, devastating. Remember our Scotland/NorwayIceland cruise in 2018? As we were at dinner one night, I was chatting away, then you nudged me and pointed at Pat who was crying silently over her dinner plate. Wish we could have helped her more.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;" />Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-65114716753770390992023-05-04T12:13:00.001-07:002023-05-04T12:13:20.265-07:00What I Would Do Differently<p> <span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">What I would do differently</span></p><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Your world would become mine,</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Truth only is perception, you would be my truth,</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Reserving just enough of mine to get us by</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">in a place dispassionate</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">I would be your passion</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">You would be mine</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Would hold you dear and close</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">And be your partisan always</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Would embrace your truth</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Your body, your being, You.</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Is it too late?</div>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-82884943054332547742023-03-08T23:17:00.001-08:002023-03-08T23:17:29.825-08:00<p> I still have no idea how I’m going to live long term without you. Next week I’m driving up to Point Reyes/Tomales Bay. Renting a cottage on the bay in Marshall. Finally will strew your ashes in the bay where we shared so much love. It’s the right thing to do for us. </p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-32853635562187827992023-03-08T23:11:00.000-08:002023-03-08T23:11:34.394-08:00<p> It’s been really hard lately. Don’t know why. I am both depressed and labile. truth is I never imagined living without you and I don’t much want to. I am stuck here without you, in a fairly barren place with almost no good friends, our kind of friends, nearby. I never thought what this would be like. It’s fairly grim. But I am housed, fed, and still travel some. Health is compromised but I’m working on being better. Our last ten years were so awful, we lost sight of one another and failed love from time to time. </p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-40850283913082831762023-02-09T22:11:00.000-08:002023-02-09T22:11:13.364-08:00No Words<p> <span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">I’ve always been comfortable with words — reading them, using them, writing them, speaking them. Lord knows it’s rare when I have nothing to say.</span></p><div dir="ltr" id="AppleMailSignature" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;"></div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">I guess I thought, for a while, I would find the woulds to express the profound wound of Jim’s death and horrendous loss of his partnership. That hasn’t happened. Now I think it may never happen.</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Last year I was in Panama for Jim’s first death anniversary. I marked it but was distracted. This year I am wholly present and the devastation has only begun. Still looking for the words.</div>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-525276483864257472023-01-18T18:14:00.002-08:002023-01-18T18:14:36.596-08:00<p> <span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">he was gallant</span></p><div dir="ltr" id="AppleMailSignature" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;"></div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">over my innumeracy</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">and protective when I gave him a chance</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">he loved me to bits</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">even the bad bits</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">I loved him with</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">a ferocity that was less than kind</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">uniquely mine</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-79715786313852798862023-01-13T19:21:00.003-08:002023-01-13T19:32:55.827-08:00<p> This grief, Jim, our grief, grows stronger not lesser. Why is that? This is a solitary grief, is that why it never seems less? Would if it be different if There were public markings. We have not believed in that but maybe it was about comfort, not display.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-55980273017695802312023-01-08T10:24:00.000-08:002023-01-08T10:24:03.125-08:00Bereft of Jim<p> <span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">Bereft of Jim</span></p><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">bereft,</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">be-left<br /><div>be-less</div><div>be Jim-less</div><div>Alone gives </div><div>ample wallow</div><div>tidal sweep and swallow</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-56193781911628405832022-12-15T23:32:00.001-08:002022-12-15T23:32:02.375-08:00Flawed<p> It’s not only that we were so interwoven, but that we were one with the other, could correct, change course together, make us both solid. Now there is no solid, no way to be made whole. I live now so flawed without you.</p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-54073790313352127602022-12-12T23:03:00.003-08:002022-12-12T23:03:38.950-08:00Alone<p> Alone, so hard. I miss you, and also alone. </p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-58473784846951672352022-11-26T19:56:00.005-08:002022-11-26T19:57:27.646-08:00Sinful Impossibility<p> So, there is grief and it can go on and on, and be horrible to live with day after day. And, that surely is one thing. But having to live, day after day, without the beloved is more than grievous, it can be a sinful impossibility.</p><p> </p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-46386703189981573932022-11-25T16:16:00.002-08:002022-11-25T16:16:47.852-08:00That I May See Your Face<p> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig7T1JJYVzw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig7T1JJYVzw</a></p><p><br /></p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-6844245903927108472022-10-28T23:36:00.004-07:002022-10-28T23:36:21.775-07:00<p> Back some weeks from the Cotswolds, Going again at Christmas, so fine would we have beenn together. I continue bereft without thee.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-15691570982054971882022-09-29T11:07:00.006-07:002022-09-29T11:20:36.624-07:00En route to U.K.<p> Hola Querido,</p><p>In the SFO Polaris lounge awaiting LHR flight. Imbibing, of course — it’s 11 hour flight so hoping for some sleep. Magnus tucked away safely at the cat spa(w) in Belmont. He did NOT poo his carrier in transit, good boy. Three days in London, then five days in Cotswolds, three more days in London, then home. Salome at the Royal Opera House — woohoo, Dance of the Seven Veils. </p><p><br /></p><p>In my heart always.</p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-4945464547277713102022-09-20T21:43:00.007-07:002022-09-21T00:22:24.465-07:00Gone are the gifts of intimacy<p> It’s as if I live in a different reality. Well, yes, why should that surprise me? Living without you is one hell of a different reality and I don’t care for it — maybe for selfish reasons. The lack of you, someone who knows me in all my glory and flaws — can’t open myself to the bone and be naked in body and mind. That confident intimacy is gone for me now. </p><p>Having a hard time lately, Jim. Sad, anxious, a little angry, tearful. Dark nights are so much darker now.</p><p><br /></p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-81425169365518671852022-08-29T16:14:00.001-07:002022-08-29T16:14:05.849-07:00<p> Hola mi amor (por siempre) —</p><p>FINALLY went to the dr, after so many years of neglect (we had a lot on our plates when you were demented). In no ranking the follow alongs — cardiologist, rheumatologist, orthopedist, colonoscopy, PT for back. Ugh, but must be.</p><p><br /></p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-4385775535845773702022-08-12T22:26:00.001-07:002022-08-21T14:37:01.667-07:00Fiesta Sangria<p> Jim! I am always about you. Tomorrow I’m hosting a Sangria Fiesta for some of the old farts. The ones I enjoy especially. There will be tapas, including empanadas, chickpea canapes, olives, Spanish cheese, jamon Iberica, bread, crackers, dried apricots, almonds. And, of course, sangria.</p><p>With all my love for you forever. As best as I may always.</p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-13361526107810245292022-08-07T16:09:00.002-07:002022-08-08T13:55:45.727-07:00Sunday Afternoon on the Patio<p> Sunday afternoon on the patio with you in my thoughts. Another of the exceptionally mild summer days we’ve been having. No broiling hot weather, just nice-to-be-outside weather.</p><p>Back from the Nancy-et-alia reunion, this time in New Hampshire. It was great in a low-key way, no temper outbreaks (not even mine). Nancy’s sister and niece came, fun to be with. Good Karl time.</p><p>No travel until first of Oct when I return to London and Cotswolds. Staying at Barnsley House in Cirencester, former home and gardens of Rosemary Verey. You will remember her, she’s a VMH. Will return to some of the gardens we loved: Kiftsgate, Hidcote, Kelmscott, etc.</p><p><br /></p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-7466489568273409672022-07-30T19:51:00.001-07:002022-07-30T19:51:25.729-07:00Time Bomb<p> I don’t know whether to laugh or cry … so I’ll laugh and recommend you, Jim, join me in hilarity. Despite the two attorneys we worked with in 2012 regarding your father’s testamentary trust will, neither bothered to inform us of the time bomb buried therein. Turns out, upon your death, the testamentary trust kicks out 25% of the remainder to four beneficiaries. Yikes. Anyway, there will be hefty attorney fees to manage this. Not to mention the aggravation. Fortunately our own trust will pay my bills in the meantime. And, you know, money makes me nervous. Miss you so much. Did I say how nervous this money stuff makes me. Miss you again. So much.</p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-733413285799357522022-07-02T18:57:00.002-07:002022-07-02T18:57:30.520-07:00<p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">How much of grief </span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the loss of thee</span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and what of that</span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the loss of me</span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">None be brief<span><a name='more'></a></span></span></li></ul><p></p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-64231301043874317522022-06-19T21:57:00.004-07:002022-06-19T21:57:35.428-07:00Talking to the Dead<p> I call out for you often and babble. So I googled something like “talking to dead husband.” Turns out this is quite common, thus you can expect to hear more from me.</p><p><br /></p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-81555093150668529722022-06-13T14:52:00.006-07:002022-06-13T16:01:18.691-07:00Alone Abed<div> <span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">A woman<br /></span><span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">widow</span></div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">alone abed</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">but for a cat.</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">It has come to this.</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">As the sun askant</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">crosses the bed</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">bids me rise</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">without your touch,</div><div style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 17px;">I’d rather not.</div>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-35789267628616209822022-06-02T13:08:00.002-07:002022-06-02T13:08:21.361-07:00Las Alamandas and your birthday<p> Your birthday today. I am at Las Alamandas again but no you. Jack and Carol are here. Just getting ready for a river trip to birdwatching. I miss you so so much.</p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-74820095230799723522022-05-26T00:45:00.001-07:002022-05-26T00:45:30.982-07:00<p> Different times, went to London for a week and it was so fab. Went to the new (modern) Tate, and the old tate (we love it), Marx’ tomb at Highgate where I (we) left a red bouquet.</p><p>I was good with myself. Missed you but otherwise finest kind.</p><p>Off to Mexico next week, Costalegre, with Jack and Carol. I get lonely so I invited company. </p><p><br /></p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832591164118818753.post-24182944057388207192022-04-24T18:20:00.002-07:002022-04-24T18:20:54.934-07:00<p> Querido, This post is for the birds, haha. Recall how I bemoaned the lack of birds at our patio tube feeder at Casita Nueva? It’s getting better. Used to be just hummers, juncos, and chickadees. Now getting house finch, western goldfinch, different chickadees, and wrentits. And a medium-size LBJ (aka BBB) I can’t identify.</p>Falling to Pieceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547256987112050400noreply@blogger.com0