The Power of Love Part 1

The Power of Love

I'm sorry I haven't made a YouTube video in such a long time. My heart hasn't been in it lately but I will return.
That's not why I'm writing today. I want to tell of you of the sweetest love story I know. One that makes me cry while typing this out.

In October a few years back I wrote about my beautiful friend Candy and her survival story of Breast Cancer. 
Sadly she passed away last week. 
She won and fought for so long. Her breast cancer showed it's ugly face when she was in her 30's. After her mastectomy, she had breast reconstruction surgery. The plastic surgeon tunneled fat from her tummy and formed a new breast from that fat. 
All was wonderful.
She was alive and felt whole again after the dreadful loss of a breast. (All of us as women know how painful a loss  that would be)
28 years later, about a year ago,  Candy began experiencing horrible pain in her stomach. The cancer had a trail to go to and it was now in her stomach lining. She was in for the fight of her life. She went thru chemo and more chemo. So much chemo that her fingertips turned black and were numb. She lost her hair and it grew back, more chemo and gone again.
Finally, her doctors told her there was nothing more they could do. They sent her home with a morphine pump and a bag to go to the bathroom in....

Candy had been married for years to the man of her heart. Her soulmate Dan. She loved him with all of her being. He loved his booze and other illegal things.  They divorced but Candy never stopped  her love and affection for Dan. She did everything to mend the relationship but it was not to be. Dan loved her too but had other loves.

The doctors told hospice no more food or water for Candy. She would lie in bed wracked in pain and ask about her one love, Dan.
For 5 weeks Candy hung on. There was no medical reason for her to still be here. Still be on Earth, still alive, still loving Dan.
Every day she asked for him. 

The doctors and nurses were amazed she was still clinging to life.

Everyone would say, "What is she waiting for?"

She was waiting for Dan!

Last week Candy took her last breath. Her beautiful heart stopped beating. 
When we knew she was gone, we were all so sad but so relieved she was no longer suffering. No longer in pain....
She was gone.
We got the call later that night that Dan had died. 
6 hours after Candy took her last breath at home. Dan died in a hospital emergency room 2 miles away from liver failure. 
Candy was waiting on Dan.
The most ironic part of all.....
They both died on their wedding anniversary!
Their daughter Dani lost her mother and her father all in one night.
6 hours apart.

I truly believe in my heart that Candy waited on Dan. Her heart knew he would need her where they were going. I believe and all of her family and friends believe that her love for him waited to hold his hand and take him to eternity together.
I write this sobbing. 
A more pure love story could not be made up like this. I think love can be as strong as the Heaven's.

Next time I write I want to tell you how my darling husband helped me from his grave. It was like he was guiding me. Helping me. I'm too emotional right now to tell it all but it's a powerful love story too.
Until next time... 
Cherish those you love like there's no tomorrow. 

I love you all. 

"No Cry" Days

The old saying is that a widow should not buy anything or sell anything for a year after her husbands death. No major decisions to made within that 365 day exile. 
Blah.
So... I tried that for 3 months. It blows!
What? Sit and look at walls? Wear black for months and go to the cemetery? Not smile or chat or laugh?
I did all that too.
It's exhausting and it does nothing more than cement into your skull that your man is gone. It is all a constant reminder of sadness. Don't get me wrong. I am sad. I cry on people.
Oh Lord do I cry on poor unsuspecting people!

I went to see my dentist. I had neglected most everything about myself so it was time. My dentist is also a friend. He entered the exam room with my x-rays in hand, said hello, touched my arm and in 1.3 seconds, I was blubbering all over his scrub-shirt. Not just the pretty tears that fall from your eyes like in movies but the full-on sobbing UGLY cry. 
(I may have to switch dentists now I am so embarrassed)
Same with my Priest. My postman. My Veterinarian.  The cashier at the grocery...
The list goes on, I am sorry to say.
Hey.. I think I we get a pass when we lose a loved one. 
So, back to better news...
I decided to break all of the rules of being a widow.
I always claimed to be a "rule-breaker" so why stop now?
I'm done caring if people in my community judge me for crying too much. 
I hear them whispering... 
"Oh look, she cries too much. Her black dress is so big on her. She looks awful. Her eyes are red.
She's lost weight. She's aged 10 years."

Oh, Bite Me!

If people have so much to say about YOUR life... That says very little about their own, right?

Words to live by.
I haven't got all the answers on how to act or what to do. I never have! We just do what we can. Life is short. I plan on living each and every day in honor of my husband but to the fullest.
So... 
I ran away from home!
It's so liberating. I am going back in a week.
Don't want to but have to...
Some of Henry's old football players from the Denver Broncos and basketball buddies from Purdue are honoring him with a benefit memorial. All proceeds will go to the Purdue Athletic Department in his name. It will be a sad and emotional day but I have my Big Girl Panties all picked out and laid out for that day. 
I can DO this and I will. 
Oh and I bought a new car. My dream car. 
I thought it would make me happy. Things don't make you happy. People do. 
I have amazing people in my life.
I am so blessed.
More later.

I Love You.

One Last Kiss

The day of the funeral...

To feel so numb but to have so much to do is such a contradiction in terms. All I want to do is go to bed and stay there with the blankets pulled over my head.

Let someone else do this. I can't.

Phone calls from people, food and flowers arriving at the door. God, I hate the smell of roses now. So cloyingly sweet. The smell seems to penetrate the house but mostly my brain.

A friend of mine that I had met at the Radiation clinic... (That seems like it was a 100 years ago)

Her husband had died of the same horrible cancer my husband had, told me that she had put her dog up in the bed with her husband to let him know that he was gone.

Ewwww, so morbid!

After my husband had gone, I did just that.

Both dogs were thrilled to be up on the bed I had denied them access to these last weeks. The little Chihuahua, much older and wiser, sniffed him all over. Looked up at me with such sadness in her soft brown eyes then laid her little apple head on his arm with a small sigh. She bared her teeth at anyone that tried to move her from his side.

Izzy, usually so rambunctious and out of control, sniffed his face once, jumped off the bed like she had been shot from a cannon and hid under the bed in the next room.

They both knew.

I'm glad now I did this. They are both grieving but seem to know why their beloved master is not here. He's not coming home....

Shower, makeup, hair. Like an auto-mon get ready for this day.

Meet the rest of the family, cousins, relatives, life-long friends at the funeral home.

Pall Bearers

Saying good-bye. More tears. More sorrow. More prayers. More sadness.

One last goodbye. More tears fall onto his face. "My Darling, please know that I will always love you. Forever. Unending."

I see the six best friends of my husband, the pall bearers, bring the casket and loads of flowers out to the waiting hearse. Such a sunny pretty day but a black hole in all of our hearts. I feel as if my knees will buckle and I will become one with the parking lot.

I am just led around like a four year old. Totally clueless. I have never done this before.

Not this.

Our limo follows the long black hearse. Others follows us. A long steady stream of cars

winding thru the streets to the church Henry and I attended every Sunday that we could while we were home and together. I see people and recognize their faces but my heart can't acknowledge their presence or why they are there to tell this wonderful man good-bye.

So many people crying.

So much sadness.

People speak at the podium and the priest says the Mass. My husband is lying there beside me in a white draped coffin with a cross of gold embroidered on the delicate cloth.

The priest begins The Lord's Prayer.

Every Sunday, all of our married life and before, as "The Lord's Prayer" was being said, we would recite those familiar words, my husband would reach out and grab my hand as we spoke the words....Hands locked in a grasp, all of the week's issues and problems would seem to melt away....

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be Done

No one to hold my hand now as that beautiful prayer was said, I reached out and laid my hand on the coffin. Never to hold his hand again, sobbing, as the prayer and the people prayed.

I could hear people crying behind me. He was so loved.

Back to the limo again.

Winding thru the streets. We don't go straight to the cemetery. Police escorts leading us past his business. All of his workers out lining the street in a silent salute and good-bye to this amazing man. Gone too Soon. Too Young... Too Good.

Following the hearse to the cemetery. A tent has been set up with chairs under the old oak trees in the spot we had chosen over a year before.

The sun dapples through the trees and glistens on the mirror covered casket. His name and birthdate and the date he left us engraved so beautifully on the top of the glass.

The priest ends the prayers and before they lower my beautiful husband into the ground, I bend to kiss the top. I leave an eternal lipstick print on the glass as I tell him one last good-bye...