A Tough Weekend...

We were out of school Friday and Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. I went shopping Friday, and got home around 1:00 p.m. The phone rang just after I got in, and when I checked the Caller ID, I saw the name of one of my favorite cousins. I had planned to call him, since I'd heard from a friend at school that my cousin's wife was in the hospital and quite ill. My cousin was wonderful while DH was in the hospital; came to see him almost every day, and stood with his arm around me when we were making the decision to let DH go. Anyway, I picked up the phone and said his name...but the voice on the line identified himself as my cousin's brother. My heart fell, because I knew what he was calling to tell me.

My cousin's wife passed away Friday morning around 7:30. She was 65 years old, and had been sick for twenty years or so. She had scleroderma, and by the time she went into the hospital this last time, she was unable to eat solid food and weighed around seventy pounds. She and my cousin had been married for forty-two years. They had one son; he died from a brain aneurism when he was eight years old.

My cousin was probably my mother's favorite nephew. My mother was thirty-four years old when she married my dad, and had lived with her parents until she married. My cousin would come to his grandparents' house and my mother would take him to the movies, and he'd spend the night and be treated as a king. When my dad died, he came to the house to see Mother, and told her that he had "forgiven" my dad for marrying her and taking her away from him; Mother got a good laugh out of that. When my nephew arrived at the house (he and Mother had a special relationship, too), he introduced himself to my cousin as "the competition", which made Mother laugh again at a difficult time.

The visitation was Sunday evening, and the funeral was Monday morning. I went to the visitation with my sister, but I drove to the funeral alone. I got there too late to sit with the family, and I did that on purpose. I don't think I could have handled sitting in the same seats where we sat for DH's service. I sat in a place in the chapel where my cousin could see me if he looked at the congregation...if he could see through his tears.

My birthday was yesterday. We're not usually in school on my birthday, but we have a really awkward calendar this year, so eighth grade graduation was yesterday. On Thursday afternoon before we got out for the long weekend, someone put up a floor-to-ceiling sign outside my classroom door announcing that it was my birthday and included a remark about my advanced age (54). I first blamed/gave the credit to a man who teaches with me (I taught him when he was in the eighth grade), who teases me a lot about my age (he'll send eighth graders to my room to ask about Lincoln's assassination...). However, after I thought about it, I think it was two other close friends who made it SEEM that someone else did it. It made my first birthday without DH a little easier, and I love them all for caring about me.

House Party Week

My nephew had outpatient surgery last Wednesday. He's 27, unmarried, and lives about 100 miles away. His mom, my sister, couldn't go over for the surgery, so I volunteered. Since I never had any biological children, I am very close to my niece and nephew. After the surgery, I brought him back to my house to recuperate...and be spoiled. He stayed with me from Wednesday until Saturday, when his mom took him home.

My college roommate (and friend for more than thirty years) arrived Friday night. Her nephew graduated from college Friday evening in a nearby town, and she (at the suggestion of her wonderful husband) came here and stayed with me until Sunday morning. Her first husband died after less than ten years of marriage, so she understands a lot about what's going on with me. We drank coffee, laughed, and went out to dinner at a new Mexican restaurant.

My niece and great-niece arrived early Tuesday afternoon. A friend of my sister's family is visiting the United States from Scotland, and he drove over with my niece and the baby in order to spend the night with my sister and her husband on his way to Memphis to visit his daughter (and then to Austin to see his son). I am now the proud owner of a high chair and play yard (is this what we used to call a playpen? I guess "pen" is not the best way to describe a place to keep a baby...), purchased to accommodate my 11-month-old great niece (and her future siblings!) so that she and her mother could spend the night at MY house.

What fun having a baby in the house, especially one with such a wonderful smile and BIG blue eyes. She woke up around 6:00 a.m., and "helped" me feed the dog and cat (she petted the cat quite nicely; she's still not sure about the dog...). She also "helped" me fix my lunch, while her mother fixed formula bottles for the day, and beamed at me sweetly until it was time for a bottle and a short after-bottle nap. I had to go back to work, but I got to see the baby again for a few minutes after school before they left for home.

I have two more weeks of school, and then I'll have my first summer in nine years without DH...without him puttering around in the yard, coming in to cool off and play his computer games, working in the kitchen together to cook a "traditional" Southern summer meal (fresh vegetables, cornbread, sliced tomatoes, pot roast or pork roast...good eating), playing with the dog, and enjoying our time together. I was blessed to have had him as long as I did...

I talked to three people last week who didn't know that DH had passed away...and they all cried with me.

Bought Myself Some Presents

I'm sitting here in my living room...watching a "House" DVD, enjoying the view of my backyard through the French doors, and typing on my new laptop computer. I used a little of Mother's insurance money and a little of DH's to buy it, and then had my computer man set up a wireless network. The best of all worlds...I can watch television and surf the 'Net at the same time. I bought the laptop from the company from which we buy computers at school, so I knew I would get great service and a good deal.

I still haven't gotten back to working on my scrapbooks. However, I have worked almost nonstop in all of my free time on my art journals. I started on the first one while DH was in the hospital, and I think I've filled up three so far. Most of my projects are never finished; I always leave myself open to add to a scrapbook page or journal page at any time, and I want to pull out the first one and do something else with it. I've picked up several books about art journals, and I'm also interested in collage. My mother was a great artist, and some of her work incorporated collage and some three dimensional elements, too. I don't have the artistic confidence she had or the drawing skills, but I love playing with color and shapes. My nephew was here this past week (recuperating from outpatient surgery), and he complimented my work (after I worked up the nerve to let him see it), and said that some of it should be framed and displayed. He CAN draw, and he's working on his Master's degree in advertising/communications, so his praise meant a LOT to me.

I also bought myself a new set of pens that were more expensive than any others I've tried. I've tried American Crafts pens, Zig pens, Marvy Uchida pens, Sakura pens, and Faber Castell brush pens. The Faber Castell are in first place, and the Sakura pens would be tied for first place if they came in a wider color selection. My newest acquisition is a set of 48 Faber Castell brush pens in a storage box that reminds me of the forty-eight crayon set from Crayola!

I'm also experimenting with various kinds of paper. I had a year-long subscription to Club Scrap, and an obsession with ordering from the Gotta Have More department. There's paper in my stash that I no longer care to use in a scrapbook (Art Deco, Renaissance, etc.), but the back side is a neutral color, and has a lovely texture (tooth, I think it's called in the "real" art department) to use with my pens. I'm not buying a lot of new paper to use, so I can justify buying all the pens I want to try.

If I get REALLY brave, I may post some pictures of my pages here...