My Story January 1999

I started this blog in 1999 when my husband passed away.  Although he was sick for many years it was devastating and my writing allowed me to pour out my feelings.  In a way that would allow me to carry on.  I found myself a single parent with two children, a house that was falling apart and debt up to my ears.  It took me almost two years before I could sell my house and start my life over again.  If you are interested in my blog at that time.  Please click on the archive section.

1999. January, 12:21A.M. Happy New Year and welcome to my web site!! One of my New Year’s resolutions is to publish a home page and here it is.  It’s still a work in progress of course and needs quite a lot of refining to go through still, but I have confidence that it will develop into a worthwhile site.  One of my intentions is to put my Swatch Watch collectors newsletter on my web site as an addendum to the ones I mail out five times  a year.  Unfortunately 1998 was a hectic year that I managed to get through let alone get my newsletter on time.  I have high hopes that 1999 will be much better.

THINGS GET WORSE THAN EVER

Eli, my husband has been in and out of hospice now for two weeks.  One doctor puts him in and then another thinks that maybe he shouldn’t be in yet and they stick him back in the regular hospital instead.  He has been very sick and suffering for close to three years now, and it’s made life horrible.  It’s hard to know that someone you’ve been with for so many years is just wasting away right in front of your eyes.  Maybe in ten years from now the amount of offering people go through will diminish but it hasn’t yet.  Actually I think that the new technology that is helping people stay alive much longer is really giving them more suffer time than they would have if they were allowed to just pass peacefully.

Other than the terrible grief of watching someone you care about deeply suffer, I have acquired many new jobs in my life.  One is becoming head-of-the-household, which includes taking care of my family and myself: all by myself. I know that I’m not the only one who has problems of this nature and maybe together we can all get through this life we are dealt.  Hopefully we can change the cards somewhat to have a happy existence after all.  We all have problems of one sort or another and it’s possible we can help each other because of this.  We can manage to get the strength to survive and even make great lives for ourselves.  We have to have a positive outlook and realize that 19999 will be a terrific year if we want it to be.

Eli passed away.  I can’t believe it.  I feel so totally alone.  Even though he has been in a nursing home in Florida for two years and I have been managing to handle everything myself for so long now, I still feel a strange loneliness creeping in my veins.  I don’t know how to tell Alexi-Rae, she’s only 10 and will be devastated.  I tell my eldest, Nicole, and she is taking it very hard. But Alexi?? It could be too terrible. I will tell her tomorrow.  She will be sad and upset enough.  I think I can give her one more day of happiness.  It can’t hurt.

I wake up with a nagging feeling that Eli wants to hurt me, for letting him die alone in Florida.  Certainly it wasn’t my idea to send him there.  I came home one day and found him talking on the phone with his older sister, Ethel.  Asking her to look for an assisted living facility in Florida for him to live in.  He wanted to spare us the pain of of watching him suffer, I thought.  I’m sure that was it.  But maybe not.

I can hear him now saying,  “I’ll get you from my grave you bitch”. A phrase he hurled at me many times during our marriage. Usually for nothing that would ever merit such a terrible phrase.  I chose to forget all that terrible stuff that went on during my marriage, but now that he has passed away I seem to hear that buzz in my ear and flutter in my stomach once more.  What has he found out, now that his line of communication has grown more widespread from his new vantage point?” What ever it is I will overcome it.  These last few years have taught me more than my whole life put together.  I am strong most of the time and have two wonderful children to think of.  We will survive anything. There is no other way.

I speak to the Rabbi, he tells  me that I must tell Alexi that her father has passed away.  I agree and promise to tell her when she gets home from school.  We will have a memorial service in my home. Eli is to be cremated. That’s what his children from other marriages want.  I have no say.  We were divorced and there was no money put aside for this expense or any other. How will I tell this to Alexi? I just won’t tell that part.  Nicole and I pick her up at school and I tell her the sad news.  It’s just as bad as I thought, if not worse.  She is hysterical.  We calm her down.  She understands. Then flies into hysteria again.  Her support system will help her through this.  She chooses to go to a basket ball practice. I encourage it.  She cries so pitifully on and off.  The more she keeps to her original routine the better off she will be.  I hope.

I have been eating too much.  My defense mechanism I guess.  The comfort zone of food.  I had better stop eating so much already. I am going to get more and more depressed if I don’t stop.  enough obsessing about myself, but the house is quiet and the day was bad even though it could have been worse.  I needed to indulge in some me time.  I get in bed early and immediately fall asleep.

The Rabbi wants me to write a eulogy.  I wait until 3 o’clock before the words start to come and then they fly out of my fingers.  The pen and I can not keep up with the words. Over 50 people showed at my home for the memorial service. So many of Nicole and Alexi’s friends there to help us.  Alexi will be fine. Nicole is still taking it very hard though.  She will be fine too. I see her strength were she hasn’t discovered it yet.  Everyone cries when the Rabbi reads my eulogy.  They come over after the service to tell me how moving it was.  After they all leave I eat. Then we go to sleep.

MY LIFE WITH ELI

I met Eli at a very young age and even with our differences in age, we became great friends easily. He was easy to to talk to and full of fun and life.  We enjoyed each others company and eventually our friendship turned into something much deeper.  After awhile we decided to get married.  He was  a loyal and good husband and a caring and giving father to Nicole. He loved us dearly and showed his love in many ways.  He always found the time to help her when she needed it.  When things were especially hard he tried to give the best advice he could and most of the time it was always exactly what she needed to fix what ever was bothering her.

The three of us lived a magically charmed life.  Nothing was too good for his two girls.  We traveled together as much as he could and we were inseparable.  I never thought that anything could make our lives better than it already was, but something did.  That something was Alexi-Rae. She was the light of his life. Coming to him so late in his years, she gave him more pleasure than anyone single thing ever did. Now we were a family of four.

Although Eli was not a young man anymore, he devoted himself to Alexi, Nicole and me.  He took us to Italy when she was three months old.  We never needed a babysitter: She came with us wherever we went.  His greatest pleasure was to just sit in the den on the weekends and watch her play or sleep or eat.  We were his whole life and all three of us doted on him as he did us.  He was our life support , working as hard he did all the time. We knew that this was what made him most happy and his strength washed over us.

Unfortunately, that was not to be for long.  He had cancer while I was pregnant with Alexi and the doctors thought that the stress of it might have led to his Parkinson’s disease. It was under control for a long time, but then he developed kidney failure and our big strong man became weaker and weaker before our eyes.  Now it was our time to take care of him and we did.

Traveling with us was his greatest pleasure and so we planned one last trip to the South of France.  We all know he would not be able to travel anymore and maybe because of that we made it our best trip ever.  After we came back we tried different medicines and diets, and new doctors, but nothing helped.  The diseases had taken hold of him and they were not letting go.  Soon after he was unable to drive and then to work and then everything else became hard.  He was quieter than usual but his mind was sharp as ever and he was always thinking. One day he called us in and told us his plans.  He had to protect his girls the only way he could.  Nothing would stop him. He knew he needed special attention.  he found a place in Florida , with my mother’s help.  Even in his weakness, he found the strength and courage to leave us.  To spare us what he knew would be the deterioration of the man we once knew.

In his silent suffering my mother became the one to bring him solace.  Luckily his new home was right near her and she was his right hand.  Helping whenever he needed it and just by being his friend.  We spoke to him almost daily and visited him the end of August.  It would be the last time.  Now after two terrible long years, his suffering has ended and our sincere and simple man of enormous strength and courage is now with God, watching over us still.  I am sure.

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