Every Winter I say to myself: “I should share this story on my blog”, but then Winter passes and I forget. Well it just turned Spring and there is still a little bit of snow on the ground in Colorado so I am giving myself permission to go ahead and share it now instead of waiting until next Winter (smile)…

If you are new to this blog let me give you a little bit of background to the story I am about the share. I am a widow and my husband John is a widower. We were each together with our late partners, who both passed in 2018, for over 30 years (I was with my late husband Terry since I was 20 years old). John and I met in 2019 when I left Bend, Oregon and moved to Denver, Colorado to try and start a new life after my devastating loss.

John and I have each lived quite a bit of life before we met each other and one of the fun parts of getting to know each other has been sharing our life stories. In this post I am sharing one of my favorite stories John has shared.

Misadventures in Ice Fishing

Years ago John and his brother-in-law went ice fishing in Deckers, Colorado. (If you’ve never heard of “ice fishing”, I put a hyperlink above for more information).

Photo by Glenna Haug on Unsplash

It was a 10 degree F day (-12 C) and when they were done fishing, they went walking across the frozen river to get back to his brother-in-law’s truck which was a mile away. While traversing the frozen river, the ICE BROKE near the shore, and they fell into the icy river. They pulled themselves out of icy river and shivering they agreed that no matter what they would keep walking and not stop until they got the the truck (if they stopped they could become hypothermic and run into life threatening issues).

Photo by Bryan Rodriguez on Unsplash

They had to walk close to a mile to the truck feeling like they were freezing to death. When they got to the truck they started the truck, stripped down to their underwear to get the freezing cold clothes off their skin, and threw their wet clothes into the back of truck.

Driving back to John’s brother-in-law’s house and running the heat in the truck at full blast, suddenly they saw law enforcement lights behind them, it was a Colorado State Trooper following them and signaling for them to pull over.

So there they were in only their underwear, two middle aged men on 10 degree F day (-12 C) driving around in a pickup truck, and a Colorado State Trooper is pulling them over! There was nothing to do but pull over to the side of the road and face the State Trooper!

When the State Trooper walked up to the passenger side of the truck and saw the two men in just their underwear he did a double take. John and his brother-in-law immediately said to the State Trooper: “This isn’t what it looks like, he is my brother-in-law”. Then they went on to explain what had happened after they went ice fishing, the breaking of the ice and fall into the river, and why they were only in their underwear.

The State Trooper (who was probably trying his best to keep a serious face) said: “The reason why I pulled you over is there were clothes flying out of the back of your pickup truck onto the highway”. The State Trooper didn’t give them a ticket and let them just continue on their way home to get warm (and get some clothes on).

If only they had thought to put the wet clothes in a more secure place they wouldn’t have given the State Trooper a story he probably still tells to this day!

Postscript

To my dog Mike, my late husband Terry was his whole world.

One of the very sad things that happened when my husband Terry died was that he passed suddenly at home while alone with our dog Mike the Miniature Schnauzer. Mike had to be with Terry’s body for a couple hours before I came home to discover him.

I thought Mike would be traumatized for the rest of his brief dog life and I tried to give him all the love I could after Terry died while dealing with my terrible grief and my trauma of finding the love of my life dead on the floor in front of the Christmas tree.

I remember taking Mike on walks after Terry died and every time Mike would see a man in the distance walking towards us, he would wag his tail and think it might be Terry joining us. It was unbelievably heart-breaking.

Then I met John after moving to Colorado and Mike (who is a “guy’s dog”) completely fell in love with John and I think John healed Mike’s heart.

Here is a photo that always makes me smile – Mike all snuggled to the new love of his life – John:

Feature photo Photo by Bryan Rodriguez on Unsplash

A Crafter's Life

Closer to Fine

October 18, 2022October 21, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I will eventually return to posts on my recent trip to Ireland (either by me or by the tierneycreates Beastie…smile) but I thought I would share a recent musing in this post.

When I travel by airplane I like to listen to music when the plane is taking off (it calms me) and I usually listen to Pandora which has on offline option (when no WiFi available or device in “Airplane Mode”) which plays downloaded stations.

Well on a recent flight as the plane was taking off, the song “Closer to Fine” by the Indigo Girls came on…

At first I gasped as I’ve been trying to avoid for the past nearly 4 years all songs and performers that my late husband Terry and I listened together, especially if they were his beloved groups such as the Indigo Girls.

Terry passed suddenly and unexpectedly in December 2018 (I am approaching the the anniversary of his loss) and he LOVED singer-songwriter music. Our favorite bands (that we enjoyed together as we also had music that we enjoyed separately) included the Indigo Girls, Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson, Gov’t Mule, Ben Harper, Joan Osborne, David Gray, and other music similar to those artists. We’ve seen also those artists in concert (some many many times) but the group we’ve seen in concert the most times was the Indigo Girls.

The Indigo Girls were Terry’s favorite singer-songwriter group and he knew the words to most their most popular songs including “Closer to Fine”. We’d go to their concert and he’d sing along (quietly) to most of their songs. But the song he really loved, knew absolutely every word and would sing at the top of his lungs along with the other audience members was “Closer to Fine”.

Over the years I guess the Indigo Girls made “Closer to Fine” a “sing-a-long song” with full audience participation expected. And Terry would always sing along at their concerts (which we attended at least yearly). One of my favorite Indigo Concert memories is when they had a concert in one of Bend’s neighborhoods – NorthWest Crossing. I guess they story is they were visiting friends who lived in the area and decided to just have small concert at the neighborhood monthly festival! Not a lot of people knew about it and it was a small audience crammed into a little neighborhood space watching the Indigo Girls play with a smaller version of their band. Sort of one of those once in a lifetime experiences! So glad I got to experience that with Terry.

Before I go further, let me share a video of the album version of the song if you’ve never heard it before:

And here are the lyrics to Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls (courtesy of Google):

I’m trying to tell you something ’bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It’s only life after all, yeah

Well, darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable
And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear
And I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it
I’m crawling on your shores…

And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
(The less I seek my source)
Closer I am to fine, yeah
Closer I am to fine, yeah

And I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
Got my paper and I was free

I stopped by the bar at 3 A.M.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
And I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I’d been the night before
And I went in seeking clarity

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains
We look to the children, we drink from the fountain
Yeah, we go to the Bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival, we stand up for the lookout

There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
(The less I seek my source)
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine, yeah

And if you are curious, here is what the concert sing-a-long version of the song is like:

I get chills (and tears) when I hear the audience sing acapella: “we stand up for the lookout” and then sing loudly with the Indigo Girls the last couple lines of the song together.

I can still hear Terry singing along with the audience the last three lines:

Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine, yeah

At first listening to this song again, I was overwhelmed with sadness and despair (over what was lost – a lifetime with my music/concert buddy and amazing life partner/best friend) but then I turned it around in my mind and realized that over the nearly past 4 years I’ve gotten myself:

CLOSER TO FINE

I’ll never be fully “fine” and I accept that. I will always be a widow who lost the love of their life (even if I am so blessed to have my wonderful partner John in my life, who is a widower and deeply understands my journey and the heartbreak I carry around) but I am at so much better a place than I was a couple years ago.

And better than I was last year.

I get a little more “closer to fine” as the years progress.

If any of you are on the same journey as me (dealing with a life changing loss) I hope you getting a little “closer to fine” everyday even if you gain only millimeter of distance each day.

Thank you Amy Ray and Emily Saliers for your amazing song and lyrics…

Indigo Girls, image credit The San Diego Union-Tribune

Postscript

I think one of the things people do not realize about widows and widowers, is that they did not just lose the person they (likely) loved most in this world. They also lost their entire life with that person – all the history they shared, things only they knew, the memories and experiences they shared, and most of all (in many cases) their deep bond and friendship. You lose the person you shared your deepest secrets, your partner in life. For many (like happened to. me), they also lose their identity and have to create a new one.

As my grief counselor said: “You have to now go out and create new experiences and memories on your own” (and yes that is unbelievably difficult to do)

Thank goodness I had a wonderful grief support group and continue to know and interact with amazing people who are on my same journey and understand the depth of the loss. I am also thankful to those who do not understand the experience of the loss but are kind, patient and supportive with me on my journey.

If you know someone who is grieving such a loss, please be patient and kind to them – their loss is more than you can imagine.

A Crafter's Life, From the Archives

Valentines (re-post)

February 14, 2021February 22, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I thought in honor of this day, and how far my life has come in a couple of years, I would re-post this Valentine’s Day post from February 14, 2019. This post was also featured, at the end of February 2019, on author Marie Bostwick’s blog: Coping With Grief by Helping Others.

I am in my 8th year of blogging and I have a large catalogue of archived posts and going forward I am going to occasionally share from the archives.

Valentines

A little less than a week ago I began having quite a bit of anxiety over how I was going to face my first Valentine’s Day without my Valentine. In December 2018 my husband Terry suddenly passed away. I’ve been with Terry more than 1/2 my life and we’ve never been apart on Valentine’s Day.

I was anticipating a painful day on February 14th, completely stricken my grief, perhaps not even able to get out of bed.

In the middle of my anticipatory grieving anxiety, I suddenly realized that doing something for others might be the solution to dealing with Valentine’s Day.

For the past 5 weeks I’ve been in a difficult but awesome Spousal Loss Grief Support Group that meets weekly. It suddenly hit me that all the widows and widowers in the grief support group with me were facing the same dilemma of their first Valentine’s Day without their Valentines.

So why don’t I invite them all the be my Valentines?

And that is just what I did.

For My Valentines

For the men in my grief support group:

Terry’s favorite cookies were the Molasses Crinkle Cookies that I loved to make. I’ve done little cooking and no baking since he passed so it was a pretty big thing to open my cookbook and actually bake something.

I made a huge batch of these cookies and it felt good to bake again, so good that I actually experienced a sweet moment of joy as I assembled the ingredients.

I put the cookies in a basket and included little sandwich bags for them to take as many as they wanted home.

For the women in my grief support group:

I gave them each little wallets. If you are new to my blog here is a post about the little wallets I made a zillion of since I first became obsessed with them – “Little Wallet Madness” . If you are not new to my blog then you know all about little wallets and some of you own some of my little wallets you won in my blog anniversary drawings!

For the group facilitator:

I gave her a set of my little heart pillows, as she has been helping us heal our hearts.

I then made “Oregon Healing Hearts” valentines using my circle punch and heart punch from my card marking supplies with Oregon/outdoor themed colored papers:

People had the option of an “Oregon Healing Heart” with a dog in the middle of the heart (as I consider dogs healing) or a plain heart:

Here is the whole set up I surprised them with earlier this week at our weekly Spousal Loss Grief Support Group:

I think it went over pretty well. The facilitator let me present them at the start of our support group meeting.

The men were willing to share their cookies and both the men and women got to take home some cookies if they wanted. There was laughter, smiles and hugs despite the difficult topics we discussed at that support group session.

Feeling at Peace

Today is Valentine’s Day and I feel at peace. I think it is because I stepped outside of myself and my grief and thought of others for a moment.

Day and night wallowing in my grief was not working for me, even if everyone expected and supported it. I had to try something else. That’s where my grief group came in, my unexpected valentines.

Grieving is hard work, maybe the hardest work I’ve ever done. It’s definitely a hobby I don’t recommend for anybody. But, if you’re suddenly find yourself a member of the club that no one ever wants to join, find a grief group. Part of what I have learned from this experience is, don’t try to go it alone.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Feature Photo by Nicola Fioravanti on Unsplash