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Thirteen. What does it mean?
Today, thankfully, did not fall on a work day. Today, I could actually take the moment to breathe in, exhale and do it again.
Thirteen years ago, about 1:30 AM, my late husband passed away after a five year race downhill due to diabetic complications after an injury incurred on the job.
He'd dropped a computer on his foot, and the injury went bad. The infection went systemic, damaging heart valves, which failed three years later, throwing blocks to the brain and heart. He had both strokes and massive MIs. They'd called it 'popcorn strokes' - because the CT scans looked like a bowl of popcorn. Too many to count.
1993 - 1998. And every year was one more significant whack downwards.
He died after all that, one AKA amputation, one BKA - on dialysis, nearly blind. 36 years old.
He's buried in one of the niftiest cemetaries I've ever visited in Sierra Madre - spooky as heck in the dark, but awesome during the day, Hitchcock used to shoot movies there all the time, I'm told. His headstone is a common granite boulder, taken from a streambed nearby - whenever I'm in the neighborhood, I go by and check to make sure everything is still good, legible and free from weeds.
Today, let Xander pick the flowers and he chose three bunches of bright yellow sunflowers and button mums. I took the biggest bottle of Tabasco I could buy...and a small bottle of sake.
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catsonmars went with us - and while I really couldn't get Xander completely wrapped around the concepts (tut, he's 6), he could pay our respects, look around a bit and then go have a nice lunch.
He's just not as there as he was right afterward, and I can imagine why. Some of his closest friends have already passed as well - one of them had literally drank himself to death after his passing, and nobody had told me until he had been years gone. He's got Ronnie James Dio to talk to these days, for crying out loud. He's busy.
We opened the sake, toasted and drank - and left the remainder for him. Along with some new rocks.
Came home to find a message on the phone - Mom had called, another long-time friend of the family is not doing well. Demented, requiring 24/7 in-home care. But, happy - and not suffering, so that's to the good, says I. Not the only one in that place that I know of.
Such is where I find myself these days. Give them what you can - this too, is life.
So glad he didn't live to see 9/11 or what has become of his chosen industry. So much has changed and all of it would have left him behind without looking back.
But oh, I miss him. And wonder what it would have looked like without that injury and steep decline so very young.
Hope you're keeping busy, Cliff. It's a very different world without you.
Thirteen years ago, about 1:30 AM, my late husband passed away after a five year race downhill due to diabetic complications after an injury incurred on the job.
He'd dropped a computer on his foot, and the injury went bad. The infection went systemic, damaging heart valves, which failed three years later, throwing blocks to the brain and heart. He had both strokes and massive MIs. They'd called it 'popcorn strokes' - because the CT scans looked like a bowl of popcorn. Too many to count.
1993 - 1998. And every year was one more significant whack downwards.
He died after all that, one AKA amputation, one BKA - on dialysis, nearly blind. 36 years old.
He's buried in one of the niftiest cemetaries I've ever visited in Sierra Madre - spooky as heck in the dark, but awesome during the day, Hitchcock used to shoot movies there all the time, I'm told. His headstone is a common granite boulder, taken from a streambed nearby - whenever I'm in the neighborhood, I go by and check to make sure everything is still good, legible and free from weeds.
Today, let Xander pick the flowers and he chose three bunches of bright yellow sunflowers and button mums. I took the biggest bottle of Tabasco I could buy...and a small bottle of sake.
catsonmars went with us - and while I really couldn't get Xander completely wrapped around the concepts (tut, he's 6), he could pay our respects, look around a bit and then go have a nice lunch.He's just not as there as he was right afterward, and I can imagine why. Some of his closest friends have already passed as well - one of them had literally drank himself to death after his passing, and nobody had told me until he had been years gone. He's got Ronnie James Dio to talk to these days, for crying out loud. He's busy.
We opened the sake, toasted and drank - and left the remainder for him. Along with some new rocks.
Came home to find a message on the phone - Mom had called, another long-time friend of the family is not doing well. Demented, requiring 24/7 in-home care. But, happy - and not suffering, so that's to the good, says I. Not the only one in that place that I know of.
Such is where I find myself these days. Give them what you can - this too, is life.
So glad he didn't live to see 9/11 or what has become of his chosen industry. So much has changed and all of it would have left him behind without looking back.
But oh, I miss him. And wonder what it would have looked like without that injury and steep decline so very young.
Hope you're keeping busy, Cliff. It's a very different world without you.
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Still miss him, too.
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(On a strange side note: I think that I may have worked an acting job out at that particular cemetery a few months ago. The one that I'm thinking of had a creepy and sizable section of tombstones from the Civil War era.)
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My husband was just diagnosed with diabetes, and he already had hypertension, so I've been watching him closely. He is doing well managing sugar, and I'l keeping him in new socks. I'd like to see him start getting pedicures, since feet are such an issue.
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But any nail cutting or callus removal? Do with extreme care and follow up - injuries that go bad are the concern, not actual grooming.
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