Just a quick post tonight, in response to the many emails I have gotten about last night's post. The answer is NO, I do not have any pictures of me with drawings on my face. Sorry to disappoint.
While I am addressing comments, I will mention one other item. One of my sisters has helpfully pointed out that in the photo of me, Kirk, and the kids that is labeled "The Early Years," I appear to be wearing Amish clothing. Let me clarify two things: (1) I am not and have never been even close to Amish in my choice of attire, and (2) the dress in the photo actually belonged to the sister who now says I look Amish. If the shoe fits...
I am heading back home tomorrow night to be there for Kirk's 50th birthday. He would not have wanted a party - his birthday choice was always to stay home alone with family, have a great meal, and enjoy a good glass of wine. Well, actually, the wine was usually in a giant yellow plastic cup from Rudy's Barbeque. But you get the point - low key was his preference. However, this is a birthday I cannot ignore or hide from, so we are meeting it head-on and celebrating instead. We will remember, make a toast, laugh, probably cry some. In short, celebrate having had him in our lives. Feel free to do the same.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Memories That Make Me Laugh
I promised that this next post would be happy, and so it is. I thought I’d share some of the family memories that you may not know.
Most of you who know us know that Kirk’s role is to be the comedy man, and mine is to be the long-suffering target of his humor. We both knew our parts well, and enjoyed them thoroughly.
One of the many torments I endured would happen when I took a weekend nap, or if I came home really tired from work and fell asleep on the couch. He would wait until he was sure I was pretty deeply asleep, and then would draw on my face, generally with eyeliner. Over the years, I have woken up with cat whiskers, a Dudley DoRight mustache, a devil's horns and goatee, and every other manner of artistry. Hard to believe someone could sleep right through it all, but I can.
Two of these events in particular come to mind. The first occurred when Erika was probably about 10 years old. I came home from work, and promptly dozed off on the couch while Kirk was getting ready to make dinner. Erika (who gets her sense of humor straight from her father) wanted to draw on my face. After some consultation, they agreed on a Charlie Chaplin/Adolf Hitler mustache. They proceeded to give me a nice replica. They then woke me up and told me Kirk needed me to run to the store for something he needed for dinner. I dragged myself up off the couch, picked up my purse, and headed toward the front door. I could see that they were acting pretty amused at something, but this was pretty normal so I didn’t think anything of it. Just as I left the house I heard Kirk say to Erika “I can’t – I just can’t.” I looked back to see him coming after me, while she held onto his arm trying to drag him back saying, “No, no, don’t tell her!” He told me to come back and look in the mirror, and much to my horror, there was the mustache. She was fully prepared to let me go out in public with that thing on my face. Fortunately he knew that my willingness to be the straight man has limits, and this was one it was best not to cross.
On another occasion, I fell asleep on the couch on Halloween. He left me there and went to bed. I woke up about midnight, and got up to go in the bedroom. The whole house was dark, and when I stopped in the bathroom on the way to bed, I turned on the light, looked in the mirror, and screamed out loud. While I was sleeping, he had drawn an enormous spider web and spider on my face. It stretched fully from side to side and top to bottom. The end of my nose was colored black, and was the spider’s body. Its head was drawn on the bridge of my nose, and there were 8 long legs drawn from my nose onto my cheeks. The rest of my face – chin, forehead, outer cheeks, even my eyelids, had a perfect spider web pattern on them. It was a more elaborate job than any member of Kiss ever dreamed of, and in my groggy state, it scared me half to death.
Kirk also greatly enjoyed what he called “funny thoughts.” This was his term for when a person is thinking, and thinks of something so funny they actually laugh out loud. If he laughed out loud without provocation, and I asked why, and his answer was “funny thought” you could pretty much guarantee he had just thought of some new practical joke he could play on me.
I, on the other hand, am not overly prone to “funny thoughts.” I think about funny things, but few are so funny they make me laugh out loud, and that is the key criteria for being classified as a “funny thought” in Kirk’s book. However, there is one thing that he knew 100% qualified as a funny thought for me. It is something that happened several years ago, and I am so thoroughly entertained by it, it still makes me laugh out loud to this day.
It involves Fabio. Just in case anyone does not know who Fabio is, he is a complete idiot who became known for modeling for the covers of Harlequin Romance novels. He has ridiculously giant muscles, long flowing hair, is dumb as a rock, and is completely in love with himself. You may also know him because he used to do “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” commercials. At any rate, I can’t stand Fabio. I dislike him even more than I dislike Martha Stewart, and that’s saying something. A few years ago, Fabio was hired to do PR for a roller coaster at Busch Gardens. It was, at the time, the latest greatest thing in roller coasters, and the theme of the ride had to do with Greece or something. So Fabio was hired to ride in the front car on the maiden trip of this new roller coaster. At the end of the ride, there was all kinds of media waiting to take his picture as the coaster came to a stop (remember now, this is a man who LOVES himself and his looks). All went well until the roller coaster was going over the tallest hill. As it flew down the incline, a passing goose was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Fabio’s face hit the goose going God only knows what MPH. The goose burst into a million pieces. There is no funnier thought in my book than my mental image of Fabio at the end of the ride, as the coaster screeches to a halt and the cameras all go off, with a blood and guts and feathers all over his precious face. I never saw the pictures, but my imagination ran wild.
This image is one that would still make me laugh years later. A few months ago, we were in bed, and we both were almost asleep, when somehow the picture popped into my head. Of course, I started laughing. He listened for a minute, and then said one word. “Fabio?” I said “Yup.” Then we both started laughing and pretty soon we couldn’t control it. Every time we settled down, one of us would start again.
The next day when I came home from work, I received confirmation that Kirk was the man for me. While I was at work, he had spent quite some time on the Internet, and had found the photo I had been dreaming of for years (see photo to the right). He had printed copies of it, and there was one in almost every room of the house. He had even saved it as the screen saver on the computer. He had also found interviews with Fabio talking about how Busch Gardens is fortunate he does not plan to sue, and that they should realize that geese are dangerous (see youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7w4dpxgSWA&NR=1 - the interview is priceless!). The part I love best about the picture is that the girls on either side of him don’t even have a speck of blood on them – that goose was going for Fabio and Fabio only.
Who would choose a Harlequin model when you could have Kirk?
Most of you who know us know that Kirk’s role is to be the comedy man, and mine is to be the long-suffering target of his humor. We both knew our parts well, and enjoyed them thoroughly.
One of the many torments I endured would happen when I took a weekend nap, or if I came home really tired from work and fell asleep on the couch. He would wait until he was sure I was pretty deeply asleep, and then would draw on my face, generally with eyeliner. Over the years, I have woken up with cat whiskers, a Dudley DoRight mustache, a devil's horns and goatee, and every other manner of artistry. Hard to believe someone could sleep right through it all, but I can.
Two of these events in particular come to mind. The first occurred when Erika was probably about 10 years old. I came home from work, and promptly dozed off on the couch while Kirk was getting ready to make dinner. Erika (who gets her sense of humor straight from her father) wanted to draw on my face. After some consultation, they agreed on a Charlie Chaplin/Adolf Hitler mustache. They proceeded to give me a nice replica. They then woke me up and told me Kirk needed me to run to the store for something he needed for dinner. I dragged myself up off the couch, picked up my purse, and headed toward the front door. I could see that they were acting pretty amused at something, but this was pretty normal so I didn’t think anything of it. Just as I left the house I heard Kirk say to Erika “I can’t – I just can’t.” I looked back to see him coming after me, while she held onto his arm trying to drag him back saying, “No, no, don’t tell her!” He told me to come back and look in the mirror, and much to my horror, there was the mustache. She was fully prepared to let me go out in public with that thing on my face. Fortunately he knew that my willingness to be the straight man has limits, and this was one it was best not to cross.
On another occasion, I fell asleep on the couch on Halloween. He left me there and went to bed. I woke up about midnight, and got up to go in the bedroom. The whole house was dark, and when I stopped in the bathroom on the way to bed, I turned on the light, looked in the mirror, and screamed out loud. While I was sleeping, he had drawn an enormous spider web and spider on my face. It stretched fully from side to side and top to bottom. The end of my nose was colored black, and was the spider’s body. Its head was drawn on the bridge of my nose, and there were 8 long legs drawn from my nose onto my cheeks. The rest of my face – chin, forehead, outer cheeks, even my eyelids, had a perfect spider web pattern on them. It was a more elaborate job than any member of Kiss ever dreamed of, and in my groggy state, it scared me half to death.
Kirk also greatly enjoyed what he called “funny thoughts.” This was his term for when a person is thinking, and thinks of something so funny they actually laugh out loud. If he laughed out loud without provocation, and I asked why, and his answer was “funny thought” you could pretty much guarantee he had just thought of some new practical joke he could play on me.
I, on the other hand, am not overly prone to “funny thoughts.” I think about funny things, but few are so funny they make me laugh out loud, and that is the key criteria for being classified as a “funny thought” in Kirk’s book. However, there is one thing that he knew 100% qualified as a funny thought for me. It is something that happened several years ago, and I am so thoroughly entertained by it, it still makes me laugh out loud to this day.
It involves Fabio. Just in case anyone does not know who Fabio is, he is a complete idiot who became known for modeling for the covers of Harlequin Romance novels. He has ridiculously giant muscles, long flowing hair, is dumb as a rock, and is completely in love with himself. You may also know him because he used to do “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” commercials. At any rate, I can’t stand Fabio. I dislike him even more than I dislike Martha Stewart, and that’s saying something. A few years ago, Fabio was hired to do PR for a roller coaster at Busch Gardens. It was, at the time, the latest greatest thing in roller coasters, and the theme of the ride had to do with Greece or something. So Fabio was hired to ride in the front car on the maiden trip of this new roller coaster. At the end of the ride, there was all kinds of media waiting to take his picture as the coaster came to a stop (remember now, this is a man who LOVES himself and his looks). All went well until the roller coaster was going over the tallest hill. As it flew down the incline, a passing goose was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Fabio’s face hit the goose going God only knows what MPH. The goose burst into a million pieces. There is no funnier thought in my book than my mental image of Fabio at the end of the ride, as the coaster screeches to a halt and the cameras all go off, with a blood and guts and feathers all over his precious face. I never saw the pictures, but my imagination ran wild.
This image is one that would still make me laugh years later. A few months ago, we were in bed, and we both were almost asleep, when somehow the picture popped into my head. Of course, I started laughing. He listened for a minute, and then said one word. “Fabio?” I said “Yup.” Then we both started laughing and pretty soon we couldn’t control it. Every time we settled down, one of us would start again.
The next day when I came home from work, I received confirmation that Kirk was the man for me. While I was at work, he had spent quite some time on the Internet, and had found the photo I had been dreaming of for years (see photo to the right). He had printed copies of it, and there was one in almost every room of the house. He had even saved it as the screen saver on the computer. He had also found interviews with Fabio talking about how Busch Gardens is fortunate he does not plan to sue, and that they should realize that geese are dangerous (see youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7w4dpxgSWA&NR=1 - the interview is priceless!). The part I love best about the picture is that the girls on either side of him don’t even have a speck of blood on them – that goose was going for Fabio and Fabio only.
Who would choose a Harlequin model when you could have Kirk?
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Photos
No real post tonight - just a note to say I am playing with the slideshow at the top right section of the page and learning just how technically illiterate I truly am. I will add more photos once I figure this out, and will try to add captions also.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
A Crappy Week
The past few days have been difficult. On Tuesday (or maybe Monday – I can’t remember) I talked to the DA’s office. Not the actual DA though - one of the Victim’s Assistance reps. They confirmed that the case has finally arrived in the DA’s office and is in what they call the “intake” stage. My suspicion is that this is a fancy word for “it’s in a massive pile of untouched files on the new guy’s desk.” She says that they will be reviewing the case to decide for sure what they will charge him with, and also working on any holes in the case that have to be shored up in order to go to the grand jury. I asked her if we will have an opportunity to have any input to this part of the process. The answer is no. The DA does not meet with the family until after the grand jury phase. I asked her how I keep informed about the status of the case, and she said she could make a note in the file that I want to be notified when the case is scheduled for grand jury, and what charges they plan to bring. (Isn’t it insane that I would not automatically be told these things? What family that lost their husband, son, father, brother, would not want to know what charge they decide on and when it is going to the grand jury?) I told her I did want to be notified, and asked when is the earliest I would expect to hear about those things. She told me the end of September or early October is the very earliest, and it might not be that soon. I asked her if that means it would actually go in front of the grand jury then, or if that is just when a date would be set for the grand jury. She said that the actual grand jury proceeding would not happen then – that is just when it would be put on the calendar for some future date.
I know this is how things work, but it is so frustrating. If the police department that had responsibility for the accident reconstruction just would have done their job in a timely way, so much more progress could have been made by now. I am so sick of waiting to be someone’s priority. This is not a big city we are talking about - these are small towns that have very few, if any, criminal deaths in a year. I just don’t understand what is more important than the fact that he died – that someone killed him. Barking dogs? Auto thefts? Shoplifting? When is it Kirk's turn to be first on someone’s list? How horrible of an event does it take to be the top priority?
I just want it to be his turn, my turn, for someone to say “this is what I am going to spend my time on today.” I don’t understand what is more important. Do they just do this in chronological order? Does an ATM break-in that happened the day before he died come first? Shouldn’t there be some priority given based on what the crime was? I try to think through it logically – what crime is worse than killing someone? Rape? Horrible, but not worse than dead. Child abuse? I feel terrible for thinking this, but it’s still not dead. DEAD. Think about it - what could be worse than dead? There are terrible things done to people, but in the end, what victim would choose death over survival? If the answer is that in the end we would all choose to survive even the worst injury, doesn’t that mean that the person who is dead has suffered the worst crime of all, and should at least be closer to the top of the list than he seems to be?
When they told me I won’t even get an update for at least a month I couldn’t stand it. I felt like a two year old having a temper tantrum inside – me me me me me me. I have waited long enough - I have no more patience. Kirk was taken from us and it should be our turn to feel like someone cares. He deserves to be someone’s first concern - all the other victims can wait. Unless they are dead too, in which case they also deserve attention, especially if they died before him.
I know that some who read this may be more familiar with the justice system than I am. Please don’t try to help me understand – I know there are probably good reasons for what is happening. This is emotion again, not logic.
Also this week, I found a grief support group. I have not been feeling like I was ready for that, or needed it quite yet – I have just needed to focus on getting through each day. But in the last few weeks I have been breathing a little easier and decided it is time to try. I don’t want one-one-one counseling at this point. Mainly because I am so sick of “interviewing” people to help me. I have already had to deal with meeting multiple lawyers, financial planners, etc., so I can pick some who are a good match for me. I still haven’t found a financial planner. When I think about having to find the right counselor, I imagine having to tell the story over and over until I find the right one. It’s just too much. So I signed up for a group instead. It starts in October. The person who runs it seems good – we talked on the phone today. But talking to her brought it all out again. There have been fewer tears in the past few weeks, but this week, between talking to the DA’s office and the grief support lady, the tears just came out again and again.
I don’t understand where the calmness went. During the first week after he died – the very hardest week yet – I was so shocked and sad, and yet inside me, there was a calmness, a sense of peace. It was like a solid feeling inside me that it would all be all right in the end, because it was worth it. The marriage, the love, the children, the happiness, the ordinary daily life – the sum of these things was so good that even though it was shattered, the goodness was worth any amount of pain. As devastated as I was, I was literally filled with that thought, and it brought me incredible peace. It was like a rock inside me – something to cling to, to make even the worst thing “okay” in a way. There was a quiet place inside me that even in the grief said, “That’s all you get to have of him, but it was so great it’s okay to only have gotten that much.” It literally helped me keep breathing. But after about the two week mark, it disappeared. Not the feeling that it was worth it – that has never ever wavered, not even for a moment. But where is the peace it brought?
I am worried (as always) that I am not being clear and that what I’m saying will be misunderstood. It WAS worth it. I WOULD do it again. But the comfort inside me is gone. Instead, the “it was worth it” makes me sad, and hungry for more of him. I want the rest of what I should have had – the arguments we had not yet had about whether I called when I should have, the meals he had not yet cooked, the vacations we had not yet taken, the Seinfeld episodes we had not yet watched for the twentieth time. I want the next thirty years, not just the last thirty. The gratitude that was keeping me afloat is not working anymore. It’s still there, but where is the peace that used to come with it? When the last few weeks were emotionally calmer, I thought it would come back. I thought that maybe the confusion and challenge of the last few months had just temporarily blocked it, and that with my emotions getting a little quieter, it would come back. But it didn’t. I could sure use that peace now, when life seems to be getting tougher again.
The next post – I PROMISE – will be happier. I need a break from all this crappiness.
I know this is how things work, but it is so frustrating. If the police department that had responsibility for the accident reconstruction just would have done their job in a timely way, so much more progress could have been made by now. I am so sick of waiting to be someone’s priority. This is not a big city we are talking about - these are small towns that have very few, if any, criminal deaths in a year. I just don’t understand what is more important than the fact that he died – that someone killed him. Barking dogs? Auto thefts? Shoplifting? When is it Kirk's turn to be first on someone’s list? How horrible of an event does it take to be the top priority?
I just want it to be his turn, my turn, for someone to say “this is what I am going to spend my time on today.” I don’t understand what is more important. Do they just do this in chronological order? Does an ATM break-in that happened the day before he died come first? Shouldn’t there be some priority given based on what the crime was? I try to think through it logically – what crime is worse than killing someone? Rape? Horrible, but not worse than dead. Child abuse? I feel terrible for thinking this, but it’s still not dead. DEAD. Think about it - what could be worse than dead? There are terrible things done to people, but in the end, what victim would choose death over survival? If the answer is that in the end we would all choose to survive even the worst injury, doesn’t that mean that the person who is dead has suffered the worst crime of all, and should at least be closer to the top of the list than he seems to be?
When they told me I won’t even get an update for at least a month I couldn’t stand it. I felt like a two year old having a temper tantrum inside – me me me me me me. I have waited long enough - I have no more patience. Kirk was taken from us and it should be our turn to feel like someone cares. He deserves to be someone’s first concern - all the other victims can wait. Unless they are dead too, in which case they also deserve attention, especially if they died before him.
I know that some who read this may be more familiar with the justice system than I am. Please don’t try to help me understand – I know there are probably good reasons for what is happening. This is emotion again, not logic.
Also this week, I found a grief support group. I have not been feeling like I was ready for that, or needed it quite yet – I have just needed to focus on getting through each day. But in the last few weeks I have been breathing a little easier and decided it is time to try. I don’t want one-one-one counseling at this point. Mainly because I am so sick of “interviewing” people to help me. I have already had to deal with meeting multiple lawyers, financial planners, etc., so I can pick some who are a good match for me. I still haven’t found a financial planner. When I think about having to find the right counselor, I imagine having to tell the story over and over until I find the right one. It’s just too much. So I signed up for a group instead. It starts in October. The person who runs it seems good – we talked on the phone today. But talking to her brought it all out again. There have been fewer tears in the past few weeks, but this week, between talking to the DA’s office and the grief support lady, the tears just came out again and again.
I don’t understand where the calmness went. During the first week after he died – the very hardest week yet – I was so shocked and sad, and yet inside me, there was a calmness, a sense of peace. It was like a solid feeling inside me that it would all be all right in the end, because it was worth it. The marriage, the love, the children, the happiness, the ordinary daily life – the sum of these things was so good that even though it was shattered, the goodness was worth any amount of pain. As devastated as I was, I was literally filled with that thought, and it brought me incredible peace. It was like a rock inside me – something to cling to, to make even the worst thing “okay” in a way. There was a quiet place inside me that even in the grief said, “That’s all you get to have of him, but it was so great it’s okay to only have gotten that much.” It literally helped me keep breathing. But after about the two week mark, it disappeared. Not the feeling that it was worth it – that has never ever wavered, not even for a moment. But where is the peace it brought?
I am worried (as always) that I am not being clear and that what I’m saying will be misunderstood. It WAS worth it. I WOULD do it again. But the comfort inside me is gone. Instead, the “it was worth it” makes me sad, and hungry for more of him. I want the rest of what I should have had – the arguments we had not yet had about whether I called when I should have, the meals he had not yet cooked, the vacations we had not yet taken, the Seinfeld episodes we had not yet watched for the twentieth time. I want the next thirty years, not just the last thirty. The gratitude that was keeping me afloat is not working anymore. It’s still there, but where is the peace that used to come with it? When the last few weeks were emotionally calmer, I thought it would come back. I thought that maybe the confusion and challenge of the last few months had just temporarily blocked it, and that with my emotions getting a little quieter, it would come back. But it didn’t. I could sure use that peace now, when life seems to be getting tougher again.
The next post – I PROMISE – will be happier. I need a break from all this crappiness.
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