About an hour and a half after I posted last week’s blog where my P.S. said Randy was knocking on heaven’s door that morning, he quietly and peacefully drew his last earthly breath. I’m glad St Peter, or whoever is in charge of gatekeeping up there, didn’t make him stand knocking for hours and hours and hours.
I thought I’d be away from this blog for a while, but as I lay in bed Monday morning, slowly coming awake, I had a thought in what I call my twilight. I’ve mentioned my twilight many times before here at 68andcounting.com.
In my twilight I’m in a theta state of sleep, a deeply relaxed mental state where the brain waves operate at a frequency of between 4-8 Hz. Theta is often described as the gateway to the subconscious. Those who study such things believe theta to be the ideal space for mental healing, intuition, and processing complex emotions. Over the years I’ve learned to trust those twilight messages.
The message I received Monday was that I should use this blog as a journal as I navigate the next few years learning how to live without Randy in my day-to-day life. Many of you might be saying, “Well, duh!”
It’s always been my intent to keep 68andCounting.com a positive upbeat web space. I keep you informed about bad news or difficult situations here, but I don’t dwell on them. That’s not how I live my life. I deal with them; I don’t dwell on them. Now I find myself in uncharted waters. Losing Randy is a situation I can feel is going to take much longer to deal with than recovering from a tornado or a hurricane.
A few weeks ago I posted a story of God Winks Randy and I noticed since his cancer diagnosis. There have been many more since then. I know I should be writing them down somewhere, but I haven’t formed that habit and truthfully, my brain is astonishingly muddled, something I never foresaw and don’t like one bit. This blog, because I’m conditioned to write weekly, is the perfect place to record what I encounter in the journey the world calls grief.
I’ve said here before my intent is to celebrate and honor everything we’ve had over the 57 years we’ve known each other (married 50 years for those who may be new here). I see no value in mourning what we’ve lost when there’s so much to celebrate. That doesn’t mean there won’t be times when I’m sad. I will still cry a lot. I will miss Randy terribly. But I don’t intend to dwell there. He wouldn’t want that for me, I don’t want that for me, and I certainly don’t want that for you, dear readers.
One of the most exciting God Winks this week was a friend suggestion that popped up in my Facebook feed. It was for the woman who swooped in with her credit card and paid for my souvenir from the Women’s Military Memorial on Honor Flight. She was the photographer on our bus on the Honor Flight and seemed to be everywhere I was that day.
She accepted my friend request and next morning the first thing I saw on Facebook was this post on her page:
I sent her a message saying: “I sense there’s a story here. Would you be willing to share?”
She answered me right back, explaining (I’m giving you the nutshell version) she and her husband were my and Randy’s twin on an Honor Flight a year and a half earlier. Her husband died of cancer 2 weeks after the Honor Flight. We talked about several things and had a cool idea about why God’s thrown us together right now. I think Debbie is going to be very important in my life. I’m sure you’ll hear much more about her in the coming months.
I still don’t think I’ve processed Randy’s gone. I haven’t been alone in the house for one minute since he died a week ago this morning. And I’m grateful for that right now. My friends were here all day last Tuesday until I picked up my mother, brother, and sister from the airport on Tuesday evening. I took them to the airport on Thursday morning and picked up our niece, Myndi, who came in on the flight they were leaving on.
Yesterday Myndi and I met my sister Lisa in Naples for lunch where I had an oncologist appointment of my own. This month is the one year anniversary of my mastectomy. I was given the “all good” and made another follow-up appointment for 4 months from now. On the way home from Naples, we picked up Randy’s sister, Lynn, who is also my best friend. She will be here until we drive back to Missouri together for Randy’s Celebration of Life in late June.
I imagine when I return home and come into the empty house for the first time, it’s going to hit me like a ton of bricks. Until then I can try to prepare mentally for that. I don’t know how right now, but I’m going to do my best to figure it out and do as much as I can to minimize the pain I know is ahead.
Randy’s spirit lives on. This week the number one job is to choose 20 or so of my favorite photos of him, alive and happy, active and smiling, get them printed and scatter them through the house. I need to get the image of him in his last days out of my head. He ended well, without complaint, anger, or rancor, but I want my visual memories of him to be vibrant and funny and healthy. Something like this.
It would mean a lot if you hung with me on this journey. Let’s just keep celebrating Randy and what we had. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll stop thinking about what we’ve lost.
P.S. Randy’s Celebration of Life will be at Heartland Worship Center in Camdenton on June 24 at 6 pm. Come prepared to tell your favorite Randy Grathen story. Please let me know if you plan to attend so we can make sure there’s enough food. If you knew Randy you know how much he LOVED to feed people.
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