Have you ever watched a dog go to sleep? They lay down and 5 minutes later, they’re dead to the world.

I go to bed and my mind races from one thing to another, things I should have said or done, things I need to do tomorrow, or should do... with a dog on each side of me in the bed, snoring blissfully.

I miss David. As bad as things have gotten over the past few years, I always knew that if something happened, he would be there for support. All marriages have ups and downs. Anyone going into one thinking it’s going to be ‘happily ever after’ is extremely naive. No matter how much you love each other, life intrudes and throws obstacles in your way. But there is a bond, you’re a pair supporting each other. That support is gone now. I have my boys, family, friends, and most of all, I have my God for support. But it’s not the same. There’s a hole in my life, one that I haven’t had for 30 years.

OK, I give up on doing beads today. The first one had scum and bubbles from CIM clear. I don’t know why I even try using that stuff. Then social security called while I was making the next one (you don’t exactly tell the government to hang on while you finish torching), so that one is ruined. So I’m throwing my hands up in the air, and I’m going to go get Lukas up and give him a shower. While I was cleaning last night I came across a book, Jo-Ann’s Your Guide to Creativity. Maybe I’ll browse through that and get some inspiration.

It’s strange how we all cope with death, even animals. K.C. (Kitty Cat. What can I say? We were running low on imagination when we named her.) has been a family room cat. That was where she spent all of her time, along with David. Not that he ever petted or talked to her (other than swearing at her when she threw up on his DVD player). That’s just where she spent her days.

The day after David died, some friends from the Kingdom Hall came over, and I was surprised to see her walk through the living room with them there. K.C. has always been a very shy cat. Later in the evening, some more friends from the Hall were over, and she walked through the living room again, and Patti actually petted her. I was surprised! Since then she’s been showing up all over the place. Now she sleeps in the living room, and this morning she came to visit me in the bathroom and we discussed the state of affairs in the world today. She was quite vocal about the weather being so dreary.

I just would never have thought of her bonding to David. He was not an animal person, although he would talk to them occasionally and enjoyed teasing Pip with a stuffed snake (she hates it and when anyone shows it to her, she attacks it).

As I mentioned, it’s quite dreary and dark here today. I’m struggling to get the energy to do something besides sit and stare at the computer. I’ve been making beads this past week, but just simple earring pairs that are just mindless to-do work. I need to find something that will pull me out of this. Hopefully the boys will make it up this weekend. I miss them.

Official cause of death, multisystem organ failure caused by sepsis syndrome.

After the resurrection, I’m going to box his ears for not saying anything about not feeling good.

One week. 7 days. So much change in so few days. It hits me most at night when I’m trying to get to sleep. Good memories, bad ones, what-if’s, maybe’s, what I need to do.

Christian picked up David’s ashes from the funeral home yesterday. In case I haven’t mentioned it, David had a very quirky sense of humor. He told his sister, Kelly, that when he died, he wanted his ashes spread on Medicine Lake down in the cities. That’s where they grew up, and he would go fishing there. He told her that it was so toxic that he would probably come back. So part of his ashes are going to Kelly, who has said she’s going to put some of them in the back yard with Connie, their sister who died a couple of years ago. The other part of his ashes are going into a container, and this summer, money permitting, I’m going to go out west with Lukas and my nephews. David was afraid of heights, which I didn’t know when we went on our honeymoon. We went out to Yellowstone on motorcycles, and I took him over Beartooth Pass. I love the mountains, but it was the worst place I could have taken him. It took 15 years to get him to go back out west again, and then we went through the Big Horns in Wyoming, and the brakes overheated on the way down. He absolutely refused to go after that. So when I drive through the mountains in my RV, his ashes are going to be on the dash, and I can say he went to the mountains with me and wasn’t afraid of my driving.

My sister told me that even though there wouldn’t be a viewing, to take some of his favorite clothes along with to the funeral home when we went there to make arrangements last week. I was going through the closet to find a T-shirt, and came across one, and thought he would have loved to give someone one last laugh. The T-shirt read, ‘I’m really excited to be here.’

See, his sense of humor rubbed off on me. That’s the part I missed so much of these last few years.

But life goes on. I’m finding little freedoms. Living with an alcoholic is being in a prison, no matter how nice the person seems to be to others. Enough said.

Lukas is doing OK. He misses David, but he has so many friends at the Kingdom Hall who care for him. I do too. Christian is the one I worry about. He’s too much like me, at heart a hermit. Once spring gets closer, I’ll be able to start getting back to meetings, and I’ll be able to get him to go to the Thursday night meetings. He needs people, no matter how much he thinks he doesn’t.

It’s snowing here. But I’ve got amaryllis bulbs flowering, paperwhites, hyacinths, and my orchid is still blooming. And my birds are busy on the feeders.

One week, 7 days. This time last week I was coming to the realization that I was being faced with a decision that I had always thought would be easy, pulling the plug. The doctor gave me just the faintest hope, and I couldn’t do it. Not yet.

My nephews couldn’t make it up Saturday. I miss them and the kids. Some very dear friends came over and spent the morning, though. Cindy helped clean off the kitchen table, which is where David always sat to watch TV, and Peggy cleaned out his coffee pot, and the guys visited with Lukas.

I am so proud of Christian. Yesterday he didn’t even wake me up from my nap when Lukas went to the bathroom and needed to be wiped. I am so glad I have my boys. I used to tease Christian that when he became a teenager that he was going to turn into a monster, but he never did. And Lukas... once when I had to take off from work to run him down to St. Paul for a doctor’s appointment, he thanked me for taking off from work. A 14 yr. old thanking mom for something like that. I almost cried. How can you not do anything for a son like that?

I am truly blessed.

5 days. Tonight it will be a week since we called the ambulance.

I’m starting to become un-numbed (is that a word?). Is that normal after less than a week?

One thing that surprises me is how I so fell to pieces, and how much grief I’ve felt this past week, considering how things have been between us the last couple of years. I think my sister had it right when she said it was realizing the might-be’s, the chances of changing things are gone now. That and saying goodbye to the might-have-been’s.

It’s no consolation, but I’m following family tradition. My mother was widowed in her 30s and both of my grandmothers and my sister in their 40s. At least I made it to my 50s.

I’ve mentioned David had a wicked sense of humor? When we first started dating, he loved to shock me. Once he took me to a topless bar (without telling me what kind of bar it was), and another time he took me to a bar in St. Paul where they had a dance talent contest. It wasn’t until we’d been there for a while that he told me the dancers were transvestites. I still can’t figure out how they could wear such revealing clothes (tight low-cut dresses, envision Tina Turner) and look so like women. For goodness sakes, this was before sex changes and hormones.

Yup, that was my hubby.