We moved into the cottage in Mohegan Lake just in time for a half foot of snow.
We quickly discovered that there was no insulation in the walls and the furnace barely worked.
Jim installed both a wood burning stove and a gorgeous fireplace..without consulting the landlord. We were Freezing!
I cleared the tiny front porch with a saucepan and Jimmy did the cars with a broom.
I don't live there anymore, but I can find myself there without warning.
I can choose to go inside or sit with my back to the cool stones and think about how blessed we were, how very lucky, so many ways, for so long. To remember the good times, the laughter, the music and the love.
I close my eyes and the wise gatekeeper, a handsome fellow with brown eyes, winks at me and says "Busy yourself babe. There's time enough, in time."
I'll have to get with Rob and ask him where this was. Some biker thing in Middletown I think. It has to be around the time of our wedding because this same girl was Rob's guest at the wedding. Despite the "yeah, yeah keep yapping, woman" look on Jimmy's face he was listening to and remembering every thing I was saying. It took a while for me to learn that about him. I could get away with nothing.
I've
decided to close this blog with our beginnings because there's no end
to love. Thanks to all the friends and family who have been so kind
and compassionate all these months.
Sometime
in the spring of '76 he left this on the windshield of my car because
he knew I needed a hug but couldn't give me one. He kept on tryin'.
By
Christmas the same year, we'd made our plans to spend our lives
together.
Between these two events, love caught two people by surprise. The Knight rescued the damsel from the ogre's castle. They taught each other the dance of life and lived happily ever after.
Christmas was always a very special day for us beyond the secular and religious holiday. It was the day we declared our love for each other, the day we made it official. Jimmy said "It might be Jesus' birthday, but this is Our day."
This is our first married Christmas at the shack on Baker Street. We spoiled each other with silly things and toys. I have no clue who took this picture.
A robe fit for a king for him and a "practice" little monster for me. Lots of new music for both of us. Posters to color. books. crystals, tools, tarot cards and other magical things. We were each other's child this year.
For dinner, a surprise. He hung a sheet over the doorway to the kitchen so I wouldn't know what he was up to. Then he hand breaded and fried an entire pound of popcorn shrimp because he couldn't get any large ones.
There were a few that were pretty dark and crispy but I loved every one of them because of all the love and trouble he went to.
Another singular talent and voice lost to us. This song was one of Jim's favorites.
We saw John Sebastian perform this song live at the Westchester Dinner theater, another magical, musical evening. His band was stranded in a snowstorm somewhere and he came out and played alone and charmed all of us.
I wonder how many people remember what a big deal Saturday Night Live was back in the day? If we went anywhere on a saturday night, we had to get home in time to see what the hell was going to happen next. The live show was sometimes a car wreck. I clearly remember watching this episode with Jimmy and declaring that he, Joe Cocker and John Belushi all used the same hairdresser. He agreed.
Jimmy was one of those guys who had many more bad hair days than good ones. Long hair was a lot of work, hence the ever present bandana.
No matter, I always thought it was sexy. It was a bigger shock to me than Jim when he decided enough was enough and cut it some time between Colin and Jake. Long or short, he always let his freak flag fly.
This was our last Thanksgiving together spent at Missy's Dad's house in the north Georgia mountains.
The kids had just announced their engagement and Don and Jim did what fathers of the impending bride and groom do - congratulate each other on the smart choices their kids were making.
We had a wonderful time at a Southern style picnic Thanksgiving.
Yesterday, Bob Ivey, our host at this years Thanksgiving celebration, made the remembrance of our lost loved ones part of the blessing and I was deeply moved and grateful.
It was just like this a year ago, the morning Jimmy left us. November rain and tears.
I've been ducking this post. I could spend hours trying to be eloquent and only come around to the same essence of the thing, how much he has been, and will continue to be missed.
I know that Jimmy admired my strength and independence, but he was always there ready to hand me his bandana and hug me when he knew, often before I did, that I would cry over something and he would not tease me for it. I know he would give me free pass this day. He was my husband, my friend, my heart and soul, and I will miss him until we begin again.
Jimmy had to get parental permission to enlist because he was not yet 18. He was very proud of his service in the 82nd Airborne.
Imagine the mindset of a seventeen year old back then; the Vietnam War was winding down, but still - Jumping out of perfectly good airplanes any chance he got. Ever the thrill seeker!
This was at jump school graduation. We were married just about three years after this picture was taken and I know that if sport parachuting hadn't been so damn expensive he would have been pulling me out of an open plane door except for the fact that my mother lied to him and told him I had a heart condition. I don't. I have the heart of an ox with an odd beat is all. It was her heart that she was worried about. He never told me any of this until many years had passed.
While I was driving through the dark this morning to spend the day with my grandson a very fine piece of music came on the radio and ahead, the horizon started showing signs of blue as I drove into the sunrise, still an hour away. Everyone else was heading in the other direction, headlights blazing. I was grateful for my life on a handful of levels all at once . I had a birthday the other day. It's the last of the special days, the holidays to pass since we lost Jimmy. A day does not go by that I don't miss him and cry, but then I stop myself and remember how, whenever I thanked him for something – and the opportunities to do so were endless – he would say “My pleasure” and I got to thinking how he honestly took great pleasure in making me happy; doing little things for me, bringing me unexpected treats, little, simple and inexpensive but so full of thought and consideration.
No matter what you believe, or not, about an afterlife, I know that our lost loved ones live on in our hearts and we owe it to their lasting, loving memories to take pleasure in the smallest things that we can still experience. To love life.
As I appreciate that coming dawn, smell the fresh morning air, and hold Charlie cuddled close I know that everything and every moment that I cherish, is a result of the life and love that I spent with Jimmy. A long time ago I wrote that “...after all, his heartbeat is mine too.” My pleasure is still his.
So, those of you who might find yourself alone and in despair, find small ways to be good to yourself and take pleasure in life. Your darlings would have it no other way.
I think everyone pays less and less attention to birthdays as time goes on. We sure tried to.
When you have everything you need and most of what you want on a daily basis, it's hard to answer that perennial question, "What do you want for your birthday?" We both invariably said things like "tires!" or "work boots" and then came up with sweet things like tickets to a Braves game or some new music or book.
Last year my gift was getting home to see that Jim had come down from his sitting room and was getting himself some fresh air and sunshine because I had been bugging him to do so. It was all he could muster and it meant the world to me right then. Still does.
He also got me the best greeting cards and made a point of getting both a sincere one and a funny one.
I'm thinking about the funny ones today. I know the jokes about being officially *O*L*D* would be as rich and full of love as the sentimental ones. As long as we have been together,I have been blessed to be his old lady.
I wrote this post back in the spring..somehow it never got posted. Nothing has changed.
They
say that in time, in time the hollow space will become smaller.
Yesterday
I went out to do a few errands; stuff that could have waited, but I
needed to drive with the windows down. There is a convertible in my
future, no doubt a used POS but still, a rag top.
I was
out for a while, stopped here, there, missed an exit and wandered
around for a while, as always, but after a few hours I began to
feel like I had forgotten something, that something was missing.
Then
I realized that it was the phone call. No call from Jimmy checking up
on me, making sure that I was OK, asking me to pick something up -
really it was just an excuse to hear each others voices, these phone
calls.
My friends made fun of me sometimes, but the best friends just
accepted that no matter where I went or what I was doing, Jimmy would
be along for the ride. I missed him awful yesterday and had to sit a
while and cry and remind and convince myself that he was
with me heart and soul. I am beginning to fully accept crazy as a
valid state of mind.
I heard the soundtrack for this before I saw the movie and Colin was right - Jimmy had a direct hand in picking the music!
The first house we lived in was on Baker Street in Mohegan Lake, NY. A very seedy little converted summer cottage on a street with more of the same. We didn't have much, but we had some bitchin' big speakers and rocked them day and night.
Every payday, Jim would go to the record store and bring home four or five unlikely items from the dollar bin. I clearly remember him flicking the shrink wrap off of "Blue Swede" and putting it on the turn table.
When the "Ooga-chaka-ooga-chaka" came booming out of the speakers we cranked it up high and bounced around the living room until the record skipped and the neighbor across the street started screaming that she was going to call the police. As there was no contraband nor rebels in the crawlspace that week, we opened the windows and played it again only louder.
He also bought an album called "The Big Whakoo" including "Love is the Sweetest Amnesty", an acapella ballad so beautiful I wanted it for a wedding song, but we didn't have that kind of wedding. That same day also brought us Ian Matthew's "Tigers Will Survive". These last two were favorites for both of us all these years. It was a very good Friday in the dollar bin and we only got a friendly warning.
And now the "Awesome Mix" from the Guardians of the Galaxy is just making my heart smile, all of that music taking me back in time.
Love is the sweetest amnesty
Floats like a cloud between the sky and sea
I'll give it to you
Could you please give it to me
Now we can talk,now we can see
If we disagree we do it honestly
Let our lovin' be the sweetest amnesty
Love is the sweetest amnesty
Given by the power that let us be
I'll give it to you
Could you please give it to me, 'cause I need you
Now we can talk, now we can see
If we disagree, we can do it honestly
Let our lovin' be the sweetest amnesty
Between you and me
There's bound to be love and rejection
Our spirits dressed in mystery
Speak solely through affection
Love is the sweetest amnesty
Floats like a cloud between the sky and sea
I'll give it to you
Could you please give it to me
We can talk, we can see
If we disagree, we can do it honestly
Let our lovin' be the sweetest amnesty
Let our lovin' be the sweetest amnesty
The sweetest amnesty
The sweetest amnesty
I wonder how many New Yorkers have had to let all their fond memories of the Twin Towers fade away in the face of the devastation and sorrow of 9-11?
What a small thing our personal memories are. And yet, they remain. I am sure there were a lot of romantic dinners, proposals, maybe even wedding receptions held at Windows on the World over the years. It had just opened when our romance began.
Jimmy had a worker's compensation hearing at the WTC and we spent the day together in the city. A native New Yorker, tall buildings were no novelty to him. Even these, but this country girl was impressed.
We were standing at a bank of of windows looking out into the hazy summer view when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the other tower was coming in and then out of my line of sight. It took a moment to register that I was seeing that both towers actually moved a good bit from side to side with the winds.
When I figured out what I was seeing I almost jumped out of my skin and was queasy. Jimmy laughed and pulled me away from the windows and said
"Just breathe." We had already been on two dates where he learned about my propensity for throwing up- the Teacup ride at Playland and again at a carnival when the operator reversed the Ferris wheel. He was so sweet about it.
He was right. I splashed water on my face from a drinking fountain, felt better and we headed for the elevators, but he had another idea. He pulled me into one of the local service elevators and hit the stop button. We never even thought about whether there were cameras in the elevators - these were innocent times and we were in love.
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