I looked through some journals last year and tore out pages of writing and poems I wanted to keep, re-wrote them in a notebook, and also typed these entries into the computer. Why these three, I don't know. Here they are.
Evening 27 January 2009
My house smells so good right now. I made two loaves of bread this morning and
realized that I had really missed that wonderful died-and-gone-to-heaven smell.
I was tired, mostly from decision
making - rather than my “hard labor” - and took a long, smelly, soaking, bath,
then put on my gown and housedress and purple shawl and stretched out in the
recliner. A two-hour nap and now I guess
I’ll be up pretty late.
The geese are flying right over my
head and pretty low. I saw the strangest
thing yesterday afternoon, while it was snowing.
I had stepped out to get the mail and
heard all this squeaking, like a room full of mice. Looking up I saw two flocks of geese, one
very large - about 60 or 70 birds - and a smaller one of about 15 birds. They were all squawking - not honking - and
going round in a circle.
I had the impression that they were
calling to the smaller group to join them as they circled and waited, intending
to fly together for protection against the storm.
The pond at the college has been
frozen over since the weekend and with the sleet and snow, I guess they were
having a tough time finding shelter.
I stood outside abut 15 minutes
watching them and was nearly frozen, myself, by the time I came in, but it was
worth it to watch.
Last night when I went to bed it was
so bright out that it was as though the sun couldn’t quite set. It was a new moon so all the lights were
man-made - reflecting off of clouds and snow.
I could have walked anywhere outdoors and felt safe. I pulled open the curtains and laid down.
Saturday,
the 14th of February, 2009
Valentine’s Day
It’s been a long and strange and
lonesome day. Steve and I always
exchanged Valentines and he usually brought me flowers or sometimes candy, or
both.
It’s also the second anniversary of
the day he went into Presbyterian Hospital to get ready for the transplant.
-Break here to dry the tears.-
I guess I think of this as the
beginning of the end. What we hoped
would be a successful procedure turned out to be what led to his death.
I’ve puttered a bit - flower seeds
needed sorting. Most of them say 2005 on
them. What a long time ago that was!
I made cinnamon apple pancakes for
supper and cleaned out the freezer. I
sure have a lot of soup bones to use up.
Matthew is on his first Boy Scout
Campout this weekend. The makes me cry,
too. It guess it’s a weepy weekend.
Uncle John Fields died in
January. The same day as Jim Barton -
both on Thursday. Their funerals were
the same day, too, on Sunday, February 1st. Barry took me to both.
We had a tornado Tuesday afternoon,
from Yukon to Edmond to Guthrie. What a
way to start Spring - a month early.
Friday,
September 24, 2009
At least I think that’s the date - it
is Friday.
Monday we all went to the Fair to see
if the kids won ribbons on their entries.
Matthew had the only first place ribbon this time - on Welshcakes of all
things!
The day after my birthday was the day
two years ago that Steve went into the hospital for the last three weeks of his
life. I’m
still at the point of re-living - rather than just remembering - those weeks
and want to do it by myself.
One of the things I’ve thought through and come to a
decision about is what to do with Steve’s ashes. While working on the family history, I’ve
thought that his family was very important to Steve. I’m going to scatter a bit of ash at
cemeteries: Alta and James Berry’s graves, Auntie and Uncle Lafe’s graves,
Margie’s grave, Clint’s grave, Jim and Lora Chandler’s graves. Doing that will free my mind a bit.
I’m driving to Ada this morning. I was surprised - actually astonished - to
learn a few years ago that Steve didn’t remember much about our 3 and a half
years living there. We had gone down to
look the town over and see how much it had changed. Steve couldn’t even remember how to get to
the two houses we lived in. He had spent
so much time each day on the jobs that he was hardly ever at home.
What an eye-opener that was!
