I love you...

I love you.

You are good to me.

I enjoy the person that you are.

You give me new reason to enjoy each day.

You are my listening ear, and my shoulder to cry on.

You understand my humor, and laugh with me!!!!

Because of you, I am finding ME again! :)

As we work together, we gain strength.

You are my light in a dark world.

You are my sweet friend.

I love you.

Arthur's Birthday Present

There was an air show in town this weekend. What better present for Plane Nut Arthur than a ride on a vintage WWII 2 engine airplane? Happy 58th Birthday Arthur!

Arthur was allowed to sit in the co pilot's seat... he even got to wear the headphones! (Not pictured unfortunately.)Taken from outside the plane.



This is the plane!Some pretty scenery... shows some of the houses in the neighborhoods by our house.



John Henry went, too. I think he liked it!! :) Shelby and I stayed safely on the ground, thank you very much.After their flight we all had lunch at the Runway Cafe. The burgers were great! I think Arthur had a great time.

OH NO!!! My BIG 5-OH!

OK, now I get to start counting backward!

Shelby's science project

This is a "Rube Goldberg" project, designed to use the most difficult means possible to turn off a light bulb.

Shelby designed it, and Shelby and Arthur put it together. Shelby's report on this project is below:

(click on the image to run the project) This is a VIDEO!!!...




WHO IS RUBE GOLDBERG?
Report by Shelby Waller

Rube Goldberg won the Pulitzer Prize for his cartoons. He was also a sculptor and an author.

Reuben Lucius Goldberg (Rube Goldberg) was born in San Francisco. His father was very practical and his father thought that it was necessary that Rube should go to college and become and engineer. Rube ended up going to the University of California Berkeley. After graduation he worked for the City of San Francisco as an engineer. He worked in the Water and Sewers Department.

Rube always was drawing, and after six months convinced his father that he had to work as an artist. He got a job in an office at a San Francisco newspaper. He worked in the sports department. He kept turning in his illustrations and cartoons to his editor, until they finally made it into the newspaper. A wonderful accomplishment, he moved from San Francisco to New York. He began illustrating daily cartoons for the Evening Mail. A founder of the National Cartoonist Society, a political cartoonist and a Pulitzer Prize winner, Rube was a loved national character as well as a radio and television personality during his sixty-year career.

Through his inventions, Rube Goldberg invented hard ways to get easy results. His drawings were elements of man's accommodation for using maximum effort to achieve minimal results. He believed that there were two ways to do things: the simple way and the hard way, and that a surprising number of people preferred doing things the hard way.

Rube’s inventions will withstand time because he gave importance to simple human needs and admired basic human values. He was sometimes hesitating about technology, which added to making his own inventions full of human, plant, and animal parts. While most machines work to make difficult tasks simple, his inventions made simple tasks amazingly complex. Dozens of arms, wheels, gears, handles, cups, and rods were put in motion by balls, canary cages, pails, boots, bathtubs, paddles, and live animals for simple tasks like squeezing an orange for juice or closing a window in case it should start to rain before one gets home.

Rube's cartoons show absurd machines working in extremely complex and roundabout ways to produce a simple end result; because of this Rube Goldberg has become connected with any bizarre system of achieving a basic task. Rube's inventions are a unique comment on life's complications. They show a humorous diversion into the absurd parodies of the wonders of technology. Rube's funny send-ups of man's ingenuity strike a deep and lasting chord with today's audience through caught in a high-tech revolution are still seeking simplicity.

Hardly a day goes by without The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal or some other major media invoking the name Rube Goldberg to describe a wildly complex program, system or set of rules such as our "Rube Goldberg-like tax system". The annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at Purdue University, which is covered widely by the national media, brings Rube's comic inventions to life for millions of fans.

The work of Rube Goldberg continues to connect with both an adult audience well versed in the promise and pitfalls of modern technology (can anyone over 40 program their VCR?) as well as younger fans intrigued by the creativity and possibility of invention.BR>

Congratulations Kelly!

A big Hooray for the Graduate!!

Three years today...

Can't believe it. Incredible. Where did my old life go? I am content, but teary at the same time??? What in the heck is going on with me??? I don't like this. I hate this.

Yesterday the kids and I watched an old video that had been lost. I found it while cleaning our a drawer. The video was from 1995, and had so much footage of Andy that I had forgotten. Him feeding baby John Henry, wrestling with the kids, etc etc... did that life ever exist? Even the kids have changed. I love them dearly but my babies are gone, never to return.

My present life is good, but so was my old life. But that one is gone. Must keep looking forward. Keep going, keep going....

I had some comfort from a happening the other day:

On 2/22 (222?) the pendelum in my anniversary clock stopped spinning. It resumed spinning the next day. That same day, a car passed me on the road with a message in the back window in large red letters: "2222's ain't NUTHIN HARD!"

I probably will sound crazy, but I smelled Polo cologne very strongly in the living room yesterday. That was what Andy wore more than anything.

Other more subtle things have happened during the past few days. Maybe I am just more aware of things because of the date. Maybe they are messages. I don't know...

But I don't think he has forgotten us. I know I haven't forgotten him.

Andy's Personal day of Infamy... 25 years ago today

Twenty five years ago tomorrow, on February 6, 1980 an event occured that directly or indirectly affected so many of those who read my words.

February 6 of 2005 marks the 25th anniversary of the date Andy was hurt in the accident that left him paralyzed.

This event, tragic though it was, helped shape him into the person that I met and fell in love with. Despite his injury, he had learned over the years how to carry on with his life in strength and dignity. I like to think that it also made ME a better person, having known him and having observed the way he lived his life. Whenever I feel like complaining about getting out of bed in the morning, how hard it is to get to work, my headache, or other every day problems, I try to remember how grateful he was for each day. Although life was often a struggle for him, he did whatever he had to do to accomplish something each day. He lived that way from the day I met him, until he drew his last breath.

I just wanted to post my reflections at the quarter-century mark of Andy's personal "Day of Infamy."

Love,
Stephanie

Surreal Moment

I need to post about a very surreal moment I experienced today.

Dinner table, same. Kitchen, updated, but same. Same curtains, same plant in the window I have had for 20 years. Even the same china!

But family??? I am the only one the same from a similar setting 14 years ago. Two different dogs under the table. 3 different faces at the table. The older kids are grown, I am remarried, Andy is dead.

It was a very, very weird feeling. Not even as much sad as STRANGE.

Does this make any sense?

If you don't like the weather in Oklahoma....

...just wait a minute!

This is Wednesday
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 71

This is Friday
Weather: Blizzarding
Temp: 30!

Thoughts about blending a new family

It is infuriating, interesting, and sometimes even comical the way some people think. There are some that behave like a teacher at one of my schools. She was the most thoughtful person in the world! She truly understood my grief, my need to tell the same stories over and over, and was there like a rock for me.

Until... I started seeing Arthur. Then she treated me like I was committing adultery!!

There are others who believe that since Arthur and I are married we have gone back to being a nice, neat little nuclear family. So of course we are healed and never feel sadness about our late spouses. And our kids have a new parent!! Oh how wonderful for them, right??? No more grieving for the lost parent!

"The Brady Bunch, the Brady Bunch! That's the way we became the......."

(HA!)

I thought people were uncomfortable about me talking about Andy BEFORE! Now some are too happy to remind me that "that is all in the past now."

Here is a glimpse of what the older kids feel. My new stepson Matt advised in an email to his dad about being a step parent to my 9 and 13 year old kids:

"Dad, if you really want to make this work try not to be their dad for a while but a friend to them. Don't make them call you 'Dad' or say that you are their new dad. Even if you say that Stephanie is going to be our new mom it sounds stupid, not that we hate her but no one could be our mom again. Try to let them know that their relationship with Stephanie will always be more important than yours and theirs."

A pretty wise 21 year old, if you ask me.

I don't think people are intentionally insensitive, they just want us to be happy again. So now that things outwardly appear to be 'back to normal,' they feel appeased. They have a hard time understanding that happiness must return for us on our OWN terms and within us, not just in the outward picture. Even though much joy has returned, there will always be moments of grief and reflection on the past.

In short, Arthur and I love each other, but we will always have that loss in our history and hearts. So will our children. A new marriage does not make it all better any more than a new car, a new dress, or a vacation to Tahiti would. It is something that we must learn to live with as we keep inching toward that elusive 'new normal.' We must keep on counting all of our blessings, both old AND new.

Rings and Things

Some musings about all my rings...

My right hand proudly wears Andy's wedding band on the index finger, my wedding and anniversary bands on the ring finger, and a Valentines gift ring from him on my pinkie.

I moved my wedding band and anniversary ring from my left hand to my right on the second wedding anniversary after his death. I did that in a slightly melodramatic but satisfying self ceremony at his gravesite.

I still feel good that I kept Andy's wedding band and replaced it with a silver one prior to his burial. We had agreed many years before that neither of us would bury the other with an expensive piece of jewelry. I hated to think of him forever ringless, though... It still surprises me that my widow-brain was able to come up with that idea at the time.

Now, even with new wedding rings on the left representing the present, I take comfort in having the right hand honor my past, and the memories that go with it.

After all, who I am today is made up of the total sum of my life... past and present.

Trip to Austin

Our family took the train to Austin, TX and stayed for 4 days before Christmas. I love the train! Santa even traveled with us, and gave the kids candy canes! :)

This is me, Arthur, Jimmy and Tiffanie. They took us out to eat at an excellent Italian restaurant called Carmello's.

Another Christmas at Doug and Marilyn's

It Must have been the Mistletoe!

The holiday does not seem to be carrying the pain this year that it has for the past couple of years.... so.....

Exactly what WAS it that made me want to recover? How did I open myself up to the possibility of allowing someone new to share my life?

It wasn't any earth shattering revelation. The heavens didn't open up, there was no burning bush or anything! :)

Don't laugh...it was the song “It Must have been the Mistletoe!”

I was at the 10 month stage, still pretty much a baby on the journey, but far enough ahead that I no longer spent every night in a tearful sobbing mess. It was Christmas time, and I did not, DID NOT want Christmas to come that year. Unable to stop it, I put all blue lights on the house to signify “I’ll have a blue Christmas without you.” It was hard getting ready, so hard buying the kids’ presents, just… so hard.

I created a memorial page for my Christmas without Andy. (It is still on here) The kids and I made ornaments with his photo on them at our grief support group. I threw myself into having the holidays be Memorial days. I felt like it should forever be that way, and I was preparing for all my future Christmases.

But one day, the week before the holiday, Barbara Mandrell came on the radio with her song. And I stopped what I was doing and listened:

“Our first Christmas, more than I’d been dreaming of… old St. Nicholas had his fingers crossed that we would fall in love….”

Instead of feeling grief, I felt dreamy... and suddenly I had the first surge of HOPE! I realized I wanted romance in my life again!

The lyrics went on to speak about a midnight sleigh ride, a crazy snowball fight, and a first kiss. I danced in my head along with the music, and it was at that moment I knew that, although I wasn’t ready yet, someday I would… I WOULD allow myself to love again!

So, here's to MUSIC, ROMANCE, and HOPE!!!

Oh, and the lights on my house this year are multicolored, not blue… but there are still a few blue lights mixed in.

John Saves the Day!

John's class presented a musical based on "The Night Before Christmas." He was supposed to be a Caroler with a couple of lines.

The day of the performance, the kid who played one of the lead characters "Papa Mouse" was sick. John's teacher asked him to take the part. He had 20 minutes to learn all of his lines! A bunch of lines. Not only did he learn them, but he performed without a single mistake!

Here he is in the beginning of his performance as Papa Mouse, leading the other mice, while not a creature was stirring behind them. His part was a lot bigger than in the original story!! :)

The only thing that stays the same is everything changes...

...or to quote a line from a different country song: "Life's about changes nothing ever stays the same."

The other day I noticed the bath robe I bought a couple weeks after Andy died is worn out. That will make 2 new bath robes now since he died!

It is interesting that a change that I initiate myself does not have the sting as much as a change that happens on its own. How dare things change without checking in with me first???

The latest uninvited change that blindsided me is that the Eckerd Drug chain has been bought by CVS. I think Andy and I purchased all of our prescriptions at Eckerd the whole time we were together. I bought my pregnancy tests there. His signature vanilla pipe tobacco came from there. Baby diapers. Photo developing. I even felt like I was living there the last days of his life.

How stupid is that, getting misty eyed because a drug store is changing the name???

Thought for the day...

We should all take a lesson from Victoria:

At Christmas time, sometimes you have to stop and smell the Poinsettias.

(Photo taken Dec 1999)

Zorro, Jesus, and Scream

3 of my favorite ghouls! :)

(About the Jesus part, Shelby has been on a Godspell kick this year.)

Thoughts about Chris Reeve's death...and my life

I had a chat with my friend Abbe tonight, and sorted through a lot of feelings that I decided I want to share with everybody. I have always given everybody the "short version" of how Andy died, but the truth is we walked throught that valley every day we were together for 17 years.

Andy was paralyzed 5 years before I met him. He was a man of quiet strength, and I simply fell in love with him. It took a lot of soul searching on my part to make the decision to marry him because of his injury, but I finally decided that no matter what we had to face, it was better than living without him. I still feel that way.

Because Andy lived with a spinal cord injury for 22 years, Chris Reeve's death hit me very hard. I identify a lot with Dana Reeves, because I walked her walk, although not quite as much since Andy had use of his arms and did not need a ventilator to breathe. The pressure sores and other SCI problems such as urinary tract infections, incontinence, and astronomical financial strain were part of our daily lives.

It was actually a pressure sore that started Andy on his downhill slide, just as it was for Mr. Reeve. Andy had the undiagnosed Hepatitis C in his body ever since the accident, so in 1999 he was starting to experience horrible infections and skin breakdown that the doctors could not explain. He ended up with a bad pressure sore on his tailbone when he was in the hospital for an unrelated surgery.

His first doctor said "I think it is time to send him home and just keep him comfortable.,"

SHE WAS READY TO LET HIM DIE even though she had not even figured out what was causing the problems! There is no such thing as "terminal paraplegia." She said "Most paraplegics don't live that long." Well, I wanted him longer!

We were on an HMO at the time, so I had to fight like the devil to change doctors!! We got an excellent doctor afterward, but it was too late really... the pressure sore was cleared up with intense treatment, but by that time his system was weakened from the infection and the Hep C assaulting his liver. Andy ultimately died of an infection by some of those super bugs... brought on by the pressure sores caused by low protein levels from his malfunctioning liver (Hep C) that we did not know he had until a few weeks before his death, and a kidney stone from lengthy bed rest, in addition to his paralysis. For you medical personel out there, he had positive blood cultures of MRSA and VRE. He went into renal and liver failure. At this point, I brought him home and took care of him until the end.

During our years together, it was such a balancing act keeping him healthy. For all those years we walked a tightrope. Now, I don't want to give everybody the wrong idea. We had lots of fun times, and shared a variety of wonderful experiences. Most of the time we kept the medical issues way in the back of our minds, but they were always there. Our balancing act ended finally in February of 2002.

During my chat with Abbe, she pointed out that we had successfully 'walked the walk,' and I think that is true... I have often felt that it was one of my major life assignments. I would never, never change the time we had together. That is why I identify with Dana and how she said to Christopher 'You are still you.' She loved him in spite of all the difficulties, which don't seem all that difficult while you are loving somebody.

Andy was like Chris... same type positive attitude. He did not want to die...did not want to leave us... he fought with every fiber to live, but it was not to be. That is why I say he is 'always my hero.' I hope that my love for him comes across to everybody, even though I am remarried. I am loving again, I have honestly found happiness again, but this is a different love. It does not erase the love I still feel for my Andy.

Happy 10th Birthday John Henry!

Good looking guy, and what a nice sister!

Happy First Anniversary Lesley and Billy!

I received this photo from Lesley, just in time for their first anniversary! Congratulations again, you two.

Lesley is Kathy's daughter, and Billy is.... Billy! :)

(photo taken September 30, 2003)

Fair Button 2004

This is the latest in the button collection. Now there are 18 total in our collection.

As you all remember, the State Fair was one of Andy's all time favorite can't miss events...I think he would appreciate this year's memory token!!! :)

(Yes, Kathy... his CLAW!)

This years stars: Shelby, Me, Arthur, Victoria and John Henry.



I sent this photo to all our friends the night it was taken. I received the following sweet email from Pammy:

" ...How awesome is that?!?! Tradition holds it all together! What wonderful memories you are making for the kids!
Steph...you are my hero! "

I will admit... our family is a bit unconventional! :)

I have always hated the American tradition of being afraid to acknowledge our deceased loved ones. So, we talk about happy times with their dad, funny memories... and even sad times. Keeping up the fair button tradition was made a bit easier by the fact that we never had the same people in the buttons every year, so there was no feeling that Andy was being "replaced," or forgotten.

Interestingly, my kids now talk about Arthur's late wife Sue like she is a friend of theirs. I guess she is, just one they never met.

Love,
Steph

Then and Now

Then:

It was winter. We had been hit by a huge ice storm just a few days before Andy left us. The trees for miles around had their limbs broken and frozen.

That was me. Broken and frozen.

Now:

It is summer. The trees have mended, the leaves are abundant. But, under the greenery there are scars in the bark, and new bark over the broken limbs. The scars are forever there, but amazingly they have made the trees stronger.

That is me. With scars...

yet stronger.

When blending two households into one...

...there are so many things to consider! Then just when things begin to fall into place, more things crop up that I never would have dreamed of.

Financially we decided it was best for Arthur to move into what has been "my" house. Suddenly, "my" house has to be "our" house, or Arthur ends up being a second class citizen where he resides. We plan on selling this house and purchase an "our" house, but it will take a bit of time to get this place ready to go on the market.

So enter new issues that did not occur to me until we moved Arthur's things here. Such as... how will the kids react to him in what used to be Daddy's spots? Not to mention how would I react? We solved some of those problems by having me taking over the empty spot at the table, and Arthur taking my spot. We are redecorating and changing the bedroom, and I now have what used to be Andy's everything... side of the room, side of the closet, side of the bed, everything. (Brand new everything, by the time we are done, by the way...)

Then there are financial issues. Inheritance issues. Family boundary issues. And issues such as: what constitutes "junk," and what are "treasures?" What kind of treasures are appropriate to keep, anyway? Personal space issues. Unresolved issues in our past relationships. (Naturally, even both of our happy previous marriages had every day type problems.) On top of that, there are the normal issues that face all newly married couples.

There are ongoing grief issues. We both have them, and we understand, but it can bring additional pain to our hearts out of empathy. We might experience an occcasional mild stab of jealousy. Things that don't even make sense, like regretting we will never have each other's child, like we need more kids or something!!!!

It is hard work, but it is worth it. Oh it is so worth it! I am still one thousand percent sure that we made the right decision.

Because of you...

Because of you, I still celebrate...

Because of you, I love a little more.

Because of you, I take time to give an extra kiss good-bye.

Because of you, I have a new favorite song.

Because of you, there may be dust on the window sill,
and I don't care.

Because of you, I live today,
before I worry about tomorrow.

Because of you, I don't give up quite as fast.

Because of you, I still believe in rainbows.

Because of you, now I can help or listen more.

Because of you, today, I am me.


by Eileen Wernsman

Photo: Andy and Steph August 1988

In memory of our anniversary