Today marks a year that I have been sharing my words on a blog. To celebrate the first anniversary, I’m reposting my first blog.

Been thinking a lot lately about writing a blog. Writing my thoughts down and describing the little adventures I experience each day seem to help me through another day. Today marks a year and 245 days that I have been a widow. Such a coarse word for losing a spouse. The path of widowhood doesn’t get any easier. It’s a lonely, hardened path to walk, lots of obstacles to trip over. The front porch has become my church and my refuge. I sit here each morning eating my bagel contemplating the new fire ant hills and watching the birds beginning their day in the sun light. Don’t know why the devilish little fire ants had to walk up the gang plank on the ark. Once the sun rises high enough to warm my feet I move to the other porch swing and sit there till the sun again warms my feet.

I love watching my bird friends and imagine that Chief has sent them down from heaven to comfort me. My niece laughs when I tell her I’ve named some of them. Chief never could learn to identify song birds. We’d sit on the porch here and watch them on the feeders and birds baths and he’d say, “Mama, what’s that?”

I put a bird feeder outside the window where he ate his breakfast each day and bought him a simple Alabama bird guide and he’d describe the visitors to me when I came home from work. Sometimes he had looked them up in the guide but he would rather describe the birds and ask me. Sometimes I think that maybe he’s one of the cardinals and is visiting to check on me.

As he lay dying and I was telling him it was okay to leave us, I kept telling him I’d be okay, but I’m not. I always thought he’d live to see 100 years and probably would if Covid hadn’t struck him down. I seem to miss him more each day but I get up and put one foot in front of the other, counting my many blessings of family and friends and health.

My health took a turn last week. I was sick with a nasty cold, sniffing and coughing, and running a fever. Bought DayQuil and NyQuil liquid…nasty stuff but it works…should have gotten the pills. My son Stew heard me coughing and came in my bedroom with his T-shirt over his nose and mouth like he thought I had monkey pox, a second round of Covid, or asbestos poisoning from from all the roof dust the window fans blew in the house. I know how a baby feels trying to drink a bottle with their nose stuffy. I almost suffocated trying to keep my mouth shut to take my temperature. I’m better now, thank goodness.

My cousin Candy, recently lost her husband, John, to cancer. My son Thomas and I went to Winter Garden, Florida, to a memorial service for John. The Celebration of Life was so beautiful. John’s friends and grandchildren brought him to life with their tales and memories. John was the sweetest, kindest man. One of his friends said John was part veterinarian. Said he was always doctoring on the children’s pets. Well, the kids had a pet turkey and something bit a chunk off the turkey. John squeezed a tube of Neosporin in the wound on the turkey, slapped a piece of duct tape over the wound, and the turkey lived to gobble again. I love duct tape and use it all the time! It’s amazing what you can do with that stuff! I can’t do without it.

Chief loved John and always told him, on more than one occasion, that he was his favorite male relative. Told John that once in front of my oldest brother. Priceless! I got on to Chief and he said, “Well, it’s the truth!” Candy is just getting started on her widow’s path. She asked me this morning, “How do you do it?” And I said, “Just get up each day, be thankful for breath, and put one foot in front of the other and start walking through life.”

A spouse’s death affects every single minute of every day, even putting on a bra. Lots of us older widows need help fastening our bras…you know I’m telling the truth! Well, after trying 10,000 times one day, I decided that home would be a “bra free zone” and going to town would be a “bra zone.” Then I saw a sports bra commercial on tv. So comfortable, they said, so easy to put on, they said. Well, those commercial folks have never tried to put a sport bra on in an un-air conditioned home…once you get it over your head it just rolls up into a straight jacket! You can’t reach the back to unroll it and you can’t get it back over you head. Can’t even stretch it enough to get an elbow through. I was trapped one morning, arms in a meerkat position, till I stood in front of the window air conditioner and cooled off enough to cuss a little and drag it off. Burnt my bagel that morning. Don’t try to step in it and pull it up, either. That’s another story for another day!

Hope you enjoyed you reading my words…if you didn’t that’s fine too. And thanks for stopping by!