Day 118
Dear LEGS
A Memoir
Time. Always thinking about time......and taking time to think....humans are such victims of it.....its a measurement that I am beginning to resent......on purpose......a strange dichotomy that I feel I am constantly fighting, battling and relentlessly up against whether I am grasping to every precious second or painfully suffering and trudging through every millisecond.....waiting, striving, waiting, and crying....
Old people tend to bring on a certain antiqued nostalgia, reflection, not just in a mirror....but over the life span.......a genuine silly kind of laughter, both sad, painful, sometimes boring and amusing history lessons, and require an IRON CLAD capacity for patience......almost EVERYTHING is SLOWER, HARDER, and more TEDIOUS......
The entire house, and everything on the inside and outside is covered in dust and cobwebs, everything has a story........every item, a relic, a keepsake, a bobble of some moment in time......57 years of a life together.....all these items marking some moment.....when I see these things.....when I look at them I think, I think to myself, that I should very much like to have a life like theirs, that I would like to have a house like this full of artifacts of our life and our love together......
Growing up on a farm and being born during the Depression.....one picks up a few oddities and ideas on how to live life.....its completely normal to save food WAY past the EXPIRATION date.....never, ever, throw ANYTHING away.....and customarily have 400 stray and domesticated animals living with you.......
Strong, stronger, than every single person, I personally know today.......resourceful.......hardy....., with a will to survive and live......a will to live that is so determined, so major and such a substantial piece of the genetic makeup.....I find myself intimidated.....when I really look at them.....when I really take in the nature of these people....in the full broad spectrum, its daunting.......and it strikes me to the core with nothing but awe...this kind....this type.....is RARE.....if not already extinct......
Witnessing both pain and beauty, enduring hardships, and enjoying many adventures.....stories.....many, many stories are told.....REPEATEDLY......the verbs and adjectives mentioned by one partner and the nouns filled in by the other......
The sound of boots clunking across the wood floor are both a comforting and common sound in this house, dark brown beady eyes stare out from thick framed glasses, covered by thick bushy eyebrows and a 101st Airborne baseball cap, wearing suspenders and a pocket protector full of pens, tools and papers, all that keep scientific record of gas mileage...and such other things.....a great mind that has been responsible for many inventions...the mind, the brilliant beautiful mind, that has created some of the most amazing, innovative ideas and items seen around today.......but brilliance.....how sad it is, that brilliance comes at a cost.....
"I was drafted into the ARMY, first time I ever been on a airplane was on my way to basic......the flight attendants were the prettiest, nicest most charming women I have ever seen".....with a sparkle in his eye....memories shape a person, and its not hard to determine the ideals and ideas of the women in this old man's life.....
A soft, high pitched, rich voice that is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher....the patience and heart of a saint....her father whom everybody who can recollect was a great deal of a man, died of internal bleeding on Valentines Day, she had a sister who was mentally handicapped, though she wasn't always, being married to brilliance.....and the price that comes with it.....brings about the most compassionate and sensitive human being to walk this earth......enduring more than anybody else has been able to stand......
She says "I never wear these anymore...." her white t-shirt is ragged around the neck, her face once porcelain and young is now crinkled and aged.....her blue eyes peering out from her glasses with great concentration to see her reflection in the mirror......she tied the scarf around her neck and tended to it in the mirror....in her eyes......she was back in time.....and I wonder what it looks like.......
Loving that old time traditionalism that used to exist.....milk would be in a pitcher and left out, things would be served on platters and trays, that butter didn't come in cardboard and needed to be stored in a butter dish and that dishes were made of quality material and were meant to shine.......Movies were black and white and had REAL talent, slower, and genuine, and people not only in full character but in costume as well...
I fall upon.....a conclusion.....one that I am afraid to speak aloud.......a question that is begging to be asked......how.......how does a person stay ALIVE? How does a person get up every single day and schlep through the same shit day in and day out for eighty years? How......when so many things on the body are falling apart.....does a person continue the repetition of showering... ..limping.... ..eating... ..bending.. ..attending numerous doctor appointments....one waiting room to the next......as if you have all the time in the world......When most of your friends are in the ground.......And though I dare not ask......when is it time to......PASS......?
And here were are.......fighting......to FIGHT.....and fighting day in and day out to LIVE.......
Just another day in the life of an unlikely military wife.......**
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