OK, all clear, thank you very much.
and my Friedrich II was an entirely different guy, back in the late 1100's. No wonder I was confused..
http://www.dicksonc.act.edu.au/Showcase/ClioContents/Clio4/freidrich2.html
Apologies for the diversion, folks, I needed to clear up that muddle while the iron was hot.
Shewolf, I agree with your statement that:
"I think the loss of a spouse is a loss of yourself."
A great depression may follow on the death of a loved spouse. That spouse's husband was in a way halved. My solution was simply to acknowledge that the "JLNobody" who was the husband of "Mrs. JLNobody", died with the death of his spouse. I became another person, as it were. Less than a year later I remarried my first wife. She could not take the place of my deceased wife--they are different people--but she could meet the same needs, and brings her irreplaceable nature back into my life. I was able to remarry her because, as we are found of saying, our divorce failed. We have to learn to cope with inevitable losses.
Living with a widow, I will say that you are very lucky to have that kind of relationship with someone else and able to ' fill the hole' of a missing spouse. Most people never branch out far enough after thier marriage to develop such relationships nor do they maintain a relationship with thier ex.
I am glad for you , seeing first hand how devistating a loss like that can be, that you are able to continue your life and have found enough of yourself to ' divide ' again.
Thanks, Shewolf. If my ex was not available or willing to remarry me I would have had to not only live alone but to look for someone else. That would be a drag. One can't live too well when he is "needy." In such a state of mind one's judgement suffers, and it is easy to make bad choices. I WAS lucky.
My first wife turned into a booze swilling, drug using beast on the prowl. No way I would let her back in my life, should I suddenly be alone. Not that she would want to go back in time anyway.
In your case, Edgar, it seems there is truth in the saying that "Some divorces are made in heaven." I was lucky that mine wasn't.
Fortunately, I made a great choice the second time around. We are soon to celebrate anniv. #28.
bm
have a lot more pages to read
very humbled, my demons, challenges, experiences are of other sorts
Edgar, I'm happy for you it. You've earned it.
The best thing about our past miseries and challenges is that they have shown us that we can survive the miseries and challenges ahead of us.
Someone once said that it's all vanity; we are all going to die in the end ("none of us will get out of here alive"). As I see it, dying will eliminate all our problems.
In the end, we do not lose; we all win.
Well, dying is not the most pleasant preoccupation I know of, but, no sense to whine about it.
Charlie was a dope smoking, beer drinking, guitar playing Lakota from Pine Reidge who joined up so that he could count on having food in his stomach more often than not. I was a blond haired, blue eyed smartass and coincidence would have it that Charlie and I would end up as comrades. We had been though the worst of times but on that paticular satuday we were having the best of times. Charlie had finally gotten the leg fitted that the V.A. had been working on for the past year so we took off in my '48 Willy's truck for the mountians west of Denver where we had scouted out an old mining claim on National Forest land. We were going to build us a log cabin the old fashion way. We drove that truck as far as we could up the canyon and started back-packing the materials like cement and saws and stuff like that, well, and food and a six pack as well. We spent most of that Sat packing **** in and then got a camp fire going and spread out our sleeping bags under one of the ponderosa pines near where we had laid out the base-line for our soon to be one-room cabin. As the sky drew dark and we had eaten the hot dogs and drank our beers a half-moon apeared now and then between the black clouds and the lodgepole pines. Charlie took his leg off and stood it near the foot of his sleeping bag, We were asleep in about 30 sconds or there-abouts.Must have been about 3 am or so when Charlie heard some noise in the forest around us and opening one eye just in time for the moon to scuttle between two pines Charlie saw that leg standing just inside his vison. He drew out his Smith and Wesson Model Nine and put 2 shots right through the middle of his own leg. I woke up right about then, saw what he had done and started laughing. Well that pissed Charlie right off so bad that he strated laughing as hard as I was.
The next day was sunday and we weren't likely to get much done on the cabin so Charlie and I walked back down the canyon, well Charlie mostly gimped down. We got to my Willys and were aback in town around sunset. I dropped Charlie off at his house where his wife and 3 year old daugher were sitting on the front porch waiting for us. Charlie said he would call the V.A. in the morning and try to explain what happened to his new leg but he had been told he was only eligible for a new leg or fitting every 2 years as he was, after all, just an E-4 and not like a Cap't or something human like.
So we had plans. Mighty big plans on building that cabin but we would have to wait to see about his leg. Wait we did.
Later that same week Charlie, who had gotten a job in a machine shop afer he got his medical discharge was working as a welder but when he went into work after the "leg incident" asked if he could sit on a stool while he was wroking as it was pretty damn hard standing all day on one leg. The boss told him no, if he couldn't stand like all the other welders they would just have to replace him. Charlie was bummed. Charlie's wife was even more bummed, his 30% disability from the V.A. wouldn't even pay the rent, let alone, put food on the table for her and the baby. She left him one week to the day after he massacred his leg, three days after he had been fired. to make things that much worse the V.A. told Charlie that they couldn't do anything about the shrapnel working its way out of his back other than recommend he get a water bed so that it wouldn't bother him so much.
Charlie and I went back up to the cabin several more times that summer and managed to lay concrete foundation and log walls and on the last weekend of the summer we got a roof on.
The next night after our last weekend at the cabin Charlie used a shotgun to disconnect his brain.
I don't know what to say except that that was fine writing.
We respond to our devils each in his own way.
Dys has a world-class imagination, so I never know for sure, but I'm betting that's a true story.
I'm sorry for Charlie, and I'm sorry for you too, Dys. Charlie probably had no idea how much his death would matter.
OMG
R.I.P
I always hope that those who look for peace, somehow find it...
