And Then There Was One

The Renaissance Man who could do anything very, very well (in his mind)

My husband believed he could do anything. I am not kidding. He truly believed that. This is his broad jump at a Senior’s Games event. He had never tried doing this before stepping onto the track but was completely confident that not only could he do it but that he might actually win.

He didn’t win but it was a lark for him. He had a great time trying.

Here he is another year. No, he did not practice throwing a disc. In fact he had never thrown a disc until the second the photo was taken but he was certain he could do it and therefore … ta da, he did it.

This is him doing a three part marathon. Did he train for this endurance event? Of course not. He winged it the way he winged his life. The day before the event started, he borrowed someone’s heavy wooden canoe. It took two people to get it into the water while all the other contestants threw some small 10 lb. fiberglass speedy thing over their head and ran into the lake. Ten minutes later, Gary got into his 60 lb. row boat and started paddling.

Could he run 6.2 miles? Had he ever run 6.2 miles? Nope and then canoe 3 miles? Nope. And finally bike 12.5 miles? One right after the other? Nope. But of course he could - in his mind.

Scraped that puppy off the ground when he finally finished. But he was not discouraged by his performance. No, not at all. He thought he did quite well even though he was close to the last to finish.

The reality was he thought he could cheat death this way … always in motion. Always doing, doing, doing. Not thinking too deeply or feeling. Just doing, doing, doing. Perpetual motion was the key to not dying.

That’s just who he was. Always positive, upbeat. Life was a lark. He kept his fears of abandonment and death well hidden, but they were always there, just a couple of fortified walls inside.

In general he wasn’t interested in talking about his inner life, what he was actually feeling. That was too scary for him. Better to go on another bike ride. We did couples counseling together a few times, enough for me to understand he genuinely didn’t know how he felt and genuinely didn’t want to know how he felt. He could put on an excellent show pretending to know how he felt. After all, he had been a minister. He had heard all the feeling stuff his congregation talked with him about. He knew how to fake it when required.

In our last years I took a hard look at how and why I thought and felt the way I did. That type of introspection did not interest him. His unwillingness to do the work began to divide us. He was much more comfortable living the culturally accepted 1940’s Oklahoma, midwestern life. He did not want to let that gentle patriarchal role of caretaker for me go. He was born there and mentally made the decision long ago to remain there.

I wrote this two years ago. It wasn’t titled. I didn’t know what it said until I clicked on it. I was projecting into the future. This is what I wrote then.

My partner is gone. My routine that I count on to get me to bedtime is gone. I’ve been passing time for years to make it through each day. I don’t want a new routine. I want my old one back with my partner, meaninglessly wasting time, passing through my life, existing, not grasping that there is no more.

Well, some things have changed and some have not.

My husband has died and left me unprepared. Gary made a decision at the beginning of December that he would not do the chemo again. He tried it once and it wiped him out. At that point he and I talked about not doing chemo going forward. It was his decision. He chose quality of life. So from December 1st until June 6th, he knew he was going to die.

He was in reasonably good shape for five months.

But he wanted to keep all the controls - finances, fixing things, how things were done. He did not trust me to be able to take care of the finances. He was not willing to teach me how to use any program. He just kept saying that Andrew at his former financial firm would take care of me. Well, what did that actually mean? That Andrew was going to do my budget for me, run my program for me, tell me how many eggs I could afford to buy?

That is not Andrew’s job. That is my job, but Gary chose not to teach me.

I now know that he did not know how to run a budgeting program. He never used one. He could not teach me something he did not know how to do.

Although he was a Certified Financial Investor, we never had a budget. Like the marathon, he just winged it. He was an excellent mathematician. He just had a sense of when our cash flow was worth looking at and when it was fine. Just a sense of it. That was it.

The winging it part - that would be tough to teach me.

I didn’t know I needed a Power of Attorney. Assuming there is one, I don’t know where it is.

I thought I was safe, ‘taken care of’.

I am not. Not by a long shot.

The new news now is I am living alone. It’s been fifteen days since he died. I thought … what? that I would be fine? That life - my life - would just continue on as before? Sure, a few changes like my partner is not in the house. He’s not at the grocery store picking up cottage cheese. He’s not working out at the Y. He simply no longer exists. I don’t know what I thought.

What I do know now is that I need to get myself prepared to take care of me. I am my number one job now. I think it’s going to be scary thrilling like being on a steep roller coaster ride. But I’ll be calling all my own shots now.

And just like Gary, with no practice what-so-ever I am completely confident that I can do it, that I will be just fine.

Because …

I am Woman. Hear me roar!