I’ve been thinking about joy recently… the little things that bring that lovely feeling of what a great time this is… what a special moment… what a wonderful life I live…

even upside down it looks lovely…

I started this post last night, after getting home from a great holiday celebration with my colleagues…  there had been lots of prep – meetings, running around, arranging and rearranging, lots of fun setting up, and then the actual event where everything came together, thanks to some great folks…

I decided to have my daughter Crystal come and act as wait staff, so that we could be present at the party and not just work it…  she did a great job, and took a huge load off our shoulders…

the joy for me was twofold…  a special event went very well, and I got to enjoy seeing her in action…  she is an amazing young woman, with a husband and three very active boys…  there are very few minutes when she gets to focus on one thing…  she did simple things – pour drinks, remove dishes, bring out coffee, maintain the food area, but she did it with a wonderful grace and hospitality… it also made me realize how much like her father she has become… I was a proud momma…

through another Norfolk Pine decorated for the occasion…

I think of the joy my beloved brought to me for more that 41 years and celebrate those events in my life…  it felt a bit odd to be at a party without him, but I also felt that he was there with me in spirit, and know how proud he would have been with the wonderful host that Crystal has become…

tiny flakes of snow were falling earlier today as I sat at my laptop looking out across the creek… I spent time this morning finishing up decorating the tree…  it has many more purple and silver ornaments on it now…

it also has a purple star from my Advent Calendar and a gorgeous silver dragonfly which arrived in the mail yesterday from Cyndi…  she purchased four of them and sent one to me, one to Crystal, one to Ron and kept one for herself…  she thought we could each have one so that we would remember the others and “be together” over the holidays…

I was surprised when it arrived, and she was surprised too, because she had only mailed it at 3:30 pm the day before I received it…

I think of the surprise of discovering how much I am cared for by my colleagues…  following George’s death their subsequent outpouring of thoughtfulness and kindness was a wonderful surprise for me…  you know you have good colleagues, but their great gentleness to and for me was a reminder of what caring people are out there…

after working the late shift tonight I spent some quality time with a wonderful woman and had lots of fun in the process…  the final surprise of the day was how late it was, as the time had flown by…

I was chatting with someone today about being persistent, and it brought to mind the process that I had to endure with the credit card companies to get the insurance that we had been paying for on our credit cards for a number of years…

the point of the insurance is that if something happens – injury, job loss, death, they will pay off what is owing on your credit card…  for every card we had, I had to advise them of George’s death, and they would send me – usually by Canada Post – complicated forms to complete…  much of the information I was able to provide, but portions had to be completed by the doctor, and one even needed the Coronor’s input…  after our doctor had completed these forms and charged for that service, I discovered that the Medical Examiner’s Office could also have completed and signed the forms, at no charge…

but back to the credit card insurance companies…  after all the documentation was sent to them – much of it having to be notarized, they would send another document to be completed…  

it felt as though they were trying to make the whole process so complicated and time consuming that a person wouldn’t bother to jump through all the hoops…

I must say that the life insurance companies were much easier to deal with… they sent the documents, often by email if requested, and they were very simple to fill in and return…

filling out all the forms was fairly stressful but I found that I could contact real people, particularly the life insurance companies, who would assist with completion of the forms…

at some point in the process I discovered that the credit card insurance people don’t actually talk to the credit card people, so then I had to call the credit card people to advise of George’s death…  at that point some advised that I could no longer use the card…

it seems like that process all took places years ago, but it is only – already? – nine months today since George’s death…

I spent some time tonight digging out ornaments and decorations and starting to get the tree ready… this year I have a small, live, Norfolk Pine… usually George would set up the tree, put on the lights, and after I had decorated it, he would hang silver tinsel on it, one piece at a time…  if I was helping I would toss handfuls at the tree… what fun we had…

after a long wait, a poppy opening…

it was difficult at work today…  first item on the agenda was to review 2012 to find when I had done work on a particular project…  I was astonished at how difficult it was to look at some dates on the calendar – the day when George died, the day I returned to work, the day I was told, by phone, that I had cancer… the day I realized it had been a month, two, six, since his death…

lots of waiting involved… waiting to hear from insurance companies, waiting to hear from CPP, waiting to hear from credit card companies, waiting to hear from doctors, waiting to hear about surgery, waiting to hear results of the pathology, waiting…

I continue to try to be in the moment as the waiting continues…  tomorrow would have been George’s 64th birthday and I am waiting to see how we get through the day…  currently the plans are to meet in the evening and share some apple pie (his favourite), stories of fun times together, and likely a few tears…

On Wednesday, it will be 9 months since he died…  I don’t always remember ahead of time, but usually sometime during the day on the 5th I will realize what has happened and take a moment to remember what a wonderful life we had…

this is going to be a long week…

George and I were married for over 41 years…  I moved from my parents’ apartment into an apartment, and then a house, with him…  we both worked until our first daughter was born, when we made the decision that I would be at home with the children…  in those days you could do that, if you were careful with expenses…  I went back to work when the girls were in high school…

About ten years ago we realized that I didn’t have any credit history, although for many of our years together it was my pay cheque that covered the credit cards, mortgage and other bills…  I had credit cards with my name on them, but they were all under George’s name, and thus his credit… the house mortgage was in both of our names, but I learned that mortgages aren’t part of credit checks and so didn’t count…  so we took the time to go to the bank and get a credit card in my name, as well as a line of credit…  it wasn’t big, and I didn’t use it too much, and was always sure to pay it on time… just enough to get myself a credit record…

George died on March 5^th, 2012…  he had a massive coronary while driving home from work, and must have lifted his foot off the gas pedal…  the car drifted across the street and up into someone’s yard where it pushed in their fence… a pedestrian saw this happen, called 911 and stayed with him until the paramedics arrived…  one small miracle was that he didn’t hit anyone and the car only hit a fence and not someone’s house…  he was rushed to the hospital but they were not able to revive him…

The next morning my younger daughter was with me at home and she called the phone company because we hadn’t been able to find his cell phone and wanted to be sure it hadn’t been picked up by someone who was running up charges…  first of all, with the privacy laws they insisted on talking to me before dealing with her, so I gave them permission to have her be on the list of people who could discuss our telephone information…  they chatted with her and got his cell phone disconnected…

Then they asked to speak with me again…  and proceeded to do a credit check to see if I could keep my telephone services… thankfully I did have my own credit, although I was certainly scared for those few minutes that I was on hold…  what was particularly frustrating about this event is that we had been loyal to this telephone company for our entire marriage and had used them for our television and internet connections as well…

That credit card was all I had for a number of weeks following George’s death…  although I had insurance from a number of sources, none of that money turned up for a very long time, and I had to live off that credit card, to cover all the sudden expenses, as well as the ongoing ones…

If you are a married woman and have only been using your husband/partner’s credit cards, you really need to get your own credit card which will give you a credit rating…  you want to do this sooner rather than later, as you need to have had the card for a certain length of time before you actually get a rating…

our wedding day, August 1, 1970

so this morning I opened the first of my muffin-tin advent calendar goodies from my daughter Cyndi, who currently is living in Calgary…  last year she sent the calendar already filled and ready for me to open…  this year, as I already had the tins and covers, she sent the items to go into them to one of my colleagues, who had a great time on her lunch hour putting the calendar together…  here’s what it looks like…

Day 1 was a Ferrero Rocher chocolate, which I immediately ate for my breakfast…

Later my other daughter, Crystal, with her husband and 3 boys, picked me up and we went for our first needles in preparation for our January family trip to the Mayan Riviera…  we did pretty well, most of us barely cried, although someone had a fit…  chocolate kisses seemed to fix that up, although he was still saying he didn’t want to go to Mexico for quite a while afterwards…  lucky Crystal and I, we got two shots, one for Hep A and B,and a tetanus one as well…

The boys tell me that we will only be eating tacos – morning, noon and night, while we are there…  this is wonderful for them, as they all love tacos…

We made these plans in June or July while I was waiting for surgery and I am really just getting excited now, especially about all those tacos…

I am starting this blog to share the changes that are taking place in my life since the day my beloved George died suddenly…  I have had to put on my “big girl pants” as my daughters would say and move forward on my own…  since March 5, 2012 I have learned many things and thought it might be fun to share them with others going through various forms of loss…  so, here we go…