Tag Archives: remembering

remembering…

05 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by in family, health, life, loss, nature, technology, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

woke up to hoarfrost everywhere…

  

it was beautiful…

  

the last thing that George and I did the day before he died was drive around the Park and take pictures of the beautiful trees covered in hoarfrost… 

seeing the hoarfrost was such a reminder of him… felt like he was sending me a message…

  
spent the afternoon with my daughter wandering through the mall… had lunch and picked up a couple of pairs of shorts…

when I got home PBS had a special of Simon & Garfunkel‘s concert in Central Park, New York City in 1981…

  
he loved Simon & Garfunkel… I spent an hour watching the program, enjoying the music and remembering… the songs had all been played here… comforting…

in recent days I have been walking down memory lane looking at many pictures… it has been fun to remember all the great times we had in the forty-three years we were together… 

what an amazing life I have had…
 

 
 

remembering…

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by in life, nature

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

woke up to snow on the ground this morning…

snow on the ground...

snow on the ground…

when I went downstairs a red hibiscus was in full bloom and I could see the snow on the ground… reminded me of a poppy…

hibiscus with snow through window...

hibiscus with snow through window…

spent a good portion of the morning watching the Remembrance Day service from Ottawa…

sunrise...

sunrise…

remembering my mother and father and George’s father and their service to our country… neither my father or George’s ever talked about what they did…

my mom’s work involved removing or adjusting pictures of ships so that when they were published in newspapers anywhere in the world they wouldn’t be recognizable as a certain ship… she was heavily involved in having this statue designed and raised at the Legislative grounds… this picture was one I downloaded from the internet, and there was no information about who took it…

statue of women in the three services at the Manitoba Legislature building...

statue of women in the three services at the Manitoba Legislature building…

had a quiet day thinking of them and also George… his dad died just a few days before Remembrance Day which made the day very special for both of us…

firsts…

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by in life, nature, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

this morning I was able to spend some time remembering the girls’ first days of school… I was privileged to be home while they were young and can still remember the excitement of those special days…

my baby watched her first born get on his first school bus as he headed to a French-only high school in St. Boniface…

IMG_7989.JPGher baby starts kindergarten in the next few days and the middle one started grade 4 today…

hard to believe they are so grown up…

after that I spent a good part of the day with our photo albums because I knew there were some first day pics of them…

it was great fun as I wandered through our life in photos… was missing my
beloved as I went through them… found a few to give away in the process…

IMG_7987.JPGI think this is our oldest’s first day of kindergarten…

IMG_7986.JPGthis is probably the youngest’s first day of kindergarten and the oldest’s first day of grade 2…

two other firsts today… saw my first monarch of the summer as I was walking home from breakfast at the “A” with my daughter… not sure if I saw any the year before, which was very sad… I still remember how one year my vacation was at the same time as the caterpillars moved to butterflies and I got great pictures of the entire process… truly miraculous…

late in the afternoon I walked into the garden and spotted a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower… I was so excited because we haven’t seen any in the garden or even the neighbourhood for more than ten years… of course I didn’t have my phone or camera with me… I’ve been out a few times in the hope of seeing her again, but no luck…

to celebrate this day filled with firsts I baked lobster tails for dinner, a great treat…

IMG_7988.JPG

65…

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

George would have turned 65 today…

it snowed all day long… Crystal thought it was his revenge, lol…

this morning the snow had covered the steps and the sidewalk I had cleaned twice last night…

the drive home was slow, but steady… the kids came from two directions… Crystal from her work and Jeff and the boys from home…

family all together... Cyndi and Ron are on the phone in Jeff'hand...

family all together… Cyndi and Ron are on the phone in Jeff’s hand…

Cyndi and Ron FaceTimed us… they had burgers from Burger King and little individual apple pies… we had burgers and milkshakes from the Burger Place on Portage, which was George’s favourite…

we ate together and talked about our favourite George story…

apple pie...

apple pie…

Jeff picked up an apple pie from Perkins on the way over and we had that with ice cream for dessert… George did love apple pie…

ice cream and pie getting dished out...

ice cream and pie getting dished out…

after dinner Tavin found our I Miss You storybook and we read it and talked about how we were feeling…

cleared front yard...

cleared front yard…

while we read, Jeff was outside snow blowing… and he figured out why my outside tree wasn’t lit…

a number of people have talked about year two being more difficult than year one… today was hard, but also a day of remembering and celebrating my beloved… it was very good to be with my whole family…

 

loss…

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

spent a quiet day at home and got some chores taken care of around the house…

spent quite a while trying to find my advent calendar – 2 muffin tins with magnetic covers – which was very frustrating as I had seen it over the summer… did find the reindeer calendar, lol…  will have to actually go through each of the Christmas boxes one night this week…

spent a lovely afternoon working on a project which is coming along very nicely…

thought about friends who have recently lost parents and remembering the loss of our parents… how slowly the process of dying can be, and then how quickly it happens… thinking you are prepared and discovering that you are not at all ready… the guilt of feeling relief that the process is over… the exhaustion…

I have been feeling a bit alone for the last while… missing my beloved more, rather than less, these days…  working hard to remember all the special times with him…

last year at this time we were all focused on our family vacation to Mexico right after Christmas, and I think it helped me keep my mind off Christmas without him… this year I don’t have that distraction, so I am trying to live each moment, whether happy or sad…

finished off my fishy weekend with a lovely dinner of shrimp, left-over garlic mashed potatoes and Caesar salad…

shrimp, garlic mashed potatoes and Caesar salad...

shrimp, garlic mashed potatoes and Caesar salad…

Remembrance Day…

11 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

slept poorly last night and did not feel at all well for most of today…

so, I did very little… watched the live ceremony from Ottawa, and think I may have seen my son-in-law marching by… spent some time in the hot tub, remembering…

reminded me of George’s dad, who had served in the military… he had a heart attack on November 11, 32 years ago… he died shortly after that and I remember making fancy sandwiches with my mom and dad for the family gathering following his funeral… it was the first time I rode in a limo and I will always remember that… I think George always thought about his dad especially around Remembrance Day…

I remember how George’s mom was so worried about me as I was pregnant with Crystal and Isabel hovered over me the whole time, worried that something was going to happen to the baby…

I think of my dad’s health… he was a great athlete, but after the war his lungs didn’t work very well, something to do with sleeping in wet foxholes the entire time he was overseas, which moved to emphysema… from the time I was young he struggled with his lungs and his health… of course smoking didn’t help…

I remember the work my mom did to ensure that there was a statue by the Legislature to commemorate all of the women in the Armed Forces who went to war, but were rather invisible… she spent the war in England touching up photos of ships before they went to the media, so that it wasn’t possible to see where they were, or exactly what they looked like… not the kind of work anyone would do today, lol…

so many people, who have gone, to be thankful for…

poppies in the garden...

poppies in the garden…

 

the poppies in our garden always reminded us of these and so many other special people… wondering if there will be any next summer after all the pond construction that took place this June…

memories…

29 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

this morning there were 9 morning glories…

light shining through the beautiful purple morning glory...

light shining through the beautiful purple morning glory…

made me think about my Mom and the amazing days we spent together during her last four months…

she died within a year of my Dad… they were such a couple… always together, always doing things to support the other… I don’t believe I ever heard either of them raise their voice to the other…

my Dad looked after my Mom from the time my brother was born until I was about fifteen or so… when he was born she had a breakdown and spent many years struggling with her health… she would often spend six months of the year in hospital while Dad looked after us and visited her regularly…

she was on large doses of Valium so even when she wasn’t in the hospital she was pretty drugged up… she decided one day that she was getting off the meds and stopped cold-turkey… she improved amazingly after that…

then Dad’s emphysema gave him a very hard time and Mom took over looking after him… we both did, really… when I turned sixteen we bought a car together and I drove Dad to and from work every day until he took an early retirement… as he got weaker and could do less, Mom stepped up her care and before he finally went into hospital, she was doing everything for him…

morning glories blooming close together..

morning glories blooming close together..

true love is an amazing thing to behold… I got to see it with my parents, and experience it with my beloved…

sometimes I am amazed that I have lived so long without George… somehow I thought we would ride off into the sunset together…

Mom and Dad enjoyed our garden and the flowers… although for most of the early years our garden was a playground for little people… they would be part of breakfasts and barbecues on the deck…

they would have enjoyed the morning glories, and the pond… I remember them telling me about my grandpa on my dad’s side who had an amazing garden filled with beautiful roses…

the pond this morning...

the pond this morning…

what wonderful memories…

interesting the stories one remembers…

remembering…

26 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

last night I spent some time in the hot tub remembering…

last year at this time I was home but barely moving… getting in and out of the bed was very painful and I needed constant help… my nephew spent the first few days with me because they let me out of the hospital early and the friend who was coming hadn’t arrived yet…

he had to literally lift me to get out of bed… the pain was fairly high as I wasn’t taking any drugs… and even though I had stopped taking them within 12 hours of the surgery there were still residual effects which continued to make me feel sick…

it was months before I was able to get back into the hot tub…

so that’s what I was remembering…

20130726-222935.jpg

today its my birthday…

18 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

felt a little sorry for myself when I woke up at 5 this morning… after a short pity party I went back to sleep and at 6:15 felt more excited about the day…

had calls and singing from my kids and grandkids and lots of happy birthdays at the office… for our Souper Club a colleague made my favourite Thai soup and also picked up summer rolls… great group of people to enjoy a birthday lunch with…

a friend dropped by with a gorgeous cupcake, which I ate without taking one single picture, lol…

after work my daughter picked me up and we stopped at the mall and picked up a cute top for me with an orchid on it… then we headed to The Keg for dinner – steak and crab, very yummy… the place was nearly empty when we got there and the hostess couldn’t find a single booth for us to sit in as they were all reserved… when our wait person arrived and asked how we were I mentioned that I was disappointed that we weren’t in a booth… he checked and was able to find one (of the 20 or so that were empty) for us… the service and dinner were excellent and the wait person brought a piece of of Billy Miner pie to celebrate my birthday, which was much better than staff singing to you…

came home, had a nap, watched tv and talked with family across the country, shopped by phone with Cyndi and then spent some quality time in the hot tub…

I was looking at the stars and remembering how George could always spot the satellites going over… he had eagle eyes…  I don’t think I’ve seen a single one in the last year…

all day the tune today its my birthday has been running around in my head… I believe the new name for that is an ear worm… but I’m not sure I like that name, lol…

a beautiful potted plant that George bought me a few years ago...

a beautiful potted plant that George bought me a few years ago…

well, time for bed… and a new day in the new journey…

technology…

04 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

can I just say that computers can make you crazy…

for three days now I haven’t been able to get to WordPress on my laptop…  now, I have access to the desktop computer, but unfortunately it doesn’t have any of my current pictures on it…

this has given me some lovely time going through older pictures and remembering things that happened, but it also has meant that it has taken much longer to write and post my blogs…

gorgeous huge hibiscus which we grew one summer...

gorgeous huge hibiscus which we grew one summer…

today at work, our scanner and fax wouldn’t work, because apparently MTS flicked a button last night which has caused problems for many, not just us…

the laptop is a whole other problem… I can’t get some sites open, but other sites open perfectly…

so I am heading downstairs to restart the router and see if that fixes the problem…  maybe the computers at work will be happy after a good night’s sleep, lol…

garden party with some great friends...

garden party with some great friends…