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What would Patrick do?

I’m sure I’ve mentioned how much we enjoy imagining how Patrick would react in different situations. He had such a crazy sense of humor and we all knew him so well that it’s not hard to predict how he would react to particular situations. I used to be embarrassed or horrified at his reactions but now I just miss the constant entertainment. Predicting his reaction is my way of keeping his memory alive. The bonus is that it is easier and less painful to smile and laugh than to cry. 

Last summer my sister Dawan suggested we join her family in Catalina for their annual vacation with her husband’s family. It was the kind of distraction we needed last summer and we had a great time. 

We went in the midst of the Pokémon Go craze and we spent a lot of time chasing Pokémon. It helped us work off all of the yummy dinners and snacks. If you’re not familiar with the game, it involves using your smart phone and walking around to find virtual characters and then catch them. I realize that a lot of people thought it was a ridiculous way to spend time, especially for a middle-aged mom like me! I didn’t care because it made me smile!

At some point it occurred to me that Patrick never knew about this game and I mentioned to the girls that he would have had a field day with it. First we would have had a long discussion to explain the game to him. It would be a serious discussion but he would be mocking us the whole time. When he “understood” the game he would probably then suggest that he play it with us. We would remind him for the thousandth time that he did not have a smart phone. He would reply that he had three and then try to get one of us to give him one of those three phones. And there would be no way any of us would let him touch our phones because who knew what he might do with them?!

When he figured out that we weren’t going to give in, he would announce that he could play on his flip phone. Then he would proceed to play an exaggerated version of the game. His version might involve climbing a tree, hopping up and down or using stealth moves. And I’m sure that his version would have special Pokémon that only he could catch. They would have names like alutnarat, booger, and diputs. Or maybe they would be called nystagmus or syncope (two names he actually proposed as baby names). We all had a good laugh imagining his reaction and it made playing the game even more fun!

We just got back from our second trip to Catalina with the Utecht’s and Brandlin’s. This time we added a few teNyenhuis kids to our entourage. Sierra has a “twin” cousin, Dominic. They were born on the same day in the same hospital and Monday was their twenty-first birthday and Catalina was the perfect place to celebrate! We had a great time!


This year was easier than last year. I didn’t seem to notice every single happy couple and I didn’t cry at all. I’m not going to say that I didn’t miss him. I miss him every day and especially when I’m having a great time because he should be there too, right? It’s just a little easier to bear now.

I saw the No Turkeys Allowed sign in Catalina. I think I remember seeing it last year too but it didn’t catch my attention. I happened to be walking by it alone and there were people sitting in the yard it was in. I was almost overcome by a sudden urge to ask them why I couldn’t bring my turkey there. Then I thought of Patrick and I knew he absolutely would have said something. He would have started a crazy rant about discriminating against turkeys. The people would have thought he was crazy. I would have needed to drag him away in embarrassment. I never thought I would miss that but I would give anything for him to annoy me now! He was crazy and unforgettable and that makes it easy for me to imagine him in situations that never happened. He still makes me laugh and laughter is good. ❤️❤️❤️

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Garage Treasures

Most people consider cleaning out their garage a dreaded chore. For me, it is a treasure hunt! Our garage has room for two cars and an extra space for storage. We have always parked our cars in the garage so it wasn’t a complete nightmare. Parts of it were though! 

We used to have a small fence in front of the cars. There is a dog door from the laundry room to the garage and then the garage to the yard. The fence was to keep Aggie from running out when the garage door was open. I have fallen over the fence on more than one occasion when my heel has caught it and it wasn’t pretty! After Aggie died I took it down and I’ve really been wanting to do some organizing and throw out unneeded things. Since the Cruiser is in the shop it’s the perfect opportunity. 

I didn’t completely finish today but I took a full carload to Goodwill, my recycling bin is almost completely full and the trash can is getting there. I can already see a difference! Let me tell you, my husband was prepared for just about any kind of home project. He saved everything! Cardboard, a broken garage door opener, a LOT of empty beer bottles for beer making. A few weeks ago I filled the back of my car with boxes of beer bottles and they weighed 68 pounds! That equals five dollars and change in case you are wondering, lol. I found a few more today and put them in the recycling bin. 

I found a whole box of stuff for the VW bus. Matt has been having some issues with it so this should help! 

I filled a huge bin with beer making supplies. The girls went through our costumes and got them from 3 boxes to 1 bin. I found a box full of teaching stuff, mainly files on things like earthquakes and volcanoes. I didn’t tackle that one yet. And, of course, I found a box of treasures! 

This time the box was my stuff so I didn’t think I would find much. The first thing I saw was this. The sign that was put on the car when we left our wedding. 


I also had newspapers from the first gulf war, the 1989 earthquake, and 9/11. Also various magazines. I had plaques, trophies and medals. Sports award programs, patches that were never sewn on my letterman jacket, and a t-shirt from Clark Intermediate with the name of every 8th grader from 1981 printed on it. And my cap from my college graduation! My nephews were my pride and joy back then and this was what they called me for a while. 

The best treasures were two cards and a drawing from Patrick. The first was a handmade card from our first Valentine’s Day, which would have been 1987! He was very creative! 

He made this pencil drawing of me. 

And the best treasure was another Valentine’s card. It says, “For My Wife,” but we weren’t actually married yet. 



I don’t quite know how I got so lucky to find Patrick. I still miss him tremendously and I can’t believe he’s gone. Sometimes I agonize over his last minutes and I still hope I will wake up from this bad dream. As hard as it is, at the same time, I am profoundly grateful that I had so much time with him. Whenever I find these little hidden treasures it is a reminder of how deeply he loved me and what a great life we had together. That’s what I will go to sleep dreaming about, all the wonderful times!

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Time is flying by

I was pulling out of a parking lot this evening and noticed that there is already a firework stand up. Really??? They can’t even sell them for over two more weeks. I am very familiar with the date they go on sale. One week before the 4th of July, June 27th, my 25th wedding anniversary. How can it be so close?

Of course I knew it was coming. I’ve already scheduled a massage for that day and I plan to find something fun to do. I was really looking forward to this milestone and then I didn’t even get to celebrate the 24th anniversary. 

It’s also Father’s Day and frankly I would just like to fast forward through the next few weeks. We talked about going somewhere fun and we still might but we’ve kind of been on the go a lot. We spent last weekend in San Francisco and saw the musical, Hamilton. The girls have listened to the soundtrack so many times that they almost know it by heart. The play was really good! It’s not 100% historically accurate but I haven’t ever seen kids get this interested in history! During intermission I enjoyed listening to a tween girl and her younger brother discuss their favorite parts with their Dad. They had clearly seen more than one show because they were even comparing actors! Do you know who would have been really interested in the play? Patrick!

In case you didn’t know, Patrick had read biographies on almost every president plus many of the founding fathers, including Alexander Hamilton. I think I remember him talking about how smart Hamilton was. He would have picked apart the historical inaccuracies, made fun of the rapping and then secretly enjoyed the show. I can just hear him creating his own lyrics to show what really happened. He would have driven the girls crazy but they would have loved it! It’s not hard to imagine his crazy reactions because it was daily life with Patrick!

The girls and I enjoy playing the “What would Dad say?” game. Most of the time they are better at it than I am. We always laugh and it makes us feel like a part of him is still with us, which I know is true. 

We will always keep parts of him with us. Sometimes this will be a questionable choice, lol. Today I talked to the smog repair shop. I probably should have just donated the car to a school. Or I could have paid to get it repaired to pass smog, which happens to be an amount roughly equal to the Kelly Blue Book value. Instead I am spending twice what it is worth to also fix the oil leak and the coolant system. Maybe we can still get a trip or two to the beach in? I’m just not ready to say goodbye to it so I’m not going to! By the way, here is the picture that started it all! The day he fell in love! 

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Hidden treasures

Today is our semi-annual neighborhood cleanup day. I spent time last week finding things to put out and also made another trip to Goodwill. I will probably never finish my decluttering project but it’s definitely a goal!

I know there are boxes of things in the garage that haven’t been opened in years. I look forward to whatever hidden treasures they hold. There are two things in particular that I’ve been hoping to find. The first is a copy of the speech Patdick gave at his grad school commencement. The second is Patrick’s journal from our Engaged Encounter weekend. I have mine and it would be fun to compare notes!

I found a promising box and opened it to find an unexpected treasure, the VIDEO of the graduation!!! This video is on VHS tape, has been in the garage for 13 years and is almost 28 years old. I have no idea what condition it is in. I do have a VCR but it’s not hooked up and honestly I was afraid I might destroy the tape. Camille also suggested we wait until Sierra is home to watch it together. So I dropped it off at Horn Photo and told them it was very precious! We will get the DVD in two weeks and hopefully it will work!

There were other treasures in the box also! There was a large picture of the Phi Delta Theta, California Lambda chapter for 1988-1989. Patrick is at the end of the second row looking very cute with his Superman curl! Several of his fraternity brothers came to town last year for his service and it meant a lot to me. I still have his fraternity pin and I’ve worn it to a few important events so I would have something of his with me. 


The box also contained a Swisher Sweets cigar box filled with useful and meaningful items. Most of them were significant to me. I wish I had the story behind all of them! There was, of course, a cigar. There was a small notepad with mostly blank pages. A Japanese phrase book?? A small compact mirror from Burger King with a picture of a lady on the back. His favorite Disney character, Jiminy Cricket. There were business cards from our wedding photographer, the jewelry store he bought my ring from, the athletic trainer he worked for at UOP and my business card from my short stint selling Rainbow vacuums. The video, his Chapman College student ID and a few other small items. The little purple thing is a picture viewer from Magic Mountain that has a picture of us inside. I have one also but it was still fun to find. I don’t have the exact picture to share but it’s from the same trip the picture below was taken on. 

After I pulled this box out I could see there were other boxes around it. I started to grab another then I decided I would wait for another day. There aren’t many Hidden Treasures left so I’m going to savor them as much as I can. I’ll let you know if we are able to view the video. 😊❤️❤️❤️

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Cherish

On Tuesday night I was at the Clovis East Scholarship awards for Camille. When it began, the couple sitting in front of me, who are friends of mine, reached out and grasped hands. A year ago this probably would have made me incredibly jealous. I would be lying if I said it doesn’t make me jealous at all now. But mostly it makes me happy to see this.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the appreciate your spouse bandwagon, so I love it when I see people doing just that! I’ve told my daughters that what I really want is for them to find someone to cherish them.


I found the above definition on Googke. “Protect and care for someone lovingly, hold dear, adore.”  You don’t hear this word used that often in everyday conversation but it’s the perfect description of what I think a relationship should be. I don’t have a magic formula for anyone to get this kind of relationship but I hope my daughters settle for nothing less.

Patrick cherished me and I cherished him. Our marriage wasn’t perfect. Most marriages are not fairy tales. I think a good marriage is actually very unglamorous. I know that I was so comfortable in my marriage that I didn’t worry if I woke up with my hair looking like a rat’s nest! I really don’t think I am an expert on marriage either. I just know that I was happy and I can tell you what that looked and felt like.

We were kind to each other. We didn’t belittle each other and if we had a problem we would work it out. We respected each other. We gave each other space when needed. We listened and comforted each other. He was my sounding board and I was his. Yes we annoyed each other at times but the good far outweighed the small annoyances.

I cursed at Patrick exactly one time and it upset him so much that I never did it again! We had gone skiing and it was probably my second time ever. Dawan rode up the chair lift with me and was patiently helping me. When Patrick got off the lift we had only gone around 50 feet so he came over to see what the hold up was. The hold up was that Danell was a lousy skier! I fell down every few yards (or was it feet or inches???). Patrick assessed the situation and made a true Patrick observation, “If you’re going to fall, you probably should avoid the big drifts of snow since they are hard to get up from.” As if I was strategically planning my falls! I simply said, “F$&@ you.” He was stunned. Dawan looked had him and said calmly, “Maybe it would be better if we met you at the bottom?” He liked to remind me of that any time I was annoyed with him. 😜

Do me a favor, just humor me… the next time you are annoyed with your spouse or partner, take a deep breath and imagine how annoyed you would be if they were gone! If needed, send them to the bottom of the hill for a break! I know it’s not always fun and games but try to appreciate them as often as possible because time is precious and so are relationships. 😊❤️❤️

 

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Happily married mother of two 9-17-16

Originally posted on 9/17/16. I’m still working to get everything transferred from my old blog. It’s nice to read the old entries and see that I feel at least a little better now!

I’ve been looking at my social profile descriptions recently. They basically all say the same thing. “I am a happily married mother of two”. I just can’t bring myself to change them. Who would I be then?

One of the hardest parts of losing your spouse is losing part of your identity. I’m not really ready to embrace the term widow but I get annoyed when it is not an option on paperwork because I’m definitely not single. And I may never change my relationship status on Facebook. Widow is just such a sad term and I don’t like doing the sad thing!

I’ve been shredding old paperwork and I got rid of all of “our” address labels. Today I was wondering if I should save some of the paperwork from our early life together. Canceled checks, bank statements, doctors bills, etc. I really have no need for any of these things but it was a really odd feeling to shred them. I did save a few checks so I would have a copy of his signature.

There are a still a lot of things in both of our names. I’ve only changed what I had to. I’m in no rush to change them all. I feel like it’s a step forward each time I do something like that but there is no timeline in getting it all done.

I realize that I’m still the same person I was on April 19th. I will always be Patrick’s wife. And I’m still a mother of two. Unhappily widowed? Tragically widowed? I’ll just leave the happily married part for now.