There’s Always Something

October 30, 2019 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been a house owner for only a little over seven months, and I’ve already learned an important lesson: there’s always something going wrong, and whatever that something is, it’s never simple to fix.

Actually, I already knew that about houses, which is why I never wanted one, but after a lifetime of dealing with landlords and ladies, I’ve discovered that it’s so much better dealing directly with repair people than through a middle party who doesn’t care about the comfort and convenience of renters.

Still, no matter what needs to done, it always entails so much more than originally expected. For example, when the enclosed porch foundation needed to be fixed, it turned out there was barely any foundation at all, so that an entirely new concrete footer had to be built. Then we discovered that the iron sewer line under the porch was rusting out.

And so it’s been going with all the repairs.

My latest “fix” is a pipe. A neighbor told me a few months ago that the kitchen pipes had a tendency to freeze, so the contractor said he’d insulate the pipes before winter. The previous owner said he’d fixed the problem with an insulated cover for the outside faucet, but I wanted to be doubly sure that the pipes wouldn’t freeze in this time of frigid temperatures. So yesterday, the contractor showed up with pipe “noodles” and discovered a leak in the pipe. Not having the time, tools, or parts to fix the pipe, he left with the pipes uninsulated and with instructions to leave the water dripping in the kitchen to ensure that the pipes don’t freeze.

Which I did, but oh, my, it sure was hard it was for my waste-less soul to leave water dripping!

Whether due to the drip, the insulation for the outside cover, or simple good luck, the pipes made it through the snowy night.

And so did I.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Good Deeds Going Awry

October 29, 2019 — Pat Bertram

It’s really a joy being part of a community. I’ve had a bad cough the past week, and in the past few days, more people brought me soup and crackers or offered to run errands than in all the time I was housebound with my mangled arm.

I’m not worried about paying the favors back or fore (I know the common phrase is “pay it forward,” but that terminology only works if one also says “pay it backward,” and we don’t.) When people need help that I can give, I will do so — it’s all about being part of the community.

Or is it?

I recently watched the movie Pay it Forward. (If you haven’t seen the flick and want to, don’t read ahead. Major spoiler!!)

The movie is about a kid who gets the idea of doing good for people and then having them pay it fore rather than back. As a concept, it’s kind of cool, as long as the person who did you the favor knows you’re going to pay it to someone else rather than to them. (Not that we do favors for others expecting to be paid back, but it is nice when they in turn do favors for us — it helps cement the community bond.)

The kid ends up dead (he tried to rescue a friend from bullies, and got knifed). The finale of the movie shows hundreds of people coming to the house bearing flowers and candles. What was supposed to be a tear-jerking moment, showing all the people whose lives the kid had touched, just made me shake my head. There is no way such a display could bring more than a momentary comfort to the mother. In the cold light of day (and the dark of night), she would rather have her son than this evidence of his impact.

I also had to shake my head at this proof of the old adage: no good deed goes unpunished.

The movie reminded me of a CSI show in which Grissom told a story about a guy who found a spider swimming in his toilet. For a couple of mornings, the guy watched the spider struggling to survive the maelstrom of flushing. One morning, the guy decided to rescue the spider. He took it out of the water and set it on the floor. The next day, he found the spider dead. “Why,” Grissom asked, “did the spider die? Because one life impinged on another.”

Yep. No good deed goes unpunished. In the movie, the doer died, in the show, the do-ee did. Generally, no one dies after doing good deeds, but occasionally, as in these examples, the good deed backfires. Sometimes the favor leads to demands and expectations, and when those expectations aren’t met, the benefactor is seen as an evil-doer rather than a do-gooder. Other times the punishment is benign: people resent the interference or are simply ungrateful.

Come to think of it, the destruction of my arm that I mentioned above is another example of a good deed being punished — if I had stood my ground and not done the dance performance as I wished, I’d still have a perfect arm, but because I did a good deed (performed in place of someone who couldn’t make it) I have a humpty-dumpty arm.

I just hope no one is going to be punished for bringing me soup and crackers. I certainly appreciate the favor, don’t resent it, won’t expect more than what was offered.

I’ll pay the favors both fore and aft.

And I’ll hope that none of our good deeds go awry and that we all survive intact.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Generally Considered Safe

October 26, 2019 — Pat Bertram

After seven months of living in my new community, yesterday I got friend requests on Facebook from a slew of people I’ve met here. It’s lovely, of course, being connected in myriad ways to people, especially when once has hermit tendencies as I do, but . . . (You knew there was a but coming, didn’t you? With me, there always is.)

But . . . once people I know in offline life start seeing me in online life, I have to be more circumspect in what I blog about lest I inadvertently hurt someone by a thoughtless word, or alienate with an ill-advised observation.

This is especially true in a small community where most of the people have known one another their entire lives. I learned that lesson shortly after I moved here. Someone asked me about an activity I had participated in, and I said it was nice except that one particular person monopolized the conversation. It turns out that the monopolizer was a good friend of the woman I was talking to. Oops.

So I try to be careful even in my thoughts because I am one of those people who, if I’m comfortable, will say whatever comes to mind. And after having opened up about my grief and other private matters the past ten years, I tend to be comfortable almost everywhere and with almost everyone.

The solution, until I get comfortable with my posts being available to new friends as well as old, is to be careful what I write.

Local weather is generally considered safe to write about and in fact is something I’ve been thinking about of late. For weeks, I checked the forecast, and the forecast was always the same — high temperatures until about October 21, followed by weeks of temperatures in the 60s. The first day the temperatures slid down the 60s, I planted my bulbs, and it’s a good thing. I don’t know what happened to all those weeks of 60 degree weather, but somehow they evaporated. The current forecast shows frigid temperatures for a long time to come.

Today was a gorgeous day — deep blue skies and warm temperatures. By Monday we might have snow, and by Wednesday, we’ll be down to a low of 2 degrees. Nope. That’s not a typo. 2 degrees. Almost 0. Brrrrr!

I’d hoped to have my garage foundation finished by now to give me a protected place for my vintage VW, but with this forecast, who knows when the contractor will get to it. I just hope he manages to stop by to insulate my kitchen pipes before the freeze hits.

Thanks to everyone who takes a peek at my blogs. I appreciate all of you, even if I do have to be especially nice on this blog for a while.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Field of Hopes, Field of Dreams

October 25, 2019 — Pat Bertram

A friend asked how many holes I’d dug, and what I planted. It was easier to answer here than as a comment, and besides, it brings me one day closer to my goal of 100 continuous days of blogging.

I must have dug a hundred holes. I had more than three hundred bulbs, and approximately three went into each hole (all properly spaced properly). In retrospect, it was silly doing it all in one day because I worked too hard and ended up with a bad cough that is preventing me from doing anything, especially not planting the last ten bulbs (lilies) that I’d planned to put along the fence in the backyard.

I really don’t see how I could have done it differently, though. I wanted the bulbs intermixed so that the yard will look less like a formal garden and more like a splurge of flowers in a field, and so it pretty much all had to be done at the same time.

I planted lots of tulips and daffodils. Anemones. Snowdrops. Crocuses. Dwarf iris. Larkspur. Grape hyacinth. Aconite. Bluebells.

And I planted hopes and dreams. Dreams of a lovely yard come spring. Hope that spring will in fact come, that the bulbs will flower, that I will still be here, that I will continue to find joy in the little (the best!) things of life.

(The photo was taken this morning and shows the frost on my field of hopes and dreams.)

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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A Spattering of Snow

October 24, 2019 — Pat Bertram

Some areas of Colorado got dumped on last night, but here in my neighborhood, we just got a spattering — more rain than snow, though there were enough flakes to settle in a few places.

The snow is all gone, now. It was mostly just a reminder of the winter days to come. Am I ready? It’s been years since I had to deal with a true winter. I thought there would be time to get acclimated to chillier temperatures, but we went directly from 80 degrees to 60 degrees to 40 degrees in just a couple of weeks.

It will warm up, of course — Colorado always does. I remember occasionally playing outside at Christmas, then bundling up in heavy coats come Easter. Some Halloweens we wore just our costumes, other years our costumes were buried under layers of outerwear. I remember years of no snow, and years where snow was so deep nothing moved. I even remember a year where there was snow all twelve months — the last snowstorm of one winter came in July, the first of the following winter came the very next month at the end of August.

So am I ready? As ready as I ever was, and as ready as I ever could be in a place where you can’t really determine what the winter will bring.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Holes!

October 22, 2019 — Pat Bertram

I dug holes yesterday. Lots and lots of holes!

I’ve been told (and I’ve read) that one needs a plan when gardening, and my plan was to plant as many bulbs as I could as quickly and as easily as possible. There’s no real design to my holes — I just dug where it was easy to dig; if my shovel hit a hard spot where I planned to plant, I moved to another spot where the soil was softer. I don’t really care if there is any discernable design. I just want some color mixed in with the mostly brown grass. Also, once the flowers die and the leaves turn brown, the whole thing can be mowed, which seems like an interesting idea.

I’d gotten a bit carried away when ordering bulbs, and as it turned out, for the holes I dug, I got the right amount since the holes were big enough to house more than one bulb.

Of course, now my muscles are stiff and my throat sore, but it’s good to have it all done.

Now it’s a matter of waiting for spring to see what I have wrought!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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What Did You Do When You Were Dead?

October 21, 2019 — Pat Bertram

I saw an appalling movie last night — the 2004 film Birth with Nicole Kidman.

The premise is a perennially interesting one: a reincarnated soul remembers who he’d been and tries to reconnect with his old life. In this case, though, the premise is the only thing that was interesting. The movie tried to be a thriller (I think), and to the extent that it was a perfect example of a folie a deux (where two people share a delusion, and in the end they make each other crazier), it succeeded. It also tried to be uber mysterious and only managed to be annoying, especially with the long, long, long close-ups of alternately Kidman and the kid. The movie might have been fun if the kid had been charming, but he came across as an incipient serial killer. Which, I’m sure, was intended.

But none of that is important to this blog except as an introduction to the question the movie poses: what would happen if a ten-year-old boy showed up at your door and claimed to be your dead husband?

What struck me is that the kid, even if he were the husband reincarnated, would not still be the husband. Do the words, “To death do us part” ring a bell? And he’s a ten-year old kid. He might have memories of being someone else, but in the end, he’s only ten, and still needs his mommy.

If this kid came to my door claiming to be Jeff, I’d probably be interested, but in no way would we be able to continue the relationship we once had. He’d be ten years old, for cripes sake. He might have the memories of being Jeff, but he wouldn’t be the man I loved — wouldn’t have the same mind, the same smile, the same thoughts and inclinations. He wouldn’t be the mature, even-tempered man I knew. He wouldn’t be an adult, and by the time he was, I’d probably know first hand what it was like to be dead.

For sure, he wouldn’t be someone I could be the old “me” with. He might be resurrected, but the part of me that died with him would still be dead.

If he truly was Jeff, we would sit down and reminisce a bit, maybe catch up on what we’ve been doing the past ten years. “Hey, Jeff. What did you do when you were dead? How did death treat you? How did it feel? Did you have fun? Did you learn anything? Did my grief bother you?” But, wait — he’s ten years old, which means he’d have been immediately reincarnated. He wouldn’t have had a whole lot of experience being dead, which wouldn’t leave us much to talk about since I wouldn’t particularly care about his experiences in the womb or being a small child, or his problems as a young boy (except to hope that this childhood was more pleasant than his previous one).

If he were Jeff, he’d be glad to know I was doing okay, but he wouldn’t put me in the position of being responsible for him. He wouldn’t stalk me. Or make me crazy. There’d be no thriller, no chiller, no folie a deux in our reunion. Definitely there’d be no creepy bathtub scene. I don’t have a bathtub, and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. Taking off his clothes and getting in the tub with me would be the last thing on his mind.

We’d just talk, and when we finished our chat, he’d wish me well, tell me he loved me, and then he’d let me go.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Nest Building

October 20, 2019 — Pat Bertram

I’d been counting the days until it got cool enough to start planting the three hundred spring bulbs I bought. The instructions said not to plant until the highs were consistently in the mid-60s or cooler, and today was supposed to be the day. A couple of times during the past weeks I’d almost given in to the urge to start plant, but considering what a non-green thumb I have, I figured I needed to give those poor plants the best start possible.

So I waited.

After a few unexpected (and lovely) eighty-degree days, the temperature did drop today as forecast, so I got all gussied down and went out to play farmer.

And then the winds came. Severe winds.

Being stubborn, I didn’t let a little — or a lot — of wind force me inside, but I postponed the precision work of planting the bulbs for another time. Just as well. The guys who’d put up the fence hadn’t yet finished burying the bottom of the chain link fabric, and they’d left the dirt they were going to use piled in the middle of front yard where I’d planned to plant. So I raked leaves away from the fence and moved the dirt — shovelful by shovelful — where it belonged. Then I gathered up the leaves, and smashed them to use for mulch.

Such excitement!

I’m laughing to myself. A friend made a remark the other day about certain blogs that said nothing important (she wasn’t referring to mine; she hadn’t known I had a blog), and well . . . I sure hope she doesn’t read this one. Talk about nothing important!

Not important in the grand scheme of things, that is. The job was very important to me — to be outside despite the wind, to work physically, to accomplish something. To continue building my nest. And that nest building, of course, is the most important of all.

It’s taken me my whole life to get to the point where not only could I own a house but that I wanted to. And anything I do for my home is a way of honoring the house, and me, and the painful journey it took to get here.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in blogging, home, house, life. Tags: , , , , , . 7 Comments »

Light Entertainment and Heavy Thoughts

October 19, 2019 — Pat Bertram

I went to lunch and the movies with friends today. Good food, good people, and a good movie — Downton Abbey. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the outing and admired the film as a period piece, I must confess I am a bit too much of an egalitarian to truly appreciate the nuances of the film.

I do realize the movie portrays the end days of an outdated class system, with everyone knowing their place, ingratiating themselves with those who rank above them and condescending to those below: the lowest servants giving way to the higher servants, the lowborn currying favor with the highborn, the highborn doing the bidding of the highest in the land.

There was no merit in any of the folk portrayed in the movie — the highborn were highborn for the simple reason they were highborn or married someone of the upper classes. They didn’t earn their exalted status. The lowborn, though perhaps good at their jobs, were actually no better — adopting, as well as they could considering their positions, the petty ways of those they served.

Admittedly, the movie is geared for lovers of the series, and I’d only seen a couple of episodes somewhere along the line. (Don’t know where because although I do have a television or two, I don’t prescribe to any television programming.) The plot was thin, a mere veneer, probably because the movie is more a showcase for the characters people had come to know and love.

Despite the hype of having to know who the characters are to understand the movie, it wasn’t difficult to figure out what was going on. Every character wanted something. Every character believed they are special. The idle rich believed they deserve their good fortune. The lowborn believed they are somehow enriched by serving these folks.

Even worse, for me, none of the characters were admirable or even charming. In fact, most were appalling. Well, except for Maggie Smith, whose appallingness was part of her charm

If I’m really honest, what we have in the USA today is rather a reflection of that same world, though we all believe we are as good as those who think they are better than we are, and that with a bit of luck, the riches will even out. (Which is why it is so hard to get people to vote for special taxes for the richest folk — most of us believe that one day we will be rich and so to tax the rich is to tax our future selves; the rest of us are afraid that one day we will be bag ladies.)

Still, such a world as depicted in the movie seems utterly wrong and phony to these eyes. Maybe it would even have seemed phony back in those days — it’s hard for me to believe that people entrenched in the system truly believed that the aristocracy was better than they were and so deserved their adulation and servility.

In the end, this is what makes Downton Abbey a good movie: a couple of hours of light entertainment, followed by a couple of hours of heavy thought.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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