Death is nothing at all...

Death is nothing at all...
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I, and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort, 
without the ghost of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was;
there is absolutely unbroken continuity....
Why should I be out of your mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval,
Somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well.
All is well.

"Thanksgiving 2010"

The day is almost over and although I have had a couple of  "oh oh" moments, over all it was a good day. Still feeling the love of my Honeyman. He isn't here physically but his spirit has been hovering around me all day. I have truly felt it a couple of times. 


Last year, he was too sick to eat Thanksgiving dinner and we only spent a couple of hours at my parents house because he was so uncomfortable that I had to take him home (at that point even riding in the car was very hard on him because of the tumors in his hip sockets). He kept apologizing to me for spoiling my day but I kept telling him that it was okay, everybody knew he was hurting and he hadn't spoiled anybody's anything. 


Neither one of us said anything but I think we both thought "this might be our last Thanksgiving" but those kind of thoughts were never voiced because we promised that we wouldn't do that to each other. We got home and after he rested a little bit, he played his guitar for about an hour and we just hung out til bedtime. He was into watching old Bat Masterson reruns at that point and I think we may have watched 2 or 3 of those. It was a good day for us overall. 
You are my husband
My feet shall run because of you
My feet dance because of you
My heart shall beat because of you
My eyes see because of you
My mind thinks because of you
And I shall love because of you.


  ~Native American Marriage Prayer

I miss my old life....

There are so many things about my old life I miss. Taken individually they seem like such little insignificant things but when you take the sum of the whole another story unfolds.

I miss things like looking out our kitchen window and seeing the woods behind the house and the 30 wild turkeys feeding on the acorns all over the ground there. I miss my husband. I miss hearing the back door open and knowing Dave was coming in from the field. I miss him kissing me on the back of the neck and then asking me "What's for lunch?". I miss washing his clothes and the smell of them after they dried on the line. I miss the quietness and the clean air at the farm and I miss the green, growing fields.  I miss getting up in the morning, knowing I was going to get to spend another day with my best friend. I miss running out to the field with Dave, to plant seeds in the rain, when it came earlier than the forecast predicted, and getting soaked in the process, coming in shivering and laughing together about how we got them in the ground at the perfect time. I miss being read to in bed. I miss picking beans and cukes and tomatoes and eggplant. I miss seeing him pull into the driveway after he had been away...whether it was for an hour or a day, it always thrilled me when he returned.  I miss getting up at 4am to get ready for the farmer's market and I miss how much fun Dave and I always had when we got there.  I miss him hogging the bathroom and  stealing the covers off me in the middle of the night. I miss cooking for someone who was endlessly enthusiastic about whatever my latest kitchen experiment might be.  I miss listening to him playing his guitar at night after all the work was done. I miss the smell of the first fall fire in the wood stove and listening to it crackle and pop. I miss sitting on the sofa with only the firelight flickering, staring at the fire, cuddling with Dave and just being together. I miss the calluses on his palms, hard earned from work, and the ones on his fingertips from long hours of playing his guitars. I miss him cutting his own hair over the bathroom sink and never quite getting all of it cleaned up.  I miss having those beautiful blue eyes peering at me, taking time to look up from whatever book he was reading. Even then there was the look of love in them. I miss the taste of his tears mingling with mine, as I held him close and told him everything was going to be okay, when we both knew it wasn't. I miss him being so uninterested in money that he didn't even know what bank we had our account with unless he looked at the checkbook. I miss watching him do amazing things on a daily basis. I miss our walks in the woods.  I miss the muscles in his broad shoulders and that teeny mole on the back of his ear.  I miss counting the freckles on his back and teasing him about connecting the dots to see what kind of a picture it might make. I miss having someone in my life that no matter what I did, still thought I was wonderful.  I miss the goats and the pigs and the chickens. I miss the smell of 3 tons of horse manure wafting into our open window on a warm spring night and listening to the crickets sing. I miss having 9 months of backbreaking farm labor to get crops in and having the next 3 months off to just enjoy my life with my husband. I miss kisses. I miss the friends we made over the years that have disappeared from my life after Dave died.  I miss my family members who live so very far away. I miss the confidence I had when I was with him because he made me stronger and better. I miss the security of knowing that I had a roof over my head and having somebody that made it home. I miss having a home. I miss having someone I could tell anything to and who always gave me the best advice on solving problems. I miss being married to a man who was movie star handsome, so much so that I often wondered why he had chosen me, feeling very lucky that he did.  I miss watching him walk, like a cat, all grace and fluid motion...it could make my heart skip a beat and still does when I think about it. I miss how he made me feel. I miss the conversations we used to have about anything and everything.  I miss the smell of him because it was pure,  like the elements...earth, water, fire and air...it was like he was made from them. I miss the front porch and the rocking chairs.  I miss cooking for someone who appreciated every meal I ever made for him. I miss being brave and strong. I miss being loved more than I ever thought it was possible to be loved and being able to love somebody back with that same intensity.

Yeah, I miss my old life....
This whole grief thing just ebbs and flows....sometimes like a little feeder creek and sometimes like a raging river. You can dam up the creeks with a couple of well placed stones but it can take a feat of engineering to stop the river. Sometimes it is just better to go with the flow, no matter which one you are being swept away by. If you can keep from drowning, it is all good.

Fleeting pleasures

Profound happiness, unlike fleeting pleasures, 
is spiritual by nature. It depends on the happiness of others, and it is
based on love and tenderness.~~~~Dalai Lama



I could be going crazy. This could all be a bad dream, a delusion or an hallucination, couldn't it? Maybe I could get some really good meds and reality would return.  Miracles happen all the time, don't they?
Well....don't they?  Please...
Some days I am angry, some days sad beyond belief.
Most days, I just try to stay in the arms of love and light.
I miss Dave more than a sane person should but then I was crazy about him.
Always was, always will be.

Evicted from my home the week after Dave died...

It has been just over one month since Dave died and this has been the worst week I have had so far. I feel like every nerve in my body is on fire and I can't concentrate on much of anything.   I have my mother in law to thank for this present state of mind. Things between us have never been great and Dave's passing has brought that to a head. Grieving is hard enough but to have to be packing up my life with him at this early stage of the process is almost more than I can bear. How could anyone be so heartless and cruel, especially to someone who is at the most vulnerable point of their life? Especially when you are supposed to be family.

Dave and I were together for 16 years and in that time I have kept my own counsel on the subject of my mother-in-law. I have kept silent as long as I can and I will simply no longer keep my feelings to myself, not after what she has done.  I wasn't going to say the things I am about to but it is not fair for me to have to deal with this for the rest of my life.  My way has never been to keep things to myself but that is exactly what I have done, especially for the last 10 years, out of respect for the fact she is Dave's mother. I just can't do it any longer, not without doing harm to my own psyche.

Five days after Dave died, his mother invited me over for lunch and as we were having dessert, she announced to me that I needed to vacate the house and the farm, which she owned but which had been our home for the last ten years. To say that I was shocked by this announcement would be understatement.  I had not even completely processed that the love of my life was gone forever when she dropped this bombshell on me. Just like that, no warning, no nothing. Just blurted it out over a sandwich and some cookies.

First of all, for the entire time that Dave and I were together, she never really accepted the relationship. I don't know whether she secretly hoped that if I was out of the picture Dave and his ex-wife would get back together or what. (Of course, that would never have happened, even if I had disappeared off the face of the Earth.  His ex sealed her fate with him way before I ever even met him.) From the first moment that I met his mother. she has been remote and uninterested, when concerned with me. I cannot recall anything that I ever did to deserve her derision, other than to not be Dave's ex-wife.  He just loved me in a way she never understood and I think she was jealous.

Our initial meeting set the tone for the next 15 years of our relationship.  We were living in a little house at Cape Hatteras and Dave's parents came visit us. Almost from the moment she stepped in the door, before Dave even introduced us, his mother burst into tears like a child having a tantrum. It seemed strange to me at the time but I really didn't think too much about it.  Dave had his say with her, told her that he was with me now and that was that, so I  thought that would be the end of it. I think she decided then and there that I was somehow the cause of Dave's divorce but trust me, I had NOTHING do to with it. Since she basically knew NOTHING about me, that can be the only explanation.

I have never, to my recollection, had someone so much dislike me before they even got to know me.  In fact, lots of people really like me. She, on the other hand, had made up her mind way before she had ever even met me that she did not.  In retrospect, I am sure her ears were filled with the nonsense of a jealous ex before we finally met and being the easily led type of person that she is, it does not surprise me.  And, truthfully, I can't say that I really took to her either.  I don't have much patience for women who act like spoiled children to get their way. She always seemed aloof, distant and down right cold to me but in the beginning, I chalked it up to our getting off to such bad start.  Plus we lived 3000 miles away for a long time and it was not really a problem. Not until we moved back to N.C. and right next door to her.

Dave and I talked often about his mother's attitude towards me and he always apologized to me for the way she treated me. But then he always reassured me by saying that anything she said or did didn't matter to us because I was his family. Of course, if she knew he had ever said that, she would immediately become defensive and think that he was being ungrateful for all the things she did for him.  He wasn't, though. Just the opposite. He was extremely grateful for her support and help over the years, so much so that he gave up the last 10 years of his life living beside of her so that he could be there to help her if she needed him. (And he did it for his dad, who was very ill for a long time.)

I know that she has always thought that I didn't appreciate what she perceived that she had done for me but the fact of that matter is that she never did anything for me personally.  I was married to her son, she did things for him, and so I received the benefit by proximity.  She never cared enough about me as a person to even ask me anything personal about my life before I met Dave or about my kids, family, etc. She simply didn't give a damn.

The fact that she was able to look me square in the eye just 5 days after Dave he died and tell me that she was renting our beloved farm to someone else confirms everything I have said so far.  If she were to deny it, she would be lying to everyone, even herself. She claimed that she could not afford to pay the taxes, etc. on the property and that she needed the income. (We lived there rent free for 10 years, in exchange for being there on the family farm. We didn't ask for that arrangement. It was offered freely by Dave's parents and had everything to do with why we moved back to North Carolina from Oregon. We loved Oregon and would not have left, had we not been enticed to do so. Or we would have lived nearer the ocean that we loved so much.) She basically told me to get out, over a sandwich and homemade cookies.  Just like that.  Who does that to the grieving widow of their only son?

I might believe her reasons, if she had said any or all of that, before Dave died. If all those things were true the week after Dave died, why were they not true while Dave was still alive and able to talk about it and help me make decisions about what I was to do after he was gone? She certainly had every opportunity to do so. Dave stayed at her house on and off from December of 2009 until hospice came in during the last few weeks of his life (March 2010). Her house was so much bigger than ours and it was just her living there, so it just made sense.  Also, she wanted to be able to help with Dave's care and so, over the great misgivings we both had about it, we had hospice set up at her house.

At any time,while he was there,  she could have sat us down and explained her plans, her situation, given us any kind of hint as to what she was going to do.  Dave was completely lucid and functioning until the last 2 weeks of his life, so that was not a consideration. His mother had every opportunity, over the course of those last four months, to say something to us, and yet she kept silent.  Dave trusted her to do the right thing and wouldn't have asked her to make any promises about me and the farm because he believed her to be a better person than she proved to be. She not only betrayed me, she betrayed him.

And I know exactly why she didn't say anything. She was afraid that Dave would make her promise things she didn't want to promise. She was afraid he would ask her to let me stay in the house and on the farm when all she wanted was for me to be gone as soon as Dave was no longer alive.  The sad irony of that is that I would never have stayed that close to her with Dave gone. But, because the farm was our sole source of income, I would have required a few months to complete my growing season. By evicting me at the time and in the manner that she did,  my entire 2010 season was ruined and so I had no way to produce any income.

With no income and no savings (that was eaten up with uninsured medical bills from Dave's cancer long before he died) I was left not only very nearly homeless but unemployed and penniless.  My mother in law assumed that my parents would just take me in with open arms, which they did, but they did not have room for me and the trappings of the last 10 years of my life.  I have everything I own in storage, paying for that by selling off my possessions to cover the cost.  So far, I have had to sell many of Dave's things as well as those of my own, just to pay for keeping my things in storage.  I know many widows who say that they have trouble dealing with just packing up their husbands' things. Imagine if you had to sell off those things before you had even wrapped your head around him being dead in the first place.

Yet, through all of this trial, I keep coming back to one thing.  The fact that Dave loved me so very much. Many times he told me he loved me more than he loved any one or anything in his life and that is more precious to me than any things that were his.  I only wish that he could have foreseen what his mother was capable of and that we could have avoided this situation. One thing it has done to me is to make me so much less likely to trust people so readily, especially those who are supposed to care.
Dave and I believed strongly in the natural order of things. What could be more natural than to have completed the circle of life? As soon as we are born, we are on the path to our death...it is inevitable and it comes to us all. Dave understood and accepted that circle far better than I. He was not afraid of  his passing, although he was sad about leaving so soon. When he was close to the end of his life and he knew it, he spent an entire day talking to me about how much he loved me, telling me that he had never loved anyone or anything as much as he loved me and I told him the same things. The truth of all those words was incredibly beautiful but it broke my heart because I knew that he was telling me those things because he knew he wouldn't be able to in a short while. I am very grateful for that day and that we were able to say all those things to each other one last time.

Why the title of this blog?

I imagine sometimes people who visit my blog wonder about the title.  "To Pirate Gold and Windy Days" is the name of a poem that I wrote for my husband, years ago and that I never showed to him. I regret that now because I let my own insecurity keep me from sharing something with the man that I shared my life and everything else about me with.  It is the one thing that I held as a secret.  For some reason I was afraid that he would not approve of it, think it was childish, laugh at it, something like one or all of those. It was written very early in our relationship and I guess I was still a bit unsure of myself when it came to Dave. I was wrong on all counts.

I should have shown it to him but after several years, I simply forgot about it. I found it again when I was packing up our life after he died. Over those same years, while the poem was misplaced,  I learned that I could say, do, think, feel or share anything with him because any emotion or feeling that came from him was always pure because it was always the truth.  He never lied. I don't think he knew how to lie.  Even if it was painful to hear him say something ("Yeah, your butt looks really big in those jeans."), you always knew where you stood with him because you never had to worry about him playing some kind of game of words or manipulation.  There was never any agenda with Dave...he was as pure a being as I have ever come across and he was hard to to understand at first because that simply was not what I was used to.

For most of my adult life, until the time when I met Dave, I worked in the same industry. Finance. Stocks and Bonds. Buy Low and Sell High! Sell, Sell, Sell. So, it may have been the nature of the business I worked in that attracted a certain kind of person, but I always felt that there were not a lot of "real" people in my workplace.  Not that I was surrounded by people who were dishonest, just people that were so unsure and insecure that they felt that they had to "invent" themselves or hide behind possessions to impress others. Maybe to impress themselves.

I was like a fish out of water at work much of the time and if I had not been very smart and relatively ambitious, I doubt that I would have progressed through the ranks of my profession. It was one that weighed too heavily on appearances, instead of substance, and I had no patience for playing games like that. And even though someone like Dave was what I craved, it was not my reality for many years. When I did finally find him, it was like he was too good to be true and I was resistant to believing that he was as good as I thought him to be. I was wrong, though. He was better. And I should have shared that poem with him.

Now I write all the time. It is what is keeping me sane through the grief of losing him to cancer just 7 short months ago. I write things for Dave, about Dave, about us, about the cancer. And I write about the grief I feel and how it is affecting mylife.  It is all I seem to have now...that and my memories.

So here's to you, my love, and "To Pirate Gold and Windy Days".  I miss you.

The story of us...how we got married.

I have to tell the story of how Dave and I came to get married.  It is a pretty funny story. Dave and I did not plan on getting married. It kind of just happened.  

For the first year we were together, we moved around alot, just traveling and checking out places we thought we might like to live.  I won't explain the situation here because this story is not about that, but lets just say that we had the means not to have to work at all for that year. 

After about 16 months we had finally settled in a town where we thought we would like to live and decided to buy a house right off the bat. My younger son was living with his dad and an evil stepmother and  I wanted my son to come and live with us to get him out of this not too happy situation.  And wanted him to have a real home to live in.

Everything was going fine, we had opened a business together but were having to pay separate insurances, taxes, etc. and I told Dave one day, while doing the bookkeeping, that it would be much more advantageous to us if we were married because we would not have to pay double for everything.  Ever the practical one, he said if I thought it was a good idea, then we should probably get married.  If that sounds a tad unromantic to anyone, let me assure you that our relationship was anything but without romance. But we had both been burned in divorces and really had not thought that either one of us wanted to go down that road again.

Of course, once we decided that marriage was a sound financial idea, the idea of being husband and wife became something the really meant a lot to both of us. So, we made an appointment to get our marriage license on a Friday. We were going to get the license, go across the hall the the Justice of the Peace and be married in time to have a weekend "honeymoon" at home.  Only by the time we got to the JP's office, it was closed because they went home early on Fridays. I couldn't believe how disappointed I was. Dave made the comment we could just do it some other time and I was amazed at how disappointed he wasn't.

We spent all day Saturday, spackling walls and prepping to paint our dining room and I must have looked pretty bummed out because Dave kept asking me what was wrong. I said "nothing" and it must have been in that tone that said "everything" because he came over and hugged me and I started crying like a little kid.  The whole marriage thing had completely enveloped me, which was a complete surprise because I remember that I was the most resistant one for a long time.  After finishing the walls, we went out for dinner and Dave tried to make me feel better, which he did, like always.

On Sunday we started painting and about 2 hours into it, I went into the bathroom, shut the door and cried like a baby, again.  Dave came to the door and asked me what was wrong. I did the "nothing" routine again and he said he knew better and did I want to call the magistrate and see if they would be able to marry us that afternoon.  I said yes, of course, and called and sure enough, the magistrate wasn't busy that afternoon and said to come on down.In the town where we were living, the magistrate that worked on the weekend was in the jail, so that is where we had to go.

Picture that we were both wearing the clothes we were painting in, because when I had called, I had been told we needed to come right away, in case they got busy. So there we were, wearing paint covered clothes, I had a bandana around my hair and Dave had 3 days stubble on his face.  At first the magistrate thought we were there to bail somebody out of jail.  I explained the situation, we all had a good laugh, he asked for the license and asked where our witnesses were. Witnesses? Nobody said anything about bringing witnesses and I thought, here we go again...

There in the waiting room of the jail, were two women. One woman was there to bail her husband out because he had gotten drunk at their grandchild's birthday party the night before, started raising hell and the son-in-law had called the cops to take him to the drunk tank. The other woman, who was the tallest female I had ever seen in my life up til that point, was there to pick up her son who was in jail for trying to stab her the night before and she had called the cops and had him locked up.  They both said they thought it would be just grand to stand up for us because it was taking a really long time for their family members to be processed for release.

So, Dave and I, the magistrate and our two witnesses, walked outside and up the steps into the tiny flower garden that was planted against the side of the building, where we were married on that cold, gray Sunday in November.  After we got married, we went home and finished painting the dining room.  November 5th, 2010, would have been our 15th anniversary.

Mother Earth's Child

Mother Earth's Child

The sky was bluer because you stood beneath it.
The air was sweeter because you breathed it.
Passing Clouds paused over your head, just to gaze down at you. 
The grass you walked on grew higher, trying to touch you,
As the trees sighed with longing when you passed.
Ocean was your lover, and she danced with joy at the gifts you brought her.
The Wind blew you kisses while the Sun sent you light for your path and
warmth for your soul.
The light of a billion Stars shone at night to keep you company
And Moon, beautiful Moon, held you in her arms, keeping you safe while
you dreamed a thousand dreams.
Mother Earth now holds you in her forever embrace, her favorite son, come home at last. 

Worked on the labels for this blog all weekend, so now everything is accessible from the sidebar menu.

Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death Part 2

That day in the ER, when the doctor announced to us that Dave had cancer, was like being in the middle of a terrible dream that you can't wake up from. No matter how much you try to convince yourself that you didn't really hear the diagnosis "cancer" it has become your reality and you can't get away from it. It is there gnawing at you every waking moment and sometimes it even follows you into your dreams.

While my mother-in-law and I stood there listening to the doctor explain about what was going to happen with Dave's surgery, I remember that even though I was fully engaged with hearing what was going to happen, I was also having a kind of "out of body" experience.  Part of me was experiencing what I can only describe as a "floating" feeling and I can remember looking at Dave's face while the doctor was talking. He was looking very intently into my eyes and saying nothing, just looking at me with that total calm he was always able to find in himself.  That might not seem strange to you but Dave was two floors above me, still in the imaging center of the hospital, while this conversation was happening with the urologist.

Dave had been taken up to his room and we gathered up his things and followed.  I didn't know if anybody had explained to him what was going on, so when we got up to the room, I asked him what the doctor had told him and he said that all he knew was that he had cancer. I told him exactly what the urologist had said to us downstairs.  He asked me if I thought that the diagnosis could be wrong and I told him that the doctor seemed pretty sure that it was correct.  Dave closed his eyes and nodded slowly. He didn't open his eyes for a long, long time but when he did, he motioned me over to his side and took my hand. Then he told me that he really didn't want anybody cutting on him but if I wanted him to do it he would.  I told him that was too much responsibility for me to make that decision for him and that I was selfish, so of course I wanted him to do whatever was going to keep him alive. I also told him I would abide by whatever decision he made, no matter what it was but that they had already scheduled him for the surgery the next day, so he better tell somebody quick if he wasn't going to go through with it.

We spent that night just sitting in that hospital room, talking and holding hands and I remember him looking at me with such love that I started to cry. I told him I was trying very hard to be brave for him but that I was terrified, of him being sick and having to endure what might come later but mostly terrified that he would die. I told him that I didn't think I could live without him. He didn't say anything for a long time and I could tell that he was gathering his thoughts together to say something profound.  He started to speak but then he hesitated for a second before he finally spoke.

"You know that I love you more than anything in this world  and I don't want to leave you alone. But if it is my time, it is my time. All we can do is live the best life that we can for a long as we have. Nobody can do any more than that.  I love life but it is not my decision as to whether I live or die. It is what is it. We can't change that. And I have no fear of what will come after, you shouldn't either. I know you will find me again someday. We have been together before and we will be together again. You just have to believe that."

He held my hand and didn't say anything else, just looked at me with those incredibly beautiful blue eyes. The most incredible feeling of calm and peace came over me at that moment and after that, I never again felt that fear. It was like he literally took it out of me and replaced it with so much love there was never room for anything else.

Dave had his surgery in January and by March he was back on the tractor, farming, living and loving life.  Because he was pronounced cancer free after the nephrectomy, we didn't have the specter of cancer looming over our heads. It was more like a shadow that was always in the background...we knew it was there but it was not the threat that some cancers are. We were very lucky in that regard. And we kept that promise to each other, the one we made that night in the hospital.  We loved each other without reserve and we lived every day to the fullest.

When I first met Dave, I was coming out of a traumatic divorce and was just starting to heal from that. I had no desire or any need to have another relationship and finding one was the furtherest thing from my mind.
I think that Fate put Dave in my path and me in his because being together was our destiny.  I remember telling God that if I could have just 5 good years with Dave it would be worth a lifetime with anyone else.  He gave me 16 of the best years of my life and I am thankful everyday for that.
This blog has been, and continues to be, a labor of love for me. I am struggling to survive the grief and loneliness that I have been left with since my beloved husband passed away in March. Writing down all these feelings, thoughts, just the remembering helps me feel close to him. Writing helps me focus my energies on the good memories, instead of dwelling so much on the sadness. This is what gets me through the day. This is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with and it isn't getting any easier but it isn't quite the knife in the heart it was six months ago.

The Nightmare Continues...April 2010

The week after Dave died, his mother announced to me that I was no longer welcome on her property. She basically gave me 60 days to vacate the premises. She destroyed the Farm that Dave and I worked so hard to build for the last 10 years of his life, with no more thought than if she was tossing out the trash.  I am struggling with anger, betrayal, disappointment, hurt....you name it. I can't even wrap my head around what is happening. Why would someone do something like this?  How can someone be so cruel and cold? I don't understand.

The Aftermath...April 25, 2010

My husband died a month ago. He'd been sick for a long time and while his death was not surprising (cancer deaths rarely are), the speed with which the disease took him at the end was unexpected. He wasn't only my spouse, he was my best friend, my lover, teacher, mentor, right arm, strength, he was my everything.

Now I am in the throes of grief. It is like an unseen animal that is constantly gnawing away at me. I don't want to feel like this, I want my best friend back. I want to see him sitting in his favorite chair, playing his acoustic and working out the lyrics to a new song. I want to smell the heat of his skin and I want to touch him all over. I want to roll over in our bed and night and hear the rhythm of his breathing. I want to talk to him, to tell him about what I read about Earth Day, about the new pictures of the grandkids, how the new garden looked after the recent rains.

I want to make him a favorite meal and watch him enjoy it. I want to hear his voice, tell him he needs to comb his hair, hear him say that he loves me one more time. I want to feel safe, content and loved again. I don't want to feel this way.

I have never been a weak person but now I feel completely helpless. Nothing in my life seems to matter to me right now and I know that if he saw me in this shape, he would give me down the road for feeling so sorry for myself.  "I'm dead!", he would say, "Get off your ass and do something positive. All this negative energy is no good for anybody!  I loved you so much and this is what you are doing with that love? Come on, woman!"  I can hear him now. And he would say that with such love that I would immediately want to jump up and do exactly what he said.

Only I can't. I am completely paralyzed by my emotions right now. Can't sleep at night, can't remember anything, can't stop crying, can't stop trying to make some, any sense of all of this. He'd be right, too, about the negative energy. I can feel it consuming me inside, leaving ashes instead of that fire the burned in me when he was alive.  How did our perfect life fall completely apart like this?  Why did he have to get cancer? Why did he have to die? Why not me? He deserved to live more than me. He's the one who was special. Why am I still here?
I hear sometimes that there should be a special Hell for those who commit heinous crimes, those unspeakable deeds that shock and appall most of us.  I don't think I ever really believed in Hell at all but now I am living in that special Hell that is reserved for those who lose the ones they love most.  I committed no crime. My only sin, if it is in fact a sin, was that I loved a man too much. Is that why I am being punished? Because I worshipped at the altar of a mortal man?

These thoughts that run through my head now are disjointed and confusing. One minute I am almost blind with grief and at another I am overwhelmed with feelings of love for someone who will never again hold my hand, or kiss my lips.
I miss Dave.

The Beginning of the End...Our Hospice Nightmare...March 2010

Right after that last post, our world started coming to an end.  Dave never made it to the doctors appointment he had for the 20th of March.  His pain got so out of control that he had to go to Hospice House. It was just supposed to be a visit to get his pain medications regulated because I was about at my wit's end trying to adjust them constantly to meet his needs.  I called the pain doctor he was seeing and said I can't do this anymore...I was afraid that he was taking way too many narcotics, etc. and I thought that the doctor should be the responsible party, not me. So, they arranged for him to go to Hospice so that he could be monitored 24 hours a day and to get the meds at a level that worked instead of all the guessing they were doing with me over the phone.

I know that many people have good experiences with Hospice and I think there are situations where their care and help is a godsend.  If you have had experience with them and it was a good thing, great for you. Unfortunately, we did not have a good experience with them at both the Hospice House Dave went to, nor when he was home and they came in to assist.  I wish we had never been involved with them and I will always believe he would not have died when he did had they not been involved.  If anything, they only hastened the inevitable and were no comfort to any of us.

Somehow the staff at Hospice misunderstood why he was there.  He was not there for end of life which is what they seemed to think  They were supposed to help get his pain meds regulated and the Hospice doctor put him on a Dilaudid pump. Dilaudid was one of the drugs that he was having the bitggest problem with problem with because it was making him go too deeply into an almost semi-conscious state, so putting him on the pump was a HUGE mistake. Instead of getting one small dose every 5-6 hours, he was getting a shot of it every 30 minutes.  I thought that was a mistake, but I wasn't the doctor, so I just went along with the flow.

After three days of being at Hospice, I got a frantic call that he needed to go to the emergency room because they couldn't wake him up. I rode with him in the ambulance to CMC, where we spent the next 9 hours trying to wake him up.  The resident that was attending him said he was a victim of "polypharma" which is too many medicines for his system to handle.  In other words, they very nearly OD'd him at the Hopice facility.

Dave was admitted to the hospital and stayed there for two nights while they continued to monitor him and get his meds figured out so that his pain was at a managable level.  He ended up with two meds, Methadone and Dexamethasone, which worked really well.  That was down from the 9 meds we were trying to administer to him at home. He was still really weak but after those two days, he was almost his old self.  That was a blessing, to have him back like that.

During his stay at Hospice, somehow his clavicle and two ribs were broken. Those bones were fine the week before he went because he had just had some scans that showed the bone lesions in those places but the bones were still intact.  I will believe til my dying day that the nurses who got him up to change his bed broke those bones with their rough treatment. Dave was a big guy and almost dead weight in his semi-conscious state, so they just kind of pulled and pushed him to get him into a wheelchair when they needed him out of the bed.  He started complaining about his shoulder hurting about 2 hours after one of those incidents.  It bothers me a lot that we trusted those people to help and they only harmed.

Once we got him home and into Hospice care, things did not improve. I will believe forever that Dave would not have died when he did if Hospice had not been involved in his care. If anything, they hastened his death but I can't dwell on that now. The memories of that are just too painful.

After 5 years the cancer is back...August 9, 2009

Today is my birthday and Dave insists on making it my day, as usual.  We have this little "ritual" where we spend the entire week leading up to my birthday celebrating in small ways....dinner, a little pre-present, flowers he picks in the field....always something.  I told him once that my first husband was not much on birthdays and it always hurt a little bit that he (the ex) didn't usually remember unless I kept reminding him and where was the fun in that. From the first birthday we spent together until the last, he has made sure I felt special on my birthday.  This one won't be any different.

After 5 years the cancer is back...May 3, 2009

May 3, 2009

Dave is having some more surgery tomorrow (Monday May 4th) and has several appts over the next two weeks. We are anxious to get his treatment for the cancer started. Because the drug creates a situation where healing is a huge issue, we have now been waiting almost 7 weeks and still no start date has been set. Everytime something crops up that needs to be addressed surgically, it pushes his actual cancer treatment out a little farther, which is very distressing. Tomorrow he is having a malignant lymph node removed from his face and it should be an easy surgery, unless that facial nerves are involved, which is a possibility. This tumor has grown visibly over the last few weeks, which is distrubing but hopefully its removal will be quick and easy. AFter this, he sees a neurologist and brain specialist next week and has another MRI to see about that tumor. He has to heal up some from tomorrow's procedure before they can consider the brain tumor. We are ready for some action on the other tumors.

After 5 years the cancer is back...February 4, 2009

February 4, 2009

The Farmer (Dave) is presently hospitalized and having back surgery, so I am suspending the blog temporarily. We have been preoccupied with this for a while not (hence the lack of postings) so bear with me and I should be back on line when he gets home from the hospital next week, since we will be sticking close to the house until he is ambulatory again. Thanks.

After 5 years the cancer is back...May 4, 2009

Week of May 4th, 2009

Surgery to remove a lymph gland is on our schedule for today (it is 2am as I am typing this).  It is one day surgery but it will take that whole one day. Thank goodness it is supposed to rain, so we won't feel like we are getting no work done at the Farm.

Dave is having  that surgery today (Monday May 4th). After this procedure, we wait 2 weeks and go back for another series of MRI/Scans to see if there is any change with the mets, especially the brain met. That is the one that bears watching now, so we will have our fingers crossed that there has been no change. No change is good. That means we might not have to do the Cyberknife procedure and Dave can start his drug therapy. So far, we have done nothing in the way of actual cancer treatment, other than to cut and paste stuff. Very frustrating, I tell you. We are now 3 months into diagnosis, with mets growing larger and still not treating anything

 We are anxious to get his treatment for the cancer started. Because the drug creates a situation where healing is a huge issue, we have now been waiting almost 7 weeks and still no start date has been set. Everytime something crops up that needs to be addressed surgically, it pushes his actual cancer treatment out a little farther, which is very distressing. Tomorrow he is having a malignant lymph node removed from his face and it should be an easy surgery, unless that facial nerves are involved, which is a possibility. This tumor has grown visibly over the last few weeks, which is distrubing but hopefully its removal will be quick and easy. After this, he sees a neurologist and brain specialist next week and has another MRI to see about that tumor. He has to heal up some from tomorrow's procedure before they can consider the brain tumor. We are ready for some action on the other tumors.

Say a prayer for us.

After 5 years the cancer is back...March 10, 2009

March 10, 2009
There is so much going on around here now I really don't have much time for posting. Dave continued to recover from his surgery and is scheduled to have radiation to "stabilize" the tumor.  He is reluctant to have the radiation but we have been told it will help with the intense pain he still has so he has agreed to it.  I hope it goes well for both our sakes.  This is not going well at the moment.  He can't sleep because he can't find a position or place in bed where he can get comfortable and so he can't sleep.  The pain meds don't do much more than dull the pain  some but it is always there. I hate to see him suffer so. Bless his heart, he never complains, but I can see the pain in his eyes and it is so hard for him.

After 5 years the cancer is back...July 20, 2009

July 20, 2009

This has been a long and ardous year for us here at the Farm. Without the Farmer at the helm much of the time, many of his duties have fallen to me and I will be the first to admit that I am, depending on the task, about 30-50% as good at almost everything that entails. I always appreciated how much he did and how hard he worked, but now that appreciation is 10-fold. However, much of the time this year, it has just been me. I do all the picking, prepping, packing, going to markets. Planting, weeding, etc., I get my share of those chores, too.
While the Farmer has been out of commission much of the time this year, we have had volunteers come out to help on many occasions...and believe me, I am thankful and more grateful than I can express for their help. We couldn't have done many things this year without them. In fact let me take a moment to thank them.

After 5 years the cancer is back...December 18, 2009

December 18, 2009
Wow! I thought it was time to post something important to our many loyal customers and blog followers, since I know that many of you might be curious as to what is happening with Dave and myself right now, in regards to the Farm. Since many of my readers knew us during Dave's original bout with renal cancer and were so supportive at that time, it seemed that it was important to let them know that Dave is now in the fight of his life.

Back in October of 2008, a rather large tumor was discovered when it caused him to have a compression fracture of one of his lumbar vertebra. It was painful and he had extensive surgery to repair the damage but the scans he had for this event revealed that the cancer was back in several spots and he had moved into Stage IV of this dreadful disease. Treatment options are extremely limited and with rather small rates of success for the ones that do exist. But, most of them were not available at all in 2005 when he was originally diagnosed and had his kidney removed, so at least we have some small glimmer of hope for a miracle and are thankful for that.

Throughout this ordeal of the last nearly 5 years, we have never wavered from our pledge to our friends and customers to provide them with the best and healthiest food we could possible grow. Even when he could hardly stand for the pain, he insisted that crops had to get into the ground and weeds had to be hoed. This year, we struggled but with the help of many wonderful and generous volunteers, we managed to have a pretty good season. Nothing like in the past, but satisfactory anyway.

One of the other reasons I am posting this is because we mostly know many of our followers through the Farm and the Farmer's markets we have attended over the last 10 years. Some of them we have seen in recent years, but some of them not at all but the occasional email lets me know they still follow the blog and check out the website. Everybody expresses their concern but nobody ever asks the hard questions, so I thought I would answer them anyway.

Because of the seriousness of Dave's illness, there is always the possibility that we will no longer be able to operate New Moon Farm Organics. That is the reality of it. I think that a personal explanation is in order. Rumor always swirls around events that are not explained adequately and I simply do not want any misinformation about our Farm to be out there in the world. Once those kinds of things hit the air, it is hard to call them back. No matter whether there is a shred of truth or not, people sometimes choose to believe what they hear without ever checking the facts and I want them out there. (I am sure that there was plenty of speculation about why we stopped coming to Charlotte Farmer's Market, when the simple fact is that we have a much better and more lucrative market, 15 minutes from the Farm. Simple as that.) If, and I do stress IF, we are no longer able to continue farming, it will be the absolute last resort we have and it will be because of Dave's health. No other reason.

What 2010 holds is anybody's guess but we plan on pressing ahead with doing the thing we love best....growing things and going to our farmer's market. We are looking to that end for 2010, also and will be making some adjustments to how we do things to accommodate the situation. I am neither as strong and agile or as intuitive about growing things as Dave, but I can hold my own. I am looking forward to getting into a couple of new areas, which we have not been able squeeze in for the last few years. By reducing the size of our CSA to a manageable number and time frame, I foresee that it will be a good year in 2010. The first segment of CSA will be just for spring and I am looking forward to meeting a whole new crop of families to provide with awesome food! There are a couple of dedicated folks that have expressed an interest in helping out for the entire season next year and I hope that comes to fruition. And we will again be offering our "Hands Across the Table" work for food program in 2010.

Blessings and gratitude to each and every one of our customers. You have all been a part of our success over the last 10 years and we want everyone to know how much we have appreciated all the support we received over the years. Come see us at the Davidson Farmer's Market this summer. We'd love to see you!

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to all!

Suzanne and Dave
New Moon Farm Organics

Note: Dave's conditions deteriorated rapidly during the months of January and February, 2010. He was no longer able to walk without the aid of a walker and eventually became wheelchair bound. There was nothing that I wanted to say to anyone during that time and I posted nothing for those two months. We just spent that time being and trying to spend the best time we could together. It was the best thing for both of us.

After 5 years the cancer is back...December 16, 2009

December 16, 2009

Went in for yet another MRI this week. There are more tumors showing up along Dave's spine and one of them is really large and causing him some great discomfort and pain. He may be facing another surgery and/or radiation, possibly embolism of the large tumor and radiation on the smaller ones. At this point, we just don't know. His doctors will be conferring on Friday and we should get an answer then or on Monday, once a decision of how to proceed is made. All this waiting is nervewracking, but at least we don't have to wait for MRI results for days like at other medical facilities. My dad had a CT scan done last week and he hasn't gotten even a report from that one yet. We feel very blessed to be where we are in terms of our doctors.

On a happier note, yesterday was Dave's 50th birthday and we had a party at his mom's with his closest friends present. He didn't feel great earlier in the day and his mom, sister and I were afraid he was gonna miss his own party but it turned out great. Seems like soon as everybody started arriving, he perked right up and had a great time. Amazing how much love and friendship can affect your well being. Thanks to the guys for coming out. Of course, Dave's mom served an incredibly delicious meal, along with one her special cakes (Red Velvet..whew!) to top it off. I think a good time was had by all.

It is very hard not to think about this. It is actually impossible. I tried not to think that this might be the last birthday I would spend with Dave but the thought just would not stay out of my head.  I can't imagine my life without him and it is tearing me to pieces to think that he might not be here in 6 months or a year.  His doctors are careful not to place any time limits on his life, but I know that we are living on borrowed time.

It is when I have these dark thoughts that I thank the Universe that we have had such an incredible life together.  I only have happy, wonderful, loving memories of the last 15 years we have been together and I could not have asked for a more loving, caring, special man to have shared my life with. This cancer is about the worst thing that could have happened to us but to quote Dave "it is what it is" and so he helps me to remember not to let it take over our lives. He tells me almost every day how lucky he is to have someone like me and I tell him the same thing.  Love is like that you know. You find your strength in it.

After 5 years the cancer is back...August 1, 2009

August 1, 2009


Once again I just realized how long it has been since I posted anything to this blog. Guess the old saying "no new is good news" applies here.

Dave is doing pretty well, all things considered. He has now finished two months of his Sutent treatment, with minimal side effects. The first time around his beard started turning a stark white but this time around that didn't happen. He has not had the foot and hand syndrome associated with this protocol, either. Last time we went in for a check up (he goes every 3 weeks for monitoring) his vitals were perfect. Sutent can cause extreme high blood pressure, but his was just about perfect. His oncologist is both surprised and pleased with how well he is doing on this treatment. The telling tale will be when we go for MRI/CT Scans in another week.

If the tumors are shrinking, we will dance the hallelujah dance, so keep your fingers crossed for a good report from that. We also have a scan to check on the brain tumor to see if it continues to be static, which is the good news we hope for.

All things considered, things are going okay now. Still have extreme fatigue, sometimes has to sleep most of the day and night but that isn't the case everyday. One thing that occurs on this drug is depression and that is hard to deal with some days. The upside is that it is mild and some days I think it might just be intense boredom. On the two weeks off Sutent, life almost resumes a normal pace, although the back issue continues. The two off weeks last time were interrupted by a Zometa treatment, which made him intensely ill for about 4-5 days, so we didn't enjoy it too much. Hoping this time that the two off weeks return some symblance of normalcy to our lives. We'll see. It is weird to have your life dictated in these two and four week cycles.  Guess it could be a lot worse.

Like I said in a previous post, this is not a simple or easy path we are following right now, so every little positive thing seems huge. Sometimes I feel like there is a great cosmic stopwatch ticking away but then I remember that Dave says that time is a man-made invention that keeps us all its prisoner, so I should shake off my perceptions of what time really means. I try very hard to do that. Who am I do challenge the Great Mystery?

Anyway, before I get too out there,let me just ask that you keep sending those good energies, prayers, etc., our way. We have a lot going on now and sometimes it is just not a good time but please, if nobody gets back to you when you call, keep trying. We will eventually catch up with you.