July 6, 2010

Today is a very hot day. We are in fact experiencing a heat wave here in the Northeast with temps going into three digit numbers. I'll always remember a similar week back in the same month, July 2002, and same day -- the 6th -- where temps hovered in the 90's, with the humidity also quite high. I remember my own doctor on TV advising people to cut down on outdoor activities, especially if they had any kind of heart problem.

I would give the same advice today and throughout the week, particularly for us "older" folks whether or not we have heart problems. I'm finding that as I get older I don't seem to adjust as well or as quickly to these temperatures.

I just stepped out a moment ago to check my mail and felt my lungs struggle to get oxygen through my system. I don't have any serious physical problems, nonetheless I know I will be curtailing outside activity until this heat is over.

I enjoy taking my PeekAPoo puppy for her morning and late afternoon walk. Today and probably for most of the week I won't be able to do that. Instead although I do have air conditioning, I'll take her to a Petco or Petsmart where we can at least walk around the stores in relative comfort.

Eight years ago today I crossed the path into widowhood. At times it's still hard for me to believe it has been eight years but looking back and seeing the journey I've been on, I can say this journey definitely changed me in ways I may not even realize even when I cross that same path as my late husband that took him beyond this world.

Widowhood may put one into a place that separates them from an ordinary world where one might feel disconnected from it in terms of being able to relate to it in that same ordinary sense.

My mind plays tricks on me. In my dreams I find myself back in that ordinary world where death was only a word, and its effects a distant problem.

But since July 6, 2002 death pretty much has stayed close by. It does it through memories of a past that was severed from me in a way that has me wondering if that past life even happened.

I guess because life continues to change, and that is inevitable.

We who become widowed make this journey sometimes feeling connected, and sometimes feeling quite alone.

I've often since that day have found myself shaking my head and wondering about the identities I've assumed as I grow older and cross newer paths.

It's not easy.

But this type of journey does strengthen us in a way where we can face that next inevitable occurrence in our lives.

The journey helps us appreciate whatever moments we have here mainly in the small things, not so much the big things.

I continue to write my stories, self publish them, and live a much more narrower life in terms of my connections to the world.

As a result I sometimes find myself connected more to the past than to a future that at the present is not quite so clear.

And so I live and appreciate small moments and any of the good things that come my way.