Additional Posts

While going through some notebooks, I found these pieces on grief I had written in the spring and summer of 2022. I thought I would add them, in the order they were written, and as one post.

Lost in the Past 11 January 2022

“Get out and do something.”

If I’ve heard that line once I’ve heard it a thousand times.

“I do get out,” I tell them,  but they look at me like I’m lying.

Yes, I miss my Greg. Yes, I love him and always will. Yes, I would live our life together again, with all its ups and downs.

No, I am not interested in dating. No, I am not looking for a man. No, I don’t have to have a man in my life to feel complete.

Will I ever change? Ever move away from Greg, emotionally or physically? Most likely not.

I have no wish to, no reason to. Even though there are days I’d like to have a man to talk to, to go out to eat with, it is a rare day that I feel that way.

I have my memories of Greg. His smile. His laugh. His hugs. His singing. His love and warmth.

Some things simply cannot ever be replaced. Greg is that for me.

So, I’ll stay lost in the past. A past much better suited to me than a future that would be uncertain. I know Greg loved me for he wouldn’t have stayed with me otherwise. I do not know that about another man.

My past is me. My life. My love. My future is me. My life. Memories of love.

I am alone and alone I’ll stay.

In My Life 5 March 2022

Where to go today? On the road. In my heart. In my writing. It feels I have exhausted all the options on any of these.

Driving is getting tiresome. I can see the beauty God is putting in the world while driving but there is much beauty on our farm that I can see without stepping foot out of the house.

My heart. Greg is in my heart. I thought it was opening to someone else but realized neither my heart nor I am ready. So, I’ll pull back into my own world and stay there.

My writing. I can do things like this but haven’t been able to get a story rolling and to the end for more than a month. I can come up with openings and a paragraph or two, know how I want the story to end, but can’t get the two connected.

The rest of my life. Stay at home a lot. Go to Reno’s for a good meal. Pet the cats. Work on the house and the yard. Read.

Learn how to be myself all on my own.

Greg’s Birthday 2 April 2022

I’m fighting the tears. So far I’ve kept them at bay.

I had my day planned. Drive Greg’s truck to Glasgow and eat lunch at Gondolier. The truck made odd noises when I put it in Reverse so that was out. I got in the new truck, checked the mail, drove to town and got gas. I put the CD of Greg in the stereo so I could listen to his sweet voice while driving. That was also out as the CD clicked constantly – something it hadn’t done before.

Now I’m in Reno’s bar once again, listening to Travis and wondering what to do once I have lunch. I need to do a little shopping but am not in the mood.

Couples are coming in while I sit here by myself. I miss Greg and our life together. I am adrift without Greg, and now the shop.

People say I need to meet someone. Why? Greg is my heart, my love, my strength.

I was at the pawn shop yesterday and one of Greg’s buddies said, “Hey, there’s Greg’s wife!” After that wonderful compliment, what more do I need.

I Fall to Pieces 16 April 2022

Two years. Eight months. Two days. Ten hours.

A lifetime. A few seconds.

No way to measure the eternity I feel I’ve been without Greg. The eternity I will be without him.

A friend and I had lunch a week or so ago, and I cried while talking about Greg. She said memories can bring tears. I told her that simply thinking “Greg” brought tears – I didn’t have to think of anything else.

It takes so little, so suddenly, so quickly, for me to fall to pieces, no matter what may be going on at the time.

And the pieces never seem to fit when I attempt to move away from the sadness. My life is a jigsaw puzzle of unmatched pieces that change their shapes from time to time, scattering my plans for  a day, keeping me unsettled, unable to envision a time when I’ll be less sad.

Some days I can think of Greg and smile, remembering our foundation of love. 

Other days, I think of Greg and I fall to pieces.

Where? 26 April 2022

Where am I living? Today? Tomorrow? Yesterday? Right now it is yesterday. My heart wants what it can no longer have. Wants what it should not want. Yearns for something I do not know.

Dragging myself out of the past is hard. And it is going to be dragging, for my heart is not willing to look to the future. I’m not sure my mind is willing either.

I know I must for the future is coming, no matter what my heart – or my mind – may want to do.

I cannot change yesterday. I cannot change the past of only three seconds ago. I need to move ahead.

I think the what I might be moving ahead to is why my heart is staying firmly in its past, for I have no idea where my life is headed other than longer days and longer nights of only existing.

Tears. Laughter. More tears. A sadness inside me that doesn’t want to leave. A longing for a change in my life – but what kind of change?

Move away from our farm? Just the thought of packing tires me. And Greg is here, and he is my heart.

A new job? That might help me move into the future. At the very least it would give me something different to do.

Get past the fear of loving again? That is unanswerable.

I am here. I know where I am, what I do and what I like. Perhaps this is where I will stay.

Killing Time 14 July 2022

Two years, eleven months and nearly seventeen  hours without Greg. I‘m no closer to moving into the future than I was two years, eleven months and nearly seventeen hours ago.

I’ve changed some things in my life since then. Bought a new truck one year, eleven months and two hours ago. Sold the shop building and cleared out thirty-five years of memories three months, fifteen days and twenty hours ago.

I have done things that needed to be done – repaired and repainted Greg’s truck, repaired the Explorer, reroofed the house – but those things aren’t changes – only basic upkeep of property.

I’m not grieving over Greg as much although I am sad most days and it doesn’t take much for tears to appear. I do things on my own – dine out, drive, shop, attend concerts; I guess you could say that is a change – I had never attended a concert until Greg and I attended a Travis Tritt concert 8 October 1994 – in the past two years I have attended three concerts on my own, and have tickets for another one scheduled for October.

But to say I’ve made any changes that will add up to a future doing anything differently than I have done since Greg died. No.

I don’t date. Don’t really have an inclination to do so, although, at times, a male presence while dining out would be welcome.

There are a few places I’d like to travel to but probably won’t. Distance. Time. Cats. Money. Considerations to be taken before plans for more than a night away from home could be made.

Selling the shop was probably not a good idea. Stepping out and locking the door behind me a final time was tantamount to losing Greg again.

And something left me that night. I’m not sure what, for while I can get out and do things, deep down I really have no interest in doing so. My past is gone and it took any vision I had of my future with it.

I’ve not been able to write much about Greg and haven’t posted anything for a few months. I’ve dabbled at short stories and songs but can’t seem to get rolling and complete any.

I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping this month and have blamed it on the heat, which has contributed to it, but I know I’m just trying to escape. From what and to where I am uncertain.

So, I drift through my life, just killing time.

Another Day 11 August 2022

Another day alone. Another day I feel nonexistent. Another day wanting what I can never have again. Another day contemplating a future that will no different than today.

Another day.

Another day I have accomplished nothing. And don’t plan to.

There are things I need to do. Put gas in the truck. Dust the furniture. Sort and trash. Trim tree branches that are hitting the truck. Mow the yard.

Nothing I am interested in doing. Nothing that catches my attention.

Nothing but reading, for I can escape into a story and be somewhere else for a while. But even that is becoming problematic as too many characters in too many stories remind of Greg in some way. 

And the tears appear.

Closing A Chapter

I am writing this on a Friday while wind roars in the treetops and rain pelts the roof. It is the third day of March 2023. A day Greg and I would have been together. I don’t know what we would have done, but a good meal would have been included. Maybe a drive down random roads. Maybe see a movie after having an early supper.

Doesn’t matter. We would have been together.

I’m sure anyone reading this blog will notice the gap between December 2021 and August 2022. A gap caused by another drastic change in my life.

In December 2021, I sold the shop building. This wasn’t a sudden decision. In the four or five years before Greg’s death, we occasionally discussed selling the shop. We’d talk about it a little while, and I’d tell Greg to do whatever he wanted. I don’t think either of us wanted to sell the shop. During the thirty-plus years we were in the printing business, the shop was home as much – sometimes more – than our house was.

The shop was where we conducted business, made our living. It was where we worked long hours, where we laughed, where we fussed, where we talked with friends, where we shared meals, where we dreamed, where Greg sang while I typed, where we were Greg and Joyce – in our own place

.
A place we drifted in and out of on weekends, sometimes work, sometimes a meeting place, sometimes a pit stop on the way to another destination.

The three months I spent clearing the shop of our printing business was hard. Thirty-five years of my life with Greg had to be disposed of in some way. I wept over many things, from notes Greg had written, to the destruction of printing equipment that had served us well.

I stored things. I gave away things. I trashed things. And wept about it all.

I cried at the shop. I cried in restaurants. I cried while driving. I cried at the house. I sat at Greg’s grave and cried; one day I was hurting all over so I came home and slept by Greg’s grave for a few hours . . . it helped.

On the evening of 29 March 2022, I locked the back door of the shop for the final time. As I stood there with the key in my hand, I felt more lost than I ever imagined I could. I had been without Greg for two and a half years. Now another major part of my life was gone. Neither Greg nor the shop can ever be replaced.
I have mourned the loss of Greg and the loss of the shop the past year, and have made several attempts to write this blog post in that time. It has been extremely hard to get words to fit on the page to relate how I feel. I don’t think what I have written today fully expresses the deep sense of loss I have been enduring.

A feeling of being lost in my own life. Without an anchor of any kind. No Greg. No shop. None of the day-to-day things that were my life for nearly forty-five years. Forty-two of those years with Greg. Thirty-eight of those years in Printing Creations.

Years of having my days filled with printing work and other things. Listening to Greg play a guitar and sing. Decorating the lobby for Christmas. Chatting with friends who stopped by. Eating a meal. Making flower arrangements for Memorial Day. So many bits and pieces of my life that are gone and irreplaceable.

This is most likely the last post I will make on this blog. Grief has morphed into sadness that permeates everything I do. The days are slowly becoming easier emotionally. I still cry over Greg; I doubt those tears will ever be gone. I miss Greg and the shop; I doubt that will ever change. I am at a point that I feel anything else I write would become repetitious. If inspiration brings new thoughts on grief to the surface, I will post more.

Until then, thank you to whomever has taken the time to read my posts. The poem below was written at least twenty years ago, but it is as relevant now as it was then.

Holes
In my heart
Once filled with
People
Pets
Possessions
Now gone
Irretrievable
Only death
Will make me
Whole

“Hooked on a Feeling”

That song was playing on the radio last week when I was sitting in my doctor’s waiting room. 

It describes my life.

Hooked on a feeling. The feeling of Greg’s love for me and all the good it brought into my life for forty-two years. I will always be hooked on that feeling. Hooked on all we had together.

Simple things. Riding down back roads at all hours of the night. Watching Christmas cartoons on a snowy Saturday afternoon. Sharing a bag of M&M’s and a Pepsi.

Wonderful things. Greg’s warmth and strength. His goodness. His arms around me when a day was rough. Listening to him sing throughout a day. Snuggling against him in the night. His laugh.

Hooked on a feeling.

And wanting . . . and wanting . . . and wanting . . . all I can never have again. Wanting what is impossible to replace.

The memories are always with me, bringing smiles and tears, often at the same time. Memories aren’t the same as having Greg by my side, but I am thankful God blessed me by letting me have this wonderful man in my life for forty-two years.

I am hooked on a blessing.

"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"

My theme song for this date – 29 October 2022.

Lonesome all the way to the bone.

I knew yesterday morning it was going to be a long weekend. I didn’t expect loneliness to hit me this hard, hard enough that nothing suits. Nothing.

So I’ve been driving. Traffic was moving so I’ve run with it, as fast as 75 to 80 in a 45 m.p.h. construction zone. Driving isn’t helping, even with Travis on the stereo.

Nor have I been able to consider reaching out to someone to talk to or travel with. The thoughts of having to be cordial disrupts my equilibrium more than it already is.

So I’m in a truck stop in Mt. Vernon, having breakfast for lunch, debating where to go from here. I will drive over to Renfro Valley and pick up a leaf, one that is cupped, and I’ll put it on Greg’s grave to use as a bowl for the M&M’s I leave there; a raccoon comes to eat them and sometimes walks over and pats my leg.

Greg. I’ve missed him all week. Missed all we did in our forty-two years together. Long hours at work. Driving back roads half the night. Meals in restaurants of all kinds. Concerts at Freedom Hall and nights in Executive Inn – Greg’s home away from home. And music – Greg loved music, and I loved to hear him sing and play one of his guitars.

Tears have come while I’m writing this, but they have been from sadness instead of the hard grief I experienced so many times last year. Most of the tears I’ve shed the past few weeks have been from sadness. I have had some bouts with grief, but the pain wasn’t all the way to the bone, and the attacks abated as quickly as they came.

Sadness lingers, and is overridden with loneliness today. I know neither of these is likely to completely disappear from my life. I can only hope that days like today become fewer and further between.

I will survive.

Just A Few Notes

A few notes in “Between An Old Memory and Me.” A few clear notes that catch  my ear and draw me further into the song. Notes that resonate with my spirit for reasons that are unknown to me. Notes that often bring tears to accompany the memories that are always there.

The squeak of guitar strings in other songs. A riff that sounds as if there are multiple guitars at work, but I know this is a solo acoustic recording, with only one instrument, one extremely talented musician bringing the music to life. Simple melodies woven through a song, easy to remember and sing. 

Notes in the music I listen to daily. Notes weaving rhythms delicate and complex. Notes of a guitar wound among notes of a violin and steel guitar, interspersed with a drumbeat setting the pace.

Notes connecting everything Greg was and everything we were together to my life today.

A life without Greg and his music. His singing. His guitar playing. His love of concerts. His talk of music. Music interwoven in Greg’s heart so deeply that memories of Greg nearly always contain music.

He sang throughout a day. While running the press. While driving. While playing his guitar. While listening to Travis or Merle or Bocephus or Waylon or Clint.

Perhaps the only times Greg didn’t sing were when he was deer hunting. He noticed God’s music though; he would tell me of a bird singing nearby while he was waiting for that trophy buck.

He played, he sang, he wrote songs. He entertained me. 

He occasionally recorded himself, and a friend transferred the songs from cassette tapes to a CD so I can listen to Greg sing at any time. Yes, I often cry, but I can hear Greg doing what he loved. Something that I loved to hear him do.

Greg and his notes have been missing from my life since 14 August 2019. Sunday I will listen to his CD and visit places we frequented. I will laugh. I will cry. Sometimes I will do both.

And the notes will dwell in my heart . . .

The Stories Are Gone

Greg was a storyteller. He told stories about golfing, fishing, hunting, gun trading, truck trading, concerts, pool games – and pool room brawls, playing poker, family history, work, old girlfriends, drinking, church, motorcycles, bars and nightclubs, travels . . . the list could continue for several pages.

I can’t relate the stories Greg told me. Some of them had so many people involved that I did not know that I had a hard time keeping straight who was who.  Other stories, like the ones about specific gun trades, contained information that I didn’t always understand. And then there were the ones he would tell that would have me laughing so hard all I could remember was the ending.

I miss those stories. Stories told by a man who enjoyed life, who wasn’t afraid to be himself, nor to be in a new situation. Greg might not want to be in a particular situation, but he feared nothing but God.

I miss the sound of his voice, the warmth, the humor, the sadness he unconsciously let mingle with his telling of a tale.

I drove his truck to a friend’s house today (5 December 2021). Thinking of the miles I had ridden with Greg in that truck brought tears and a sadness that has lingered.

I can tell stories of our life together, of two-thirds of my life with a wonderful man whom I will always love and miss, but I am not a storyteller like Greg was. He could entertain anyone with a story, have them listening intently, and smiling when he finished.

Greg’s stories are gone. No more will I hear him recount a day on the Cumberland nor laugh while he is telling of some antic he and a buddy lived through. Greg and his stories cannot be replaced, but my memories of him stay with me, bringing laughter and tears, sometimes together.

Our story had its ups and downs, but through it all our love was always there, creating a unit that sometimes defied reason.

No matter. The stories are gone. Most of the people Greg told stories about are gone. But the memories are there . . . memories I will cherish forever.

My Week Now

Fourteen socks in the wash
Doing dishes on Saturday night
Steam-free morning bathroom
One truck at the shop
Five p.m. bedtime
Weekend drives alone
One lunch to buy
Uninterrupted reading
Onions on a hamburger

And tears
Not always visible
But always there