I don't know...

It's ten days now since he died.

image found on Google search.

Ten days of things to do and things to take care of, and all the life goes on stuff.
Still much to do, a lot to figure out, and everything is hinging (hingeing?)on everything  else. Tried to call Social Security, but no one on the phone would talk to me. Couldn't give me any information related to Rex because of not having his permission. Never mind that he has deceased, died, is unavailable. They can't talk to me without his current consent.

Good luck with that.

Will have to go to office, which has to wait until I have the death certificate. I'm going to have to go in person, so I can go to Batavia. If  try to make an appointment from home, they will send me to the Portsmouth office. I barely know where Portsmouth is (on SR 125 East). I sure don't know where to find anywhere in Portsmouth.
I do know where Batavia is and the places in Batavia.
If we still lived in Mt Orab, or even Decatur, we would automatically go to Batavia. Seems the Social Security Administration does NOT consider Adams County as part of the Greater Cincinnati area, while Brown County is. This has made it interesting before. I just truck myself and my paperwork to Batavia at my convenience. If I get in early enough, I don't have to wait too long.

But first, I got notice from Adams County Jobs & Family Services. I am to report Monday to their jobs program (which has no jobs, but they are required by law to do the sign-ups, etc.) Didn't take them long to remove me from being a care-giver, although they have yet to acknowledge the prospective change in income.

Also got a medical card for Rex in the mail. We've never had one of those for him before. I kind of thought a little late, but as I have yet to be billed for anything, it's probably not too late. I think it's one of the changes for the disabled that has come with the Affordable Care Act.
At least I will have something to send when the bills come.
The brief letter with the card (sheet of paper) said nothing about the spendown, so I wonder if that's still in play or not.

I guess I'll find that out, too.

I do wonder what I will do when all this busyness is done. When there is nothing more to hurry up and wait for.

Something else to be found out.

Good Bye, my Love. Farewell

Yesterday, we said formal good-byes to my Rex.
I won't say final good-bye, because, for me, there is no finality. There's always a qualifier.
Until we meet again
In this lifetime

For others, who did not live with him daily or minute by minute, the farewell is more final. That's okay. Good-bye is not Gone Forever. They will have their own memories and cherished moments. There will be times when something reminds them of the time "Rex and I" did such-and-such . There will be times when they think I must call Rex, and then remember that they can't.
Over and over they may have heart-stopping moments like that.

I had thought at first to have a viewing, a visitation. I had found out that I could, and decided to do so.
But I woke in the night with Rex's thoughts in mine, and what he was saying was that he didn't want people staring at him.
That is so exactly what Rex would say, how he would feel, that I could not ignore it. There would be no staring at the empty body.

The service was another problem. Rex was rampantly anti-preacher. He'd want no part of a preaching.
How does one have a funeral without a preacher, or perhaps some trained motivational speaker or something?

One returns to the traditions of funeral speaking -- those who loved; those who knew the deceased. The fond farewell from loved ones.

My sisters spoke, for him, and our daughter's spouse.Together we worked on things to be said -- a brief bio of the man Rex was, and a speaking of how he lived.

There were two things important to me. Rex was not religious. As I said, he was against anything that smacked of preaching. But the way he lived his life was so Godly, in many ways ; so very Christian.
"Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you have done unto me."

Rex lived that.
It wasn't easy.
He agonized over issues; over should he or shouldn't he; over is it best.
Sometimes he shouldn't.
Sometimes it isn't best.

But it was the right thing to do.
So, however reluctantly, however unwisely, he would choose the right way of doing things.
Just because.

Already one daughter is following that example. (The other hasn't had much chance.)

Rex was no Christian as the world and the organized churches see Christian.
But he led a Christian life.
He had a Christ-like soul.

and there's nothing more to say.

Dying to Live, or Living to Die

I wonder if anyone of you realize how fast the end of this disease (COPD) can come upon you.
My husband went to hospital with pneumonia and an exacerbation because of it. He got worse, got better, got worse, got better. Then he tried to sit up unassisted in the bed and the doctor is saying, "This is end stage. Do you want kept alive by machine and stuck in a nursing facility, or not?" And, before we could even take that in, he crashed again and the goal was to keep him alive until his daughters came.
Of course, he lingered after that, even so still reluctant to leave us.

The point is, it all happened too quickly. We knew it would come, someday, and some day soon, and had discussed things in general -- health care directives and funeral 'plans' and such.
I urge you to get specific.
Do not make your loved one have to make the decision in the space of a few minutes or a couple hours.
Talk to your doctor about how it ends.
Talk to your family about how you want to end, and where.
Write it down somewhere.

Then go back to your business of living every day and enjoying every breath you take while you are taking it.

We all know that death is waiting for us. Those with chronic illnesses such as this know it more than the general population does. We know that we can have choices to make and there are choices our loved ones will have to make.
But do we want to put the burden of our decisions on their shoulders?

Know what you want, exactly, precisely.
Tell them what you want.
And now that this business of dying has been settled, go back to living.
.
Thoughtfully.
Gratefully.
Fully.

Empty Arms -- again

Every October this comes to mind, because the date was October 10, 1983.

Thirty years later, October 10, 2013, my husband was being hospitalized from pnuemonia, and went into respiratory distress.
He did not die that day.
But he did die.

And, again, mid October finds me with Empty Arms.

Empty Arms

Empty arms, empty arms                                         Months of waiting
Years of plans
And at the end:
Empty arms                                                                          

All alone, all alone
Always all alone
No one cares                                                    
No one shares
All alone

Little one, little one
Where have you gone?
A gift to me
A life to be
All gone

No one knows, no one knows
What you could have been
Should have been.
And I am all alone
With Empty arms.

All my dreams, all my dreams
All gone
Passed on
Leaving me alone
With empty arms