Middle Class or Survival Class

Made it through.  Another Anniversary. 
I thought the first couple, the first few would be the most difficult. 

I believe the intensity is more today because life is returning to the Normal of being able to live, as daughter describes it, as a member of the Middle Class rather than the Survival Class.

When we were struggling, existing day to day, with destruction on all sides rather than support or consideration.....

When where we were was so different from what we had, what we gave to our sons, what we provided for other family members....

When some family members chose to harm and hurt and walk away....

When we were "sub-normal" because we refused to do what we were told and so deserved whatever we got or didn't get in life...

We'd always been self sufficient....providing for ourselves....giving to others....sharing and caring...

He was there, my husband was there, when we lived a "normal" life. 

We were moving into, through, beyond the "interim" TOGETHER. 

We were a family. A Multigenerational Family. 

A family who reached out to others, involved in building businesses and a home, working in the community, active in our Church. 

We traveled. We entertained family and friends. 

We were just like you who read these words living a life we worked hard to create with challenges, opportunities and rewards.

The America we'd dreamed about and told was "our place" as we moved through life supporting and sustaining one another.

Last night we decided to have dinner out. Some do it frequently even "ordering delivery" but for us it wasn't in the budget.

Not even a stop at a fast food place could be considered. 

We'd moved from the "haves" to the "have nots".

There was no real end in sight.

For so long, hand to mouth, no potential change, just future "hope".

My life was a widowed  working older adult and daughter's life moving from early adulthood into full fledged, fully responsible 

twenty-something as a  co-provider and sustainer.

She didn't get the "perks" her brothers received. 

She  had "responsibilities" and she never asked  

Thrust into the world, not transitioned as they had been.

Before her time, in ways far below what her brothers' were provided. 

Like going down a drain, from a large entry to twisting turning world. So different from the life husband and I built and sustained together.

 

Before he and Mom entered into the last chapters of each of their lives together and eventually with one surviving the other, for a while.

I'd suggested the "dining out" to move beyond the preceding days where what I did brought to mind too many reminders, experiences.

No longer just memories of times past. Reminders of never to be experienced or created NEW memories with him, my husband, my friend, my mother, my friend.

I was picking daughter up from work; she's usually in a car pool  and occasionally we drive sharing one another's company.

Each goes about our days as we climb and scale the mountain of shouldering together what once was in the hands of four people is now in the hands of two. 

Two who stand together while many question and even ridicule this choice, this belief, we are better together than we could possibly be each on our own.

Asked her to choose a place. Coping with challenges and responsibilities with deadlines while going through the prospect of another anniversary alone, another realization of the separation, the last times spent together and daughter's loss of father and Grandma.

Reminding myself how fortunate I had been and for how long doesn't take away the pain of the loss, of the missing the continuation of those times.

Did we have a "perfect" marriage? 

Were we "perfect" together or as a family, as parents? 

Of course not. 

People don't have insertable programs or updates we receive to ensure what we say and do are always totally correct and in the everyone's full and best interest.

As before, it's an ocean, this life, with ebbs, flows, rises and falls, storms and amazing sunrises and sunsets both far out and close in.

Daughter and I had been doing more "cleaning out". 

That and her going through her own individual personal and professional life adjustments were taking a toll that was visible. 

New opportunities. New possibilities. 

Decisions to make. Choices. 

Deadlines. Responsibilites

You'd think after this long a time (several years -- going on seven for husband/father and four with Mom/Grandma) -- we'd have exhausted the possibilities of removing, sharing, picking through and providing to others for their use.

(Update from original writing: Husband since 2011; Mom, 2014.)

Reality is we cope with daily life that has been often moving forward through basic survival from day to day and not knowing where we would be in days and sometimes just in hours. 

Jobs for both were minimal and we had low financial means.

We'd experienced a water problem in our basement.  

Our attempts to try to resolve the weed problem outside in the front of our house and using a thick covering of mulch meant accumulation of rain water and overflow came inside.

Daughter and I consoled one another....we'd been wanting to do more "sorting through" and "getting rid of"; this was a prime opportunity. 

We didn't like the circumstances but sometimes it's what's needed and necessary -- that "push" when we'd felt we couldn't sustain another "self push".

Clothing from years past had been put in boxes and in our attempts to clean and clear out areas, we'd put the boxes on the unfinished basement floor.  

You guessed it ... the cardboard absorbed the water and we had to decide -- pitch or keep and if keep, we'd have to wash and re store.

Another "purging" yet so much accumulation; hard to recall we'd had a fire several years ago that wiped out so many memories.

Life and death, laughter and tears. memories created to be remembered and then lost as years took their toll.

It was the joy of being together that today has the greatest value even as we move, daughter and I, into years ahead not knowing exactly where we're going -- only where we've been.