quote for the week: The Machines (from the Widows' Handbook)

The Machines

by Jacqueline Kudler

First the grill ignition failed, 

then, not ten days later and

two months after you died,

the fridge condense went

but slowly--

for days I watched

the glacier crawling down

along the back wall.

It wasn't too much longer

before the timers in the double

 oven and the freezer

quit, as if some universal

clock had simply stopped

somewhere, all dials fixed

at midnight.

By his fourth call,

the National Appliance guy

opined he'd never witnessed 

such a run of luck--

everything breaking down

like that around me.

He hoped (with eyes 

accustomed to assessing

hairline cracks and fissures)

that I was holding up OK.

I told him how my days,

amazingly enough, go well.

I wake, bathe, lunch with

friends, call the kids,

and at night when I sit

down at the table, I light

a candle at your place.

Oh, I'm doing well

enough, I said,

but given their histories,

the nature of their finely

wired dispositions,

I wouldn't presume 

to speak

for the machines.

 

Another Poem from The Widows' Handbook--this one by Regina Murray Brault

The Sisterhood

Words travel fast on Widows' Row.

They say

another casserole to bake

another wake to walk through.

It is our rite

to pray for him who lies at rest

in his best suit--

something he would not allow himself

until today.

We'll drink a toast to him

who won't be home for her beef stew

although she'll set the place

and call his name.

We are the sisterhood of silence

who won't remind her

that we who must give life

are taught 

to wear our emptied wombs

as though they were blue ribbons

from the county fair

and we who are dealt death 

are taught 

to plug our hollowed hearts

with homemade carrot cakes

while burying our men as we

do iris bulbs in gardens.

Instead, those of us who call it basic black

and crowd the back pews of the church

will watch and wait

 while others tell her

time will heal all wounds.

The words our tongues find hard to form

for each of us has learned

in turn

that there are secrets

 widows keep.

 

On My Own

 I have been a widow for fifteen years and two days but life has gone on.  A different life, to be sure, filled with memories, joys and sorrows.

Below is a poem I wrote a few years after my husband died.  It was published in The Widows' Handbook:

On My Own

On my own   

I have had

A leaky roof,

A flooded bathroom,

A water heater leaking gas,

A crashed hard drive,

Thousands of dollars in medical bills,

A lawsuit over business assets,

Debts to you, your friend refused to pay,

Squirrels in the attic,

A possum in the bathroom, 

A broken nose,

A hysterectomy,

Carpal tunnel surgery,

Cataract surgery,

Vertigo, 

And a hornet sting.

A new cat,

The garage restored,

The house repainted,

A garden planted,

Articles in anthologies,

A new book published,

A trip to France,

Visits to the Alhambra,

Troy and Gallipoli,

My picture on a calendar,

A blog with over fifty followers,

A date,

My hair grown longer,

My hair cut shorter,

And my seventy-fifth birthday.

There have been

Spring meadows sprinkled with bluebonnets,

Summer afternoons dazzled by heat,

Autumn doorbells rung by trick-or-treaters,

Winter twilights, hazy and dim--

And all without you;

Yet I still  go on

And on.

quotes for the week: fall

 

Book of September

Didn't read much in September...or rather, didn't finish much.  I'm reading several long non-fictioon books but I took a breakto read JoJoMoyes" One Plus One.  A great "guilty pleasure" book about a family facing poverty and their interactions with a rich man with a secret.  Fun read.

quote for the week: If by Rudyard KIpling

 If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

But make allowances for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good or talk too wise,

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;

If you can think and not make thoughts your ain,

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you can your life to broken,

And stoop and build them up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them, "Hold on."

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue

And walk with kings nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but not too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And what is more, you'll be a Man, my son.

Remembering RBG

We owe so much to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  I spent the last week remembering how much she changed my life.  Soon after I was divorced, I was shopping at Dillards and remarked to the clerk that I was no longer the Mrs....that was listed on my credit card.  She was horrified and so was I when I found how difficult it was to get a card in my own name.  

When my automobile insurance came due, my agent informed me that the present company was dropping me because "divorced women have more accidents."  I got a policy with a different company and the next year I got a different agent.

When a fellow speech-pathologist and I opened our private practice in 1975, we could not set up a bank account unless our husbands signed for it.  

Imagine any of those incidents happening today.  We owe much of our success as women to RBG's influence.

The year after my second husband died, I submitted a poem to a forthcoming book entitled The Widows' Handbook. I was delighted when it was accepted and both amazed and thrilled when I got my author's copy and read the forward written by none other than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  A widow herself, she took the time from her extremely busy life to write about her own widowhood and her compassion for those of us who had lost our spouses.

In my heart, there will always be a vacant chair in the Supreme Court in memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Here is part of a poem that fits her perfectly.  It's called The Dissenter's Hope:

Never surrender the fight for today

And never give up the dream of a better tomorrow

For this is the dissenter's hope

That one day,

Some enlightened day in the future,

When truth is given full voice

Justice will win the majority

And the bell of freedom will ring

With new clarity.