NY snark

Here's Lucy! Little miss is what keeps me smiling.

Here's what doesn't make me smile. A comment from someone who clearly doesn't know me at all and misinterprets my NY sarcasm for something other than what it is. I don't expect anyone who "knows" me from the blog to really "know me" but most of the friends I've made in bloglandia and in personal correspondence are good friends who have stood beside me in these past horrible months, genuinely wanting to do something to help. To anyone who thinks that I don't appreciate that every day I say...pft! You add the sound effects.

At heart, I am a comedian with a sharp, very dry, sense of humor. It has been a necessary companion these past months of Roger's terrible illness and death. If not for my sense of humor I would be in a ball in the fetal position in bed. To say that I don't appreciate my life or my place in this life is to not know me at all. I have resumed my job of 13 years at the Pantry where I am , among other jobs, a listener. I listen to women who have been abandoned by louses and left with children to feed and no marketable trade. Women with no means of supporting themselves or the medical and social needs of having two children with Autism. Men of many ages who have served our country only to have been forgotten and left to find their way while not fully being able to understand what has happened to them. Most cannot even look you in the face, so bleak is their pain and guilt. I am cosidering another offer as well for a job in one of the churches in the village. I will most likely take that job too in a month or so.

For anyone who thinks that I'm sitting in some ivory tower complaining about the lack of help from the little folk toiling in the fields let me set you straight. I spend my days doing for others as much as possible and now I am trying to make sense of my own life too. The loss of my husband of 37 years and friend for some 40 has been devastating and nearly unbearable to me. My chin is up though and not being one to bitch and moan, I go through the days with a smile on my face and think of how very fortunate I am that Roger was savvy enough to leave me comfortable and cared for in a number of ways. I have a wonderful, if creaky, old house that is mine all mine and don't owe anyone anything but taxes. For nearly 6 months I went to the hospital everyday and, until the end, believed that my dearest friend and the love of my life would come home again. We spent out time together, as short as it was, really in love with each other. Last week was our anniversary and I had intended to write a little about our life together. Roger gave me the first home I have ever known in all my life. He spent so much of his time planning things for us to do and ways to make me happy and to feel safe. If it were not for him, I doubt I would have survived the things that happened to me years ago. We took a long-time friendship and turned it into a love story that our friends still comment about. It was one of those "if not for this, then that would never have happened" things. He made it easy to fall in love because we were already in like for years. There's a lot to be said for a boat ride on the Sound on a May evening at sunset. I still get a little tug at my tummy when I think of that night. I wanted to spend the rest of my life trying to make him as happy as possible and tell him many times over how much he meant to me. When I think of how sick he was those last weeks it causes me actual physical reactions.

So, if someone thinks that my personality is defined by not appreciating the plight of those around me who have to make their way out in the storm when I get to sit here being crabby and annoyed at the plow guy and the state of my driveway, let me just say, "you have no idea who I am and , clearly, no appreciation for NY snark. To each his own but stay out of mine.