Tag Archives: death

Nine Months

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It was nine months ago today that Valerie died.

I haven’t written anything about her in a while, though she is always on my mind. For a while, I was marking the days, then the months on Facebook. I realize that it is a pretty drama-based thing to do, so I am refraining from it this month. But I need to acknowledge it in some way, acknowledge the pain I am in and how much I love and miss her. Even as I write this, tears roll down my face and soak my shirt. I can’t stop.

Today has been a wash. I did manage to go to the gym today and get in a good 50 minute swim. It helps. I find that when I swim, I’m so focused on it that I don’t have room to think of anything else. Besides, pool water hides tears.

But once I got home, I just crawled into bed. I’ve been in the fetal position, clutching a stuffed animal that I got her when she was accepted into the Binghamton doctoral program. It was a furry dinosaur, and it actually freaked her out some. Sometimes things would just get into her head like that.

She was such a special person, and I miss her so much.

Stupid Sleep Apnea: CPAP Panic.

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Last night I had my second sleep study for sleep apnea. This is the one where they put the vader mask on your face and shoot air down your throat. Needless to say it was as horrible as it sounds.

Lung problems run in my family. My grandfather had COPD. My mother had sleep apnea, my brother too. In addition to apnea, I also have asthma. I’m happy to say that my asthma isn’t as bad as it used to be, but i still carry around a rescue inhaler in case of emergency. The sleep tech thinks that I have had apnea since a young age because it is so bad at this point. He called it “old man apnea.”

The test was an ordeal, and I wonder if I will be able to handle the machine. Bascially, a masked is sealed onto your face, a tube forces compressed air into your airway, keeping it open. the thing is that the pressure is very strong, and it takes quite the effort to exhale. It feels like you are being strangled at first, even though you aren’t.

The first 5 minutes are the worst. I said to the tech, “it feels like I’m choking.” He said “don’t worry, I got ya. all your levels are normal, your heart rate is fine, blood oxygen is fine. Your brain is always trying to protect your airflow, so it is making you panic. Just keep telling yourself that you’re not choking, and you’ll be fine.”

So that’s what I did. I sat on the bed and watched RAW (a pretty lame episode, although I did like Ryback’s monologue, it actually made sense) and tried to calm myself.

It didn’t work.

While I did eventually adjust to the pressure, it took 3 hours before I fell asleep. In those three hours, I walked through a shadow of terror and self-loathing. I despaired at being 36 and needing a ventilator-lite to survive. I felt like I was old and dying, that the meat of my life was past me and I only had bones left to gnaw on. Worst of all, when I pictured myself on the bed with that thing pumping air down my throat, I kept drifting back to Valerie and those last days in the hospital. The worst moments of my life revisited over and over. Is that what I have to look forward to? It’s not bad enough that I think about her every waking moment, are the sleeping moments taken too?

I slept for about 4 hours, and I did wake refreshed. I’ve been very productive today as well, so maybe there is something to this treatment. It’s on me, I suppose. I am the one that has to adjust. But I wonder why I bother. What do I have to look forward to anyway? My best days are behind me. I knew that even before they hooked a tube to my throat.

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RIP Paul Bearer

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WWE.com has reported that Bill Moody, also known as Paul Bearer and Percy Pringle, has passed away.

Some of you are aware that I am a huge pro wrestling fan and have been since the days of Hulkamania.  I love wrestling.  I find it very entertaining.  But this is not the place for me to defend my love of wrestling.  I don’t feel that I should have to, anyway

Paul Bearer was the manager for three of my favorite wrestlers (at different times): The Undertaker, Kane, and Mankind (Mick Foley, to whom her gave his infamous “I don’t wanna suck it, Uncle Paul” rant).  He was famous for his creepy, ghostly falsetto, which was the perfect counterpoint to the Undertaker’s growl and rasp.

From what I’ve heard, he has been ill for some time.  At one point he was up to 525 pounds.  He had a gastric bypass, and lost a lot of weight, but he was still near 300.

He hasn’t appeared much on WWE in the past few years.  I think his last appearance was last year, where Kane left him tied up in a freezer (I never said that wrestling wasn’t silly).

And so I raise an urn in toast to the man whose voice creeped me out, Paul Bearer.  May you forever cut promos in Heaven.

Paul Bearer with the Undertaker, back when Taker had hair

Wrestling With God

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It was a month since Valerie died on the 24th. It feels like so much longer, like I’ve lived ten empty, soulless years since losing her. Every day, every minute, every instance drags on forever. Everything reminds me of her, not the obvious things like her action figure collection or the poem that I taped to my wall, but little things. I took out the garbage earlier, and I passed by where she parked on her last visit. It was the spot of our last kiss. I knew that I was kissing her goodbye, but I didn’t think that it was forever.

What kind of God would do this?  What kind of monster would snuff someone so wonderful, and do it in her prime?
People tell me that it is all part of God’s plan.  God’s plan?  Plan for what?  What makes anyone think that it’s a good plan?  Look at all the suffering in the world.  If God is omnipotent, then why does he have to kill, unless he WANTS to?

So what’s the deal?  Either God isn’t good, or God isn’t omnipotent.  Or maybe God doesn’t exist.

I don’t know.

Against my better judgement, I choose to believe in God.  I do this only because the thought of never seeing Valerie again, (or my Mom, gramma, grampa, etc) is too much for me to bear.  I have to believe, because the belief that she is still with me is all that keeps me going.  I don’t care if I am deluding myself, the delusion is better than reality.

But then WHY?  Why do you kill?  Why do you cause pain?  If you are all powerful, why do you allow these things?

Maybe God isn’t all powerful.  Maybe there is evil out there just as powerful.  This appeals to the fantasy writer in me, an epic battle between good and evil with the Earth at stake.  But being appealing doesn’t make it real

Maybe this is Hell.  We’ve already lived horrible lives and died, and our existance here is punishment for the life that we led.  That explains the massive amount of pain and suffering in the world.  We all deserve it, because we are bad people.

Maybe God only watches, but doesn’t step in.  Cold and unfeeling, he looks us over like someone watching the History Channel, caring nothing for the people involved.

The thing is, none of else will ever know.  The only “proof” is “faith” and they are not the same thing.

I do know that I’ve been calling out God for weeks now, but he won’t get in the ring.

Rest in Peace, My Valerie (1977-2013)

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I buried my soul mate yesterday.

Last Tuesday (Jan 22), I went up to Binghamton to visit Val.  She was up there to begin her PhD candidacy in English.  I climbed the stairs to the back door and knocked.  I looked through the screen, and she was on the floor.  I don’t think that Val would want me to tell the final details of her life to strangers, so I will refrain.

Val was pronounced brain dead Thursday morning.  She died that evening.  She was my world.  She was the most brilliant, caring, gifted, loving, person that I will ever know.  Her writing is some of the best that I have ever read.  I only wish that I could write like her.

Her obituary is here.  Her website is here.

If you read my blog, you know how much I love her.  We just celebrated our anniversary.  I went to her mom’s for Christian Christmas (as opposed to my usual, Jewish Christmas.  We just didn’t have enough time together.

I want to tell you all about her.  I want people to know and love her the way that I love her, the way that she deserves to be loved.

This is what I told the Binghamton reporter that is writing her memorial:

She was about as warm and giving a person could be.  She cared very deeply about her students and would always go the extra mile for them.  Her favorite writer was Oscar Wilde, and I am sure that she could go wit for wit with him and come out the victor.  On her wall there was a picture of Oscar Wilde next to a picture of Malcom X.  I asked her about it once, and she said “I’d like to think that they are lovers in Heaven.”
Val loved so many things:  Joss Whedon (especially Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Rancid (for the past year she has been keeping a tongue-in-cheek photo journal updating the status of Tim Armstrong’s epic beard.  That was just her sense of humor), action figures (she had a massive collection of action figures, she would sometimes use them as writing prompts for students, but mostly they just hung around the house).  She loved to write, she was constantly writing, but even more than that, she loved to teach.  She loved the Oxford Comma, if you could love punctuation.  She had a passionate affair with Semicolons.

She was a strong woman: independent but not distant, tough but not hard, witty but not cruel.  She was brilliant, the most intelligent person that I have ever met.  She loved Grammar.  She was very excited to be taking a Grad level Grammar class at Binghamton.  She felt a great sadness for people that couldn’t use “there, their, and they’re” properly.

Her writing was incredible.  When we first started dating, I asked what she wrote.  She said something like “I do mostly short stories, mostly humorous, but when you say you write humor people think you write bad stand-up or something. I love the type of short story that can make you laugh and feel sad within like five pages so that’s what I try for.” 
If you read some of her writing (on her website), you will see that she succeeded everytime.
 
If you would like, I can recommend some of my favorite stories. 
 
I don’t know what else I can say.  She was the most perfect person that ever walked the face of this Earth.  She was too perfect, too gifted, too gentle and loving for us.  I would say that she was ahead of her time, but Time will never catch up to her.
This is what I said, but there was so much more to her.  She wrote erotic fan fic  as a hobby, and helped form an entire community for it.  Her frank talk and writing about mental illness was inspirational and life saving for many people.
On our first date, she gave me a toy for my turtle.  Who does that?  Who is that thoughtful?  Val was.  On our second date, I spilled an entire move-sized diet coke in her lap, and she didn’t walk out on me.  On the contrary, after the movie, she still made out with me.
She did all of this, but I knew that she was the One when I first walked into her apartment, and there was a giant Godzilla doll on her refrigerator.
I am concerned with her legacy.  I want the whole world to know how gifted a writer she was.  I want her name immortalized the way that it should be.  She was everything that I could ever want, or want to be.
I love you so much, Valerie.  I will love you forever.
The two of us, late December, 2012

The two of us, late December, 2012