Sweet smell of love & home....nothing like it

It's late on Sunday night and I'm finishing up my laundry to get ready for the week that lies ahead. I layed several articles of clothing on my bed and put them on hangers. The mundane task seemed almost rote as I hung them in my closet. I've started to totally overtake the large closet Al and I shared. I've been unable to completely clean out his things. His shirts, pants and shoes still take their familiar place in our closet. I hung my items up and turned to look at his various sports t-shirts, golf shirts and those hideous retro pink and green button up shirts he loved so much. The urge hit me to take them all in my hands and bury my nose in them, really expecting nothing since my sense of smell isn't the most defined. But there it was; the unmistakable scent of my husband. We didn't always wash each item of clothing he wore since he wore things fairly briefly. Just to go to an appointment, out with me or to perform some other errand. So when I gathered those clothes in my hands tonight, there it was. Al. I've read and seen things on TV where people smell their loved ones scent after they're gone. I thought it was bogus but it's not. The scent is there, you don't notice it while they're living since it's a part of your everyday life. But when that person you loved so much is gone, there is no denying it. Their scent lingers and it envelopes you. My kids and I have decided that we'll take those t-shirts, golf shirts and hideous pink and green retro shirts he loved so much and have a few "t-shirt quilts" made. I just need to actually take the shirts out of my closet but I'm putting it off. Things are slowly changing in my home, there are fewer and fewer reminders of his daily life. I took all his prescriptions out of his medicne cabinet in the bathroom recently. Now it sits practically empty except for a few different vitamin bottles that sit on the top shelf.

The contents of my refrigerator and pantry have changed as well. Al's favorite things aren't there anymore. My husband was a pretty simple guy but was very set in his ways. I like to cook and experiment with different recipes. But again, Al was very set in his ways. He didn't like it when I'd change up a recipe or spring something new on him. He would always tell me, "Kathy, I'm an old fuddy-duddy and I know what I like. Just stick with what you know I like and we'll be fine." and that was something I loved about him. I'm wondering if I'll ever make chile rellenos again. It's a dish that you pretty much have to serve as soon as they come out of the frying pan. I loved making them for him and bringing them to him hot and fresh on a plate with homemade refried beans. It was one of his favorite things. Chile rellenos....beans....part of the sweet smell of love & home.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a little frightened of “fortune tellers”, people who read cards, palms, etc. I never wanted anyone to tell me anything about my future or my life and I’ve always managed to avoid them. Many years ago, a very close friend of Corky’s (my mother-in-law) read cards and was known to be very accurate. She read the cards for several family members but I told her no way, not me, thanks but no thanks. Years and years later, I had several opportunities to have my palm and cards read. Sure, some of these opportunities were a little hokey. They were people hired to perform at employee picnics and events. Maybe they were just people who were hired for whatever the job required. Perhaps they were a juggler or a clown or a fortune teller if the job called for it. But what if they were for real? So again, no way, not me, thanks but no thanks.

I was also always fascinated by the likes of Sylvia Browne, James Van Praagh and John Edward. Some would say mediums or psychics pick up on signals people give them and are trained to lead those people down a path by the way they answer questions and the body language they give off.

I guess what I’m saying in a roundabout way is that I believe in spirits and that there is another realm. I found this on the internet….”The law of energy states, ‘Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only changed in form.’ This means that we as energy, are now, always have been, and always will be! We never really die.” I always wished that I could experience seeing or feeling a spirit. For me, its different than someone telling me something about my life and my future so it didn’t bother me. It’s well known that there are ghosts and spirits where I work. The place has been around since the 1920s after all. Being a health care facility, there have been countless deaths here; probably a good portion of them went before they were ready. So sure, the spirits of some of them might have had a difficult time coming to terms with the death of their mortal bodies. I’ve talked to a few people I work with and they have had unquestionable encounters with a spirit here.

I know that Al is still with us in some sense. Not in the way where he hasn’t “crossed over” or anything unsettling. But he is definitely with us. The way I believe that there are spirits and that those we love never really leave us, I also believe in signs. Al has been showing us signs of his presence since he passed away. Some would say that what I call signs are mere coincidences. I choose to believe otherwise. The signs I want to write about….some are extremely obvious even to a non-believer and some are more subtle and something that non-believers would call a stretch of the imagination. Doesn’t matter, they’re real to me.

• The official time of Al’s death certificate reads 7:39AM on March 13. At 7:37AM on March 14, I awoke to my cell phone ringing. The screen said Restricted. I answered my phone but it kept ringing. I looked at the screen and it still said Restricted and was still ringing through. No matter what I did, I could NOT answer the call. I KNOW it was Al.
• The next sign was at breakfast that same morning. We were a huge party of 20 and The Good Egg divided our party in to several groups between two servers. When the check I shared with Alison & Brad came, we noticed it said, “Dining: Big Al” and thought my nephew Jason had put our group name under Al’s nickname, Big Al. Then Lesley showed me her check. It said, “Dining: Marissa”. We realized and confirmed that our server was named Big Al.
• When my kids and I were at Lesley’s discussing what songs should be played during Al’s memorial service, I got in the car to go home, turned on the car and the song we had decided on began as soon as the car started and played in its entirety, finishing as I pulled in to my driveway.
• Yesterday on Father’s Day, I was up early and wished Al a happy Father’s Day out loud. Of course a few tears fell as I spoke to him. I opened up the Parade magazine in the newspaper and looked at the Personality Parade on the inside cover. There was a question about the 80s band Devo. Al loved Devo! Whip It, Whip It Good! We used to have so much fun back in the day singing that to each other and would goof around acting silly whenever the song came on. Then I turned the page to find the article titled At the End of Life, They Offer Comfort. It was all about the incredible, compassionate people who feel the calling to be Hospice nurses. As most people who experience Hospice care will tell you, we were amazed at the gentle love and genuine compassion those nurses showed Al. He was sending me a sign yesterday morning.
• As we were getting ready to spend Father’s Day the way Al did every year for as long as I can remember (eating King Crab Legs and watching the Open), Alison stopped at the store to pick up a 12 pack of beer to bring over. She put it up on the checkout counter along with her other items and then noticed the expiration date on the side of the carton. It was Al’s birthday.

There are many, many other signs we’ve had from Al. My kids and I choose to believe it’s him and he is reassuring us that he is still a part of our everyday lives. They are sweet reminders of the love he had and will always have for his family.

Move to Tucson? Why not?

I’m not really sure where this blog is taking me but so far the ride has been good. It makes me happy to put my thoughts and memories to paper, well to the internet. I have a feeling my posts will be all over the page and bounce from memories with Al to my current life to feelings & emotions to who knows where. Last night I attended a Hospice Celebration of Life where they read the names of those who have died in Hospice over the past few months. It was very emotional for me and I think I need a day or two to process before writing about it so I'm going to go to a happy place, a place that brings me back many years to where my life was put on an amazing path. That path brought me to my husband.

My life with Al began just over 32 years ago. I was so young when we first met, just 18 years old. Our first meeting was when I applied for a waitressing job at a Sambo’s restaurant in Arcadia, CA directly across the street from the Santa Anita Race Track. Al was the assistant manager I interviewed with. He told me later that for him, it was love at first sight. For me, it was anything but. He was my boss and I was a little intimidated by him plus he was older than me; 11 years older. I was however, a bit of a wild child and within a week, my two friends/roommates that were hired alongside me & I were partying after hours in the Sambo’s parking lot with the closing crew. Of course Al was part of that crew. Wasn’t long before we were dating. A whirlwind courtship ensued and we both fell hard for each other. Soon we were planning a wedding.

Al got a lot of ribbing from his family about how young I was. It was all in good fun and we both laughed about it. You see, Al was married twice before me. The first time was to his high school girlfriend. That union was very short lived and a few years later Al married again. I think they may have lasted a few short years and then he was single for a while before meeting me. His history didn’t scare me off though, I knew what I was getting in to. I wasn’t exactly an innocent little18 year old either. Neither of us were perfect going in to this union but we jumped in with both feet on July 1, 1978 and the water was just fine.

About six months in to our first year of marriage, I got pregnant with our son Marshall. Just a few months in to my pregnancy we decided to pack up and move to Tucson when a good friend (Bob Sandberg) was going to open a new Sambo's here in Tucson and asked Al to be his assistant manager and help him open the store. You see, Al had spent a few years in Tucson before when his cousin Ed opened a Sambo's in town and Al was his assistant manager. In addition, we had actually vacationed in Tucson just after we got married and I had a blast. But Holy Culture Shock!! It was quite a different story to. actually live here. Not only did I move away from all my friends and family, but I was stuck at home after finding that no one wanted to hire a pregnant girl. On top of that…..it was hot as hell!!!! And such a different way of life from growing up in Southern California. It was a different pace and people were different. Different in a good way though.

We met some really great people during that time. Most of the people we associated with were employed by the restaurant. We hung out with Bob a lot and there was Greg Dorr and his buddy Grey (Former Tucson Mayor Lew Murphy's son). We went to a few parties at the home of one of the waitresses. She and her husband lived in a quonset hut - a corregated pre-fab metal home in the shape of a long tube cut in half. I'd never seen anything like it! Al hired Geri and Trish as waitresses - two young girls I really got along with. Al ended up hiring Trish's younger brother, a high school kid, as a dishwasher. There was something about him and an immediate bond developed between him and Al. That young high school kid was actually Brian Bradley, probably the very best friend Al ever had. But more about Brian later, he is such an important part of my life that he warrants his own entry. Those early years in Tucson were really fun. We explored the desert, did a lot of dove hunting, learned the hard way not to drink a glass of ice water at any restaurant in Nogales Mexico, and hung out & partied with some great people. One time Al went javelina hunting, brought his "kill" home and buried it in a big deep pit full of hot coals in our earthen carport in a little duplex we rented near Presidio & Palo Verde. That thing cooked all night and day and then we had an amazing party complete with a huge tub of jungle juice and a band. That jungle juice was potent because I don't think anyone remembered to uncover the pit and take the javelina out for quite a few hours. I'm guessing it was pretty good but truthfully, everyone was pretty wasted so who knows! Those were really some good times.



So that was my early indoctrination in to the world I came to love. My Tucson, the place my family continues to call home to this day.

I'm not like you and that's ok

For most of my life, I've felt disconnected to some degree. Disconnected in that I could never relate to the general masses who prayed, went to church and felt a bond with "God." I tried, oh how I tried. Both of my parents were baptized Catholic and they made sure both of my sisters were baptized Catholic as well. But when it came to me, my mom explains that they wanted to give me a choice. So I grew up a child of sin, one who was never "freed of original sin." I was allowed to explore religion as much as a child in the 60s & 70s was able. I often went to a Presbyterian church with my across the street neighbors, the Estabrooks. But really, we went to Sunday school while the adults were in church. Sitting in Sunday school coloring pictures of Jesus and singing songs was about as close as I came to the Presbyterian religion. A few years later I began to explore the Catholic religion. My best friend and her mom went to Wednesday night mass and I started tagging along. I loved the Catholic church. But not like you'd think. It wasn't the teachings or praying that I loved. I loved the physicial part of the church. The paintings, the sculptures, the beauty of the traditions. I didn't quite understand why I didn't feel what others felt.

Life went on, I grew up, got married, had babies and still no connection to "God." I never felt that I was missing something since my husband had lost his connection to his religion as well. Church and praying weren't a part of our lives. The only time we prayed was at our Thanksgiving meal. It was a simple prayer led by Al and it was more obligatory than anything else.

Interestingly enough, Al & I baptized our two oldest kids, Marshall and Alison in the Catholic church. But when Lesley was a baby we somehow made a choice not to baptize her. Weird. It wasn't intentional but it was exactly like what happened with me. We wanted to give her a choice since religion and church didn't play a part in our lives, it felt somewhat hypocritical to baptize her.

Many years later I learned a few general things about Hindu and Buddhist religions. Not enough to understand it and truthfully, I didn't care to explore them. I wasn't searching to belong to anything. I came to realize that I actually DID believe in a higher power. I knew there was something after death, that our loved ones surround us after death and that karma and what we do and who we become in our lives has something to do with our destiny.

I never knew how to express this. I felt like an outsider when people talked about their God and Jesus and the bible. I hate how many Christians look down upon those who believe differently, that anyone who doesn't accept Jesus as their lord and savior will go to hell and be left behind. I always felt it was better to keep my mouth shut and just smile when people talked about those kinds of things.

When Al was told he was dying and he made the decision to go to Hospice, he reconnected with his Catholic faith. He needed something to hold on to, to know he would live on somehow. I'm so happy he did that because it was something he needed at the end. Not long after, I found something that confirmed my own spirituality. Not what you think, I didn't find God. I read a book. A beautiful book, a book that spoke VOLUMES to me. What Dreams May Come. Finally, something that felt in tune with me. I'll treasure that book forever.

As Al was dying, a Catholic priest came in the room and delivered Last Rites. Al's family surrounded him as he lay in the bed just hours away from his final breath. I bowed my head and held my husband as the priest recited the prayers. The love in the room was undeniable. The love Al's family have for him, the love he had for all of us and a spiritual connection for everyone in the room. I know we all felt it - just in different forms and fashions. Al and I connected on a different level than he connected with his children, father, sisters and nephews and their families. But nonetheless, we all connected. Isn't that what it's all about?

I'm thankful my mom consciously made that decision 50 years ago for she allowed me to decide my own spirituality. I'm thankful my husband understood and respected my beliefs. I'm thankful I had 32 years with that man. I need to remember that I had something many people never achieve. A soul mate, a shared love, a lifetime love. And I'm thankful that our somewhat shared yet very different beliefs will allow us to see each other again. Maybe not the way many of you grew up thinking and believing, but Al and I will meet again. I'm confident of that.

Coming up on 3 months

June 13 will be the 3 month anniversary of Al's passing. It's hard to say death or died. Those words are hard to say, they don't feel so warm coming out of my mouth. Thinking of it as him passing or passed on feels much better. I still find it hard to believe. Wonder how long that will last.

I can't say I'm in a better place with my grief though. I still don't deal with it. It's easier to push past it than experience it. I know this is wrong but letting go is scary.

My daughter Lesley sent me a text today that she was sad because one of her coworkers told her that they made homemade split pea soup. That was one of Al's specialties. He made amazing split pea soup. It was always something he would make during the winter and he'd make it when I was at work so I don't really know his recipe or his method. I'm going to try to make it though. Just as soon as the summer is over 'cuz it's too damn hot for it right now.

Summer. Al loved summer as much as I do, especially when the monsoons would arrive. For as long as I can remember our entire family would go outside during afternoon storms and sit on the front porch enjoying the cool air and crazy show. It's going to be bittersweet when that first storm rolls in. Everything about summer is Al to me. Hot weather, cooking on the BBQ, storms, trips to Mexico, sitting on the front porch drinking a cooler (Hansens grapefruit soda, vodka and the juice of a half an orange) and turning up Rickie full blast. Rickie Lee Jones, in some ways the music of Al's life. He loved lots of music - grew up in the 60's and liked to call himself a hippie. Long hair, pot smoking, VW bug driving hippie. He loved the Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil" like no other. But like all of us, he mellowed out over the years and went through many music phases. But when he discovered Rickie Lee Jones so many years ago, she stayed in his heart forever. Rickie has become more than an amazing artist for "the Arizona Navarro's" as Al liked to call us. Her music is Al. In fact, her music played in Al's room in Hospice constantly and filled the room as he passed. A very special Rickie song played during his memorial service and was printed in his memorial program.


The Horses
by Rickie Lee Jones

We will fly way up high

Where the cold wind blows

Or in the sun, laughing and having fun

With the people that she knows

And if the situation should keep us separated

You know the world won't fall apart

And you will free the beautiful bird

That's caught inside your heart



Can't you hear her?

Oh she cries so loud

Casts her wild note

Over water and cloud



That's the way it's gonna be, little darlin'

We'll be riding on the horses, yeah

Way up in the sky, little darlin'

And if you fall I'll pick you up, pick you up



You will grow, and until you goI

'll be right there by your side

And even then, whisper the wind

And she will carry up your ride

I hear all the people of the world

In a little bird's lonely cry

See them trying every way they know how

To make their spirits fly



Can't you see him?

He's down on the ground

He has a broken wing

Looking all around



That's the way it's gonna be, little darlin'

You'll be riding on the horses, yeah

Way up in the sky, little darlin'

And if you fall I'll pick you up, pick you up



Don't worry 'bout a thing little girl

Because I was young myself not so long ago

And when I was young, when I was young

And when I was young, oh I was a wild, wild one.