FullaBella's Journal, 28 November 2013

Thursday - November 28th. Happy Thanksgiving to all of my kind and wonderful friends. Though still grieving this morning I am filled with gratitude for all of you and the way you have come to my 'virtual' side, held my hand, and reminded me with all of your very warm comments that although the love of my life is no longer here in body I have plenty of love surrounding me and I will be okay. Maybe not today, but someday. I continue to have panic and anxiety attacks thinking about him really being gone. I continue to make decisions guided by how I think he'll react to them.

But for now, for this journal, I want to share good stories about 'us'. I know I have shared some in the past. However, yesterday as his family members repeatedly told me I was the best thing that ever happened to him, I wondered if they too had forgotten his side of the story. I know my journals have been so filled with the frustration of caring for a dying man that I want to remind people of the way he continued to move mountains up to the end of his life.

As his health declined and he was no longer able to attend trade shows or be in the shop with me, he eventually became my 'Robert Cutty' - referring to 'The Associate' (movie with Whoopi Goldberg). I think I'll call him that in my journals now forever more.

Whenever traders argued my negotiations by playing the 'man' card claiming 'Cutty would offer a better deal' I would use the old car salesman bit on them and 'call Cutty'. I can go toe to toe with men and women alike but some of the older Cutty customers needed their ego's coddled. I considered it all 'the art of the deal'.

The conversations usually went something like this:

'Guy is here and wants to buy 'thing' and you priced it $1100. ((I would purposely have him hand price the tags so that I could say 'That's Cutty's handwriting - and he never makes a mistake. That price must be correct'.))
I told him I could discount it to $1000 but he wants it for $900 and insists you would make that deal because it's him.'

Cutty would answer, "I was just about to phone Phillip to bring me a pizza for lunch."
I would fake a look of concerned reaction to this comment and say, "I know, but it's Guy and he said you always gave him a better deal because he's been trading with you for years."

Cutty: "I really liked that one you got me last time with canadian bacon and pineapple. I'll get half with jalepeno's if you think you'll want some when you get home."

Me: "No, no, that isn't necessary. I'll take care of it. Bye."

After ending the call I'd look down at the table and take a long deep breath and exhale. I wouldn't say a word. I knew a lot depended on making Guy speak first. And he would.
'Is he going to do it?"
I'd answer "Uhm... no. He's ... ahh... ticked. He said anything less than $1050 would be a loss. I can do the $1000 if you promise to keep it between us but that's the lowest I'll go."

At this point Guy would pull out the cash. Usually he'd buy something else too without negotiating to soothe his guilt over getting me in hot water with Cutty.

I used to joke with Cutty that I'd probably keep news of his passing a secret for at least five years; that I needed my Oz to stay behind the curtain just a little bit longer. But he's so well known trying to keep a secret like that was impossible. The family viewing at the funeral home took a lot out of me yesterday; when the director phoned and asked if I could return to proof the obituary I asked if he could email it to me. I just didn't want to go back there. The stack of emails in my 'in box' from other associates offering condolences confirmed the news had traveled fast.

Although he was 40 years old with two failed marriages and four children when we met, he was still a bit of a wild child. Creative, ambitious and 'live for the moment.' Upon meeting me, the complete antithesis of any of the other women he'd had in his life (his previous wife was an exotic dancer - I'm not kidding) his family accused me of making him my own personal psychological lab experiment - we were just that opposite.

I often think that was what attracted me to him. The whole 'fly by the seat of your pants' persona was so far on the other end of the spectrum compared to over the top OCD hospital corner Me it made for an interesting pairing.

There's a country western song that I swore had been written about him; the first time I heard it I was bartending part-time and had one heck of a night of tips when my customers paid me to stop playing it over and over on the juke box:

"I Threw The Rest Away"
I met him in a dive down in New Orleans I recognized his handsome face
It was none of my business but I had to know what he was doing in this kind of place
Cause he use to have money use to have honeys he used to be society's prince
But he still wore a grin when I sat beside him and ask where all that money went

He said some was spent on gamblin' a lot was spent women
A little on some good Cabernet
Three or four divorces at least as many horses that never left the startin' gates
Diamond rings and furs swamp land in New Jersey that week I spent a year in LA
I hate to admit I threw the rest away

He said money don't mean nothing is this game of life it's just a way of keeping score
Show me a man who's got everything I'll show you one who wants even more
Well so smoke 'em if you got 'em cause when you hit bottom
You gotta have a reason to smile
You can have a little piece of the rock I'll take a little piece of mind

That was Cutty. I'll probably play this song at his 'memorial' or whatever you would label it when we scatter his ashes. I'm planning to do it in January on the day we got engaged. One last story for today's journal.

He had the ring; we were going to dinner and he was planning the 'down on one knee' proposal. This was the first time we swapped roles in our pairing. *I*, having watched my Mother and Grandmother burn thru multiple husbands and marriages as I grew up, had no romantic delusions about marriage. I really didn't want to get married as I just knew it would end in divorce as theirs had. If I did have to get married, I didn't want to do it in front of too many witnesses. I would have been just fine with a Justice of the Peace. Even better, I wanted to exchange our vows in front of an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. I held that little reserve for the institute of marriage.

He insisted that he felt the reason his previous two marriages had failed was because he didn't give the process it's 'due' and wanted to do this one by the book including a wedding, tuxedo, the whole 9 yards. Sigh.. okay.

We had gone to the mall before going to 'the dinner' and just as we stepped out a firetruck pulled up in full alert - lights, sirens, the whole thing. Something had happened in the mall. He pulled me over in front of the flashing blaring noisy blinking red and blue lights and said 'this is something you'll always remember.' And he proposed, on knee, to me there. In front of the firetruck.

So after that, for the length of our marriage, whenever a firetruck would go by, most likely to a emergency, we'd look at each other and have that 'awww... honey' reflection of our engagement. On our tenth anniversary, although we'd stop acknowledging that day by the 7th (due to the crazy things that had happened as I detailed in my April 29th journal) he asked me to go to the Mall to get something, do something, I can't remember now. When I came out of the mall he was standing there in front of a firetruck in full alert with a new set of wedding rings. Yep, my Cutty could get a firetruck at will.

So many more stories like this. I'll be sharing them as time passes. I decided to go ahead and have the Thanksgiving dinner as planned. While he won't be here in the living room in a bed, he'll be here in spirit. And as you spend your day with your family and friends, I know you'll stop by in my heart and hope you feel me stopping my in yours.

Bella