100

This is my one-hundredth post. I'm going to try to not make it a crappy one.

I am feeling so connected, folks. I have Twitter now, and it's even set up for mobile use. Of course it's also featured on this here blog and on FB too. I just downloaded a mobile for FB. I continue to make friends with people on FB that I don't actually know but darnit, they seem worth knowing. At the very least, they are worthy Wrestler opponents which carries an awful lot of weight in my world.

None of this is helping me with the Operation Get Back to Jersey. However, it is making life a little more tolerable and every bit counts. Nah, scratch that---It's making life better. I think that's a better way to describe it.

I have transcended tolerable by now. I am well aware that intolerable days are always around the corner, but those are just days and not my whole entire outlook on life. To be able to say "I am having a sucky day" instead of "my whole life is in a shambles" is a very important distinction.

Gunga Ungula for you Caddyshack fans out there.

Today is Sunday. By this time next week I hope to be deep into Virginia. Wow, that did not come out right. What I meant to say was, I hope to be approaching the Capital, which sounds a little perverted too. In other words, I well on my way home.

Big Mama here is getting a haircut and color on Tuesday. The one I am sporting now just has no style. At least with long hair I could put it up in an accessory, mainly just ponytails with the occasional braid or hair clip. This is just a freak show of blah on my head right now.

I'm going for a deep brown, no red whatsoever. I'm keeping it shorter, no bangs. I need some layers or something. I just want it to look cute for the fall and winter, when I have no tan, and the dark hair contrasts with my skin. I'm sort of starting to form a vision of the kind of style I'd like to sport for the next year. The kind I'm sporting now will not cut it for the work-place or being anywhere other than my lanai, Publix, daycare, my car or any other place borderline agoraphobics frequent.

The remix is still in the studio, so to speak.

Bulleted Updates to Clarify Past Bulleted and Non-Bulleted Updates

• Yeah, I basically had to storm the guidance department on Tuesday during lunch hour, a sneaky tactic, and demand action. It worked. Sadie will be in 10th grade English. Hurray!
• We've had a bit of rain here, but nothing unmanageable like an actual Hurricane. Absolutely nothing we haven't seen before, and certainly far from the worst of what we have seen.
• New issues have spawned, leaving me nervous and anxious. Again, nothing new here.
• I am leaving Florida in one week. The girls are leaving in six days via JH-chaperoned airplane ride. The timing should not in any way coincide with Penny's #2 time, so I think it's going to be a good flight!
• Pretty please, will someone by my house?
• New level of procrastination in the form of Twitter. I love you, Internet.

A Night Like Tonight...

Reinforces exactly why I am moving. This might be the third worst day of my life, still a bit far behind the second worst day of my life and miles lagging behind the number one spot, but it's the kind of night where I just want to throw battery acid in my eyes to distract me from my troubles, or maybe stick a freshly sharpened pencil really hard into my ear just to mix up the mood a bit. I can't even blog about what happened because it's partially not my business to tell. If you're that curious, just ask me over email or something and became a captive audience to me tales of strife as a single mom. But not here. Just can't do it here.

Allow me to take my mind off of my issues by completely turning my focus around for a few minutes. If I don't, I will surely go crazy. I've been having Undertoad (see The World According to Garp for the definition) Moments all day long. Probably has a lot to do with going to the funeral parlor to pick up a receipt for Rob's funeral. I mean, they're really nice and all over there, but I just can't get around the fact that that was the last place I saw my husband.

Well, that's sort of a weird way to start your day. I thought to myself about how great it was going to be to hopefully NEVER drive by there again, never see it again, and then I remembered that I still actually own a house in this town. I just might have to come back someday. Also, it's a given that someone else in my family will be having their own funeral there eventually and so I'm sure I'll actually be inside that place again. Hmmm. So, no closure on that end.

So of course just being in there gets the old imagination rolling along. The color of the shirt, literally darkened by tears. People who were, things that were said, the way everything looked, the scent of the flowers, the feel of the velvet-lined chairs in the front row. The very last time I saw him, how sorry I felt that he wasn't going to wake up the next day and take us to the beach.

I found myself driving about, running my errands, thinking about these things in the drizzling rain. I no longer ask the question "why?" but damned if I know the answer. The short answer is: because his body just couldn't do it any longer. The bigger answer eludes me still, and maybe it always will.

I've said time and time again that maybe generations from now one of my relatives, far, far down the line will know. Maybe someone will inherit my love of geneology and twists of fate. They might look through an old photo album filled with pictures of their great, great, great-grandparents and discover the unusual story that unfolded in our lives and see some kind of positive meaning in it for them.

I Just Wanted to Say

...That I am completely freaking out at the moment over several things.

• I cannot get in touch with the freakin guidance counselor at school so Sadie can finally just finish English I (yeah, it was a bad year) which is holding back her completion of the course, which is holding me back from withdrawing her from Springstead, which is holding me back from enrolling her in Rutherford.
• There is a fucking HURRICANE coming and I don't know if I should put the shutters up or what. This might knock out my phone, cable, and...internet...
• I am so nervous and distracted by the above that I can barely stand it.
• Holy shit, I am MOVING in two weeks!
• Will someone buy this damn house already?!
• All of this leads me to procrastinate on Facebook more than I already do because I don't know WHERE to start with the rest of everything!!!!
• Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where It's At

Major strides were taken this week on the road to victory for Operation New Jersey Return (ONJR). The majority of my belongings were packed, for better or worse, onto a PODS container. Initiated in a very organized and well-planned manner, it turned to the usual moving mayhem once my father stepped onto the scene. What began as a well-thought out endeavor with meticulous packing and labeling of boxes quickly escalated, or maybe degenerated is the better term, into semi-random stuffing of my furniture and belongings into the sixteen-foot container.

Some things working for my belongings arriving without everything breaking:

• Table legs were removed, everything that could be taken apart was taken apart
• China and fragile valuables are cradled by enough bubble wrap to contribute to the Earth's destruction somehow
• Most of the heavy stuff was tied into the container fairly well

Some things not working in favor of my belongings sustaining boo boos:

• Many of said table legs and removable components of furniture were placed in the container by my father, so I cannot vouch for them being wrapped in bubble wrap sufficiently
• Many items appear to be basically tossed into the container in a haphazard manner
• I cannot vouch for what I didn't tie down, which is an awful lot of important stuff

I was out there at dusk last night, fitting the last of what I could fit in by myself, which was an awful lot in retrospect. Somehow I was able to get my filing cabinet in by sheer brute force, a hand truck, and the will of God behind me. It is placed in the container, on top of my couch which is sideways. It is upside-down due to the fact that I basically had to roll it in. Crammed around it are various boxes filled with heavy things. Behind all of this lies the contents of my house minus the baby's crib, 2 mattresses, 2 computers, and just little odds and ends.

Inside the house is a skeleton crew of belongings. Just enough to eat at, sleep on, watch TV, use computers, and attend to personal hygiene. We're at the point when it's all about using paper plates and not even having to run the dishwasher. I do, however, have 4 coffee mugs still in the rotation because I just don't like to drink coffee out of anything else if I can help it.

It won't be long now, gang...

Focus Tightening...

...or is it?

I should be. For the most part, it is. There are still a lot of moments where I've done a box or two and just need to take a break.

People, I am SO tired of this process-moving. It's been going on for so long, with a few months break here and there. The longest I've lived anywhere for a while was in Wood-Ridge, and that was for three years.

Who knows, maybe at the term of my lease we'll stay, or maybe we'll go. I might be doing this again in a year, but I certainly hope for the contrary. I don't especially want to buy another house for a long time. I need to let my life unfold a bit more before jumping into that commitment. I hesitate to do anything major with a big portion of my money other than to put it into something as high-yielding as possible with a degree of withdrawal-leniency.

Today the PODS container came and I am pleased as punch with it. I think I can fit just about everything on there. I'm going to try my best. It hold 7500 lbs. or something. It's 18 feet long. That really should do the trick and if not, well, somethings are going to be left behind. I want to avoid renting a storage facility at all costs. Just don't want to fit it into the budget.

Already I know that my dining room set is not making the cut. It's a nice set. If anyone wants it, let me know, I'll gladly send pictures of it. There's no way it's going to fit anyway and I don't see having two separate eating areas in my future for a long time.

I have a butt-load of stuff in my car headed for the Salvation Army. I'm donating loads of books to a used book store down here. I am thinning out everything and trying to strip my belongings down to what I consider the bare-minimum at this point.

Feng shui tells us that when you discard the things that are clogging up chi that you are making room for better things to come along. Space needs to be created for new things or else it all just becomes piles of junk in your life. Simplify!

This Time Last Year

This time last year was met with very hard decisions. A lot of my guidance at this time didn't come through intellect but the collective efforts of other people, emotion, and gut-instinct. When you find yourself in Sear's picking out the clothing that you want your late husband viewed in, well, chances are high that you are not thinking with your usual mind. Faced with an array of coffin choices and flowers you want displayed and how exactly you would want all of this to go down, well, it's a different part of your mind that is operating right now.

Right around this time Jean asked me a question that has remained with me to this day. I don't know what she was getting at exactly, but I know that I have thought about this question and my answer nearly every day since it's been asked. The question was something along the lines of what would you wish for right now if you could have anything?

The answer was: for time to stand still.

I wished that I could just put everything on hold, the entire world around me, the pressure to make decisions, the stress of trying to figure out what were the right steps to take. I used to walk around outside at night, very late, when nothing else was going on, just to feel the way the world felt when the tasks of the day had gone to bed. The world I walked through was a surreal one, with my husband no longer a part of my realm. How a life that animated could have snuffed itself out at such an odd place and time; it boggled my mind.

I find that the only way for me to really get through it is to view it and feel it in a very objective manner. No guarantees come with anything, especially things that make you happy. The startling reality of how everything physical and tangible was of a transient nature wore me down and broke me for a while. Because, saddest of all, this includes people.

I worry that this startles people or makes them think about me in a weird way. I've already got enough to worry about over my entry on washing dead men's penises, posted a tad over a year ago. If it makes anyone feel any less weird about my new-found peace with life, please note that I spent the better part of this year in the throes of severe anxiety and moderate-to-severe depression that required medical intervention. I lost at least 65lbs. this past year alone due to NOT EATING ANY FOOD.

I just want to note here that I gained 10 back and feel pretty good physically. If I can maintain, thing will be good. However, I have lost a bit of hair and really hope it decides to come back.

(I ate some Chef Boyardee today. And Italian wedding soup. Think that's good for hair growth?)

(I also got a haircut. I am satisfied with it but could get no good pictures of it today. I think it was the shirt I was wearing. Plus, I get such a skanky feeling every time I leave the beauty parlor, even if it is a high-end place. I feel like I am coated in hairspray, thus I feel gross. It's probably my imagination. Does anyone else ever experience this? Please don't let me be the only freak with this issue!)

I read a book that Laura recommended, called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. He's a Facebook friend, by the way. It's a self-help book, but beyond that it's kind of hard to explain what it is. All I know is, it helped me chill.

One of the main themes throughout the book the human perception of time, and living in either the future or the past, and few people living in the present in a way that helps them feel content. I guess that's what the title is all about, the fact that the moment that matters the most is right now.

Reflection on the past is necessary, as is planning for the future, but when I was living solely in both the past and future, the present was taking a beating. I feel like I have put the past in it's place with many issues and trying like hell to take the future step-by-step. The only other choice is to be insane and my daughters deserve much better than that.

Ah, Rutherford, here we come. Please be good to us, for we will be good to you.

Contact Paper

Now that worlds have officially collided, due to the fact that I have linked FB up with this blog, you might know that I have had some real estate negotiations going on, plus a cabinet refacing job done.

First, what was I thinking, opening my blog up to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on my friend's list? I guess it's just that I really don't care who reads it. I mean, if you're reading it thank you for reading this but I never really expected to pawn it off to this particular audience that I am possibly writing to at this moment. Which could possibly be 2 or 3 people, but anyway...

Second, the deal fell through because the buyers couldn't get a mortgage. Nice. Please do not put in an offer on my house if you do not know if you can borrow money or not. Why not find out first how much money people are willing to lend you. THEN you can go find a house within your price range. Or you could rent for a while and build up your credit. Go on freecreditreport.com and figure out where you went wrong and how to correct it. THEN go shopping for a house.

No one is going to finance people with bad credit anymore. Money isn't what it used to be less than five years ago. Financial responsibility is a big interest of mine. Here are a few of my personal tips:

• Use your credit cards wisely, but do have them. Do not carry a balance unless absolutely necessary. My Amazon Visa is my favorite because for every amount of dollars I spend, I get actual certificates in the mail that I can use on anything on Amazon.com. I get a lot of free stuff that's important this way, particularly books.
• Decide if you're going to be the kind of person who carries around cash or mostly uses plastic and stick to it! Avoid the ATM at all costs. Do have a debit card to a checking account (you should really have one of these if you don't already).
• Try like hell to put some money in a CD or a money market account. Do not touch the CD until it matures. If you do not need the money at the end of six months, roll it over, and just keep on doing that for a while. Every six months you basically have to decide what to do with the money-roll it over or use it in a different way.
• Small loans are a great way to build up credit.
• Maintain some kind of communication with the folks you share any outstanding debt with. Try to work out some kind of deal, such as small monthly payments, to avoid having them sell your debt to a collection agency. Sure, they'll stop calling you, they'll literally sell your debt to a collection agency for a fraction, cut their losses, and move on down the list of people they have to call to settle debts. This gives them even more of an excuse to raise interest rates. Just tell them you'll give them $20 a month and for God's sake, stop using this particular line of credit.
• Start small. Do not follow some link on the internet offering you unlimited money, especially if they charge you a fee to tell you that you have been denied a mortgage. This wastes everyone's time. If you know your credit is shaky, just try to correct it before putting an offer in on a house and you'll spare everyone a lot of time and anxiety.

My cabinets are done being refaced. Thank God. They look great and will hopefully persuade someone to buy it. However, what a hastle not being able to use the kitchen for 4 or 5 days. We at out too much.

I decided to put contact paper down on the shelves inside the cabinet. I know I sound like a whiny bitch by now, but it is a complete and total pain in the ass. It is almost impossible not to have bubbles between the surface of the shelf and the paper. I'm trying to just roll with it, but it is time-consuming and I don't especially like doing it.

And right about now, I have to return to it.

One Year

I have written entries for a year now dealing with life as a young widow and it's impact on my life and the lives of the girls. I have cried, prayed, complained, and somehow found strength through writing about this. This entry is not going to be about me, but about a very amazing person that I found tucked away in his own little corner of the web. It would be the obituary that I would've written, although Andrew Meacham of the St. Petersburg Times did a pretty good job of that almost a year ago, even if there were a few factual inaccuracies along the way.


My late husband, Robert Alan Shaw III was born on March 23, 1970. I always joked with him that he was made during the summer of love. Do a little math and you'll know that he was in fact created in June of 1969, when his parents were fresh out of high school and engaged to be married. This pre-nuptual conception was greeted by some members of the family as not the best news in the world, given society's views on pre-marital conception. However, most of the family was thrilled to tears and his father's family welcomed his mother into their household with open arms. He was to be the first grandchild on either side of the family, an honor that I myself hold in my own family, which is a very special position indeed.


His mother had a bit of a rocky pregnancy but managed to get through it. By way of Cesarean section, Rob made his entrance into the world, but it was blatantly obvious right off the bat that something was very wrong with this baby. His color was blue and remained that way even after he took his first breath, signalling a heart defect of some kind. His poor mother didn't lay eyes on him for days because at that time it was customary for the hospital staff to shield the family from their sick babies.


Rob was diagnosed with transposition of the great vessels. His parents were told that he would most likely not make it to his first birthday, but as his mother Audrey told me "I never really paid much attention to that." They raised nurtured him along day by day and saw him through four heart surgeries, the first two being successfully performed at six months of age and at age three. Rob's surgeries were very cutting edge, ones for the books-literally. Rob and medical technology ran a neck-and-neck race with each other.


Aside from all of that, he had a really pleasant childhood. With a sister 18 months younger than him, baseball games, sledding, friends, Christmas presents, a nice family, several dogs, he had the most solid foundation any of us could ask for. He lived in a small town where family was always around the corner, had a grandmother with such a deep love for him it can make me cry just thinking about it, and parents who were devoted to just living a straight and narrow life, life was as stable as it could possibly be.


Rob's other condition kind of started to take some shape to the outside world around age 4 or 5 in the form of misbehavior, defiance, odd quirks, tenacity, and repetitiousness that challenged those around him. According to family legend, he passed certain milestones at a very young age. He was walking, talking, and potty-trained before all of his peers. In retrospect one has to wonder if the dopamine receptors in his young mind were running full speed ahead, but it really doesn't matter. Here was a child carrying a very poor prognosis from his doctors, enduring God knows what kind of pain and suffering, but at the same time hurdling through life at an unprecedented speed.

The high school years were good to him. He made many meaningful relationships that literally lasted until the day he died. Most people around him wish him well even though he was mouthy, confrontational and would always have a joke at someone else's expense. He carried this trait into his adult life and somehow people loved him for it.


After graduating high school he worked a few jobs before starting college at New Jersey City University. Most notably, he was the chef at a restaurant in Westwood called Our Daily Bread that this parent owned. He turned out to be a great cook, very meticulous. He made the best breaded chicken cutlets I have ever eaten. Throughout our relationship I mostly cooked, but whatever he made was the very best specimen of it's kind in looks and taste. You could take a picture of it for a magazine and happily eat it afterwards. This was just another good example of attention to detail.


He DJ'ed for a few years with his old buddy John Avery. I know he had a lot of fun doing this. He had a huge record collection and I'm sad to say we had to part with it before the move to FL. He kept a handful of records that meant a lot to him, so at least I have that.


Before marrying me, he had the good fortune of convincing another girl to tie the knot. Lorenza was his college sweetie. They were together for 10 years, I think 3 of them as husband and wife. She is a very petite girl, maybe 4'11" which complimented his 5'4" height. She was borne of Italian immigrants from Hoboken. They spoke very little English, which made communication difficult, but I understand that the mother-in-law made very good food. He raved about the spaghetti sauce that she made, either with bracciole or crab and other crustaceans.


He had some brothers-in-law, one he liked an awful lot. Evidently the one he like married a Russian girl and Rob was in their wedding and had to hold a crown over their heads during the ceremony for a very long period of time. The bride was Russian, I think it was some kind of ritual. He remembered sweating a lot and having to change hands many times while holding the crown.


So they married, yeah I've seen the pics, they both looked really great. He already owned the 2-family house in Lodi and they lived there for a little bit before buying the house down by the shore in Brick. For whatever reason the marriage didn't work out and Lori got the house and the dog, Phoebe.


He moved to an apartment in the shore area and they worked out their divorce. Not long after he moved into the bottom unit of the Lodi house and worked as a Webmaster at WANDL, a software company in Bound Brook, NJ. This is where he working when we met. I was a CNA (certified nurse's aide) at a very nice nursing home in Califon, NJ and taking classes at Raritan Valley to become an RN.


When I met him, I was fresh out of a catastrophic relationship and he was newly divorced. He was just a handsome picture on Yahoo personals that I surfed next to. He was from Lodi. I wondered how far that was and decided that it was in fact pretty far, but there was something about the profile that really caught my eye so I decided to say hello.

That was back when he was bleaching out his hair. He looked really good. The profile pic was of him, up against the cabinets in the Lodi kitchen. His hair, so blond, his eyes so big and blue, a white T-shirt on. He looked edgy yet approachable.

We exchanged a few emails and then both departed on vacations for a few days. He went to Atlantic City, on a fishing trip I believe, and I traveled up to Provincetown, MA for the first time with Kevin and Tamara. Tamara and I toasted "to Bobby" in our motel room over some vodka shots. I think we both had a feeling that this was a person of significance in my life.

After the return from our trips, we graduated to sending each other IMs on AIM. This was when my screen name of Smilemaster2000 was born, in the late summer of 2001. As JustRob2k1, he was able to tentatively admit to me that he was divorced and that he had a heart condition. One night, he asked me to just ask him ANYTHING and I told him I wanted to hear his voice. He faltered a bit, but gave me his number, which I scribbled with a spare piece of Sadie's crayon onto some page in a loose leaf notebook that I still have.

973-594-something-something-something-something.

We built a relationship with each other through technology. We messaged every night, emailed every day. We asked each other a million and one questions and played backgammon. It was a beautiful way to get to know someone. Even back then I thought, if this is the guy I marry and have kids with, this will be an excellent story to re-tell.


He courted, we dated, we took our time. He didn't' tell me that he loved me until July of 2002, almost a year into our relationship. This was fine with me. I don't believe in pushing this. We were vacationing in Bermuda, a cruise, or first vacation together. While frolicking on the beach, the phrase was uttered by him first, but I think he already knew that I loved him back. Still, it was a big risk. Prior to this, he had filled his mouth with many, many stones on the shore, all polished smooth by the ocean's salty waves and time. He looked at me and smiled and loads of small, oval rocks fell out of his mouth. I don't think I have seen anything quite that funny since.
Then the words were said and I knew that I had won over a heart worth fighting for.


He met Sadie a few months later, and the rest is history. We got engaged on Saturday, March 22, 2003. I remember receiving many phone calls at work from him to find out if I was definitely going to be able to get off from work early that day, since I usually worked until 7pm but was planning to leave 3 instead. There was an urgency about it. Of course we were working short-staffed, but this was for his birthday and I needed to get off early because we had a Nets game to attend!


he usual routine ensued upon arrival to the Lodi house. I suppose I took a shower, maybe even bringing Evie along with me for our weekly doggie bath. By that time, that was routine that had taken hold. Followed by that was a sort of unusual snack of fruit and cheese piled high upon a platter. There was so much of it and yet he continued to urge me to eat. He barely ate any of it.


I spied a small, squarish object underneath the grapes and instantly knew what it was. Having spied it so early into the grapes and cheese, I didn't know when to pretend that I noticed it. While popping grapes into my mouth on the floor, I saw him grow very restless, breathing harder, turning paler, and looking mildly sweaty.


To break the tension, I pretended to notice the foil covered square for the first time. Taking it from me, he got down on one knee and proposed to me in a very time-honored way. By now, he was pale and sweating, and goddamn it-yes of course I would marry him, but at that point I was more worried about his condition than anything else.


After his recovery from the tension, we studied the ring together and he spoke of how it came to be. Evidently he and Jon went into the diamond district of Manhattan and picked out just the right rock out of a collection of loose stones. The gem weighs 1.01 karats, if of decent grade, and cut beautifully. He had it placed in a very simple Tiffany setting on white gold, which was the only bit of criteria that I provided. I like the look of silver, white gold, or platinum against my skin and I like one very cool rock as opposed to clusters of rocks. Armed with this knowledge, he created a perfect ring.


Our engagement was 5 months long and I was in the trenches in nursing school. I knew that after this experience, coordinating a very respectable, traditional wedding of 95 people by night and learning how to be a nurse by day, that I could pretty much coordinate anything that came my way. Everything about that day was beautiful, from having to fire my limo driver on the spot for showing up in a piece of crap vehicle at my parents' house, to traveling across the state of New Jersey with a veil on my well-coifed head while wearing sweat shorts and a T-shirt, to the hand-crafted ceremony, to arranging my bustle, to needing bridesmaid's assistance to manage the dress while taking a pee, to throwing the best party I've ever thrown, to making our way back to Lodi for a few hours of sleep. We honey-mooned and slept it off in Cozumel.


During this time, Rob was an employee of Globalshop, Inc. He worked here from roughly the time of our engagement until the day he died. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.


After our return from the honeymoon, we hit the ground running with selling that house and buying something a little bit bigger, a little better for a family. We fixed up Lodi completely and listed with Foxton's. In a short time we had a buyer and then negotiated with his parents to buy the house he grew up in, in Wood-Ridge.


While living there we conceived Penny. We had a little scare with her, very early on, but that turned out to be nothing. During this time Rob had his yearly check-up with his cardiologist who felt the need to refer him to another colleague because something didn't sound quite right upon auscultation of his heart. It was no secret that he had a very pronounced murmur. You could hear a very unusual swish with every beat if you laid your head on his chest. This was no surprise, because the last surgery was about 15 years in the past, and these procedures and these prosthetic parts do have a shelf-life.


The docs didn't want to do anything until after the baby was born, but they didn't want to wait to long either. The only hold-up was the pregnancy, really. During the pregnancy, he had two cardiac catheterizations to map out the course of his circulatory system. His left lung was found to be basically non-functioning, pretty much robbing his body of blood that could potentially be delivering oxygen and nutrients to the rest of him. There was talk of removing the offending lung but they tried a different procedure instead during the second cath, which seemed to improve his oxygenation somewhat.


Penelope Lynn Shaw was born on January 2, 2006 by Cesarean section after a night of very hard labor. Rob was in misery due to an eye infection and had to help me use the bedpan between bouts of laying down with his eyes closed , over and over again, for many hours. Labor was being induced by Pitocin, my bladder was full constantly due to IV bags of saline running at full force, and the epidural was working fine in all parts of my abdomen except for my left groin, which was taking a beating from the contractions. According to the fetal monitor strips, Penny was not enjoying the ride either.


The decision was made very quickly to remove this baby through surgery. We both got our heads on straight about this rapid turn of events. I wouldn't let him watch them cut me up. Once she was out I told him that I was fine and to just get over to the baby and enjoy her. The operating room erupted into oohs and aahs and the baby crying and the doctor telling me that she was the biggest baby he'd ever seen!


The nurse called out that she was 10 lbs. 15.6 oz. and that she looked great. I knew that her size was the result of my beyond indulgent eating habits, but I was still proud. Even prouder still was a man who stood 5'4", always the smallest and physically weakest kid in his class, who had done his part in making the biggest baby either of us had ever laid eyes on. And she was his! And at that moment, he began loving someone more than he had EVER loved someone in his entire life.


He was a good dad. He was extremely attentive to her, careful with her, gingerly even. The way he babied those perfect chicken cutlets in the frying pan-well, he was even more of a perfectionist with her. Sure there were those times when he was caught on the bathroom floor, in mid-bathing duty, frozen in fear of the mustardy baby poop all over his socks, but that was my duty to solve that problem. But the after bottle naps in the easy chair, the getting on the floor and playing, the stroller rides, and bubble baths...those are the areas that enjoyed most and excelled in.


I know for a fact that he discovered a perfect love through her. Yes, of course he loved me and Sadie, but there was something that he found in the baby that he really couldn't have found anywhere else. I was not jealous. I truly didn't want him to love me more than, or even as much as, the way he loved the baby. I count it among the top 5 important things I've done in my life-to help create a person who showed Rob the truest, most simple meaning of what love is.


When Penny was about 4 months old Rob had his last surgery. For some reason, I never doubted that he would survive it. The surgery itself took an eternity. The first time I saw him afterwards he was unconscious, had a tracheal tube, another tube coming out of his nose draining bright red blood, was hooked up to a staggering number of meds, and was enveloped in a big white cocoon thingy to warm him back up. During an open-heart surgery they drop your core temperature pretty darn low to keep your cells' metabolic demands as low as possible while your blood is being processed by a machine to perform gas exchange and some other stuff. Your heart is frozen in it's place while they work on it, your lungs are functioning through a ventilator, your kidneys are supported by drugs, and a host of other very interesting things are taking place.

Let us fast forward through the long recovery, the stress it placed on us as a family, his frustrations over having quite a few physical limitations for the next 6 months. It was hard but he made it through. He began to enjoy more time outdoors, walking, doing yard work. Our personal mantra all throughout the worst of it was that once this was all over, we'd sell the house and move to Florida. It was his dream and I was at a point where it didn't really matter to me where we were, as long as he was happy, we'd all be happy. He had suffered so much and just wanted to live out the rest of his life somewhere that he really loved.

And that is exactly what he did. I used to feel as if he delivered me to Florida for some reason and that some kind of future laid her for me. Well, it did, but it wasn't what I was expecting. But I suppose it is true that both his life and his passing have each started a new kind of life for me. I am not ashamed to admit that I changed because of him.

People get very hung up on not wanting to "change" for another person, but how can it not happen? You meet the right person, someone you love deeply, and you probably will find yourself facing some opportunity to change something for positive reasons. Maybe it's kicking bad habits, or allowing your ambitions to grow, or being able to give of yourself on a deeper level.

When someone you love very deeply unexpectedly leaves your life, especially through death, you will face the very worst feelings imaginable. It's very ugly and raw, filled with opportunities to have overwhelming anxiety and panic attacks at the drop of a hat. I had to learn how to overcome that and it made me a much stronger person than I ever was before.

So, yeah, the right person can be a catalyst for a life change.

These days, I feel more like it was my job to deliver him to Florida. He fell asleep and passed away most likely feeling as if he made it, he really, really made it down here...finally. I am sad that he did not wake up the next day and see us down here with him. Still, he passed away feeling that he would be absolutely see us, and we could start our new lives down here.

That is actually a beautiful thing if you think about it.