A Whole Bunch Of Gratitude

I was driving home in my golf cart from Pickleball last evening I got to thinking about gratitude and how much of it I had.

It was a very fun, but hot & humid session of Pickleball. We had 17 players and we had a fair bit of socializing as well as playing. In my opinion, the social aspects of Pickleball do contribute to it being the fastest growing sport in the country. Anyway, I had some much needed laughs and some good exercise. So it was a fun evening that I needed.

This morning I looked up what the true meaning of gratitude was and it stated that gratitude is one of many positive emotions. It's about focusing on what's good in our lives and being thankful for the things we have. Gratitude is pausing to notice and appreciate the things that we often take for granted, like having a place to live, food, clean water, friends, family, even computer access.

Well I can tell you that I have a whole bunch of gratitude. Yes, I am going through a very rough patch, but the love and support I have recieved from the folks in the Sun City and Mesquite community is just unbelievable. THANK YOU!

The folks in the Bocce and Pickleball clubs here have put together a food tree for me and they bring me dinners at night, plus people have brought me other food. My rotary club had also offered to bring me food, but I had to decline (but I greatly appreciated the offer), but I would have had way more food than I needed.

Also, let me tell you, there are some darn good cooks in this community. The stuff folks have brought me has been delicious. I really appreciate the time and effort people are taking to prepare the food, pacakage it up and then bring it by the house. These are people I have known for less than a year.

I can tell you it has helped me immensely in being able to focus on working on the arrangements for the memorial services and trying to come to grips of not having Jennifer with me physically. She will always be with me spiritually.

I have a bunch of gratitude that my Mom taught me many things when I was young. I can and do cook. I even won awards for my cooking as a young boy (My beef and barley soup won a blue ribbon at the county fair). I can do rudimentary sewing in a pinch. It might not be pretty but it would get me by in a pinch. I can clean things and do laundry.

She taught me this way before Jennifer and I ever dated or got serious about marriage and to be honest I think Mom was afraid I was going to be a confirmed bachelor for my whole life. I don't think she thought there would be anyone crazy enough to hitch their wagon to me. I also think that was why Jennifer was Mom and Dads favorite daughter-in-law. Of course she was the only one, so there was not a lot of competition for the title. However, she wore the title proudly and would often tease my brother-in-laws about it.

I also have a bunch of gratitude for friends with skills I don't have. One of my goals yesterday was to get a great photo of Jennifer put on a 16" x 20" canvas. This photo was taken by our good friend Lorie Malody and it just captures Jennifer to a "T". She has a pair of her favorite sandals on, she has one of her many purses, one of her favorite colorful shirts on, her great smile and sunglasses and the hair was good. I intend to have the photo on a easel near her urn during the services.

Anyway, I won't go into all the gory details , but I was having a hell of a time trying to get this photo situated such that it would be on the canvas correctly. I tried every cropping thing that I could think of doing. One time it would cut of the top of her head, the next time it would cut off part of her feet. I was literally pulling my hair out. Then I realized that our good friend Michael Slone has the skills and tools to get this to work. So I reached out to,him and he said he could probably help if he had the original photo. So I make a quick call to Lorie and she sends the original photo to Michael (thank you Lorie). I swear it was like 10 minutes later and he sends me back the photo all formatted and ready to go.

I was able to get online and got it ordered. So I can check off another item of my to do list.

Now you have to understand I was taking a gamble in calling Michael and giving him access to photos. Michael has crazy artistic and computer skills and can take photo's and manipulate them such that people are in positions they were never in. Several,of our co-workers over the years found this out when they asked Michael to touch up photos for them.

They would end up in movie posters or standing next to a car that is half on a ferry and half on a dock wearing a I ❤️Tennis shirt. However I was confident in the fact, that Michael loved Jennifer and would not do that to me. He did however send me a second version of the photo with a little touch up. He had put my name on the frog that was lying on the bench with Jennifer.

I consider myself to be somewhat technically capable, but this one had me pulling my hair out and as most of you know I don't have much hair to spare.

I also had some discussions with a couple of folks yesterday about the routines we get into as a married couples. Then when one partner leaves the routine goes away.

I sometimes play Pickleball in the early mornings and then sometimes again in the evenings. In the mornings I would give Jennifer a kiss as she slumbered away. I then would head up and play. When I got home she would usually be at the kitchen table reading the paper on her I-pad and drinking her coffee. She would want a report on how Pickleball was, how many players there were and who was playing, etc.

Sometimes for the evening sessions she would ride up with me and I would drop her at the Pioneer Center and she would go work out and most evenings she would walk home, but sometimes she would come over to watch Pickleball and would ride home with me. If she walked home she would want a report like I would give in the morning. She would then give me a run down who was at the Pioneer Center and how her workout was.

I walk through the door every day and expect to see her sitting there at the table waiting for my report. So that always hurts. I still give her my report, even though she is not her physically.

Jennifer never had a social media presence. She lived vicariously through mine. She would often goad me into responding to some posts, especially if she did not agree with a position someone would post. She had talked about getting her own Facebook account, but never pulled the trigger. That is just the way she was.

In high school she did the same thing. She did not get her drivers license until she was a senior. Even though she could have and her Dad had even gotten her a car to,drive. She figured she had friends who had drivers license's and cars so she did not need to.

Now Jennifer's father was also quite a character and he also had a interesting sense of humor. He would get his kids cars, but they usually had some quirk or minor malfunction. The first car that Jennifer had was a Ford Pinto. Yes the car that was famous for blowing up if rear ended. Well the Pinto Jennifer had its transmission would not go into reverse. It was a stick shift and you could put it into neutral and push it backwards but it would not reverse. Jennifer became good at opening the door and using one foot to push it backwards. But she became even better at finding parking spots that did not require you to back up. She always said she loved that car. Well one day her Dad decided to fix the cars transmission and then he sold it. She was heartbroken.

The next car he found her was a Ford Fairmont. Well this one was a three tone blue car with two sets of hub caps. Her dad said no one could see all four tires at the same time so they would not notice that the hub caps did not match, just as long as they matched on one side that was all that mattered. He was not wrong.

Jennifer had named this car Myrna and it was the car she drove when we got married. It was the car we drove on our honeymoon to Coure de'Lane Idaho. It is also the car that tested out our Marriage on day 2.

We get to our hotel which was a Super 8 (we did not have a pot to pee in when we got married so this was the best we could afford) and the next day we get up to go to get something to eat and the car battery was dead.

Myrna was a stick shift so I told Jennifer we could just push start it. So I told her to get in the driver seat and I would do the pushing. So we proceed to put the plan into motion. I start pushing but the car is barely moving, it's moving but I am having to give it all I got. She popped the clutch a couple of times as I am pushing but it would not start because it is just not moving fast enough. So I am hollering at her to take her foot off the brake. She is hollering back at me that she doesn't have her foot on the brake. So I start pushing again, I am damn near worn out and sweating like a pig at this point. Then I hear a click and I damn near fall on my face as the car takes off. She had the parking brake on. I had pushed the car half way across the parking lot with the damn parking brake on. Anyway that was one of our first of many spats, but we survived and could laugh about it by about our 5th wedding Anniversary.

Well I have rambled on enough and I probably should do something productive.