Medicating the crap out of my little munchkin was a valiant attempt to help on the part of her Psychiatrist , but on our end it was going down in flames faster than the Hindenburg . It was in walking through the flames of the aftermath that Homeschooling her, at least for the rest of the year, began to look like the only option . Every Widow I have talked to has assured me that following the loss of a parent, it is perfectly normal for small children to want to be in sight of their remaining parent constantly , Boo however , took this to the level of white-on-rice-spider-monkey. I have always been a believer and practitioner of 'Attachment Parenting ', but this was like " Attachment parenting : Ninja Level.
She had already slept with me every night since Bob's death , but now she was attached to me at the hip 24/7, she even reverted to following me to the bathroom ! Everyday I had to dig down deep to the bottom of my barrel of patience and resurrect whatever scraps I could unearth , just to get through. It was about this time that the interest in us and our welfare among our friends, neighbors and church had died off to nearly non-existant. When she was still attending , at least half-days I was able to enjoy walks with a friend from a few blocks away, that gave me a reason to do something other than lie in bed all day pretending Bob was napping with me , or playing shoulda, coulda, woulda's over and over in my head. With her home 24/7 I couldn't do this either, but I would be lying if I said there weren't days when just coming up with a 15 minute lesson for my six year old was more taxing than my Widow-brain could handle.
I shifted my focus to literally , just putting one foot in front of the other, and thanked God about every five minutes for whoever invented Paxil. As she was (and remains ) un-medicated, some nights we were up at 3 am practicing our phonics and reading 'Madeline' because our sleep schedule had become THAT fubar'd , just from her refusal to take her melatonin. After a while , everything began to weigh on me physically , as well as mentally . My feet felt like they were encased in concrete , and impossible to drag from room to room. The days melted into each other , a relentless parade of Netflix programming as we snuggled on the couch.
After Bob died, I had to find some very creative ways for us to get by, and I didn't have a lot to work with . I began selling the nonessential furniture , and placed whatever antiques that did not have sentimental value in a small booth at a local antique shop . Craigslist and Facebook proved valuable resources in this endeavor. The money I got for the living room tables paid to keep the lights on , and the Victorian Chaise I had priced for $500, ended up going for $200, after we discovered that Bob's dearly devoted orange kitty had given his claws one hell of a workout on the back side of it . Still, it covered some groceries, and put Gas in the van. The money from the sale of our china cabinet paid for his urn.
It was painful to watch each piece of our life together go out the door , but I let it , knowing I had no other choice if we were going to eat. Ultimately , almost everything was gone to either the consignment shop, the antique shop , or a private buyer , until our beautiful home was Bare except for a horrid loaner couch , and Bob's beloved piano. As I sat in that room watching Netflix (piggy-backed off my neighbors wifi no less) next to a disconnected landline and a huge stack of bills , holding my baby on the WORST sofa in the free world , I wished like hell he would have taken us with him. I got up and walked over to the only other seat in the room, a wooden rocking chair that had rocked four generations of my family's babies, and sat down . I grabbed a ball of yarn and a pair of needles and began furiously knitting , as if my life and my sanity depended on it . I made baby doll diapers , and blankets, and hats , that delighted my daughter and helped us both feel normal, even if just for a moment.
Keeping her amused long enough to give myself a minute to think became my all consuming focus. As with every other facet of our lives at that time , money, and general lack of it was a significant factor, but, necessity is indeed the mother of invention. I found an old pot-holder loom in a box and harvested mate-less socks , and old socks that no longer fit her for loops , and this kept her focused for a few hours , a few days in a row. I tried to teach her how to knit/ crochet with scrap yarn , but she wasn't quite ready for that , so , knowing the coming Christmas was going to be a tight one , we turned to Pinterest in search of holiday gifts we could make from things at the house. We made dozens of snowman ornaments , in the middle of spring, out of bottle caps I saved from my beer, and pom-poms from old scrap yarn that would later become reindeer noses. It gave us something hopeful to shift our focus to, and it helped.
Painted rocks , and spray-painted planters weren't our only focus however. We also began gardening like a couple of crazy people. Our obsession with gardening stemmed from two things, first and foremost , all of the plans that we had as a family for this, our dream house, and the dream garden we wanted to go with it , but also , that nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that constantly worried about where our next meal was going to come from. I horded seeds from every vegetable we ate, and carted every ounce of compostable waste out to the composter with all the ceremony of a coronation, if we were going to make it , it was going to take every ounce of sweat, and gumption I could muster , it was time to knuckle-down.
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