Sensitivity

 Roberts first birthday, after we met and married, was an interesting one...I asked him what he would like me to make as a meal to celebrate the day and he told me...we were to have it his parents house because they didn't want to drive the 30 minutes to my place...so I cooked this lavish meal and  his favorite dessert and drove to their house...we ate and while Robert and his dad retired to the living room to watch the news on CBC...mother and I cleared the table and put the kettle on for a spot of tea to go with our dessert...She said she hadn't thought to make him a cake and I said not to worry, that he had requested my famous cheesecake ....at which she replied...don't you think it's bad enough you killed off one husband feeding him that kind of food, now you are working on another... (I'm not kidding, that is verbatim what she said)  I had no reply...of course, I was speechless...I excused myself shortly after that and stepped outside...thought about it a bit more out there and then left....left my dishes, my leftovers and Robert and drove home.. When he phoned later...he asked me why I left...and I told him...he was speechless.. and apparently had words with his mother, at which time she tried to deny that she meant what she said in a bad way...and finally when he wasn't buying it...she accused me of being too sensitive....and the next day he tried to convince me that that was my problem..I was just being too sensitive....His mother hated me ever since that day, probably before then too...or is that just me being to sensitive ?

Valentines day is a mile high hurdle for me...while others are being wooed..schmoozed and candied up, I find it hard not to get inebriated...Sid died on valentines day, 18 years ago...and every valentines day that rolls around feels like it was just that day... I suppose he if had died quietly in his sleep or of some lingering illness...it might be easier to forget...

Sid wasn't the greatest husband in the world, far from it actually, he was a drunk, had no use for kids, was a bit perverted with cutting out nude girly pictures out of playboy and hustler magazines and pasting them on the wall of his shop...(at the farm sale, remarks were made by people who didn't know us that he was one sick puppy...hahahaha)  I hated those pictures,  he cheated on me several times...and I would have left him had I had somewhere to go...he loved someone else he once told me...I don't know who but he said it was someone we knew...and that if she ever left her husband I would be out of the house so fast my head would spin...hahaha that made a girl feel secure... and in his frustration at not being married to the love of his life (as he put it) he got angry and abusive... yes, I was one of those pathetic women who stay in an abusive situation because they have no where else to go...

Our marriage wasn't always like that though...at the beginning we were good together, had a couple of babies, He taught me how to farm and I actually became a better cattleman than he could ever hope to be... I love the cows...the neighbours used to phone and ask me what to treat their sick animals with and if I could come and look at their calves... I market gardened for a few years but that was thankless work for little reward...I raised, butchered and sold chickens, about a thousand a year, I had pail fed calves, we had a hundred pigs, and in the early years (Sid had a dozen milk cows when I met him) we milked cows and sold the butter I churned and fed the milk to the pigs and chickens...besides all that I had two babies to care for and house and big yard.  I can still remember having the two boys in the truck with me, riding around and around the field...raking hay...getting home and canning cherries until 4 am... then waking up at 8 am and starting the day all over again...

So although I didn't have the best of marriages, (we stopped being a team after one of our sons died) it was like a disconnect...he drank more, I ate more chocolate bars..my drug of choice and a year later when the fog lifted I was fat and he was a drunk...he never stopped drinking and I kept on eating....so that fateful Valentines day...we were indifferent ....there had been a calf born in the wee hours of the morning and after lunch he was heading out to get it to suck tit....I asked if he needed help and he said "ya, you can hold the hammer"...a joke about knocking the damn thing on the head if it didn't suck the cow....

He fought with the calf...pounded it around the head a few times with his fist and we argued.... I said, "oh that's really gonna make it want to nurse...you beating about the head like that"   he got mad and stood up, kicked the calf under the cow...and began turning around to yell at me...but he just gurgled instead and staggered back into the barn wall...his mouth was moving but the only sound coming out was garbled...foam...and spit and then he fell to the barn floor, splitting the side of his face open on the concrete edge....when I turned him over, he was covered in manure and blood...his eyes were cloudy and he was blowing bubbles from his mouth...  I did CPR for about fifteen minutes I guess, I am really not sure how long...I only knew my arms felt on fire and I was crying....I had to make a choice at that point...with no cell phone back then, no phone in the barn I had to either keep doing what I was doing or leave him and go call 911.... I left and made the call...told my son his dad had an accident and to go and wait on the road for the ambulance...

I remember sitting in the hospital waiting for the doctor to come out and talk to us, I don't remember actually driving to the hospital...and then the doctor was there....he sat down in front of us and looked right in my eyes...he said...that even if your husband had been here in emerg...already on a stretcher there was no way they could have saved him...he had a massive heart attack that had blown the valves right out of his heart... He asked if there was someone I could call to come and take us home... I tried my neighbours but they were out for the day...so after an hour or so... my son and I drove home...

So ya, Valentines day is a tough one for me...in a small way, I still miss Sid, we had used to be very good friends...I miss the life we had, filled with tons of friends, his family...

Sid just in from the barn and our son David

I spent yesterday alone....Robert must have forgotten what day it was cause he didn't even wish me a happy valentines...he came in for breakfast and then headed back out to do his chores and never came back in the house until 10 pm... he apparently had taken a couple of pieces of leftover pizza out with him...I had made a nice supper...his favorite...lasagna with green salad, garlic bread and a strawberry smoothie...and it sat on the counter for hours before I put it away at 9:45... he came in shortly afterwards...asked me what I did all day...and then when I got up and went to bed, he was offended...I told him to just go away...and he went... to say that I was a bit upset would be an understatement...  I know, I know...it's been 18 years... but it still would have been kind of him to distract me...instead I sat here all day, reading, tried painting a bit and just remembering...