Locust, Toads, and Spiders, Oh My!

I think it’s time to deviate from the heaviness of my posts and share a little bit of humor. Rick and I spent a lot of time laughing at ourselves as we grew up together, raising kids when we were only babies ourselves. Our house was full of sarcasm and teasing each other. As they got older, we loved to share stories of our days or weeks and the funnier the better. I loved telling stories and making people laugh and when Rick and I were on a roll teasing one another mercilessly, we got sillier and funnier the longer our playful banter went on. In an odd way, finding humor in some of the hard stuff after Rick died, helped me. It gave me a sense of hope that this sadness wasn’t permanent. Besides, if you take yourself too seriously, you miss the fun.

I wrote this four months after Rick died and I can laugh hard at this story now that it is behind me. The only things missing in this story are snakes and scorpions and still if I hadn’t lived it, I would think it was made up. As I read this, I realize that I have come such a long way in the last couple years, and I am able to say that I’m proud of myself. I indeed am a survivor and like other tough times in my life, there were moments when I was sure I could not survive, and yet, I did. I’m surviving Rick’s death along with the arduous work of grief and healing. It’s not that I don’t wish things were different or miss him terribly; yes, I can still feel the hollow ache for him as if it were yesterday. But it has become manageable. Grief is the hardest thing I have had to endure, it challenged me in ways I never imagined.

I learned that Rick and I made some incredible humans who deeply know the meaning of family. I learned that you don’t know the depth of your love until they are gone. I learned who my loyal friends were and that losing friends isn’t the only secondary loss we have to endure. I have always known that laughter is the best medicine, but I still forgot how to laugh. When I finally did, it sounded hollow and empty, and it made me uncomfortable. I can say now my laugh is genuine and sometimes I have glimmers of joy and that gives me hope, when only a few months ago I felt utterly alone and hopeless. I decided I wasn’t strong enough to endure this giant black hole of grief. Besides, I was exhausted. Yet, somehow, someway I got up every time, no matter how slowly,  and dusted myself off to live another day without my sweet husband. I had to do some challenging work to heal myself and free myself from the grief that I had gotten stuck in. I was lost for a bit, but I found my way out of the darkness almost three years since he left us. I’m feeling confident the worst is behind me and that’s a whole other story for another blog post. For now, enjoy this story at my expense and remember there are days when everything goes wrong, and yet, we still live to talk about it.

Last night was the first night I ever felt enraged at Rick for dying (as if he controlled that). Anyway, it had been a rough few days and that usually makes me feel his absence even more. Not having my hubby to share the hard days with are HARD. That's usually when I realize how much I hate the way life turned out. To be fair I also hate it when I kill a spider or snake! Last night was no exception and the story goes something like this:

It started like any other night after work. I got home and immediately changed out of my work clothes, to water and feed dogs, and bring them inside for the night. To add to the crazy, I was watching all three of my son’s dogs on top of the eight of my own. His puppy is naughty and has zero manners, but she’s adorable and on days like today that is her redeeming quality. I tried to keep her outside while bringing my two puppies in. But somehow, she managed to squirm her way through a ¼ inch crack between my leg and the door. Now all three puppies come flying in as fast as they can, soaking wet and muddy. Slipping and sliding on the hardwoods and slamming into the wall leaving muddy wet smears along the wall from their swim just minutes before. They are unable to gain traction because they are wet, but they are trying with all their might to race to their crates because they know food is in there. For two-month-old puppies, food is life! Somehow all three pups end up in one crate. They are jostling for control over the dish as puppies do, noses firmly planted in the dish while pushing one another all over afraid they won’t get their fair share. The crate is bouncing wildly back and forth while they inhale the kibble, knocking into the full water bucket and spilling it inside and outside of the crate. While causing kibble to fly across the floor for me to clean up later. (In case I got bored later). Finally, I yanked my pups out and shoved them into their own crates. I’m breathless and a bit frazzled, now. But it all worked out okay. Relieved, I took a deep breath to calm my nerves before bringing in the big dogs.

It was garbage night. My can was overly full, and I had piled cardboard on top of it, so I only had to make one trip down my long gravel driveway where I had to put my garbage can to be picked up in the morning. First, I realized I needed to get Tucker (my son’s other dog) in before dark. I let him out of the kennel and as I was walking him into the house a humongous, bright green locust the size of my hand (everything IS bigger in Texas) landed on my face! As I felt his feet suction to my face, I screamed at the locust, “GET OFF MY FACE!!!” while flailing wildly and slapping at my face, trying not to smoosh it. Still, trying in vain to get him to release his grotesquely sticky grip on my face. I dropped too many “F-bombs” during these thirty seconds of terror! He took his sweet time letting go and finally jumped off to rudely destroy a section of my luscious flowers, I imagined.

I ran into the house having the creepy crawlies and sat on the couch waiting for my pounding heart to slow. Deep breaths. It’s okay. You’re fine. Still shaking, I slowly gathered myself, as realized to my horror both my overly full garbage can and Tucker were outside together which would end badly if I didn’t quickly intervene. I ran outside. Too late. My fears confirmed as I looked at Tucker the Fu#@er’s handy work. That old dog had dumped the can and spread the garbage from one end of the yard to another in a record breaking 3.5 seconds! (Ok. Slight exaggeration there) I was fuming mad! Unbelievable! Screaming all kinds of expletives at him unfazed, he proudly prances over to me, tail wagging, tongue out. He is clearly pleased with his super speedy job well done, ready for his well-deserved dinner. I swear he grinned at me the whole way to his crate, where he gobbled up his food without even pausing.

I returned outside to pick up all the trash which was gross in and of itself. I am even more pissed because it's pitch dark now and creepy crawlies come out at night. I'm not only sensitive after the previous events, but now I’m nervous and jumpy even with the aid of my flashlight. Finally, I get it all picked up, the can is ready to be taken down and I decide I should wash my hands first. It’s already dark now, it’s not like another five minutes matters at this point.

As I swing open the door to go inside, a toad the size of a VW bug (remember Texas) leaps into my house!! Of course, he scared the hell outta me and I squealed and jumped back alarmed. Suddenly I realized to my horror, “A TOAD is in my house!!” Crap. Cue the cartoon chase music. I now have the challenging task of catching him, but I can’t! He's jumping erratically from one end of my living room, to the next desperately trying to escape the screaming giant with the potty mouth. Every time I grabbed his clammy body, I screamed and let him go. This scared him more and caused him to hop more wildly and faster out of sheer terror. This continued for several minutes before I realized I needed a towel, so I didn’t have to touch him with my bare hands. But I couldn't let him out of my sight. What if he hopped somewhere and I couldn’t find him and then he died? The last thing I needed was a dead, stinky frog in my house. He erratically jumped his way into the kitchen where I grabbed a towel and finally succeeded in putting him safely outside where he belonged. At this point, I am frazzled, my hair is in my face, and I’m literally sweating buckets. I am a hot mess at this point, and I still haven’t taken the garbage down and I have mud to mop off the floor and walls, still.

With a heavy sigh, I finally washed my hands, headed outside,  I grabbed the garbage can and started walking it down my long driveway with my small flashlight dimly lighting the way. The cicadas and crickets were clicking loudly increasing my anxiety. My fight or flight response was triggered, now. As I finally neared the gate in time to see the tarantula sized spider (exaggeration) in its web out of the corner of my eye. Unfortunately for me, it was too late! By the time I figured out what it was, I had already walked right into the sticky web, spider, and all! That indeed was the final straw and all my pent-up fear and anxiety along with my fight or flight ready to explode out of me. I screamed as if I was being killed. I’m flailing, swearing, and screaming simultaneously. I’m jumping up and down, spinning around, slapping my hair and my head, in terror.

Spider!! Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t! Big Spider! BIG, big, huge!! Oh my God, help. Help! Spider! Was all I could scream, and it was loud and shrill and full of panic. I’m not sure why I would scream for help when I didn’t need it. Let’s add it to the list of Ways in Which Dar Humiliates Herself. Still spinning and slapping, in my sheer panic, I dropped my flashlight. The drama continues as I am still wailing and flailing, because I didn’t know where that dang spider was, but I was sure of one thing, if he wasn’t on my head, he was crawling on my body and that thought sent me back into a frenzied, flailing mess. I saw something bounding towards me, from the darkness. I recognize it as a headlamp and whoever is wearing it is running towards me, responding to my ridiculous cries for help! To my horror, it was my young neighbor coming to rescue the crazy widow who was begging for help. I know one thing for certain chivalry has not died in the good ol’ state of Texas the one time I wish it would have!

Ashamed of myself and out of breath, I freeze. Chest heaving. Unable to speak because I can’t even breathe. I stared at him. I wondered if I could crawl under a rock. Then, I thought of snakes and scorpions hiding under said rocks! Nope! Just kidding. I have to stand and face the humiliation. I can’t run and there’s nowhere to hide. My chest is still heaving. He looked at me with concern written all over his face , "You ok Ma'am? Thought you might be wrestlin' a hog!" Still out of breath, now painfully aware I'm in my pajamas, thin tank top and braless while jumping around like a goober. I have no doubt that young man was scarred for life after witnessing my antics. Wishing I could melt into the ground, I sheepishly reply, "No. It was a big spider." Then I mumbled, “I'm fine” as I turned around, pulling my overly full garbage can behind me, and finished my walk of shame.

As I walked back up my long driveway bitter tears started to fall. Dammit all! Rick should be here to do all the things. By the time I got to my back deck I was sobbing. I started watering my plants as the realization hit me, once again taking my breath away. This is my new life. I had to get a grip and quit being such a wimp!! I am a strong, capable woman who doesn’t need a man. I have just been spoiled for thirty-six years. I'm on my own now and while I don’t want to, I am capable. I sat down on one of my rattan rocking chairs, looked up at the sky and flipped off the heavens as I screamed as loud as I could, "THANKS ALOT RICHARD! YOU are an a$$hole for leaving me to do this alone! You MOTHERFU@%ER! How could you? I still need you! We all need you! This wasn’t the plan, dammit!”

One of many times that I doubted my ability to get through this.

Gulping air as the racking sobs took over. I paused when realized as I was screaming at Rick for dying, those same neighbors could hear me. Again.

Ashamed, I stopped and stared at the stars as I quietly wept for my sweet man. Oh, how I missed him. Thirty-six years has come down to this. So, I did what was all too familiar. I dried my tears, picked myself up, and finished watering my hanging baskets then promptly went to bed. And like every night before and after, I’m thankful I made it through another day and hopeful that tomorrow will be better.