CLAUDIA HAS BEEN GONE FOUR YEARS COME SEPTEMBER 1st.
I find myself becoming antsy as September 1st comes racing towards me. I'm still missing her after all this time.
Claudia was beautiful, artistic, playful, generous, loving, and a balm for helping me cope with my PTSD. She was also a marvelous cook.
She was the strongest woman I have ever known, why? because she survived the worst that Polio could do to her, then went on to earn a degree in teaching from Mankato State University. We were together for 40 years, and we had one daughter at great risk to Claudia.
It was my honor to be her husband. While she was short in stature she was tall in life. Our life together was full of challenges but we always found a way to meet and defeat those challenges.
Claudia became the victim of Post Polio Syndrome, wherein, the disease returns and there is no cure, it is a wasting disease and in the end claimed Claudia.
I believe Claudia is now with God as a whole and healthy person able to dance and play as she could not do towards the end. May you rest in peace and God Bless.
I still love and miss you Claudia. Thank you for the love and life you gave to me, to our daughter, to our family, and to our friends.
AMEN.
Love Vic.
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Monday, August 31, 2015
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Happy Birthday Claudia.
Today, Claudia would have been 68 years old. It was one year ago today that I held the memorial service in honor of her leaving us to be by the side of Jesus. Tigger has joined her and I'm sure he is on her lap being petted just like he used to be when both were with us at home.
I loved to present her with a birthday card and usually some jewelry. Claudia always loved beautiful jewelry, especially the eye catching flashy kind, and she wore it so well. Typically I would buy a ready made cake, as I was never very successful at baking cakes. Why? well they usually came out lopsided, or crooked, or some kind of messy. When it was still possible for her to get in and out of the Van I would take her out to dinner. She always loved hearing from her family, including her parents, her siblings and of course her daughter.
During the last 5 years or so, it became harder and harder to celebrate because her Post Polio Syndrome kept getting worse and worse, and more painful all the time. Both of us knew it was only a matter of time before the PPS would ultimately take her away from us.
God I still miss her. God Bless you darling as you now live by Jesus side with no pain. Thank you for the 40 lovely years you gave to me, to Elizabeth, and to all of your friends and family. You are missed by one and all.
Amen, Your husband Vic.
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
I loved to present her with a birthday card and usually some jewelry. Claudia always loved beautiful jewelry, especially the eye catching flashy kind, and she wore it so well. Typically I would buy a ready made cake, as I was never very successful at baking cakes. Why? well they usually came out lopsided, or crooked, or some kind of messy. When it was still possible for her to get in and out of the Van I would take her out to dinner. She always loved hearing from her family, including her parents, her siblings and of course her daughter.
During the last 5 years or so, it became harder and harder to celebrate because her Post Polio Syndrome kept getting worse and worse, and more painful all the time. Both of us knew it was only a matter of time before the PPS would ultimately take her away from us.
God I still miss her. God Bless you darling as you now live by Jesus side with no pain. Thank you for the 40 lovely years you gave to me, to Elizabeth, and to all of your friends and family. You are missed by one and all.
Amen, Your husband Vic.
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Missing Claudia.
Well Folks! I don't know if you want to hear this, but I still miss my wife. I still listen to hear her calling me, or I still turn to tell her something I have seen or heard that I know she would like to hear. It has been 11 months since she passed away.
I now appreciate why Dad remarried as quickly as he did. After living with someone you love and appreciate for a long time, it is extremely difficult to get used to living alone.
This explains why I spend as much time as I do on Facebook and on email. It helps me to maintain my sanity.
In addition to FB and email, I read a lot, and there are several TV programs that I like to watch. I love to go to the movies, but I really don't like to go alone. I have done so, but there aren't any Movie Theaters near where I live, so I don't go rushing off to the movies. In addition, to not liking to go alone, the current cost of movies is too expensive, not to mention the cost of gasoline to drive to and fro.
Yes! I have looked into using Netflix and RedBox and have even rented a couple of movies from Redbox, but there is still another problem. A significant number of new movies are horror movies. My problem with modern horror movies is there attention to graphic detail. I don't know about you folks, but I prefer the old fashioned horror movies that let your mind provide the details of the gore or not as you choose. I don't need graphic reality, it gives me nightmares, and I don't need them either.
As I said in the beginning, I miss my Claudia. God Bless you darling.
Love from the gahillbilly.
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
I now appreciate why Dad remarried as quickly as he did. After living with someone you love and appreciate for a long time, it is extremely difficult to get used to living alone.
This explains why I spend as much time as I do on Facebook and on email. It helps me to maintain my sanity.
In addition to FB and email, I read a lot, and there are several TV programs that I like to watch. I love to go to the movies, but I really don't like to go alone. I have done so, but there aren't any Movie Theaters near where I live, so I don't go rushing off to the movies. In addition, to not liking to go alone, the current cost of movies is too expensive, not to mention the cost of gasoline to drive to and fro.
Yes! I have looked into using Netflix and RedBox and have even rented a couple of movies from Redbox, but there is still another problem. A significant number of new movies are horror movies. My problem with modern horror movies is there attention to graphic detail. I don't know about you folks, but I prefer the old fashioned horror movies that let your mind provide the details of the gore or not as you choose. I don't need graphic reality, it gives me nightmares, and I don't need them either.
As I said in the beginning, I miss my Claudia. God Bless you darling.
Love from the gahillbilly.
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
How Claudia and I met.
I have been thinking, as strange as that sounds, I do occasionally think. Anyway, I know I have been talking about how I feel and about my loss, and I realized that I haven't talked about what having Claudia in my life meant to me.
I'm not sure if I will be able to articulate adequately what having Claudia in my life meant to me. I sit here watching tv while I am trying to formulate what to say; in fact Claudia used to get on my case, because I would watch tv while reading a book or while working on the computer.
I can't remember if I have ever written the story of how Claudia and I met, so here goes.
Way back in 1969/1970 my first wife and I decided it would be best if we parted ways, as in get a divorce. So as events go, I moved out of the house and into a singles/adult apartment complex. I had rented what is called an efficiency apartment, which consists of one room that included a kitchen nook, and even a seperate bathroom. The couch was a convertable sofa, which is what I slept on. Yes this was a furnished apartment. Because my first wife and I had 4 children, this was a problem for both of us, as I had to keep paying the bills. Since we were living in California, this was a no fault divorce, meaning that Bobbie got the mine and I got the shaft.
Anyway, enough about that. After a few months of living in the adult/singles apartment complex I was invited to various parties. A couple of females sharing a two bedroom apartment threw a party to which I was invited. I was drinking a beer, and was headed across the room to meet up with a young lady who didn't have any clothes on, when I suddenly trip and fall on another young lady, who did have her clothes on. I swear I didn't see her mainly because she was only 4 feet, 10 inches tall, while I am 6 foot 1 inch tall. She was a lovely young lady and we got to know each other very well.
In fact, for some unknown reason, she decided that I was going to be her husband, and guess what, I became her husband for which I have been eternally grateful.
As I got to know her and found out that she was a Polio Victim and survivor, my love and respect for her only grew stronger.
When we got married, we didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. I was paying support for 4 children, and Claudia had education loans she had to pay off. We started out renting an apartment together and even rented furniture to fill the apartment. Well! renting furniture turned out to be a really bad idea as it shortly became way to expensive, so we returned the furniture and acquired used furniture wherever we could acquire it. It is what we called our early married look.
It turns out, that we never did get into the mode of formally decorating our house or apartment, we just took things as they came and with Claudia's genius had a lovely life together.
We went house hunting after we had spent about a year being apartment managers. This is where you get to take care of yard and apartment maintenance, collect rent and complaints, while you supposedly receive your apartment either free of charge or for a very low rent. We found we weren't really suited to this job, as I was working a full time job at the same time, we were managing, so Claudia wound up having to deal with unhappy tenants.
We didn't have any money for a down payment, so we finally found a home that we could qualify for under an FHA loan but only after the furnace and electrical service was upgraded to modern standards. All of which meant that the Realtor struck a deal whereby we would put in the sweat equity of installing a new furnace and upgrading the electrical service from a 2 fuse electrical box to a 100 amp electrical circuit breaker. So with the help of some friends we did the work in place of a cash down payment.
The house was a little 850 sq. ft. 2 bedroom bungalow but it had a large half acre plot compete with an orange tree, lemon tree, 2 apple trees, and a fig tree, along with a very large asparagus patch and a large garden area.
To say we were in hog heaven is to put it mildly, we planted vegetables including corn, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, peas, lettuce, carrots, spinach, and I can't quite remember all the rest, but Claudia my kids, and I canned and/or froze fruit and vegetables pretty much all year round. As the apples came ripe Claudia would make applesauce, or can sliced apples, and make apple streaudal, apple pie, apple turnovers, etc. We did not go hungry. She also baked fresh bread, cookies, cake, doughnuts, and much more.
The house did include a one car garage with a loft above it. This was a good thing because when my four girls came to stay with us they slept in the loft. I put bunk beds up there and while it was a little crowded, they seemed to prefer it, to the second bedroom.
We had the girls stay with us over the summer, so they had to help with gardening, canning, baking, and anything else we could get them to help with. Claudia was a wonder with the girls, even though it was extremely hard on her. My daughters were not easy to control and discipline.
Now, years later, I know that the my daughters appreciate all that they learned from Claudia, as they have told me so.
Oh! did I mentioned that Claudia graduated from College with a home Economics degree and a degree in child development.
About three or four years after we were married, Bobbie and the girls moved to Las Vegas with her new husband. So if I wanted to see the girls, I had to fly or drive down to Las Vegas from San Jose to see them.
So, once a month, we would pack up a few things and take them to work with us on Friday. As soon as 5pm rolled around we would climb in the car and start driving from San Jose south then east to Las Vegas. It was a 600 mile drive, so we took turns driving.We always carried a very large thermos of coffee with us which was all gone by the time we hit Fresno, California. There was an all night restaurant in Fresno that we always stopped in to fill up both the us and the car and empty the waste, so to speak. We also had the thermos refilled with fresh coffee for the drive across the desert. The drive usually took us about 8 to 9 hours, and that included stopping for gas and food. We would get into Las Vegas around 2:00am and collapse in bed for 4 or 5 hours and then spend all day Saturday with my girls. We did not spend time in casinos gambling. We would however, take the kids to a restaurant and to Circus, Circus or to a family show on Saturday evening. We would stay over until about noon on Sunday's then head for San Jose, reversing the drive and stops. We would arrive home around midnight on Sunday so that we could get enough sleep to be able to get up and go to work on Monday morning. by the way, Claudia was an excellent driver and a fast one, and I never had a problem letting her drive. For most of the period in which we drove to Las Vegas, we drove her car, a 1963 Ford Galaxie 500, which was a police interceptor in a previous life, and none of the police special equipment and running gear had been removed. It would do 130 miles an hour without straining. Oh yes! I should mention that the car had been modified for Claudia to drive with a left foot accelerator, as her right leg could not work the accelerator or brake. So of course I had to drive it with my left foot also. ( for those that have trouble picturing this, the gas pedal was on the left side of the brake, while the brake was still in it's original position.)
I cannot begin to tell you how much it meant to me, that Claudia would share this long and tedious trip with me to Las Vegas and back.
Every morning Claudia would get out of bed before I did and fix me my breakfast, and a lunch to take with me to work. She did this for the first 30 years of our marriage, at which point the Post Polio Syndrome started weakening her so badly that she just couldn't do it any more.I should mention, that I much preferred taking my lunch to work, as it was much cheaper and one hell of a lot tastier then going out to eat. Did I mention she baked her own bread, and cookies, and pie, and cake.
I had to work hard to keep my weight down, I can tell you.
Claudia was a bright light in my life, and I miss her very much.
Love Vic
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
I'm not sure if I will be able to articulate adequately what having Claudia in my life meant to me. I sit here watching tv while I am trying to formulate what to say; in fact Claudia used to get on my case, because I would watch tv while reading a book or while working on the computer.
I can't remember if I have ever written the story of how Claudia and I met, so here goes.
Way back in 1969/1970 my first wife and I decided it would be best if we parted ways, as in get a divorce. So as events go, I moved out of the house and into a singles/adult apartment complex. I had rented what is called an efficiency apartment, which consists of one room that included a kitchen nook, and even a seperate bathroom. The couch was a convertable sofa, which is what I slept on. Yes this was a furnished apartment. Because my first wife and I had 4 children, this was a problem for both of us, as I had to keep paying the bills. Since we were living in California, this was a no fault divorce, meaning that Bobbie got the mine and I got the shaft.
Anyway, enough about that. After a few months of living in the adult/singles apartment complex I was invited to various parties. A couple of females sharing a two bedroom apartment threw a party to which I was invited. I was drinking a beer, and was headed across the room to meet up with a young lady who didn't have any clothes on, when I suddenly trip and fall on another young lady, who did have her clothes on. I swear I didn't see her mainly because she was only 4 feet, 10 inches tall, while I am 6 foot 1 inch tall. She was a lovely young lady and we got to know each other very well.
In fact, for some unknown reason, she decided that I was going to be her husband, and guess what, I became her husband for which I have been eternally grateful.
As I got to know her and found out that she was a Polio Victim and survivor, my love and respect for her only grew stronger.
When we got married, we didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. I was paying support for 4 children, and Claudia had education loans she had to pay off. We started out renting an apartment together and even rented furniture to fill the apartment. Well! renting furniture turned out to be a really bad idea as it shortly became way to expensive, so we returned the furniture and acquired used furniture wherever we could acquire it. It is what we called our early married look.
It turns out, that we never did get into the mode of formally decorating our house or apartment, we just took things as they came and with Claudia's genius had a lovely life together.
We went house hunting after we had spent about a year being apartment managers. This is where you get to take care of yard and apartment maintenance, collect rent and complaints, while you supposedly receive your apartment either free of charge or for a very low rent. We found we weren't really suited to this job, as I was working a full time job at the same time, we were managing, so Claudia wound up having to deal with unhappy tenants.
We didn't have any money for a down payment, so we finally found a home that we could qualify for under an FHA loan but only after the furnace and electrical service was upgraded to modern standards. All of which meant that the Realtor struck a deal whereby we would put in the sweat equity of installing a new furnace and upgrading the electrical service from a 2 fuse electrical box to a 100 amp electrical circuit breaker. So with the help of some friends we did the work in place of a cash down payment.
The house was a little 850 sq. ft. 2 bedroom bungalow but it had a large half acre plot compete with an orange tree, lemon tree, 2 apple trees, and a fig tree, along with a very large asparagus patch and a large garden area.
To say we were in hog heaven is to put it mildly, we planted vegetables including corn, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, peas, lettuce, carrots, spinach, and I can't quite remember all the rest, but Claudia my kids, and I canned and/or froze fruit and vegetables pretty much all year round. As the apples came ripe Claudia would make applesauce, or can sliced apples, and make apple streaudal, apple pie, apple turnovers, etc. We did not go hungry. She also baked fresh bread, cookies, cake, doughnuts, and much more.
The house did include a one car garage with a loft above it. This was a good thing because when my four girls came to stay with us they slept in the loft. I put bunk beds up there and while it was a little crowded, they seemed to prefer it, to the second bedroom.
We had the girls stay with us over the summer, so they had to help with gardening, canning, baking, and anything else we could get them to help with. Claudia was a wonder with the girls, even though it was extremely hard on her. My daughters were not easy to control and discipline.
Now, years later, I know that the my daughters appreciate all that they learned from Claudia, as they have told me so.
Oh! did I mentioned that Claudia graduated from College with a home Economics degree and a degree in child development.
About three or four years after we were married, Bobbie and the girls moved to Las Vegas with her new husband. So if I wanted to see the girls, I had to fly or drive down to Las Vegas from San Jose to see them.
So, once a month, we would pack up a few things and take them to work with us on Friday. As soon as 5pm rolled around we would climb in the car and start driving from San Jose south then east to Las Vegas. It was a 600 mile drive, so we took turns driving.We always carried a very large thermos of coffee with us which was all gone by the time we hit Fresno, California. There was an all night restaurant in Fresno that we always stopped in to fill up both the us and the car and empty the waste, so to speak. We also had the thermos refilled with fresh coffee for the drive across the desert. The drive usually took us about 8 to 9 hours, and that included stopping for gas and food. We would get into Las Vegas around 2:00am and collapse in bed for 4 or 5 hours and then spend all day Saturday with my girls. We did not spend time in casinos gambling. We would however, take the kids to a restaurant and to Circus, Circus or to a family show on Saturday evening. We would stay over until about noon on Sunday's then head for San Jose, reversing the drive and stops. We would arrive home around midnight on Sunday so that we could get enough sleep to be able to get up and go to work on Monday morning. by the way, Claudia was an excellent driver and a fast one, and I never had a problem letting her drive. For most of the period in which we drove to Las Vegas, we drove her car, a 1963 Ford Galaxie 500, which was a police interceptor in a previous life, and none of the police special equipment and running gear had been removed. It would do 130 miles an hour without straining. Oh yes! I should mention that the car had been modified for Claudia to drive with a left foot accelerator, as her right leg could not work the accelerator or brake. So of course I had to drive it with my left foot also. ( for those that have trouble picturing this, the gas pedal was on the left side of the brake, while the brake was still in it's original position.)
I cannot begin to tell you how much it meant to me, that Claudia would share this long and tedious trip with me to Las Vegas and back.
Every morning Claudia would get out of bed before I did and fix me my breakfast, and a lunch to take with me to work. She did this for the first 30 years of our marriage, at which point the Post Polio Syndrome started weakening her so badly that she just couldn't do it any more.I should mention, that I much preferred taking my lunch to work, as it was much cheaper and one hell of a lot tastier then going out to eat. Did I mention she baked her own bread, and cookies, and pie, and cake.
I had to work hard to keep my weight down, I can tell you.
Claudia was a bright light in my life, and I miss her very much.
Love Vic
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
MOTIVATION: HOW DO YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN?
Motivation, how do you make it happen?
I ask this question because of the series of incidents that have taken place during the last 9 to 10 months. If you have been reading my journal, you know that I had to place my wife Claudia into hospice care in a nursing home as I could no longer take proper care of her. Then we find out that we had to go through a series of transfers of Claudia from one nursing home to another, each of which wound up further and further from home.
During all of this our daughter Elizabeth has been a real trooper in dealing with nursing homes, social security, medicaid, and medicare. When she was finally brought to rest at Signature Healthcare of Marietta, her care was stabilized to a certain degree.
In the meantime I had to abandon our home and move to the renting of a downstairs apartment in a private home all the way from the south side of Atlanta to the north side of Atlanta. If you don't think that wasn't traumatic, think again. In between all of this my 17 year old minivan's transmission crapped out, so I was without transport for almost two weeks while the transmission was overhauled.
You may wonder why I didn't junk the car and get another one, well it's simple, I don't have the money nor do I have any credit, so I have to keep what I have operational. Now that Claudia has passed away, God Rest Her Soul, I am keeping busy by going to Cardiac exercise classes at Kennestone Hospital, and I take my grandchildren to tae kwon do classes three times a week.
Getting back to motivation, how do you get your mojo back? After spending about 10 years spending most of my time caring for Claudia combined with my serious heart condition, I wasn't able to do much else except read, watch tv, dabble in making wooden toys, maintaining the house and car, cook and do light housework. I tried doing yard work but I couldn't manage it anymore.
Getting back to my question, "How do I get my mojo back?" I guess I am still looking for an answer to that question. I had seen and heard that when a person loses their loved one, it can cause a person to lose interest in continuing to live their life; I can truthfully say it is true.
At this time I still don't have an answer, but I am continuing to work on what to do.
God Bless us all.
gahillbilly
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
I ask this question because of the series of incidents that have taken place during the last 9 to 10 months. If you have been reading my journal, you know that I had to place my wife Claudia into hospice care in a nursing home as I could no longer take proper care of her. Then we find out that we had to go through a series of transfers of Claudia from one nursing home to another, each of which wound up further and further from home.
During all of this our daughter Elizabeth has been a real trooper in dealing with nursing homes, social security, medicaid, and medicare. When she was finally brought to rest at Signature Healthcare of Marietta, her care was stabilized to a certain degree.
In the meantime I had to abandon our home and move to the renting of a downstairs apartment in a private home all the way from the south side of Atlanta to the north side of Atlanta. If you don't think that wasn't traumatic, think again. In between all of this my 17 year old minivan's transmission crapped out, so I was without transport for almost two weeks while the transmission was overhauled.
You may wonder why I didn't junk the car and get another one, well it's simple, I don't have the money nor do I have any credit, so I have to keep what I have operational. Now that Claudia has passed away, God Rest Her Soul, I am keeping busy by going to Cardiac exercise classes at Kennestone Hospital, and I take my grandchildren to tae kwon do classes three times a week.
Getting back to motivation, how do you get your mojo back? After spending about 10 years spending most of my time caring for Claudia combined with my serious heart condition, I wasn't able to do much else except read, watch tv, dabble in making wooden toys, maintaining the house and car, cook and do light housework. I tried doing yard work but I couldn't manage it anymore.
Getting back to my question, "How do I get my mojo back?" I guess I am still looking for an answer to that question. I had seen and heard that when a person loses their loved one, it can cause a person to lose interest in continuing to live their life; I can truthfully say it is true.
At this time I still don't have an answer, but I am continuing to work on what to do.
God Bless us all.
gahillbilly
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
CTOO SCHEDULE
As promised the schedule for my CTOO operation is taking place on August 31st this year. Which is a week from tomorrow. I'm hoping that this operation will give me a stronger heart and thus more energy to deal with life.
For those of you that follow me on Face Book you know that my wife is in a nursing home with hospice care. She is quadraplegic and when awake or conscience her brain is scrambled. And no she is not expected to get better. At her own request before these last two attacks, she has requested there be no medical intervention of any kind.
Claudia's family and mine are aware of this request and are in agreement with it. No it does not make it any easier for me or her family to live with.
I pray for her peace and for my sanity as I love her and miss her with all of my heart.
God Bless us all.
Victor Winebrenner, aka gahillbilly.
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
For those of you that follow me on Face Book you know that my wife is in a nursing home with hospice care. She is quadraplegic and when awake or conscience her brain is scrambled. And no she is not expected to get better. At her own request before these last two attacks, she has requested there be no medical intervention of any kind.
Claudia's family and mine are aware of this request and are in agreement with it. No it does not make it any easier for me or her family to live with.
I pray for her peace and for my sanity as I love her and miss her with all of my heart.
God Bless us all.
Victor Winebrenner, aka gahillbilly.
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)