Seriously, honey, you gotta stop possessing the cat. It was one thing when you made him bite his nails and snore - that was charming, if alarming, but kinda cute. Let's stop the game at the heart disease tho, ok? I miss you, and am happy to have you use Ajax as a medium, but I can't handle sudden heart problems in anybody else....

For those of you who are not Karl, today I had to take Ajax to the vet. Around noon he had an 'episode' of sorts. He started yowling loudly, panting, and drooling. Then he pooped in my bedroom. It was all scary and strange. I took him to the vet, who said it *could* be heart disease. If he passed a clot, it might explain the freaking out behavior. Seriously not the stress I needed today.

Kitty's snoring again. Granted it's a lot quieter than my husband did - maybe about the volume he could achieve when muffled by 2 heavy pillows. And perhaps a small pony.

I miss Karl.

Dear Facebook,

I am a recently widowed woman who struggles with the options you give me for my "relationship status."

Now, I understand that you can't put every possibility out there, I mean, there's deeply in love, separated pending divorce, friends with privileges, just fooling around. I see this as the reason for your "It's complicated" option. I think that's a great option for a lot of people in unclear relationships.

I'm not one of those people.

My status is exceptionally, painfully clear. My husband died suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving me a widow. I am, technically, single, but that's really not a word I'd currently use if somebody asked me. I feel that if you can acknowledge "In an Open Relationship" as a category, surely you can add a few more lines of code to include one more option.

Sure, yeah, it might be a slippery slope. If you recognize widowed as valid, soon you'll have to add "There was that thing in Vegas, but I don't think it stuck" and "Stalking a very attractive coworker" and then what? 6 pages of options, because really, relationships come in quite a variety...

While I am able to make light of this, because it's just a line on a profile that only people I know see, I do feel real frustration, resentment, and offense at this exclusion. Widowhood sucks enough without being forced to hide it.

Do the right thing. Validate our loss with a simple, understanding gesture - let us choose to expose our hurt, in hopes that it helps us heal.

Sincerely,
Jes Kopitske

Oh, how wish you were all here to see this... Elliot has figured out how to spin around in a circle, so, he's spinning in small circles till he falls down. Cutest. Thing. Ever.

4 weddings and a funeral....

Been thinking about the past year, and realized we attended John's, Vicky's, Justin's, and Bethany's weddings, and Karl's funeral. I thought maybe I couldn't be right, and that some had to have happened more than a year ago, but then I realized Elliot was with me at all of them.

Maybe I should write a movie.

I started a post the other day - it was all about bad dreams and anxiety. Or anxiety dreams and bad sleep. In short, me with terminal cancer leaving E an orphan and nobody wanting him, my house burning down with all my memories inside - and my neighbors' houses as well, and all of it my fault.... Bad dreams.

Then, I thought maybe I'd skip that post. Too downtrodden for the holidays.

Instead, I'll tell you about my first 3 photos for 365. First was the very first height marker on Elliot's door frame. Jan. 1, 2009 - A new year, a new way to measure his growth. Second is a broken bowl - A little photo about loss, and things we keep to remind us of our families. I dropped a stack of bowls, and this one had been my grandmother's. I photographed it on the dining room chair that was my mother's, which I will probably get rid of as soon as I find a new set. My mother remembered licking batter out of the bowl - I remember building forts with the chair. Both are broken now, but I wanted to give them a nod of respect as objects which help us hold our memories. Third is fish - I bought 2 new fish (not pictured). This was something of a 'step' for me, i think, in healing. The aquariums were Karl's thing - I'd had fish in the past, but always felt incompetent and like a fish-killer. The last 2 months I've made an effort to keep the tanks clean and healthy, and they seem to be thriving. Adding fish was a way for me to hold on to Karl a little.

More photos to come. See them at Flickr.