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Depression

Mar 30 2021

Remembering Bob and Opal at Blyss

This month, March, is the tenth anniversary of my husband, Bob’s, death.  I find myself recalling him a great deal, what we were doing when we learned he was sick, and how little time we had left together, of  how he was robbed.  He had another great love in his life, greater than his for me, that being his two sons.  They were just entering adult life when he died.  He did not see them grow into young men, get married, and have children of their own.  I think he would have truly enjoyed that.  I believe he would have found the thrilling bliss in that that I found with the borzoi, although he did love his borzoi, too.  For me, I learned I never really knew what love was, never having had it growing up as a child.

My childhood was an ordeal of survival behind enemy lines, with parents ruling the house like they were Gestapo agents, imprisoning their children, ruling them with what can only be described as a rule book that grew thicker with every passing day.

Their favorite adages were: Spare the rod, spoil the child; and, You should only kiss your children when they are asleep.  They did not notice that their three children were growing up despising them and being totally self destructive.  They were too busy being angry all the time, with one another, and their offspring.    Somehow, sadly, we survived.

I understand Bob had a happy childhood, with laid back and easy going parents.  He, and all his siblings, always appeared to have smiles on their faces.  My siblings and I were profoundly emotionally disturbed, and did not wear smiles well.  We looked rather ghoulish with smiles on our faces, so we practiced looking in mirrors trying to look intelligent or serious instead.  It seems particularly sad that  I, who am so damaged, am left alive while Bob had to die ten years ago.  I feel so sorry for him that he had to miss so much happy, quality, family time.    I know how precious it is, but I had to learn about it from borzoi.

Borzoi taught me about love, human love.  I thought I loved Bob when I married him, but I had been made too damaged by my mother to be able to love anyone again.  It was fun and easy to love the borzoi.  When I look back at my old photographs with them, I don’t recognize myself.  I look so healthy, and am always beaming in a huge smile I cannot diminish.  In January, 2005, we  bought Opal.  I became manic with joy.  Eighteen months later she died, and I crashed into a devastating depression and have never been the same again.  I cannot forget what I lost when she died, my greatest loss, my heart itself, my joy that only she brought me.   I have read accounts like this by  other people sometimes on FB, not often, because usually people have multiple borzoi and the others help the owner get over the loss.  However, sometimes, a kennel will have one of those very extraordinary borzoi that transcends who and what it is, and when the owner writes about it, I recognize and understand what has happened to them.

Somehow, I am learning to love and smile, because I have grown from that place.  In the process, I have learned that Opal made a difference in my life, by enabling me, after almost 15 years, me to experience love and joy again.  I do not mourn her, I celebrate her, every day.  I was the luckiest person in the world to have had her.  I believe we will be reunited upon my death.  Opal is my definition of heaven.  Someday, when she comes up to me and looks up, and then hit me with her paw, like she used to, then, she will never be far away again.

Written by Lorene · Categorized: Borzoi, Depression, Dogs, Family Lilfe, Friendship, Grief, Love, Opal, Suburban Landscapes, Suburbs

Mar 26 2021

“They call me Mimi but my name is Lucia….”

I have been having a busy week.  I had my six month checkup for my lung cancer surgery last September, with a CAT-Scan with contrast media, and follow up with the surgeon.  I am very aware that breathing is a different experience for me, and not for the better, but I am adjusting.  I even gained five pounds, which is a significant for me.

My chronic anorexia, and the experience of being inexplicably abandoned by someone who swore his love and commitment to me, only to be followed up by  ghosting me, made the recovery almost impossible.  Without love, it took away my strength to recover, and my will to live.  But I am made of tougher stuff and survived in spite of it.

Today is very early spring, and I have reason for optimism and looking ahead.   I am attaching a photo of my son and my grand-daughter, Piper Starling Connolly, who visited me a week ago, making me very happy.  Kensie is standing by my side, where she can always be found.

I am reminded of Mimi’s aria in Act. 1 of the opera, La Boheme, set in Paris, my favorite city in the world.   I would like to share it as an ode to spring for all of us, and to my own victory over death and despair. Mimi is forced to face her own mortality by the end of Act 3, as shall we all.  But in Act I, there is flirting, laughter, and the hope that only comes in spring.  Find it on YouTube to listen to the beautiful melody.  The words follow:

“They call me Mimi, but my name is Lucy.

I embroider flowers, roses and lilies on silk.

I am peaceful and happy; it is my pass time.

I like these things.  They have so sweet a smell,

They speak of love, of spring, of chimera, these things

That have poetic names….. do you understand me?

Yes, they call me Mimi, why, I do not know….

Alone, I make my lunch for myself,

I do not always go to mass.

But I pray a lot to the Lord.

I live alone and cook for myself.  Alone….

But when the thaw comes, the first sun is mine!

The first kiss of April is mine!

Rose buds in a vase, leaf and buds

I watch them.  The flowers I make,

They do not have an odor

Rose buds in a vase,

Leaf by leaf, I watch it

The gentle perfume of a flower!

But the flowers I make

Ah me, they do not have any odor!

About me, I would not know how to tell.

I am only your neighbor come to bother you!”

From Act I of the Italian opera La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini

Libretto: Giuseppe Giacosa

Written by Lorene · Categorized: Art, Borzoi, Culture, Depression, Dogs, Drama, Eating Disorder, Family Lilfe, Food, Friendship, Grief, Joy, Love, Opera, Religion

Mar 21 2021

I would like to think it is getting better at Blyss with Kensey

Today, I awoke slowly.  Over the weekend, it was time to turn the clocks ahead so we are in “Daylight Savings Time”, that gives us more sunlight in the afternoon and evening.  That gives me time to give my dog a second or third walk in the late afternoon or after dinner.  It is usually the warmer time of year, so I am out more, working in my garden or talking to the passers by, or my neighbors.  My home, and home town, are particularly conducive to this.  All I have to do is get up and live and I find myself enjoying the idyllic surroundings with which I am blessed.

I have been more blessed in past times because I had lived with several borzoi, as many as five or six at a time.  That is a memory bourgeoning with bliss running over, especially when our litter was born. Then my last husband, Bob, was alive.   Bob, who was taken from me almost violently, was ravaged by pancreatic cancer at the age of 56, ten years ago this week in 2021.  I came across some photos this weekend during happy times, in particular, the time of our wedding in 2000.  We looked so happy.  I declared myself  a “Millenium Bride”! looked so amazingly beautiful and young.  I do not look that way anymore.  The last twenty years have been cruel.  I have had cancer twice, and lived through the ravages of two nervous breakdowns.  Sadly, I recovered and did well on my own after Bob was gone, and missed him terribly, knowing we would have been happy together again, but it was too late.  Following his passing, I have just endured ten years of bitter loneliness as I have dated one loser, liar, basket case cripple after another, looking for love.  I am a woman who craves human love, never having had it as a child.

Today, I am no longer able to keep borzoi, I am just too frail from  having lost so much weight during my illnesses.   I am still active, however, in my clubs, I participate in Meet the Breeds when it is in NY City, and I am an active member of the Borzoi Club of America. However, I have ventured into the world of Silken Windhounds and I am currently living with the irresistible “Kensie”, from the Wind ‘n Satin Kennel of Mary Childs in Ohio.  A more precious creature with a princess attitude cannot be found.  She is loved and adored by all who meet her.  She knew instantly I was her person and what her job was.  She is a jewel of a dog, so much like a borzoi in every way, just half the size.  I will admit, she does not have the “drama” of a borzoi, but in every way, she is  just perfect.  I was profoundly depressed when she came.  My maintenance medications were all increased, and with her presence in the home, and the structure caring for another living creature creates in your life, I began to feel better quickly.  The same thing that would have made me happy as a child makes me happy as an elderly woman today.

Written by Lorene · Categorized: American History, Atlantic Ocean, Borzoi, Depression, Dogs, Eating Disorder, Family Lilfe, Food, Friendship, Grief, Joy, Love, Opal, Suburban Landscapes, Suburbs, Support

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