Tag Archives: Kathy Anne

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Expect the unexpected

Life can teach us lessons we never learn in a classroom, as I am discovering as I take baby steps toward re-entering the “dating” marketplace.

One of them is that today’s world of high-tech Internet manipulation bears no resemblance to the Dark Ages, which was the last time I was an active participant in the worldwide “dating game.”

A word to the wise, therefore, is in order: Do not take a single word of flattery that comes to you from someone you’ve never met seriously. Be cautious, be careful, be suspicious until you can ascertain whether the “contact” you have made is legit.

I posted an item on High Plains Blogger that declared my intention to return to the social world known as the “dating environment.” I am still heading on that portion of this journey I have been on since the passing of my dear bride, Kathy Anne, to cancer.

I have known a couple of things about myself all along. One is that I haven’t “dated” anyone — other than my wife — for more than 50 years. I’ll just say it out loud: I am rusty. I never was a “ladies man,” even when I was much younger and full of those juices that make young men take off in hot pursuit. Thus, I was painfully shy around women.

It’s a new world out there, I am learning. It is fraught with peril. Oh, for a simpler life … except that era is gone forever.

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Following bride’s advice

My late bride once informed me — and I don’t recall the precise time or even the context of the conversation — that she didn’t want me to grieve forever if she left this Earth before I did.

“I want you to be happy,” Kathy Anne told me with a note of sternness in her voice. “If you find someone, then you should pursue that relationship,” she added. My response was similar, but not identical. I believe I answered with, “I want the same for you sweetie, but to be honest the thought of you being ‘with’ another man would drive me out of my mind.”

Well, Kathy Anne did leave this world first. I believe I am ready, though, to follow her instruction about finding happiness.

This journey I’ve been on since the worst day of my life likely will never end. The journey has been dark and at times full of sadness. Until just recently. It has brightened a bit largely because my own head has cleared and I am able to actually think about where I want to be in, say, three to five years.

I do not intend to move from Princeton, Texas. This will remain my forever home, as it belonged to Kathy Anne and me and served to be our base of operations while we visited our granddaughter, her parents and while we traveled throughout this great big, gorgeous country of ours. I’m still able to all of that, although the travel plans have changed a bit; but I am making that work, too.

As for future companionship, well, I will let that play out in due course. I have advised my sons — and any young man willing to listen to this advice — against “looking for the girl of your dreams. She will just show up.” It happened to one of my sons, and it damn sure happened to me. My other son will find that individual, I am sure, one day.

So will I. Thus, I am declaring that I won’t resist the tug into a new relationship when it starts to pull. But whoever comes along will need to understand the nature of the huge hole that remains in my permanently damaged heart.

If she has taken steps along a journey of her own, I am certain that she’ll get it.

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Toby has ‘issues’

More than a few readers of this blog have inquired over the years about the pooch whose face you see here. He is Toby the Puppy and he is my constant companion.

Well … I have some news to report about my Puppy. He is going to undergo aggressive treatment for cancer. That’s all the bad news I have. I have plenty of good news to report regarding my furry pal.

The illness is contained in one spot. He is showing zero signs of discomfort. Toby the Puppy continues to exhibit a voracious appetite and his thirst is virtually unquenchable … meaning that he’s drinking a lot of water.

That’s all very good news, according to the board certified veterinary oncologist who saw him today.

What’s next will be determined in the next day or two. He’s going to get a CT scan. The doc asked me to take him back to spend the day so she and her staff can collect a generous urine sample.

I want to share this news with you only because so many readers of this blog have seemingly enjoyed reading about his travels with my bride and me. We have taken him all over this great land and through half of Canada. He’s seen all of it and enjoyed along with his parents.

We, of course, lost my bride — Kathy Anne — in February. Toby the Puppy has stepped up to fulfill the role that falls on those of his species. He has become this “man’s best friend.” 

The doctor isn’t making any promises on the treatment and whether it will rid him of the disease. She is optimistic, though, that the aggressive path she intends to pursue will produce positive results. “We absolutely can control this thing,” she told my son and me today.

And I have made it abundantly clear — several times, in fact — that I want her to deploy any method she feels is possible to control it and, hopefully, to get rid of it.

Toby the Puppy is a trooper of the first order. He is my champion.

 

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Next trek delayed

For those who have any sort of interest in my travels and my recovery from the passing of my beloved Kathy Anne, this brief blog post is for you.

I had planned on shoving off soon for points west with Toby the Puppy. That excursion has been delayed. Not by any sort of emotional meltdown on my part. No, it has to do with Toby the Puppy.

He needs a bit of medical attention. Toby has been suffering from a urinary tract infection that we cannot shake. He’s feeling fine. His appetite is good. He’s drinking lots of water. He’s full of vim and vigor.

In other words, he’s his usual hysterical self. Our veterinarian in Princeton, though, referred Toby to a diagnostic clinic in Plano. So … he checks in tomorrow for a through going-over. The clinic has the resources and the equipment required to look at him carefully.

We’re going to get to the root of this UTI, going to fix it.

Then … we’ll hit the road. That’s the latest.

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Lots written already … more to come

Sometimes I am motivated by forces I cannot understand, let alone explain … such as the force this afternoon that pushed me into looking into the volume of blog posts I have published about the loss of my bride to cancer.

I looked at the archive and noticed that, well, holy crap, I have written a lot about this journey I am on.

Here’s the link that would give you an idea of what I’ve written already about Kathy Anne:

Search Results for “Kathy Anne” – High Plains Blogger (wordpress.com)

Now comes a question I have asked myself: When am I going to give it a rest? My answer is simple. Not any time soon.

I am motivated partly by selfish concerns. One of them is that writing about my bride is cathartic, therapeutic and even a bit comforting. We all need comfort, therapy and catharsis when circumstances compel them, right?

The worst day of my life is fading farther into the past. I get that I shouldn’t wallow in the intense pain that overwhelmed my family and me in the moment. I truly am not wallowing in it. As a matter of fact, I am actually getting past much of the pain as time goes by.

I also know that I am not alone in this grief. What we are feeling in this moment is very much like what billions of other families have endured since the beginning of time. They got through it. So will we.

However, my attempt by using the blog to comment on our loss is just to give some affirmation to others who have gone through what we are enduring. Therefore, the quest for support is not a one-way endeavor. I hope to give as much affirmation as whatever I receive.

So, I am going to stay on this topic, writing about my family’s journey as time and events compel me.

What’s more … writing this blog keeps me alert.

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Another trek awaits

I don’t have a need to preview my next road trip with Toby the Puppy, but I do want to explain briefly what I expect to gain from my next venture away from my North Texas home.

Not much … truth be told.

Is it my destination that bums me out? Hardly. I am heading to suburban Phoenix to visit a couple of cousins who have taken residence there. One of them invited to see him there; he lives part time in Arizona. The other cousin recently moved there from Portland. We’ll have a chance to catch up and I will take the opportunity to fill them both in on the details of the tragedy that befell my family and me at the start of the year.

As for the head-clearing, heart-mending aspect of this venture, well, I am happy to report that my noggin is essentially clear and my heart — while it remains severely damaged from the loss of Kathy Anne to cancer — is in a much more manageable state than it was prior to my previous sojourns.

I won’t lie about this matter: 2023 has been the sh**iest year of my life! There is nothing I can do to redeem this year. However, I am able to cope better with the circumstance that brought such pain.

I am hoping to declare victory over the pain in due course.

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Here’s rest of the story

A post on Facebook earlier today told of my starting to grow the annual fall/winter beard, something I have done, oh, since The Flood.

I noted how the weather forecasters are projecting cooler weather in North Texas, which means I “have to be ready.”

OK. I didn’t tell you the whole story about why I grow this facial hair every year. Here’s the rest of the story.

I was married for 51 years to a woman who liked facial hair. A lot!

I had grown a mustache before our paths crossed in early 1971; she liked it … she said to me. Kathy Anne told her mother that she had “met the man I intend to marry, but there’s one thing: He has a mustache.” Her mother didn’t mind.

Not many years after we got hitched, I started growing the beard. I chose to don the extra facial hair in the autumn and winter because it gets chilly in Portland, where we lived. We moved to the Gulf Coast in the spring of 1984. I kept the tradition alive by growing the beard in the fall and winter and then shaving it off for the spring and summer.

If it were left totally up to my bride, I would have kept the beard all 12 months of the year. As I have noted, she was a fan of facial hair.

So … with that all disclosed, I am growing the beard this year — and probably far into the future — in honor of the girl of my dreams. The other stuff about “being ready” for cold weather? Pffftt!

It’s for Kathy Anne.

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Social media: warning, warning!

I feel the need to use this blog to vent about social media and the threats they pose to individuals of a certain age and demographic … such as yours truly.

Here’s the deal. I am a 73-year-old male who admits to being a bit too involved with at least one social media platform; that would be Facebook. 

Lately, say, within the past four or five months, I have been getting these “friend” requests from individuals who send them to me accompanied by a picture of an attractive — in some cases drop-dead gorgeous — females.

I don’t know these individuals, obviously. It’s tempting to engage them and I am willing to acknowledge that temptation. I prefer not to do so, believing that there’s a chance that the individual seeking my “friendship” might be looking for something other than an individual with whom she can converse.

As those of you who have been following this blog know, I have been writing about the journey I have undertaken since the passing of my dear bride, Kathy Anne. My journey remains a trek without a clear destination, which I suppose brings me to the point of this blog.

It is that social media in all their forms can become predatory weapons for those willing to use them in that fashion. I am not a Snap Chat or Tik Tok participant, nor do I use Instagram all that much; Twitter is fading away and LinkedIn is for professionals and I am a semi-retired former full-time journalist.

I also am alert enough — and perhaps even cynical enough — to presume that the individuals seeking to become “friends” have no relationship with the pictures they send me via Facebook. Put another way, I am immediately suspicious of a picture of a gorgeous female, thinking that the sender of the “friend” request might be some toothless, hairy-backed knuckle-dragger looking to play a dirty trick on this old fella.

I know I’ll get to where I am intended to go eventually. This journey is taking its natural coarse and I trust the forces that are guiding it — and me. I am just trying like the dickens to keep social media temptations at bay.

So far, so good.

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One of those ‘firsts’ awaits

A sad day awaits me in the morning, as the day will unfold without my bride alongside me to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

This will be one of those “firsts” I mentioned in an earlier blog post. It will mark the first wedding anniversary since I lost Kathy Anne to the savage form of brain cancer called glioblastoma.

I am not going to belabor the reason for my sadness. Instead, I am going to convey a message I received at church this morning from a gentleman who lost his wife to Alzheimer’s disease about four years ago. He and I have become friends, to be sure.

He told me not to “wallow” in my sadness. Instead, he offered a suggestion that I remember all the fun we had during our 50-plus years as husband and wife.

And, yes, we had a hell of a great ride. We saw almost the entire United States of America, several countries in Europe and Asia. We ventured to the Holy Land together. We laughed out loud for so much of it. Yes, we endured some pain together through the loss of family members, but the pain subsided and we returned quickly to those things that gave us joy.

We watched our sons become great men and cheered the successes they enjoyed as they have made their own marks on this world.

I will remember fondly all of that … and something the preacher told me prior to us taking our marriage vows. The ceremony, he said, would last just 22 minutes. “It will be over before you know it,” he said.

He was right. It was the quickest 22 minutes of my life. I’m glad it ended so rapidly, because the next 51 years were a riot!

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Anniversaries past …

I am going to be marking a significant date in my life without the presence — for the first time in 51 years — of the individual who made that date so important to me.

Kathy Anne is gone but I want to remember on this blog the way we celebrated our wedding anniversary. We didn’t do this throughout our entire married life together, but we did manage to squeeze in some memorable jaunts away from the hustle and bustle of daily life to just enjoy each other’s company.

We married on Sept. 4, 1971. That’s 52 years ago. Cancer took her from us in February and I have been telling you the story of this journey I have undertaken in search of a new life that I haven’t yet identified.

Well into our blissful life we made a pact that we would plan a brief trip away from “the house” to somewhere fun to celebrate the ceremony where our life together took root.

One of them occurred on our 30th anniversary, Sept. 4, 2001. We had moved from Beaumont to Amarillo a few years earlier. We decided to go to Branson, Mo., to take in some entertainment and enjoy the rides at Silver Dollar City. We booked a hotel room, and while doing so we told the reservation clerk we were celebrating year No. 30 together.

When we arrived, we saw the hotel marquee with the message: Happy 30th anniversary, John and Kathy Kanelis.

How cool is that?

Little did we know that precisely one week later, everyone’s life would change. We awoke the morning of 9/11 and then all hell broke loose when the jetliners crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Ten years later, we flew to Buffalo, N.Y., to take in Niagara Falls. Wedding anniversary No. 40 was equally memorable. For one thing, the plane we rode from Chicago to Buffalo contained one passenger of note: the actor Dennis Quaid. We got acquainted with Quaid while waiting for our luggage. He’s a nice guy.

We hiked to the base of the U.S. falls and then rode aboard the Maid of the Mist into the deafening roar of the horseshoe falls on the Canadian side of the attraction.

We spent many vacation jaunts like those during our life together. They make me smile, even as I prepare for what I expect will be a day that will tax my emotional strength to the core.

President Biden has told us that tears will be replaced by a smile when we think of those we mourn. He’s right. I am able to smile now. It feels damn good.