Tag Archives: Kathy Anne

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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.

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If only I could tell her …

The more time that passes from the worst day of my life to the here and now, the fewer times I am tied up in emotional knots seeking to tell my bride something that I notice along the way.

That’s normal, I understand, as I progress along this journey without Kathy Anne by my side. But … I drive around Princeton, Texas, these days and I see things I know with absolute certainty she would want me to tell her.

I lost Kathy Anne to cancer on Feb. 3 and my life — to put it mildly — has been changed forever.

The city has completed a big street improvement project just south of the house we purchased in Arcadia Farms. Myrick Lane is now complete from Beauchamp Boulevard to Farm to Market Road 982. It’s a wide, divided thoroughfare and is much less rough of a ride than it was just six month ago. Kathy Anne would be pleased.

I keep seeing this new breakfast and lunch eatery on US 380, which Kathy Anne wished we had. I want to tell her that our son and I have eaten there several times and the chow is pretty good. That, too, would bring a smile to her face.

I notice construction continuing apace at the site of a proposed supermarket complex at the corner of Beauchamp and US 380. That would make her smile broadly.

And the city has built a park just south of our house on land donated to it by a local family. She wanted a fresh place to take Toby the Puppy for his walks. He’ll visit the park once it cools off enough for him to take it.

Hey, I get that the journey will continue to be difficult at times. There will be more of those commemorative dates I will mark without her presence by my side. However, I always have cherished the 52 years we had as a couple, 51 of them as husband and wife.

Time only will make those memories even more vivid. It also will enable me to experience the here and now with less pain at being unable to share it with her.

Then again … she knows.

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Blog performs priceless function

You know already that I love this gig of writing a blog, so much so that I have just crossed the 700-day mark.

Seven hundred consecutive days of posting a commentary on High Plains Blogger! I consider that a big … deal, if you get my drift.

I get a particular question from time to time, which goes like this: How are you able to write so frequently? My answer is that I do not know or why that it happens. I am prone to respond simply that “It’s what I do and it’s who I am.”

I’m not boasting about it. I merely want to call attention to this streak because, in a manner that many of you will understand, it has served as a form of therapy for me since I experienced the worst day of my life.

Feb. 3 came and went. The day began with my dear bride struggling to regain consciousness after suffering a grand mal seizure about six days earlier. The day ended with a phone call from the hospital telling me Kathy Anne had “just passed.” The glioblastoma lesion in her brain took her from us and it shattered many hearts.

I have sought in the months since then to tell the story of my personal journey through this darkness. My family and I are going through it together, but as a form of therapy, writing about this passage has given me strength. It helps clear my head … along with the road trips I have been able to take with my trusted companion, Toby the Puppy.

I likely would have continued this streak without the tragedy that befell us but since we have been dealt this hand, I am continuing to play it for as long as it is reasonable.

I want to thank you for reading it and sharing it when the spirit moves you.

Seven hundred consecutive days of blogging means a great deal to me. It happens to mean even more as I am able to continue to use this forum as a guide path that leads me toward the light.

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Working through hangups

I am working my way through a couple of lingering hangups that I cannot release … seven months since cancer took my bride, Kathy Anne, away from me.

One of them deals with what I call the “d” word. You know what it is. It rhymes with “bread.” I am not sure if I am ever going to be able to say the word in describing Kathy Anne’s condition. I am acutely aware of the finality of her passing. I am made aware of it whenever I want to tell her something, only to realize that I cannot do so.

I don’t need to repeat certain words to remind me of what I already know to be true.

The other hangup deals with the “w” word. I am going to stick with “husband” to describe myself. I will be Kathy Anne’s “husband” for as long as I walk this good Earth. Before you get all bothered over the obvious, which is how that might work were I to develop another relationship, I will concede my intention to rethink that commitment should circumstances ever require it.

Kathy Anne once told me in clear and concise terms that she wanted me to find someone in the event of her passing; I believe I said the same thing to her. She insisted that I deserved to be happy. I can recall that conversation clearly even as I grapple with the hangups I have mentioned here … but I’m not there.

I am in the here and now, still trying to navigate my way through my new life. The journey is getting easier all the time. Some days are better than others, but all told, I am doing far better today than I was a week ago. Hangups be damned!

Friends and family have told me to take it all “one day at a time.” I am following their advice. It works.

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Flaw appears in emotional armor

Readers of this blog have been informed of the progress I am making as I walk through the darkness of grief and intense pain over the loss of my dear bride, Kathy Anne.

The progress is real and for that I am glad to report I am doing better each day. However …

I have discovered a flaw in the emotional armor I have developed. It presented itself to me while Toby the Puppy and I were taking a quick stroll around our Princeton, Texas, block. It came in the form of having to tell someone who didn’t know about the loss my family and I have suffered.

A couple lives about six houses west of us. Puppy and I approached them as they worked in their driveway. Husband asked, “Where’s your better half? All I have seen is you lately.” I gulped, caught my breath and collected myself before telling him and his wife and daughter, “I lost her in February to cancer.”

I have been able to keep my emotions more or less in check for the past week or so. It’s getting easier … until I have to tell someone who doesn’t know the story. 

I walked through the quick version of the events that started this past autumn, then through the brain cancer diagnosis Kathy Anne received the day after Christmas, her post-surgery rehab stint and then the seizure that ultimately took her from us.

Telling that story — even in its abbreviated form — proved to be a difficult task this evening.

You know what? I got through even that struggle with relative ease compared to what I likely would have experienced, say, a month or two ago.

The journey continues.