Here we are at the end of another year. This is my report on happenings and activities for 2024. One big (for me) event overshadowed everything else. Death crept into my life. My dear Pete left this life quietly on his 82nd birthday, August 10.
Pete and I had wonderful times together
for nearly eight years. He was good, caring, generous, smart and never argued,
although we would disagree sometimes. I loved it when we were together. He was
the introvert and I am the talker; he was the scientist and I am the liberal
arts person. It all worked out very well for us while it lasted, for almost eight
years.
He was a great fan of plays so we continued
to watch local professional productions. We also sat in his living room in front
of his oversized television screen and watched dramatic series. We sat at my
kitchen table and played Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit; usually I won Scrabble
and He won Trivial Pursuit. We played a card game called Nerts that is big in
his family. We didn’t have as many trips in the first months of this year as we
had other years because he didn’t feel quite up to par as time went on.
Pete and I enjoyed the first half of the
year doing all this, and then summer came. Big change. He went to the hospital
in early June, was diagnosed with bladder cancer and some infections, stayed
most of the summer in the hospital and a few days in the nursing home, and faded
away. I sat there with him every day except the times when I had visits to
Washington Island as I do every year. The day he died I was away at the island.
I called his nursing home to wish him a happy birthday, but a lady who answered
told me that he could not speak but could hear me so I hung up; ten minutes
later the same lady called back to say he had died. Our time together had
ended. Alas.
Life went on for the year. I went to
Washington Island several times during the summer and again enjoyed the rustic cabin
on the campground. Daughter Dori and her family of Steve, Robbie and Dhyana
were there with me one of the times as we walked and sat in the woods; we were when
I got the call about Pete’s death. I love being on the island. This year I did
not exhibit my art there as I have in other years; the Art and Nature Center
has good exhibits every summer, and I have participated in past summers.
Other things happened. Tom and Carmen
Colburn, lifetime family friends, came to Viroqua,Wisconsin, in October where
Carmen had medical work done by her favorite doctor there. Brother David and
Marcie live there so I went to Viroqua and we all visited and ate dinner in a
local establishment, after which I drove Tom and Carmen back to Madison to
catch their plane home to Texas. It was very good.
I showed my colored pencil art in the
annual exhibit of the Wisconsin Regional Art Program in March in Madison;
attended my 64th reunion of the Sturgeon Bay High School class of
1959; hosted our annual family get together in my back yard in June; continued
with my volunteering at the local library and a few other places; and continue
to have dinner weekly with John and Sherry. I took a day trip via tour bus to
Chicago in August where I spent time at the Art Institute.
The last few months of 2024 have been
quiet and less active as I have learned once again to be alone much of the
time. My friends at St. Dunstan’s Church have been a plus as I have lived with
the big change. I am blessed with John, Sherry. Laura and Ian, nearby in
Madison, are doing well, and Ian is graduating from UW-Madison one of these
days with a degree in computer science. Congratulations to him. I wish I could
be with my other adult children a bit more. I love our family.
