August 14th

Several blogs ago, I talked about how my husband fainted. Exactly one week later, he was killed while crossing Tanque Verde Road with his bicycle.

Chucko used to fly in the AF. Once in a while, those planes would fall out of the air. As the wife of a flyer, I imagined the blue uniforms (euphemism for the squadron commander, etc) to with bad news. Blue uniforms did indeed come to the door, but they were from Tucson Police. A lot of stuff has been going through my mind the past 4 weeks so I am going use my blogs to record some of it.

You know when 2 police officers and some volunteers from Witness Protection come to the door that the news is bad. Albert Martinez, one of the volunteers was the one who told me. I still feel the shock in my upper arms. I walked around wanting Chuck to come back just to say goodbye. The house began to fill up with people. There were, besides Zoe and I, 19 friends who came to see us.

For the next several days I could hardly eat. I was hungry and I tried to eat, but I kept getting interrupted and then I lost interest. Cups of tea were poured for me, but they got cold before I could drink them. The phone rang, people came to the house, there were decisions and arrangements to be made. A couple of the family members were not as much supportive as they were high maintenance.

The visitation was a chance for people to come and pay their respects. A lot of them did. I had expected that it would be comforting to see people. And it was, but it was also hard work. I had to be on my feet and acting as a hostess. Sometimes I greeted people and wondered how I would carry on a conversation. Thankfully, about the time the casual talk started, others would arrive and I would start all over again. The time should have gone by quickly. It didn't.

Here's a thought about bodies. Chucko suffered some road rash on his face, so the guys at the funeral home used their makeup as putty to smooth things out. But the color was awful. It makes you wonder what sort of names are given to the shades of skin color. What was used on Chuck could be described as "cadaver taupe".

Personal space becomes a luxury. Hugs are great, but after so many, they become, well, cheap. The lenses in my glasses had so many cheek and nose prints I couldn't get them clean. I wasn't sure whether some people wanted a hug or a handshake. There was one couple who did a sort of double hug and talked to me for several minutes.

OK, that's enough for this post.