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How do a Festivus?
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Bob
May 19, 2021, 2:21:45 PM5/19/21
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32 or 33 years ago, my friend Kathy (wife of Ralph) introduced me to Bob Youngman, and we quickly hit it off and started doing things together. After about a decade he met an OL and they lived together at various addresses over the next 20 years, and I didn't see him as often as previously -- pretty much exclusively just with Ralph & Kathy. But then when I needed a new housemate, Kathy (who'd put me together with my original housemate, who died) put me together with Bob, since his relationship with Jeannie had been cooling for years. So in August 2018 he moved in with me and his very old long-haired chihuahua, who was euthanized in March of 2020, and he felt like close family except he didn't go for huggy-kissy stuff.
Kathy died this April of a ruptured appendix (from medical neglect on her part), but my loss of her was mitigated by the fact that for months she'd been pushing people other than Ralph away, even Bob, talking about moving to Maine, seeming like she was getting ready to check out. Shortly thereafter, Bob caught the Covid-19 (confirmed by RNA) that'd gone thru his church in Dover, including the pastor, and Bob's case was fulminant because his blood sugar was just then newly escaping control by his antidiabetes drugs, so after a short period in which it seemed like a chest cold that was getting better, he progressed to the inflammatory-coagulatory crisis the bad cases are known for.
Ralph was devastated by the loss of his wife of close to 50 years, whom he'd assumed would outlive him, but at least he has more of a life, it seems, than I do. I'm going to have to find someone else to share expenses with, or move out on my own, and although I've been in this place only 5 years, it feels like home now, and has certain advantages. Some of you may know the story of Festivus, a thing made up by the father of a writer who later made it famous by adapting it for "Seinfeld". It was occasioned by a fairly sudden death of someone with a circle of friends and family, to mitigate whose grief this man instituted "a festivus for the rest of us", by which they would do whatever crazy or not-so-crazy things he decreed, for as long as he decreed, to help them over that time. Festivus was declared again any time he felt necessary to mark other grief or events.
So I'm looking for suggestions on what to do as a festivus for the rest of us, or at least the rest of me. It needs to be cheap. It also shouldn't involve a lot of eating, because the one bad thing about living with Bob was its effect on my diet, resulting in a gain of 15 or more lbs.; I don't have much appetite now, but it's starting to come back to normal. It'll help that the pandemic has ended; Bob's church got thru almost all of it, but its tail had quite the sting.
Bob in Andover NJ
Kathy died this April of a ruptured appendix (from medical neglect on her part), but my loss of her was mitigated by the fact that for months she'd been pushing people other than Ralph away, even Bob, talking about moving to Maine, seeming like she was getting ready to check out. Shortly thereafter, Bob caught the Covid-19 (confirmed by RNA) that'd gone thru his church in Dover, including the pastor, and Bob's case was fulminant because his blood sugar was just then newly escaping control by his antidiabetes drugs, so after a short period in which it seemed like a chest cold that was getting better, he progressed to the inflammatory-coagulatory crisis the bad cases are known for.
Ralph was devastated by the loss of his wife of close to 50 years, whom he'd assumed would outlive him, but at least he has more of a life, it seems, than I do. I'm going to have to find someone else to share expenses with, or move out on my own, and although I've been in this place only 5 years, it feels like home now, and has certain advantages. Some of you may know the story of Festivus, a thing made up by the father of a writer who later made it famous by adapting it for "Seinfeld". It was occasioned by a fairly sudden death of someone with a circle of friends and family, to mitigate whose grief this man instituted "a festivus for the rest of us", by which they would do whatever crazy or not-so-crazy things he decreed, for as long as he decreed, to help them over that time. Festivus was declared again any time he felt necessary to mark other grief or events.
So I'm looking for suggestions on what to do as a festivus for the rest of us, or at least the rest of me. It needs to be cheap. It also shouldn't involve a lot of eating, because the one bad thing about living with Bob was its effect on my diet, resulting in a gain of 15 or more lbs.; I don't have much appetite now, but it's starting to come back to normal. It'll help that the pandemic has ended; Bob's church got thru almost all of it, but its tail had quite the sting.
Bob in Andover NJ
Bob
May 21, 2021, 11:31:40 PM5/21/21
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Bob
Jun 2, 2021, 10:47:53 PM6/2/21
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I haven't done much fun stuff to try to mitigate this downer. Wanted to get out friend Greg in here -- he'd known Kathy and Bob just one year less -- but he hurt his ankle, so that had to wait. He finally made it when we memorialized Bob on Memorial Day, putting his ashes near Kathy's. Bob's ex Jeannie wanted to be there, but she was in the hospital recovering from a hiatus hernia, splenectomy, and two pneumonias.
Bob in Andover
Bob in Andover
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