I’ve been told many times over the years that I should write…
In the past Halloween started off as a wild child celebration which lasted until my 40’s. I costumed, I partied, and I celebrated the date not realizing what Halloween really meant.
In my 40’s I married on Halloween – it was a glorious event; a costume party where I was the bride. I had family and friends present – it was a wonderful occasion as we exchanged vows at midnight, presented ourselves to the Guardians for blessings, and toasted our union with my homemade mead. A good time was had by all. Our last guest left the next day after noon. One friend of Greg’s dj’d the event… even my father danced with me.
So after 6 years the marriage failed – partially due to my developing trigeminal neuralgia and requiring a warmer climate thus relocating to New Orleans. So then Halloween’s joy was quite a bit dampered as I was reminded of yet another failed marriage.
Time moves on and my joy of celebrating the season returned to some degree – I experienced many wonderful costumed rides both in Austin and New Orleans including adult Halloween bike rides with hosts at various location with adult treats with NOLA Social Ride.
That was prior to 2020. With 2020 and COVID, everything changed, especially in June with the death of my sister Virginia. Seven weeks after she discovered she had ovarian cancer, she was gone. I was very close to her. We talked at least twice a week when she was teaching. After she retired, she’d come and visit for several weeks. We would go on road trips to visit family friends. She was the binding force in our family once the parents had passed. To this day I miss her terribly. I still tear up time to time thinking of what the world lost (as well as myself) when she left this incarnation.
The next year even before the year anniversary of her death, my cousin George died after surgery to clear up an infection in his foot. He was a year younger and passed on the birthday of two dear friends (Troy and April) on May 12th. George was a year younger than myself. I have many memories of us growing up and of his visit to New Orleans in 2017 – where he attended the first Krampus meeting and enjoying the Bastille Day musical bar crawl with the Pair Of Dice Tumblers afterwards.
Several friends passed as well during these years as well. Even before 2020 with the deaths of Ranger Rick, Cale Johnson, and another cousin, Robert Womack.
In 2023 another sister passed away, Anna Lois. However, in her situation death was a release as she had been suffering from health issues for several years. I sometimes feel guilty that she and I were not as close as Virginia and I; yet she was dealing with her own health issues before 2017 as she developed intestinal issues as well as lipedema. I saw her last in 2017 after she closed her various stores… it reminded me of my parents’ home in Florida as she had boxes of inventory stacked throughout her home. Year later I sorted through all them; donating clothing to charity, craft projects to the facility she resided at before her death, along with clothing and shoes given to women’s shelter with her husband’s approval.
In 2024, a former boyfriend in Cincinnati died from heart issues that was 10 years my junior.
In this past year, my cat Penny passed away unexpectedly in February and in August, another former boyfriend of 6 years that lived in Austin died suddenly. Even though we were no longer romantically attached, we were still very close friends that chatted and shared ideas through social media. I took his death hard. Tim was 4 months my junior. I deeply loved him although I couldn’t live with his alcoholism. I went through the roundabout of his relapses of rebuilding his life after a bout of heavy drinking… until he pushed me and told me to ‘fuck off’, along with his 4th DWI…. that was enough. Still, I did care for him and was there if he needed to talk. Even after I left Austin, he came to New Orleans several times to see me and participate in Tumbles, MoM’s Balls and parades. He was a good man.
So, basically over the past 5 years I’ve experienced a lot of family, friend, and other people that I’ve known or appreciated, have passed… it’s been difficult to amass the enthusiasm to play music or participate in social activities as I have previously. I know that grieving is a normal process and each has to go through it as they can….yet as I’m aging, I find my recovering ability not to be as robust as before.
Still during all of this, I deal with chronic pain from both trigeminal neuralgia and spinal stenosis.
I hope to ‘bounce back’ again and be a contributing part of the community… all in due time, I hope.