Garlic Lasagna

I have been in a good place the last few weeks and have been able to remember things that happened early in my marriage to Raymond without crying for days. Some things that happened we laughed about years later, others we would just shake our heads over.

The garlic lasagna was something we laughed about.

When we moved to Texas Raymond made a friend at work named John. John was just out of college like Raymond and had moved here leaving his girlfriend back home until they could afford to get married. We would have him over to the apartment often for a simple meal and some good conversation. There were many times when John would come over for dinner and then the three of us would go to a party being held by one of Raymond and John’s co-workers.

I did not grow up in a household where Italian food was served. Spaghetti was almost always skillet spaghetti. I like Italian food, and I wanted to make lasagna with homemade sauce one night for a meal with Raymond and John before we went to a party. I found a recipe I liked and went and bought the ingredients. I was so excited.

Another think about the household I grew up in was that any garlic used was garlic powder. I had never really seen a garlic bulb before and even though I had taken many classes that involved cooking in high school and college. So when I saw that the recipe I had selected called for minced garlic, I decided that I was going to use real garlic and mince it myself.

The recipe called for four cloves of garlic. Having never really seen garlic before, I assumed that four cloves meant four of what I now know as garlic bulbs. I peeled and peeled and chopped and minced for about an hour to get those four “cloves” ready to go in the sauce. Then I started cooking the sauce so it could simmer for four hours. When I started sautéing the onions and garlic together, I thought it smelled rather strong, but once again, I had never used fresh garlic before. I put all the sauce ingredients in my big stock pot and noted that I would need to start the noodles a little before the four hours was up on the sauce.

It wasn’t long before I was wondering whether or not I had chosen bad garlic. The smell was very strong. When I went down the sidewalk and across the street to the apartment mail center I could smell the sauce cooking all the way down in the mail center. Wow, I’m thinking, this is going to be so great, surely the smell will die down after a couple of hours.

By the time Raymond came home, I had the lasagna all put together and in the oven. I was working on fixing the garlic bread. Raymond was a little put off by how strong the smell was in the apartment. He started questioning me about the recipe. I told him what about the recipe calling for four “cloves” of garlic. I told him it looked like a lot, but that I had used that cookbook for years and all the recipes had been excellent. Raymond decided we should look up garlic in the dictionary. That is when we discovered I had used four bulbs of garlic, and not four cloves!

I told Raymond that I didn’t have anything we could serve John, and we would have to go out to eat before the party, but that I was not going to throw out that lasagna after spending all day making it. We would eat it the next day.

When John arrived, we had the doors open to the apartment and all the windows open, even though it was a little chilly outside. The garlic smell was still strong, but bearable. We told John what happened and he decided he wanted to eat the lasagna with us. It really was pretty good. Yes, there was a garlic taste, but it wasn’t really overpowering. We had a great time laughing about my garlic lasagna at dinner and just being together.

It wasn’t until we started to leave for the party that it hit us. We reeked of garlic. There was no amount of mouthwash, mints, or anything else that was going to disguise the smell. The smell seemed to hover like a visible fog around our clothes. There was no choice but to go to the party and tell the story of my lasagna adventure.

The party went fine. Everyone laughed, and the smell did start to dissipate after we had been at the party for a while. John took us back to the apartment after the party and the smell was better there too.

The next day I saw my next door neighbor. She said that several of my neighbors had commented about how they wanted to beat on my door the night before and ask if they could eat with us. She said her husband’s mouth watered all night from the cooking smells coming from our apartment. I just laughed and said that I had made some lasagna.

Raymond and I laughed over that story for years. I still love Italian food, and I often make my own sauce, but now I know the difference between garlic bulbs and garlic cloves.

Once There Were Beautiful Gardens

This is the current state of my property. I know it is disgraceful, but my mower is broken, and I am on the list to be mowed by a company but they are behind because of all the rain that has been in the area. My property is just now drying out enough to be mowed. What amazes me is that I am not freaked out by all of this.

At one time I had beautiful gardens all over my property. The local natural science and wildlife sanctuary would actually tell people to drive over to look at the gardens we had created with native plants and flowers. (Raymond tilled the ground, but I was in charge of the gardens.) The front and back yards were full of red, pink, purple, blue, yellow and white flowers. There were butterflies and hummingbirds every where. I was so proud of my gardens. I wish I had pictures of the gardens, but back in those days all the pictures taken were of the boys. I never thought the gardens would go away.

On weekends Raymond would play with the boys and I would get up early and weed my gardens. They were my only outside responsibility. Raymond did everything else, the mowing, the pruning, and the tree planting, I just had to take care of my gardens. Eventually the garden beds became so full that there was very little weeding necessary. My favorite plant was Gregg's blue mistflower because monarchs would be hovering overhead waiting to get a chance to sip the sweet nectar. I had one whole garden devoted just to this plant. http://www.pbase.com/image/81297087

The front garden beds were laid out in a semi-circle out from my bay window. Raymond, the boys and I loved to watch the dragonflies come in around dinner time as we sat at the table and ate. I was living a dream.

In the back I had a large garden at the end of the patio. It has evolved over the years. It is currently a rose garden, but it has held many different flowers in the past. Off to the back, close to the wild area Raymond created as a windbreak, I had tea roses. Raymond built me a trellis out of branches he had cut from trees on our property and I planted tea roses along the trellis. They were glorious. They grew so huge! I had reds, pinks, yellows, and whites. It wasn’t long before they were a row five feet tall, seven feet long, and about four feet wide. One particular bush had really nasty thorns and Raymond complained about how it loved to reach out and grab him each time he mowed. It was the most impressive display I had ever seen. We marveled over how I never did anything to them, and yet they were perfect. Unfortunately, they had to be torn out and could not be replaced when it turned out that area was the only part of the property we could place the swimming pool. It was heartbreaking, but we still had the other gardens.

Then Raymond was diagnosed with cancer, and we left to spend a year in Houston. I really did not expect anyone to take care of my gardens, and I certainly did not ask anyone to try to keep them up. All I wanted was for someone to take care of my children.

When we came back from Houston the gardens were still here. They needed pruning and they needed weeding, but they still existed. Once we got settled back into life, I brought my gardens back to life. It seemed as if we were back to normal. Yes, Raymond was missing a leg and a hip, and adjustments had to be made, but we were back to our life, our home, and my gardens.

That life lasted for approximately eighteen months. Then the cancer returned and we went back to Houston. When we returned, Raymond was in a wheelchair full time. There would be no more mowing for him, and my responsibilities grew. The gardens became neglected as I was in the process of helping my mom deal with widowhood, driving the boys to their activities, and trying to keep up with the house and the acreage. Eventually I could take it no more. The gardens were no longer beautiful. They were just beds of struggling plants that needed more care than I had could give them. I mowed the gardens down; the beautiful gardens were no more. We had entered a new phase of our life.

A couple of years ago I decided to start planning roses again. I planted several beds of roses throughout the front yard and a big bed in the back. Raymond used to take his banjo out on the patio and play out there while looking at the roses. I would sit on the swing and we would reminisce about the roses we lost when we put in the pool. Raymond did not miss the thorns.

Now the rose beds are full. The neighbors often come over to see them, and many people have stopped and asked me to share the names of my roses, and/or ask how to care for them. I always have to say, I do nothing.

This fall the roses are going to need a great deal of pruning and care. The rains this summer have sent them into a tailspin, especially since all my roses are drought tolerant; and are not used to large amounts of water. I did not water them at all last summer when we were in the drought.

I don’t know if I will ever go back to all the flower beds. I have sketched out some plans and I have done some research about which plants I would put in the next time, but I just do not know if I want to do that again. It would be hard to have beautiful gardens and not my beautiful husband.

At least I can say that once there were beautiful gardens, not everyone has been lucky enough to have had that experience.

Last Day of Solitude

This is it, my last day alone. Tomorrow I pick up my boys and go back to family life.

I have loved this time alone. I feel calm and rested.

I have never been alone with no real responsibilities like this before. It has been very recuperative. It has also given me a chance to see what it will be like when the boys move away. I now know I will survive having an empty nest, especially if the youngest takes all these turtles with him.

I am proud of myself.

You Can’t Choose Your Family, but I’m Blessed Because My Family Chose Me

No, my parents did not adopt me, but my family did.

My mother is 85 and has memory issues.

I have a brother 9 years older than me. My father passed away in 1998. I have one uncle, and three aunts still living, along with at least 26 cousins, 2 sister-in-laws, and both of my in-laws, and yet sometimes I feel as if I am an orphan.

My brother went to college when I was in third grade, and even though he came back home to live on and off while I was growing up, we were never close. My cousins, with the exception of one, were all either much older than me, or we did not visit often.

I always dreamed of being really close to my sister-in-laws. In my dreams we would shop together, raise our children together, and run in and out of each others houses. The reality of having sister-in-laws did not come close to my dreams. Raymond and I moved to Texas after our wedding and we only saw his sisters a few times after our wedding. In fact, I’ve only seen his youngest sister about four times in 24 years, and his other sister and I have probably only seen each other 15 times in that time. At least she and I had some visits that lasted for several days. However, the connection wasn’t there. We were too far away, and did not really keep in touch between visits.

My brother moved to California before I got married and there would be years between visits. I never met his first wife. I have not met my youngest nephew, who is 19 or 20.

When Raymond died, I looked at my life and realized that other than my sons, and my mother, I was an orphan when it came to close blood relatives, and it made me feel a little panicked. When I started to think about what would happen if I became ill, or if I was in a car wreck, etc. I wondered who would be there for me that would be capable of helping me and my boys. Just thinking about all the things that could happen that would require help made me break out in sweats and my heart palpitate.

It wasn’t until I took a good look at my life that I realized I have enough family to require extra tables at Thanksgiving dinner. I am blessed with some friends that have become family, and some of those friends have family members that have also adopted me.

These friends have become my true family. These friends drop what they are doing to help me when I am in true need. These friends and their family go with me to see my sons perform or accept accolades so that they can share that proud feeling. These friends have been there for me a lot more than any of my in-laws or blood relatives, other than my mother. These friends chose to be close to me. These friends have shown me what it is to have a real “family.”

As I get better about accepting help, and learning to show parts of my life where I am vulnerable, my “family” has rallied around and helped me. They listen to me.

I still mourn the fact that I did not end up with the life I dreamed all those years ago, but that was a dream. The reality of my “family” may not include family trips and weekend picnics with the clan, but I am such a pain and so picky I probably would not have enjoyed those activities any where but in my dreams. Then there is the fact that everyone is so busy these days I do not know many families that have weekend picnics with all their siblings and their families very often. The reality of my “family” is pretty much all a person could hope for, except Raymond is not here with us.

I am so blessed to have been chosen.

True Words from a Song

“Is there someone you know,
You’re loving them so,
But taking them all for granted.
You may lose them one day,
Someone takes them away,
And they don’t hear the words you long to say”

Bread, “Everything I Own”

One of my best friends had been married a few years before Raymond and I got married. She and her husband always took at least one vacation a year without their spouse. One time I wanted to go see my parents and Raymond did not have the time. I said something about going without him for a few days and he told me that would not happen. He did not believe in separate vacations. He thought it was bad for a marriage. Later in our marriage I did take a few short trips without Raymond, but I always had at least one kid with me and it was usually because Raymond was physically unable to go with us. My friend, well, she and her husband ended up taking one too many vacations apart. He met someone else on a separate vacation and their marriage ended in divorce.

My friend’s marriage did not end in divorce simply because they took separate vacations, but I can’t help but think they were careless with their marriage. I have a lot of friends that seem to be careless with their marriages. So many people seem to be leading completely different lives from their spouses. I’m not saying that anyone should lose their identity when they get married. I just think that if you love someone enough to marry them, then you should share your life with them.

I have married friends that fill their lives with so many activities after work they don’t get home until about 9:00 p.m. and then between household chores and catching up with bills and such they are lucky to see their spouses for fifteen minutes before bed time. I pity them.

I admit that there were times in our marriage before kids where Raymond and I chose commitments that kept us apart more than we liked, but they were choices we made in order to benefit us as a family on down the road. Sometimes we chose to work a lot to try to get ahead, especially when I would be offered overtime to stay and finish projects. When Raymond decided to get his Master's before we had children in order to be able to get a higher paying position so I could stay home with the children, we knew we would be sacrificing time together. However, we always made sure we spent time together at least one day a weekend. Sometimes it would only be a couple of hours, but it allowed us to talk about what was going on and make plans for the future. I think when a couple talks about the future together it reinforces the fact that each of them is in the relationship for the long haul.

I hear friends say they got divorced because they grew apart from their spouse. I always wonder if they grew apart or just did not spend enough time together to stay connected.

I also think a lot of couples never learn that no matter how much you love someone, marriage is work. Raymond and I used to talk about that all the time. We would watch friends get divorced and look at how they had put their commitment to each other aside while they let their outside life consume them and before they knew it there were so many obstacles in the marriage they did not want to work to overcome them. I have never understood people that work so hard for a company but are not willing to work hard for the person that they love and are the other half of their children’s lives.

On the flip side, I don’t understand people that are married, without children, and are completely miserable because of how their spouse treats them, but they stay any way because they do not want to be alone. Verbal and physical abuse should not be tolerated. That is not love.

W hen you add children to the mix, then you have added another commitment. Once again, abuse should not be tolerated, but couples should work harder to stay together.

Love is precious, it should not be taken for granted, and it can be taken away, but it is a shame to throw it away.

Thoughts of Late

The qualities you admire most about someone can end up being the ones that annoy you most.

If I have to suffer fools, then the fools will suffer. (This is not a violent thought.)

Hard Night

Darn, this has been a hard night. Some times I just ache to talk to Raymond. I have so many things I want to discuss with him.

Everyone says it will get better with time, but I don't know how.