A couple of days before Dave passed away, we were sitting on the loveseat recliner, his arm around me, talking about Dianne's wedding that was supposed to be on the 6th August. I said to him that this will be our first 'official' function as husband and wife and as well, we were going to be Father and Mother of the bride. He commented that there will be a few people there that won't even know him, let alone, us. It was nice just talking about things like that, together. A lot of people didn't know Dave and me as an "us" and one of the things that sort of twinged a little, was when sympathy cards were sent to the Flowers Family and it was all about who Dave was as a dad and quite a few didn't even mention his wife.
So anyway, I thought I'd give a few little anecdotes about Dave and me... us. Unfortunately for the first six months of our marriage, Dave was a long haul driver so he would be gone 5-10 days and then be home for maybe 48 hours if we were lucky and most of that time he would be catching up on sleep. When he was on the road, he called me every day, a few times a day and he would push hard so that he could get home as soon as he could. Of course, with all the pushing hard, he was tired when he got home and his employer would take advantage of the fact he worked so quickly and efficiently and send him out again as soon as possible. That frustrated Dave a lot and it got so that he would be feeling nauseous every time he had to leave for work. It was so much better when he got the new job this year and was home mostly every night.
Whenever Dave was talking to people, he would rarely think to introduce me. He always assumed that I had been around for ever, or so it seemed,so they would know who I was. I told him once, it was safer to assume that I didn't know anyone. One day after a basketball match in Reardan, he was talking to someone who I had never met before so I gave a little tug on his hand, a gentle kick to his ankles and he laughed and told them what I had done and introduced me. He said to them that he had forgotten that I didn't know them.
A few weeks later, we were in the Spokane arena talking with a group of people after the match and Dave actually introduced me to Gary. He was so proud of himself which made me smile. He talked/laughed about it with Gary and congratulated himself on remembering. We moved away from that group and talked to another person but I had to introduce myself because he was so excited about remembering the last time, he forgot this time.
Because Dave and I had both been married before, because I was from Australia and from a completely different lifestyle, there were lots of adjustments we had to make and even more so for me. I found it frustrating that I was trying to adjust to a new lifestyle without even having the support and presence of my husband. He was so used to this lifestyle, that everything was second nature to him and he would forget that I didn't know some things. Anyway, one time when he'd growled at me for something, I went for a walk down towards the back of the pasture and I sat down in the shrubs and prayed out loud to God and cried. I can still picture Dave who came to me, with his coffee mug in his hand and said to me, "Does talking to yourself help?" He then added kindly, "It's hard for both of us. It's hard to figure out why on earth we got married, isn't it?" I looked up at him and said that I knew for sure why I married him and wanted to spend the rest of my life being with him and loving him. Dave looked at me and responded something to the effect then, "Well guess it's all good then" and I got up and together, hand in hand, walked back to the house talking about all sorts of other things.
But for Dave, accepting my unconditional love, having me believe in him and accept him for who he was, having me look up to him was very difficult for him to really believe because of the bitter divorce he'd had, because of other rejection he'd suffered over the years - some of that through his own poor choices. He told his brother Dan a couple of weeks before he passed away, that he was terrified of how much he loved me because he didn't see what he had to offer, or why I would love him. But Dave always knew that I loved him even if he couldn't understand it.
On a Sunday afternoon, the kitchen tap had been steadily dripping so Dave took it all apart, after we'd been to Lowes for parts and worked on fixing it. He admitted he hated plumbing and as he took the handle apart, also confessed that he'd never done that before. I stood there admiring him and telling my son Nathan, how incredible Dave was. I looked sideways at Dave and could see a little smile and twinkle in his eye as he lapped up the praise I gave him. He knew I was genuine in my admiration of him. Even when he did something wrong under the sink and water gushed over his head and shoulders a little later, he almost shrugged it off, because he felt pleased about having been able to fix it.
One time Dave and I went into Lowe's Hardware and there were wheelchairs to the right and motorized chairs to the left. Dave said that he would sit in one of them and have me push him around the store, then he noticed the motorized ones and said they would work better. I told him laughingly that he really would prefer me to push him around so that he could order me around, "Go faster! Turn left! Turn right! Go this way! Why did you go that way?" We both thought it really funny. What wasn't funny was that the day after Dave passed away, I went to the airport to pick up his son James and his family and I saw the wheelchairs there at the entrance and thought about how Dave and I had joked about it. It was kind of bittersweet.
Dave was not good at expressing himself out loud but he had ways of "telling" me what he could not say. We were watching a chick flick one night. I can't remember the name of it. As usual, we were sitting on the recliner, cuddling, and the girl gently requested the guy to tell her how he really felt. I was sitting there thinking about how sweet that was and how nice it would be to hear Dave say those things when I felt him pull me a little tighter to himself and when I looked at him, he was looking at me, smiling and squeezed my shoulder.
Dave and I loved cuddling when we were lying in bed and he would always hold me tight throughout the night. Sometimes though, I would try to just get a little more space and would inch away. Even while he was sleeping, he would feel me move and wrap his arms even more tightly around me so that I couldn't move. If I did manage to move away, he would come closer until sometimes I would be right on the edge of the bed. When morning came, he would say that I took up all the space in the bed. One time in the middle of the night, he kicked me hard and the next morning he was complaining of a sore leg. I told him it was probably because he had kicked me so hard during the night. He repeated that story a few times too.
When I went on our first overnight truck ride, we spent the night in the sleeper - or a few hours of the night anyway. The sleeper was a single sized bed and the mattress was hard. To move my arm, I would have to sit up and lie down again because I had to sleep on the wall side. Dave was complaining about the hard mattress and no room so I cheerfully said to him, "It's just like camping!" His reply was there was more room in a tent and even the air mattress would be more comfortable.
I enjoyed going on truck rides with Dave this year and he enjoyed me tagging along too. He told me that it doesn't seem like work when I'm with him and the time went much quicker. I liked it because it meant I had his undivided attention and when he was driving, with me by his side, he was at his best and not particularly stressed. Some car drivers though, are foolish drivers around trucks!
One time we were going through the scales and the policeman there looked really grumpy so me, being me, smiled and waved at him. The red sign came up and Dave had to park the truck and show all his papers to the cop. When Dave came back to the truck 15 minutes later (which put us a bit behind) he told me that when he saw me smile and wave, he knew he'd have to show his papers. They think if you smile and wave, you are trying to hide something. Dave groaned about it as he chuckled and he loved repeating that story often!
Well, these are just a few little snippets and I guess as I continue blogging, more will be told. ☺
I've been thinking about my recent conversations with my son, Nathan and close friends and some statements I have made that I am going to do and be myself without apology and if I want to do something new, then I will. As I was packing up my things at home in order to come back to Australia, I realised that I had made a lot of changes in my short life in the States and while I had done a lot of new things that I enjoyed, I had also put behind me, some things that I enjoyed in Australia. Well, at home in Reardan, there were no squash courts nearby and no heated swimming pool around the corner either. The bike hanging up in the 'shop was dirty and had cobwebs on it and really, there wasn't any bike tracks either. So as I move forward in life, I have to unpack the stuff that is important to me and who I am.
Partly one of the reasons I went driving after the interview on Wednesday was because of who I am. I enjoy driving, (especially with my new car) I love the beach and I love the Great Ocean Road. So why not? The scenery was so beautiful which also reminded me that I want to do more 'professional' photography. 
Dave and I had discussed me getting an SLR camera over the last year or so because, as I told him, "To be involved in the fairs, I don't enjoy baking, vegetable garden or quilting but I can do photography." He laughed but he agreed that it was something to think about.
