letters to Dale

Dear Dale,

It's been awhile since I've felt like writing you, but so many things cross my mind while I'm working and driving around town; sometimes I make believe that you'll be visiting soon and I can catch you up.

Tomorrow is my birthday, I'll be forty-six years old. Hard to believe that I was thirty-seven when you died! To be honest, I feel like I'm still thirty-seven, so I guess that's good. Remember how we used to celebrate together? I'm not sure if I ever said that some years, I kind of resented you for letting me pick my own birthday to ignore (weren't we always broke on mine anyway?) I sometimes hoped you'd say "Let's celebrate on January 31st this year" but of course, this never happened. It might have, had you not faced those issues with alcohol, but that's a point I try not to dwell on.

I saw Shane last week - I almost didn't recognise him!I never thought he'd ever shave off that mustache, but he did. He doesn't look like the Marlborough Man anymore; to be honest he's starting to look a little old. I didn't speak to him - I didn't like him when you were alive and not much has changed.

Kerry Wagstaff left me a facebook message a few weeks ago, asking about all those Led Zeppelin CD's I offered him after you died. I almost fell over...seriously? You've been dead for more than eight years and he just remembered?! Did he think I still had them? He's a nice guy, but has not changed much since our high school days.

Al's dog Wiley died a few months back, but I remember thinking that you would know that, knowing how much you loved him (and all border collies in general) Yanno, Lucy is nine years old now and she is STILL spazzy for a border collie...but Mum & Jim love her and take care of her.

The city has grown to almost 100,000 people and you would hardly recognize it anymore. They closed down two nursing homes (the one by Bower Mall and the one in Lower Fairview) and built a monstrous new facility by the old duplex. Who knew we even had the space, but they're building in all kinds of forgotten places.

Jamie moved out six months ago to attend college (!!!) and I think that she has finally come to a place where she's accepted that you were sick and it wasn't really about her, but more about you. She hasn't seen her own dad since she was 17, and she has accepted Bill and I as her only parents. You'd be so proud of her!

Speaking of kids, Jamie is here today and brought her new Wii for us to try so I should go join them.

*hugs*

Kathy

lost

Yesterday, I lost the 1/2 carat diamond out of my engagement ring from Dale.

I was pretty sad about it becaue the diamond meant a lot to Dale. It took him six months to pay it off, and once when I lost it in the clothing store I managed, he was so disappointed. Thank god it was found a month later and for Christmas he gave me a narrow gold band with channel set diamonds to hold the engagement ring in place.

I wore the diamond with mine and Dale's wedding band for a full year after his death, then not again until after Bill and I were married. I loved how well it set off the diamonds in the band that Bill gave me.

Yesterday afternoon I noticed that the diamond was gone, and my heart just sank.

Bill says he's excited to help me find a new one, and I'll leave the other one behind. Besides, it could be anywhere - I visited several nursing homes and a couple of private homes. It could be in someone's vacuum cleaner by now.

blast from the past; Sept 29, 1990

Kathy and part of Dale, the night we met
An old friend recently posted this pic of me from the night that I met my late husband; it was taken on September 29, 1990. So hard to believe it's been twenty years!

Anyway, with Tina's passing last weekend, it seems that Bill and I have even more in common than our love for the kids and similar goals for the future. When I saw this picture of me, my first thought was she has no idea what she's in for. Dale and Tina turned out to be very much alike, except that Tina had a bigger mean streak than Dale did. Both of them died young - Dale was thirty-five and Tina was thirty-eight and they both suffered for years and years.

In the pic I'm twenty-five and single for the first time in almost five years, Jamie would have been about twenty months old then. The night I met Dale I was supposed to meet up with a bunch of friends at a nightclub called Branley's but this guy Shawn called. Now I have mixed feelings for Shawn - I always liked him, but never that way, so when he called to ask me over for a drink I politely declined.

"Sorry," I remember saying, "I gotta take a cab to Branley's and I won't have enough money left if I stop off first." The truth was, I knew he was interested but didn't want to ward off any advances. Still, he kept trying.

"My buddy's here and he'll come to get you."

"Hmmm. Think he'd give me a ride to Branley's afterward?"

Turned out his buddy was Dale. I can picture him now in his Saskatchewan Roughriders football jersey, Levi's and sneakers. From the moment I met him I really liked him, and after we woke up the next morning he drove me home and asked me out on a real date. Shawn tried warning me that he would break my heart and he did, but not for several more years.

I find it ironic that both Dale and Tina suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder. It's characterized by depression, black and white thinking, fear of abandonment, substance abuse, anger issues and suicidal thoughts. Of course, Tina was also bi-polar and had another mental illness called Muncheusen's, but essentially it came down to two things - they were both charming, smart and attractive, but neither had the strength to survive. Dale died twelve years and three days after the picture was taken.

During the next seven years I would be plagued a variety of emotional issues and crippling shoulder pain. Bill survived a mild heart attack but still deals with depression and occasional shoulder and back pain. The kids are still doing well and we pray every day they continue to do so. I know I'll always worry, knowing that Jamie and Em were so badly effected by all the chaos, but they seem stronger for having survived it as well.
Tomorrow, Bill's sister is coming into town and we're all seeing a movie. Since we're too far away to have attended Tina's service, everyone thought a Family Day would be good.

Have a good weekend!

1993

Dan and Dale, my late husband. Circa 1993 or 1994

I thought I'd post an old pic of my husband Dale, who died in 2002. In this pic he was training with his friend Dan. Dale was a Shodan (first level black) but would soon do the grading for Nidan and pass the test, and then a few years later pass the grading for Sandan, or third level black belt. I remember his Sensei mentioning that perhaps the JKA would give him a fourth Dan posthumously, but that never happened.

Anyway, this karate event took place at someone's home, in their backyard. Almost all training took place in the dojo, but on this day they'd planned a training event and BBQ and wanted pics taken for the newspaper and for future advertising efforts.

If I remember correctly, it was at this party when I first started noticing that Dale was different than everyone else. Most of my readers know that Dale had become an alcoholic before his death but this was the year we'd planned our wedding and I was so much in love that the red flag was barely even noticeable.

At any rate, hours after this pic was taken, everyone else sat around visiting and having a beer, but Dale seemed to be drinking faster and getting drunk while everyone else had a social drink. Eventually I pulled him away to drive him home, and I remember asking him, "didn't you realize that no one else was getting drunk? It wasn't that type of gathering."

I remember feeling embarrassed for him, because he was their Sensei. Everyone at that party bowed to him (literally and figuratively), he was their leader. I remember feeling scared for myself because at the time, he saw nothing wrong with that kind of behaviour and it was so obvious that our hosts (who were college professors with an immaculate home and yard) had no idea how to handle the situation.

I guess that the signs were always there, even if I chose not to see them.