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Thursday

April 26, 2001

My Darling Husband,

Again, I miss you today and especially tonight.

By source, fair use
Wikipedia

This morning I saw Vern and Cathy Summerlin and Larry and Miriam Rea.  They gave me a welcome hug and talked about missing you. I sat by Rob Simbeck and Debbie and Rita Venable who remembered you. Doug Markham says how he misses you and gave me a hug.

My darling, you are missed so much.

Tonight at dinner, Larry reminisced about when you two saw the Olympic swimmer who undressed in front of you two without any embarressment. Larry said he will always remember that and being with you.

Our speaker was Kingsport, Tennessee Vice Mayor Nathan Vaughn. He was interesting, welcoming, and proud of his city. He was born in New Jersey but went to school here. Our meal was delicious. This is a nice motel and the help is friendly. You would like being here.

During the Board Meeting, Miriam taught me a card game called SKIP BO. It was fun. I think I might get it for Michael for his birthday. 

Now it's bedtime and I am alone, missing and wanting you as I always do. To be in a motel without you is heartbreaking. I love you so.

Norma

Only You

4 P.M.

April 25, 2001

Ramada Inn, Kingsport, TN

Jim and Norma, circa 1995

Dear Darling Jim,

I have just checked into Room 125 -- ground floor -- for the TOWA meeting and the tears are streaming down my cheeks as I look at this silent room. I am missing you so much.

Will this ache in my heart ever stop? I don't think so.

You should be here with me. I don't like being without you. I utterly despise the word "widow." I hate everything that it stands for, yet no on can fully understand these feelings until they are in this desolate, horrible place.

To have the empty place at my side morning, noon, and night is worse than I would ever imagine. I am not a whole person anymore. When you died, half of me died, too. Some days I just don't want to go through the mundane hours.

To see happy, or even angry, couples sometimes feels like my heart is being stabbed and I'm dying a slow death. No, I don't want anyone else. I just want you, my sweetheart of 50 years. Only you.

I am yours forever and ever.

Norma

Going to TOWA Without You

April 23, 2001

Dear Jim,

I am getting ready to go to the TOWA Conference in Kingsport, Tennessee and I remember the fun times we have had at them. It won't be the same without you to share the happy times.

Jim April 6, 1961, Valley Forge, PA,
on a business trip early in his career as
an insurance salesman

Today, I've been busy washing clothes and I called Merrily Moss to send a "hello" to everyone because I decided that I was afraid to drive alone. Merrily said, "Come over and go with us." She made my day. I had been feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to go, but I was afraid.

Norma, April 1961,
outside Independence Hall, Phil. PA,
on a business trip with Jim

Oh, how my heart aches for you to be here and for us to be sharing fun times, the drive and the experiences at the Conference!

We always enjoyed the camaraderie, you seeing your fellow writers, me, enjoying the Spouse Trips. We always enjoyed the area, wherever we were. And the motel. Of course, I always said it was another "honeymoon trip." I miss you so much -- it's just so lonely going to "fun places" without you. No one can take your place in my heart. You've had it for 50 years and I want you here with me still. I'll never stop loving and missing you. 

All my love, always and forever.

Norma Jean

Jim and Norma, circa 1995 on a TOWA trip

Sundays Are Not The Same

April 8, 2001 Sunday 7 PM

Dearest Darling:

I have been thinking of you and missing you all day.

Jim Parker, August 13, 1963, en route to the Great Smoky Mountains

Honey, it's so difficult to go to church without you being with me, to sit in church by myself. I'm still sitting in our pew, but it's not the same. Every Sunday, little Cannon ("Boom Boom," you called him) comes and gives me a big hug. He is so sweet, tender-hearted, and sensitive.

I need your advice. You need to be here -- the car is acting up. I need to dispose of your carts and have to have them fixed first. The batteries are low -- I'm sorry.

I can't stop crying. I thought I was doing better, but I'm not now. I went to talk to a social worker at Baptist Hospital in Huntington and I felt better, but it only lasted four days. I can't stop loving and missing you. My heart aches. Nothing can compare to losing you, sweetheart. I just want you to be coming home, like you're still in the Navy.

I re-read your letters and I want you to be coming home to me, that it is 1953 when our love was new and strong. Life was good. I knew it then and in 1999, too.

I just love you and miss you so much.

All my love always and forever,

Norma

Notes:
Norma was 67 when Jim died in 2000 and, for the first time, she was living alone. The adjustment to being single was difficult for her and she hated the word "widow." She wasn't interested in moving north to live near friends and her daughter. She stayed in the house they shared in Waverly Tennessee, the one he loved, with a view of the creek running behind his back porch. She was lonely and alone but she wanted to stay close to Jim's grave and she spent time with his family who were always ready with a story about him. Talking about him helped a lot.

Like many people who grew up in the '30s and '40s, Norma and Jim had clearly defined ideas about household responsibilities. Taking care of the cars was Jim's job. I remember one conversation between Norma and me that may have taken place around the time she wrote this journal entry. Norma was furious with Jim.

Why? I asked with surprise. What could he have done from beyond the grave to make her so angry?

Connie (left) and Norma, June 1960, near the family car

Norma's car needed to be repaired or replaced, she didn't know which would be best, but making that decision was Jim's job, not hers. Damn him for dying. He needed to be there to fix the damn car.

This outburst was extraordinary for two reasons. First, Norma was not prone to hissy fits and second, she rarely swore. Saying "damn," and saying it multiple times to her daughter, was a real eye opener.

I channeled my inner dad and told her that, given the choice, Jim would probably opt to take care of the damn car over his current circumstances.

Norma gave a weak laugh and we discussed people she might speak to who could help her make a decision with more confidence, but the bottom line was that she wanted life back the way it used to be. I could not blame her.

April 7, 2001

Dear Jim,

Photo: USA Pictures

I just got home from Metropolis, Illinois. Polly, JoAn, Barbra and I went up for two nights and three days. We had fun, went to Players Casino that Merv Griffin owns but has just been sold. Remember we used to see TV ads about it.

As I played some machines or walked around, I remembered our trips to casinos out West and I missed you. Missed sitting at adjoining machines and see what game you were playing and you teaching me poker.

When I cashed my "winnings" in, I wanted to tell you! I got back almost $90 that I lost the first day. So, maybe I broke even (or less! HA!)

Then when I went to the hotel "AmeriHost," it was time for more memories of motels we  stayed in these past years when traveling. When I took a shower -- I remembered when we took them together! Sweet memories of a love that was a joy, fun, and always exciting.

I dreamed about you last night. You were walking down the street smoking. I was hitting you, screaming, crying, begging you to stop so you wouldn't die. I woke up exhausted. Oh, how I wish you had quit in 1954. You would still be here with me.

I'll love you forever,

Norma

Your Birthday March 31, 2001

Dear Jim,

Jim with a book, circa March 1998,
his idea of the best birthday present he could receive

Happy Birthday, Darling. I wish you were here with me to celebrate.

I had planned to have a surprise birthday party in 2000 for your 70th birthday, but it was not to be.*

The past 435 days and empty nights have been a nightmare. I miss you so much.

Today, Polly** and I took 2 bunches of silk flowers to your grave. We all miss you so. I leave a piece of my heart each time I go.

Like your Korean War Navy letters said to me,

All my love,

Norma

Notes:
  * Jim died in January 20, 2000.
** Polly Sparks, Jim's eldest sister

Query: What places can you travel to over and over again?

I would like to say that I have had dreams of traveling over and over again to some romantic or glamorous place like Paris or New York, and that I followed those dreams, but that simply isn't true.

When I was 37, I was sent to Paris as the account executive covering a TV commercial shoot for a client. It seemed like it would be a dream come true. The shoot was to take 2-3 days, but we were booked there for 10. It turned out that we needed the 10 days. In the entire time I was in Paris, I had about a day and a half to spend on my own. My mother met me in Paris, traveling from middle Tennessee, to celebrate my birthday during my working vacation. She and I took a trip down the Seine one evening and I spent one afternoon in the Musee D'Orsay. The rest of the time was spent holding the hand of a nervous client and re-arranging the shoot locations during an August that was unseasonably cold.

My mother had the vacation of a lifetime. She arrived in Paris the day before me and somehow navigated her way from the De Gaulle Airport by bus to the hotel on the Left Bank where we had reservations. Parisians, notorious for their impatience with visitors who don't know French, passed my mother from person to person, escorting her from the airport to the right bus (no expensive taxi for her) to the concierge of our hotel. It was a miracle that occurred throughout her trip. Forced to either sit in the hotel while I was working or explore the city on her own, she thumbed through her guide book planning each day's events with the hope that I could join her and each day I was forced to work the job that inconveniently interjected itself into our plans. Each museum tour, each adventure into a quaint shop or patisserie, produced a Parisian who happily took my mother under their wing speaking broken English and directing her to whimsical, offbeat locations and secret installations of museums, providing stories she regaled me with at the end of the day when she and I met after my work day was done. I have photographs of her trip to Paris. It was wonderful. I was jealous for years.

When I was in my 40s, my mother and I planned to take a return trip to Paris. I spent months floating around the elementary school where I was then working singing "April in Paris" to anyone who would listen and to those who tried to run away. About two weeks before we were scheduled to leave, I fell asleep in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. An uncommon event. When I awoke and made my way to the bathroom, I noticed my face in the mirror. I was far too old for acne, but there was my reflection covered with pimples. I sighed, still fatigued, and headed back to bed, where I immediately fell asleep again. Hours later, I looked in mirror again and realized I hadn't seen a pimpled-face teenager, I had a face covered with Chicken Pox. I was quarantined in my apartment and the Paris trip was cancelled. My mother and I said we would reschedule but we never did and since she died, I have had no interest in returning.

Since moving to Michigan from New York City, I have returned once. I spent a week at a conference and had a long weekend to myself. I saw an old friend, walked through neighborhoods that had once seemed like home and was overwhelmed with sadness and loss. I had chosen to leave, hadn't I? Why was I so sad and lonely? I think it was because the New York that I knew, the one that had been so exhilarating and exciting, was now a piece of memory. Times had changed, my time had changed. People had moved on, moved out, and disappeared from my life through their choices or mine. I was worse than a tourist because I was looking for a New York that no longer existed. New York was no longer my home.

These days, the places I return to again and again are in books, which may seem like a sad choice to some, but I don't see it that way. I return to Hogwarts, to a House on the Prairie, to Naria time and again. Sometimes, they are as I remember them, other times I bring something new with me or I discover a new aspect that had escaped me before. The journey is comforting and comfortable and each trip feels like I'm coming home.