Now What?

Now What?

I was eighteen when I had my first real boyfriend, my first real heartbreak. He was 21. A man. Not like Rocky, my high school crush, who was in love with my sister, Sally. I was broken and couldn’t concentrate. I lost more chess games with my father during this time. But, unlike the million other times, my father thought I was feeling sorry for him and throwing the games.

“No, Daddy,” I thought, but would never dare discuss with my parents. “I’ve just lost the love of my life! I’m shattered in a million pieces. Boo-hooooooooooo!”

I’d listen to Harry Nilson’s [Can’t Live if living is] Without You and watch myself ugly cry in the mirror as I desperately sang along.

Can’t live…if living is without you.

I can’t live…can’t give anymore=. I can’t live…if living is without you.

I CAN’T LIVE!!! I CAN’T GIVE ANYMOOOOOOOOORRRRRE.

Or Otis Redding’s I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.

I’ve been loving you too long to stop now.

You are tired and you want to be free

My love is growing stronger

As you’ve become a habit to me.

Don’t make me stop now

Oh, baby, I’m down on my knees

Please, don’t make me stop now

I love you. I love you I love you with all my heart and I can’t stop now

I actually had the vapors. Not sure what that is, but I know I fell ill to it. All for this guy. For someone I saw the future with. Someone who I was seeing for all of…three months. Months. Three of ‘em.

Now, I was passing the three-month mark of losing someone who actually was the love of my life. The mother of my children. The partner I shared everything with for almost thirty-three years. Not three months with the guy who went back to his wife and ended up in the local newspaper.

“Hey look!” my ex-husband, Ed said. “Your boyfriend’s in the newspaper.”

A few years had passed, and I was married to my new true love of my life. I kept up on the ex a bit and knew he was a police sergeant in our city.

“Did he win some award or something?” I asked, smiling proudly for having been with such a man even for a little while.

“See for yourself,” he said, smirking.

There in black and white was my eternal love at the top of a water tower, threatening to jump off. While nothing about suicide is funny, at 20-something, I was thinking karma came for the person who professed undying love to me in one breath and kicked me to the curb in the next.

The grief group, my 1:1 grief counselor, my therapist, Cory and Shea, my friends’ pod of Cathy, Steve, Kelly, and Patrick, and COVID were my saviors. Every grief book I could get my hands on, most notably The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion, made me feel less alone on this cruel journey.

By the first anniversary of her death, I had come out of my coma and began to breathe a little more. The elephant sitting on my chest moved down onto the floor to the side of the bed. Still standing by, just in case. I only know how I actually felt then because I wrote something in that damn journal.

Oh, my darling, here we are. One year. How can it possibly be? I have not heard your voice, touched your beautiful face, got lost in those loving eyes, heard your laugh in a whole year. What a cruel twist of fate. Today, I gathered with a few of the people who love and miss you so--your children Cory and Shea, your best friends Patti, Cathy and Daniel, and your nieces and 2 nephews, Ty, Adam and Livi. We “safely” gathered in our backyard to rejoice in your memory by telling our favorite “Pepper” stories. We laughed and cried, reminiscing about all of your hilarious antics over the years that were just a few of the reasons we all adored you. Funny and poignant—just like you. I bought a peach tree in your memory. When asked how you were feeling, you routinely responded, “Just peachy!” although you were anything but. What a fitting tribute to my amazing, resilient wife. While each of us poured your ashes into your tree to immerse your treasured essence in a vital, living piece of nature from here on, we listened to a song that resonates with me right now. It confirms for me what I have come to believe. That “…you'll be our eyes/And watch us where we go/And help us to be wise/In times when we don't know…/Lead us to a place/Guide us with your grace/To a place where we'll be safe. Then we ate, of course. Starting with just some of your favorites--pop’ems and bear claws.

I did some contract work with Salk Institute and with Show Imagining for events I scripted and voiced for USD and UCLA. Then, I pursued a number of volunteer opportunities just to keep me busy and preoccupied so I didn’t fall into the abyss. A dark hole was always standing by--you’re not done, yet honey.

I love animals, so I volunteered at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The process for which was more complicated than being appointed to the president’s cabinet. Although, since 2025, this is as easy as calling your most incompetent high school classmate, “you ain’t doin’ nothin’ right? So, please consider this comparison when things were normal, you know 2009-2017.

After a few months of interviews, training at both San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, and shadowing senior-level volunteers, I was on my own. What is most laughable is that one of my 3 jobs was to hold a park map and direct people. If you know, you know. I get lost going from my kitchen to my bedroom.

My first day at the Safari Park, I was scheduled as a “roamer.” so I began to do just that. I didn’t expect to make a dent in the 18,000 acres but I was ready to do my best. Fresh in my red volunteer shirt, khaki shorts and my personal pith helmet. I knew that thing would come in handy when I picked it up years ago. Sadly, they didn’t issue me a whip. I’m not sure why. Where else would be one be more appropriate? Well, never mind.

I opened the map to see if I could figure this maze out. I was comparing signs and icons on my map to those I saw as I ambled along. The names of certain areas were a bit different— Nairobi Village or African Woods. Nairobi is in Africa, so that’s good. Lost Forest. Oh, no. Don’t go there. Every forest is lost as far as I’m concerned. Different but similar enough I thought. Then I saw a picture of the iconic bronze lion named Rex. It's a 27-foot-tall, 10-ton sculpture of a lion in mid-leap, poised on one paw. This impressive statue commemorates Rex; the lion whose roar inspired the zoo's founding in 1916. Rex is the largest cantilever bronze animal statue in the world. Hmm. That’s odd. What is Rex doing at the Safari Park? Oh.

I went back to the office to return the San Diego Zoo map and pick up a Safari Park map. Now, I was ready.

Throngs of people approached me on the main walkway.

“Where are the elephants?”

“How do I find the train?”

“What time is it?”

“Where is the hot air balloon?

I pulled out the map like I knew what I was doing. Then I turned it right side up.

“You’re right here,” I said vaguely with my mauve colored fingernail, zhuzhed up with white dots, repeatedly circling a spot to hypnotize them.

“And you need to go there. Yep, right there.”

I pointed this out to the husband or boyfriend because men would never act like they didn’t understand my directions. No matter how useless.

I carried pages of cute little stickers to give to kids. And then I showed them how I could blow my hat off my head (see below)

Further distraction from what I was actually there to do.

Between the blazing heat and the ridiculousness of having to accurately direct people, I was done. I offered to work ‘special events’ when people would have a birthday party or work team building or even a wedding. I was great at standing at a table under the shade, smiling and handing out name tags. I’d point with my magic finger to a circle I had drawn on the map taped to my table so they could find their own way, for crying out loud.

My next venture was volunteering for Elizabeth Hospice, my lifesavers.

I served as respite for caregivers. I would sit with their loved one while they got to do whatever they needed or wanted for a couple of hours twice a week. One client was the granddaughter of a lovely 90-something-year old who only spoke Tagalog. The granddaughter was a teacher whose class was still on zoom because of the pandemic. When she wasn’t teaching, she would run to the grocery store while I was there. Despite her condition, the grandmother was a lively little woman. We were told not to touch the patient. Not to even help them get in and out of bed. Or anything else for “insurance reasons.”

She mostly slept but when she was awake, she would often walk over and plop down on my lap. How could I say no to my darling little lady? The granddaughter came out to get something and looked over at us.

“Ooookaaay,” she said and ran back into her room.

Another client was a 50-something year old woman who was charged with the full-time care of her mother.

“My brothers handle the financial stuff,” she explained. “and since I’m the only girl in the family, I handle Mom.”

Mom only spoke Farsi. Before the daughter left, she handed me an enormous bowl of fresh fruit just for me.

“She has no teeth,” she explained as she put a slice of pizza in front of her mother to eat. “You need to watch her.”

No need to watch her, she was glaring at me as she gummed the hard, chewy dough. I didn’t want to stare, but I also didn’t want to break her ribs if I had to do the Heimlich.

“Grrrrrr,” she growled, giving me the evil eye.

My eyes darted back and forth trying to be polite but on duty. Mercifully, a nurse arrived to attend to her. She spoke Tagalog, a little English and a drop of Farsi.

“Hellooooo! How is my lady today?” she said cheerfully.

Suddenly, the old lady starts communicating with her head and eyes thinning.

“Oh, what is it?” the nurses asked. “What’s wrong?”

She motioned to me with her nose and head and back to my bag of tricks on the floor next to the couch and back to me.

“Ooooh,” the nurse said giggling. “She wants you to go.”

“Go? I can’t go. I have to stay till your daughter gets back,” I protested.

“Grrrr,” she growls, continuing to motion to me and to the bag and back to me.

“Tee-hee-hee!” the nurse titters as she continues tending to her patient.

As the nurse prepared to leave, the old lady started protesting like a child left at camp. Arms stretched out, head shaking back and forth, saying something and still gumming that wad.

“Noooooo! Don’t leave me with this big white woman. She keeps staring at me!” is what I’m assuming she said.

Thankfully, the daughter came home. For one wild moment, I did consider that she might have run away since she does all the hard work while the brothers push pencils. She had a huge smile on her face. Another caretaker who had a couple of hours to care for herself.

“You didn’t eat your fruit! You must take it with you! How did my mother do?” “Perfect!” I said with a grin.

I picked up my bag to leave and nodded to the old lady. Along with that sneer, I swear she flashed a gang sign. As I headed for the door, I could feel a hot, searing laser to the back of my head.

Another family was a husband and wife about my age, taking care of his mother. She was in her late 90s and physically fit but in the late stages of dementia. She in her recliner and I on the couch, we watched the TCM channel together. She could call out all of the old timey actors by name but could not remember which of her sons she was living with.

“I need to go to bed,” she called out to me just as Fred flung Ginger across the room.

Totally against policy, I helped her out of the chair, and with one hand on her back and the other on her walker, we shuffled to the back bedroom. The son showed me how to get her into bed if I ever needed to*wink *wink. I had her sit on the edge of the bed, while I guided her down on her side and then swooshed both legs around.

“Weeeeeeee!’ she’d squeal like a little girl. “My son does that!”

“Now get cozy rosy,” I’d say as I pulled the covers up under her chin and kissed her on the head.

When the couple returned, they would be singing as they came up the stairs from the garage. It made my heart feel good that I gave them even a moment to just take care of themselves.

One afternoon, my lady and I were watching TCM She on her recliner and I on the couch. It was a nice, cozy afternoon in that room. I got comfy. Very comfy. Somebody’s snoring shot me awake in a jolt. I don’t know how long it was that I just rested my eyes, but my lady was not in the recliner! I jumped up, well, rolled out of the couch into an upright position. I held my breath and my heart as I looked down that flight of stairs.

“Please, please, please…”

No crumpled body at the bottom. Phew. I raced down the hall. The bathroom was empty. Her bedroom was empty. The couple’s bedroom was empty. I stepped outside onto the wrap around porch that overlooked dozens of houses below. Nothing. Then I went into the kitchen. I heard something coming from behind the refrigerator door.

“There you are!” I screamed.

“I was just makin’ myself a bologna sandwich.”

As my best friend Laurie and her husband Patrick said to me, “You had one job!” Soon after, I volunteered at the Elizabeth Hospice administrative office. Nobody died..

The crushing pains were fewer and far between now. But, like that sneaky grief, a punch in the belly will get you when you least expect it and for no obvious reason—it’s her birthday or our anniversary? No, it was Tuesday, and a Jim Croce song came on the radio.

…He’s got a tattoo on his arm that say “baby”

He’s got another that just say “hey”

But every Sunday afternoon he is a dirt track demon

In a’57 Chevrolet,

Oh, Rapid Roy that stockcar boy

He’s the best driver in the land…

Onward into my sophomore year of widderhood. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I don’t know anything. But I appear to be moving ahead. It’s not linear, though. It’s up two and back down one, and this way and that. Our hospice homework was to come up with things and activities that are for the future now that I am no longer “…and Judy.” I’m just Judy. We were told to put them away for now. Get back to them when you’re stronger and more ready to pursue. I found that a drawing was the best way to do this. (see pic)

© 2025 by Judy Lane