Boogs Bear

                                                             Boogs Bear






     When the boys were still babies and for no reason other than it was a cute idea, Linda and I gave the boys nicknames and rather than call them by their given name we called them by the special moniker we bestowed on them. Never once did we imagine the names would stick and long term repercussions were never a consideration.
      Being the first born, Danny was given what I thought was a classy name mostly because I was the one who decided what to call him, although Danny was and is a perfectly good name for a boy I felt he needed something more fitting of his nature. Linda was concerned that I would call him by the traditional southern name of " Bubba ", now as far as I know there has never been a Bubba in the family and I honestly hope there never will be. After thinking long and hard and watching his demeanor for signs of greatness I started calling him "Hotshot", this was a name that fit, it was a name that would follow him into manhood and beyond but more importantly it was agreeable to Linda, there fore he has since been known to family and a few friends as Hotshot. This many years later I will occasionally blurt out "Hotshot" without thinking while talking to him but I don't think he minds.
     When Clay came along I quickly realized that he stole Linda's heart in many ways,mostly because he was her baby - the youngest and last of her brood. While we both had always promised to never show favoritism it was hard for Linda not to as mothers and the baby of the family have a special bond and Clay was the baby.
     Linda had a habit of singing, for her it was a means of coping with life, she sang when she was happy and she sang when she was sad. She sang quite often and she knew the words to hundreds of songs which she sang beautifully but every now and then she would make up her own words. It was while she was making up words one day that she settled on a nickname for Clay and from then on he was referred to as her "Boogs Bear". I never did know what a Boogs Bear was and have doubts that she did but Boogs Bear stuck.
     Clay never seemed to mind his nickname and it was not long before every one knew of it and the women especially would pick him up, pinch his cheeks and call him Boogs Bear. One day while watching the two boys I screwed up and called Clay - Hotshot - which of course was Danny's nickname, Clay quickly corrected me saying " I'm not Hotshot Dad, Danny is Hotshot, I'm Boogs Bear ". Clay's nickname was not one that followed him around all that long, I mean what self respecting young boy wanted to be called Boogs Bear once he started school. It wasn't long before only Linda and Eileen would call him by his nickname.
     As I said earlier Clay always held a special place in Linda's heart and during her final days she talked about her concerns for him and how she wished for him to be happy and have someone to love. Knowing that Clay and Maggie were together as a couple and would some day marry I assured her that she need not worry about Clay, he would be alright.
     Last Saturday - October 1, 2016 - I along with family and friends watched with pride as Clay and Maggie held hands and repeated the words of their wedding vows to one another. It was a beautiful wedding that was held at a cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains of Georgia, everything went off without too much of a hitch.
     As I watched them, a lifetime of memories flooded my heart, as I slowly wiped away tears that crept down my cheeks I could see Clay as Linda held him in her arms and smiled as she called him her Boogs Bear. I was sad but happy at the same time.
     I remarried a few months ago, Kay is a wonderful woman and we are a good fit. One of the areas we have yet to come together on is religion, I never was much for religion and have doubts about what or who to believe in. Kay on the other hand is a professed born again Baptist. We have had a few discussions about the subject and I understand that she tells people I am her work in progress, who knows one day she may bring me into the fold - she does say that God works in strange ways.
     One thing that I like to think may be true is that Linda, like Kay's husband Wayne, is in a better place and is watching over us. I like to believe that Linda was there watching as her Boogs Bear got married, I know she would be smiling and happy for him.
   
   

And Don't Forget Boone

                                             And Don't Forget Boone




     Getting married again has brought on a whole new set of issues to make one think. For instance, when getting married a second time around to someone who also is marring for the second time means that you most likely will inherit some more baggage - hopefully all good.
     Combining two households can be exciting to say the least. It took four days to go thru two storage sheds and we now have a combined five spade tip shovels, three post hole diggers, five ladders of various lengths, two riding lawn mowers, one push mower, two weed eaters and a chain saw. The kitchen has us bulging with enough Tupperware for our own Tupperware party not to mention four set of china, three sets of silverware and enough assorted pots and pans to open a restaurant.
     When I married Kay not only did my family increase so did my base of friends - any friend of Kay's is now a friend of mine and boy does she have a lot of friends. Kay was born and raised in the Gainesville, Ga. area and later moved to Oconee county where she has been living for about 35 yrs. and where she met and married her husband Wayne Bullock who was a native of Oconee county.
     Let's start out with where she worked in the finance office for the county,there has to be at least 25 - 30 people who have known her for about 15 years and they all call her a good friend. Then there was the distant relative working at Lowe's and another friend who checked us out, while walking at the mall we were hailed by a lady she knew but hadn't seen in some time. Then there were the neighbors and the real estate agent who is selling her house and her daughter's friend and mother who happened to stop by one day. I jokingly asked if there was some place we could go in Oconee county that she didn't know someone, turns out she would have a problem of not running across someone in four surrounding counties. Did I mention that she knows the lady who takes your money at the landfill ?  Oh and the gang she has dinner with the first Monday of the month. I lost count somewhere around 45 - 50.
     Now as for family I gained three brothers - Doug, Bob and Rick, two of them are now my little brothers and I now have the older brother I always wanted if I can only remember which one he is, I know it's either Bob or Rick. They tried to scare me off the first time we met but with Kay by my side I feared not. I am working on their wives names and hope to have them in the proper sequence soon.
      I have met one niece and four of her seven kids, nice family and understand there are more nieces / nephews still out there. I even met Wayne's uncle Mont who owns the property next door, I liked him.
     I also gained a daughter, Katie, actually I am her step father and proud of it, she is beautiful and has a wonderful family. I guess this makes her husband Nathan my step son-in-law. Katie and Nathan have a son Benjamin who is 4 1/2 and a daughter Abigail 20 months, they know me as "Mr. Mike" and to avoid any confusion on their part I will proudly wear the name. Once you get to know her Abigail gives great hugs and kisses.
     According to Facebook there is a whole host of friends, relations and friends of relations yet to meet, with my on coming bout with dementia which may strike at any moment I am going to be in serious trouble, I'll probably be better off if Kay would draw me a family tree.
     What it all boils down to is that I am happy to be a part of Kay's life which includes her family and host of friends, whether I am an in-law, friend, step dad or uncle or just plain"Mr. Mike".

     Oh, don't forget Boone a black and tan coon hound who snores in his sleep and likes peanut butter, he is my new step dog. .
   

One More Time

                                                            One More Time


     In the last months before passing, Linda told me that I should find a new wife, specifically one who liked to fish. I couldn't, at that time, imagine life without Linda and having been married to her for forty seven years I was sort of spoiled and doubted that there may be someone else I would want beside me.
     The first few months after she passed were the most difficult of my life, I was alright during the daytime when I could mingle with people then the darkness fell and I had to come home to a house filled with the silence and memories of a life that no longer existed.
     After a few months I realized that I was going to need help to get thru this next phase so I started seeing a therapist who guided me thru the darkness, she in turn placed me with a group of people who were walking down the same path. We as a group soon found that by sharing our stories of grief with each other we were in effect helping each other to heal our broken hearts. The group session was intense and short lived, after nine weeks we had learned how to live with our feelings but more importantly we realized that we wanted to remain together as a group, we had become very close with each other and now thought of ourselves as a family.
     We decided to continue with our own form of therapy so we set aside the first Tuesday of each month as a time when we would gather for lunch. There were nine of us to start, two men and seven women ranging in age from somewhere in the late eighties down to the early sixties. We have been meeting like this for just over a year now, one lady has dropped out but the rest of us have found that we do not want to miss a luncheon.
     One of the ladies, by the name of Kay, was the appointed reservationist, she would make all the reservations with the restaurant and e-mail us as to the time and date. Having not heard from Kay about an upcoming date I called her one night, we talked for sometime and I told her I needed a friend, we made plans to go to dinner a few days later. Each of us made it clear that we were not looking for romance, we were still mourning the loss of our spouses, the pain was still fresh in our minds, we both felt that we had already been in love with the best person in the world so there could be no one else for us. What we needed was someone to talk to of the opposite sex as each of us had for years been able sit down and talk with our spouses about anything. Now we were missing that voice opposite of ours, Kay had girl friends and I had guy friends but neither of us had friends of the opposite sex and it was something we were missing, I can't explain it any better.
     We went to dinner and as we ate we talked, when the waitress started giving us strange looks we left and went to visit a Veterans Memorial Park nearby where we sat watching the lightning flashes in the distant clouds, we talked for hours and parted company about one in the morning. Our friendship continued and over the next months we went on day trips together, sometimes just us and other times with another couple from the group. We had dinners together and watched movies and we talked for hours on end, our talks would at times invoke strong memories that would make us tear up and even cry, then we comforted each other.
     One night, after almost six months, we were driving home from visiting another couple from the group. Kay was holding my hand as I drove and I felt that we were evolving as a couple and this was a little scary for me,I asked her if she too thought we were moving to the next level. The thing that scared me most about falling in love with Kay was that I was older than she by several years therefore I would probably be the first to die and then she would have to relive the last couple of years all over again, I didn't want to be the one to break her heart for a second time. A few days later we had dinner and we talked about the future, we discovered that we needed each other, we looked forward with anticipation to our next date and didn't want to part at the end of the night. My fears were still there but Kay made me realize that life is uncertain and anything can happen. Kay retired from her job in January and things started getting more serious, at first we talked about moving in together, selling houses. It wasn't long until we talked of getting married.
     After we talked with our respective families telling them how we felt and what we were going to do we got a license and stood before a judge,who was a friend of Kay's, and said our vows on April 18, 2016. Kay Kiser Bullock now walks beside me as Mrs. Michael Riggan.
     There are times when we can still break down and cry about the love we had and lost, these feelings may never go away. Kay can not replace Linda and I can not replace her husband Wayne, neither of us wants that, we do want to live and love again and I think Linda and Wayne would be OK with that. I will always love and miss Linda just as Kay will always love and miss Wayne, they are a part of us forever.
     Linda told me in her last months that one of the reasons she married me was that I told her I only wanted to marry once, a lovely thought but not completely practical as life has a way of screwing things up. Turns out she knew me better than I thought, I need someone to love and take care of and someone to love and take care of me. Kay is that person and together we will make more memories for another lifetime while holding on to the memories of the past.