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My wife Denise (1956-2021) :,( EDIT: I can't believe it's already been a year...


Estil

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I just wanted to give a big shoutout and a Thanks A Million (as Zelda would say in Zelda 2) to captainmorgan, Tabonga (these were the only two captainmorgan mentioned by name) and the rest of the VGS staff and everyone else here for their VERY generous efforts in surpising me (and it WAS a surprise!) for pitching in and sending me some money to help out during all this.  I am just completely overwhelmed by everything everyone here and at the psacard.com as well as my grandma and my aunt has done for me as well.  You guys have no idea what a big help and a big difference all this is making.  I am sure my wife would be very very very proud of all of you.

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26 minutes ago, Estil said:

I just wanted to give a big shoutout and a Thanks A Million (as Zelda would say in Zelda 2) to captainmorgan, Tabonga (these were the only two captainmorgan mentioned by name) and the rest of the VGS staff and everyone else here for their VERY generous efforts in surpising me (and it WAS a surprise!) for pitching in and sending me some money to help out during all this.  I am just completely overwhelmed by everything everyone here and at the psacard.com as well as my grandma (And  and my aunt has done for me as well.  You guys have no idea what a big help and a big difference all this is making.  I am sure my wife would be very very very proud of all of you.

I don't know if your wife had enough social security credits (40 quarters) but if she did you can claim a death benefit for her - it isn't a huge sum - $255 - but every bit helps at times.   You will need to file with SS for it - they will need your marriage license or  a certified copy of it.

Edited by Tabonga
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10 minutes ago, Tabonga said:

I don't know if your wife had enough social security credits (40 quarters) but if she did you can claim a death benefit for her - it isn't a huge sum - $255 - but every bit helps at times.   You will need to file with SS for it - they will need your marriage license or  a certified copy of it.

Yes; I'll be doing a phone call later this week to confirm my info on that and I'm waiting to hear about getting food stamps and not getting that medicare/medicad premium taken out of my SSDI.  I'll have to wait till I'm 50 to qualify for survivor's benefits though.

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Thanks!  So today is the day that would've been our Super Sweet Sixteen...to help commemorate that day I decided to buy a few lotto tickets that has our usual lucky numbers (the ones that match our anniversary/birthdates and such) and gave each one a kiss and looked up at the sky and said "this is for you honey" 🙂   She often bugged me to get lotto tickets for Powerball and such but I didn't think it was a good idea with us only being on SSDI...but I think for this one occassion, on what should've been this very special day, I'll do it for her and just see what happens. 🙂 

EDIT: Well no luck today on the Lucky 4 Life, Cash Ball, Five Card Cash or Pick 4 (first time I ever did Pick 4), BUT there's still Mega Ball and PowerBall! 🙂

Edited by Estil
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Thanks so much again for whoever sent another donation...any help, even and especially emotional support like you guys in this topic and at the psacard.com forum is so awesome and so appreciated.  I've no doubt my wife would be so proud of all of you.

I did in fact get her ashes today 😞  At least this way she (as well as Tweetie, our first cat together who passed away in 2012 and was also cremated) will always be close to me and not out in some graveyard much further away 😞  It's still really sad though that both of them checked out way before they should've... 😞 

Edited by Estil
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I got her stuff back from the nursing home a few days ago and among other things and one thing that made me quite sad was finding her Simon's Cat calendar (the kind where there's a page for each day and you tear each day off one at a time) showing June 8.  I mean, can you imagine tearing the June 7th page off her daily calendar, not knowing that it'll be the last time she'll do so? 😞 

Speaking one day at at time, while I'm not really a religious person one of her big mottos was to take things "one day at a time" so...this is for you Denise.

PS: I hope you guys don't mind another tribue song...conincidentally, this song was released on my birth year (1980)

Edited by Estil
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  • 2 weeks later...

Update:

So I finally got my food stamps and that not having my Medicare premium taking off the top of my SSDI set up, so that's good I suppose.  And I'm making good progress on sorting and putting away my wife's things too.  I'm doing okay-ish most of the time but sometimes like during overnight hours it's like I got so used to us calling each other just whenever and now...I can't.  Now during regular daytime/evening hours I can at least talk with my grandma (who does check up on me most everyday) but obviously during overnight hours i can't. 😞

All the more reason I'm so thankful to have my kitty...I need him now more than ever, honest...

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I hear ya. Not to compare an animal to a person, but I think you more than most would understand how I feel to have lost my cats. Mama Kitty died a few years ago, I had her for 18½ years. She was fully grown when she came and found me, so I know she was at least 20 years old, and little badass that she was and as much as we went through together, she was such an incredible part of me that I still feel a hole shaped just like her in my soul. And this past March the last kitten, Spooky passed away at 20 years old. I still miss all 3 of them (other kitten Billy Goat died at 16) and am very sad missing them and I still cry over them, not infrequently. Like right now.

Anyway, all of that to say that I saw a meme/illustration a few days ago which I can’t find again now, but I will describe the message. And I think this applies to Tabonga too, who also just lost his wife. 

It showed that a lot of people say that you will get over such loss, that the pain gets smaller as time goes on. But it really doesn’t; what rather happens is that the pain does not shrink at all, but perhaps you continue to grow as your own life proceeds. Small comfort but true, and deserved acknowledgment. If anyone says something like you’ll get over it, they can pound sand.

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The loss of someone you truly love is something you never "get over", nor should you.  And yes I do sometimes still miss Tweetie (our first cat together) even though she passed away almost nine years ago.  It's very important to me that I have both her and my wife's ashes so they'll always be close to me.  I'm just glad your cats went the distance...Tweetie died at only a little over seven years...about half what an indoor cat should live to. 😞   

As for Denise checking out at only about 64 1/2 years old, given the average life expectancy (and her "Ma" living to be 90) she should've easily been good for another 15-20 years... 😞   On the other side of the coin I am super lucky that I have my grandma (soon to be 89) to help me...how many people my age (41) still have any of their grandparents?  I don't even want to think about how much worse this all would be if it wasn't for both my grandma and my kitty... 😞 

As you guys probably know in RPGs that allow me to I always name the first male/female protagonists after me and my wife Denise and the second two male/female protagonists after my incumbent cat Jamiee and my dearly departed Tweetie respectively.  It's especially fun to name my blue haired twins in Dragon Quest 5 after my kitties 😄 

In a game like Final Fantasy 6 with even more characters to name, I name them after key figures in my life as well as couple other pets I had (both dogs) before I met Denise and she turned me into a wannabe crazy cat lady for life 😄 

Edited by Estil
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24 minutes ago, Estil said:

I am super lucky that I have my grandma (soon to be 89) to help me...how many people my age (41) still have any of their grandparents?

I never knew any of my grandparents at all. They were all gone by the time I was 2. Except for my great-grandmother, but I only remember her after her mind started to go. One of my earliest memories is drinking juice on her front porch and she may have been lucid then, but my knowledge of that day and time is very brief and vague.

She would say people were sneaking into her house and carving things in the dining room table… and she thought I was my great uncle Frecky (who I also never met). 

I’m glad you have your grandma to help you through this time. 

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10 hours ago, Link said:

I never knew any of my grandparents at all. They were all gone by the time I was 2. Except for my great-grandmother, but I only remember her after her mind started to go. One of my earliest memories is drinking juice on her front porch and she may have been lucid then, but my knowledge of that day and time is very brief and vague.

She would say people were sneaking into her house and carving things in the dining room table… and she thought I was my great uncle Frecky (who I also never met). 

I’m glad you have your grandma to help you through this time. 

Indeed, the one I was named after (maternal grandfather) passed away in 1969, over a decade before I was even born.  And I'm sure your uncle Frecky was indeed great! 😄 

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  • 1 month later...

I hope you guys don't mind me bringing this back up but I had to share this with all of you.  So yesterday I received something very special from the Kentucky General Assembly (our state legislature).  I don't know who set this up exactly but she is more than deserving of this special citation, which reads:

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY

IN MEMORIAM

The House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky hereby pays tribute to the memory of 

DENISE HELENA RUMAGE

and joins with Representative DJ Johnson

in expressing deepest sympathy to the Rumage Family and all who share in the loss of this esteemed citizen on June 9, 2021. Preceded in death by her mother, Gloria Whooley, she is survived by her cherished husband of sixteen years, Estil Rumage, and other family members, friends, and loved ones.  This highly regarded lady, a respected resident of Owensboro, Kentucky; a native of Malden, Massachusetts; and a longtime cat-lover, is remembered for the many and generous contributions she made to her family, friends, and community.  Denise Helena Rumage will be deeply missed by all whose lives were touched by her presence.

Done in Frankfort, Kentucky, this fifth day of August, in the year two thousand twenty-one

David W Osborne -- Speaker, House of Representatives

DJ Johnson -- Member, House of Representatives

 

And in other news, while I was looking through my baseball cards (that's my other main collecting hobby) I had the 70s Music Choice channel playing and it just so happened they played this song and it made me cry a bit...because it just so happened to be the song we did our first dance to together as husband/wife 😞 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I hope you guys don't mind me bringing up this topic again but I did get an ad in the mail advertising this Precious Moments item (I don't know the right term for these kinds of things) and she already had a few (including matching Kentucky Wildcats (my team/alma mater) and Boston Red Sox (her team/birthplace) ones showing the couple watching the TV and it read "Every day is a [slam dunk/home run] with you"; I LOVED it whenever we could get matching pairs like that 🙂 ).  This would've been PERFECT for this coming Christmas and it really hit me that now I can no longer do that kind of thing and that was one of my favorite parts of being married 😞 

https://www.hamiltoncollection.com/products/909588001_precious-moments-christmas-couple-figurine.html

And here is what our matching UK/Red Sox ones look like:

https://www.hamiltoncollection.com/products/905854001_kentucky-wildcats-precious-moments-figurine.html

https://www.hamiltoncollection.com/products/905787001_boston-red-sox-precious-moments-figurine.html

I can't believe it's already almost three months...where does the time go?  Thank God I still have my kitty and my grandma... 😞 

Edited by Estil
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  • 3 months later...

So it's now already been six months since I got that phone sad call. 😞  You guys know how I've been doing a DS-only month?  Well would you believe when I turned on her DS (the one that has her picture on top when I start it up) to work on some MegaMan Star Force 2, the time (and I swear on my cat's life this was completely unintentional), the time on it (and my computer clock) was 6:17AM...our anniversary date (and we often liked to be cute and ask the other what time it is when that time came up; hee hee).  I wonder if it's a sign or something?

Another neat sign was when I went to the grocery store that day and this happened to be playing over their radio...it's one of my favorites from my childhood and it kinda put a smile on my face 🙂

If I had been just a few years older at the time I'm sure I would've had a major crush on her 🙂  And as you can see here, she's still got it! 😄 

 

Edited by Estil
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  • 5 months later...

Wow...I can't believe it's already been a year 😞 It really has been hitting me lately not having her and all those cute little things/quirks we said/did together...I miss her so much and I do wonder if there's anyone out there for me.

Did I forget to mention how I don't know what I would've done if it hadn't been for my kitty and my grandma and my aunt helping me through right after my wife's passing?

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  • The title was changed to My wife Denise (1956-2021) :,( EDIT: I can't believe it's already been a year...

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