A Novel Creation www.WatersWords.com

If you are a regular reader, you’ve noticed the focus of my blog this month has been on my late husband Tom. He died on October 29, 2014.  Five years. Unreal. So please bear with me for one more story. It is as much mine as it is his. I come from a long line of farmers. As a child, I lived on a farm and now I am blessed to live in a house built on a piece of my grandparent’s farm. Tom grew up in Florida. His family raised a few animals but farming wasn’t ingrained in them as it was in my family.   When Tom started working for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), his research focus was on preventing musculoskeletal disorders. His inquiries eventually led him to the area of farm safety. He was particularly interested in safety for children and adolescents working in agriculture. I was pretty excited. Finally, Tom was speaking my vocabulary. I even forked over the money to attend a farm safety conference with him. I learned quite a ...

October. Autumn is finally here. Colorful leaves and cooler temperatures have arrived. Friday night high school football and Saturday college games define the season. If you follow my blog, you know it is also National Ergonomics Month. Ergonomists look at how people interface with their work environment. They look for ways to improve work places so that people can perform their work safely and efficiently.  For me it’s personal. “Tom Waters” and “Ergonomist” are virtually synonyms. My late husband, Tom, was passionate about his work. He made it interesting. Good thing. Our three little girls grew up learning a bit about the Revised NIOSH Lifting Equation around the dinner table.  It’s not that he monopolized the conversation. He was equally interested in everything that went on in my day as well as that of the girls. It’s just that ergonomics was his bailiwick. Of particular interest to him was workplace lifting. Moving boxes, handling construction materials, or ...

Last week I shared a bit about my husband Tom and how losing him has impacted me. In a couple of weeks it will have been five years.  Tom was a good man. He cared about others. Always.  When Tom was seventeen years old, he pulled a man from the deep water of the lake where he lived in Florida and breathed new life back into him.  The night he asked me to marry him, we drove from my house to tell his parents.  Someone was stranded on a country road. Tom stopped to help. He was always like that. Always looking out for other people. Always caring. It was something that made me love him all the more. But he had this one thing.  It was not unusual  for Tom to invite people over for dinner. It was not unusual for Tom to come home from work and tell me about someone who was visiting his branch of NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health). “He’s in the city for a few days and alone,” he’d say.  “So I ...

Downhill, cross country, and snowshoeing in Tahoe. We did everything together. October 29 th will mark the fifth anniversary of Tom’s very sudden death. Five years. No wonder I’ve been in a funk for the past few weeks. I never expected to outlive my husband by…well…any amount of time. I guess I never considered we wouldn’t “go” together. We did everything else together. Five years. And when I say, “funk”, that’s what I’m calling the emotional exhaustion I experienced. Not depression. I checked it out with my favorite go-to doctor, Dr. Google.  You see, for a few weeks I had low energy levels, no motivation to write, sleepless nights followed by naps during the day, crying at the drop of a hat and the big one…forgetfulness. I’m not talking about forgetting to eat or forgetting to check the mail. I do that stuff all the time because I get busy. Engaged in my writing and such.  No. This was bigger. I forgot to pick up my grandson for his golf match. Three times. ...

Friendship Set to Music.  That is what the brochure said.  I looked at my husband of thirty-five years.  I could not imagine a day when he would even suggest we take dance lessons. And these weren’t just any kind of dance lessons.  The brochure he held in his hand was advertising square dance lessons.  The lessons were free.  Three dates were listed starting the first Tuesday in January. Attending one of the sessions would be at the very least, a cheap date. I smiled.  “Sounds like fun.”  I doubted that when the date rolled around he would follow through. Sometimes, something sounded like a good idea at the moment, but when the time arrived, Tom would balk and grumble about going to an event.   We had just entered a new season of our lives.  Our youngest daughter had married. We were official empty nesters.  The process had been a long one.  Year...