Clematis

Oh Kay, It's not just the moving. I feel like I did back at the very beginning, when I felt like I couldn't breathe and couldn't swallow and it just seemed impossible to believe that he was gone, and it seemed like everything I said ended in my wailing, "...he's gone and he's not coming back!" I knew I'd miss him but I never had any idea it would be like this...

Thanks, Anne. I really don't want to move out of my dad's house, even though the truth is that I am actually taking most of it with me -- the parts that mattered most in making it look like his house. I have felt closet to my dad here at his house, even though I have done little but grieve except when some task-and a person to help with it-were right in my face. My grief counselor keeps talking about going after the "low hanging fruit" and nibbling around the edges. I suppose that's what I am doing, but it's really hard. For some reason, moving has always been hard for me and always makes me cry, even when it's an obvious good change. I did a little moving this morning, have a reasonable task laid out for tomorrow, and I could probably use a crow bar to get myself out the door to go to Staples right now and get some boxes & tape...the grocery store is next door & I could get something easy for lunch....that seems doable. I feel like I have turned into a total baby. I am used to being a person who is about fearless, but here I am crying and feeling paralyzed and terrified. It's pretty pathetic...

You're right, although I think they have actually been little blips on the road to recovery. I woke up this morning and realized that I have so few days left here in my dad's house. Four mornings from now I will wake up for the last day in my dad's house and have to jump out of bed and go pick up the moving truck and coordinate this move. I don't know if I can do it. I sure don't want to...

I am stupefied with exhaustion, and have really no concept how I will get my stuff and my dad's stuff and my dad's furniture moved over to my own condo.It's really overwhelming, and it seems like so far everything has been more difficult and taken longer than I thought it would take. I really feel like I am trapped in hell with no escape. Then again, yesterday and the day before I worked from 8:00am until 11:30pm on the painting/carpeting/moving project. Perhaps after a long sleep tonight I will feel more energized and full of ideas...

Thanks, Kay! It was a relief to hear some compassion and concern from her. I am SO exhausted. Tonight was the second day in a row when I worked on the house most of the day from about 8 in the morning until 11:30 at night. A couple of other days in the last week were close. Anyway, it's mostly painted and tonight the carpeting was completed. Now I can start on actually planning to move (back into my own house)

Recovering from from most recent blow to the head while working 12 hours a day. Painting condo is almost done. Carpet installation people due any minute. Juggling so many things it's hard to keep track. Moving next week and have no plan. If I move the small stuff first, it will be in the way of moving the big pieces into my own condo when I bring over the big pieces. It seems impossible to try to move the big stuff first because all the little stuff is in the way. Hard to figure out with current problems planning and sequencing due TBI from cars accident. On the plus side, my younger sister called me yesterday and was very nice. Both sisters were so awful I haven't tried reading out to the younger since late March and the older one since late May (after the car accident-so we talked about it). Older sister actually said "no contact until the dust settles". Older sister never told younger sister about car accident - tho they talk and visit each other frequently. Younger sister seemed dismayed that she had no idea I had been in a car accident and that I have spent the entire summer grappling with this enormous job with a head injury, while grieving. First acknowledgement from either sister that I actually had anything to grieve.

Another blow to the head...it's just amazing the way this keeps happening! I am working very hard all dat and into the evening, pretty much every day trying to get into my house before school starts, even though I don't really know the status of my employment. One of my tasks is to get rid of most of my own furniture, because I am keeping my dad's - which is nicer than my stuff. Also, mine is whatever I had and his is special because it was his-either because it was in the family, or he bought it upon moving to AZ, partly with me in mind. Some stuff I am selling, and some stuff I am giving away. A viola player I know came yesterday to pick up a futon couch I was giving away, and we were loading it into the back of her truck, which has one of those old aluminum camper shells you can buy and attach. Apparently, the support for the hinged black window was broken and she was improvising by using a stick. The sick got knocked out, and the window fell on my head. Boom! Owww! My head had not stopped hurting...and things were getting a lot better. I saw the OT today and after doing some cognitive testing, went back to the neurologist appointment question. I am on a wait list for an appointment, which is likely to happen in four to six months. They only schedule 3 months out and beyond that you wait for a cancellation and hope you can make it. Unless your primary care physician asks for you to be listed as a more urgent case. And my primary care physician doesn't think I really need to be seen - he thinks I'm just an anxious person. I may be perseverative (don't know when to stop) and that may make him anxious, but that doesn't mean I'm anxious... Anyway, I hope it gets better soon!

Marg, I don't think you are a coward...you've been through so much. You can't do everything...

I was having a dream about my dad this morning when I woke up. I was helping some people get ready for a community play and he wandered in. He looked great and not much older than my age. He was walking as well as he ever did and I had trouble keeping up with him as he went to the door. I commented on his walking and he said he'd been working on his therapy-and laughed. I kind of woke up-cricket noise from cell phone-a text message. I went back into the dream several times, trying to ask him questions and then partially woke up every time the cat started kneading my neck. I asked him why he hadn't been back to his house, since he seemed ok, and he said he doesn't need it anymore. He also told me that I should get up and go help my friends (go paint my house). I got up because his house phone was ringing--someone trying to defeat Hillary Clinton. I tried telling the guy that my dad was dead and wouldn't be voting, but it had switched to a recording so I hung up. As I walked around the house, he kept talking to me. I heard him say, "I'm not dead - I'm right here." I was thinking that I am sure working hard dealing with the property of a guy who isn't even dead, while worrying about my sisters' pressure even though they are not talking to me. I wear him say, "oh the hell with 'em", which had been one of his favorite expressions. I went out to the kitchen to make breakfast and heard him say, Say "Hi" to Doctor Singer for me" (I have an appointment midday today for my annual physical). Then I heard him singing one of his favorite tunes to sing around the house...I used to really miss that in his last years. He never sang or whistled while walking around the house. But there he was, singing this song--one of his old favorites: I've got sixpence: jolly, jolly sixpence I've got sixpence to last me all my life. I've got tuppence to spend I've got tuppence to lend And tuppence to send home to my wife, poor wife. No cares have I to grieve me, No pretty little girl to deceive me. I'm happy as a lark, believe me, As we go rolling rolling home. Rolling home (rolling home) Rolling home (rolling home) By the light of the sil-ver-y moo-oo-oon Happy is the day when we line up for our pay As we go rolling rolling home.

I can't believe that I am about to dismantle my dad's house...I just miss him so much and fear that all the lingering feelings of the good times we had together at his house will be gone when his house no longer looks like his house. It may be that it is ok once it is reassembled in a mirror image on a blue carpet at my own condo, but I don't know that. I keep thinking about the six or so months that went by after he bought his condo before he actually moved out to Arizona. I spent the summer painting his garage...it seems like it took all summer. Maybe it did, only working on it in the cooler part of each day. But I remember so clearly being here in his empty condo and wondering if he would ever come. I was so afraid that he would die before he ever saw the garage floor I was painting blue for him with love and mixing in sand so he wouldn't slip out there. Then I spent ten years worrying about him dying, and him making jokes about it. Me: "Why didn't you answer the phone? I was afraid you were dead!" Dad: "No, sorry-not today!" Ten years of scares and the incredible relief that always followed. And now he's gone and it's been six months and I still can't really believe that it's true...

Lena is right at the beginning of this one...

There is Lena, in the photo above, lying between my dad's feet as he lay in bed at the SNF (skilled nursing facility) where he had five days respite (for me) near the end. Lena the therapy cat and I have been volunteering there for the last few months. Today we were at this SNF; we were to there to see Lena's "regulars" there, and the nurse asked us to see a lady who, as it turns out is near the end with a brain tumor. They just couldn't get her comfortable with medications of anything, but the woman was a real cat lover. The lady was a little confused and thought Lena was her long gone black kitty "Big Boy". Lena got onto the bed and snuggled into the arms of the woman, who fell asleep with her cheek nestled against Lena's silky head. They stayed like that for 30 minutes or so, until she rolled over and Lena stretched and stood up. I guess the two decided the visit was over... All cats are amazing, but Lena is beyond my comprehension...

This week we finish the painting and the fridge, microwave, and blue carpeting will come in. After agonizing over the expense and other issues for six months, I finally decided to replace his memory foam mattress with a new one. The existing one doesn't really smell, but he was incontinent in to and I know that goes into the foam and never comes out. I finally decided to bite the bullet and replace it. I feel like I am hemorrhaging money. One of my helpers has asked me several times if I am happy to see the painting getting done and the process moving along. I am most grateful to my friends, but happy? More like terrified and can't stop crying. My dad's home that I have loved is about to disappear. Of course, it will pretty much reappear in a mirror image, spruced up and mingled with my stuff. but that all seems unreal. I keep thinking that once the blue carpeting goes down and Lena and I have a good roll around on it, I may feel better...

Last night was such fun - to play music, hang out with friends, dance, and meet new people. No hangover good feelings from it though. Is that part of the grief landscape? Than any happy experience is like finding a pearl in the mud. As soon as you finish wiping off the pearl and enjoying it, you are back to trudging through the mud and it may feel even worse... sitting around crying this morning and doing little else...

I keep thinking you and your kitty. It is a painful loss, and since I also live alone with my beloved cat, I really understand the connection a person can have with a cat. I lost my dad in January, and my cat Lena has been my lifeline in getting through it. My dad and I lived less that two minutes apart and the three of us were a little family, always having dinner and other special times - like on the weekends and holidays together. Lena knows the route -by car and by leash/harness walking-very well. It has been awful losing my dad, but if Lena were gone too, I can't imagine how I would even get up in the morning-especially since it is Lena who does get me up in the morning. No cat - or person - can replace another, but another cat might help you. An adult maybe more than a kitten, but there are many of both who are in need of homes. Here is a little scrap that you may know-or not. I just recently learned this. Cat ages compared to dogs are a little different than the dog formula. The first 24 months compare to years, so a 24 month cat compares to a 24 year old person. Then you add four years for every calendar year to calculate the cat's age in "human years". Lena was 21 months when I got her, so she was like a late adolescent at 21 years. Almost her full size, still playful, but well beyond a wild crazy kitten. Lena is now 5-1/2 years old. So we give her 24 years for her first 24 months. Then 3-1/2 times 4 (cat years per calendar year) is 14 cat years. So you add the 14 to the 24 and get 38 years. She is still young and healthy-not even middle aged yet. If we are lucky, we might have another 10-15 years together. But if I live as long as my dad did, I will outlive her... I really feel for you and am thinking about you frequently. Laura

Kariaries-that is horrible! It is just dreadful and frightening to even think about...and that is in addition to the painful loss of losing a beloved family member, which your pet was. When you write of a horrible scene being replayed over and over, you are describing the essence of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Of course neither I nor anyone else can diagnose anything from a post, just in the way of general information, PTSD is reliving (in dreams or awake) and avoiding triggers of traumatic events. You might think about seeing a counselor/psychotherapist who is well versed in treating PTSD. If your children are also experiencing the same thing, it might be a good idea to see someone who could see you together. A grief counselor is always a good choice after a loss, and you would want someone who understands that the loss of a pet is a significant loss. It would be ideal to find someone who can do both, but they really are two related but separate issues-trauma and grief. And please do keep coming back here. We care about you.

It is very weird...but maybe it's not really. Rather than use their real names, here is this. My older sister, the Starving Artist, is functionally like an adolescent and cannot manage her own life-doesn't really want to work or do anything that is not totally of her own choosing. My younger sister, the Princess, has married two men for money and in between she basically conned our father out of something like $120-$130K to house her and her children, by buying her a house. It would have been better to have rented, but she thought that since her two sisters owned their own homes she deserved the same. No matter that I bought my own from my own employment income and the Starving Artist sister bought hers with money from her divorce settlement. The Princess had no equity in the mansion in which she had lived with her sociopathic husband because they refinanced several times to pull out the equity. When he lost his law license (embezzling from his law firm), she left as soon as the money ran out and started to work on my dad. The Starving Artist showed a little more interest and concern in my dad than the Princess, but they both told him that is he wanted to move an hour away and live in the same town as two of this three daughters and all five of his grandchildren, he would see very little of them. They said this to a man of 78, living with Parkinson's in a split level house, who had just lost his wife (the only one for him since he was about 14). Small wonder that it was so easy to coax him out to Arizona! I really really wanted him to be out here with me, and we did have a great ten years together. All the stuff from the past (and there most definitely was some) was put behind us. We were limited by the degenerative nature of his disease, but not otherwise limited; both of us were willing to do anything for the other. It makes me cry writing this...I sure miss him! Anyway, here are my two favorite quotes (from myself-haha) gleaned from a couple of decades working with people. "People do what they do". Meaning that whatever kind of behavior you have seen them dish out in the past - to you or other people - os a good predictor of what you are likely to see in the future. "As people age they become more of whatever they were before". Of course there exceptions to everything, and I wouldn't be working with people if I didn't think they could and do change. Nevertheless, what I have seen is that people generally become more distilled versions of themselves. If they are mean they will probably get meaner. Stingy people get stingier. If they were sweet and generous, haplessly drifting through life, they may be doing so at at a level that is a danger to themselves.The self-centered narcissist who has a firmly established image of how special they are...well we all have one of those around, and know where that heads! Look out! Anyway, those are my thoughts on that...not that it kept me from falling into the same trap of hoping I would see better when my dad died...

Thank you Karen-I did have a good time. There is a veterinarian from Phoenix who has been coming up to Jerome once a week to run a clinic in Jerome, and no pet is ever turned away for lack of funds. She has been donating time doing this for decades. I got to meet her and she was really great. They were having a silent auction inside while we were playing outside, and people wandering around in and out, up and down the stairs enjoying the summer evening. It was really nice. I haven't been out much lately. I work and work on this estate and moving stuff until I am exhausted and then do very little other than sit around and cry or try to escape it all by watching videos from Netflix or the library. It was fun to play music with my friends and see people having a good time listening to it. I told the vet about Lena the therapy cat, and she was very interested and wants to meet her. Then, the leader of our Jerome Ukulele group had a gig around the corner with a rock band. I went over there to check it out, even though I was carrying my cello about on my back. There were a lot of people I know there-friends and acquaintances, and it was fun. People were dancing and there I was with "Mister Cello" in his case with the face and hat and all that, so I pulled out his endpin so he was a little taller than I and danced with him. I couldn't really leave him in the car or anywhere else. So we danced away, me and Mister Cello. It was fun and people were entertained. My older sister used to tell me she saw me as a performance artist because of the whole thing of running around with a dressed up cello as if he was a person. That was back in the days when she liked me...

I totally agree with both of you. I really believe our loved ones who are gone are loving us and not judging us for coping as best we can without them. I fear my dad talking to me and He says things like that..."I wish I was there to help you-not like I was at the end,but like when I was younger and stronger". He never commented about the things I spent money on when I was alive; I think he just wanted me to be happy. But once he was gone, aside from encouraging me to buy the Bose radio I was craving in his oh-so-silent house after he was gone, I heard a lot of things like, "You need to be careful with your money not; I can't help you." I have never felt anything critical from him. I have also heard him tell me, "I'm so sorry I had to leave you-I just couldn't do it any more." I think he was totally exhausted from the Parkinson's by the time he died and just couldn't hang on any longer. He told me he thought he might have another five years, and I was hoping that was true, but I think it was unrealistic, given the rate of his decline towards the end.

I don't think those who are gone are disappointed with us for that kind of thing. My dad mode more money, even in his retirement, than I will ever make and therefore he had more options on anything that I have or ever will have. I have to make choices that he would n't have been boxed into. If I sold something of his that had meant a lot to him because I needed the money, he would understand. I think the bottom line is that we-the loved ones who are left behind and are grieving-meant way more to those who have left us than any of their stuff. I sometimes get concerned about some item of my dad's and what to do with it, and I swear I can hear him say, "the hell with it", a favorite way do dismiss something. I think it's what he would say if he was here... But tonight, I am going out to play the cello with a bunch of friends-I just heard that people are out on a porch playing music for a benefit for the Humane Society of Jerome. I'm going. Right now!

Hey Patty, How are you doing? I am very busy busting my butt, trying to stay alive by getting enough work done to survive this year, and I'm sure your are as well!

I should have listened to you more carefully, Kay. This friend, Brenda, called me tonight and was trying to get me to go to a movie with her that have been of interest to us both. I said yes and we tried to work out the details, but we kept getting caught in little snags where she would bristle and try to get me to drop what I was saying by starting to get angry. She wanted to know how things were going and I was telling her about my next door neighbor at my own condo, who has taken to coming onto my property every day and messing with my stuff, rearranging my potted plants, unscrewing the carport lightbulb, etc, on a daily basis. I'm a little concerned because I'm moving back and will have to deal with her again. So my fiend started challenging me on everything I said, and when I had answers to all of her challenges, which made little sense, she got angry. Then she was telling me that I had done a good job of getting through all this, and I was trying to tell her that I thought I had found a good plan that seems to be working, and it was a feat no one else could figure out. My sisters told me "you need a storage unit" and "you just need a plan" but basically they had a "deer in the headlights look about my whole situation" and I think that has been part of why they have avoided me so much - they really did not want to have to help with something they thought was impossible. But Brenda wouldn't let me finish my thought, telling me, "I don't want you to pull me into your problems with your sisters". She spent a few days with my sisters in March around my dad's memorial, and she spent a few days with my older sister once at least 20 years ago. She has a relationship with me but not with them. She may never see them again in this life. I told her I wasn't trying to pull her into anything, but she insisted that I was, became irate, and said that we needed more time and distance apart, and maybe we should try getting together after I was settled back into my house. Huh. Sounds like she is afraid that I might try to rope her into helping me. After all she has been in town for the last month while I have been busting my butt working on this project and has not even had coffee with me, much less come over to even see how things are coming along... I think you are right...

I think that people are aware of different things, but no one has it all. Some people are highly attuned to visual art or music, but not very sensitive to social phenomena. Others are very sensitive to things about numbers and patterns but oblivious to other things. I can sense three dimensional lines in music, can pick up on sensations from flowers and fruits, and I can hear my dad talking to me, but it happens frequently that I am totally unaware of ordinary things going on around me. It's gotten better and I have worked on that, put people saw me as totally "spaced out" because I missed so much. It's better but I still miss stuff others are aware of. But I hear and sense my dad around me every day. It sure has been a lot of work pulling off what I have done this summer towards my move. It's funny-I was in the grocery store tonight before dinner and was thinking about all of this-and I heard my dad say to me, I really wish I could have been there to help you with this. Not like how I was at the end, but how I was when I was young and strong and could really do things. Yeah, Daddy-so do I. I really with we could have worked through this together, but it was just like - all of a sudden you were gone, leaving me to flounder through things as best I could.

My poor cat Lena is getting confused and concerned about what is going on (we're in the middle of moving - back to our old house, except it will have new carpeting and paint and the rug will have been cleaned, so it will all smell different than it did before, but all the furniture will smell familiar when it gets over there. I think she'll be ok but she's getting a little nervous, I think. I think it was really quite a feat to figure out how to do all of this, and no one could really help me. Lots of people had some piece of a plan but nothing to go with it. Several people told me I just needed to get a storage unit. (For my stuff or his? And then what?) My younger sister told me, "Well you just need a plan" as if that settled it. I had a plan, but she didn't want to hear about it.Personally I thought it was a great plan from the start-by living at my dad's house I had a safe place for Lena and I while my house was being painted, carpeted, sorted through, etc-a place with a decent kitchen and everything else while I worked on my own place. All along, as I found items I didn't want to lose, I would take them over to my dad's house rather than box them up. I heard a line in a book where the author said that one of the worst decisions you can ever make is to try to live in your house while you are renovating it. To me it seemed that it would be really bad to move in there right before the start of the beginning of the school year and have no idea where anything was. People kept challenging me on this...why are you taking these things over to your dad's house when you'll just have to move it back? But to me that sounded like, "How about if we just take everything you own and hide everything where you have no idea where anything is and then toss you into the school year working in new schools and see if you totally sink, lose your job and never work again because you screw everything up so badly, or if you can figure out how to unpack an entire garage of mystery boxes in a week without totally trashing the house to a point where you're back to living in chaos?" I'm not sure how anyone would think I could have survived living in a state of grief and recovering from a car accident and concussion while living in a construction zone and digging through a storage unit in the 100 degree heat every day while I watched family antiques and other things get wrecked in that heat. And why would I throw a huge additional suffering on myself like that if I didn't have to, and could live in an air conditioned house with real furniture and a kitchen while I limped through it all. Would anyone who cared about me try to push me into that? Probably a good thing I haven't talked to my sisters all summer, since they don't care...

Thank you so much, Marty! And I loved the picture of the roses. I am exhausted...physically and mentally. Nevertheless, I'm getting it done. The condo association property manager called me today to ask about the furniture in my carport covered in a blue tarp, and how long it was going to be there. I was standing next to a calendar and quickly gave her the lineup of dates. She said, that's a really tight schedule. I was concerned that she'd be upset, but she said, "no, that's great! It's perfectly fine." What a relief! I even got rid of the mattress set, which is tough since you can't tell used mattresses. You're supposed to haul them to the landfill. It's hard to even give them away. I hated to do that when I know there are people in town who are sleeping on much worse because they have nothing. So I had this idea. There is a tiny trailer park in the middle of Sedona where guys line up in the morning hoping for day jobs. The mobiles there are tiny and a queen set probably wouldn't fit, but I thought they probably had friends or relatives elsewhere. So I took pictures last night & we hauled them out to the carport last night. This morning I printed it out a couple of times and took the lousy prints from my home printer, along with my iPad over there and showed them to the guys. Most of them don't speak much English, but they called some guys over who did, and they all shook their heads and said their trailers were too small. I gave them the prints, with my phone number on the back and suggested maybe they knew someone else. I had a guy named Juan calling me within 20 minutes, and he came over with his 11-yr old son. It was great. He's going to take my refrigerator when my new one comes too! I also delighted a couple from Williams with four children by selling them a solid wood table and six chairs for $50. Natural finish top and painted white legs... hard to tell who was happier-me or them!