Margm

I think being "older" that I use my age and forgetfulness sometimes to excuse whatever I have forgotten. I also use it when I am shopping for something, all you have to do is hang your head and explain. We have many fine men and women that will help you. There are also those that will take advantage of you, and you can point them out right away. I am not adverse to dirty tricks.

My lifelong friend lost her husband nearly 20 years ago. She never remarried. Their vacations were spent on Lake Ouachita. She talked about how much they loved it. Terry even wanted his ashes put there. Nope, she keeps them with her. She nor her kids can go back. My daughter feels closer to her dad where he left us, think my son does too. Probably first time she had to take no for an answer.. I won't go back. I don't even want to visit and my coworkers were like I had known them all my life. I cannot go back. Hettie, my neighbor there, she knew she was going to lose me for a friend, but she understood. Yet, she cannot leave the house her husband built for them (construction), her roots are there, her kids are there, ancestors, and she cannot/does not want to leave. She mentioned wanting a smaller house. She won't get it though. She is happiest right where she is. I'm happiest not being where he left me, where we were our happiest.. People are strange. (I am).

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear,” says C.S. Lewis in the opening line of A Grief Observed. Maybe grief doesn’t just feel like fear, maybe it is fear. In my life, in mine alone can I talk about, but I have never had so much fear. Without him, I know fear daily. "Getting to know myself" is something I never cared to do.

I admire you greatly for having a trainer. Personally, at my age, he would be the first thing I forgot. The second would be the list. Oh, I make them occasionally, sometimes I have to for the grocery store. I hate lists. The forgetting part is something my family is used to and I'm not sure if sometimes they might lie to me about reminding me of something, but I do keep a calendar, and they all call me to put down their appointments. I still do that. Sometimes I feel the forgetting is on purpose (for me) and it does not bother me anymore.

Gin, I think I really went a little insane. Everything I was not supposed to do, things that most people would do, I would do just the opposite. I never worried about what people thought of me. Here is the little old widow moving into an apartment, her husband deceased, she could not afford to stay in her house. I could have. The repairs that needed done, I could have hired them done. It was a beautiful paradise, but it was hell to me because he was not there and he had been. (He was ready to leave also, in the RV). Definitely not the way he left. I gave my house away, it is leased, but they will buy it. They have made so many improvements and if I was a mean person I could move them out when the lease is up and sell it for a profit. The outside ladders, the one in the garage (at least three big ones) I gave to "someone." A scavenger man came up and my son had to watch him or he would have taken everything. He even took the outside watering hose. I bought myself three Costco folding ladders in three different sizes, sturdy. And now, sometimes I wonder what I've done with something. If it is not in those 15 big plastic tubs with the tops on them, then I have to forget it. I kept most all his clothes. I actually don't open the boxes, don't know if I ever will. I bought what I had to have. Today I was looking for the vanilla flavoring and I remembered, I have not bought any yet. And, instead of honoring him by watching all his westerns, I saved all his C.J. Box westerns on my Kindle. I cannot get rid of them. I read a lot of them after he finished them. Cannot let them go, cannot read them yet. We are all strange in our grief. We are all different. I try not to bump the scar tissue too often.

I have some times put inappropriate things on here. I know, I know, you all find that hard to believe. Lots of times I want to go back and remove things. I cannot find it. OMGosh, thank you...........and that's all I have to say about that. I wish someone could go behind me and delete those things that I repeat 10 times.

Darrel, I always enjoy reading each and everyone's love stories. Billy was a blind date, sort of, his best friend was the boyfriend of my good friend at the school we were attending. He came to the Christmas party and right away he told Judy "She is for Billy." So, he called Billy and I could not go that night, I had another date. He told me "you don't know what your missing." No, it was not love at first talking to. I had asked Judy if he was any better looking than her boyfriend and she said, "no, not really." Well, I did not want to go cause I did not care for the looks of her boyfriend. But, we finally got together. I had a boy-friend, not a boyfriend, take me to the dance I was to meet Billy at so I could make a quick exit if things did not go okay. Instead, I met a taller Steve McQueen look-a-like, and I told the other boy that I was okay, so he went home. Then he was mine for 55 more years, 54 of them married. And that's all......... Glad your back Darrel, I love to hear each of you tell about your mates.

Kevin, my daughter takes enough drugs and that is about how long she sleeps. Her temperament has gotten no better though.

And, that is what it is all about........................you got it going MB. Sometimes these distractions that might be aggravating are blessings in disguise. They also help you get prepared for the next instant.

I've wondered about this phenomenon. I am as okay as I can be right now if I am doing things that Billy would not think about doing. It is just when I go back to AR, go back where we were so happy that it all crashes on me. I can do music that way also. If Billy would hate it, I can listen to it. (Except Elvis. Billy hated Elvis and I loved his music, but I still cannot listen to him.) Billy didn't really care too much for music period. I love musicals from Broadway and I can listen to them. Billy would have hated it. I stay away from the western movies and usually go with chick-flicks or those Bri likes and Billy would not have liked them. I'm not making up for lost time, I don't think. It seems strange. The last place Billy would have lived is an apartment and I love it, if I cannot have him, and I can't.

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” ― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses MG, I admit those first few Saturday mornings, months of Saturday mornings at 7:30 a.m., I would see Billy's death mask. I was not expecting it, you see, I was not going to let him die. They had told us months. The death certificate said colon CA. I did not argue with it only one small polyp found. His poor liver was taken over with CA, as were most other parts of his body. If he felt it, he did not tell me. It was his same, his at least 40 year old backache, so that morning this was not what I expected. He had the aneurysm in the back of his head also. I had had to calm his speedy heart down, and it was easy to do. No, this was just to give him fluids. We were going to have our miracle and when he was letting me know he had to give up I slapped his hands down, lay my head on his bed beside him and exhaustively fell asleep. 7:30, every Saturday morning. After a month, the 7:30 gave way to the 17th of each month and finally at 20 months, only hapstance made me look at the date. No, I don't think it is easier. You just realize it is not just a bad dream and you will wake up. I still sometimes got angry at him for leaving me, then would feel guilty. He was so laid back and calm, he would outlive us all, certainly would not leave us so fast. My feelings now are a terrible emptiness, "hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to visit you again" (SG). But you have to take care of business. Still some I have not taken care of, and I might not ever. I have boxes, lots of boxes. Not ready yet to look into them. When packing, I just threw them in, labeled them, stacked them. Big plastic buckets with handles. I had to get away from that emptiness. If I move into another apartment in the city, I am ready to move. If I am able (and I think I will be barring complications), I want a washer and dryer apartment. I'm hoping my granddaughter sees she needs more schools and there are at least four or five located close. I won't push her. Has to be her idea. So, I do have something/someone to keep me occupied. Now if my family will let me, maybe I can put money back towards this. See, even I have plans. I guess I have come a long way from the doctor asking me last year what I am going to do and I said "I don't care." Now I have to go to that damnable washateria.

Tom, not everybody reacts like me, but Mitch gave you such good advice.

I think if we were not a little crazy, then it would be harder. Martin Short's book talks about him having his drink on the terrace in the evenings and I think he pours one for his wife. They carry on a conversation each evening just like she was there. I identified with him. He said the only time she would not answer him was when he would say "Nan, where are you." He would ask that and she was gone. She passed away in 2010. They had been married probably 30 years. He became dear to my heart reading his book. Sometimes I wake up and think Billy is beside me, the disappointment is there, but not as bad as it was. I can hear a noise in the apartment and Billy is the first thing that comes to my mind, and of course I know he is not there. ADDENDUM: I went back and read some more about Martin Short. I have got to say, sometimes he just got on my nerves as a comedian, but now he is a person I wish I could pattern myself after. He lost his older brother in an auto accident when Martin was a kid, his mom and dad both died young, his mom when he was 13, of cancer. I think his only other girlfriend of note was Gilda Radner. He had this to say. "Our whole family took the attitude that if you have wonderful moments, don’t second-guess them, just enjoy them.” Martin Short I have got to admit, I don't know how he does it. I think my mom and pop did not drop that gene or chromosome into my DNA. Gotta put the blame somewhere. I look in the mirror and this is what I see.

Mary Beth, I guess we never really quit counting. I keep a calendar for my family with their appointments. This month, I was made to look at the date I was writing an appointment, how far from "today." The date I was writing it was the 17th. Oh no, Billy's been gone 20 months. Had I not had to look, there "might" have been a moment I would forget the date. It's hard to forget though.

The walls did echo, Mary Beth. It was an echo that was deafening to me and I had to run. No one understood, still do not. My family wants me back up in that beautiful place, but the street (a circle drive street) I lived on, it only had 10 houses and I have to go from memory because each house was hid in a valley or on top of a hill and trees were all around. Mr. Bates in the first house and his wife went to the assisted living (right before Billy left me). She did not want to leave her home. She died two weeks later. The second house on that side, she had lost her husband, the next to the last house on that side, Hettie had lost Loyal a few years before. The last house had stayed vacant for years. It was beautiful but was built for a mother-in-law that would not move in it, so it was vacant. An older man and woman moved into it as I was leaving. (It was not my business to warn them or the leaser's of our house who were older). Billy's friend Bob (next door) passed away on Christmas after Billy had left in October. The house with the mean dog that would escape his fence belonged (the dog) to an older boy who lived with his grandmother because the man of the house passed away two years ago.. The house on the end, I did not know them. It was rented and they came and went. A street with five widows and actually one widower out of 10 houses. The walls echoed, the woods echoed, the sky echoed, the street itself echoed. I could never be a large or small town undertaker, yet you know they have to be. Lost two male classmates in the last two or three weeks. Like Hettie told me "You have to remember our age, we are going to lose our friends." Instinctively, I do know that, but I sure would like to forget. I saw the ambulance come to an apartment a few buildings down often when I first moved here. It does not come anymore. I did not know these people. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee" (John Donne) My character has many flaws. I wanted to be an RVer and never stay in one place long and develop attachments to people. That was what Billy wanted too. In my magical, fantastical, mystical imagination, we were going to outrun death. It caught us just as we were fixing to leave. (Our second foray into that magical way of life.) I guess it was telling me you should have just kept on instead of letting family interfere. We are all made up in so many different ways. I still see the funeral director's pasted on smile, even though he had just lost his wife of 66 years. His eyes did not show his smile. The echoes of that beautiful place were so loud I could not hear anything but "leave, fast." So I did.

Karen, a sense of humor even at the worse time, and if everyone had known, it would have been so fitting. I think Ron knew. I wish I understood more about life and death, but sometimes what I read sets me back, so I will stick to the forum and my fiction books. Gotta do stuff I have put off for a long time today. It never ends. They stay entwined in our lives even if they are not visibly seen.

We all have our idea of how we want things. My uncle could not understand not having a good ole Baptist funeral. Billy and I never cared for attention of any kind.. My daughter had releasing of balloons from his old fishing spot on the bayou on his first birthday after he had left. We had a bunch of family and friends that came. She needed the closure. Billy and I just wanted to be. My mother-in-law wanted to be buried in her pink negligee that someone had given her. When they dug the grave it was at her husband's feet. She didn't even like him and that was the funniest funeral I have ever been to. They had to redig the grave next to him. She would never have sat at his feet.

Patricia B, the title of this post took me back many years to a song. I drove 49 miles to Magnolia by myself this morning and 49 back. I tried, but my darkness is not listening anymore. He would do me this way when we first got married. To keep from fussing, he would just shut up and not talk to me. (Well, you know how crazy that made me, if I ran out of words to say I would make crap up). Maybe he is angry again for some reason.

Me either Gin, but I don't want to think of one having to wonder where his master is and why she has left him either. Of course, at that time I won't care, but before time I will. I know Carrie Fisher's much loved dog, her daughter took it, then someone else had it. Where did I hear it said "dogs are people too"?

I know he is not going to answer me, I have always known he was not going to answer me, but some strange wall is making it where I cannot feel I am talking to him. I used to talk to him and Jesus mixed in together, but now I don't talk to either. I miss that.. I really try but it's not working.

I think I have put this before, but the first publication in medical journals I typed was for a resident who did a study of oral tobacco on cancer. This particular kind was kidney cancer. Billy quit smoking when he had to have stents put in his kidney arteries. But, he could not give up that nicotine. He lived till he was 74, and I know numerous people on here wish their mates had lived that long. My mom smoked till her dying day at 95, called cigarettes her "friends." I guess something is gonna get us. I tried smoking as a teenager twice, was told how to inhale and both times it felt like I was dying. Obviously did not do it right, but it was enough to make me know if something hurt that bad, I did not want to try it. I knew there was a correct way. I was with my girlfriends at the rodeo arena close to the house, out in the country. They all had a tough time quitting. But, they had to hide it. My mom offered to buy my cigarettes, so if it was that easy, I wanted no part of it. When I was pregnant, gaining weight, Mama tried to convince me to smoke, it would help with food cravings. The funny thing is, she used to make me rice crispy squares and what tasted good was the smoky flavor of them. Yet, I hated cigarettes. My sister quit alcohol, cannot quit nicotine and neither could Billy. Our son quit illegal dope and he quit oral tobacco, but he sure likes weed. Smells like a skunk.

My grandma's water, in the country, was well water. All of her glasses and dishes had a red tint to them. The land around, one community was called "Red Land" because all the rocks and ground were red dirt. Years ago, we did not know what we were getting/drinking/breathing. I know after the paper mill was built in the 1930's (no, I was not born then), but they warned everyone about eating the fish caught out of Bodcau, the bayou that ran from Arkansas through our state. Years later it was cleaned up, but I suspect some remained forever. Mama told me I was getting iron from the water which was good for me. Tasted bad. We had to put a filter on our well water when living in the country when we moved to Arkansas after we retired. Made our pipes have a black tinge and it was a deep well. The people who bought it are still living, and he is a doctor, so figure it was safe.

This is the only thing that has helped me, that is knowing how much it would hurt Billy for me to remember this bad image of him. That man had an ego a mile wide and he made me think of Dr. Seuss often because he would come in often and pose in a hat that had been sitting in the closet. He had a collection of hats and caps that are packed in a big blue plastic "bucket" with handles. Someone else will have to get rid of them, I cannot. When he would pose in the hat he would always say "do you like my hat?" I would think of Dr. Seuss, but "yes, I like your hat." Mr. Ego, he would be so disappointed me remembering that last sight of him. I think after we see them we all suffer some form of PTSD that is hard to get rid of. It still comes back to me and then I think of "do you like my hat?" and it goes away.

Yes he was, an unusual dog that carried himself like he was king of the world. But, when he let you love him (which had to be his own idea), he could melt your heart. When Scott or Billy tried to take the dead raccoon from him, he would not let them. After awhile he allowed them to bury it. Speaking of hearts, I found one I hope is not too big.

I'm sorry, I truly feel this way too. I wish Billy had left me for another woman and she had made him quit that Copenhagen snuff. I couldn't. I believe the poison from that helped with his demise. Certainly did not help his health. Sometimes I don't feel I was a good enough wife and even if he left me, I would have anger, ego shock, but the possibility that he might still be alive and she might could have carried him into his 80's far outweighs my ego. It didn't happen that way though so I grieve the loss and suffer the guilt of not protecting him enough. We cannot protect against cancer, no matter how healthy we are, how much exercise we get, if we live in a zone that has cancerous chemical emissions, in the water, in the air, it is still going to be a threat. A well padded political hand lets the environment suffer. But if "she" could have made him live longer I would have appreciated ti, might have hated him a little too, but c'est la vie.