Margm

Some of you might have seen this. I think it was on a program that advertises on FB, or someone posted it on FB. I do not have a dog. We have had dogs and cats in the past and the last dog I loved was one named Bear. He was a big fluffy black dog that should have lived in northern climates. He was not our dog, we were his people. We belonged to him. A neighbor, drunk, brought her dog over to complain that Bear did not get along with her dog. Bear did not get along with anyone, but us. He got loved on when he felt like it, not when we felt like it. He would come and lean against our legs and we could love him. We tricked him once and went on our walk without him. He saw two strangers come up (us) and he was going to run us off and saw we had tricked him. He turned his back on us and walked off. We had hurt his feelings. He would not let anyone come up our steps and when he fought the neighbors dog, in our yard, she drunkingly put a leg between them and got bit, not sure if it was Bear or the other dog but we had to put him inside the house for a week. He broke through the windows. We tried to give him to a nice lady that raised Chows. He would not let her out of the house. Billy went to get him and he rode in the front seat in Billy's lap all the way home. We lived on the lake and he stayed in the water, just standing, getting cool. Louisiana is not a country for Chows, unless you keep them in the house and he would not stay in the house. One day when Mama was going down the hill to the boat dock, she was walking a neighbors road to the shared dock. Neighbor lived in the city. In daylight a raccoon ran out to attack my mom and Bear attacked the rabid raccoon. Billy took care of giving our dogs shots and maybe that year he did not give Bear his. He said he did, but Bear died suddenly in the next five days. He gave no sign of being rabid. Anyhow, you that have pets might enjoy this story. My story had a sad ending. It took it out of me for owning dogs because I loved Bear (when he would let me). He acted like he was doing me a favor. After he died, I cried like I had my last childhood pet Midget, and I swore I would not do this again. I won't. I know how much my aunt loved her dogs and at the end she would not have one because she did not want to have it outlive her and then not realize why she left it. Strange phenomenon, when I would go on walks after that, I could hear Bear breathing walking behind me. https://gladwire.com/family-learns-heartbreaking-reason-dog-stares-every-night/

Don't know how to do Marty's heart.

Dave, I'm so sorry. You and Karen and I think maybe Autumn all have lost children. This grief is horrible, but I don't even want to imagine the loss to all of you that have lost children. I so hope I go before my kids. I am not that important and children have a life to live. Young people have a life to live. I had to quit our grievance meetings because it was not just for widows. I left each meeting more depressed than when I started them. They say grief and depression are not the same, but they sure are siblings. We hurt enough and I so don't want to reach the pinnacle of grief you all have felt. My dad was 64 when he passed. My little Mammaw's oldest son. She was 84 at the time. She was okay up until that time but her mind left when my dad left. I know Rose Kennedy said we develop scar tissue, but I don't even want to write anymore about it. Again, I am so sorry.

Well, methinks I need to read about Bereavement and Snorting Seaweed. (nothing funny about grief, not even this). I did not finish reading it. Marty, you know so many places and blogs. I think I could stay in front of this computer all day......and that is about all I do.

Marty, I am going to look when I get some alone time. I cannot tell you what a wonderful/and sometimes frightening magical, fantastical, mystical imagination I used to have, my mind open to anything. Billy was that staid, non-superstitious, non-believing in my magical thinking (even though he had to protect me at night when we were first married from the vampires, werewolves, witches and all other stuff that always woke me up sitting at the foot of my bed.) About 3-4 years into the marriage I woke him saying I saw 2-3 little men standing at the foot of my bed. He jumped up and said "Wait, I see four of them" and jumped out of bed to the tool room. He sheepishly came back knowing he had joined in my nightmare. Scared the bewillies out of me but I never had one of those dreams. Still, I felt "other-worldly" things that would happen and he would just shoot them down. No pretend or superstition about him. I've told the "little men" dream before on here and we still laugh about it in the family. When he left though, he took that part of my life with him and I have yet to discover it again. Maybe that is good.

I interfered in my son's life and insisted he marry his first wife. She was such a child and he was so bipolar. My husband and her mother took her to get an abortion when he was in the services. Come to find out the child was not his. They did not tell me. People kept things from me because I was fighting cancer. My grandfather, his only son, a woman came up pregnant. It got back to my grandfather. He asked my uncle if he had slept with this woman. He said he had as well as many others. He had a true shotgun wedding. When my son came home I insisted he marry this girl. He clearly loved her, and she put up with so much from him. She became my 3rd child. They lived with us more than making a life of their own. We would push them out of the nest and bedlam would occur.. Two children later they divorced. She had found someone with a steady job and his only insistence was that the children and her have no contact with us. We hired a lawyer for our son but he would not fight it. We lost that 9-year-old granddaughter and 5-year-old grandson forever. If we even talked to them on the phone, (and they moved well over 1000 miles away), they were punished. I thought about Solomon in the Bible and the two mothers with the one baby and I could not tear those kids in two parts. So, we left it alone. The new stepfather was an honored member of the Air Force. My son was in the Navy, we could not fight without his help. It tore us to pieces. We took care of those kids and it was like losing two children, no, three counting their mother who had been our child for nine years. She held such malice for our son that she told those babies lies about us, said we did not want to see them, and the kids thought we had abandoned them. I thought when they got grown they would understand. They didn't. When the girl got grown she and her dad became close friends. The son, he is lost in the drug jungles of California. We suffered for years. So did the kids. Now my son and his ex-wife are friends and she told him she always wished we had been her parents. My granddaughter has tried to get close, but now that Billy is gone, I did not want to see my great grandchildren. He would have loved that so much. I am glad they live on the east coast now, I handle grief differently than some people. My Mammaw was pure love in the most simple form. I wanted to be like her. I cannot. Sometimes I do not recognize who I have become. I'm not sure I like me very much most of the time. My attention is to the one who really needs help. It is almost like I do not have enough love to go around. It was not always like that.

There are some days Kay, some moments in time that Billy seems just a memory in my past. I don't know how to feel about it. Because at the same moment, I expect him to be back at any time. Of course, that part of the brain is totally wrong about a lot of things. I am glad he convinced me though, "don't remember my death mask" because the alive Billy that I knew would be so disappointed if I remembered something about him that terrible. So, I get that out of my mind. It is still there sometimes, but some of the things we both did against each other, they are still there, and he was nice enough that even if he remembered them, he never reminded me. I would expect the Billy that is really not here, that he would appreciate my not remembering the misery.

It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone. Rose Kennedy Patricia, I have to go back to this often. I think this woman understood and had been through the flames with her feet to the hot coals. Some on here have lost children and I do not even want to imagine that pain. But Rose knew it. I cannot examine her marriage, but she was a dutiful wife and overlooked a lot of things, but because of her religion and possibly her love for him, she had to have felt the pain when he left also. We have to get some sort of relief from somewhere and I hate that saying misery loves company, but in this forum we don't love the company, but we do understand the misery. ADDENDUM: I don't want that taken wrong, when I say "we don't love the company" means only that we all hate that you have to be here.

Everything everyone said, that is your answer. It did me no good to read that after 18 years, my grandmother said it felt like yesterday. We have lost half of ourselves and unlike some of the lizards, we cannot grow that part back. You have come to a place you can share any and every thought you have without fear of reprisal. I call it verbal bleeding and I do that a lot. I found this place three days after Billy left, or I doubt I would still be here. I like to think he helped me. I cannot add anything to what anyone has said, except you are in a good place now. A bad place to have to be, but a wonderful place to talk out your feelings.

Parents sometimes do not know the damage they do and if you confront them with it, they still would not see. In my mama's case, she would never have seen, so I ran. How do I teach my granddaughter how to live when most of the time I feel dead myself? I do not want her to hate her mama, she is my daughter and she is mentally ill. The part of her that was real has been destroyed with psychotropic medications. And, that is the part my granddaughter sees. I made it out of the frying pan into the fire, then into wonderful oblivion. I think sometimes I have lost the ability to love, but I do care for so many people. She does not want more counseling. I had to find my own counseling when I needed it the most.. I could not rely on Billy or anyone else. School starts again in August. In the meantime this hurts my daughter. I don't want to hurt either of them, but my daughter cannot see what she does. The living situation is unbearable to my granddaughter, so I provide a quiet respite. There will be a guidance counselor in school. My granddaughter is interested in writing, musical theater, movies, music. She will never be able to get in front of people and perform, but a counselor can help her see other avenues to the same goal. In the meantime my daughter hurts, and I hate that. Counseling of some sort is definitely in the plans, possibly the guidance counselor can direct her in a way that I surely cannot. .........promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep. RF

Kevin we have seen the bitter with my mom, and then the taming of her brain we wished we could have seen as children, and I know my dad wished he could have seen.. Sometimes I forget how old I really am and I am shocked because my friends got old the nearly 20 years I lived away from home. I was doing genealogy and saw where a cousin had passed away in 2014. I didn't even know. I remember her husband as a high school basketball star but now he is in final stages of Alzheimer's and his five grown kids are taking care of him. My cousin died of a heart attack driving in town. I remember these people when they were "kids." Reality slaps you in the face and then beats you to the ground. I can see some things about Billy now, in my mind, that were changed. My gentle man developed road rage in later years, which was surprising. He was so laid back and calm, I knew he would last forever, but when he got ready to leave, I did not know he could travel so fast. I will forget names and my granddaughter pushes me until I remember. I want to Google instead, but she pushes me. I hate to tax this old brain any more than I have to.

I'm not strong. I hear you all talking about your health problems, and my health problem cannot be fixed. Any slip-up and I'm gone. It is a day-to-day battle with reminders from everyone "have you had your cocktail?" That is Miralax, that is my life. In a small ginger ale it is fine, but forgetting it, fever, any blood anywhere, well, I just take my temp once a day and my Miralax each night. So far so good. Like the GYN doc said, we could do a D&C, but if we found anything we could not fix it. So, I make it on a wing and a prayer. I know not to pick up anything too heavy and what not to eat. My kids are in AR, it would scare Bri to death and I do have my sister. I've gained too much weight, which all it would take is walking, but I guess I need the mechanical walker cause getting too far from my bathroom could be sorta embarrassing. TMI.

I know that video had to bring tears Kevin, but it is something to cherish. I think my daughter is angry at me, so not much from her. My son either. I don't feel left out of anything, just feel left. I know Billy would be waiting for his presents, that is why we called him "Billy the kid." Best dad/mother/grandfather any kids could ever have. My dad: He loved us. He was not patient at all with us. He was from an older generation that believed "children should be seen but not heard" so he never heard us. He did the best with what he had. He left this old world with a smile on his face, so I figure he was happier where he was going. Mama sapped any happiness here on Earth from him, so maybe he figured he was "free at last." He was very stern, believed in spare the rod and spoil the child, but he was a good man through and through to neighbors, relatives, anyone he came in contact with. He did what he thought was right, and he was well loved by everyone that knew him. Would have been easier on him if he and Mama had known each other longer than two weeks, but I would not be here if that had happened. Happy Father's Day to all you men on here. I know something has gone out of our life. We make the best with what we are left with.

Mental illness is hard on the patient, and the whole family. My mom and my daughter share the same characteristics. My granddaughter hides from this, the same as I did. My mom did not want the attention that my daughter does, and you do not tell my daughter "no." Someone mentioned that to me years ago. All she needs is to be told "no." Well, that person could not do it, and she does not accept that word. There was no "growing apart" for my mom and me. We were close for the first nine years, I could not have asked for a better mom, but something snapped after the birth of my sister and she was never the same. My sister never knew "my" mother. My parents should never have had children. I'm sorry to say that, but it happens sometimes. I did not leave my kids with them because they were worse grandparents than they were parents. Generations are raised differently. Yet Billy's mama may have not ever told her kids she loved them, but she was pure love to my children. People are strange.........I know........I probably am the worse. I always thought my granddaddy on my mama's side should have been married to my mammaw on my dad's side. They radiated love yet their spouses did not show it. Since Billy left, I don't radiate it either.

Ana, I ran away from home to be with Billy. I stayed sometimes because I could not go back to mom and dad (my choice). Frying pan into the fire at first. Eventually we became one person, and I'm just not me without him. Not worried about finding me.

Just makes you one of the gang Tom. We are all half a person short.

Kevin, the friend who famously told me that now I would have time to find myself, she had gone through the flames herself. She wants to tell me about it sometimes and she remarried two years later to someone who "treats her like a queen." So clearly, we never know what goes on with people. This man has struggled to live these past over 12 years, and know she was married over 40 years to first husband. One beautiful friend who lost her husband about 19 years ago now, she has never remarried and I do not think has ever dated. Her husband was a cousin of mine. Everyone has their own story, but unless you have lost someone, you cannot tell it. I still think Billy had something to do with my finding this forum three days after he left me. Certainly desperation was a factor. Lots of good people here. Addendum: Still have not found me, I quit looking.

Hettie, my neighbor, my fellow widow, she was there for me when I had to have someone. She would still be there for me now if I lived there. If I did not come to her house every day, she was checking on me. When it all came down to it, she knew we were going to miss each other terribly, but her advice to me was what I wanted to hear, what I was going to do anyhow, I had to get away from that paradise that was hell for me. Friends are like that. They want the best for us. You do not find that rare friend that will help you so easily. Guess you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you locate a good friend. (Wrong comparison, but not looking for a prince.)

If the "soap box" would still hold me up, I would be on it. I'm not kidding about all I learned at a teaching hospital, a charity state operated system, for so many years. Things I could not understand, watching some of my "boss" doctors getting so excited because they had a charcot foot in the ER. Something strange to teach the young residents. A teaching hospital in a poverty ridden state is a place to really learn. Of course the oddity cases too. I will never understand why that man fell off the commode onto a coat hanger. But now, Jindal killed our charity system, and there are a lot of people out there now that are definitely going to die because they have no where to go. When did we, as people of concern, get so rich that we could turn away someone who lived so far back in the swamps, someone who only heard by word of mouth that there was a place they could get medical care. Now they cannot. Many, many will die off. One belief that came out of those swamps so many miles away was that alligator dung was a good form of birth control. I have to believe that it would be certainly if the male knew ahead of time. You all do not know how certain I am, how much I do know of the many people that are going to die without our state run charity hospital system. The Catholic Hospital I worked for also was supposed to be a charity system. I remember one year we missed our "step increase" but the CEO still got his one million dollar one time gift. How many step increases would that have funded? This was the same CEO of this wonderful "charity" hospital that held meetings with all of us once a year. He said "we will investigate each patient and we will find out, if they have one acre of land somewhere, they will pay for their medical care."

I'm sorry you had to join us, but if you have to go through grief, and sometimes it is impossible to escape it, then you will find help here. There is nothing this forum has not gone through and they are willing to help. You do what you have to do for you and your daughter. It is not selfish. Families are great, but they can be very demanding. My own son asked me "Mama, why do you let people boss you around." Up until that time I was just trying to do everything everybody wanted. Pretty bad on the nerves. But, he made me look at myself. We have to take care of ourselves now and for me it was 74 years coming. I'm not Wonder Woman yet, but I can handle myself sometimes like the witch I am. Again, welcome to our place of grief. You can say anything. And I do.

Well Ana, I won't have that problem. My grandmother (I have quoted this before), when she got cataracts, the little church mouse said that if she could not see to read, she did not want to live. She did not make jokes. The only time I remember her laughing a lot was when we were at the cemetery and there was a snake on one of the graves. I ran and she said I thought the devil was chasing me and she laughed and laughed. Her girls took her to the doc and the cataracts were removed and she had a reason to live. The bookmobile never passed by her little country store. I have been able to read books written by widows and widowers. That was not escapism, that was just more realism. Lets face it, we have a hard time concentrating. After 20 months, I have finished two Dana Stabenow books. Took me awhile longer than usual, but I concentrated. I'm getting better. Not with the hurting. That will be something that will never leave. I could concentrate on the books by widows and widowers. That is our life. Fiction is not our life. But, I am ready for a little escapism. I am reading another fiction novel. After reading "Life After Heaven" by Steve Musick, I am not going to read "uplifting" books again. This was meant to be a wonderful book, but I am odd man out, it bothered me and set me back, and I could not talk to Billy anymore. I've tried since then, but it is not the same. I know this is my own fault, so I think I will just try escapism for awhile. You all are doing great. And, if you have a friend you can talk to, then that is wonderful. If not, remember we are here and we do understand.

We all have to do what we have to do. I guess if you think you need a friend to discuss it with I am being selfish, because I have so many I could discuss it with. I tried doing some genealogy yesterday, am not ready for that yet. Found an old friend from years ago, she had passed away in 2014. Her husband, who I knew also, has Alzheimer's and their five children take care of him. When I asked another friend if she talked to her husband not long after Billy left, she clearly figuratively patted me on my head and said "your still in early grief." Made me think I would not need to talk to him later. Works for her. These are people my age. After Billy left I had Hettie, my neighbor. She had been a widow for about five years. And yes, this woman helped me so much. I miss her. That was her hometown though, those were her kin all around her. I was alone in the beautiful woods. Classmates were dying. Hettie told me "We are at the age we are going to lose our friends" and we were, we are. I still have my friends. But, I talk on here, I don't talk to them. I am not ready for one to tell me "it is early" or "You will learn to find out who you are now." We have plans to get together soon. We will. I won't mention Billy though, unless they ask and I'm sure they won't query into my closest feelings. Friends are great to have, cousins, neighbors, church members, they are all great to have. I find out about feelings on here, I find out about time and scars, and hurting on here. I had asked one friend a long time ago, she had lost her husband a few years back (has it been 20 months for me?) and I asked her a question about our husband's deaths, not a very personal one, but one that she clearly did not want to talk about. Right now, all I would do is be repeating myself like I do on here. One thing I have found, people want to talk about living, not death. Maybe it is location, people, and maybe it is me.

Kevin, I thought health care was free in Canada. Mine stays pretty much the same, and I actually don't know what I pay but for Medicare and my group retirement, I think it is about probably 250 a month. I have 300 deductible. I think Obamacare made insurance very expensive, but it allowed people with a chronic illness be able to get insurance. I remember the woman at one of the Dollar stores said they finally had insurance but it was $5000 deductible, so she could not afford to get sick. We have had a variation of the same since 1961, only now it is called retirement group insurance. Marita, you have some big pets, but know you feel good getting away with them riding. The hospital I retired from the firs time, was at first called a charity hospital. It was a state operated hospital. My dad had his tonsils out there in about 1926. They had them two to a bed. Head and feet opposite. We had a governor named Jindal that killed our hospital system. His folks had been from India. He left Louisiana in so much debt the new governor is making drastic cuts and the charity hospital system is no more. We had people that came from far away in our state come for free care. I worked as OB secretary one time and had to read the rules and one of the rules was no clay/dirt eating. (Very bad on a pregnant woman). I asked the woman I was interviewing if this was true and she said "Honey, I almost floundered myself with my first child. There was a shelf of red clay behind the house and I would bake it." I really got a lot of stories from working in that hospital, I had to type lots of interesting patients that will probably just die without medical care. Lots of poverty. Cannot afford to go to doc and cannot afford meds. Sad.

I love this horse. It must be so refreshing to just get on and ride.

Deb, we can all be alike in our grief, we can share it so easily, and then you have some odd one that has the grief, but does not share the same relief from things others do. I lived in paradise. Woods all around, houses hid by hills and valleys. Wonderful neighbors. I fed the squirrels and the rare chipmunks. The raccoons and possums at night, and later in the night possibly other animals. Woke up one morning and the deer were feeding on the little shoots that had grown up around the porch from the corn and grass seed scattered by the wildlife. Billy's hummingbirds and watching for when they came and when they left. I could not handle this quiet. I could not handle this peacefulness because it was not peaceful to me. It hammered my brain with destruction I had to run from. So, we all handle it differently. We loved the house, but we were leaving to move into the RV. I hated housekeeping and Billy hated mowing those two acres even with the riding lawn mower. People have yards as hobbies, to us they were prisons. So, we all hurt, and we all handle grief the best way we can, some the same, some different, but the pain is always the same.