Margm

Brad, when I was typing the discharge notes on people who had been in the hospital, I noticed that the older ones most always got the Remeron. In my way of thinking that meant that if the Remeron was safe for an older person, it would be okay for a younger one also. But you are right, it does increase their appetite, which was one of the reasons it was given. I tried the Ambien. This was right after Billy passed away. That stuff worked me like an alarm clock. I would get two hours sleep and then be wide awake. So, and at the time I was not worried if taking more "did me in," I would take another. I would get six hours sleep on three Ambien's. I had heard all the weird stories. It did not hurt my stomach, but it did not keep me asleep. As an addictive drug, I could do without it. Did not really work. I tried the trazodone/Desyrel when I had cancer. It was to help me sleep and as an antidepressant. It made me sleep. Gave me a stuffy nose, which is a side effect, but did no other harm, and I slept. They tried it this time and I guess the shape my "innards" were in, it just made me sick. So I cannot take it. My clonidine makes me sleepy. Add the Xanax and I get 7-8 hours sleep and I cannot ask for more than that. I have the meditation apps on my Kindle and go to sleep at night sometimes listening to them. I'm afraid the 70's legal drug scene put a metal barrier over my brain. Perhaps I should give them the chance without my potion. By the time I get to the breathing cycle, I'm gone. We have enough to fight, fighting for sleep is not worth it if I can help it.

I was using an anecdote from a book I read. Two women in a group. No one is wrong. I was not begrudging anyone. We don't do that in any of our lives. We just trod along doing the best that we can. One thing is certain, we all have feelings and sometimes they might surface. We all live in the same world and we don't compare grief in any form because we cannot walk in that person's shoes. It is not a contest. There is no finish line, until we reach it.

Unless you are from some other world, we all live in the same one.

Before I read what Marty gave us on coping with sleeplessness in grief, I have got to post this. I have to because otherwise I will forget. Brad, I think I know where your coming from about being anxious and dreading your trip all at once. You are going to see things that physically your mate will not see standing beside you. I drove "around the back way from Walmart/country way" and the Azalea's, Wisteria, Dogwoods, all the flowering trees, Daffodils and all the plants are blooming. It is very pretty, I can appreciate the loveliness of all the trees and plants. But, if Billy was beside me, they would be outstandingly beautiful. The fact that they are not outstandingly beautiful is lost on me because he cannot stand beside me or sit beside me and see it too. And somehow, I think you are dreading seeing things that she is not with you to see. They did not let me keep my amateur psychologist diploma for some reason. Now, I will read what a real professional says that might help me with my sleeplessness (hey, nothing is gonna make me give up my potion). After a night like last night though, I won't have to worry about it.

The issue of sleep from you all has me terrified. Another night like last night and I have no idea what I will do. I have my sleeping potion. When they gave me clonidine for blood pressure years ago, it would make me very sleepy. So, I asked could I take it at night. I used to take the Tylenol PM, as did Billy, and for years they have helped. Sometimes just reading until I got sleepy would help, but that was when Billy was sleeping beside me. Suddenly, nighttime became my enemy. No sleep at all if I do not take something. And believe me when I say this, I do not want my mind to race. So, I take my clonidine and a Xanax. I sleep. Without it, I am on my Kindle at 2:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m., like this morning. And, I tell myself that at my age many people use a crutch to walk. I do not want to try to sleep without my crutch. I am not ready for it. I do not want to question how weak a person I am for using a crutch, it works, I don't care what people think as long as it works. Maybe we all have a problem with sleep now. Or maybe it is like that Walmart checker told her husband "if you were on your feet working 16 hours a day you could sleep too." I personally do not want to work again, I put in my time. So many battles to fight, nice if there is one we will not fight. I do not deny being a coward about some things.

I am not sure, but think I wrote my piece above between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. Exactly three years ago to the date I was in the hospital, unconscious, and to my surprise (I was later to learn) might not make it. Last night I ate some brisket and less than an hour after I ate it (and I was hungry, so I ate a lot of food), anyhow, it all came back up and kept coming back up. I can only assume it was food poisoning. I finally was able to keep some ginger ale down later in the night. But until that time I spent it all in our single bathroom. At the other house we had two. I took my wastebasket with me to the bedroom, lay down, but you know how it is with food poisoning. I am fine this morning. Did run a temperature last night. Could not sleep so got on here with my Kindle. I'm much better this morning but hopefully will not overload my "innards" again. I am stubborn though. If any of us had the answers to grief, there would be no need for this forum. We definitely all travel a different path. When I would cry until I could not breathe, I found the feeling so peaceful, just to slip away, it would be so easy. At the time, I did not worry about the feelings of the rest of my family. I just wanted to stay with Billy and this seemed such a peaceful way to go, just don't breathe. Hating the counting of months, tomorrow will be 17 months. I can do some things I could not do six months ago, and certainly some things I could not do 15, 16, and 17 months ago. Our paths are all different, our pain is all the same, some things we realize we cannot keep, so we hide them away, they are ours and only ours. Only sure thing is, and accepting this is the hardest thing, they are not going to return. We all walk a different path, but in the beginning it was the same. And, understanding it will never happen. The old woman has possibly less time, the young woman has more time, but her grief will be longer, unless she learns to live without the most important person in her life. She begrudges the old woman her milestones, the old woman might (and might not) begrudge the young woman her time. We still go alone. And we each either look back and remember the good times (took me a long time to do this). We sometimes rely on music to help us out of our moods and then that one song will throw us to our knees, we watch TV and actually look forward to seeing our shows, Then one of those shows features an ER scene that will make us more aware of our loss. Brad, Billy was my hero. We look back on how they came from an impossible life to a life that they did learn how to make lemonade. None of us have the answers, but we sure have a lot of questions that cannot be answered.

This reminds me of the old woman and the much younger widows who met in a grief group. One woman told the other that she had met all the milestones that the younger woman would never have. The old woman said the amount of time and milestones did not make her loss any greater or less, it only made her time in this world less. There will never be a life for the old woman, and though the younger woman grieves the same, and just as much, she still has a life with open possibility, the old woman does not, yet the pain of their loss is the same. We don't know who holds tomorrow, so we wait. We wait for something we can hold on to, even if that small thing is being glad he did not suffer long like my dad did, and his dad did. Not much to go on. Small blesings. Nothing I Can do will fill this empty space.

Mitch, sometimes I feel ancient and sometimes age gives me a pang, just a tiny one. I am so happy we knew each other 55 years. I do not get people expecting me to find companionship. I have been there and I have done that. Five more years would have been nice. Fifty-five impossible, but I better be thankful for what I had. Many, many were not that lucky. I realize that. He did suffer a couple of weeks in the hospital. But so many suffered very long times. We did not even know he was so sick but five weeks. I have many things to be thankful for. And at long last, I am thankful, just a little bit. I say I have never been on my own, but Billy let me make most of the decisions for a bunch of years, so I was not totally helpless. I miss him terribly, but one good thing about age, you realize time is a small worry.

I seem to remember a song, probably country, about "I shaved my legs for nothing" and sometimes that is about how I feel about each day. I like a smooth road, mine seems to have potholes lately. Gotta learn to drive around them. My Ferris Yaris car has tiny tires.

I probably won't take it. Yesterday I did not take my Kindle into my granddaughters counseling session. (I sit out front and read), but I had my GriefShare workbook. I tried doing some of it and I find I think I must be totally trying to hide or a coward. I open up here as much as I want to open up. We all have opinions and some of mine are not worth sharing, for you or for me.

I subscribe to Megan's blog. (I hope we call it that), and as many times as I read it. the title always reads "Refuge in Guilt" and it is something I cannot get rid of. Maybe not the guilt so much but reading the word "guilt" as synonymous with "grief." Beginning letter "g", middle letter "i" and there you have it, grief/guilt. Don't you think a psychiatrist would have fun with me? Still, I honestly have to forget there was a Billy (and you say that is impossible), well, it is impossible, but it is just about as improbable as happiness, and sometimes I can feel a hint of something familiar about a moment.............happiness????? I just don't know yet and don't know if I will live long enough to find out. Strangely, it matters not.

Marie, I have dream amnesia usually. I went back to sleep this morning because I usually jump right up, but I was having a good dream. It wasn't about Billy, and now cannot remember what it was, but that's okay. I am not young. There will never be another person in my life and that is fine with me. I used to tease him and say if I ever got rid of him I sure would not get another.. That was in much younger years and was said in jest. For some reason, in life, it meant a lot to him for there never to be another person in my life, of the male sort. Gosh, after 54 years, (of marriage, 74 years of life) what else is there to do but live and worry about extended family. Things like my son's job not making money yet so he is on my couch, my daughter is stuck up in the Wizard of Oz country with no hopes of making it home. I cannot afford to get her back. My "condition" will not allow me to drive for long periods. All her furniture is up there. I cannot have her animals in my small apartment. Honestly, having two bipolar children is kind of like running a zoo in Central Park. Keeping the cages closed is important. Getting too old to chase them down. My sister's teaching job ends this summer, then starts again in the fall, but she has to live over the summer. In the meantime, today is my granddaughter's counselor session. Tomorrow a school day. We go from A to B to C to D and back again to A. I don't regret leaving that 2000 sq foot home in paradise. Billy was not there so it was not paradise. My mom is gone now. She had been ready to go for a long time, in fact, she actually left years ago. I still have not cried but I put new flowers up last week end, or was it the one before? I got up today getting ready to go see "Beauty and the Beast" before the counseling session only to learn it is not till next week. Damn, I took a shower for nothing. Guess I do smell better. On a serious note, I hope you all in Chicago and the northern states that are getting pounded, I hope you all keep warm. This is average Louisiana weather. My daughter is weathering Kansas cold drying winds and says if she ever gets back in swamp country she will never leave again. I think I've heard that before. Don't know how to get her home. Her "friend" is going to have to come up with something. And so is life this Tuesday, March 14, 2017. I know that date cause it is in the right corner of my computer, but I woke up thinking it was Sunday.

Well Marty, they discriminated against my age. Can I demonstrate? Well, considering it is in Illinois and the weather they are having, I will just go quietly away.

If I was there I would make it for you. At one time one of the companies made an ice cream using condensed milk. Honestly, I am not feeling too safe crossing over frozen ground. I have a cousin that lives in Grand Haven, Michigan. Her son is a doctor in Chicago, but I doubt if either of them make it. I think it is only made by people who look out and start jumping up and down because snow is unique. She sends me pictures ever so often and I think snow tends to stay for months on the Great Lakes sides of your cities. You folks that have it all the time, well, I am sure you could care less. And, it is probably safer to stay inside. I guess I can call it Arkansas ice cream cause we only got it about once a year.

Okay girls, in dealing with snow, find the cleanest you can (usually on the car) and take plenty of big bowls. Mama used to make snow ice cream with granulated sugar and it was always grainy. Billy's favorite ice cream was snow ice cream. Make sure you have plenty of cans of condensed milk (they even make it in caramel now) and Carnation or Pet or store brand canned milk. Vanilla flavoring. keep adding snow until the consistency is perfect. You might throw in a pinch of salt to keep it from being flat. When you freeze it, it will be hard. Take a knife and chip it up and put it in the blender. We never got to try it much in Louisiana, but we got it every year in Arkansas. I don't think I can ever make it again, but doubt I would get much of a chance in this territory. (I guess this is another way of saying if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.)

In Louisiana we have AC weather, then the next day the sun is out, I go out and have to come in for a jacket. Cannot decide whether to keep it where the AC will come on or the heater so I put it off completely and use the ceiling fans mostly. No snow this year. We usually got some 175-200 miles up the road from here. I think they are talking about the NorthEast now fixing to get the snow storms. I don't know who all live up around there, but I wish I could share the balmy weather of the south with you right now. Be careful. Still putting off finding that folder, but I have to find it. Getting close to the end of the book I mentioned a few days ago. She had mentioned going through days of being forgetful and I'm thinking "Bless her heart, she has not even had time to figure out there are any levels of grief." All she has done is try to live among scorpions, rats, spiders, the elements in East Texas, eating a lot of Vienna sausages and her new favorite macaroni and cheese. Trying to live without a good source of water, no electricity, going to work at a job that was a man's job (I know, we women can do it too), but cutting wood with big saws, and living in a place where people even dumped baby pigs at her house. She raised them with the cat and dogs and a baby buck deer that wandered over and she fed with a baby bottle until he felt the "call of the wild" and left. Know she had to make some money off that book. No, she is not a practiced writer, which makes it more interesting. Ever so often she feels sorry for herself. She reminds me of RVSue. I think this woman has had no use for a man or other women friends. (RVSue). I read her blog until Billy left. She is nearing 70 now. The woman above, I don't know how old she is now, last I read she was 59. In this week, or month of honoring women though, they are two of the toughest women I have ever "not" known. I wish I could say they have impressed me enough to hook up the RV or to wander off on my own, although we are all on our own, but I prefer my comforts. I do enough on my own. Even though those two women work/travel on their own, does not make me forget or miss the 54 years I spent with my best friend. Hats off to you widows in this time of honoring women, and hats off to all you men who are missing your mates too.

Karen, I googled Clint Walker once (won't look again) and it showed up he had posed for some "beefcake" poses that were not to my liking. If I had been younger maybe, but I quit enjoying Cheyenne after that. (this was in the past 3-4 years). Just a crazy idiosyncrasy. If I had been 10 years younger I would have gone back to the site often. I really prefer being young and appreciating pictures like that. I don't even know if he is still alive. My family bought me Bonanza CD's until one day I finally got tired of Bonanza and I still wish Chester and Mr. Dillon had had a cell phone so Chester would not have had to ride 10 miles to get Doc Adams and back, on horseback. I guess a car would have helped too, but sure would have taken away from the story.

Joyce and Gin: I had no choice. Now, at first I would cry and they would stop the playing of it. My granddaughter uses ear buds anyhow but my daughter, music talks to her. It was talking to me too, telling me to "cry, cry, cry." After awhile though I got to where I could listen to Bri's band's music without it bothering me. One called "Amnesia" became my theme song. Still some I cannot listen to. CCR anytime. The Band, anytime. Journey, anytime. Air Supply, anytime. But some I still cannot. Living with a 17-year-old, music is there. She even has memorized all the rap songs. Really though, she listens to Ed Sheeran, 5-SOS, Adele, one guy singer I love, short, dark haired fellow from Hawaii, I think. and a few more that I can listen to. No loud music played. Even in the car I have to turn it up to hear it. Never thought I would get this far. Then I remember, Billy could care less for music, so it is no memory bust.

Those old shows are the ones I stay away from. Give Billy the western channel and he was happy, that and sports. I have an album of Andre Bocelli singing the show tunes and it is one I can listen to. Billy's favorite show tunes were from the westerns, the old spaghetti movies and Legends of the Fall. We had a Boykin Spaniel that would sing with Legends of the Fall. He did not really care for music that much and hated Elvis very much. Country music made up my life till I met Billy and then he just was not a big music fan. I knew he would like "Fernando" by Abba, I think. But celebrations and music were not something we shared. He did not care if I listened to it. It was really funny, I had the kids make me a CD of some of the old tunes, by various artists, that were popular back "in the day" and was playing the CD on one of our trips (we shared traveling) and he said "I like that radio station, keep it on it." He was not brought up around music but I was. We both gave up a lot or blended it in to our own life. It worked, till it didn't. We are all so much alike, but all so different also.

Congratulations on new addition to family. Everyone looks happy. Know your very happy he is here. I love his name.

Karen, rereading your post of memories reminded me of a song, and you will know it because you lived it and have to remember "Strawberry Wine." I was caught somewhere between a woman and a child When one restless summer we found love growing wild On the banks of the river on a well beaten path It's funny how those memories they last Like strawberry wine and seventeen The hot July moon saw everything My first taste of love oh bittersweet Green on the vine Like strawberry wine Google his name Karen. You might find out where he is. I found my "first boyfriend" on FB, did not talk to him. It was strange. When I was 15, before the tremor got bad, I had a picture of him. (I drew it from a photograph and the likeness was good). Mama threw it away cause it would make Billy jealous. (It would have). He looked just like James Dean, the hair, the cigarette in his hand, sitting in a lawn chair. This "him" now nearly 60 years later has him sitting in the lawn chair, cigarette in hand, but I did not recognize the old man. Thank goodness I am still 15.

Well, of course the mosquito is ours and Alaska's state bird. (I wonder why so many in Alaska),, I know why down in Louisiana, because it is swamp country. But, I just like the cocoon feeling. Remember, I said I was my happiest in the 19 foot 5th wheel. Aren't people crazily different? My friend grew up in the home her father was born in. Then when she married they bought a home and she has lived in that one home over 50 years. I just always wanted to see what was over the next hill or around the next bend. I was never a homebody, but my mom was. My dad would have loved to live in a small RV. Billy and I shared the same wants. We hated to stay in one place. If I had the money right now I would live in an apartment in the city close to us. Now, in that way we were different. Billy hated the city. I did too as long as he was with me. Guess he was my cocoon.

It is a tent bed. I loved camping out with Billy, and this will be my new camping out.

Lost my "site" and I like posting on this cause I started it and I can say anything I want to.........within reason. I am the cowardly lion in my heart, but today I talked to both my kids and explained to them about my never being on my own before and that I had to live and surprise, no one got angry, both understood and will help me by helping themselves. Really, did not get angry. No hard feelings. Reading this book I spoke about earlier has helped me. I think I am gonna try to live. Kay, you are someone i admire. Your a tough lady. I want to be a tough lady too. There are not very many worldly things I care about. I don't care about clothes, fixing up with makeup, (I like to be clean, at least once a week anyhow), but really nothing has struck my fancy that I want. I want Billy, but I cannot have him. I'd rather buy things for other people. I'm not goody-goody, I just don't care. I like Ferris Yaris pretty well. In fact, once I really get on "my own" me and him might strike out for somewhere, I don't know where, just somewhere I have not been. Just me and him. (Boy, that's gonna worry some family.) Ferris Yaris had to follow me home or I would not have taken him. But, I have found something I want. Yep, it hit me that this is something I really want, and I am gonna get it. I know it is strange. But it will soon be mine. Gotta rearrange some boxes.

Kay, I have not looked up a cistern, but this book tells of the strength, the intelligent thinking, the way of making a metal foot scraper she dug up out of the ground by her house into a stove, the dump yards where she finds treasures, the block they were going to build something with, she finds all these things and she found her strainer so she could keep the coffee grounds out of her coffee. This woman totally amazes me. I cannot tell you how much I applaud her because most of us women would not dirty our hands to dig a foot scraper out of Texas mud. I see a cinder block that is too heavy for me to carry. She sees 100 and throws them in the back of her truck. Wire, anything usable. And can you believe someone broke into her house, trampled it (she had no valuables), but the man that owned the cattle had had a new calf she called "Zipper" because of the black jagged stripe down its back. These same people broke through the fence and killed that baby calf. The sheriff (an old soul that had lived there forever) looked at the tire tracks and he knew who did it. I have not finished, but it reminds me of when I was a kid making my play houses out of all the junk I could find in my pine thicket in the country. I raked up pine straw into rooms. I had a kitchen with tin cans. And, I'm thinking, I had a lot more fun than I would have had with a doll house and those dishes Santa brought me every Christmas. Hats off to women, and I think this is the week to do it. We got it gals. And, rather than dying like I was planning soon, my women folks lived into their late 80's with more living into their 90's. My grandma had sepsis, radiation, cancer, nervous breakdown and outlived her husband that was older than her by over 30 years. My other grandmother (losing a kidney to TB in the 20's or 30's) outlived her mean husband 40 years, all the sisters outlived the brothers-in-law. I honestly, have been planning on my final plans. To hell with that. I will get those final plans payed for then I am going somewhere. I might leave out one morning early and phone my kids from some far away place.. Just no telling. This woman has inserted a rod in my backbone.