Margm

I feel your relief Kevin. I was only adventurous if Billy was with me. Happy New Year to all.

I am feeling brave this morning, but I have not gone out the front door yet. There seems to be no "smooth sailing" in any of our grief battles. I could not understand my baffling forgetfulness, especially with my mom with Alzheimer's. The words "where is" and "do you remember" became my enemies. Maybe if I searched my mind, but I did not want to "touch" my mind. It's broke, I will wait for the scar tissue to grow over it. I don't want to think. I could not read. My grandma's words "If I cannot read, I'd rather be dead" came to my mind. I would take a paragraph and read over it 2-3 times and then forget it, put the Kindle aside, put the book aside. Then one day I finished a whole book. Then I finished another. Am I healed? Nope, the fog returned. I will keep trying. I have to be able to read. I have to be able to put words together. Remember a name? Nope. But, sometimes I can give Google a hint, even a small superficial hint, and it will bring up my answer. Poor Grandma, she did not have Google. My precious, cheap, beautiful, wonderful Ferris Yaris, the tiny silver metallic clown car. I was going to do my most favorite thing, I was going to "get out on the road," I don't have anywhere to go. I just "go." I tried it twice. Such a terror overcame me I rushed back to the apartment. I don't like this change. It is the worse (other than learning to live without Billy) that I have had. When he thought I was dying he wanted to drive me around in that big black Toyota truck. NO!!!! Don't take my driving abilities away. I drove that monstrosity in all kinds of traffic, I parked it (maybe not exactly between the lines), but I was never afraid. Traded with Scott for the little small Ford Ranger. That damn bed of the truck, it followed me everywhere. If I backed out I was going to hit something. Hit a telephone pole backing out of the oil change business. I can turn Ferris around on a dime. I sure hope this fear will leave me. Maybe that 18 wheeler shredding two tires on me on interstate my first trip out, maybe that frightened me. I've made the trip other times since, not afraid. I don't understand this fear. I want it gone. Mitch, it seems we go in circles, no matter how long it has been, and we are revisited by ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future often.. I sorta feel it is just the way our life is going to be, until it isn't. A wild, crazy, circus ride. (Christian spoken here). At least the good Lord made it where my belly will not accept liquor. I am such a coward, I would stay drunk all the time.

Sometimes things work out Karen. I am glad they took you serious. Them giving my granddaughter a two week appointment for an earache was ridiculous. Please let us know how things go.

Someone asked me this morning didn't I miss my own washer and dryer. I said "yes, but coming back and forth to the washateria is the only exercise I get." I don't know why, but I have cried the whole morning over Carrie Fisher. Her boldness about her bipolar, watching her in her one woman shows, reading her books, I felt like I had lost someone I knew and all the bottled up "non-crying" that I have done just came out in one wad of paper towels after another. Had to be paper towels, Kleenex was too small. Gwen, I honestly think Billy's swallowing of that snuff he used for so many years helped poison him. I cannot prove that. He could not quit. He quit smoking, his arteries were closing fast. He could not give up his nicotine entirely though. I did not stay after him. Mama had a bumper sticker that read "I smoke and I vote." Cigarettes, she called them her friends, and she certainly had no other friends. She smoked till she was 95-years-old, from picking up "shorts" in the churchyard when her Mama was bed bound and sick for so long, no supervision, her and her brother started smoking then. Little kids. Maybe that is why we are so heart sick today. ADDENDUM: It is no one's business if you smoke. It is your body. If you get pleasure from cigarettes and you are not finding pleasure any other way, then smoke. Myself, I think I will go buy new batteries........................nah, I didn't say that did I? I'm just kidding.............or am I? (I really am kidding), just threw it in there to show we can do what we want to. (I still have some washateria money left).

I wasn't old until Billy left. I never thought in years. I also was never sedentary and I've gotten that way. I think being still makes one old, if they are young. My sister told me when she was a teenager I came from a different generation as I was almost nine years older than she. She and I seem to be of the same generation now, sometimes I think she is older than I am. I have had this happen lately, and I hope it is just a phase of the grief process and I will get out of it. I've always been afraid of the dark (not so much the dark, as what I cannot see). I get to thinking I am feeling better. I have had life-long depression, but Kay Redfield Jamison, (Her husband was PhD, researcher, teacher, author, her "keeper.") He made tapes of her moods for research. (He passed away and she wrote a book called, I think, "Nothing's the Same." She is an author, teacher, researcher, who is bipolar and knows the depths of depression, she said it so much better than I can. "I knew depression to be unrelenting, invariable, impervious to event. I knew its pain to be undeviating. Grief was different. It hit in waves, caught me unawares. It struck when I felt most alive, when I thought I had moved beyond its hold. I am so much better dealing with his being gone, I would say to myself, assured by some new pleasure in life. Then I would be flung far and cold by a wave of longing I could scarcely stand." Yet a few years later she married again. I'm so tired of grief, don't want this grief again, a second layer. And, I bought my Ferris Yaris tiny car to make it where I could roam the countryside like I always liked to do. Going nowhere, anywhere, not far from the apartment. It was a freedom I cannot define. Now I have tried it twice and such terror gripped me I had to hurry back to the apartment. This is a "stage" that I don't understand, but I am slowly getting my concentration back, so maybe this crazy terror will subside. I think being afraid makes you feel old too. Last night It came up on my FB that I should be "friends" with someone I don't know, but by reputation. She has been married three times. One she divorced, one died of a heart attack at about 54, she married again, married to him about 20 years and he died of cancer. Fact of life, we are born and then we die. I cannot imagine going through this twice. And yet it is a different grief than losing a child, I hope I am gone before that happens. My aunt is so mired down in depression, my beautiful aunt who kept her mother living in her own little apartment, her dad (my granddad) died when she was a teenager (no one mourned him....sad), her sister she had lived next door to for years and years (she was 90, but looked and acted much younger), I cried and cried for this woman, she left one February 1st, Billy left in October, my dad, her oldest brother, her husband (who was living with another woman at the time) and her beautiful daughter who got into alcoholism and could not slow that train down. (She died in her 16-year-old son's arms). It all went downhill. She is a shut-in now and everyone is worried about her. Friends everywhere (she has a disposition like a rattlesnake), but it is a small town, there are lifelong acquaintances who understand her. Her son lives next door now, so at least he is of some help.. I can see bits of myself in every story. We all have stories to tell. Sometimes I tell mine 2-3 times, so bear with me. These stories I read of other widow's journeys, they help me. I have been psychoanalyzed so much, and unless I get suicidal, I won't get another counselor. I don't trust their "learning from a book." They need to have walked through the fire. If these "layers" keep piling up, I might have to research again to find a counselor. Right now I don't want one. I do not feel "smarter" in the least, I just don't have trust right now.

Ana, my son and his girlfriend have been together 10 years. I come from an older place in time than you young people.

It is possible I missed this the way it was put, but did I read that he had a blog that he was working on at one time? I thought he might be busy with that. I've tried it before and it is time consuming.

Karen, it will take time to find a PCP unless you let them know there might be an emergency that cannot be taken care of in the ER. I know Bri's doc gave her a 2-1/2 week appointment date for an earache. Sometimes doctors have early hours to see walk-in patients. As he is a new patient don't be satisfied for an opening "in two months" and if they will not work something out sooner, look for a 2nd, 3rd, 4th choice. I know he does not want to go.

Karen, I wish there were words to counter those that you are thinking. But, I have none. After your family's history, you have to suspect the very thing you suspect. But, it does not always turn out that way. So, you already suspect the worse, so you are prepared for the worse. But, there are many reasons this could happen. Of course, you only think of one. The thing about it, he has to go, he has to find out. If it is, possibly it can be taken care of before the worse might happen. My daughter's partner had her 4 year PET scan from having a double mastectomy with five positive nodes. I counted her out myself. I figured one year at most with that many positive nodes. She suffered through a week of waiting for results and then finally called them. They told her they would have only called her if there was a problem. A cancer patient suffers until they hear the results. Believe me, I went through years of tests afterward and knew every one of them was positive. They never were. For some reason, and I guess all this doctor craziness as our saving graces, with all this Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, then medicine as we knew it, now it does not exist. We have so many things now that can save our life, if we follow it up in time. First time to see blood? Maybe soon enough to take care of it. If that is what it is. Standing on his feet so long and if he is lifting heavy stuff, it might be nothing more than hemorrhoids. But, he does have to get it checked. I know the worry. My son's chances of having liver cancer are much greater now after his hep-C treatments. He has found an antidepressant that finally works, but it makes him gain weight, as most antidepressants do. But still, he has to have it checked, and I know the terror of the thoughts before having it checked. My heart is with you my friend. Prayers too.

But, just like everyone else, we are still here, and some days I am glad. I have to keep remembering that he said "the one left must stay." I don't think any of us wanted to stay. Okay, I deleted some stuff. Sometimes I start on a rant that does not belong anywhere but in my crazy wired brain. This is about us still being here. And right now, I am glad I am here. I miss Billy miserably, but as said "promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep." Like I have a choice. I used to put down "when its your time to go" sayings but now I believe.

Darrel, I have spent a lot of time trying to decide whether to go to a counselor and finally, I cannot find a counselor that would beat Marty. She tells it like it is, but she tells it in such a way you feel you have been uplifted. She also offers places to read. I am a reader. I can now concentrate a little better. Just got through with our Christmas dinner and I am lucky to have two crazy kids and a crazy sister to match the insane me. My granddaughter lives with me. She is 17, and she is truly an angel. But, I had 54 years of marriage and knew him for 55. We were kids and we grew up together and we had a lot of ups and downs. We made it though and the last 20-30 years were wonderful but I wanted 54 more. I miss him very much. We come on here and we tell it like it is. Sometimes I get wound up and you cannot make heads or tails of what I say, and those are my word salads. Feel free to share your grief, your breakthroughs, anything that you feel good or bad about. We are here and we have most all gone through with it. My Billy left on October 17, 2015. But, I can still see him. I just cannot listen to much music yet or look at his pictures much. Holidays are tough, but so are all other 365 days. We are here.

A typical Louisiana Christmas minus my mom this year, (but she has not been here for a long time). I draped festive $ store table cloths across about four boxes and we ate our meal from that. All went well. I had told them "anytime" and they all managed to overlap their visits and there were no fusses. Lots to eat and my years old dressing recipe kept getting raves. I still do not remember where I was last year, but I was told and Brianna told me, "Remember, we watched the new Jurassic World. I remember watching that. Still don't remember much else, don't want to think. Maybe I will forget this one. I wonder if they say, like we used to say "we better go, it might be Mama's last." Now to the weather. When it got up to 79 degrees in the house with the ceiling fans on, I had to turn the AC on. Christmas Day, 2016, have to turn on the AC. I have cried more than once. My crying place is my bathroom. My sister gave me the picture my son had painted for my mom years ago. She would lay up in bed and just look at it. A bluish church with a big cross tower. Her favorite picture and she would spend hours looking at it. It is now on my mantel, and if that counts as crying for my mom, this was my first. I wished we could keep our loved ones forever. But, I want a magic wand to say "be sane please" a whole bunch of times. I might hit myself with it a few times too. I hope you all held up as well as you possibly could. December 25th, 2016, at 79 degrees, just another day, another sad day.

And, I will forever sign our cards as "Billy and Marg" because his retirement went to pay for them too.

I have his and my ring hung with a double chain around my neck. It is sterling silver (chain) and I polish it often. The rings are white gold. I had two white gold chains but they kept breaking. The jeweler said that gold was not as strong as the sterling silver. I never leave the house without it, I sleep in it. I take it off to shower but put it between my flip phone and my keys so it will never be forgotten. I am a widow, but I am still married. It is not a problem with me, and I won't argue it with anyone else. I never was a "proper" person. I loved living in RV parks, I hated houses, I loved a shaggy bearded, (actually he kept it neat) old man that was never old. He still isn't. And he is still my husband, proper etiquette be damned. There was a feminist time when I signed my name with a "Ms." I sign it "Mrs." now. Legally, I am a "Mrs."

Is it too late for me to announce I have had a nervous breakdown and will not be available. I drank my coffee, now where is my energy? Where is my Christmas spirit. I let Brianna pick out her gifts for everyone last night. I forgot about Walmart closing early on Christmas Eve. She was shook up until we found Walgreen's open. Might not have been what people want, but it cleaned out my bank account. Will get ice with washateria money. Gotta get after it. Wish I had a magic pill. My whole life has been wishing for magic pills. I had them one time, by prescription too, when it was legal. Right now it would kill me but I could get everything done in one hour. Goodbye beautiful little black Mollie, too bad your illegal. I get sad. I am human. I miss that old shaggy haired, shaggy bearded tall man that I could stand under his outstretched arms. But, he is not returning. I just have to imagine I see him. I reach up to touch those beautiful high cheekbones and almost can feel them. Until then, I have to live. I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, thanks RF.

I'm forever married. Whatever anyone wants to call it other than "I am forever married" is their problem. They cannot see him. Sorry about that. I see him everywhere.

What a wonderful Christmas they will have. I love Christmas miracles and everyday miracles too.

Selma, my neighbor, she is from here. Lost her husband. She "sits" with sick people to make a living. She was having Christmas Eve dinner with her brother, eating out, and she told him she was going home to go to sleep on the couch. He said "you don't need to be alone." She said, "I want to be alone." Her girls asked her to come to Dallas and she said she wanted to be by herself. You don't argue with Selma. She actually WANTED TO BE ALONE. I'm not gonna bother her. She was not sad. She was tired. Well, seriously, I am sure she was sad too. But, she wanted to be alone with it.

Today on FB one of my friends from half a century ago, still friends, her picture showed a fireplace with so many stockings I could not count them all. The Christmas tree with all the presents around it. The huge table set already with place settings. Made me know I have to run to the $ store for more napkins and paper plates to set on my boxes. One man's riches in family, health, wealth does not hinder my Christmas at all. And, I am so happy she can still have her Christmas like this. My cousin's Christmas looks like something out of a magazine. My friend's house was all set up for her last Sunday dinner with her family, but she will be alone Christmas Sunday. I was just in my bathroom thinking "what if I pretend to have a nervous breakdown, can I stop all the stuff I have planned for tomorrow?" Nobody's feeling better or worse from someone else's gloom, but you have got to admit, we are all feeling a little bit better, no, I have to say this, I am feeling a truckload of happiness better at Butch's news. I'm sorry some of us will be alone. I am sorry some of us have such sorrow, but I am so happy that some families still have happiness, and maybe, just maybe it does lift my load a little. I'm still thinking about the nervous breakdown excuse though.

I love the words CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, but know this would be a 365 day, any day miracle. Have fun playing Santa Claus Butch. Prayers still with you. I am not a prayer warrior like some of my friends, but sometimes I think they go further than the ceiling and my mustard seed faith might not move a mountain, but it helps me walk on an asphalt road. Concrete too. And we are all thinking about you. Hug that little Gracie and your grandson for us all and our hearts are with you, Allen and Katie and Noah also.

Happy Birthday Steve, even though it is late. I usually do not know what day of the week it is anyhow. Hope you enjoyed your family.

My son's first painting that he sold was of a woman in a strait jacket, tangled hair falling across her face, bent over on a black and white tile floor. There was a crow in the picture, maybe more than one. A neurologist that used to be a psychiatrist bought it for his office. They would use my word salads in psych institutes as word primers for the insane. But, thank you.

Honeychile, you know I don't have answers. If I did, everyday would run so smooth. As for what others think of me (right now I am questioning if that is far or for), like that makes a difference? If I cannot speak good old plain redneck southern English, how can I possibly judge how someone should act? Well, it is kinda like Louisiana weather, I run along kinda warm and a modicum of peace, and then I am looking up at the sky and seeing that shaggy haired, shaggy bearded man of mine and I just cry. He has a big scar on his leg (see, I didn't even use past tense), where he threw a damn shotgun over a fence to climb the fence (did I mention he was a little more southern redneck than me? About 37 miles more southern). Anyhow the gun discharged and took a big piece of the meaty, muscle portion of his lower leg. He was lucky that was all it took. He had this smooth wide scar and today I could almost feel it. I am not getting all sexed up here, just miss him so bad I can remember every part of him. Yep, I have it bad (the grief part). My cousin up in Michigan, we are so close, and her poor husband is a year older than me. All state, all whatever in college running back, and he has had arthritis, inherited, and football associated too. All joints replaced. She has gone through this with me and now her husband has blood clots in his lungs. They will give him blood thinners, but that is dangerous too. He has a pacemaker and this good ole southern boy, up in Michigan to be around his two doctor sons and their kids, and they all spend so much time together. Both doctor sons have helped keep both of them, diabetics both, has kept them alive and I don't want my cousin to lose her husband. I don't want her going through what we are going through and there is nothing I can do. Don't you worry about people validating or invalidating you because you taking care of you, and whatever you think of yourself is what counts. You are the one that counts, you are the one that has to take care of you. I just speak in word salads.

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.” ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol I feel like we have had a Christmas miracle in our last report from Butch's family. We have family all around us. Blood does not always make us family. Your fur babies are your family. My granddaughter is adopted and is my most precious Christmas gift every year. There are other people who do not have family. I don't know if you live near a place that feeds homeless people, but my admiration for Gwen and all of you who volunteer your time to those less fortunate has no bounds of pride for "knowing" you. I'm afraid my Merry Christmas angel does not look like me. My feet are a lot smaller than hers. Please have the happiest holidays that you can. So will I. A preview: I have bought a table cloth to set across boxes I am not ready to unpack and also all the stuff of my son's that I have no where to put. Christmas on boxes. I signed a lease for another year, so this is home. And everyone will be here. If they do not get along with each other, there are three rooms with TV's in them. But I will take a Xanax about noontime.

Maybe my mustard seed faith prayer went further than the ceiling. Butch, we will take every bit of good news we can hear. I know your hands are full with those two grandkids of yours and what a blessing we all are given. You have the task/joy of playing Santa Claus. Thank you Kay.