Margm

You all have got to know I was saying this "tongue in cheek." Not many people are as lucky as I am and get to keep their mates and parents as long as I did. My family has a long history of the females living into their 90's. Sometimes living to that age is not a blessing though, because all had lost their husbands, and even though we joked that the "sisters" were so mean they outlived husbands that were glad to go, we all know that is not true. My SIL outlived four loves of her life with them all having heart attacks. She was teased about being too much of a woman for these men, but when you have lost a mate, you realize teasing is not something you do. The SIL spent time in a psych ward thinking she killed her mates. Life throws rocks at us sometimes, we just have to dodge them. If my mom had lived the last 11 years happy and mobile, even at 95, her death would be a calamity. She and my sister had/have a fighting spirit that I don't have. No one, when they are in their right mind, wants their adult children changing diapers for them when they get old. My mama is at peace now, and that is something she has not known for many years. Also, I believe my sister is at peace, or will be when we get all the financial snafu's taken care of. She has been a prisoner as much as my mom. I met the man last night who moved his daughter in the apartment by mine. He is from the small town up the road. The place where Mama's final resting place is. And, of course, he was a distant relative. Aren't they all? I am truly home.

I am just too emotional I guess. My sister is not. She likes her solitude. I asked if she wanted me to come spend the night and thank goodness she didn't. She said "Margaret, I don't believe in ghosts and Mama would not hurt me anyhow." I'm afraid I might not have my magical, mystical imagination, but I do have a weird imagination and I do get haunted easily. By what, I don't know. Thank you all, and of course you all know just what to say. I honestly think Mama had postpartum depression after my sister was born and it snapped somewhere in her brain. My mama before my sister was born was a loving, sweet, beautiful woman that taught me poems, read to me and would drive by my school just in hopes of seeing me. My sister is nine years younger than me and for some reason Mama never let her forget she was supposed to be a boy. I think somehow something was lost after that birth and my sister did not know the same Mama I knew. But, I believe she is with her sisters now and her mom and dad, Billy and my dad. And, that is what I want to believe. My mom was not happy when she lost the use of her legs and could not get out in the dirt and farm. We will bury her cremains next to my dad under the stone that she bought back in 1984, when my dad passed. Her date will be entered on her side. The box has to be buried 24 or 25 inches deep and my uncle will have the funeral home take care of that too. Well, I will be 74 on August 13th. I am now a 73-year-old orphan and widow. .

It's over. The little stubborn woman is gone.

Oh George, I thought I was all cried out. That is Mama's favorite passage and she would say it all the time. I know she must have known her little mind was not "just right." She was never lacking in intelligence. She had a full paid scholarship to college even back in her days and her mom would not let her take it. She always said that there is a fine line between genius and insanity, and I believe Mama knew that line very well. She finished a vocational technical business course after I was married and her mama told her she was too old for all that foolishness. She loved working though. Worked for lawyers and then for the state. Stayed angry at my dad for getting sick and dying and making her miss out on a promotion she had upcoming. I think I stayed angry with her from the time she read my diary when I was 15 until now. And now, all I remember are the good things. Life's a bitch and then you die. Thank you George for all your prayers, they are needed. And yes, we can just say what we want to on here, someone always understands. .

My uncle called while I was at the credit union drawing my money out for the funeral home. He had a friend who owns a funeral home and had already had everything taken care of. I thanked him very much. He is 81 and is my dad's youngest brother. He was my kids high school principal and they stayed in trouble all the time. He suspended my son from school a lot of times which delighted my son. Anyhow, he owns the plot that our family is buried in and tried to get me to put Billy there. Now, that is all I needed for Billy to haunt me, bury him with all my kinfolks. I told my sister and she was not as happy about it as I was. The only way I figure it is she wanted me to pay. I signed everything over to her, I want no part of the land or anything in the house. I could not figure why she would be angry at my uncle paying. I think he comes from ancient stock that when the brother dies the oldest son takes care of his brother's family. He asked did I mind, and I didn't. My sister thinks Mama will go tonight. I just don't know. My daughter stayed. My sister chain smokes and does not care who is around, so Kelli won't be able to breathe tonight. She is allergic to the smoke. That's all for tonight. Hope everyone has peace this week. Thank you all for your kind words. My head is shaking up and down. My chin does that when I get nervous and don't have a Xanax. TMI.

Thanks Marty. My sister says she is just being her stubborn self, but if she had had her way, she would have gone months ago. She did not want to stay. Marty, we sat and watched Billy's dad, my dad, and now my mom go through this race, crawl with time. Relax sounds so much better. My kids are over there with her. I will gut up and go too. Not because of guilt though. I don't consider it an honor to be with them at their last breath. I am a mama. I do not want my kids going through this. Somehow walking way out into that Ouachita National Forest on one of the back mountain roads, sitting up against a tree, way, way away from my truck and only being found months later with notes in my pockets and socks telling who I am. Somehow, if they do not have to see me, like I saw Billy, that is a much kinder thing for loved ones. I know there are those with different opinions, and my religion would not let me do it. Billy once asked me about my faith and belief. He asked didn't I question some things. I said "no, if that is the way I have been taught, then that is the way I want to believe, I don't want to muddy the water." Simplicity. No deep thinking. No one could ever accuse me of being a deep thinker.

Thanks.......I feel mean. I have felt mean for 10 months.

Mama is drawing her last breaths. People say things to me. I shake my head up and down. If you cannot see me, I am shaking my head up and down. I know the rules of etiquette. Not everyone does.. Mama lived 95 years. She was a strange woman. (Hey, the apple did not fall far from the tree.) When it all comes down to it, do we really care what people say? Some know how we feel. They offer empathy. Others offer sympathy. One of these days, if they are "thinking people" they will cross over this threshold and possibly think "I wonder about what I said to them when their loved one passed away." My relatives send me little quotes to help me along. I read them. They don't help me along. Hey, they tried. My daughter loves having the attention when someone is sick, when she is sick, when someone dies. She eats up all the flowery words. I don't know if I admire that quality or despise it. It is kind of like my mother-in-law was so poor that churches brought them Christmas baskets. Billy hated it. My mother-in-law ate it up (the attention). I'm sorry, I am a mean person lately. I have no care what people say to me. I should carry a card around my neck saying "do not engage the monster". My son went over there. In the old days my dad would have visited the home of the sick and dying. My son and my sister argue politically. My sister is an antagonist and my son, just like his dad, joins in. Actually, Billy in his later years just ignored my sister's opinions, as I have learned to do. She was surprised that I have all of her political crap hidden and do not get it on my FB page. I can go to her page and read what I want to read but she has no original thoughts, just news articles about politics. Yes, I am in an agitated mood today. I hope Billy and my Daddy and all Mama's sisters are there to meet her. Now, that is my idealistic faith part of my religion. I hope there is no disappointments in heaven because I know how one of her sisters believed/or rather did not believe and maybe two.. But, if it is like it is written her mom and dad will be there, my dad, Billy, and that terrible mother-in-law of hers (who was actually an angel even when she was on earth, my mammaw).

My mother has not passed yet, it is any moment. My sister wants me to call the funeral home. I remember in shock talking to the funeral home for Billy and asking them if I could wait until the first of the month to pay them. They said "no, did he have insurance." He did, but as I was not expecting him to die (which was unrealistic), but was what I did not expect, I was going for a miracle, but real-life hits you in the face. My sister says my mother used her burial insurance to go to Branson. That would never have happened, even if she had been in the throes of Alzheimer's. She wasn't. I know where every bit of her money went. My cousin (unknown to me) sent my sister money for the burial a couple of years ago. I told my sister that hospice had to notify the funeral home and then I would call them. I understand she wants to get things over with, but she still has to be pronounced, I think.. I may be wrong. Lots of stuff I don't understand.

I have mentioned my lack of patience with things. I don't know if it is PTSD, but as old as I am, I have had my friends and grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles pass away. I saw Billy's dad and my own dad die in a hospital in a way I never understood, our animals get euthanasia in an honorable death, but our humans are put through things that have to be as cruel as when in years gone by they were quartered as punishment. I said life and death were a riddle I did not understand. My mom lies in that bed, oxygen under her nose, a bag of bones. Now she is allowed no nourishment whatsoever. Her body lies there in pain. That electrical spark of Alzheimer's in her brain won't let her go. Our animals are treated more humanely. My heart melted all over the place when Billy left me. Now I feel a freezing of my heart, my whole body, my whole life. Nothing makes any sense. It is not all about me, it is about the riddle of life and death. I go to doc the 10th. I worked with doc's for 43 years. I have no faith in them either.

Thanks Mitch. I can say I have not run away scared when I am with Mama lately. She hurts though. That is just wrong. At 95, they should not ever let her hurt. They could not give my dad enough morphine to keep him from hurting, he was rattling deaths door but if they gave him more it would kill him. I wonder if that is what they call an oxymoron.. Like I said, life and death are a riddle I will never comprehend until it is too late to tell anyone the answers.

Good luck with this Kevin. You have the attitude to succeed and I am sure you will. You quoted Bette Davis, the actress, in other words. She said getting old was not for sissies. It isn't, but I'm afraid I am a sissy. Like I said, I know your attitude will carry you through this.

Thank you George. Honestly, Billy could not stand for me to get angry with him. If I got angry with him he would stay angry with me until I apologized over and over for being angry with him. I miss that Billy the Kid so much. When we first got married, he would stay angry with me for a week at a time. I was never the type to stay angry long. So maybe him leaving me, and him saying I was him and he was me, maybe I am him. If I am, I sure miss me.

I "think" I care. I know I should be right at my mother's side. I am letting my sister down. Nothing I can do but maybe turn her ever so often, but that hurts her too. My sister is wanting me to go ahead and pay the funeral home, but somehow that seems ghoulish. I have no feelings for pets. I won't hurt them but I don't want them. A little autistic boy in the psych office yesterday (about 10 or 11 years old) tried to pull my Kindle out of my hands and then put his head over it I did not recoil from him, but I would not let him have my Kindle. I know it cannot be helped, his autism, but my lack of patience is not like me at all. I have 100% patience dealing with my 17-year-old granddaughter but had none whatsoever with my great granddaughter after seeing her for the first time. I do not go around kicking animals and children, but I have no patience being around them at all. I was around all my friends, probably about 20 of them (I had had a Xanax) and was very talkative and friendly with them the whole day. It is almost like I am just too tired to put up with anything that is not necessary. I do go out. By that I mean I go to Walmart, take my granddaughter to the counselor, take my daughter to the doctor, but I was not this mean before Billy left.

Gin, I am always glad to get up in the morning without the disappointment of some mornings thinking Billy is right beside me. It seems like that is such a let-down and terrible start to the day. Thinking/dreaming he is there and then realizing he is not still happens. Not as often. It would seem like a comfort, but the realization that he is gone just starts the day with a downer mood. The mood is never happy, but sometimes it is numb. I don't have to think. I don't know what phenomenon makes a person "not think" but I don't mind having it sometimes.

I felt her pain Steve. After 13 years, I saw her tears. It is similar to the horror of 09/11. We might not have been there, but we now feel the pain of all those families who lost their loved ones. And, we know, the families are still in pain. And, so are we. And now when we hear of death, we think about the ones that are left behind and we feel their pain. Again, the same as in 1621, John Donne's poem hits me, as it always did, but now on a personal level. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." The woman yesterday lost her mom and dad to an accident when she was 26. I still have my mom at 95. No, I do not have her, Alzheimer's has her. It holds her prisoner. The little bag of bones hurts now and the narcotics keep her asleep most of the time. Life and death to me are a riddle with no answers.

I will pay my bills on October 1st. I will have trick or treat candy for kids on the 31st.. Between the 1st and 31st, I will numb/dumb down. And to think, October was spent in Arkansas looking for the prettiest places where the leaves were changing. I am back in Louisiana with the swamps, no mountains. I am again a flatlander. I read each day from A Grief One Day at a Time. It is put together and commented on by Alan D..Wolfelt, PhD. Part of what he said today is this: "We don't have to try to hang onto our grief, though. It has marked us. It's part of who we are. We can't move on without it any more than we could move on without our elbows and knees." I met a woman yesterday, about my age in the psychiatrist's office where I had taken my daughter. My daughters car was being worked on. I was only too happy to take her. She would have done the same for me. My kids sometimes are problems, but I think they probably think that about their mom also. Both are having relationship problems. But, this woman, she lost her husband 13 years ago. She teared up talking about him. He had had a bone marrow transplant and was in remission from leukemia. Something about red cells, white cells, oxygen getting to the cells, and he was doing okay. A neighbors house caught fire. A little three year old was playing with the cigarette lighter left around by the mother. (Guns are not the only weapons that kill). Her husband ran into this house to try to save the little girl. I don't know where her parents were. Something about the smoke, the lack of good oxygen made him get out of remission and he died. She said she blamed that mother for so many years, and the cigarette lighter. The little girl lingered 2-3 days and died also. He died a hero, but he was still just as dead. It reminded me, I blamed the whole state of Arkansas. We have to forgive a lot of things, and most of all we have to forgive ourselves. Those are words on a page, I put them, I understand them, just not ready to practice what I preach.

Gin, my heart is with you. This month is 10 for me too. We miss them. I quit counting weeks. I don't know if I will live long enough to count years. I don't care.

You know it WW.

Well WW, i really admire restraint. You don't have any idea how much I admire it. What I admire most is a big old haymaker to the right jaw. But, no, you cannot do that. I know you want to, but buying a new pair of dentures is expensive, not to mention bail. So, I guess we will have to go with restraint. (You are a mean one Mrs. Mims). You could plead temporary insanity. I think that would apply to me all the time.

WW, lock your door when you see him coming, don't answer his calls and maybe he will leave you alone. Sounds like he is more trouble than he is worth. Hugs to you.

WW, I don't understand the law, but I don't know why he has anything to say about your life now. Keep on keeping on. Head up.

Just a little something else. Billy used to be the one to drive the "short bus" to the different clinics, hospital appointments and tests for all the family, and I don't know why we called it the short bus. Now, it is me. I have to take my daughter to her psych appointment this morning. I don't mind. My mom is in a lot of pain. This is new. She is bedridden now and develops decubitus ulcers. Still her little Alzheimer's spark in her brain lives. I think sometimes clarity comes on us at different times. I will forget about it for awhile. I now live in an apartment that is one of the oldest in my town. I remember them from living here before. They are perhaps the best kept apartments of any that have been built. Other than a washer and dryer inside the apartment, I have no complaint. My window looks out on the basketball court across the street, the many grills and places for people to picnic. The very nice swimming pool and crape myrtles everywhere. Not cheap, just old. They have many senior apartments in this small town. The town itself is still 10 times bigger than what I left, but I did not want one of those senior apartments. I wanted to be where I could see life. I saw wild life at the other place, animals, birds, and I see wildlife here, humans. I knew at the senior apartments there would be ambulances often. This morning an ambulance came by, slow, followed by three police cars, slow. You knew why they were in no hurry. Down to the very end of the street. I know I have not met the people who live down probably eight or more apartment buildings away. Reminded me of a John Donne poem I have heard all my life. Just as significant now as it was in 1621. "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee." WW, we all fight for that miracle. I think sometimes it happens. I felt it happened twice for my own health. Now those miracles seems empty, just like we all feel most of the time. My heart is with all of us.

Billy never thought he would live past his 70's. Me, in my best God performance, I told him he was. True, all family passed away, even cousins, before age 72. His mom had lived to 72, all others before their 70's. I took his blood pressure, and once a couple of years ago, I detected a missed heart beat. I got him an appointment at local clinic. We were no strangers to this clinic. Fast appointment with cardiologist. Follow-up, all tests, everything okay. Mole on his back bled, direct appointment with dermatologist. With our insurance we did not have to wait for referrals. That taken care of, followed up, and two appointments each year with his nephrologist. In fact, one the last of August, last year. We never got a bill. The doctor was a family friend. I helped get Billy to 75, but my performance of God got no stars.

One of the first research articles our doctors wrote, that I typed according to submission rules, was on smokeless tobacco and cancer of the kidneys. We got it published. Billy had smoked since he was old enough to be aware of cigarettes. When he was in the ER in his 40s he was admitted to the ICU. He was fixing to have a stroke, his blood pressure could never be brought under control. I went back to our medical library (no Google back then) and researched and researched. No, I was not a doctor, but I understood medical terminology, it was my job. They called it malignant hypertension and said he would have to be on 2-3 meds the rest of his life, which they were not too enthused about. I started crying. I told the doctor that maybe he had too much renin in his blood work, the doctor scoffed at me. But, to his credit, he checked for kidney function and his creatinine was so high they did other tests. He had three kidney arteries and two were occluded. They put stents in his arteries and Billy slowly weaned himself off cigarettes. But, nicotine had control of him and he dipped Copenhagen the rest of his life. When he died, the cancer was all over him, in his adrenal glands next to his kidneys and all over his insides, liver eat up. Billy was a "health nut" and took so many vitamins, so many different pills to help him be healthy and was so proud he had cut down the Copenhagen to a couple of cans a week. It was too late though and we thought all his symptoms were related to his slipped disks. You cannot go back and change a thing.