Margm

My cousin was a teacher at college, PhD in English. After she retired, she just "let it all hang out." Now she does not teach it or write it either. But, sometimes when we forget to put a comma between some things, they say completely different things.. Since I quit typing medical reports, I forgot how to spell medical words, and do not care. Now my sister, she is something else. Billy's obituary was put in our county newspaper with his picture. People loved it. I just plain old countrysized it. She did not want it put in the city newspaper until she had rewritten it. So, it was not put in the city newspaper. But guess what.....July 20th, on his birthday, he will have his countrysized obituary placed in his memory in the big city newspaper. Billy would love that, the fact that it did not have to be proper English. As an addendum, lately when I write the word "mail" I always put "male." Another short circuit in my brain. And as another addendum, she informed me she was going to write Mother's. Hey, she has been her caretaker for so long, I don't know the woman anymore anyhow. But, she is my mom, and give or take, good or bad, the apple probably didn't fall far from the tree.

Good thinking. I admire that. Hate being out at night. Strange, scares me more up here in Arkansas with woods all around me than in Louisiana with people all around me.

Gin, all of my "girl" friends, we have our dinners/lunches in the daytime so none of us will be on the road at night. I would feel bad, but there are about 15 of us (most all widows) and none will drive at night. So, see how smart you are, you drive at night.

You know I understand that completely. Brianna could get Billy to take her to teenage flicks. I would not go to one of them because this guy I really liked played a bad person in the movie, so Billy took her. When she was little she would fix his hair, paint his fingernails. Put makeup on him, which looked funny with a beard. She liked keeping him with one blue or purple fingernail that I kept thinking he had hit with something hard. Your time is coming.

I only have one grandson, and he is somewhere, none of us know where. His little brain is fried from drugs. It is such a sad case that we are happy when he is arrested for selling or just because he has drugs on his person. He is one of the most handsome boys I have ever seen. Grandsons are wonderful, just like sons, but somehow "the female of the species is more deadly than the male"........to quote Rudyard Kipling. They capture men's hearts. But we love our boys too.

I think this topic provides well a lot of different posts, so I will put a little anecdote today. My last batch of books to give to the thrift store (proceeds go to Mount Ida's Nursing Home). Book titled How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People. Got to admit, I never read either book but probably needed them the most.

I think we are a pretty good bunch. Sometimes the pain might make us "bite" but we always bounce back and appreciate each other again, and understand. And sometimes what felt like a bite was really a hug, and we realize that too.

I have a friend who posts her adorable great grandson on Facebook. And, just like your granddaughter, it always makes me smile. Thank you Butch.

Peter, I am so glad the male portion of our community show you that this is something they have had to endure also. I wish it was the hardest part over with, but you will have more hard times. I think I am doing good for "the condition I am in" but then something knocks me down. I am not brave to get back up because I know I am going to get knocked down over and over. But as long as I can, I am going to get back up. And the hard part is, I don't want to get back up, I want to be with him. Eventually you will learn that something depends on your getting up and it does not make you happy, but it is necessary. In the back of my mind I still wish I could have disappeared in these vast forests, go to where I would not be found until hunting season, and even then maybe not. I am trying to find my faith and my old faith told me that I might not be with Billy again if I offed myself. So, joining him, as much as I wanted to, it was fraught with danger too. We, everyone on this forum, we are just making it day by day and sometimes those days are standstills. I have repeated so many times, at my age, I have many widow friends that understand me and if I need their help, they are with me. Please follow us. We, each of us, are only inching our way, but my friends say it gets easier. I don't know what gets easier, breathing, quitting crying, quitting feeling so guilty. I don't know what gets easier, but I can tell you in these eight months I have had some "easier" times. Just keep reading. You have already seen how many people are reaching out.

Kay, you are a good woman. We love you.

We will find out. Possibly I will be in a terrible fix, possibly it will be okay. That is one thing I have learned lately, there are terrible fixes and then there are terrible fixes. And, why do they call them "fixes?" Sounds like it will be okay if it is fixed. Semantics.

Somehow "Cool Hand Luke" and "Shawshank Redemption" resonates with all of us. There are good people in horrible situations and there are horrible people in swanky situations. I have always heard that God says "Vengeance is Mine." I am a terrible person because I want to be hiding behind a wall when I see these terrible people having "vengeance" distributed.

I don't know if I am doing right or not. Probably best to go with a realtor, but I do trust this lawyer. If things do not go right, I will have to list. Right now I've got to get to Louisiana to help my sister, my granddaughter, and "save the world." I am afraid my sister is drinking again. I know this shows how low I have become, but if I had to stay with my mom 24/7, I would drink. It would kill me, but some fates are worse than death. I realize I cannot save the world, but I only hope there is still time for my granddaughter to have a happy life. She is too young to be trampled upon. Sometimes we handle life all wrong and we have to suffer the consequences. I do not like to see the innocent suffer. I do not like to see anyone suffer, but certainly someone who has not lived yet. We all eventually suffer the consequences of our actions, but let the guilty suffer. But, who died and made me God.

Patty, that is my son's favorite movie ever. I know he has it memorized.

Well Karen, I think the worse that was said to me came from relatives. My sister tries to use psychology on me, tries to make meaning of quotes and then my daughter got in one of her manic anger moods; right after Billy died she said she wished it had been me. In her epic midnight to morning messages to me, she told me that again. All I could tell her was that made two of us. And it does. Nothing has changed. The house is probably still going to sell, but I think this is the lowest I have felt since Billy left. I just cannot get up any energy to finish it up. I have to.

When I worked for the neurology dept. at the medical school I already had my tremor. My doctors all assured me it was congenital, and sure enough, my dad's had just advanced to a hard to write kind of tremor. He still led singing every morning and night at the Baptist Church. But, the rise and fall of the song book hid a tremor. My grandfather and his brother had both died with Parkinson's, long before anything was known. It affected my grandfather's mind and at age 56 he was put in the state hospital.. He had chased my aunt up into the field with a knife. (She always was a bitch, but I guess this was not the thing to do.). Daddy, as the oldest and the sheriff took him to the asylum. Killed my dad for him to ask "Elvie, where are you taking me?" (He died of pneumonia two weeks after admission). The man had always been cold, and had beat daddy when he was 17 for leaving a gate open. Daddy just took it, that was the way he was raised. My doctors said that the two brothers had probably had a mild case of encephalitis together and no one thought then that parkinson's was hereditary. I retired in 1997. That was the year they found out that there were markers that marked it as hereditary. My head does not shake, but my chin does when excited or anxious (often). The Xanax stops it. So yes, parkinsonism is one of the dreaded diseases also. I'm sorry Kevin that you had to go through this. My mom has had it for so long it makes me think it might be some other demyelinating disease of the nerve tissues, or even of her brain itself. Doc supposedly said it was Alzheimer's though. So many of you have gone through so much. I am sorry.

Right now I just want to protect my granddaughter, which by law I do not know where I am. She scares my granddaughter and me so much, I just don't know what to say. I have seen Bri go back with her just because she thought she had to only to more mental abuse.

Kay, I think she might be a whole different person without medications. And, this is from someone who will not stop Xanax. She takes so much medication that you do not know where the crazy began and the insane ended. Terrible to talk about someone like that. I do love her. Billy always said there was nothing but two ways with her. You had to love her or you had to hate her. We loved her because she was ours. She did have nice periods. My son made the analogy of a beautiful snake that you reach down to pet and you get bitten. Dying you look at the snake and said I just wanted to pet you, the snake looks at you and says "I'm a snake you idiot." There were a few more words thrown in the reality one.

I've lost my husband, I will soon lose my mother, my sister is in not a very good shape after taking care of Mama, my son will be here Friday to help me. My daughter, she is alive and we have always forgiven the ugliness, and some of it was intolerable and should never have been tolerated, so sorry afterwards. She let me know today that she wished I had gone first. I told her that I did too. I have always felt she would be happier with me being dead from a long time ago. My first psychiatrist, back in about 1996, I asked her when I could get off antidepressants, and she told me when I got rid of my daughter. So, this is nothing new. She is very toxic. She is the typical borderline personality person that the book was written about "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me." I sometimes think she went into this stone cold sober and came out like the guy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." But, at least he was silent. She spent the whole night writing me hate mail on FB Messenger. Billy always told me not to read it. I read some, enough to know there is no change in her. And, when it all comes down to it, it has always been my fault. Everything that happened. And I guess I did bear her, so I guess it was my fault. I wish her no harm, only wanted happiness. She loves me so much she cannot stand that I love other people. She was supposed to be the only one.

I don't know any thing. Even where the papers are. My oldest granddaughter came in and spent a few weeks and "cleaned up things" and I could not find last years income taxes and have not found lending company's contracts yet. Am looking.

But, if I didn't mention it, barring complications the first people that looked at the house, before the realtor got it want it through a lawyer in town. I know her and trust her, but I do not have business sense at all. Neither did Billy though, but he sure could look more intelligent than I can.

I'm sorry folks, it seems like we are hit by a flood, then earthquake, now Tornado Kelli. Kelli goes into manic anger episodes and she spent the whole night writing me hate mail. She will be spent and sleep today. She did this right before Billy died also and while he was sick he was putting up with her manic anger. I know he did not want to go but putting up with Kelli's manic anger is something we have gotten guardianship twice, she would take her meds and daughter went back with her. My granddaughter, and all of us, have suffered so much mental cruelty from this girl and yet when it is your child, you forgive and forget. My granddaughter is being treated for social anxiety and it is from my daughter's many manic anger episodes. She has never physically hurt her. But the mental anguish to all of us is only healed by death, and Billy slipped away from it. I have someone to buy the house. I have to get all papers ready and I am really a nervous wreck, but I have to pull myself together, I have to do this right now.

No quotes. I have just finished going through my books and the ones I will save, the ones I will throw away. I thought this part would be hard but instead it brought on anger. I miss Billy so much and we have had a lot of health problems. We kept these Arkansas back roads walked very often, for a long time it was a regular thing but when we started homeschooling our granddaughter, not so much. I won't bore you with the titles. I don't know how many books there were. I did remove the slips of paper as bookmarks with his exercise regimes marked on the bookmarks, the number of "squats" and all the other terminology regarding health management. I told you in August he was riding the elliptical 30 minutes at a time. I have ridden it 30 minutes before when I was dieting and exercising about four years ago. You quit and riding that sucker five minutes is tough. But, he was riding it 30 minutes at a time. He was a dying man. Just a few weeks from death. He had cancer all over him. And the health books. The health books with the diets set out, not for losing weight, but for getting healthy. We walked all over these hills using our trekking sticks. All this health stuff but he could not give up the poison that I am sure helped lead to his death. I know he wanted to. And my mother has gone into kidney failure and it is a matter of moments, hours, days. My daughter is down there. I am still clearing out up here. One night when I kept her I saw her face in the death mask Billy's was in and I left hysterical. I know I am going to feel guilt about this. My sister took care of my mother. I never did and I know I will suffer for not liking my mama. I loved her. Like Billy told me one time, he loved me but he did not like me. But you have to love your mother, she is your mother. I don't understand this Alzheiimer's. Pat Summitt passed in a short time. I think my mama has had it her whole life. It is a very angry, mean disease. Tonight I am hurting. Tonight we all are hurting. But tonight, I am angry. The health books were all thrown away.

Don't know what those little girls do, but our Brianna was Billy's heart.

Laura, they offer a lot of training for (I don't know what to call them), technical jobs. Mine was business. So was my mom's. My daughter's was nursing. They have mechanics, and I am going to start lying if I tell you all they do. It is what schools were talking about when they were talking about getting rid of things like literature and subjects like that. Myself, I think I prefer studying history and things like that now more than I did in high school. I hated school but could do shorthand and typing. Shorthand went obsolete right after I finished, but this was over half a century ago. I know they have all sorts of computer things. I went to college when I was 29 and I enjoyed the heck out of it. At `16-17-18 I was more interested in boyology. My granddaughter would love to do something behind the scenes in her favorite subject.......Broadway. They have a picture of her in her yearbook asking her in the 3rd grade where she would most like to visit and she said Broadway. She went to a counselor from Pakistan that was in the city in Arkansas and the woman told her she would like to take her to go see her biological father's home country of Thailand. Brianna looked her in the face and said "Please, I would prefer to go to New York City." We were in Walmart when she was about four and this dark haired woman that had a table set out of tooled leather objects, she looked at her and said "that girl will be famous one day." Of course, she is special to me. I want to take her up the east coast and show her Boston, show her the coast of Maine, and also find tickets to a Broadway show. I might not live that long, but that is what I would like to do.