Margm

Look, when I said I was financially okay, I definitely did not mean I am financially okay. Billy and I lived a long time together. We did not go from job to job. I worked in a hospital so I could actually go from department to department and still stay in the same system. Billy had worked five years for the state. We saw greener pastures in Texas. That poor man went to work for a steel mill making more dollars than I could spend while he was being burned to death in the steel mill. We had drawn out his five years retirement. It did not take me long to go through that little bit of money.. His job at the steel mill would eventually kill him if he stayed there. Even with safety equipment we were visitors to the doctor often. Finally, he had part of a finger cut off. Well, lesson learned. Sometimes money is not everything. We lost five years of his retirement money. So, that meant we had to pay it back or he had to work that much longer to make it up. We were state workers. The retirement was great, but the pay monthly was living paycheck to paycheck. Billy was able to enjoy 18 years of retirement. My dad retired in May and found out he had terminal cancer in August. Billy was the smart one, not me. We paid into a retirement system and we both worked 80 years total. Am I rich? Without Billy I will never be rich. And, we have three other families that have to have my help, so when you think about diluting something into a quart jar so all can drink out of it, you realize you will always live paycheck to paycheck. At age 73, I am used to it.

Honestly, when I think about it, the word just makes me angry. Do I want to get bitter, angry, sit on the couch and have to have skin grafts to my behind. No I don't. When I was a child I would question Mama about the Bible. She did not have answers to my questions. But she did tell me that was something we as Christians do not do, we do not question the Bible. I took her at her word. It was there, it was The Word. I did not have questions about it. I do not like the word acceptance. I know, in my head, in my heart, we all go through "the natural order of things." We are born, we live, we die. Acceptance of this natural order of things is not in my hands. I know Billy is gone. I know he lived a long life. I know we hit milestones that others did not reach, I am thankful for that. If someone gives me a pile of dog poop in a sack, I am not going to accept it. It is not a gift, it is an abomination. Some things you really do not accept. Well excuse me Margaret, Billy is dead, he is gone, he is cremated in a box sitting in your hall. You have to accept that he is dead. Well, that sack of dog poop is there, I will not accept it, I will not have it in my house. I will not use the dog poop as an analogy for Billy's cremains. The dog poop stays outside of my house, my head, my heart, I do not accept it. I know he is gone. I know he is not coming back. If that is acceptance, then I have it. I will not accept the sack of dog poop. I don't have to. I know Billy is not coming back. And, as my grandmother wrote "being married to him was as close to heaven as I will be on this earth." Okay, so I will look forward to being with him in Heaven. Is there a heaven? Mama said don't question the Bible, so I won't. But I won't accept the sack of dog poop either. I accept his cremains. I realize they are not him. I realize he is gone. I have to accept the fact that he is not coming back. I do not like the word acceptance, the meaning, the implications any more than the sack of dog poop. Intelligently, I know I realize he is gone. Do I like it? No I don't. I don't like the sack of dog poop either. Realizing he is gone, realizing he is not coming back, that is as close to acceptance as I am going to get. Does it make sense. No it does not, but I don't have to make sense. I am me. My sister would try to explain that philosophically this is the way things stand. I took enough amphetamines in the 1970s that my brain is not wired like a normal brain, and the wax may never melt from around it so that I may think logically. Logic is death. It comes fast enough. After my death, I will have acceptance. Until then, the dog poop stays outside the door.

When Billy was with me, either he or I would sign cards to everyone we had to give cards to. The first time I had to buy cards at Christmas it was the most vacant feeling and honestly I just swore I would never buy cards again. Okay, Billy's retirement is more than mine so I figure any card I buy came from his money too so from now on I sign his name along with mine. In fact, I usually buy cards that say "from the two of us" or "from both of us." I might get looked at funny, but I had rather be looked at funny than I had to have that empty feeling. I will do this as long as I live.

Of course, I think she is an angel. She always tells me when I buy her something that one day she will pay me back. I tell her that it is not from me, it is from Dade (what she always called him) and there is never no payback. She never asks for anything anyhow, but I love buying for her. It makes me feel closer to Billy.

I told you Gwen, if they ask how you are doing, look them in the eyes and say "not worth a damn." If you want to be nice to them, as you are walking away just say "I'm really having a hard time of it." Nothing wrong with telling the truth. And, I guarantee you if you tell them "not worth a damn" then they might not ask as often. I have gotten so witchy in my old age. That is one thing I like about being old, you can get by with saying a lot you could not get by with being younger. I love that poem about "When I get old I will wear purple." I am not sure how it went but I like the whole intent of the poem.

They do don't they Karen? And bless your heart, you have two mortal wounds. Sometimes I can cry, but then I just quit. It does no good. He just plain is not coming back. He was just here yesterday it seems. I can see him sitting on the couch, but he is not there. I hate being morose. I will just go ahead and think he is kicking his heels up in Mexico with some dark haired senorita. Nah, not even that helps sometimes. I do hate being morose.

Just watching TV, enjoying the show, Bri is here with me. Then I think "he is not coming back" and I want to cry. Crying won't bring him back. So, I go back to watching the TV.

Mitch, just like with my friend telling me I was going to "find myself" now, her being a widow, she should have known. People just don't know what to say. My sister (who is the most unsocial thing I know of, asked me down to sit with my mom later in the month so she can go to a classmates meeting. Actually, it is worth me going the nearly 400 mile round trip just to get her around people. But, she was actually throwing it at me "socializing is so important." I told her I thought socializing was very much overrated. (This is someone who would not socialize for years, for no reason.) The thing is, I believe when we are ready we will start socializing again. That might be at one year, it might be at two, or it might be never. One of these days I hope the concentrating of this grief stuff will start to heal. All I want to do is read, just cannot concentrate for long.

Best medicine in the world for your heart Butch. She is gaining weight good. Love the pictures.

She actually was Billy's heart. She was born on my daughter's birthday. She was a nurse in the OB floor at the state hospital. She could not have children and after going through the year long court things she was ours. Her dad was from Thailand. Her mom had been in the hospital from the jail (thank goodness) because she had been on all the drugs on the street and the dad sold them. My daughter was afraid to bond with her because she was afraid they would take her back. Billy was not afraid. At that time we had a truck over camper and it was his plans if they did not let us keep her, he and she would head for Mexico. No way was he going to give her up. But, during court he was holding her and no judge in his right mind would have tried to take her away. Kelli would call in the middle of the night and living in Arkansas, Billy would head out at 2:00 a.m. to get her. Finally she just lived with us. Don't remember when this was taken, but Bri was a lot younger. But she loved her Dade and she is both of our hearts.

I have got to get off this computer completely. Why? So I can do everything I am procrastinating doing. But "normal stuff?" We no longer have anything normal. Your daughter helping is from the heart that you gave her. She see's mom is not in a "normal" situation and she is helping and that is to your credit for raising such a great young woman. I have a `16 year old granddaughter that makes me want to live each day and makes me want to hurry and get out of this house so I can help her live each day. She has lived with me and Billy all her life. She misses him. We are lucky to have these wonderful teenagers to help us live our very "not normal" life. Hugs to you both.

Just one more thing, and I hesitate to say this, but I really think that a lot of us on here think our mate was treated wrong. I retired from two hospitals. I have to pass by the one in Hot Springs that my Billy passed away in. I know some things were done wrong. I know they hastened his death. But the outcome in his death was beyond medical help. Now, having worked in the medical field for over 40 years, I do know secrets. One time the chief resident in surgery cut a vital part of an organ that made transplant immediately necessary. Lawsuit in the making. I wondered where they got a transplant so fast and figured (knowing the head of the surgery department, a neighbor on the lake where we lived), I probably figured he took the chief resident's liver and transplanted it. Mistakes happen. Lawsuits happen. In the department I worked in at one time there was a bookcase of lawsuits. My job was to type, not to report, not to investigate, but I typed a lot of "lawsuits" in the making. I do not know how any of them came out. I wish you well. I hope you get satisfaction. I never filed a lawsuit in Billy's death, but I do know things that happened in the ER hastened something that was going to happen anyhow. And, before I leave this state, I will go talk to the CEO. I will write it all up beforehand and have him read it in my presence. It won't bring back Billy. But, if in some small way, even one very tiny way, if it improves how the ER treats patients, it will be worth something. Again, I wish you well. I hope you get satisfaction.

DawnMarie, if you have read this forum, read all the other threads besides this "going through hell" because that is what we are all doing. Right now I am going through a hell that is of the legal kind also, and I cannot talk about it, not on here, not anywhere. But, your legal problems are definitely "going through hell." I think you will find a couple of other people on here who are "going through hell" with legal problems also. A little story: When my father-in-law died, he was as poor as the proverbial church mouse. Yet he had four children trying to divide up things that had no monetary significance whatsoever. They were in the living room fussing, actually fussing over who wanted what that poor man owned. He mowed the highways for his living, working for the state. He got a skin cancer from being in the sun all day that went unnoticed until it eroded into a vital part of his body and spread. He was not retired yet. My husband listened to all their fussing and said "I got all from my dad I could ever want." They jumped on him wanting to know what special thing he had obtained. Billy said "I had his love." They all shut-up instantly. My grandmother, a little country woman who had her small crossroads country store, she had land, she had even saved enough money to leave each of six surviving children and household items too. She had this legalized, but it was written on a "Big Chief" tablet of paper, written in a #2 pencil. She left each one land and money and she assigned parts of this little country house, (the floors had come from the gymnasium of the public high school when it was torn down), the wind would blow through the boards in the walls, a poor old house that had raised a huge family of kids that grew up into grasping, fussing family. She had one sentence in her will that she wrote. "Please do not fuss." Now, she knew this family, she knew they would all fuss until the last one lived (my mom). Nothing was drug through the courts though. But the legal system is brought into the deaths of our loved ones. Different states treat it different. I have tried to save out enough money to pay for my mom's succession, but I think the family is going to make it where I cannot do that. In Louisiana you have a succession, something for lawyers to make money off of poor people. I wish you well with your legal issues. I hope families that are torn apart by legal issues after death can come together. I hope that if the deaths were caused by neglect that satisfaction can be found from the courts. In the end though, what we have lost is gone. Satisfaction might be gained from the courts, families may be torn asunder, but we have to go through life without that person we loved more than our own life. Unless you can be like my MIL and at my FIL's funeral, she made a date with the undertaker. Life is strange. People are strange. Politics are ridiculous. Religion is something we have to have faith in. And, this forum is where you can tell your story. And, there are people who have a lot more sense than this old redneck country woman.

Speaking at Hay Festival, he said: “I felt very lucky to have fallen in love at an early age. We were teenagers. We fell in love, not just in lust. A lot of teenagers fall in lust and then it doesn’t last. But we knew this thing was forever, for as long as we would be alive. That’s how strong the marriage was.” “We were married for 59 years, we knew each other since we were kids. It was fast, she had cancer. (She passed away in April and this was his first public appearance). I put this on the "going through hell" post because I can only imagine Tom Jones has gone through the hell we all go through. He was a public figure and I remember reading a lot about him (I liked his music), but grief touches us all, rich, poor, well known, unknown. I remember when my dad and I had cancer at the same time, I remember reading about cancer so much and just like death, no one is immune to any of it. My heart goes out to Tom Jones, and to all of us on this forum. (Myself included).

Personally, after over 50 years with Billy, I cannot imagine "getting over" him either. My sister-in-law lost her four children's husband when he was in his 40's to a heart attack. She was pregnant at the time. Four children!!!! Okay, she started going with "Thad" and he had a heart attack and died right before they married, then the sheriff and her started an affair. Yes, he was married, but he was going to leave his wife, and I believe he would have if he had not had a heart attack and died. Finally there was Britt, and she married him. Her daughter heard her tell him one night that she loved him more than Jim, her first husband (the daughter's dad), and the daughter was not disappointed in her mom, she was happy for her. Yep, you guessed it, heart attack. She was a "wise-cracking" joking woman, a waitress with the personality that made lots in tips. People teased her that she was just too much woman for these men. Now, which man was her "soul mate?" I don't know, but the teasing got to her and she wound up on the psych ward for awhile. She thought she might have killed these men. Myself, only one soul mate. But other women and men have had more than one wife/husband. My friend that lost her husband back in the early 2000's. She remarried two years later. No children by this man, but they have been married 11-12 years. I would not dare ask her which man she loved the most.. Her mom was married to three men, they all died. I would not dare ask which one she had loved the most. I watched my SIL pass away. I was the only one in the room. First time to ever see this happen. No grimace, no facial changes, no movement of her body. She was just like a clock that needed winding to keep going. The sheet on top of her chest quit moving. She was gone. She had lost her daughter five months before to the same heart disease her first husband had. No, there will never be another for me, although I think it would PO Billy so much he might finally show himself. I hope one of these days to feel his closeness just like some of you feel the closeness of your soulmate. I am waiting. I know I have to be open to it also.

Gwen, of course we are all interesting. I find all of you equally interesting. Sometimes I just skim things, then sometimes my "run-on" fingers get in gear and I just have to keep slapping them to make them shut up. There are some people on here who have "no one" entirely and those people are the ones I wish I could share my vast family with. I love my family, but (I think you and I are acquainted with Xanax), but yesterday my immediate family had me taking three of those suckers. I'm "running as fast as I can" but it is not fast enough and sometimes one person cannot take care of three families. We have always done it before and my one "person" in my life who hates people, who hates to socialize at all, who wants to be a hermit and to be left alone (except when she needs my help), well, I have to keep interrupting what I have to do here to run take care of things 350-400 miles round trip away. I am close to being through up here, and without my son I would not be this close. But, I have to run him off so he can have a life of his own or I will be doing to him exactly what my mom does to my sister. And there is so much river running under that sentence, I cannot swim, so I won't get into it. I have no idea who I am but the picture of the old comic books "plastic man" comes to mind. DawnMarie, we all get on here to tell our "story." Sometimes we get the help from other people to help us live another day when we do not want to go on at all. And, I do not mean to "quash" your story. We all have to get our story out in the open to heal. And that is what this forum is all about, healing. We discuss our problems, our health, everything we can discuss and we get different opinions from different views. We make friends, friends that we wished we could go see and then you pull up a profile and find out they live in Chicago, Canada and Spain. You realize your RVing days are over with but if they were not, you would love to go meet these new friends. We have had people from South Africa and I think we had two separate individuals that seem to have disappeared. One woman in Brussels, who I hope got her son and went to some other country. In fact, you get friends that in the long run make you worry about someone besides yourself and your own situation. In the end, we are all running as fast as we can. Myself, I won't go back and see myself when I joined about October 20th, three days after my husband's death. I don't know where I got the mind to even look for this forum, I am hoping Billy maybe led me to it because of the many times I told him I could not live without him. His answers were always only "I know." So, maybe he led me here so that I would live.

Well, I think I am just going to go into my mythical imagination phase. You notice this is not mystical, but mythical. Billy used to go fishing on some lake down in Mexico with a bunch of guys he worked with. So, I am just going to tell myself he is off fishing on one of those lakes and fell in love with a dark haired senorita (is that a woman?) from down there and has a bunch of little Mexican kids to support now. That lie sounds better than the truth.

Gin, Billy was a number person. I will spell anything, but hate numbers. Yet, those were his numbers, the widths, lengths, circumferences, all kinds of numbers I had no idea what were, but he wrote them and I kept them. No rhyme or reason. Doesn't have to be. Gin, I don't know where anyone lives honestly, but I do wish we all lived closer. We definitely share a lot of feelings.

Okay, today Brianna and I went to Hot Springs to see " Captain America, Civil War" and yeah, I like those super hero movies. Came home, carefully packed the clothes I had put out in the living room that I had to give away, and saw reason to do just that. I have had them laid out for quite awhile. I packed all the ones I want to carry with me. He had lots of Tee shirts and I will sleep in them. It is now nearly 10:00 p.m. and I am just weary, worn out, but not down and out. He would have wanted these hunting men in this region to have those hunting coats that were really too many f or him to wear. i feel like I have done a day's work and going to bed. Not really sad, sad. If acceptance means you know they are gone, then I have had acceptance. He just plain is gone. I do have 54 years of memories though. Even the bad ones are good now cause they ended up good. Never will have a friend like him again.

My friend again "Now you will get to find yourself." Irritated the hell out of me. Billy was the one missing, I knew right where I was and moving any which way was painful. I sure am not that teenager that got married or the mother or the grandmother or the great grandmother, sister or daughter. Myself. Does not sound like someone I want to know. Maybe if I live long enough I might meet her somewhere along the way. Not a very interesting character really.

People ask me how I am and I say "Not worth a damn."

Gin, I took a truck load of "stuff" up to the thrift store tonight. I had put Billy's clothes so I would not wrinkle them too much. He had his hunting coats, some brand new, some with the fluorescent orange on them. I have had them out for well over a month. He had three sport coats that he only wore to funerals. I cried while I was packing them. These he had worn, but he won't wear them ever again. It hurt to get rid of them, they were such nice clothes. The men in this town are hunters. They even let school out during deer season. I also have some dog training books, coyote calling books and CD's, and a lot of hunting stuff he has not used in years. He used to love to call varmints up. I don't know why. There is nothing more bone chilling to me than to hear him making a wounded animal call and hear things busting through the thicket of trees in these Ouachita National Forest roads. Black pitch night. I hide in the cab of the truck and one time I just plain begged to go home. There was things out there I did not want to know what was. Boggy Creek Monster, Sasquatch, all kinds of monsters. Men do like their toys. Anyhow, I wanted to keep them because they were his. But, I damn sure am not going down some dark road and none of my women friends would come along with me to hear me sound like a wounded rabbit to arouse the blood lust in some monster in those woods. So, I decided to give them to the hunters up here, and there are many, who love to do this kind of outdoor recreation. I think he would want them to have all his calls, all his books, all his CD's. But, I hated to let anything and everything go. Never mind, and I know how stupid this is, I have a big double closet in my room in the apartment. I will hang my clothes and his clothes in it too. I kept all the clothes he wore. He would wear them till they were threadbare anyhow. He hated wearing new pants and shirts. I had them all packed, but they were still here in the house. They are gone now. I am okay.

Realistically George, I know I am too old to ever "get over this." There are some days that go by though and I think "Hey, I am doing okay, Miss the hell out of Billy, and that rascal won't talk to me. I watched that movie "Ghost" too many times. I think he ought to just knock something over to let me know he is around. I always believed in this magical, mystical, imaginative stuff. Love the movies about elves, forest creatures living under leaves, etc. Anyhow, some days are diamonds, some days are coal. Well, I won't say they are diamonds yet, but cheap rhinestones might suffice.

Love that picture and the name "Grace" fits her so well. She is our saving Grace. You take very good care of yourself Butch.

DawnMarie, I started reading your post. Yes, it is normal (if I can be called normal) to go over and over and over the final minutes, the things you wished you had done, the things you didn't do. The bad things that were done to our loved ones. I didn't read anymore of it because that is something that has been hard for me to do, I am trying to erase the last minutes from my mind. It had become a form of self-flagellation for me, trying to punish myself because I was not God and could not save his life. But, I think, from reading all of our remarks, those last days, those last few moments are so tattooed on our brain that it might take professional help to help take it away. I have got to the point that I remember how proud a man Billy was and he would have gotten his feelings hurt if that is my last memories of him. I did find lots of pictures of a younger Billy and I also found pictures that someone had taken of him laying in the hospital bed. They are all destroyed. I will remember my Billy the way he wanted to be remembered. I think in time you will also face that and try to forget the parts he would not want you to remember. I won't say I won't backslide, but I sure hope I won't.