Margm

Kevin, you are a brave soul, and I wish you luck and peace

Okay iheartm, "oh, me too" and I agree totally with all you say.

I have a stupid avoidance phobia. The year 2015 did not happen. September and October did not happen. I try not to read before January of 2016. I know how insane that sounds, I am not the most stable person in this boat.

George, I look at the number of posts I have written and realize either I just write a lot, many word salads, or I just cry help a bunch. Probably both. Some times I think I get to depending on all of you and need to break away, and as my friend says "find myself." I'm not ready to look in that mirror yet.

Joyce, you are one of the angels on this forum. Your caring, understanding heart comes out in your posts. I'm sorry any of us has to feel this pain.

I think I should have read this before starting my new topic subject. Would not matter really, I still could not write about Billy. I can on the forum. My mom was "different." Did not realize it growing up because she only socialized with her sisters, and they were all "different." When I was 15, I was given a diary. It had a key, and I hid it in a new suitcase that I could lock too. Mama, for some reason, she broke the lock on both and read my private thoughts written only to myself. An innocent 15 year-old's thoughts, written only for myself to see. After that, I lived under a microscope and writing only became a release later in life. I am still guarded. I am now never alone and look forward to my own apartment. But, when I am alone, I wonder how I will handle things, myself, feelings, facing really being alone. I somehow now can hide, but guess it is only reality I am hiding from. Probably counseling in my future. But, Billy went so fast, I wonder if that is such a bad thing. Yep, counseling is in my future, if I dig out of this hole.

I went back and read some of you using writing as therapy. I did not start this against you. I think it is a wonderful release. I guess this is like some get comfort from looking at pictures. Some get comfort from music. I went to a relative's site, Billy's nephew (my age), and he grew up with Billy. He came to see Billy during the five weeks after diagnosis to death, and Billy's picture was his site's main picture. I am sorry to say, it pushed me over the edge and this numbness became pain. That is my problem though. He grew up in the same house, as brothers. It brought him peace. Sometimes you have to face the thing that you fear the most. I, at near five months, am not quite ready. We do what helps. As someone said on this forum, "one size does not fit all." I hope one day to be able to wear other sizes.

Nah, I have had this since puberty, actually 6th grade. It is a paternal family trait. It just got worse in later years. My dad hid his with music, leading singing at our church, he just made it go along with the music beat. Our son is an artist, our daughter a photographer, they did not inherit it, and it only made me type faster.......I really cannot complain. I have Billy's in a beautiful wooden urn with a tree etched in the top with a verse etched into the top.

I love those books. My congenital tremor makes it where I color outside the lines and I get disgusted with myself and quit. Good thing my goal in life was not to be a neurosurgeon or waitress. I used to be able to color in the lines. Now my straight lines have loops.

Thank you Brat. I understand you, I hear all of you. Some of you, I have not come as far. It is me I don't understand. I read all of Marty's recommendations, (one I have not read yet) and I feel my feelings are as expected, but that big beautiful notebook seems so daunting and untouchable. I know faith is a personal choice, and I know I am at an impasse with mine. It is not for everyone, but I feel I have to have it to have any semblance of peace, any healing. I know it is as much a blank page to some as much as that first page in that notebook. A personal choice. I do know I have to go back to that house to get rid of it, but I am needed so much down in Louisiana I cannot do it till April. Then, people who are depending on my help are going to have to understand I have final things to finish. I wish Billy could help me, but if he could help me, I would not need to sell the house by myself, and I would not need the notebook. It is one thing I can put aside.

I am a writer. No, I am not published, but writing as a form of release of emotions has never been a problem. (As an adult) I write. I once had a blog. I write family history on Facebook for my friends. They love it. I read about a lot of you putting your feelings onto paper. I talk to Billy when I am alone. I picture him as the dragonfly that wishes he could break the surface of the water, but he cannot reach this water bug that lives below the surface. People have told me to put my history writings in a book form. I think about the Native Americans and how they pass their history down generation to gneration. My grandmother started writing the Walker's Chapel news for the parish newspaper when she was 14. Sixty years later, she was still doing it. Nothing earth shattering, but her writings are in the history section of the parish library. I have her life story in book form. I visited it often. Some of her "remembering" is published at some colleges. My sister teaches writing and has been published. Her writings are deep. Mine are superficial. I bought a big beautiful notebook to write my feelings about Billy, many pages. I write about him on this forum. My writings on FB have always been light with humor, this was before he left me, and he loved reading them. He wanted me to carry my writings further. I cannot put a mark in that notebook. We all have grief on this forum. I can write my grief to all of you. I cannot write my grief in a blog or on FB. I cannot write the first word in that damned notebook. Not even today's date. If I do that, it will make it true.

When your gone, you are missed. I find my mother's instinct worrying about you all when you are absent. I am still worried about Debi from Brussels. I have been so down that suicide entered my mind, but I could think of nothing that would not traumatize my family. Pure selfishness. I shake my fist to Billy often and say, "okay, I have to stay." I still have work to do. We all do.

That is so sweet. Right after Billy passed, my kids started taking things, nothing really valuable, but I surprised myself with my anger, ordering them to not touch anything of his. I have since relented, and you can see from this forum how each of the remaining mates handles things. His cell phone I cancelled. I am not at our house, our son is. He is fast to tell me "we didn't touch anything of Daddy's." I kept the phone and I would totally shatter if I heard his voice for real. I will save all pictures, but I won't look at them yet. So many things are hammer pounding reminders that he is gone. You are a good daughter. I have a good daughter and son and grandchildren too. They suffered a loss too. So did you. Thanks for posting.

Mitch, I am definitely no expert in anything but memory loss. I will say when the grief gets so bad, I purposely think of bad times, bad things he did, to keep from thinking about the missing the real him that hurts to remember. Kind of like using Neosporin and a Band-Aid to fix an amputation. Nothing helps. Time might go a long way to healing, but we will never grow back that missing appendage, and I think (IMHO) we will always suffer the phantom pain. Many years, many mistakes, but we had enough time that we both actually forgave each other's mistakes. Was he perfect, no he wasn't. Was I perfect, definitely not. But we were perfect for each other. Today my grief is a strange numbness. The phantom pain will return. I know I am treading water right now. No pun to Louisiana's flooding. But I cannot swim. (No physical danger) but lots of mental danger). My heart is with us all and our grief struggles. My job for 43 years involved punctuation and spelling the easiest and most difficult words. No problem. Since Billy left, I cannot spell my name. We have all lost the biggest part of our life. We have lost our arms, our legs, our heads, for sure our hearts. I wish some sort of peace for all of us.

Well, I think it only fair that I get to be one of the first to answer this. After Billy's diagnosis he went so fast I could do nothing. I told him each night I could not live without him. He would only say "I know." He knew he could not talk about it with me. I was going for a miracle. Only he knew it was not. going to happen and when he wouldn't/couldn't eat or drink, I took him to the cancer center for IV saline. When he held his beautiful hands out in submission I was angry and ignored him. We had months for my miracle. He left me the next few minutes with my head asleep on his bed. I was not there for him. Now, I understand 100% not having money and supporting our family. I understand too that cremation, memorials, funerals, obituaries in newspapers cost lots of money. Now I have a sister and mom that have gone through savings and after April will have. no money. Mom is fixing to be 95 and my heavily educated sister, will have no money. No means of support at all. In fact, Billy. and I were the only ones in this whole big family that flew with safety nets. He and I were the only safety nets anyone in this family had/have. We even paid for insect control for one "dependant" and her partner. So, the insurance money has to stay. Billy. did apologize to our son for being an enabler. all his life. Money is important, but sometimes you just really do not have enough to take care of everyone. Our pain is so real and all of our family hurts also. We all have to do without our mates, the co-enabler we lost. My heart is frozen right now and I have to take care of all the emergencies. I have all the responsibilities we shared at a time I am most vulnerable. I cannot fight, my answer right now is flight and become invisible. I have not perfected the disappearing yet. Good luck my fellow griever. You have come to a good place, wonderful caring people.

Ardeer, I talk to Billy all the time when I am driving. Four months here. I think we probably all do this. I tried screaming into a pillow, but it made my head hurt. I yell at him sometimes. This is a good place to come and find out everyone loses it often. My heart is with you. Keep posting. We understand.

I try to put myself in other people's shoes. We have terrorist attacks, airplane crashes, our men and women at war, and they all had family, And that is why I come here. We all share grief. Then someone mentions Joe Biden. This man says memories will bring a smile before it brings a tear. And that man has known grief. We all have. And, I am so fortunate to have not known this depth of grief before, and I don't want to know any more. It scares me.

The doc who saved my life was sorta like Alex in Grey's Anatomy. He had to be sent for anger management. I loved him.

It has only been four months for me. I have lots of family, plenty of friends (all friends allowing me my space), and I am not ready to be social yet. I was loading my truck at the Arkansas house, and my sister widow neighbor thought I was moving and was distressed. But, she had recommended that I go back home. I will do all of this in April. Billy and I, as a couple, were not social. We could go for hours without much conversation, just knowing the other was there, that was as social as we got. He was me, I was him, to quote him. If that was true, I guess we still are one, and I have to remember that. As I said, I am not ready to be social. If I am allowed the time, church will be my first "outing." Lots of responsibilities yet. I hope I am up for the chore. Lots of family doctor's appointments and procedures this month, (none mine) so flooded Louisiana is "home." I keep being reminded of a character ??? Frogman Henry singing "Ain't got no home, no place to roam, I'm a lonely frog, ain't got no home." Watching news on TV, actually with all this flooding, worse in news reporting times, I am fortunate to be in a dry place.

@HH: When the doc's dictated, they would not call it obese, they would always say "morbidly obese." Personally, I preferred the word "fluffy" and had I been ready to retire, I would have put "fluffy."

The last I heard, and that was earlier, we have had over 12 inches of rain. Creek washed out the road to my mom's house. Had to get meds to her. Got them. Too much rain. too fast. It is not finished. More to come.

The teaching hospital I worked for, the head of my department (I was on phone with patient) and reviewing if he should talk to patient. I told doc I did not know what the patient had. He said "I know what he does not have" and made the motion with his hand that meant money and had me transfer call to resident in clinic. .That very tall doc shrunk to the size he could not crawl under a snakes belly. I soon transferred to another dept. This doc had the respect of everyone, except the people who worked for him. Can you imagine he trained eight surgeons each year? I can only say one hospital I had retired from actually hastened Billy's death but 19 months before had saved my life. Mistakes are made, some lives are saved. I am not grateful yet.

I love genealogy. Not sure how we go back to Ann Bolyn (sp), but that would have to make Queen Elizabeth a distant relative.. Merriwether Lewis on this side of the pond. My favorite was a great uncle who went to jail for stealing a pig, and two distant relatives who were outlaws in Louisiana, one was hung, one was shot, I think. Billy used to try to explain to me second cousin twice removed, etc., but I hate numbers of any kind (except with $ in front of the numbers. Ben Franklin once wrote a letter to a young friend of his on subjects of the heart. He told him something about not getting serious about a young woman, to make love to an older woman because they were so grateful. I googled it once. I got a kick out of that.

Wow, I did not know that. When I was a kid we had library books biographies of famous people and I still like them. I took on Martha Washington and found I did not like her very much. Then Teddy Roosevelt and once it got into politics I quit it. But Burt Reynolds, well I finished that one.

I won't repeat our sundown to sunup experience ER visit. I know he was terminal, but we had just found that out. Yes, they did hasten his death. Yes, they did lie to us. Yes, they did do harm, they hurt him unmercifully. And I did the unthinkable, he was not DNR, the kids were not there and I let them do terrible things to him so my daughter could see him before his restarted heart failed again. What kind of person does that??? I knew he was gone. Okay, it's done. I cannot go back in time. You don't know how much stuff that man forgave me for. He forgives me. If his dragonfly wings could break the water's surface, he would tell me so.