Margm

Joyce, please let us know how you are doing. Hospitals are not the place to be.

“The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.” ― Voltaire And I usually do. I love "edit."

Marty, I am making it my priority to go back and read these. Talking to the pastors did not help. Perhaps I should not mention all this, and I won't on Pat's page. But I will go back through to the one "If your going through hell" and will mention it. Thank you for these three topics. I needed them bad, or is it proper to say "badly?" Perchance it to say, this ole southern gal needed them very much. I will tell why. Pat, I wish I could say God has guided me through. I will tell you he has given me this time to try to straighten myself out with religion. I'd hate to leave this ole world and I don't think we are supposed to be angry in Heaven. I say this all "tongue in cheek" and I hope that is not an old southern sway of words. I do that often.

Pat, I only now can see Billy's pictures, and yes I do cry.

I hate to be a sad sack, but when no one is with me, sometimes if I don't have nature to look at, or if I'm just not traveling I will feel sorry for myself and just say "Billy, you just are not here" and off I'll go. I've done it today. I'm not afraid of "going" Pat, I just don't want my granddaughter to find me, she is 21, and I don't want to hurt my kids. Our time will come on its on. I've had my faith stretched to its limits. We don't talk Bible or politics but sometimes we get by with a little religion. My mom, when troubled, and I think my mom's mind was troubled a lot. She quoted so many things to me sometimes I thought Shakespeare was from the Bible. She was so intelligent, but her mind was bothered, but she would say "sometimes we will know that peace that passes all understanding." I closed my mom's eyes when she passed and I thought, she now knows that peace. Mama had Alzheimer's. Philippians 4:7, KJV: "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." I'm not a real religious person Pat, but I wanted to go with Billy so much. So many would have been hurt by my own selfishness, and I was afraid that taking my own life would be a sin in itself. I'm not that good a person and have broke all the commandments (except killing and wanting what my neighbor had), so I thought maybe I might better stay awhile longer. My health is not good (I'm not under a doctor's care), but my time will come. And so will yours. I won't mention any names, but we have had too much suicide in one family. Please stay awhile longer. I can't promise better times, not at all, but keep reading and let your thoughts out. We are here for that and nothing you are thinking, well, we have all been there more than once.

I cannot stress how different this is for all of us. None of us are the same. The only same we share is heart rendering loss. My kin, my friend, had lived in her house 50 years. The house is her loving husband's arms around her. Many, many of my friends are like this. I am so different, to the point of probably mentally different. We were already talking to a realtor about putting the house on the market. We had a new RV (I got rid of). I cannot describe to you the beautiful location in a no crime area. Wild animals all around, turkeys, deer, coyotes, foxes (and once in awhile a bear), it was so totally beautiful. I spent about a week by myself, and it did not matter if the house was full, I was still by myself at that point in time. My children, all my family would have done anything for me, so they did. They helped me give away everything that wasn't his, they moved me into an apartment in our old hometown. That beautiful place 175 miles from here was not home. I hated it. The sound was the loudest quiet I've ever heard. Two friends wanted to lease (could not buy yet) and I just plain left it with them. I could have waited and got money, but I didn't care about money without Billy. He was my Billy the Kid that wanted the toys. I didn't want anything but to hear people all around me, not bothering me, just knowing there were people alive in a world our children had gone to school, we had gone to school, we had been married here, he was not here but the essence of our old life was here and our new life was dead. I was urged not to do this. It had not been enough time. I will say I have not regretted it at all. My family keeps things stirred up enough and Billy left in October and my mom in August the next year. Hard sounding, I have never cried for her. I don't know why. You have to do what makes you comfortable. I would not advise taking my course. It was right for me, but sometimes I am really different than regular folks. Country? Stubborn? I'm where I have to be. For me.

The only words we can say are "I'm so sorry" and we mean them. As to the other words people say to you, you really do learn to shut them out. They mean well. You feel half a person, and Pat, I have not found the other half that helped provide my love for people. My great granddaughter is coming this summer. Billy would be thrilled. Billy is not here. I am not thrilled. I feel I will act appropriately, but she will feel half the love I have to give. I have some resentment. Billy never met her. He should have. Billy was total love for his children and his grandchildren and they had 100% of his time, love and energy. I can only give 50%. Six years in October. I will never be enough, and I have not healed enough to give Billy's 100%. You will handle it Pat. You might not handle it like a whole person, because part of you is missing. If you lost your legs, you would get a wheelchair. As of going on six years, I still only have half a heart. It happens sometimes. Say the impossible happened and you married again. My best friend did. On their "honeymoon" he had a heart attack and she took care, very good care, of him for 12 to 14 years. When he left, the time she did not allow herself to grieve her first husband, she now grieves both of them and at our age, she gets them confused. I do not envy her. I love her for my friend because while taking care of her second husband she let her own health go. Now her hours are spent trying to live the best she can. I have no answers. I still hurt. I hope you are not one of those men that thinks tears are not to be shed. Man, I lose half the sodium in my body even at dog food commercials. Let the tears wash out. It is sometimes a feeling of nothing but tears, sometimes you cry till you can't breathe, sometimes it provides a small fraction of help. And talk to her, just as if she was still here. Who knows, she might be right beside you.

Pat, in 1970, I typed a young woman and her husband, the patient. I typed where the doctors came in and she was holding her husband like a baby and he was gone. It hit me so hard, if that happened to me and Billy, I would do the same. Ahead 35 years later, my husband of 54 years reached both arms out for me. I knocked his arms down and said "NO!!!" I was not going to let him leave. He had to listen to me. We, at 54 years, had fought my cancer, his artery stenosis and stents, his stroking out from high blood pressure, and the year before my colon rupture with overall sepsis from all the radiation I had received in 1982. They didn't tell me I was supposed to die. No one spoke it around me, yet the pain I went through when I got home, could not take pain pills, so I walked our dead end street back and forth to allay the pain. I would look up and he was at the door watching my every step. I was supposed to die. And now, he was telling me he had to go. NO!!!! I was not letting him. I was not holding him his last breath, I hit his arms down. NO!!!! We had been through too much to give up now. We had things we still wanted to do, a new RV. This time he didn't listen to me, he left. In my messed up mind I counted out 50 morphine pills. I would take the truck up into the Big Muddy Wilderness. No one came except in hunting season. I would drive down a hidden road and just wait to die. I would go sit by a tree so my kids would not have to see me. The animals would take care of the rest. They somehow knew and now I was under the wrath of my two middle aged kids. What could I do???? Three days later I wrote to this group. They saved my life. Does misery love company? Well, it must, because they experienced everything you did, I did, and others did. It is not an instant cure. We never "cure" and time does not heal all wounds. Rose Kennedy said eventually you develop scar tissue. Pat, it took me 2-3 years before I saw the leaves in the spring and the flowers and still, Billy could not see them with me. I read books of recent widows and widowers. Martin Short's book helped me the most. You see, I still talk to Billy. My granddaughter says he won't answer me because it would scare me to death. He answers my heart. You have lost half your person. You talk to that person. Talk to her in Walmart, talk to her driving down the road, talk to her in church. If you feel you have lost faith, well, I wear a necklace of a mustard seed because my faith seems that small most of the time. You have seen too much. You have hurt too much, and I'm afraid that film will replay until you can tamp it down. Billy will be gone six years in October. I almost hear him come through the door all the time. Nothing is too weird. One giant pillow-sham has his every day clothes in it. It sleeps on one side of my bed. His wooden urn has a note taped to it that he wrote in red Sharpie that says "LOVE YOU, BE BACK BY NOON" and it still gives me pause. He had gone fishing. It does not quit hurting, ever, but you will develop scar tissue in time. You won't forget, but the horror can be kept in the background, unless you bring it to the forefront. Don't. It is still there. I screamed into a pillow and it hurt my head. Won't do that again. I cried so hard, and I cry at everything, but some crying leaves you breathless, and you think, it would just be so painless not to breathe. Keep reading. Marty has help for you. My heart is with you Pat. It gets tolerable, that is the best I can say. You do learn to breathe again, whether you want to or not. And, you do have your family, although sometimes that does not seem enough, it will be.

I do realize how lucky I am. I honestly do realize this. But, when I was so sick before Billy left, just a year before he left, he wanted to do everything for me. Yes, we are lucky to have help without asking. I know we are lucky. The thing is, we might give up doing things for ourselves before it is time if we do not force ourselves to do it. My sister had to take the keys from my mom when she saw her driving the wrong side of the rural road. I will give my keys up when I forget who is driving. I think I overthink things sometimes and get paranoid about being forgetful. I do get scared.

Guess so. Only, I never had it before I got................fluffier. I can feel a slight headache when it starts going up. Billy didn't believe I could tell (he never could tell his), but sure enough. And you are right. Stress plays a lot on it. Refereeing fights between my sister and daughter does not help. Both are strongly opinionated and somehow they involve me. Just because I am their only link. Honestly, you cannot pick your kinfolks or their versatile illnesses. I try to stay out of it and am managing okay this week. One can be vocally expressive and the other quietly and sneakily expressive. I try to not defend either of them to the other one. Worry about my son's not following through with follow-up. Actually, his follow-up is not till July. I just get anxious and thus blood pressure. Son has high blood pressure also but is working hard to support his daughter, who I think is taking advantage of him and I have not spoke that to either daughter or son. Daughter would tell son if I did and another fuss. Everyone thought Mama could not make that close to 400 mile round trip and all wanted one to go with me. I slipped off. Enjoyed the heck out of it. Some sadness, but no fear of driving by myself. Once they start thinking I am unable to do things on my own, ...............well, they just need to wait until I am unable to do things on my own.

I think this is a relative of yours Kay. When I was a teenager (a wild one too), I lied to my aunt about something insignificant really, but she fussed at someone because of it, it came out I possibly lied (it was a tiny lie, but hurt someone's feelings, and at the time I felt guilty, but not enough to admit to it). I was thinking (always a bad omen when I do that) that I need to tell Nancy about my lie, just remembered it. Nancy died in August. You can will yourself to die. She did. She was beautiful and very vain. She had just been struck with our family's tremor, not Parkinson's, but kin enough to it that it does not matter. I had it since 6th grade and just has gotten worse with the years. Hers was sudden. Her daughter (beautiful, sweet, mother of three) had died of alcohol poisoning in her 16-year-old son's arms. She drank at home. She became addicted. We have the addiction gene rampant in our family. Her husband, my aunt's husband, (not divorced) had moved in with another family (he loved my aunt but no one could get along with her), and her mom, who lived with her, my dad, her brother, and her sister passed away, who had been by her side all her life. She would not eat and willed herself to die. She did. The last time I saw her she was standing outside her house (OCD about keeping her house clean), and told me as I was leaving she loved me, had always loved me and always would. She was my only playmate growing up and was five years older. I drove by her house yesterday, my family's old house, my other aunt's and my mammaw's. I didn't see any of us there, and memories were painted in different colors and times. Granddaddy's toilet on the hill (my dad started a brush fire and accidentally burned it down. (My granddaddy would not use the newfangled bathroom. I waved at my mom and dad, grandparents, other relatives at the old cemetery (beautifully kept up) on my way home. A rock church and rural setting. Everything rural yesterday. The drive was heart wrenching, my first view of the mountains in their scalloped beauty, I had to pull over, I could not see while crying. I paid my taxes, got my car license renewal, went for my six month checkup. She (nurse practitioner knows me well). She said, what can you tell me. I told her "Nothing, you know I cannot be fixed, just write my prescriptions and six month refills." Blood pressure was high. It is mainly the weight I have gained. Coming home, I did see the fluorescent greens of the new leaves being born and the wisteria, purple and white, growing as far up trees as I could see and falling down toward the ground. Beautiful. Sun shining. It poured rain on me leaving the house for about 20 miles, sun came out and it was a beautiful melancholy day.

I didn't read back and think I returned at wrong time with total amount of wordage too much. On Facebook I go back and delete things I've said. Guess I could leave a big empty box. Kind of lost out here. Will write when I have time to read before I write.

Think I missed something by not reading back. Gotta go to Arkansas tomorrow, but I will have my week end free to read past posts. I get tired so much quicker than I used to. Common thing I guess.

Think everyone knows my history, did not need to repeat it.

Will make sure my son gets follow-up. Dee, I know this moving is a process. Doubt I could do it again. Did it twice though. Boxes still to go through. I have a paper shredder, just don't like personal business in a landfill. Paranoid, yes, to a point. Not like I have anything anyone wants.

I hang up on all donations. I donate to my family. I have read how much the CEO's of so many of these donation sites, how much money they make. You donate to pay their salaries. I believe St. Jude's is a reliable donation site.

Dee, that was not bravery. That was pure insanity that I've never recovered from. I have learned to live with it.

Can't go far. I have a lease. Don't plan on moving again anyhow. I have my sister I have to consider. Somehow I feel safer with them (boxes) all around me, like being in an RV. Gotta get a smaller bed though. Kelli has to have the scan every three months for awhile. She had radioactive tablets she had to take. She and I, when the lights go out we provide enough light from our radiation to go without nightlights. I'm sitting on this with Scott. What do I do? Call his doc and ask her if she has followed his PSA. I'm considering that. He won't follow up right. Neither would my dad. Fighting prostate cancer is a terrible thing. Fighting any kind is. Win some, lose some. We all have been touched by it somehow. Love you all.

Dee, my heart is with you. I get anxiety about them going through these 15 boxes. I have a new paper shredder and that is what a lot of it is, just papers. I have actually moved our old house with me everywhere and if I open a box, he is in it in some way or other and I have terrible feelings. I don't know what is in those boxes. One has a lot of his winter coats. I gave the thrift store so many things when I left that they were going to close (and those old women volunteers) they don't open for nothing. They opened to take all my boxes of things I don't remember, but things they wanted for themselves. Hey, they don't get paid, as far as I am concerned, if they want it, let them have it. I am contemplating leaving when Kelli and Brianna go through these boxes. I hang a curtain up over some memories. Don't want to feel that pain.

I am here. I think with this pandemic, most of what I do is read, worry, sleep, worry, and then I read some more. I am still able to concentrate although that was hard to come back, but it has returned. I escape often to books. People used to ask me why I didn't watch certain movies and I said they were too real, too sad. Then the (what can I think of to call the stupid people?), they told me that it was just "life." OMGosh, I live life. Sometimes I want to escape it. I will, when the time comes, I just don't want to be there. I escape into time travel into the past books, mysteries located in Bisbee, Arizona, Las Cruces, NM, unpronounceable names Alaska, shape shifters, fairy tales, anything but pandemics, heavy death, mostly butterflies and unicorns and rainbows (when I can find them). Kelli has thyroid cancer. Has/had (3 month checkups), caught early we hope, I pulled her to me in a hug and she said, not pulling away), Mama, I've had those radioactive tablets, I'm not supposed to get close to anyone. Can't get close because of pandemic. My son calls me every night between 11:00 pm and 11:15 pm. He works at the VA Hospital and can't give Mama a virus if he has it on him. He works wards that have virus patients. He had blood in his urine on annual checkup. His grandfather (my dad) died of prostate cancer. He is very susceptible. They follow him up. What can I say. He will be 59-years-old in June. Can I call his clinic and ask if they checked his PSA level in his lab work. I know enough to know it would be raised if it was his prostate. Can I tell them not to let him fall through the cracks like his dad's doc let him fall. Two checkups a year. He died within a month of diagnosis. Can I make them find a counselor for my 21-year-old granddaughter that is afraid to get out of the house. She is Amerasian. Myself, well I can still walk. Scott bought me that $350 exerciser that you put your feet on it and it moves your legs up and down motorized. My left knee hurts, should have had it looked at when I fell the 2nd time. No, I would not let anyone help me. I had to sit there and assess my own injuries and for sure, one of the ligaments may have made me have to have a knee replacement. I can still walk. Straight back. Do not stumble. Remember, I cannot take pain pills, they will kill me, and Tylenol has to be my only drug of choice. Possibly could have used a cortisone shot. Yes, I am my own doctor. I do not trust those people anymore. I worked for them 43 years. One arrogant SOB Angel saved my life the year before Billy left. Billy had time to get used to the idea of my dying, everyone thought I was, but no one told me. Waiting for my sister's pathology of colon polyps sent off suspicious. She is now on daytime oxygen periodically. I think it raises her blood pressure. I do realize how lucky I am. I told Kay in private email why I drew back. Not malicious at all. I have a lot of pride even if I do write word salads. I have a lot of friends that we keep in touch on Facebook. Sometimes I put old timey memories of muscadines and scuppernongs, sugarcane and sorghum syrup. Sometimes I can hide in memories of long yesterdays and pictures of great-great grandparents, old pictures of all the men on one side of the family, my great grandma fishing, and anything but grief. Memories of yesterday can sometimes include Billy. I found an old memory I wrote before my colon burst, had had fever for at least two weeks, at many doctors, many scans, then oblivion. I remember the ambulance with the two little girls sitting the steps. No one saw my Angels but me. I can still see them. Kelli said it pulled over once and they were trying to get me to have a blood pressure as it had bottomed out. I just remember fighting them because they were removing my wig. Could not have that. I love you all and I need to get rid of the shovel and climb out of this hole I keep digging for myself. Two of my classmates lost two middle aged children. And I want to intervene in something. Somehow. I'm sorry, but sometimes I climb into myself and read and sleep for hours and hours. So glad I can still concentrate on books.

Joey, it will be six years in October since Billy the Kid left. I turned my back on him when he reached for me. I told him "No!" You see, I was not going to let him go. He did not listen to me. He left anyhow, and I should have been holding him. I believe it was Joan Didion, (I might have this wrong), was at the dinner table with her husband. I thought he had died at the table but he went to sit in a chair, and he was gone. No warning. They had been to the hospital to see their daughter who had been put into an induced coma because of flu-pneumonia, and I think hearts just do finally break. About eight months later, this daughter passed away also. Joan Didion is a small, frail woman who is 86 now. After Billy left, I would go out in the RV so I could be alone. I screamed into a pillow twice. Oh, I won't do that again. That hurts. I found that when I cried so much I would reach a point I had no breath, I could have just let go, it felt so right, just don't breathe. No pain, just forget to breathe. Maybe my daughter knocked on the door, family always around me. I would not have it any other way. I went off on one of my favorite things to do, when I had cancer, to contemplate the beauty of the hills and forests, NOT TO THINK, just drive. The first time I did this after Billy left I cried so hard I would have to pull off the country roads, no traffic, that I love, have always loved, to just drive. Heading toward six years this autumn, I still feel I will hear him walk through the door. If I fall asleep in a chair, he visited me often. One time he kissed me on the forehead. On his wooden urn I taped his last note, he was going fishing. It says "I love you, be back by noon." He wrote it in a red Sharpie. Still gives me a pause. Not everything helps. My daughter and granddaughter are going to go through the 15 big plastic topped "buckets" I threw together when I left that house where the quiet was the loudest noise I had ever heard. We had plans made "in the air" for years that which ever one was left would continue the RV traveling with the other's cremains. I could not travel ever again. In fact, I could not fish ever again. I could never go back on any track we had gone on in 54 years except to come back to the "home" we had grown up in, the Louisiana Parish he grew up, was born on the southern border, I was born on the northern border. Maybe 40-50 miles long. He would have never lived in an apartment, I found that was something I had to do. I wanted to do. I was compelled to do things that the two of us would not have done together. It hurt too much to follow "our" paths. Years just make you know "I'm next" and I guess there is really no fear. I will tell you, one day you will notice the changing of the seasons, one day you will see beauty in things you never expected to see them again. It is a mellow beauty. I found some help in reading books by people who had lost their spouse/partner. Martin Short wrote his story and in words I could feel him talking. I still have not quit talking to Billy. My granddaughter said if he answered he knows it would scare me to death, (It would), so he does not answer. Martin and Nancy continued to have cocktails on the patio after she left. He would carry on conversations. Finally he would say "Nancy, where are you?" and that would be when she quit talking to him. We each devise our own "present" to fit our own "now" and though the wound will not heal, it will (as Rose Kennedy said) develop scar tissue that can be ripped off at any moment, to grow again. My heart is with you.

Thank you Kay. I sure hope I won't need it. Somewhere in the far reaches of my mind, I have heard of this. My mind completely left me when I put my foot on that ice and it slid (I was holding onto wall). I forgot anything except I cannot take pain killers at all and that was all I was thinking. I once took a couple of steps on the other side, hit ice underneath and from then on would not even try. Like I say, we can take a lot of things, snow and ice are not things we know how to handle. As a kid I loved it. In Arkansas I loved making Billy snow ice cream. Somehow things are not the same when you are alone, as we all know. I get anxiety every time I put on that mask going into a store. I breathe hard for awhile and then I settle down. We have so many that will not wear a mask even though the front door says in a big sign, please wear a mask. I got tired of playing with those idiots so I just get what I have to have and then leave. Fixing to go again. Get this: My sister has her A/C on. It is in the 70's today. She needs the A/C to help her breathe. Again, thank you Kay, going to print this out and tape it to the wall. Hope I won't need it.

We are okay. I am going to buy boxes of rock salt this summer (of course I won't remember).. I kept trying to put my feet on the wooden part, ice on top, snow on top of that. Feet would slide and no way was I going out. The thing was, all the 18 wheelers were trying to get to stores. Something about Texas providing their own electric grid (and no way am I understanding that any more than that Qanon cult.) I thought Qanon was a branch of AA, like Al-Anon. Not into politics or religion because I don't understand either, but believe in one, the rest is just mumbo-jumbo. Got to the store and the shelves could not be restocked except from the trucks that could get through. It was in the 70's today. My sister got the vaccination, first one. I'm afraid to with the shape my "innards" are in. Your still supposed to wear a mask and a new strain is always being found. Nothing good going on. You people, Gin, Gwen, Kay, Dee, and Canada people.......wow!!!! Just wow!!!!! Flatlanders can handle floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, but we can't handle ice and snow. Keep safe y'all.

Dee, we are so close to Texas line we got some bad stuff. There were18 wheelers stacked up, I cannot even tell you how many. We were lucky, we kept electricity and water so we were comfortable except cannot go out for the basics. We use paper towels like they were....paper towels. That is all we ran out of. Funny thing is, that Charmin commercial is correct. We stacked toilet paper on the paper towel holder and it is better than some of the paper towels. Will probably get out tomorrow. The 18 wheelers could not get through to stack the shelves of the grocery stores so we forget about the chain of products, how we get them. Crazy weather and times. I might have to read Revelation's in the Bible. All we need now is an infestation of locusts. (I'm going from childhood memory). Revelation, in the Bible, scares me. Kay, hope you are not too sore from falling and glad it is only soreness. Y'all know how to handle this stuff better than I do. Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, I know where to go and not to go. This solid ice on bottom of snow, I know to stay inside.