Margm

I know it is widely used. I also know it is illegal in Louisiana. I never could smoke, tried to inhale and it hurt my lungs, so figured if something hurt that bad it was not worth it. Oh, I know I did it wrong, but was not gonna try a 3rd time. The last two weeks Billy tried it and as he could not eat and was throwing up, it helped him for a moment. Remember he had quit walking, used a wheelchair but after a few puffs he bow-legged ran to me when he saw me. It smelled like a skunk to me. Funny, the maintenance building here sometimes smells like a skunk and going into Kelli's apartment building sometimes is the faint aroma of skunk. There are recipes on how to make a butter, straining out the leaves and using it to cook with. My nephew, on his first one (grown man, two years younger than me), had one and went and sat in the ER waiting room until the effects wore off. If it helps people with cancer though, I'm not against it.

Heard from my son. That is a big positive, even if it involved weed. I don't smoke but I have heard a recipe for making butter with it.

I agree 100%, which does not negate positive. We get up every morning. That is positive. The new ones cannot sleep, that is negative. When they finally get a full night's sleep, that is a very positive thing. Waking up in the morning without thinking, realizing, that you are alone, that is a positive, and it can happen. Missing them is negative. Talking to the clouds is heartbreaking, but I can do it. One of these days, the one who broke down sobbing for entering his workshop, the day she can enter without crying will be positive. Me opening these boxes will be positive, but it ain't happening any time soon. Finding out my son is okay today..........that is a very good positive for me, but I have not heard from him and it is nearly 4:00 p.m., but my kids are from the vampire family, as well as grandchildren. They prefer night to howl, daytime to sleep. Oh, as an addendum, advice from outsiders can just be ignored, you do not even have to acknowledge hearing it. One longtime widow told me to just keep busy. I ignored her. My busy would drive her bonkers. But, it is mine. Other people telling you to do things, you can very easily ignore them. I like doing that. I don't even find it bad etiquette to just walk away. I find as I get older, what people say really does not bother me. Gnats. We have a lot of bugs in the south.

Kay, I'm sorry if this steps on anyone's toes. Right now, living with grief, I am trying to help my son "think positively" through a break up of a relationship of over 10 years, and I pray that he does not go back into that toxic relationship. He is bipolar and tends to depression anyhow and his dad was his hero, now he has cut loose a toxic relationship that was as toxic as the water in Flint, Michigan. He tells me "don't worry Mama, I am just ready for what is next." And I know him. I have fought for him before and I won't quit. And I think about all of us, there is no getting back with our mates, so "what is next?" With the heartache that has happened and we try to lift up our virtual friends "what is next?" I have fought for him before, fighting to make him fight for himself" So, for all of us "what is next?" Thinking positive???? Hate to hear it??? Well, if we do not try to think of something positive for us, for the ones who are hurting, then "what is next??????" Seems like one positive thought has to come from somewhere, for someone, for any of us, for one of us, because I cannot think all is lost for my son. He is young. He has so many talents. And I have faced this bipolar depression with him before. If I don't think a positive thought somewhere along the line then why didn't I take the 50 morphine and follow Billy? Why didn't we all? For some reason we are still here and if we cannot dig up one positive thought then all is lost and we are fighting too damn hard to live for all to be lost.

Neither do I Cookie, and I don't want to try. It does not enter my head at all. My grandmother suffered all her life, unbeknownst to anyone in the family. She had such screwed up "female" cancer, just as I did, that she could not be the kind of wife she wanted to be. In her little coma before she died, he had already been gone since the 1950's and this was the 1980's when she died.. I was sitting with her in and out of consciousness and I heard her say "I couldn't be a wife to him" and this had haunted her since her late 20's after she married at 15 and had seven children in 10 years. You marry in sickness and in health. If your husband has some debilitating illness you do not run and find another man. Same should be true, but life does not always run like it should. Those were the last words I heard her say, and I knew the guilt she had carried all those years. But her grandmother, her "namesake" had 11 children in 21 years and outlived her husband. They did not have epidural blocks back then. Wow!!!! No, there will never be another, not even if I was 10-20 years younger. I cannot examine things like my grandmother did. Her sweet little Christian guilt stayed with her. I would not do a single thing different, nothing, not even the bad things. But, I would not go through them again for any other man. What we had, I can never find even a semblance close to getting to know someone. It was a lifetime of fun.......and toil and trouble........and happiness, and we lived every moment of it. Yes, I would like to "take care" of him longer, but he would not have liked it. Sometimes things happen like they have to and we can put the microscope away. I did.

I will tell you that was one of the most inspirational posts I have read. And, I think that is all I can say. My heart is with you. We all hurt and there is not a one of us here that wishes we could not help in some way. Wishes we could lighten your load.

I spent 43 years typing clinics, most of my time typing operations, consults, discharge summaries, x-ray reports (all forms), death summaries, and whatever the doctor dictates. I was not old then but my parents were and I could not believe the width (metaphorically speaking) of the cracks in the floor that the older person falls through. The cancer that I had as a young woman was a cancer mostly seen in older women so I was sent to a cancer hospital many miles away. When told about the type of cancer that I had, I was told if I was that older woman then surgery would be performed and in a manner of speaking, "let the chips fall where they may." In other words, they would just let it spread. But, in 1982, the newer forms of treatment like my sister had performed in office setting, these were not yet available. I am still here, but the torture I went through as a young woman, I probably could not go through as an old woman. When the colon rupture with sepsis happened, I was thrown naked up on the MRI table more than once, like a side of beef you see pictures of. No sheets to even cover my head with. All I could think of as the parade of people came through the room was "you would not do this to your own mother." But here I am, and I will get my flu shots, I will take my blood pressure meds and my Xanax, but unless I break a leg, they will keep their hands off me. As an addendum, I would like to add at the big Arkansas State Hospital I saw a building dedicated for geriatrics. I think there might be some bigger hospitals dedicating more doctors for this specialty. When I retired from the Louisiana State Hospital, there were no resident programs for this, but that was 20 years ago. I think the big hospital I worked at home for in another state, I think it had that specialty. I looked in the Shreveport physicians and there was one for that specialty, and I don't think you can get an appointment with him for awhile. I was lucky to have a surgeon, though very arrogant and he did have to undergo anger management, and he did tell me that "You scare me" but I can say nothing but good about him (except he did not have any followup for me), which meant I scared him. Still, he saved my life, I think George has taken much of his own medical management into his own hands, I admire that, but it does not help people like Kay's sister and our friends and relatives, and most of all, the loved ones we have lost, plenty of medical nightmares.

Yes, you make too much sense and am so sorry you have to. Books helped me some, but it took awhile to be able to focus. I think you will be kept busy, and that might be good. I know nothing seems good and it is hard to be strong. Nothing seems fair right now, and probably never will. You have three reasons to be strong, and it will be hard and seems so unfair, but we women are actually able to do more than expected, even if we don't want to. Please know there are a bunch of people praying for you, and a lot of people giving you virtual strength. Those are just words, but words and prayers are all I have. Please keep your family close, your friends close too, because you have got to take care of Katie to be able to take care of others. You really cannot go but one day at a time, maybe half a day. Our hearts are with you, and I know that does not help either.

Rahn, I have written this so much. When I was typing for the hospitals a young couple were in there, the husband dying of leukemia. They found them with him gone and her holding him like a baby. I knew if that ever happened to us, I wanted to be holding him. It was not time, it had only been five weeks, they said months and besides, I was going to have a miracle. He reached out his hands to me like he had to give up...no, I was not going to let him leave. I knocked his arms down. I lay my head on the bed beside him, and he did not listen to me, he left anyhow. Cannot change things but nearly three years later I am putting some of our life under the microscope and what a useless thing to do. We had 54 years and we were not always kind to each other. I will say those last years, many years, I was married to my best friend and his words were "I am you and you are me" but sometimes I still pull that microscope out for things that happened and it is so senseless. I loved the man, he was the most important part of my world, he knew it. We both did things wrong to each other, against each other, but that was forgiven, it should be forgotten, damn, it hurts to be human sometimes.

One that even helped me was "Waterbugs and Dragonflies" by Doris Stickney, and Marty told me how to fix it where you can go to it, but I wrote it down where I would remember it and have moved that notebook somewhere else. The story is online also.

“She made broken look beautiful and strong look invincible. She walked with the Universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings.” ― Ariana Dancu You and Katie, Tina Turner spreading her son's ashes, I so want to be gone myself, and there are others on our forum who have lost children and I have got to think that is such monumental grief, agony and any added on is just lost to my understanding of life and death. How could you ever forget that Karen, living is so cruel sometimes. I, who have so many words, cannot talk anymore.

“If you have ever unloaded your pickup by backing up really fast and slamming on the brakes, you might be a redneck.” ― Jeff Foxworthy Yesterday was my two girls birthday. I do not have recent pictures of my granddaughter, at her request (she is in counseling, you know), so I knew of two when they were both about the same age that I was going to use. I had to bring those damnable photo albums out. Could not find the ones I wanted and that song by Barbra Streisand kept going over and over in my mind, on top of everything else.. I've tried to tell you folks I am country through and through, but I think you got that hint a long time ago. My cousin Anne is our family genealogist and I turned up "family gold" for her Ancestry.com site. I sent them to her. Yes, I am so country I remember the folks in the picture. My mama is the little girl on front row with her sister (one of them) and my "Daddy Wise" has his arms on his girls shoulders. Back in those days, he was a horse trader and mule trader and probably some moonshine down in the deep backwoods, and there was nothing but woods until you reached Bayou Bodcau. I'm kind of proud of them all. When the great depression hit, they did not even know about it because they grew and canned their own food. I took a redneck quiz once and it contradicted my leanings, so I guess I am just country. (I know this is a sad day for our forum, but a touch of levity cannot hurt).

“women don't endure simply because we can; no, women endure because we aren't given any other choice. - they wanted us weak but forced us to be strong.” ― Amanda Lovelace Our Katie, and that is what you are, you are our Katie. I am an elderly woman and I still have to be strong for my children that are probably older than you are, for my young lost granddaughter that has so much fear of the world. And you dear Katie, you are left to be the only one with strength. The people you depended on are gone and you still have a youngster that cannot understand all this terror that you are left to handle. Katie, I do not know how close you are to your parents and siblings, but this is the time for you to allow them to help give you strength. I cannot give advice, I do not even know you, Butch, or Allen. Only on computer screens. You have life all around you and you have total despair also. But, in this time of sorrow, all you have left is your strength for your children and the wee one that is coming. I know you are tired, afraid, so please allow your family to help give you rest and strength, because strength has to be enough. You have got to know we all wish we could help in some way. In the absence of answers as to why, it has to be because you are strong. Even if you do not want to be. And, as an old woman, I cannot imagine the strength on your young shoulders.

Tom, we were such kids, 18 and 20, and we had no idea what life was about. We found out. We made mistakes but they were never thrown up to him, or him to me. We had a long run, but I was not ready to quit running. Was not old till he left. When he left I bought three Rubbermaid ladders, three sizes. I've used them. He was right at 6'3" and I'm skimming 5 feet. I've needed them. Poor replacements. My heart is with us all, young and old.

Tom, I went through a weird yesterday. Billy and I had 54 years and the last nearly 30 years were perfect. Yesterday I remembered the six weeks we were separated though and it was both our faults, he told me something and my revenge secret nearly floored him. I had tried to tell him before but he would not accept it. So, the first four of those weeks of separation we still "saw" each other every day, he hated me. Someone told him "you are just angry because she beat you at your own game." I think that sunk in but by that time I saw a life of my own and was not turned off by it." But, we went back together and somehow it was like gorilla glue, we never mentioned it again and we were finally best friends. But yesterday, all I could think about was those six weeks, and I was "something" and don't know what I was. Maybe angry. I don't know, but I don't like that feeling any more than the grief. I don't know how I could let myself remember that low point and forget the happiness.........but weird things happen. I wonder if there is a perfect "Leave it to Beaver" family existence.

Dee, October 17, 2015 (and sometimes I think it is October 15, 2017), but I know better. Time changes things. I think I could have written the above. I am glad you decided to join us. Before Billy left I was not old. Oh, the years were piling up, but neither of us noticed them. We laughed about being slower, but he had quit walking with me and I walked to walk off the pain of a colon rupture and could not take pain killers except Tylenol. I wrote recently (maybe yesterday, all days run together) that some simple task I have done all our married life, all of a sudden I needed him to do it. So, I sacked up all the garbage and I put it in one of the giant bags I had bought by mistake (these are BIG bags) and I carried it out to the dumpster. They usually have the top down and I honestly would have had a hard time pushing it in. One of the men would have come helped "the old lady" but it was open. I slung that big old sack behind me and threw it up into that big ole dumpster. I made it extra hard just to make sure II would do it. People were watching sitting at the tables under the umbrellas. Somehow I felt I had made the three pointer at the buzzer. This ole gal still has it. Put a little spring in my step. Maybe Billy was watching. No, it is not good, but some days little things make you feel better. I'm glad you spoke up. Your thoughts are needed too..

Katie, please lean on your family. Allen may have been the strong one, but honey, what we women go through having these children, carrying them for nine months, we are not shy violets ourselves. I'm sorry you have to be the strong one now, but I hear the strength in your writing. You have always seemed very strong to me. We might not want to be, but we can be. It is not easy, but you have some children depending on your strength. It will be hard, but you have already been strong a long time. If your family is there for you, depend on them for awhile too. And, please let us know how you are doing often. You already are good enough.

Words do not help, but having people to help take care of you right now does.

Katie, I have no words. I just have none. I can only hope you have someone with you.

I don't know why, I really do not want to think deep into the subject, but I talk to Billy more when I am driving and looking at the clouds. I watch the clouds change shapes, I want to find Billy's face, I still talk to him whether I see his face or not. (I never do really see him, but I feel he is there). I don't have to make sense. I will be 76 in August, it is okay for me to drift into that world of mystic, magical, imagination. I will not reach into my brain for a reason. I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down and still somehow It's cloud's illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all (Both Sides Now, Joni Mitchell) This morning is hard. Even after my arithmophobia brain realizes it has been many days over 1000 that he has been gone, I can still conjure up his image, all nearly 6'3" of him. He is there, but he does not speak and I reach to touch his high cheekbones, and he is gone. I think today is hard because I know how alone my sister is, (at her own choosing), not many women more beautiful than she was, she won the beauty contest she entered as an older teenager and then realized she was a feminist and that disallowed such foolishness. She turned down marriage more than once and seems to want to be alone (but, I am her sister, she lets me in her hermit lifestyle.) We talk more than once a day, usually. This morning she is probably burying her "Boo," her constant companion cat of many-many years and I feel her grief and mine arises again also. Grief for all of us. I want to answer the new grievers and I sprout into one of my word salads their new grieving mind does not really have time for. And maybe because of Cookie's loss of Olive, my sister's loss of "Boo" then my loss is surfaced again. Today, doing the most mundane tasks that I have always done by myself, really one person tasks, I did them the whole time I was married, sometimes Billy did them, I came to a place in time where I said "you cannot do this without Billy." The only difference in that was, I always did these things, they were not significant enough to have to have help, and all of a sudden, I needed Billy to help me. So, guess what I did? I took a Xanax. I don't usually do this for something this stupid, but I felt I needed Billy to help me. He is not here. To the new grievers, I won't put my word salad under your post, (although I may have already), I will just say sometimes the scar tissue is pulled off the wound with something as simple as your sister's fur baby dying. But, over time, (for me) this does not happen every day. I won't denigrate the word "good" but some days are easier than others. My heart is with the new grievers..........and our more experienced ones also.

You should be very proud Tom. It is so nice seeing teens and tweens being brought up in a situation that will keep them interested for years, and perhaps future generations also.

You know what, this great man lived and loved and died in my lifetime, and I was too busy to even remember him passing. C.S. Lewis and Robert Frost both leaving us in 1963. I remember the wind blowing Robert Frost's white hair around at JFK's inauguration, but never thought about the meaning their words would have on me in later life.

Nick, I told this a hundred times before. I looked over on his pancake pillow (I called them that cause I sleep on 3-4-5 fluffy ones), and he was not there. I finally said "Okay, you are gone, you are never coming back, period, end." And, I told my friend who had lost her husband 10 months before. She actually got angry at me. She said, "never do that, you look at his pillow, touch it, and tell him you will always have him with you, in your heart." And, she told me how she had talked to his chair. She reviewed the whole marriage (and I knew of lots of bad parts) and she hashed them out with him. (He could not talk back.) Then she told him why she loved him so much and how all those bad times made the good times so much better, and how much she loved him. It helped her. I was going to try that. It was almost 40 miles to a city to shop in. Our little town had just hit the 1000 mark. Billy was a "hat man" and loved all manner of hats, never fedoras, tried cowboy hats, didn't work for him, and finally a form of outback hat with brim to cover his ears from the sun. Fair skinned, prone to skin cancer. He was an outdoors man through and through. Sometimes I thought I lived with Dr. Seuss, because every day it was "do you like my hat?" So, he had more hats than I care to think about, but four of the same style, different colors, but he wore these four all the time, of course one at a time. The man was quirky. He put up with me over 54 years, he had to be. So, these four hats were Billy. I put them in the passenger seat, all four hats. In my 40 mile drive to the city, I talked to Billy's hats. I went from the first nine years, sometimes nightmare years, to the next years with lots of growing up, my real frightening illnesses that changed the whole framework of the marriage to the final wonderful years, his taking care of me the year before when everyone thought I would die. Billy was my nurse, my caretaker, my best friend, my lover, my most trusted companion, and I talked that all over with the hats. By the end of the trip I was exhausted, but I got rid of any resentments, everything I wanted to say. We were 18 and 20 when we got married and we grew up with our kids. It was not all sunshine and roses, but it was as close to Heaven on Earth that I will ever get. I felt like something was lifted off me. So, my next trip to the city I tried it again and I cried the whole way. I still talk to him. His hats are above the wooden box that I picked out at the funeral home. The beautiful box with the verse etched into it and the tree of life on one side, and they will be mixed together in a paper box when the time comes and placed in our plot. Until then, we, I, you, us, them, they will continue the journey with a memory beside us, inside us, and the younger ones will possibly love someone else. For me, these hats, the box, and I will wait it out, but more power to those that have other purpose to their life. I'm tired.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” – C. S. Lewis “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” ― C.S. Lewis I'm waiting for the fairy tales again. I have not got to the chapter about "happily ever after, yet." I lived the fairy tale, even the scary parts, “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” ― G.K. Chesterton I am far from being a child, but I am tired of the dragons.

Somehow I thought I would feel him more down in our old home area. You know really, if you were in a tent with him, you were at home. A hotel room........home. Anywhere with him was home. It is familiar in our old part of the country, the people know me, people care for me, but no one will care the same way. You cannot get that close, it is not him. Cannot doubt that other people find love again, but it is not him. Like the little woman in the wheelchair said "it is not the same" and it shouldn't be. It should just have to be someone you are comfortable with and damn, it took me many years to get that comfortable. I don't have many years. I don't care either. I wish the others well, but even if I was younger, it still would not be him and it would have to be. Just me. Glad other people are not like me.