Margm

I have put this on here before.. It made an impact on me. We know my faith wavers, but I do know it is still there. Sometimes I feel old and worthless, but I know my family loves me and I love them. The story was about a flood and I think of Katrina and the people on top of their houses waiting to be saved. The story says that a man and woman were sitting on their roof and a boat came to rescue them. They said "no, God will save us" so they were left alone. Then two more boats came to rescue them and in like manner they said the same thing. Well, they drowned and went to heaven. They said "God, why didn't you rescue us?" He said "I sent you three boats." Whether they may be jokes, whether you believe or not, it eventually will happen. My mama said a long time ago she wanted to go be with her sisters, she was not afraid of dying. But that Alzheimer's coal of fire in her brain was all that lived in her poor little body. She left a long time ago. I just increased my life insurance. Billy and I were so dumb we payed for years on my insurance. When he passed away I called my insurance to see how much I had because I wanted to will myself to die too. We had paid all those years on accident insurance for me and life insurance for him. If I had gone first, they would have been in trouble. I do have so much wrong with me that cannot be fixed and they all know my wishes. Now, when I leave, if I have any last thoughts, my family will have enough to pay for everything, even the stupid death tax in Louisiana. That puts my mind at rest. We have our plots and our ashes will be mixed together in a plain box. I just have to get a stone to put at our plots. I hope I live long enough to do that, but if not, they know what I want and will have enough if I cannot get it ahead of time. But, I just want to see it. I guess things will happen like they happen. I know I have to lose weight or the cost will be more. Billy left and I just let myself go. I'll go when I have to, I just hope I am no burden to my family. That is all that scares me.

Cookie, we got to see her in your picture and I know that no words can help. All I can tell you is that my heart hurts for you. I'm so sorry.

I get her emails also. Now, the cancer took care of my menopause early, but I still had the four times of waking up each night sweating and having to change clothes. Got to where I would go to sleep on a beach towel each time, had a bunch of them, and plenty of big Tee shirts beside the bed. Don't miss that part. My doc got so tired of me asking when it was gonna stop. He eventually told me "I DON'T KNOW." So, I just quit asking and eventually they quit. They would not let me have any kind of estrogen, so you just put up with it. I remember when they started making women quit taking the estrogen because they were afraid of breast cancer. I typed one ole gal in her 80's and she told them she had to go some way or the other but they WERE NOT going to take her estrogen away. They didn't. I have been very down this week because of my friend in the nursing home. She always was the one that was first to jump into everything. I wish she had not jumped into the wine so much though. She was so alone. It hurt me to see her just laying in bed staring at the bare wall. So many are so alone. I am so sorry for that and wish I could correct everybody's sadness, but guess I need to sweep around my on doorsteps. I was waiting for my son to come down and put three things I had bought together. My granddaughter jumped on all three and put them together. (I could have done that too), but honestly I have got to where if I don't want to do something, I just won't do it. Lazy or maybe just stubborn.

That was so sweet George, thank you. I mentioned the two friends of Billy's that I considered mine too, certainly over the years, I knew them almost as long as I did my friends. We were always so close, we all played dominoes and Rook at each other's houses and I am afraid I am too human, when I came back down here without Billy, it seemed the friendship had gone with Billy. I checked on them again today. One of the women had called me to tell me that our other friend's husband had had a stroke and was in the nursing home. I went once to visit and the woman and I hugged just like we used to. They have three boys that help them out, so I only went once. I called the friend who had let me know our friend had had a stroke and it was a cold impersonal conversation. I won't call again, but I think her 80-year-old husband has his ups and downs and I think has dementia of some kind and perhaps being friendly in an environment like that is sorta hard. My cousin and her husband defeated prostate cancer and he fell immediately into a declining dementia. I hear the concern and a feeling of imprisonment that she has when she posts on Facebook. In pictures, he stands and smiles, but this slow death of his mind, I can really tell how it hurts his wife. I know we each lost our loved ones different ways, but the end results are the same. We all look back and think if we had only done something different. Finally, and I think I have reached that point, he is gone, I did not cause it, possibly I should have noticed something I didn't, but we were together night and day, we finally decided to get the work we knew had to be done on his back. After that visit we were referred to the staff neurosurgeon at the state hospital. He had an aneurysm. We still had hope. Celebrated by eating at Outback, Billy loved a T-bone, almost better than biscuits and gravy. The rest went with him being gone. We didn't know, it was too fast, and there is not a damn thing I can do or actually could do. I cannot go back and change a thing. There was no miracle this time, we had used them all up and now he is gone long enough I could speak to my friend this morning without crying. She and her husband got Billy and me together. They stood up for us at the wedding. A couple of years ago they called and I knew I could not talk to her without crying. I talked to her this morning. I called her and we have not talked in years. I said her name and there was no hesitation, she knew who I was. At 75 you do not do too much looking ahead and planning. I never learned how to swim, but I learned how to tread water, and I guess that is what I'm doing. After seeing my friend looking at the wall, I have tried to touch base with my closest friends and relatives and other than owing a couple of emails (letters), I think I'm good. My son is coming this next week for awhile so I have to go wash all my winter blankets and quilts. I just noticed it was July 7th today. That would have been our anniversary if we hadn't had a "hurry up" wedding and moved it to the 3rd. Ah freedom of marriage, away from my domineering mother........."Billy, I'm gonna take the car and go see Robbie" to which Billy replied "No you aren't." Frying pan into the fire. (we worked all that out). I sure miss him.

Gin, I took it down, it was too big, but thank you anyhow. Probably one of the last times I put on makeup and a little red paint never hurt any old barn.

Went to see a friend today. I am revising what I wrote. Sometimes I get too wordy. I can see my friend, one of the most vivacious people I have ever known, always the life of the party, everyone loves her. Still do. And her little life is spent looking at a wall. We had planned on her being in assisted living one street over from where I live and eventually all three of us living there. My friend drank wine at night. I guess over a period of time it takes it's toll. I walked into her room today and she was covered up, looking at the wall on the side of her bed. I know Gwen has seen many of her nursing home patients/friends doing the same. I want to try to go up there once a week instead of once a month. They are calling it Alzheimer's and they will treat it as such. She was sitting up in a chair the last time I was there. She had had a blood clot somewhere and nearly died, but she pulled through and today we carried on a conversation about being kids and she followed my thinking right along with me, she knew me, and oh my, I wish I could help her so much. Her best friend and I will make more trips up there. It is not but 33 miles away. I feel so helpless, but I guess all we can do is try to stimulate her mind as often as we can. There are other people who have people that care about them but do not want to be bothered. I may have mentioned it. One of the first reports I typed was a woman who could not get her kids to come see her. One day she decided she would "show them." They were going to miss her. She took an overdose of sleeping pills. She slept three days and no one ever checked on her. My heart is hurting tonight for friends. And some for me too.

There are moments when I hear him moving in the next room (and he would hate an apartment) and the truth comes to my head in a rush that it is impossible. It was just 54 years of having him with me and sometimes sounds of him are still with me, if only for a nanosecond. I had a belief system that allowed magic, miracles, imagination, mystic feelings that was with me since childhood. A place would scare me for some reason, a place I had never been in and I knew it was one of my "ghosts." My son coded on the op table more than once and he thinks it may have opened a "portal" to where he feels things. Billy was never superstitious and told Scott it was his "weed." He was shot in the leg with a shotgun slug and was bleeding out. He actually has conversed with "beings" in an old bar above which he lived in downtown Hot Springs, which people do talk about seeing ghosts there from the turmoil that the 1920's and those clubs brought, the lifestyle that was led by it being a hideout and pleasure place for the gangsters of that era. I have a friend who is a witch, she studies something I think called Wicca , and really I don't get into it and she was very quiet about it except to confirm some things Scott saw. I just know I get a feeling sometimes in a place I have to get away from. Like I said though, Billy did not believe in things like that and just humored me if I did not want to go somewhere or if I had to leave. Anyhow, I don't seem to really have it anymore and think when he left, so did the magic. Or whatever a person wants to call it. He called it foolishness and the things he went along with me, sometimes things I saw or heard and he would agree he saw or heard them, he would deny it around people and said he really didn't. So, maybe I didn't either. Just a vivid imagination, which I want back. There are people who believe in the Wiccan (religion?) and my friend would not discuss it much unless I would make a statement sometimes about something and she would seriously tell me not to do it, or think it. So, I didn't. And, I am not saying I believe in this following at all, it scares me, and I do not even read about it, but after I met my witch coworker, I looked into it some and again, it scared me so with the way I believe, there was no room for this belief (for me).

I'm going to look for that. I am so tired of paying $100 to just look at a lawyer, but my sister thinks that has to be done. Will look for this. We did nothing in Arkansas. But because there are two of us here, Louisiana law is different. You have to pay to die.

Kay, can any of us say this any better? I don't even have to write one of my word salads. Just those 10 words. Thank you. Headed out in my little country journey now.

Gin, at first my family just worried the dickens out of me. I still have to take care of business that was my mama's and my sister's. Lots of other things happened, there are still a lot of roads we, as a family, have to go down and some are rough. My granddaughter is in counseling. So many other things. But you know what, as old as I am now, how much longer do I have anyhow? I have some things I want to have time to do, if I cannot. my kids know what to do. Still have my house in Arkansas I've gotta arrange to sell and hope the people can buy it cause I sure don't want it. Gotta get my mother's house in my sisters name alone. Right now I would like an apartment with a washing machine. I miss Billy so much, but he cannot help me now. I just gotta pull up my big girl panties and hope I can get it all done. Anyhow, at least with all this other stuff on my mind, the grief seeps through when I am by myself. I have to go about 35 miles away from home in the morning and I will be by myself. It is country all the way up there so no traffic. So, I have plenty of time to talk to Billy and cry. I will. All those years we had together, we still had to make time for ourselves and it looks like we are still doing it. I think rather than fuss about the bother they cause me I guess I ought to be thankful there are plenty of distractions. I love driving in the country by myself. I think all this has pushed me thus far. I still want to buy that monument but kinda afraid when I do that...................no, someone will find something for me to do. I was ready to follow Billy when he left. He said the one who lives must stay. I'm gonna follow him sometime sooner or later. I'm not afraid.

Some of us (somewhere) were talking about how they used to just lay in bed in the mornings. I guess part of my protection to myself, I wake up, as soon as I know I am awake (moments), my feet hit the floor. At night, I take my Xanax and Clonidine which makes me sleepy too. I put in the ear buds, I'm gone. That is something I cannot do. I cannot lay in bed and think. By the time I have made coffee, checked my messages, I am going along at my pace. No thinking. Although I wanted to go out by the first apartment last night and Brianna (my new mother) told me it was too late. Think I will ride out there right now though. Our first 4th of July we went to my mom and dad's and we walked up a part of Dorcheat Bayou we had not been on and Daddy was in his little homemade wooden pirogue. I loved that going up that bayou, or down it. Some places you would have to get out and carry the boat across. Billy bought one and I wanted one. He put me out in the water and I just went round and round. We got it out and took it back and traded it for a two man one. Have as happy a 4th as you all can. It has been a sort of down week, but that just happens.

Kay and Karen, my sister gave me all Mama's albums. When Billy and I stored a bunch of stuff in one of her storage buildings she went through all the boxes and took all the loose pictures and put them in albums. So, I have albums galore. The thing I didn't like was before I knew Billy I had pictures. I used to draw a lot and she burned all the things I had "before Billy" because she did not want him to get jealous. I had saved all my old bra's cause I would get regular old Walmart ones.. That tickled me about Mama, you don't throw out anything, so she had a bunch of new underwear and loved it. So, I have no pictures before Billy, no personal pictures. I have plenty of Billy though, so that is okay. But no, I cannot do any thing but mostly give them a quick look. Yes, it does hurt to see them and I have got my years, months, do not count days, but will always remember it was October 17th, a Saturday morning, 2015. And, as the years go by, however many more I have, I can see them getting to be October 15, 2017, because I hate numbers. Arithmophobia is a real thing. I have a picture somewhere of Billy and his 1958 high school baseball team when they won state that year. Don't know where it is, but most of them are gone now so it would be a sad picture to me.

Well, my next door neighbor told me about "the rhythm method." She had six children. Kelli was born about 9 months later. There are five years between them. Happy to have them both. Surprise babies are nice too. Love your pictures Karen. We share grief for the husband, but, I had to quit going to grief counseling group because they mostly were child losses and I came away so down from each meeting I could not go again. My heart is with you my friend. I'm glad your boys are with you even if you cannot move to the mountains. At least if you can get in your car you can drive there. We have hit the 100 degree mark around here and when I shower, even in cool water we have so much humidity (even with the A/C) that I have to sit under the ceiling fan before I can put on my clothes for still sweating. Love the south though.

The last we had made were in about 2011, Billy left in 2015. The one with Brianna was about the last one she let us make of her. She hates having her picture taken and will get angry if we do. She lost her baby fat (I never did), Scott and Kelli as babies and then a couple of years ago in Hot Springs. My baby boy turned 56 on June 25th.

Today 57 years ago my friends Bonnie and Marilynne were helping me put the finishing touches on our upstairs apartment, behind a grocery store in a little town that was the extension of our parish (county)seat, down the road from my home town and up the road from Billy's. I rode by there sometime lately and it is still used as a cozy little two bedroom garage apartment. Mama and I had fussed and we were having a "hurry up" wedding, instead of the 7th, it was gonna be on the 3rd. My folks had moved from my home town a year before, 17 miles down the road and Daddy was depot agent there. They waited till I graduated. Instead of our new pastor marrying us, we had my former pastor marry us, which was good to me. In my hometown. Billy sold his pistol to pay the preacher. (Okay, I have never denied being redneck.) Somehow, the church was full. No pictures were taken. Mama and I were at war. As usual. No wedding pictures but this was somewhere around our 15th anniversary. We had spent the night in a tent on the 3rd on the banks of Dorcheat Bayou in a far away place. You could do that then without being scared. He did let me beat him every once in awhile. This was how we spent our vacations and time off though. I taught him how to bass fish, looks like I needed to take the lessons. This was one of the times that he kept the one I caught that was over 7 pounds and did not tell me. He had it mounted for my present and what an original present. He was learning. I'm sorry girls. I am sorry your having a hard time. None of this is fun. July 3rd is our 57th anniversary and my second without him, but it is still our 57th anniversary, even if he is not here in physical form. I just put the card beside the others, just like he will read it. I do believe all of this business trying to solve my mother's and my sister's business dealings, having my daughter near (and usually in a good mood), my son is going to stay a couple of weeks with me, my maddeningly beautiful granddaughter that thinks she is ugly, and having my family so close, even them depending on me, maybe mainly them depending on me, it does not make me quit missing that boy. Not a thing I can do. Screaming and crying did not help. He is not coming back no matter what I do and I will join him maybe sooner than later. "I'm not that important, life does go on, if I wasn't here then I'd be gone." My little ditty written over 35 years ago, thinking I was dying, nonsensical, but it is how it is. I wish you peace. I really don't think I have to make plans to leave. I still take my temperature about 2-3 times a week. I take Tylenol at night cause I ache in places that scare me, places that cannot be fixed. My "fix" has lasted over four years so far. When they showed me the scans they showed me "seedings" of what they supposed was cancer. They let me know that. I had the hematologist/oncologist in the room with me when they were showing me these things. He examined the films while he was in the room with us. He told the two interventional radiologists that it was not cancer. My gosh, my living or dying at that time was up in the air anyhow. I had just survived sepsis with a colon rupture and the surgeon and gynecologist all told me nothing could be done. Certainly no surgery, nothing would hold a stitch. No more radiation, I had had as much as a person could have. The hematologist just happened to be in there with me excited that I had the Queen Victoria Factor IX blood. I had already had two babies and surgeries and had not bled to death and my son was blessed with an X chromosome (and someone has got to understand that better than me), but my daughter has the Factor XIII which is von Willebrands and she does bleed and has to take vitamin K or something before any procedure. I guess what I am getting at is, I don't have to make plans. They are already made for me and I have told them I want no heroic measures. But, until that time, no blood, no fever, nothing untoward yet. I'm sore a lot, sometimes hard to get started, but once I am up and around, I am okay. God thinks I am a comic, he laughs at my plans, so I don't make them. Just want that monument up before I go. Karen, my heart is so with you and know my little grandmother finished her fall into dementia when my dad passed. He was 65 and she was about 85. No one seemed to miss my granddaddy when he left, but they did my dad. If you don't have a crazy family like mine then I know the time goes slower and I know they are the ones that keep me going. My heart is with you. Don't know if I have put these pictures. I found them looking in Mama's albums. Yes, I saw Billy, and yes it still hurts. About this time of night I was calling him to just make sure he was gonna be there at 8:00 p.m. on July 3rd, 1961. I don't need pictures. I remember even shaking signing my name and after the wedding we had an apartment full of Judy, Barney, Betty, Charlie, and I don't remember who all else and Charlie was betting Billy he could not beat his record for the wedding night. And my arithmophobia got the best of me. This is my 3rd anniversary without Billy. Time is useless anyhow.

I think my dad belonged to the "old school" of the way he was fathered, so he would father also. And, I am ashamed to say, that I spanked my kids also. Did it improve anything? No it didn't. My dad did the way he was taught, so did I. As a grandmother, no I do not believe in it. In school we had that kind of punishment. We even had a 7th grade teacher, now, in this day and time, he would be fired and possibly arrested. He was caught being a "peeping tom" and was made to quit.. He liked to whip the girls. Our teachers kept paddles at their desks. My girlfriend climbed through the windows with the boys. The principal whipped her as hard as he did the boys. Our second grade teacher (a childhood friend of my mom's and my cousin's mom) gave him (my cousin) such a beating in the 2nd grade he talked about it with rancor as a grown man, but he was one of the most sadistic 7=8th grade teachers my kids ever had. He played a game with my son that he was going to make him say "uncle." My son did not cry and never said it. It was told to me and I went to my cousin's house (my son remembers this, I don't) and had my huge cousin cowering back into his house. I am older than most of you and we had corporal punishment in our schools. No, I don't believe in it but got a few pats on my behind by the peeper when caught chewing gum. I think some of us older ones may not remember that we had that kind of punishment at home and in our schools. We were taught things at home, especially in the deep south, that maybe was not taught other places. Now a teacher dare not lay a hand on any child. My granddaughter was never whipped, spanked, or punished in any way but the words of my daughter to her were more damaging than a whipping would have been. I got those same words from my mother, but I got switches too, that would break the skin and bleed. I am glad those things have changed. That old saying of sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never harm them is wrong. Words can kill. That is the one thing about my life, if I could do over again, I would never permit corporal punishment, nor would I have taken part in any. It does not help. We have so many things that we did wrong, that was done wrong to us, but in looking back, no one knew any better. Do you remember when corporal punishment was taken out of schools? They would/will be arrested and suspended now. But all my teachers had rulers they would hit with and some had paddles with holes in them. It was not just the men teachers, we had three huge women, one quite old (but back then I think they had to retire at 65), but to us she was at least 100, which of course she was not. I remember her chasing a boy around the class to "whip" him. I never had to worry about it myself, except from the "peeper" and he did catch me chewing gum once. Like I say, he was charged and suspended later on. My schools were segregated. We did not know it was wrong. It was the time I grew up in. Our first black woman that was hired where I worked, (I worked nights and was alone). She came in early and put her purse up in our cabinet. I told her the clean up people had already gone through. She gave me a look that showed her complete disdain for me. (After I learned she was our first black woman in our office), no one had told me, the woman disliked me from then on. I don't blame her. That gal had a master's degree. I was a business school girl with some college. We are learning. My thoughts on things are completely different than what I was taught. I have learned more from my grandchildren than I did my parents. Equality is still something we all fight for. Equality for women in the workplace, and also in life, equality for all the different races. Lessons learned and accepted by this old southern redneck. I don't display the Confederate flag, but we still have some old feelings that die hard. But they will die........and I still hate that word.

You know my folks when they whipped me, they did not spank me, they believed in spare the rod and spoil the child. Do you know they would whip me until I quit crying. I can remember thinking "how can you still hit me and make me quit crying" but I did it. The same way I did not understand how Daddy could whip me and say I might not love him, but I was going to respect him. Damn, even as a little kid I knew the difference in fear and respect. Now when I cry for Billy I know, I can cry, but that boy is gone. He just plain is not going to come back. My kids and granddaughter did not feel sorry for me because I wanted to follow Billy, and any talk from me about maybe just wanting to give up, I cannot say it around them. My granddaughter loves me but she got so angry that I would leave and follow Billy. They knew how I felt. So, somehow I have to take this whipping, no matter how it stings, how it hurts, and I will cry when I am by myself or I will cry at the end of a TV show because I am supposed to live. Billy said, the one left must stay.. And that is what I will do until I cannot. I might yearn for Billy to just hold me but I do not yearn for strange arms to hold me and my memories will have to hold me and I will cry when I am alone. Until then, I will be brave and hang on as long as I can. It is not easy being brave all the time, so I let myself cry at the ending of TV shows, happy, odd, sad, terrible, whatever, and dog food ads, and when I drive by myself and talk to Billy. I did not watch but the ending of Nicholas Sparks "The Notebook" and perhaps it is really a fairy tale ending. I wanted to go like that and was angry at Billy for leaving without me. If I had known he was not going to listen to me, if I had known he was giving up, I almost think I could have projected myself to go. But I was not gonna let him go. He didn't listen to me.

Gin, at my age, I cannot afford to have an old house fixed. That is why I rent. I won't ever say this was a mistake.......for me. Different paths I guess this is my pre-assisted living, if I make it that far.

I think I am one of those involved with family. I think I came from a different culture. I know I told my granddaughter my first "crush" (we called it back in the dark ages) was my 4th cousin. She was mortified. So, I guess I have always been surrounded by family and now that they are going the route of aging, I guess my small town culture was so different. We moved away awhile, about 20 years, but always kept in touch by letters, then email, then Facebook. Only 106 in my graduating class but some have drifted away but a lot of us stay in touch. I don't remember much but having to leave home, jumping into marriage, hanging on for dear life, lots of detours, rough roads, sickness, but we held on like we knew what we were doing and then all of a sudden, he was gone. I was not old. He was not old, but everyone else got old. Fixing to be 57 years in 3 days. (Of marriage, I am still married, to me). I went to a childhood friend's grave not long ago. He was 17 and worked two jobs. Went to sleep at the wheel. He will always be 17. Then I think if he had lived he would be an old man also. Billy never was old to me. I put on two scarfs today because I did not want to fix my hair. In one I looked 75, the other I looked 76, but Billy was never old. I am sorry you do not have your old school friends and acquaintances from where you lived before. Some people move on. I am happy for them, but even if I was 20 years younger, I don't think I could. Once you have had the best, you do not need another unless all of you can live in unison. It happens. But I was 18 when I married, I lived my whole life with that one man and damn if I could find another that would put up with me. I wish you the best dear Gwen. I sure miss Billy, and I cuss him ever so often too. I wish he had left me for another woman, at least I could be angry and he would be alive. Rose Kennedy was right. You do have to build up scar tissue to protect your mind. I have had to do it. I cannot tell you how, but all it takes is a song to rip it right off. We all have a different path to follow for sure.

There has been a lot of fighting back lately with the "me too" movement. Would probably not hurt to have this guy's name on a police record, even if you don't press charges, there may be someone that will and it would not hurt/would be on record to watch out for him in the future. There might be someone that it happens to that he might hurt physically, and his name would be on record anyhow. I don't know how to do that, but I'm sure your therapist would. The slogan "Make America Great Again" seems to want to put everyone back into the 1950's. While I was a child then the laws have changed. My dad sold our house without my mom signing and she strove for women's rights after that. Probably the only thing she ever let him get by with and since he heard about it every day the rest of his life, I don't think he got by with anything. We all get knocked down, but we don't have to stay there. We have lost our mates, but we still have a life to live. I certainly wish you well and hope things get easier. It is not an easy path to be on.

Okay, I've got him. Sweet little blond too. Know you all enjoyed yourself. My second cousin is one of my best friends ever, we are the same age and stay in touch constantly. We both were medical transcriptionists, she for the VA across town and me for the state hospital on the other side of town. Never discussed it, we just were. Our husbands worked together too. Second cousins are good.

I think you will get more empathy from this group than any place you will go. There are really actually the different stages and I am not sure we always get through every stage. Sometimes we get stuck in grief, sometimes even in anger, sometimes others move on and we wonder "how?" Still, we each walk our own path, and no one can walk on that same path with us. We try to shake off the moods that paralyze us, but sometimes we just have to give in to them and quit digging and just sit there. Eventually, you actually do develop scar tissue and we don't have constant pain. This spring I saw the colors of the new plants. I had not seen it in the two springs before this one. I dread autumn, but I hope I see the changing of the leaves. I don't know if I will, and I have spent a lot of time being angry, and I cannot intelligently tell you the reason, it does not matter, it is just something that is in my path. I hate you have to join us, but you will find the best, well meaning people anywhere, here on this forum. None of us know each other, but we all consider each other friends and we are happy for any triumph over this pain, even for just a moment. Keep reading, read back on different people and see how their path has come along. I hope yours gets some easier. It won't quit hurting, but you might find a moment at some time that you might enjoy a movie or find something to eat that you won't feel guilty for enjoying. We all walk beside you.

Where is Atlas? I'm glad you all had a big family fun time.

Tom, July 3rd will be our 57th and I will buy him a card and put it beside the others. I know we cannot say Happy Anniversary, but I will call mine "blue funk" 57th, lonesome 57th, love him even more if that is possible 57th, miss him on our 57th, whatever mood hits. And it will. Scott was eight days old on our first anniversary and we rode down the street to the "Coffee Cup," a restaurant at the end of the street and had cokes. Holding our first born. Anyhow, my heart is with you, on y'all's 49th anniversary.

Cookie, I made my sister cry one time and from then on I decided I would never do that again. . "She ain't heavy, she's my sister." I make her nervous sometimes with my driving, but we handle it. I'm all she has. And, I don't have any business putting personal things in here. She is doing so much better and I believe she is going to have a good life. I sure hope so and I'm willing to help anyway I can. I gripe about my family, but, I love them, and maybe I did not want to live, it seems to be I have reasons I should live and when the time comes, I will go.