Margm

I just printed this out and will paste on computer, I will never remember otherwise. Thank you.

One of the first things I remember Mama saying is you cannot argue religion or politics. Crazy, but my sister blames all her problems on the republican party. All my friends are republicans. And, on Facebook they all spout their positive belief in a system that is about as clear as the Flint, Michigan water problems. When I first got married Billy would argue religion with my family. My son wants to argue his religion. My grandson is lost in the drug jungles of California. He is now a preacher of some sort. He wanted to make a pilgrimage back home to save my mother, his great grandmother with his religion. They were never close. No one was ever close to my mom. My son had to tell him he was a couple of years late as she had passed on a couple of years ago. I think on this forum we actually respect the right of the person to have religion, whatever that religion might be, or not have religion, we cannot change a lifetime of belief, or no belief, and that is not the reason for the forum. I do not know how to put where to go for what Marty sent me to. But in some strange way it was like she instinctively knew what my heart, my mind, my psyche all were going through. I don't know how to get to that article other than the settings I put up above. All she had was Religion and Spirituality in Grief, and it comes from the blog/forum/I don't know what you call these articles but it is Grief Healing: Religion and spirituality in Grief. and I can underline it but it won't take you there. The thing is, it explains a lot of things, even agnosticism. And some times you can reach the unreachable just by reading, and sometimes you cannot. It told things you cannot say to a person after death and I thought it interesting that the things you cannot say are the very things you say. We are only human and we either believe or don't believe. That is one thing we do have, we do have free will. As a child I did not have free will. I wrestle with my faith, but although I get angry, the reason I did not take those 50 morphine pills directly after Billy left was the remnants of my faith, and fear that I would not follow Billy. Now I can only describe this one person's plight, anyone else, they have to follow their own convictions. You certainly cannot preach to people that are as lost in grief as we all are. You have to find whatever builds your own scar tissue. Okay, thanks to Marty, it will take you there now and if you are confused, I am not going to say you won't still be confused, but you will know a lot more people are confused also.

Gwen, you think your confused??? Hey gal, you and I are soul sisters, and you can believe in that. I cannot say I don't believe, I can say I have to believe because that is what I was taught to believe and I do think I still have faith, how else could I get angry at something I didn't believe in? It would be like me getting angry at some mythical creature, if I didn't believe. The things Marty had me watch and read, that first letter written sounds like it was written by me, but it wasn't. I get so stressed out being the matriarch of this family and I think of Billy telling me if I died when I was so sick that all my worry would be gone and it would be placed on the ones that are left. He was right. My granddaughter is going to visit a friend and I have tried to talk myself into going to see my cousin in Michigan. Clocked it at 900+ miles. Now, to some people they may think I am too old, but the Billy part of me (I am you and you are me) tells me I can do whatever I want to do. Of course my kids and sister won't allow it. I have not discussed it with them. And anyone reading this will say "oh no, you cannot do that" and all I can think of is "why not?" True I have a condition and it might take 2-3 days but the motels don't check out till 11:00 a.m. and by that time I "should be good to go." I say this without telling TMI. But you all know anyhow. Gwen, I have to believe. I have to have faith. It is as small as a mustard seed right now and has been for many moons. But, I still have it. You have my heart Gwen. I might have plenty of questions but I have a promise.

Marty, the piece you sent me to read on Religion and Spirituality in Grief https://www.griefhealingblog.com/2015/03/religion-and-spirituality-in-grief.html or maybe someone can get it from the place I put down. That first letter that was written, it sounds exactly like what I have/would have written. How ironic is that. I guess my feelings are not so different from some. I brought it back to this page because the fellow who had lost his wife after 60+ years, I did not want to sabotage his sorrow any more than I did. I already put too much on his page and that was very selfish of me. This was under (confused) post and I moved it. There is a video under (confused) post and it needs to be watched. Thank you Marty. Sometimes you are "spot on" and I wonder do you have some special power you are not telling us about. Okay, I watched it, I even took notes that I can read back. I usually cannot even read my grocery list. "Sit with your angst, breathe, know that this will pass. At some point you have to stop trying to control it." In another part it said, what I have always known, "God is not Santa Claus." It also spoke of us thinking of God as the all controlling parent, and I have, of course. Cannot find my picture that Mama had to have taken of my being dressed for church, never liked having my picture taken. But I was about this age with the frizzy red hair that I guess Mama tried to get my hair to do something different than be red. No one else in the family had flame red hair. Now, it would be called the sweet word of "ginger" but I think Mama thought either I was cursed, or she was one. And with my daddy, who was definitely very strict. Guess he had to be with a fire headed child. Thank you Marty, it explained that sometimes we think of God like our strict overbearing real life father. And, I did, and most times do, and somehow still have not gotten over my anger, which is a really new emotion to stay so long. It will leave. I think I get angry because I am here and Billy isn't, and I should be the one gone.

John R. I am moving my post to our "going through hell" site because it is selfish of me to sabotage your grief. I'm sorry. I do understand long marriage and having to live what little life we have left without them. I often see two long married people "going" together when life is over and I envy them. I always thought that was the way I wanted to go and I mentioned it to Billy not long before we knew he was ill. His comment actually hurt my feelings some, but now I have to live it. He said "the one left must stay." Dammit, I'm staying but I sure ain't having any fun.

OMGosh, could you have picked a more appropriate quote from my very most appropriate C.S. Lewis. Thanks Marty. And he was right, I don't understand, but you would have thought I would have. I have saved his writings and of course have his book A Grief Observed. I am going to print this out. Thank you. Not sure I am over my anger but I think "He" understands and as most bosses do and lions do not worry too much of the opinion of sheep (even if they go looking for the lost ones).

I keep waiting for my faith to take hold again. I believe and yet this week I got so angry at God and told him so. In the hospice book left at my mom's, they say that getting angry with God was common. My dad was a stern, unbending gentleman. I was brought up in a Missionary Baptist Church that had fire and brimstone preaching that told of an angry God. Then when I talked to my pastor after the cancer he said God was not a punishing God, but I believed and still believe he punishes me. Maybe it was the cult image of a small church with my dad the main deacon and everything was off limits to me. Maybe it was all the preaching I would be punished and I finally did something to be punished for and still believe I am being punished or he would have taken me first. Now, non-religious people will think this is mish-mash and possibly it is to you but right now I have angry conversations with God. Like I was afraid to have with my earthly father. Billy knew of my "evil" side and he forgave me and did not believe I was still being punished. You know, you can "raise up your children in the way they should go" and sometimes you train them too well.

We used to have that many but they have dwindled down a whole lot. Have a good time, sounds great. I moved from the "Hot Springs" part of Arkansas back to the swamps. Do not regret it. You go to Hot Springs on holiday down here and they are all from Louisiana car tags.

John, I cannot imagine all the hurt and tragedy in your long marriage, one thing and then the next. I wrote this forum three days after Billy "left." I don't know how I found it,, I don't know how I had even the still shocked mind to understand what I was doing. I do not remember going back and reading things. I am not one of those people who write in a blog about my day to day feelings. I tried that and it was horrible. I did rely a lot on Rose Kennedy's quote, and I trusted her because she had lost so much. “It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” In your partnership you took care of your wife and in mine, Billy took care of me from cancer and years later effects of the radiation. We both knew I would go first. I get so much anxiety and he was so laid back and patient and would have made a good nurse, and in another lifetime I think he would have. Our daughter is/was a nurse. I knew Billy, as slow and ambling, never getting in a hurry, that boy took only five weeks to leave me from the diagnosis. So, whatever you want to write, we have heard it all. Heck, I have said it all (at least five times each post), but people are still tolerant of me. We were married for 54 years (fixing to be 57) cause I consider us still married forever. Oh, and right after he left I went to sleep in the chair and I woke to him touching me or feeling he was close. I looked down and he had on his khaki colored pants, tan shirt, did not see his face, but felt his lips on my forehead, then he was gone. I've tried to get him to show me some sign since then but Billy was never superstitious, and the other day I got angry at him and God, Jesus and the whole family because I needed help but I guess they were all out fishing.

I'm sorry, and no words can compensate for your loss. My heart goes out to you.

I think it was about 1937, and can get it on Amazon. She did not like Cabaret and loved Phantom of the Opera. Of course I loved both. Might be too old for her (not for her age, for it's age).

It was my fairy tale Kevin. I did worry about those that left it though. My bucket list would include a monastery in Nepal. I have no answer why.

Good luck Kevin. I hope it sells fast and you find your (Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton.) I am so old I saw the movie in black and white and loved it. Wish we could all find our Shangri-La.

Kevin, is this your old town or is this your new town? Are you all having floods or is that floods and ice? How are you doing fellow?

Gwen, my hardest part of shopping is knowing I cannot go pick Billy up at the toy section (fishing dept) and knowing he will be on the same row having thoroughly looked at everything. Now that, I miss, and I stay away from the sports department.

When I announced to Billy's friends, the two couples that as very young adults (actually most of us teenagers), we had all been together a lot, that he was gone, somehow I thought they would take me to their heart and welcome me home. They didn't. I was a stranger to them. Okay, will have to admit my feelings were hurt until I started thinking about it, really thinking about it. I have noticed old people holding hands in Walmart and I think how sweet that is, still in love after all those years. That is my assumption. I don't know those people. They could have been an "old maid and old bachelor" that had just found love.. They could have been divorcees that had just found love again, or they could have actually been old like me and so happy to have their husband, or wife, who might be ill and they were helping hold them up. We don't know these people. We miss our mate, that is all. We do not begrudge the "whoever they are" for any happiness they have. We just miss our partner who was always beside us. Our friends, their rude reception was actually not rude. One was already in the throes of dementia and a few months later one of the men had a stroke that has made the nursing home his home. They were not angry at seeing me, but losing their childhood friend could have made them hear those heavy footsteps that we all hear behind us. We just grieve our life as it was, we miss the partnership that was, we just miss all that was and is not anymore.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. Helen Keller I always wondered how this woman who could not hear, see or speak could say so much and be so much smarter than those of us who see, hear, and unfortunately can speak.

Who? I don't see anyone. I wave at people. I wave at a woman who came down here, her daughter brought her down and dumped her. She sits out on the tables and looks off in the distance drinking her "tea" I guess. I am lucky. I live on the outskirts of a 12,000 people town. It is easy to drive in. I see people at Walmart and I guess I am a cold person because the lives they live does not mean any more to me than a bee buzzing around my head. I hope people are happy. Billy and I used to make up stories about people we would watch in cars at Sonic or one of the others. And, all these people I see, I don't know what they are going through. Maybe that woman's daughter just got Ms. America, maybe another woman's daughter is in the ER or prison from drugs. We had a woman sit in front of us in church.. Little boy's name was Jerry Paul. I was a little kid myself. Jerry Paul would move around in his seat, my gosh can you imagine a kid in an hour and a half preaching service being hungry, restless. Well she would slap him upside his head. He'd yell. Finally she'd take him out, give him a beating, come back in and we'd all worship God. It does not matter what my neighbor does, as long as he does not bother me. Now I did get aggravated at him putting his beer cans on the porch and I put them right on his door way. Last time he left any out. We have to do what we can for ourselves. Right now I just got out of the ER with a possible heart attack for my sister. Follow up with her doctor. She keeps getting dizzy/vertigo.. The ambulance came and got her. Her heart rate was in high 90's and blood pressure was bottomed out. They gave her medicine and told her to get her doctor to send her to cardiologist. The stress she has brought on herself is enough to kill anyone. My son as a teenager got a traffic ticket. He hid it in his top drawer until the police came for him. I guess she thought she could hide everything in the top drawer. Now she has no car. Wants to borrow mine, with vertigo like that.. I take that kid (she is still a kid to me) anywhere and everywhere and I do not even mind it one tiny bit. I don't hurry her. I am free to take her where ever, but with her vertigo, cannot trust her to drive. And the worse thing is her fur baby Boo is expected to die any minute now. She has had her 12 years. She took care of my mom for 11 years, gave up her life to keep Mama out of a nursing home. Me.........I'm mean, I would have put her in a nursing home and I know my sister felt like she owed her for financing her last few years of college. Damn, how much do you have to pay. I have become very cynical. Oh so many damn worries to worry about. Days that are not bogged down in something. You know what. I just discovered, I am one old tough broad and for some reason today my son left word he gets his resilience from his mom, his grandma and great grandma. Maybe so. I'm here until I die. Billy left.

My sister is solving her own problems, sometimes I try to and then I get her stern voice "let me do it" and I have spent my whole life jumping in and enabling everyone. I think when I get so upset I "leave the country" in Ferris Yaris, somehow that has a way of proving my little poem I wrote when I had cancer. "I'm not that important, life does go on. If I wasn't here, then I would be gone." Stupid, but true. My load is lighter today. I did grab my mustard seed necklace once when looking for Billy's sister's grave. Way off in the country, beautiful country. Well kept. We found it one time, Billy and me together. I think it is flat and covered with silt. Gonna have a memorial made for her and Billy's brother and put up with sister's name on one side and brother's name on other. Raised, where this Louisiana silt does not cover it. I will have his ashes put beside her. I looked to Heaven and begged Jesus, and named the whole family to help me find this grave, but I think since Billy got there they were just all out fishing. I will have the church find it for me. I came home feeling like a weight had been lifed from me anyhow. It is good sometimes to just get out in the woods and drive, listen to Elvis (I did), and just clear your mind. We had that kind of country in Arkansas. Guess what, we have that kind of country in Louisiana too. "Take me home country roads." I don't know if you can find these kind of roads around Chicago or Seattle, but I'll bet there are national forests close. Oh well, what helps me would frighten the hell out of other people. It is what it is. Thanks Kay, enjoy talking to you. Your a good "down home" girl.

When things come down on me the hardest, it is not the Xanax that helps the most, it is getting in the little Ferris Yaris and just hitting those back roads. No, these are not the Arkansas back roads that were mine and Billy's with nary a vehicle coming anywhere. I don't drive at night (I did last night), but I am so fortunate to live on the outskirts of town and the main road goes right past my kinfolks resting places and probably a lot of live kinfolks living in those beautiful but palatial homes and those living in the mobile homes. I talk to Billy and sometimes I talk to Jesus. I say "Billy, I don't know what to do, I've done everything I can" and then I might say "Please Jesus help me" because I have come up on some problems I don't know how to solve. Some things I don't know what to do. And, my family, my daughter, my son remind me "Mama, your all we have left, you cannot let things worry you to death" and sometimes I get angry at Billy for leaving me with these problems. Then sometimes I go and read Erma Bombeck's "If I Had My Life to Live Over". I have to break down and go see my sister and some of you can understand, she is alone except for Boo, her cat of 12 years. A spoiled cat for sure, but much loved. The large tumor in her stomach could not be cured and I think she might have died overnight and I'm afraid to face it. I'm also afraid to face my sister who will sit there and just die. I'm taking my daughter with me. As much as she has been a bother sometimes, she is still a hero to me. She faces her challenges. Yes, I have helped a whole lot, but she helps too. This is long, but if you remember Erma, you will enjoy it again. IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER – by Erma Bombeck (written after she found out she was dying from cancer). I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for the day. I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage. I would have talked less and listened more. I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded. I would have eaten the popcorn in the ‘good’ living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace. I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth. I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband. I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed. I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains. I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life. I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn’t show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime. Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I’d have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle. When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, ‘Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.’ There would have been more ‘I love you’s’ More ‘I’m sorry’s.’ But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute, look at it and really see it .. live it and never give it back. STOP SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF!!! Don’t worry about who doesn’t like you, who has more, or who’s doing what Instead, let’s cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.

I'm sorry CL. I would be on the computer doing my "hobby" work because I loved it. Billy was retired and would sit on the couch where I could reach out and touch him. He would wrap fishing rods (you could buy blank rods and get the equipment to put all the other things on) and he would tie flies for bass fishing. All my working did was make us pay more taxes, when I quit working we got our first tax return but Billy filled out those last tax papers but never got to see the return........because of my "hobby" working. I should have retired that 2nd time and stayed retired. We had 80 years work together. I wish I had quit sooner. He worked 37 years and I just had to beat him with 43. It wasn't worth it. Maybe this is blue Monday for sure. We all just miss them so much.

No assumptions CL. It all goes along with what we say. I was a medical transcriptionist in my home most of the 43 years, retired from two hospitals. Loved going to work at the hospital, hated staying at home. When I would go to Walmart after a week "alone" without getting out of the house I would pick up some gastrointestinal problems just from being around people (and of course, the radiated belly). We all hear what we want to hear, we all assume people mean certain things and the old saying is true about "assume." I wish you well on your path and I understand the working at home. My ankles still swell if I am under this computer too long. Had a ganglion on my foot from the foot pedal. Now I wish I had quit many years ago because Billy felt guilty me working and him out alone fishing. All those years of doing my "hobby" working (we already had our retirements), and I should have been with him. We are all lost here. We just do the best we can. This is a Monday and I am in a terrible mood. So much to do and I don't want to do any of it so I am going to watch the NCIS-LA and Madam Secretary TV shows I have recorded. I do wish you a better day and no pain. (Although the pain, we cannot wish away).

We can make suggestions that seem to help us. But, everyone has to make their own path. If they cannot hear people, perhaps it is because they do not want to go down that path. They remember it when they had someone to walk it with them. It was a beautiful path. Billy and I used to walk every dirt road probably within 100 mile radius. Saw and heard things I had never heard or seen. Beautiful rivers hidden in forests that people never felt the need to visit. There were waterfalls on these little rivers and one time we climbed a hill and below us was a pool and it was filled with fish. We could watch them. Walking down those roads together were the happiest times of my life. But, he no longer walks them with me. My walking them alone brings painful memories of a time that was happy. Time is not happy now. Billy said if I died, which we both thought I would, I would not be laden down with worries. Now, he took that path and he left me alone to walk the other one, and no one can do it for me, for you, for them, or anyone else. You have to make your own path or you stand still. But, if that is your choice, no one can walk that path for you. It is your path.

No, Mama was always there. I think this shakeup might do more good than bad. There is a woman who lives in the apartments who takes her big glass of tea (I hope it is tea) and she has the shaking illness worse than I do. Mine only really shows if things are not going right with the colon (makes my chin shake),, and the leg bone's connected to the hip bone, etc. Who knew the chin was connected to the colon.. TMI. Anyhow, her daughter brought her down here from some northern state, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, (some foreign country type of atmosphere), to this humid south. I take a shower and it takes a long time to quit sweating and put my clothes on. We are actually a tropical country compared to the north. This woman sits by herself. Her daughter has gone off with some man and later on I see her daughter with her carrying an oxygen tank (small), all bent over, using 4 prong cane. I don't ask questions, either an accident or friend got out of hand. But, the woman is back on the bench with her iced tea looking off in the distance. I do try to make conversation but she is very clipped with her answers, so now I just wave. We have a little bus that comes by to pick up seniors for doctor's appointments, which is good for this small town of about 12,000. I can see the woman does not really want company.......and honestly, neither do I, but I tried. Now we just wave at each other. We do have a senior center in town. One of the women I met at the mailbox was a retired school teacher and was telling me how the senior center gave out food. She kept trying to get me to take something from her back seat. She carries it all to her church members. I think poverty is scattered all over the country. She fell and her daughter now has her in her home. I miss her (but never looked in the back seat of her car). I moved here because I wanted to hear life all around me. I hear it. My "friend" Brian, I have quit picking up his beer cans and throwing them away, now I put them in front of his door. One day last week he threw about six in our front yard. Now this place landscapes all the time, they try to keep it clean and each season they put in new flowers all around and it is beautiful. Wouldn't you think a grown man could pick up his six pack of beer cans? I did complain about this. I am not a complainer, but I want the trouble they go to making this place beautiful, beer cans do not add to it. So, you live among people, you have to put up with people. And I do not mind. That 2000 square foot house in the beautiful surroundings, the quiet, that quiet was so loud at night, no way could I stay there. Widows on both sides of me, could not see their houses because of the terrain, senior center and town within walking distance, but something was missing from that town that left a hole in it big enough for me to drown in, and that was Billy. Somehow, I feel Billy approves of what I did. We were planning on leaving. If you want company, if you are old enough, heck, I'll bet they would take you even if you weren't, go to the senior center in your town if you want to see and hear people. But again, that is damned if you do and damned if you don't. There are answers, but Billy is not there and neither are any of your husbands and wives, but if you are drowning in your own silence, in your own pain, in your own personal existence, there are answers. Might not be any fun. Heck, might be a total drag, but you will hear human voices.......maybe the voices in your head are enough company. Honestly, I love hearing the life around me, but I also am comfortable in my own skin, other than my aches, pains, and physical disabilities, which I will live with till I don't.

The only way you can do that is to move into senior apartments or assisted living. But to do that you would have to leave the house that makes you miserable, and then if you leave it is possible you might be more miserable. So you are damned if you do, damned if you don't. I am sorry, I was the type of person that had to leave the sorrow of the place Billy left me caused. It causes me sorrow to go back to Hot Springs. He left me in one of the hospitals I retired in and I can talk to my old workmates, but I cannot look at that hospital. I am a different animal. I know you both cannot do that, so what works for me would not work for you.