Margm

Gin, I think there is such a void that we know cannot be filled. As I said, I hate numbers, but last year I did not "see" the flowers, I did not see the spring, this year I saw it so I will have to say that is a change for me. Maybe my moving back to our home state made a difference to me. I do not have any answers that would help anyone else. Maybe having people depend on me makes me worry more about other things. I know Billy is not coming back, but I talk to him. I do a lot of praying too. Billy does not answer me, but I hope my prayers are heard. I still cry. Tonight I watched Paddington Bear 2 and had to get a new roll of paper towels. I cry very easily. I am not young anymore and sometimes I think "well, if I die, I just die." I am not well, but whatever I have wrong with me cannot be fixed, so as long as I can keep going, I will. Billy said "the one left must stay." I will as long as I can. I try to drop off to sleep as fast as I can, but if I wake at 5:00 a.m., I will worry. I don't like to worry. I don't worry about myself though.

Kevin, my hope is what you quoted. For me it can be no less. Thank you.

My cousin spoke of his and my aunt talking to her deceased husband while she mowed her yard. She was in her 90's then, so the fact that she was mowing, to me, was wonderful, and her talking to my deceased uncle, to me seemed normal. Now that Billy is gone, I think it even more than normal, it is some touch with him, even if it might be one sided it seems, who is to say? When we pray, we expect to be heard. Yet, my friend told me when I asked her if she talked to her husband, she said "your still young in your grief." I will always talk to Billy, and I certainly hope I will always pray too.

Having never had but one sibling, I think your family had many blessings Kay. So sad to lose one, I cannot afford to lose one, but I hope your group grows even closer now. I'm so sorry about Donna, and I hope, and feel she is now free and smiling from someplace beautiful. Your mentioning to Kevin a place you must have looked at, possibly a place around people that you do not have to work so hard. Places are hard to leave sometimes when so much living has taken place, but sometimes preserving our strength to carry our memories longer might help in the long run. "The long run" is a questionable place to live in, I know. I love your family picture. I'm glad you all could get together. I am sorry it was for this reason.

It is hard to think of anything as an "option." We want them back, that is the option that is impossible to get back. It also is the one we have to accept. Not an easy life. I could fight a lion. I would lose. I have scars from this fight too. I'm still here, that's all I can do.

Can we do this any other way?

I talked to Billy's sister yesterday. First time I did not cry. Her husband is over 80 now and had to go to doc today. His legs have just quit holding him up. Always had back problems though. I have to call her more often. Lots of stuff "I have to do" that I never will do, but I still "have to do it." It is hard being older and losing so many friends (after your life has already been taken away from you.) I think another hard thing is four of them that are classmates have dementia, I will not say what type, I do not know. Does it really matter? In 1970, when I started typing all the discharge summaries, operations, consultations, clinic notes, admission notes, we only used the word senile dementia. I cannot tell you how many patients (until I caught on) that I gave AIDS related problems, instead of "age related" Guess they thought those old people were getting around. Karen, I think of you often. My friend lost her 10 year old girl in a playground accident, and she never recovered (certainly not). At Barbara Bush's funeral, they kept mentioning the child she had lost to leukemia, I think. My aunt lost her 30-something year old daughter to alcohol poisoning, and now my aunt is a shut in, we grieve our husbands, our wives, but a child.....parents should leave before their children. My grandmother was in her 80's when her first borne, my dad passed away. It was then that dementia took over, but she lived to 94 or 95. I can remember her daughters, my aunts, saying "Mama, you just told us that five times" and my Mammaw would just look bewildered. I find myself repeating things too. Sometimes I have to ask if I have said it because I will think it and think maybe I said it. My shrink from years back told me that the dissociation spells I was having was my brain protecting itself. Used to we had complete nervous breakdowns. Do not hear it called that anymore, but I know most weeks I have at least 2 or 3.

We each had different circumstances. Billy and I gave away anything that would not fit into a 28 foot RV years ago. Then a few years later we set up housekeeping again because of family circumstances. When he left me, my whole attitude changed. I packed and gave away. My family took the fishing gear they wanted and we had people coming in and just taking things. In the mood I was in, I did not care. I was like a hungry dog guarding some things though. I moved (never have I regretted that) as fast as I could. I bought all new things but the bed. Not for sentimental reasons though. As I have said often, we were not homesteaders, more gypsies. Now I am back to my southern redneck roots. My mood changes with the clock, day, weather, song, TV show, cry at commercials, happy, sad, vanilla ones. Nothing I can do. He is not coming back, but I will go to him when the time comes. I My belief, my religion spoke here: 1 Corinthians 13:12 King James Bible For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. Billy used to ask me why I believed like I did, he also had believed but he had doubts, questions. I told him it was how I had to believe. That is just me. There are others that believe like this, many believe otherwise, or not at all. We are given free will.

Kay, I look up synonyms to describe the same thing I have said over and over. I guess that is similar to Billy (this was a man's man) never asking directions, even though I said "Billy, we are lost." "I am not lost, I just don't know where I am." So, maybe I am not lost after-all, I just don't know where I am.

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” ― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Do you know that this by Kubler-Ross has probably been on here hundreds of times. You know I try to read about widows and how they handle the widowhood. I cannot read Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, she is the death writer. Well, I did it. And, all I can say is, she knew what she was writing. Yes.....I have not read her before. It is kind of like your family practice physician was Dr. Jack Kevorkian. He left me in that other state. Where ever he was, I was home. He was not there. I tell myself he cannot be gone. The next nanosecond I know, for sure, he is gone and he is not coming back. I listen to music, I cry. I listen again, I don't cry. Next time I will probably. Dammit, he just plain is not coming back. I have even been angry at him for leaving me. He didn't do it on purpose. I know that. I no longer cry until I cannot breathe. It is not okay. But, I have a lot of things occupying my mind at all times. There has been a moment or two or three that I thought I felt his presence but then, Billy was not superstitious and I am him and he is me and so I am not superstitious.........but I used to be. I miss my mystical, magical, imaginative life. And this year, I saw the Dogwoods, the Daffodils, the forsythia, the tulip trees, the "granny graybeards (and I have no idea if that is what they really are called). I did not see them last year though. Possibly I am developing scar tissue over the wound that will never heal. But, it will tear easily.

I didn't turn out like my mom, although I do wish I had gotten more of her genes, Billy wasn't like my dad, and I thanked God often for that, although bless his heart, my dad did the best he could and my mom did the best she could. The book was never written on how to raise two people like my sister and I turned out to be. To me, Billy was a perfect father who would do anything for his kids and grandkids, and did. I am happy Bri is adopted and won't inherit some of our genes, but she sure inherited all the love we had stored up, ready to give.

I am really ashamed of myself for fussing about family. There are so many without family. I am sorry for that. I might be taken advantage of, it was allowed by me though. Billy and I both knew we enabled our children and grandchildren. We spoke of it and we both said, if we had to do it over again, we would not change a thing. We gave up our dream retirement to help save our son. He was ready. He was 36, and he came close to death many times. I do not regret one moment, although for awhile, I was kind of resentful. If he had died because I held a safe place away from him, there would be no life left for me that was happy in any way. I have said too much and fussed out of frustration. I am sorry. Not to say I won't do it again. I hope not though.

Gwen, your really someone I wished I lived close to. (Well, guess you can't take the southern and put it in the Northwest). I understand what everyone says, and I have everything I need. It is funny, not in a ha-ha way, but ironic how little you really need when the one you shared it with is gone. But, I still feel the same, I cannot enjoy something if I know someone else is doing without. I am really not a goody-goody person, probably a stupid one more than anything else, but it does go along with all our feelings..........it is hard to enjoy anything anyhow, you try, but if someone you care about needs something, if you can do it, you do it. I see all these homeless people, people sleeping on the streets and people on drugs that walk mindlessly through life. Maybe I do this because I cannot help them, but I can help the ones I know, all of them but my grandson who is a homeless person, on drugs, somewhere we have no idea where he is, and we only feel hope when he is arrested and put in the system so we know he has a roof over his head, is being fed, and is warm. I cannot help him. I would if I could, but he does not want help. He is "lost" in California somewhere. So I help the ones I can.

I have not read the article yet, but I will say that my granddaughter is the one that tells me "Mamol, you have to learn to say "no" you never tell them no and your going to have to. I am going to read this, but I don't know if I ever will be able to say "no" unless I really don't have it. I don't know if I can live with myself and yes, they do know it, and I know I am being taken advantage of. Right now one is doing without a TV, I have three and would give one to this person but I cannot travel that far right now. I just don't know if I can say no and live with myself.. Now I will read and make a copy of the note you sent. ADDENDUM: I did read it, I printed it out. I understand the concept, but I still cannot appreciate any comfort that my loved ones go without, if I can possibly provide it. There are many of us who have no one to help us. Our grief is made that much greater. I wish I could be there for them. I cannot, but I can be there for others that need me, until I am gone. Then, like Billy said, the worry will be on those left. And, it will be written in stone. I will make sure of that if I live long enough.

Perhaps I should say nothing. My granddaughter tells me that I just need to tell these people "no" but she does not think about her being in the midst of all my problems too. Gwen, my problems are completely different. The fur babies may have to stay in a kennel while you stay in rehab. Visit places before you go to rehab. When Billy was sick, the five weeks he was "down" I never thought about asking for help. I had my son living with me and actually my daughter, granddaughter and an unmentionable person. (Unmentionable, because I want to call her names that are ......unmentionable). And then, all of a sudden we had a visiting nurse and a rehab person visiting us often. Who were these people? I didn't ask for them. Yet, they were there to "tend to Billy." Perhaps you will have those also. Maybe you can stay in your home and they can come to you. Yesterday I gave away money that was needed by a family member. "Do you need it, will you have enough to make it?" I was asked this. Well, they had to have it, would never have asked otherwise. It left me with a bare minimum for three of us to live 10 days. (They will pay me back in 10 days and then borrow it again) so I said no to the paying back. This happens every month. I pay all my bills on the 1st of the month, so I do not owe bills for the next 10 days, but my son is here, groceries still to buy. In effect, I am supporting five people now. One never asks, but this time I was let know how much he has to make it till the 1st, so I fill up a truck tank and give money. At the end of the month my granddaughter and I both are holding our breath. Just say "no" Mamol. How can I say no when I have all I need, nothing I really want, and the guilt I pay for them doing without is not worth the penny pinching I will have to do. How can I leave them in need to just keep it from them? They need. I have. I give. Plain and simple. All I want is a stone to put on our grave plot. Not much to want but impossible to get in light of the need otherwise. I get a lot of money in retirement for one individual, but not so much for five. Say "no" and I cannot. Sorry.........just another thing that we have problems with. Some face it alone. Some of us are rubber bands. Do you remember the rubber bands that used to come on the newspapers that were threw into the yard, driveway, porch? My dad had a long cup holder screwed into the wall. The newspaper would come, he would put the rubber band on that cup holder. Over the years, those rubber bands deteriorated. Some of us have the problems of facing life all alone. That is hell. Some of us have the problems of being stretched like that old rubber band.

Nayajivan, I am so sorry to hear how you feel.. I will say that many, most on this forum feel, and have felt, the same. I will tell you unashamedly, I was married 54-years, I knew no other life really. In my traumatized mind I planned out a way to be with Billy. I had the means, no pain, I wanted no physical pain because the mental pain itself was more pain that I could bear. I would drive my truck into the many backwoods roads in our national forest, places we had walked together. No one would find me. I would write notes to my family. They would miss me, but Billy was our head of the family, and I was just following him. My young granddaughter got word of what I was going to do, overheard my talking to myself. The rest of the family intervened and I honestly was made so ashamed of myself. They were so angry at me. How could they be angry with me? I just wanted to be with myself, I was him, he was me, we needed to be together. Since then, I have fought many wars with this family. What seemed the easiest way "out" was not easy for anyone but me. You have young children. It is hard to think of others when our needs are to be with the one who left. Then I remembered Billy saying "the one left must stay." I got angry. I had been sick so much, why did I have to stay? I did not want to stay. How selfish of him to make me stay. In the 2-1/2 years (yesterday) that he has been gone, my family has depended on me so much I just want to yell at them to leave me alone. Quit needing me so much. I am only one person, but in a note that was put on a social network my daughter described me as the matriarch of the family and four people depended on me. They do, and I want to scream "quit depending on me," but I cannot do that. You will have many bittersweet moments in your young life. Your boys will graduate, they will go on to colleges perhaps, they will get jobs and might leave you, but you will have grandchildren, and you will wonder how, and will miss your wife not knowing these grandchildren, but they will know you, they will love you. We lost our main life and love. We lost our reason for living. Time does not heal those wounds. They will never heal, but as I mentioned before, a little woman who lived past 100 years old and lost her husband, lost many of her children, she said time does not heal wounds, but we develop scar tissue over those wounds. My granddaughter heard me talking last night. I was looking at a picture of Billy in his younger days. To me, at age 75, he was even better looking (and looks did not matter), but the essence of the man that was my main reason for living, I saw him in the picture, and I said "I cannot believe you left me" and she heard me in the back room. I will keep talking to him. I will never quit. Then, today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, one day in the future, I will join him. Until then, I will be the "head of our family, and as they call me, the heart of the family, until it is my time to go. I won't choose the time. But I won't fight it either. Please give yourself time to grieve. Let your boys grieve, but don't make them grieve both of you. If not for this forum, I would already have left..............and I would have been wrong. We lost one of our members not long ago, at his own hands, and he left a grieving family that flounders. We have to endure the hurt for others.

You know I go back and read some of my young high aspirations and this old lady gets ashamed. When the kids were growing up though and was wanting to know what we had dreams of being one day, they listened to their dad had wanted to be a Methodist minister and when that died, he wanted to be a forestry man. My high lofty aspirations of dancing half naked on a stage always tickled them. At 29 though, I was ready to learn and went to college having to quit half way through to work. Again though, I was lucky to fall into something so interesting that I got to see a lot of things I would have never seen otherwise. I can tell you one thing that never came to mind (except when Billy would get me angry enough), I never wanted to be a widow.

I do Tom

And they had a big recall of the romaine lettuce somewhere, California I guess, but I am sure it was sent out all over the USA. Take that fresh vegetables and washing them, let them soak, or whatever. A neighbor when I was a teenager was very ill from some disease he got from not properly washed vegetables.

Oh, I can eat anything that is bad for people. One thing I can eat that is good for people is cooked carrots, green beans, spinach, beets, potatoes, even sweet potatoes, cake, ice cream, almost all fried foods (except okra, squash, anything with seeds or nuts in it). I live on fried chicken. Has to be flour covered. Nothing corn at all.........but grits. I can have grits, and that is strange. It is mostly just a low residue diet without much fiber, if any. No pickles, raw onions, cornbread, chocolate, coconut, celery, no raw veggies. I have put on a lot of weight with apple fritters. I did hide Cheetos but Bri found them. They were taken away from me, as well as pineapple sherbet. I love that stuff, but not supposed to have pineapple. I made a good guacamole using a powder mix and sifting the powder into it. I can have flour tortilla's. I don't suffer. No liquor. I found a picture the girls had thrown a party for me my last visit to MD Anderson. I had not eaten and I had 3 Margarita's straight. My eyes look like I'm fixing to pass out. After throwing up lots and not letting anyone in the downstairs bathroom, I came out and said "someone better call Billy" and passed smooth out. And the girls had rented me a John Holmes porno movie to celebrate. I didn't get to see it. I guess mild mannered medical transcriptionists can get a little wild sometimes. I sure was a lot younger then.

I'm not supposed to eat chocolate, but I want some of those brownies. Can't we make them without chocolate. Vanilla brownies. Blond brownies? Oh, I cannot have fiber, bet those things have a bunch of fiber. Oh heck.

Gwen, I totally love C.S. Lewis. I love to read about his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien. In fact, during the first parts of time after Billy left, I found many books on Kindle and I read all I could find on how other women handled their grief. "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion was hard for me to read because she lost her daughter too and it made me think of our Karen. (She does not mention her daughter's death in her husband's book. She wrote a separate book. Somehow, reading women and men in other walks of life made my life seem rather simple. I like simple. I read a rather long autobiography by Martin Short. I must say, he was not my favorite comedian before I started the book, but I totally love him now. It is called "I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend." and I would not ruin it for anyone, but his conversations with his wife, who is deceased, are heart wrenchingly comical. I really do not need anyone to tell me how to handle my grief, but reading other people's grief, though seemingly morbid, is actually enlightening. And, in saying all this, I have made a complete liar out of myself. I said I could not concentrate. But, I find that is not the truth. I can sometimes, but now I am back to reading Billy's C.J. Box books on the character Joe Pickett. And, I did like I used to do. Sleep was coming on too soon, so I read the last chapter. Now, it is good enough, even though I know the ending that I will/am reading the rest of it. It is his newest book. He leaves it with a cliffhanger. I wonder if he is going to write fast enough for me to read the next. Only time will tell. Gwen, Gin, and those that are having a particular hard time right now, if you can slip in a book or two, if you like reading.............well, it helps me for a moment or two anyhow. I put the picture below because I took it from some of C.S. Lewis's quotes, but it is not attributed to him on the picture itself.

Billy and I were both kids, raising kids. But, while his family never uttered the words "I love you," he was going to make sure we did. He would actually get his feelings hurt if I left the house without saying it first. This was before cell phones, of course. I can remember being 10 or more miles down the road and could not remember if I said it. I, of course, would turn around, go back, ask if I had said it, and he would be so happy that I remembered to remember. He said it to his sister each time he talked to her and she would say "uhhhhhh, luv you too" but it was like it was foreign to her. It was. They would talk weekly before he left and she would firmly say "I love you" and he was so happy. That went for our kids and grandkids too. Mama was an artist in so many ways. In watching her, I learned if I saw a dress I liked, I went home and cut out patterns out of newspapers to make that dress. I did that from the time I was 15. I got tired of hearing "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" and I was the best dressed sow's ear from age 15 on, until I got too shaky to thread a needle. Mama was beautiful too, but she never failed to look at me like she didn't know where I came from. Only two kids born at our country hospital that day, me in the morning and a classmate of mine in the evening. I had flaming red hair, Daddy had black, Mama had black, but she had to take me home anyhow. I got that look from her my whole life. I tried a black wig on once and I looked like the wicked witch with freckles. My sister and I both made it through, so Mama did something right. My sister had it worse with Daddy. I guess this is religion spoke here, but in my Missionary Baptist Church we had such fiery preachers that I made sure someone went out the door before I did. God was an almighty punishing God to be feared. I associated that with my dad, he was a fiery punishing dad that I feared. Got kinda mixed up there in you're supposed to love him. Jesus was pure love. Okay, I could handle this. Then I did something so dreadful that when the punishment came, it lasted until even now. Yet my pastor said God was not a punishing God. Wonder if that is the difference between Southern Baptist and Missionary Baptist? Not wanting an answer......religion spoke here. Human development into "faith as a grain of mustard seed." Only a pastor I trusted could talk to me. Shrink won't work. Putting off things I have to do. Sorry for another word salad. Please, understand, as much grief as we go through, and sometimes it is hard to believe someone else could be hurting as bad as you, or someone could be as lonesome as you, but we, all of us, one-by-one, we are still alone even if we are in a crowd. After 2-1/2 years, things are better. I looked at all the old pictures. I cannot look at the ones of the past few years. The boy without the beard, I fell in love with him, but it seems another lifetime ago. I miss the boy and I miss the man and when I see his picture with mine at the end of the hall, I still cannot believe he is gone.

You all hear me talk down about my mom, and really that is something I should not do. She made my life miserable, but you gotta remember, I sure was no angel. But, they tried to keep me a good girl and were suspect every time I went on a date, and I went on a bunch of them. I don't blame them. But, the thing was, I was a good girl all through high school. And my life's ambition to dance almost naked in those cages at the Whisk-A-Go-Go, well, maybe it was not a good ambition for a deacon's daughter. So, you see, daughter was hard to control. (But, I promise I was a good girl......until I got out of high school). This little woman below, I still have not cried over, but she was the smartest business woman I will ever hope to meet, and if she had been born in this day and age, she would be CEO of some company with the employees hating her. But, she would not care. This little woman worked day and night in that garden, it was her "sauna" and it was a labor of total love. She had of course been raised on a farm and during the big war, she had her Victory Garden. She did drive me away from home, she did not want me to leave, but she would not let me take the jobs offered me and I didn't know what to do. Someone was watching over me. Billy knew what I was doing. And, it was the frying pan into the fire for a long time. But, Mama knew she had something mentally wrong, so did Daddy, but seeing a shrink would have killed her. So, she read her Bible, she prayed, she fussed, she talked non-stop as long as she was awake. Poor Daddy never could watch TV. Still, I wish I had some of her genes, cause that woman would say often "there is a thin line between insanity and genius" and I figured she knew what she was talking about. Not a very lovable person, she kept herself made up and hair dyed, she had no friends, she had sisters that were of the same personality. Her church group of women, none visited her when she was sick, none offered to take her to church when she could not drive. My sister and I made it through, we always had a roof over our head and three meals a day. She made my clothes so we were never without clothes. She didn't do so bad. But, she left a long time ago. And that is her garden behind her, all by herself. She picked and dug and shelled everything by herself and put them in the deep freeze. A farm woman as long as she could be. Addendum: I have to put this funny anecdote about Mama and her sisters. There were five girls living and one boy. All stairsteps. Grandma had 7 kids in 10 years before the cancer made her sterile. They all fought, just like my mom. Not with just words either. One time in their 80's, my mom and her oldest sister were going along highway 2 (main road) and were fussing. Mama stopped the car and both got out. I don't know what stopped it, maybe God intervened, because these two sisters were going to have a brawl right in the middle of highway 2. I'm sorry, I find that hysterical. But, you would have had to know them.

Thank you Marty for helping us along. Just as Gwen goes to help, and befriend, and be there for the people in the nursing homes, just as Kay stays around to help us with our problems, because she has lived them, still lives them, and to George, and the many others on here that I cannot name all the names because I would leave out one, and that one would be so important, just have to thank everyone who welcomes the new grievers, and at night before I go to bed, I have a cross at the end of my bed on a wall, a plain wooden cross, and I pray for my family, my neighbors, and friends, and people on this forum.. I keep an Angel on one shoulder, but the devil on the other shoulder keeps trying to keep the Angel quiet. I am a very imperfect human being, but I do give thanks for everyone who makes a difference in my life. Whether it goes any further than the ceiling, only the main one knows.