Margm

Tom, read on, you will find out we are all "deeply confused." We are alone. It is not easy. Maybe comfortable is not a good word. Acceptance is bad too. I have to tell myself "well, he is not coming back." And, sometimes I can build up a sort of "scar tissue" and I hope avoidance is not what I am doing. You can sign me also.........deeply confused.

Tom, we actually do each walk different paths. Not a single one of them is wrong. I have not regretted moving at all. My kids live back up there and as of yet, I have a hard time returning. I am never at home, because Billy was home. Some have pictures all around them of their lost love, it gives them comfort. Perhaps I need to have Billy's picture everywhere I look, maybe I would get over the avoidance of seeing him and get used to it. Am I running away? Maybe so. Being showered with his pictures ripped whatever "scar tissue" I had built up though. I sleep with his clothes that he wore all the time. They are between two big pillows. I have put mine and his picture together, with us both laughing in front of his urn. I even made myself my own tool box. I bought all new tools. I cannot tell you why. But, I do what makes me comfortable. He is not coming back and perhaps giving all his hunting and fishing gear away tells me he was not going to use them again. I am not sure we ever will reach the happiness that we had when we had them. We had 54 years together and still had plans. The path we walk on is the one that makes us feel most comfortable. I don't remember who said it, I think one of the members that has remarried, he said "one size does not fit all." It doesn't.

I cannot take pictures and put them on here. I can copy them and put them on here. If I had stayed in Louisiana then possibly looking outside this morning would excite me but living in Arkansas for almost 20 years made me "take snow for granted." It served to make snow ice cream. We have a winter wonderland this morning. Snow everywhere. I stay away from the news, very seldom look at the weather, it is what it is. Yesterday I wore a long sleeve shirt. Today, I need a parka. Will turn up the heat and get a long sleeve shirt on. I knew it was predicted, but it was so comfortable yesterday. Was surprised to see the rock salt scattered everywhere. I don't remember any of this last year...........but, I honestly do not remember the last year.

Today my daughter posted about 6-7 pictures of our last visit to New Mexico together. All were of Billy by himself, except this one. "The Way We Were." Ripped the scar tissue right off and brought me back to the day I brought his ashes home. Just some drama I didn't need. I will get better. I saved them but hid them. I put all of us on there instead of only him. Will save those for later. We are expecting 2-3 inches of snow tonight. They already have the steps into the apartments rock salted.

Tom, Kay said that because we were RVers. We tried homesteading. We kept our kids in one school and lived in the house 17 years. The only home I ever cried leaving was the one that was being pulled away when we bought the stix and brix to help my son get off drugs. We gave up that way of life to help our adult son. He got himself off drugs, it was worth it. In March of 2015, we bought our last new RV. Billy studied it out and instead of a 5th wheel (we had had three 5th wheels, one cab over camper) and we were going to try it out. We spent many a night in the RV hooked up to our stix and brix waiting to clear everything away and put the house on the market. We had already had people coming and wanting to buy. August 31st we found out his backaches were more than the slipped disks he had fought since his late 30's, early 40's. He had a brain aneurysm. We were optimistic, they could take care of it (we were led to believe). We ate at Outbacks, our first time ever. That man loved a T-bone. He was so sick that night I had him at the ER where they were to get rid of the brain aneurysm. We found out his whole body was riddled with cancer. He had two checkups a year with lab work. (He had stents in his kidney arteries). Somehow, I believe if they had checked on his liver function tests at one of those checkups, well...........I don't know. I do know his doctor, a friend of ours from Louisiana, he never sent a bill. As it was, he went fast. August 31st brain aneurysm and October 17th he was gone. Not much chemo in that little amount of time. At this juncture in my life, I am glad he did not hurt long. I had 50 morphine left and I was going to go with him. Religion made me question my destination. But, like I said, we were not homesteaders. Staying in that house we did not want to be in was the loudest quiet I had ever heard. Billy would not have done it this way, but he could have pulled the RV.

I miss my nomadic life, but you know, without him there is only life, you just live where you feel more secure. He was my security, where ever we went.

Gwen, I moved because I could not stay anywhere around where he left me. He did not do it on purpose. I even bought all new household items, keep the others in a box that I keep closed. There is no sanity in the things I do, but somehow that does not worry me. Some other people have voiced an opinion, I also have selective hearing. I hear and see and remember what I want to. If it brings me pain, I leave it alone. Some things we cannot "unsee" and those I try to throw "scar tissue" over. Our minds can be trained. It really is not true that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. I learn new ones every day. Necessary ones.

TV is good, sometimes. It is a good filler. In fact, I can watch things I watched a couple of months ago and they are good all over again. Probably because my mind is not 100% on what I am watching. I think it is natural that we think of them so much. My daughter put a bunch of pictures of him on Facebook tonight.. I looked at two of them and then said I was not gonna look at any more. We are all so different about things. Pictures bring some people comfort. Pictures stab me in the heart. Music calms the savage beast, but this beast had rather be deaf than listen to some. I can listen to different things where I used to cry at "Purple People Eater." I have decided that my selective memory provides a lot of scar tissue that I appreciate. App's you can add to Kindle that help with sleep do seem to calm me at times. But there is one gentleman and one woman that repeats something like "isn't that right now" and for some reason, I get angry at them, they sound so condescending. We are rewatching "Criminal Minds" and I'm okay with that. "Grace and Frankie" come on on the 19th. We are with you Gwen, you just cannot see or hear us. We know how you feel. Maybe a different path, but it is still your path. I'm just down south on my path. Somehow, I don't feel weak and unable to do things. I know one illness will wipe me out. But, you should have seen me talking to the woman who took my comforters out of the dryers before the dryer had stopped. She did not know that I was someone that stays close to her clothes and my hair is gray but my temper still comes from the redhead. Well, she got the adrenaline running so I guess I am still alive. I really don't like "thinking." Sometimes I cannot concentrate to read, but if I have a good book, the concentration is okay. I do have a family that takes up my time. That also provides agitation sometimes..............but still got my Xanax, just no more than 2 a day. Sometimes all it takes is one at night. I guard my sleep very strictly. Anyone wakes me up knows how I feel about it.. I wait until the pill cannot be ignored and Billy is gone from my sleep. If I am woke up in the night, Billy visits my mind until I can go back to being unconscious. I'm not a spring chicken anymore so I have to take care of me.. I feel guilty when I am selfish and mean.

Life has not always been easy for any of us. I had inoperable cancer and MD Anderson did what they could for me. I escaped, for some unknown reason. I do attribute it to prayer from someone who was a better Christian than I was/am. Our immune systems are laid bare for any opportune illness that comes along. We have no strength to fight it. But, I had read a quote by William Saroyan that hit me square in the face. Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what? William Saroyan. (Statement to the Associated Press, five days before his death. (13 May 1981)). And, that is how it is. Now what? We exist. If we are believers, we pray for strength. I have strange things about religion when I pray. They say to fear God, they say God is love. So, I think of my dad, I feared him, yet strangely, I loved him. Then Jesus is love. So was Billy. So I talk to both of them. Somehow, I feel they understand me. If this sounds strange to other people, I am strange............it is comfortable here. I do not fear my forgetfulness. I think some of it is still grief fog. It does not bother me. My granddaughter, daughter, son, sister will ask me "don't you remember?" To remember, I have to "think" and I honestly do not want to "think" so I tell them "I don't remember." Hey, I do not care to "think" hard. I am fine. Thinking, remembering is what hurts. I avoid it. Don't worry about me saying that, I don't think it will last long. Definitely word salad. No dressing.

Some times I irrationally get angry at him for leaving, and I know he could not help it. I know we cannot live forever, but somehow I thought we would.

Is this Atlas? Adorable. Hear we might get a sprinkling of snow. I'm not excited. Love those kids.

I am so sorry Allen. We think we have grief, and we do, but our family sees us suffer and you have been through so much yourself. You are a wonderful son. I hope he can break through this anger and see how it hurts the ones who love him, but you know, sometimes we do not see clearly, and your little family has been through so much. Our hearts. Our prayers, and some semblance of peace is my wish for you. Our minds sometimes don't want to see what our eyes have to see.

I quit going to my support group because it was all kinds of grief and there were more people who had just recently lost children. I left the meetings crying and worrying about the young man lost in the woods hunting that had just eaten the beef stew (his favorite) at his mom's house. Of course he was gone. (I have such a problem saying the real words.). Just women. And I have said this before, when I asked why men were not involved the answer was an off-handed "Oh they just remarry." I knew that was not the correct answer and after meeting a man who lost his wife of 49 years when I bought my car, I could tell, he just wanted to talk. I'm sorry, I was buying my first car without Billy with me, (although he would just stand back and let me choose) and I hope I was not "short" speaking to the man. Actually, it was raining hard, and I just wanted to run away, I was not thinking clearly. Now, I would let him talk. Then, I was trying to escape.. And from this forum, men have pain and grief also, and somehow, the pain and grief all seem the same. Men and women. We are all the same, but it is true, sometimes we come from different cultures. I was going to send off the whole family's DNA sometime or the other to Ancestry.com. I just did my sisters for her birthday gift. I know mine would be some different. I so very much wanted us to have Native American, but dammit, we are the ones who came over and took the land away from them. Red hair and freckles, the tribes would have made me sleep outside the tents.

Like the woman told me "it's not the same" and certainly it should not be. If your looking for the same, quit looking. That person was someone you molded into the people you both were. It might have taken you 30 years and more to do it. You cannot mold another person into John, Tom, Harry, Shirley, Jane, Tina, or anyone else.. They are who they are and lets hope they do not want to mold you into someone they lost. You have to meet on even ground and start over. If some of her/his mannerisms are like your former partner, that is great, but there are going to be dark times that they do not compare and it is unfair to the other person to think they should. Three of my older friends (same age as me) seem to be very happy. Myself, I have had so much illness that I do not want to share my life with anyone else. I had never been married but the once though, so I have nothing else to compare happiness and unhappiness with other people. Some of you do and that gives you a different perspective on other relationships. You have the experience to know there are different relationships. That might make it easier to share another.

I have friends. I have companionship. I have many family members who depend too much on me. I usually go to stores with my head usually held down, cannot be too careful where I step. I am not looking for anyone, anything. I had 54 years, I consider myself fortunate but miss him terribly. The little woman that had remarried, in the wheelchair in front of me in Walmart waiting for her medicine, she said "it's not the same." OMGosh, I hope no one looks for "just the same" because it is not going to happen. I give one of my friends thumbs up, although she is at the hospital, clinic with him constantly, but hey, that takes up her time for the last more than 12 years. Heart attack on their honeymoon, almost complete care for this new husband ever since. Went to the nursing home to see one of Billy's friends (and mine) and his wife. My feelings............I don't know. I did not cry. I find myself remembering things my mama said. She had her faults (I know, I probably inherited many), but she had her good points also (I wish I had inherited) and a life of hearing her quote the poets and the Bible, there were times that I thought Shakespeare wrote the Bible she quoted him so often, but other ones also. Mama said there was the thin line between insanity and genius and I really believed it, I knew she felt she walked that thin line often. I felt she did also. “The old order changeth yielding place to new And God fulfills himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me I have lived my life and that which I have done May he within himself make pure but thou If thou shouldst never see my face again Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” ― Alfred Tennyson There are those that will find others. I am too old and for some reason, that is a comfort to me. But, never try to compare.

Cannot scream anymore. Did that at first. Gave me terrible headache. Did not help. Now the crying. I can cry. I cry at the beginning of a TV show, cry in the middle of it, and usually cry at the end of it. I cry during weed killing commercials. And, I won't watch those commercials about starving kids and mistreated animals. I keep a roll of towels by my chair. One thing about crying, at first I found the best feeling and the most frightening feeling when I would cry until I could not breathe. No fear, just a possible release if I just quit breathing, no hurting, and not doing it on purpose so I was not harming myself on purpose. But, as time goes on, that kind of crying just gives way to tears, controlled. How unfortunate. I live. Nothing I can do to bring him back or join him either. That will happen soon enough. "Promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep" and thank you RF..

Me too Cookie. I get angry sometimes, and know it is not Billy's fault, but I have so many hands out needing money. Then, I think, well,, I have everything I need and I could not live knowing they were being sued or doing without. They hate to ask, but with me if I know there is a need I have got to help. I can remember my little Mama sitting on the couch stunned because she did not have enough money to pay her house insurance. My mama had never in all her life been late with a bill.....never..., the check was made out as soon as she got the bill and sent off the next day. And, I am wondering, I know I could have afforded it, how could I have let my Mama worry like that? I should have taken that bill and paid it. She would have fussed, but I know I could have done it. Instead, I let her worry. What kind of daughter does that? It did not even enter my mind to go pay it.

I didn't listen. I cry when I see Barbra Streisand just because she sings "The Way We Were" and I don't have to even listen to it. On our memorial stone will be the words "The Twelfth of Never" and that is all (other than names) and our ashes will be mixed together in regular old box in our plot. Some things I cannot listen to.

Allen, you spread yourself so thin, but thank you for sharing with us. Please take care of Allen also, and I know the rest of your family need some semblance of peace. Tell Butch we have him in our heart. Again, thank you for keeping in touch with us.

Pauly, I have read books, quotes, etc. And, the first year or so I had to read things over and over to comprehend. I guess the grief "fog" lasts longer on some than others, but the grief hangs on. You have just heard from two of our men and there are more. I can say the forum saved my life because after 54 years of marriage, there was no reason for me to go on, so somehow, I believe after three days Billy helped me find this forum. And my Billy did not believe in anything supernatural, so if he could talk, he would probably say he didn't help me. But, I feel he did. I think I am one of the older ones and there are a lot younger that are going through the same feelings you go through and they don't follow a straight path. And, we all have our own path. One quote that helped me does not help everyone. I knew Rose Kennedy had lost so many members of her family and as an older woman she quoted: “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.” You are among friends. Keep reading.

My flatlander cousin (one year older than me) lives off of Lake Michigan with her husband. They live in the northern country to see their grandkids grow up. Both of their grown boys married north country women and are doctors (thank goodness) cause flatlanders moving to foreign soils need medical help often, and advice about health. They have adapted. George, Tom, Kay, Kevin, Gwen, all you "northern" people, what little experience I had with snow I can do without. But you adapt to what you have known all your life. My cousin even drives to the basketball games of all her grandchildren, who are almost out of school now. But what an opportunity, she has made new customs for reunions that we grew up with as cousins and her grandchildren will carry this on long after we all are gone. Life goes on. But, Kay's experience sounds like good advice. Picture is a couple of blocks off of Lake Michigan. I think there is a picnic table somewhere in the picture.

Yep. She is the one who called me and I could hear in her voice that she was "shell-shocked." This doctor saved my life and he worked on ways to save me so hard. And he did tell me to my face "you scare me." But, he did not give up until he saw a fixable solution. Interventional radiology had to put in the device and they and other doctors did not think it would work. In fact, one of the doctors called me later on to find out how it was working. They did not call him. He was such a character (the surgeon) that I think he scared people, hence the anger management class for him. He just told Billy that he was not a huggable person. He was to me. After all this I was at the desk while he was filling out orders and I asked him should I keep my colonoscopy appointment that had been made before the rupture. The look that he gave me spoke volumes. I then scattered out of his way like a little mouse on the floor. We have such adventures in life don't we? I have nothing but respect for his surgeon skills and his sticktoativity. My young friend had breast cancer and he was her doctor. He told her that he was not going to let her die. I did not care what kind of personality he had. One other doctor had diagnosed me wrong and he was a younger surgeon. I had worked typing my surgeon's reports, I knew his reputation and would not have chosen him, just like he would not have chosen me, but he was the surgeon on call (thank goodness) when the ambulance brought me in.

Kay, you honor these people to their families. My aunt lived on the same piece of land for 90 years. Their church had a kitchen that served the family and friends after the services. Times have changed in some places, but in small communities where people have lived all their life, people still bring casseroles and food to the houses of the family of the bereaved. That is something that is disappearing and I think the church kitchen fixing food for the visitors and family is a good thing to do. We still carry on our practices toward the living by honoring the people who have left us. You do a wonderful thing for these families and I commend you.

Wow Brad, you do know that diet. Actually, what it limits us in mostly is fiber. Most people want/need fiber. My dietitian decided to call Dr. Webb and see if we could vary the diet up some. Now, this doctor has had to go to anger training. (I love him). But, when she called me I could tell he had told her how "the cow ate the cabbage." She was sorta unbelievable but she did tell me that I could add wheat bread now occasionally. (It has gotten to be funny it is so ridiculous), the diet I mean. And the doctor! Can you imagine a doctor telling you that a patient scared him? He scheduled no followup either. I think Brad has eaten more things than allowed (perhaps that was the ER visits he mentions from the skins of fruits). I make a package of Cheetos last me a long time (unless Brianna finds them and throws them away). No corn. (Yet grits are allowed). They do have some fiber and I can make corn bread with them, but without the southern foods it is senseless. George, since March of 2014, with the colon rupture and sepsis, he (surgeon) rebuilt me something beside a colostomy. All his consults with other docs told him colostomy, (GYN doc told me this) and at one time he considered a hyperbaric oxygen chamber as a possibility of helping heal the damage the radiation had done. It was a little risky because of my age. My GYN doc told me that they could do a D&C but if they found anything they could not fix it. So, at first I felt like a walking time bomb. But, even though the foods are unhealthy and calorie heavy, I could exercise, and I don't, shame on me for that. My insides are so damaged they will not hold a stitch or patch of any kind. But, I think if I did discover my "why" I could get some of the weight off. I understand that. Hey, it freed me up from those confounded women's exams, and all you women know my relief for that. I have been able to hold the weight down and not gain anymore. I do good with a Boost or Ensure for breakfast and take vegetable and fruit supplements in capsules. And every night MiraLax and take my temperature. I guess I do pretty good for the shape I'm in. I don't think Billy or anyone figured I would outlive him, and I, of course, wish that too. George, I am so proud of you for losing all that weight. It also gives you sort of a new lease on life, even though it is a sad one, at least you feel better health-wise. Brad, Billy and I used to hike and it was easy to keep the weight down, but our hikes did not even touch your mileage. ' (But I can still have my word salads) TMI

Gin, I lost weight right after Billy left but I have gained 30 pounds since then. I am going to need something to carry my big behind around. On top of that all my pants are getting shorter. Do you think I am growing? I kinda think my "behind" is pulling my pants shorter. I have got to do something or I will eat myself to death. Well............what a way to go. You know I get to eat all the bad stuff, cake, ice cream, cookies, fried foods, mashed potatoes, gravy. Yeah, they are on my low residue diet........and white rice. I have not had a salad since 2014, March. Am I bitching too much? Gin, I'm not bragging. There is fear in this. Kind of like crying until you cannot breathe and thinking it would just be so easy to just not breathe. (I have a bag of Cheetos hidden in my desk drawer). They are corn and I am not supposed to eat corn. Brianna would fuss and take them away and throw them away. I eat them when she is asleep. Maybe this is my second childhood.