Margm

You know Gin, I have this book I have mentioned at least 20 times written by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. I tend to read up on authors of such books to see if their feet have been put to the flames. If they have not, well, I feel they might not understand. I have not read Dr. Wolfelt's history. The man speaks to me. The book is "Grief, One Day at a Time." It is one of those books next November 21st, I will read the same thing I read tonight. If I am alive then, somehow, I feel I will need it just as bad. I think you are ill, I think a lot of us are ill, and there is no pretense to it. People tend to follow their mate often, because we are older a lot of times, a lot of times I think we die of a broken heart, at least one that doctor's cannot mend. I am going to write what he wrote for the 21st this year, next year, and the next, if we are still here. "When one is pretending, the entire body revolts." Anais Nin Now this is Dr. Wolfelt talking: "Our grief is wily. It will try every means possible to get our attention. If we're ignoring, denying, or postponing our grief, it will often turn to our bodies as a means of expression. It will literally make us sick. Aches and pains, viral illnesses, autoimmune diseases, even cardiovascular and other systemic troubles often arise when we're not giving our grief the attention and expression it needs and deserves. My body's health is, in part, a reflection of the health of my mourning." Actually. I don't know how I could give my mourning any more attention unless I shut myself in a room somewhere. Sometimes I wish I could do that. I cannot. What I have will get me eventually, but like the poet said........I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. RF Billy once told me when I had cancer "if you die, all your worries will be over and the problems will be left with the ones who love you." He was right. No answers here, I just try to weave more web scar tissue around my brain, but the pain never leaves. I hope you find some artificial warmth tonight Gin, you need to stay warm. You need to take care of yourself like Al would if he could. Billy said "I am you and you are me." So, if that is so, maybe he is with me. I wish I could feel his warmth also..

I could not go to our Christmas get together. I just plain do not want to go. I know it is seeing friends I might not see again, but I don't want to do anything but what I have to do and that is all. And, I can go places Billy and I did not go, but I cannot travel our same route, and the closeness of his belongings does not bring me relief, they mean he is not among them. Just like the clouds. And the other day I almost felt like Billy helped me. I know, imagination, but I wanted it to be so.

Gwen, Cookie, just going to the grocery store, the clouds were hanging dark and angry (we have a cold front coming), and I cried. No reason except I talk to the fluffy white clouds, Billy's beard was nearly white, I see him in the clouds. He wasn't there. No reason, just out of the dark clouds, I cried. Not an every day thing. He wasn't there. He isn't here. I don't know where he is. It was a nothingness I don't like, but should be familiar with. It is not like this all the time. I do have some web-like scar tissue covered mind moments.

You can all come over. We can throw mattresses (I buy those 4 inch ones to spread around), and we can scatter my 15-17 boxes all around and I have lots of comforters. That is something I have to have, lots of them. My daughter likes those cotton hospital blankets, some people do, but I like big puffy comforters and pillows.

I am going to put this here. I know one topic is grief and fear. I'm sure I wrote something about fear being like grief just before I took my Xanax because I was so afraid, earlier on in my grief, (probably yesterday). I was reading C.S. Lewis quotes and know I have put this before, but hey, I read it again, did not take a Xanax this time, but it is still true. “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed I think that part about "I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in, it is so uninteresting. Yet, I want the others to be about me." That size fits me.

Tal, it has taken me over two years to come to any kind of word that I could call kin to understanding, cousin of peace, and the pain , well, I cannot say it never ceases, it only happens if I dwell on it, which is 99.9% of the time. My granddaughter living with me has helped that other percentage. Keep reading. All ages, some not yet 50 and have lost two husbands, some with children lost too, and that is the kind I cannot think about. I watched a TV show where they sent a woman to a grief group and she came away worse than when she went in. One of the guys on here said "one size does not fit all" and that is true. The grief group was in the Baptist Church here in town and I asked why there were no men in it and one of the women remarked "Oh, they usually find someone else." Having been a member of this group awhile, I thought that remark did not fit the men I knew. It was mostly for women that had lost children and I cried all the way home each time I went. I remember when I had cancer, I went to a cancer survivor's group. One time. Some people are social group people. I am not. That size does not fit me. This size fits me. Please keep reading and contributing. A bunch of caring people on here in all stages of grief. I say stages, but the key word is grief, and though one size might not fit all, we all share the same thing. Hang in with us.

Me too......

Cookie, I had occasion to ask the manager of these apartments when I moved in, I could not remember. She has me for August of 2016. I do know I rented it about three months before that, but moved in here in August of last year. I cannot remember where I was, maybe in my daughter's house, but I do not believe, certainly do not remember living in the house without Billy. My mind blocks it out completely, and I do not argue with my mind. C.S. Lewis in his book "A Grief Observed" wrote a truth that fit me completely. But, he wrote many truths that fit me. I read everything I could find by widows and widowers. Some left me thinking "how could they do this so soon" but that was judging on my part and how can I judge anyone on anything in particular when I have no memory to draw upon. I have memories of before Billy, but somehow it rips the wound open to remember too hard. C.S. Lewis wrote this below, and somehow, I understand this while there are many things I do not understand. “Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he’s had his leg off is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it.’ But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again.” ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Brianna goes to a technical school that is open to the whole parish (county). She has five boys in her class she knows come from where I was born because we all talk "the same" dialect. My son never sounded like a "down south" person, but his job was as a DJ and he spoke beautifully. So does my granddaughter. I love my dialect, but of course your right, it has two syllables everywhere, but in my little corner of the world. My granddaughter corrects me, but that makes me dig in deeper.

Time is too long to count. Results the same. He is gone. He is not coming back. Would like to know when I will see him again. Sometimes even after two years, I think I hear him in the other room. He used to get so angry if I thought we should stop and ask directions. He would say "I'm not lost, I just don't know where I am." I said, Billy, that is the same thing, different words. So, he is not gone, he is just not here right now. But I will join him.

I talk to the majority of my friends on line. I know we have to "get together" soon, but annual Christmas party is not for me this year. No one asks questions, we all know what is going on in most of our lives anyhow. Learned one of my best friends passed away that I had not kept in touch with. Brought back so many memories of a young girl approaching and involving in being a teenager. She was the only one who had a car and her sister was my best friend. A picture was put online of her waving, and I guess it was the same as her waving goodbye. I keep hearing Hettie, my widow-sister "Margaret, at our age we are going to lose our friends" and we are, I am, it is happening. I think of all her family that has gone on. Talking to a fellow that played American Legion baseball in this town, he is an older man, but not as old as Billy. He did not remember him. Of course he did not. Looking at him, he probably could have been closer to our son's age. Time slips away, and finally we will also. That's all.

I always wanted to be part of tapping the maple trees. L'il Abner language was spoke at my house all the time. I knew all the characters. I was "Moonbeam McSwine" because Mama said I would be happy laying in slop with the hogs, (I was untidy in my room). Billy was Tiny. One year she bought me L'il Abner shoes and made me wear them six months until I outgrew them, as it was saving money. I had to pull those monstrosities off when I came in from school to save them. All the little girls were wearing pixie shoes. (I finally got my pixie''s). She called one of my boyfriends by one of the names (cannot remember now) because he almost had a unibrow, which I loved. All people were L'il Abner characters to her. I only identified with Joe Btfspik, below.. Your dad was a character too. I wish I could have traded you a bucket of cane surp for maple surp. Oops, up north I know you all used the two syllable syrup.

I married Billy at 18 (July 3rd). He was 20. He would be 21 on July 20th. I would be 19 on August 13th. I put a lot of living in those 18 years, mostly family reunions and family and school oriented.. Somehow or other, the places I go where I did not know him, they still bother me, but not nearly as bad as these 15-17 boxes in this apartment that I have not gone through. (Oh, I'm not going through them). I picked up a notebook to use and he had written some of his measurements for his fly line in it and the companies that carried that type. And, it cut like a knife. You just don't know how you are going to react. I honestly think I am progressing. I don't like it. But I cannot stay treading water either, I cannot swim in more ways than one. Ever so often I will go to his urn and put my hands on it and the cross I have on it and I will just say "please help me." I am having to handle papers to maybe let the people who live in my house assume the notes. They lease it legally now and have never been late with the payments and have made so many improvements on the house, but it is paperwork I just find almost impossible to tackle, but I have to. I shake and when I get agitated my hands shake worse than ever. I cannot even sign my name. I put my hand on the urn and cross and I prayed for help. Xanax stops the shakes but I was transferring my prescription from Arkansas to Louisiana. I called, it was ready at Walmart and I was able to handle the paperwork. I just felt Billy intervened, even if it is only in my head and heart, it was enough.

When I have memories that happened before I met Billy, I can think about them with fondness. This below is not meant to bring sorrow, it is just a part of my life, way out in the dirt road country life that came to my mind today. I honestly can think of things before I met Billy. Now, if I had actually from baby-hood to teenager grown up with him, I could not think of these things. Read if you want to. It sets me off for the country person I was and really still am............even though I have been to the big city. Nothing world shattering, nothing pertaining to grief, although all the participants but my cousins and me, and some of my cousins are gone. Just a piece of early Americana, (southern). Henceforth, you will have to understand that the fake two syllable word syrup (sir-up) will be called by its name, SURP, that being the proper way to pronounce it. I went outside and a cold, fierce wind hit me. Oh no, another memory. You had to be a city kid if you did not make your own surp. I write about this every year. It is an annual reunion. Daddy Wise used a mule that dug a round hole in the ground going round and round running that presser that smashed the sugar cane to juice. Then, he had a rectangle boiler and would put wood to the fire that kept that green liquid boiling. Formed a pretty white foam on top they kept filtered off. Big ole home-made things done the old fashioned way. Then Uncle Straud took over, used a tractor and had butane burners. Ugly green thick liquid that turned to brown gold. All sisters waited for their can of this surp. I remember Grandma saying that at the church stump politician speeches they gave out sticks of rock candy back in the early 1900's. Did not impress her at all. When the surp bucket was empty, there was rock candy at the bottom. Grandma and I cannot/could not cook. Tea cakes were Billy's favorites and I would have him eat them right away. Most times they would turn hard if they were not hot, not a true tea cake, but a true Marg cooking failure. But Grandma, she made the best surp teacakes you will ever take a bite of. Sometimes we just stumble through life, but we all have a past, and I hope you all have beautiful past memories. I don't think my granddaughter would like sugar cane. I have not seen any in 20 years.

I quit counting.

I was just reading part of Brandy Halladay's eulogy for her husband Roy Halladay. I don't follow baseball or any sport anymore really, used to read up on all the players for all the sports (except basketball) and would share bits of personal information about the players with Billy. Made the sport more interesting for me too. I remember starting by studying Nellie Fox of I think the White Sox when I was a sophomore in high school, a few years before I met Billy. Billy played 2nd base also and batted left and threw the ball right. It seemed it helped me like the sport better, poetry, books, everything else, if I read up on the players, writers, etc. Brandy Halladay and Roy Halladay had been married for 21 years when he had his plane crash, last week I believe. She said things I wished I could remember to say, or if I say them, wish I could remember I did say them. "I’m not sure how to be me without him,” Halladay tearfully admitted. “I didn’t know how big my heart was until I felt the amount of hurt in it with him gone.”" I think she said it all, just in those words. She said more, but that sums it up.

Billy had the scars too. One of the first stent implants into his kidney arteries. They had him tied to the table and cardiovascular surgeons in the next room. I did not see it, but heard how bad it hurt. Then when he had his next one they had perfected it where it was not as painful. He had three kidney arteries. We all had the scars, now all of us that are left still have the pain. Ironic. And, we saw all the Lethal Weapon movies. Good analogy.

When we lived between the two mountains, we lived off a forestry road, no traffic, and around two miles down this road. We had two dogs. They had the whole Ouachita National Forest to roam.. They unfortunately would not let our nearest neighbor's dog come outside. And, he was an in house dog while Billy's were pure bred something (mostly trouble). Had to put them in a pen. Hated to do that. You would think 40 miles from any town, two miles from your nearest neighbor (Billy's idea of mountain man heaven), that dogs would not be a problem. Then when we lived on the lake, back down here, our neighbor drank a little. Her dog was in a huge fenced yard. Our dogs would fuss, but no danger until she got drunk, came into our yard to inform us that our dogs did not like each other. She was very drunk. The dogs started fighting in our front yard, she put her leg between them and one bit her. We had to keep ours inside the house for days. He had had his shots,, but I am not sure the drunk woman had had hers. No freedom for man nor beast. I feel for you. At least he will have room to run.

Karen, my memory has never been the best but sometimes a name will escape me for 5 seconds, I will call NCIS, "NISC" or I will pronounce a name of some movie star like it looks and my granddaughter will giggle and try to make me remember it. Nope, not straining my brain unless I want to. I call Gwen Stefani "Stephany" like it looks to me and of course that makes my granddaughter make me say it right. Funny, she sits around three boys from my home town and she knows exactly where they are from cause they all sound like me.. I told her they are probably her cousins. Gwen, I don't think we are going to find a cure. I rely on symbolism in my religion, which is mine alone, and I have a cross at the end of my bed on the other wall. Each night I pray to Jesus and of course I wind up talking to Billy. Neither of them answer me. Finally, i just tell Jesus it is okay for him to listen in because the help I need from Billy I need from him too. And, I still wear my mustard seed necklace. I don't think of the scar tissue as anything but invisible webbing in my head and there are a lot of webs in my head. No magic.

Dave, I took this to the "going through hell" site. I'm no expert on loss, no philosopher on feelings, just a simple minded woman who has gone through this stuff with the rest of the people, but I cannot write two lines. I have to write a book.

(Dave) "So this week has been hell for me. I took Wednesday off, as that was her birthday, but I've essentially been a wreck the whole week. Thanks to all of you for a place to come when things like this come up. No one else understands except those who have lost THE ONE PERSON in their life that mattered most of all." (Dave) Somehow, I seem to have had all the time in the world to prepare to lose Billy, we had 54 years, but my magical, imaginative world could not be taken away from me. I never thought we would lose him. I had escaped death's grasp twice, he had once, we had nine lives. I even imagined us escaping death by running away in the RV. I hated to lose my magical imagination, but Billy was my magical imagination, and now I lost him and it too. How naive, how really totally ignorant of me to think I would go first. The only time I remember thinking of either of us leaving was living between the two mountains in Arkansas. We lived there only four years. One time the winter left us without electricity for over a week, 40 miles from any town. Billy was the mountain man he always wanted to be. House was on a hill and he had to go down to the pond to get water to flush commode out of the super clear pond. Being a mountain man was brutal as he slid on his back all the way down to the pond. We had had an ice storm with snow over it. You could open the door and hear the loud gun cracking sound of limbs breaking on the trees in the distance. We moved. Only time I imagined being left without Billy. I knew I could not live there if he left. Neither could I live where we had lived 10 years. Not being with her Dave, I know it has to haunt you. That first year I was haunted by my anger at Billy for giving up, and it haunted me constantly. My last emotion to the man who was my best friend, the most important person in my life was anger. I have had two years to forgive myself, and I don't know if I forgive myself, but I can now put it out of my mind (unless I bring it up like I am doing now). In my mind it was unforgivable. I hope he understood. I was not going to let him leave. He did not listen to me. So, maybe with time you will gather that invisible scar tissue. I really think I would go stark raving mad if I could not put it out of my mind. I worry about Gwen, Gin, and my young lady we have not heard from, I think lives out of Phoenix. She was helping her son and grandson. She had lost her daughter and her husband in close proximity. My heart is with you.

Gwen, I cannot tell you how or what I would do without my support system. I am so sorry. I should not say this, because I never want it to happen, but sometimes I very selfishly would like a day to myself without worry about my family's problems, monetary, mental and physical. I'm not rich. We all share though. Billy and I planned our retirement, I helped, we worked 80 years for it, and it is comfortable for one person, or even two, but not for five. See how selfish I am. And, I know it would help you to have them to worry about so you would not be so lonesome. I repeat what Rose Kennedy said all the time, about the wounds never heal, but you build up scar tissue over the wound, this wound in our heart, our brain, to protect our sanity. She knew, and she had a support system. Without mine, I could build up no scar tissue at all and I would be a bare wound for my earth eternity. My little grandmother was a bare wound, she had no support system, her family disregarded her, she was not needed anymore. But, she made it close to 30 years without her husband. And at 18 years it hurt like it was yesterday. But, she had a tiny grocery store to go to each day and if some far-off neighbor needed gas, they would come to her house after dark. So she had things to keep her mind off her loss a lot of the time. We are a dysfunctional family. I love them though and I will always be here for them until I'm not.

Someone once told me that my memories will sustain me. Memories are wonderful, but they cannot hold us. I told my granddaughter last night that sometimes I miss her grandfather very much. She replied, quite naturally, "well I hope you do." The whole family seems adrift without our rudder, and I'm not a good rudder. I'm sorry for all of our losses.

Mitch, I will be walking in this apartment that Billy has never/would never move into and sometimes it seems he is here. I do not mean that magically, I just mean even after two years, he should be sitting on the couch, which we no longer have. It is just he was with me so long, I forget sometimes and think he is there. Oh, I am not totally insane, I catch on instantly that he is not here. And, I will never quit asking why he left me. That big house we lived in, I would definitely be certifiable. It was in the woods, no houses around (that you could see), ended in a circle so there were never any cars, only 2 house past us, the woods were in back, deer came up, a bear (I didn't see it but others did), a wildcat one time, crows constantly, hawks when I had bird feeders out, and I would run chasing them with my red broom, even little chipmunks, which I had never seen in Louisiana. My friends called it a paradise. Woods and a valley in front of the house with white iris's growing where a former owner had thrown some old bulbs, the red spider lilies in fall, and even a lilac bush. A solid orange rose that was so beautiful I loved it to death and killed it our first month in the house. I was no good with plants and could not keep my husband alive either. The paradise was hell for me. Right now I hear Brian and Selma talking, they live across from me.. This is why I am here, to hear life and living people. The swimming pool and basketball goals are across the road in the park. I love the noise. Billy and I loved the quiet. He is not here. I am strange.

You know, I write something and then I delete it. So, I cannot remember if I wrote this. (I did write it, but think I deleted it, hope I did). If not humor me like you usually have to do. This little woman (before her stand for us old people), she was being made to retire at 65. She didn't want to. Thus grew out the Gray Panthers. I have not read her autobiography. It is enough to me that an ole gal back in 1970 decided she did not want to retire. She made so many forward strides for elderly people, I just cannot praise her enough. You know she was scared. I am afraid 99.9% of the time. This woman went up against politicians, she helped mold laws for the elderly. How exciting. You go girl. (Well, actually she is singing with the Angels, but I salute her bravery), if not her good sense. I retired my first time at 55. Stupidly I kept on working at another hospital. But the fact that she freed up laws to help the elderly says enough. Okay, I gotta go back and tell a story. I wish I could only hear "happily ever after" stories, but before I was enlightened in 2015, my first supervisor was a true southern aristocratic woman. A head full of silver hair, tall, and a true Steel Magnolia. They wanted her to retire at 65. We were state workers but she fought it all the way down the line, or up the line and got another year out of it, but then she had to go. I cannot describe her adequately but she demanded respect from everyone, and she got it. Once a doctor pointed out an error made by a transcriptionist. She looked down her nose at him and said "My girls do not make mistakes." We used a lot of acronyms to type a paragraph and I had actually given a woman prostate surgery. He apologized to my supervisor. And I was never fussed at about it. (I hope she was not billed for it.) This was during the time transcription companies were hiring people from hospitals to work at home. I saw her obituary a few years ago. Made it over 100. Bet she was still typing. Such an honest, upstanding woman she and her husband (he died about two years before she retired) had let a daughter take the car with her friends. They found a baggie of white powder and took it to the police. (It was Coffee-Mate).