Margm

1. A good TV show you saw three nights ago, watch it again, it is almost completely all new. 2. A good book you enjoyed last year. Read it again, you will be surprised how wonderful it is the 2nd time. 3. My voice shakes like Katherine Hepburn's did. I hate to play on sympathy, (that is a bold faced lie, sometimes I relish sympathy) but you would be surprised how many people are willing to help an old lady with a shaky voice. I hate that voice sometimes, but I inherited the congenital tremor, it has advanced to my chin and my voice. If I get excited or agitated, every neuron in my body shouts "anxiety attack coming, watch out." And, sometimes tears come without me meaning them to. Don't be ashamed of them. Even hard hearted Hannah or Harry melts. I am not above using my old age as a weapon, but a soft one that it is hard to shield yourself against, even a robot could not protect themselves from me at times like this. And, if all else fails, write a letter to the head of whatever department you visit. If you keep your cool during the visit and don't be mean, you can move mountains. An ER that made my mom wait 5 hours on a gurney got a letter to the administrator. You walk into that ER now, you are seen immediately. No waiting. I have as yet to be able to write the ER at the hospital Billy left me. I just cannot do it. I have to visit his death again and sometimes I am not ready for that. ADDENDUM: Not that I am ready right now, not that I have any say-so, but one more thing that is good about getting older is we are closer to seeing our loved ones...........if you believe, and I believe.

Gin, when they did some of my tests to stage my cancer, it was back in times we did not have things we have now. I lay on the table still for at least four hours with a big needle holding a lot of fluid going into my lymph nodes. It was a lymphangiogram. They stuck it between my big toe and the next toe, right in the center. It was uncomfortable They added small weights to the top of the infusion needle and poor Billy was in turmoil. Not me. He hurt so much more than me, but having babies I think made us women know things were painful sometimes. He always remembered that though and it hurt him. (I don't think they even do that anymore now with PET scans. ) They did a liver biopsy on him and must have let a first year resident do it. Billy could take all kinds of pain but they brought me back to the recovery room to help calm him down. He was out of his mind with pain. He was climbing the walls literally begging someone to shoot him, he wanted to die the pain was so bad. I soothed him because the pain meds they gave him had started working. I never can forget the most important thing in my life hurting like that and I was demanding they do something now. I am 5 feet tall and I wanted to fight someone, anyone, but nobody would get close enough for me to grab them and hold Billy too. That first year resident had butchered him. I got out of that hospital as fast as I could. I retired from a teaching hospital. What in the hell was I thinking to let them hurt him like that. It is not ever comfortable, but he was insane with pain and that man could take pain.. He does not hurt anymore, but I do. I just sloughed off some of that scar tissue.

My mom had an accident by not stopping at a stop sign. No one was hurt. Then she had another one, again no one hurt, but they took her to court. She had never been to court in her life and my sister went with her. She was not ruled against, but did agree to hang up her keys. My sister followed her home from the country mechanic's shop, this is really country folks. My sister said she drove on the wrong side of the road until they got home. Thankfully, it was very slow country. She could drive no more. My responsibilities are many. Not just my granddaughter. Sometimes I get afraid and pray to Billy/Jesus to help me. Not sure either listen. So far so good though. I hate getting old without Billy because he made me young again.

Gin, with knowing I am a walking time bomb, I watch my temperatures and take the Myralax nightly. So far, so good since March of 2014. Should have gone before Billy. My insides, below the belt line (I think I wore a belt on my wedding dress, so you know how long that has been.), anyhow, nothing can be fixed if the untoward happens. I do lift too much sometimes, which is a no-no- and yesterday I ate ice cream with nuts in it. First time I have done that. Know not to. (I also have a bag of Cheetos hid) because my granddaughter will catch me. I cannot ride too far yet I have put those 11,000 miles on my Yaris in less than a year's time. I finally found a clinician (cannot call her an MD), but sometimes I prefer the nurse practitioners. She listens to me and what I want. I need her in case of flu or pneumonia, etc. If I have blood from anywhere, I will tell her, but there are a lot of things they cannot do to help me. And, it is up to the person/patient, how much they can take, or how much they will take. I wish you well with the pain control. I know you feel like I do, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." My very best wishes for a non-painful outcome for this. My Billy put up with back problems from his early 40's or late 30's. Sometimes debilitating for awhile. Sometimes we would be walking and the compressed nerves in his back would throw him down, I would help him home and he also could do maneuvers with leg and back to make it home. We suffer mentally and physically many times. I'm sorry.

Gin, still have not seen how your doctor visit turned out. I hope you are able to walk better. Thinking of you all.

Did I miss Gin's reply somewhere.? Still waiting on GI doc for my granddaughter. I called the place they had referred her to and yes you will believe this........they said their fax machine had been down for two days. Whatever happened to the telephone and email? Then I called Louisiana Medicaid and will go there tomorrow. My daughter called the GI doc that is located where she lives, only 175 miles from here. Gotta put on my big girl panties..........I already have a bunch of them, red, black, pink, scarlet, purple (of course) and some white ones. All big girl panties cause like Eleanor Roosevelt said "you do what you are afraid to do" and she had big girl panties too. (Unless she wore men's shorts. Hey, no one ever knows unless you have a wreck or pass out.

I hope I did not bring people's feelings down if you watched Joan Didion's documentary. You see, I tend to see pictures and I forget we all get old sometimes. I really never was old before Billy left. He would never admit to getting old, so he didn't. I sure miss that boy. I had to ride up I-49 today and for some reason I saw us riding 49, I remember that was the last lab jobs he worked on and I can ride all the little back roads but the interstates just really make me depressed.. Coming home as soon as I crossed that Louisiana border I hit highway 2 that goes straight across "my" country and I settled down. Bri's trip to the gastroenterologist was a bust. Went 109 miles for them to tell me they did not accept Medicaid. Her primary made the appointment. I said "so, you are refusing her care." "Oh no, we are not refusing her care." And they weren't, but I don't have the kind of money for a first visit with a gastroenterologist. I called a few people. I don't understand Medicaid and my insurance won't let me put her on it because even though I have had it for years, it is a secondary insurance and the &^^^$%^&*^%^ Medicare has to be the first. She is a student, I will go talk to someone..........whoeverthehell that might be. I will find out. This was a mistake by her primary. Can you believe it? Medical care makes mistakes. I should not write when I am angry.

It is beautiful, it was beautiful, as long as Billy was there. Then it suddenly lost all the orange, red, mauve, green, and became like an old yellowed picture and I ran away from it. Back in Louisiana where this flatlander belongs. (Bet my neck is redder than yours). One of our pastors moved back to his old home in North Carolina and he and his wife built a roughed out house that is beautiful, overlooking the layers of the mountains. My cousin is buried in Wilmington. His wife remarried soon afterwards and married a man with the same first name. I always found that was safe and very convenient. And Thanks Cookie.

Well Billy Ray, I just finished doing "your job." (turning the clocks back), and I like clocks on nearly every wall. He was so specific when things were "his job" and did not want anyone else to do them. I did not know how to run a dishwasher, that was "his job." So, I have run it once or twice now, but prefer the old fashioned way. (my old fashioned way is to leave them in the sink until they are needed, then I wash them.) I'm back to reading my "Grief, One Day at a Time" by the genius Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. We have not heard from Gin lately. And, there are so many of you that have been absent. Maybe people cannot get a word in "edgewise" through my word salads. Mornings are my "by myself" time (but three mornings a week I occupy a comfortable, soft chair in the entrance of Bri's school. They think of me as an old alumni anyhow. I was, so was my mom, and my daughter got her nursing degree at this school. I felt like a knot on a log for awhile, but they consider me as part of the furniture, I guess. I am welcome, and Bri knows I am close. This world scares her, people scare her, all due to her bio-mom's use of street drugs. The counselor says to let her take her own time, she will work it out. I admit, sometimes I get pushy, but that does not work with her. I won't do that again. Today Mr. Wolfelt quotes Buddha. "If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete." Then part of his (Wolfelt's) words are this: Many of us are good at being kind to others yet pretty bad at being kind to ourselves. If there is one habit we need to break during our time of grief, it's this one. And this is one habit I have a hard time breaking. If I lived back in the dark ages, I would probably whip my back with that hand held bunch of thorn bushes. The word "Compassion" means "with passion." Let's care for ourselves with passion---physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. And let's let others care for us with passion too. While I am at Bri's school, if people will leave me alone, I get in my reading time. That is my biggest gift to myself, time to read. I want to take one red rose to the nursing home, to Billy's lifelong friend's room. I have doubts about that. A live rose wither's and dies. I don't want to bring something of that significance. My grandmother said not to put those silk flowers on her grave. I cannot bring his wife one of my grief books, though she will need it. Yet, his wife is a better Christian than I am and my friend Wanda finds solace in her religion. I cannot find it like that. I wish I could. I'm not there yet. I wish I was. "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

Just be there to love him and let him know he has turned everything over to her. Tell him that you have no control of anything anymore because he has given control to his daughter, your sister. When my brother-in-law was dying, he had to go to the nursing home for awhile. They made him king of Valentine's day. His sister came to his house to stay from New Mexico. My daughter has a "take-over" attitude (she was a nurse), and his sister got angry and was going back to NM because she was "not needed." She was needed though, she and my daughter had words and somehow it never smoothed over. Because she was a nurse my daughter (and this was in her mentally capable days) always ruled supreme. Sounds harsh, but that was the way it was. I felt sorry for my sister-in-law and never understood why anyone has to be "boss." Your sister is being like my daughter was. I don't know how to handle people like that and my daughter still tries to "be boss" of everything. I just let her be boss and stand back and ready to pick up the pieces. Thus my granddaughter lives with me. She cannot handle "the boss" in people either. Unless you have real fusses with these people, you just let them "handle it." Your dad appointed her. Now your only job is to sit back and be there for him if he needs you. And he will. And you will be there.

Gwen, I know it makes no sense, but there are only 11 months in the year. I no longer recognize October and anything that has the year 2015 as the year for anything, I do not recognize. No one ever told me I had to be a logical person.

Tom, I talk to Billy. I used to pray to Jesus and would wind up talking to Billy. Today, looking at the sky with its beautiful white clouds, last night looking at the moon (I always talk to Billy when I see the moon), I finally said "Well Jesus, I've known you a lot longer than I did Billy, but I'm sure you played a part in our staying together so long, so you are just going to have to be satisfied listening in on my conversation with Billy, and if you can help me right now, please, please do." Our granddaughter (the light of Billy's life, and he was the only daddy she ever knew) lives with us (well, that was a slip, there is no us, she lives with me, but I think of Billy as us still). She is adopted. Her bio-mom was an addict, a street addict. She spent the last three months in jail thank goodness, but my granddaughter has physical problems because of this. She is a very private little girl and I feel like I am letting her down telling this, she wants to stay private. We sat in the ER the other night and I just tried to conjure up Billy, but I couldn't. So, I asked Billy to please help me. And, when I am talking to Billy, I am talking to Jesus too.

Kay, call this place and tell them you are placing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. (How old am I?) They still have those things don't they?

Kay, I moved "back home" because my "new" friends were my coworkers at the big hospital I worked/retired from. They were "new" but about 20 years into friendship now. My newest friend was about 10 years into friendship. This gal was a keeper, but she and I both knew living there hurt me so bad. I left her, with her blessings. She does not do computers. Then, probably the best friend I ever had I met at MD Anderson. We talked daily after she and I got back home. I will forever see her in my mind. She lived in West Texas in a small town. She only lived two years with her cancer. We went into the treatments holding hands with Billy and her husband, Larry, holding our purses. We held each other up through barbaric treatment they used in 1982. We were together though. She was two years older than me and I thought she was beautiful. I can still see/hold her in my "mind's eye." She crocheted me a round tablecloth and sent it to me. I wanted to go to her when she was dying but had a sick child. I picked out a rather large wooden plaque, blank wood in the shape of a tree, my son painted it to look like the tree I meant it to be. We made our pilgrimage to her grave site in West Texas. Larry remarried before I could even call him to offer condolences. God says not to judge people, so I will go with what Juanita's mother-in-law told me, "he was so lonesome." He married before the ink on her death certificate dried. And the cemetery.......well, I hated Juanita, my beautiful Juanita would be buried in a dry "Boot Hill." It was a beautifully well kept cemetery with those tall skinny West Texas trees. It was the only green oasis in that town. I placed my plaque on her grave. I had written, Scott had painted: "We met under the tree of life; she was sunshine at a dark time; I knew her forever; forever was not long enough."

Oh Kay, I have had to write off no one really. My two couples, that were our young married best friends, they were the ones who "slighted" me and yes, it did hurt. But something was off. My male friend (Billy grew up with him), he did not even acknowledge I was there. This was my bear-hug friend from years ago. I had to sit back and analyze why he treated me this way. I knew something was off with him, it was not the person I remembered. A vacant look. Lately, they almost lost him to a strep illness. We are not kids anymore. He was the oldest at 80 now. And the other couple, he is not expected to survive. He is in a nursing home after two strokes. My little "slights" were small gnats compared to their fighting for their life. Who am I? Certainly not the Queen of grief. I almost feel like typhoid Mary. I know it is just our age and their health. I did not bring this catastrophe to them. But, still I feel so bad, just like bringing happiness/grief/grief to my friend who had lost two grown children and her husband. I know she still cares for me, but I am a reminder of happier times and I wish her only happy times with the life she has now. I realize how fortunate I am on so many fronts now. I am devastated not to have my better half. I am a one legged half a person, but I am learning to walk with the crutches that are in my life now. I will never be whole again. Some mornings I still reach for him, then I wake up and get directly out of bed. Those days of enjoying laying in bed left when he did. But, I had him for 54 years, and so many were not that lucky. I truly wanted to go first, I am not as good a person as he was. I am here for a reason and God only knows that reason. I certainly am not an exception to any rule. And my friends.......I still have all my high school friends, can you imagine from 1960? Can you imagine such luck. We are all close because we, the most of us, have already gone through this grief, and we are there for each other. I worked for three hospitals really, but in-house in only two of them. I still have my coworkers, and we keep in touch. And my saving grace neighbor Hettie, the one who brought me through the worse times, my accountant, my psychiatrist, my life saver. When I left, we knew it was for good, she even shared my feelings for leaving. I miss her, but I won't go back. She knew I wouldn't, we talked about it. So, being slighted, being rebuffed, no, none of us deserve it, and you were wise, if they do not help your feelings, if they bring you down, they are no use to you, or anyone else on the forum. We did nothing to deserve bad treatment from anyone, and that is why the anatomy of your backbone is most useful. Let them see your backside walking away.

I found a picture I can live with. We both retired in 1997 to RV. Family called us to stix and brix house and not being homesteaders, our home was there for family and not just for us to live in. Even on cold icy days we hiked the mountains of Arkansas. We used trekking sticks, one in each hand. Lots more stability and you could pull yourself along when you thought you could walk no more. We did about 16 years of this before Billy's back would not allow him to go very far or take rocky roads. I look at this old bridge (over Brushy Creek) with the iron sides and wooden floor and Billy is on one side and I am on the other. That is where we are right now, but I will join him on the other side when the time comes. Those red pants. They are the Arkansas Razorback's colors. He had 2-3 pair of them and wore them every day. I sleep on a lot of pillows. Two pair of his pants and his Tee-shirt that he would wear "to town" are between my big pillows. I like to think that Billy is just on the other side of the bridge. He had to wear the hats in winter, spring, summer and fall. He had skin that would develop skin cancer so easily. Him and his hats. They were a part of him as much as his shoes. His favorite refrain was from Dr. Seuss "do you like my hat" but he was not quoting, I had to like his hat. It was asked many times a day, many times a week, and his hats are next to his beautiful wooden urn. I liked his hats, but I loved what was under them.

Brad, so glad to have you back, even for a little while. No............that does not sound right. We missed you, the griever, the person who hurt. I know you still hurt, but you seem to be applying more than a Band-Aid. I admire that. Anything that helps you along this lonesome journey. I finally found a picture of Billy I could look at without crying and for some reason, it comforted me. We all have to find a way to survive.......or we die also. Might be a wish many of us have. Billy and I spent our retirement years helping care for grown family, but we always found time to hike, to visit these hills and back-roads. I'm happy your enjoying your job. A teacher is a wonderful thing to be and my sister spends more hours grading essays than she does in class, so the pay for the hours spent does not ever even out, but the time spent with young minds, knowing you might be of some help is worth all the extra hours. (And, for once in a long time, those hours are not empty). And, I am happy you have someone you can talk with. I know the disease of the mind her husband has and it is good you are there for her also. Life itself is a great teacher and you just have to try to stay away from the bottom of the grading scale. Some semblance of happiness my friend, you deserve it.

Ana, I think my post was meant for myself, maybe for people a lot older than you are. I honestly do not know what I would do with rude people that constantly aggravate me with something concerning my life or Billy's death. I keep thinking about the lion not paying attention to what a sheep thinks. I could tease a little and tell you I am from the deep south and our cultures are sometimes different, but then I'd give the impression of old southern belles with their big beautiful dresses on and their mint juleps in their hands. I think my southern is so much different than that. When I went to the sheriff's office for routine question (my asking the question, not being questioned), I had to put my purse through the x-rayer and I did have to take out my cute little fillet knife in its pretty blond scabbard. Now, they did not think anything of me having that. They thought it cute. But, I am no southern belle. I am a deep south, paper mill town redneck, and I don't stand on ceremony. I've never hurt anyone, but I do not suffer idiots either. Not more than once. I would suggest you do the same. Personally, I liked #4 of Marty's suggestions to tell people that aggravate you/them/us. In real reasoning, people leave me alone because they worry more about my demise than my mental attitude. I hope those people leave you alone or you learn to tell them the next stop they can exit. No, we don't deserve anything bad said to us, but our loved ones did not deserve to leave either. I have no answer for this grief, but maybe worrying about my 18-year-old, maybe the imaginary scar tissue, but I have some tolerable days sometimes. Billy was a better mama and daddy than I was. He was a natural nurse. Tonight in the ER, I tried to conjure him up sitting on my 18-year-old's bed. I don't have the patience he did and when I worry it tends to come out like anger. It is helplessness for not being able to take care of her health problems.

I really try hard to ignore "slights," silly little things that bother me that someone might say. I do not know what is happening to my life. Maybe a little fog has lifted. I'm not saying I have "found a cure" for this horrible grief, but something has happened. I think like Rose Kennedy said, time does not heal the wounds but they develop scar tissue. We all know that is just a metaphor, not a real condition. But, sometimes, you grow to accept he is not going to return home. You look to the sky and ask "why?" but the sky does not answer. Then you say "I know you did not want to leave, I will just love and miss you all of my forever's." And, yes, I will cry, but not like it used to come. I do this often. When Billy left I could not concentrate to read. My love of books is legendary. I love my Kindle, but there is the book of poems by Walt Whitman (one of them), and one by e.e. cummings (and I love his leaving off capital letters), and I want these books to hold in my hands. I will wear reading glasses. The feel of a book is something a book romantic has to do, and I have a romance with books. Joan Didion has a new documentary on her life on Netflix. I have many authors I admire tremendously. Do not tell me bad perverted things about them, I want them up on that pedestal of my own imagination. Joan Didion's book "The Year of Magical Thinking" was one of the first books I read after Billy left. You see, I could concentrate on life that I was living, someone else living the same life, I could comprehend. This book was written after her daughter died also. You will have to watch the documentary to understand this. But, I have to warn you, watching Joan interact at her age (I think 82), it was painful for me to watch, but I had to do it. I did it for Joan, for myself, and for all people like "us" on this forum. There is a line drawn. On top is the people with sympathy, on the bottom are we the people who have walked over the burning coals. Joan walked, still walks, and suffers. She still writes also. I will call them "Billy's friends" that slighted me, I felt real hurt from this. But, also, that hurt is forgiven because I understand. I am a reminder of things to come. Just like in "The Christmas Carol," I am the ghost of things to come. I will go to the nursing home close by to bring flowers to one of those friends. After I had talked to them to let them know Billy was gone, this lifelong friend of his had a stroke and is being fed with a tube in the NH. His wife comes every morning and leaves late in the evening. My heart is with her. Sometimes you figure out that life is not all about us. I know I have mentioned this. One of Billy's first cousin's had passed away. (silly me, I still thought of all of us as young). The man's sister-in-law was my dear friend that we had lost touch with. I got her phone number. She was so happy to hear from me, for a few moments there was happiness in our voices. We caught up on our life (Right before Billy got sick), and then our voices drifted off to sadness. She had lost two sons and another of Billy's cousin's, her husband, to an auto accident. She was remarried now, had a semblance of happiness, a new happiness, and I was a reminder of an old happiness and in between of horrible grief. We promised to keep in touch, but we never will again. See, sometimes we get our feelings hurt when that is not meant to be the reason we are "brushed off." We are a terrible reminder of things to come, things other people have to face, and they know it. It is not meant as a slap to us, it is a sadness, they hear the footsteps louder when we are around. We cannot avoid this, but we can greet them, if we have to, with warm regards, expecting nothing from them. Show them we are okay, show them we still put one foot in front of the other, show them we are not afraid, then just walk on by. This past week we lost four friends of mine and my friend's families. One was a son that is my son's age. My heart is heavy, I don't want to be a reminder to people, I prefer to be an example, maybe not of hope, maybe I cannot find a word for this, maybe I will just be me. (Lord help us all). .

Gwen, I so understand that. The year 2015, I wish I could delete entirely. October was our favorite month. It is just a hell month now. Never appreciate it again. Saw those ?? pear trees that turn the most beautiful red in the fall, stay pretty green all year and are the first to burst into flowers in the spring. October was our picture taking month. Oh heck, I could go on and on but, I am just trying to be thankful we had a lot of good Octobers and just be positive there never will be another good one. My heart is with you Gwen.

We all have a relative that really knows what nerves to push. You just keep being George and know that is lots more than she is being. I signed everything over to my sister and now we have to get Mama's $1800 succession and hopefully my income tax will do it, or close enough. Then, the house is totally hers and she can either sell it or something to help her live out her life, but I will still be there to help, Lord willing. And, you will do for your dad anyhow, just like your doing now. We do it cause we can do no less. Your a good man George and so proud of your weight loss and taking care of your health. Your sister will have to live with herself, and if she has any of your genes, then she will have her regrets, but that is on her, not you.

I did this also for many months. I moved to an apartment so I could hear life. If I could not be with Billy, I wanted to hear people living their life. I did not want to live it with them, I wanted to die and I truly believe if my mustard seed faith had not interfered, I would not be here. I don't know if I would have been with him either though. And, he said the one that was left must stay. It has been two years now. I look to the sky and I say "I cannot believe you would leave me." I think the hardest thing was realizing, he was not coming back and no amount of crying I did would bring him back. The doc gave me an antidepressant that nearly killed me as I already had an existing condition. After two years, I have found my clinician. I shopped around but could not find one like I had in Arkansas. Too far to go for routine checkups. But, I found a clinician that lets me choose. She won't give me the short acting Xanax, but she will give me the long acting Xanax, and I use it more for my shaking (more like Parkinson's disease), but it is a congenital tremor. My anxiety attacks are not as many anymore. She mentioned routine exams for me and I, of course, will take the flu shot and pneumonia shot. But, she is willing to go along with me with no more medicine than I take (to protect my long ago cancer radiated abdomen and colon rupture with sepsis.) I did promise if I had blood anywhere I would come back fast. But, this is mainly for colds, infections, etc., the joys of being old. Like I said, it has been two years. I know there will never be anyone else, and I know you young married, engaged, or otherwise long time partners, I know you all wish for and miss the things that Billy and I took for granted. One thing that helped me more than anything was to see/hear the words of Rose Kennedy. Losing a child, to me, has to be the most horrible grief anyone has to overcome and I do so hope I go before my children and grandchildren, but I do believe (for me) that grief as a wound will never heal. You do develop mental scar tissue that helps protect the sanity of your brain. I truly believe that (for me). One thing I have really come to thank God for, (and I could not even do that at first) was that Billy and I had 54 years together. So hard not to say 56, because he is still with me. And, I am selfish enough and unreasonable enough to wish for 54 more years. The last things I saw about him, the frightening, guilty, horrible things I saw for so long in my mind, I am able to soften it and move it away from my thinking. And, I do cry still. For myself, moving away that first few months was the thing for me to do. Women and men who built their house together, they cannot leave. I had to leave, I had to go back to where we began. He was not here either. Tomorrow's "Grief, One Day at a Time" talks about how I feel. This man, Alan D.. Wolfelt, Ph.D, I wish I could meet him. He talks to me so much. He says "The French say, "Tu me manques," which means "You are missing from me." "The people we love are part of us, and when they die, they go missing from us. That's why we often say that whenever someone special dies, a part of us dies, too." The sensation of something essential now being missing in our lives is the hardest part of our grief to learn to bear. It will never go away. We cannot fill the hole with other people, activities, or belongings. It's unfillable. Yet maybe we can come to an understanding about the hole; it is now a container for our memories and the love for the person who died. And while the memories and the love are not a substitute for the person's presence, they too are priceless beyond measure. You are missing from me. I am learning to live with the hole. And, that is my word salad for today. Tony, time will not heal this. That is not good to hear. Keep reading these wonderful people's feelings and personalities and hopefully you will one day find a small amount of peace in your life. It is the hardest thing I have ever experienced..

I am so happy you all have him. My heart is with you.

You know I cannot interfere. If she cannot see what I am going through and cannot put herself in my place, she will not listen to me. I think we learn......after the fact. They know I suffer, and they also know I am a "steel magnolia" but I feel like "a lonely little petunia in an onion patch." We will overcome to some point, but we won't forget. And, when it happens to others, we will show empathy, because we learned the hard way. Her beloved only sister passed and she saw her brother-in-law actually wither away and finally pass away. He was skin and bones and had honestly mourned himself to death. When you see things after the curtain has been pulled away and you do not learn a lesson from it, then you will be self-taught the hard way.