Margm

Cookie, you touched my heart. I have friends I can talk to, but the romantic part of my heart left when Billy left. Gotta remember my age, length of time we were together, and a few other TMI stuff, and my time has come and gone. And I am knocking on wood. I hope you can still be friends with the guy. My heart is with you.

Sorry Kevin, we are all missing our better half. We kept it low key, even on our 50th. Billy thought it funny cause I forgot to get him a card. I made him one, but I am glad we never made a big thing over celebrations. There was a reason behind all of this, but you all can be happy my little 10 inch Kindle with a separate keyboard slows me down. A couple beers sound good.

Well, living in Louisiana, we are just happy when a breeze blows over our always sweat drenched clothes. And yet I lived at least 25 years w/o AC. I remember visiting the old relatives with the high ceilings, porches all around the big old unpainted wood houses Windows with screens always open, big trees all around, and the well at the corner back porch, galvanised dipper that everyone drank out of and the coldest water, except from the underground springs. Not even electric fans. Not sure there was even electricity. Damn I'm old. This was very rural country.

Computer decided to leave me too. Billy cannot be replaced, but the computer can. Soon as I get the $$$

I had many years of happiness but found over these years that eventually you have to learn to live without some friends and family members. It is not pleasant but it happens. Brad, I wish you as much happiness as life will allow and admire your quest for living. Visit back often. You're a brave man.

Since we were kids who had never been on our own, we had a good time learning what the other liked. Our time together was spent learning new ways to fish, going in at halftime to ballgames, cause it was free, watching Billy play soft/baseball in the summer, we had no money but there was plenty to do. Over 54 years we evolved into one unit. Now I am less. I will be writing less until my puter gets fixed. This is on my Kindle.

I love to read about the perfect fit relationships. I think Billy and I were like a new pair of tight fitting shoes. We did not get comfortable until we had walked a bunch of miles and we had the blisters to show for it. It was strange though, no matter how much our life pinched, we still had our good times and as many chances as we had to throw those old shoes away, they became the only ones we could or would wear. I think we were in Hot Springs about 20 years ago and he bought him two pair of the Rockport (I think) shoes. He wore both pair, but would only wear the one pair for everyday wear, hiking, anywhere he wanted to be comfortable. I think it strange now, I understand my anger at him when he held out his sweet hands to me. I was never going to give him up. Still can't.

My poor Billy went from a warring family into an adult warring family with one child that had the personality of my mom, his mom, and his sister. Basically, I am a coward, always have been. My dad once threatened to whip me if I let this kid keep bullying me (a cousin) and his whipping was more threatening than the cousin, so I took care of it. Then Billy protected me from them all. But one time he told me "don't play fair, if it comes to a fist fight, pick up a stick and knock the _____ out of them." Fights and fusses are something I hate. All of the people that used to make confrontations are long gone. My mama's family were "warring" people. My dad's were non-confrontational. I don't like confrontations. My protector is gone, so I try to stay away from confrontations. Sometimes, even with medication, that one person still wants to fuss. I cannot do it any more. Like Chief Joseph, "I will fight no more forever." Sometimes I get a witchy backbone, but most times I am just jello. When we first got married Billy said his whole name meant "mighty protector." At home, if I heard something outside my dad would run around outside the house in his boxer shorts, holding a shotgun, winter or summer, just to make me feel safe. After I got married and "heard something" then I told Billy and he said "well, go see what it is." Damn, I sure miss that boy. Been watching "The Golden Girls" again. My tales sound like Rose Nyland talking about growing up in St. Olaf. Word salads. "Shut-up Rose."

Some days are okay. The hurting part is still there but not the total despair that was the main part. Some days are okay. Definitely got to find that psych doc. Honestly had one of those screaming into a pillow days. And, what good would that have done? Given me a headache. I don't lack for attention. I have plenty. Sometimes more than I can handle. One of my granddaughter's groups describes how I want to be. If you think I have backslid, maybe a couple of steps. I keep hearing old songs my daddy used to sing to me, something about sometimes the hard times won't leave us alone. But amazing a group of near 20 year old's wrote my song, and I feel it. A group called 5-SOS: "I was already missing before the night I left; just me and my shadow and all of my regrets; who am I? Who am I? Invisible.

My granddaughter was adopted 18 years ago. I can only tell her about and show her the love of a piece of paper. Her daddy/granddaddy "adopted" me in 1961, and though we did not share the same blood, there was no love greater. Right now I have a problem showing love. I feel like half my soul/body/image/personage has been taken away and I only have half a glass left, where once it was full of all the love there was possible to give. I wonder what happens to that part of a person. They are still a whole person to the eye, but invisible to the people around them is another person that should be attached. I feel guilt because there are people in my life that I should have feelings for but I cannot. My mom will be gone a year in a few days and yet I have not cried. I do not actually feel like the real me. I don't know who I am, but I know I will not let this child down in any way. But, my life is not like the spreadable margarine, I cannot cover a whole piece of bread, I am in clumps like frozen butter.

There are no words to fill in the gaps of your loss, and you at such a young age. I cannot imagine the horror of these memories you have to relive. My daughter, my youngest, just turned 50, so I think of you still as a child. I do not know words of wisdom, I do not know words at all. I am just sorry this happens to you or anyone. I just hope you can find some semblance of peace at some time. I hope you have someone around you also.

I so hate dates, months, years. I find myself looking at Netflix and if the movie came out in 2015, I avoid it as if had something to do with anything. There are still spots of amnesia that I am thankful for. Is today Friday? I have not looked, but did notice the soap opera was on, so maybe it is. Did Billy leave on Friday or Saturday? I won't think anymore about it. My granddaughter and I have gotten into "The Golden Girls" at night. At first I did not want to rewatch any of them because they are all gone, but one. But then we started watching them and on one episode I laughed so hard I couldn't catch my breath. Laughter is good. Memories are good. Remembering, sometimes not good. Amy, wishing you and all my fellow forum members as good a day as possible.

You wonder sometimes about peoples "feelings" and they honestly are not compared to the majority on here. We all lost something that cannot be replaced, but my friend had not been gone a week and her husband was on his honeymoon. (His mom said he got lonely). Then, I had a cousin that was married for years and years. He died and the next day she had everything of his out of the house, thrown away, given away, burned. Then she went hunting. And, we had someone come on here awhile back from another country, and I cannot sit in judgement, but I got the feeling she was not sure, but it sounded like she was glad he was gone. I kinda feel Billy would have found someone else. I don't feel bad about that. I am almost positive my dad would have found someone else, and soon. Again Marty to remember "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" Guess we cannot judge. I've already gotten out of the frying pan into the fire once, I won't again. (But it was a lovely fire). Addendum: Also, a close family member lost her husband and had a date with the funeral director after her husband's funeral. Sounds like "The Golden Girls."

Kevin, your "bit of a ramble" classifies my word salads as full fledged books.

I still reach for his hand. Going into a store, being in the car, just walking across the street, I can still feel him around me, not his physical self, but my imagined physical self of him that I cannot get to talk to me. He was not much for talking anyhow, but I would love to hear his voice in my head. No, the missing never stops.

This was interesting Kay and thank you for putting it on here. I actually do not think I need therapy for my grief, just my complicated life and the many afflictions age and grief can bring to a psyche that has been beat as flat as the snake in the B.C. Comics. I think I am handling my grief as well as anyone can handle their grief. And, those complications and afflictions that are added onto the grief kinda tips the scale where it is lying flat on the ground, which is what probably everyone feels. Going to "GriefShare" and asking why the men were not included, I was told by more than one person "oh a man usually gets remarried" so they were not included. They obviously did not know what they were talking about and I happen to know Baptist men grieve as much as Baptist women. And, that is what we are here for. I usually am up by myself first things in the morning and try to get on the computer. Don't know why, but mornings are when I will have anxiety attacks if my mind is not busy. And mornings were not mine and Billy's "time together." He was a night person, I was a day person, but we evolved over the years to what we were. Just as we on this forum, we will evolve also, now the grief, well, we will always bring it along for the ride. ADDENDUM: I've said it before and I will say it again. I am a professional at chronic depression. I can even remember strange feelings as a child, that were depression, but with a dad that was probably bipolar, a mom that probably had a personality disorder that neither could help having, it was only "normal" for me to have feelings that were not shared by others. I never felt "different" but I know my heart went out to teenage girls, just from being a teenage girl that hated school, tried to beat myself in the head with a hair brush from frustration (only to be fussed at for breaking an expensive brush). As for grief and depression not being the same, they sure are twin sisters with identical DNA. In fact, I think they are Siamese twins. You know the story of people who have had their leg's amputated, they still have phantom foot pain, as if the foot is still there. And the pain cannot really be explained. Well, I have phantom Billy pain, he has been amputated, but the pain never goes away. I can learn to walk with the prosthesis, but the foot will always hurt.

Well, no one told me that after all the radiation the floor to my personal items was not strong. So, I tried running (no, trotting) a little while but then I was getting up at night 3-4 times. Women should not do this with a damaged foundation. But, I can walk, I just have not done it as an exercise in 21 months. I can't make promises I might not keep.

Kay, I knew my elephant behind had totally dismantled my foot. Now when your falling it is honestly like your in slow motion and can do nothing about it. I can remember not too many years ago falling, turning a flip and jumping up. It was all so fast and easy. Now it is oooohhhhhh-nnnnoooo in such slow motion and you know you have to protect something but your not fast enough. I don't know why that is. Sometimes I think I need a cane with me at all times just to catch me when my sneakers stick on the concrete, the wooden floor or the pavement because I drag my feet occasionally. Then for the next few moments I walk like a drum major, but then I forget again. And, if I did not have sneakers on to hold up my ankles and feet I really would fall. I am very careful walking in stores when it is raining. I remember in younger days having soft bottom moccasins on and falling through the hospital door, feet first, then behind, but I remember jumping up. I don't jump up anymore. We can tell ourselves to "be careful" but we will forget again. All I can say is "be careful." I used to think if I did not tell my kids that then it was a bad omen. Sometimes it is fun and excusable being an old woman, sometimes just dangerous.

I have fallen and so far the worse thing was when my foot took the total weight of my behind on concrete, foot bent wrong. Instant pain. I knew my size 7's could not take the weight of my elephant behind. The pain only got worse. X-rayed it in ER and I did hear them say something was out of place but they wrapped it to where maybe the out of place part fit back in. I fell off the bed (high bed) and broke my little toe once and the doc I worked for told me to make up some real story rather than falling out of bed onto my foot. They just buddy taped it. I have been lucky so far. I drag my feet sometimes and the rubber on the sneaker catches and wants to throw me. I have found though, when you are falling now, it is like it is in slow motion and there is actually nothing you can do. I knew my head was going to hit the concrete but I could do nothing to stop it. Old age is not for sissies for sure Bette Davis. Kay, I hope you get some relief. Makes driving 49 miles to Bri's doc not seem so bad. Going to have to drive between 20-30 to her PT also.

Why would anyone be annoyed by your being who you are? We are all a smorgasbord of people with one thing in common, we hurt. None of us are the same. Some of us look for someone to be close to again, some of us had closeness that we cannot imagine having again, so we won't look. Who is right and who is wrong. You do what is right for yourself. If you find out it was a mistake, you get out of it. (Myself, personally, if I did not have so much family I would probably get a puppy). All any of us want is happiness again, and we probably know we will never have anything that comes close. So we come here where we have like comradeship. None of us does the same thing the other person does. One size does not fit all. Some of us do not have the distractions that others have. Some of us are alone, but even with people around you, you are still alone. I realize it is not the same. I used to read Eleanor Roosevelt, but she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Silver tarnishes, so stainless steel is okay. I hated learning the new programs on the computer so I placed one of her sayings on the side of my computer. I cannot say it helped. But, it did not hurt. That one was about fear. But I discovered this one when looking for it. “It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt I think I try to shut myself up like a clam a lot of times. No apology. We are who we are and we handle things the best way we can, who can criticize? It is what it is.

Don't listen to me Gwen, your doc knows better than me. But, I told my doc I could not take an antidepressant, I told her all the procedures I had had and my tummy/colon would not take anything but what I take. She said it was just a small dosed new one that would not tear up my stomach. Then I woke at 4:00 a.m. with hurting all over, managed to make it into the living room and my temp was 101.8. What do you do at 4:00 a.m. when you know the doc's won't have a clue about your radiation, colon rupturing, cannot be fixed state? Then I heard on TV (Gosh, I hate those commercials that tell you all the bad things), and caught the tail end telling if you suffer high fever and muscle aches to call MD immediately. I had taken two Tylenol (all I can take) and went back to sleep. I figured either I lived or died, whatever. Then I read the side effects and the first was constipation. Nope, did not go back to her again. Next doc I go to will have a history written by me with the phone numbers of the doctors that told me I scared them and the one that said "we can do a D&C, but if we find anything we cannot do anything." So, why in the hell would I have a D&C? Sometimes doctors think they know more than I do......... their first mistake.

I think they will always be here in some way or the other. A sound made in the house (even though he never lived here), my son calling and sound just like him, I even imagined him sitting in the passenger seat when I went to town. I wake up in the morning and usually I have to say, "no, he is not here" and I am not disappointed because I know he is not here again and again. Nothing new. I'm glad I have dream amnesia because I think I've dreamed of him. I don't see him anywhere else though. I think about him telling me, when I thought I was dying (I worried all the time about it) in my early 40's. Finally he told me if I left I would be free of pain and worry. So Billy, I am glad you don't have pain and worry, but I sure miss you. I don't have anyone to share my worry with now, except the forum, and it helps, but not like Billy helped. He was so calm and laid back to my anxiety. Sometimes he would get kinda angry because I worried so much so I guess he just left me with it. Kevin, I say I hate dates, but somehow or other they always slap me in the face. How could my beautiful month of October, when we took pictures of the autumn leaves, how could that be my tormenting month. I hate October and won't watch or read anything published in 2015. Silly, I know. I'm glad you got to be with family recently anyhow.

This is not meant to go against the success of antidepressants. I remember the first time I took them the first pill made me totally undepressed. That was impossible since it took about four weeks, but I was so depressed that that one pill was a miracle drug in my mind. Sometimes you wonder who is handling the controls in your head. Journey's with the Black Dog Talked to Scott earlier, monotone in his voice. "Oh, I'll be okay" is always his answer. I can hear it though, and I know the painting he loves will be put aside. When you are depressed you don't see beauty. I can remember time and places from when I was a child. Melancholy was the name. Churchill took the name of Black Dog from somewhere, as he had many days of this. Wiley Hilburn, our beloved Wiley, he had the black dog follow him, and he wrote about it. Kelli tries to sleep through hers. My dad used to look at the sky and told Scott sometimes it is gray, sometimes blue. This was his black dog. I don't have an animal as the black dog has followed me for years. I was probably one of the first ones who took Prozac. After enough of these antidepressants you learn that they blunt emotions, they don't hide them or get rid of them, but if you want to cry, you cannot. They take away human feelings. I prefer the black dog. I don't think the black dog ever followed Mama. She would have beat the crap out of it. Mama did rely on her Bible though and did not advertise it, but I think prayer helped her. Kelli loses her ambition for her art and so does Scott. It will pass. There will be moments that the black dog sleeps. I think my sister philosophies it away. My aunt was bothered by this, very bad. I don't know about the ones on Mama's side of the family. Not sure we would have ever known. Grandma suffered from depression too, but she did not look for a cause or cure, it just was and you just kept going. And, there you have the answer. You just keep going. I remember one joyous occasion. August 31st, 1997. We were doing our RVing. No worries. Close enough to home that they knew we were near. The river flowed to my right, the wind was blowing the trees and some leaves were coming down. Autumn was coming.. I felt as light and carefree as one of the blowing leaves. Sad when you can remember happiness as a day. And grief is not the same as depression. That is a fact. But, I know a secret they don't share, they are identical twin sisters.

As an addendum, can you possibly go to an attorney that does not charge, a public attorney, not sure of the word "pro bono?"

Many, many years ago Billy had an operation by an ENT doc who injured his jawbone and caused osteomyelitis of the jawbone, which can be terribly serious. There was an opening between the top of his gums leading into his sinuses. We could get no help. It would not heal. Sinus infection after sinus infection. The old doc who did the surgery called us himself and told us we had better finish paying the bill. (I had told them we would not pay until the job was finished.) This does not happen, the ENT doc called us himself. In the meantime we went to an oral surgeon who told us that yes, the injury was inadvertently caused by the ENT doc, but if we sued him we could not get any doctor to testify against the ENT doc. He sympathized with us, he fixed the problem, but he would not testify if we sued. Later my sister kept having bleeding after one of my doctor friends put in a bladder patch. She went back to him, and I knew him personally, and he "does not make mistakes". I remember him losing his temper as a resident and hitting a wall. She said she was examined and would never go back to him. His examination felt more like legal rape. He was angry, he did not make mistakes. Come to find out she had female cancer that he did not even screen her for. This was a case of neglect of the highest power, but my family never believed in suing a doctor, or anyone else as far as that goes. (I believe in it, but not my mom, dad, or sister). Mama's words were "you cannot fight city hall." Kay, I have so many terrible attitudes toward the medical profession. I wonder where that woman got a new liver when the chief resident cut through her cystic artery. Who paid for the arm prosthesis when in surgery the automatic blood pressure cuff stayed on and cut off circulation to the man's arm for three hours during surgery. I used to see the charts of the people who were suing the hospital. I did not read them, just knew they were there, huge charts. Not sure they still take the Hippocratic Oath. I just know our old family physicians are no longer here. We had two in my papermill town. Knew them well enough that when I would not settle down at age 7 for the ether (uggg), he spanked me. He was part of the family, he could do that. I'm sorry Kay, again, but we are being failed by the medical profession and by our politicians. I can get out in the middle of town and preach against abuse to the elderly and they will find me a nice room in assisted living. I'm not ready for that yet. When I used to have to pull charts for patients in my early working days at the charity hospital, I would have to get a cart to carry some of them. Elderly people who I had no feelings for. They were just huge charts, the elderly people. So now I want to preach for elderly's rights. It took God a long time to show me that I was not smart. Smart a$$, but not smart,