If You're Going Through Hell

[Gin]

I have a son, living in California.  He used to work at Edison and climbed the big high power lines.  A few years ago he fell and broke both hips.  He was in some apprentice program and did not sue them (they had the wrong platform on the pole), because he wanted to finish the program.  He could not.  He lives in an RV with his dog.  I have only seen him a few times in the last several years.  I call him.  No answer.  Leave a message.  No call back.  Texted him numerous times...nothing.   He keeps going to Mexico to see a girl there, but I do not have a name or number.  Sent him a letter and told him I was worried about him.  Finally got a text from him saying he would call soon.  That is what he always says.  I have a feeling he has an alcohol problem.  He is 44 but I still worry about him.  I get myself in quite a frenzy over him.  He was having surgery when Al died and could not come in.  They got along great.  I wish I could just accept his behavior and not get so upset. Worrying about him on top of the grief for Al gets to be too much.

Gin

[KarenK]

I am so sorry to hear about your grandson, Marg and your son, Gin. Most of us are not responsible for the actions of our children and grandchildren. Knowing that however, does not lessen the heartbreak we feel for them or the frustrations of the fact that we can't fix them. When my son was growing up, he fell in with those who used drugs despite all the PTA meetings, Cub Scout meetings, or Little League games we attended. I used to wonder why he chose to hang out with "people like that". One day, I came to the conclusion that he WAS "people like that". We used to be the "homeless shelter" for many of his friends who had been left by their parents to fend for themselves. Kids felt safe here, so safe in fact that I found an MJ plant growing in a pot on top of my shed. That ended that relationship. I was so blind to what was going on around me, the missing jewelry, the lunch money used instead to buy drugs, etc. It took me a while to become educated as it did my son. He gave up drugs long ago while he still could. Many of his friends were not so lucky and lie in the ground.

So many of us are filled with so much heartbreak. Will it never end? i guess so, upon our death.

[Margm]

“If you can sit with your pain, listen to your pain and respect your pain — in time you will move through your pain.”  ― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

I can sit with it, I listen to it, but I have not grown to respect it yet.  Someone was always giving Billy flashlights, lamps for living without electricity, all over the place.  I asked Scott last night, what do we do with all of them.  He said "well, we may be without electricity sometimes." I will box up all the lamps, flashlights in a box and deposit them at the thrift store.  Our electricity is gone anyhow, lamps will not bring him back.  So many things, so many useless things.  I made him lists of all his books he read on Kindle and synopsis of each book printed out.  I hesitate to throw it away.  I removed the books from Kindle, but the lists, Billy read those books, how can I throw away the lists.  

Friends, the rules are made, you do not do anything for a year.  Even after a year, I see our people on this forum unable to move away from "lists."  The scar will not heal, not even if you remove the lists.  

"In time you will move through your pain."  That one is so hard to believe.  I don't "respect my pain."  How can you give respect to something that hurts?  And moving through my pain, well I am moving away from here, how can I do this?  It is not practical to stay here.  What is practical about grief?  Nothing.

[kayc]

Oh Gin, my heart goes out to you because it reminds me of my daughter.  She hasn't set up voicemail on the phone she's had since George died (she took over his phone number) so I can't leave messages.  I text and don't get a reply.  I email, she says she doesn't get it (everyone else does, does she have me set to go into her spam folder?).  She comes once a year on Christmas, that's it.  My sisters and I hire her to take care of my quadripledic sister when we get together  (about every other month) for lunch and shopping.  If we didn't pay her I'd never see her.  She didn't even call me on Mother's Day.  It's getting worse, I used to see her Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, birthdays.  I worry about her because she doesn't hold a steady job, electing instead to clean houses and babysit.  My son thinks she's done too much marijuana, but I have no idea, how would I know, I don't see her.  When I try to talk to her about never getting to see/talk with her, she says she's been busy, her phone is having problems, yada yada yada.  She will never get real with me.  She is a wonderful person, I love her to pieces, but I don't understand why she's cut her whole family out of her life.  All I can do is pray for her and be here if she ever does want me.  It hurts though and I worry about her.  I have no idea how she's ever going to retire.  

[kayc]

12 hours ago, KarenK said:

So many of us are filled with so much heartbreak. Will it never end? i guess so, upon our death.

I guess that is our one consolation, that and knowing our spouse no longer has to go through this.  Life can be painful, no doubt!

[Clematis]

My dad also had a lot of flashlights, and battery operated lanterns...a lot of them were actually given to him by me! I kept giving him flashlights until I stopped hearing stories about little accidents in his house in the dark and picking him up to go to dinner and he had no flashlight in his coat pocket. It gets really dark at night here. Also, where we live the electricity does go off periodically. Yeah, right... I just wrote, "where we live"; one of us is not actually "living" any longer. I don't seem to be getting it into my head very well.

Marg, I think you and I both have rearranged our lists and timing by moving six months or so after the death of our loved one and not waiting for a year, because for different reasons, that would be impossible. I have a similar family story. My great aunt Bee who lived with another woman, Helen, for forty years. Neither ever married or had children. Helen had a brother who never had children and died fairly young with no children. Having no family of her own, she took on Bee's family-us! It was like having a third set of grandparents-the best set. When I was growing up and told Helen how much I loved her, Helen used to always point out that she was not a blood relative. I always told her that I didn't care-she was family to me. Helen was great-she did what she wanted regardless what anyone told her. Skated after work-as a math teacher-and came to school the next day with skinned knees. She ate whatever she wanted in spite of diabetes and almost entirely lost her vision. She had trouble walking and had a lot of other medical problems, but was tough. Bee was doing great, but died first, and they had lived in a two-story row house with no bathroom on the first floor.

Someone stayed with Helen for a few days because she couldn't be in the house alone. I wasn't able to get there by Bee's funeral, but arrived soon after and stayed with Helen for a week. I was just enjoying my time with Helen helping her, and grieving together, but the rest of the family was frantically searching for a place for Helen to go after I left. Since Helen and Bee had taught two generations of the small city's kids math and science in high school, they knew everybody. A former student of both invited Helen to live in a guest house on his property at no cost. The day after I left, the family starting moving Helen out of the house they had shared for forty years. So Helen had less than two weeks after her life partner's death before she had to move.

The house was in Bee's name only even though they had obviously both paid for it from their teachers' salaries, and was left to my mother and her sister. My mother was very eager to get that house on the market and get her part of it. She was also irritated with Helen because Helen had given a few small things of theirs to long-time friends. Legally, all of Bee & Helen's personal property and real estate belonged to my mother and her sister. Helen had her clothes and a bedroom set. The older I get and think about what happened to Helen, the more it hurts my heart. They sent her off with what she needed for a tiny house, and almost everything else the two of them owned went to Bee's family-us. It was obvious that they thought Helen with all her health problems would go first, and Bee would not have wanted Helen shuffled off, but she was...

42 minutes ago, Marg M said:

Friends, the rules are made, you do not do anything for a year.  Even after a year, I see our people on this forum unable to move away from "lists."  The scar will not heal, not even if you remove the lists.  

"In time you will move through your pain."  That one is so hard to believe.  I don't "respect my pain."  How can you give respect to something that hurts?  And moving through my pain, well I am moving away from here, how can I do this?  It is not practical to stay here.  What is practical about grief?  Nothing.

Grieving sucks, and I think the rules and generalities may not apply to an individual. Marg, you are on your path too soon, and feeling rushed about it. So am I, being pushed along too fast by the reality that I work on a school schedule and am off for the summer, and the sooner I can stop paying mortgages/utilities - and doing all the work on two houses, the better it will be for my sisters - but also for me in the long run, because there is not a lot of money in my dad's trust account and I would be better off keeping whatever is my part in the end for my retirement. 

I have no idea what "respecting your pain" means, other than realizing that it's going to impact you and so you should slow down and be careful so you don't get injured. Moving through pain? Well, I do think that time does lessen pain...if you think about someone you lost decades ago, it's not the same as when you first lost them.

I think in a way I really lost Helen when Bee died, because the rest of the family did not treat her like she was a "blood relative", and she was sort of removed from the family configuration after Bee was gone. Helen died a year or so after Bee and it was treated as a minor incident compared to Bee. I wasn't able to go to either of their services because I lived across the country and worked 3-4 months a year. But Helen has stuck with me...I have always felt like she was a guardian angel of sorts, encouraging me to be tough-like she was. I still feel her around and it's been 30 years.

[Clematis]

48 minutes ago, kayc said:

Oh Gin, my heart goes out to you because it reminds me of my daughter.  She hasn't set up voicemail on the phone she's had since George died (she took over his phone number) so I can't leave messages.  I text and don't get a reply.  I email, she says she doesn't get it (everyone else does, does she have me set to go into her spam folder?).  She comes once a year on Christmas, that's it.  My sisters and I hire her to take care of my quadripledic sister when we get together  (about every other month) for lunch and shopping.  If we didn't pay her I'd never see her.  She didn't even call me on Mother's Day.  It's getting worse, I used to see her Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, birthdays.  I worry about her because she doesn't hold a steady job, electing instead to clean houses and babysit.  My son thinks she's done too much marijuana, but I have no idea, how would I know, I don't see her.  When I try to talk to her about never getting to see/talk with her, she says she's been busy, her phone is having problems, yada yada yada.  She will never get real with me.  She is a wonderful person, I love her to pieces, but I don't understand why she's cut her whole family out of her life.  All I can do is pray for her and be here if she ever does want me.  It hurts though and I worry about her.  I have no idea how she's ever going to retire.  

Kay, I really feel for you and your worries about your daughter. I really don't understand people acting this way with their families. I have a long history in my family cutting people out, and I don't understand it. My father had a very interesting aunt, Queenie, who married a cool guy named Lou. They never had children and after Lou retired they traveled the world and we grew up receiving exotic Christmas presents from the two. But when Queenie died, Lou totally stopped contact with everyone. As a young adult, I went to LA, and was in Venice, where he lived, and I tried desperately to get hold of him so I could see him. No luck. My mother tried to explain it to me-that it wasn't me-he did that with everyone.

But how do you explain that? And he was a great uncle I really barely knew. I can't imagine it being my daughter. Well, I guess I have the same thing going with my sisters. For ten years most of their contact with me was related to getting money from my father, and I never figured it out until he died and the money potential stopped.

[Clematis]

13 hours ago, Gin said:

 ...I call him.  No answer.  Leave a message.  No call back.  Texted him numerous times...nothing.   He keeps going to Mexico to see a girl there, but I do not have a name or number.  Sent him a letter and told him I was worried about him.  Finally got a text from him saying he would call soon.  That is what he always says.  I have a feeling he has an alcohol problem.  He is 44 but I still worry about him.  I get myself in quite a frenzy over him.  He was having surgery when Al died and could not come in.  They got along great.  I wish I could just accept his behavior and not get so upset. Worrying about him on top of the grief for Al gets to be too much.

Gin, I am so sorry about your son-that is so sad. It sounds really awful worrying about him and having him not respond to any contact, especially after having lost Al. It would seem like the two of you could be of some comfort to each other, but it's not happening.

It seems like my sisters and I ought to be able to help each other as well, but that's not happening either. I don't think they are really grieving-just waiting for me to hurry it up so they can get their money. Why can't people treat their family like family? I don't get it. I worked in a prison for five years and knew inmates who had done terrible things to their families, who still treated them like family-although probably with some caution (lock the medicine cabinet, don't loan them money-just give it to them if you have it because you'll never see it again, etc). But so many people have family members who act like they aren't related. I just don't get it. 

[Widowedbysuicide]

My heart is breaking for those who are hurting so much.  I wish I could do something to help each of you.  Please know that you're in my prayers.

Marita

[kayc]

7 hours ago, Clematis said:

I really don't understand people acting this way with their families.

Well at least we know it's not personal or some reason due to us because she is the same way with all of us on both sides of the family.  I'll never give up on her but I don't suppose she'll change as it's been 16 years since she left home and didn't look back.  At least she stayed with me a short time when George died and was there for her dad when his father passed away.

I'm sorry about Helen and Bee.  It's too bad they didn't leave each other in their will so the other would be taken care of in the event of a death.  I hate it when people get money hungry and don't do the right thing.

 

[Clematis]

Just now, kayc said:

...I'm sorry about Helen and Bee.  It's too bad they didn't leave each other in their will so the other would be taken care of in the event of a death.  I hate it when people get money hungry and don't do the right thing.

 

Thank you, Kay. It was sad when I lost Aunt Bee and then Helen, but really heartbreaking when I was mature enough to really understand what happened. I think it has been even more painful (after my dad died) to realize that my younger sister, her daughters, and possibly even my older sister are so much like my mother. Nothing has changed. I did manage to snatch out of thin air (as well as my love and enduring efforts) a decade's worth of a special and loving relationship with my dad. But nothing else has changed, and I don't think it will.

I spent a huge chunk of my life doing psychotherapy and trying to share what I had gained with my siblings, and then coaxed my dad out here to be with me, giving him a clean slate and a chance to put the past behind and move on in a future without the mire of the past being drug through everything. Truly, this has been by far the biggest thing I have done in my life is to help the family move on with a reduction in the psychodynamic garbage that ruined everyone's relationships. I was sure that I could change the family dynamics and everyone would have a better future. Nevertheless, I would have to say it has been a total failure. I would have been better off spending my time and money collecting Swarovski crystal animal figurines or something, rather than doing all that therapy. 

Well, that's probably not true--I went from being a dysfunctional and timid creature who could not complete a sentence or function in the world in any capacity to being a force to be reckoned with, a competent artist and musician, and a professional who is able to support myself with two advanced degrees. But my sisters and at least part of the next generation is as narcissistic as my mother was...

[kayc]

I understand.  

[Margm]

I think it was mentioned Martin Shorts interview with Kathie Lee. But this is what he says after his wife Nancy's death.

"We were, as a couple, like a big 747 jet plane, powered by two engines.  But now one engine is out.  Nevertheless, the plane is still filled with passengers and there's a lot of responsibility, a lot of lives still to influence.  So, the plane must continue to fly with one engine.  It travels onward, but with a bit more effort and struggle"

Losing our mate affects us all about the same way..  Except my mom who stayed angry at my dad for leaving her.  He had no choice, neither did our mates and I have never been in an airplane, but would hate to lose one engine.

We have lost one engine, but we have to keep flying.  "There is still a lot of responsibility"

Moving van comes tomorrow.  Still not ready.  Will have help.  Maybe they can get me more organized.  I am so up the staircase, down it, around it, on top of it, under it and never finish the job I started.  

Hope you have a good peaceful night.  I have doc appointment in the morning.  Just blood pressure refills.  I don't let them delve any further, if there is something wrong, they will get it in the end, or it will get me is better understood.   

[Clematis]

21 minutes ago, Marg M said:

Moving van comes tomorrow.  Still not ready.  Will have help.  Maybe they can get me more organized.  I am so up the staircase, down it, around it, on top of it, under it and never finish the job I started.  

Hope you have a good peaceful night.  I have doc appointment in the morning.  Just blood pressure refills.  I don't let them delve any further, if there is something wrong, they will get it in the end, or it will get me is better understood.   

Good luck tomorrow, Marg! I'll be looking forward to hearing how it went. Having help is great! Tomorrow we are supposed to be prepping to paint, or getting ready to prep for paint, or something. Tuesday the Persian rug gets picked up by the cleaner. Then we paint, then the carpet comes in, the Persian rug comes back-but to my house-and then the moving truck will come, assuming I arrange for it, but how am I going to figure out when that will be? The day after the rug comes back? I am totally lost, and it sounds like you feel that way as well, but the ball is in motion and you'll get through tomorrow somehow...

[KATPILOT]

5 hours ago, Marg M said:

"We were, as a couple, like a big 747 jet plane, powered by two engines.  But now one engine is out.  Nevertheless, the plane is still filled with passengers and there's a lot of responsibility, a lot of lives still to influence.  So, the plane must continue to fly with one engine.  It travels onward, but with a bit more effort and struggle"

Losing our mate affects us all about the same way..  Except my mom who stayed angry at my dad for leaving her.  He had no choice, neither did our mates and I have never been in an airplane, but would hate to lose one engine.

We have lost one engine, but we have to keep flying.  "There is still a lot of responsibility" 

This is one of the best analogies I have ever come across and a beautiful concept Marg.  It is indeed more difficult and takes a lot of effort and struggle to get a plane down safely with only one engine left but a pilot is trained to handle that. It is a procedure that is practiced and unless it is done many times, the results could be disastrous. We didn't get that training so it's not so easy to keep flying.

[Margm]

It is his job (Martin Short's) to make us laugh.  That is his occupation.  I have visited many of your stories about the illness of your mates.  But, this funnyman was not funny at all when it came to losing the mother of his three grown children, nor the fight they had battling the ovarian cancer.  It reminded me of many of you, given hope and then all hope gone.  They followed the CA-125 markers constantly and lived by their rise and fall.  She had had breast cancer that was cured, but this was before the markers that would have had her have a hysterectomy and avoided the ovarian cancer, like Angelina Jolie did. The fear, the loss that was so terrifying.  His one engine plane landed, but it is still limping. George Carlin lost his wife of nearly 40 years and then met his next wife "love at first sight" six months later.  They were married 10 years until his death.  We all handle life and death differently.  Comedians are human also.  I have not finished Martin Short's book.  My friend married two years after her husband passed.  We talk some.  A long marriage for them, but he did not like women.  He did not like men either, but that small town his and Billy's families came from had powerful mother "figures" that bothered both boys.  We grow up with people and never really know them.  She is married again, now about 12-14 years.  His life has hung by a thread the whole time.  We put ourselves through so much searching for happiness, some semblance of what we once had.  The rest of us limp with our one engine plane.  No more take-off's.

[kayc]

Marg, you are in my thoughts as the movers come.  I hope once you move you'll have more rest and peace.  I know that will be a while because you'll have the frustration of what to do with all of the boxes at your apt. Maybe you can put the things you need to live away and save the rest in a back room until you're more able to deal with them?

[Clematis]

55 minutes ago, kayc said:

Marg, you are in my thoughts as the movers come...

Yeah, me too! I hope it goes ok for you today...

[MartyT]

We're ALL pulling for you with this move, Marg 

[Margm]

Well Marty, you all have to be pulling for me and I so appreciate it.  I also know, once I get moved I have to find something else to gripe about.  Oh Lordy, what am I going to do?  Well, being the master griper, I think I can find something.

[KarenK]

Marg,

I will gripe a bit in your stead. Once again, it is the time of year when I truly hate living in the city. The city has left me a non compliance citation. I get one of these blasted things every summer threatening a $2,500 a day fine because my front yard is dead. Keep in mind that it is 110 degrees and a blast furnace outside. It never rains.  I try to water 2-3 times a week after 10 PM. I can barely afford my house and food, much less a doubled water bill from trying to have a green lawn. I can't afford to have someone put in a sprinkler system or desert landscaping, so I just get by the best I can. This old neighborhood is not the Biltmore estate. It is not flooded with tourists or prospective buyers. It's just a tired old neighborhood and I'm a tired old woman. Why can't they just leave me alone? Gripe over.

[Gwenivere]

Ya know, Marg.....I believe that.  You'll find plenty to gripe about.  

[kayc]

Oh gosh, Karen, can you have wood chips put in and plant a cactus here and there?  I'm glad I don't have some city telling me what to do!  It's bad enough the Fed. gov't is trying to encroach by telling us what to do...never mind that the county doesn't have to comply with the same rules, just us landowners.  Grrr!  Okay, rant over.

[Margm]

On 6/30/2016 at 3:55 PM, Marg M said:

I really excel at that Gwen.  When I am quiet on here, you know my supply is running low.  I'll think of something fast though.

 

[Margm]

Karen, not for sure where you live.  In Albuquerque, where my sister-in-law lives, and some of my friends, their lawns are sand, rock and cactus.  I wonder why that would not be enough to comply with where you live.  I think you need to plead your case with someone.  Either that or have them come spray the lawn green.  Again, not sure where you live, but think it is one of the dry places where grass is hard to grow.