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The hurt is still deep and real


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On 5/25/2017 at 0:24 PM, TomPB said:

it feels like getting thru the day vs living.

I do hear you on that...it has taken me so much time and purposeful effort to build a life I can do.  It's nothing like it was with George, lacking the sparkle he brought to life, but I'm doing the best I can.  Living alone day in, day out, year after year, gets old.  I've always valued my solitude but solitude is different than being lonely, and you can be lonely in a crowd. 

On 5/25/2017 at 0:24 PM, TomPB said:

My grief counselor says she is sure that I will find new purpose.

Purpose doesn't seem to me to be something we stumble upon but rather something we seek to create.  It takes concerted effort.  Right now you probably have your hands full with grieving and processing all of the change that has been thrust at you.  Marty posted a poem in the Tools section that speaks of the changes we go through in grief over the years, it was good.

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On 5/26/2017 at 9:47 PM, iPraiseHim said:

I can appreciate the fact that someone as high profile as she is (COO of Facebook) and yet she still experienced much of the same grief as we do as we trudge through our grief walk.

George, I read some of this book. I do not find it objectionable.  I have read so many books by widows and widowers and tried to see if they were feeling what I was feeling.  I have read so many, I forget the names of the famous people right now.  One famous author was sitting across the table from her husband when he just died suddenly, no warning.  And the woman that I followed and bought her books on bipolar illness and then her crutch, her reason for living passed away.  He had kept a log of her moods.  He was a doctor too, specializing in things about her illness/mental disability.  That is what bipolar does sometimes, it provides a genius level sometimes to part of the brain that imparts art, composing, writing, all kinds of talents.  This woman was very intelligent, had this disability and lost her reason to keep going.  But she did keep going, and she had many friends in the big college where she and her husband were on faculty.  It was a shock to me, and should have made me happy for her, that she remarried a couple of years later, to another colleague.  My acquaintance from long ago, she was an immaculate housekeeper, so her husband stood in the bathtub and shot himself, so as not to stain her carpet.  Life is so strange.  I did all the research on my cancer (no internet or google then) but in our school's medical library.  It became an obsession that I was lucky I did not lose my job because of.  My doctor begged me to quit.  Ordered me to quit.  And then one day I just quit.  I had read research into a rabbit's genitourinary system and I realized, yes, I did know how to spell the words and I did know a lot of the meanings, but this was totally uncharted territory.  I was out of my league.  That one article stopped an obsession that had taken over my mind (and scared me nearly to death).

I quit reading the books when I read one man's description of heaven.  He had been in a coma so long and the book was compelling up until that point.  I am not going to doubt that he felt he had visited heaven.  But the feelings he had about heaven made me think that if Billy felt the same way then I could not really even talk to him anymore.  I felt Billy needed me to talk to him.  I don't feel that anymore and I let that book take away my closeness feelings of Billy.  I try not to let it, but it has interfered with my grieving and I won't read any of the books anymore.  

I think most of us on this forum have paths that we follow that are closely aligned to each other.  I think your a wonderful Christian George and I appreciate you very much.  

ADDENDUM:  I just visited another part of our forum and saw where Steve had recommended a book called "Grief Diaries"  It has some more to it, but, I put it on my Kindle.  I think and hope it will nullify that last book I read.  I don't mean I hope that there isn't a heaven, I just mean I might feel like Billy is listening maybe.  

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I wouldn't base my feelings off anything one person might have to say, it'd take more than that to change my opinions. ;)

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I think the book was "Life After Heaven" by Steven Musick.  Did not make be doubt Heaven, but I just could not talk to Billy after that, not and think that  he heard me.  I know that sounds weird.  Still, my mustard seed faith is the same, just don't feel he wants to hear from me.   And, I do know how creepy that sounds.  

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Marg,

I wonder about that, also.  I hear so many mentioning that they "feel" their loved ones near.  I have never felt that.  And I wonder WHY.  We were so very close in life.  One of the last things Al said to me was, "it's so hard to say goodbye".  So, I would think that if he could, he would try to be close.  I guess there are so many things we will not know, yet.  Still, I wish I could feel him next to me.

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45 minutes ago, Marg M said:

I think the book was "Life After Heaven" by Steven Musick.  Did not make be doubt Heaven, but I just could not talk to Billy after that, not and think that  he heard me.  I know that sounds weird.  Still, my mustard seed faith is the same, just don't feel he wants to hear from me.   And, I do know how creepy that sounds.  

It doesn't sound creepy at all. My thoughts are that I wish Lori could hear me and I suppose I don't really know if she does or not. I really feel that Lori is busy in Heaven worshipping God and praising Him for his love and mercy. If God sees fit to allow her to hear my words then all the better but I suspect she knows we will see each other again and is happy with her eternity. I still talk to her anyway as it is good therapy for me. 

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Some one on this forum said, when I first joined 19 months ago that time to them is nothing.  Ten years is a second, not counted at all.  And, I don't know how people know that.  I know my son was shot and coded twice on the operating table.  First time he remembers nothing but second time he remembers it all being light with people all around him and he knew them all, but didn't know how he knew them.  I know strange things can happen, and have happened to me, but just like hearing the women's voices going up Signal Peak in Pinos Altos, NM, Billy said he heard them too.  When we got to the top there was no one and they would have had to pass us on the way down.  Billy was not superstitious at all.  So, when I told someone about hearing them I said "didn't we hear them Billy?"  He said "I didn't hear anything."  That was my Billy.

I did a lot of reading about the voices and this mountain and they had been heard before.  Billy took all my mystical magic with him though.  

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Marg, I have heard all my life that "time will be no more", I suppose because it's eternity, not a finite time like we have here.  I know sorrow is gone, the Bible says there'll be no more tears.  I can't imagine Billy not wanting to hear from you, I don't know what they said in that book but I sure don't want to read it!  Remember, when someone writes a book like that, it's their perception, we can have our own.

Gin, I think when people say they "feel" their loved one, it's not speaking of a physical feeling so much as a closeness they believe in, it's hard to explain, but has to do with their own perception and faith, which is great, but we're all different, and it has nothing to do with how close you were in life.  George and I were extremely close.  Most of the time I feel I'm pretty much on my own, I'm pretty sure I'm mucking this up, so I'll just quit where I'm at. ;) I have heard quotes from mediums saying some are more receptive than others, not that everyone wouldn't want to hear from their loved one, but some naturally have better receptors than others.  ???

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By now everyone knows I am an odd creature and I do not wear grief comfortably.  I know, none of us are comfortable in our grief.  "Life After Heaven" by Steven Musick, was a very good book to some people and was written with a purpose.  He waited years to write it, unsure how it would be taken.  Not sure it needs added to our list, since it had such a disappointing feeling to me, but thank God everyday, not everybody is like me.  I think the proceeds from this book go to one of his charities, and he is such a giving man.  There are some people who do not believe in an afterlife and I have never put any real thinking into reincarnation or stuff like that.  But, people have their own beliefs and mine should not shake theirs at all, no wind in these trees.  I have  enough trouble with my mustard seed faith.  I do like reading about people of faith, but still, mine, yours, everybody's faith in what they do or don't believe is their own.  I felt guilty (typical me) giving a synopsis of a book that might mean something glorious to some people.  Did not make my mustard seed sprout mustard leaves (do they have leaves?) but since he does so much good, I should take nothing away. 

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This is on my Fridge since Week 2....

Death Is Nothing At All

#

 

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight
I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

 

Henry Scott Holland

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So do I Gin.  Thanks Kevin.  I talked to Billy today.  It is strange, when the clouds hang low and are heavy gray/white, I can see Billy, and I did talk to him.  No magic revelations, but I was not expecting them.  I saved this poem.  

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Kevin,

Reminds me of Rev. Peter Marshal (A Man Called Peter) explaining to a dying child what death is like.  Falling asleep in your parents' bed.  You wake up and you have been carried to your room by your father.  You are now home.  

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I hope I did not get into someone's business reading that book.  Billy, my son and my granddaughter would get so peeved at me if I let the ending of some show out before they finished it.  I'm the type that wants to know what happens before I watch a movie and if I cannot finish a book soon, I will read the last chapter.  My mom did the same.  If the book was good, I'd go and finish it.  One movie I came in on four times before I saw it from beginning to end.  "The Usual Suspects."  Kevin Spacey.  And, it was a good movie.  

The money that fellow makes from the book sales goes to something that stops human trafficking and I feel guilty about telling about the book now.  Oh well, just add another one on.  

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Kevin,

I've read that before but this time I'm saving it and will share it with my grief support group.  Thank you for calling this to our attention.  It is how I believe...I can't say death is nothing at all because it means we finish our lives here out without them and to me that is a big something, but I do believe with all my heart it is but a temporary separation and would not be surprised if they are not aware of what is going on in our lives and here with us too.

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Tom, I medicate my sleep.  My dreams are amnesiac.  And, this is terrible, but if I wake up at 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. I take two Dramamine.  Then I get four more hours sleep.  I do not recommend this to anyone.  My mode of sleeping does not really make me feel rested.  When I was in the hospital my night nurse shared with us she had to stop at Walgreens to get her Dramamine.  She worked 16 hours and needed to fall to sleep fast. I do not know long range difficulties with my medicating, I have tried going to sleep with a meditation app.  I have so many of them.  I have counted my breath so many times, relaxed from my toes to my ears, but when it comes to closing off my mind, it won't close off, it is Billy.  When I wake up in the morning I never lay in bed enjoying the big fluffy comforter, the warmth, I get directly up or my mind will think Billy should be on the other side of me.  I know it is not the way to do things.  I do know it is wrong.  And, I am well into my 19th month.  So far I sleep, I dream and remember I dreamed and can remember telling myself, this is not real, in my dreams.  In my past life I would have used prayer.  I wrote chapters of books in my mind.  I would either rewrite or write another chapter when Billy was sleeping next to me.  I never put them down on paper, but I lived the chapter I was writing.  I cannot do that anymore.  I wish I could.  

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Marg, I hear you. I also wake up around 3. Then I read. If I can drop off again quickly I'm OK, otherwise not. What I miss most is the physical contact. I'd hold on to Susan a good part of the night. I'd rub her forehead before I made coffee in the morning. No words can describe losing that, but you know.

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3 hours ago, Marg M said:

Tom, I medicate my sleep.

 I get directly up or my mind will think Billy should be on the other side of me.  I know it is not the way to do things.  I do know it is wrong.  And, I am well into my 19th month.  

Marg, I guess I don't understand what is wrong, that you get right up or medicate your sleep.   There is no way I can go to sleep naturally anymore.  Fortunately I am allowed a glass or two at of wine at night, but more importantly I have to have my Xanax and some klonopin to really nod out.  

I am finding at my 31 months that I can't sleep til the alarm anymore and spend the last hour in anxiety and overly depressive/catastrophic thoughts.  I go to sleep so exhausted it makes no sense to me why I wake up earlier.  I should get up, but I don't know what to do myself since I spend so many hours awake, like I need another one.   It's so darned frustrating.  

I know this fractured sleep thing is taking a tremendous toll mentally.   Without restorative sleep, our minds and bodies  get so out of whack.  Then it is hard to think of how to fix it because we are so scrambled mentally.  It's a Catch 22 I live daily and keep trying (hoping?) some miraculous solution will materialize.  

I just ordered a medic alert pendant further driving home how alone I am.  Dependent on strangers when I used to have him.  If it weren't for the dogs I wouldn't bother, but with no friends or family in my daily life, it could be days before anyone noticed something was wrong.  That in itself just adds to the depression.  I often get envious Steve never had to worry about that.  I was always here or a phone call away.  He didn't have to worry about the dogs or being out of it long, I'd always find him.  There are times I'd come home and have to rush him to the ER.  At least he never had to worry help would arrive.  

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2 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

  There is no way I can go to sleep naturally anymore.

Me either Gwen.  Too much history on the other side of the bed.  Maybe I need to buy myself a twin bed.  That really sounds like letting go.  Our bed is one of the old fashioned king size that is huge.  It is old.  I have a soft cover over the mattress.  Maybe I need to let it go.  

When I took the Ambien I would get two hours sleep out of one pill.  If I am tired my clonidine and one Xanax will usually do for the night.  If not, I have fractured sleep (but not for long), I get up and take two Dramamine and sleep four more hours.  It happens fast.  I want my mind to be still.  I know it is not natural sleep, but maybe I don't want natural sleep, maybe this kind of sleep wards off the demons.  

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Gwen,

I plan on getting an alert button, also.  Didn't know which one to get...there are several.  I see no one regularly enough to notice if I had a problem.   Al never had to worry either.  I was always there.  A few times I made him come with me to the dentist.  I was afraid to leave him home alone.  He was completely blind the last few months and I worried that he could not even call 911 if needed.  I had special pads on the phone so he could "feel" the numbers.

 

 

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I woke up at 12:30 after two hours sleep last night and that was it, never got back to sleep, not even with a sleeping pill.  Anxiety I guess, my daughter's situation is getting to me, I keep learning more things about it that are worse and worse. :(
Medic Alert buttons sound wise!  I'm not sure I'm there yet, but when I am there, it sounds like a good idea!

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