If You're Going Through Hell

[kayc]

Marg, have you tried going on line to renew your tags?  That way at least you'll have the receipt in your glove box if you get pulled over.

[Margm]

Next year they will send them to me.  They have my address as the Mount Ida address.  I need to pay taxes in Louisiana and renew them here.  But, I own the home in AR so, the Toyota place payed the taxes on the new car and picked Arkansas taxes to pay.  I accepted.  

I cried going up there and cried coming home.  I thought I had quit the big cry.  Hadn't.  

[Margm]

“Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.” ― Edvard Munch

My trip Tuesday was an adventure, both an inner adventure which caused bittersweet memories, passing our back roads where we spent so much time walking and just passing pastoral settings with many cattle (always looking to see if they were standing up - meant the fish were biting - or laying down, meant no fishing today). It was magic going up those country roads, especially at the moment we saw the mountains in the distance, the beautiful landscape, houses built in the country with big lakes in front or on the side of them. Yesterday the Caddo River was running higher, and the Little Missouri River was swift, and high. Seeing all those sights brought back such bittersweet memories I did cry until I could not see the road. There was one house past Norman, on our vacations up to the Ouachita from Louisiana, I wanted that house. I wanted the sensation of living among the mountains. I got nearly 20 years of my dream, I wish Billy had had longer, but we were coming back home. The house I wanted, not a mansion, just a tiny house,  was situated in a paradise. It was a bigger house we lived in, in an unbelievable beautiful setting, I didn't take it for granted. We took many pictures, but it is an empty paradise now, for other people to enjoy. Life goes on. There was a small hesitation almost wishing I had not left, but still it was necessary for my mental stability to leave.. Alone this time. My "home" was where ever Billy was. Now I only wish to hear voices (not in my head) but life all around me. I have had too much death. Yet, as we get older, we know, we hear the footsteps behind us.

I cannot hold a camera. Billy and Kelli are my photographers. The wisteria, just like the tulip trees and the forsythia bloom for such a short time. The old Heirloom roses (possibly another name) that some long ago settlers planted along fence lines, snow does not kill them and you see the big trees, empty spot where a long ago house occupied a big space. The trees are still there. Across the road is a log cabin corn crib that is decaying, it is the only thing left of a settler's family from long ago. Life comes and it goes. Billy and I saw all this way in the dirt road backwoods and came upon the Fourche La Fave River in many places crossing roads. We road back roads that you needed a jeep. But the views were worth it. We fished those wild tributaries and felt we were pioneers. (I am a pioneer that likes conveniences). Billy got to be Jeremiah Johnson one year for about two weeks. He was in his element. I was a city girl frozen and uncomfortable.

I tried to find a picture that would be worthy of a field of white wisteria I saw on the way up into Arkansas by back roads. There were just at least 1000 (may be exaggeration) feet of nothing but white wisteria overgrowing a whole old home site. I do not take pictures (shaky hands) but I tried to find one to do it justice. It doesn't. It was breath taking, and my favorite is the purple ones.  This was a canopy that seemed to go on forever.  It seemed where marriages should take place (except for the bees). 

The houses going out west hold empty dreams, they thought they could live in such a windy, arid area, the houses still stand. Down south the humidity rots the wood if left untended and you see dreams that had to be abandoned. In some places kids moved on to more profitable life's. The terrain in these lower Arkansas levels is rich land, can grow anything, still sustains some hard working farmers and cattle men. It is a touch of Americana you can still see. 

This was a short travel into my past.  I will go again in six months.  I have tried to hide from that place.  I did go the highway (when I got to the town, I'm still a coward), instead of the short-cut that would have taken me down my former paradise.  A family, who have become my friend, they live in my old house, making new dreams.  I  feel guilty for not going to see my friend who helped me through the first few months.  Hopefully I can do it in October, when I have to go back.  I checked the mileage, it is only about 160 miles.  

[Gin]

I got a call tonight from a woman I went to school with many years ago.  She calls every few months.  She knows how miserable I have been these last few years.  All of a sudden she put her husband on the phone to say hi.  The first thing he says is, "how are you and Al doing?"   Other than the fact that he is dead, I guess ok.  I am sure it was a lapse of memory, since he also is pushing 80. But it took me by surprise.  This couple is so active and does a lot of traveling.  Now I wish she never called.  Been sadder than usual after she called.

[Margm]

Gin, my neighbor is elderly.  She has run back and forth helping take care of her father who passed away yesterday.  She was scheduled for cancer surgery today but will have to put it off till May 1st.  Her husband is with her and is partially disabled.  Her cancer is in her throat.  She has had so many stents and a major heart attack that they are being very careful with her.  My other friend (and relative) was so happy that they had cured her husband's prostate cancer, but he has sunk so far into dementia right now she cannot leave him alone.  They are our age also.  Bette Davis said old age was not for sissies, and if anyone knew that, she did.  I hope you get to feeling better.  I'm sure it was just a slip of his mind by asking about Al.  And, he probably does not even remember doing it.  We just loved so much and we have such a big void.  

[Gin]

That void is gigantic and unfillable.

[kayc]

13 hours ago, Gin said:

The first thing he says is, "how are you and Al doing?"   Other than the fact that he is dead, I guess ok.

I am sorry he said that to you.  He must have dementia or something.  That must have struck you like a dagger in the heart. 

[Margm]

13 hours ago, Gin said:

That void is gigantic and unfillable.

No, we can never fill that void, although some younger than us, some our age even have found companionship.  Somehow, it seems to work out.  I had put that movie on here with the "unspeakable actress" and Robert Redford.  They were elderly.  They just wanted someone to hold.  Like my kids say, if I ever thought about that Daddy would kick them out of bed.  No worry, I don't think about it, but I sure do not begrudge the ones who find friendship along the way.  My granddaughter is 18, she is beautiful.  My only real dream for her is to "get out of the house." (Not figuratively remove her from my care).  She has had problems, maybe her bio mom taking all the drugs may have hit some synapses in her little brain that makes her afraid.  She has gone the pill and counselor route and she is afraid they will give her more pills, and they will.  We are the most pill giving bunch of medical clinicians there ever has been.  One boy paid her attention and it scared the dickens out of her.  I explain it in my best generational grandma way, and my hope would be that she would find someone that treats her like the princess she is, and someone she can love as much as I loved her grandpa, but not have to go through the bad things we went through.  Her little psyche is not as strong and mean as mine was.  I would like her to have a successful profession that she would enjoy going to each day, like I did.  I cannot make all that happen.  And, the first thing anyone offers her is pills.  Is that the way to treat our mental problems?  Pills.  (Well, I cannot fuss about Xanax), but that is not what she needs and in my case we have come down to "quality of life, not quantity."  Please Fairy Godmother, we need help.  (and you do not know what abuse she suffered from a bipolar mom with a transgender partner.)  My daughter is getting herself straightened out, long story for that one, but she has made enemies with the person she really loves most.  You know why?  Pills.  So many psychotropic pills they gave her diabetes and made her so strung out she fought the police.  Not pills like opioids, these were genuine, psychotropic medications that she is doing 99% better off the most of them.  "All God's children have troubles."  I think that was supposed to be "All God's chilluns can dance" (but this one can't.) me.

[Widowedbysuicide]

So sorry Gin.  

[brat#2]

So sorry Gin, that had to hurt.  It's bad enough when we are still getting mail for them and I can't believe that I'm now getting mail for Dale at my new place, his name is not on anything here, so I guess the post office gave out the new address as if he is still alive! 

Like was said above, I'm sure the man didn't mean to hurt you and had forgotten that Al is no longer here, but even that hurts.  Sending hugs!

 

[Gwenivere]

Oh Gin, to have someone touch the most painful thing in your life.  I hope this man has a reason like memory problems because it’s going on 2 years for you.  Like Brat said, I still get mail and even phone calls from organizations, but they wold have no idea.  And those hurt like hell.  I can’t imagine how I would handle going thru that 1st year again when I did run into people we weren’t close with and having to say the words. Even if I had to say things are going rough, I’d trade for that in a nanosecond to have him back.  More hugs for you.

I recently had a woman write and ask how I was doing.  I said I felt like my life was mentally and physically falling apart, no details.  Haven’t heard a word back.  I’m stunned that people can do that and wondering why she even asked.   More proof people want hearts and flowers because, I guess, it would make it easier for them.  Don’t even think how doing that makes us feel.  I thought about writing her again to ask why she asked, but it would just stir up things in me and the usual answer is 'I don’t know what to say ', which they don’t realize is OK TO say.  This sure has revealed sides of people I never knew existed.

[kayc]

16 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

I’m stunned that people can do that and wondering why she even asked.

At the moment, she cared...not enough to follow up and get into detail though.  It wasn't the answer she wanted.  She wanted, "Fine."  That's not our answer, it's never our answer anymore.

[Margm]

You know, some people might really care when they ask you how you are doing.  But, in passing, here at the apartments I hear "How are you doing" so very often from neighbors who do not know me, I do not know them, and I just say "fine, or I'm okay, how are you?"  We are saying this in just passing by.  If I answer my sister, she says "you seem tired" and really, I have just done four loads of washing in a room that is not in my apartment.  I am overweight, and I'm short of breath.  I have exerted myself too much.  She wants me to go to doctor.  Why?  And all the other people I pass (and honestly, I will not remember 3/4 of them when I see them again), maybe it is just a  southern thing.  We pass, we exchange pleasantries, we go our own way.  Yes, I will contribute to a dinner tray for my neighbor who lost her father and who is going into surgery for cancer and I will do everything I can to help.  That is what neighbors do.  When I had cancer, over the months people would stop me to inquire how I was doing.  Not pleasantries, really wanting to know.  My psyche said "quit asking me questions, I am not sure if I am dying or not" but that is not what I told them.  I told them I was going to be okay.  My neighbor.  I feel the same kindred with her.  She does not want to have to explain that she might be dying.  She does not want to talk about it.  So, I don't ask.  I do not ignore her, II ignore her cancer.  You don't have to ignore me.  But, I am not ready to share my grief with anyone but this forum and my family.  

Women in the laundromat yesterday, two women looking for a house, they could not believe I just "gave" my house away.  I did not want money.  My mind was not calculating.  It was a beautiful house.  The most beautiful one we ever lived in, the biggest, the loudest quiet I have ever been in, the safest place a widow could live.  No, the people who lease it love it enough to do all the repairs themselves.  We were leaving anyhow.  It was a good house.  It deserves someone who loves it and I will never tell those people that while I lived on that short street five husbands died.  Bob passed away two months after Billy.  Do I believe in such things?  Does not matter, he is already gone.  I wanted away.  I got away.  I didn't have to ask anyone how they were doing.  I knew how they were doing.  Somehow, they did not have to ask me either.  I ran.  I don't regret it.  I don't want anyone to ask me how I am doing.  I tell all y'all how I'm doing.

[kayc]

I think Marg makes a good point...some people when asking how you are, it's a pleasantry that doesn't mean anything, they don't necessarily want an honest answer, they don't even know you.  But that should not be true of our friends and family, with them we should be able to tell them honestly and you'd think they would care.  When they don't or they pull back, it is hurtful.

[Margm]

22 hours ago, kayc said:

When they don't or they pull back, it is hurtful.

I gave up my friends when I first married because my poor husband was so insecure that he did not want to share me with people that knew me.  I kept in touch, but we were all going different ways, college, marriage, babies, etc., so we did not really have time for each other on a real personal level.  I made friends with his friends and what a delight they were.  We became all close friends, playing cards, dominoes, visiting, all the time.  They became my friends now.  But, life got in the way, we all kept in touch, but distantly so, we all moved to where the jobs were, the good schools were, etc.  Still, we all kept in touch, ever so often.  Billy passed away.  Their lifetime, total lifetime friend.  It was unfortunate to  them, but somehow his passing away made them hear the footsteps heavier behind them.  They were not totally rude, just terms of their friend was gone.  Who are you?  I had enough people in my life that I did not need them, but I did feel a slight toward Billy.  Soon afterwards, the oldest one came close to death and the other man has been in the nursing home since then with strokes.  I went and visit his wife in the nursing home and took her an uplifting Christian book.  They are all Christians.  Sometimes even Christians are human.  That halo gets crooked or just plain hangs on the side.  

I did feel a slight.  Really, my only one.  I look on it as if they have their hands full trying to live.  None of us are spring chickens.  One will not be leaving the nursing home.  I hate that.  The other male friend, I detected dementia, so his wife has her hands full.  

I honestly will tell my friends how I am doing if they ask.  They understand.  They have already gone through this.  My real, low down feelings, you, my friends on this forum, you have to suffer through my hard times.  My friend Hettie would listen.  Hettie lost her husband too and I need to be lifting her up rather than dumping on her.  

I am fine.  I have my family, I have my friends, and even though I did get stung by Billy's lifelong friends, it kinda showed me that they were afraid for their own life.  They heard the footsteps behind them, so really, I just needed to run ahead of them and let those footsteps find them.  (Isn't that mean?)  Anyhow, I do not plan on putting myself in the position that someone has to help me, has to listen to me.............except you all.  The rest don't have time for us, unless they are a counselor.  

I will put an addendum to this.  I know you have read, watched in movies, seen in person even, some funerals in some countries, they pay people to be professional mourners, to cry, to mimic people in grieved distress.  And, I cannot think of the thoughts that counselors of the grieved must take home with them, they are human, they cannot leave them at the door of the office, they probably lose sleep worrying about us, the people who cannot get over, under, or around this horrible grief.  I would, I would take it home with me.  I would need antidepressants to handle the hardships of the people who pay me to give them advice.  I have often wondered, and someone has to do this job, but the professional hospice nurses who counsel the families of loved ones with terminal illness, these have to be Angel emissaries sent to Earth to help us.  I did work 43 years typing some stuff you could not imagine in your wildest dreams.  But, when one of my doctor supervisors brought me into the lounge where they watched surgery being done on a TV, while it was being performed, I had typed thousands of pages of those same surgeries, the instruments, the body parts, sponge and needle counts...........but, I could not watch it.  My choice, mine alone, I do want to "go quietly into that dark night."  No fanfare.

[Margm]

On 4/11/2018 at 2:55 PM, Gwenivere said:

 Don’t even think how doing that makes us feel.

Gwen, you did not hear back from her because the question was asked without thinking that you would tell the truth about how you feel.  You see, you are supposed to say "I am just fine."  Now, you have told her the truth, and she does not know what to do with it.  So, she will do nothing with it.  Remember Jack Nicholson saying on the witness stand to Tom Cruise: "You can't handle the truth!" from "A Few Good Men."    People cannot handle the truth until it hits them in the face.  We have been hit.  We understand.  

Now, I will go into one of my word salads.  I can do this because my middle name is "procrastinate" and that is what I am doing.  I have put on Billy's every day jacket, (it no longer has any Billy essence to it), the heat just came on, but April 15th is a "Billy Day" and he would be proud of me.  The taxes go off tomorrow, and I have them all in one place, all prepared to do, but I will put it off a few more minutes.  They owe me money, they ought to thank me.  They would not.

Guess what I have done?  It has been 2-1/2 years now.  I got all the picture albums and looked at them.  I did not cry.  But, these are all pictures taken in the 1970's and before.  When we went RVing, we left boxes of "stuff" in Mama's shed.  Mama, being Mama, she inspected each one.  She found my box of bra's I was going to throw away and she washed and put them inher dresser drawer and she had new bra's for years. (Mama never wasted anything.) And, she also took all my loose pictures and she put them into albums.

The picture below was 1972, in New Mexico.  We went once a year.  Billy's sister lives in Albuquerque.  Billy, me, Scott, Kelli, and the little one is Cindy, their cousin.  It is one of many of Billy without a beard.  I will tell you something ugly I said to him, but he laughed and laughed, so he knew I was teasing.  Billy said to me, nearly every day of our married life, "do you like my hat?" and I got to thinking he was Dr. Seuss.  Sometimes, it was best not to tell him the truth, so I lied sometimes.  He needed to wear one because he was so fair that the sun would give him skin cancers.  His dad passed away from one that invaded a part of his neck and spread into his body.  But, Billy had grown a beard once.  He felt itchy, scratchy, but I loved it.  After he shaved it, he asked me if I liked him with a beard.  I said "Yes!! you look like you need a pair of underwear over your head, you look naked."  So, from about the next 45 years he  had a beard of various length.  I hated the long, stringy mountain man that he wanted to be...look.  So, he kept it trimmed neat and I certainly miss that beard and the personality underneath it, and the man that he became not because of, but the man that was my best friend.  He was a genuine person, no "put-on" but just a wonderful, kind person.  He went from hunting wild animals (we would not eat the meat, so it was donated), to a person who could not kill a possum that invaded our garage and would not leave.  He had to kill it, and he did cry, although he did not want  us to see.  And, he cried at sad or happy TV shows, unashamedly, though quietly.  We did not bring it to his attention.  A big heart.  A man's man. (Unfortunately, the women liked him too, but he came home to me.)  An irreplaceable father, grandfather,  husband, lover and friend.  

Okay, I have his jacket on, I will channel Billy, who loved numbers, and try to love to crunch these numbers.  I have a program to help.  

 

[MartyT]

I love what you share with us about your man, Marg. I know I would have loved him too.

On your thoughts about counselors of the grieved losing sleep and worrying about them: While I care deeply about each and every one of you and take very seriously my responsibilities as a grief counselor, I cannot say that I lie awake at night worrying about you. In all my years of being with you and others like you, I find that the bereaved are some of the strongest, most courageous, most honest people I've ever met, and they (you all) have my most heartfelt respect and admiration. You all are my favorite role models and in so many ways my greatest teachers. I think some people are more capable than others in their ability and willingness to tolerate another person's pain and sorrow. I also think that ability and willingness stems from having had our own first-hand experience with pain and sorrow. Some of us learn very early on that loss is a part of life, and based on our own past experiences with our own losses, we know that we can and will find ways to survive it. My experience with grieving people teaches me that if we stick together and comfort and support one another, if we share what we have learned along the way, if we act as guides and offer each other a safe place to land, we generate the hope that we can survive it too. ♥

[Margm]

Thank you Marty for helping us along.  Just as Gwen goes to help, and befriend, and be there for the people in the nursing homes, just as Kay stays around to help us with our problems, because she has lived them, still lives them, and to George, and the many others on here that I cannot name all the names because I would leave out one, and that one would be so important, just have to thank everyone who welcomes the new grievers, and at night before I go to bed, I have a cross at the end of my bed on a wall, a plain wooden cross, and I pray for my family, my neighbors, and friends, and people on this forum..  I keep an Angel on one shoulder, but the devil on the other shoulder keeps trying to keep the Angel quiet.  I am a very imperfect human being, but I do give thanks for everyone who makes a difference in my life.  Whether it goes any further than the ceiling, only the main one knows.  

[Gin]

Marg,

Nice  picture.  You look like a child yourself there.  Would not recognize Billy without his beard.

Our weather here is not very nice,,,,more snow today and lots of cold rain.  Days seem so very long when you do not see anyone.

 

[Margm]

You all hear me talk down about my mom, and really that is something I should not do.  She made my life miserable, but you gotta remember, I sure was no angel.  But, they tried to keep me a good girl and were suspect every time I went on a date, and I went on a bunch of them.  I don't blame them.  But, the thing was, I was a good girl all through high school.  And my life's ambition to dance almost naked in those cages at the Whisk-A-Go-Go, well, maybe it was not a good ambition for a deacon's daughter.  So, you see, daughter  was hard to control. (But, I promise I was a good girl......until I got out of high school).  This little woman below, I still have not cried over, but she was the smartest business woman I will ever hope to meet, and if she had been born in this day and age, she would be CEO of some company with the employees hating her.  But, she would not care.  This little woman worked day and night in that garden, it was her "sauna" and it was a labor of total love.  She had of course been raised on a farm and during the big war, she had her Victory Garden.  She did drive me away from home, she did not want me to leave, but she would not let me take the jobs offered me and I didn't know what to do.  Someone was watching over me.  Billy knew what I was doing.  And, it was the frying pan into the fire for a long time.  But, Mama knew she had something mentally wrong, so did Daddy, but seeing a shrink would have killed her.  So, she read her Bible, she prayed, she fussed, she talked non-stop as long as she was awake.  Poor Daddy never could watch TV.  Still, I wish I had some of her genes, cause that woman would say often "there is a thin line between insanity and genius" and I figured she knew what she was talking about.  Not a very lovable person, she kept herself made up and hair dyed,  she had no friends, she had sisters that were of the same personality.  Her church group of women, none visited her when she was sick, none offered to take her to church when she could not drive.  My sister and I made it through, we always had a roof over our head and three meals a day.  She made my clothes so we were never without clothes.  She didn't do so bad.  But, she left a long time ago.  

And that is her garden behind her, all by herself.  She picked and dug and shelled everything by herself and put them in the deep freeze.  A farm woman as long as she could be.

Addendum:  I have to put this funny anecdote about Mama and her sisters.  There were five girls living and one boy.  All stairsteps.  Grandma had 7 kids in 10 years before the cancer made her sterile.   They all fought, just like my mom.  Not with just words either.  One time in their 80's, my mom and her oldest sister were going along highway 2 (main road) and were fussing.  Mama stopped the car and both got out.  I don't know what stopped it, maybe God intervened, because these two sisters were going to have a brawl right in the middle of highway 2.  I'm sorry, I find that hysterical.  But, you would have had to know them. 

[kayc]

Marg, you look like a baby there, raising babies yourself, so young!  And I fully understand the mixed bag you feel for your mom, as I do for mine.  They did the best they knew how, I guess, yet even as you admire your mom's good qualities, I admire my mom her good qualities, some of which I got from her, her landscaping and minimalist ways I did not, unfortunately.

Your mom is beautiful...she not only could pick and shuck, she could dress up gorgeous too!

[Margm]

Billy and I were both kids, raising kids.  But, while his family never uttered the words "I love you," he was going to make sure we did.  He would actually get his feelings hurt if I left the house without saying it first.  This was before cell phones, of course.  I can remember being 10 or  more miles down the road and could not remember if I said it.  I, of course, would turn around, go back, ask if I had said it, and he would be so happy that I remembered to remember.  He said it to his sister each time he talked to her and she would say "uhhhhhh, luv you too" but it was like it was foreign to her.  It was.  They would talk weekly before he left and she would firmly say "I love you" and he was so happy.  That went for our kids and grandkids too.  

Mama was an artist in so many ways.  In watching her, I learned if I saw a dress I liked, I went home and cut out patterns out of newspapers to make that dress.  I did that from the time I was 15.  I got tired of hearing "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" and I was the best dressed sow's ear from age 15 on, until I got too  shaky to thread a needle.  

Mama was beautiful too, but she never failed to look at me like she didn't know where I came from.  Only two kids born at our country hospital that day, me in the morning and a classmate of mine in the evening.  I had flaming red hair, Daddy had black, Mama had black, but she had to take me home anyhow.  I got that look from her my  whole life.  I tried a black wig on once and I looked like the wicked witch with  freckles.  

My sister and I both made it through, so Mama did something right.  My sister had it worse with Daddy.

I guess this is religion spoke here, but in my Missionary Baptist Church we had such fiery preachers that I made sure someone went out the door before I did.  God was an almighty punishing God to be feared.  I associated that with my dad, he was a fiery punishing dad that I feared.  Got kinda mixed up there in you're supposed to love him.  Jesus was pure love.  Okay, I could handle this.  Then I did something so dreadful that when the punishment came, it lasted until even now.  Yet my pastor said God was not a punishing God.  Wonder if that is the difference between Southern Baptist and Missionary Baptist?   Not wanting an answer......religion spoke here.  Human development into "faith as a grain of mustard seed."  Only a pastor I trusted could talk to me.  Shrink won't work.  

Putting off things I have to do.  Sorry for another word salad.  Please, understand, as much grief as we go through, and sometimes it is hard to believe someone else could be hurting as bad as you, or someone could be as lonesome as you, but we, all of us, one-by-one, we are still alone even if we are in a crowd.  After 2-1/2 years, things are better.  I looked at all the old pictures.  I cannot look at the ones of the past few years.  The boy without the beard, I fell in love with him, but it seems another lifetime ago.  I miss the boy and I miss the man and when I see his picture with mine at the end of the hall, I still cannot believe he is gone.  

[TomPB]

2 hours ago, kayc said:

Marg, you look like a baby there, raising babies yourself, so young!  And I fully understand the mixed bag you feel for your mom, as I do for mine.  They did the best they knew how, I guess, yet even as you admire your mom's good qualities, I admire my mom her good qualities, some of which I got from her, her landscaping and minimalist ways I did not, unfortunately.

Your mom is beautiful...she not only could pick and shuck, she could dress up gorgeous too!

I had the same thoughts, tho I would have replaced a "y" with an "e"  

[kayc]

23 hours ago, Marg M said:

God was an almighty punishing God to be feared.  I associated that with my dad, he was a fiery punishing dad that I feared. 

I've heard it said that we tend to view God however we view our earthly father, but somehow I never saw God as a drunk.  Not sure how that played out with me, but my dad was/would have been loving if not for the drink.

 

22 hours ago, TomPB said:

I would have replaced a "y" with an "e"

y?  e?  Not sure what you're talking about...

[Margm]

I do Tom