benpm

I don't know where to begin or end here. People think it's a good idea to write these, and I really need to let some pain out this week. I close the sale on your house this Friday. I got a really good real estate agent. Found out after the sale started he actually runs his own radio show, that plus the fact he knows what he's doing would explain why I had a ton of cash offers in less than 24 hrs. of being listed. Sad to say I probably should of sold it right away. Between the housing market collapse and my tendency to start stuff and not finish it, the house went for a lot less than it would of two years ago. I am so sorry for taking bad care of your estate like that. It's not that the money matters, just that the condition was less than you would have tolerated. So we had to go through and get rid of everything in your house this week. I tried for two years to get anybody to take some of your stuff. People would sometimes pick an item or two. Your closest friends and family wouldn't take anything. Betty and Silvia, have actually gone and ignored me since you died. Seems Betty told at least one friend that I didn't take good care of you. I know this cause her friend told Mary all about me, not knowing that Darlene was Mary's daughter. Darlene told me not to do anything about it, because then Mary's friend would never tell any secrets to her again. Sometimes, I don't really need to know what's in people's heads, especially if it means I can't do anything about it. We had an estate sale, and it was a flop. I asked some people from work to come over and grab some stuff, but they took very little. We spent all day Saturday sorting out stuff into trash or donation. All your furniture went to the curb, and people snatched it up through the day. It took over 64 contractor bags to put all the trash and donations in. The trash men actually took it all. The purple heart said they would be out Thursday which is the day before closing. I really hope they show up. I'd hate to have to spend the night running back and forth to donation bins in my car. The house is empty now, except for the shed. I am going back tomorrow to finish emptying it. Seems some bees made a nest on the floor and I dragged it out the door. While they seemed pre-occupied with fixing the damage I did, after a little while of stepping around and over them, I thought it best to come back later to finish. Every time I opened that front door I expected a welcome from the other side. More like a feeling of anticipation, that I had to remind myself wasn't going to happen. I told myself time and time again, to stop feeling like that, but it doesn't go away. At least now it will, because after the next couple of days, the house will no longer be part of our family. Well anyway, I'm sure you heard that dad died a few months after you. The last few years have been tough for me. Seems I feel too much, but I think too much at the same time, and thought suppresses feeling, and feeling just builds up like a corked bottle of seltzer. I apparently had depression my whole life. I don't know if you could have known, because I hid it in shame. I always thought there was something wrong with me, when I got bad, that was less than manly, and I cried at night alone. I can't see how anyone would have known but me. Except that I never really heard of depression then, and had no idea to deal with it and how. Anyway... I spent the last couple of years digging deeper into depression, all the time thinking I was lazy and useless. I couldn't open any mail, or send any mail. Strange as it seems, I didn't want to see the bills, and I didn't trust myself to finish mailing them back, so why bother. I kept telling my therapist, I need anti ADD meds to get me motivated, and I would get better. He said I had depression. I said it was because my ADD was keeping me from getting things done. Well, apparently he was right, and stupid me was wrong again. I ended up in the hospital over all of this. I am doing better now. I know better how to deal with it (depression) and the loss of you guys. I am not all knowing, but most importantly I know to ask for help, and not ignore it anymore. The new meds help too, I'm sure. So it is really getting me down this week, the culling of your life's possessions and such. SO I figured it was a good time to write this letter. I wasn't sure which one to write first. I still have to write Seans, and I did come across his army gear again this week, so I was at a loss as to which loss to address first. It sucks. It seems I have lost my entire family. Jennifer died a couple of months ago. I thought at this opportunity, and motivated by needs of grief and reconciliation, that I could reconnect with my aunts, uncles, and cousins. This has been harder than it I would have thought. They seem nice and all that, but never call, unless it's to talk to Darlene. They have there own problems, and it is forgivable, it's just hard being without the family I grew up with anymore. I miss always knowing you'd be there. I hope you like the head stone I got you. I know, whatever. But it did take me over a year to do it, and I must say, even the guy at Greenmount never saw a head stone like it. I put the poem on the back for the less lively of the family not to see it. I am sure I pissed alot of people off. Seems what the funeral director said about there being a temporary marker there, was a lie, or at least misguided. For a year you had no marker, and to those that probably visited, I am sorry. But I guess, they could have also called and said something, if they gave two cents about what I was going through. So in part, I guess, screw em. This is all I got tonight, I really need to get some sleep. I had hoped this letter would make it easier to cry and let some of this out, but it hasn't. I'l reread Jenny's letter for that I guess, and get into the really crappy stuff in my next letter to you. As crappy as some of this stuff is, it only seems like mechanics. We'll talk later about the crap that really drags me down concerning your death. Goodnight, and I love you.

Thanks, That is a good idea. As soon as every night isn't a crisis around here with everything I have got going on, I will write my next letter. Writing a letter like these under serious time constraints diminishes the effectiveness.

I know the feeling. I believe a birthday is a celebration for my mother, not me. What the hell did I do on that day other than cry like a baby. So my birthday's are hard. Last birthday I got completely trashed and had a pity party with my cousin who lost her brother two years prior. That same cousin is now dead herself. Don't know who I am going to have a pity party with on my birthday now, I got a few months to go till my 41st. Maybe you have someone like that to explode with on her birthday.

Welp, I finally saw the lawyer. He is gonna take care of alot of things for me. He told me he would be at the closing in a week, he'd take care of the life insurance, and generally take a load off my back. He was the same lawyer that drew up my mother's will and power of attorney. This is the same law office that she worked at for like 5 years before she got to sick to work. Here I am blesses and cursed. I am blessed to have people familiar and caring about my mother helping to handle the estate. I am cursed by the embarrassment that it took me over two years to really do anything with the estate, and that my wife went into what was to be my first visit with lawyer while I was in the hospital for suicide. So he and his secretary know about that stuff. Yeah, can't wait to put this stuff behind me.

Thanks all, Guess I am just frustrated that there is no organization that will just come in and clean it out for free. After all, they get a great deal of stuff to sell off, so they make money for their organization. I guess I will have to bite the bullet and just pack everything up myself and put it all outside, and arrange for a pick-up. Not that I don't already have enough to do in a short time, I sold the house and settlement is in one week. Nothing like a little pressure to make me yet again put aside grieving. I see a light at the end of this, maybe in 2011 I will have time to grieve. Well I'm off to find a charity before going to a second appointment today after work, after I finish getting dinner ready, and check on the kid and his homework I had to research software for him to be able to do it. Lol, but my wife will still tell me I didn't do stuff today. That's another story.

I am going to sign the agreement for sale on my mother's house tomorrow. I have tried everything I can think of to get people to take her stuff. Now I am faced with renting a dumpster and throwing it all away. It needs to be out real soon. I went there today and waited for a trash collector/recycler that I had met the day before to show up as agreed with an empty truck. He never showed up. The whole time I sat there and looked at the stuff in the living room and died inside. At least he would have recycled it. Now a great deal of her belongings are going to end up in a landfill. I can't help but think of how hard she worked for some of the stuff, and how she honored to be gifted some, and all I'm doing at this point is throwing it out. I feel sick to my stomach and am now getting a head ache thinking about it.

Here goes the first letter in probably a series that I am told I need to write. This letter is to my cousin Tommy who killed himself five years ago. This is hard to get started. Here goes. Tommy, You where always the brother I never had when you where here. I was an only child, and even though we where cousins, you where the closest thing I had to a sibling. Put coldly, but the truth. I remember you coming over my house for visits and following me around to annoyance. I felt bad about it even at the time, being annoyed with your constant wanting to be included, but back then, I had to keep my lives separate. I had to keep school mates, my friends, and family in separate bubbles. I couldn't let personal tragedy from one group, cause me shame, embarrassment and rejection like it did when I was six, ever again. I never, even till high school, let the groups commingle. When you came over to my house, and I was with friends, I could not allow you to be part of it. I felt bad at the time, and I know that hurt you to go from included, to pushed away, but it was only when you where there. Whenever we where at family events outside my home, you like a brother to me. I remember how when I broke grandmom's Jesus picture, and I knew I was gonna get my ass beat big time, how I blamed you. You never told grandmom the truth, and you never held it against me. You just took the beating. That day you taught me how much you loved me, how much stronger you where than me, and that I could never let someone get beat for my mistakes again. Later, when we where adults, and we grew apart a little, and I invited you over to help me put up the unreasonable amount of Christmas decorations I bought that year, I never meant for it to end that badly. I invited you over in part, because I knew you where getting in trouble and making mistakes. I wanted to get inside you a little bit, see what was going on, and try to help you. One lesson I learned was never do that when both parties are drunk off their ass. I remember in our talks, you telling me not to make you angry, and me telling you, you needed to let it out, and not to worry about me. I remember calling your mother to get her to stop doing something in your life that I can't remember anymore, after you completely destroyed my basement. I also remember you gong a bit to far when you started punching holes in the wall, and then trying to walk home to New Jersey. Then punching your way back through the door when you decided you had changed your mind. I remember the whole family blaming me for that, because I should have known you shouldn't be drinking because of how you get, and thinking, why the hell didn't anybody tell me that before, instead of keeping everything you did on the hush hush. That day I wrote you off till you apologized. I wish I hadn't. I wish I had the strength to finish what I started with helping you, and not turn my back on you, for doing things, that I invited you to do. I wish your mother didn't coddle you, and give you her antidepressants. I wish I could have invited you back into my life, and see that some of the things you where so upset about, where not that important. I wish you never would have hung yourself the way you did. I can't undo the past. I can't take full credit for a mental illness that drove you to suicide. I felt so guilty for so long. I could never talk to the family. I thought it was my fault for abandoning you. Maybe it was a little. But I always thought that you would come around, and apologize, and that I would do the same, and things would go back to normal. Why the hell didn't you just apologize for the immense amount of damage you did to my house that night, so we could move past it and not be strangers. I wish I had the foresight I have in hindsight to have acted differently. I wish you where still here, to keep me grounded through everybody else dying. I hope where ever you are, you found peace and happiness. Say hello to grandpopp and grandmom for me. Oh hell, and Aunt Bea, Jenny, Uncle Doug, and if you see him, my real brother who I just met a few years ago.

Okay, some miscommunication or changes at the funeral. I kinda thought people might be speaking about Jennifer. The following comment is what I had considered saying, not sure I would have the nerve, but I was prepared with these thoughts. Hello, I always taught my son two important things, know the author, and when you write, know your audience. So, I am Jennifer's Cousin Patrick. I have been not so much a part of Jennifer's life recently, so many of you may not know me. In recent years my half brother past away, and i would never speak at his funeral, because I wasn't a major part of his life. Then my father died, and again, we where just getting to know each other, I had blood, but didn't feel important enough. Same with Tommy, we had a falling out of sorts, and although I always thought of him as a brother when we where growing up, sorry Vickie, it was because I was an only child at the time, and it was the closest I knew to a brother. I felt I had no place speaking on him at a funeral. The last few years I have been going through some stuff, and out of touch, so what allows me to speak at Jennifer's funeral? Simply, what I could never come to understand before, that I love her. I loved my father, my brother, and Tommy too. And realize today, that although differences at the time of departure kept us apart, I loved them too. So who is my audience? Simply, everyone here that loved Jennifer. Jennifer was full of life. She suffered from some of her own demons, blame that on the Lisowski genes many of you have no clue about. Let's just say, they are a blessing and a curse. Jennifer didn't just like people, she seemed to show genuine love for all the people in her life. This is especially true of her children. Any mother can take notes from her life, and learn the lesson of love that she taught in being an awesome mom. She leaves behind four beautiful children, that I must say are a joy to be around, because of two parents that loved them abundantly. That much love, will never leave, it is like a stamp on the heart pounded in by a mac truck. It's pretty much permanent, and that is a gift only a few truly blessed people can impart. So to those of you who wonder why I am talking so damn much, this is the point. It took me three awkward funerals to realize this. The only entitlement you need to speak about Jennifer today, is that you loved her. You can be a new friend, and old friend, or a friend lost in time. All you need is to love her, and all you need is to say that you love her, and will miss her. There is no other prerequisite. So Jennifer, I love you, and will miss you, and my life is better and blessed, having known and grown up with you.

Shelley, Hang in there. You are blessed to be able to cry. Keep crying to you feel you can't anymore, and cry some more. I wish I could be there to let you cry on my shoulder, and give me a comfort to do the same. Makes me miss my cousin who one drunken night, we caught up on all the deaths in the family and what went on with each other. We cried for hours. I miss that cousin of mine. I hope you have or find someone like that. Someone that you can open up to. benpm

thanks loulou, I wasn't diagnosed with the depression till recently. But during group therapy I discovered that year I didn't talk as a child was depression, and all the crying in shame not knowing why, was also depression. A life time of shame in crying is hard to get over, but I'm working on it. Perhaps something else I should let my wife understand. That's what I like about these groups. I find new things I should be doing to make things better. Maybe if I explain the shame I have in crying because of my past, I won't feel she is shunning me so much in doing it. Sounds stupid, being stuck on crying, but I am, and I know I need to let it out, without holding back a care.

Thanks Naimh and 2sweetgirls. I wish you diminishing pain with your loss too. It seems trying to find time for myself is impossible, but I am trying. It sucks when what little down and alone time I have has to be used for grieving, or just enjoying life. But I am trying to find the right balance. I haven't grieved near enough in a way that helps, but I am working on it, so that maybe sometime soon I can really enjoy my free time. My therapist recommended writing letters to my mom, dad, brother, and cousin tommy like the one I put on my cousin Jenny's facebook page. I will try, even though I have no idea how I really feel about each death, and what it is I need to say them individually. Below is what I put on the back of my mother's head stone. It took me over a year to get it done, but I am proud of the final result. "Life is not meant to be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body. Instead live life to the fullest, caring for others as we go, sliding in sideways, cigarette in one hand, 7&7 in the other, screaming "Go Eagles, what a ride!" And here is what I wrote to my cousin on her facebook page; Okay, some miscommunication or changes at the funeral. I kinda thought people might be speaking about Jennifer. The following comment is what I had considered saying, not sure I would have the nerve, but I was prepared with these thoughts. Hello, I always taught my son two important things, know the author, and when you write, know your audience. So, I am Jennifer's Cousin Patrick. I have been not so much a part of Jennifer's life recently, so many of you may not know me. In recent years my half brother past away, and i would never speak at his funeral, because I wasn't a major ... See Morepart of his life. Then my father died, and again, we where just getting to know each other, I had blood, but didn't feel important enough. Same with Tommy, we had a falling out of sorts, and although I always thought of him as a brother when we where growing up, sorry Vickie, it was because I was an only child at the time, and it was the closest I knew to a brother. I felt I had no place speaking on him at a funeral. The last few years I have been going through some stuff, and out of touch, so what allows me to speak at Jennifer's funeral? Simply, what I could never come to understand before, that I love her. I loved my father, my brother, and Tommy too. And realize today, that although differences at the time of departure kept us apart, I loved them too. So who is my audience? Simply, everyone here that loved Jennifer. Jennifer was full of life. She suffered from some of her own demons, blame that on the Lisowski genes many of you have no clue about. Let's just say, they are a blessing and a curse. Jennifer didn't just like people, she seemed to show genuine love for all the people in her life. This is especially true of her children. Any mother can take notes from her life, and learn the lesson of love that she taught in being an awesome mom. She leaves behind four beautiful children, that I must say are a joy to be around, because of two parents that loved them abundantly. That much love, will never leave, it is like a stamp on the heart pounded in by a mac truck. It's pretty much permanent, and that is a gift only a few truly blessed people can impart. So to those of you who wonder why I am talking so damn much, this is the point. It took me three awkward funerals to realize this. The only entitlement you need to speak about Jennifer today, is that you loved her. You can be a new friend, and old friend, or a friend lost in time. All you need is to love her, and all you need is to say that you love her, and will miss her. There is no other prerequisite. So Jennifer, I love you, and will miss you, and my life is better and blessed, having known and grown up with you. Now what to write the others. Grrrrr.

hi niamh, Thanks for your kind words and attention. My problem is I refuse to cry, even when the desire to is overwhelming. On days it's unbearable, I wait till everyone is asleep and cry alone. Lately I've averaging 5 hours of sleep a night, so I don't even get that time to cry anymore. you took the step to go to the hospital and no doubt plenty of other people are also glad of it. Actually No-one in my family has expressed that sentiment. They all are mad that I went. As far as grieving with someone, that is because my therapist said that you need to grieve with someone, and not alone. Heck, the way I figure it, I take over an hour from life, and a nice copay to see the lady, I best listen and take home some new behaviors or advice, and follow through. Only problem is with the question of who to grieve with, the bell rung indicating round one was over, and my session was done. Didn't get any further with the who in that two part solution. Do you write at all ? I tried journaling, I wrote my cousin on her face book page, and wrote a poem on the back of my mothers head stone (cost over $4,000 just for the engraving, probably should have written it on paper instead.) Little help, bust most of my journaling was about my depression in general, I'l try writing more about the losses. I'm sorry your wife has said hurtful things to you. Hurtfull? When I told her at first I was suicidal she told me stop whining, she later reminded me that my depression was bringing the whole family down, and while in the hospital told me how she called my entire family about what I did to her by going in the hospital and they where all mad at me too, and when she found out they recommended a partial hospitalization program for a week, she said I was so pathetic that I needed all day day-care. Not much to misread in those statements. I've come to realize that she has almost no empathy, and is up to me to tell her flat out what I need as far as any emotional support. Don't get me wrong, she cares, and does try, it's her tongue that cuts deep wounds, while she is planning to help me at the same time. Do you have brothers or sisters that ever talk about your Mom ? Only the one brother and he's gone. Does your cousin have any family left ? Yes she left behind four little children and a husband who seems to have taken up with his girlfriend the same day of her death and forward. I don't talk with him much if I don't have to. Do you think or talk about your loved ones ? Do you think about what you miss ? Do you wish they were still here ? Think yes, talk no. It seems to have been so long, I am embarrassed by the fact that I can't get over it. I don't know what I miss. I just know I don't miss the pain. I wish my brother never did what he did, I wish my father could finish his own damn house, I wish my mother was healthy and happy, I was my cousin Tommy didn't hang himself on his ex-girlfriends lawn and actually got the help he needed, I which my cousins daughter never had to wake up sleeping with mommy, with mommies hand in her daughters hair, and mommy dead. Yeah I wish this was all possible. I wish I could have been there better for most, if not all of them. I wish my mothers neighbors didn't tell their friends what a horrible son I was for not taking care of her. hugs back at ya

Thanks for your concern MartyT. I am under the care of a therapist. Currently on hold with one, and getting help specifically for grief alone with another for a few weeks. What got me stuck so to speak was the grieving with someone else part. Seems my cousin was the last person I was able to grieve with last year, and she died about a month ago. I did talk to my wife about being able to trust her (didn't phrase it that way) to grieve and not just keep try me up the whole time. I'l give it a shot. Holy Crap! I scheduled a real estate meeting after my grief counseling tomorrow. Oh brother.

I say do some kind of remembrance for him despite the hard feelings. The bad feelings are just that. And only serve to bring you down. Focus on the good feeling, and you should at least feel better with yourself about that. Now I don't know what he did, and I am in no way saying forgive him or anything like that, just saying what it seems is in "your" best interest.

Alrighty then. Here goes. Someone on another board mentioned this group as a better source of support than the group I was in before, that would be the short answer, but would mean very little. Almost three years ago, my brother with whom I was just getting to know for the first time in my life, killed himself. This was in October of '07. During this time my mother was battling with ovarian cancer and I was taking her for her treatments and stuff. I didn't miss a doctor's appointment of hers, and was well in the loop and aware of what she was struggling with. In January of '08, after being left to tell her she had two months to live, she past away a week later in the midst of me trying to make arrangements for an in home nurse for her by refinancing her house. I was with her the whole time, and this one really haunts me till today. There was my dad, who I was also just trying to get to know. A year and half prior I had received a call from a hospital I never heard of one day at work, stating that he was in a comma in the ICU and I was the only living relative old enough to make decisions for him. It was over eighteen since I had seen him, he left on bad terms, and they wanted me to make the life or death decisions for him. I'm human, and the evil thoughts of revenge did cross my mind, but in the end, I drove to the hospital that was over two hours away, met my brother for the first, explained to him how awkward I felt having to be in charge knowing that he had never met me before, and asked him what he knew our dad had wanted, and made the decisions accordingly. Well a little over a year later, In June of '08 I get the call from his best friend who said, "your dad died last night and tomorrow is the final inspection of the new house he was building, so you need to be there. I realized recently that I never had time to grieve. I went from one crisis to the next, and dealt with them as best I could. This best was apparently not that great. Because for most of time since then, until about a month ago, I would never open or send mail. I blamed my ADD which I insisted to my therapist that if I fixed that, everything else would fall into place. He kept saying I was depressed, and I kept saying give me something to help me focus and I won't be depressed. Wellllll, about three months ago the suicidal thoughts where starting to come every other moment it seemed, so I got myself into some intensive outpatient therapy. Seems my therapist was right, I was depressed, and was depressed many other times during my life as I soon learned, by discovering what depression is. It was also about this time that my wife said we needed a divorce and had the whole plan laid from nuts to soup. I had told her about my thoughts and that I needed help, and she only told me to stop whining. Later she realized that depression explained a whole lot, and we stayed together. Wellllll, after a couple of months, with some improvement in my life, but not much, I decided it was time to end my life. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with my cousin dying the week prior and also five years after her brother killed himself or not. I made a decision to get my mothers estate in the hands of a lawyer, take a second look around to make sure there was nothing else to handle, then kill myself. The day before the lawyer I found myself with some prescription pain killers and was popping them throughout the night. I had at one point made a deal with myself that if I make it half way through the bottle, I would have to make a final decision to either finish the bottle, and a couple others with some vodka, or get some help. It was driving me nuts that I couldn't keep to my plan, but the pills where there, and that night it would have been so easy. Halfway through at three in the morning my wife comes out of the bedroom. I looked at her and said, " I need to go to the hospital." She knew what I meant and with out a word, we got ready to go, packing clothes and everything. I spent some time in the hospital. My wife would come and visit me and tell me how horrible I was and how I was messing up her life, she finally told me that her therapist had told that telling my in the hospital was a good time to tell me that she wanted a separation, because they could help me there. I came home ready to kick her to the curb for all that, and found she was upset that I wasn't including her in my life. She and I decided to stay together again, this time with conditions I placed, such as counseling for her and us. So here I am. I've seen a grief therapist who tells me I need to let it out. I can't. I was always told that crying made me weak and that men don't cry. I don't trust my wife after all the things she has said recently, and hove no family or friends to get with. Correction, I do have family, but no matter how hard I try to change it, they still communicate to me through my wife, if they communicate at all. Soooo, any ideas on who to grieve with when you don't trust anybody close?