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My Goodbye To Everyone


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It's been a while since I've posted anything here, but I have been checking in every day or so and mainly just lurking. To see how everyone seems to be doing.

What I am getting ready to mention is NOT being said because I want or need pity. I'm just stating an unfortunate fact of my life, as my reason for saying good bye. All of my financial problems have finally cought up with me in all their ugly glory. Tomorrow will be my last day having a home. I have two choices...become homeless living in my car, or commit suicide. I really don't know if it's a good thing or not any more, but I have an absolute aversion to suicide. So, I guess we all know what choice is left to me. I blame no one other than myself for this. A life of I suppose one too many wrong choices or decisions. And a wife with what had become fragile health, which began deteriorating too quickly at at an inopportune time for us financially. Some will say I made the wrong decision to retire early. I guess that will just have to be a point-of-view thing that I will not touch other than to say that for me and my wife I made the RIGHT  decision.  And if I knew then what I know now about what my life would eventually deteriorate to, I would make the same decision all over again. My wife was my life. If God had told me that He would allow her to continue living and be in perfect health and all I would need to do to make it happen would be to cut off both of my legs and one of my arms with a plastic butter knife, I would have gladly done it without anything to deaden the pain. 

I have dodged this bullet this long, since my wife passed last new ;year's eve. But it is no longer a bullet. It's a cannon shell now that I can lo longer dodge.  I made arrangements for the internet and all other services to be shut off this evening or tomorrow sometime. And I will be vacating this home I have had, and doing what has to be done.

Thank you, Marty, for creating this fantastic forum.  I didn't discover you until last Christmas Eve, but in this short time the forum and your wonderful members did help me get through some rough spots. I thank you, one and all. And to each and every one of you, I wish you nothing but success as you continue through your grieving "journey".  I know I don't need to say that grieving isn't fun. It's the ugly side of the LOVE coin we were each blessed with.  If we each didn't love the one we lost so supremely, it wouldn't hurt so much to lose them. 

In closing I will simply say one last time,

One foot in front of the other...

Darrel

 

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Darrell, my dear, I am so very sorry, and I wish there were some way you could stay in touch with us, as I think this is an important source of support for you ~ just as you have supported so many of us by your presence and participation here. We will be here to welcome you if and when you're able to return. In the meantime, please know that our thoughts and prayers are with you. You are loved, and you will be sorely missed. 

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Darrel,

I am just so sorry this is happening to you. Financial devastation is yet another facet of this grief over which we have minimal control. I hope for a miracle for you.

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Darrel, I am so sorry that this happening to you at this time, as if grief isn't enough to deal with.  You will be in my thoughts and am hoping that things will change and get better for you.  Hope to hear from you soon again.  Hugs, Joyce

 

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I'm humbled by everyone's comments and good wishes. You are all appreciated. I will pray for all of your loads to get lighter.

My love and best wishes to one and all.

Darrel

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2 hours ago, olemisfit said:

I'm humbled by everyone's comments and good wishes. You are all appreciated. I will pray for all of your loads to get lighter.

My love and best wishes to one and all.

Darrel

Darell,

You can always go to a library and use the internet for free. Please keep in touch.  My prayers go with you and keep you safe.  Shalom, George

 

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Terribly sorry to read of your situation, please try to do your very best to take care of yourself in this horrendous time that you're going through. I'm not a praying person but I hope with all my heart that your situation improves and you can return to this forum which has clearly helped you considerably. Sending hugs.

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Darrel,

Suicide or homelessness are not your only two options, sometimes it takes thinking outside the box.  You could become a live in caregiver and might even find it enriching, you already have some experience.  You could apply for section 8 housing.  I have friends who only get $600/month, and they've learned to survive on it without being homeless or without a vehicle.  You might try camping during the summer to save up money (you could be a campground host!), then start fresh with a small studio or trailer in the fall.  A used camp trailer would fit nicely in a friend or relative's driveway and afford you and them some privacy while giving you a place of your own. My friend Jim has a roommate that lives in a "container" in his back yard!  They've painted it to match the house, put in a covered path leading to it, it's got sheetrock walls, nicely painted, a ceiling fan, sliding patio doors, and even a doggie door!  It's carpeted and very attractive.  I don't know how handy you are, but a live in handyman might be welcome!  

I hope you do explore avenues you hadn't thought of and find your way back.  You've been through a lot and I will always remember you as "one foot in front of the other", that always applies and I've quoted you often.

Keeping you in my prayers and thinking of you fondly...

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3 hours ago, kayc said:

You might try camping during the summer to save up money

I grew up in one place, never moving.  My nomad blood boiled in my veins.  Billy and I moved every three months when we first got married.  No furniture, just household stuff, but then Scott came along and we spent over 17 years in one house (put two new roofs on) in a part of the city where we worked.  Kids went to one school with same classmates, like I did.  We both were terribly unsettled and had to make ourselves be still when "hitch itch" affected both of us, but for the kids we had to stay still.  Believe it or not, I suggested to Billy us visiting the National Parks on our senior pass and camping in a tent.  Billy could not believe I was into that because he was Jeremiah Johnson in his mind.  Of course, God said we were not meant to travel together anymore, but camping in the great outdoors (with Billy), was what I wanted to do.  There is a retired school teacher who travels the west, top to bottom, in her little Casita trailer and van.  She is called "RVSue and her Canine Crew."  She is a loner, has a great blog, and answers all blog replies, but she openly will tell you, she wants no company, leave her alone, etc.  There is also a group of loners who pull storage trailers behind them they have converted to living quarters, and some of these conversions are rough.  They meet up occasionally in the different state and national forests where free camping is allowed.  Most of the free camping is Bureau of Land Management, and is out west.  I've never done it, but I wanted to.  (with Billy).  I know Billy would be back in the forest somewhere if I had gone first in the RV.  All you need is a vehicle and when you get to one of these camps they can tell you how to do things on a 0 budget.  

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Marg, are you familiar with Alison Miller? She writes for Soaring Spirits International, blogs at Happily Homeless Is Moonstruck and travels the country with her cute little pink camper.  Read more about her here: Love Never Dies for Widow Touring Country in Pink Armor and here: Don't Mourn in Black, Travel Well 

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I am, in a distant sort of way.  I think Steve mentioned her but I knew about her before that (foggy brain cannot remember how), but we traveled extensively in the Escapee Park system and I met a lot of people.  RVing was our happiest time to live.  I think the last I heard about Alison Miller was she was supposed to put his ashes certain places and she could not bring herself to do this.  Our little RV was only 23 feet, but I could not handle putting the sway bar and hookups and these women have my admiration.  That was Billy's plan for me or him, to travel alone to the places we planned on going.  You see what I did, I ran to a place he would not go and I cannot imagine the pain of traveling to places we planned to go together.  I am rather strange.  (I'll bet you picked up on that.)  I am going to go read her blogs again.  I read RVSue's about once a month also, but reading hers was something Billy and I enjoyed together.  I admire those women.  I wish I could think of the blog name from this guy that travels by a cargo carrier he made into a home.  He got so popular though I think he has sponsors now too.  But, he showed different people just living on nothing, living in the Bureau of Land Management (which we don't have back in these localities.)  That was one thing we did not get to do on our bucket list.

I am going to put an addendum that will not help us at all.  This woman, Alison Miller, tells it like it is.  She is four years into this and these are her words.  I didn't enter all the paragraph, anyone reading this needs to read her blog listed on Marty's list above.

"How am I supposed to do this, D?  Year after year?  Yes, I’ve gotten through 4 years but what accomplishment is that when my heart is yet broken and I yearn so desperately for you, for your touch?" Alison Miller

I know with my grandma at 18 years saying it seems like yesterday, we will grieve, but like this woman is doing, we will also live, like my grandmother did, we will all live, until we don't.   

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Gotta add, when we first started traveling back in the 90's, there was a woman about 84-years-old that had a huge, John Deer Green, ancient Class A RV.  She would drive into camps and the managers would park and pull her out when she was finished.  I know she has gone to the happy campground in the sky by now, but on the back of that ancient hand painted RV was printed in beautiful writing "drifting snow."  That was her last name.  I quit my membership to Escapees though and don't know what happened to everyone. It was mine and Billy's dream and I was not "man enough" to carry on alone.  It would have hurt like visiting the place he left me.

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18 hours ago, Marg M said:

They meet up occasionally in the different state and national forests where free camping is allowed.

I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country where there is lots of USFS land, and MANY secluded spots you can camp near a river that are not designated "campgrounds" so no fees.  I've camped in such places many times, taking a camp trailer or pitching a tent.  The property next door to mine is owned by a family that uses it as such, only it hasn't had anyone on it in quite a while now.  Some friends of mine are campground hosts at nearby campgrounds, so they stay there for free, water and electricity provided.  One is at Black Canyon campground and the other is up the McKenzie.  This is a beautiful time of year to take advantage of the outdoors.

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