The club no one wants to join

[kayc]

6 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

how do I get my house cleaned out?

It would be a permanent decision, you'd likely have to sign it over to the state to do unless you hired someone to do that.  Could you afford it on your income?  I have neighbors who used to do that for a living, clean out homes when the banks got them back, a ton of work.  My place would be cost prohibitive, 45 years worth of stuff from a family that used to be here...

7 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

How do I give up the last 38 years of my life?

That's the thing.  So Peggy is going to the coast for her birthday with two friends, I am worried to death she'll fall.  I reminded her she cannot take any falls.  She fell getting out of bed last time she did this, she was lucky she wasn't hurt.  I wonder about their brains.  She has guard rails on her bed but I can't get them apart, I have no strength, neither does she.  She doesn't listen.  It's on her, if she ends up in the hospital, she won't be coming home.  I've reminded her enough times.  It's hell never going anywhere, but worse hell if it ends her life as she knows it.  My heart will be in my throat until she's safely home..  I hate this.  This is what our lives have become.

 

 

[Kieron]

I'd rather not create a new thread as I'm not really saying anything I haven't already said, but I do have to say It's really remarkable how deeply a new passing stirs up the sediment of my grief, as if it had settled into some crevice somewhere inside and was just waiting to be excavated.  Another uncle passed away, yesterday after a long illness.  This one I was not close to, but the news dredged up the old feelings as I knew it would.  It didn't last long, but just remembering the way it felt afterward, and knowing quite well what my aunt must be feeling.

[Gwenivere]

It certainly does bring back what we went t(hru what we did again.  Someone else crossed into this painful emptiness.   We often forget this happens everyday to so many.  The news tells us big stories, not the lone people feeling the same feelings.  I always hope support.  Saturday was 8 years for me.  I wasn’t consciously aware til the date hit me as someone had today as their loss.  Those years disappeared.  It was day one all over. We will never be free of that.  I merely recover a scab, as Marg says, quicker.  But we’re always vulnerable.

[kayc]

Wow, I wrote my last post in here the day before she passed.  It feels weird, I was so worried about her going on that trip, her demise if/when she'd fall, and never being able to come home again, yet unable to stop her.  Death did.   But there are worse things than dying...we're living it.

[Widow2015]

11 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

 Saturday was 8 years for me.  I wasn’t consciously aware til the date hit me as someone had today as their loss.

Gwen:  Sorry about your Saturday remembrance.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, you have so much on your mind that date may have been blurred for a moment.  Hugs. Dee

[Gwenivere]

What sucks is the things that are distracting is problem stuff.   The only slight amusement is the rat hanging around.  I read that from so many on here.  I don’t think it’s that we are weaker.  Just given so much to bear.  Some of us have no support at all.  That feels so cold.   I did OK until my body was ravaged andI had Melody.  I still have my medical team,, but things are so complicated now and clash with each other.  There was a time things were in tune.  Add yes, Steve being here would steady the waves.  October 29th would just have been Beggar’s Night.

[Kieron]

21 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

It was day one all over

Yes, day one all over again is exactly right. 😥

[kayc]

Oh Gwen, I am so sorry, I didn't realize what you said about Saturday...unfortunately, that can happen, especially when our lives now are so consuming with survival and pain just getting through the day.  You did remember later and the day does have meaning to you, even though we can't change anything.

 

[Margm]

On 10/30/2022 at 10:36 PM, Gwenivere said:

 I wasn’t consciously aware til the date hit me as someone had today as their loss.  Those years disappeared.  It was day one all over. We will never be free of that.  I merely recover a scab, as Marg says, quicker.  But we’re always vulnerable.

Went to check on my Billy's family cemetery.  Have not been back since he has been gone. All graves were clean, kept up, no flowers.  Kelli will put them tomorrow.  In the meantime I had to say "hello" to my cousin-in-law.  Billy's wonderful, fun, big honey bear of a cousin.  Car wreck in the 90's.  Had lost a son before he passed, way too young.  Our sons were playmates. Then another son.  His wife, my best friend for years, my cousin-in-law, our constant companions on lake trips, riding around, our two oldest boys were best friends.  I had cause to talk to her after she had lost her husband and two sons.  It was so happy talking to her again, the wonderful memories, then the realization they'd never happen again and memories can sometimes hurt.  Loved her as a relative.  Pregnant at same time.  Pictures of that time and it was like I remember myself and her at that happy time.  But, the deaths had happened and the wonderful memories were only sort of hurting, I could tell by her voice.  Billy was still alive then.  I told him I could never talk to her again, it hurt her too much.  I was saying hello/goodbye to her husband and two sons in the cemetery again and I burst out crying, not even a clue it would happen, it was spontaneous.  There, next to her husband James, between their two sons was my sweet friend, Mary.  I talked to a relative.  She had been ill and passed with COVID in 2020.  Another friend's grave with 2020 as deceased date.  I did not know she was gone either.  Ripped the scar tissue away and I could not talk yesterday without crying.  It hit me fresh and hard.  I'm 80-damn years old, I've got to expect this.  I don't, and it still hurts.  Mack, Cookie, Glenda, Mary, so many others.  I have memories.  They have families that hurt as bad as we all do.  This is life and death.  And in what place in time can this not keep hurting?  We have to leave before it quits.  

Friends leaving day by day, I still do not get used to it.  It reminds me of the old John Donne poem:  No Man is an Island (from the 1600's, I think).  So many people can say their feelings in a few words, not me, I have to have my word salads.  Sorry.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.