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What did you keep and what did you get rid of?


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It's ok. I'm sure he understands. As long as you remember they were his favorites and you tell us, that memory means more than the actual discs. What were his favorite CD's? Because of her being legally blind, Annette didn't ever handle discs, but I kept her favorite music, even though it isn't always my thing. I was going to sell them, but ended up not- I just like having them. But, please don't feel bad about not having the physical discs. Most people don't keep them anymore and just use streaming. 

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I want to wear his ring on a chain but just looking at it right now dissolves me into a puddle of tears. I've cried everyday this month so far. Christmas just won't be the same. 

I still deal with a lot of guilt over other things. 

Edited by Missy1965
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24 minutes ago, nashreed said:

It's ok. I'm sure he understands. As long as you remember they were his favorites and you tell us, that memory means more than the actual discs. What were his favorite CD's? Because of her being legally blind, Annette didn't ever handle discs, but I kept her favorite music, even though it isn't always my thing. I was going to sell them, but ended up not- I just like having them. But, please don't feel bad about not having the physical discs. Most people don't keep them anymore and just use streaming. 

Thank you for the kind words. It was a set of Rocky movies. He watched those things over and over. 

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I'm still feeling guilty that I didn't go to the hospital with him that first time he was hospitalized because I was supposed to start a new job the next morning. I should've gotten right up when they called me and said he had been admitted at 2:30am, instead of getting some sleep and waiting until later in the morning to go to the hospital. I could've stayed with him and called my job from the hospital. He stayed for 4 days and left AMA.

He hated hospitals. It wasn't until his last week of life he finally agreed to go after weeks of begging and pleading. By then he was too sick. 

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I am the King Of Guilt, so I understand completely. Some days I still think I caused her passing, just by not doing enough. But Annette always said that accidents happen and she would not blame me. Guilt is a useless emotion- it truly is. He wouldn't blame you. You can't change it now, and it only serves to make your life, your present now, worse. Sometimes you want to make yourself feel like crap, thinking you deserve it, but our loved ones don't want us to suffer and beat ourselves up. Wear the ring- I guarantee it will make you happy in the long run. The happy memories do come through in the midst of the grief and loss. I am just living day by day, hoping to have something to look forward to. Just typing this gives me a purpose when I feel I have no damn reason to be alive. I can't work without her (I am on disability) and my identity as her caregiver is gone. So I have no idea what I can do with my life but take it day by day, and today- hopefully- I made somebody feel better. 

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Nashreed, you didn't cause your sweet Annette's death any more than I caused Brian's. I know this is so cliche', but it was her time, just like it was Brian's time. I have been through every single emotion the past 4 months, and always end up coming full circle back to guilt with a touch of anger thrown in. 

The thing is, thankfully they remember nothing of the "bad" times and are now brand new, eternally alive. It's those left behind who deal with all these emotions. 

I didn't want to live either at first, but he wouldn't want that for me. Annette and Brian both would want us to live our lives until it's our turn to be reunited with them. 

 

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19 hours ago, Missy1965 said:

I want to wear his ring on a chain but just looking at it right now dissolves me into a puddle of tears.

Could you wear it on a chain but INSIDE

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18 hours ago, Missy1965 said:

I'm still feeling guilty that I didn't go to the hospital with him that first time he was hospitalized because I was supposed to start a new job the next morning. I should've gotten right up when they called me and said he had been admitted at 2:30am, instead of getting some sleep and waiting until later in the morning to go to the hospital. I could've stayed with him and called my job from the hospital. He stayed for 4 days and left AMA.

I'm sure he'd be the first to understand.  My little sister had to miss my dad's funeral because it was the same day she was starting a new job, which she badly needed, and she was living in a different state.  I'm sure it was one of the hardest days of her life.

18 hours ago, Missy1965 said:

it was her time, just like it was Brian's time.

It's the hardest thing in the world to "accept" as it goes against every fiber of our being!  Our brain can tell us one thing while we're "feeling" something else entirely!  I try not to be led by my feelings, I know how vacillating they can be.  Some feelings can be the outcome of everything that's gone in, but others can be swayed by our own fears & experiences, hard to sift through esp. at a time we can't think clearly!

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18 hours ago, Missy1965 said:

It's those left behind who deal with all these emotions.

For sure!

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I feel like I'm right back at day one. I want so much to enjoy Christmas because I know in my heart he would want me to, but I wake up crying every morning and cry most of the day. Everyday this month so far. It's been almost 5 months and I am struggling just like I did at first. This will be my first Christmas without him in 4 years. We used to ride and look at Christmas lights and walk around the mall just looking at things and buying candles. I miss him so much. I'm a horrible mess. I'm on an antidepressant and something for nerves, but right now they don't help me. It's a beautiful, cold day here and I am having trouble finding joy in anything. I have a new Grandbaby on the way and even that doesn't excite me. What a shame. I hate what this has done and has taken from me. 

I have a facetime interview for a job at 2PM and my eyes are so puffy it's horrible. I will need to gather my composure. 

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9 minutes ago, Missy1965 said:

I feel like I'm right back at day one. I want so much to enjoy Christmas because I know in my heart he would want me to, but I wake up crying every morning and cry most of the day. Everyday this month so far. It's been almost 5 months and I am struggling just like I did at first. This will be my first Christmas without him in 4 years. We used to ride and look at Christmas lights and walk around the mall just looking at things and buying candles. I miss him so much. I'm a horrible mess. I'm on an antidepressant and something for nerves, but right now they don't help me. It's a beautiful, cold day here and I am having trouble finding joy in anything. I have a new Grandbaby on the way and even that doesn't excite me. What a shame. I hate what this has done and has taken from me. 

I have a facetime interview for a job at 2PM and my eyes are so puffy it's horrible. I will need to gather my composure. 

Good luck!  

It will get better. You have your children and grandchildren and that's a blessing. So much to live for. I have nothing- I'm the end of the family line. Try your best to enjoy the season in what ways you can. It will sneak in there when you don't expect it and brighten your heart to think of Brian.

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I do have a lot to be thankful for and so many blessings. I live with my elderly parents who are in remarkably good shape which I am thankful for. 

Nashreed, you have a lot to live for whether you believe it or not. Who knows? You may one day be the caretaker for your Mother. Keep Annette alive through her favorite music and know she would want you to find something to live for. You are not alone as God walks with you every step of the way. I have to remind myself of that often. Think of Annette with brand new legs and a brand new, healthy body dancing away in Heaven. 

I think it's a hard time of year for everyone regardless of their circumstances with covid and isolation. 

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29 minutes ago, Missy1965 said:

I do have a lot to be thankful for and so many blessings. I live with my elderly parents who are in remarkably good shape which I am thankful for. 

Nashreed, you have a lot to live for whether you believe it or not. Who knows? You may one day be the caretaker for your Mother. Keep Annette alive through her favorite music and know she would want you to find something to live for. You are not alone as God walks with you every step of the way. I have to remind myself of that often. Think of Annette with brand new legs and a brand new, healthy body dancing away in Heaven. 

I think it's a hard time of year for everyone regardless of their circumstances with covid and isolation. 

Oh, I do know that I should be thankful that my Mom doesn't need me right now. I don't think that I could ever find it in myself to be that kind of caretaker again. I do know that Annette is happy and good and not in pain, and that's all I ever wanted for her. I just can't wait to see her again. All I want for Christmas is to be able to dream of her- which my stupid brain hasn't been able to do.

 

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16 minutes ago, Missy1965 said:

What about pictures? I look at them and cry, but it was a happier time in his life before he got so sick. Were you all able to look at pictures at first. It took me over 4 months.

 

Pictures, for me, are my saviors. To see her when she was young and happy means everything. I have a crappy memory for events in my own life, but I am unbeatable in 80's music trivia, so there's some kind of Asperger's thing going on or something. I have to look at the pictures a lot of times just to trigger the memory that she wasn't always in pain and wheelchair dependent. I have my favorite pictures of her on my wall, next to my bed, so she's always giving me one of her snarky, sweet looks- all I have to do is roll over, look at them and she's with me. In her last twenty years, she couldn't sleep in the same bed as me, for many reasons. I wish it had been different, but her spirit and heart lives in me- I keep her alive by talking to her and keeping her memory alive. 

It's wonderful to have pictures of Brian when he wasn't sick. They capture a moment in time that will always be frozen there. He was happy, he was healthy- you have proof. And he was happy because of you. He was smiling because of you. That's the way to remember him, not reliving the terrible times in the hospital. 

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21 hours ago, Missy1965 said:

What about pictures? I look at them and cry, but it was a happier time in his life before he got so sick.

When I hear of something that happened a couple of years ago, I think, "That was before Arlie's diagnosis (cancer) and death.  I was unsuspecting at that time."  Such as when someone refers to the snowpocolypse (no elec. for nine days, highway closed five days, phone out 18 days, everything in the town shut down) which was 2/24/19...Arlie's diagnosis was a few months later and his death two months ten days afterwards.  It was a time that was happier for me.  The same was true when my George died.  I  see our wedding pictures...how happy we were, how blissfully ignorant of what was to come...

How did your interview go?  I hope you were able to pull it off.  I remember having to look for work after he died, VERY hard not knowing if I'd get hired in time!  In those days we got six months unemployment, I was down to two weeks left when I finally landed a job, it was scary.

 

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6 hours ago, kayc said:

When I hear of something that happened a couple of years ago, I think, "That was before Arlie's diagnosis (cancer) and death.  I was unsuspecting at that time." 

This reminded me of how I track time now.  There’s always the 2014 marker for Steve’s passing.  I’ll look at production dates of older movies if I can’t remember if we watched it together, for example.  Obama was still President when he left.  Ally kept me as grounded as I could be til she left too.  Your snowcopolypse is my 2 hospitalizations, one in 2018 and the one that started this year ending in the pandemic starting.  

I see happy times pictures and realize how much time has passed since they were taken.  Even worse, how wonderful that time was.  My avatar pic here was when we renewed our vows.  Did it right, as he said, rather than our Reno quickie.  

Not in any time that was our life, good or bad pre cancer, could we have imagined the nightmare awaiting us in 2009.  Then add more to in 2014 with our Golden’s cancer diagnosis and death.  I shouldn’t be surprised, rather grateful, about Ally.  I got to have her over 15 years.  I am grateful. But now, as crazy as it sounds to outsiders, I’m so emotionally crushed.  More so than any other kid I/we lost.  I saw Steve experience that with Belle.  Whatever bond they had was between them and he suffered so when it was severed.  I loved her madly too.  

 Used to be we kept time by anniversaries or birthdays to be celebrated, not dreaded.  Holidays didn’t need counting.  It was time for heart warming traditions and surprises.  Happy anticipation.  

Now I want them to pass quickly.  Stop the displays, music, movies, the fact I take nothing out to decorate.  Steve used to bring in boxes of stuff with absolute musts and variations we’d shift from year to year. One year shiny ornaments for him, the next satin for me.  Swapped Xmas Carol movies for each our favorites.  I shouldn’t have responded.  I’ve just succeeded to depress myself more.  

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That's exactly how I'll keep track of her time here and when she passed. In the last few years, I had to call EMSA so many times for her, and if it was a low blood sugar or potassium spike, they would always ask what city she was in, her name and who the President was. She would never say it after 2016. She sometimes still said Obama if she was being cheeky, usually it was just an "ugh" and the paramedics accepted that! 

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Gwen, it's okay that you let it out, it's how you're feeling.  And I understand.  I have the tree up, George's stocking & ornaments...waiting for the Merry to kick in.  Of course I know it won't.  Wonder if it ever would if I left the tree up all year?  Of course the neighbors (or my kids if they ever came here) would have me hauled off...

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I have our stockings up in my room, but we never put anything in them. They were just for decoration. 

It's snowing in our home of Tulsa. She would have liked it, although I always, always freaked out because I hate driving in the snow. I had to worry about clearing the ramp if she needed to go to a doctor appointment. It was always very stressful and this time of year I had that added stress of the weather- but I'd give anything for that stress again.

Hard to get into "the spirit" where the seasons don't change- although if it's windy, the palm trees shed, so that's Fall. And if it's in the 60's, people in California are freezing. I never wear a jacket except in the mornings when it's in the low 40's.

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43 1/2 years of living in the mountains, snow country, and I relish it even less the more I age!  Try not to drive in it as much as possible!  Gosh, I'm in down coats this time of year, boots & gloves too!

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On 12/8/2020 at 3:12 PM, nashreed said:

I turn 51 with no future,

My son is 58.  This past year he began his full time job at the VA Hospital.  His first thing to do was contact COVID, which he gave to his 53-year-old sister with 0 immunity.  They both mostly slept the virus off and drank fluids with OTC fever meds.  Neither needed hospitalization, but were in quarantine for awhile.  As far as I'm concerned, both of their lives are just beginning.  At 51, you have hopefully  many years left.  At age 78, if Billy was still with me, he would get angry if I thought of myself as old.  He never got old.  I look at pictures and he had aged into an even better looking man than when we first met when he was 20.  We both retired together and felt like we had the world ahead of us.  We pulled the RV out from our home park the day after our retirement parties.  I was 55, he was 57.  And, we both thought the road was our home, forgetting our children, who we had gladly enabled, our children were not ready for us to leave.  We belonged to an RVing club that had slogans on their RV's like "we are spending our kid's inheritance" and in one adult park we had to show identification, they thought we were too young.  Actually, we had to go back "home" and finish all the enabling we had bestowed on our grown children.  We could not have enjoyed our nomad lifestyle if we lost one of our grown children.  So we began a new life that lasted 20 years for Billy, and I'm dragging it along the remainder of the way.  So, there comes a time to have endings, there comes another time to have beginnings.  One of our own on this forum, actually more than one, have pushed through this wall of grief to start a new life.  At 51 you feel old, but you are not even at retirement age yet.  We retired early, but we had enough years in to retire.  I have friends who remarried after losing their first spouse.  Some have flourished.  One I was concerned about.  Her new husband suffered a heart attack on their honeymoon and she spent the next 10-15 years lovingly taking care of him.  He passed and all the things she did not take notice of about her own health, they are now taking her slowly down.  She found out she had to have a heart valve replaced, then she had a stroke, she had COVID, but she is still managing with some small help from her children and grandchildren.  The thing I was afraid of, she had not taken time to grieve her children's father before remarrying.  Then when the second husband passed, she grieved both of them together.  I cannot imagine the weight of grief she carries.  I call to check on her but she gets political, and actually, who has time for that?  

I still remember, maybe my last day of identifying a real happy moment, August of 1997.  I stepped out of the very comfortable RV, coffee was made.  I looked across and the Caddo River was running beautifully clear.  Premature brown leaves were falling with the breeze, cooler in the little mountain valley we were parked in.  We owned the world, and it was not money, it was time spread before us.  Nature was beautiful.  Billy was "sleeping in" and I could not wait to explore the new surroundings.  

Funny and sad when you can remember happiness as a moment back in time.  I'm sorry some of you did not get to have as many years as Billy and I had together.  We battled many demons during those 54 years, we battled each other's feelings also.  We both said things that were hurtful to each other, but we lived through all the broken promises, the loving but not liking each other a bunch of times, we fought our illnesses together, many of them.  We tried out each new diet guru's books and meals.  Trying to control his blood pressure in his 30's we went without salt.  I tried cooking with substitutes for the salt and finally he and I both agreed to cut down on the salt, but food just was not worth eating without some salt.  We both knew I was going to die first.  We fought my illnesses and somehow I was not afraid finally of the cancer returning.  

At 51, you have a life ahead of you.  Maybe alone for a long while, maybe not.  Death happens when we least expect it to, but so does life.  

 

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