Magical Thinking

[Maylissa]

It's so hard, and so crazy...yet it's still just there. Every single day I find myself thinking, "If I just....finish this task...do that thing....do my running around and then come home......Nissa might just BE THERE, as she always had been..."if I only....". You realize, even during this thinking, that it's an insane thought...but that doesn't stop it. The yearning is so great, to not have this reality BE this reality, period. Went through the same period after Sabin's loss...but this time, it's worse, more pervasive, more enduring. I hold my breath whenever I or we are on the way home after having been out....like all this bottling-up of emotions while out will find some kind of merciful resolution once I'm finally back at home....she'll BE there and this nightmare will be over!! But there's only silence when the door's opened....dead silence. We put away our things and there's still just nothing. No one to yell at us, no one to greet and kiss hello. Just pictures, the last few ammalgamated flowers from her 5 bouquets sent to honour her......departure. THAT reality...the one that just....can't....BE! We still check the litter ( hardly anything's been put away, and probably won't be for a long time yet ), check for any possibly-eaten crunchies in our absence though there's not even a plate on the floor, step around where water bowls used to be. Each room, checking this and checking that...even when leaving the house - Is the stove off? Are there crunchies out? The emergency bags of crunchies? Is the heat up enough? Fresh water? Pillows rewarmed enough? All windows and doors secure? What time will I be back, so I can tell her? Did I say my prayer over her and surround her with protective, healing Light?

No need....no need....just the household basics and I/we can....just...leave...this empty house, this house without a soul, without the biggest presence from such a dainty girl. The girl who ran this house....my GIRL! my girl.....where are you?...and why can't I bring you back?

Edited September 18, 2006 by Maylissa

[dpodesta]

Maylissa,

I am so sad that you have to go through this. Some of the thoughts you described sound like what goes through my mind. It has been 5 and a half months since Kared passed away and it still seems like a nightmare. I keep expecting to come home and her truck will be there and dinner will be on the stove. But I open the door to the alarm beeping meaning no one has been home since I set it in the morning. The nights are crazy as I face yet another night by myself when Carson goes to bed. Pray for me as I will pray for you that God will see us through.

[Maylissa]

Derek,

Yes, its' sad, sad, sad.....I'm getting so tired of feeling this way. It seems like for the better part of 6 years I've been fighting sadness, and disbelief. Nissa's departure is just the 'crowning glory' of all of this, so I'm having such a hard time adjusting to this empty reality. In a way, I feel even worse for you, and others like you, who now have NO one to sleep with at all. What an awful world this can be for too many of us!

Bedtime is definitely the hardest time of all for me. It's gone from being the BEST part of any day, when I could lay aside all the day's frustrations and worries and immerse myself in Nissa's furry presence which automatically calmed me......to the WORST part of the day when I usually can't hold back the tears and despair any longer ( and hence keep my H from being able to get to sleep ). I keep hoping my girl will make an appearance and jump up on the bed one of these nights, like SO many others have experienced with their own passed furbabies.....but it never happens, and my heart breaks even more then. So I go to sleep with a frown on my lips, and wake up the same way. I'm sure I look about 10 years older lately, since my mouth just automatically turns downward ALL the time, w/o me even being aware of it.

All healing thoughts to you and to Carson and to all of us still in our 'darkest hours'. I'm sure we all wish our nightmares would turn into happy, or at least peaceful dreams again.

Edited September 20, 2006 by Maylissa

[foxslady]

Dear Maylissa,

Funny strange, when I read your reply, re: the name Button, I realized that I'd not thought of him in a long time.

It was about 1968 or so. I had recently, but his name didn't pop into my head like it did recently. And yes, I did see him in shadow.

What's so uncanny, is the pennies. What has brought us together, I don't know.

My love, Gene died on May 1st, without warning.

The next day, my son and daughter & I went to the funral home, like one does. Thank goodness, I got a phone call and walked outside. After the call, I put the phone and my purse down and had a cigarette. I was just standing under the roofed portico and a penny fell onto the back of my hand. Like a slap. I thought "i've got to look at this closer" and when I moved it fell to the ground. I stooped down to pick it up and another fell thru my hair and landed next to the first. 2 shiny pennies.I looked up and it is a solid roof, no-one was around, not a car, nothing. I went back inside and showed them and everyone got up and went outside silently. My son, always the jokester, looked up at the ceiling and said "don't you have anything larger?" All of us stared at the roof, including the funeral director. That nite he called me and said he told everyone about this and that he had a client who gets dimes. I'm not the first. Background to this is that the day before, Gene and I were cleaning out his van and he started to dump a box into the trash, and I said to wait, there were 2 pennies stuck in the bottem. He picked out one and I the other.

He knew, I'd get hit by a truck rather than step over money, even pennies. Since then, I've gotten a lot more in other situations. In places where they shoudn't be. My daughter cleaned her truck, went to the store and when they opened the door to get back in, my grand daughter found 3 2006 pennies in a row face up on the floor.

My brother & sister-n law came down the week Gene died and in the morning was a penny on her clothing.

Not sure if I'm losing it. I know I'm extremely emotional and confused and forgetful, and cry at the drop of a hat.

And I am coralling all the lose change, so I don't over re-act. I've talked to Gene's friends about this and they did not blow me off as a nut, but seem to accept it and actually thanked me for telling them. Said it made it easier for them. That it was a sign that they needed because they miss him so.

It seems to have slowed, which makes me angry because I feel he's not with me like I felt he was. And I need him so much.

My older dog, Rufus is really ailing and I am coming to another impasse which I 'm not up for. He was Gene's little guy and such a sweetheart. He's 16, blind, deaf, has arthritis very bad and a bad heart. We think he's little mind is going. He's in his own little world and I'm not part of it anymore.

Sorry if my story sounds like the twilight zone. It's all true.

Bright Blessings

[lorikelly]

Dear Foxslady.

I believe that the pennies are from your husband, they say they can send us adc (after death communications) i think this one was yours. keep looking for them. i pray everyday that i will get some.

Maylissa

I know how you feel, i had to put my wonderful dog friend Spanky to sleep on friday due to congestive heart failure. one of the worst days of my life. i asked him to forgive me. i work for this vet so i am use to counseling people on this but it is different when it is yours. i feel numb i keep looking for him waiting to hear his bark. i love him so much why did he have to go my mom just died 11 weeks ago why did God need him also. a part of me died when my mom died and now another part of me is gone. my 4 cats are looking for him and they have given me extra love but i want and need my Spanky.. WHY?????????????????????

[Maylissa]

foxlady,

Wow. Your penny stories are so powerful, as is actually SEEING Buttons that time. I've heard of this happening for so many people ( both of these kinds of signs ), but wish with all my heart that I could be one of them, too! My pennies were simply found on the ground...nothing as dramatic as yours. And no, none of it sounds like the Twilight Zone.

I'm also so sorry about your husband. Your story ( read it on the other forum here ) is so terribly tragic and my heart bleeds for you. Everything you've been handed to deal with is so incredibly tough, I don't know how I'D survive it all...

As for Rufus, I know of which you speak....when they're so ailing, the anticipatory grief begins, and since he's your husband's doggie, that would make it so much harder to let go of him when the time comes. But he'll have your dear husband to go to, so at least they'll be together again....small comfort, I know, as I'm sure you'd like to be there, too, with the both of them, but small comforts are often the only things we have left to hang on to during our own grief. I'm so sorry, for everything you're having to endure.

lorikelly

I was shocked and so sorry to hear that you've also lost your furbaby, Spanky, so recently! I know how awful such double-whammies are, from losing my Mum, then my brother, only 2 months apart. Although for me, those losses are just paling by comparison to losing my feline daughter, as I always knew it would feel for me.

I actually don't believe God NEEDS anything, or anyone, as I believe God is already ALL and has no needs. So I prefer to believe that an individual's personal soul's mission is just accomplished here on earth ( whatever that mission was ), after which they can return to our true Home in Spirit. That gives me far more comfort than thinking that God is somehow 'snatching' them away from us, for no apparent, logical or uncaring reason. Maybe this perspective can help you, too. For Nissa's departure, if nothing else, it really felt to me that, like her brother's departure, she didn't go anywhere until I was more ready to accept her going...at least in the sense that it became painful enough watching her fail, that I wanted a release for her more than I wanted her to stay and continue to suffer in the physical. I consider that all the painful months prior to this were a compassionate gift to and for me, to start readying myself for that important moment...because my Creator knew that was the only way I could possibly handle even a fraction of it with any hope of survival. It doesn't make her going any less sorrowful, but it makes it make more SENSE, at least to me.

And I've had such a terribly hard week with her passing, I haven't even been able to write about it here, and still can't....not until I get some things having to do with guilt, addressed. This has everything to do with not even knowing EXACTLY ( physically ) why she died and my inability at the time to have an autopsy done so we'd know more. This has been one of those weeks where I truly wish I wasn't alive on earth and have been paralyzed with grief.

Edited September 25, 2006 by Maylissa