Happy Valentines Day.... Anyway..etc

[leeann]

Every little or big holiday is hitting me...

Half of me thinks I'm nuts... and the other half is sure that I am.

But thought I'd wish you all & send you all some love on this holiday...anyway.

I feel like .... I dunno.. rudderless???

I wish I had had the time, attention and "Magical powers" I guess to do some of this grieving last year. Mom passed in Jan 07 and as I posted in another thread... last year just warped into one crisis after another for me to deal with.

Big stuff.. husband had a huge surgical procedure.. with complications that required another trip to the Operating Room a mere 3 months after the first surgery. Then he had an additional completely different health scare... but we had to get the appt with a specialist.. (right before Christmas) get an appt for a biopsy (After Christmas...which made Christmas even more awful than it already was)... get the biopsy done and then wait... for results.. which were negative.. Thank God.. beacause I tell you truly.. I don't think I could have handled that.

While all of that was going on I had to list my parents house; (Dad passed in 2002)process ALL things for the estate; maintain my own house, taking over some of hub's normal duties because he just couldn't do them,in addition to maintaining theirs; and somehow make sure our kids (1 in HS and 1 in MS) were ok during all of this.

I didn't have anything left for grieving.. no time.. no attention.

I know it sounds awful.. but I just didn't have the capacity to make grieving a priority .. at all. I just couldn't. I had a fire in front of me that needed to be put out.. like constantly. There was no "break" for me to 'get to' the grieving.. You know what I mean?

So now.... here I sit...like some truck hit me and I'm wandering around.. just stunned or something. And feeling like I'm way behind in the grief and out of sync with everyone else impacted by Mom's passing. Like they are ahead of me and well, I don't know? I'm out here by myself drifting with no sail or rudder.. well.. none that I can find.

Also... I find I'm still grieving Dad?? I mean, who knew?? I thought I had done a pretty good job of processing his loss... now.. I don't know.

Maybe it is just different when both of them are gone?

Maybe them living in the same house for 50 yrs.. the only "home" I ever knew.. and now it is gone and I have no reason to even go to that town anymore.. I dunno.

I cry.. ALOT, well it seems like alot to me... maybe it's a "normal amount" whatever that is...???

I can't focus on anything without an extreme effort.

In short.. I feel awful. I'm a mess. And I can't understand it.. I handled everything thrown at me last year pretty well if I don't say so myself.

And now?? Whoo boy..

For a small example:

I can't make a grocery store list with any ease.. Can't manage to get the things I actually DO write on the darn thing (always forget something..even though it's ON the list) and then I haven't the slightest clue as to where the car is in the parking lot once I manage to get out of there!

Yup.. I'm a mess and I know I can do better than this but.. I literally right now.. don't know how.

BUT it's Valentines Day... so... feel loved.. cause I'm trying to send ya some... anyway.

PS Special (((((Hug))))) to allalone, for today would have been her Mom's Birthday.

[AnnieO]

I felt like I was reading a description of my life as I read your post.

My mom died Dec.06 after being sick for 2 years. My dad died Oct.07. I took care of both of them and their home. At that time my daughter was still in HS and my son was in 9th grade. I too, took care of everyone and everything. My dad got sick a week after my mom died, so I had to put off grieving to take care of him. We had a memorial for my parents Thanksgiving week-end, it was that next week that everything caught up with me. Dec is a blur. I do think I am doing better now. It just takes time. So I dont have any wonderful advice other than to take care of yourself and Iwanted to tell you I understand what you are going thru.

[drew]

I totally can relate. Doing even the smallest tasks seem huge obstacles. It seems like everything reminds me of mom...cleaning house, laudry, grocery shopping, driving, school, work, etc. I too am in charge of her house, which is actually my home. I moved in with my dad, but my mom's house is where I grew up. I'm still in college and mom's house was literally "home!" I bought a small house last year, and havne't lived in it hardly at all since mom got sick. I just put it on the market last week because i can't handle all this responsibility. I've been avoiding mom's house, but yesterday one of her friends needed something that they had loaned mom, so I had to go over and get it. I just burst into tears when i walked in, and laid on mom's bed smelling her pillow. There are still dirty clothes in the hamper, and her suitcase is packed at the end of her bed, ready to go back to Chicago for treatment. It seems like she should walk through the door, and I don't want to move anything because then it will all be too real. Once I clean out her house and sell it, then she's really gone forever and its over.

It seems like one hard thing after another.

This morning I woke up and thought about how every valentines day my mom would make heart shaped pancakes and we would do something special when i got home from school. I'm sad because my birthday is coming up on the 25th and I'll be 22. Mom said that when she got better, we were going on a cruise for sure! Now I don't know what I'll do for my birthday.

[Cindi]

Leeann: I can so relate to what you said. Although I did not have anywhere near the tasks that required your attention for so long, I know that I have this inner strength that I just can't seem to find right now.

At the collapse of my first marriage to a substance abuser, two small children, living in a 2 bedroom house with 16 other people...he left taking all the money and the car. I had no idea of his whereabouts for 3 weeks and I was 20 years old. I got my self down to the employment office, secured a job through a government funded program, got into low income housing, pulled my kids to day care in a wagon and walked to work. I was actually pretty good at what I did and it has served me well in my career endeavors. I knew I was a survivor.

Now, I find this sadness I can't seem to overcome, and no energy to want to do anything...not even read which has been a life-long passion of mine. I don't want to work, I'm tired all the time and I don't know where I'm going from here.

Hang in there, come back, and eventually you will discover that so many of us feel the same. That alone helps me to know that I'm not being weird or over-reacting.

I'm am so sorry for your loss.

So sweet of you to help us remember that today is a day of love.

[leeann]

Thanks so much guys. Made it through the day.. again... amazing huh?

I felt like I really didn't do a great job, maybe just a so-so job of this holiday for the kids or my hub. But at least I didn't burn dinner.

Just gotta keep my feet moving forward I guess..

I'm feeling fragile which, if you knew me.. is kinda odd for me and I kinda don't like it. But.. the truth is, fragility is just part of this I guess. But it is something I'm not used to feeling at all. And like vulnerability...it is just uncomfortable to me.

Hah.. I can fix a mulitude of problems.. but there is no fixing this...

Just feeling every excruciating minute of it.

AnnieO.. you sure had a year there too. It wasn't just raining or pouring.. it was deluging for ya there. I get the blur feeling.. everyday feels like that. Like I'm walking in some deep fog or... some other world from everyone else. But it is good to know you are feeling better than that now.

And Drew... You are doing some real hard stuff right now. College alone is huge, let alone trying to manage/maintain the house(s). You might feel better about starting to go through the house & Mom's things once the pressure of school calms down a bit. After awhile I found it painful to be in my parent's house.

As soon as I listed it, things changed... the realtor thought we needed to move furniture so it would "show" better.. etc.. The poor guy had no idea how painful it was to me (and our kids) to have the house "different". But.. we just sucked it up and in and did it.. cuz we had to.

However.. if you have some luxury as far as time goes.. I'd use it if I were you. Take your time if there is no rush.

But I have to tell you there did indeed come a time when I wanted it all over and done. I needed it to be over and done. We ended up dropping the daylights out of the price (with probably everyone else in the USA who had a house listed and sold last year) and letting it go to a very young couple who.. really needed us to drop the price. And truth be told... I think my parents hand picked this couple from heaven. They were exactly the type of people who my parents would have been very pleased to have the house.

So it did all work out.

Painful... oh yeah. I sat on the floor of my old bedroom and just sobbed to the bare walls one day. But I had other real pressing concerns that made it almost necessary to be out from under the burden of care & maintenance of another household. (And also... I'd be lying if I wasn't concerned about losing my husband during that surgery and having to process two very signifcant deaths simultaneously, while maintaining both homes.. taking care of the kids.. etc.)

By the time hub came through both surgeries ok.. I was about d-o-n-e with dealing with the house. I was running out of gas by then.. so we ended up dropping the price, getting those buyers & closing on it in late Oct.

Tough.. tough stuff to go through every nick & cranny.. and do the "give to", "save", "toss" and "donate" piles over and over.

But ya know what helped me then?? I kept focused on the new couple buying the house. How can I make it better or easier for them?? I remembered back to what it was like to be just starting out and tried my best to give them a good start in that house. (Yes it was cleaned to within an inch of it's life.)

I also wanted to hand it over to them in the condition & in a manner that would honor my parents. And.. I think I did that.

But your situation is different.. and I bet Mom would want you to focus on school first. (I have NO idea how I would know that.... <wink, wink> )

So.. Drew... don't worry.. you'll know when the time is right. So.. take your time if you can.

Your birthday... I suggest you do something just for you that day. And/Or as I saw in another thread here about dealing with B'days.. you could.. get a baloon and let it go on up to Mom.. cuz.. afterall.. you wouldn't have had a B'day without her and this way you can kind of spend a bit of it with her.

Then.... eat some ridiculously caloric desert.

You'll figure out what to do or not to do. But definitely be good to yourself that day.

Cindi.. Yeah I'd say you were gifted in the inner strength dept. Wow.

But ya know, I'm starting to think maybe.... grief needs a different strength than the one you used then and the one I used to get through many things and last year. Maybe.. grief is something that teaches us how to be weak, vulnerable, frail and humble. Cuz I guess those things are just part of being human. So maybe, afterward, the inner strength has a different breadth, width & depth. And the human becomes a better human.

Well I hope so anyway.

Love & ((((hugs)))) to all and many thanks

Leeann

[shell]

Hi all,

I also had so much on my plate after my dad died, and my mom got sick, and it was one thing after another,and then my mom died... all of which I "handled". I so relate to your stories and how you handle all this terrible stuff and then when it's "over", you fall apart. But that is normal really. We keep going and doing what we have to do and then, all of a sudden, it's gone and you feel lost. I had to laugh, leeann, (and I don't mean that unkindly) when you said you have a hard time making a grocery list and then don't get things that are on the list! I do the same thing! It makes me feel so much better, though, to hear that others are as rattle-brained as I am these days. We must be ok if all of us are doing it!

Hugs and love to all,

Shell