My Best Friend Margaret

[HAP]

Dear Sad,

I know there is nothing easy about this new life we confront. It is an effort to get up every morning. it is not my intent to make any of it sound easy--none of it is.

Relax. You really cannot make me angry. My wife always marveled at how calm I stayed with people regardless of any provocation. You have done nothing to provoke anger. You are hurting right now. I know it is your pain speaking and not you just as i knew the anger in my wife's voice was more often the cancer speaking than her. I get angry at things but rarely at human beings. At the top of my bio is a line I only found when my wife was in the hospital, but it sums up perfectly how i feel most of the time: Be kind to everyone for you do not know the burdens they are carrying.

For the first time you have begun to reveal the burdens you are carrying. In showing us those things you make it more possible for us to understand the sources of your pain. in looking at them and vocalizing them you begin to give yourself power over them and enable us to help you confront them. In another post somewhere here I talked about another quote that has informed my life: Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is multiplied. Spyder Robinson put those words in the mouth of one of the characters in one of his stories. But it is an important statement of truth. It is the unspoken credo of any group like this one. We are all wounded here. We are all in need of healing. And we all try to provide that ear or shoulder when the others need it, knowing there will be times when we need that shoulder ourselves.

I'll echo something Kay says above. there is a strand here where we each try to post something positive that has happened that day. While you may not feel ready to post anything there yet, I encourage you to go and look at it periodically. The original post is something like Feeling the need to shake the sadness. Go look at it. It may spark something in you.

Carol Anne has offered her experience with things I cannot even begin to comprehend except through the clarity of her voice. Listen to her. Her experience has connections with yours--and she says it so well in such a short space where I flounder along for pages.

But please understand that we all care very much what happens to you. We all sense a good soul taxed almost to breaking. But we are here and offer the solace of our electronic arms. We have clasped you to us in a warm embrace. There is love here of human being to human being . Take what you need. We have a fountain here that is inexhaustible.

Find peace and solace in that fact.

Peace,

Harry

[sunstreet]

Dear Sad,

I want you to know I am thinking of you and holding you in gentle thought and care. Something I did in the beginning of my healing journey is I did my life for the animals; I did not feel worthy of life at all; but those animals needed me and depended on me and I did it for them and now I do it for me! You can get here too! I encourage you to take that first step.

Blessings and Courage, Carol Ann

[kayc]

Me too, Carol Ann...it is Arlie that keeps me going because he's so wonderful and he needs me (my dog).

How are you doing today, Sad?

[sad]

I'm still extremely depressed. But the cats are well fed and have clean litter boxes. I hate my life totally. I hate being alive. I appreciate you guys thinking about me. sad

[azbrian]

Sad,

We are always hear listen to you. Type whatever you want as often as you want.

I went to my first group meeting today. Trust me Sad you (all of us in here) are not alone.

I have a favor to ask and will respect your wishes if you say no.

Is there anything else we can call you besides Sad?

Take care

[mfh]

Dear Sad,

It truly sounds like you have had more than your share of pain and loss and believe me all of us are embracing you through this forum. Yes, feel free to say what you wish to say. No one here will condemn you for sharing whatever feelings you have. We are all in deep pain here and we understand loss. Many here have had many losses also and we all care about you. I am glad you have the cats. I have a dog and he is my lifesaver.

I understand that you are alone and angry and that your life looks like a sad mess. I also know I felt that way a year ago and though I am sad every day I do feel better than a year ago when I had no desire to go on. Even now the future looks joyless and we all know that feeling.

Stick with us and perhaps see if there is a loss group to join...it really helps a lot even though it fells like nothing will help.

mfh

[sad]

As far as I'm concerned, my life is over. sad

[Dwaynecg]

Sad, I agree we need to give you another name. Because your mother and father gave you a name that ment somethig to them. I was so sorry to read about your mother taking her life and you father being a quad. What happened to your father after your mothers death. Did he just give up or did he go on for you. Please tell me I would like to know. I don't think he would want to see you crawl inside that bottle and throw the rest of your life away. I had to dig deep inside myself after Pauline pasted. It was just last night I was able to make myself a home cooked meal, because everything I cook is what she had taught me. I cried the whole time making and eating my meal, but it was just as tastey as if she had made it for me. I try to go for walks every day when it is not raining in New England. It is these small steps we all take into our new life. None of us wanted to. Do you think Margaret would want you to drink your life away. I don't think so. Please get help any way any were you can. Even going to Church can help.

I will say prayers for you,

Dwayne

[sad]

My dad's brothers and sister ended up putting him in a nursing home at age 43. My brother and I lived with an aunt and uncle who didn't want us. The nursing home was in the worst part of town, but the most affordable. I am very bitter about all this. But that is long ago and forgotten to most people, but I remember. No, Margaret wouldn't want me to drink myself to death, but maybe it's the only way I can cope. I did go to church 2 days ago. Didn't help. Today I had to go back to the funeral home for the 3rd time to take care of more paperwork. I went alone of course because there's no one else in her family or mine. Her ashes are in my bedroom. She wanted them scattered in the park, but I can't do that right now. My life is so depressing from the moment I get up till I go to bed, then I toss and turn for hours. I am at my lowest point ever. Ever. I am changing my will today since Margaret was 50% beneficiary. My other beneficiary told me to "get over it" and I don't want him to get everything I own. I am pouring out my heart on here and that's something I never do. Thanks for listening. sad

[MartyT]

Pour some more, dear one ~ that is what we are here for. ♥

[sad]

Thanks so much Marty. sad

[kayc]

Sad,

Going to church didn't help me at first either, in fact it took me a long time to where it didn't cause me to cry because it was a reminder of my loss since George and I had attended together, but I'm glad I persevered and still attend. It gives you an avenue by which you can perhaps hear something of comfort and build other relationships, even if it might take a while. I know all too well what it's like to hole up inside your home and not want to go out, even while being lonely all the while.

I'm sorry that person told you to get over it. I'm sure they didn't mean to sound insensitive and cruel, they just don't understand what it's like, but whether intentioned or not, it's hard to hear and it IS insensitive and off base. The truth is, we never "get over it", but instead we learn to live with it. I can assure you that it won't always seem as bad as it does right now, but it does take a long time and a lot of work to learn how to live without them...it doesn't seem to come naturally at all. It takes time to learn to smile again, and then to learn not to feel guilty for doing so. I don't think I've encountered anything in life that was as much work as grief has been! But you don't have to go through it alone, that is why we are all here, we help each other along the way. I've been here for nearly six years, and I possibly may be here the rest of my life. There have been times I've been here to be here for others, and times I've been here because of my own need for it, but either way, I am very thankful for this site.

You've had a very hard life...you've been dealt some hard blows. Sometimes we wonder why us, why did we get dealt this hand in life while others had it better? Well I can assure you it's not based on merit, it's rather randomly dealt it seems, but I've learned that it's not our circumstances so much as how we respond in the face of them. We often have no control over what comes our way, but we do have control over our response. There's times I want to lay down and die. There's times I feel like getting on the bus with my dog (if only they were allowed) and just keep on going...to anywhere. There's times I want to hole up in my house wrapped in a quilt and not come out, ever. But I have to. I have to work, and now that I'm laid off, I have to look for work. I have to come up with a plan to support myself or be prepared to lose the home I've lived in for 34 years. So I can't afford myself the luxury of holing up or getting on a bus and keep going, nor can I lay down and die. I have a dog to take care of so I have to keep going.

One thing I've learned is our circumstances will not stay the same. That's why it's such a shame people kill themselves, because they take away the opportunity to see those changes come to pass. Life has cycles...good ones, bad ones. Right now my life has been in a bad cycle for about six years now. But I firmly believe it will not last, the pendulum swings. That's one of the benefits of being my age, I've lived long enough to see it happen, again and again. And knowing that gives hope.

Right now you can't see light. You don't see up, you don't see anything ever getting better. You're in a very dark place, but just know that for you the light DOES exist, it IS there, it's just that you can't see it right now. That's called having faith. Faith is a lot like our muscles...we have to exercise it or it diminishes. So hang on to just a tiny thread of hope, believe with faith the size of a grain of mustard seed...that is not much, and know that in so doing, your faith will continue to grow and flourish. Believe there is a better tomorrow...it exists, you just haven't met it yet.

We're here for you...

Kay

[sunstreet]

Dear Sad,

I am so grateful that you are continuing to reach out...to talk...to share and I know and acknowledge the courage that takes and you are doing it! I am just so sorry for all that you have had to endure and witness.

I want to encourage you to pour as much of your pain as you feel safe to do so here. One thing I can assure you is that this is a safe place.

You are not alone....just feel the fear and do it anyhow...and you'll see the fear lessens.

I hear you; I see you and you matter.....keep talking as much and as often as you need.

Blessings and Courage, Carol Ann

[sad]

Thank you so much Carol Ann and KayC. I really need all you guys right now. sad

[Dwaynecg]

Sad

I go to church once or twice a week. I have been from after the second week after Pauline passed. I cry every time I go sometimes I do not always get anything positive from the service, but most of the time I do. Please just keep trying because we all know God works in many ways.

God Bless

Dwayne

[sad]

OK Dwayne. I will try. I want to get better. I just don't believe it will happen. Right now I feel so bad. sad

[Dwaynecg]

THANK YOU SAD, that is all we want is for you to get out of this down slide you are in and see that there is hope for all of us.

Dwayne

[mfh]

We all care about you and I am grateful that you are pouring your heart out...we all need to do that and frankly when you do it, it helps others feel freer to do it also. We wrap ourselves around you in your pain. Thank you for sharing. mfh

[kayc]

Another school of thought is that things just happen...not that it's fate or anything, but the Bible says it rains on the just and the unjust...stuff happens. Is there a reason some are blessed with a silver spoon in their mouth while others of us know heartache and struggle? I think not. I DO, however, think that we can learn from most anything and that the hard places can develop and thus enrich us...if we but let them.

Yeah, God singled Job out to let the devil torment (with restrictions...he couldn't take his life) because He believed in Job and thought Job could stand the test...but I doubt He thinks that of all of us.

[sad]

I know I can't stand the test. I am at my limit. I think I cried all day. I tried to go to bed, but can't sleep, so here I am again. Kay thanks for posting me again and I hope you find another job soon. Wow, everyone has their woes don't they? I ask God why over and over. I try to understand why things happen the way they do. I have a friend that has 2 sisters and a brother and they talk everyday. How lucky of her. I have a brother, but he is too busy in his life to even think about me. I haven't seen him in about 21 years and he only lives about 20 miles away. No more wine for me tonight. Had way too much already. sad

[Perkins808]

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you,

Till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer,

Never give up then,

For that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."

Sad, I thought of you when I read this.....actually it could apply to any of us here who have lost someone that means the world to them and is so overwhelmed by their grief.

This grief journey is NOT an easy thing.....no one here will ever tell you that it is. It is the hardest thing you will ever go through. BUT, it is something you will get through. Slowly. At such a slow pace you will not see it happening, until months go by and you look back and realize - wow, look how far I have come.

I lost my husband Jeff 10 months ago. He was my world. My best friend, the love of my life, the one person on this earth who understood me without me ever having to explain myself. We spent every second of every day together....and when he died my world was turned upside down. I look back at where I was 10 months ago and I am amazed at the progress I have made. And if you had told me then that I would be where I am now? I would never have believed you.

Everyone deals with things in their own way, and I would ever tell anyone how to deal with their grief. But my advice to you? Hang on......hang on to all of your wonderful memories of Margaret, hang on to the fact that all of your animals NEED you to be around to take care of them....but most important - hang onto the hope that life WILL get better for you. I truly believe that this is true for all of us.

Hugs,

Tammy

[sad]

Thanks mfh and Tammy for your posts. Today is really bad for me and I appreciate you guys thinking about me. sad

[mfh]

Dear Sad,

You are welcome. I am also having a tough day. Sticking together with those who understand....helps a little bit. We are all here for you.

mfh

[HAP]

Dear Sad,

The Christian promise is that we will never be tested beyond our strength. While I am not a Christian in any traditional sense, the idea that we will not be tested beyond our strength is one I strongly agree with because I have felt as you feel now and survived it. Arthur C. Clark once said that we never know how great our strength is until we have gone beyond what we believed we could do into the realm of what we thought was impossible--and survived what we believed was impossible.

I have been places and survived things I will not speak of even in this group--not because i do not trust you folks but because I cannot bring myself to relive them except in truly desperate circumstances. But those things helped to build the strength my wife relied on throughout her illness and death--and that i rely on to carry me through each day of her absence. I know that life after I retire will be far more difficult than because the community that is the school i work at will no longer be within immediate reach whenever i need it. But I know i will survive that because I have Kay's faith of the mustard seed that what I need--if not what i want--will be there when I need it.

When my wife went into her first coma after the operation I sat by her bedside talking to her all morning and afternoon. The nurses finally told me i had to leave to go get something to eat. I was filled with self-doubt. I had had to decide that morning whether to let her go or let the doctors try to keep her going. They had said to me that they believed this was a setback, but not a fatal one--and that Jane still had a fighting chance to make a full recovery. So i had let them intubate her, knowing she might be angry with me when--and if--she woke up.

I went down to the cafeteria to get something to eat. i have no idea what I ate that night. It took me maybe 20 minutes. They had told me to stay away for an hour. I got up from the table and took a walk. Three people had told me over the last two days that I should take a walk down this long corridor they called the Pike. Three is a significant number for me, so i walked it. Near the end there was a small man sitting behind a desk in security guard uniform. I muttered a hello to him as i passed--as a Canadian once said, it only takes a moment to be courteous, and i always try to treat people as nicely as i can--especially the people everyone else ignores.

I walked down the last 50 feet to the end of the corridor, turned around and started back--feeling somewhat disappointed because i had expected more from this walk than i had seen so far. As I turned i remembered being in this very hospital when I was in my 20s. I had been in critical condition when i arrived--and stayed critical for the first three days i was there my friends told me later. I was experiencing a spontaneous pneumothorax of my right lung--I was bleeding air into the pleural lining between my lung and my rib-cage. The ICU then was just below where i was standing as I reentered the vestibule where the guard was. I paused there to think about the irony.

"God saved you then for a reason," the security guard said to me. "And he will awaken your wife for a reason, too. But you may have to decide about the quality of life she will face eventually."

I turned to him more than a little amazed. Who was he to know what my wife and i were going through? He told me he was a minister in a local church and that he had come here from Africa some years ago. That he was trying to get his wife and family out of Liberia. And that he had just been prompted by something inside his head to say what he had said. He said he would ask his congregation, which met every morning, to pray for my wife. We talked for a while and then I left.

I went back to my wife's room after that, strangely comforted by these events. Eighteen hours later, my wife woke up. It was the day before Thanksgiving. Her anger lasted just long enough for me to explain to her that they had said this was temporary--and that she still had a fighting chance and that i was not going to let her go under those circumstances. Then she smiled--and insisted they take the tube out--despite the fact they all felt they should wait until after Thanksgiving. And i told her about my little man down stairs and what he had said to me.

They threw mw out again that night when she developed some breathing problems. They gave me a place to sleep in an empty room and told me they would come get me if they needed me.

When i awoke the next morning i called over to the desk to see if it was ok for me to go see her--they had told me that i should do that or they would just have to throw me out again. They had said it with a smile, knowing that I had already been through two crises in the last week with her. But as they said, three all nighters in less than a week was not something they were going to let me do--that they needed me to be rested enough to make good decisions if they needed me to.

When i walked through the door and she saw me, her face lit up. "I love you hubby," were her first words. Then I threw myself at her and gave her the best hug I could through the wires and tubes. We called her father and sister, who more than half expected me to tell them she had died in the night, and arranged for them to get transportation for the 60 mile trip to Boston with two friends of ours.

For dinner I had pumpkin soup while she had mushroom soup--but it was the best Thanksgiving i have ever had--and she said the same. She sat up on her own for the first time and joked with her doctors and her nurses.

And on Saturday morning she crashed again out of nowhere. This time they tried something new and the coma only lasted eight hours. She lived another two weeks after that--and seemed to get better every day. Then one Wednesday night she could not fall asleep. The next day she was tired and after sitting up a couple of hours she wanted to go back to bed and take a nap. About two hours later her blood pressure crashed and an hour later she woke up just long enough to hear her oncologist tell the two of us there was nothing more they could do but make her comfortable.

Thirty-two hours later she was gone. She died in my arms.

She could have died the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She could have died the Saturday after Thanksgiving. But in those two weeks she moved people in ways that changed their lives. And she moved them enough to get them thinking about creating a national center for research and treatment of this allegedly rare form of cancer that we have since discovered is nowhere near as rare as people think it is.

When I think about what she went through--when I doubt, as I sometimes do, that I made the right decisions when she was unconscious and could not decide for herself whether to let her continue to live or let her go--I think about what happened in those three weeks between Thanksgiving and the day her body died. And I know that all of this had purpose. As my friend the security guard said to me several times in those weeks, God is trying to get your attention--he is telling you there is work for you to do--and that all of this has meaning and purpose--even if you never understand it all.

I know that there are several nurses whose marriages were changed by watching us fight those last battles--even when we knew we were losing them. I know there were other nurses who rededicated themselves to their profession because of the way Jane kept her humor and her pride and her inner strength and beauty while she fought that thing tooth and nail. One of them said when i thanked him after she died: "There are no thanks necessary. Working with your wife was one of the great honors of my life."

I know she changed our students lives and the lives of our faculty. I know she changed my life with every day of her life. And her sister says i changed jane's life from the first day we met until the day she died--that there was a glow about her whenever she talked about me.

Our lives have meant something. Her death has meant something. And my life--however long it continues--will mean something more because of the time i got to spend with her.

Just so do all our lives mean something. We may not see what it is. There are times our grief hides it from us--just as there were times in our lives before that our joy hid that purpose and that meaning from us when our soul mates were still with us.

Because, ultimately, I have to disagree with Kay: we are all Job. We are all of us tested to the limits of our strength--because god has faith in us to withstand whatever is thrown at us--and that out of our suffering and pain will grow something of great beauty and great strength. For me, part of that edifice will be the beginning of the death of this disease. Its actions have made for it an implacable foe. But that will only be a part of what will grow from this pain. What else that will be, I cannot say. I perceive something more but I cannot yet see even the vague outlines, to be honest. I just know that there is more to come of this than a headstone on a windswept hill.

Sad, I am glad that you have put the bottle down. I am glad that you feel you have already had too much to drink. I cannot promise you that things will be easy. I cannot even promise you that you will ever see the purpose to what you are going through. But have faith that there is purpose in this universe: that everything has its reason for happening even when we cannot see it. To quote Einstein: God does not play dice with the universe. Who knows what lives the two of you influenced for good while she was with you. Who knows what good will grow out of the darkness you feel now. Be patient. to quote Milton: They do also serve who only stand and wait.

Again, i have taken more words than i intended to say what I have said. Jane always said I was incapable of cutting to the chase and that I over said everything. But i don't seem to know any other way.

Peace,

Harry

[sad]

Thank you Harry for sharing your very intimate moments with me and others. You have the gift of the pen. I hope there is a purpose for all of us, a reason to live on. Right now every day is the same. Empty. I know it takes time. A lot of time. Thanks again for your post. sad