Talking Heals

[mfh]

Dear Harry, you make perfect sense to me and I so agree with your statements about how we come from love and compassion as well as the practical and logical. I look forward to what you write. I get thoughts of all kinds also and sometimes I do not think them through enough before I post some. Other times I do.

As for women's shoes...as you know the high heels that are torture machines lengthen the women's leg making her legs look more sexy....I am told. Hence, this is another instance of women torturing themselves in order to be attractive to men. Finally we are wising up and choosing comfortable shoes.

Thanks for your post. I do remember as my surgeon was working on my eye, I was picturing all of you around me..I do not know if I was talking...but this time i will ask what i might have said. I had quite a gang around that table....it helped me a lot to know people understand how difficult these things are to go through alone. I called a friend who lives around the corner today. Her dad lived with her and died about 2 months ago. This week she had to put her sweet Parker, dog, down. She just returned my call and we talked about loss, grief, and more. Such a gift are friends.

Have a good evening and Saturday. I wonder how many wakes and/or funerals you have been to in the past three years. A LOT!!

I am so sorry.

Mary

[mfh]

Actually, I came here to post this for Anne and all the rest of the chocoholics ... its about chocolate. fae

http://play.simpletruths.com/movie/the-empty-pickle-jar/store/

Yes, always room for chocolate. I fell asleep this afternoon (in the chair) with the TV on. I had been watching a cooking show...??? something I never do but I wanted to sleep and knew that would do it. When I awoke, there was a show on about chocolate...amazing chocolate. It is truly an addiction that I love but I have to be disciplined and yesterday in my tears I was far from disciplined so into the freezer the remainder of it went. It is still there.

[mfh]

Kay, I never got to the shoe store...too tired. No sleep last night. Monday or Sunday maybe. I just talked to my friend who lost her dog this week and asked her if she wanted to go to the 4PeteSake fundraiser Sunday. She is working to 5pm so we will go over for an hour. We were talking about life alone (she is divorced) and how hard it was to make the decision to release her dog to Rainbow Bridge. That led to all the decisions we must make alone etc. It was a lovely conversation.

What a great idea to buy a lifetime of shoes that work. If they ever stop making SAS I am sunk. But I do not have the foot problems you have. I think what you did was brilliant.

Mary

[mfh]

fae, I do feel Bill's presence in a way beyond words all the time. He is part of who I am....I can not and never have been able to separate us...one soul, two bodies. I hear his words when I get stuck.

You said: "When I focus on Doug's mind/spirit, and need an answer to something, it usually comes pretty fast, anywhen from five minutes to a day or two. I imagine that you, Anne, and you, Mary, and many others here have found that when we ask for help with some issue, don't you find indications of the direction, a few words from someone, a phrase in a book, a posting on the internet, or even an advertisement may give you the key? I have given up not anticipating miracles. It is the other side of PTS: it is Pre Healing Serenity, maybe, PHS."

Yes, fae, when I ask for help or for anything...I get it usually. Of course I wish I could say that about signs from Bill. I get them but usually not when I expect them. A single sentence can turn my day around. I have found on this journey that I am hypersensitive...and that has its good and bad pieces. I see into things and like I said, a sentence can turn my day around as I am so sensitive to it. It can turn it around to the peace and calm or to frustration and pain, however. I have always been super sensitive as was Bill but since he died, I am off the charts...borders on what it must feel like to be paranoid sometimes....until I grab hold again. I think when I get my confidence back (someday) that will temper itself again but this whole journey almost 9 years old now has shaken all of me to the core. I know someday I will look back on it and see how nuts I got but right now I am in it and yes, I see it all but I am not smiling at it yet.

Peaceful night

Mary

PS it is chilly here tonight and was a lovely dry day today...yesterday and hopefully tomorrow. in the 70s...my kind of weather. You guys can keep your 99s and 111s. Yikes!!!

[feralfae]

Dear Mary

I think we are all hypersensitive. Grief is an open wound, an amputation, a severing in half. We all tend to curl up into ourselves at the slightest hint of anything that might be hurtful. I don't think we can help it at this point on our journey. I think it gets better as we go along. We can all reserve the right to be prickly occasionally, knowing that grief manifests as anger and crabbiness as well as tears. So much of all our other emotions are enlarged, made acute, by the grief, I think.

I think we all have some PTS characteristics: what greater trauma than losing our Beloved? I think compared to this, my death will be a nice stroll, actually. (I am glad I am still here, and intend to have a few more games, and live at least another 40 years or so.)

This has been so hard, these last few years, and I know that while I have more good moments, I also have enough melt-downs to not be ready to take on life in any huge and challenging way again quite yet. The new Games can wait, while I settle in here and be a hobbit potter for a while, and maybe do some other art as well. I need time to center. I can tell.

I think we are all finding new balance, a new center, one that is a single point now, not the physical fixed compass of Donne. Each time one of us must undergo some further insult to our being-ness, whether a wake, a funeral, a medical procedure, a surgery, a change in our lives that feels like another loss or threat of loss, I think we tend to want to curl up and protect ourselves. Of course. It is natural.

All that you are feeling is natural for where you are, what you are experiencing, and how your overall life is going. I cannot stress enough, that after this next eye surgery, and the wedding, we are all going to be holding you down so you can enjoy and celebrate the beauty of Autumn in Wisconsin's rainbow glory. What a heavenly place to be for the changing of the seasons. We will not call it resting, but loafing about the old homestead. You know you need a couple of uneventful months, truly. Lazy days.

This learning self-compassion, self-caring, and self-focus again after years and years of, I hate to admit, letting myself go and letting a lot of things go, is a serious undertaking. Because of course a part of the process for me has been making peace with the fact and truth of the absence of Doug, his physical body, his personality, his emotional range, his walls and windows, all that he was. And also, how much he showed me of my Self, as he stood there, a clear and loving mirror of my Soul. And I could mirror back.

Now, I have friends, family, Tribes, and healers, and each lovingly mirrors back the bits they can see. But the image I once saw reflected in the eyes of my Beloved Doug, the image of me he saw through his love, is not there, and I am sorting out the fractured reflections, trying to make sense of a while kaleidoscope of images, trying to figure out who I am out there, while also healing Who I Am in here.

I know that dumping the load of their actions back on the rascals has been a huge healing in my life. I am blessed that they provided the opportunity for a public pronouncement. Also, my feet are waking up, and I am going after this as aggressively as I can, which, since most can be done while seated, lets me listen to Tara Brach. And I can put on my headphones and listen to her and other healing discussions while I am riding my staybike.

Who I Am in Here seems to be the biggest of the challenges, for that mirror is subtly changed, although I still recognize bits of me from before Doug got sick. I could not have made these past months it without his spiritual presence, his wisdom, his planning beforehand, and his remarkable, grand, protective, and continuing love. I know you feel the same about Bill. We are so blessed.

There, I am sorry for nattering, but hope I distracted you a bit off into metaphysics. After I wrote about the fractured mirror, I recalled the scene in the film "Joshua" when he repairs a broken crystal bowl. Quite lovely. Good film.

Peace, rest, serenity, faith, and love all surround you this night, and bring you only good dreams, dear Mary,

*<twinkles>*

fae

[enna]

Thank you, fae, for the movie. It in one of my most favorite ones. A special person sent it to me quite awhile ago and I keep it in my movie folder and play it often.

I am still thinking about what you wrote, Harry. I have gone down this path many times.

Mary, are you resting your eyes? Yes, I am watching you. Only for your own good though! The temptation is so great for you to be here and who am I to say you shouldn't. I am only concerned that you take care of yourself so that you heal quickly and get back to us as you were. No one can fault me for that! No one can say that Anne is mean and uncaring! No one can call me a bully! No one can gang up on me and keep me from expressing my feelings! Because, I'm going to do it anyway. Love, Anne

[feralfae]

Now you, Anne, have me laughing!

Hilarious post!

Thank you!
Off to sleep for me.

*<twinkles>*

fae

[mfh]

Your response (post) is loaded with wisdom, fae. We are all susceptible to feeling threatened when we are walking wounded. And yes, it is a huge challenge to learn to take care of oneself all over again after years, for me 8-9 that were focused on Bill's well being and approaching death. New habits evolve during that long a time and it is hard enough for women to have self compassion anyway. Women tend to feel selfish when they do basic self care. How sad.

One thing I have learned for sure (among a million other things) is that healing is a long journey but its length makes total sense to me. How do I heal in one or even two years after knowing and loving Bill more than half my life? After spending most waking and sleeping hours with him; after making joint decisions on anything that matters; sharing well...everything from our bodies, souls, beings, a home, a bed, our income, our pup, and well everything. After each day for so many years has revolved around both of our needs and schedules and after that which can not ever be put into words. It is, fae, a true amputation but it is more than that...because our oneness was so far beyond the physical....

One day closer to getting surgery #2 behind me. Hoping it is also the final surgery but not yet sure. She will have to have a serious reason for wanting to re-do #1....and this is when I really wish Bill was sitting in that exam room with his full mind to help assess her input. I will not invite my brother in (he won't even be there when the tests are done) because he would say simply that it is my call. And even if Bill was there it IS my call but Bill would know how to help....and we would go for coffee (which we did before buying a car, buying a house, etc) to talk it out.

I hear some of the 900 cars gunning their 1940s and 1950s maybe 70s mufflers/engines as they drive past today....think I will walk downtown with Bentley. It is a cool 60 degrees out right now. We are having an early fall...August has felt mostly like September with its cool foggy temps. We live in a valley-the ancient river bed of the Wisconsin River which has receded over a million years from a mile or more to a few hundred feet.

Time to pull a few weeds also, trim back a bush, and water the newly planted trees. Then later to lunch in Madison and see The Butler.

[enna]

I’m sorry about all the deaths that have surrounded you these past months, Harry.

Your idea about logic and reason vs love and compassion makes sense. It’s like our logical minds vs our emotional hearts. The shoes are a starting point. Someone has more than enough shoes and does not need any more says our logical minds and then our emotions kick in and say but I want them, they will look pretty on my feet, I can wear them with so many outfits, they will make my legs look longer. I think emotions will always win over logic and imagination will win over reality. The trick will be to create a balance.

The idea reminds me of a pendulum. It moves freely back and forth until some outside force comes along – this time it happens to be death we did not expect or the enertia. We all know we are going to die (logic) but we never think about it really happening (love).

I think these ideas are packaged all into one – good logic will enhance love. Everything depends upon where we are in our individual grief. We move in and out of one another’s journey – some days needing to offer advice (take care of your self – eat, drink, exercise) and other days needing to accept the love that surrounds us at this fire.

It’s like we say to ourselves that this situation we are in (being alone due to the death of a spouse) will get better and then we wait for it not to. Somewhere in the middle is where we all hope to arrive.

I will look forward to your take on this. You will express it so much better than I

[enna]

Who Am I Now?

This question popped into my head after listening to Enya’s song, If I could be where you are on Marty’s link some time ago - I couldn't find it so I'm adding this one from you tube:

Here I am a little over fourteen months into my Jim’s death and I have no idea who I am. I move into each day with things to do but never do I end a day satisfied that I am any further in answering the question. I read and meditate but come no closer to who I am today. Day after day after day I find myself doing the same thing and getting nowhere. I do things that I think will give me purpose but there is always emptiness. Something is always missing. It is not good to come out of this ‘fog’ that they say we are in when we lose a loved one. I liked the ‘fog’ better. There have been times when I feel that I’m mourning my own death. I am not the same. How do I move from this emptiness to something more meaningful? Is this going to be all there is for me or will there be a reason to move out of this deep hole I find myself in every once in a while. Being where you are in the moment is not an easy task. I struggle with staying out of these holes. I don’t like them. So, I find myself wanting to be where Jim is even though I know it is not my turn. Some days I think it would be easier to just have someone kick me in the behind and tell me to snap out of it. It would be less painful. It has been said that if you allow your pain to be seen by those who understand it makes it easier to continue on this journey. That is what I am doing now. Months ago I could never have done this!

I really am not despairing, I am just allowing my true feelings out and am very glad that I have a place around this fire to do so. I have worked hard while on this journey and have no intention of having it be for naught.

[HAP]

Dear friends,

Someone pointed out to me I seem to have been to a lot of funerals in recent months. So I started trying to add them up--and I couldn't. I know I have been to at least seven since February--and that I have had three within the last month alone. I have wondered lately why I suddenly find myself wandering around the house aimlessly again--and I think this endless round of funerals likely has a great deal to do with it. Each one takes me back to Jane's death--like picking at a scab.

None of the deaths has been easy: Parkinson's, colon cancer, uterine cancer, lung cancer, ALS, NET cancer... I see it in the faces of the newly bereft. I try to offer them the comfort that I can, knowing no words of mine will make them feel any better. I have hugged parents, wives, husbands, children. I have talked with them when they needed it, listened to them when they needed it, given them resources when they needed it, visited with them when they needed it.

Every such act carries with it a price. Every death, every wake, every funeral, every repast takes me back to Jane's afterward. I know it will, but I do it anyway. They have no one else who has travelled in this world--and most are too proud to accept help from a stranger. By the magic of having been their teacher, their child's teacher, their relative--however distant--by marriage I am transformed into the non-stranger who knows the terrain, who will hear their voices and listen to their fears.

This is even more true of those with cancer--and with NET cancer in particular. We are family because we know too well what that death looks like and how little there is the doctors can do to offer more than comfort. We rejoice at news of every quality month purchased from death--of every seeming possible breakthrough. But each of us knows as well that the story will end in death and mourning. We do not lie to each other for all that we stay positive for every second of the struggle.

But I am tired tonight. I am angry with whatever powers there are in this universe that allow a person to be locked inside his own body, fully conscious, with no means of communicating even the most basic desire. I want to pistol whip those entities that create a disease that leaves a woman drowning for three days before consciousness finally slips away. I want to hurl whatever God invented NET cancer into the abyss and let it learn what pain and suffering and a life without hope is like. I want it to feel what it is like to be a widow or widower who comes home to an empty house; I want it to feel what a child feels when its mother dies of breast cancer or its father dies of lung cancer before the child graduates from high school or middle school or elementary school; or how a parent feels when a child dies of neuroblastoma; or a parent feels whose child is born with but half a brain and can do nothing to repair the damage, but only wait for death.

I have seen too much of sickness, too much of death and too much of mourning and I know too well how little I can do to ease any of it. I cannot even heal myself--and still the wounded keep coming. Tonight I want to scream, "Heal yourselves!" But I know I won't. The phone will ring, there will be an email--and I will answer it. I will offer what I know, listen as long as they need me to, do what needs to be done. We talk here, periodically, about our own needs--but who among us would walk away from the newly wounded if there were no one else to offer them solace? No one else they felt comfortable talking to?

But tonight, I am hoping the phone does not ring--that when I do my final e-mail check there will be nothing there that requires more than a quick and light response. I know I will find the resources I need to help someone if they need me, but tonight I'd rather they didn't. And tomorrow I will be out walking all day, which will give me time to focus on me and the healing of myself that I need to do. I won't be writing letters to raise money or worrying about how this or that will be funded. The journey will be a long meditation as I continue to build the body I will need to walk a Marathon and get me home again.

Peace,

Harry

[mfh]

I have no idea who I am. I move into each day with things to do but never do I end a day satisfied that I am any further in answering the question. I read and meditate but come no closer to who I am today. Day after day after day I find myself doing the same thing and getting nowhere. I do things that I think will give me purpose but there is always emptiness. Something is always missing. It is not good to come out of this ‘fog’ that they say we are in when we lose a loved one. I liked the ‘fog’ better. There have been times when I feel that I’m mourning my own death. I am not the same. How do I move from this emptiness to something more meaningful? Is this going to be all there is for me or will there be a reason to move out of this deep hole I find myself in every once in a while. Being where you are in the moment is not an easy task. I struggle with staying out of these holes. I don’t like them. So, I find myself wanting to be where Jim is even though I know it is not my turn. Some days I think it would be easier to just have someone kick me in the behind and tell me to snap out of it. It would be less painful. It has been said that if you allow your pain to be seen by those who understand it makes it easier to continue on this journey. That is what I am doing now. Months ago I could never have done this!

I really am not despairing, I am just allowing my true feelings out and am very glad that I have a place around this fire to do so. I have worked hard while on this journey and have no intention of having it be for naught.

Dear Dear Anne, I do know all those feelings....too well. First, Enya's song left me sobbing. So much of how I feel. I do know the feeling that one is not making headway but you said yourself here that six months ago you could not have shared this pain. I call that making headway and progress and growth. As for the holes, I get in them also, as you know and I just have learned to allow myself to be there and find that when I do that (honor my feelings) I come out of them sooner than if I fight them off. I too want to be where Bill is but it is clear I still have work to do here so my intention is to do it...and right now that means "being where I am". I do not see you despairing. I see you sharing pain and I honor that as you know. I think we are all trying to move away from emptiness but I believe, for me at least, there will always be a place of emptiness within me...one that nothing can fill but one I am learning to accept and live with. Finding meaning, in my humble experience, takes time and energy...I know it will come because i am slowly getting glimpses of it in my own life and I can only imagine that you will also find it...just don't push the river...it knows how to flow. Grab a log that is floating by, sit on it and ride. I know this is all so difficult. I do remember year 2...it was tough for me and now for you and fae but also growth producing. Aren't we all sick of growing and learning sometimes? Thank you for sharing so much....it is your gift to all of us. Love, Mary

[mfh]

Dear Harry, It is far greater than picking at a scab...to me it is more like ripping the scab off and pouring some toxic painful solution on it. I admire your courage with all of what you to do to help others in need. I truly do. I also know as a therapist with 40 years behind me that there are times when one MUST not answer the phone (unless I was on call, of course) or take time off and just give yourself a break. I know it is difficult but seldom are any of those calls for help emergencies...though the caller may not feel that way. You must take care of you or you will be useless to everyone. I hope when you feel the way you feel tonight...that you allow yourself to stay away from the phone just as you will tomorrow when you are out and about. Believe me i had to learn that the hard way as you are but it is real. Please take care of you. It is ok to do that.

As for the God who allows disease...of course I have no answer but I look at how we have all but destroyed our air, water, food, and more and believe that WE are the ones who created so much cancer. I read a piece today that said they find carcinogenic cells of whatever in the cord of newborns...we allow far more than Europe in terms of contaminants because of money and power for corporations and more. End of my angry vent!!

Love

Mary

[kayc]

Anne, after eight years I don't feel that much different from where you're at. Enya really hits...it's hard to listen to, very poignant.

[MartyT]

Harry, my dear, I so agree with Mary. You sound so tired and worn down. Please heed her wise advice and take a break from all the pain and sorrow you've been carrying for others. They can manage for a while without you. Your own pain and sorrow is heavy enough, and clearly you need to rest. ♥

[Wifflesnook]

'One thing I have learned for sure (among a million other things) is that healing is a long journey but its length makes total sense to me. How do I heal in one or even two years after knowing and loving Bill more than half my life? After spending most waking and sleeping hours with him; after making joint decisions on anything that matters; sharing well...everything from our bodies, souls, beings, a home, a bed, our income, our pup, and well everything. After each day for so many years has revolved around both of our needs and schedules and after that which can not ever be put into words. It is, fae, a true amputation but it is more than that...because our oneness was so far beyond the physical....'

The above is a quote from Mary's earlier post which so spoke to me, and then I read the follow-on posts, and I could have quoted from each. This forum is so wonderful in the way we all acknowledge our grief and loss. It's seven am here and I have a visitor. We stayed up late talking and we talked about relationships. His is not like Pete and I had, nothing like. And he knows others of our age whose marriages became rather arid, about routine, about "we'll might as well put up with it".
It's so clear that we who wrote here had blessed blessed relationships, and our struggles to continue life without what gave it meaning help each other even if it is just by acknowledging it. I'm a damaged human being. I operate in what appears to people who see me as normally but inside I feel shattered by loss. The only thing which keeps me sane apart from my grandchildren is this forum, truly. Sometimes I feel all I should do is sit quietly and read and re-read the posts here because they call out to my damaged soul, and in the pain they express they don't increase mine, but they help me to bear it by knowing I'm not alone. I really can't express this as eloquently as it deserves but I imagine you all know what I mean.

[kayc]

Jan,

Yes, I do know what you mean. I still have people telling me how they used to watch George and I, our love was so evident, always wanting to be together, holding hands, our heads together in a shared secret.

When my father died, my mom didn't shed a tear. She came home from his funeral and started throwing everything he owned away. It was a stark contrast to what I felt when George died. My dad still loved my mom, but I'm not sure my mom had the ability to love like other people did. And you're right, some people grow apart and just coexist. Their loss, when it happens, is vastly different than ours.

[HAP]

Dear friends,

The walk, mentally, did me a world of good. Physically, well that is something else again, as I detailed elsewhere.

Mary, I won't argue about the carcinogens we humans have littered this planet with. You know from elsewhere my feelings on this. I try to keep that other world out of what I write here. But I do think there is a special place in hell for the Monsantos' and Exxons' people who push this stuff without thinking about anything other than short term profits. And the rest of us are just as guilty for letting them do that kind of thing.

And Anne, I agree that one of the great difficulties with what we are all going through is trying to figure out who we are when half our soul is unceremoniously ripped out of us. There are, indeed, too many days that I still do not know who I am. Some day I am going to wake up and feel whole again. I have, of course, no evidence to back that up. Part of me is convinced I am just being stupid for even thinking that will ever happen. But there was a me long before there was an us--not that I want to go back to being that person--too much has changed. Still, I am convinced I will find my inner self again. It will likely happen 30 seconds before my own death--but better late than never, I suppose.

And Marty, the world will have to spin on its own for a few days at some point. As I said, the walk did me good today, but I could do with another day or two to focus entirely on my own issues. I know the week after the Walk I intend to vanish for several days before really focussing on my next project for NET cancer. But I may steal one somewhere before that.

I am now putting my brain in neutral for the rest of the afternoon--and likely the evening as well. My body demands some rest--and my mind refuses to argue with it.

Peace,

Harry

[MartyT]

Good to know, my friend. Peace to you as well ♥

[mfh]

Harry, I do agree re the corporate creators.

I am relieved you are taking some time for you. Go in peace, Mary

[enna]

Well, one never knows what you might find surfing the Internet. Here it is. Something that is good for all of us to ponder.

It's going to be Okay.

[feralfae]

Thank you, Anne, I really needed that tonight, and it is a beautiful message.

Fae

[kayc]

Thank you, Anne, I think we all needed that!

[MartyT]

♥

[LarrysGirl]

Needed that!! thank you, Anne