enna Posted December 8, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2015 This I am trying to live by: Remember.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartyT Posted December 8, 2015 Report Share Posted December 8, 2015 Perfect. ♥ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted December 9, 2015 Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 I don't know where you find these quotes, Anne, but they're perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wifflesnook Posted December 9, 2015 Report Share Posted December 9, 2015 Yes Anne. A good quote or poem is like a perfect piece of music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted December 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2015 That's me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartyT Posted December 11, 2015 Report Share Posted December 11, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted December 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2015 (edited) Each moment is sacred ~ breathe in. . . Edited June 24, 2017 by enna Some photos are not working! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted December 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2015 Remembering Past Wedding Anniversaries It was always a special day for us. Cards exchanged, a quiet breakfast (well, almost quiet after our precious daughter was born), a work day was a work day, in the evening it was a dinner at one of our favorite restaurants with a toast to yet another year, renewal of vows on our twenty-fifth and a surprise from my love (a ring band with five diamonds ~ one for each five years). Even though we were both working we never seemed to have enough money for any travel so we took short trips and enjoyed our beautiful campgrounds in parts of the country. We always promised ourselves that “when we retire” we would take a cruise or travel to parts of the world we’ve only dreamed about. It never happened. There was a trip that we ended up taking that could never have been imagined! We found ourselves on a roller coaster ride that made no sense. My Jim had a magnificent mind. In my eyes he was brilliant. He was funny. His temperament was as smooth as a shaved ice rink ~ never changing. His decline began slowly. Physically he looked the same. People who knew him casually never noticed, but I did. We laughed about his forgetting where he put something only to find it after a while. His sense of direction was amazing. He knew where to go even if he had never been there before. Names to him always remained on his lips even if he did not know someone well. I think he was a genius with numbers. Slowly, those things began to become difficult for him. Names were forgotten, how to get to a place when driving was no longer easy, keeping score at a softball game became confusing, following conversations or recognizing familiar faces faded. But this isn’t about our journey through Alzheimer’s disease, it is about anniversaries ~ our anniversaries. All the things we did as a couple for forty years came to a halt on May 25, 2012. He was gone and I am left to live with only our memories~ mostly good ones. This was not what we had talked about doing when retired, but it is our journey. One thing we learn on this journey is we each have to travel it and as we do, always remembering ~ we don’t have to travel alone. The sad times still catch me off guard but today I am able to focus more on the good and not so good memories we had together. There are times I still want to hide under the covers. There are times I find myself wanting to talk with him about something that happened in my day. I talk but not the way it used to be. There are times I cry without warning. The holidays are hard for he is not here to share those things we used to do. This is my life today and who knows one day I just might take one of those trips we talked about. We would have been married forty-three years on the 17th. It would not have been long enough. I still make his banana-nut bread and I always buy ice cream when I make his favorite pie ~ apple. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wifflesnook Posted December 12, 2015 Report Share Posted December 12, 2015 Dear Anne, it never would have been long enough, would it? When we find our soul mate we want to be with them always and to have them ripped away either fast or slowly, is against everything natural. For you it was slowly, for me ( 6 months) but either way we have to live on in a harsh world without them near us. I wish I had known your Jim. Not so likely as the fact that we have got to know each other is only as a result of the death of Jim and my Pete. But he sounds so alive, so vibrant, such a wonderful person. Our lives now are a shadow of what they were as part of a couple. We know. Those of us who have to carry on after such a loss understand each other's pain even though every loss is different. I hope you can remember the good times and celebrate them. A wedding anniversary is a wonderful thing. And do you remember when Jim proposed (if he did?). I was remembering that the other day, because of a poem I read. Pete proposed to me behind a bus station. Such a prosaic place but to me infused with happiness. in 1962!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted December 13, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2015 Thank you, Jan, for your kind words. Yes, I think your Pete and my Jim would have gotten along real jolly. I try to remember that we are who we are because of what's inside of us. Our pain will always be with us, but we are not our pain. The meditation thought below spoke to me today. I share it here because I want to keep Marty's Holiday Tips link under Tools for Healing where everyone can see them. I have found so many of the links so helpful. DAILY MEDITATION Anticipating the Vision December 13 Photo courtesy of V. Dobson The marvelous vision of the peaceable Kingdom, in which all violence has been overcome and all men, women, and children live in loving unity with nature, calls for its realisation in our day-to-day lives. Instead of being an escapist dream, it challenges us to anticipate what it promises. Every time we forgive our neighbor, every time we make a child smile, every time we show compassion to a suffering person, every time we arrange a bouquet of flowers, offer care to tame or wild animals, prevent pollution, create beauty in our homes and gardens, and work for peace and justice among peoples and nations we are making the vision come true. We must remind one another constantly of the vision. Whenever it comes alive in us we will find new energy to live it out, right where we are. Instead of making us escape real life, this beautiful vision gets us involved. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted December 13, 2015 Report Share Posted December 13, 2015 This is my backyard this morning! About 5" and still coming down... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted December 14, 2015 Report Share Posted December 14, 2015 About a foot now, but it's sunk down, super heavy and wet, can't shovel it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted December 16, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 16, 2015 (edited) Edited June 24, 2017 by enna Another photo not working! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted December 16, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 16, 2015 Someday 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted December 18, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2015 Gratitude and Grief can Co-Exist In the beginning, of my grief, I would never have been able to believe this but now I do. With the death of my beloved Jim in May of 2012, I thought my life had ended. It did not. Grief and gratitude can co-exist. My losses before had been heartbreaking ~ each in their own way and none compared. When Jim died my world fell apart. This was a shattering loss. A pain I could not accept yet alone explain. A broken heart is not only physical. It is soul crushing. We do change, but the change does not have to be negative. I think I am more compassionate to others. I think I am more tuned into the pain of others. Instead of waiting for someone to call me and ask me how I’m doing I call someone I know who may be hurting. I have worked on my grief and I know this helped me think of being grateful now. I will always miss my Jim and at the same time, I will forever be grateful for having spent those forty plus years with him. My focus today remains one of gratefulness for what I had. “When we access our healthy functioning, emotional pain has a different feeling to it ~ it is still painful. But it includes genuine gratitude for having known the person we have lost. ~ Richard Carlson in his book: You Can Be Happy No Matter What 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted December 23, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2015 (edited) This is perfect for me today because this is where I am this year. Our journey takes as long as it takes. Mine is definitely moving forward. It does my soul good to take in the moments. I am grateful to those who have traveled this journey with me. Edited June 24, 2017 by enna Photo not showing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hollowheart Posted December 23, 2015 Report Share Posted December 23, 2015 On 12/18/2015 at 1:56 PM, enna said: I think I am more compassionate to others. I think I am more tuned into the pain of others. The strange thing for me is I was like this BEFORE all this happened. I was always sensitive to others pain and suffering. But my loss has sorta turned me into the opposite. Sometimes I will think 'Forget these people, I got my own problems." I definitely know I'm angrier now. The one thing I can say is I am more tuned into certain losses, especially sibling loss as I feel like that loss is minimized and sorta dismissed over other kinds of losses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted December 24, 2015 Report Share Posted December 24, 2015 hollowheart, You are new into this and it's understandable...in early grief we can feel angry, be self-absorbed, it's just natural because it's shook up our world. It's good to not get stuck there, however, as we progress through our grief journey and it's then we can ask ourselves the probing questions, What am I learning through this experience? How can I let this make me a better person for having gone through this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted December 29, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 I share this here because I believe that as a caregiver you can suffer your own health issues and I believe you can turn it around and become healthy again. Mine has been a struggle but I am on the right track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 You are an inspiration! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartyT Posted December 29, 2015 Report Share Posted December 29, 2015 Best news ever, dear Anne! Hip, hip hooray! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wifflesnook Posted December 31, 2015 Report Share Posted December 31, 2015 Dear Anne you inspire everyone. Your determination amazes me. Thank you for being here. It's the eve of a New Year and we have to walk into it with courage. As you are doing. I know we all feel such sadness especially when we have to walk alone. But I'm grateful for people like you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enna Posted January 1, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2016 I am watching the Rose Bowl Parade and wishing that I was there to see all those beautiful roses ~ someday I will go. The video below is a favorite of mine and I want to share it with you today. Our journey of grief will never be over but it does become more manageable with work. It won't happen tomorrow or the next day. It will happen when it happens. My wish for each one of us this New Year is Peace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtajxo8d7js 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartyT Posted January 1, 2016 Report Share Posted January 1, 2016 Horses, swans, humpback whales and the promise of Spring ~ These are a few of my favorite things! Blessings to you, dear Anne, and thank you for this lovely New Year greeting. You always find the most perfect treasures! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Froggie4635 Posted January 13, 2016 Report Share Posted January 13, 2016 I guess I am trying to expand into other areas of the site, as I progress in my journey. I am not sure if I still fall into the new grief category of postings. Reading the posts of newer grievers brings back the pain I am trying to avoid I guess. I found myself on grief posting email overload. I do find myself concerned that perhaps I am working so hard to not grieve during the day at work, that I continue the same process at home and just escape in the evenings. December was a very tough month...birthday, death anniversary and then all the holidays, which hurt more this year because I am coming out of the fog and it was more real this year. Now, I have to begin to face Valentine's Day (our anniversary) this year without the numbness. My therapist ended up cancelling my appointment (due to illness) when I thought I needed her most...I made it through, so haven't gone back. I am also nervous that what my old supervisor said on Christmas Eve reinforced that awful voice I had in my mind that was telling me it was time to be over this....my self-esteem has suffered I think in the sudden loss of my partner and soul-mate. And so the people who I always allowed to intimidate me, are reinforcing the "bad" thoughts I have about feeling sorry for myself and wallowing. Geez...why does this have to be so tough. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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