Changes I'm Making

[enna]

Some days are like this. When a grief attack happens now I choose to sit with it until it passes. It always passes. This seems to be my life right now.

Grieving Pain Of Misery

I'm ashamed,
I'm broken,
I'm sad,
I'm grieving,
I'm grieving pain of misery.

I have sorrow,
I have pain,
I have a hole in my chest,
I have grieving pain of misery.

~Cassie Lowe

[Wifflesnook]

Yes, my default position as it were is low level grief and sadness but then a wave of sadness and loneliness comes over me, usually from nowhere. I'm going to my friend's husband's funeral this morning. They have been married many years and he has had cancer for about 8 but managed to get through with some horrible treatments. She has a lot of family around but I think she will turn to me to some extent. I hope I can be there for her.

[feralfae]

Der Jan,

Your compassion and caring are beautiful. I know you will be a comfort to your friend, and through that caring, I think you will find your own heart healing a bit as well.

I will be thinking of you today, dear friend.

namaste,

fae

[kayc]

Jan,

I'm sorry your friend lost her husband, but glad you can be there for her. I know how hard it is because it dredges up so many feelings for us to deal with. Been there! My heart is with you.

[enna]

My thoughts and prayers are with you, Jan, as you help your friend. I have no doubt you will give her comfort as you have given others comfort on this journey.

[Wifflesnook]

I took one look at her face as she walked behind the coffin and couldn't stop my tears. I almost made an exhibition of myself. This is me, who finds tears hard to come by. And leaving the church I was just as bad. I'm wondering how much help I'm going to be? I'm suspecting her grief has released my own. It's taken me by surprise to be honest.

She has her family around her right now so she won't need me yet. And I've got my daughter arriving Thursday and she is leaving my eldest granddaughter with me for several days from Saturday for a week. So it's going to be difficult for me to be there for Diane. And it would have been my Pete's 80th birthday on 8th August. One more hurdle. Oh you all know ....

[MartyT]

My dear Jan, I hope you will let yourself off the hook a bit, recognize that you too are in mourning, and know that it's okay to offer your friend only as much or as little support as you feel capable of offering. When supporting another in grief, it's important to know whose grief we are dealing with (theirs, or our own) ~ and it's important that you allow yourself as much time as you need to feel strong enough that you can be there in a caring, supportive way for someone else. As you say, this friend is surrounded by family right now, and you know as well as anyone that it is when all these folks go back to their own daily lives that your friend will become acutely aware of being alone. Perhaps that is when your presence will be most needed and appreciated by her. Also, it's not surprising that your own emotions were so close to the surface as you attended this funeral. I cannot think of a more powerful grief trigger than that!

I would suggest that when it feels right for you, you "test the waters" so to speak, by letting some time go by before you visit your friend, and then seeing how a brief visit goes for both of you. I suspect that it won't be as difficult for you as this funeral must have been ~ and I've a feeling that you'll know exactly how to "be there" for her. I think that your presence alone will speak volumes, as you're both bound by the common experience of significant loss.

[Wifflesnook]

Thanks Marty. Wise words as usual. I was expecting to be able to be strong but sympathetic because I know how it is, but my own grief just ambushed me. Made me feel guilty to be crying for myself at someone else's funeral, but you aren't surprised by that, with your experience. I will take care as I do not want to let her down. Or harm myself.

[kayc]

♥

[enna]

Reaching out and asking for prayers. I am scheduled for a consult with a surgeon on Tuesday. I have reached that point where surgery is my next step.

[MartyT]

Oh my dear Anne, I am so sorry to learn this news Of course you are in our prayers, and will continue to be. ♥

[LadyCarrie]

Dear Anne,

Jerry, Amberly, and I will all be praying for you. We know more specifically what to pray about now. You have become so special to us.

Carrie

[feralfae]

Dearest Anne,

I am holding you in prayer and in my heart, dear friend.

fae

[kayc]

Oh dear Anne, you have my prayers, even now as you anticipate Tuesday and what's to come. I love you!

[Wifflesnook]

Dearest Anne

I'm thinking of you and holding you in my heart.

Jan

[enna]

She thought that she had never before had a chance to realize the might, grimness and tenderness of G*d. She thought that now for the first time she began to know herself, and she gained extraordinary hope in this beginning of knowledge.

    ~ James Agee

  “If we ever wondered about the limits of our strength and our ability to endure, our experience of loss will tell us much. Our life is shaken to the foundation. But we survive. And out of this terrible, rarefied self-knowledge comes, if we are fortunate, a kind of empathy with all of creation ~ a sense of wonder at the suffering and the beauty, of the world. We know ourselves to be in this world, to be part of it and also that it is out of our hands. We cannot manage any of it, but we are in the hands of O*e who can.”

    ~Martha Whitmore Hickman’s Healing After Loss

 

In this purifying and terrible wisdom, may I feel the regenerating presence of G*d, for consolation and for hope. 

[LadyCarrie]

Dear Anne,

Just a note to tell you we are thinking of you today. ❤️

Carrie

[feralfae]

Dearest Anne,

Thinking of you, holding you close in my heart, and sending lots of *<fairy dust>* to cheer your day and to bring you a twinkling bouquet of hope.  

*<twinkles>*

fae

[kayc]

You have been on my heart today, dear Anne, even before seeing this.  My prayers, and yes, fairy dust, being sent your way!

[KATPILOT]

My best best hopes and prayers go with you too Anne.

[Wifflesnook]

Your friends on the forum are all with you. I hope it helps just a bit dearest Anne. Jan

[LadyCarrie]

Dear Anne,

We are thinking of you, and are praying for you this morning.  Jan is right in saying that your friends on the forum are with you.  You are so loved and appreciated.

Carrie

[enna]

I guess nothing should surprise me during our monsoon season, but usually it skips right over my area. Not today! Thunder, lightening, heavy rain, dark clouds, and fifty to sixty-mile hour winds are right out my door. Sky Harbor airport is in delay and the palm trees are dancing to the whistling of the winds. I am thankful for the rain for we really need it. I like a light rain and could sit on my patio and watch it all day.

I am safely at home having had an early doctor appointment. I met the surgeon and had some tests and have to go back next Tuesday for a decision on what surgery I’m facing!

There are times when I just want to get in my car and go and go and go. Perhaps this is a sign that it is time for me to take a break and go wherever the car takes me. I have not been up northwest to Washington and I’d love to spend some time in Idaho or Wyoming ~ something about the wide-open spaces calling me. Maybe I’ll buy some land and open a ranch for displaced horses.

Back to reality ~ It is clearing up here but there are still weather warnings out. 

 

[KATPILOT]

Yes any rain is good. I just hope it doesn't block the view of the meteor shower over the next couple of nights. First time we haven't had  a moon to hamper the view in a long time. 

Edited August 12, 2015 by KATPILOT

[LadyCarrie]

Dear Anne,

I'm sorry you had to go out in stormy weather.  I envy you that rain though.  I'm happy to know you are back home safely.    

I enjoyed your descriptive writing, and your mentioning Sky Harbor Airport brought a rush of happy memories for me.  Jerry and I used to fly in and out of there while we were still flying.  Jerry still has his license, but of course, he can never fly again.  I wish I hadn't had that thought!  Jerry would tell me to "think happy thoughts," and so I will.

I would suggest that when you want to get in your car and go and go and go that you come visit us, but with all the dead and dying trees that surround us and threaten to fall on us, I don't think you would be very happy to join us until they are either cut or fall.  

A tree fell, and took down a neighbor's deck and stairs a few days ago, and another neighbor emailed me this morning to say that she and her husband are afraid, and asked me to "flood CalFire" asking for help for our neighborhood.  CalFire will act in their own timing, but I can help her yell for help.

When you take your trip to Washington, you could come by and get me.  We could stop by OR to get Kay, and then we could pop over and visit Fae (Just kidding, Fae. ?; we "probably" wouldn't do a thing like that to you.).  Maybe we could buy a place for our Forum Friends to come to rest when they want to get in their car and go and go and go.  I really think that's a pretty good idea.  Perhaps I'll open up our house for this someday.  

I wouldn't be of much help with your horses, for I've never ridden.  I thought I had ridden a horse once when I was a little girl.  My daddy led the horse around the coral with me on its back.  A few decades back, my brother informed me that I still haven't ridden a horse.  I rode a huge mule named Dinah ~ he knew for it was his mule.  Somehow riding a mule just doesn't have the same romantic ring to it.

Like you guys, we love the gentle rain, and even find the blizzards exciting unless they get too scary.  We are thinking that we won't be able to winter in our home unless these trees are cut.  They are scarier than the scariest blizzards we've had in the thirty plus years we've lived in this house.   We really don't want to leave our home.

We will continue to pray for you.  I will go tell Jerry your news.  He will want to know.

Hugs,

Carrie