thoughts I would not admit to anyone...

[Harleyquinn]

I'm embarrassed to admit grief has apparently made me a pretty horrible person

I've been following the Lamar Odom story - apparently he is out of the Como and talking...which previous me would have been happy to hear. Instead my first thought is why does he get to survive this and yet Michael is gone....how unfair.

Then I realize in my own head how awful it is to be angry that someone I don't know - who has children of his own - survived 

[R.Everit55]

You're not awful you're human with grief.  It's grief "talking" not your loving heart.  If that makes sense.  I hope it makes sense I'm not making much sense right now.  Hugs. 

Butch

[kayc]

Most people feel that way for quite a while.  Don't beat yourself up, we can't help how we feel.

[MartyT]

Butch and Kay are right, my dear, and I hope you'll take their words to heart. Have you read this post? In Grief: Acknowledging Jealousy and Anger

[Guest]

As I travel around I see people who may be morbidly obese and heavy smokers and I think they deserve what my wife went through far more than she did. It hurts that someone so sweet, kind, compassionate, caring, loving, energetic and so commuted to taking care of herself should die from lung cancer when there are those who are so bent on destroying there lives and relationships and they survive. 

[KATPILOT]

I get that Brad and I suppose I wondered why Kathy who took good care of herself was taken at 51 but I am reminded of another line from the Princess Bride (oh golly I sure seem to be stuck on that film) but it was Peter Faulk who said "Where is it written that life is fair?"   I have come upon so many of us that can never answer that question. It isn't that the good die young. It's that death is the predator and fate is the hunter. A strange thought has crossed my mind after my wife died. That thought was...When the World Trade Center fell, how many were good people and how many were not?  In the end, it really doesn't matter. Good people died.

Harleyquinn, your not a bad person. Your just a newly grieving person who burns easy.

 

[mik]

I agree, you are not a bad person for thinking those kind of thoughts.  When Dragon died I kept thinking why could it not be someone else?  I also became angry when I saw commercials about cancer and those who survived at area hospitals with treatment...why did they make it and not Dragon?  I still become upset when I hear everyday that they are getting closer to a cure for cancer...its just too late for him.  I realize that I am feel jealous of those who survived cancer. But after a moment, I realize that I would not want anyone to suffer.  I just wish that he could have been one of those individuals.  You may feel that way as well.

[Guest]

Steve 

When my children and my students would complain about something being unfair I would flippantly reply "Fair is a place you take a pig to win a ribbon." 

I suppose I need to stop looking for people who in my limited opinion deserve it more. Truth be told no one deserves to go through cancer. No one!

[kayc]

Kimberly, So great to hear from you again!  It's been a while.  Strange isn't it, no matter how much time passes, they are still very much a part of us and in our everyday thoughts.

Brad, you're so right.  I don't even wish it on the worst felon.  It's truly a horrible disease.  

[Froggie4635]

I remember seeing a show or reading something once about how it seems that the troubles of someone famous seem so much more important than say the troubles of you and me.  We all know that death is a part of life, but we always want it to be someone else's turn.  It is a cliché, that we don't know someone's troubles until we walk a mile in their shoes.  My husband, Mark, struggled with alcohol.  Even though he wrote to me of how very happy his life was, he still had that crutch.  I wanted him to stop, but I couldn't do it for him.  I wanted to take away the hurt that caused his problem, but I couldn't do that either.  Apparently, before he met me, his life was so much darker...from the stories his siblings have shared with me.  On the day he died, they all told me that I had given them back their brother, and thanked me for making the last 7 years of his life so happy.  I know that sounds like a brag; it is not intended as such.  He did things that were detrimental to his health; so do I.  I am WAY overweight and KNOW I should do better.  I try not to ask why this person survived; I wonder what kind of hurts does he have that falling into drugs was how he dealt with it.  I ask that, because I have witnessed it in my own life. 

Harleyquinn, I remember coming face to face with a co-worker who suffered a heart attack not long after Mark died.  Seeing him walking around, brought on the same feeling for me as you...why did HE survive and not my Mark.  I guess I just have to look at it as the message I got from Mark at my meeting with Theresa...Mark lived to the end of his block of time.  It was HIS time to go.  I had no say in it...and that is hard to swallow.  Feel whatever you need to feel.  It isn't fair. 

[Jay Pea]

I seem to be feeling a lot of resentment at everyone. Sometimes more than others.  Someone will drive or be loud or act like an ass and I think, "Why didn't you die instead of my Kevin?" Really makes me feel like a ugly person but it's the truth of how I"m feeling.  I like the article Marty (I think) quoted.  It's just part of this whole horrible process.

[scba]

I feel this type of anger too. I guess I was trying to answer the question : why him? Of course there is no reply. Thank you Marty for the article.

[kayc]

I think it's good that we can be honest with each other even with the dark and ugly thoughts.  They are not surprising for we have felt them too.  They need not make sense, feelings often don't.  In fact, conflicting feelings can coexist within us.  We can be jealous and yet happy for someone.  We can feel resentment and yet know it's not nice.  The important thing is to not let it get a strangehold on you.  In other words, don't let these thoughts govern you or be your pilot.  It's okay to feel them...and then dismiss them.  Try not to let them change who you are.

[Gwenivere]

I have gone thru so many phases of anger in the last year.  Anger at Steve for leaving me, anger about how the end was handled as he died in so much pain, anger at seeing other couples still together and a general rage at the universe for tearing us apart.  I never felt guilt about the feelings because the pain is so deep.  It was natural to feel cheated in so many ways.  We had a life we were happy with that got invaded by a monstrous disease.  Ironically, he advised a friend of his to have his prostate choked and he survived.  I felt anger at that because Steve helped save him and the guy is a prick, in my opinion.  I'm not feeling anger as much as the reality that no matter what I want, beg for or have that childlike wish that seems possible...I will never see, talk to or touch him again.  I kinda of miss the anger because it energized me.  Gave me focus on a villain.  This intense mourning just drains me and is not something I can fight.  It's so deeply personal and at times suffocating.  It follows me everywhere.  I used to be able to distract, even for a brief time.  But not anymore.   I live in our home we created so he is everywhere I turn.   From the house itself to something as small as some Baco's still on the table because he liked them.  So I am torn.  I miss anger but it isn't something I can feel beyond....why us?   Every couple will have to face this, but I feel this was too premature.  Tho I am sure best 5 or 50 years the feeling is the same.   

[Guest]

That is something that I am starting to understand through both here and my support group.  There are a couple of gals in my support group who have been coming one for fifteen and one for eighteen months.  One lost her husband after 59 years of marriage, the other 54 years.  I only had 36 years and two months of marriage and knew my wife for 37 years, three months.  What I would give to have those extra 23 years.

But then there are those here and in my group who are looking at just a few years.  So one year or sixty years, the pain is as great.  I have to keep reminding myself that when it comes right down to it I am relieved that it is me going through this and not my Darling Deedo.  I would hate for her to ever have to go through something as difficult and painful as this.

 

 

[iPraiseHim]

Brad, I agree. But the pain still sucks.

[kayc]

George has now been gone more years than I knew him.  It doesn't seem possible.  He was more to me than anyone!  Our relationship was indescribable, how can it be possible that it was gone as soon as it came?  Sometimes it feels I made him up, that it's a figment of my imagination, but I see our pictures, cards, birth/marriage/death certificates, it's just still all so surreal.

[KATPILOT]

That's an interesting perspective Kayc.  Time has a funny way of changing our perspective. There are so many parts of my life that seem to have lost their chronological sequence. For example, as I grow older, Kathy does not. I look at pictures of us when we were new, and later just before she left, and I see  a much younger me. It is surreal actually. Time is both standing still and yet moving at an alarming pace. You know, life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes. It's all in perception of course. Time is always a constant. It just gets messed up when one begins traveling alone watching their past fade into a distant memory. I don't want to forget that pretty face with such a sweet smile as the years tick by. I won't mind if it haunts me for the rest of my days. That would be an okay haunt.

I know how you say George was more to you than anyone which really says, he still is. If that is the case then he is more a part of you now than before you ever met. I think what I am trying to say is that we still have them in our hearts, our minds, and our souls. Not the way we would want it, but still with us just the same. I'd love to know when the picture on your profile was taken and where in your lives were you at that moment.

[Harleyquinn]

i've thought about that Katpilot. how it's going to feel as I age and the pictures of Michael remain the same. 

such a weird feeling, that Michael will never get to grow old.....

 

[kayc]

Stephen,

That picture was our wedding day, 14 years ago, the happiest day of our lives.  It was Sweetest Day, which seemed appropriate...October 19, 2001.

Yes, he is still in my heart, never absent, not for a moment...yet it seems so long ago, like our time together was so fleeting.  We were supposed to grow old together.  We bough the porch swing to do it on.  Now my cat usurps it.  Once in a while I sit on it and look out over the back yard, the forest we loved, and wait for the Hummingbirds to come feed...George loved them, he loved our flowers that lined our patio.  We used to sit out there and hold hands, just basking in being together.

[kevin]

My wife asked me in one of her lucid moments why "this thing"happened to her(dementia)....I gave the usual excuses and genetics, but I feel honestly, the clock of time is predetermined , and it is not fair.....only the good die young and other BS etc.....I have a little anger on this note. There is a blog that speaks that Grief does bring out , unintentionally, but brings out Jealousy/Envy.........

[kayc]

Grief brings out all kinds of ugly feelings.  But it can also develop compassion and understanding.  It's just a different journey that marks us as forever changed and different.

I don't like the cliches people say in an effort to "make us feel better" or reconcile the death.  The truth is, nothing can reconcile the death and there isn't much that makes us feel better.  My one consoling thought was that I am suffering this aftermath and not him.  That consoles me.  The other is that I have belief/faith that we will be together again, that keeps me going and hopeful.  The other is knowing he still exists and our love and faith in each other lives on.  I live by that faith, the same as we did early on in our relationship.  Death could not kill our love or belief in each other.

 

[mik]

Hello kayc

You are so right, no matter how much time passes they will always be a part of us.  Forever.  So nice to see everyone again, I have missed everyone.

 

[kayc]

Hi, Kim!  It's good to see you too.  Drop in now and then!

[debi.williams]

Reading your post Katpilot has just stunned me. I honestly never thought about the growing old element of all this before. You are right. as we grow old they do not. My husband was 4 years younger than me anyway. It just hit me like a lightening bolt that he (assuming I live for a reasonable time) will never see me old(er). The gray hair, the increasing wrinkles, the loss of speed and dexterity. I feel very saddened by this. Not because any of us actively 'want' the ageing process but that our unspoken dream of fading away together will now never be. I cannot imagine why it hadn't occurred to me before now. I guess because it is only 12 weeks but even so...