Reflections and musings

[KarenK]

Brad,

Have you ever heard Kitaro? He is probably my favorite of New Age. I especially like Silk Road Suite. I don't know how to post the music here.

[Margm]

Brad, I never missed music.  I would listen if Billy was not home.  Our marriage evolved over those 54 years.  Reading was one of my passions.  Billy was a complex person at first.  He was jealous of the time I spent reading.  I wasn't paying attention to him.  But then I got him into reading later on.  It took Kindle to really convert him.  He would stop watching TV at 10:00 pm, he cared not much for news  He liked sports.  But that Kindle would come out and he would spend the next 4-5 hours reading.  Now this happened after he retired in 1997.  I knew the kind of book he liked, I would load it to his Kindle and then I would print the synopsis out for him.  He slept late.  I had created a reading monster.  I was so proud of him.  I have all those books still on my Kindle and will read them in time.  But music, he never cared for it.  He wanted to talk or we could just be silent reading together.  But, his jealousy of my reading, at one time that was a problem.  A tiny one.  

[Brad]

Karen - I haven't but give him a listen.  New Age is relatively new for me as it's instrumental and easy for me to listen to.  I am not well versed in it however.

 

[Gwenivere]

I have a very hard time with any music, even stuff we never listened to.  As I've said before, Steve being a musician, I can hear him in my head explaining things about everything.  I really haven't listened to anything in over 2 years now.  Only stuff that is used in movies.  I miss it but I just cannot do it.

[Margm]

3 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

I miss it but I just cannot do it.

I can understand Gwen.  You were married to music.  I was married to a fisherman.  Funny thing, I got him into it.  I will never go again.

[Gin]

Gwen,

Me, too.  Al loved to play his mandolin and we went to a lot of concerts and musicals.   Now I listen to nothing.  Too many memories.

[Gwenivere]

4 hours ago, Cookie said:

I read your post Brad, and this is all so hard.  I have just recently been putting up pictures of John around the house and it's been 18 months.  I put them up but they still hurt to look at.  I want him back so bad.  I think I felt like it's been so long I should make myself do it.  What bothers me is that I try not to think about him and when I do I get so sad.  I keep thinking I need to force myself to remember things.  Someone told me I need to sit down and get out all the picture albums and just look at pictures and have a good cry.  Still can't do it.  Am I stuck I wonder?  Am I running away still?  I feel the pain, though.  This all confuses me.  At the core, I do want to remember exactly who he was....just seem so far away from being able to do that.  Cookie

Cookie, we have albums of pictures too from the dark ages when that was all there was.  Maybe someday I will look at them, but I know right now I could not handle that.  There are pictures of him scattered about the house as it is, one of my favorites right bedside my monitor.  In them all we are smiling and happy.  No one keeps pictures of sad times.  I know I can't handle the flood of memories even one of the pictures could bring in our albums.  I've gone selectively blind to the ones on the walls.  Sometimes I can gaze at them, others I walk right past as if it isn't there.  I haven't acted like an ostrich at all about any of this because there is no way to do so.  I control what I can, but most I cannot.  The biggest feeling I have, like you said, is the feeling he is getting farther and farther away and that is the hardest.  I only have memories of things he said day to day that stopped.  Now after 2 years I have no new ones for all that has happened.  I see so much he hasn't and can't get his feedback on anything.  I miss his wit, humor and anger.  I'm just adrift trying to paddle this boat alone.  It's not smooth sailing as it was always reliant on two.

[Margm]

5 hours ago, Cookie said:

Someone told me I need to sit down and get out all the picture albums and just look at pictures and have a good cry. 

Not if you don't want to do this.  My winter coats (and Billy's) are in one of these 15, maybe less now, boxes.  I have them labeled.  I'm not that cold yet.  Some things I will do when I want to do them.

[kevin]

Pictures and Albums are part of my clean up....particularly pictures just of  Inlaws..........I only want to accumulate no more than one small album per year....and delete as much as I can....Music comes and goes with me, but it does trigger memories.....Got in contact with Sister over the Holidays....We are going to get together Mid March for a few days...I will be full or at least 80% good to go  . Visit will be on Vancouver Island...    Looking forward to this year....

[kayc]

18 hours ago, Marg M said:

Some of the things our forum members do, I cannot do at all.  I think I will try it, I try it, and the scar tissue falls off and the wound is raw.

So true.  I had his pictures up, then took them down. Up, down, up, down.  I finally left them up.  But to pour through pictures and think back upon how it was, that's too hard, even after all this time.  I rarely do that.  In the first year or so, my bedroom looked like a shrine.  Now it has bits and pieces of him, and yes, a picture of him, but not like a shrine. 

I think we have to do what feels comfortable for us.  Yes we have to feel our grief, but we don't have to let it be at the helm all the time.  It's hard enough we live with it continually.

[Margm]

The first outreach to this forum was done by me three days after Billy left.  (You know how I try to not say died, death, demise), as if the other was not as permanent.  I would not dare go back and read that post.  None for that first year.  Most of my posts look like I do not reread them before I post them anyhow.  I cannot look at pictures and I cannot go back to my feelings..  Just me.  We all have different things that comfort us, the same thing that comforts my daughter sends me into a hizzy and I have to leave.  She gets comfort from looking at Billy.  I get memories and pain...............at this time.  I don't know if it will ever be different.  But believing that, it does not mean I will not try.  

[MartyT]

You're keeping an open mind, Marg, and that's a good thing. One thing we know about grief is that it changes. It doesn't stay the same, and neither do we in how we respond to it.  ♥

[kevin]

 Some pictures

S

I love

Edited January 10, 2017 by kevin

[kevin]

Apologize for my lack of skills......When going through some pictures, found one with my the boys...Day youngest came from hospital.....Brought me some smiles.....that was 36 years ago......

[kayc]

I don't know what happened, the picture split when I tried to view it.  Let's see if this turns out.

[Brad]

 

“But you seemed so happy was all they could say. And it was true: we had seemed that way. Just as I’d seemed to be doing okay after my mom died. Grief doesn’t have a face.”

Excerpt From: Strayed, Cheryl. “Wild.”

 

I read this and started thinking how others can only see our exteriors, they're not capable of looking inside to see how shattered we really are. 

[Brad]

A neighbor of mine had knee surgery ten months ago, shortly afterward he developed an infection; ten months and four surgeries later including a knee replacement he is finally on the mend, we hope.  The thing is that for ten months the neighborhood kept close tabs on his progress and his set backs.  There is genuine empathy for him and all that's he's been through.  You could tell how he was doing simply by watching his daily excursions out to the porch to have his smokes.  Somedays he couldn't make it out, other days it could take thirty minutes to walk the five feet from the door, have a smoke and then walk the five feet back to the door.  We all watched and helped when we could.

My point, I suppose, is that we could all see his regressions and victories; there was a physical element that communicated to the outside world where he was with his recovery.  Grief, on the other hand, attacks and dwells in our hearts, our souls and our minds.  To quote Cheryl Strayed "Grief doesn't have a face".  People can't see what is so very obvious to us.  I think that is largely why the larger the group of people, the more lonely and isolated I feel.

 

[Margm]

Kevin, I know those boys grew into handsome men.  My granddaughter has beautiful black hair.  Adorable picture.  Would love to see a picture of all of you and the grandchildren also.  

[Brad]

"I didn't get over it. I don't want to get over it. No matter what you do, the pain is always there in some recess of your mind, and it affects everything that happens afterwards. I think you can assimilate the pain and go on without making an obsession of it.": Meryl Streep talking about the death of John Cazale.

 

Seventeen months after the death of my Deedo I wonder if I might be making an obsession of my grief.  

[MartyT]

Brad, my dear, an obsession is variously defined as "a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling"; "compulsive preoccupation with an idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety. A compulsive, often unreasonable idea or emotion"; "being totally fixated on something and unhealthily devoted to it."

I don't think that still being in love with and still missing your Deedo with all your heart is at all the same as making an obsession of your grief.  ♥

[Margm]

One of my friends (my daughter's friend actually), has made her truck into a "Cowboy" monument of sorts.  Her site has pictures of this truck all over FB.  It won the "ring of honor" or something of honor among the club's group.  The group is obsessed with the Dallas Cowboys.  Now, that is an obsession.  Spending your last penny, other people's last penny, trying to put a cowboy logo on every part of that truck that does not have a clear space.  He/she also has tattoo's over every part of her/his body.  She thinks if she does not have male apparatus, she will have the trappings on her/his person that make her a man.  That is an obsession.  

Making a shrine of sorts to your lost loved one is not an obsession..  Thinking of them constantly is not an obsession.  We are in grief.  Last night I sat on the end of the bed and if anyone had seen me they would have thought I had lost it.  I felt my head on his shoulder with his arm around me.  If I am obsessed with him, then I am obsessed with just wanting him to hold me again, just protective arms around me.  The moment felt like he was there.  My family all have OCD to a point, but the he/she with the truck, that is an obsession.  Our loved ones are an obsession I want to have forever, with less pain, if possible.  I met another woman that was 13 years out.  She is not "over it" yet.  I don't believe we ever "get over it."  Do not want to.  Would like scar tissue build up though.

Rose Kennedy was correct when she said our minds protect themselves and put scar tissue on the wound, but time does not heal all wounds.  

[Gin]

Marge,

It sure doesn't.  I have not had any feelings that Al is with me.  Maybe I am just not being open enough to it.  I sure want it.  I have been wanting it for 15 1/2 months.  

[kayc]

Grief DEMANDS our attention!  It's not an obsession, as if we make too much of it.  It grabs a hold of US!

[kayc]

45 minutes ago, Gin said:

I have not had any feelings that Al is with me.

I can't recall how long it was before that changed for me, but it may well have been over three years, time has kind of melted together.  Just remember we all process things different and it will come when it's ripe for it.  We can't rush grief or its stages.

[Margm]

59 minutes ago, Gin said:

I have been wanting it for 15 1/2 months.  

Okay, there we go with those dates.  Made me think, tomorrow is 16 months for me, but the dates are still 365 days a year, 24/7, Sunday through Saturday midnight.  Maybe time does protect our brain with a layer of scar tissue on the wound, (to quote Rose Kennedy), but each day is another day without them.  I think when I am driving, I talk to Billy when I am driving, and he has not talked back yet.  That in itself shows me he is gone.  He would be "talking back" to some of the things I am saying.  I used to say "Billy, I cannot feel you near me" and I would cry so much I would have to get off the road.  Now I just say "Well, its for sure your not going to answer me and for sure you are not coming back.  I still am not angry at you, I know you would if you could."  I don't cry every time, and I don't have to pull off to the side of the road.  So, I guess that is a baby step forward.  Billy was tall and lanky.  I am short and..........well, fluffy..  But last night, I could ghostly feel my head on his shoulder.  Even then, I knew he was not there.  Kinda made me think maybe some of my mystical-magical thinking might be returning.  I read one person's poem, or dedication to grief and don't know where I saw it.  It described grief like walking in the ankle deep water of the ocean, lake, river and feeling the waves hitting at our ankles and sometimes it hits us like a full blown tsunami..