Reflections and musings

[Gwenivere]

I look at it this way if one runs across the word obsession in our cases.  Steve was first in my world, trumped anyone or thing.  I love him like I have no other.  So yup, I'm obsessed with him.  Did anything I could when he alive, see how empty it is without him.  I don't have shrines, but I have things I will not change of his because I can't.  Death erased enough.

I know there are people that feeel I am obsessed with grief.  I suppose that is true.  How can I not be?  But that's their problem, not mine.  I have enough dealing with my own life than their opinions.

 

[Margm]

20 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

know there are people that feeel I am obsessed with grief.

Well, I definitely feel I am obsessed with it.  No one tells me that though.  I did have one widow friend tell me "your still young in your grief" when I asked her if she ever talked to her husband.  Oh, I doubt I will make it 10 more years, my family, all the women lived long, but they did not have some of my problems.  But, if I do live 10 more years, I will still be talking to him and still be obsessed with him.  I hardly ever look at his urn anymore.  I don't think about it.  I like the note I have taped to it "Love you, be back by noon."  I do have to get preparations made behind my mom and dad's stone for a stone for me and Billy.  They will put our ashes together and I think they bury the box about 24-26 inches.  Don't remember for sure.  So, I have "promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep." RF.

[Gin]

Marg,

I want my ashes mixed with Al's, but was not sure if they will do that.  I guess they will.  I told my daughter that she had to do it.  She is not happy about it.

[Brad]

I took Deedo's ashes on a tour of our lives together leaving them at our various chapters.  I want the kids to do the same with mine leaving me at the same places: Where we had our first kiss; where we got engaged; where we got married; our favorite lakes and streams; our favorite cove in the Caribbean; Disneyland.  Trouble is the kids will spend a significant part of their inheritance getting me around to everywhere Deedo is.  Oh and the last little bit I want mixed with Deedo's and left by the pond in the backyard.

[kevin]

Brad, thanks for the reminder....Angela's Ashes are still something I have to do...Her instructions were straight forward and the location its about as far East as you can be...(in North America)...I was going to wait two more years and combine my Grand daughters graduation and Ashes  the same visit...Granddaughter now in Alberta....Trip back east will be solo visit....It's something I need to do sooner than later... I'll save a portion to mix with mine.......

[Gwenivere]

Wow.  Steve and I never talked about the ashes, only our wishes to be cremated.  I truly understand the special sentimentality people feel about that.  We did for parents and pets.  We did that together, tho.  I do know that his didn't matter to Steve.  I think about mine and I don't really care either.  I had at one point tried to think of where his should go and came up blank except for where we have put all our furry kids.  We do have a living Xmas tree that started at 4 feet in here and is well over 35 feet outside.  I had hoped his brother would want some to put with his sister and parents in CA, but he didn't seem interested.  They are in a storage chest with the last dog we lost who was his baby girl a couple months before he left.  Maybe someday it will something I do. I do know he had gotten to hate his body and wanted no more to do with it.  I think that influences my motivation.  He so hated the ravages he endured and wanted out of it.  Maybe the fact that fire consumed what the cancer did is enough.  

[Margm]

My uncle is in his 80's.  When Billy passed he wanted me to bury him in the family plot.  I said I was keeping the ashes in a wooden urn.  I don't think that was too foreign to him as his wife wants cremated.  When we put Mama's ashes away he brought me the deeds to the plots, so I guess my mind was made up.  That is fine with me.  Billy lost all his family early so my family was his too.  We will be behind my mom and dad, next to my uncle and aunt and catercorner to my granddaddy and mammaw.  As good a place as any.  

[brat#2]

Dale and I did talk about what we wanted done with our ashes, however, I have deviated just a little from what he wanted.  He and so do I wanted to be scattered at the lake where we grew up and even though we weren't together then, we both have so many wonderful memories there as kids, then once we were together we had our own memories there going boating, so I gave some of his ashes to one of his daughters to scatter there this spring.  Last year, I put some of him at my brother's vacation home in the panhandle of Florida, we had a lot of wonderful memories there and he loved it there so much.  I also put some in our backyard, where the above ground pool use to be, because that was our favorite spot after work and on the weekends.  I would like mine to be placed in the same places and then the rest of him and me mixed together in a urn.  I don't care who gets that, but I want us to be together forever.

Joyce

 

[kayc]

I don't know I'd call it an obsession, but it's definitely something foremost on our minds and in our hearts...it's not like we can get away from it.

Joyce, I spread George's ashes in our back yard.  When my time comes, I want my ashes placed there too.  If I no longer own this place, the kids are supposed to sneak back and toss my ashes in that spot, they can get to it through the neighboring property and by the time anyone would catch them, not much they can do, can't exactly retrieve ashes!  Their one last big adventure!  They can say their prayer from the neighboring property.  (It's used rarely as a campsite, not enough room for a house to be built on it so it isn't likely to ever change or be developed, as it is now, no one ever comes up on it).

[KarenK]

Ron used to say(jokingly) to spend little, find an old pine box and throw him in the back yard. He absolutely did not want his sister or extended family notified. He is buried in a pine casket in our plot next to my parents, just not in the back yard. I have always wanted my ashes scattered over the Tetons. Not feasible, so I will be here with him.

Grieving is not my obsession. It is simply my way of life now.

[Gwenivere]

3 hours ago, KarenK said:

Grieving is not my obsession. It is simply my way of life now.

Karen, that is perfectly worded.  No matter what strides I may make to not be so wholely consumed as I am now, it is part of my personality now and always will be.  This is much to the dismay of all the people waiting for the old me to return.  I keep telling them she's gone.  Give it up.

[Gin]

I guess I had a touch of the flu last night.  Some kind of horrible gastrointestinal problem.  Up all night.  Everything seems so much worse when our mate is not here.  Even though he couldn't fix it, he was there to even help decide what to do.  Call 911?  Go to E.R?  I feel a lot better today, not right, but better.  Just another reminder of their absence, as if I need a reminder!

[Margm]

Gin, the night I passed out and they thought I was going to die, I would not let anyone take me to the hospital.  I told them they used doctors from other hospitals week-ends in the ER and I didn't want to go.  Well, I passed out with Billy, Kelli, Scott, and Bri all there and they took me by ambulance (I had quit arguing or even knowing I was in existence.  When they were taking me off the ambulance I saw two little girls sitting on each of the steps of the ambulance.  Obviously, sometimes, we don't know what is going on. (No one else saw them, wonder if they were angels.) The fever was high and the thing they do now is expose you to the cold.  So, I took my gown and pulled it up to my neck to get warm, flashing everyone. (They gave me a sheet).  So sometimes it does not matter how many people you have with you.  When Bri moves out, I will get me one of those "life alert" necklaces.  

[KarenK]

Marg, You are a "hoot" and I simply love you! I would have died from embarrassment.

Gin, I'm so sorry you are feeling ill. It definitely feels worse when your soulmate is missing. Ron and I were always right there for each other also.

[Margm]

Well Karen, I was sorta comatose but I did have relatives in the room who ran to cover me up, and who also have never let me forget it.  

Gin, I am sorry you are feeling ill.  Billy emptied enough bedpans for me (never acted like it bothered him at all, he would have been a good nurse), but I always wanted to be "sick" by myself so I would not wake him at night.  

And I am no nurse, but I don't agree with them letting you have a fever and chills and not letting you have blankets.  I hate that.  I grew up on Vicks Salve, Milk of Magnesia, Benadryl, and lots of blankets for chills.  Oh and chewing aspirin gum, the orange kind, I loved that stuff.  Guess that was why I needed the Milk of Magnesia.

 

[Gin]

Marg,

I had the orange aspirin gum, and great Pertussin cough medicine.  And Vicks.  

[kayc]

13 hours ago, Gin said:

I guess I had a touch of the flu last night.  Some kind of horrible gastrointestinal problem.  Up all night.  Everything seems so much worse when our mate is not here.  Even though he couldn't fix it, he was there to even help decide what to do.  Call 911?  Go to E.R?  I feel a lot better today, not right, but better.  Just another reminder of their absence, as if I need a reminder!

Gin, I'm sorry you felt so bad!  I hope you're doing better today.

[scba]

Gin. I hope you are feeling better. 

Last night I went to a bar for a birthday and had two glasses of wine. I rarely drink alcohol. I cannot sleep, my head is dizzy. I thought I could be young again. Errrrr... A glass of water, please.

[Brad]

I just finished watching a movie I rented the first time last March.  There was not a single scene in the two hour movie that I recognized.  I know I watched it the first time, or at least I loaded it into the Blueray and pressed play.  I'm guessing I could go back and watch every movie and read every book that I've seen or read over the past eighteen months and would discover that most of them did not register with me.  I hate how grief messes with the mind.

[Gwenivere]

A kind Way of putting it, Brad.....messses with our minds.  Such civilized words.  

[Margm]

Brad, I don't remember things.  I am told things I did and said.  I have no recollection.  It does not matter what, they could tell me a lie and I could not deny it.  I think it is shock and we still suffer from it.  And will.  I used to get numb (brain).  I don't do that anymore.  I miss that.  Insanity is kinder.

[kayc]

Brad, Today I read on the Oakridge Commute (FB) that someone had paid for a couple's meal...they were flabbergasted!  I thought of you...

[Autumn2]

The ashes topic is interesting. 12 years ago our daughter was killed in an auto accident. She was cremated per her wishes. She lived in a rural part of New Mexico and had discovered a very old cemetary in her hill hikes. She had shown us this cemetary with graves from the late 1800's. We, too, felt something very special about this old and basically,  but not totally, abandoned cemetary and decided we wanted our ashes comingled with hers and buried there. The cemetary is high on a hill and absolutely nothing like Forest Lawn, for those who know what it is like. We feel a peace there. Our kids and one son in particularlar has been shown the way to this cemetary and will either bury us under a juniper shrub or scatter our ashes together. Different strokes for different folks.

[Margm]

On 1/17/2017 at 0:23 PM, KarenK said:

Grieving is not my obsession. It is simply my way of life now

Karen, trying to catch up on reading.  So worried about Butch and his family.  Reading Autumn2's notes and she lost a daughter 12 years ago.  You who have lost children, you have my heart.  Also my fear.  But, what you said above, it is tattooed on our brains and hearts.  I think you live in Arizona, so I think you are okay "weather-wise."  A tornado hit in my grandmother's life-long community last week, the first one I can ever remember happening in that area.  My daughter is moving to Kansas, but she won't find the wizard.  I believe she will move "back home" not long after she gets there.  Sometimes it is hard to run away from ourselves, I know, I have tried, but everywhere I go, there I am. 

[Margm]

3 hours ago, Autumn2 said:

. She lived in a rural part of New Mexico and had discovered a very old cemetary in her hill hikes.

Billy and I traveled New Mexico extensively.  Our favorite place to put the RV was in a park located in an apple orchard in a place called Pinos Altos.  Not sure I have that spelled correct, but it means tall pines.  The people who live there refer to it as PA, because of the way it sounds.  While camped there we would go to Glenwood and the catwalk.  Then we discovered a precarious road up the mountain (did not bring the RV) that led into the Gila Wilderness.  I explored the pretty little cemetery at Pinos Altos. (Out of Silver City).  It was beautiful.  But going up that precarious road we discovered the sorta ghost town of Mogollon.  It had a cemetery with many graves, I think about 1918, when the deadly flu must have been brought in by travelers.  This part of New Mexico became our destination for our trips to NM, and we went once a year when we were working and the short time we got to RV, we stayed around this area and Reserve all along the Arizona border.  Was wondering if that might have been the place your daughter hiked.  We saw a mountain lion one time that just ignored us.  If Billy had been able to live, I would imagine we would be in that area right now in the RV.

Our son is in Albuquerque right now visiting/training.  Strange phenomenon, as much as I loved the area with Billy, I can never go back without him.  It would for sure knock the scar tissue off of the wound.