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Hope in this new life


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The title here is Hope in this new life, so I guess this is probably the best place to post this.

Friday night I was unable to sleep.  The social security office had just told me I would only get $240/month and even combined with my IRA, I knew I couldn't live on that.  I was shocked!  Unable to sleep, I tossed and turned.  I knew I couldn't resume commuting even if someone would hire me at my age, because of my eyesight.

That night, in the middle of the night, I felt the physical presence of his hand on my shoulder/back area.  It is the first time I have had something happen to me that I could not explain away.  The truth is, undeniably, my George came to me when I needed him most.  Why not in the last ten years?  I don't know, maybe he made all the more effort to break through this barrier because he knew I needed that.  I so appreciate his coming to me and I want to offer this to those of you who are struggling.  They're there.

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@WK:  I cover a lot of ground with that little Ford Ranger, and this keyboard too.  Thanks WK.

@Kay:  Maybe Billy has not really come to me (except the nugget) because I have not been in extreme need.  You were in extreme need.  George knew it.  You needed comfort.  I love hearing these stories.  I wish I could tell Billy I am not that strong, he can help me anytime he wants to.  I do believe when the house was full of people he did come to me, it might have been a dream, but I heard him say "it's enough."  I know he knew I was not going to rise up and fight all those people or run them off.  I would have had a heart attack or felt the guilt even yet.  I could afford them living here, but I had to leave, just like my trip in my mind to that seedy motel in the middle of Texas.  That is where my mind goes when it gets too much to bear.  Have not been yet, but if I go missing, don't tell anyone my secret.  (I'll take my laptop with me.).  

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5 hours ago, Marg M said:

Gwen, I want the old me back.  I want the one who believed in magic things, miracles, wishing upon a star, wishing on a falling star, find a penny face up, putting it in your shoe, all kinds of things.   

A realist is a person who tends to view or represent things as they really are.  I hate reality shows.  I do not want to be a realist.  

  I want to see the fluorescent greens, yellows, oranges, blues, purples.........mostly purples.    

Marg, I lost my 'belief, in magic too.  I really want it back too.  Some was silly, I love fairies, griffons, unicorns, even gargoyles because they warn evil forces to stay away lest they be turned to stone also.  Sometimes I have to chuckle that I scold my sculptures for not doing thier job.  The cancer got in.

I have to be a realist.  The more I resist, the more I suffer.  I don't WANT to be a realist because that means accepting Steve is gone forever.  But I can't pretend he will be back.  Much as that hurts.  Reality shows are not for me either.   They think hey have problems?  Yes, they do, but they volunteered for it.  We didn't.

Ah, purple.  My favorite color.  I'm getting pretty tired of this very pastel world.   I hope someday it is vivid again.  

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3 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

Ah, purple.  My favorite color.  I'm getting pretty tired of this very pastel world.   I hope someday it is vivid again

Purple is my favorite color too.  I want my world to just plain have color in it again rather than fog.  I don't think we ever will have the happiness we had, but just keeping my head above water is an accomplishment, I cannot swim.  Hold on girl.  We gotta make it.  And, I so want some of my magic back, just a little of it.  

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Me too, I love purple!  They're predicting snow tomorrow, probably because I made plans.  What happened to Spring!

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19 hours ago, kayc said:

The title here is Hope in this new life, so I guess this is probably the best place to post this.

Friday night I was unable to sleep.  The social security office had just told me I would only get $240/month and even combined with my IRA, I knew I couldn't live on that.  I was shocked!  Unable to sleep, I tossed and turned.  I knew I couldn't resume commuting even if someone would hire me at my age, because of my eyesight.

That night, in the middle of the night, I felt the physical presence of his hand on my shoulder/back area.  It is the first time I have had something happen to me that I could not explain away.  The truth is, undeniably, my George came to me when I needed him most.  Why not in the last ten years?  I don't know, maybe he made all the more effort to break through this barrier because he knew I needed that.  I so appreciate his coming to me and I want to offer this to those of you who are struggling.  They're there.

Oh, I love hearing this; thanks for sharing.  I so want to believe he is here, just at my shoulder and for some reason can't let me feel him.  I loved hearing what you said....Cookie

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Dear Cookie...

It is pretty common early in our grief to not be "aware" of the kinds of things Kay wrote about.  I went and saw a speaker, who talked about those types of connections.  What he said is that when we are so bogged down with grief, that it kind of blocks our reception of those precious connections.  Sometimes when we really NEED that, it is good to just ask.  I did it once; specifically asked for a sign and not long after that, and I mean minutes, a cardinal flew to my bird feeder.  It happens; we just aren't open to it because we are surrounded by our grief....and that is normal also.  If that helps you any.

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@Maryann:  I get so bogged down I cannot really feel Billy.  I have had moments.  I thought of my friend telling me never to do again what I had done.  I was trying for acceptance so I would put my hands on his side of the bed and say "your not here and you are never coming back."  I did not cry.  It was just a fact of life/death.  My friend Terri had lost her husband less than a year before.  She told me never ever to do that.  She told me to reach to his side of the bed, talk to him, and tell him that he would always be beside me and would always live right in my heart, that he was with me for all times.  I did that and I felt so much better.  This morning walking to the mailbox I looked at that brilliant blue sky with the billowing white clouds.  Against the fluorescent green of the big trees all around turning out their new leaves, it was the most beautiful picture and because Billy was my amateur photographer, I pictured it through his eyes, and I felt him in my heart.  And my neighbors, if they were looking out the windows or were close, they said "there goes that crazy woman that looks to the heavens and talks to herself.  What can they expect?  My husband was the crazy man who fished every day in his front yard.  He was practicing his fly techniques, but they would usually stop and ask if he had caught anything.  We live life like we have to at any given moment.  I felt Billy with me today.  I have blocked him I guess, or maybe that was part of the grief process that blocked him, we all run this race at a different speed.  Donatello, the purple teenage ninja turtle.   

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Dear Marg,

What a wonderful way to connect with your husband.  Just think about it.  Even though they are gone, you KNOW that even though they are in a place with no pain or trouble, they have to also be missing us.  Love never dies.  So why wouldn't they want to somehow connect with us?  They want us to know they are okay, but they also want US to be okay. Though it may not sound like it by the things I say, I am missing Mark so much that it is hard to breathe.  But I want to take care of it when I get home.  Still wear that "work" mask pretty well.  Sometimes when we get "advice" from different people, we need to try something if we wish to feel better.  Sometimes we don't get the result we want, but if we didn't try....we get NO result.

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Hey, I'm out in the country so I can be as crazy as I want! :)

Maryann, I saw something posted (I think on FB) the other day, something to the effect that sometimes it's easier to wear a mask than answer questions.  I understand!

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On 4/14/2016 at 2:21 PM, Marg M said:

 We live life like we have to at any given moment.

Marg, I think you pretty much summed up the life we're now "stuck in".  All we can do is try to live in the moment  and make that moment bearable, if possible.

 

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On 4/14/2016 at 1:30 PM, Froggie4635 said:

Sometimes we don't get the result we want, but if we didn't try....we get NO result.

Maryann, I guess I was connecting to him.  I could not have seen the beauty except through his eyes.  Everything has been so dark and drab and foggy for so long.  That is why I wanted Iheart to keep trying.  We have to keep trying.  But, my friend hitting the tombstone of her husband with a shovel did not connect to him.  I want to put some pictures on here when my daughter puts her names on them.  She went to East Texas today up around Caddo Lake, Jefferson, Texas, Uncertain, Texas.  The blue bonnets and other flowers are in bloom and she took some beautiful pictures with Billy's new camera.  Iheart needs to not leave, she will get results that sometimes melts a cold heart, and afterall, when they leave us that is what we have, we have a cold dead heart and she is so new to this.  The wax around mine is melting.  Hers will too with time.  We just need horrible, intolerable, hurting, painful time to finally see a glimmer of something that might be akin to happiness.  Not happiness as we wanted it, but maybe happiness as our mates wanted us to have it. Like you say..........we have to try.  

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Marg, we only have one viable option in this new life we didn't want and that's to try. We won't always succeed and we won't often get it right the first time. There's a lot of trial and error and tons of tears and pain to go with it.  It really is a learning experience, albeit a painful one. Somewhere along the line those dark clouds will (hopefully) part for a little while and let some sunshine in. No matter how fleeting, it's a welcome sight.

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I don't know where George has disappeared to, but he has not got enough experience yet to leave us.  I have depended on this forum today to get those terrible income tax numbers out of my head.  Poor Billy, he did them for 54 years.  Would not let me get a tax service to do them.  They will be simple next year.  

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You know what though, Marg? Sometimes those terrible tax numbers, while hair-pullingly frustrating take our mind and emotions to a different place for a time. In grief, sometimes that's actually a good thing.

I'm here at home alone 24/7 other than my time at work. If it wasn't for all these mini home projects I'm doing, I have the feeling my mind would be in a different place... constantly replaying the trauma of Tammy's death over and over. 

On the one hand a part of me says that I should be crying and thinking about Tammy 24/7. After all, she was my whole world. But I now realize that in my earlier days of grief (when I was doing that) I couldn't really function or even think about a future. 

I guess the real bottom line here is that our grief journeys are our own. We do the things that work for us to help us cope. And what works one day may not work the next day. 

For me at this point, it's about living my life, honoring Tammy and taking it one day at a time with the knowledge that I was the luckiest man in the world to have Tammy as my wife. 

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Margaret,

Somewhere I read George changed his mind (about moving to a different part of a forum), said he wasn't ready to yet.  He has been extremely busy, has a lot going on, so maybe he just hasn't had time to post.  

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I found Shock and Awe in Living with Loss.

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"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."  John Donne

And, that is how I feel when someone is missing from this forum.  So, you cannot leave yet, any of you.  

I cannot go back and read anything I have written in the past six months.  I do not go back and read things on here, unless something is mentioned.  Maybe at one time the memory of loss may make it uncomfortable and sad for people.  I don't know people.  I don't even know myself.  I just remember KPilot mentioning when your falling off a cliff you reach for anything to save you.  That rang true with me.  

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24 minutes ago, Marg M said:

 I just remember KPilot mentioning when your falling off a cliff you reach for anything to save you.  That rang true with me.  

Steve hit a bull's-eye right there! Is it so true. It does often feel like we're falling off a cliff. Or skydiving without a parachute. Or swimming with killer sharks without a cage and no oxygen in our tank. This new life is so incredibly hard and at times, downright frightening!

Sometimes it's amazing we got through another day. And we do that exactly as Steve said. Anything, no matter how trivial, that puts you in a better place for even a moment is a good thing. Allowing yourself to laugh is good and often therapeutic. Patting yourself on the back for even a small accomplishment is a good thing. A memory that takes your mind to a happier place can be a good thing. Sure it can also bring tears but how lucky we are to have such memories.

One of my go to "remedies" to get my mind and body to a better place is exercise. These days I actually feel guilty when I miss a workout and that's a healthy guilt!

This new life we didn't chose is dreadful at times, but, it's the only life we have left. And the truth is, even though it doesn't always feel this way... life is a blessing.

 

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