car is back and i don't want it

[brat#2]

Kay, thank you for letting me know that, I had heard that they could hear and feel when unresponsive and I really believed he did.  He would give a little smirk sometimes when we would talk to him or touch him, even though he couldn't let us know he understood.

Marg - we all have our own stories and problems to deal with, but that doesn't make one persons worse than the others.  We all are hurting and need each other.

Joyce

 

[Patty65]

Hi Marg,

I am triggering the heck out of my best friend, the one that was there for me, where I stayed the first few nights.  She has a handicapped CP child, 21, she almost lost him when he was a baby many times.  She has a lot of grieving, especially as her friends and family have children off at college; next will be weddings, grandchildren.  We talk about how our grief is not more or less than one another, but different. Unique. Acute, long-term, or otherwise.  She'll get drunk and lets off steam, and tells me, "at least you have a child that eats by herself, and can wipe her own... xxx"... and I say, "yes, honey, and at least you have a husband to lay down next to every night to help you through, and a family in your home." We struggle, and love each other, but these days it's challenging.  

Maybe right now mine is complicated -- but complicated also keeps me occupied in a way -- if I had no work or obligations, by now I probably wouldn't be here anymore.  You do have it bad.  We all have it bad.  In our own unique ways.  That's why we are all here I think.  Strength in numbers.

Patty

[Margm]

I am leaving this empty.  My doom and gloom attitude does not help anyone. I hope I deleted it properly.

My granddaughter and I, well we are going to see The Jungle Book today.  Know that story so well, seen in many remakes.  

I don't know why bad things happen to good people, but they sure do.

I will leave with my poem I made up when I was in the throes of fighting my own cancer when I was a young woman.  "I'm not that important, life does go on, if I wasn't here, then I'd be gone."  At the time I wrote it, it made perfect sense.  Still does.  Maybe a little comic sense.  I am certifiable.  

[kayc]

Patty,

What your friend says is "comparing losses" and that doesn't help, it sometimes seeks to diminish your grief and make theirs the greater, which we all know doesn't help.  As Margaret once said, each of us, to us, our grief is the greatest.  Or something to that effect.

 

[Patty65]

Marg, Everyone here - their "doom and gloom" lets me be able to share the same, and be less alone.  It's my only place to.  It's important or I'll explode.  Poof. In fact that's what is so special for me here.  Everyone responds to each other sharing something similar, but it is not comparing, it is sharing and it is helping me feel heard.  How was the movie??  

Kayc... yes, very much so.  When she's sober the next day, she apologizes. Sigh.  I stooped to her level by my response, but I needed her to know that it hurt.  I needed her to stop saying it.  It felt yucky to say.

[Margm]

@Patty:  My 16-year-old granddaughter and I loved the movie.  The special effects were wonderful.  But, because of the loud animals (beautifully done also), it scared some of the younger ones and the animals pouncing was fearful for them too.  I saw many kids being taken out of the movie crying.  But, like the fairy tales of the wolf eating the grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood and all the other fairy tales that had terror in them, I never thought about it scaring children.  We just handed the tales down from generation to generation.  I remember as a child standing between Mama and Daddy (no seat belts then) that in that back seat, in the dark, I knew there was a big bear just waiting.  But this is Rudyard Kipling, this is a "tale as old as time."  And, as many times as I have seen the remakes, to me, this was the very best.  Bill Murray as Baloo was wonderful.  And Idris Elba as Shere Khan were equal to anyone who has ever played them in film or in animation.  My grown granddaughter who took her 6-year-old to see it, she did not like it at all.  My 16-year-old was so taken with it she wants to own the DVD.  This is the same granddaughter that was featured in her yearbook in the 3rd grade wanting to see Broadway plays, she plays the old movie Grease over and over.  And her life's ambition is to see Hamilton on Broadway.  Wish I could afford to take her, maybe one day I will.  I figure it will run for many years.  

[Patty65]

That's awesome Marg, I am not ready for movies (tried, failed), so I enjoyed this one vicariously through you   I love Avatar, watch that over and over.  My daughter and I, when it was just the two of us, would have pizza movie night on Fridays from when she was 3 to when she was 10... we had so much fun that she decided she wants to be a film director... that's what she's studying in college, she's getting a film degree!  Right now she is on a co-op internship in NYC working for a Jacques Cousteau type non-profit that makes underwater documentaries, and she's learning how to edit Virtual Reality...  I'm so proud of her, Ron was too.  He would say "our daughter" even though he was step-dad.  He is dad to her.  And that's why I'm holding on.

Patty

[Guest]

Patty-

I have found my kids and grandkids are great distractors and a good reason for me to press on.  So much of what I do I do to be there for them.  Your daughter sounds remarkable as the film industry is a tough nut to crack.  To Ron she was his daughter.  Makes sense to me.  I got so close to Deedo's ex-husband's parents that they would introduce me as their son-in-law.  When Deedo divorced her husband she did not divorce his family and they grew to love me as they loved her.

[Margm]

Patty, that is wonderful for your daughter.  I know that Brianna wants to do something like that but I take her to a counselor because she has social anxiety from being bullied in school.  That is why we home schooled her.  She was adopted by my daughter and her father is from Thailand.  She is beautiful Amerasian but we tried schooling her with a bunch of home grown vanilla bumpkins.  The boys loved her, of course, but she had a hard time with the girls.  One girl threw rocks at her when she was in the third grade.  I cannot tell you how beautiful she is inside and out, and I hope this counselor can help, she seems to be doing this so far.  Now days they always want to give pills and we have fought that off

Once when we were in Walmart a woman had a table selling things,  She called me over and she was looking at our 3-4 year old granddaughter..  She said "She is going to be famous one of these days."  Personally, I was glad she was adopted at that time because with our family it might be pictures of heading off to San Quinton, or whatever prison was closest.  But, she is interested in film critique, lots of stuff pertaining to film and the entertainment industry.  

We all still have hopes for our families, and sometimes that washes down to our own selves maybe.  .  

[kayc]

Marg,

I hope you get to take your granddaughter to see Hamilton on Broadway, that would be a night to remember for your lives!

Patty,

You must be so proud of your daughter and esp. to know you had a hand in it by instilling the love of theater!

George was a stepfather to my kids too and as he entered their lives when they were teenagers, I didn't expect them to get close, but they developed a very close bond.  When my son was enrolling in the Air Force and the Army wouldn't give back his identification (they wanted him for themselves), it was George that went to bat for him and got them to special courier it down from Portland the next day.  When I overheard part of his conversation with the Army, I heard him intimidating them with "Why won't you give my boy back his ID?!"  I smiled and stepped back into the house to let him finish his job.   He also went to bat for my daughter when some people she'd stored her belongings with wouldn't give them back to her.  He asked her what they said when she asked for her stuff back and she replied they'd said "no", and he said, "Well they won't say no to me!!" and away he went!  He came back a couple of hours later with all of her belongings in our truck.  I loved that he cared about my kids as though they were his own.  He was a special stepdad.