If You're Going Through Hell

[Clematis]

Marg - I'm sure you feel like Jello because Jello=Exhaustion. Bravery is what you call what's required to be doing what you have been doing. I don't think anyone feels brave when they're exhausted from working really hard while their world and everyone in it seems to be collapsing. I think that if you saw someone else going what you've been doing given your situation, you would probably be saying something like, "Wait right there-I'm gonna go get you a stretcher!" 

[Widowedbysuicide]

I so look forward to your posts.  Your sense of ha, ha it really good.  Also it is good for me to see things from different perspectives.  Thanks for sharing your journey's ups and downs.  Hopefully the distance between up and down will diminish with time and you will have some peaceful times where you can relax.

If you are jello I must be crackers!

[Margm]

37 minutes ago, Widowedbysuicide said:

If you are jello I must be crackers!

Well, I think they are pretty good analogies.  I remember someone saying something like nailing jello to a tree.  I guess you could not nail a cracker, so we both will stay away from trees.  We have to have peace sometimes.  All of us. 

[Widowedbysuicide]

Amen Marg.

[Margm]

Trying to get used to the arrows.  Sometimes I go and remove something.  I will get the hang of it.  I love pushing buttons.  I do it every day of my life.

This is how things are going right now.  I am fully in the apartment.  I have worn a pair of pants three days (don't worry girls, I found my panties.).  I used those very big boxes with plastic tops.  I have them packed everywhere.  Some have labels, some do not.  Scott's generator and personal stuff, his paintings, his small freezer, the bigger freezer I gave to Kelli, they are all in my dining room.  I have boxes stacked up against the wall.  Billy had a chest of drawers of Tee shirts that he never wore.  I could not throw them away so one big heavy box has that, one has his fly tying materials and I found I could not take all of his boats, other outdoors apparatuses or the elliptical.  The man who took them looks after the older people in the senior housing.  We let him in the garage and he took everything he could find  He even took the triple water hose in the back yard.  Two big ladders.  What did I care?  I was not going to use them.  He took all the lawn tools, shovels, spades, hoes, rakes, sledge hammers (?), we had two of them.  I should have let him in the house earlier in the week.  I could have left sooner. 

I have not cut off my utilities.  I have to do that.  I have been down twice to pay my electric bill only to find each time I don't have one yet.  My PO mailbox had a tape over the back.  She said it was for nonpayment.  I had my receipt and she took it off the back.  Mistakes will be made.  Suddenlink is to come out and hook up my other two TV's.  AT&T, who I have had cell phone service with over 10 years (You have to watch them), I call and threaten to go to another service if I find discrepancies.  They have always removed quite a bit when I do this.  I promised to pay the next house note only because I left a few things that go to the garbage dump and a wall full of stuff to the thrift store.  The contract is for 3 years lease.  I am not an accountant and I am not sure Billy would have understood this.  There is a clause that they have option to buy after three years.  I do not know how that works.  Lawyer drew up papers.  I signed them as a real estate man was offering to buy the house knowing it had five city lots all together.  He had plans of new construction on four of those lots.  Now, my neighbors love their solitude and I could not do this.  This woman wanted this house very bad and any repairs are up to her.  I am unsure how the insurance goes and we will have to talk.  Needless to say, I nearly backed out with her breaking her back helping me clean the place.  I paid the girl she had with her.  I could not think of selling to the man who wanted to make a subdivision out of it.  My neighbors are old.  No crime.  You can leave your doors unlocked for days at a time and your safe.  The chief deputy lives in the first house on the street. 

I have met my neighbors.  Selma is a Minden native who lived in East Texas with her husband.  She is elderly but has to work at caretaker jobs to make ends meet.  A young girl and her four year old child is across the way and across from her is Norma who keeps her Alzheimer's father three months at a time, she and her sisters take turns. 

The Savannah is an assisted living place, beautiful, one main street over from me.  Glenda, my lifelong friend, is fixing to move into it.  Wanda, who is deaf, she will follow in the near future.  They came by to see me when I was my sweatiest, dirtiest self.  They were all clean and beautiful.  It is good when you have friends that accept you no matter what manner of dress or position you are in..  We visited for a long time and I will go to our 1960 graduation girls luncheon on the 30th with them both.  We cannot talk to Wanda while she is driving, she is deaf you know and cannot read our lips. 

Just an update.  I have spent a really downward spiral two days, no, more like 10 months tomorrow.  Yes, I still remember the months, and his birthday is coming up.  Billy the Kid liked getting presents.  I will take a refrain from a country singer's song named "Billy the Kid."  It is simply "I miss Billy the Kid."  That was Billy's favorite song.  He missed Billy the kid also, even before he was gone.

And that is my short story, running fingers events.  If you are a praying person, I sure need them right now.  Don't we all though?

As an addendum, the man who took Billy's fishing stuff said that he knew the man with just how he tied his lines, how he tied his baits.  He said he felt his spirit.  I wonder.  I know none of us were going to use them and I thought Billy would enjoy a fly fisherman taking over his collection..  He did not know the hours Billy had spent figuring line length and weight, writing numbers down in notebooks.  He carried it to a scientific level.  He loved numbers.  I hope Billy's spirit is happy that someone that will love his rods and baits will use them.  I hope he is happy that I gave all his crow, coyote, turkey and varmint calls to the animal officer at the police department.  She was so happy to get them.  I hope I did him proud.  I meant to.

 

[KarenK]

Marg,

I am hoping that things will smooth out for you in the near future. I know there are times when you don't feel like you are "taking charge", but you really are. This is so much to accomplish when you are basically on your own(not to diminish the help you have received from Scott and various others). I'm sure it will take some getting used to, this living in an apartment after so many years in your own house.

Your last paragraph made me so sad, unintentionally of course. Ron treated his fine gun collection as Billy did his fly equipment and hobby. I wanted to make him proud, but could not. Instead, my son and I scrambled to Cabelas to resell 90% of them just to survive. I have lost so many of his beautiful things, the worst being our cabin. I know in my heart that he is not proud of me and it truly hurts.

I am proud of you for planning on attending the reunion. I looked online for my high school reunions(1965) and recognized only one name from the previous ones. A few years back, my ex had asked me to attend his(we were high school sweethearts) , but I declined as I didn't want to hurt Ron's feelings. It would have been fun to see our former friends after 40 years.

Guess it's time to grit my teeth and push forward.

[Margm]

Well Karen, I don't know how it is in the "hereafter" but if it is anything like the medium's say (on another post), then they are not disappointed in us at all.  I think they are proud that we carry on.  I meant it when I would tell Billy at night that I could not live without him.  Right now I feel (and I know a lot of us feel this way) that we are standing on very shaky ground.  So much to worry about.  When my mom does pass away, what is my sister going to do?  She has the education, but has been taking care of my mom and lives on what she gets every month.  I know she has to be going crazy knowing this.  My mom is totally bedridden right now.  I have never seen a life so stubborn.  My daughter was talking to her last night, we thought she was comatose.  Kelli said "watch her follow me with those eyes."  Sure enough, Kelli played with her awhile, teasing her, and Mama was conscious and singing.  We could not make out the words and she gets choked on her own secretions..  Kelli was telling her it was okay to let go, but what is left of my mama's brain was playing tricks with Kelli.  Yet, we know she heard every word.  She is not in any pain.  She wants to be with her family that has gone on.  She has two aneurysms.  One by her heart.  And when she does leave, a very quirky part of my life will pass away too.  She kept me safe and in her own way loved us, but something was just not right.  We did not notice it as much as kids. 

She told us one time that a pheasant was in her front yard.  We don't have pheasants in this part of the country.  Sure enough, when we went down to see her there was a pheasant, a pet of a neighbor, in her front yard.  She told us of these huge birds with long necks chasing her car.  Later on we found out someone raising emu's had some escape.  We just never knew about her, but I have gone off the subject into remembering Mama.  Sorry about that. 

I don't think Ron or Billy is disappointed in us.  I like to think they are in a perfect place we will find out about one day, in a moment's notice. 

[Clematis]

I don't think those who are gone are disappointed with us for that kind of thing. My dad mode more money, even in his retirement, than I will ever make and therefore he had more options on anything that I have or ever will have. I have to make choices that he would n't have been boxed into. If I sold something of his that had meant a lot to him because I needed the money, he would understand. I think the bottom line is that we-the loved ones who are left behind and are grieving-meant way more to those who have left us than any of their stuff.

I sometimes get concerned about some item of my dad's and what to do with it, and I swear I can hear him say, "the hell with it", a favorite way do dismiss something. I think it's what he would say if he was here...

But tonight, I am going out to play the cello with a bunch of friends-I just heard that people are out on a porch playing music for a benefit for the Humane Society of Jerome. I'm going. Right now!  

[KarenK]

Laura, I hope you enjoy the "jam session" and make some money for the Jerome Humane Society. Didn't even know they had one. We got my son's dog from the Sedona Humane Society. They were visiting in Flagstaff on a weekend that we went to "unload" the cabin.

Your statement of "I have to make choices that he wouldn't have been boxed into" rings so true for me. I have made some very bad financial choices since Ron died due to grief and temporary insanity in addition to the ones that were made for me. Maybe he would understand.

The one emotion I am sure he feels(if he feels at all) would be surprise. Surprise at the fact that I have not found someone else. For 40 years, the crazy fool always thought I was looking for someone else. Simply never was. Had I been, I'm sure in that long I could have found someone and moved on. Two of the last things he ever said to me were "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone". So very true. And "You are so beautiful. You won't have trouble finding someone else." So NOT true. I have never looked and never will.

[Margm]

A friend from high school visited us when Billy was his sickest.  I had not talked to this fellow in 55 years and we were not close in high school.  It was just a classmate visiting a hospital patient.  He visited for the VA also and was in the hospital area.  I was trying to make strained conversation and Billy swung his legs off the bed and was leaving AMA.  Something we did not need at that time.  I know he felt totally helpless and that was not something he needed to feel.  The guy honestly was visiting an old friend, no flirting or anything.  But I could feel the desperation from Billy and that was something I didn't want.  Now, my cousin's friend visited and he was a classmate also and Billy liked him.  I just wanted Billy out of that big institution back home.  They had hurt him enough.  I just would never let him talk about the possibility he might die.  He knew it.  He told me "don't you know I see the worry in your eyes."  I wasn't going to let it happen though..  I was stronger than God, I was not gonna let it happen, but it did and there was nothing I could do.  And, I said I was not going to think about this part anymore.  I'm through. 

[Gwenivere]

6 hours ago, Marg M said:

 I don't think Ron or Billy is disappointed in us.  I like to think they are in a perfect place we will find out about one day, in a moment's notice. 

I agree, Marg.  I think once we are free of these bodies that negativity, judgement, etc. we are freed of too.  I can't imagine that Steve would have any bad feeling about anything I do being left behind in horrid grief.  If anything, I think he would be more concerned I have to feel this because of him and there is nothing he can do about it.  

[Clematis]

1 hour ago, Gwenivere said:

I agree, Marg.  I think once we are free of these bodies that negativity, judgement, etc. we are freed of too.  I can't imagine that Steve would have any bad feeling about anything I do being left behind in horrid grief.  If anything, I think he would be more concerned I have to feel this because of him and there is nothing he can do about it.  

I totally agree with both of you. I really believe our loved ones who are gone are loving us and not judging us for coping as best we can without them. I fear my dad talking to me and He says things like that..."I wish I was there to help you-not like I was at the end,but like when I was younger and stronger". He never commented about the things I spent money on  when I was alive; I think he just wanted me to be happy. But once he was gone, aside from encouraging me to buy the Bose radio I was craving in his oh-so-silent house after he was gone, I heard a lot of things like, "You need to be careful with your money not; I can't help you." I have never felt anything critical from him. I have also heard him tell me, "I'm so sorry I had to leave you-I just couldn't do it any more." I think he was totally exhausted from the Parkinson's by the time he died and just couldn't hang on any longer. He told me he thought he might have another five years, and I was hoping that was true, but I think it was unrealistic, given the rate of his decline towards the end.

[Clematis]

4 hours ago, KarenK said:

Laura, I hope you enjoy the "jam session" and make some money for the Jerome Humane Society. Didn't even know they had one. We got my son's dog from the Sedona Humane Society. They were visiting in Flagstaff on a weekend that we went to "unload" the cabin.

Thank you Karen-I did have a good time. There is a veterinarian from Phoenix who has been coming up to Jerome once a week to run a clinic in Jerome, and no pet is ever turned away for lack of funds. She has been donating time doing this for decades. I got to meet her and she was really great. They were having a silent auction inside while we were playing outside, and people wandering around in and out, up and down the stairs enjoying the summer evening. It was really nice. I haven't been out much lately. I work and work on this estate and moving stuff until I am exhausted and then do very little other than sit around and cry or try to escape it all by watching videos from Netflix or the library. It was fun to play music with my friends and see people having a good time listening to it. I told the vet about Lena the therapy cat, and she was very interested and wants to meet her.

Then, the leader of our Jerome Ukulele group had a gig around the corner with a rock band. I went over there to check it out, even though I was carrying my cello about on my back. There were a lot of people I know there-friends and acquaintances, and it was fun. People were dancing and there I was with "Mister Cello" in his case with the face and hat and all that, so I pulled out his endpin so he was a little taller than I and danced with him. I couldn't really leave him in the car or anywhere else. So we danced away, me and Mister Cello. It was fun and people were entertained. My older sister used to tell me she saw me as a performance artist because of the whole thing of running around with a dressed up cello as if he was a person. That was back in the days when she liked me...

[Clematis]

Last night was such fun - to play music, hang out with friends, dance, and meet new people. No hangover good feelings from it though. Is that part of the grief landscape? Than any happy experience is like finding a pearl in the mud. As soon as you finish wiping off the pearl and enjoying it, you are back to trudging through the mud and it may feel even worse... sitting around crying this morning and doing little else...

[kayc]

On 7/16/2016 at 10:48 AM, Marg M said:

the man who took Billy's fishing stuff said that he knew the man with just how he tied his lines

That says a lot about him!

[Margm]

Yeah!!!! Found my pants.  They were under heavy boxes that I maneuvered onto floor.  I love purple, but I had worn these pants for three days and they were beginning to wear me.  (My underwear were in the chest of drawers).  TMI. 

[KarenK]

Marg,

You are a woman after my own heart.  LOL  I live in t-shirts and these kind of pants unless I am "dressing up" in my boots and jeans to leave the house. Among mine are a pair with "Scotty" dogs and one with little monkeys. Thank you JC Penneys and Goodwill.

See, you are starting to settle in!

[Margm]

My mom is fading fast.  Kelli went out there.  I am such a coward.  I act like that is what I want my life to be, living with regrets.  I know how senseless this is, but I'm scared.

[Clematis]

1 hour ago, Marg M said:

My mom is fading fast.  Kelli went out there.  I am such a coward.  I act like that is what I want my life to be, living with regrets.  I know how senseless this is, but I'm scared.

Marg, I don't think you are a coward...you've been through so much. You can't do everything...

[kayc]

Marg,

I'm so sorry, I know how hard it is.  Of course you're scared, we all are when we go through this.  You're in my prayers, Hon.

[Margm]

Brief update.  (I will try to be brief, that is hard for me to be.).  This is the note my sister left this morning.  I have to take Bri to doc this afternoon and will go sit with Mama then, if she hangs on.  Last night Kelli (my nurse daughter) said that Maw's eyes were fixed and  not following her.  Her breathing was very shallow but she was not choking on secretions as she was the day before.  She did smile when Kelli kissed her and was leaving.  I think God has met his match in my mom.  She had to win every argument she was involved in.  She and her dad both had to win at playing domino's, Rook or even putting puzzles together.  Everything to both of them was to win.  They would get angry if they did not.  Her kidneys are shutting down, but she is just not ready to go.  If you are a praying person, pray for me to have the courage to face this.  So many of you have faced worse.  Most of you have never met such a formidable person like my mom.  Like her mom before her, her mom was on the debate team and argued that the world was flat.  She won her debate.  I can picture God doing what my dad always did, putting his hands in his pocket and walking away whistling.  The only way you could argue with my mom.  She had to win.

The note this morning:     Kelli, Margaret and friends--she woke up this morning talking and singing and smiling, and she has been doing that now for over an hour. She ate her coke float with gusto, and now she is talking about watermelons. Her eyes are bright, and she is asking where her 'honey baby' went. I don't think she means Nawlin, because she asked, "Did she have to go to work?" I am amazed!

Syble Wise Haynes is a stubborn, head butting, strong willed woman.just not ready to go yet.  I don't think you win arguments with God, but she is not arguing, she is just stating facts.

[Gin]

Marge,

Your Mom is quite a lady!  My prayers are with you.

Gin

[BillT]

My prayers are with you Marg.

Bill

[Gin]

I have little calendar books where I write down appointments, etc.. I was looking at last year's book and remembering when Al was still here.  The weatherman said this will be the hottest here in several years.  Al was here a few years ago, also.  Everything is measured by Al being here or gone.

[brat#2]

I know Gin and it is hard not to measure everything that way.  I actually did just the same thing yesterday, I found my appointment book for last year when Dale was here and all the doctor appointments, etc we had.  I cried because I would gladly be going to those appointments still if that meant he would be here.

Joyce