If You're Going Through Hell

[Gwenivere]

Well, Kay, at least that leaves king crab legs.  Yum!  And mussels and clams.

[scba]

I need to express the following.

I have notice that I purposely avoid to tell friends (who are not in contact with me often) about my life. I have regular contact with two friends. With others, quite occasionally (and mostly by chat). With these I really divert conversation to talk about them cause I feel that I have nothing much happy or positive to say about the big categories of life.  People stopped asking at around year 2/3 and I stopped talking about it. I find it is very hard for me to reveal how my life really is now. I don't tell lies, I just can't talk about it. I can't tell them the truth.

Does it happen to you too? 

[scba]

Probably because I'm scare to loose the few people that still contact me from time to time. This is already a lonely place.

 

[Gwenivere]

Absolutely this has happened to me.  It makes it even lonelier.  I feel bad that I don’t really care about their lives much because it’s such a reminder of what I once had.  I’ll occasionally make a mention, but it usually goes right past them after all this time.  I don’t feel like I am lying, I feel this is how life goes for us survivors.  People who still have lives purpose, sharing, plans don’t question it.  I never did.  We never did as I/we had things to share of our plans.  People I talk to have merely absorbed not asking about meals as I don’t cook, for example.  The worst are holidays and chit chat with friends or people I run into asking my plans.  It’s heartbreaking to say the least.  I bought a take and bake pizza the other night and realized I ordered it with no pepperoni which Steve would have wanted.  As I sat eating it I again saw how alone I am now.  How I can do everything my way, but I never wanted to.  I liked  our way.

[kayc]

I think most of us keep private what we feel after all this time, most do not care to hear really, it's mostly with people here I can express myself, and those I'm closest to, like my sister, Peggy...but she cannot get how I feel, she's been married 49 years.  When she goes through something her husband is there for her.  Now I don't even have my dog and my heart is broken in two.

I think we aren't alone as we feel...there are so many silently carrying their loss, their grief, the emptiness left behind.  We try to be positive, try to make our lives fulfilling, but, well you know.  My little sister is married, always throwing parties, gets to see her kids often, doesn't have to worry about money or health, and has tons of friends, travels frequently.  She can't begin to understand how my shoes feel.  I don't wish her life any different, it was hard when she was younger, but it's kind of like there's a disconnect between us.

[Margm]

Yesterday I had to travel back up to  old town I moved from.  I passed the campground on the river we had began our RV retirement.  I remember it was this time of year, we left on the 31st and I think that was the day Princess Diana had died.  But on the 29th, yesterday in 1997, we had just arrived.  Arkansas had a dry summer and the leaves were falling, from just dying on the tree, not changing color, but at the time it seemed like it was an early autumn.  Retirement, RV, me and Billy on a cool moving river that was so clear and coming out of the RV I had the last pure feeling of joy that I can remember having.  I was brought up on fairy tales and happily ever after.  I had been married long enough to know that was not true, but it truly was smooth sailing for a number of years and then we had to "stand up" and take control of things that could have endangered our grown children.  And, that is what we did the rest of  our lives. Not just the grown children but other relatives also.  Ongoing things.  But, I remember that one moment, minutes of pure joy.  I don't think I will ever see that again and I am resigned to that fact of life and death.  You just keep doing and going until you can't.  I'm okay, I'm fat and sassy, but have to figure out how to move to new apartment that has a washer and dryer hookups and two baths as soon as one opens.  Just a mile from where I live now, run by the same company, and NO STEPS leading into the apartment.  Steps scare me.  I can do it, but don't like to.  Another word salad served up.  Would love to feel joy once more.

Marty, I don't know where you are located, but be safe.  I think our other forum member has moved out of Florida.  If it shifts any, the rest of you be safe too.

 

[Jackie - Richard]

 

Edited

[Gwenivere]

I’m trying to remember the last time I felt pure joy as you did, Marg.  As definitions have all altered now, I’d have to say every day before the day he came home and told me he had cancer.  Of course they weren’t all joy, but compared to that day to now, they were.  Life, joy, meaning, purpose, hope, normal, contentment, they have all been rewritten in my internal dictionary.  The closet I’ve come is maybe a dream where I could physically interact with him again.  All senses engaged.  Not like the pieces of paper in frames around the house now.  His things always untouched unless I move them.  You know the drill.  No messes, no mail, no phone calls for him.  

Jackie, I did resent others happiness for a long time.  I don’t now.  It just reminds me of what I lost when I lost him.  If something went wrong for someone in their plans, I reveled in it.  That was how bitter I became.  Then acceptance hit me hard.  Crippled me in agonizing sorrow.  I saw how ugly I was becoming hearing about what were truly things I should have been compassionate about as people were to us when they happened.  Now I still find it hard to care and pretend a lot, but it’s more envy than anything else.  Not good, but quite innocuous.  I’m years ahead of you so I don’t know how your path will unfold.  I try and be as engaged as I can, which is very little, but I can’t be as giving to offer help as I would have in the past.  That bothers me.  But you can’t force that stuff or you will resent them.  

And here comes another holiday.weekend for us USA'ers.  Another Labor Day with no BBQ.  Next will be holidays and I don’t even want to think about that!  I’ll just be missing my cute chef in the carport with his grill and beer.  My solution?  Gonna try Burger King's Impossible Burger.  That way if I get asked my plans, and I will, I’ll have an answer besides alone and lonely.  

The things we do to exist in this grieve changed, almost said life, existence.

[kayc]

Marty is in FL but from what I saw on the news tonight it doesn't look like she's in the path of the hurricane, which will be above Miami.  I always worry when I hear about storms hitting FL.

[MartyT]

We are watching this storm carefully and preparing as much as we can beforehand. As you say, Kay, Dorian's path seems to be headed away from Sarasota on the west coast ~ but we're still in for some very heavy rain and wind. It has rained here every single day since the end of June, so we're already pretty saturated. I'll keep you posted as things progress ~ but I'm sure the news media will be all over this story for the next several days. 

[Gwenivere]

Keep us posted Marty!  We love ya!  ❤️

[Jackie - Richard]

Our title topic is springing to mind a quote Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill ( 30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965 ) was a British politician, army officer, and writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the second World War, again from 1951 to 1955, once said..

" if you are going through hell, keep going "  

 

[kayc]

9 hours ago, MartyT said:

It has rained here every single day since the end of June, so we're already pretty saturated.

Wow and OR is known for it's rain but we get super dry summers in recent years.  The last two summers it didn't rain a drop, hence fire dangers.  This summer it rained a couple of times, but nothing significant, barely got wet.  And the winds, we usually just get them in the winter, which is long.  Too long.

Keeping you in prayer, they're saying up to 100 mph, that's significant!

[Margm]

Arkansas is one of the states where the leaves in autumn are famous.  Every October we were out with Billy taking the pictures.  All of these pictures are stored on another computer, where I am told I can get them out..  If I live long enough I will.  He had some beauties, but the "scar tissue" has not grown thick enough to get them.  I did not cry going back to the little mountain town with the "rivers running through it" this time at all.  No clouds on the way up there, only one tiny soft looking one and reminded me of Johnnie Ray's song "The Little White Cloud That Cried" but I didn't.  Huge white fluffy ones coming home.  Nothing as spectacular as the rainbow collapsing beside my car.  Always gonna be bittersweet reminders. 

I think it a sad tradition I long ago started by riding around, my little trips, looking at countryside, always been lucky enough to have country right close to where I lived, but lived in the country with Billy.  My roots go so far down in this soil a few miles from where I live that on one side of the highway in two different highways the Haynes Road is on one side and the Wise Road is on the other.  A few blocks from where I live, in downtown Minden is the tiny cemetery of the first settlers with my great-great-great grandfather having the newest tombstone that another GGGgrandson had placed there.  Would have to look at the genealogy page to follow through, daughter named Almedia, lived in a mansion that burned, where the funeral home is now located on the street named after him.  Billy's distant relatives owned a plantation up on an old road that takes you to  the big bayou waterways the families had used, close to the Red River that empties into the Mighty Mississippi.  I am here, they are not, just like Billy, my other relatives and his, only the ghosts remain.  I had/have a picture of that old mansion somewhere.  

So, I am not far away from my family here, some still living, but old like me.  New generations sprouted from that tree that I do not know, and they had a celebration and posters made up to the original 6-8 "bridge sitters club" in the little town where Billy came from, his picture is on it and one or two of them are still living. 

Reminds me of that old Kansas song "Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Do not know why being around all the ghosts gives me some degree of comfort.  I still pass by farms and houses that I think "we ought to try living there" and the sad fact hits me in the face, "been there, done that" and I wish for another 54 years with him of promises and dreams.  How could our time run out, it was just yesterday.  

[Jackie - Richard]

Edited

[kayc]

Marg, I'm reading your post and thinking back to the times George and I would take a ride out into the woods and gather Autumn leaves and come home and make a bouquet of them.  Just now I was thinking, "I should take Arlie out and gather..." and then it hit me, Arlie isn't here any more.  I wonder when it'll quit hitting me.

[Margm]

1 hour ago, kayc said:

Arlie isn't here any more

Kay, my last fur baby "Bear," after he was gone, when I would go walking down the dirt road for fitness exercise, I could always hear Bear behind me, panting, because a Chow should never be raised in this hot  humid climate.  He was always our protector.  He had to be with us and chase those big horses behind the fence that went along the little road.  Strange phenomenon, he was gone, but I could still hear him.  It is like I hear a sound in another room of this apartment and "Billy" pops into my  head.  Foolish girl, Billy would have never lived in an apartment.  

[Jackie - Richard]

Oh i see, my Winston Churchill photo - slogan was posted by Kevin May 6th 2016...oh well, we have it again...as they say " great minds think alike.."

[Jackie - Richard]

Edited

[Margm]

I won't put any pictures, but I followed his history and know he probably suffered from bipolar disorder just as my dad and two kids have it.  They said in his manic times he wanted to take over the world and he had advisers that pulled him "off the chandeliers."  My daughter will have a radiation and immunotherapy session and that evening, after the throwing up, she will be out partying, taking photographs with her Mardi Gras krewe of choice.  Sometimes it makes her so sick she will sleep for two days.  I think September 6th is last therapy day and the MRI has come up clear, with only some scarring.  Every three months followup, then six months, etc.  Her doc at the Cleveland Clinic was in surgery when they brought in her most recent MRI's and she told her "Baby girl, we got rid of that thing."  But, back to Winston and his bipolar, his many witticisms, his telling the lady that "mamn, I will be sober in the morning and you will still be ugly" and many more.  I followed him mainly for his naming my black dog of depression.  I did not get any exotic gifts that some bipolar people get because I just suffer from chronic depression, which I have learned to live with.  Antidepressants will just kill me sooner.  (Been there and I have done that too).  We all have to fight our own battles.  Some we win, some we lose.  My daughter has won hers for the time being, and I hope forever.  

[Margm]

3 minutes ago, Jackie - Richard said:

.yes i am holding conversations with him, while asking him if he can hear me...

Keep on talking.  I have never quit.  My granddaughter says if he was to answer me it would scare me to death, so he does not want to do that.  I can still hear him and I can feel those high cheek bones and the beard.  

[Gwenivere]

 It’s good to repost some things as rarely we remember and new people usually don’t read back years ago.  I did not when I joined here.  Just jumped in and read Marty’s articles. I just read you are going into another lonely night, Jackie.  I really hate those the most.

great news about your daughter, Marg.  

I dunno, if it would scare me to death to hear Steve, I might go for that.  That would mean he was still around and maybe we could be together.  Forgive the morbidity.

[Jackie - Richard]

Edited

[kayc]

7 hours ago, Marg M said:

I could always hear Bear behind me, panting, because a Chow should never be raised in this hot  humid climate.

I know, it was hard on Arlie too, a lot of fur.  The dog I'm walking, Joe, is a Chow.  I try to walk in the early morning or evening to avoid the heat of the day.

I still talk to George after all this time.  Can't count the times I've asked him why he left me!  My neighbors used to tease me about talking to Arlie all the time.  I figure that accounted for his great communication.  Now I talk to Joe, a deaf Chow.

[Margm]

1 hour ago, kayc said:

Now I talk to Joe, a deaf Chow.

I could never have another dog after losing Bear.  When he was a pup we left him in the house for about 10  hours going to work (over 35 miles from the lake, one way). He never used the bathroom in the house all day, then we let him out.  He saved my mama's life and he died the next day.  The raccoon did not have rabies, but he had something that killed Bear.  The raccoon was headed toward my mom, Bear grabbed him, killed him, and took him way off and when Billy and Scott came around him, he would growl at them, letting them know the raccoon was ill/poison, I guess.  We had a neighbor, not real close to our house, and he put out poison to kill dogs or cats or other animals that came in his yard.  I figure it got in Bear's blood from the raccoon.  Bear would not leave the area of our house.  He did not act strange, he just went off and died the next day.  He showed no illness, but he just dropped and that was it. We could not keep him in the house.  We tried and he broke through the glass window and screen.  It was A/C in the house.  Bear would wade out into the water neck deep and stay almost all the time.  I can see having one in Oregon, but never down here, and we had him since a baby.  We were his people, he was not our dog.  The sheriff's officer came down one time (dead end road, right on the lake) and Bear did not bark, he was not a barking dog.  He sat at the sheriff's door and the sheriff called to us.  Bear would not let him out of his car.  When he wanted to be loved on, he would come close and throw his body sideways full force against us.  We would love on him.  He liked it.  When he got enough he said, that's enough, and he walked off.  As I said, we were his, he was not ours.  I have not  personally had a dog since then and still want to cry.  Once in a blue moon one comes along.  Love on Joe, the deaf Chow, if he will let you.   Hug him for me too.