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If You're Going Through Hell


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1 hour ago, TomPB said:

My question to everyone who is helping me is "Am I going to be sad for the rest of my life?" Deepak Chopra says the memories must become happy memories instead of bringing up the pain of loss for grief to "release". Not there.

It's a ind of a quiet sadness that you coexist with...in other words you can live life, smile, enjoy yourself, but the grief isn't entirely gone either, you have both at once, that's the only way I know to explain it.  The memories are happy and can give you a smile or comfort but it's the missing them part that is sadness.  I wouldn't exactly call it a pain, not like in the beginning, but it's there.

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Today I cannot believe I've ever complained.  Sometimes you just have to be thankful for some blessings.  If I didn't have to see them, I would delete all my word salads.  Sometimes we all lose our smiles.  I am so sorry.  

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My question, Kay, is what to do if the pain keeps increasing?  Not following that path of breaks for a true smile or enjoying myself?  No one can truly answer that, but I definitely not on that path.  Maybe mine is meant to last longer than almost 3 years.  It's very discouraging and very lonely.

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Gwen,

i am sad even while remembering good times.  They are gone forever!  People tell me to remember the good times.  I do!  Then I am sadder.  People who have not been there have no clue how it is.  You are right, Gwen, it is a very lonely life.

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Remembering is good............sometimes. Continuing to downsize an entire life's worth of stuff, I cleared out a huge drawer full of photos, the ones that you never get around to putting in the albums or they are just the wrong size. Found a lot of duplicates. Found pictures from when I was a baby. Now, those are old! I was a happy, laughing, spoiled child as my parents and I traipsed around the country pulling our mobile home behind us. Looking back, I can't imagine that '55 Chevy pulling that 35" trailer over Wolf Creek Pass, but it did. I remember my dad pulling over a lot of times during our travels to let the radiator cool down.  LOL   I've seen some beautiful places in this country. Found so many pictures of my children & grandchildren throughout their lives. The ones of my daughter brought a few smiles, but for some reason, her class pictures Grades 1-8 brought a huge sadness. I watched her change and grow and thought "Now she has grown into ashes". There were a few pictures of young Ron, very few of him during our lifetime as he was usually taking the pictures. I could not look at his very last picture that I took three months before he died. In reality, it was plain that he was dying. I just didn't want to see it.

Those pieces of paper contain my whole life of memories. Best I put them away once again.

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Karen, those are the best memories.......my kids(they are all 35-40), remember pushing  overheated Olds Wagon through an intersection over 30 years ago...that is an all time vacation Hi Lite...Those pictures, and I have thousands Angela took, give me a great sense of peace and joy........ 

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I have no answers.  I have learned that life can still shock me.  I cannot imagine the hurt it can hurl our way, cannot believe it, but it does.  We have all lost our buffer.  We have lost the one we could tell our troubles to.  I wish I could put my thoughts in 2-3 lines instead of writing a book.  I have written last night and today and I have deleted.  It gets too long and my words certainly will not help.  I have become cynical.  Yesterday, my very close childhood neighbor and friend, her husband passed away.  She had called me after I retired to that AR tourist town.  She was visiting.  We had kept in touch through my relatives who lived behind her folks.  She lost her fight with colon cancer soon afterwards. Some people have personalities that light up the day.  She did.  Her husband's death made me sad, but I was surprised it took him this long.  He did not take care of himself.  He actually was skin and bones.  They had family who will mourn him terribly, but I could only think of the words of a sad country song, "He Stopped Loving Her Today."  And, my mustard seed faith made me think that finally they were together again (another country song.)  

I think I will turn on the news.  At least it provides aggravation and shock.  Don't knock it, aggravation and shock are "feelings."  We have 24 hours to get through.  If we can sleep, that takes away from conscious hours.  And, unless you read, watch TV, go for a walk, put up with relatives, if you have them, then the minutes tick by.  Some are searching for a semblance of peace and maybe a moment that you are not suffering grief so hard.  My friend's husband, it took him a few years but he finally followed her.  Guess we can live life to a sad country song, or explore the minutes left for something.  I hesitate to call it happiness, but I do think some of you might find it again.  It won't be the same, but nothing ever will again.  Mostly, all we look for is a reason to make those 24 hours.I saw proof yesterday that you actually can grieve yourself to death.  

I call my words "word salads" because it is a term used in mental illness. "confused or unintelligible mixture of seemingly random words and phrases",  I think it comfortably fits me. 

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14 hours ago, KarenK said:

Those pieces of paper contain my whole life of memories. Best I put them away once again.

Oh how well I know this!  I have a really hard time looking at pictures...seeing the family I once had...now grown and gone, a life that turned into the whispers of the wind...then pictures of George, hard to believe we were once together, happy, we were so in love...also vanished into thin air.  Pictures are hard.  Of another time, a happy place.

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11 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Karen, the first thing I did was destroyed all pictures of a Steve when he was sick.

That's what I did of anything to do with George's job, because I feel it was responsible for killing him.  First thing I threw out was his work clothes, mug, etc.

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16 hours ago, Gin said:

i am sad even while remembering good times.  They are gone forever!  People tell me to remember the good times.  I do!  Then I am sadder.  People who have not been there have no clue how it is. 

This is a huge issue for me. It's almost (not totally) impossible to enjoy the happy memories because the pain of their loss is so great. Every happy memory has a big bright GONE written across it. I get tears and not a smile. Nevertheless professionals who I respect tell me that getting in touch with the good memories is part of getting to a decent life so I try.

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REMEMBERING THE ‘LASTS’

Written by Jennifer Stern on Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Beach_footprints

 

The last words spoken. The last touch. The last meal shared. The last laugh. The last show watched. The lasts…moments and interactions that would otherwise go unnoticed in everyday life now sacred. Memories that, when lucky, we wish to bottle and protectively hold on a shelf. Untouched for eternity. Never dimmed. Never forgotten. Accessible to us, for us, always.

Remembering those lasts can at times feel unbearable, oppressive, truly unendurable. IF ONLY I HAD KNOWN, I would have…I could have…I should have…. The magical thinking of grief and loss. Don’t get stuck there.

In time, when the bevy of overwhelming emotions that paralyze us in grief, coming in relentless waves, slows there will be space for the memories. When remembering the time when….makes you smile instead of bringing you to your knees.  Read on here >>>

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I will admit the loss of my friend's husband hit me low because it fit my mood.  "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."  Then I visited a friend's site.  She was a school teacher with part-time work at the hospital I worked.  We were not close, but acquaintances, maybe friends.  She lost her husband, immediately moved to of all places, Kansas.  Hey, Kansas is home to lots of happy  people.  She joined a group called "Adventurous Babe's Society" and they are living life to the fullest that is left to them.  This is not a book club, they shake, rattle, and I doubt roll, but they travel, and they have a good time.  I think I see drinking glasses in their pictures, but who knows, could be orange juice. Just a bunch of women actually enjoying each other's company, women who have lost part of their life but have channeled that loss into a group of senior women actually having fun.  And we ask how, when, and why?  .  Again, no answers, but I don't think they are a church group, and that is okay.  

Then today I saw pictures of two OLD friends.  Came from my hometown.  Spent their life as missionaries in foreign countries.  They are now 85 and 86.  The pictures were of them in jumping from an airplane.  Miracle of miracles, they still have each other and the smiles on their faces make them ageless.  

9 minutes ago, MartyT said:

Remembering those lasts can at times feel unbearable, oppressive, truly unendurable. IF ONLY I HAD KNOWN, I would have…I could have…I should have…. The magical thinking of grief and loss. Don’t get stuck there.

The doctor told Billy and me "woulda, coulda, shoulda" and the fact was we "did'a" but he fell through the cracks and left so fast my head still swims and I cannot believe he is gone.  Still, there are people trying to pull themselves out of this quicksand of grief.  I don't really try.  My granddaughter takes up my time and trying to see that this mentally abused child/woman has a life.  I know I escaped from an oppressive mother, from the frying pan into the fire.  We fought our way to happiness and had a lot of happy memories, more than bad.  Sometimes visiting those happy memories still hurts so you visit when you can, or you don't visit at all.  

I don't think I will be joining an "Adventurous Babe's Society" but I sure admire those women for fighting their own adversity and trying to enjoy life.  From the pictures I have seen, I don't think they are faking their happiness.  So, with work, it can be done.  Or we can grieve ourselves to death, and I saw yesterday, that can be done also.  

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21 hours ago, TomPB said:

This is a huge issue for me. It's almost (not totally) impossible to enjoy the happy memories because the pain of their loss is so great. Every happy memory has a big bright GONE written across it. I get tears and not a smile. Nevertheless professionals who I respect tell me that getting in touch with the good memories is part of getting to a decent life so I try.

In the early months those memories bring pain, but eventually you will find that it changes and brings a smile to you, comfort, encouragement. Those same memories sustain me now.  I may not have someone in my life right now that loves me, but I knew the greatest love that ever was and I know he loves me even still, even as I do him.

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I must have part of this wrong...I recreate the great moments and love it, and so does the Family/Friends.....I'm talking about Parks and Beaches, Museums, and  Vacation haunts....Now its different friends, children now have kids, and I'm the one who has most of the memories.....But I love memories.......next mini vacation is a Dinosaur Park....guaranteed smiles......

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5 hours ago, kayc said:

In the early months those memories bring pain, but eventually you will find that it changes and brings a smile to you, comfort, encouragement. Those same memories sustain me now.  I may not have someone in my life right now that loves me, but I knew the greatest love that ever was and I know he loves me even still, even as I do him.

I really hope you're right. Otherwise the future looks bleak.

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Strange phenomenon.  I forget my dreams.  I remember as soon as I wake up but they just dissolve and I don't remember them again.  I don't like to sleep in the daytime at all, no naps, but sometimes (not often, probably 3-5 times in two years).  Bri is going to early school now and sometimes I guess I kinda wear myself down..  Back right after Billy left I went to sleep in a chair in front of the TV and he was beside me waking me up.  It felt like him, I could see him, he kissed me on the forehead.  Today I have dozed off twice and Billy was there when I woke up.  I don't know why that happens, it does not happen in the mornings after sleeping all night but disturbing sleep (not meaning to doze off) and he was there.  I have been letting the scar tissue build up, willing it to be so, this rips it off.  I don't like this.  I am going to wash clothes, won't drift off again.  No good feeling, just hurt.  Some might welcome it, but it just makes it seem like he is still here and he isn't.  Do not know why that happens, something about neurons and synapses and REM (light sleep, rapid eye movement sleep), not restful sleep. (And I don''t claim to know what any of that means except the REM sleep.)  Used to type polysomnograms.  

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On 9/17/2017 at 11:08 AM, kevin said:

I must have part of this wrong...I recreate the great moments and love it, and so does the Family/Friends.....I'm talking about Parks and Beaches, Museums, and  Vacation haunts....Now its different friends, children now have kids, and I'm the one who has most of the memories.....But I love memories.......next mini vacation is a Dinosaur Park....guaranteed smiles......

No, you don't have it wrong, but where we are in our journey makes a difference as to how things affect us.  In the beginning it's painful because it brings up the fact that they're gone now and we won't be building more memories...later on when we've gotten more adjusted to life as it is now, the memories comfort and sustain us even though we're alone, we console ourselves with the fact that we once had this, and that person loves us still even though out of reach.

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On ‎09‎/‎20‎/‎2017 at 2:26 PM, Marg M said:

Strange phenomenon.  I forget my dreams.  I remember as soon as I wake up but they just dissolve and I don't remember them again.  I don't like to sleep in the daytime at all, no naps, but sometimes (not often, probably 3-5 times in two years).  Bri is going to early school now and sometimes I guess I kinda wear myself down..  Back right after Billy left I went to sleep in a chair in front of the TV and he was beside me waking me up.  It felt like him, I could see him, he kissed me on the forehead.  Today I have dozed off twice and Billy was there when I woke up.  I don't know why that happens, it does not happen in the mornings after sleeping all night but disturbing sleep (not meaning to doze off) and he was there.  I have been letting the scar tissue build up, willing it to be so, this rips it off.  I don't like this.  I am going to wash clothes, won't drift off again.  No good feeling, just hurt.  Some might welcome it, but it just makes it seem like he is still here and he isn't.  Do not know why that happens, something about neurons and synapses and REM (light sleep, rapid eye movement sleep), not restful sleep. (And I don''t claim to know what any of that means except the REM sleep.)  Used to type polysomnograms.  

Marg:  I understand why that is disturbing.  I have dreams with John in them sometimes (night) and they usually leave me feeling quite sad and missing him more.  I can't ever nap, as I always wake up feeling discombobulated.  I think people think that would be comforting because it seems like he is really there, but even if he is, you can't hold onto him or get him back, which is what I struggle with.  I guess we're supposed to get used to what we can and can't have now.  Hugs, Cookie

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Cookie, we miss them so much.  Reality hits you in the face.  They are not here.  I want to touch his high cheekbones (I loved that), he never got old to me (but we were), his soft sweet hands. I still saw the turned up nose, the beautiful blue eyes (that time was making it tough because he needed a lid lift because they were falling over his eyes), but he needed a life lift the most.  I see him.  I see him in the clouds.  I talk to him in the sky.  I beg him to help me, though I know that is futile.  Both of my kids have serious health issues, too serious.  My son had a certified letter from the liver clinic at the VA, and that scares me.  I realize he did not leave on purpose.  I realize we had 54 years together, but why do they seem like such a short time?  I am sincerely trying to build up the scar tissue Rose Kennedy talked about.  I am trying to get on with my living.  New clinic to take my granddaughter to..  Not a huge city, but I have directions mapped out totally.  It is 68 miles from my apartment.  My life has been riding on roads I did not know where they went.  Hated going down the same road twice.  A bit of my daddy's traits in me.  He would take the back road every chance he got, but when you have an appointment, you do not get to choose.  This will be going through country roads (which I love), but have to make it at appointment time.  My granddaughter loves going the "long way" around things so she can listen to her music list on the car radio.  I have become a groupie of teenage groups.  My life is such a contradiction.  

Addendum:  The letter from the VA was not bad news, so I can delay worry for my son.  Both middle aged "kids" miss Billy so much.  

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20 hours ago, Marg M said:

I want to touch his high cheekbones (I loved that)

With me it was a tiny little lock of hair that curled on his forehead.  He didn't have a lot of hair there but this one tiny curl and I loved it.  It's funny how you feel when you're in love, you notice everything.  I also loved the wrinkles on his throat, I'd touch them, they were so soft.

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