Memories

[Gwenivere]

I woke up the other day to the memories of the morning I got up and had to send Steve to hospice for the final time.  Could not shake the images I saw when I got up and knew he was in another world and had to call his nurse.  I did not know he would not return this time.  But that is not the point.

The point is that memories are so very hard because they are from real experiences.  Not a bad dream or movie we saw.  Something we saw and said....whew, that was intense and could toss out because it wasn't real.  I'm too close to those to easily access the good ones of our past and the times I have reached them, they are still too painful because they emphasize the loss.  So what to do with a head and heart full of 37 years entwined with this person that is now over?  I see things around the house I don't do anymore, like leaving him notes on his mirror he saved and are still piled on a picture he kept adding them too.  There is a note in his car I see he taped there because it said to carry this so he never forgot his girls (me and our dogs) love him.  I haven't written him a silly note in over a year and a half.  Nor him me.  

I am not creating new memories now beyond how I survive each day now.  Those are real too so I can't toss them out when they are painful.  This isn't fiction.  I know no one has the answers, but it is a new discovery that has materialized tho I have felt it a long time but couldn't put words to it.

As a footnote it finally happened to me that someone told me it was time to find a new man.  She is a resident at the nursing home I volunteer at and when she heard it was over a year, it was time to get out there and find another one.  I don't know if it was a generational thing, she being well into her 80's, or that she really thought that would help because women should always have a man.  just fill in the blank spot with another!  I can't even fathom anything beyond a hug I get now and then from male friends.  

Grief, the hell that just keeps on giving.

[KATPILOT]

For what it's worth Gwen, those bad memories tend to come and visit with less frequency. I still have them a few times a year but they don't hurt as much however they do still come. Yeah you just can't erase what was real from your mind.

[Margm]

Gwen, I have no answers to anything.  Sometimes my mind gets on overload and I shake all over.  I have had a congenital tremor since puberty.  Lots of family members have had it.  When I get too upset my face twitches, my chin goes into spasms, and I just shake all over.  So, anxiety is not my friend.  I thought about Billy and the shock of finding him dead after just less than two hours, actually 30  minutes according to the nurse.  That picture kept coming to my mind and finally after seven months I started thinking about Billy's feelings.  He is not here.  I do not know what the hereafter is.  I know what I have been taught and I know what I want to believe.  And I believe if he could see me now, the one thing he would change is my last memory of him.  He was such a proud man.  He would be so hurt because my last memory of him was so grim.  So, I will not think that anymore.  I don't know how I will quit, but when I get settled down I plan on going back to a counselor.  I retired from the state hospital for my first retirement and there are doctors I remember.  My doc retired, but I plan on going to another.  I will go to one who can keep prescribing my Xanax.  It is the only thing that stops the shaking when I get in bad situations..  I will always get into bad situations.  That is just the nature of my family and there is no psychiatrist that will be able to make me "handle" my family.  So, I will just have to learn to handle me, with what time is left me.  I know I cannot stay inside and think about Billy all the time.  I know I can get outside and think about him as well as I can inside.  My family cannot help me.  I have got to learn to handle myself.  I don't know if you can really teach an old dog new tricks, and I might not be up to chasing a stick, but I have got to live until I can't.  And truth be told, as much as Billy loved to be held and get close, I just don't think he wants to see me hurting so bad, if he can see me.  And there is nothing wrong with not wanting to be with another man.  I miss Billy terribly, but I think he might let me know where he is if I did something like that.  If they have to have an answer, ask them why they want to know.  It's your life.  It's all we have left of that life.  We just have to make the best of it we can.  

And I expect it to be like Steve says and I expect things to improve.  Gwen, they have to improve.  We cannot go back or get anything back from the past.  I wish we could.  

[scba]

Gwen, I know how hard it is, I wish I could delete my bf's last days too....

[brat#2]

 

Gwen I feel your pain.  I had the same kind of day yesterday, could not shake seeing his last day and moments from my mind and just cried all day along.  I do remember our good times, but like you said, those are still painful too cause we can't make any more.  All we can do, I guess, is just keep holding on and hope that some day those terrible memories will come less and the happy memories will come more and not hurt as much.  Sending you hugs!!

Joyce

 

[mittam99]

If you want to imagine horrendous memories, imagine this horror...

The paramedics arrive and the hope was they were taking Tammy to the hospital for treatment... to get better. Remember, she had just come home from the rehab place. She was having terrible difficulties breathing and right before they put an oxygen mask on her, she desperately said "help me!, help me!". I frantically grabbed my keys to follow the ambulance to the hospital. But... the ambulance wasn't moving. I asked the guys outside the truck what was going on and they said they were just "doing what they do". In the next few moments, panic starts to eat me alive. I needed to know what's going on in that ambulance. Why the hell isn't it hightailing to the hospital??!!! I get up on my tippy-toes  and peer into the ambulance...

There is the woman I love more that life itself. My wonderful bride. The person that has made my world a much better place and shown me love like I've never seen. And I see the man in the truck raise his arm overhead and come down with a violent fist pounding on Tammy's chest. And what I saw will forever hurt. Tammy just bounced up and down like a ragdoll... seemingly lifeless. Why was this man doing something so primitive? Why didn't this ambulance have paddles on board???  I realize Tammy went into cardiac arrest but WHY WHY WHY did this man have to do that? Why did he have to hurt my sweet babydoll? That's what it looked like... he was hurting her!

I got to the hospital hoping against hope. I frantically asked a doctor if they could give me any info on Tammy's condition. I told them about meds she was allergic to.  They had me wait in an open, noisy construction area where people were walking by laughing and happy. Then a nurse and doctor came over to me and told me Tammy arrived unresponsive and they could not revive her. My world ended at that moment.

I stayed with Tammy in the hospital's "trauma room" for hours. She still had a tube in her mouth. I couldn't leave her. I just couldn't. I talked to her and talked to her and kissed her. I wanted to go to heaven with her. And then I had to go home. Coming back home I had a feeling that I can't even describe. Just earlier that day, everything started with such hope and now I came home to a house and a world that felt like I didn't belong in anymore.

Just a few days later, I had to make the 800 mile drive to Illinois (where Tammy's family lives), to give a eulogy and bury my wife. You may recall that I fell asleep at the wheel on the highway and me and my car survived somehow (that HAD to be my angel Tammy!). I was in Illinois for about 5 days and I was pretty much a zombie the whole time, I was so incredibly numb. I do think I did Tammy proud delivering my eulogy. That wasn't an easy thing to do but I did it with her by my side.

I remember putting the pillow over my face in my room at Tammy's sisters house so no one would hear my pain and crying. 

Then it was another 800 mile drive home to an empty house of pain that used to be filled with laughter and silliness and kisses and massages and lots and lots of love. And so ended my first week without my perfect Tammy by my side.

 

 

[Margm]

Mitch, I think that is the point of the whole forum, we are to help all of us, like you have helped all of us.  You survived the horror.  We have all survived the horror.  I think about the mama's who have to  tell the young children that Daddy cannot come home with them ever again.  There are grown adults on this forum that have lived through a childhood without a dad and/or mom.  How did their parent break the news to them?  How was life after that?  My across the street neighbors with the oldest being 9, there were four little girls, how did their daddy tell them that Mama could no longer come home with them?  People live through the most horrendous lives and we wonder how they make it.  Well, one way we make it is with people like you, Kay, George, Steve, Amy, Maryann, Gwenivere, Kevin, Joyce, and all of you who have gone through these horrendous times.  I had my Billy for so long, but I miss him just as bad.  I sometimes get angry at myself because I am so selfish I knew he was terminal and I wanted to keep him the months they said he had.  But what horror would he have had to go through.  I am so distraught he is not here, but if he was here, would I have him so heavily sedated and would he be hurting anyhow even with sedation?  I did not want him to go.  I wanted to go too.  Sometimes/most times, I still do.  Only now I have his granddaughter that would be so hurt, not to mention my kids.  So, I have got to do what he said.  The one left must stay.  

We try to get in as good a disposition as we can.  We try to live.  We try to "stay."  

It would be nice if we all could get in good dispositions.  That is why it is so important to have Kay and Steve on here.  They lived through it to fight another day.  And so will we all.  No, it is not fair.  Life is not fair.  And they  lived happily ever after was a fairy tale.  I almost had one, almost a real life fairy tale.  We all had a real life fairy tale as long as they were with us.  But anger does not put out the pain, crying does not stop the pain, screaming gives me a headache, fussing at Billy does not help.  He was hard of hearing and did not listen to me when he was alive either.  I sure didn't mind talking loud for him though.  

[Polly]

I keep thinking about those 8 days that Rich was in the hospital and less than 24 hours in hospice. Sometimes I feel bad that I didn't stay with him longer than I did each day. I really thought that he dr's were going to figure out what was wrong and he would be ok. I feel bad that 2 of those days I didn't even go to the hospital. I was still going to work and Nicole was still going to school. The 2 days that I didn't go to the hospital was because I was just too exhausted. I keep thinking about the 7th day that he was in hospital. This was the day that Rich kept telling that he loved me. The days before this he really wasn't able to talk too much. This was the day that the dr. told me what was wrong with him. I was shocked and didn't cry in front of him. I remember leaving the hospital that evening and as soon as I got to my car, I lost it. Not even sure how I made that 45 minute drive home. I sat in the car in the garage and tried to pull myself together because I had to go inside and tell my daughter the bad news. Then I had to call my older daughter and tell her. I text messaged one of my sisters and told her to call and tell my mom for me. I just couldn't. The next day my older daughter drove 2 and a half hours to my house. I took the girls to the hospital. We spent all afternoon with Rich. He was in bad shape. He would every once in awhile try to say something to us. Sometimes we couldn't figure out what he was trying to say. That night we had him moved to hospice. We left around 5pm only because Jessi needed to drive back home and his son went and stayed with him until they moved him. The next day Nicole and I went to be with him. He wasn't awake that day at all. I do think he knew that we were there. I also think he waited for everyone else to leave and it was just Nicole and I with him when he passed. I still can't believe he is gone. I also wonder what our cats think. Rich always talked to them and they followed him around. I know they miss him as much as I do.

[kayc]

I've become acquainted with a lady down the street...she has asked me about my time with George, pointed questions, and I sensed her genuine interest, so I shared with her, how we met, his last weekend, how it was between us.  She got real quiet and said, I've never had that (soulmate love)...and she's been married three times and is living with a man now.  These memories we're trying to figure out what to do with...some are horrible (their dying), some I cherish (our time together), but what to do with them now?  Sometimes I feel like maybe I made him up, he couldn't have really existed, but then I go and look at his picture, see his identification, his handwriting...nope, he was really here.  It all seems unreal sometimes, like a dream, but like Gwen said, it's not something someone made up, not like a movie, it's real, it's ours, and making sense out of it seems kind of baffling at times.  I have learned to cherish the life we had together, even while I wish it was a helluva lot longer.

[Margm]

It would not have mattered Kay, even 54 years were not enough.  

[Gwenivere]

I agree, Marg.  I got 37 and feel ripped off.  We were supposed to shuffle off into the sunset with our walkers or on those scooters.  I never thought of being 60 as young til this.  Steve would be 64.  That's enough time to have made a lot more memories especially about getting old.  Lots of time to moan and groan about it.  :-)

[Patty65]

Gwen,

The memories are horrible. It's what I'm struggling with.  It's why I'm told my world is "strange" and toy-like. The trauma of the memories.  I could have never imagined, like so many of us, that when the ambulance came that he would never come home.  I too create no new memories at the house, and can't imagine doing so.  But I was compelled to write and write over the first month.  Every detail of Ron's "Final 55 Days".  It is 30 pages long. Every memory I had.  It was brutal and hard, but I was compelled to.  I wrote it and buried it.  But in my strange accident-filled toy-like world, my therapist asked if we might read it together.  She said if the details are shared, maybe I could be more safe.  I don't know if it will work.  And the first time we tried, last week, it was hell because I read and read it, numbly, and then went back to the house and fell apart (to put it nicely). And continue to.  I don't know if it is worth it.  She says sharing the memories will help, but it seems more than I can bear.

I dread the day when someone might tell me it's time to find someone else.  I am still at the stage where people are asking me how Ron is doing.  I just shake my head and look away.

Patty

[Gwenivere]

Patty, I never detailed Steves last days because they are forever seared into my mind and always will be.  It is not a time I want to revisit.  I've never even posted them here.  I did start a journal of sorts about my feelings for the first few months.  I've talked verbally with my counsellor about those last days, but that is all my heart can handle.  I've even walked into a session and said I do not want to talk about 'insert whatever here' because I knew I was too vulnerable and would have to leave and be on my own with the fallout.  Nothing we experienced will ever be forgotten.  Writing it down is not something I find helpful.  I'm trying to make my way to the good memories.  That is a daunting task when mixed with the trauma of the bad.  

This is a time WE decide what we can handle and what we can't.  There is no right or wrong except how it pertains to us personally.  You released those details once.  Maybe that was enough.  Only you know.  The catch is I would run this past Steve for his opinion knowing me.  

Who in the world would be asking you how Ron is doing?  

[Margm]

Billy and I had got the family situated where we could RV again, but it did not work this time either.  They played the song "A Time for Us" on The Voice as the last song tonight, I could not listen to it.  We used to think eventually there would be "a time for us."  We had lots of time though.  I would not have thought it enough if it had been 200 years.

 

[Patty65]

59 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

Who in the world would be asking you how Ron is doing?  

Yeah, I talk little, I write and I paint.  We do have to all find our own path.  If I hadn't written it, I would not be able to talk about it with my therapist, just my process.

Mostly the people who ask how Ron is are customers who come in, when I happen to be out front near the register (which I avoid). In my desperation to save the business to have something for Ron to come back to when he got better, I put out a "Gofundme" campaign and asked our community to donate to keep his dream of Maui Pasta alive, when I was so "not present" as much here at work when he was in Hospice.  I stupidly believed I could still save him, even after he was admitted to a Hospice that only took patients who had two months or less to live.  Now, it kills me that I am very well known on this island.  Everyone still comes in and says "I heard your story".  (it's not a STORY its my awful %$#$%# life) Some though didn't follow it - they saw it, donated, and didn't know how things turned out.  I am so guilt ridden about having done all that now.  and I H-A-T-E that everyone knows. Uggggghhh!  It's EVERYWHERE i go.  Especially with the drama of having my car stolen a few days before he died. And its a little red car that everyone recognizes now (the car pic went on social media too and everyone was helping me look for it, and a customer found it)   And on top of that it went viral, they came to video me for MauiNow, and internet news source, the radio picked it up...

One of the reasons I think I get to a point where I can't/don't want to keep it going is the guilt of feeling like it only exists now because he got sick and died.  I wanted to save it as his legacy.  I didn't want him to die for it to live.  I know it gets twisted in my head.  So I guess I deserve the customers coming in and asking how he is since I put it out there.  I know not really, but it feels like that all the time.

Time for Patty to shut up now!

 

[Gwenivere]

Im so sorry, Patty.  What an ordeal and constant reminder.  Please keep in mind your passion to help him was the driving force.  That's an incredible testament to your love for him.

[kayc]

Patty,

I'm so sorry, I just read the news account, it's so recent.  I can only imagine how hard it is to be going through this while feeling like you're in the limelight.  I'm glad you're in a caring community.  There will come a day when everyone will know so won't have to ask.