orleans
orleans's Journalsome days are just so hard
so often i feel so down and low
i haven't gone through any counseling although i sure as heck needed/need it, and haven't had taken any meds for depression (in part for financial reasons and in part because of the work that i do) but who knows if it would have helped anyway.
so often i would just like to curl up and hide under the covers and cry myself to sleep.
my mom used to tell me that when her dad died she used to think: who am i going to talk to? who's going to explain things to me?
that's how i feel about losing her. i talk to her a lot. sometimes i hear her voice in my head responding, or chuckling, or making suggestions, comments, etc. i was talking to her earlier, on a major crying jag when suddenly i stopped crying ("on a dime"
and felt comforted, good, at peace, even a bit happy. when those moments happen i believe that she's with me, talking to me, touching me and subconsciously i feel her or hear her.
i suppose not every one who loves so much goes through the pain and anguish that some of us do. i'm not sure what determines how some people are more easily able to "get over it" and "move on" than others. but for those of us who experience a prolonged grief (i'm coming up on three years) it is the most difficult thing in the world. and, at times, my heart, too, feels as if it is literally breaking. as with your dad, my mom was my best friend and the one person i could count on for anything and everything. we were together for fifty years--how do you say goodbye? you don't. you can't. at least i can't. i know i'll see her again, i know we'll be together again--it's just this time in between that is the hardest to get through.
i imagine having to cope with the way your dad left this world makes it all the more difficult. and i'm so sorry you are going through this pain. and i imagine he is sorry you are going through this as well. he sounds like a great guy and because of that his intention was never to hurt you or make you suffer. and you know that. and because you know that it makes him all the more precious to you which only makes you sadder for his passing. it's a tremendous sorrow you carry.
one of the hardest challenges in life--for you and for me--and for anyone going through the loss of a beloved--is to go through and experience everything we are going through and experiencing. of course i'd rather not--i'd rather just go back in time to when life was normal, and wonderful. but i can't. my mom always said: "you can never go back." truer words were never spoken.
it amazes me to realize how much love people are capable of feeling. not just the happy, euphoric type of love but the deep-seated, deeply rooted love we carry in our souls--love that transcends everything.
take care.
(music notes) blue moon (music notes)
"blue moon
you saw me standing alone
without a dream in my heart
without a love of my own"
and there was me, singing this to the moon in the backyard tonight.
one of the ways my mom likes to let me know she's around
is the perfumey scent that belonged to her.
she gives me a lot of "signs" --and a lot of different ones, but her scent has been a big one. i get it when i walk past her room--not all the time and i haven't gotten it for about a month--and then today there it was.
there is no perfume in her room, no empty perfume bottles. sometimes i smell it when i'm in the living room. i think my daughter has only picked up on it a couple times. i wish my mom would give her granddaughter more signs that she's around. my daughter got several different signs from my mom but it has been awhile.
one time she gave me the smell of buttered popcorn when i was sitting in her chair in the living room. i used to make popcorn for her almost every night (and we'd listen to mike malloy together) but when i smelled it it had been over a year since my mom physically parted and over a year since there had been popcorn in the house.
another time was the horrible smell of nail polish remover--she and i both hated that smell--and my daughter smelled it that day too. it was a sign for my daughter and myself to "get the hell out of the house" and get going. my daughter is the only one who uses it and she hadn't used it for a couple weeks. as soon as she picked up on the smell, after i did, the smell was gone.
i'd say to gently broach the subject
if the news is bad
you told peggy your mom is 87 w/health issues
blurting out "bad news" probably isn't a good idea--especially if she's having difficulty breathing to begin with.
and then maybe couch the "bad news" with the "bright side" or up side or give it a bit of a positive or uplift.
good luck. be kind/gentle w/your mom
i'd love to be able to still have mine to worry over how to tell her bad news. or good news. or just that i love her.
"The Heart of Grief"
i just came across this and wanted to share it
"The experience of loss deprives us of a living presence, a loved one. Our daily lives are thrown in disarray. Our life stories careen off their expected courses. Our connections with the larger contexts within which we find meaning are strained. We feel devastated and helpless in the face of forces and events we could not control.
"We experience heartbreak and miss those we love terribly. We meet their absence everywhere. We long for their return. We feel joyless, hopeless, and as if life is drained of its meaning. We wonder whether we have the heart to live on without them. The courage and motivation to face the challenges of relearning the world we experience. The will to reshape our shattered lives, to redirect our life stories. The faith and hope to sustain us on the journey.
"We do not want to stop loving them. We rightly resist those who say we must. We know in our hearts that it matters too much to us and to those who died.
"The central challenge as we grieve is learning to love in a new way, to love someone in separation, at least as long as we walk this earth. Nothing is more difficult. Nothing is more important. Nothing is more rewarding."
--THOMAS ATTIG-- The Heart of Grief: Death and the search for Lasting Love (2002)
this is the only place in cyberspace where
i have cried a tremendous amount of tears onto my keyboard as i shared my heartbreak and felt the heartbreak of others here.
thank you -- all of you -- for "listening"
for caring
for sympathizing
for understanding
for sharing
and thank god for this group/place/refuge
while there is so much sorrow, so much sadness in our hearts and anguish in our words, i realize that there is an incredible amount of love we have for those we miss in our lives.
and how absolutely amazing to be able to love and care about someone so completely.
we grieve and we love.
we remember and we love.
we go on and we love.
--orleans
ron, i'm so sorry for what you're going through
when i look at pictures of when i was younger, and my little family--my parents and my grandmother, there is a part of me that wishes--with all my heart--i could go back and have it all again; i would gladly go through it all--even the bad times--just to have that security, and joy that was such a part of my life. i miss it so.
my grandma died when i was a teenager, my dad over twenty years ago, but my mom--who stuck with me through it all--she died nearly three years ago and i still cry for missing her. and the heartache has often made me wonder "what's it all about then?" as well.
i suspect there is a reason for it though (my mom always said "there's a reason for everything" . and i think the reason is love. it's the most important thing, it's what we remember, and what we take with us when we go.
i hope you have someone around you that you can talk to about how you feel, about your sister, and the rest of your family (older children? nieces? nephews? etc.). my daughter was twenty-one when my mom passed and she was a tremendous emotional support for me, as was a friend of mine--as they still are.
what the other poster, kickysnana, was saying rings true to me as well. i think we make a difference in all the lives we cross paths with--which effects the lives they cross paths with. and we make that difference in ways we don't even realize--just as the people who have touched our lives might not have realized the impact they were making on us. it's pretty amazing how interconnected we all are.
i know someone who recently passed on who, as she was dying, told her family that she was seeing her sister who had died in childhood. she was also seeing several figures that were all in white that she didn't recognize. i don't think we ever permanently lose those we love--it's only a temporary good-bye, but that can be the most difficult thing we ever experience.
just go slow--take it easy.
i'm very sorry for your loss
the first father's day without dad is hard as the next one may be and the one after that.
seeing the card displays in the stores were really difficult for me--i'd start crying as i walked past them--took a couple years before i could slow down, look, and still i'd tear up.
it's a big adjustment. it's devastating.
i'm sorry you're going through this period in your life.
i lost my dad 24 years ago--can't recall how long it took before i felt like i had accepted his absence or adjusted to him not being around.
i lost my mom over 2 and a half years ago and i'm still not together about it. sometimes when i talk about her, unemotionally, it's as if i'm speaking of someone else--i can put up this feigned detachment for people. but at home? or when i'm alone? omg. i am so not detached--still so emotionally invested in her, and i still talk to her a lot, and cry a lot. i'll hear her voice in my mind. i tell her to give me "signs" and she does. i don't think she's that far away, but i can't see her or hug her and i hate it.
it's a big adjustment. and again, i'm very sorry. take care.
i'm very sorry for you
this is the hardest time we go through when someone we love transitions out of the physical world. (i'm still grieving for my mom who passed over two and a half years ago; she went to the hospital and twenty two days later i brought her ashes home--on my birthday. it's unbelievable how quickly life can change/alter/skew)
if you are undecided as to what to do with his ashes then just wait...there is no rush. think about it. decide later. it can wait.
comfort yourself for now. talk to him--just because we can't hear them doesn't mean they can't hear us. i'm sure they do--and i'm sure they listen to what we say to them. he may not be able to check his email but that doesn't mean he isn't standing behind you, reading over your shoulder as you write to him.
when we live with someone their physical absence is a stark and constant reminder that our life is never going to be the same. and if life was good, we grieve for that too.
"Death is not the end. It is the beginning. No one you are close to ever dies. There is life everlasting; there is no such thing as death….Death is not a termination but a transition." --george anderson
love doesn't die--it's the bond that keeps us connected--from this world to the next. i truly believe our beloved ones do all they can to stay and comfort us as long as we need them to. if i could hear my mother, and you could hear your husband, they would probably both be saying the same thing: "i never left you."
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