I walked forty steps with my walker today. Breathless afterwards and had to rest, but it’s a beginning.
The past few weeks have been brutal, physically. Today was more of the same but I decided I can’t go on like this. I have to do something! So I pushed through discomfort and fear, clenched my teeth and just DID it! Jenny walking beside me. The sun is shining, the weather is mild. I’m alive again!
Yesterday was your birthday, Scott. You would have been 50. Thinking today was the 10th, I’ve thought of you all day, trying to picture what you would have looked like and what you would be doing.
I can’t believe you’ve been gone 14 years! It doesn’t seem nearly that long.
You once told me that if you killed yourself, I’d get over it and go on and live a happy life. You were wrong, Scott. I haven’t been happy since you did that unthinkable act. Yes, I’ve gone on with my life. What else could I do? And there have been some moments of joy, not in living, but in nature.
I have not felt happiness in a long time.
Last Thursday, Beulah, one of my closest friends died unexpectedly. I’m still in shock. Then Connie, another close friend, was admitted to the hospital with clots in her lungs. Wednesday, your brother, Ken, found out he has a hole in his heart. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s wrong with him.
I’m not so well myself.
All this makes me wonder about life, it’s purpose, and what happiness really means. And what difference any of it makes since it all ends and is repeated and ends again.
I resent it that we have to die, that we go through life with ambitions, dreams, desires, failures, accomplishments and then have to go and leave it all behind. We take it with us, as if we had not walked on this earth, breathed in the air, watched the grackle with the broken wing, read Mary Oliver or Thomas Merton, seen “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off” three times or eaten that piece of cherry pie. Two hundred years from now, none of it will have mattered. Sometimes I think of those who lived hundreds of years ago and I honor them in my heart.
This day is almost over. I’m relieved. Next month, we have to get through the anniversary of John’s death. And so on. It seems that every month, there’s a hurdle to get over.
I’m trying very hard to find pleasure in something. To experience faith, and hope, and love. To enjoy giving while losing so much. To find a reason for it all.
I’ve been a giver all my life. What happened? The well has run dry.
Beulah, one of my closest friends, died unexpectedly Thursday. I’m still in shock. Skip, her husband, has been ill for several years and everyone thought he would go before Beulah. As a matter of fact, he’s been in ICU for over a week.
I don’t have details. Don’t know if she had a stroke or died of a heart attack or what. She was home alone. Her daughter found her.
Beulah was such a lovely, caring, upbeat person. When she walked into a room, the sun came with her. She worried about her husband so much and I think she must have neglected herself. She seemed well and always said she felt fine when I asked how she was. She was taking meds for hypertension, but all my friends do that, as do I. We talked about two weeks ago and I’ve been thinking about calling her. Procrastinating, as usual. I’ve done that so much, you’d think I’d learn. I feel such a void in my life.
I talked to Connie, another friend, today. She’s just been discharged from the hospital where she was being treated for a cluster of clots in her left lung. She’s on coumadin now.
And Ken, my son, is going tomorrow for a test to determine if he has an aortic anuerysm.
Beulah, bless her heart; I can just imagine, with Skip in the hospital, how she went back and forth to be with him, probably not eating right, getting too much salt, being stressed out because of his illness. I feel so bad for her. The world is not the same without her in it.
I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. I wish I had a strong faith to get me through. I’ll work it out. I always do, but I do have issues with death and loss and being alone. At my age, loss is inescapable. Always knocking at my door.
Just want to wish everyone a healthy and happy new year. May 2013 bring peace and safety to all parts of the world. Thank you, my blogging friends, for your interest and support in me and my imperfect blog. I’m amazed by the warmth and caring I’ve found here. I can’t tell you how I’ve benefited from knowing you. I hope to have more to give to you in 2013. Love and hugs. XO Mary
She had her first grooming since her move to Missouri. I hired a woman who drives a mobile unit and does the transformation in the driveway. This week, she had to park in front of the house as there were other vehicles in the drive.
Jenny was at the door in a hour, looking like a little skinned rat! My sweet girl has been hiding under a huge fur ball and now she’s clipped almost bare. The top knot too short and her ear hair cut in half! Her beautiful, long, lovely ears! I wish I knew how to transfer photos from my iphone to wordpress, but, sigh, I haven’t learned that yet. I hope the top knot and ears will grow out again.
She’s still sweet and lovable and my best friend. She follows me everywhere I go. This minute, as I type these words, she’s snuggled up against me, sleeping.
It’s 7:00 P.M. Ken’s been gone since 3:00. I keep the TV on to drown out the silence. I have such a hard time being alone. I loved it when I worked three jobs and had family coming and going. Then, time alone was rare and precious. Now, I have entirely too much of it. The warmth of my loyal companion is relaxing and soothing. I’m so grateful she’s in my life.
I sit in bed, computer on my lap, TV on. We had a severe storm earlier with high winds. The lights blinked for a few seconds and I looked for the flashlight, but didn’t need it after all.
This is the day Audrey was supposed to arrive. Her bed I ordered from Amazon arrived a week ago. I took it out of the box and it’s been waiting. How many times did I imagine her in it? And the pretty collar?
The bed is still empty. And it will never hold Audrey girl.
It’s amazing how I bonded with her having never seen her face to face. It’s much like I felt when I carried my children. You imagine and plan and wait. I’m doing a kind of grieving.
Linda said she would send me some one else instead. She also broke her foot stumbling over a cat and can’t take another to the airport right away, so there will be another wait.
It’s all right. I don’t have any feelings for a new one right now. I need to say goodbye to Audrey in my mind, though I know she’ll always be in my heart.
The day is winding down. I’ve been going through old mail all day–statement after statement, receipt after receipt, letter after letter, advertisements, offers, magazines, catalogs, notebooks–2010, 2011, 2012. All stuffed in boxes and plastic bags. Mounds of paper staring at me, accusing, demonstrating the state of my mind–disorganized important, to me, matter embedded in minutia.
Among the papers, I found an old Nat King Cole DVD. Tonight, having worn myself out, I sit and listen to the old songs–The Very Thought of You, Mona Lisa, This Can’t Be Love, Smile.
The music takes me back, back to simpler times, when the only papers I had to deal with were the ones I wrote my homework on, my diary, poems, letters to Forrest, then my boyfriend (later my husband) and his to me. It was during WW II.
We sang those songs during intermission at the movies–always a double feature, cartoons and live, very graphic news of the war. No sugar-coating. After the first feature ended, and the news, the lights went on, everyone stood and sang the songs as someone played an organ. Songs mostly related to war. The words moved across the screen and into our hearts as we joined our voices in pride and sorrow. The news was filled with scenes of skies filled with war planes and parachuting soldiers, closeups of soldiers shooting at planes, some going down in smoke, piles of dead bodies, Americans, Japanese, Germans.
The movies were mostly romantic war stories–brave soldiers, their adoring an understanding women. There were always tears. I was in my teens and very impressionable.
I’ve wondered what made me like I am. Not until today, listening to Nat King Cole, have I made a connection between the war years and much of my personality. I know that’s simplifying it, but I do now see a real connection. I want to start exploring that connection, but for now, I just want to say, I’m quite a romantic. My ideas about life have been unrealistic much of the time. Consequently, I’ve been disappointed and disappointing. I’ve smiled a lot, “though my heart was breaking.”
And not for a minute do I believe I’m unique. How many of us do that? Why do we? And should we? It’s a good thing to be positive. But at the expense of being who we are, being able to express our sadness, at the expense of being emotionally isolated? I want to bring these thoughts back, to be explored another day. But, tonight, I’m tired. I’ll take my sadness to bed.
I fell apart after Betsy died and can’t seem to recover. Have episodes of increased BP, nausea, blurred vision, ringing ears, passing out. I’m anxious and depressed. Don’t know if it’s stress or something else. I’ve had these symptoms from time to time, but it’s more often now, and more severe. It’s getting harder to hold on to a positive outlook. In the past three days, I’ve been to the ER and seen three doctors.
I’m living the days I’ve dreaded for a long time. I’m old. I don’t like it, but I’m old, alone and lonely. I’d love to have another furry companion but I’m afraid to get one. Will I be able to care for her/him? Would it be fair to the animal? So I go through the rooms my precious ones have filled and the rooms are so empty!
A nurse from St. John’s Home Health Care was here today interviewing me. Can they help? I hope so. My spirit has been broken before. I hope I can heal it once again.
It would be wonderful to have just one person in the world you know cares what happens to you. Seems to be a necessary requisite for survival. I’ve always known why old souls in convalescent homes just shrivel up and die.
Enough said. Tonight, I pray for the strength and courage to heal myself.
Super soft
dusk gray
cozy
velvet pillow
arched & rising
from the floor
thick foam
bolster
to rest a chin
or lay a head
reaching out
to cradle & comfort
old joints
tired bones–
empty again
(c) Mary Harrison, 8-4-12
It’s been rough. Today, all day, I did nothing. I felt physically and mentally ill.
Muffy was put to sleep about a month ago in the ER. She was dying of cancer of the liver; Betsy died Wednesday morning at home. It all happened so fast. She seemed okay. Then she became ill and died. Her ashes were delivered today.
And today is the anniversary of my son Scott’s suicide. I always dread August. The day Scott killed himself, we were having a heat wave. And now, again.
There’s always such guilt involved when a loved one, so close, dies. What were the signs it was going to happen? Why didn’t I see? What could I have done to save my son? My baby girls? Was I inattentive, negligent in some way? The questions haunt you, disturb/prevent sleep, tie your stomach in a knot so that you can’t eat.
Karen came with gifts, as usual. She’s here visiting her mother; always comes by when she’s here. Today she brought a cinnamon roll from the bakery on National and some lovely tomatoes,cucumbers and watermelon from a fruit stand. I took a few bites of the cinnamon roll, had a tomato for supper.
My heart is breaking. My mind isn’t really working. I’ll tell the stories of Muffy, Betsy and Scott another time. Just wanted to mention them on this day.
Rolling In 