On September 09, 2001 my mother died... a Saturday evening at home. I don't know what lead up to her death but, I do know this...
My mother had been in the hospital maybe 2 weeks prior to her death.. there ..she told them that she didn't have a home to go back to.... she'd made her ex daughter-in-law leave and 'someone' was very angry about it... she 'had' to apologize to get her to come back.. she went back home from the hospital. I didn't know all of this until... by the time I realized something was going on... it was too late. I remember how innocently I answered when a nurse at the hospital told me 'your mother said she doesn't have a home to go to after discharge'.... I stupidly laughed and said 'yes, she does have a home to go to!' I say 'stupidly'... because I did not know things were going on... until I couldn't help her. One day I'll write about 'Mama And The Wall'.......
My cousin Joseph, who loved her very much, had been visiting her. He took her the Colonel Sanders
KFC popcorn chicken to eat. That was......... her last meal. He'd left knowing all was good and felt good inside from talking with her. He always was 'there' when she called him... he'd do anything for my mom.
I saw the cardboard cup laying on the floor amidst other things there.... where the 911 person was telling her husband to give her CPR. I saw a white Avon hairband/sweatband lying there with... drops of my mother's blood on it. I picked up several things including her purse when someone suggested I take it home with me. I asked her husband for permission to do that or did he want to keep it. Later ...when our home burned down..all of my mama's things burned in it, too. But, the strange thing is the cassette with her 'other world voice' calling to me for help........no, she was 'keening' in the most high-pitched voice of someone who was terrified to ...die.....it survived the housefire. My mama, my mama, my mama......................she always told me she was afraid to die and I'm so sorry she did in whatever way caused it to happen. The pain inside me.... never ends.
My mom's ex daughter-in-law said she'd been there before... to make tea..... she had began coming to to take care of mom and make tea and do things around the house. She did alot of things there. One day she didn't hear me come in and she was talking mean to my mother................ She was married to my brother who also, died. I knew how she sounded when she wasn't happy with something. I feel shaky.... my heart is full of tears. My strong mother... had finally gotten to her weak point in life and could no longer hold her own.. her daughter-in law (ex) 'knew' it. My mother had always been so good to her... always. Don't ever show your weakness to a woman... especially if you are a woman, yourself. Don't ever tell her all your personal and private thoughts... if you are ever weak.... she'll take advantage... if she's never respected or loved you sincerely from the beginning. She'll use you up until...you are gone............ This is my opinion.. strictly my opinion.... 'those women are something else'. Skip says I hate women.... he may be right. :)))))))))))))))))))) he may be wrong... but, he may be right! Sometimes I do.. sometimes I don't... sometimes I do.
Mom's husband said he'd been out on the front porch .. I can't remember if it was to smoke a cigarette or not.... I can't remember if he still smoked then. Later in time, he asked mom's (ex) daughter-in-law to marry him... they each told me is how I know. I remember smiling..but, not in sincerity I admit..... and saying 'I hope you do'... I was thinking 'tit for tat'.
I've been connecting dots all my life...... I've always said that people are never what they seem... most live a double life hiding just beneath everyone's sight... living a 'second' life... some doing a better job of it than others. Some people ...are good.... I have to admit it as much as I've had to study people since being a child ..to survive. Some people really fooled me... I really loved and really trusted them. I hate that. I hate for them to have the satisfaction of fooling me and the whole time.... they are merrily going along knowing no one would think 'they'd do such things'. Yes, I've been connecting those dots....... I really hate (and I'm not the most intelligent nor...the smartest person) it when people dumber than I am... outsmart me. Especially.... really 'dumb' people... you know ...'dumb-dumb' people.............................. I mean just the dumbest. You know the ones..... for-real just......................dumb. Yes, I hate it when those kind of people... fool me.
Skip and I got home from Sam's Club that evening and found her message 'from the grave'. Sometimes things 'unsaid' are louder than spoken words. I rest my case.......... some things can never be changed and one has to 'let go' and never look back.. to go forward. I'm choosing to go forward at this time in life. I can do no more. This grief is there..in my heart and will be until the day I also..take my last breath. I won't question anymore... but, I will know in time because..... answers come in the strangest of ways and when... no one is expecting them... when one ...connects the dots. I do that. I like DOTS.
On September 11, 2001... we were getting ready to go to the funeral home to pick up my mother's ashes... only Skip, Tommy and I were the ones going. We were the only ones to view her at the funeral home........ I was in such a terrible shock at the time and never paid attention... so, much that not until this day we went to pick up her ashes to realize....................... that mom's husband nor anyone had called my brother in Florida! My poor little brother.. how I'm so sorry. I love you very, very much.
My other brothers didn't come.... they were so fragile and one just kept walking and crying ..walking and crying... walking and crying out for her. He never stopped and... he never heard anyone who tried to calm him down. He would fall in bed from pure ..exhaustion.. with the help of 'medicines'. My poor little brother, how I loved you... when you died... it hurt me deeply to my soul. You really tried so hard to do good and for a short period of time you said ' it feels so good... to feel good again'. Those were your words, Rick-Rick. Rick-Rick, my fragile little brother... how I miss the twinkle of your eyes and the sound of your laughter and seeing 'you'. You were precious to me. I love and miss you, Rick-Rick. After all these years ...Skip and I met your best friend... and do you know ...I can 'see you' in him and even 'hear you' in him.. and when I see him ..I'm glad to see him...I see my brother for a few moments again. Thank-you, G.
Life is just so strange.... my life is and has been so strange... so has my brothers and sister's... and my whole 'family's' lives..... I'm not the only one. They all have known their grief and upset in life.. though I've stayed away from them all these years... I've cared and understood. In my 'family... no one can be close enough to comfort the other or to say 'I love you', or to do anything good for anyone.......... it's always watched with ...suspicion. No one can believe they are loved enough for someone to do something without expecting something in return. No one can believe they can be loved by another 'family' member... years ago when I was like that toward them wanting them to know I loved them all so much..and please be loved back........ it became later ammunition against me if something went wrong in their life.... I became the 'blame' for it. Damned if I do and ....damned if I don't. I had to 'let go' for my own sanity. I had to distant myself knowing they were all my 'family'..... but, they weren't healthy for me mentally. Love from a ...distance..... it doesn't hurt so bad that way... but, nevertheless.. it hurts that bad.
At the funeral home as we came out with her ashes, I saw my brother and his wife in the parking lot.. they'd driven from Florida to get there. I learned no one had called him. How awful is that? His mother died too... and he didn't know. The grief from this broke my heart. My poor little brother.... what a failure as a sister I've been... I'm just like the rest of the 'family'... I never thought any farther than the terrible grief inside... I didn't think of you........ You have no idea of how this has tormented me inside.... I'm so sorry, I'm just so sorry. I've done like people have done me to cause deep pain.. and I never wanted to cause that to you.
This is the way our life has always been when 'family' is involved. No one knows anything and everyone hides something from the other. I can't even imagine the grief my brother suffered driving here from Florida and driving back and the days thereafter. This was something else that hurt me and has upset me thinking about through the years since our mother's death. I was lost in that sea of grief I can't seem to get away from.. sometimes I worry that it follows me... and I swear... I've never-ever wanted to live at the ocean.... never. I want to be on the mountaintop where I can see the golden sunshine and feel the wonderful mountain breeze and see the beautiful green trees, the snow.... I don't want to ever live near the ocean where I can be blown away to ...drown and die.... just like in the sea of grief.
I've been in shock so many times since 1998 and have lost so many family members on both my mother and father's side and I almost died in 1998 and 1999 and 2000. In 2000 Skip almost died from colon cancer. Thereafter ..one family member after the other died and it seemed there was no end to it all. Skip was in a horrible tractor-trailer crash when a toyota hit his steering tire in Moriarty, New Mexico, sending him across oncoming traffic on Interstate 40 out into the desert... two weeks after that... a van didn't stop at a stop sign...it hit him in the side of his pickup.... several weeks after that he was on the way to the physical therapist!..... and the light turned green ... thankfully he saw it.... the cops were chasing a bank robber and almost hit him again! the bank robber wrecked just past where he sat.
These are just a 'few' things that kept me in a shock for the past 10-11 years. Our home burned down destroying everything we all owned... that was from old wiring in that 200 year old house... the man put a new box on the outside to look like new wiring had been put in... it hadn't. He told us and we never were afraid. He had a man who came to work on the floors installing tile and countertops and... he put a new light in on the little porch where the fire began that morning..... A week or so later... I saw him standing there just staring at where the fire began.... I was going there to try and salvage anything I could find. I know what I think happened and I don't hold it against him.. he was a good person. He tried to please everyone and worked hard... he was a very ill man. I drove right by the ruin of our home.. and when I came back.. the man was gone. I had sensed sadness and worry in him............................................... and sorrow?
The worst of all these 'few' things that have happened to us is ... when Tommy, my only child, died. None of what happened before or afterwards is as terrible as when this happened to me. Truly, I almost lost my mind and I was lost in a world of deep swirling black, dark colors. I was drowning and I would fight to come up and I would just not care at all. I almost couldn't get out of it. I almost 'didn't want to'. But...there's Skip........ my precious Skip.... he's made me fight for my life more than once when I was dying. Skip and our Pups.... are my life and my reason to live... they are my world. I love you, Skip, with my very heart ..my very soul.. with my entire life. Pups... Kissy and Chadwick... I love you both, just the same!!!
Anyway..... the morning of going to pick my mother's ashes up at the funeral home.....we were each dressing and for a moment I was standing near the tv...... and I saw a plane fly into the World Trade
Center. I was in shock from my mother's death and I was numb and it took some time to begin to hear the news reporter's voice telling what was happening.... a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center! And another one crashed into it! Somehow I began to understand what was happening and Tommy was on the phone talking to Kim, they had separated at that time... but, for a short time they were 'close' again .. the way people do when they are afraid and are uncertain as to what will happen in such a situation. I had hoped for a moment that that...would bring them back together but, she already ..had someone. Later we found this out and grew to love and respect Greg, her husband now. He is a wonderful person and he's been a good father to McKenzie and a good husband to Kim. Turns out that Kim did good... I don't worry about McKenzie having a real family life... not at all. I do hate that she hasn't gotten her insurance money yet.. from her daddy's life insurance. That's my only regret with her... she should have that.
I went deeper into shock... and I just knew this was going to be the 'end' of our world if something so horrible as this has happened in the USA. Skip always said nothing like that could ever happen in the USA.... I tell him now.... don't ever tell me that such and such can happen again....and remind him of the attack on our soil from terrorist.... no one is ever safe again. It frightens me because we aren't used to living with that... I grieve for people who live in that everyday and always have. I won't take time here to write of thinking of little children and innocent animals hearing bombshells and being so afraid... and.... and .... and. I was thinking 'Mom, you don't have to be afraid' because she would have been so, so afraid watching that unfold as it did. I cried so much..over my mother's death and listening over and over the message she'd left for me... over the next few days I watched as the people frantically tried to find ...their loved ones. Oh.. the pain inside my heart was so much more than I can describe... imagine the pain in theirs.
This year 2011.. is at the end and 2012 is almost beginning. I have been in grief since 1998 over so many major events in my life..... I remember going to my cardiologist last year and ... I had written alot of this down while sitting and thinking ..you know how one does trying to remember.... it was a list of people and events that have been traumatic in my life in such a short time... this was after Tommy's death.......... I know he must have thought I was crazy or worse... I don't even know 'why' I had it in my hand and I just handed it to him. I wasn't myself anymore.... my son died and I... think I was begging for help. He said 'you need help'.
I will say this for my cardiologist, he is a good person and very caring. He didn't fall all over pretending to show sympathy and took the stern approach with me and 'I heard him' through all the twisting and turning dark paths that led down to where I was in my mind... somehow his voice made it there. I don't know 'how he found me' so far gone I was in my mind and my dark grief.. but, he did. So... one day when it's time to go back I will tell him and thank him... he along with Skip and our Pups... made all the difference in my life.
My oncologist was the same way when I went for my appointment... but, I think she really thought I was 'gone'. Strange how when one is so deeply hurt or so ill.......... they can still see, hear and feel when others think you don't. My advice is to 'know inside' ...no matter how ill someone is ..even if they can't open their eyes nor talk............ be careful what you say or do ... because they really can sense you so much and know what's going on around them alot of times.... and don't forget this... they can still................. smell. I know... I've been 'there'. Even though I was walking and talking and seeing.... I was as deathly sick as I was in 1998 when surgery was done to save my life... I was as dead as I was when I became unconscious from congested heart failure... I speak from experience... I know these things.
My Mother's Ashes... I'm sitting here looking at the Rose Chest they're in.... I look there with love and a feeling of wanting to cry so much......... I know Skip is waiting for me to shower and dress at this very moment................ so, I can't today, though my eyes are 'wet' and my heart heavy. Kissy has come to comfort me and nudge me back to 'present'. I'm happy now.... it's time to go out into the sunlight! Today is today... a new day... let's see what happiness it can bring. I welcome it... I love ..happiness and good things... they don't have to cost anything more than a smile, a touch, a compliment or a ..kind word. It can put someone's mood up on a mountain to be near the sunlight, the breezes, the moon and the stars......... and it can make one's mood....... even soar higher than that!
My mood can do that........ it's a wonderful feeling. I want to feel that today... I hope you do ..too. :))) Happy day to...........you...with sunshine in your heart (it's supposed to rain here today:)))))!!! I have it in mine.... I'm afraid of the darkness... I don't like it. Welcome, sunshine!
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