THANK-GOD FOR MY WRITING... MY READERS, FRIENDS, FAMILY

THANK-GOD FOR MY WRITING... MY READERS, MY FRIENDS, FAMILY

by Gloria Faye Brown Bates
aka Granny Gee

Thank-God for my writing. I can come 'here' and write my heart out... I can talk to you, my readers. Don't you know how much you mean to me? You, like Skip, my Pups... are my whole world... I can talk to you. I treasure all of you. You bring me joy when I look to see if anyone would be interested in what I write about. You don't know the soft happiness I feel inside my heart when I see that all of you have been here. I am telling you, so you all can know... you wouldn't, unless I told you.

This author holds you all (my readers) in her heart as... special. I don't know if other authors stop long enough to tell their readers how much it means to have them... I am stopping long enough to tell you... now. I always will do that. Yes, it means the world to me...

I don't have to talk...... 'out loud'.... my fingers can talk for me... quietly. If I cry alittle, no one hears me... my fingers tell the story. I can talk to you... you can talk back to me. If I'm too sad at the moment, you can look away and it won't hurt my feelings. If I'm happy, you might would smile for me... I definitely would for you.

I know that if you are here, reading...listening... it's because you want to be here. You can see, hear, read... 'if you choose to'.... if you read here ...'it's real life, it is what happens when a mother loses her only child, these are that mother's thoughts, her 'real' pain. I can show it here... I'm real.

In public, I can smile and when anyone says 'how are you doing today?' I can smile brightly and say 'I'm just fine today, how are you?' I don't have to talk about 'sad' things, I don't have to affect the rest of their day because of sadness in my heart.

When I'm out in public, I'm smiling, sometimes with a twinkle in my eyes, no one knows I cry 'inside'. I've always hidden my pain, troubles with bright smiles. No one knows unless... they look 'too' closely. But... I don't stay still long enough for someone to do that.

The truth is... I am fine. I am just happy to have a 'private' place which is very 'public'... to talk about what I think, feel, see, remember and... I can do it in my own way. I don't have to bother anyone. They don't have to be near me to feel uncomfortable with witnessing pure grief. They can see how 'other people' feel to just know. It might help to explain some of 'why' so and so is like they are.

Grief affects people in different ways... I choose to be positive with mine... though I could just as well have been bitter and negative, hate everybody. Who knows .. maybe something I could say, or have experienced could even help someone. Wouldn't that be special if I could somehow touch another in a positive way? It would touch my heart in such a way, and be so meaningful. Isn't that what real life is about... caring, love, pure feelings from our hearts?

Whoever reads my stories can 'chose how they feel about it'.......... if you've never had any of the things happen to you as they have me.... you can stay at a 'safe' distance while you read, and 'see' how life can affect others.

I pray that only good things ever touches my readers' lives... that's my prayer for you. I know that I write about alot of sad things, as well as good things... everything is alright... I've made it to 'now'. I'm a good person, a 'try very hard' ...positive person... I'm not bitter or angry because these things have happened to me... I 'just know' that in life these things do and will happen... I just pray not to you. It hurts so much, I know how pains of 'every kind' feels.

You don't have to become involved as you learn the different paths one's life takes... hopefully, you won't have to walk on the ones I have in life. I know there are several paths 'everyone' will have to walk on in life one day sooner or later ... I know the pain of those paths and, I am so sorry everyone will have to know that kind of pain.... that's something we have no choice about. No matter how big, how strong we are... it hurts.

For those who never have anything like that happen to you... you are so blessed. I'm so happy for you. I have wished at times to know how it felt for life to be 'perfect'.... I have tasted for periods of times in my life how wonderful it feels to not have a worry, to have 'everything', to travel, to shop, buy anything I ever wanted... then..... life happened.

Life has a way of ...happening... to bring us back to reality, to ... remind us that life is about others, love and caring for others, not just ourselves. At least, I will speak for myself... life has taught me that in all these years. If we all stopped just for a moment to 'keep in motion' a ...helping hand in one way or other... there would always people helping each other whenever they needed it.

Maybe a smile when someone looks like they are feeling 'down', or a kind word... I know if I'm down and not aware of people noticing, it means the world if I look up to see a kind smile, maybe hear kind words.

I will tell you something very special that helped me when I was deathly sick with non-Hodgkins lymphoma (a form of cancer). I could walk slowly, my body was so weak, I was in such pain from the terrible surgery to save my life... I was taking chemotherapy with other people who were also, taking chemotherapy. I began to notice other people as I sat there in the 'chemo suite' where there are lines of recliners for patients to be comfortable in as they sat or laid back in the chairs to have all those medicines put in their bodies.

I sat in my own 'hell', as each of those patients sat in theirs. I could bearly hold my eyes open, I was so sick... but, my eyes were opened enough to see other people suffering... old people, young people, rich, poor, black, white... people of every type. I could hear them moan sometimes, or even cry out from the pain. Was this just another 'hell on earth' where people sat in an arena to fight the battle of life and death? Some people made it, some did not. I was one of the fortunate ones to have made it... I'm sad to say that many of them ...died. I cried for them.

I will tell you the special thing that made a difference. This helped me to feel better inside no matter I was so sick... I would see someone sitting in that room so fragile, so weak..... see that the nurse was getting ready to stick a needle into their hand, or into the port like I had that was surgically placed in my chest.... or to put an IV in. It all hurt so much more than I can tell you... I would push myself to get up and take my IV pole with me, and make it to their side and reach out to hold their hand... without asking.

No one ever refused my hand, they always held on to it tightly. I felt their pain, their fear.... I was 'them'... I knew what they felt. I cared with my very heart for these people whom I didn't know... I was like this years 'before' when I worked at the emergency room... I always held someone's hand without saying a word... I would walk up to a patient laying there when I sensed they needed someone to just reach out to hold their hand, or to pat them on the head smoothing their hair back (like their mothers would do if they were there). No words were needed.

Somehow doing this made my pain not as bad, though it still was. If you've never experienced taking chemotherapy treatments... remember that if a loved one is facing chemotherapy therapy... go with them if you can to hold their hand or sit quietly beside them, or talk if they talk... every person needs a support person... Skip was mine. I was Skip's when he went through chemotherapy 2 years later ... colon cancer. He was very ill, also. I was recovering while helping him... we both did it alone... we had no one to help us. Tommy was in Germany, later traveling constantly on a tractor-trailer working on the west coast.

It touched my heart when I made someone else feel better. I knew I was like them... it made me feel good when someone cared, and didn't have to. Special... when people can just show caring without being asked, showing care in ways by just ... doing it on your own. It helped me 'inside'. There's a special feeling that comes inside your heart when you reach out.... even with just a smile.

I imagine in my mind how it would be like if each person all reached out to do one kind little deed in one day.... would it make a difference in our world? I am thinking if 'every person' who was able 'in this whole world' did that.... I wonder at the end of the day 'what difference' it would make? Could we actually see a difference... feel a difference? I think it would be an amazing difference... what do you think? Wouldn't it be interesting to really know?

Do you know what I'm thinking at this moment? I'm thinking again that I'm so thankful to have all of you 'to write to'... I'm so happy to have a place to talk to everyone. How special that is to me. I get up every morning excited to come here to my computer to write my story and put it online .... I'm excited to get emails, and see comments from you. It means the world to me. I love to hear what you have to say, read what you have to write.

Yes, my writing, readers, my friends, my few family members who are here... mean the world to me. Thank-you for..... you.

:)))