“They say the hardest thing in the world is losing someone you love. Someone you grew old with and watched grow everyday. Someone who showed you how to love. It’s the worst thing to ever happen to anyone. My wife died unexpectedly. She brought me so much joy. She was my everything. Those 16 years of being her husband taught me how to love unconditionally. We have to stop and be thankful for our spouses. Because, life is very short. Spend time with your spouses. Treat them well. Because, one day, when you look up from your phone, they won’t be there anymore. What I truly learned most of all is, live and love everyday like it’s your last. Because, one day, it will be. Take chances and go live life. Tell the ones you love, that you love them everyday. Don’t take any moment for granted. Life is worth living.”
Monthly Archives: January 2016
How We Used to Die; How We Die Now
In the old days, she would be propped up on a comfy pillow, in fresh cleaned sheets under the corner window where she would in days gone past watch her children play. Soup would boil on the stove just in case she felt like a sip or two. Perhaps the radio softly played Al Jolson or Glenn Miller, flowers sat on the nightstand, and family quietly came and went. These were her last days. Spent with familiar sounds, in a familiar room, with familiar smells that gave her a final chance to summon memories that will help carry her away. She might have offered a hint of a smile or a soft squeeze of the hand but it was all right if she didn’t. She lost her own words to tell us that it’s OK to just let her die, but she trusted us to be her voice and we took that trust to heart.You see, that’s how she used to die. We saw our elderly different then.
EASY DOES IT
One day done easy.
Talking on the phone to Arkue as she moves into her new place. Fiddling with photo effects. A ride from Julie to meeting and a long afternoon sleep. Done easily.
Kaybee is cracking with the packing as they prepare to move into their own home after 5 years in a shack.
And as for me – I remain kind of sane.
We’re lucky if we get to be old, physician and professor believes – The Washington Post
“I have a confession to make,” Bill Thomas announced several months ago at a conference on aging in Oregon. “I am an old man.”“No, you’re not!” an audience member called out. It was meant, no doubt, as a compliment: Despite his gray-streaked beard and crow’s feet, the 56-year-old geriatrician-cum-thespian crackles with high-octane energy. And isn’t that what we all want to hear as we age? That we don’t look old? That we seem younger than we are?It’s not what Thomas wants to hear. After more than 20 years of trying to make life better for old people, he believes the correct message is the opposite: That we are lucky if we get to grow old. That there is a “third” phase of life beyond adulthood that can be as rich as either of the phases that came before.
Source: We’re lucky if we get to be old, physician and professor believes – The Washington Post
BRIEFLY AT THE END OF THE DAY
I’m not quite sure what I wanted to write or say when I opened this post. And in fact, I may not manage it at all. I quest all the time for explanations and descriptions of what has happened since June 2014 when Izzy ran off into the Forest and didn’t come back.
I don’t find them.
I am so profoundly altered inside and I don’t think that people generally see it. A shower of heavy summer rain just fell . The night is dark and I am trying to be less of a fool than I can be when writing . I have remained strong spined since the Altercation. I spend days like the one I just did and wish I could achieve that sense of safety, security and love more often. Freedom from worrying. Tonight when the rain came , I knew the Alfa’s window was down and I could not bring myself to go out and make some form of covering for it. What the hell is the value of a car which needs the electrics just to open and shut windows. These are stupid times in their own way.
And I am weary in my own way. Not as I have been but nonetheless weary. Somehow I am still in a struggle. Somehow I am still trying a little too hard and fearing consequences.
Somehow – Reality eludes me. Maybe its just that its late at night after a busy day.
Maybe, I had best sleep. Thunder is still rolling around and the world otherwise is quiet.
Good Night, Childe. No need to understand. No need to explain.
No need to apologise to anyone at all.
THE LAST MOVIE WE SAW TOGETHER
PLASTER OFF. PONY RIDES.
One more day of beauty and happiness. Today was my day with Saf. Oh what a good time we had. We rode the Pony and swam and talked. These are miracle days for me because I could not do this last year in January.
I DO NOT FORGET THAT.
LAST YEAR IN JANUARY, MY MUSCLES WERE LIKE CREPE PAPER AND WHEN I TRIED TO SLEEP, GREAT PAIN OVERTOOK ME.
Last year in January, I spasmed and paralysed and was too weak to walk any distance at all.
Last year in January, I was often overcome with confusion and bewilderment.
Last year. In January. I would not have minded one of the children alone because I did not know what would happen to me.
This year in January – we laugh.
This year in January – the little one has her plaster off and the new house is almost finished. And as for me, I am still here.
LAST YEAR IN JANUARY.
WIDOW
“In the first year of my grief, there were times when I felt like hiding my personal story of loss and other times when I wanted to wear a sign on my body that read “Be nice to me, I’m grieving,” or “Don’t tick me off; I’ve already got the world on my shoulders,” or maybe even “BEWARE – don’t upset the widow!” I needed a variety of signs that I could switch out depending on my daily mood.” Elizabeth Berrien
http://www.thefreshquotes.com/widow-and-widower-quotes/
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Its done. I have been out today on small ventures. Trying to make my way through things. Riding the motorised Pony and almost ramming it into a parked truck. Clunks of despair but nonetheless, continuing. Its a lovely Summertime although the joy has not been great. I breathe it in and sit here under Full Moon. Widowed.
“I’m learning persistence and the closing of doors, the way the seasons come and go as I keep walking on these roads, back and forth, to find myself in new time zones, new arms with new phrases and new goals. And it hurts to become, hurts to find out about the poverty and gaps, the widow and the leavers. It hurts to accept that it hurts and it hurts to learn how easy it is for people to not need other people. Or how easy it is to need other people but that you can never build a home in someone’s arms because they will let go one day and you must build your own.” Charlotte Eriksson
SUNDAY BY THE LAGOON
TRULY a day off. Sweet weather after yesterday’s storm and quietness here . My Kids did not disappear into the horror world of addiction. How good is that ?
I am beside the lagoon and I have cameras and the internet has been invented.
I have 4 granddaughters and it has been a very longtime since I have had to live in the horrifying world of active addiction.
Therefore, I now lie down for siesta with a smile.
MiiMii – I have been called today. GRANDMOTHER.
It is a beautiful day.
AROUND THE YEAR WITH EMMET FOX ~ (A Book of Daily Readings) ~
THE LAW OF RELAXATION
Another of the great mental laws is The Law of Relaxation. In all mental working effort defeats itself. This is just the opposite of what we find on the physical plane, but it will not surprise us because we know that in many cases the laws of mind are the reverse of the laws of matter.
On the physical plane, the harder you press a drill the faster will it go through a plank. The harder you hammer a nail the sooner does it go into the wall. But any attempt at mental pressure is foredoomed to failure because the moment tension begins, the mind stops working creatively. When you try to force things mentally, when you try to hurry mentally, you simply stop you creative power.
In all mental working be relaxed, gentle, and unhurried for effort defeats itself.
. . . in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength . . . (Isaiah 30:15)
FATHER MARTIN
THE SILVER BIRD 3 