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Tag Archives: Grief

Deep Breaths

14 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by Dot Girl in Uncategorized

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birthdays, death, Faith, Family, Grief, life, motherless daughters, mothers, self reflection, travel

Deep Breath…my birthday is exactly 28 days away. In 4 weeks I turn 49 and yeah SH** just got real for me. I started this post hours ago ..I do not really need to write it ..but then again I kind of do..time is marching forward and there is nothing I can do to slow its progress or halt that day from coming. The clock keeps ticking and nothing is making much sense. All I can do is breathe and lean in to what is coming.

I keep trying to analyze what exactly all of this means . I have come to the conclusions that On the surface, it is just another birthday ..it is just a date on the calendar that passes once every 365 days, special to me and the others who share this date as their birthday or anniversary but nothing special to the universe. Including the day I was born I have had 49  birthdays .but deep down  I am aware this one is different. This year I am 49 ..I am the same age my mother turned not long before she died. This age, this date has loomed over my head for almost 33 years since I was 16.  When I was 16 ..49 was old..49 was a long time away..49 was abstract.  49 is now 28 days away and I am not ready.

I want to go back 10 years..I want to go back and appreciate the little things .. I want to go back 32 years and I want to take a picture of my mother so I can remember what she looks like before the chemotherapy took away her hair and made her scent change to this rancid chemical smell I can’t forget.  I want to go back and  record her voice so I remember what it sounds like..I want her to take a good look and remember me, I want to hope that she took me with her. I am in the real of what happened ..I don’t know where it goes from here. I want my children to have a tangible record of their grandmother vs her being this abstract person like an undeveloped character in a book they know well but don;t really relate to at all. I want them to understand where they come from..I want to understand where I come from. I know precious few things about who my mother was other than the superficial nuggets I was privy to ..I was her daughter and she shut me out even at the end. I am not sure if she loved me more than anyone else in her life ..I never had the chance to ask her ..when she received her diagnosis I barely had time to catch my breath and understand what was happening and then she was gone..and I was alone.

I have no idea of what aging looks like on the other side of 49. I don’t have that model for what life looks like going forward..when my hair will turn gray or white (it already has started but unlike my mother I am fighting it with every weapon in my arsenal) I don’t know what illnesses or joys are ahead..This birthday..this year is complicated ..the reality is overwhelming. I am realizing all I have missed having been on my own for 32 ..almost 33 years … my wedding dress was something chosen all on my own, my wedding day when a familiar stranger walked me down the aisle ..my babies born and no one to ask was I like this? What do I do? I figured it out on my own and I am not sure IF my mother were alive things would have been different…I just know all of that was taken from me..

My birthday is 4 weeks away..as far as I know I am rather different than my mother ..but I will keep breathing deep until June 10..and I will hold my breath until July 15 ..this is a tough year ..but I am a tough girl and I will get through this ..but I am going to admit right now …I miss my mom

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DREAMY EPISODES

09 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by Dot Girl in Uncategorized

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burden of grief, death, dreams, Family, Grief, healing, life, parental loss, parents, sisters

WARNING VERY DISJOINTED POST AHEAD THAT MAKES ZERO SENSE

Normally I do not recall my dreams,  I know I have them, but the details rarely seem to matter or stay with me long after I rise and shine. There are exceptions to the rule.  I can recall having vivid dreams where I am with loved ones who have long since passed away and trying not to wake up so I have just a minute more with them and  worse yet.. waking up feeling haunted and perplexed as to what that all meant. I am not sure if I truly believe that there is much meaning hidden in our dreams, but that does not stop me from trying to make something out of it (kind of like this post) ..however once again I am perplexed by a dreamy episode experience. In the wee hours of last night into this morning I had a dream about my sister Kate. The details of my dream are more fuzzy than not but what I remember was we were having a conversation. You know the polite, rather sterile type of  conversation people have when one participant feels uncomfortable around the other or feels forced to share a space with someone who makes your skin crawl. It’s possible thanks to her loving rejections I am projecting how she feels even in my dreams..who knows. I won;t say who cares ..because obviously I do to sit here and write this post.

 

A little about this dreamy  drama…What I recall  is I was in her kitchen..now allow me to assure you I have absolutely no idea what the inside of my sister’s house looks like (or what her voice sounds like for that matter)  but this was a dream and so maybe the kitchen was the place I needed to be since we all consider it the proverbial heart of the home, the place where people typically gather. A little side note..this may be a learned behavior on my part because  my aunt H used to contain visits from my mother and her other sisters to her kitchen when the aunts visited H’s home .. any way…the kitchen is a safe zone and I am wondering if  the kitchen symbolically represented my need to be in a safe place when it comes to my sister. In my dream, Kate’s kitchen was not modern and looked like it was a mash up of the kitchens of everyone I ever knew growing up had (you know wood looking cabinets, formica counter tops, and a bright linoleum floor, white appliances)  . The feeling I got was I was not exactly welcome  but was being obliged grudgingly (sort of like the visits my mother and aunts made to my auntie’s house)  SO  there I was in a place that is very strange and oddly familiar straining to talk to someone I don’t know but is related to me… At some point she was no longer there with me.  I stood there cleaning, redecorating and putting my stamp on her space and trying not to let her know I was still there, feeling like I overstayed my welcome and not wanting to leave all at the same time. So much of this experience is obscure but the last thing I recall is picking up paint cans (but was not painting lol), pulling off tarps and hiding the evidence of my intrusion by stuffing trash cans while a voice said “she is going to be pissed” . I woke up feeling haunted and unsettled.

Facebook has a strange way of having random people (at last I think it is random) show up as suggested friends ..my sister showed up recently. FB probably knows I stalked her before or  maybe she looked at my profile..we are both pretty locked down and all one can see is our profile and cover pictures that we post and are public. I clicked her name and she posted a new profile picture . We both wear glasses..something not unheard of since we are both well over 40 (she is well over 50) but damn it we wear almost identical frames..that is actually kind of freaky to me. I could not resist and I read the comments left by friends of hers and a family member of ours ..a cousin I do not know…one comment was left that is public and the person  said Kate’s eyes look sad..the picture was taken/posted just before our dad’s 8th anniversary. UGH in that moment I realized another freaky coincidence..

My father died January 30, 2010. I never knew him so I do not mourn him per se ..I mourn all the things he was and was not to me. What I realized this year..and I don;t know why I did not put this together sooner…my mother in law J also died on January 30 ..19 years before my father did..but if you think oh what a sad coincidence well hold my teacup ..my mother died July 15 1986 ..what does that have to do with the topic at hand? Well let me explain because 27 years later on July 15 2013 my beloved UJ passed away. The mother and father influences in my life all passed away on the same day as one another ..ok my brain was working overtime on that thought process (have I mentioned before that i am about to turn 49 ..the same age my mother was when she died and hence I am losing my damn mind this year???)

It is no wonder I am dreaming about kate..I saw her new picture thanks to Facebook..every single time I see something like this I am reminded there is a living, breathing sibling of mine I am not allowed to know (her choice) that we have weird connections ,that we are tied together by a man who was beloved for his brilliance, charm, wit and complexity. A very flawed man whom I believe harbored some personal demons and lived in a time where society allowed men to be men with limited consequences. It is also no wonder that reading comments on her picture once again awakens the feelings of I am tired of being in the shadows..of being cast aside. I need to celebrate that I share some of my father’s quirks like loving word games (boggle was mentioned in a story a person shared on his Obit..I love Boggle) and knowing the meaning of obscure words ..he loved the NYT crossword and it seems i share his I can do that attitude (except it seems he was for more confident than I and followed through more than I allow myself to)

I woke up on January 30 and my heart was heavy realizing J left us 27 years ago, her son, my husband was at the time 23, our daughter C turned 4 weeks old 2 days before J left us. I mourn her loss for my children and my husband, for her granddaughter J, for her sister, for her nieces and nephews and for myself. J deserved time with her grandchildren..her grandchildren deserved time with J. …I went to bed on February 1 and realized I forgot about my father on that same day and I did not know how I was supposed to feel..and then I saw Kate’s picture and I realize she is still mourning the father she knew ..and I mourn the ghost father I never knew..the father I deserved to know. Oh Sister dear my heart breaks for you on so many levels ..

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Recycled Grief

13 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by Dot Girl in Uncategorized

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burden of grief, Catholic Faith, choices, death, Elisabeth Kubler Ross, Faith, Family, Grief, kindness, life, Relationships, sisters, surviving

 

The first time I became familiar with the writings and works of Elisabeth Kubler Ross I was still in high school and my mother had recently died. I attended an all girls Catholic school and my religion elective that year was called Death and Dying, The class was popular, I think its popularity had more to do with the charismatic male teacher that everyone wanted to take class with than the subject matter itself, (which is on one hand morbid and somber but on the other hand a cause for joy in the Catholic faith for it is in death that we are once again with our Father in Heaven). I was among those who hoped to have a class with Mr. Lewis, but looking back I am not sure if the subject matter was necessarily anything I was ready to conquer at the time. 30 years later,  I do not remember much from that class..nor do I recall much about Mr. Lewis except that I remember the class being interesting and I remember towards the end he was rather irritated with me because I kept falling asleep in his class no matter what time of the day it was held (it turned out I had a rather nasty case of mononucleosis)  What I do recall is I opened up one day in a class discussion and mentioned that  in my mind I knew my mother had died, but I was still having a tough time believing it really happened ..almost like I was expecting to wake up from a dream and everything would be different. I also acknowledged  I found myself really angry that I woke up every day and everything was the same . I talked about how I was making little deals with God at the time..just get me through today and I promise I will be kind and give someone my seat on the bus, or I will do extra chores at home, or think only good thoughts about everyone at home and how I felt let down by God in those days. That was when we talked about the grief cycle and I was introduced to Elisabeth Kubler Ross.

I confess I was not much interested in that book. or any book for that matter. I did not think anyone understood what I was going through and who needed a book to tell me in that moment and the moments ahead and recently left behind that life sucked. My mother was dead, my family was not easy to live with and I held on to a small glimmer of hope that things could and would get better. That book ON DEATH AND DYING is in a box somewhere in my basement. The book has tattered corners and yellowed pages, it has underlines and highlights of passages I needed to know for a high school class and later on from my own necessary interest in the content after another profound loss rocked my world. I find myself going to that book when I need to remind myself that it is ok to grieve even many years later ..to soothe the guilt that I am simply not over what happened , to understand that grief is not limited to death and dying that other losses in our lives are grieved..or if I need to help someone I know and love who is on their own journey of grief ..I am needing to seek its wisdom once again but lack the energy to search through all the crap stacked in the mess that occupies our basement. Thank goodness for the internet and sites like Facebook and Google  where links to the information are easily accessible.

Today I am thinking about that book and all it that it taught me about loss and grief ..I made the mistake of looking at something I know I shouldn’t have and yup I was sucked down the rabbit hole ..out of acceptance and back into bargaining, sadness and worse…anger. I feel the anger bubbling inside and rising up like a pot of boiling water ..only right now I don;t know how to turn down the heat and I’ll be damned if I can find the lid to the pot..it is probably buried in the basement with my copy of ON DEATH AND DYING. Anger is that part of the grief cycle that I HATE..anger makes me frustrated and tearful, anger forces me to look through a different lens on things versus the one that makes me comfortable and worst of all anger leaves me feeling guilty.

Yes I feel guilty these days because I am getting angry ..I am angry at my mother because she is dead and she has been dead since I was a child..physically she died in 1986 at age 49..and it was her fault she died..lung cancer took her away from me, but she chose to smoke even when the poison from chemotherapy raced through her veins and radiation burned through her body hoping to buy her a few more months..she walked out of her appointments and lit right up ..nothing mattered to her but her own wants and desires and I get that now..even though I can see just how broken and complex her life was ..still I realize in the end and even before it was all about her. I am angry that whatever happened in the fall and early winter of 1973/74 when I was 4 years old totally derailed the path we were headed on and I do not think she was ever the same again. I am really PISSED that even faced with death my mother chose to keep her secrets regarding my father..that my mother knew she could contact him and arrange a meeting just so I could have some answers and she chose to deny me what I needed to know. I know I am supposed to see past that..I should forgive her and accept that she was a troubled soul with minimal education and probably a host of learning issues and maybe even mental illness.I know for sure 1 thing is she suffered from depression ..I know what I should do..but I can’t right now. Right now I am thinking about me.

I feel this painful sadness that I am learning bits and pieces about my father and who I am via the internet. It’s not the same as knowing someone ..it’s real and theoretical all at the same time.  It’s sad and satisfying in its own way as well. Most people if they do not grow up with their families at least have relatives or friends who relay stories and tell them things like you have your father’s eyes, you remind me of your mother by the way you walk..your grandmother had the same look on her face when she was angry..I have none of that. My mother died and everyone stopped talking about her after the funeral as if she never existed..my father, the man who called int he middle of the night and stopped by long after I went to bed (except for once that i remember) the man to whom my mother often said in anger “she is a piece crap just like you” or “I can’t stand to look at her because she reminds me of you” ceased to exist after we moved out of our apartment ..he would remain Tony the lawyer with a wife named Carol and a daughter named Katie .the man who I ached to know, the man who should have rescued me just vanished like a puff of smoke in the air. He died in 2010 when I was 40 years old ..I found his obituary at the time..they did not even have a wake for him, they had a memorial at a later time .I wondered then like I do now..was it a ploy to keep me away. My sister Kate knows I exist..I wrote to her in my 20s..she lives in the same house now as she did then ..I till have the same address as I did then  ..she never wrote back..she never called ..she just left me hanging. I found another relative named John Michael ..he acts as if I have no right to any information about my family that he holds…he and his sister called my father “Uncle Tony” ..I hate to break it to you John Michael but my father as you know was an only child, your mother Trish (I found her name thanks to ancestry research) was his first cousin on his mother’s side …my FATHER is your second cousin and I am more deserving of knowing who he was and how he died than you are. It took John Michael 4 years..that is right 4 YEARS to respond me after I reached out to him..and instead of having an ounce of compassion he came across as an asshole.

I am mostly angry with my parents ..they made a decision to carry on an affair..I am the result of that affair ..Tony got to walk away and go back to his wife, child, career and life ..my mother got to have his child ..I got to be abandoned, I got to be treated as a second class citizen and pitied because I did not have a father (I had/have one he just decided not to be a part of my life) I got to live in the projects in a 1 bedroom apartment infested with rodents and cockroaches, I got to live below a very mentally ill woman who could be dangerous, who stayed up all hours of the day and night screaming and slamming on the floor ..playing the same song on repeat on her stereo (I still cringe when I hear the song ME AND MRS JONES) I got to often go hungry, I got to be told how ugly I was and how much I ruined her my mother’s life. I got to wait to see if my father would show up even to just talk at my mother’s wake and funeral..and as far as I know he did not. I got to be rejected by my father after I wrote to him in my twenties ..I am still being rejected by my sister. My sister does not want to be bothered to have a relationship with me. I spent years feeling guilty that I wrote to her and told her who I am ( I was probably 23/24 at the time and that would have made her 31/32 it is not like we were babies) feeling like maybe I never should have said anything and just stayed in my troll corner..now I am pissed at her as well.

Kate..you do not have to have a relationship with me…I get it you see me as a less than person whose mother did something heinous to your mother. (Projecting here I know) and you are right ..I can’t excuse what my mother did or what our father did to your mother ..but let’s get something  straight here.none of that is my fault. I did not choose my parents any more than you chose yours. I do not know the circumstances of your birth but I can tell you this…between the 2 of us..I was not wanted. Just the fact that I was a girl and not a boy was a huge issue ..but even after I was here neither one of them wanted anything to do with me. Here is the difference between us.. I doubt you ever went hungry, I doubt you were ever woken up at 2 in the morning because there was a raging dumpster fire or abandoned car burning in the alley outside your bedroom window and the flames shattered the glass from the window all over you as you slept. I doubt your mother told you how heinous you were simply for existing and that your father wanted you to be an abortion..I doubt you ever lived a day wondering who one of your parents is and looking in the mirror trying to figure out who you look like, wondering why you can read a book in a day (when your mother can barely read) or why your eyes are green when your mothers were dark brown, I doubt you ever wondered what nationality you were or if you had grandparents.  I doubt you ever had to be the one who paid the bills at age 8, I doubt you had to learn to cook at 7 or ever had to eat mustard sandwiches for dinner, learn how to make a dozen of eggs, a stick of butter, a jar of peanut butter (a food I HATE) and a loaf of bread last for a week, or that you had to learn how to sneak off to relatives houses just to get something to eat because your mother and her sisters were not talking and once again you were hungry. I doubt you ever had to go begging the neighbors for milk, for some bread or worse what mattered more to your mother..cigarettes. I doubt you ever had to shake your clothes out or your school bad to make sure there were no cockroaches, I doubt you had to ask people to drop you off on a different street and pretend to go into a different house because you knew people would think differently of you if they knew you lived in the projects. I doubt you were on food stamps and I doubt you know what it is like to be utterly all alone in this world and have to figure out where you were going to go and how you were going to make it.

That is my life Kate..and still you look down upon me. In many ways I am grateful for that life because of it I am fiercely independent and very resourceful and I understand how a little compassion goes a long way. In other ways I despise that is what Madeline and Tony did to me and I feel guilty, sad and angry all at the same time that I just cannot accept that is the way it was. I don;t want much from you my sister. Naively I used to want a relationship where I had a sister ..I do not want that any longer..What I want is for you to acknowledge me just once..I want you to stop holding my medical history and anything about my father hostage. He is also my father like it or not..you are my half sister. we are family. I admit I  am angry with you because you have the power to be kind and you are choosing not to be and I can’t understand why. If our roles were reversed ..I would welcome you into my life with open arms. I think life has taught me to be kind because I have not always experienced kindness and I know a little kindness can create change in anyone’s life. You don’t deserve my kindness ..but I know who I am and I will always have an open door for you. I make bargains with God every day ..If I just do this could you please send me a sign…I don’t have much left to bargain with. For as much as I am angry with you Kate..I am also so terribly sad ..no heartbroken for what probably will never be. I am sure all those who love you would say you are an amazing person and I am sure they are right..I am sure the ones who know about me think I am this awful human being who needs to stay in her place and out of your existence …the people who love me would tell you I am not so bad.I really do not have horns on my head and I looked there is no 666 tattooed at the base of my skull..my friends and loved ones can’t understand why you are rejecting me and think maybe you should reconsider your position.  As for me..I will get through this cycle of grief, it will kick my ass for a while but in the end it will all be ok ..it has to be otherwise the grief and the crap wins and I am way to competitive to allow that to happen

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Coming Up For Air

22 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Dot Girl in Uncategorized

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burden of grief, Family, Grief, Grief Loss and Bereavement

Grief has a way of catching up with us at the most inopportune moments. The moment grief works its way in, it is all consuming and fills the spaces in your lungs where the air is supposed to go. Grief is heavy in every way imaginable and when it is not simply your burden of grief that you carry the weight is almost punishing.

The months of 2012 blend together like a long day and night, a solstice of life at its finest and darkest hours. I spent my time keeping busy, trying to stay one step ahead of the sorrow, savoring each moment of joy, throwing myself at any task just in order to keep the sadness at bay. We can only avoid things for just so long, because sooner or later it all catches up with us.

I am not exactly sure when I allowed the grief to settle in and start to take over.  Maybe it happened during those weeks in September when faced with constant reminders of just how fragile life is. Death touched the lives of my family 6 times in the days from September 6, until 27. Still, I remained busy, hiding from my feelings and stumbling along the way hoping to avoid the inevitable crash. Maybe the cracks finally started happening once I acknowledged a part of my past and realized that I am not alone. Maybe it happened during the interval between a difficult loss and waiting for news, hoping that one loss was all we had to endure. Time is a precious gift and a mortal enemy all rolled into one, given too much time and the fear of the unknown adds to our burden. It is amazing to me how one event folds into the next and quickly compounds feelings of heaviness. To be honest it is hard to describe how grief feels physically. For me, grief feels like a weight that sits on my back, in my chest and in my gut. I am unable to breathe, I am unable to eat and the world around me feels out of sort like a I am walking in an alternate universe

What I do know is I felt the grief blanket me and fill my lungs when the pain and sadness was not mine alone. I just can not give you a time or a date, because it feels like it just happened all of a sudden and I know that is not the case. I realize that I tried desperately to take the burden of grief away from my children and my husband to carry it for them and I attempted to avoid my own feelings during these months and recent weeks. As we walk away from the moments of loss and sadness ,life becomes clearer I see things for what they are to me.

So now I am coming up for air, I feel as though I can breathe again. Every day the air in my lungs feels lighter and lighter but I am still reminded of  the reality that life is fragile yet unbreakable. The thing about grief is it comes in waves and disappears like the tide (now how is that for cliché) and the only way for me to get through it all is to be aware of how I am feeling, not to let myself drown in the pain and the sadness and to breathe.

 

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