My Week, the fun, the good and the sad

Another Sunday has passed and here I am with my sister again. We have had a good visit and I spent several hours with my niece, Lee.

Last week in Hayesville, I was a guest for Mountain Wordsmiths, a Zoom event hosted by Carroll Taylor and sponsored by NCWN-West. We had about 15 people sign in and I was so happy to see the names of many of my friends and family there. I recorded my reading for one of our members and when I played it back I was not happy with the way my voice sounded. I think it is the poor microphone I have to use and perhaps how I sat while reading. 

I read a couple of memoir pieces and a short story, as well as several poems. Some comments were "I like to hear you read about real people." I read a piece about my aunt and uncle who had their farm taken by the government in 1962 so that a large military base could be built there. This was imminent domain. If you ever knew anyone who had to sell out because the forces that be said their home was needed for the good of the community or the country, will understand the emotional effect of my story. My sister said she and Stu listened to my reading and fought tears.

The next day I loaded my car and drove to Roswell, GA and it felt so good to enter my second home. When I am here I feel like I am on vacation. 

It seems that wherever I am now, I continue to hear sad stories from people I know and love. One friend said her daughter had been in four different hospitals in the past ten days. Another friend said her daughter has been diagnosed with cancer. I ache for my friends. My heart hurts for them. I don't have children, but I do have beloved nieces and nephews and I worry about them as if they were my own. 

Having lost five brothers and sisters and my husband and three in-laws as well as both my parents, I know grief all too well. 

Having faced cancer with my beloved husband and my dear brother, Ray, I feel the worst kind of fear when I hear that word. I will pray for my friends and their daughters and I will ask others to pray for them, but I prayed for Barry and Ray and so did their church families. 

I am feeling uplifted by another very dear friend who is fighting cancer with all her might, heart, and energy, and is actually feeling better now. I do believe that doctors are not the entire answer to healing cancer. Positive thoughts, energy healing, spiritual energy, and constant love by others have a strong effect, I believe. Sometimes this only gives more time and not complete healing, but remission of any kind is wonderful. 

You can tell I am sorrowful tonight even though I am feeling well physically. 

My knee is fixed and I have no pain since the surgery has healed. I seldom have the need for a cane or walker anymore. I will see my knee surgeon next week for his final examination and I am sure he will be pleased at the progress I made. Dr. DeCook at Northside Hospital in Cumming, GA does a terrific job with his patients. His staff is on the spot with follow-up care as well as preparing the patient before the surgery. The prep exercises are an essential part of a good recovery.

My sister is surprised and overjoyed at the improvement in my health compared to this time last year. I am grateful for my life and my friends and family who are there for me when times are tough. I deeply appreciate you, my readers. 

I hope I have not brought you down with this post. I seem to have a need to share my sorrows as well as my happiness with you, my faithful readers. 

Let me hear from you and have a great week. Until next time, much love.

Who Gave Me Wings

Writer Madeleine L’Engle says of grief, in her book Two-Part Invention, that it “has to be worked through. It is like walking through water. Sometimes there are little waves lapping about my feet. Sometimes there is an enormous breaker that knocks me down. Sometimes there is a sudden and fierce squall. But I know that many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”

My dear friend, Maureen Ryan Griffin posted a beautiful essay about her father and how he "gave her wings." He didn't give many tangible gifts, but she learned after his passing recently, he was a most generous person who donated to various charities and helped support a child in a foreign country. I think he was like men of my father's generation who didn't want to give their children too many presents or gifts because he wanted them to work for what they wanted. My mother was the one who gave me any gifts I received like my first diary, made me pretty clothes and bought me shoes like I wanted. She was Santa Claus when I was little. 

Maureen's prompt, she gives one in each of her newsletters, grabbed me today. Having lost my last brother in the past month, her prompt to write about someone who gave you wings made me think about each of my brothers and how they gave me the gift of wings. 

https://www.wordplaynow.com/the-gift-of-wings/

Maureen wrote about her father, who seemed a lot like mine because he was rather aloof. But in her essay, she remembers the many things she had not noticed when she was younger, that her father gave her and they were intangible gifts rather than tangible. 

I have so many people on my list of those who gave me wings, I could write a book about them and fill many pages. I would start with my mother, my sister June, her husband, Stan and Gay, of course. My other brothers, Ray, Hal and Rex were all there for me after I was older, but Max was there when I was a child.

Terrible picture of Gay and me, but pretty good of Max

 
My brother Max took Gay and me under his wings when we were little girls. His gift of telling us stories from books he and Ray, my older brother read, probably led to my love of reading. He told us a chapter out of a book or maybe two chapters each night as we cuddled beside him in a large hammock hanging on a big limb of the giant oak tree that stood like a protector of our home. My Friend Flicka was one of my favorite books he shared with us. Max had a fantastic memory like no one I have ever known and that is why he could tell us what he read and make it exciting and fun.

I felt such love from Max and that helped me deal with feeling unloved by my father who was distant and seldom gave me any attention. I think back on the good times I had with Max growing up. He loved nature and was curious about all creatures on the land and water. He took us with him into the woods and we learned about the birds and looked into the nests. He knew the bird by the color of her eggs. He took us to the hill where the Easter Lillies grew and helped us find the wild violets. He was in his teens when I was five or six. But he enjoyed sharing what he knew with Gay and me.

I won't tell about how his teasing sometimes left me in tears, but, as Mother said, he was just playing.

I am like Max in that I am curious and interested in learning about people, places, and nature in all its forms. It sometimes makes me sad that I can't learn all I want to learn in the years I have left. But it won't stop me from trying. 

Visit Maureen's website https://wordplaynow.com 

You will love her as all who know her do. Sign up for her newsletter. I wish I could attend one of her writing retreats at the beach. That would be such fun.

As I try to get my life on track after having COVID in January and losing my brother in February I am trying to learn how to live in two places, travel back and forth, and get medical help lined up, please bear with me and send positive thoughts.

Thanks for reading and hope you are having good weather and good health.

Many Kinds of Grief

A Gift Returned

By Glenda C. Beall

 

I hear him singing on the deck,

That rich baritone that won me

the first day we met.

Like Sinatra’s fans I mellowed

as I listened to those tones.

 

Music-making was his talent

taken for granted like breathing

and the beating of his heart until

the surgeon’s knife nicked a nerve.

 

We both wept, losing more

than if he’d lost a limb.

His voice is who he is,

has always

been.

 

The purple wreath of grief hung

over us a year or more until

one day the notes rang true

above the strum of his guitar,

a lovely instrument restored.

Grief, mourning and going on with life

My readers know I love animals, especially dogs and horses. My horse, Pretty Thing, lived to be 32 years old and was my darling. My poodle, Brandy, lived to be 19 years old. 

All of our pets except for one, lived to ripe old age. They were treated well, fed well and well-loved. We had the reputation of having pets that lived forever.

But, no matter how old they are, when it is time to let them pass on or when they die unexpectedly as our Nikki did, we grieve. We grieve as we would if any family member was gone. 

Over the years I have made a study of grief and why we grieve more over some and not so much over others although we loved them all.

The first person that I knew well and loved dearly, and who died suddenly in his fifties, was my brother-in-law, Stan. I was about six or seven years old when he burst into our family with his big smile, his boisterous nature, his laughter, and his hugs. I knew and loved him as much as I did any of my brothers for two decades and more. So I grieved and mourned his passing deeply. His presence in my life was far bigger than anyone knew. I think of him as the loving father I didn't have and the big brother who was not embarrassed to show his love for me. His passing left a place that can't be filled. 

Brandy, my black miniature poodle, was the first big loss in my animal family. You can find his shortened story in Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins, Family Pets and God's Other Creatures. This little fellow was a wedding gift to me from my husband, Barry. I liken living with Brandy to raising a wild, but precious boy-child. He was not obedient and was very destructive, causing us to have to move to the country when he demolished our first apartment.

Brandy lived on the edge. When he had the opportunity to take a risk, he did it. The cows grazed quietly in the pasture near our house. They were enclosed by a three-strand barbed-wire fence.  Of course the fence meant nothing to my dog. And the cows looked much to peaceful and content to him. If he was outside his pen, he didn't waste time scooting under the barbed wire and making a bee line for the herd. 

As I stood yelling and screaming at him to come back, Brandy circled the bovines barking at the top of his lungs. At first they ignored him, but, I suppose his noise-making got under their skin. Eventually one of the black and white milk cows had enough. She raised her head, looked at the yapping dog, and headed straight for him. That was the signal, it seemed, for the other cows to do the same. Big heads came up and the entire herd of forty started toward the little black dog.

Back in my yard, I continued to yell at Brandy. Now I was calling, "Brandy, come here" "Brandy run! Run, run, run!"

The mischievous little guy got just what he wanted. Every single cow was now after him, chasing him across the pasture. Brandy knew where he was going and they followed. At times I thought they were gaining and were going to trample him, but he stayed just about ten feet ahead of the lead cow, looking back from time to time, his red tongue hanging out of his mouth. 

He came home just as I wanted, but he brought an entourage of hoof beats from forty beasts pounding right behind him.

I stood rigid, holding my breath, scared senseless, and praying that my little buddy would make it. Afraid to look! I could not stand to see his body mangled by the sharp hooves. 

But Brandy was shrewd. He knew exactly what he was doing, and I am sure he was laughing in his own doggy way.

He slowed down just enough to let the cows think they were going to get him, and then he skittered under the bottom strand of wire with their hot breath on his curly coat. 

He ran around the yard, then jumped up on me. I knew what he was thinking. "See Momma, I didn't get hurt, and I had a lot of fun."

Brandy Beall lived to be nineteen years old, was nearly blind and totally deaf. I found him stretched out on the carpet in my bedroom one rainy afternoon. He didn't wake up.

My days and my nights were not the same without Brandy. I missed him so much I could not speak his name or talk about him to others for months. 

I believe we grieve most those whose lives are entwined with our own, those whose very existence is a part of who we are. Husbands and wives miss each other more because they have become almost one person over the years as my husband and I did. When everywhere you look, everything you see, touch or feel reminds you of your loss, the pain just grows deeper.

I know that Stan, my brother-in-law, made a giant impression on me from the earliest days of knowing him. What made him most special to me, when I was a kid, was he listened to me. I could tell him what vexed me and what made me happy. He knew what I loved and what I did not love, what I feared and what I was not scared of. He approved of me and let me know it. When he didn't approve, he let me know. His death left a hole in my life too big to ever be replaced. 

My little Brandy gave me memories I still cherish and always will. He loved me unconditionally, as our dogs usually do. He and I were so attached that I often think Barry was jealous of my attention to him.

For months I would forget he was gone. I looked for him around me, expecting him to be near me. Then the punch in the gut came, feeling the emptiness when it dawned on me that I had buried him out by the stable. 

They say that tears of grief are just ways of showing you loved someone, and I shed many when I lost my three brothers, my sister, my dear sister-in-law, my parents and my beloved husband.  I didn't think I could endure all those losses of people I love. But I have. What choice do I have?

I have lost my sweet, loving Samoyd, Kodi, and Rocky, the best dog ever.

I grieved more and more. So much sadness, and I still cry over those I loved, human and animal, who have gone on. But each day arrives with new possibilities. 

What will I learn today? What can I do, what will I do, today that might make a difference? I know I will mourn for the rest of my life, but somehow, I found a way to departmentalize grief while going on with living. I hurt for those who cannot do that. 

I hope your holidays will be happy and filled with fun and good memories. Make great memories this year. Don't let petty things from the past cause hurt feelings or sadness. I found that being thankful for my family, my friends and for still being alive on this earth to enjoy each sunrise and each sunset gives me peace. 

What do you say?

A few years ago, after my husband died. I saw a call for submissions for this book, On Our Own, Widowhood for Smarties. I decided to send in some of my poetry I had written while dealing with my grief.

I am proud to have been accepted for this anthology. The work in this book is not only poetry, but short pieces by those who have lost loved ones and how they are going on with their lives. A blog reader recently said she had ordered the book when her husband died. I think it is good to give to friends who have lost a husband or a wife, a life partner or even for children of widows because they don't often understand. It is not all sad. Some of the stories are humorous and all are of value to those who are in mourning or who are grieving.

As I told my dinner companion last night, when you have been married 45 years, you become one entity. When one of you die, the one that is left is like half a person for awhile. It takes a long time to make the half that is left work like it should. 

I am not sure if this book is still in print. The book was published by Silver Boomer Books out of Abilene, Texas. I have three so if you want one, let me know. 

Here are some pieces in this book.

Widowhood: Some Notes by Cathy Douglas

1. Nobody knows what to say to a person in grief, especially someone they don't know well. I used to wonder what to say, too. I suggest "condolences," or some related phrase, because it gives the person an easy reply: "Thank you." If you say "I'm sorry," it is awkward, because there's no obvious reply to it. You can't thank a person for feeling sorry and a reply like "Me too" sounds flip. By offering condolences, you're making things easy on the grieving person, and helping the conversation move forward. 

One time I said "I'm sorry" to a teenager who'd just lost his sister to leukemia, and he replied, "That's okay. It wasn't your fault." ...

Sleeping Alone by Glenda Beall

In the dark, I close my eyes,

try to push away the memories,

the feel of your smooth skin

sliding over lean bones and strong sinew,

the softness of your hair, smelling clean

as fresh air and rainwater. It grew back thicker,

darker

after chemo.

When Mourning Comes

This past week has been a sad one for me because I have heard bad news from several sources.

One of my dearest friends has been diagnosed with metastasized breast cancer, stage IV. She is elderly and has had two mastectomies. It breaks my heart. She was my "Guardian Angel" when Barry died. She was never too busy to talk with me, to counsel me about losing your mate, she had gone through it, and going on with your life. She has a delightful personality and finds humor even when things are tough. We used to go out for pizza often, and we always laughed. She is a good person, a great cook who shares her wonderful dishes with anyone who needs them. She has certainly fed me many times. If I took her food I cooked, it would be like taking coals to New Castle. 

The husband of another friend died quite suddenly after a diagnoses of lung cancer. He was not elderly. In fact he was running for sheriff in our county. He was a good man and well respected. I saw his wife, a former student of mine, just a couple of weeks ago, and she said his back had been hurting. She was getting him an appointment to see the doctor. I need to take his campaign sign from in front of my house. 

And the third loss was another friend and member of our writers' network. He went in the hospital for a valve replacement in his heart and was recovering from the surgery. But suddenly he suffered bleeding in his brain. A stroke. His daughter said it was due to his being given too much blood thinner. Mistakes happen, I know. But so many mistakes in hospitals take the lives of people we love. I try to avoid hospitals if I possibly can. I lost too many loved ones, including my dear husband, from mistakes by the medical world.

So, I am sorry if I can't write a cheery bright post today. You deserve better, but I have been too depressed to even get dressed to go out. 

My life has been filled with loss since 1975, losses I had to learn to deal with and had to accept and go on. That year my mother suffered a ruptured aneurysm on a carotid artery, lost her short term memory and was never the same. My sisters' husband, a man I truly loved, died from a doctor's mistake.

Since that time I lost a brother to cancer, two brothers to heart attacks, my mother and my father have died. My oldest sister, June, died from heart problems, and my own beloved died from cancer. 

Each of these seven deaths slammed me to my knees, and I had to pull myself back up and go on. The recent deaths and illness I write about above seem harder because I don't have Barry to talk to, to share with him my feelings and to be comforted by him. 

The men who recently passed away were not that close to me so why do I feel such despair? I feel for their wives, their families because I know that pain of grief that seems to never end. I am more empathetic than most, I'm told, and I feel deeply others' pain. But my feelings for my friend with breast cancer is not only for her and her family, but for me. 

I am sharing a poem I wrote a few years ago. I went to the funeral of a man whose wife I knew. 

For Whom Do I Mourn?

I never met this man who owns

the casket covered in white flowers.

They say he was a craftsman,

hand-built chairs, rivaled scholars

with his logic, his understanding,

though he never finished high school.

.

He entertained his grandchildren,

made funny faces, loved a joke,

was a VIP at church and in his home.

Beside his grave, gray-haired soldiers

fold the flag. That haunting bugle tune

lays him to rest.

Why do my eyes moisten?

Why does my throat constrict?

I cry not for the old soldier,

but for my own, who lie beneath

their stones, under still and leafy oaks

above the pond.

Posts you might want to read:

https://writingthroughcancer.com/

https://profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com/search?q=Hospice+Doctor

Learning to live after the pain of loss, and one of the best ways to do that

With many of my friends losing their lifelong partners these days, I picked up my copy of On Our Own, Widowhood for Smarties, published by Silver Boomer Books. This is a book for those who acknowledge the pain of loss, but who are learning to live in spite of it, even to build on it.

When I lost my husband, Barry, in July 2009, I went through the worst time of my life. I was physically ill as well as deeply emotional about his death. I experienced feelings I had never had before. I wished I had died with him. I wished I could go to bed and not wake up. What was there to live for now? I had no children or grandchildren as most of my friends did, and no one would miss me. I didn’t make any difference in the lives of another living person, I told myself. I have heard these same feelings expressed by friends who have lost their husbands, and I’m sure men who have lost their wives feel the same at times. “It would not change anyone’s life if I walked out in front of a semi and was run over.” Can you imagine that feeling?

I now know that we all have those feelings, but did not know that at the time. When your life has been so entwined with another person for forty years or more, how could you go on? What was the purpose of living now without that loved one who was always there and always on your side?

June in chair, Gay on the right,
wonderful sisters

I was fortunate to have two sisters who loved me dearly and to whom I could always talk, but that didn’t help, especially when my anger at the world in general erupted on one of them. She didn’t understand why I would say hurtful things to her or to others, and sadly, I didn’t either.

If your friend has not lost her husband to death, she can’t understand why you don’t get out and do things, have fun again. “You need to be more social. Come to a party with me.” Oh, no. Don’t go to a party with anyone unless you can leave when you want to leave. A gathering of happy people who ignore the pain you are feeling is the worst! A grief counselor gave me that advice and it was the best advice I ever received.

I turned to my writing to help me get through the mourning process. I knew, realistically, that time was the only healer, the only potion, tonic or medicine I had at my disposal, and I could not overdose on time because I had no control over it. I could not speed it up which I wanted to do. Why couldn’t I just go to bed and sleep until this heart-rending pain was gone, and I had healed both mentally and physically. If only I could have a medically induced coma that would take me away for a year, then, I thought, I would be well on my way to being normal again. Everyone says the first year is the hardest.

During this time, I wrote my grief poems. I didn’t share them with anyone. I remembered my sister, June, writing touching poems when her husband died, and she didn’t consider herself a writer. Two of them were published in Bereavement Magazine some years later. I still feel her pain when I read them.

In 2012, when Silver Boomer Books called for submissions to an anthology with work by those who had lost someone, I decided to share two of my poems, Solitude and Sleeping Alone. Both were published. 

Sleeping Alone

In the dark I close my eyes,

try to push away the memories,

the feel of your smooth skin

sliding over lean bones and strong sinew,

the softness of your hair, smelling clean as

fresh air and rainwater. It grew back thicker,

darker,

after chemo.
                             ---Glenda Council Beall

When I received my copy of the book, I was impressed by the other poems, essays and stories by women and men and family members who had lost a loved one. One of my favorites is When We Became I, by Lavania Fritts. Until you face the aftermath of the death of your mate, you never consider the we and the I in the relationship.

But as the writing in this book tells us, the I must go on and find a new way to live, to find joy and purpose. I found my purpose after Barry died when I registered for a week at Wild Acres Retreat. That was where I had time to do some soul-searching. I decided to open my writing studio in my home. It has made all the difference. I have a purpose and I am doing something I am passionate about--teaching and  learning.

Of course each person's grieving time is personal and no one can say when we must move on or end our mourning. I am told I was not myself again for six years after Barry's death. 

###############################################

It seems we can't go on right after losing our husbands or wives, but we can eventually, and we must. 
We can't linger forever in the sorrow or we can become isolated, mentally ill with depression, or become a person we don't want to be. The best way, I think, to move on with your life is to do something for others.

One of my friends and her husband, after their son was killed, began repairing and painting old bikes to give to needy kids. They also give teddy bears to people who are grieving. She gave one to me.

Another woman, Jan DeBlieu, who lost her son writes about loss and how she copes. She publishes a newsletter. http://www.jandeblieu.com/

Information from The Cleveland Clinic tells us "There is evidence that, during gift-giving behaviors, humans secrete “feel good” chemicals in our brains, such as serotonin (a mood-mediating chemical), dopamine (a feel-good chemical) and oxytocin (a compassion and bonding chemical).

When researchers from the National Institutes of Health looked at the functional MRIs of subjects who gave to various charities, they found that giving stimulates the mesolimbic pathway, which is the reward center in the brain — releasing endorphins and creating what is known as the “helper’s high.” 

Do you experience that helper's high when you give a gift or help someone? Tell us about it in a comment or by email. Remember, if you have a problem leaving a comment, just reply as anonymous and leave your name inside the comment box. And remember, comments don't pop up right away. I have to first approve of the comment. It might be the next day before it is on the blog.

July 21

Four years ago, early morning, I awoke, exhausted, in a small sparse room in a hospice center where I had stayed round the clock for several days, realizing this would be the last day I'd have with my beloved husband who was transitioning to a better place, leaving me to make it on my own. I remember sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch afterward waiting for others in my family to come and wrap me in their love, take me home with them, and let me sleep.

Four years and still this day brings back such sorrow and so many memories. 

A BALMY DAY IN JANUARY

like none I've seen in years. In the park,
sunshine heals like days I waited urgently
to be free of walls, to tear across the pasture
on my mare, rushing toward fulfilling childhood dreams.

I stroll with Rocky this winter day, warm enough
to over-heat his black fur, his weakened bones.
His unconditional love fills a tiny part of that left empty now.

Women in tennis attire stride toward the courts,
new bags on their shoulders, swinging rackets,
tossing hair, wearing trendy shoes. Love – one.
Love-two, their happy voices sing on brisk air.

Tennis was once our game, long ago,
when a simple quarrel over a match seemed
the end of our world; a gentle world we did not
properly nurture, because we didn’t know
what we didn’t know.
                           --- Glenda C. Beall

Published by Wild Goose Poetry Review, Spring, 2013

http://wildgoosepoetryreview.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/glenda-beall-a-balmy-day-in-january/

Glenda on family tennis court

On Our Own, Widowhood for Smarties, anthology by writers and poets who have lost someone

One day this week I stopped by Curiosity Books in Murphy, NC. I noticed an anthology, On Our Own, Widowhood for Smarties, was in the window. That book was published by Silver Boomer Books last year. Two of my poems, Sleeping Alone and Solitude, were selected for inclusion. I am proud of this book and wish we had more books of this type. A number of excellent writers, widows or people who wrote about widowhood sent in stories, essays and poems. The book has a nice cover and I’m sure has sold well. Linda Ray, owner of the bookstore asked if I get any kind of royalty when a book is sold. I do not, but I sold first rights to my poems so I was paid at that time.

I took the book over for Linda to read and she said she would let a grief support group see the book.  She evidently had good feedback and now carries the book in the store. While she and I were discussing it, a woman came in and asked for it. Linda told her we had just been talking about it, and I had the opportunity to tell the customer more about the authors.

She glanced through it and said she wanted to purchase a copy. Linda said, “Glenda can autograph it for you, if you want.” 

The woman smiled and said she would like that. As I wrote my name on the pages with my poems, I asked her, “Is this for a friend or have you lost someone?”

She couldn’t speak as tears filled her eyes. I had my answer. I put my arms around her and my heart ached so badly for her pain. I told her I knew her journey. She just took the book and left. 

I hope On Our Own, Widowhood for Smarties brings her some kind of peace as she reads the stories, some funny and some sad, some inspiring and some uplifting. If anyone wants to order the book, go to Amazon.com 

I have a few copies I can autograph and sell at a little discount. Contact me at nightwriter0302@yahoo.com or you can buy it through PayPal. See the side bar. Below see one of the poems in the book.

Solitude

I’ve always needed time alone.
To gather meandering thoughts,
musings on life, mine and yours.
I snatched my moments
where I found them.
But now the stillness whispers to me.
Careful what you ask for.

Waking in our quiet house,
no one greets me with, “Hey, Hon,
Get me a cup of coffee, will ya?”
No one sits in your chair,
No one speaks but the dog.

Hours pass while I make
eggs and toast – no coffee-
not for one. Feed the dog
and cat, answer e-mail, fewer
now it seems.

Slowly I learn to use the quiet,
to ponder my future, to cry
when I am stabbed with memories
so precious I can’t bear the pain,
to face the hard reality that you
will not return.
I am alone inside the
silence that I craved.
           by Glenda C. Beall,
                       first published by Wild Goose Poetry Review

Saturday - for celebrating milestones and me

After a long and busy week, Saturday was special for me. I joined my sister and friends to celebrate a birthday at the Oar House in Dahlonega, GA. A festival was going on in town, so the quiet restaurant a few miles from the square was perfect for us. We see each other every few months or on special occasions and, while it used to be the six of us, now I make five. For three years after Barry died, I suffered through those days when the six minus one gathered to laugh and share old memories. But today was good. 

I left home around ten o'clock a.m. and returned after nine at night because on the way home I decided to treat myself to a movie. I had been wanting to see the Jackie Robinson Story, 42, and was happy to see it was still up at the Fieldstone Cinema. 

The show didn't begin until seven and I had time to stop in at a Mexican restaurant nearby and order myself a frozen margarita. I seldom drink alcohol, but today it was so good with cheese dip and chips. 

Although it wasn't my birthday, I felt celebratory. I'd had good news about my brother's health, and also I had made another milestone on this journey called grief. After four years one might thing that trip had been completed, but, until you face it, you don't realize it is never finished. It just gets easier as you pass those checkpoints you meet on the way. 

On Death and Dying Alone

When we lose our loved ones, especially after we begin losing our siblings, our mortality rears up and roars at us. How long do we have left? How will we depart and how long will it take?

Reading the book given by Hospice on what to expect from your loved one as they begin to transition from this world to the next, is almost ghoulish, but I suppose it is something we need to know as we sit with our dying person. They tell us the rasping sounds emanating from the person we love is “normal.” 

Nurses at Hospice know when to call in the family as the last stages of life leave the patient They know when we need to be there to say our last good-byes. They can’t help us with this chore, and they can’t tell us how to do it to make the passing easier for our dear one. But they know all the symptoms of life leaving the body.

My question is how do the writers of this book know? 

As I spoke in my sister’s ear and told her I love her and urged her to sleep well, her breathing became faster and her eyes opened, unfocused, for a moment. I was sorry I spoke to her and wakened her from her journey. Perhaps it is best to leave the traveling to the dying because no matter how many people gather around, we still die alone. 

Even the little book says we withdraw from this world, gradually losing interest in reading, TV, news of the world around us, children and grandchildren, and we become totally self-absorbed. I imagine I would not be interested in the noisy television that seems to be a necessity in every hospital room. My sister said to turn it off.

When read to, she already seemed to be away, just smiling at the reader. My sister June had the nicest smile and the kindest heart. She would not be rude and say, “Stop reading. I don’t want to hear it.” Her smile became a sad expression in those last days as the hopelessness became more apparent. 

After watching death claim my loved ones, I understand that the process of dying is strenuous, is all consuming, and requires total self-absorption. 

Those of us left behind and grieving are just in the way. 

I think my sister would have liked to say to me, “Leave me alone. Go home now. I’m busy dying.”

And she completed that task only fifteen minutes later. 

Three sisters, Glenda, Gay and June in chair

On Our Own - Widowhood for Smarties

Silver Boomer Books has published an anthology, On Our Own - Widowhood for Smarties, and I am proud to have two of my poems, Sleeping Alone and Solitude, published in it.

These editors have put together a book for everyone who is part of a couple. If you have a husband or a wife, a life-long partner, or if you have lost your love, read this book of essays, fiction and poems. . 

I have to be honest. I have been published in anthologies that I never read all the way through. But I love the work in On our Own, Widowhood for Smarties. 

From Silver Boomer website: "The writers of this collection express the range of emotions at the loss of a spouse but the overwhelming message is affirmation of the strength they find to create new lives after deep loss. Widows and widowers will read these stories and poems with knowing nods, sighs and smiles. Other readers will find insight into a common human condition and perhaps courage to face their own unsought new beginnings."

If you have lost your mate or know someone who has made this journey through grief, give them this book. They will know as they read the touching and heart warming writing of these men and women, they are not alone and the crazy things they feel are not crazy at all.


Solitude

I’ve always needed time alone
to gather meandering thoughts,
musings on life, mine and yours.
I snatched my moments
where I found them.
But now the stillness whispers to me.
Careful what you ask for.

Waking in our quiet house,
no one greets me with, “Hey, Hon,
Get me a cup of coffee, will ya?”
No one sits in your chair,
No one speaks but the dog.

Hours pass while I make
eggs and toast – no coffee-
not for one. Feed the dog
and cat, answer e-mail, fewer
now it seems.

Slowly I learn to use the quiet,
to ponder my future, to cry
when I am stabbed with memories
so precious I can’t bear the pain,
to face the hard reality that you
will not return.
I am alone inside the
silence that I craved.
               --- Glenda C. Beall

Order a signed copy  of On My Own, Widowhood for Smarties from me for $15.95.

 Email me for ordering information. nightwriter0302@yahoo.com 

A Fight for Life

How much suffering must one person bear? In August, while in the hospital recovering from surgery on her hip, her husband died suddenly on a Sunday morning. In deep shock and  pain she whispered, "I am going into a shell and stay there."
A few weeks later, at home, ill with an infection and still in great pain, she was unable to attend the memorial service for the man she had been married to for over half a century.
Three days later,  back to the emergency room at the hospital, her toes had turned deep blue. A blood clot developed in her leg and she underwent surgery again. She rallied and looks foreward to going home again. She says she will take  physical therapy. She wants a cat. She has a name picked out for the cat. I plan to give her Tiger. She would love Tiger.
Before she could go home, a week ago, another surgery - amputation of the leg that had the blood clot. 
Yesteday she was dismissed from the hospital and admitted to a nursing facility. Her pain still intense, but dulled with strong meds. One of her daughters visited and they talked. She seems to be improving, we hear.
We are all amazed. We have always known her determination. Like the pine on the cliff above the ocean, buffetted by the hard winds of life, she grew stronger and learned to bend instead of break.
We thought she might give up, have nothing to live for now that her husband is gone. She has undergone three major surgeries in two months. Still she fights to live.
Late last night, back in the hospital again, unable to breathe, her lungs have filled with fluid. We pray that this is not the end. We ask God to reward her determination, her super-human efforts to cling to life.

How WELCOME TO HOLLAND Resonates in My Life

Tonight while visiting another blog, I was touched by a piece written for those who have children born with disabilities. It is all about disappointments in life and what we do with them. Before you read my post today, please click
here to read Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley.

I wanted to have my Barry for many more years. I wanted to have him beside me as I followed my dreams for the future. I wanted him to be present when my poetry book was published. I wanted him to accompany me to readings where I could introduce him and tell people my book was dedicated to this man who had stood beside me through many decades encouraging me to continue writing and teaching. I wanted to share all my joys as well as my sorrows with my soul-mate.

I was not prepared for him to become ill and to suffer in the last years of his life. I was not prepared to loose him, to be suddenly and completely alone.

I have been overcome with my sadness and having to change the way I live my life. I had not planned for this to happen to me - not now. Maybe when we were in our nineties we would talk about death and how we would cope without each other. Both of us said we wanted to go together. Like in the Notebook, we could lie down together and go to sleep forever.

But our journey did not go as we had planned. We experienced  a drastic detour and he left me along the way. Now here I am learning a new language, meeting new people, seeking answers to questions I'd not thought I would be asking.

Others have arrived here just as I have, and they too muddle through the tests we stand each day. On this test are questions such as who am I now, what do I do now, and where do I go with the time I have left, is it too late for me to accomplish my goals? When we arrive in Holland instead of Italy where we had planned to go, we have to get off the plane. Staying in our seat will not get us back to Italy to see the fountains, the museums, and to eat the food and feel the warmth of a Tuscan sun.

Our journey has taken us to a new land, but it is not a terrible, nasty and unforgiving place. We can learn to live here. We must buy new guidebooks, but we have the opportunity to learn from this, to reach out and help others who have just arrived, to see beyond our own pain and recognize that the flowers are still blooming, and the music is still being heard. We have to get off and see what Holland holds for us. We might be surprised at what we find.

Glenda and Barry always enjoyed vacations together like this time in California

From a Bereavement Coordinator's letter to me

Grief is not
a problem to be cured.

It is simply a statement
that you
have loved someone.

SPRING - NEW BEGINNINGS

What a day! Spring is everywhere here on the side of a mountain in western NC. I talked with Dr. Gene Hirsch, poet and generous man who lives and works in Pennsylvania most of the year, but comes to his cabin in Cherokee county as often as he can. He said he envied us the pretty weather. "Rain every day here," he said. He is coming south as soon as he can and will be teaching poetry at JCCFS.

I couldn't resist planting a few things this morning - some cucumbers and a few flower seeds. I hoped to get out and work all afternoon, but ran out of steam after lunch and took a long nap. After that BB, Rocky and I went down to the lake.

Peace and quiet supreme. Only the lapping of the waves broke the silence. Water soothes the mind and spirit like watching the flames of a fire dissipates anxiety.

After two extremely busy years, I'm ready to lead a life of quiet and stillness. As a writer, I miss solitude and silence. Sometimes I think I fill my life with busyness to keep my mind from burrowing into those dark holes where I've buried feelings I can't handle at the moment.

I walked alone by the water while Barry, who still limps and walks with a cane, sat with Rocky near the car. The solitude left me wide open to the grief I've tried not to face. Without warning, tears flooded my eyes and hurt slashed me like a dagger. Empathy for Nancy, my brother's wife, mushroomed inside me and almost choked me.

My guilt over avoiding the telephone so I can't hear the loneliness in her voice, didn't help any. As sad as I am, I know her sorrow is a hundred times deeper.
She still expects him to come in the door, she turns to tell him something and he isn't there. When the phone rings, for a split second she thinks it is her husband calling to tell her why he isn't home yet.
And while I know she suffers alone, I can't visit her in that grief, for I know it could be me suffering the same loss.

Tomorrow we will go out and enjoy Spring. We will drive the convertible with the top down and take photographs, eat at places we've not been to before. We'll play lively music and laugh. We will try to pretend for tomorrow that we will never leave each other. We won't think of endings, only beginnings.

FAMILY LOVE BY GINNY WALSH

Ginny Walsh of Hayesville, NC relates a veterans day story about her brother, Eddie Fields

The last communication we had from my brother, Eddie, told us he was somewhere in the South Pacific. He could not be more specific because all mail was censored. World War II was raging in the South Pacific as well as Europe. It had been three months since we heard from him. Our family was worried and deeply concerned, especially my mother. She was in utter despair.

Eddie joined the Coast Guard in 1940, at age 18, a year before war was declared, so he was a well trained, seasoned sailor and among the first to be put into action. He wrote us often as time permitted, though they moved constantly. Because a moving target is harder to hit, his ship stayed in port just long enough to refuel and take on food supplies.
Mother wrote him every day, as did most of the family. We mailed tons of "V Mail", the onion skin, square envelopes with the red, white and blue diagonal stripes around the edges. I still see those letters.

Suddenly, our letters began to come back marked, "UNABLE TO DELIVER," or "ADDRESS UNKNOWN." We weren't too concerned at first. During those war years it sometimes took two weeks for the mail to get through. Then all communication from him ceased. Mother wrote to his Commanding Officer. That letter was also returned.

We continued to write, but the letters came back. Each day mother waited for the mailman. When he handed her the mail he always said, "Sorry, nothing today." We waited, kept hoping and prayed.

Silently, by example, my parents ushered us into completing each day's demands, whether it was work, locating gasoline, planning a meal around ration coupons, finding a store that had sugar and coffee, or going to school.
Evening brought us home to the dinner table and more often than not, the conversation turned to "remember when's..." "Remember when Dad got our first car?" Eddie pleaded with Dad to let him take the car to visit friends about five miles away. Daddy finally relented but not without ten minutes of forceful instructions regarding the care of his treasured Model A.

Some years later, Eddie was heard to say, " I have never dreaded anything more than having to stand by my Dad's bed at midnight and tell him I had wrecked the car."

"Remember when Eddie would jump up from the noon dinner table and run to the outhouse, leaving his chore of drying the dinner dishes up to someone else?"

Our fun loving mother decided to put a stop to that. One day she slipped away from the table and went to the outhouse, draped a white sheet over her body, stood behind the door and waited. Sure enough, here he came, he ran inside and slammed the door shut. Mom jumped toward him and yelled "BOO." Eddie said it scared him to death and forever after he checked behind all doors.

How remorseful I felt for all the times I quarreled with him. Though in truth he teased his three sisters at every opportunity. Eddie was the only boy in our family, and we three were convinced that mother loved him best -- a common misconception among siblings. I thought of the time he was stationed in San Diego, waiting to be shipped out and wrote that someone had stolen his wallet out of his foot locker. I was going to school and "jerking soda" at the corner drugstore for fifty cents an hour, but I sent him my last five dollars. I didn't mind. I loved him. He was my only brother.

With the passage of time, some things in our memory fade and seem less important. But, I vividly recall the events of a Saturday afternoon in May of 1945. After three months of waiting for some word from my brother, it finally came.

On that day, I came home from work at 5:00 p.m., greeted my mother in the kitchen, said hello to the family and dashed upstair to get all primped up for a date. As I started down the hallway the phone rang. Being the only sixteen-year old in the house, I naturally assumed it would be for me. I started back downstairs.

A family friend answered and summoned my mother. I heard him say "It's San Francisco." Mother sat down and raised the phone to her ear. "Hello?" After a short pause, I watched my mother's entire body melt into the chair and heard her whisper, " My son, My son."

He had arrived in San Francisco, was well and would be home in a week. When all our tears of joy were dried, all the neighbors informed of our good news, and we had settled down, I glanced toward the phone. Mother had been frying chicken when the call came. There on the receiver was her handprint in flour. Her grasp was so firm the imprint looked as though it was imbedded in the black, hard rubber of the telephone.

I thought, at the time, I knew what agony my mother was suffering in those months. I didn't. Only now can I fully comprehend her feelings. I have three sons.

Old dogs and watermelon wine

This sweet thing is Misty, my sister's 14 year old cocker spaniel. Like a ninety year old person, Misty doesn't see very well and can't hear. She does pretty well at her house, but recently when she went through her pet door, she headed for the ramp built especially for her so she could go outside to potty.
She missed the ramp and stepped instead into a narrow opening between the ramp and the side of the house. The poor baby was trapped. No one knew she was there until her "daddy" missed her and went to find her. She seems to be fine now, but has trouble with climbing steps. Here she sleeps in Rocky's bed. She has always preferred his bed to any other place. And our sweet love just lets her sleep there.
When our dogs get this old, we know they can go at any time and we try to be prepared. Those of us who feel our pets are family members and we treat them as such, grieve hard when we lose them.
Today while going through a closet, I came across a bag with a stuffed dog toy, a pink turtle. My heart hurt for a moment. This was Kodi's toy. Kodi was our 13 year old Samoyd. He has been gone ten years now. Still, the sight of the pink turtle that he enjoyed mouthing, brought a moment of melancholy and sadness.
I thought about the stories I can write about my life with Kodi. Maybe, like the author of Marley and Me, I could write a book about all the pets I've loved and lost. And while telling those stories, I will tell about my life and the people who have touched my life.