Four years tomorrow.
That is how long you have been gone from us.
You chose to die on a beautiful Sunday morning at 6:37 a.m. on March 3, 2013.  You always were an early bird from the time you were born.

I never know how I am going to react on the day, days or weeks of the month that you died.  Just as I didn't really know how I was going to be after you died.  I was so caught up in your struggle as well as being in shock, so when a hospice worker asked how I would be when you died, I said, "I don't really know".

Well, after four sometimes blurred, sometimes too clear years, I know.

Being a mother, for me, was the prime mission that I have had in life.  Once you children were born, I was only in this world to make it good and loving for all of you.  I think you all got this
message.

Life doesn't care what our goals are.  It just is.  And so, when my daughter Alexia was born, after I had been ill for the nine months that I was pregnant, I mourned for years every March 18. Until finally, I woke up one day, and realized that I had not even noticed that the day had passed.  Not so with March 3.

We all mourn alone.  I write this blog through my tears, and my husband turns inward and cannot even look at me as I cry.  It is too painful for him.  I get it. No one, even the most understanding, can get into my head to really know how sad I am.
I have strange thoughts and rituals since you have died.  I still have a uterine "memory" that pulls at me when I think of giving birth to you. It's like cell memory, a place that is personal and not explainable.  I sleep every night with that awful pillow that you loved and wouldn't let me replace for you.  I greet you every morning and every night with a song that we used to sing. And, I go to sleep hoping you will visit me.

Next to my bed, is a tiny glass container with a lock of your hair.  It was starting to get some gray strands.  You would have been a really distinguished looking man as you matured because you had a stately stature and a very handsome face.  Not just my opinion.

None of these rituals bring you any closer to me.  Today, the last day you lay dying, I remember the constant groaning that were the only sounds you made for thirteen days.  A hospice chaplain, not your typical religious image, said that you were sorting out your life as you lay dying.  He told me that he could see you already walking in a field, with your dog by your side and that you were ok. He believed that he had a gift that allowed him to go into your mind, and that you had allowed it. Since you loved being in the outdoors, I wanted to believe him.

Once the morphine had been pumped into you, you never opened your eyes again.  When the hospice doctor woke you and asked if you wanted to stop the dying process, you adamently shook your head and said "NO"! Dying wasn't easy for you, George, but neither was watching your life fall apart from MS.  Aside from the fast progression of your disease and your physical disability and pain, you had to deal with emotional pain.  For a man with a huge heart, you learned that people can be weak and unthinkingly cruel. So many never called or visited you.  You needed to feel the love and friendship, and many just didn't take the time.  Your world got so small, and I cringed at the injustice of all that was inflicted upon you.

So, as I wait for tomorrow, the "day", I try and decide where I am in this valley of grief.  I have not accepted your death, a word you abhorred and said it was giving in to MS.  I am no longer in shock and certainly not in denial.  I am a different person and do not cling to this life and earthly existence since you have died.  My perspective has tilted.  I still feel love and pain for your children, and yes even your wife who did the unimaginable and was divorcing you.  I think of all the wonderful events you will miss and have already missed.  Graduations, football games, achievements of your beautiful children and eventually walking Stacia, your clone, down the aisle.  I am thankful for your two beautiful sisters and worry for my husband who has had many health issues since you died.  So, where am I in this life?

RESIGNED...a word that means I've had my core being hollowed out. What is left is a moving, talking woman who partakes of daily existence with half a heart.  Resigned...and not looking forward to seeing this anniversay come for years and years.  Missing you and always, always LOVING you.

Love,
Mom

MS and BS Go Together Like Peanut Butter and Jelly

Really? Really?

Does time heal all wounds, including grief, or does it just drive them deeper into one's heart? I erased all my previous posts in a moment of deep discontentment and sadness over another's reactions to a testimony to George's suffering and death.
Why?  Because, personal perceptions dictate how truth is viewed and remembered. And, their perception was tragically flawed, giving lie to all that George endured.

My purpose and desire is that the real truth of how George suffered and why he chose to die is never lost or forgotten.  To do so would dishonor his courage, his efforts to find a way to cure his MS or at least halt its progression.  To forget what he endured is to ignore and repress what so many others are truly suffering with this disease, this MS, this Multiple Scarring of once healthy minds and bodies.

I describe my grief as a form of dis-ease, just like having a chronic, debilitating disorder like MS.  It is an undercurrent that never goes away.  No, it does not paralyze me nor take away my abilities to lead a normal physical life.  But, like MS, it changes my brain.  Grief sucks the zest from life.  It appears whenever it wants, right before falling asleep, seeing a man whose haircut reminds me of George, hearing his son 's voice telling me what he is doing, and on and on.  In other words, it takes over my life, fooling me into thinking I am doing fine and then slamming me into a funk of despair.  

MS does that all the time to those who have it.  It is beyond comprehension that observers think that MS is all about not walking or having a little numbness.  The MS society shows magazine covers of pretty healthy looking people just having a great time as they beam from their wheelchairs or bike for charity or lead such a nice well managed life.  MS and BS go together like peanut butter and jelly. Now, how do you think that picture got painted?????

Back to grief.  It is a combination of despair, deep longing, dreadful unending missing for the touch, company, voice of my beloved son.  Grief is filled with confusion as I examine all the philosophies and religious concepts that deal with the possible after life.  Mostly, it is a yearning for my life to be what it was once, when my son was alive and healthy.  

Grief gives no quarter.  There is no answer to the why, the never ending trauma of remembering the indignities and sorrow and finally, finally, seeing the moment as the light of hope left George's eyes.  It is remembering how he accepted that his life would never be what it was, that he would continue to be dependent, ill, in pain and emotionally isolated.  Grief encompasses much... but mostly it aches with the waste of a truly beloved and sweet man's life.

I don't want to hear that there is a lesson to be learned. I look at George's picture when he was vibrant, healthy, purposeful.  Then, I look at his picture when he was bedridden, paralyzed, struggling to cope with all his losses, especially not to be the Dad he wanted to be for his kids. It makes no sense.

Yes, each milestone, each month, each occasion etches another notch of hurt and pain into my soul.  Forget my heart, that was ravaged from the day he was diagnosed.  So, nine months into mourning, one birthday, Thanksgiving and now Christmas to remember that he is gone and there ain't one thing I can do about it.

Really...time heals?  Really? Really? Just ask me if you want to hear my truth.  Really....