The Rough Times And Memories

I'm having one of my moments right now...   Where I think of my Dad and just break down crying...   I figured writing it out might help.

Most of the time, I've been feeling alright.  But now and again, I just start remembering...   That only a few weeks ago, he was here.  And everything was fine.  Normal.   I remember his smile.  And the way he would caught when he laughed too hard because he wouldn't quit that damned smoking...  I remember how he always had a coffee cup half full sitting on his coffee table.  And how he would sit there on the couch with the lights off in the evening, with his dogs curled up all around him, listening to an "Eagles" or "Bob Segar" album.  I remember how even when we told him that as a heart patient, he should NOT be going outside and carrying in all those loads of weed.  We would either do it, or ask him to wait for one of the younger neighbors to come up and bring it in.  But of course, he never listened, and did it anyway.

Happy memories too.  Like the way he would make breakfast for everyone.  Or make one of his giant pots of chili we would all snack on for days.  How proud, enthusiastic and excited he was when we were starting work on his big dream-- the log cabin in he was building just before he died...  Its still only half finished, but beautiful.  And we're probably gonna have to sell it to let the new buyer finish it, which KILLS me.  He sank his entire VA settlement into it, and it was the only thing he ever really wanted in this life.  He didn't even get to finish it or live in it.    But every time we got a new diesel truck load of building supplies, he would be out int he front yard, watching everything being unloaded, with dreamy stars in his eyes and the biggest smile ever! 

Or how he loved to go on hikes in the wilderness.   How he taught me to skin and gut animals so you can cook and eat them.  He taught me Native American beading art, which he learned while living on a reservation in his late 20's.   How he always knew everything about wilderness survival, camping, building and fixing things...  And being an INFJ with the Myers-Briggs personality test, he was a great listener and counselor too.  He actually did drug an alcohol counseling for the military at the Betty ford clinic in his 20's. 

He liked to write too, just as much as I do.  And read.  Richard Back was his favorite Author.  When we were kids, he used to get us all to sleep by reading us "Jonathan Livingston Seagull", and playing the soundtrack to it by Neil Diamond on the stereo...

I think about how he always wore those old black or grey beanies to keep his head warm, because his hair was so thin, he got cold really easy.   I always tried to get him to wear a cap, because it makes him look younger.  The beanies made him look 10 years his senior, and like one of those homeless guys, as they do pretty much anybody who wears them, lol.   But bless his heart, he wore the darn things anyway.  

And the tattered old Army field jacket he always wore; he had that thing since I was a baby, and never threw it out.   I'm sad though, because nobody seems to know where it is right now.  I would love to have that more than anything in the world. 

I'm kind of dreading going to his house in a few weeks...   That is gonna be soooooooo hard on me.  But I need to because there are lots of things I gotta do.  I need to get all my stuff out of there, and put it in storage.  Along with all Dad's movies and books, and other personal stuff.  His old wooden frame couches and chairs that we bought in Germany, and still have..   I gotta put all that in a storage facility.  I found a really cheap storage place in Yreka, I just wanna make sure everything is safe.  Maybe when I get a job and get more settled into exactly where I wanna live for the long-haul, then I can bring it all to wherever I am.  But for now, I just wanna know it will all be there. 

I think I'm gonna write a book about him too.   Maybe go to one of those self-publishing pages and print up a few copies for me and my family.

I feel a lot calmer now, having typed all that out.  wow.  I stopped crying, and I just feel very calm.  Of course I remember a THOUSAND times that much about him, and that's why I wanna write a book.   Gt it all down now, so its never forgotten. 

And The Waters Receded

Doing much better these days.  That’s not to say I feel no pain over the loved ones I lost…   It just means that I am starting the healing process.   I’m not trying to rush it along, by any means.   I know that it is both normal and healthy to let grief run its course.  To let it out when the need arises.  

But I also understand that it’s not healthy to stay in the heaviest stages of grieving for too long.  Not mentally, emotionally or physically.  Eventually, your body is going to say,

“Look, you’ve GOT to eat, get some good sleep, and give your eyes and your head a rest from crying.  Get out and get some fresh air.  Do something that makes you feel better!”

I think that our loved ones understand when we do this.    Especially when we start to realize that we have been depending on them for strength, stability and direction for so long, and now it’s time to start providing all those things for ourselves. 

Dad, Mom, I love you both—and I can feel you standing behind me, encouraging me to be positive and adventurous, just like you.

One Step At A Time

Its been about a week since my Dad passed away...   The first few days, I was basically laying in a puddle of tears, not eating or drinking hardly anything.  Eyes constantly red and puffy.   Hoping that Dad's spirit would be watching me and see how horrible I was doing, and decide that he didn't want to leave right now...   Hoping I would get a call that he suddenly and miraculously sat up!  And everything was going to be ok.    Even hoping that it was all just a big prank to get me to go back home (since he was begging me to come home)...

But as another day goes by and I hear one more thing about his funeral and all the arrangements being made regarding his house and belongings...   I realize that is not going to happen.

All this on top of the fact that my living situation is not permanent at all right now...   Or stable.  I have to take my next paycheck with all the money that was donated to me (which I can access on January 19th) and just fly out to California.  I'll have to stay at a neighbor's house while I pack up all my stuff out of Dad's house and put it all in my car.  

Then...    I don't know what I will do!  I don't know if I will come back here, or if I will stay in California and look for a job.   If I do that, I will be living out of my car, until I find a job.   Then even still, until I get my first paycheck.  

I just wasn't prepared for any of this and I'm not sure how I'm gonna handle it all.

Farewell Dad...

Take everything I wrote about my mother, and multiply it by a thousand.

This week, my father suddenly passed away.   I was laying on my bed, watching the final “Twilight” movie, when my brother Joey called me and said, “Dad is in an ambulance on his way to the hospital, he had a seizure and a heart attack, his brain was without oxygen WAY too long, and they don’t think he’s gonna make it.”

I instantly flipped out, yelling, “Oh my god Joe, don’t tell me that, don’t tell me that!”  I felt like I was in a horrible nightmare, and I was praying to GOD I was gonna wake up!  Still do, every day.

After a day on life support, and getting phone call after phone call, saying “His organs are shutting down, his pupils are unresponsive, only his heart is barely functioning, and only because of the medication being provided”…..    He passed away.  

My Dad was my best friend, my adviser, my protector, and my safety in this world.   The ONE person I could turn to when the world was unkind, and always find comfort and support.  His home was my only real home, and it has all been yanked out from under me like a rug.   I am so overwhelmed by grief, I can barely function.  Barely write.   

BOTH OF MY PARENTS IN 5 MONTHS!

Do you know what its like to feel as though the only 2 people in the world who ever loved you with all their hearts are gone?   How it feels to know that if anything goes wrong in your life from now on, there is no place you can take refuge from it?  

Don’t get me wrong, I adored both my parents.  But my Dad and I were ESPECIALLY close.  I was his baby.   

And the worst part was…   I was too far away to make it out there when he passed away, so I didn’t even get to attend the funeral, or take part in getting any keepsakes of him from his home.  I simply did not have the money to fly home, and I asked around, but nobody had any to loan or contribute. 

The only thing I can be thankful for is that it was just a small ceremony with a few people.   But in the Spring, we will be planning a BIG memorial, to give the whole family and all our friends time to save up and travel out there to attend it.   

My sister and my brother keep telling me "Its better that you didn't see him on life support, you should have happy memories of him."  But still, I wanted to be there.  

Dad as an honored U.S. Army veteran, (Special Forces, AKA “Green Beret”.   His ashes were laid to rest in the ground in a VA cemetery in northern California.   He received a full honors burial.  My brother did get it all on film for me, and I am awaiting the file.   But for now, I have made this special video honoring him, and showing how I feel.  I used clips and photos of Dad.  Clips of various music groups singing the song “In The Living Years”, and also clips of a full honors military funeral (Not Dad’s but very nice).  I pieced it all together with a “In The Living Years” music track by Mike And The Mechanics.   I would like to share it here:

I’ll be honest, it will most likely take me YEARS before I will be able to function normally after this…   I just wish something great would come along in my life to make me feel like I still have something valuable in this world.   Because right now, I feel like I don’t at all.   I feel very alone. 

After I get paid (I make a few hundred dollars online), I will fly out to Dad’s house and retrieve the rest of my belongings.   I guess maybe I can put them in a storage facility.  I don’t know what I’m gonna do now though.   Where I will live.  Where I will work, or what I will do with my life.   I’m not married.  Don’t have any kids.  No place of my own to speak of…   I just don’t know what to do.  I know I need a job, but that is gonna be hard to get considering I have very little experience and no real training at anything.   I just want a happy relationship, a stable place to live and hope for a good future.   Hopefully that will come along soon.   Right now, I just need a place to lay low and grieve my way through the toughest part of this.

Farewell Mom...

Originally posted in my old blog in August, 2013.  But moved here to my "Grief And Loss" blog in December, 2013.

Beore I start with any other updates, I wanted to post here something very significant to my life, which recently occurred.   On July 20th, 2013, my mother passed away...   It was a sudden heart attack.  She didn't even make it to the hospital.   She was visiting her boyfriend, just relaxing in his living room while he was outside doing yard work.  Suddenly, he heard her calling for help, so he ran inside to see her clutching her chest and panting, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe..."  She fell over and he rushed to her, calling an ambulance and trying to do CPR on her.   The ambulance staff tried their best, but the hospital put her on life support while they contacted her nearest relatives-- my uncle John and his wife, and my cousin Amber.   As soon as he received that phone call, Uncle John called me on my cell phone.

I was alone in my room at the time (about a 5 hour drive north of them).  I was talking on Skype to one of my friends over seas, who was extremely religious, but very easy-going.  Probably the best person I could have been talking to at such a moment. 

It was midnight.  My uncle John is the church-going sort who goes to bed at 9:00pm.  So when saw his number on my screen at that hour...   I knew something was wrong.   I answered, and he said,

"Melissa...   This is your uncle John.   I need to tell you something...   Its about your Mom..."

Then he proceeded to tell me what happened, and said,

"Right now she's at the hospital in the emergency room, on life support.   They called and told us they need family members to come in and make a decision.  So As soon as I get there, I will call you back, ok?  And I need you to call your brothers and sisters right now.  Let them know."

I said "ok" in kind of a distant voice, and hung up.   I was shaking all over.  Scared to death and in shock.  I took my phone and ran into my Dad's house (I was staying in his guest room out back).   I told him the news.  He and Mom and been divorced for 20 years now, but he still kinda loved her. 

Since I was so hysterical, in his attemtps to comfort me, Dad said,

"Well maybe they just need someone to make a decision about surgery or something.  It doesn't always mean she's dying..."

So first I called my brothers and sisters, telling them what was going on.   It was about 2:00am their time, so I did have to wake them.  I told them I wasn't sure if it meant "make a decision" like surgery...   Or something worse.   But after I found out, I would call them back.  

I remembered I still had my friend waiting for me on Skype, so I went back to my bedroom.   I told him what happened too, and he stayed online with me because he didn't want me to feel alone.  

Then I called the hospital.  But they refused to tell me anything over the telephone, despite the fact that I was her daughter.   They said I have to be there in person.  But the nurse said my Aunt, Uncle and cousin were there now.  So she told me call one of them and have them tell me.  She added,

"But I will say its VERY serious."

I frantically started calling Amber and Uncle John's cell phones, but neither of them were answering.  
So I sent them both text messages, asking what was going on, and to please get back to me as soon as they can.

A few minutes later, my cousin amber finally sent me a short, choppy message than turned my entire world upside-down,

"my battery is dying...   she passed away, i am so sorry honey..."

I dropped my cell phone in front of me on my bed and just starred at the message in disbelief...   Then I just totally LOST IT!  I started freaking out, screaming, going nuts, hyperventilating... 

About 5 minutes later, my aunt Diane called me.  I think Uncle John was too beside himself to speak, as my Mom was his little sister...    But aunt Diane did her best to comfort me for a while, and try to keep her own tears down.  She was good friends with my mom.  Grew up around her.  In fact, my mom fixed her up with uncle John when they were teenagers.   

When I hung up the phone, my friend on skype did his best to comfort me as well.   After a few minutes, I finally caught my breath and I was able to talk halfway rationally...   He told me I need to go in my Dad's house to tell him, and then call the rest of my family, as I shouldn't be alone right now.  So I did exactly that....

Dad was in complete shock...   He just sat there, unable to say anything.   But the hardest thing was calling my brothers and sisters to tell them...   I knew they were gonna freak out just as much as me.

I called my sister Mandi first.  She is the oldest of us 4.   She had the same reaction I did, and I stayed on with her for a while, until we both agreed she wanted to tell her husband and kids, and I needed to call our brothers... 

But my brother Brad was the hardest.   I had never really heard Brad cry before.  Not beyond the age of 9, anyway.  He was older than me, and I always looked up to him.  But nobody can hold it together at a moment like this.  As soon as I said,

"Mom...   Didn't make it..." 

He yelled,

"WHAT?!!  She's f***ing dead?!!!"

Then he just fell apart, and instantly broke into tears.  The sound of my brother crying like that....  It made me wish I were there with him.  I wished ALL OF US were sitting together in the same room, where we could huddle close and comfort each other.  Go through it together.  We needed arms around us right now.  Not a voice through a phone.  

Needless to say, it was a HUGE, devastating and unexpected blow to me and my entire family.  My mom was my best friend, and nobody was ready to lose her.  She was the backbone of humor and character in our family.   I mean it was like one minute she was here, and the next she was gone!   Right after she died, I think the hardest thing was all the little stuff...   Like going on facebook and seeing posts and game notifications/invites she had done only a day or so before...   Looking through my phone and seeing calls and text messages from her from just the other day.   Calling her house phone and hearing her voice on the answering machine.  The fact that I could still call her cell phone and it would ring.

And then having to drive down 300 miles to my (and Mom's) home town for the funeral, and meet my brothers and sister who flew in from out of state.   Having to go with them to Mom's apartment and go through her stuff to decide what to do with it all.   Shopping for her urn, after we agreed on cremation. 

And then other thoughts begin to set in.  Thoughts like...   I'm the youngest.  I'm the only one who hasn't had children yet.  Mom won't be there to hold my hand through the child births, like she did with my sister, and my brother's wives...   She wont be there to make Christmas fun for them.   My kids will never know "Crazy Grandma" like all her other grand kids did.  

It was just UNREAL.  All of it.  Its been 4 months now, and while most of the time I'm alright...   I have these moments when I am alone and thinking about her, or when I see a picture of her...   Have a dream where she is alive. 

At the funeral, there were sooooooo many people.  We had it at the local church.  Everyone came pretty much.  I would say at least 100 people.   And maybe a dozen of them got up to speak, including all my brothers and sisters.   My friend Sandra and my 3rd brother from my Dad's side came down to the funeral with me, for support.  I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't get up to speak, so I did as well.

At the hspital, they removed a ring from my Mom's hand.  The "Mother's Ring" that me, my brothers and sister all pitched in to give her as a special mother's day gift a few years ago.  She wore it every day, and it as her mos cherished possession. 

It was gold ring with 5 stones set in it.  An amethyst in the middle (Mom's birth stone).  With us kids' birth stones set on either side of it, and our named engraved in the gold beside our stones. 

My sister Mandi already had a ring exactly like it for herself and her 4 kids.  So she and my brothers decided to let ME keep our Mom's ring.   My sister handed it to me, and I put it on...   It was an exact, perfect fit.  I almost cried... 

Then I thin the most intense part was when I got some of her ashes.   Most of them were put int he urn to be stored in the family vault.   But small portions of them were placed in a plastic bag and into a magnetic box which looks like a beautiful book on the outside with red and gold trim and a rose (mom LOVED roses, so of course Rose is my middle name).   But I think the first time I held my "book box" with the ashes, I was dizzy and just couldn't believe it was her inside...

Losing someone so suddenly and too soon...   Its not like losing someone who has been sick for a while, like with a terminal illness.  At least in that case, you are preparing yourself, and you say the things you want to say.  But when its sudden like this...   It feels like there is just no closure.  I know it will take time.   But I still don't feel like it has really sunk in yet.   Will it ever...?

                                                

Hoping To Find Peace Through Writing

This is my first post for this blog.  I started it because I lost both my parents to heart attacks, in the last 5 months.   I desperately need an outlet to help me heal, so I have chosen blogging.  Originally, I had all different subjects of blogging on just one blog.  But when I found out you can have multiple blogs under the same google account, I decided to make one for each important subject I want to discuss in life.  I transferred the posts about my Mom and Dad from my original blog, to this one.  I just prefer to focus on one particular subject in a blog.   Its better for other bloggers/readers to find content they are interested in.   Please comment and direct me to your blogs as well.