There years and it seems like yesterday

[lilyjohn]

Where do I start? I have so much on my mind and in my heart that I need to share it with someone so I come here to the one place where I know there are so many who can relate. So many who understand. I feel guilty coming here when I am in need because I come here so seldom now. I wish I could be here every day to lend support but the truth is I just don't have the time. I work long hours often leaving home at 7 or 7:30 in the morning and not getting home until 7 or after at night. Two nights a week I don't even come home. After my other work is done I stay the night with a client who can not be left alone. My schedule now means less driving but also less time at home. So please try to understand that I am not staying away deliberately.

I am so saddened to hear of David C's death and that Katie and her family are having to do battle with the beast again. I'm afraid I learned these things second hand (thanks Ann for keeping me up to date). There are so many people I know who are fighting one kind of cancer or another right now and more that I have met who have recently lost someone to the monster. It makes no sense that with all of the money that is supposed to be going to research that cancer seems to be growing instead of declining. Maybe that is because it is a multibillion dollar business and that gives no real incentive to find a cure.

My job keeps me very busy and I am proud of what I do. I feel that I make a difference in the lives of the people I work with. That is so important to me. I want to give these people all of the love and support that I would want if I were them and all of the love and support that Johnny so desperately needed but always seemed denied until we were together. I try not to think of the bad days, to not let the memories get to me. It works pretty well most of the time keeping busy but deep down there is always that ache that never really goes away. I'm sure many of you can understand that. The nights are always a different story. It is then when I can relax that I know that I have not healed and never really will.

Each night a thank God for what he has given me and for the time that Johnny and I had together. It was so special despite his illness. I also pray that Johnny will come to me in my dreams but if he does I never remember when I wake up. I have been having one recurring dream and it half way excites me and frightens me at the same time. I just can't understand what it means and I am so tempted to act on it sometimes that I fear if I do I will really be going over the edge. The dream is always the same. I dream that I know that Johnny is sick but he has gone away because he doesn't want me to see him so sick. He doesn't want to be a burdon to me. I am desperate to find him before it is too late and somehow I know that if I can just remember his old phone number and call it he will be there. I always wake up trying to remember that number. I called it so many times before I went to him but it just eluded me for so long. About a week ago I awoke remembering that phone number. I have been so tempted to dial it but I know that it is crazy thinking that he would be there. What is even crazier is that sense remembering the phone number the dream has stopped.

As I said earlier I do ok from day to day but then a day like today comes along and I know that I am only fooling myself when I think that I am starting to heal. The pain is just as raw as it was on December 2,2002, two years and seven months ago today that my Johnny left this world. In some ways it is even worse because then I was in shock. I felt his death was a nightmare and I would wake up. I don't have that any more. Now I know that his death is reality, the nightmare that I live with every day. So I come here to the family I have here. To this place where I know there are people who can relate. People who understand what so many others never can.

On July 3,2002 I finally got to Johnny so we could start our life together. I found him where I knew that he would be alone, sick and frightened in a motel room about a mile from his house. He had left his home because something there had overpowered him and taken his breath away so badly that he was afraid that if he stayed there it would kill him. He had been staying at his son's house for nearly a month and when they left for vacation they dropped him at home. He was so sick and really should not have been left alone under any circumstances but it was much worse. He lived seven miles from town and had to take a bus to get to the store. The bus stop was a half mile walk from his home. Even worse it was the weekend and if he could have walked it the buses didn't run on the weekend. He had no food in his house.

Finally a friend took him to the motel and delivered food to him(they owned a small local resturant). He was in the motel from Saturday until I got to him on Wednesday. I took one look at him and knew how sick he was, I suspected pneumonia but by the next morning he seemed better. He said having me there was healing him. It was later that day when we went back to his house so I could get some things he needed when we learned that all 3 of his sons and their families were camping less that a quarter mile from him house. They knew he had been sick, that he had no way to get groceries yet he had been missing from his home for five days and they didn't even know or bother to try to find him if they did. They knew the day I was supposed to get there so they couldn't have thought he was with me. I have tried so hard to forgive and to have a good relationship with his kids but memories like that are just so hard. I get so angry. My God how could they be so cold?

We went to his sons house on Friday the day after the 4th. That night I had to call 911 and Johnny was taken by ambulance to the hospital. I can still hear him begging me to hurry. " Hurry Honey I need you with me, please, please hurry." Then there was the wait in the waiting room. I sat there alone because they wouldn't let me go to him. Every thing I ownned was in my car. I was in a strange place and the man I loved for most of my life was in a room a few feet away and they wouldn't let me go to him because they were working on him. We had been together a little over 48 hours I didn't know if that was going to be all of the time we would ever have!

When they finally let me go to him the first thing I saw was his smile. He was on oxygen and his breathing had stablelized. Just as I suspected he had pneumonia. I went to him and kissed him then sat in a chair by the side of his bed. Later they took him to a room. I spent 4 days in that chair by his bedside and later another 2 weeks while he was in rehab sleeping in a recliner next to him. He wanted me close and told me that he could only sleep with me holding his hand.

We went through the process of tests and the fear and hearache of the diagnoses. We handled all of those things together. It was a rough time but I would never have wanted to be anywhere else at that time but with my Johnny. I found us an apartment and when he was released on July 23rd we finally started our life together 43 years late. There are so many memories. So many good and so many bad. It makes little difference on a day like today because every memory is painfull. Every memory cuts at my heart like a knife. But Dear God how would I ever survive without those memories?

[t_beanes]

hi there!!

yes...I can relate ..somehow when I am traveling in my memories it is like being in a safe place ,a world I know and lived in for 20 years..a totally different world to the one I am in now..not that"now" is unsafe - its just cold and a life in bits.

When our dog Charly left me in October,

I turned into a crazy traveller seeing friends and family in Germany and Britain.

I did that on a regular basis either by plane or by car.

Just to keep busy.Just not to give me time to think.

I even started smoking again as it did not matter anymore..(which I have since given up again.)

We moved house whilst Richard was already ill and are(tzzzz I am) now living some 1000km north of our old home and friends there.So far I have not met a great deal of people here and "widowed people"are difficult to deal with.(huh)

I cannot remember any direct dreams of Richard...I dream, but mostly strange technical stuff .. ..it is somewhat related to him though...like dreaming of a software, which could tape memories onto films...so that you can actually watch them on a tv-screen (together whith friends) - what ever you remember of your life together.

It is difficult to put a dream into words ...I feel it perfectly clear but to communicate it, is different.

Same as you I do not think this pain will get less..for some people it gets better.. as not all relationships are the same.

Love is different for all of us and intensity of relationship various too.There is such a plethora of difference in the way we deal with grief.

Some say its like a rock which has fallen onto us and we have to hammer away at it day by day .At some stage the rock will be small enough to be picked up and put into the pocket of ones trousers.

Well maybe I have been hammering on my head instead of on the rock???

I am probably not answering your post..it touched my eyes ..

Sending regards

T

PS.What you are telling about his sons is dreadful..they seemed not to care at all.