I Wonder …

I wonder how many people I know who are still here? I have been away so long. Gloria

Leaving My Blog The Same Name …

via Leaving My Blog The Same Name …

Leaving My Blog The Same Name …

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates … photos of me … left photo taken December 2018

The right photo taken approximately 2014.  Photos owned by ME.

I tried to change name of my blog here to just my name.  It won’t do because it would cause such an ‘intense’ change to everything else.  That’s okay.  I will leave it as it is.

I put both photos above so, you know it’s ME 🙂 I have come so far since the photo on the right was taken.  I have found peace with the loss of my son, Tommy.  Plus, I have been picking the pieces of my shattered self up, putting me back together again.  I look like ME again.

I will write why I say ME a little later.  I’m not self-centered … it’s just I am so grateful, thankful to see “ME’ again.  I know this person now in the mirror.  When younger I would probably be vain to a degree … today, I just take big sighs of relief to look normal again, to dress in something without wondering if it’ll fit.

Truthfully, people show more respect like they did before I put on so much weight after Tommy died.  It didn’t matter to me then … Tommy died and nothing meant anything to me much less anyone respecting or not.

This is update on my blog here … the name will have to stay the same.  I will write by my name and not use ‘aka Granny Gee’ ever again.

Written/owned by Gloria Faye Brown Bates

 

ME … Gloria Faye Brown Bates … No Aka Granny Gee

 

(Photo is of/owned by Gloria Faye Brown Bates … taken December 2018  ** I have lost almost all the weight gained since my son died … I may be 20 lbs. from my goal)

Today I am going to be enjoying going through this blog to make positive changes to it.  So much has happened since I’ve been here … so much negative and some positive.  Later I will write about some of those things.  The good thing is one way or other … everything has a way of getting alright again … I’m waiting for that to happen. 🙂

I had such a time trying to recover this account because I didn’t have any codes, key proving this was my account.  I had forgotten my password … and on top of that I had opened a new account (I just closed it) … whenever I worked on everything for hours … everything I did took me to the new account.  That was also, part of the problem.

Gracious, you all should write, print your codes down that they gave you (ten special codes) … because they are right … you won’t recover your account if you don’t have your password.

Another tip … I have 5 little books of passwords … I never went back to each to change passwords as time went by and I had to.  If I forgot to write the password down … when I go back to look for one … I haven’t updated … don’t have it.

I feel like I’ve been on a long journey to arrive here.  But, the main thing is … I’m back and I look forward to writing, hoping to find all of you again.

One main change I am making is taking off ‘Granny Gee’ … or ‘Granny’s Colorful’ or ‘Granny anything’.  I want my blog to reflect ME … being a Granny isn’t to be in my life.

That’s okay … I have already coped with the loss of Tommy’s children when he died … at the same time grieving for Tommy, my son.  My whole life from the time I was little made me stronger than I even knew to cope with so much pain.  Life kept knocking me down with such cruel blows … so many deaths … I’ve lost so much in my life.

The biggest loss being … my son, his children.  I don’t think I could have come back after Tommy’s death if there wasn’t some kind of hidden strength I wasn’t aware of having.  As for grandchildren … I won’t be discussing that with anyone.

One child has grown up … her father death left her a big sum of money.  I’m afraid she’ll never-ever see it. That’s all I will say about that chapter of life on grandchildren.  I’ve closed it in my mind.  No one kept my memory alive for his children when Tommy died.

One child did come looking for me … oh my.  That was a brief period of time … the reasons to look for me weren’t positive ones … they were for thinking I had a lot of money.  That grandchild picked the one of the worse, most stressful times of our life to enter it … that grandchild did something so unforgivable, so shocking.  I forgave that grandchild though … I also ‘let go’ completely of the thoughts of ever being a grandmother.

I’m so thankful I don’t feel pain anymore from it.  It was never meant for me to ever be a ‘Granny Gee’.  The only thing special about that name was that Tommy called me that for his son to call me. At least I got to be one … in my mind until Christmas 2018.  I will write that story yet.  I was only a Granny Gee in my mind … in words.  I didn’t know how to be a grandmother anyway.

I write the stories of my life … to remember Tommy, my son … tell you about grief, the pain just as I promised I always would … I don’t think you’ll ever hear me say again … I’m hoping one day a grandchild will come to find me.   If I were well-off financially … I’d move away where no one would find me.  Does that sound mean, flip?  It isn’t … I care very deeply … I will not set myself up for more pain, grief in my life … Life has dealt me enough without me becoming my own enemy.

I have been through so much, seen so much … that I am not going to subject myself to certain things … It would be like banging my head against the wall … accomplishing nothing … but, suffering so much from what I brought on myself.  I am a very realistic person … I don’t waste time when I see that it is just that … wasted time, unnecessary grief, pain.

You can’t force someone to love you … but, while you are forcing them to love you and pretend … they will cause you such unhappiness, pain.  I love ME better than that.  I’m lucky to be here after my son died … no one knows just how lucky I really am.  I’m not here ‘for nothing’. We have more than enough on us at this time in our Life.  Also, I don’t play games I’ve watched almost everyone play all through time … I’m not getting caught up in it.

There may be several people who want to ‘argue’ about the grandmas, grandmothers and such’ … don’t.  I know it’s wonderful for other people and I love seeing such happiness. What I don’t need, want … is someone thinking they could be forward enough to tell me ‘what I need to do, not do’.  I can only say in a nice way … live your life … you can’t live mine because you don’t know anything.

I don’t need negative … and I would quickly tell them … “you have no idea of all that’s transpired through time, I’m not discussing it with you”.  Not only that … when someone comes with the intentions to use you so obvious … you better get that person out of your life for good. Scary things could … and today … do happen.

The good thing is I’ll write in a positive way … I am a positive person even when I’ve lost hope because … I know no matter how bad … things have a way of being alright again.

I’ll continue to live my private life and write, draw and create.  I don’t do any one of those things perfectly … because I am not perfect nor … do I have the desire to be after the ‘3 perfect years’ I wasted in my life.  I’ll write about being perfect again in the future.  I do, however, do whatever I’m doing to the best of my ability plus … a little extra.

Just remember this when you follow ME … this blog is about ME … colors/stories of my life … grief, pain and my stories of coping, dealing with the loss of my only child, Tommy.

Why do I write about those things?  When one writes they need to write about something they truly know to be convincing … readers can sense when someone writes something they don’t know anything about.  I am an expert on ME … because I am, have been living ME all my life.

I’ve had an unusual life … many bad things have happened in it than normal for anyone.  I’ve fought many battles, been on many of Life’s Journeys and am still here living to tell it.  I’ve battled cancer … losing everyone whom I grew up with that I loved with my heart … my husband battled cancer … a house fire destroyed all our belongings, the list goes on.

You’ll see me go back in time to visit old memories to write … who knows maybe something about those memories of mine … could touch someone, help them.  When you feel emotion, hurt, laugh or cry … then you’ve felt a little of what I went through, am feeling as I lose myself in a time long enough to write you a story … enough so you wanted to keep reading to see what happened … how was that problem solved … so on.

When I write … I become my story as I write … I feel pain, happiness … whatever I’m expressing just like when an actor becomes the character he is portraying in a movie … a character you identify with … someone you ‘feel’.  I just happen to be the ‘main character’ of my stories.

I see today … there’s no one left to remember ME any more than to remember Tommy … no family, no one.  My words will still be here so that when they’re read … someone will remember me, know ‘hey, she was in the world too!’ Someone will know my name, read it … maybe ‘feel’ my life through my words enough to know they’ve touched a person that was a good person … years ago. Maybe something good can come out of my words to them from something I have said/written.

I have been writing since 2010 to remember Tommy … ‘knowing’ I had 2 grandchildren who would want to know their grandmother, knowing they would come looking for ME with love in their hearts … not come looking for money thinking I was rich because I published my 3 books. I’m proud of accomplishing that … I’m proud I have 3 copyrights on file at The Library of Congress on my books.

My books haven’t sold … that’s okay too.  I accomplished what I meant to do … I have remembered Tommy … and he’ll be remembered when I am gone.  I sometimes, make golden wire, beaded dragonflies in memory of Tommy … I leave them for others to find … they have a little treasure in helping to remember my son.

I know I am not the best writer in this world … I know that whatever I do  … I do my best at it.  When I wrote those books … it was at such a time when I lost my son … that my mind was on the grief that tortured me. I can’t bear to look or try to read them.  I just can’t. I might see mistakes I made … or so much pain I can’t bear it.

My book I Cry For Tommy (738 pages) … is like a dam that was flooding over with water … my book is where the ‘water/pain’ went. Every character/letter/punctuation was one of my diamond tear drops from my Heart.  Writing my pain, having a place to channel my pain, grief … probably contributed to saving my life, along with Skip and our Pups3.

Remember … when you feel emotion from my words … because you will as I write real feelings, not sugar-coat them … remember to never pity me … I write because I have to … I write to entertain you … I write to let you know how something feels hoping you won’t ever have to experience it … I write in hopes my words might in some way comfort, help someone. I write … taking a journey in time … when I come back … I’m still in my desk chair.  I’m always glad to be back … home.  I don’t dwell in the past.

I write to let people, and younger relatives read ME to know I was a person at one time … a very real person with very real feelings.  I want them to ‘feel’ ME, too.  I wish I could ‘read’ words written by certain relatives who are long gone, that I’ve always been curious about … I would love to read and get to ‘feel’ the ‘real sort of person’ they really were when they lived. I would wonder in what ways I was like them.

One more very important thing to remember about ME … when you come here to read ME … and you feel such emotion from my words … never-ever mistake me as being a person who ‘whines, cries … wallows in self-pity like a little pig does in mud’.  Never think that.  I’ve never felt sorry for myself … I never had time to … I always have had to go with the flow of Life no matter what … unless … I died.

I always describe ME as being like the big, tall Redwood Tree that stands ‘forever’ … weathering many harsh storms of Life.  Standing tall, strong.  No one sees the scars left behind, the strength.  They see a wonderful, beautiful, tall Redwood Tree … admire it for its beauty … never seeing beneath the surface what it’s been through.

I look forward to writing here again.  I’m so happy to have my blog here back.  I thought it was going to be a losing battle … thankfully it isn’t.  I hope my readers will come back and people will want to come read about real life … Me.

Written/Owned … Photos, also … by Gloria Faye Brown Bates

No Matter What … Everything IS Going To Be Alright … No Matter

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

Sunday, May 20, 2018

No Matter What … Everything IS Going To Be Alright … No Matter

No Matter What … Everything IS Going To Be Alright … No Matter
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

I worry about my husband.  He is continuously trying to please others when they ask him to do things for them … even when he isn’t feeling well.  No one hears him when he does say ‘I’m not feeling my best today’ … they think only of getting their things done.

I have the kindest, most courteous, polite husband in the world.  Sometimes to the point others may try to take advantage of him.  This is where I … come in to stop it if I even suspect such.  He’s such a good person.  Sometimes … people want to walk over top of a good person.  I hope all good people have someone who is watchful, protective in their life.  I’ll leave it at that.

Life … is complex.  People are complex.  We encounter each, every day things that worry us.  Other people worry us … things worry us … our pets worry us.  If we didn’t care … nothing would worry us. If we didn’t love … how could we care?

As I became older … my very world around me … became smaller.  I now have instead of a big family in my life … only my husband and Pups3 now.  All the way to my only child … have died.  All my family support system is gone … somehow with all the life-threatening illnesses I’ve battled through time … I outlived them.  I didn’t mean to … I just did.  I’m amazed when I stop … look back in my life.

Do I feel sorry for myself.  Oh no, I don’t at all.  I just have to be stronger in mind, body … Life is like this.  Only someone in my situation with no close family left in their lives … will know exactly what I mean.  Just like when someone you love dies … only someone who has experienced just that … truly understands.  You might try to imagine for a moment and feel a pang or two of pain, sadness … it’s nothing when compared to the real thing … that lasts a lifetime.

Sometimes one of our Pups3 won’t eat his/her meal.  I worry until the next meal when I see that particular Pup eat.  Pets are like our children … we worry about their health, well-being.  So, like a child … one doesn’t eat when we think they should … we worry.  I worry.  Sometimes … it just happens for seemingly no reason.  Relief … is what I feel when I know for sure everything is alright.

I find that when my family became less … money became much less through time … that I worry more.  I’m sure I’m not the only one … these days.  We have to hide from others that things aren’t exactly the best in our lives anymore.  Life is like that … especially when one has too much pride.  Especially when everyone knew you had money … everything.  In our life … we both went through life-threatening illnesses taking several years at a time to battle … and the many other things that happened in our life.  No excuses … Life is like that.  We never recovered … today we do the best we can.

It hurts the pride we always had … we don’t have what we used to have.  We’ve lost those friends who like people who have lots of material things, lots of money … they are long-gone.  They weren’t ever real to begin with … we are real for it all and we have each other.

Through the years we learned what was most important in Life … love, caring, giving, compassion, empathy, caring … people, pets. All … good, special 🙂 things in Life.

It hurts me when something happens in my life and I have to … ask for help.  It hurts me because I worry if someone helps … me … that I’m taking from them when they might need it.  It hurts me to let anyone know … I’m lacking, I don’t have … I need.  This goes back to the childhood I had.  No excuses … facts.

It hasn’t been so long ago … well yes, I guess it has been quite some time … that I never worried about money … family support.  I always worried for the safety of my son … he traveled always.  You know … we worry about our children no matter if all is good, bad.  He was my only child and I didn’t want anything to happen to him … something did happen to him. I don’t have a child to worry about now.  I wish I did.

Worry … pain, grief, love … pride, sadness … happiness, joy … make up our lives … my life.  I’ve known so much pain, grief, sadness from the time I was a little girl … more pain, grief, sadness than happiness.  I haven’t let it make me mean, hard, bitter … instead through time I looked for the ‘whys?’ in my life … the reasons such things happened to me.  I constantly tried to be a better person no matter I found out I couldn’t be … perfect.  I tried to learn from my Life Lessons.

You’ll hear me say the words … ‘perfect, special’ often.  So that must mean those words have important meaning to me … they do.  I love those words because I wish to be that … I smile now because that is an … impossibility.  You know that saying … ‘nothing’s impossible’?

Well, in my life I have run up on some things that truly are … impossible.  Maybe I looked for ‘impossible’ to see if I could prove the saying wrong. There are really some things realistically that are impossible.  Life is like that.  That doesn’t stop me from loving the words … ‘perfect, special’ and wish to be that.  I settle for next best … the best I can be and … sometimes, I am not that. ,

Fear … I try to keep my fears pushed way back in my mind.  I worry about my small world … my husband, Pups3.  I worry about lack of money … being at the mercy of others because of that.  I worry about us … not being able to hold our own.  I worry about the times that are coming to buy tires, oil change, repairs on our older vehicles, medical.  I worry, worry … worry.  There are many things I worry about.  A lot of them haven’t happened … a lot will happen … eventually.  I’m realistic … I don’t hide from what I know … will be.

Now … I’ve written about worrying, fears, pride, pain and joy … all these things that make up pure Life … will I give up because Life isn’t … perfect?  Hell no!  I’m smiling because … I said that.  You who know me know that that’s me.  I try to be nice as possible but … I’m going to always say a word or two that isn’t the nicest … but, they reflect how I really feel.  I’m still not a bad person if I say a word or two no one likes … even I don’t like them but … I will say one in a heartbeat … if need be.

I am going to continue going through each day looking for the best … expecting the best until the one moment … I don’t wake up.  I’m never giving up … I’m never quitting … I’m never going to quit being just the best I can be even … if I’m not … yes, I’m going to say it!  Even … if I’m not … perfect! or special!

Do you have such fears, worry … feel such pain, sadness … such joy, love like this?  Am I the only one like this?

Note by this Author:

I am just a real person reflecting real feelings.  I don’t sugar-coat for your benefit nor do I deny things just to make me feel good.  I have become someone I’ve always watched, been fascinated by as a young girl … you know … one of those people that hits life face-on no matter how bad it hurts.  I used to run … now, I plant my feet and hold my ground.  I may get knocked down … so far … I manage to get back up.  I’m like the big redwood tree I tell you about … you just don’t know the storms I’ve weathered … some others think is like a movie.

I have become … you know … one of those people who managed to stay positive no matter how negative all is around them.  You know … the one who smiles even if sadly … and says … ‘everything is going to be alright one way or the other … no matter what happens’.  Well, sometimes, I try on negativity for a short time like trying on a dress that’s too little … I’m going to get it the hell off as soon as possible.

If I can say everything will and does get alright after all that has happened in my life … you know … it is so.  I still say that because I know firsthand … this to be true and I’ve lost almost everything in my life.  One way or other … everything has a way of being alright again.  Everything is going to be alright.  No matter …  sometimes, it takes longer than others.  Even if everything doesn’t get alright … we somehow find a way in our lives to make it alright … as possible … so, we can continue to live.  One way or other … it’s going to be.

Written by/photos owned by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

It’s Good To Be Back …

Friday, May 18, 2018

It’s Good To Be Back …

I have been learning how to make bracelets, rings, necklaces.  I love making the herringbone design.  I enjoy twisting, turning the wire in my hands to shape, mold around each bead.  I believe I’ve become addicted to wire-wrapping beads.

I have a page called Imperfect Creations by Gloria on Facebook.  I have been putting photos of artwork I’ve done through times … things I make with my hands.  Sometimes someone will buy a piece of jewelry from me.  People suggest I have a business … I don’t want a business nor the pressure that comes with it.  If someone sees something I’ve already made … they can just tell me.  I won’t make special orders.  That would take the pleasure out of doing what, when, where I want to do things.  I am a free spirit I guess.

I will be coming back to write about the grief of a grieving mother.  It will be 8 years on May 29th since Tommy … my son … died.  I promised years ago I would always tell you how it is with this grieving mother.  When I write about it you will see I’ve come far in my grief.  I can live with it now.
I will write my poems, short stories … whatever about life I’m feeling.

It’s nice to be back.  I look forward to writing once again.

Author’s Note:

I haven’t written for a long time … I didn’t have anything I wanted to write about.  I guess all writers, artists do that and come back to doing what they love best when … it’s time.  We always know when it’s time to begin again.  I’m ready to begin again 🙂

Written by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.  Photos are owned by Gloria Faye Brown Bates.

I Won’t Be Here… I’ll Be There

Colors of My Life

I Won’t Be Here… I’ll Be There
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates

If I die, would you notice if I were gone
Would you see the empty space I left behind
Before things shuffled, filling it in

Would you miss the sound of my voice
The brightness of my smile
Could you possibly… miss ‘me’

I only mean something to one person
One person in this world
Everyone is gone, even my only child

Sometimes, I wonder when I already know
That some people would really care
Some would shed a tear or two

When I die, it will be a private affair
No one will need to come to see my body
I don’t let anyone come to watch me sleep

Sleeping is a personal thing
Dying is personal, too
I don’t want anyone to come stare at me

No one needs to know when I’m gone
No…

View original post 109 more words

On Hold …. The Walls Move!

The Walls Move!

Written by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

Writing is like a big, happy balloon … I soar as I write … sometimes … the air goes out and I’m left at a standstill. By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

Well … I’ve decided something. For the moment I’m not continuing my scary story because, I’m not in the mood for mean, evil things

 

Sometimes … I begin writing a story with passion … and it is like a big, happy balloon … sometimes, the air goes out of it.

 

The Walls Move! story is on hold. I don’t feel like writing about killing, hurting … torturing anyone right now. ❤

The Walls Move! Part 2 …

 

Written by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

Just because you don’t see anything doesn’t mean it isn’t there. By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

 

John jumped up … pure rage, fire burned in his eyes.  His fists were balled, he was going to kick somebody’s ass.  Son of a bitch!  Mother f____!  His f______ nose was broken and the pain was more than he could bear.

He turned around … and around.  John didn’t see anyone!  Where did that mother f_____ go!  He needed to kill something.  The f_____ pain was too great to contain.  He saw the dog, walked toward it.  The poor dog cowered … peed on itself.  It knew the man was going to hurt it again.

Just as John went to grab the dog he felt somebody slap him upside his head.  His cuss words pure tangled together he was so angry. White froth came out of his mouth.  You son of a … mother fu___ son of a yee yow yellow …. John had never known such anger.  The fires of hell raged in him.

He heard a chuckle on his right side … he spun around.  No one was there!  He spun around again.  Where was the son of a bitching mother f______!

John was very dangerous now.  Let some bastard come into view he’d rip their heads off, piss down their necks and whatever else he felt like doing.

He backed up … looking around.  He couldn’t see a damn thing.  Another chuckle sounded.  Sounded like a damn woman.  That couldn’t be … women don’t like to get their asses kicked.

John felt a tap on his shoulder …  froze.  He took a couple of breaths … turned around.  His eyes took in what stood before him … he was confused.  What the hell?  He shook his big-old head not believing what he saw ….

Continued to … Part 3

The Walls Move! Part 1 …

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

If you think you can act in secret … there are always … eyes … watching. You might not know it now but, it will bite you in the ass one day. By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

 

The Walls Move!   Part 1 … written by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/Granny Gee

 

 

 

He kicked the dog for the fifth time … it cried out in the most heartbreaking sound.

 

 

The man didn’t know eyes were watching him from nearby shrubbery, trees. He didn’t know … hell was getting ready to break loose in his life … it would never be the same again.

 

 

Just as he went to strike the dog with his bare hand … he was on the ground not knowing what hit him. His instinct was to jump up, begin fighting.

 

He was a mean, vicious man who bullied people, abused people … animals alike. John was a pure bastard in every way. He had no way of knowing … he was getting ready to meet his match.

 

 

Continued to Part 2: