What If They Felt … HOPE!
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee
(NOTE: What I wrote here tonight was inspired by a friend on Bubblews… &gardenerj . His story ‘Isn’t It Too Early to Start Talking About You Know What’… made me think tonight… and below are my thoughts…
Thank-you, &gardenerj. Your Bubblews Friend, &grannygee (This is what I’m known as on Bubblews)……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Our little, sad Christmas tree at Christmas… 2012… this was the third Christmas without Tommy, my son… and our 12 year old Fairchild who died of cancer, just weeks after Tommy’s death. Tommy loved Fairchild with his Heart… we loved Tommy, Fairchild with our very Hearts. I can’t tell you the grief, pain … in my words… I’ve lived in… even knowing ‘everything is going to be alright’… one way or the other, it’s going to be. Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee………………………………………………………………………………………..
Well… I’ve made a big decision… I think I’ve discovered ‘why’ people are wanting to ‘begin Christmas early’.
For the past 3 years… my son has been gone… I couldn’t celebrate anything… I couldn’t ‘see colors, happiness’. I lived in a ‘dark’ world… grief, pure-pure grief, pain.
All the colors, happiness was around me… no matter how I tried to come out to the ‘happy colors’… I couldn’t get there. I tried so hard… but, the knowledge that my son died… wouldn’t let me… I hurt so bad. It wasn’t time.
The positive thing is… that I ‘knew one day’… everything would be alright… I really knew that… but, ‘when’? It couldn’t happen until the day… I began to accept the death of my son.
Accept the knowledge that nothing will change that. Tommy’s really gone. With that being said… you can’t see what just happened to me. I was overcome with such deep grief, that I began crying inside.
The magical thing about writing… is I don’t have to do it front of you. I can write, cry all I want to… and not … upset you. I never want to upset you… I know grief, pain well… I wouldn’t intentionally inflict it on another person.
The good thing about reading… is if you decide you don’t need to read something… or it might upset you in some way… you can leave quietly, no one knowing any better. You know… like in a library. You won’t hurt me… and you can go away, knowing that you can do it quietly… and I understand, care.
You see… I’ve always heard that if one wants to write… one has to write what they know best to succeed. In my entire life, I’ve known more pain, grief, heartbreak than anyone I know. I know pain, grief best… this is what I write best… because I ‘feel, and have lived it since being a little girl’.
I, also, know happiness. I’ve also, experienced miracles, prayers being answered. I know the joy, the specialness of all. So, I’m not a doomsday person at all. Truthfully… when you see me… nine times out of ten… you will see me smiling. Smiling no matter how bad life is being to me.
Not because I’m ‘crazy, and don’t know any better’… because I ‘know life is going to be like that’… no matter what. It seems I understand ‘so much’ now…. it’s taken years for me to learn. Does that lessen the pain, grief in my heart. I’ll answer with a simple ‘NO’.
So, why do I ‘try to smile’? Because … I try to be positive as possible… since ‘I’m not perfect’…. sometimes, I’m not. Sometimes, I will feel angry from the pain, grief. I always end up back at …’everything is going to be alright’. How do I know?
I know because I’m always thinking, feeling, sensing… trying my best to swim the waves in the sea of pain, grief. You see, I mean to make it… I mean ‘to not drown’.
In my stories, you will see my struggle… you will in time… see me reach the shore in my struggle. I have a ways to go… I’m not there, yet.
I may be 100 years old… when I reach that shore… I might not reach it until… I draw out ‘my own’ last breath. It doesn’t matter, ‘everything is going to be all right ‘now’… as ‘right as it can be when someone’s only child dies’.
Guess what? I’ve never known how to swim in this life… but, in that world you don’t ever see… but, ‘feel, sense’…. I know the ‘ocean of pain, grief… well’. It’s strange how much I swim… ‘there’… in this life.
I don’t even have the convenience of a ‘shark cage’ to protect me… I ‘feel such pain’. I’m ‘always swimming there’… but, ‘you can’t see me… can’t see my struggle’. Isn’t that an interesting thought?
At one point in my grief… at the very beginning… ‘I almost drowned… I almost died’. It’s the truth, I’ll admit it. I wouldn’t have known it… but, Skip could see. He was on the ‘outside’ looking in at me. I never knew he was there… in my mind… I had already left, I didn’t know I was still here… I didn’t know I was … still in this life. My life stopped. My only child just died… The End.
This year, right ‘now’…. I have made a decision two days ago… I am going to put up happy, colored red lights (to match décor in our house)…. inside. They will be tasteful. I’m beginning early just like many people are… the commercials on tv have begun… I think that, I’m … so glad!
Why? I want to ‘feel happy inside, I’ve been sad so long’. Soft, little lights have a special way to affect one’s mood… especially mine as I’ve been ‘in the dark too long’. Also, I am going to put up the little Christmas tree we bought ‘just to have one last Christmas’… on the dining table. This will be done within this next week.
After Tommy, my son died…. I gave everything away that was accumulated through the years for Christmas… I gave them away to ‘family’ whom I thought loved, cared about me… only to find out differently, later.
It’s okay… my ‘family’ is like that… we all were born with that in us… no one can help it. So, many years of accumulating, making decorations are gone, wasted… no one can see the ‘love, caring’ in all I had, made. I let go a long time ago… it no longer matters. I didn’t care… nor did I remember… giving all away. What I wrote just now, was ‘a few thoughts’ that flitted through my mind.
I didn’t have more children, only my son, Tommy. He had two children… I wasn’t going to be seeing them…. it was ‘the end’ of my life… or so, I thought. My only child died….
I had to learn to accept no grandchildren, I learned it well. So well, that I forget that now… it’s possible to see only one of them, my precious little grandson… who looks like the little boy I once had.
I reached out to see my grandchildren… was made to understand that I had to go back into the past to answer questions… that are no longer important.
I won’t do that…. I won’t play games with anyone… life is about moving ahead, loving the ones in your life ‘now’. I am too fragile to go back to remember the grief, pain in my son’s heart the last time he saw his daughter.
I won’t write about it here… it would be devastating… too private. The last words she said to him… he carried to his grave… they weren’t the only words. I do… remember them.
I’ve let go of a beautiful child, granddaughter I truly love, and liked so much the last time I saw her. Her mother made sure she won’t ever be in my life… I accept that with such respect. I would never do anything to hurt them.
When I read the things she wrote, I could go back to ‘being her age, and ‘see’… she has a long way to go in life to understand that life ‘is now’… you don’t ‘dwell in the past’… it’s not her fault she doesn’t know that now. You see, I understood so much from her words… it’s ‘not so long ago’ that I used to be her age, and I thought ‘just like that’.
I love her, I’m glad she’s my granddaughter’s mother… she’s just being protective of … her only child. She loves her, has a good life for her.
Isn’t that what is most important in life… isn’t that what a grandparent wishes for their grandchild… life ‘isn’t all about the grandparent’… and who sees who… it’s about… the child. I’m just so grateful… my granddaughter has a real family; a good family support… that’s most important to me.
I’ve got to remember now… it’s possible I can see my grandson… I keep ‘forgetting’. I want to see him very much… this is the only grandchild I ‘feel a bond’ with. He knows me, he speaks of me. My other grandchild doesn’t know who I am, any longer. No matter if later, it’s meant for me not to have him in my life… I will understand no matter what.
I ‘know life can be that way’. Thankfully, I’ve been writing for so long… they will one day see that I truly loved them… would never be an ugly ‘Granny Gee’… who whines, cries, screams cuss words, call names, and do vindictive things to hurt the mothers of my grandchildren. I love them… no matter what. They are special… look who their children are… my grandchildren.
You see… my life has been very strange since being a young child. I didn’t realize until I became older… I was ‘being groomed’ for the ‘painful life’ I’ve had. I didn’t know I had such hard lessons to learn in life… very hard, very painful. I have always wished ‘to be perfect’… I never could be. If I had been…. I’d learned my lessons the ‘easy’ way……
When I say this… know that I kept meeting ‘all’ head-on in my life… after being ‘knocked on my ass’ time after time, after time… again… year after year of my whole life. (Yes, I did say ‘ass’… it’s just the way it is… no apologies in a good way :))).
‘Damn’… I couldn’t be perfect … no matter what? I had to do ‘things my way’… ‘get on the wrong paths… fight like hell to get on the right ones… I got lost so many times’). I was still a ‘good person’, but, ‘lost’…..
I never ‘felt sorry for myself… I just kept trying to learn my lessons in life. When I thought ‘I knew so much’… I found out that I ‘didn’t know a ‘damn’ thing’.
I have cried millions of diamond teardrops… but, I don’t complain, cry ‘woe is me’. I’ve been angry, just plain ‘pissed off’… but, I don’t do that. I just kept trying to make sense of each event… tried to make peace with it. I couldn’t change it happening… I could only make the choice of ‘going forward’. It was no where easy as it is to write the words … here.
Most of the time… I didn’t go forward ‘gracefully’… I really try to do that… I wanted to grow old ‘gracefully’… life has had a way of changing what ‘one wants, means to do in life’… to completely ‘twisting all around’…. taking you on roads so unexpected… so, not ‘you’.
Life is like the guy on Survivorman… life would ‘just drop my ass on some isolated road… tell me to ‘find yourself’. Find myself? You just wouldn’t believe the roads I have traveled to ‘find myself’. The strange thing is… ‘I was there all the time’. :)))
I was the ‘good person’ I thought I was … in the end. Do you know how a ‘woman has to look ugly at the beauty shop… just to get beautiful again’? The other ladies all sit there, are watching and having thoughts of thinking how ugly that woman is… how the rollers look in her hair… that’s an ugly critter!
But… after ‘getting so ugly’… the magic begins! All of a sudden, you see those ladies begin to sit forward in their chairs to see better… magic is beginning!
Why… that woman is beginning to become ‘beautiful’! She ‘really wasn’t ugly’ at all! She was pretty ‘all along’… ‘yeah, I know… there really are some ‘ugly people’ who never become ‘beautiful’! You know ‘those mean, hateful, bad ……….. !’
I look ‘like hell, lost my ‘graceful looks’… :))) So, ‘now’… I’m going to ‘grow old … gracefully… ‘ugly’ in looks :))) Do you know what? I really hated to admit that… :)))
I am going to grow old gracefully … being an ugly… graceful, old woman! :))) But… I’ll be a ‘good, old, ugly woman’… I think I’m beginning to accept that… not fight it. Just do my best, let it go… I have to… I can’t stay ‘here, dwell on it’… life go on.
I want to live… and if ‘I have to live it ‘ugly’… I will’. I won’t apologize… I have come ‘through hell, death’… be ‘be here’… now.
All I can say is… if no one likes it, and is offended by my ‘ugly exterior’… deal with it! If you can’t take a few minutes to see that I’m ‘beautiful inside, my looks have faded like a rose’… I don’t mind. I don’t have time for you… I have a lot of living I want to do… move out of my way. (I mean that in a ‘good way’… but, I mean it in a ‘bad’ way if … I have to).
I can’t make you like me… I won’t waste time trying… I wasted enough time trying to get here through ‘bad things, real-bad things’ that were obstacles in my life. You have no idea how I have fought to get here… to this very minute.
If you judge me on looks… then, you are not ‘my kind of bird of a feather’. All I can say is…. ‘I used to be pretty’! :))) Now… you go on with your life…
I love real people who have lived ‘real’ life. They know pain… they learned from it… they learned the lessons one needs to in this life. They aren’t ‘shallow’ people…. if you haven’t learned these things… there’s no way… you can’t come to the plane I’m on… and talk with me.
You can’t reach it if you’ve never known the things I’ve been through… walked the roads I’ve walked on. Those ‘stairsteps aren’t for you’… yet; maybe they never will be. Then, that means you are having that wonderful, perfect life I always wanted to know… one full of love, happiness, no medical or financial worries.
I’m happy for you… though, I worry for you ‘when something happens’. I was ‘groomed from a small child, learning the pain, grief in life’…. I’m not sorry for myself… somebody has to learn it… someone has to be able to tell others about it. Let them know they aren’t the only ones … ‘who hurt’.
Everything is going to be all right. Of course, the grief and pain will always be there… sometimes, it’ll be harder… but, I reached another ‘plane in life’ … I’m learning I can go on now… I’ve accepted what I can’t change… and I’ve coped with it.
I found out now… all my crying, grieving can’t change a thing. So, when I cry, grieve… I know it’s from the ‘great love I had for my only child… my son, Tommy’. This is ‘why I cry for Tommy… now’.
I miss him so much… he’s still ‘real’ in my mind. He seems to still be here… especially when I look at his photos. He was a real person, I knew him. I know what he sounded like… I still hear him speak, laugh, cry… in my mind. I ‘see him’ moving, walking, sitting… working… in my mind. He’s real… in my mind.
I cry because … now, this ‘is the only place I can find… Tommy. I can’t just call him, see him in person… I can’t hear him ‘try to sing’ anymore (Tommy, you really couldn’t sing, my special son :))) You see… I loved you my precious son… even now… we have to admit you couldn’t sing. I can see you smiling in my mind… because you can’t believe I’m saying that!
I write my life, about Tommy…. everything… the colors/my stories of my life at my primary blog… I share my life on Facebook, and on the Facebook page of Precious Camo… the little puppy I rescued from certain death on July 4th.
I published my book filled with my grief, pain…. my goal being accomplished … whether I ever make money or not, on it…. I made sure my son would never be forgotten.
Getting back, after saying ‘all this’…. I’m thinking this year everyone has had so many things happening that is sometimes, scary… unhappy… lost someone in death… lost their homes… lost their families in divorces… gas prices so high that money used for food, clothing, their families is used to buy gas to work to survive… and then, the … government ‘shut-down’.
So many unexpected things are happening in ‘today’s time, lots of times, it’s a ‘first’… things people haven’t had to deal with.
We are all affected by this… we can hardly afford to buy gas to travel to our doctor appointments… just to go to town 4 miles away… twenty dollars doesn’t buy much gas… our tanks go empty so quickly. We don’t complain… we keep on struggling along with everyone else. I worry about young families…. worry for this, worry for that… life’s very hard.
One could go on and on…. maybe that’s ‘why’ everyone wants the holidays earlier… the soft, wonderful, colorful lights that bring hope… when one looks into them, becomes lost in them… their minds will go to a ‘magical place’ quickly, wishing and thinking about loved ones… what they’d love to do for their loved ones… what they’d like to have in their life.
This ‘is a time of year that … anything can be possible! A dream can come true! Magic happens! Miracles happen!’ The most unexpected, wonderful things can happen…. ‘to anyone’!
The holiday sounds are wonderful, they bring back happy memories we all learned as children… it’s soothing, calming to our very souls to listen to.
We’ve grown up (even if mine were never happy times, I was happy for others… I would watch wonderful families to ‘know what holidays meant… I would try to ‘feel them in my mind’… I would walk in town where I lived… see through people’s windows… see bright lights, happy people moving around… sitting at their dining tables with their family members… even hear happy sounds! See the wonderful Christmas trees in the background, glowing with happy colors!)
Of course, being a child… I did … wish. Sadly, it didn’t happen… but, I still … lived. I still got up each time, ‘life pushed me to the ground’.
It’s the same way, ‘today’…. for three years I have been struggling to get back up… I almost ‘fell for the last time when life handed me the death of my son’. I have had such a time to stand up under the weight I carry now… the grief of my son being gone.
I think I’m standing up… now. It sure feels like it… I’m feeling the holidays ‘early’ …just like everyone seems to be this year. I’m going to decorate, make happy colors come alive in our home beginning in this following week. We don’t have a lot of money to spend… but, that’s okay. I’m going to make it special… all one has to do is look around… and ‘just feel the magic, and know anything can happen’!
Why? Because life is all about …. HOPE! Yes! That is what I’ve learned lately… life is all about ‘HOPE’.
I’ve learned another secret to life… Hope. I have learned that the secrets to life are: love, caring, giving…. and now… it’s hit me… a light came on! HOPE is a secret to life, too. I knew that… but, I ‘didn’t know’ that. ‘Now… I know….
There’s always hope… we never give up hope… no matter what… everything’s going to be alright. Just ‘you don’t ever give up hope’… you ‘get up from that ground, dust ‘them’ pants off… love, care, give even if it’s a smile, a kind word… and care with your heart about people, animals.
Even if you don’t have opportunity to do these things… feel them in your Heart. Remember everything’s going to be alright… I didn’t say it is going to be easy at all… it never has been in my experience… but, always HOPE. Where there’s hope, a miracle can happen… this is exactly how I feel about it. These are my words….
Where there’s HOPE.. a miracle can happen. You are reading words from a ‘Miracle’… you just don’t know it. If you knew everything… I would have nothing to write about anymore. :)))
I’m forever grateful to people who have touched my life in the most positive, wonderful ways. Who have given to me, without asking me if I needed anything…. who have said comforting words to me when I didn’t know they knew something was wrong with me… who never asked… just sensed. I’m grateful for so much in my life.
I always hoped… that no matter what… someone would care about me… be there for me. I don’t have many people ‘there’… but, I’m so fortunate… I could be all alone.
I just realized something at this very moment… ‘you are all there’! Do you know what? I’m so grateful for ‘you’… do you know ‘why’… you’ve all stayed here since I began writing… writing my pain, grief just after my son, Tommy… died. ‘You are still here’… plus, thousands more people! I’m so grateful for my ‘old and new friends’… I’m so grateful for ‘you’.
I forgot to say… that’s something else I’ve learned in life… and never mentioned. Do you know ‘why’? Because I’ve been so used to ‘being grateful’… I didn’t realize that I’d learned that ‘lesson’ a long time ago in my life. :))) Gratefulness… that’s another secret to … Life.
I’m going to be in the holiday spirit now… after three long years. I’m going to put those soft-colored, happy Christmas lights ‘everywhere’. Turn the little fireplace on … it’s here in the living room… put the little, sad Christmas tree we had up last year… back up this coming week…. it will be a happy, bittersweet tree this year… but, it’ll glow with happiness.
Skip is going to get up a bigger one to put in the living room… more soft-glowing lights to cast a magical atmosphere to ‘get lost in’. There might not be a whole lot of presents… that’s fine…. there will be light… light is life, hope.
The secrets to life are the things I just told you… to enjoy them, you have to ‘feel them inside’… you can’t buy them. Love, caring, giving…. hope… gratefulness.
They can’t be wrapped in a present… but, then… again… they ‘can be’ by the things we do get for our loved ones… even ‘the smallest things’. Symbols of all we feel… a way of showing how we care.
I know lots of people can give a lot… lots really can’t. That’s sad…because even knowing life isn’t about material things… people no matter how old, or young… are like children… they still hope, wish… it’s the way we are. We are just human… life is like that. :)))
No matter what… everything will be all right… no matter how bad, or how good… you will see something ‘good somewhere or other’. I know this to be true. Just pay attention… remember I never said it’d be easy… for some of us… it isn’t.
We are the ones who ‘had to learn the hard way’… maybe so, we’d tell others… maybe we can ‘save them from making the same mistakes… maybe to show them that no matter if you are dying, almost died… had cancer… you lived.
Maybe … losing a child… you still lived to tell your story… you still learned from life, so others can ‘see they can make it, too’.
Maybe… to see that you were bullied, you almost committed suicide, you were beaten, bad things happened in your life… to show others that…they too, can survive. Maybe… a child, or an adult who has been mistreated, injured by another mean person… had/have a terminal illness can read our words… and gain from them.
They can find a will to live… remember the old saying, ‘if there’s a will, there’s a way’?
Why all the ‘maybes’…. Just maybe… they can find HOPE… with hope, there’s life. Hope is the ‘light of life’… just look around you when you see people come together when ‘bad things’ happen. If one can’t be there… ‘go there in your mind’… send those special thoughts in the air with thousands of other thoughts, prayers… they really work. I know this in so many ways to be … true.
These are my opinions, my outlook on life…. I don’t tell anyone to do anything… I can only write from ‘my experience’…. and God knows all my experiences in life… have been ‘something else’.
But… what if someone was right at this very word I’m writing ‘now’… and felt something special inside? What ‘if they felt…. HOPE’!
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My links to these places are:
http://happycolorsandgrannygee.blogspot.com …my primary blog
(Come by my friend)..
https://facebook.com/camocameobates … the puppy I rescued… I’m almost ready to publish my book about her; her angel.
The title will be: Camie’s Angel, and will be sold only on Amazon.com . Her name was originally ‘Camo’ when I picked her up from the cold, wet ground… saved her.
Her angel renamed her ‘Camie… in my book… you can read in her words, ‘why?’. (Come be her friend, too).
See how people like you have helped to save her with their donations for her medical care… look at photos, see how she didn’t have hair on her body… since July 4th, 2013 until now (October 10, 2013.
Look how beautiful she is now… though, she isn’t healed yet… she has a ways to go… look at her beautiful hair, the expression in her eyes!
I call her …. ‘Our Pup’…. prayers, positive thoughts, love, and donations to her medical care have come from ‘all of Camie’s Angel… and all the Angels that have followed.
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Colors of My Life 