This Is Yet Another… Dark Color… In My Life

This Is Yet Another … Dark Color … In My Life

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

 

 

I was just told that my brother, David, is in the hospital in Chapel Hill… apparently, he had a stroke yesterday.  No one thought to call me.  I think they forgot to…

 

Below, is what I wrote… and it explains ‘why’ I’m putting it on my blogs.  I want them to read it…

 

Life isn’t perfect for me… I’m not perfect.  Most of my life has been pain.  I don’t let it dominate me… I forgive, go on living.  I don’t ‘just die’ because… someone hates me, doesn’t like me… or quits loving me.

 

Some times when I feel pain… it takes me forever to get past it… such as my son’s death… Tommy’s death.  I won’t ever get over it, I can live with it, now.  I always hurt in my Heart… I never stop thinking of him.

 

But… when a mother loves, truly loves her child… isn’t that … normal?  Grief… is love.  I wouldn’t grieve if I hadn’t loved my child.  It means … his life meant something … to me.

 

Just because I have a dysfunctional ‘family’… and when I say ‘family’, I always put parentheses around the word… it doesn’t mean I hate them.  I love them… I hate them, too.  Yes… it’s true.  I told you that… I’m not perfect.  I would be ‘if I didn’t have feelings’…

 

They’ve had their chance to be close to me through the years… no one ever bothered.  I still loved them.  Through the years I wished with my heart for just that… relationships would start… end as quickly.

 

My ‘family’ ever since I’ve ‘known what family is’… always fought to find blood, hated each other, always suspicious of each other, only loved to get what they wanted from the other.  Once they did, the relationship ended.  I was different… I still loved at the same time… I hated.

 

Hate, anger … were my biggest lessons to learn as a child.  I learned them well… I have always been the most ‘angry person’ in this world… but, I didn’t let people see it.  I kept on smiling… as I coped with it, put the anger… pain in its own place… so, I could live.  When younger… I had a ‘chip on my shoulder’.  I got rid of that many years ago.

 

I learned that when people… and me… do things, make decisions… we do that from what’s in our mind… be it either wrong, or right.  Who am I to say someone made the wrong decision… when in their mind… they thought they were right?

 

Same way, with me.  It’s always easy to call ‘you made the wrong decision… after seeing the results’ from the decision made.  So… with ‘family’… we are all right, we are all wrong… who knows?  We all think ‘we are right’…

 

Strange thing with me… I wish I was like the ‘rest of my family’ in this respect… I can’t be.  ‘Why’ did I have to have a heart, why?  Why do I find in my heart to be able to let go, forgive?  Why?  Sometimes, I wish I didn’t… and just continued to hate the rest of my life… it would be less pain.  I am sure it would be.

 

It’s like that ‘damn’ (yep, I said ‘damn’!)…. swimming pool that wasn’t meant to be this summer.  When I opened the plug at the bottom to let the water continuously flow… that’s the way I am with ‘hate, anger’ in my life, now.  I ‘let it all keep flowing on out of me’.

 

I know you wonder ‘how can she do that… especially when some people have done some of ‘the worst things’ to me, my body… from a little girl… up.  I wish I could answer that… that’s ‘where I’ve always been different’… in my ‘family.

 

As a young person, I was like them… I could harbor all that hate, anger …. I was the mirror of hate, anger… when you looked at me… you didn’t want to bother me.  I had been mistreated so much… that I mirrored it with my hate, anger.  I ‘was hate, anger’… anyone who got near me… was burned by it.

 

Anyone who neared me… regretted it.  If I had been a rattlesnake… I was the one who would bite.  Anger, hatred dominated my life in my early years… as the years went by… I began to change.  I began to watch, listen, compare, think, read… I began to understand about how important it was to get all that out of me.

 

Of course… I’m not perfect.  I believe in God, good things… doing good to others, animals… being the best I can be; learn from my mistakes.  God knows I have made plenty of mistakes… been on the wrong paths in life …seduced by money, glamour, beautiful and shiny things, beautiful people… why… as a young person I wanted ‘all that’.

 

I look back at how naive I was… how it taught me some of the hardest lessons I ever learned… lessons that shook me to the core.  Lessons that I would have never wanted to learn… lessons that don’t define the person I am today.  Anger, hatred were my fuel as ‘others led the way’… I followed them… to hell.

 

Have you ever tried to force… a square object into a round hole?  You keep trying to mold it, shape it to fit…. and ‘be damn’… it won’t fit no matter which way you try?

 

I was the ‘square object’… I ‘didn’t ever belong’… I ‘couldn’t find in myself’ what I needed to be ‘bad’, truly ‘bad’.  ‘I wasn’t ever tough enough’; ruthless enough.

 

I’m not a mean person… yet… I can be when it comes to defending my person, my loved ones… animals.  But… I’m not tough enough to do ‘bad things’… does it even make sense?  There ‘are different shades of bad’.

 

Loving, caring, giving are the secrets to life… this is what I believe.  I don’t go to church, I don’t let others tell me that ‘I had better go to church, because I’m going to surely go to hell’.

 

Why?  Because… for a lot of reasons.  How do they know?  Why is their life so bad… am I supposed to ‘not see, know’ about them as they try to preach to me?  Another thing… who is anyone to tell me that my religion is wrong?  How can they be sure… theirs is?

 

When I feel good inside… in my heart… I ‘know’ I’m doing right.  If I begin to doubt, feel bad… I re-examine decisions, thoughts, my actions, my words… if I feel I did wrong… I hurry as fast as I can to make it right.

 

Now… I’m sure there are times ‘I haven’t hurried to make something right’… because maybe… I didn’t see what I did … wrong.  See… that’s why I’m never… perfect.  I know this… guess what?  I know you, anyone else… isn’t either.

 

We all try to do the best we can… when we are good people.  If we are bad… then… I’m sure we try to do all the bad we can in a day’s time… right?  You know… make someone else pay for the unhappiness in our minds… kill, maim them… hurt them good because we are pissed off at life.

 

Take the food away from a starving person… kick the prosthetic leg away from the person who only has one leg… laugh while he falls…  kick a dog while it’s cornered.

 

Give an old lady a chair… as soon as she goes to sit down… jerk it away from beneath her ass.  Laugh like a banshee… because she falls all over the ground.  That’s life!  Oh, how fun it is. Who else can I do … today?

 

Here comes someone on a wheelchair… turn it over, dump the passenger out… you need the wheelchair more than he does… sit in it, watch him crawl to get back into it.  Kick his hands… the poor, old b_____ doesn’t need his wheelchair.

 

One more thing… I think about… the old people being made into crackers… one day!  That’s mean… to make old people into crackers, don’t you think?  I think that’s a bad thing… though, at the moment… it has made me grin.  Not only has it made me grin… I feel better now.

 

Anyway… bad people like to hurt, make fun of others, take advantage of the weak, sick, helpless.

 

You know… make sure they make someone’s life ‘hell’ each day they live.  That’s their goal.  I’ve been the victim of all those things… only I wasn’t… killed.  I lived…  I found that ‘I don’t have it in me’ to do things… like that.

 

My ‘family’ always wanted something from the other… as soon as it was obtained… The End.  No expanation… but… if this is the way one grows up… it’s understandable.  Now… it no longer is something that hurts, bothers me… it is the way it is… that’s the way life is … sometimes.  I can’t change it… I can accept it, go on.  I do.

 

I have to say this… this isn’t pointed at most ‘family’ today… most of these family members are already been long gone.  In fact, ‘family’ today… didn’t ever ‘know all my family… they never knew my daddy’s side of the family… ‘hell’, no one knew where I come from.  And my parents… were married.

 

No one, but… a very few… can take anything I’ve said… personal.  If you do… then, it’s something you have to cope with, come to peace with inside.  If you hurt me through the years… I forgave you a long time ago, many years ago.  I love, I don’t hate you.

 

I don’t even want to hate… anyone.  I can get mad, pissed off, angry… but, give me time… it ‘gets all gone’ in time.  I don’t hold things against anyone… I don’t forget, but… I do forgive.

 

I do have to say this… it’s that ‘3rd time’ one does something to me… ‘that’s when hell breaks loose’.  :)))  I forget about everything, because ‘then’… I focus on the person who would do something bad to me… for the 3rd time.  The first two times… it’s not okay… but, I watch, listen… wait.

 

I didn’t have a choice as you’ll read below, to send my message… on how to send this message that is private… but, now… so, public.  I said I don’t feel anger… I lied.  I do feel just a little… it’s only the pain hurting inside my heart.  No one cared to tell me… I love my brother.  He knows it.

 

I’m sending my message now, on my blogs, my media.  I respect whatever reason they have for not telling me anything… let me find out ‘just any old way’… in their minds, they are justified.  I understand when I make decisions to do, not to do… I have my own reasons for it.  Even if not right… at the time I made a decision… it is right.

 

They keep up with me on all my writings… my ‘family’.  They’ve just caused me grief, pain of ‘not knowing’ anything.  I write about my life, the colors in it.  This is… yet… another dark color… in it.

 

If I’ve made the wrong decision to send my message this way… then, I did.  It won’t be my first, nor my last ‘wrong’ decision.  Not only that… this is a ‘color of my life’… it affected me in a very real way… not a good way at all.  I’ll write about it all I want to.

 

It is what it is… and life is/will be like this sometimes.  I accept what I can’t change.  I love you, my brother… David.  That … your family can’t take away.  I send my thoughts, prayers your way for you to be well.

 

 

***************************************************************

 

 

I would like to ask all my Friends to send positive thoughts, prayers to my brother, David.  I just learned from someone that he has had a stroke.  No one thought to tell me… and they are all as close as this group they joined some time ago to keep up with me.

 

I am very sad that you would choose not to tell me about my brother.  I love him very much… you all know ‘why’ I never come around you… when we did… no one was glad to see us.  And… when I was dying… no one came… no one came at all in my family excepting my brother, Ricky…. my aunt Frankie.

 

All I have in my mind is when I had just made it… finally come home… sitting on the front porch where Skip led me…. seeing you all drive by …happily waving your hands.  I ‘waited for you to come back’… you’ll never know the pain you caused as I realized no one was coming back… no one cared about me like I did them.  That’s what I grew up with….

 

I am not angry at you three… for this.  I’ve never talked bad about you like everyone else did in the past… I always took up for you.  I loved you.  I respect your reasons for not telling me… I always have a reason when I do nothing… and whether anyone understands or not… in my mind until I feel differently… I’m right.

 

I never held against you, nor hated you when you didn’t care when I was dying… no one came when I was diagnosed with cancer… no one cared.  I never hated anyone for that… I understood.  The ‘family’ I was dealt with in my lifetime… is like that… I accepted that.  I loved you always… it was okay.  I just don’t … forget… but, I love you all.

 

I respect whatever is inside you to treat me this way… I’m not perfect… so, who am I to say anything?  I hope one day you’ll see that the one person who always loved you, and your dad, your husband was me.  I always loved you.

 

This all began last year when one of you asked me ‘why?’ I never came to see you through the years… we did… no one cared about seeing us.  The times we got you guys to help us… we paid you more than some of our friends… when they would have done it for free.  We ‘wanted you’… young guys like to make money.  You sure didn’t have to do much for it.  That’s what love is about…

 

No matter what… I love you.  I’m saddened you couldn’t tell me about my brother.

 

You can leave my group at anytime… you follow, think I don’t know it.  Why would you do that… and take me off your Facebooks?  I hope you all will leave my group… I will be checking.  I would be lying if I said that I don’t feel something… I do feel love with ‘whatever something’ is.  I’ll be checking later today, hope to see you gone.  You are no longer welcome here.  You know who you are… you are reading this… at this very minute.

 

To all my followers here… this is a private/public message… I would write it in private message to these family members… they have me blocked.  I apologize for doing this… this way.  This is the only choice I had.  If you get upset at me for it… then… I respect that, too.

 

Sometimes…. life is really like this.  Pain… more pain.  I hurt inside so much at this very moment… I don’t even know how my brother is doing.  I love him very much… no matter how I’m treated…. I love my brother… it won’t change.  Hate as much as you want to… I love my brother, David.

 

So…. if any of you want to stop following me because of this… I understand, I accept… respect your decision.  I’ve always been myself… and I sure ‘ain’t’ perfect.  I’ve never claimed to be… I just write about the pain in my life… this is only ‘more’.

 

Love, Gloria /aka Granny Gee

 

PS … I will be checking this evening… if you aren’t out of my group… I will take you off.  I love you… but, go read about what I write on the numerous other places you can see me… if you want to keep up with me.

 

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Lost In… Grief

Lost In… Grief

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

2011… one year after Tommy died :

2012… Beginning to try ‘to look a person again’… failing so much of the time… so much grief inside.  I looked ‘good’ here, compared to how I did ‘really look’ … most of the time.  Grief changes one’s appearance….

2012…

 

All these photos below… were taken in the 1980’s… I had experienced so much in my life, so much pain, grief… yet… you didn’t see it permanently ‘etched in my eyes’.    I could still smile, you didn’t see it in my face… I could hide it well… making one think ‘life was perfect’… it was, it wasn’t… it was… it wasn’t.

 

 

 

2013… Now, no matter how much I smile, I can see a different expression in my eyes… it’s called ‘permanent pain’… my name for it.  I recognize it when I see it in other people’s eyes who have ‘become older’.
I recognize ‘how’ they’ve let it affect them… some people will carry an expression of awful anger, hate.  Others will carry forever a soft smile… a ‘bittersweet smile’, I call it.  That’s what my smile is… because at times, I do get angry, I do hate… because my only child, my son……. Tommy died.  I told you that I’m not perfect… ‘never have been, never will be; tried to be for 3 years, 3 ‘wasted’ years… won’t try to be again’….

So, I wear a permanent ‘bittersweet smile’… one made up with pain, anger, grief, hate… all mixed with …. love, compassion, caring, empathy, honesty, loyalty, goodness.   All mixed with a positive attitude… knowing ‘no matter how bad it is, is going to be… I’m going to get through it… somehow, all will be all right again… no matter what’…
How can I be like this?  Oh, how can I be like this?  I don’t know the answer in words… I ‘just try to be, because …I want to be’.  I fail sometimes, miserably… but, I pick my …. ass…  (yes, I’m aware I said that… it’s the tone of my words)…… up off the (here I go again)…. damn ground, and make me stand on my two feet.
Oh… I ‘can say damn… if I want to… I earned that right as a tiny child playing in the white sand, turning it into ‘tea’, drinking it, getting choked, saying ‘damn!’, getting my mouth washed out with soap, water’.  My mother was breaking me from forever from saying that word… I determined as a little girl … ‘I’d damn-well say that damn word whenever I felt like it… that’s my one… damn cuss word.’  I really will use that one word… if need be.  No apologies…. no apologies.

 

 

 

 

 

So, I don’t feel any … guilt, or… remorse for saying it.  I know a lot more ‘cuss words’… and though I don’t say them often at all… I know how, when I come ‘to that point’; so, the word ‘damn’ isn’t all that bad.  :)))  I told you… I’m not perfect at all… I am a good person, regardless.  Now!  No matter what ‘ugly word I could possibly say, and will do from time to time’… I’m a good person.  I just happen… to know ‘all those words’….
It’s just like a person who drinks alcohol, smokes a cigarette, does drugs, is a ‘loose’ person…. they can still be ‘good people’.  Sometimes… it takes a ‘bad person’ to … do ‘something good’….. that’s ‘why’ good things ‘come from no where to make all the difference’ in another person’s life.  Unexpectedly, and from the … most unlikeliest sources/places.  Life can be wonderful… it takes ‘all kinds of people’ to make the world go round…

 

 

I fight to ‘make me’ find the positive in things so, negative.  One way or the other… I’m going to find it… I can’t live any other way.  I’m not a negative person… though I may appear to be … for a short time.  That’s only… until I ‘find the way’ to where ‘I want to be’…. inside.
I try not to be angry, I try not to hate… I really don’t… it’s just at times, I honestly do feel that way.  I don’t mean to… but, life happens.  It puts me in situations that I have to make the best of, find ‘my way back’ to where I was.
I will grovel in the dirt, say every ugly word in the world, crawl, scream, cry, pray, whatever I need to do… to get back to being… positive.  It sounds strange… but, my nature would be to ‘fight to stay positive’… I would be afraid to be negative all the time… what a scary thought!
When Tommy died, it’s taken this long to ‘come back’ to a place… I can ‘almost find peace’. Almost… until the next time grief strikes at me. Sometimes… it is softly, sometimes… it can be quite vicious… I never know. All I know is that like a fish thrown out of the water…I’m left floundering, trying to find my way back to … my life, where … I can be all right, again. I… almost didn’t make it back when Tommy died… even making it, I didn’t care for the longest time…
Now… I do care.  I want to live, be happy.  I try so hard to cope with such grief like I’ve never known in my entire life.

 

 

Now… you can see in my smile … ‘real life, a mixture of both good, bad’; you can see that I’ve tried to be very positive in my … bittersweet smile.  I mean to carry that bittersweet smile to my grave (I want to be cremated…)…. I’m not growing old with a wicked, mean, hateful-ass expression like a dried-up prune on my face… if my face looks like a prune… it will be a ‘sweet, ripe, soft, good’ prune face!
Now… you can see that I’ve traveled far in life in the etchings on my face, the chiseling of my smile… now, ‘I can see how’… people ‘my age’… ‘look the way they do’.  I always wondered ‘why their eyes looked so tired, washed out’.

 

 

 

Now… I can see ‘why’….. now, that I can see why… I’m trying so hard to have a happy, colorful face … again.  I would like also, for … peace of mind, to be mixed with my bittersweet smile…
I’ve paid attention to some people who are much older than I… they have a wonderful ‘calmness, peacefulness, beauty’ in their faces.  I’m trying to ‘reach for that’… I, also, want it in mine.  I wonder if I can attain it.
I might not be able to… because ‘those people may be the ones who have escaped life’s pain, grief… all might have been ‘perfect’ in their lives’…. they might not have known how it feels to lose a grandparent, a parent, a brother, a sister, a friend, a pet, an aunt, uncle, cousin… or a child, a son or… daughter.  They might not know anything at all about … death.
They might not have ever had a major illness, nor nearly… die.  They might not have watched a love one be deathly ill, fight for their life…..
They might have just been ‘free as the wind’ to enjoy only the sweet pleasures of this life… taste, feel, experience only … the best.  If you’ve never known something… how can you have feelings about it?
Just imagining… not feeling how it feels… are two different birds going separate ways in life… one will be fed, fattened with the best life has to offer, while the other will struggle to feed its young, struggle to survive.
They might have been so rich… yes, being wealthy does protect, buffer one from a lot of life’s pain… money does help… it is said to ‘be the root of all evil’…. it’s also, the very difference in many people’s lives.  It means …survival, hopes and dreams realized… one can realize happiness from it.
‘Just because it’s ‘money’… doesn’t make it all bad’.  Personally, I know ‘millions of ways’… I can make money ‘good’.  I know, see many people whose lives would be so much better … with just a little money.  Don’t you?  I would make ‘good things happen’…
Getting back to pain, grief… that’s what’s shaped my face for the past three years… making me lose myself.  I was unaware that ‘I had lost myself’… until the past year.  I’ve been trying so hard to ‘bring me back’… failing, so much of the time.  Why ‘failing’?
Because grief would come back, find me… take me out on a new wave of pain.  I had to learn how to mentally swim… back to the shore… only for it to happen again… and again.   Sometimes, I’m so weary… so, so tired…..
Grief… hell are both the same to me… I’ve lived in both… one hurts as bad as the other.  One torments as much as the other.  Grief… hell… grief… hell.  I don’t know the difference between them, anymore.
I do know, I don’t want to stay in either place any longer than I have to.  I don’t want to live in the darkness, the anguish…. though, I know deep down… I will have to at times.  I’ve lost an important part of my life, never to be replaced… someone who was part of me, whom I loved with my very heart… so, it’s bound to be.  I can’t prevent it.  I’ve lost my child… my only child, I’ve lost … Tommy.
I think about Mother’s Day… it’ll soon be here.  I am seeing, hearing sons and daughters discussing ‘what to get mama’ … for Mother’s Day, when I’m out shopping.  I have neither a mother to get a present for…. and I’m no longer… a mother… for my son to come see, or get a present for.  The present isn’t important… it’s the relationship.  Mother and child… in my case… mother and son.
I have to walk on by the racks of Mother’s Day cards… when I wish to purchase one.  I remind myself … I have no mother to buy a card for.  When it comes time to buy a birthday card… I find myself looking at them for ‘Son’… I can’t buy one… he’s gone.
This is life… whether I like it or not… I can’t change it.  I can only change, make the best of the life I have left.  I think sometimes, with Tommy gone… there’s no future left for me.  He was my future….
Whatever you call it for me, now… future… the life I have left…. I hope it can be good, I hope it won’t hold such pain again… but… I know in ‘real life’… it can’t be ‘all good’… and most definitely… there’s going to be pain.  It can’t be any other way…. one has to strengthened themselves in the meantime… because life goes on.
I just wanted to compare photos here in one place… to ‘see the difference in my eyes through time’.  I’ve been to Hell and back… here’s my proof in photos.  I’ve been lost in …. grief.

 

 

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PHOTOS… of ‘I CRY FOR TOMMY’ … book by ‘me’… :)))

 

 

http://amazon.com/author/gloriafayebrownbates

 

 

Photos…   ‘I CRY FOR TOMMY’… book

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

These are photos of my new book.  The publication date was March 01, 2013.  The name of it is:  I CRY FOR TOMMY

 

My book was originally 1,066 pages long.  I shortened it down to 738 pages.  It weighs 2.7 lbs.

 

I wanted to share these photos with you.  :)))  I keep taking deep breaths, this book has been from such a long, painful journey in my life.  When you read my book, know that you hold so much from my very soul in your hands… so much pain in the shape of a … book.

 

I just thought of something… if we could all take things from inside us that we don’t want… and turn them into the shape of something to hold in our hands, to put away so we could have peace of mind… wouldn’t that be wonderful?  What would be even more wonderful …would be that we never had to feel that pain anymore.

 

Then again, if we didn’t feel that pain anymore… we’d forget someone we loved very much, who used to be somebody… a son, husband, father, so on.

 

A person’s life is more important than that… we have to keep their memories alive for their children, grandchildren so, they can carry with them through time those memories to ‘bring someone special alive’ so, future generations can ‘see’ them.

 

I feel my book will be special one day to my two grandchildren.  They will be able to hold in their hands ‘a part of Granny Gee, their grandmother’, and a ‘part of their father’.  Isn’t that a special thing for a child, grandchild to have.

 

I would have liked to know two grandfathers I never knew, if I’d had a book with the photo of them on the front, it would have been a treasure to me.  Also, have words on the inside so, I could ‘see’ them as a person… that would be wonderful.

 

I am going to bed now.  I am happy tonight, I actually made something come alive, be reality.  I am so happy I wrote my book… it’s beautiful to me.  I can find comfort just holding it… it’s a part of my son, my only child.  Don’t you think he would have been proud?  Goodnight now, I am falling asleep at my computer.  :)))

 

Oh… the photo on the cover has always touched my very heart… we usually see such special love from a mother to a newborn child… I loved this photo… one that will be so meaningful one day to Tommy’s son.  One can see the pure love radiating from Tommy’s face to his little newborn son.

 

 

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• Trapped Birds Beating Their Wings Against The Bars, Trying To Escape….. (grannyscolorful.wordpress.com)
• I Didn’t Grow Up The Way I Did For Nothing… Hello, Fighting Spirit… I’m So Glad To See You! (grannyscolorful.wordpress.com)
• My Friends Hurt Me Deeply… Oh My God, The Pain (grannyscolorful.wordpress.com)

Remember What Granny Gee Says … Candle + Flame = HOPE …How Will They Know? and Was That Anger?

Artwork… Just A Doodle For You… by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/Granny Gee

‘Remember Granny Gee’s Words:  Candle + Flame = HOPE’….

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NOTE:

I would like to give credit to one of my special blogger friends, her blog link is: http://thedrsays.org/ .

She left a comment that prompted me to thinking that ‘this is what I want to write about today.’  I hope you will visit her blog, she writes about her illness … her words touch something deep within me… your hearts will be touched, also.

 My Friend’s Words:

 1st comment by her…  in your email you said we had more in common than i knew and after reading

this i am in awe of just how much we have had in common. at the ver least you

have learned how important it is to tell your story so future generations can

know you.

‘How Will They Know’ came to my mind, when I read this…

2nd comment by her…’I wore combat boots and jumped out of planes! we have experienced so much more

than the average person and it has been a blessing upon us. now we may have to

accept there are changes we weren’t expecting. as long as you are alive there is

hope! never stop dreaming or imagining it could happen. who knows what this New

Year brings?’

‘Hope’ … came to my mind, when I read this … I saw the candle in my mind… brightly burning.

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Remember What Granny Gee Says… Candle + Flame = HOPE

How Will They Know?  …and Was That Anger?

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

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‘HOPE’……     I read the words above, written by my friend.  The question ‘how will they know’, and the meaning of the word ‘hope’ came to my mind.

‘Hope’… that word has so much meaning to me.  At one time in my life I could have just succumbed to my life-threatening illness… ‘let go’ … I had already given up hope.  I ‘knew’ I was going to die, no ‘if’s and buts’…. it was just … a matter of time.  When?

Remember when I wrote about being diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma?  My words can in no way describe the hell I lived in for 3 years (strange enough …. the number ‘3’ is so, significant in my life).

The horrible, painful tests… the chemotherapy treatments… losing my hair from the effects of the chemo medicines (this happened twice), how sick I was, how when ‘friends, family’ saw me… they turned their backs on me,the needles, the horrible surgeries that left me in pain for the rest of my life, learning to hold things in my hands again, to walk without help… I can go … on and on, I won’t.

You get the ‘picture’…. but, you don’t ‘know’… you just don’t know… unless you’ve walked ‘in my shoes.’  In others’ shoes who have been there…..

Just one ‘little thing’ such as when Skip would take me with him to get me out of the house… to the supermarket.  I would walk so slowly, my body full of pain, drugs… we would see ‘our friends’ see us… turn their backs, walk quickly out of sight to another aisle.   They could always say ‘oh!  I didn’t see you!’

My ‘family, friends’ didn’t want to see me…  I was ‘a goner’, they were afraid of me.  Just think how such affects a very sick person… I cried during those 3 years just as I’ve cried for my son’s death… only it’s worst with my son… I lost my child, my only child.

I don’t know if one can ever truly put 3 years of trying to recover from such an illness … into mere words.  You could never know, see the pain, grief of knowing you were going to die, how many times you cried, mourned ‘your own death.’

Combine all the ‘little things’ I wrote in the above paragraghs … it still doesn’t touch ‘how to describe.’  Skip was the only person, our Pups… who gave me reason to live… and when Tommy found out.  Skip gave me reason to live… when Tommy died… he and our Pups.

Not my ‘family, friends’… they contributed to my loss of hope.  ‘I was already …dead.’  You see … I could still ‘see’ through my drugged, foggy mind, with my eyes.  I could ‘feel’ through my drugged body.  I could ‘hear’ with my ears.

Did I just ‘feel anger?’  I think I did, when I remember my nephew hurting me not long ago.  He became ‘full of himself’, he was just beginning college, was popular because he plays golf well… when I complimented him… he began saying ‘remember when you didn’t come to see us?’, and such things … he’ll never know how wrong he was to do that to me.

I’ve always loved them with my very heart.  Skip was very upset to know he could have acted like this… he expected more from him … we always ‘knew’ he’d be somebody… we never knew …. he’d be somebody to hurt me.  That’s ‘who he is’ now… to me.

He doesn’t know ‘anything’… he was too young.  I still ‘see them riding by merrily, waving.. with smiles on their faces’ as I sat there on the steps… my happy smile to see them since I’d almost died, dissolve into tears, crying.

No one cared…….  why didn’t you come to see me?  I’d just gotten out of the hospital, lucky to be there… I was thinking of you all …. why didn’t you come?  You contributed to my loss of… hope.  Had you ‘let go’ of me in your minds… just happened to see me ‘still there’… pretend nothing was wrong as you went merrily your way?  For one of you to grow up to say ‘do you remember when you didn’t come to see us?’

I have just vented something I didn’t know ‘was there’… I thought ‘those feelings’ were gone, I didn’t care anymore.  You just saw … nothing ever goes completely away … when pain has been inflicted upon us … no matter that we fight to forgive so, we can go on.  We don’t forget….  anyway… my life, my story ‘goes on’………

Then, came the time I accepted dying … I had no hope…. my candle was barely burning … I became calm inside …. I won’t go on.

I laid on my bed with no hope, accepted the worst that could happen … I didn’t fight anymore.  I was like a deflated balloon, I had no more air to fill it out anymore …no more air to gently blow on my candle of … hope.

I worried for Tommy, how it would affect him, if it’d make him begin trying to get back to the USA to me… if he knew.  He was in Germany.

I made Skip promise not to tell him, he didn’t for a time… when he did ….Tommy meant to come home to his mama.  Tommy … did.  ‘Neither hell nor high water kept him back.’  He meant to get home across that ocean……

Hope … look at that word.  We all take it for granted… I don’t, I know better.  Hope … is a word that is most special, it creates miracles… puts light into a dark world… it guides one toward life.

Hope … when you think of hope now… remember something Granny Gee wants you ‘to see’ …. in your mind.  When we ‘see a picture in our minds, we always remember.’

‘See this’……  a candle with a bright, burning flame sitting on the table in front of you.  Look at it, watch it…. do you see how brightly it burns?

Imagine that flame begins to lessen… it could go out without some kind of attention.  This could be due to all kinds of things… example:  like when I gave up hope, ‘knew I was going to die.’

The flame almost burned out… until … life was breathed back into the flame!  Imagine … gently blowing on the flame to make it come alive again… hope begins to shine again…  this is the point miracles can, will happen.  They do happen… they did happen to me.

It takes different things, maybe unexpected ways of making the  flame take on ‘life’ again … to shine ‘hope.’  Sometimes, at the moment it may even take ‘mean things’ to make the light/hope shine again….

Remember, I told you that we need ‘mean people sometimes to do good things in this world?’  :))) I don’t mean Skip is mean … I’m just saying!  :)))

For example:  my ‘candle began to shine again, reflecting hope once more in my dark world from ‘mean words!’  Skip said those words to me, knowing if he could ‘reach my fighting spirit (we all know I have a ‘helluva fighting spirit!)’……. that I’d begin fighting to come back… not die… live!

Reach my fighting spirit, he did!  At that instant when he spoke to it, I ‘knew I wasn’t going anywhere!’  He ‘made that flame burn very bright.’  He touched my emotions with his words, he meant for me not to die… he gave me my Hope again.

I meant to live, I meant to live… live, I did!  I meant it …. I put ‘my foot down, held my ground.’  Like Tommy, neither ‘hell nor high water kept me down.’

So, through time… when my candle seems to burn dimly … I look at it in my mind … I gently begin blowing on it ever so gently, so as … to bring it back alive again.  Miracles, good things begin to happen.

I’m not saying I’m so positive, so cheerful, life is perfect all the time for me…. not!  Remember how I told you that I’m not perfect at all … how I tried once to be … failed miserably?  Well, I’m … still not perfect.

Guess what?  I’m an imperfect Granny Gee/Gloria… so, never think of me as ‘she’s perfect, she has everything, life is just as she wants it, and all that good stuff.’  It’s not true… our life everyday is a struggle just as a lot of other people we know.

But… that’s okay.  I don’t think any of us were meant to be perfect … or how else do we learn to feel emotions that are important … if we didn’t, then… I’m sure everyone would be dead.

Why?  Because… no one would learn from mistakes to know what’s important such as … love, caring, feeling for one another.

I reach the point from time to time since then… I almost give up hope.  Until something Skip says (he knows ‘exactly how to push my buttons’)…. brings my ‘fighting spirit’ back out.  Once that appears … we are going to have a ‘helluva fight!’  I’m going to … win.  :)))

Oh, I just want you to know … I know ‘how to push Skip’s buttons’, too!  :)))  I can’t let you all think that ‘he is the only one!’  :)))  I’ve made him ‘fight, too.’  Skip has almost died several times … I know my words … made a difference, too.

Hope … that one little beautiful word … imagine the flame on a candle … that’s ‘Hope’.  Don’t let it ever go out.  Even if you aren’t perfect, and even give up sometimes like I do (we just aren’t perfect at all!)…… always come back … to the candle in your mind…. what does it do?

It burns with a bright flame … Hope.  If the flame is dim… just breathe on it gently… bring Hope back into your life, your heart.  Sometimes, the simplest things… are … so hard to do.  I know with my imperfect self.

‘HOW WILL THEY KNOW?’  This question came to my mind when I read my friend’s words…  ‘at the ver least you

have learned how important it is to tell your story so future generations can

know you.’

This is how they will know.  They will know through my words, my photos, my ‘pictures I paint with my words’, just as my artwork I paint, draw, create with my ‘Granny Gee/Gloria’ hands.

‘Candle… Flame =  HOPE    

Granny Gee’s instructions for never losing HOPE are:   If the flame appears to lessen, burn dimly in your life … no matter what the circumstances are … begin breathing gently on the flame to make it light up the dark world around you.

If you do that… you will begin to see other candles … your flame, your life will join others in never giving up, to always have HOPE.

Remember Granny Gee’s words if you ever find yourself crying, sad, in whatever circumstances life throws at you.

Remember … HOPE.   Just think of a candle sitting alone on a table… gently blow on it.  Watch in your mind… as your world begins to … brighten.  Look around in that ‘darkness’… see other flames yours will join …. making light/Hope shine for …everyone.

These are my words, my thoughts this morning.  I hope I created ‘artwork’ in your minds with my ‘word painting.’  :)))  I don’t apologize for the little vent of anger in my today’s story … it is real life, it really hurt me.  This is my story, and as that song goes…. ‘I’m sticking to it.’  Real life is like this….

See… I told you that I wasn’t … perfect.  I need to write that 500 times…..

Granny Gee isn’t perfect.

Granny Gee isn’t perfect.

Granny Gee isn’t perfect.

Granny Gee isn’t perfect.

Granny Gee isn’t perfect.

I’m … still … not … perfect.  This doesn’t help at all.  :)))  But, I’m still a ‘good Granny Gee/Gloria.’  I know I’m ‘mean, sometimes.’

Don’t be mean, Granny Gee.

Don’t be mean, Granny Gee.

Don’t be mean, Granny Gee.

Don’t be mean, Granny Gee.

Don’t be mean, Granny Gee.

I’m … still … mean, sometimes.  This doesn’t help at all.  :))) But, I’m still a ‘good Granny Gee/Gloria.’

Remember I told you …. that we need … mean people in the world … sometimes?   I’m just saying…………………….  :)))

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I Bet You Magic Would Happen … I’m Just A Darn Human!

I Bet You Magic Could Happen … I’m Just A Darn Human!

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

I felt pain in my left knee, oh, how it hurt so. As I walked, the pain in my body every day of my life made itself known. Pain inside my heart, I miss my son. Physical pain, mental pain… when I think like this… it’s all about ‘me.’………

I don’t know if this is good or bad, but… I don’t just think of ‘me’ at all. While I’m trying not to dwell on the different pains I suffer in my life… my mind goes to this person, that person.

I think about the pain in your life, the things you shared with me… whether it be in person, commenting on my blogs, emailing me, writing me.

My heart feels another pain in it…. ‘your pain’ that I felt when reading/listening to your words. Because…. my heart cares, because I can’t help it. This is another one of those ‘whys’…. that aren’t ever answered. Why do I care so much?

I can grieve for the bad things that happen in your life. It pulls at my protective instincts to wish I could do something to keep things in your life from hurting you anymore.

Do you remember how when you are younger, you just know you are going to ‘save the world’, you will protect everyone you love, care about? Remember how you would fight for every ‘underdog?’ Remember……. ??? Why would you want to remember?

Because… suppose we all could have went on to really save the world (I mean ‘every person, every animal’)…. we all could have protected everyone we loved, took every underdog under our wing…… wouldn’t this whole world be completely different? Wouldn’t it be filled with love instead of hate, anger, cruelty?

Because… if you are like me, really wanted to do these things, really thought you were going to… then, as you grew up… you realized that you, as one person can’t do but, so much. So what happens when you realize this?

You begin to hurt deeply for the world you meant to save, for the people you love… you couldn’t keep painful things away from them, you couldn’t protect every underdog.

You begin to cry inside for them, feel their pain, your pain because you aren’t big enough, strong enough to help …everyone. You do good taking care of your own.

Because … it takes money, love, time, caring a lot of times to help others, you can’t possibly help ‘everybody’, because you are only one person. It takes one after the other ‘to form the links in a chain’… that goes ‘forever’……………..

So, what happens… we have to turn our heads, close our eyes to others’ pain, not see when they are hungry, someone mistreating them, hurting them. I have to do this so, I can live… so, I can bear this kind of pain for … some of you.

What do you do? You always have in back of your mind as you live with your own pains in your own life, cope with your own life ………. the lives of others who go through the same, or go through worse, or go through even more… worse.

The whole world is in pain… and it affects my heart… I cry inside. I have at times… almost wished not to live with such… pain. I feel it so much …inside ‘me’…. outside ‘me’….

I cry inside for you, everyone… animals… every living being. Why am I like this? Why do I even care about people, animals? Why do I have to turn my head, close my ears, shut my eyes sometimes? I can’t bear the pain that I can’t prevent… all I can do is… care.

I feel, I listen with my heart to you when you write to me, tell me what your life is about. I’m honored that you share with me the things you have… I feel special. I feel you know I care with my very heart… or you wouldn’t have bothered. I hope you will always share, write to me. I love hearing from you… everyone.

My message to you is that I want you to know that this one person, Granny Gee/Gloria Faye Brown Bates….. would make all the pain go out of your heart, life, if it were anyway possible. You would never know pain again… I know how it feels.. it hurts too bad.

I would put a protective golden ring of light around you… wherever you went in life, you’d be protected. Every underdog would never have to be afraid to be themselves, they could walk knowing they are safe, protected.

The strange thing is that I would also, be this way toward my ‘enemies’. I would care about them, too.

I just wanted you all to know this. Why would you want to know this?

Because … I wanted you to know that all you’ve shared/will share with me is important to me. I honestly care, I keep you in my prayers, I want good things to happen to you, in your life.

Because … if I could I would make sure your life was a good one, no one would hurt you again.

In my mind I imagine a golden ring of light around each of you who have come into my life… I imagine this around all my loved ones, too. I pray that this golden ring of light protects you from harm, from pain, leads you toward the good things in life, only good things … touch your life.

Do I sound like I’m dreaming? Do I sound silly? What do you think would happen if we all began to think like that, imagine like that? I bet you … magic would happen!

Our minds are very powerful… our thoughts can change things. We forget that, I forget that. Why? Because I know I’m not perfect… and I act just like a human. Why? Because… that’s what I am … a darn human!

I wish I were magic! I wish I could make dreams come true, put millions of smiles on many faces… I can see it now! I can look out over the whole world… I see only bright light!

The light is reflecting from every face in the world until I can’t see any one person’s features! Why? Because the light is too bright… from wonderful happiness! If Granny Gee could do that, she’d be for real, magic! Good magic!

Smile, laugh … pretend for a moment, pretend I’m not in a state of wishful thinking … pretend for a moment that I made something beautiful happen in your life. Can you close your eyes, feel that wonderful thing?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could do that? Can you see now, what I would do… if I had the power to? Now… I hope that what you saw comes true… it will be because you attracted it to yourself with positive thoughts! That’s magic! Our thoughts are powerful, magic, special……..

I sit here in the golden ring of light I imagine around me, also. I am thinking about you all this morning. I always think of so many of you who have entered my life since I began writing … do you know how I treasure every one of you?

You make me feel like I’m someone special, you make my writing have meaning when you read… no matter if it’s silly :))), serious, painful. You have become so important to me. Why?

Because … you care enough to read all these words I write! I write lots of them! It means the world to me that you do! :)))

You care enough to comment a lot, you email me about you… I love it. That’s just special! (Tommy used to smile… because when I used the words ‘that’s just special’… he knew something had touched my heart… and he ‘knew’ when I would be saying them :))

I wish I could say that I’m positive all the time in my thinking. I can’t say that honestly. Life sometimes, overwhelms me making me think negatively… forgetting that when I ‘fill myself up with good thoughts’…. good things happen in my life.

See, I forget what I told you…. our thoughts are very powerful. I forget…. to think good things when life pulls me down. I forget because …… I’m just a darn human …… and when I think in a positive way … magic happens!

If we all thought in such a wonderful way… I bet you magic would happen!

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

This Grieving Mother’s Blog Touched My Heart, It Will Touch Yours…

This Grieving Mother’s Blog Touched My Heart, It Will Touch Yours…

http://mysteryoriley.wordpress.com/emmitt-owen-riley 

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

I’ve been reading this morning on a blog … a grieving mother’s blog.  I have been so engrossed in it because… I felt the pure grief from her words.  That’s ‘why’… I couldn’t just… leave, go on.

Also… I never could find blogs that actual grieving mothers wrote, really wrote from the pain in their hearts… I only found several all this time.  So, I am following her blog to not lose, or forget about it.

Her son disappeared on….. May 29, 2007 to be found in the water I think on June 02, 2007.  He was very young, 20 years old.  No one knows what happened.

May 29th… the date my son died…. three years apart.  I didn’t realize it at first until… I read May 29th…. I just stopped, stared at it, so surprised.  Now…. I can never forget her son… a connection was made… it’ll be in my mind forever… just as May 29, 2010 is… the date Tommy died.  May 29th..

I could feel her grief ‘now’…. even ‘now’.  I was grieving for her son as I read some of her blog.  I ‘felt’ how it feels to ‘not know’ where her son was… missing.  I ‘know how this feels’… my son disappeared for three years… I never knew if he was living, or was… gone forever.  I can’t write about that… that’s for ‘one day’……….  I ‘still know that pain’… too.

What struck me was that her son… always told her that he ‘had to live fast’, he ‘knew’ he wasn’t going to live a long life.  He told her that ‘the ravens were following him home’ not long before he disappeared.

I will put her blog website here so, you can go read if you are interested.  It touched my very heart.

http://mysteryoriley.wordpress.com/emmitt-owen-riley  I think it will touch your heart, too.

I hope my readers will check her blog out, too.  I think it will touch you with the words that come from her heart… it did mine…. I was ‘in suspended grief’…. like a cloud hanging in the sky… the whole time I was reading.  I was in ‘suspended pain’…. I felt her words, her pain, her pure grief.  I recognized it.  I know it.

I just let her know that I was touched by her blog… I put it on my Blog List here… I will keep going back to read, follow.  You can look on my Blog List here on my blog…. I treasure each one there.  :)))  I just learned how to arrange them, add them… and such!

Read ‘why’ she named her blog ‘mystery o riley… mysteryoriley’…. her young son loved mysteries… and might have loved the mystery surrounding his last moments.

My impression of her son as I read…. he ‘knew’ his life was short, he lived it to the fullest,he felt he had to live fast…. I felt that he could have been an angel.  An angel who came into her life as her little baby… born to touch her life, lots of people’s lives in his special way.

I think all of our sons who are gone… were angels.  I think all of our daughters who are gone… were angels.  They were in our lives for special purposes… it was up to us to learn from them.

I’m glad to have found your blog….

http://mysteryoriley.wordpress.com/emmitt-owen-riley 

 

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THE FACE OF A GRIEVING MOTHER

THE FACE OF A GRIEVING MOTHER…

BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES

This morning I got up feeling like I was still in ‘yesterday’ when I sat for several hours writing about what happened to my son (The Worst Happened… Oh My God).  I think it will take a little time to get past ‘being burned by the flame’… I ‘went into the fire’ yesterday when I wrote my story.

I really got burned this time… it hurts bad… it’s so hard to shake the remnants of such pure, raw, grief off …this time.  My mental skin is painful from the burns I’ve suffered… going back.

I noticed last evening how I felt after finishing my story.  I could imagine how an actress/actor felt after playing a role in a movie.  I thought that it must be hard ‘to come back’ to now… reality.

I felt this way when I finished writing my last word.  I could still feel the grief, the pain… my eyes felt like I’d been crying alot.  In fact, I was crying alot, I just didn’t realize it.  I was ‘back then’.

My head has felt like I was still in the fog that kept my path to my memories hidden.  Today, I am still pushing through the fog to get off that hidden path… I want to be on the path with sunshine so, I can see where I’m going.

I want to put mental flowers and trees in front of this hidden path to hide the entrance… I can look at beauty to distract my mind from going there.  I know that I will go there.  Instead of parting the limbs and flowers back… I will instead, pick a flower to smell its wondrous fragrance… maybe pick more to make a bouquet.

I will walk away… hopefully, satisfied that I’ve found beauty and hold it in my hands…. instead of finding the grief I know to be hidden there, and walking away with pain in my heart.

This is the first time I have made myself ‘go back’ to remember so much.  So much has been forgotten.  I don’t think I could bear to go ‘back to then’, again.  I can’t describe the pain, the grief of doing that.  Being a grieving mother, I ‘know’ that I will go back … again.  I hope not for some time.

I know there are flowers and trees there now, they weren’t before.  Only that stark, foggy, scary path was there.  For now, I don’t have to see it unless….. I part the trees and flowers to see if I’m tempted to enter.  I hope I won’t be… this time was ‘too’ much.  I think in my mind, I will put a colorful rainbow there, also.  I’m always distracted by colors.

The strange thing at the funeral home ‘that night’… somehow, I was standing there, outside.  People were all around, someone said “look at that rainbow in the sky”.  I remember looking up, my eyes searching for the rainbow, I saw it.  I wonder if Tommy helped it to be there…. he knew his mother was always distracted by beautiful colors.  I was thinking for a moment back to what I have not told you about… at that funeral home.  Oh my God.

I can’t think about ‘this’ for now.  My stomach feels sick, my heart is so heavy, my eyes feel like I’ve been crying for so long.  I will have to wait until later to tell you about ‘at that funeral home’, so.. you can know too, what that was like.  I thought I was strong enough to do it now… I’m afraid I still have to gather more strength to be strong enough to tell you.

This is a mental picture of a grieving mother.  She holds her head down, cradling in her lap a pool of clear, sparkling tears.  They are the teardrops of pure, pure love for her child.  They are the diamonds of her eyes, because her child is gone, they still shine and sparkle with her love.  Liquid diamonds fall freely… teardrop diamonds of the purest love in the whole universe.  Love for her child.

Yes, every teardrop is a… diamond.  Her soul is rich with such love one can never describe in words.  I am a grieving mother… you would not believe how rich I am in teardrop diamonds…. each made of the purest love for my child.  They sparkle, they shine with the purest of love.  I miss you, Son.  Tommy, I miss you with my very soul, you were my only child, my only baby.

A grieving mother… one can’t imagine what a grieving mother goes through.  It’s so easy to say that ‘in time’ she’ll be alright, when in fact, it does put distance between ‘then’ and ‘now’.  It doesn’t lessen that pain in her heart, the grief she’ll feel for her child until the last breath she takes.  Her tears will form diamonds for the rest of her life.

It doesn’t matter what anyone says… how can they possibly know?  I don’t know if anyone ‘really takes time’ to sit and talk to a grieving mother to ‘really see’ what she thinks, what she really feels.  Truthfully, others ‘can care’… but, they ‘don’t really want to know’.  I understand ‘why’… they know it can happen to them… it really can… you know, it happened to me.

I was like that ‘before’ it happened to me.  We think we can walk around confident ‘those things happen to others, not to us… somehow they must choose that to happen in their life’.  I promise you that it not only happens to you, you don’t have to choose it… it happens so unexpectedly.  It ‘chose you’… you didn’t have to do a thing for it to happen… to you.  I know… it happened to…. me.

I know no one has ever taken the time to just stop, say ‘tell me what it is you are really feeling as a grieving mother’.  I think the reason ‘why’ no one takes that time to talk to a grieving mother is …. they can’t bear to look directly at such emotion because… it’s too horrible.

They would be burnt by it, just as you would be if you accidently stepped into a fire.  Just that ‘seeing’, that ‘hearing’, just ‘feeling’ that raw emotion from a woman who has lost her child ‘if’ she were to honestly show it in front of you….. you wouldn’t be able to cope with seeing, knowing such.  You would suffer a… mental breakdown.

As a grieving mother, I know that I won’t let anyone see how I hurt inside, I won’t cry in front of anyone.  I will walk away from you to keep you from seeing something so personal, so private, ‘so… so mine’.  It’s mine, it’s my love for my child, my only child.

I’m glad I’ve begun writing… now, I can talk about grief, grieving. I don’t have to worry about anyone looking to see if they see tears, pain in my eyes.  I don’t have to feel embarassed, no one can see me.  I don’t have to worry about making someone feel uncomfortable around me.

I can write about the emotions, and whoever reads my words can take away something hopefully to know someone else can possibly feel the same way they have, or do.  I can write, and whoever reads what I write will want to read, nothing is forced on them.

So, I won’t cry on your shoulder, or make a spectacle of myself in public, nor make you uncomfortable.  If you read my words, it will be because… you really want to.  You can see and know inside how this feels, because……….. it really could happen to you, it really happened to me.  I didn’t choose for it, to.

No matter that we know one day we are going to …. die, no one wants to.  We don’t want to outlive our children, we want to watch their lives come together and see them… finally succeed and be happy in life.

Tommy was talking about going back to school.  He’d been talking to a parole officer, and he was encouraging Tommy into that field.  He was very interested and he really listened.. this was just prior to his…… death.  Actually…just days ‘before’…….

As a grieving mother… did you know that each time I type the words ‘die, death, dying’, or anything to do with ‘death’… I feel sick in my stomach?  I make myself do it… each time I do, I feel a wave of pain in my stomach.

I just sat for a moment to let the feeling subside… it’s pure grief, you know.  It’s just pure grief.  Sometimes, I want to be so angry, I want to scream out in pain.  I don’t…. I know that it won’t change not even one thing.  I hold all these powerful feelings inside myself.

I don’t think there’s a body big enough to hold all this kind of pain without there being an outlet of some sort.  Thank-God, I can write… I can’t just talk about this verbally.  I just can’t do it.

I want to be positive and try to handle it all in a positive way.  I don’t want to stay down and not stand back up…. that’s the ‘easy’ way out.  Thinking about it…. there’s no ‘easy’ to it, either down or up.  Whoever coined that phrase didn’t know what they were talking about…… ‘that’s the easy way out’.

In regards to a grieving mother…. no way is easy, even if they were to stay in a drugged state.  I stayed in a drugged state for 3 months… I know.  I’ve never been on drugs in my life, but, I begged to be drugged.  Isn’t that amazing… I begged to be drugged.

In my life, I’ve met things head-on to knock them out of my path, so, that I could survive, live.  This time, I almost couldn’t……………… I never felt the need for drugs, nor alcohol…. until this one time.

I’m glad I didn’t continue with the medicine, I almost died from taking too much.  I realized Skip kept calling me back from that darkness, wanting me to be alright.  In fact, I think he put his foot down about that medicine… he never ‘puts his foot down on anything’ regarding ‘me’.

He watched over me as I slept too deeply, worried over me… he couldn’t bear seeing me like that.  He said he could see my breathing almost stop, and he couldn’t bear it.  He wanted me to fight, to come back.

When either of us are sick, such as when we both were diagnosed with cancer… we had to pull that fighting spirit out of each other…. to make us fight to live.

I promise you that Skip and I…. know exactly ‘how to press the right buttons’ to pull that fighting spirit out!  :)))  We call it ‘Dangling The Bait’… our way to make the other succeed at something we find so hard to do, we make each other ‘get up and do what you have to do ..to overcome’.  I smile now, thinking about him ‘pressing my buttons’.  I know how to do it, too!  :)))

Skip, my hero… you pulled me back.  I’ve never loved a man as I love my husband.  Our pups stayed by my side wanting me to be here, also.  If I don’t have anything else, and I really don’t… I have Skip, our Pups … who are perfect for me.  I have all I need.

Do you know what’s strange about being drugged ‘then’… I could talk, laugh in that state.  I know I had the sensation of ‘floating’ and ‘drifting’ from here to there.  I described it as feeling like ‘a leaf being blown about in the wind, when the wind stopped, I stopped…. when the wind blew, I blew’.  Somehow… I was ‘here and there’, ‘everywhere’.

That medicine somehow.. protected me from what I saw, felt at that funeral home… it made me ‘float above it all’ trying to keep me above the sea of grief, so, I wouldn’t drown right there in front of my son’s body.

I was like a balloon, softly bouncing here and there, everywhere.. to where he lay, away from where my child was in that… box.  Back to where he lay… I don’t know where I was… I only have all these fleeting images in my head.

One could imagine a balloon getting away and just taking off up in the sky until it disappeared.  It made me think of something unusual just now…… that happened when Taban was born.  We went to buy a gift and a balloon to take back to the hospital.

We came outside, I was holding the balloon… it got away from me.  I’ll never forget standing there helplessly watching it go farther, farther away from me… to never see it again.  I wonder if it was an omen to let me know that …. I wouldn’t see Taban anymore, one day?

I don’t see Taban anymore… his mother broke that bond.  Tommy would have been so sad about this, he meant for his mother to know his son… he knew that it was impossible for his daughter to know his mother… her mother made it impossible for him to know, his child.   I realize the mother had to go on with her life, she began dating soon after Tommy’s death.  That’s when mine and Taban’s relationship was broken.

Truthfully, I know I sound bad… and it is bad, for now… I do hate her.  This is from someone who tries very hard to be a good person.  In this instance… I really am a very bad person.  I’m the first to say so.  I’m ashamed of it… I am working on forgiving her for things I can’t write here.

No one is perfect, me being the fartherest ‘from perfect’.  I know I sound like the ‘best’ person sometimes… sometimes, I’m not.  I know where my faults lay, I really work on them… constantly.

I do still feel hate, anger, dislike… I’m not sure honestly…. if any of us can truly get that out of our heart to …never feel it again.  I’ve tried as hard as anyone possibly could… I manage to ‘almost not to’ hate.  I feel that as long as I try very hard, I’m succeeding.  If I didn’t do anything, I think that would be worse.

I’ve had to just ‘let go’.  This has compounded the grief over losing my son.   I realize this has happened to many grandparents, I’m not the first, I certainly won’t be the last.  I don’t understand ‘why’ a grandparent can’t have a relationship with the grandchild… though the woman is with another man.

I think possibly because that ‘other man’ resents both the child and the ‘previous man’.  Then… comes ‘the next to that man’, his parents.  I never saw Tommy act like that with her children and their father.  He even had the highest respect for their father, and liked him.  Truthfully, I think the mother of the grandchild should be strong enough to make that decision… not a boyfriend.

This is my opinion… especially when a boyfriend is a drunk, a no-good scoundrel, and doesn’t work.  All he can see are…. money signs.  This happens in this area quite frequently… women think they are loved when their husbands die… they don’t know about those ‘Widow Seekers’.

They ‘want the money, they want to be supported, cooked for’… while they buy them a new pickup, ride around bragging that they don’t have to work.  Why… it’s surprising how much respect they get… I’ve watched this for many years.  This is another story I have written about some time ago… The Widow Seekers.

I ‘see’ them, and there’s no respect ‘here’… from me.  They play on the emotions, manipulating them like a weaver weaves her colorful threads to get them ‘just right’…. to make a cosy, soft blanket to wrap up in against the cold.  Watch out for those Widow Seekers.

They don’t like for you to ‘know’ them, they will go in the opposite way if they realize you ‘see’ them.  You threaten their cosy, soft blanket… how else will they get to keep warm… if you stop them?  They don’t work… it takes time to manipulate a widow… no, they don’t want you near if they know you ‘see’ them.  I ‘hide my seeing’… and watch, listen, learn.

Life can be very sad… for so many reasons.  It takes so long to one day realize how petty, how unimportant the reasons were to prevent a grandmother from knowing her grandchildren, much less a father knowing his child, one who cared, loved with his heart.

Tommy always sent each week, money for his daughter… no one ever made him do it, he was never in court to be ordered to do it… he did because he loved his daughter.  He began doing this at the beginning, even giving the mother his bank card to take the money each week.. trusting her to do right.

Not only did she take the money each week, she took money to pay for treating her friends, and buying other things… that wasn’t the agreement.  She was a young girl who didn’t know what an honor it was for a man to give his bank card to her…. and they were divorcing.  Amazing…..

I remember looking at that balloon as it glided through the air until I couldn’t read ‘It’s A Boy!’ anymore, and for a brief moment I wondered ‘if that was a bad sign’.  As quickly as that thought entered my mind, I shut it out.  This is going back to Taban, my grandson.  Above .. I talked about not seeing him again.  This thought and mental picture comes to my mind when I think of him.

I think ‘now, at this moment’… I’ve been getting on other subjects, I am ‘getting past’ my visit to that dark world now.  I feel my face relaxing, my stomach doesn’t feel sick and my heart is lighter.  I think talking about the Widow Seekers helped me.  I love to talk about them… their ways.  They think they are so ….. slick.

I find humor in thinking about them… I love to find ways to describe them.  These are some of the most charming creatures in the world… they sing, dance to the rhythm of … money.  They smile the brightest, they are happiest, most wonderful souls.  They have it made!

You will never see a wrinkle, if you do, there won’t be many (the ones that are there were put there while they were ‘seeking’ a widow…. it was taking too much time!) on their faces.

Truthfully… I know we need ‘all kinds of people’ in this world for ‘all kinds of things’.  Regardless… we have to have things to think about, to study, to laugh and talk about…. so, we can be distracted from the grief, pain, sadness inside each of us.

The colors of life …. can distract one.  I’m glad to be seeing them now… instead of the darkness I thought I’d never escape… for a time… I really thought I would permanently be a part of.  Colors distract me, I’m happy to see them.

A note…

I do work on my hate for the one person I feel it for.  I’m sorry I ever felt it, because at the same time… I love that person just as much as I feel the ‘hate’… for that person.  I’m not perfect… I can only just try to be a better person, the best I can be.

At this moment ..truthfully.. I don’t feel hate at all… I honestly think what I called ‘hate’ is really… pure ….. anger.  I only feel that at times, so… I’m getting somewhere, I’m making progress.

I’m sure that’s what really counts in life… trying to replace negative with positive… replace hate with love.

In fact…. I’m sure that in life…………. love is the whole reason we live, we all need and want it, we would die without it.  Yes, in my opinion only… I think ‘LOVE’ is the secret to life, it’s so easy to do…. yet, so hard to do …sometimes.

Love….. that’s all I would like to carry in my heart.  It’s so light and happy, doesn’t ‘weigh’ anything.  Hate…… is so dark and heavy, and pulls my soul down to the ground.  Love is like the rainbow in the sky… filled with many colors.

Colors of life.. colors in Granny Gee’s life… if it’s a fairy tale… I still want that!  I will ‘go find me some rose-colored glasses’, if that’s what it takes to not feel ‘bad’ feelings inside.  I hate to hate.. I don’t like dark colors unless …. I’m happy enough to wear them… lightly!

To My Son, Tommy:

Diamond teardrops, dancing in the rain

sparkling, shining to hide my pain

colorful rainbows in the sky

distract me so that I don’t cry

I loved my child with my heart

Tommy, I’m so sorry life pulled us apart.

My son, my heart, my child

I love you.  Your ‘Ole’ Mom

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates