What You Need To Know about Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

 

 

From time to time I have to remind others ‘why?’ I write. I don’t write to gain pity … I write to live. Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

 

Think of me as the strongest, biggest Redwood tree in the forest.  I’m still standing after all Life’s storms.  Pray that I have beautiful, calm weather until the end of my days.  I would love to know that for the rest of my life.  Gloria Faye Brown Bates/Granny Gee.

Artwork by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee  … I’m still standing.

 

 

This is the link to this story I wrote today … 2-29-2016 … I want to tell my new readers, friends, followers ‘why?’ I write ……. I want to remind everyone who knows me why I write grief, pain … I write as I promised about grief, pain when it happens, how it feels.  

 

 

http://new.mylot.com/post/2898107/this-may-be-the-last-time-i-tell-what-happened-to-tommy

 

 

Don’t you dare feel sorry for me.  Think of me as … envision the biggest, strongest Redwood tree … I’ve weathered many of Life’s storms … twigs, limbs are missing … but … I’m still standing.  I hope now … at this point in my Life … that the weather be wonderful … calm … until the end of my days.  I’ve had enough grief, pain for several lifetimes.

 

 

I have been writing since November 2010 …( I’d been writing all my life … but, I began my blog: ) … just a few months after my son … Tommy … died. When I began my blog I made the promise to all my readers/followers/friends I would describe pure grief, pain of a grieving mother.

 

I didn’t need anyone’s sympathy … I never thought of anyone as I wrote my pain. The truth is … writing my grief, pain … saved my life. While I was in darkness, the keys under my fingertips gave me comfort as well … as an outlet for my grief.

 

 

My grief, pain flowed like the biggest river in the world … rocks hurt like h___ … I still flowed on to … wherever. In fact, before someone says something to add more pain, grief … say empty, useless words … I asked people to just come into my blog to read quietly, leave just as quietly, go their way.

 

 

My beautiful Son … big as life … in a truck stop on his way to somewhere … taking a selfie.  I miss you, Tommy.  Your Mama miss you with her very Heart.

 

They could see how it all felt, never having to experience in their life … grief, pain of a grieving mother. I promised my readers that I would write grief when it happened … as it happened … and I would tell the raw truth about grief.

 

 

No pity … no feeling sorry … read like you are reading something else … if you learn something from my grief, thank God. I pray no one ever goes through losing a child … only child like I did.

 

 

This logo was made just for me by Donnalyn, several years ago.

 

 

I didn’t need all those comments that you are going to always hear people say … such as … ‘oh, he’s in a better place now … he’s sitting down at the Lord’s table eating … you don’t have to worry about him anymore … oh, you’ll get over your grief in no time, like in the next few weeks … the worst one I heard, that fills me with pure, white anger is … oh, I understand, I know how you feel.’ I understand, I know how you feel … can you imagine someone telling you that when they’ve never experienced grief?

 

 

Needless to say … I didn’t say a word to those people … I never forgot them … I forgave them for their careless words. Can you imagine modeling your life after someone who has never experienced what they are ‘selling’? Can you? Can you imagine listening to a pastor preach empty words when he has never experienced being saved, the true feeling of love, compassion, caring for his congregation?

 

 

My son, Tommy … holding his newborn son … Tommy had one son, and one daughter.

 

 

Can you imagine telling a grieving mother that you understand how it feels, her grief should be over in oh, probably … 2 weeks? Can you imagine being told that by someone who has never lost a child? Can you imagine someone who has never experienced the pain, grief in their life … try to tell you how it feels? How you should handle it?

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

I want to share with my new friends … and new readers/followers on my blog … what happened to Tommy one year almost to the day he died … what he suffered … what his mother suffered, what I was grieving for …. before he died. I was already grieving for Tommy one year before … he died. Tommy ‘died’ … one year before he …. died.

 

 

Every writer knows that in order to write … be real, sincere … they have to write what they know best in life. You can’t fool your readers .. they know when you are being an imposter.

 

 

I write what I know best in my life since being a child … all the way until today … I’ve known grief, pain … awful things throughout my life. I know grief, pain … best. Just remember this when you read ‘me’ … I don’t write to gain your sympathy, pity … I don’t need it. I truly don’t need anyone’s pity.

 

 

Tommy is holding his newborn son …

 

 

I have grown very strong throughout time … think of me like you would a … redwood tree. I’ve withstood many, many terrible storms. I’m weathered, beaten … missing a twig or two … but, I’m still standing. I’m still weathering storms … I do pray for sunshine, calm weather … I would like to rest from battling the storms in my life.

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

I would like to tell you this … to remember also, about me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee … I’m the most positive, happiest person you’ll ever meet who is a grieving mother … a person who has battled cancer … congestive heart failure, motorcycle wreck … lost over 19 family members (not just any family members but, the ones I truly loved with my very Heart) … whose husband has battled cancer, almost dying again twice with strokes, heart problems … blood infection in his body from a tiny cut from old wire … lost all in a housefire … the ultimate loss … losing the only child whom I loved the ground he walked on. These are only … a few things ‘BAD’ that’s happened in my life.

 

 

My published book of grief, pain … writing this book saved my life … if you asked me what is in it … I can’t tell you … I can’t remember … I can’t open the book to read it.  Over a thousand pages of pure grief … pure pain.  You are looking at my life raft … writing this book is why I’m here today.  Writing this book makes sure my son, Tommy, is remembered forever.  It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t sell … doesn’t matter at all.  I have my copyright from Library of Congress on this book ( I have 3 copyrights on the 3 books I published).  They don’t sell … that’s okay … I still have my copyrights, and I’m proud to have them … I did it all when I was in the deepest throes of grief.  Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

 

 

This is only a fraction of what I’ve battled … so, this is what I write best … pain, grief, sadness. I write it to tell you that no matter how bad … things DO get better … no matter how BAD … they will get good again I can smile now … when I thought I couldn’t ever smile again … I mean how does a mother ever smile again with the knowledge that her child died?

 

 

It does happen … a grieving mother can smile again … but … this grieving mother had to make a choice … either stay in the darkness and not cope with the loss … or … meet it head-on … no matter how bad it hurts … battle it like you would battle with a bear … I did … I was going to either live … or die.

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

I’m smiling … I am here five years after my son’s death … yes, I still go through bouts of grief … oh my, I really do. Those times are farther apart … and I recover from them quickly now. Does it … lessen the pain, grief … when it comes again … no.

 

 

To write my story … on my blog for maybe the last time about what happened … I had to transport me back deeply into the darkness where I knew my grief, pain was for my son … doing this … something I don’t do anymore … took something out of me … for several days until now … I still feel the pain deeply. I can’t do it anymore … if I do … it may be years down the road.

 

 

For now … in order to understand me, my type of writing … one will have to go read on my blog … this is the link to what happened to Tommy … exactly one year leading up to his death. Link to my Blog: Colors in My Life … /2016/02/this-may-be-last-time-i-tell-anyone.html

 

 

A grieving mother … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

These are only words trying to describe by writing … living pain, grief … they are in no way the same. I couldn’t describe how … it really felt. Know that as you read … there was so much more than what I wrote.

 

 

Unless you are a mother who suffered with her child … then … her child die … you can’t understand at all. The closest you can come to that is … get very quiet … think of one of your children … think of what that child means to you … what you love so dearly about him/her … think of the sounds that child makes when they laugh, talk … everything that makes that one person your child.

 

 

Now … the phone rings … you see your child’s cellphone number pop up on the caller ID … you smile! You answer … you become confused because a stranger is trying to tell you something. What? What did you say?

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee … a grieving mother who can smile today.

 

 

“Ma’am, I have a man collapsed here on the sand … he’s not breathing.” You have just found out before anyone knows … you are 200 miles away … you learn from a stranger that … your child is dead … he is laying on the soft sand at the ocean where he’d just arrived on vacation to play with his own little boy.

 

 

Your son has just collapsed on the sand … died that fast … 3 blockages to his heart. No one knew he was sick.

 

 

At that very moment … only you and the stranger and his family who cares for the man’s little son to keep him safe … knows your … son is dead.

 

 

The little son is wanting his daddy to get back up … “Let’s run, play … Daddy!”

 

 

I see you can’t bear to think of your child being … dead. I know you can’t … I couldn’t before my own son died. I’m sorry I made you feel pain, grief when imagining losing your child.

 

 

It’s the closest you’ll ever come to understanding a grieving mother … until … I pray you’ll outlive all your children. That’s the way it’s supposed to be … parents should never outlive their children.

 

 

My beautiful Son, my only child … Tommy

Born November 20, 1969

Died May 29, 2010

 

 

 

Children are our world … our family support when we have no one else … children carry on our name, inherit all our possessions and knowledge. Children are truly the … wealth of our world … when we teach them to be the best they can be.

 

 

Children are our everything. Now … I only have Skip, my husband … and our 2 dogs … they are truly the only family I have left in this big, old world … they are my whole world.

 

 

I have no one else … but, you … my online friends, readers and followers. So, my whole world, Skip and our 2 Pups … and you … mean everything to me.

 

 

 Tommy Mitchell Sidden … my only child, my Son.  This is the last photo taken of him driving to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina … he died that evening … collapsed to the soft, damp sand by the ocean’s waves washing ashore … where he and his little son played just minutes before …  May 29, 2010 … on a Saturday evening.

 

 

 

Just remember whenever you read anything sad, painful that I write … that it’s coming from a most positive person who has traveled many journeys in life … who has felt the pain from many things … who knows how so much feels … who truly knows no matter how bad … everything will be alright.

 

 

Good comes from … bad. Don’t even feel sorry for me … feel how strong the redwood tree looks when you stand below it … it’s still here after many storms have tried to take it down.

 

 

I am short, 5′ 2″ … but, I’m tall in spirit. In soul, I’m larger than life … from all the experiences, journeys I have taken in my life.

 

 

I have no room for pity … I’m not a ‘poor little thing’ … all broken into pieces … I worked very hard … to put ‘me’ back together. Sure … a piece falls off … now and then … I begin scuffling to put it back so … I can be alright again.

 

 

So now … you have an idea who Granny Gee/Gloria is … a strong person who when knocked down … jumps back up, dusts her pants off … holds her ground to meet life head-on … no matter how painful it is. Sometimes, it takes a little time to get up … I always manage.

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee … in this photo you can see the gold nugget necklace that was around Tommy’s necklace when he died.  He wore it always … it is my class ring melted down into a gold nugget … 11 grams gold.  I gave it to my son … his wife gave it back to me … it meant the world.

 

 

 

Don’t feel pity for me … don’t think when I write my grief … I’m reaching out for someone to feel sorry for me. I don’t need it. Just care … go on … open your eyes wider when you see a grieving person … have compassion, not pity. Just simply … care with your Heart.

 

 

If you say something sincere in your own words (not a bunch of ___ you’ve always heard) … it’ll mean the world to that grieving person. Don’t recite a bunch of nothing just to have something to say … don’t say anything … just hug … care … if you can’t say anything … real.

 

 

Know that I am a for-real good person … I’m most real. I love everyone … see through fakey people … don’t waste time on them. Life’s too short to let others in my life that aren’t sincere.

 

 

I will voice my Gloria Opinions in a moment … I’ll respect yours and you respect mine … I won’t argue anything with anyone. Why? Because I simply don’t have to … it’s not worth the grief, pain it causes.

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

 

One last thing … I’m known for some times, writing long stories. I have to … it’s part of being me. You don’t need to tell me … I already know. I don’t do it all the time … only when … it’s important.

 

 

Photo/story owned … written by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

 

Photo is of the only tattoo I most likely will ever have … in memory of my son, Tommy. He loved dragonflies … dragonflies show up in my life at the oddest times.

 

 

My Tommy Dragonfly Tattoo created for me by Jason Wilkins at Revelation Ink & Piercings … his new shop will open in early March 2016 in Raleigh, NC (Wakefield area).  Until then, you will find him at his shop in Louisburg, NC at Dystink’d Tattoo.

 

 

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Laughter Echoes From the Grave …

Laughter Echoes From the Grave …

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny as a young, beautiful woman who never took happiness for granted.

 

 

 

Ha! Ha! Ha!  Did I hear an echo of laughter from the other side?  It came from nowhere that I can see … I looked carefully.

I just got kicked in the teeth by someone I was told not to trust.  My Grandma Alma told me not to trust that person.  What happens?  Through time … be damned if she wasn’t right!  How did she know?  I thought I heard laughter … from the grave!

My first cousin told me that I had the wrong impression of someone who used to be in our family … I thought that person was truly good, and had loved her all through the years.  My cousin tried to warn me by saying, “Gloria, she’s not what you think she is”.  I would just nod my head showing I heard her.  I never wanted to argue.  I felt sorry for that person … she only showed me her ‘good’ side.

My first cousin got killed in a freak accident.  A log truck hit her head-on.  She didn’t get to tell me more about the person she told me wasn’t who I thought she was.  She didn’t have to … I began connecting the dots.  Oh, how right she was!  Ha! Ha! Ha! Did I hear an echo of laughter?  Did it serve my ass right?

Another first cousin told me about another family member saying don’t ever trust that person.  She’s the wicked witch of the west.  She’ll sweeten you up for the kill, stab you in the back … eat you!  She’ll try to find all your weaknesses, cut your legs out from under you.  Well … I never trusted that far to find out … never will.  I never heard an echo … none at all.  I pray he rests in peace.

He’s not the sweet, good person you think he is.  He’s been in your family for years, and you think he’s so good.  He’s really mean, ugly to your ……..  he does things he shouldn’t … has, throughout the years.  Why he even went with your ………. ‘s girlfriends! and ex-wife!  Disbelief … I learned by seeing, listening to the ‘horse’s mouth’.

Yes, he did all those things, and more.  Did I hear his laughter from the grave … do I hear the words, “I fooled you, bitch”!  I hope not … I always gave respect, geniune love that might not have been deserved … then again, that person treated me very good.

At one time in my life he made possible for me to have a home to come to as a young woman.  I was, and have always been grateful.  He never treated me out of the way … never.  So, for the person I thought he was … I’ve never regretted loving, respecting him.

He always treated me good … until at the last.  The last several years of his life … when I actually saw, heard from his own mouth … him dating and asking one of my …………’s girlfriends, and ex-wife to marry him.  The reason he wanted me not to see, hear, be around was … he saw his actions broke my Heart.

He actually told me things … he was embarrassed but, he had new-found freedom … I sat, listened quietly … not letting the pain, grief, disappointment show.  Somebody was right before they died … I don’t hear laughter from … her grave.  I only feel sadness.

I can’t tell you the grief in my Heart for so many close family members who have died … all in just a matter of maybe 8-10 years … some dying close together… not only on my mother’s side of the family … on my father’s side, also.   That’s not counting some of our Pups we used to have, love with our Hearts.  That’s not counting the friends we truly loved, cared about.

I truly loved, cared about every one of these people who died … as a child.  I even loved them after being mistreated by some of them … I grieved for them after each died.  Strange enough … the ones I loved most … as a child … have died.  The very shaky foundation my young life was built on … pure crumbled.

There are some family members living today … I loved them with my Heart as a child … in adult life … we’ll never see nor be a part of each other’s lives.  It’s the natural ‘hate thing … natural distrust’ we all inherited in our make-ups.  Love is there … but, there’s no way anyone would, could know it.

I have a brother I love who lives not 5 miles away … I’ll never talk to, see him again in his/my life.  I have another brother … same thing.  Isn’t life sad?  There’s no way it can happen.  No love, but love-hate … no trust … no foundation to meet on … all crumbled away with time.  Family members being jealous, or in-laws … separation as children, not growing up together … no bonds to hang onto.  The young, tender bonds were snapped, stretched through time when growing up apart … when they broke, that was it.

Life is sad … this said … I will say I love each one in my Heart … I have already accepted such some time ago … I’ve coped with it … and let go.  It’s all one can do … I can’t just … lay down and die because I can’t have family relationships … of course … I wouldn’t.  I’ve come too far, coped with too much to  … just give up.  I have my Grandma Alma’s fighting spirit … it isn’t there ‘for nothing’.

I must have some purpose in life … though I’ve never figured it out all these years.  Only once did I ‘figure out why’ … when I survived cancer.  That was when I began getting recovering from cancer.

Skip was diagnosed with cancer in the 3rd year I was beginning to grow stronger … I ‘knew’ it was for me to care for him just as he did me … he could see I was recovering from being near the edge of death … and he could do the same.  I remember telling him right in the oncologist’s office after she told him … ‘now, I know ‘why’ I made it.

I should have died 16 years ago with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  Skip had colon cancer … he is a 14 year cancer surviver … colon cancer.  We survived … cancer.

Do you know what was most strange about those years of fighting for my life?  Not one family member … ever knew or acknowledged how sick I was.  They would drive right by the house we lived in … if Skip happened to have me outside on the porch … they would wave cheerfully, never missing a beat.  No one ever stopped, nor called.

I am amazed thinking back at that.  My mother would care sometimes … then, her youngest sister would make her think I wasn’t sick.  Jealousy … pure jealousy.  Her youngest sister always was jealous of any of her sisters’ children.  Her tongue was her weapon … mean, evil words came from her mouth … yet … she could say loving words, caring words that would melt my Heart.

She wanted her sisters to always have their attention on them.  The good thing is I wasn’t aware of this until several years later.  My mother said her youngest sister would always call me ‘The Queen’.I never became angry … I could only feel deep sadness.  I still loved her.  I wanted her to love me, too. She secretly hated me, was jealous of me.  I won’t even go into things she did to hurt me, then pretend she never meant to.  I wasn’t the only daughter she did that to …of her sisters’ children.

I could keep on writing as more memories float to the surface like bubbles in the ocean.  My writing begins to go on this path, that path in my life through time.  I will stop here.

Sometimes, when I learn something in life … or find out something it seems everyone knew but me … I wonder if I hear echoes of laughter.  Echoes of laughter fromt the graves of my … loved ones.

Note by this Author:

Photo/story owned, written by me, Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

Grief, pain are old friends of mine … I don’t think I ever knew life without them after the age of nine.  They were all I had to hold onto … happiness were those brief times of sunshine in my life.

Happiness was something I always felt wasn’t meant for me … I used to think I wasn’t good enough, important enough.  I never take happiness for granted.  I enjoy it for all it’s worth when it happens in my life.  🙂  It’s sort of like when being a little girl … I knew Barbie Dolls were for other little girls … I knew somehow, they were never meant for me.  I, also, knew that other little girls could be in the Brownies … it wasn’t meant for me to.  I knew I wasn’t good enough.

It’s a good thing we grow up … cope with painful things in life … learn to live, handle all.  I think I did well.  🙂  That’s why when I was beautiful in my younger life … it meant the world to me … I was ‘good enough’ for … everything.  I had everything and everybody liked, wanted me.  Isn’t life sad?

People love material things … and if they think they can get something from someone … they will grovel at their feet.  Just watch beautiful, ‘rich’ people … just watch yourself … you will find that you do the same thing.  Life is life … it is what it is.  You might not like it … but, it’s the way humans are.

Oh … I wonder if I hear echoes of laughter from the graves of my loved ones?  I remember being told as a beautiful, young lady I used to be told … ‘don’t get so high up … the higher you go … the harder you fall’.  I fell hard … Ha! Ha! Ha!

Isn’t life sad?

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I Saw Grief In a Father’s Eyes Today

I Saw Grief In a Father’s Eyes Today

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

 

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee … I met up with pure, raw grief today … it affected me deeply.  I am walking on this road … I haven’t met up with anyone else before … whose child has died.

 

 

 

Today Skip and I met up with an old friend of his.  We haven’t seen him for years.

We told him that Tommy had died, and I saw pain instantly appear in his eyes.  His son died just months before Tommy died.  I saw the grief in his eyes, on his face.

I could tell the grief made it almost impossible for him to speak.  I knew how he felt … I’m on that same road in my life.  I didn’t press him to talk … I told him I was so sorry from my Heart.  His son was only 36 years old.

I could almost ‘see’ the grief … I looked at him … I sensed his mind was so full of unspoken grief.  It didn’t feel good looking at him … I sensed he hasn’t come as far as I have in coping.  Actually, it hurt me to look at him.

I know no other way of describing what I saw, and what I sensed.  He wasn’t the same person I remember.  The light was gone that always seemed to be in him years ago.

His eyes were so … full of pain.  I saw what people must have seen in my eyes … gracious.  It hurts me at this moment thinking about his eyes.  I saw raw grief in a father’s eyes today.

 

 

 

Author’s Note:  Photo/true account of how meeting up with pure/raw grief today affected me … owned, written by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.  My Heart feels so sad for that father.

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I Believe in the Right to Die With Dignity …

I Believe in the Right to Die With Dignity …

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

Photo is owned by me.  The friend (Cindy) who made this for us never knew how comforting I found this light in the bottle to be. Even my photo of it … comforts me.  Why?  Because light chases the darkness away.  I’ve been in darkness too much in my life.  Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

 

 

This is another controversial subject I’m going to write about. I’m going to tell you how I feel about it.

I respect your feelings, your way of thinking on this subject.  I would never think I can tell you what to feel, think.  I will let you respect my feelings, way of thinking … I couldn’t let anyone tell me that my way of thinking is wrong.  How do you know?  How do I know?

So, before I go on … I can see your way of thinking as well as my way of thinking.  It’s just that my way of thinking ‘feels right’ to me inside my Heart.  These are my feelings that are … right for me.

I have been in the position of dying … of knowing I was going to die.  I know what it feels like to … know … there was no need of buying me pretty clothes … Ty Beanie Babies for my collection … no need of doing anything extra for me.

I knew I wouldn’t live to see a future.  I didn’t want money wasted on me when it could be used for more important.  This was my way of thinking when I so sick …

If you’ve never been to this point in life … being sick with a life-threatening illness … so close to death, I can’t expect you to understand.  The only way you will be able to make such a decision as I’m going to talk about … is to go to the doorstep of Death … if you can come back from it … you can make a judgement.

I’ve been there a few times in my life.   I was dying from cancer … non-Hodgkins lymphoma … the suffering, tests, the time it took to find out what was wrong with me before surgeries … took several months.  Only surgery could … save my life.

After the surgery … I was told I could die before I opened my eyes to see who was telling me I had cancer.  I never saw her … I never saw the oncologist that saved my life with the aggressive treatment she used … and others didn’t understand why she chose that.  It worked … it damaged my heart.  It was a trade-off to live.  I’ll take that.

I remember I thought she was a big, tall presence.  Later, months later when I began to be aware of things … I really looked at her, saw that she was tall but … not big.  How did I think she was ‘big’?  Because later I found out she lost a lot of weight.  Strange how I perceived her … I never saw her clearly and was drugged up.

When I heard her booming voice … the nurse, Skip were sitting me up in a chair in the Intensive Care Cardiac Unit … that’s the first I remember.  All I could see were tall letters in my mind when the oncologist’s voice said … C A N C E R … in giant letters.

I’ll have to describe the strange feeling, thoughts that played in my mind when I couldn’t see around me …  because of the drugs given to me, the weakened state I was in.  I kept thinking I could go back on the other side if only … I could go back, not have cancer.

I was dying.  For some reason, I kept ‘thinking I could go back to being all right if …. ‘

I could see an invisible line … if I could just go back to the other side of it.  I lay in that dark world … my mind kept trying to take me back … to the other side of that … invisible straight line.  Strange I know.  I’ll examine that closely one day.  I’ve never taken time … why does it bother me … now?

I know now, I have lived 16 years when I shouldn’t have … not many made it.  The new oncologist told me not long ago, I shouldn’t be here … 98% didn’t make it with what I had, and as sick as I was.  I was at Death’s door the morning I had the first surgery to remove the huge mass off my lung … resting on my heart.

I will have to take time to sometime, think about what if anything I have done of value during the precious sixteen years I was given.  I don’t think I’ve done anything so special.  I should have at least been some kind of hero or something.

Anyway, dying with dignity.  This is how I really feel after making it back from the Cancer Journey in my life.

I feel if I’m at the point of dying … know that I’m not going to live … laying in agony … or becoming a ‘vegetable’ … I should have the option to end my life while I’m aware.  I feel I should be able to say my goodbyes if by that time … I have anyone to say goodbye to.

No one knows it … I had my option to let go of life … if I knew with certainty I was dying, no chance of living.

I knew I wasn’t going to live … I was preparing.  The thing is … strange thing is … something kicked in (I do think it was that infamous fighting spirit I have :).

When it kicked in … I began seeing in my mind … the future.  The future where I could see me doing things once again.  It was like putting a colorful toy just out of reach … to encourage a child to learn to walk.  If he wants it bad enough … well, you know the rest.

When that happened, I began forcing myself to sit up (oh God, I could never tell you the horrible pain I had in my chest … get a thoracotomy … you will always know.  I had two thoracotomies exactly one year apart … I have ‘forever pain’ you wouldn’t believe).

Anyway, no matter the horrible pain … I couldn’t see straight for the powerful medicines I was given … I made my body raise up, stand up, hold onto things to walk.

I could barely walk … and go only a few steps.  Tears ran down my face, I couldn’t breathe for crying … I kept doing this for many months.

I had become determined to live.  I wanted to live … I wasn’t accepting death without one hell of a fight.  When I did these things … I would fall into bed … in agonizing pain.  No matter, I meant to get strong.

No one can ever know the agony I was in … I was alone while Skip was working as a fleet manager in a produce company.  I tried to be strong when he came home so, he could go to work, know I was all right.

Not only that … if he even thought I was suffering … he would become very upset.  So, many times I have to say … I fooled Skip into thinking I was so tough, strong … we have to do what we got to do.

That wasn’t a bad way to fool someone … at least in my situation.  It did make me personally stronger, and I made it.  It gave him comfort … he just knew I was still me … and I could do what I said.

After 3 years of fighting the toughest battle of my life … I made it in time to go with Skip to the doctor, then … oncologist … to be there when he was diagnosed with … colon cancer.

Skip had been caring for me, working his ass off … and he was … dying with colon cancer that had begun coming through his colon.

I’ll never forget what I said to him at the moment he went into shock.  I said, “Skip … that must be the reason I lived … so, you could see that you can make it.  I’ll take care of you just like you did me”.

I will say this … when I became aware of Skip being sick … something wrong … was during the time I was very ill.  I couldn’t make decisions for myself at that time … had to hold onto things to walk.  My body was in bad shape … I was on powerful medicines.

Skip came to me during that time, told me that he’d been bleeding.  When he’d ‘go’ to the bathroom … the commode would be filled with blood.  You know how sick I must have been when I couldn’t jump up from there … make him get to a doctor.  I wanted to … but, the state of mind when one is very ill … you aren’t yourself.

One day, I raised up out of bed after Skip told me he wished I could see all the blood.  I meant to see it … I knew deep down something was wrong.  Skip had been suffering with terrible cramps in his legs.  Ripping cramps up the inside of his legs.  This had been going on for months.

I made Skip help me to go see … my knees buckled under me, he grabbed me.  I began crying … I knew then … Skip had colon cancer.  The damn crazy thing here is … I ‘knew’ … but, being so sick I couldn’t keep it in my mind … I couldn’t make him go to the doctor … I couldn’t help myself.  Months went by …

This is what happened as time went by … I had something in my mind that ‘made me’ know I was going to get well to do.  I meant for Skip to go to a doctor.  I knew … he was very sick.  Skip … like me … is strong … has a fighting spirit that matches mine … maybe stronger.

I know our neighbors heard me crying through the walls of our home at that time.  They just didn’t know that I was beginning to force myself to do things in the house again.  I had a purpose ….

I made myself hold a broom … my hands had forgotten what a broom felt like.  So hard, splintery.  I made myself put clothes in the washer.  I began to mop … sure the area was very small … it was a beginning.  I burned my hands as I stood at the stove staring at the eye on top … it was hot.

Somehow I had forgotten … like a child, I didn’t think about it burning me … isn’t that amazing?  I took something out of the oven … letting my hand touch the top … I learned from that burn … not to touch hot things.  Now … I knew that … but, forgot everything during my illness.  I am amazed when I think back.

I began to do little things … in my mind … I could see me in my future being strong, well again.  I knew I wouldn’t be letting myself die … with dignity.  I knew I was going to live.

You have to know that knowing I could decide what I wanted to do … if … I was going to die … gave me comfort.  I needed that comfort … I didn’t want to live not having quality of life, someone having to care for me.  So, no matter what anyone thinks … that’s the way I felt … still feel.  I won’t argue it with anyone.

A person who has never experienced this … can talk all they want to.  Put their ass in the same situation … see what they do.  It’s funny how things change when the person who talks loudest … experiences pain, agony, near death.  You find out what you are made of.  You find out … that your whole perspective changes on life, death.  You find out … you know nothing.

So … those who run their mouth about this or that … don’t really know anything … maybe they’ll get to know firsthand … then, we can see what they think.

It’s like in my situation being a grieving mother … I lost my only child … having listened to people who ‘knew it all’ about losing a child … find out they don’t know a damn thing … they don’t know how it feels to have their own child … die.  Some people … hadn’t ever had a child … go figure.

Until people can walk on those roads in life … they can only ‘guess’ at what they would do.  I promise you … they won’t do all these things they so loudly say they will do when … tragedy strikes.  I promise you that.  It would be good if they kept their mouths shut … not make an ass of themselves.

They do not know a damn thing.  Admit it … just say I think I would try to do this or that.  Not ‘if my child dies I know I’ll do this, I know I’ll do that’.  Like I said … you don’t know a damn thing.

I don’t even listen anymore to people … like you.  It’s probably best for you to tell someone who has a weaker mind than I do … I don’t want to hear it.

Why … would I listen … to you  …tell me something you’ve never had to deal with in your life?  You’d be like a teacher trying to teach … never having an education … not a foot to stand on.

It’s like someone telling you how to drive … never driving in their life.  It’s a whole different ballgame …

Anyway … unless one knows from experience … it would pay to tread lightly when saying things around people … who have survived trauma, tragedy … bad things in their life.  You don’t want to make these people … teach you a thing or two.  You really don’t have to say a thing excepting … I care, I’m so sorry.

This is some … I never said it’s all I think on the subject of death … of what I think about dying with dignity.  In my case after experiencing what I have with near-death …  it’s for me.  I believe in it.  I believe in hospice … keeping someone from suffering.

I believe in my case, my life … I would want to have a tablet to take when it came time that I knew I couldn’t come back from my illness.  I can’t speak for you … only for myself.

I believe in the right to die with dignity.

 

 

Note by this Author:  Photos/my thoughts on this subject are both owned, written by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter.

 

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Claim Your Space in This World … It’s Yours

Claim Your Space in This World … it’s Yours

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter … 2014

 

Loneliness is the enemy of people who have no one.  Loneliness can cause a person to make costly mistakes.  Loneliness tears a person down … when they go out in public … a person feels isolated, disoriented … not a part of anything … anyone.

There have been times in my life that I’ve experienced loneliness.  It’s an awful feeling.  Through time I experienced it when I was home alone with no one to talk to, be near.  Skip was driving long-distance.  We stayed on the phone constantly.

This is a different kind of loneliness … this loneliness is from having to be away working, while I was at home.  It isn’t the kind of loneliness I’m writing about today.

The loneliness I am writing about is the kind of loneliness I see in several people I care about.  They don’t have their someone special … someone who will come home to them … someone that is there … someone who cares what they say or do.

Everyone, no matter who you are … needs that special person.  You don’t have to be married to them, nor do you have to live together.  All you have to do is … care.  You can care … even long-distance.

I was thinking about this as I was worrying about a friend who is lonely.  She gets very sad, feels there’s nothing to be happy about.  I read something she wrote.  It hurt my Heart.

I wrote back to her that loneliness can cause someone to make costly mistakes.  I didn’t want her to do that.  Nor did I want her to waste time while … waiting … for a certain someone to say ‘I love you’. Why?  Realistically … the person may never say it.

All that precious time wasted … waiting for nothing.  How many times have you … waited in your young life … older life … for someone to say ‘I love you’?   You know you have at least once if not more … in your life no matter how popular, good-looking, ‘perfect’ you are.

I’ve been observing a couple who have been dating for 7 years now … both are still uncertain how the other really feels about the other.  Each uses anger to control the other.  They won’t speak for a couple of months at a time.  Oh my God … look at all that precious time being wasted. They are old enough to know better.

I wasted precious time in my first marriage when I wasn’t priority in it … other women were.  I was just a very young girl, very naive who married someone older … who’d already been around.  I was innocent.  I still don’t hate that person.  I’m old enough now to know … life can be that way … no matter how sad.

Fourteen years.  I did it out of love, and my child.  Why?  Because I came from a f___ked up family, broken home and I didn’t want my child to.

It didn’t make any difference … all of those young, precious years were gone.  They weren’t appreciated by anyone.  I was the loser no matter how much I loved, cared.  My child was the loser, also.  It didn’t get me anywhere.  All I learned was how bad life hurt … how damn sad it was.

The danger here when a very young person is involved … is that young person who has only known pain in their young life … is very fragile.

They will begin to think no one wants them, they aren’t any good to anyone, they are so lonely they can’t bear it anymore.  They are … fragile emotionally.

You know a person can be treated bad only so much in their life.  When a person gets that far in their thinking … the next thing they think is … the world would be better off without them in it.

How do I know so much about it?  Because from the time I was very young I had learned I was in the way and if it wasn’t for me … this could have been.  If it wasn’t for me … that could have been.

I caused so much grief in everyone’s life unknowingly, so innocent … being a little girl.  If I could have known, had a choice … I would have chosen people who would have wanted me, give me a good life.  I sure wouldn’t have chosen to be born in a crazy-ass family.

When I learned it was me who caused this, or that … well, you know what can happen … it did … more than one time.  I learned about wanting to die … several times I almost succeeded.

I won’t go into any of that.  I may write about it later.  Words can’t in no way make you feel the pain of such times.  I can’t even begin to relate to you what I went through as a young child … young woman.  I can’t even describe the pain while in the process of … committing suicide.

Okay … you say ‘well, you aren’t the only one who felt pain’.  I say back to you … that I’m writing about me … not you.  You go write your own stories if you are tough enough to … let someone learn from your experience … share it.  Give someone hope that everything can be all right.

When I write … I hope someone can learn young … early enough to not waste those precious young years … older years you have left in this world.  Learn to love yourself … your world is about … you.

Then … someone else … after you’ve taken care of you.  I wish I’d learned this as a young girl, woman.  I look back … ha! ha!  I can’t see anyone who could have taught me such things.  Only my Aunt Frankie tried in her quiet, sweet way … then, someone would jump on her.  I was too young to understand but, years later … her quiet, sweet voice … her words were still in my mind.

I can write as a female, woman.  In today’s time … a woman can go, do things alone … and not look out of place.  She can do the things … she loves to do.  She can make herself happy.  She can be her best friend … or worse enemy.  She can love being alone with herself … crafts, reading, writing, computer, projects … the list goes on.

If she chooses to be her own best friend … have confidence to go, do all she loves to do … instead of holding back, sitting back … waiting for a man to come in her life … her life will be happy.  She is her own person!

Then … when a man happens to come in her life … she is confident enough in herself … he sees it.  He treats her with respect, loves her for being that person.

This all is my … Gloria Opinion … and God knows I have a lot of them.  The best about that is … I am very open-minded, known to change them at a moment’s notice.  🙂

Well, suppose the woman doesn’t have money to do all she wants.  I say this … find a way to get out in the world where there are people … good people you want to meet.  Church, libraries … groups … even at a shopping mall.  Open your eyes … do it in a safe way … always be alert.

You never know where your Prince Charming is going to be …. he could be shopping, wanting to find a book, or he is in church.  Maybe he has a special group that is important to him.

I would say men could do the same … since I am a woman, these are things I would think could make a difference in a lonely woman’s life.

Get out there where people are … they really won’t know you exist if you stay hidden away.  Make them aware you are a part of this world, also.  You do have a place in this world.  You really are important.  You just need to wake up, realize it.

Claim your space in this world … it’s yours so, make it yours.  You don’t have to stay lonely … not in the world we live in today.

……………………………………………………

Note by this Author:

I am not an expert at anything but … pain, grief experienced in my own life.  I guess I am an expert in the negative things in life … and when knocked down … I get up off my ass … ready to do it again.  I face life head-on … pain, grief and all.  Shove me down … I’m going to get back up …

No matter how bad … all will be all right again.  No matter how negative … I am a positive person.  There’s good in bad … yes, there really is … open your eyes and look … you’ll see.

I claim my space unashamedly in this old world …  and no matter what someone else thinks … I am important.  I respect myself, so will others.

Who am I to dare say such things when I’m a nobody from childhood?  I say so … I’m Queen of my mountain.

Sadly … I just didn’t learn this young enough to save all the precious years I wasted.  I’ve learned all the hard way … and learned I did.

It’s just a wonder I’m a good person today … I could have been just as bad as being a good person.  It feels good to be good. 🙂

Oh … this is only a little of what I think … about being lonely, not having anyone.  I am going to say here, I am very fortunate to have my best friend, lover, soulmate, special someone … my husband, Skip.  He, our 2 Pups, Kissy and Camie … are my entire world.  I’m so grateful for them.

There’s not a day that goes by … without me being aware of that.  I never take anything for granted.  What I’ve come through in life will teach one that lesson … good.

Photos/story are both owned, written by me.  These are my true thoughts and unless you can show me a better way to think about them … this is what I think.  I am very open-minded.  Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

 

Dusted Memories … Go Away

Dusted Memories … Go Away

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee

 

 

Dusting off memories from storage

In the back of my mind … I take several out

To examine, look at … to connect the dots

Connect the dots from events in my life

To tie in things to make them make sense

Too many mysteries … takes time to connect

Many things don’t seem to be related

Until … looking very closely … ah-hhh, there’s the connection

Hints, clues pointing to where the next line is drawn

Most people have a normal life

You live each day in a good way, you raise your children

Go to church, go on vacation … you are family-oriented

My life has never been that way

Oh, I got a little taste now and then to see

See for a very short time … how this feels, how that felt

My life would make a very interesting movie

One I wouldn’t want the world to know

Too much grief, too much pain … too many secrets

Secrets I will carry to my grave … never talk about

I force myself to forget … as time goes on, I do

Until all becomes a memory, stored in my mind

Rarely, do I take certain memories out, I can’t

Pain unlike you’ve ever experienced if you’ve lived a normal life

You can’t ever understand … you wouldn’t believe

Experiences most women never have … I have

Many bad things have happened in my life … I am still here

Standing here like a Redwood Tree … silent, strong, weather-beaten

Inside my bark, limbs, leaves are many memories

From storms gone by, storms you’ve never known the likes of

Here, I sit … dusting memories off … I wonder if I can look

Some memories go back, too painful for me to bear

Like the gold/red upholstered chest in my art room

Tommy’s chest … I want to look inside … I can’t

The light-weight lid isn’t heavy … I can’t lift it

I’m not strong enough, yet … but, I’m strong enough to pick it up

I may die of pure grief if I open it up … there’s things in there

I can’t touch, I can’t face … they are in a little pastel, green box

Photos … of my son … laying in under the light … in a coffin

Memory of my hand touching his head … oh my God, the back of his head

A mother’s fingers touching a place she shouldn’t have found

Little hard places, what are they?  Oh my God, stitches … a scar

From the autopsy … I was grieving so much, I forgot

My Heart is dripping tears inside … warning, I might drown

Drown in my own grief in front of everyone … all you see is a smile

Never knowing what’s in my mind … my grieving mother’s mind

What a happy, beautiful smile I have … one to put you at ease

Making you know somehow, all is going to be all right

Not a care in the world … you don’t see a thing

All I do silently … is invisible; I’m the greatest magician in the world

I can do many things in front of you, you never see

My mind is busy as it dusts the memories off … from the past

Guess what memory this is, what that is … oh, you can’t see

I am the greatest magician, not only that … greatest poker player

You can’t see anything I do … because I have the best poker face

I have played the cards of life … I have won a few, lost a lot

I’m not bitter … I’ve learned life’s that way

Life, death, secrets will … go with me to my grave

Life, death, secrets … strange things that make a great movie

Can never be told, never be shared in this life

It’s time to put these dusted memories back in place

Emotions, sick feeling inside … these weren’t the memories

I wanted to remember … sometimes, it happens this way

Dusted memories … go away

Note by this author:    Don’t feel sorry for me … I am still standing … everything is all right.

Photos are of my artwork, myself, Tommy’s Chest … poem written from feelings … from a deep place inside me.  All are owned by me… Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Ge

Fabric of Life

Fabric of Life …

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates

Photo is of Tommy’s Chest, with his photo sitting on top.  Photos/poem are both owned by me… Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

It strikes without warning.  It’ll knock you on your ass …to the very ground you stand on.

The pain is so great, you feel it all over… not in just one place

Scream all you want, it won’t do you any good

It’s not going away… until it’s ‘good and ready’

 

Struggle all you want, pull your hair, gnash your teeth

You may as well pretend you’re in Hell, go with the flow

You won’t get out of this, I see no way

Yes, you are going to take it until… you can’t take anymore

 

Grief… yes, grief.  If you don’t know it… go away, this isn’t for you

If you never lost a loved one, there’s no way you’ll understand

You go your way, I’ll go mine… you can’t follow here

I don’t need, nor… do I want you, you can’t understand

 

Is grief on earth the same as being in Hell?

I ask because I know no worse feeling than losing a loved one

A loved one who has died, quit living…. moving, talking

Someone who was a part of your life, your taperstry

 

Your child, your person… part of your life fabric

Now, there’s a huge hole in the fabric of life… your life

That can never be filled… there’s nothing to fit in it

Once that hole is there… it’s a forever hole

 

It Was Another … ‘Oh My God!’ … Moment!

It Was Another … ‘Oh My God!’ … Moment!
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

My precious Son, Tommy … Photos on a roll of film that laid around for years … unimportant ‘then …

We were talking … Skip was sitting down at his desk … I was standing beside him. His attention went to a roll of film that had been sitting on his desk, ‘forever’. I wonder what’s on this roll of film?

I had no idea what was on the roll of film. I know I’d taken the photos on it … the roll had been in the desk drawer, or up on the desk with the promise we’d get it developed. We kept forgetting this roll of film for … years.

Skip put the film canister back on the desk; we went on to forget it. How many times did we pick that little plastic canister up … wonder what was on it. I know I told Skip what I wished it would be, but … I knew it wouldn’t be. I was, of course … wishing for it to be photos of Tommy … it was impossible.

A month ago, Skip actually picked up the roll of film, put it in his pocket … took it to Walmart to have the film developed. It would be ready in two weeks. Well … we forgot the film once again … we waited much longer than two weeks to pick it up.

We had to go do some errands today … remembered the film. We stopped by Walmart to pick the photos up. I was going to walk away with the photos without looking in the packet. The woman told me to look inside … if there were any photos that didn’t take … she wouldn’t charge us for them.

I opened the packet, took the photos … and photo CD out to look at them. The first several photos weren’t good … one couldn’t see anything. I ‘knew’ the photos wouldn’t be ‘nothing’ … I looked through them, anyway …

Everything became quiet around me … oh my God … oh my God! Skip! Skip, you’ve got to look! The woman standing there became alert … what’s wrong? I couldn’t tell her … I was crying, quietly. I couldn’t look away from what I held in my hands.

Tears rolled down my face … my Heart was hurting … I couldn’t believe what I was looking at! Skip! I was holding my breath …

Skip was stunned just like I was … he was having a ‘oh my God’ moment, also. He reminded me of the wish I’d made sometime, ago.

The woman wanted to know what was affecting us that way … we told her. I saw tears in her eyes … she began to talk softly to us. It was like … so quiet … like so … special-quiet.

The photos were of … Tommy! They were taken on the day his little son, Taban … was born! The day … my only grandson was born … the grandson I will never know … today. Taban’s mother was in them just after she had Taban … her long hair was beautiful. I remembered how much I loved her …

I could still see what I remembered back then … on Tommy’s face. Fatigue … Tommy had driven his big truck hard, and long … to get to the hospital for the birth of his son. He barely made it! He parked the tractor in the parking lot of the hospital.

I was crying tears of pain, happiness at the same time. I just couldn’t believe my wish came true … I couldn’t believe … that little roll of film was so … important … would mean so much to me!

It truly was … an ‘oh my God’ moment.

Photos are from the film … that sat around the house all these years since the day I took photos when Taban was born … March 16, 2007.

I own these photos/story. Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

#oh my God!

#photos from the past

#grief, pain, happiness all at same time

#Granny Gee

#Gloria Faye Brown Bates

#Tommy

Sometimes … I Cry For The Pain Of It

Photo I took of moon early one morning when sitting at my desk … the moon was beautiful …..

 

 

Sometimes … I Cry For The Pain Of It

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Walking into the room, I look around … every wall, every nook and corner, is white. I have walked into a … white room … nowhere is there another color, nor an object. The room is full of … white.

Pain is like that, sometimes … in my life. It’s like the white room, I can turn all around me, looking for relief … and like the white, there’s only pain surrounding me … no happiness in sight. It’s all ‘white’ … dark pain.

Strange enough, all the while I feel happiness, I am sad. I’ll always be sad … too much has happened in my life … there’s no choice but, to be sad. The good thing is … I manage to find some happiness, anyway. I’m always looking for something to be happy about. I try to help myself … always.

Sometimes, though … I’m like the white room … nothing’s in sight but, the all-white that over-rules anything else, no matter how you would try to mix happy colors in. Sometimes, I cry for the pain of it … there’s nothing else in sight. If there was … it wouldn’t make any difference … too much in life has happened. I cry for the pain of it … even when happy.

 

 

Photo/story owned by me, Gloria Faye Brown Bates/ aka Granny Gee   #pain

 

A Mother’s Grief Never Goes Away …

Thursday, August 21, 2014

A Mother’s Grief Never Goes Away …

A Mother’s Grief Never Goes Away …
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Seagulls walked on the sand, flew up in the sky

Sunlight kissing their wings … as they soared

It came to my mind the evening my son died

I know the last sounds he heard were the ocean, sea gulls

He died on the soft, damp sand by the ocean

His little son was close by …saw him fall

Daddy, get up … come play with me

Daddy, won’t you get up … come play with me

He was too young to know his daddy had played

For the first, last time at the beach with him

He was too young to know how excited his daddy was

To be taking his son to the beach to run, play

Too young to know … his daddy had made it just in time

To play with him … to leave a beautiful memory behind

As he went to Heaven that evening … his spirit soared above

To look down with sadness at his little son he had to leave behind

Tommy, come home … the sea gulls sang

He watched his son call to him to come play

He drifted down to put his hand gently on his son’s head

His son looked up, never saw him … tears in his blue, blue eyes

Daddy! Daddy! Daddy, please get up! Come play with me!

He shook his daddy’s shoulders … he never moved

Young as the little boy was … he instinctively knew something was wrong

He laid his little blonde head down on his daddy’s chest

Wept for him … somehow, he knew Daddy wouldn’t be playing anymore

He felt a hand touch his shoulders, looked up, saw a group of people

Who became his guardian angels until his mother could be found

One picked up the cellphone that had fallen to the ground

Dialed the last number called … to a home two-hundred miles away

The woman answered with a smiling, happy voice

Hello, Tommy! An expression of puzzlement came across her face

When a strange voice answered her … why do you have my son’s phone?

It was my voice … I was the woman Tommy last called … I was his mother

My world ended that evening for almost three years

To this day, I still can’t believe my only child died, my son

So strong, so vibrant … so full of life; how could that happen?

Can you imagine such … imagine your adult child is gone?

You can’t imagine … it hurts too bad to think about it

A real person who grew up with his own special personality

With a voice, laugh all his own … a person whom you gave birth to

Your own beautiful creation … a real part of yourself

Someone you love with your very Heart, so thankful for

Knowing he’d always be there when one day you become old

Never expecting him … to die before you

If I’d been at the ocean, I would have cried with my very Heart

Son, please come back … please come home!

Photo Credit is mine… is of my son … Tommy, grandson, and owned by me, Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

Note by this author:

I write over and over about the evening my son, my child died. I try to imagine exactly what happened, see it in my mind. I will probably do this the rest of my life. I miss my son … though, somehow I’ve accepted his death … the pain is just as great.

The trapped bird sensation still fills my stomach at times, I feel panicky … sick inside. I want to cry out to the Heavens above. I try to think of other things fast, so, I won’t become lost in my grief.

Grief is an awful thing … it’s like falling into an ocean of darkness that threatens to drown you. It’s very hard to come back from. Thankfully, I had Skip and our Pups… they are … why … I came back. I had no one else left in this world but, them to come back to.

I’ve never felt sorry for myself, nor wallowed in self-pity. I stayed in the darkness for protection from the pain that hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt in my entire life.

I know Tommy can’t come back. I don’t question ‘why’ did he die. I know these are for-real ‘impossible’ things. So, that proves the old saying ‘anything is possible’ isn’t … exactly true. 🙂

I don’t feel bitter, angry because Tommy’s gone. I just feel the bittersweetness from the sweet memories of my son … my golden child. The precious baby I brought in this world.

Writing helps me to cope … through time, you will see me writing about this over, and over. Know that while I’m writing, I’m also, imagining at the same time how my son’s last moments were; what he heard … what he saw. If his soul soared above to look down at little Taban, his precious son.

Know I’m examining every little detail that I know, sense about my son’s death. Why? I think, I don’t really know, but … I think every grieving mother must do this. This grieving mother does. Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee