Posted by chdurie2 on September 22, 2000, at 11:29:41
In reply to Re: real life instruction manual? Hugs! And more.. » chdurie2, posted by Cindy W on September 22, 2000, at 9:29:08
> > > Dear Cindy -
> > > Read your post and am crying and praying for you. I am so glad you were able to be with her. Treasure those precious momments.
> > >
> > > You are close in my thoughts and prayers.
> > >
> > > May you be blessed and find peace,
> > >
> > > Chris A.
> >
> > Cindy W.--I'm so sorry. I really felt a tug at my heart when you told us your mom had died really glad to know that you got to hold her hand and cover her toes. when my dad was in his last few days, the hospital staff told us they encourage 24/7 stays by family cuz terminal patients know their family is there even if they can't acknowledge it. you know that i know what you mean by the grief of never having got to know her. last week, i wrote you a long post, but then the computer ate it up, and then i've had my own stuff going on, and i haven't been able to access the site, but i've missed you - you have helped me a real lot, and i hope i've helped you. maybe, sooner or later, this will open up the way for some closeness with the rest of your family. my brothers are now civil to me, although that took years to come. and unfortunately, my mom and i are less close. but hopefully, out of all the sadness in your family, maybe you can start to talk to each other. i'm really sorry that your time with your mom was so short, but it was almost non-existent the way things were going.
> > On my front, my biopsy Aug. 29 turned up a tiny malignancy in my right breast, stage 1 cancer, and i went back into surgery to have it removed sept. 13. i'm going to have a big, ugly scar right up front, but no lymph node involvement, no radiation, and no chemo. and no stray cancer cells left behind, so no more surgery. there's some pain but not that much...enough that i can't work for a couple of weeks (i'm an antiques dealer, and i lift desks and such a lot.) i was really very lucky.
> > there's been a lot of other stuff going on, like shrink crisis, persistent-no sleep to point of zombie-land (zyprexa nixed that, thank God), and now i have 15 days to cram my ass off for the LSAT exam, oct. 7, which i have avoided for two years and really want to take and do well on.
> > i'm babbling, but if you want to write, my e-mail is chdurie2@aol.com.
> > maybe when things get back to "normal" with your family, you and i can suport each other in cleaning up our respective landfills.
> > cindy, i'm so sorry. you deserve better. hugs and more....caroline
> Caroline, I'm so glad they got your breast cancer at stage l! Hopefully, that will be the end of it. I have a friend whose cancer wasn't detected until it spread to her lymph nodes, and she has had months and months of chemo and still has to go through radiation, and doesn't know if she will be OK or not. Will start working on "our respective landfills" with you very soon! Don't know if losing Mom will bring my family closer or not. Hope you get a great score on the LSAT! Love and Hugs, Cindy WCindy- you sound so great! Are you really feeling as good as you sound?? i don't know how much grief you're feeling, but i think the important thing to remember is that if you are feeling intense grief, it's for what could have been as much as, if not more so, than for what was. what was, unfortunately, was not all that pretty, and although you can change the way you think about that, you can't change the facts. My family "peace" took a long, long time and there were many awful arguments along the way -- and with one brother, nothing ever would have happened if my sister-in-law, who also doesn't have much family, hadn't intervened very heavily. Still, there's not a lot of love except in the most generic sense. And I also did a lot of work on myself to be the kind of person my family might want to be with. All in all, nine years later, i can't say we're close or that we'll ever be, but i'm no longer the black sheep. and dad's death made us realize that we don't have a lot of family, so we need to appreciate the ones we have while we're still alive. that said, you can't pretend to love or even like a family member if they make you crazy. but it sounds like, no matter how much your family may not want to say it, they must have some feeling that you behaved well in your mom's tragic last hours and days. i'm just suggesting that you be open to opportunites, or even create them, as appropriate, to bury your own hatchet and suggest that they do the same. my first cousin is in stage 2 breast cancer (discovered before mine) and i tried calling her when i first heard, and she will not talk to me - she won't forgive me for stuff that happened 25 or more years ago. that bothers me, but at least i know i tried. see what i mean?
and yes, mutual landfill excavation support would be really great, cuz living in a landfill, affects me in more ways than the many i'm aware of. A clean house or apartment, along with the emotional housekeeping that goes with it, could change your whole life. I know it could change mine. I got the BPD books you suggested, and they were very helpful. When you're ready to think about undertaking landfill clean-up, buy a book called, "Organization from the Inside Out" by Julie Morganstern.it's the only book i know of, of its kind, that deals with the emotional underpinnings of having created such a landfill, and gives practical solutions to address both emotional and logistical needs.
you can also access morganstern's site from oprah.com (i read the book long before finding oprah.com) and she says that if you have a real landfill, take pictures, and if your situation challenges her enuf, she'll give you (free) one hour of her mega-buck time to develop a strategy to clean it up and organize it. she says she's always looking for real challenging situations. telling you about this makes me want to send her pics of mine after the LSAT. best thing is, she says that for really indigenous clutter freaks like me, total organization and de-cluttering may have to occur in stages; that in the best of all worlds, you can't expect someone like me to reform overnight.anyway, hope i'm not boring you or abusing the board. you just give so much to everyone on this board when you have so much of your own. you're great! and don't forget that! love, caroline
anyway-i hope i haven't abused the site.
poster:chdurie2
thread:395
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20000813/msgs/625.html