Originally Posted by JoanieP

Hello, Mark,

I know that this thread is almost a year old, but I am new here, and started reading some different threads...this one...is so very "special" and I needed to read it...I know you Believe...He takes us where we need to go...

I also experienced much of the same in my life concerning the loss and grief of many loved ones. The first was my mother who died from suicide when I was 9 years old. I did not experience the first coffin or even the grave yard, just a family meeting after her burial at my great Aunt's house. Which was full of "nasty" speaking of my mother's being in "Hell" because she had killed herself. That is the reason my father did not have us, my brothers and I attend the services...he was trying to protect us from this unspeakable pain.

Actually, I thought that for some reason, people had somehow lied to me and I looked for my mother many years, thinking I would find her. Every store, every street, everywhere...my heart was searching. But of course, she was never to be seen again....

My father remarried and it took a long time to accept my new step-mother...now endearingly I call her... Mom. Several grandparents like yours slipped away, some were step grandparents, some not. I did start to do what you described so well...as I was growing up, I realized this was part of life...this was where God would open my soul, spirit, and mind.

And then, like your grand-daughter...my own daughter, Gerri Ann, died in my 36th week of pregnancy. Carrying her in my womb knowingly dead was the most difficult time of my life. The Dr. wanted nature to take its course, allowing my body to go into labor on its own to deliver her. After a week...my own brother could not stand it anymore, I was calling him day and night looking for support...my husband at the time locked himself away...unreachable...my brother called the Dr. and my induced labor was scheduled....I briefly saw her because my own body required surgery immediately due to hemorage...and then a couple of days later after her autopsy which revealed nothing...I went to the mortuary while my babies milk was still dripping...and dripping...and then a few months later, my last living grandmother died...

About 6 years later, my father was killed in a car accident on his birthday. Everything stopped...I could not move...I dropped the phone when my brother told me...and I cried and prayed. Were he and my mother now together again? I prayed to know this for many years...I envisioned my mother in a rocking chair in Heaven and holding my little girl with my father beside them.

And then...my sister...died at age 53 from a terrible reaction to her third attempt of tissue being applied after her third degree burns from a house fire. This one was very different to me...different because I had been going through the possibility of having a brain tumor called an acoustic neuroma..and she and I shared our faith and love together...little did I know it would be her time to go...not mine.

A year later...my brother, died of a sudden cardiac arrest at age 50 on Thanksgiving Day. He and I were like twins, only 11 months apart, so this one burned a "hole in my heart". By faith, and continuing hope to see him again, I endured and am still working through this...allowing the hole in my heart to heal but still knowing that the scar would remain.

And now...and now...the Lord has given me a gift!! I recently had a brain tumor for real this time...and a craniotomy to surgically remove it...and in that process I had a Near Death Experience....and saw them...and spoke with them...and then the Lord told me I had to return..."It was not my time." I shared this with everyone at the hospital...everyone..to include the surgeon who prayed with me before my surgery, the nurses, my husband, my children...and now you. Heaven is for real...and YES, my mother is there as well...she had suffered from a medical condition that caused her suicide...God forgave her as He is willing to forgive and love us all...Jesus made sure I knew this...to share!

I know this is a long sharing...but hoping it Blesses those who need it.
Joanie

Originally Posted by ginnie

I re-read the posts. Grief and the human condition does come to us all. It seems that many lives if not all, are in stages of grief. Oh the tears we cry, for those that gone, and for those of us who remain. I don't think I could have gotten through some of it without my faith. Our own mortality steps ever quicker toward Our Father in Heaven.
Thank you for the blessings of these posts. It reminds me we are all part of this human family. Our destination isn't of this world but of the next. Hug those you love everyone, give an extra I LOVE YOU. Take the time with your parents and loved ones to squeeze each moment you have with them. That is what I am trying to do now with my tiny family that is left. I tell my son daily, my grown man how much he means to me. I pray for a family member who shuns me. I pray for my grandson I never got to see. ginnie

Originally Posted by Mark56

The human condition is well fashioned from personal perceptions brimming with grief and loss. I remember from my youth seeing my Grandpa, or at least his body, lying in a coffin on the evening of the visitation after we had torn across country in the Chevy to be with my mother's very large farming family. How could he be dead? I love him!!!!! I cried so many tears, so many tears.....

A childhood introduction to grief and loss up close and personal is a stark beginning to this episode of existence we refer to as life. Wondering how could he be gone, where did he go, what about Grandma, will I wind up there soon, and is it awful lying in a coffin thus- are questions which ran on a loop through my infantile cerebrum as clear liquid, salty, and which made my eyes burn, pour profusely down my cheeks. I felt ALL ALONE that night, all alone, in a room overfilled with people as my Grandpa lay silently just there. Not out of reach at all. And hadn't it only been a few months ago he had visited us in Colorado and he and I gathered blue bells to hold for a photo op while our alternate hands held large and very COLD snow balls. Tht photo is etched into the album of my mind, always ready to replay at a momentary command. My Grandpa.

Not long in life terms later..... maybe seven years or so, my absolute favorite cousin passed from a car wreck on I-70 driving his favorite Chevy Belair. His speed was high, so I am told. The results produced a closed casket affair. Me? Well, I was not allowed to attend, because my mom wanted the time to be with her sisters, and since I was a boy.... well, it did not suit for me to have been so shaken up. Not a manly thing, that. Grief. Chapter Two.

Three more grandparents in a row passed through the years, and as I attained greater age, wealth, and maturity I could take hold of the reins and attend to situations confering love and blessing on those who had loved me BEFORE they passed.... you know, being aware of their enfeebling health in advance of that long awaited appointment with mortality. I could leave on a jet plane and very quickly be at their side sharing my love of them. This I did, wanting each to know of their impact on my life and the joy I gained from their presence..... in doing this, I seemed to gain overwhelming peace as the moments of their passing came, then blew into the detritus of history as leaves along a deserted country road. So glad I took time for those very special people IN ADVANCE.

Almost two years ago now.... though there had been a good many more passings in between, our first grandchild, a little girl- Lilly her given name- passed through our lives as a lit match, especially the paper kind, rushes on toward its terminal extinguishment. She had developed with an awful genetic mishap in formation; one of those, who would have guessed kind of happenings. She came stillborn. I bawled as my insides melted then poured out not unlike the sorrow I had felt as a child when Grandpa, my flower gathering friend, passed. Lilly was here, but not here, we held her fleetingly so the sterility of hospital protocol might rapidly thereafter sweep in to whisk away remains..... simple that, the word remains. A little life prepares us for unparalleled joy, is swept away, and there are merely REMAINS where only a couple of weeks before we had known there was a kicking baby, felt still in mama's tummy. Sorrow without end in sight, the supply seemingly "tacky restaurant" style unlimited refills. The well of sorrows was creating a flood.

Far more recently, I learn last night with my family my Dad has untreatable inoperable cancer. Were he physically healthier we might be thinking in terms of treatment. Not so here.

Dad has that Alzheimers bug. You know the one.... many fear it so badly, they shun families affected by it for fear, seemingly, of contracting a non-infectious disease. Shunning. Shame. The really good stuff of which our society which comes together to spend millions following a popular cause or political gnat turns on a dime to pour separation, shame, indignance, and yes shunning upon folks who bear the calamity of something as insidious as Alzheimers.

Grief. Loss. I definitely felt Grief and Loss when, three years ago, Dad no longer remember I existed. For me, THAT was the day he died. In the meantime, the operating shell of his body continued to perk along. Sure, there were the haltingly embarassing moments of Dad coming outside to see family members off after a visit. He was attired in one of Mom's dresses. Seems he thought it was his bathrobe........ recently equipped with a back zipper. And, he who was a smart fellow engineering wise now polices the lawn of the family home for fallen leaves. It sounds pretty good, except upon realization he putters about the lawn with trashbag in hand picking ONE LEAF at a time from the grass to place it gently into the bag. This is not the person who was my Dad.

Cancer. Used to be that was feared more than Alzheimers. Not so now. Stir them up in the same body, and a rapidly terminal situation is at hand.

Last night, after learning of Dad's terminal illness on top of his terminal illness I sat and remain totally numb. The man I knew as Dad passed mentally three years ago. His body lingers. Lingering will now be accelerated to a finish line. I did not feel like crying. I worked through much grief and loss when Dad mentally died.

Now we wait.

Time will reveal the toll the blended diseases will exact upon my Dad. Will I cry? Are my tears all spent from grieving his loss years earlier? That broke my heart. This, I see as a release of Dad finally from the prison of mental morbidity in which he has been trapped these many years. A blessing as it were.

This road of grief and loss is now far too familiar. The losses have been far more numerous than detailed in this post. The road is one I do not like so much and it has potholes, cracked pavement, and the bridges are not so nice anymore. Familiarity is breeding a sense of discontent not complacence. I hope heaven will bring far more joy to Dad than these most recent of years.

Gonna pull the "car" over to the side of this road just now, I am tired, rest needed. Think I will just turn the key off for a while and sleep.

Grief and Loss consume my strength.
Even so, I am blessed,
mark56

Originally Posted by Vowel Lady

Mark...so very touching. So very sorry for your grief.

And condolences to everyone here who is grieving.


Ger715 .... Good for you for doing what your instincts are telling you is the right thing to do for you. If you haven't done so already, you might want to check into a website called Chrisbeatcancer. It is fabulous. He had surgery and no chemo or radiation, did a clean diet and supplements and it's been something like ten years (not sure exactly) and he (Chris) is doing great!

Click here...great stuff
http://www.chrisbeatcancer.com