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Before I answer your questions and repeat what everyone else has said, I really must tell you my friend what you've told me over and over:
You're never alone, God is with you; He's in your heart and you are in his heart. But having said that, I know how you feel. I have to tell you my precious friend that you are thought of so very many times every single day and when I pray, all my forum friends are included.......... Beyond that, we care about you and are here for you when you need us, or just want to be heard.
I love you Cindy, I understand your pain and I share it with you as do all our mothers on the forum. We care, very deeply, about you, your peace of mind and the sorrow that you live with every single day.
Do you ever feel completely alone?
Yes, sometimes I feel frightened by that feeling. I was raised in a huge family. All my growing up years I had six big brothers who adored me and two sisters who saw me as almost one of their own children. I had my parents, many, many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews.......... and friends of my family who had known me all of my life. I was born when my parents were in their 40's, an accident but none the less loved and spoiled rotten.
When I married the first time I totally immersed myself in my in-law family. I loved them all and that love and acceptance was returned to me. My father-in-law was one of my very dearest friends. I adored him. I loved my first husband so much, so passionately that I built my world around him. My circle of family was HUGE.
Now, they're all gone, my parents, my brothers & their wives, my sisters & their husbands, my first husband, who I was divorced from but always did feel a strong affection for, every aunt, uncle, cousins, and many, many nieces & nephews. My in-laws, both from my first marriage & my second...........all gone. I remember back to that huge circle and it fills me with pain . I live in a small community, and cannot go anywhere without passing by someone's home that I was related to and now strangers live there. Sometimes, at a certain time of year, late spring usually,I will have actual attacks of loneliness when I drive by my in-laws and remember Christmasses and the boys' fishing trips out on the ocean, and playing cards with my mother-in-law for hours and hours........
Yes Cindy, I feel so alone. I don't have very many people left that even remember my mom and dad. Sadness can totally overwhelm me. I was born in a weird time period, ahead of the baby boomers so my life time and my connections back to the past put me astraddle of a time warp. My mother actually traveled in a covered wagon from Colorado Springs to Tennessee when she was a little girl. My parents had uncles, grandparents, cousins.......family, many family, who fought in the Civil War, the First World War and then my brothers and brothers-in-law fought in World War II. My dad was born in 1896 and my mother in 1903. When they were growing up, the Civil War was almost a recent event.... and their family talked about it so much, about grandparents and uncles who had fought in it.So, when I think back to what they saw, lived through and told me about.......... I feel like my life has been a huge part of history. When I was a little girl, in Tennessee, my parents would talk about this relative or that one who was killed at Shilo or at Antietam .... The battle of Antietam was partially fought on my great grandfathers farm......... my dad was named for this grandfather.
All gone...........every one.............. just a memory, and I'm probably the only person alive who even remembers them, or the stories told about them, except one nephew who's two months older than me and he still lives in Tennessee.......... My nieces remember their parents but some don't have a lot of memories of my life..... or family members. Even the ones who are close to my own age, haven't a clue about family history. I was in Tennessee a few years ago and I visited "Old Piney" the cemetery where so many of my family are buried. My dads brothers, my own brothers who died as infants, my grandparents on both sides, and many distant relatives I'd never even heard of.......... it was so emotional to me.
Yes, sometimes I feel so very alone in such a strange and lonely way. The entire way of life that my family knew has passed by and no-one is left to talk about it anymore. I sometimes feel as if I've outlived my purpose here.
Do you ever feel like your heart has cried out for help and everyone just seems to reject you?
Yes, I feel sometimes that my friends could tell just by looking at me that I'm filled with despair and need to talk, but I don't blame them, they have tried to reach out to me and I've turned them down so many times that they've probably given up.
Do you ever feel like those you thought were your friends and would be there no matter what has turned their backs on you?
Yes, especially one friend that I've been so close to since we were all in high school. When I sent her a notice that Scott had passed, she never even responded. That hurt, we were best friends when we first started dating and had our babies at the same time. After my divorce and remarried, this couple visited us here and spent nights with us and we always talked on the phone & emailed back and forth and wrote letters..... not a word from her. That hurt.
Do you ever feel like you just don't belong anymore?
Yes, especially in the world of today. It's changed so much and I'm actually afraid to go out at night alone now. I'm bewildered by so much that's changed in our country and in my own life. My children have their children and their own lives and now my daughter has become the me I was about 20 years ago. She's so busy with work and her own family....
I don't feel as if I fit in anywhere........ it's a lonely feeling. Even with my group of friends from work, I don't work there anymore and don't know what's going on. They've hired so many new people and I don't even know them.
I feel sometimes like a stranger in my own life.
Do you wish there was a place you could just disappear and not be remembered by anyone?
Yes, and I felt that way so strongly at first that I even contemplated simply disappearing, maybe moving back to one of the places I've lived before where my children were all alive & happy. I almost felt I could find my old life, if I just went back there. But my husband and my grandchildren depend on me so very much.. and what about my animals. I've come to the conclusion that this is where I belong. I've read so much of my mother's poetry and I know she felt the same way. She'd lost so many people in her life and she grieved and worried so much. But she belonged where she was and that's where she stayed.
Does it even matter anyway?
Truly, in the big picture, in the total scheme of life and events........no.... it does not matter. To us, it is our world and it matters so very much............ but in a few years it won't matter much to anyone else.
When we go back east or south, I love to visit the very old cemeteries. Sometimes you'll find a mother and several very young children whose graves are grouped together. I always think of the unbearable sorrow represented there. But now,,,,,,,,,, it no longer matters to anyone alive today.
I think of Mary Todd Lincoln, who buried all of her children except one, and had her husband murdered in front of her eyes........... and her son Robert had to have her committed to an insane institution........... of course she went crazy.... that was a natural reaction to the insanity of her life. But does it matter to the world today? How often do we really remember her unbearable sorrow, her agony at losing each of her children?
It's relevant.................to us it matters a great deal, but in as much as 25-50 years, it won't matter to the rest of the world at all. That, in a bizarre way is comforting to me. Life goes on, even when we don't want it to.
Life truly isn't for sissies, to survive it you have to have faith and hold fast to it, in the end, God is really all we truly have.
Except for today, we have each other.
Love to each of you, and all of you,
jane
_________________ Scott Matthew HIll - 2 years old
To lose a child teaches one what the word bereavement really means. There is no loss equal to the loss of a child.
“We are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly embracing each other."
~Luciano De Crescenzo
www.scottmatthew-hill.last-memories.com
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I MISS YOU CHRIS
