A loss of any kind just plain sucks!

Last week I lost my cat Chatter. I know what your thinking, "it was a cat". But like most people's pets Chatter was more than a cat. He was my friend, my buddy. He was a connection to Ben. He was born to Matty. She was a cat that Keri talked me into taking after our neighbors said they could no longer keep her. She roamed the neighborhood and was a really nice cat. And little did I know she was pregnant. A few weeks later out come three little kitties. All three were different. One was white with black spots which we named "Moo" cause she looked like a cow. Then there was the common tabby who Keri while painting her nails came up with the name "Pinky". The third was a little different, part main coon and part tabby but real furry like a main coon. I knew from the start we would be keeping him. He was sweet right from the beginning. He couldn't meow and you could not hear him purr. His meow sounded like a caw and you only knew he was purring when you held him close and felt it. His name didn't come to us easy. We tried for days to think of a good name. One day Ben was standing at the kitchen table (I have no idea why I remember that) and he said he had the perfect name. He said "we should name him Chatter cause he can't meow". As soon as he said Chatter I knew we had his name. Now I know it's stupid to feel this as a connection to Ben, but I do. I feel like I lost something when Chatter died. Another connection to something Ben and I shared together. We all loved that cat and he loved us right back. We talked to him like a person. One of my last memories of Ben is him walking in the door and looking down at Chatter and saying "hi Chat, how you doing?" And of course Chatter cawed back at him as if to answer. I love those memories. I need them to survive. Chatter died in my arms after 15 years of unconditional love. I still look for him when I come home from work. I wait for him to come running to me. I wonder when I will get it and stop looking. But then it's been almost six years and I still look for signs from Ben. Losing someone---we never get over it, it never goes away, we just get use to it. It's not time that makes it easier, it's our magnificent brains that take over and help us cope. And then there is hope, the hope for a better tomorrow, a better future and a chance to again meet up with the people (and animals) we love.

Love & Peace---Annette

P.S. Thanks to Linda at www.talktherapybiz.com. Today she got me thinking about hope. Check out her blog, it's a good one.

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Thinking of Ben

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Lately I have been thinking alot about Ben. About when he was growing up and how special he was. He was my little buddy and as he grew up I always thought of him that way. I still do. He will always be my little buddy. I miss his everyday and losing him sucks. There is no other way to describe it, it just plain sucks.

People say time heals. I don't agree. I think we will never heal, we just get use to the loss and so it becomes a part of our new normal. We are faced with so many challenges in life. Getting over the death of a loved one is a huge challenge. If you are facing a loss in your life remember to give yourself a break. Take time out for you. Do what you want to do and not what others think you should do. You will find your new normal and eventually you will get use to the changes in your life. But take it from me there will still be moments when life will really suck so be sure to enjoy the moments that don't.


Love and peace to all. Annette

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8 Minutes. A guest post by Keri Stokes

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This is my first guest post. It is by my daughter Keri and although she does not have a blog as of yet I wanted to share this facebook post with all of you. She has a very special way of putting her thoughts into words which touch me in a very profound way.

8 minutes.

I guess I've always just been naive to think that we all feel that. I mean, don't we? After your dad or mom or sister or grandma or friend or uncle... Don't you feel that grip on your throat, like you're being taken by a mysterious force you've always tried to avoid? And then you may begin to avoid it, so that grip goes away? But it's possible that the only way to loosen the grip each time their name comes up or you see a movie about the 8 minute idea, is to actually let the grip grab a hold, let the tears forcefully drip out of your eyes. Until you let that grip come a little undone. I don't think you'd understand unless you were me or someone who has been struck and liquified by the devastating loss of their loved one. Or maybe you would get it, if you had a break up. Grief is everywhere, not just accompanied with death. I used to think that no one understood grief unless they had something really awful happen to them.

The 8 minute idea is this: it takes light 8 minutes to reach us. That means that the sun could explode and we wouldn't know for 8 minutes. We'd still be warm and cozy for 8 minutes. Lives would go on, until the end of 8 minutes. So the idea is when someone you love, care about, or even know dies, you struggle to hold onto them for as long as possible by exaggerating pretty much everything. My brother didn't move out of my dads house until it went into foreclosure, I still haven't went up to my grandpa's bar where my brother died, my mom still smells my brother's pillow that she keeps in an air container. So does this mean that even after 5 years we are holding onto 8 minutes? Is that grip never going to loosen, until we have the 'closure' we 'need'? I think this has made me softer towards people's situations. But sometimes I think that's the only good thing it's done. I just know that the grip will probably loosen if I do go to my grandpa's bars parking lot. To witness where ben's last breaths were taken. But that would be letting go of another minute, and I think sometimes I like the grip.

Guest Post by Keri Stokes

Thanks to Keri for letting me share this.

Peace
Annette


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Five years is a long time to mourn!

I will always mourn the death of my son. That is a fact of life for me now. People say it gets easier with time but that is not really true. I think we just get use to losing our loved ones and that makes us able to move forward.

Recently I have been thinking of taking this blog in a different direction. I will still be here to help others through their grief but in a positive way, sharing stories, thoughts and ideas on how to move forward after the mourning eases.

If you have any ideas on things you would like to hear from me let me know in the comments below.

Onward we go, together.

Peace---Annette

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I Survived Death!

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So I rarely post on this blog anymore. I survived the death of my son, I survived three hellish years of depression after the death of my son and now I can't bear to live it over again in words. Is that understandable? Have any of you felt the same way?

On Saturday it will be 5 years since my son died. Five years! At times is doesn't seem that long ago and then other times it seems like a lifetime ago. I miss his face, his smile, his sense of humor. I miss seeing him grow up into a man. I miss the things I think he could have accomplished, the things he could have been. I miss everything about him on a daily basis. Mostly I just miss being with him. Seeing him walk through the door. Eating dinner with him. Watching a movie with him. I miss seeing how he would have been with Andrew at 18 and Phillip at 16. I miss hearing him and Keri talk about their dad and their youth. I miss the life he could have had. I miss it all. And sometimes I want it back. I want to go back to that time before he died and I want to reach out to him and help him through his troubles. Depression, drugs, alcohol, it all affected him. And the end result was not something I willingly accept. But accept it I must and do daily.

So five years and I'm still standing. At times I didn't think I would be. I didn't know how I was going to make it through. With God's help and the help of my family I am here. Some days I'm hanging on by a thread but I am still here. Do you feel that way? Does it seem like life is never gonna start up again? Do you feel like you have had enough and your ready to leave along with your loved one? I did. I felt all those things and I lived to tell about it. I'm writing this today because I made it through. I survived a devastating loss. And you can too. Hang on to your memories, hang on to yourself, hang onto whatever you need to hang onto to make it through. You will make it through and life will resume. Life will never, ever be the same but you will be able to smile again, laugh again, live again. I am living proof that this is true. I am a survivor of death, suicide, life changing events. I promise if you can hold on, you will be able to start living again.

As always, love and peace to all. Thanks for reading and remember I am here to help so if you need help just ask and be sure to leave your comments below.
Annette

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WHAT! YOU WANT ME TO WRITE MY OWN OBITUARY?

Did you ever think about your obituary? No really, did you? How will people remember you? How do you want them to remember you? I read the obits. Really I just skim them, checking to see if anyone we know has died. We have a lot of clients so I like to send a card if they experience a loss just to let them know we care. Years ago I went to calling hours when one of my clients lost his mother and they never forgot it. I know this is true because it was quite a few years later when Ben died and the first thing I received was a peace plant from them. I still have it and I think of them every time I water it.

Sometimes a certain obit will catch my eye and I read it all the way through. Like today when I was drawn to the obit of a 95 year old man. During the last days of his life he told his family to not be sad for him because he lived a good life. He also told them that they should always remember to be good to each other. At the bottom of the obit was a poem, a tribute written by a family member. Telling of his life and now his death. He was loved! You could tell by the words in his obit. He was truly a wonderful man. When I read something so wonderful I think about writing my own obit. What would I say about my life? How would I like to be remembered? Some of you might be thinking what a morbid thing to do. I like to  think of it as a guideline on how I live my life in the here and now. For me it's not morbid at all because I have experienced death from an early age. I was 3 or 4 when my Aunt Margaret came to live with us in her last days of dying of cancer. She died shortly after, right in the spare bedroom of our house. I remember them burning the mattress afterwards. It was the sixties and we really didn't know much about cancer at that time, just that it was a definite death sentence. At the age of six my father's mom, my grandmother Ann died. After that there were older relatives, friends of the family, and many many more. Eventually we moved in with my grandmother Carrie. It was the same house my mother was raised in. We lived in the Italian section of town where everyone knew everyone by their first name. We were personal friends with the local funeral director and the funeral home was only one block from our home. It seemed like we were always going to calling hours for someone. You might be thinking "what does this have to do with writing your own obit"? I think that those of us who have experienced death for most of our lives have a different perspective on it and writing your own obit does not have to be a depressing, grim, horrible thing. We write in journals and diaries about our  lives and loves. Why not think of it as writing your future?

Write a story of how you want people to remember you. No one has to see it, you don't have to share it with anyone. Think of it as a guide for living your best life now. Do you want to be remembered as the person who was successful in his/her work? Or maybe a kind generous soul who always took the time to help a friend? Or the grampa everyone would want to have? An employee who always did his best and was willing to go the extra mile to make his company better? The best father, mother, friend, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, cousin etc...anyone could ask for? What is most important to you? What would you write? There is no right or wrong. How you are remembered is up to you in the here and now. So will you do it? Will you set a plan in motion for your life? Will you write a tribute to you and live your life fulfilling it? Just think how better your life would be or could be if you lived the way you hope to be remembered.

No matter where you are in life or how old you are, it's never to late to rewrite your destiny. Your words, your obit will help you to define what is most important to you in this life. Try it. You might just surprise yourself and realize what you thought was important to you is something totally different than what really is.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Love & Peace,
Annette

P.S. You might be wondering, "Why the link to Serendipity"? In Serendipity Jeremy Piven's character writes an obit for John Cusack's character who is still living. A great movie about destiny and worth watching. Enjoy!

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I AM DEATH AND I WILL SHOCK YOU TO YOUR CORE

Shock! Numbness! It's what you feel after you hear that your son, your daughter, your partner, husband, friend, relative has died. Most times the shock fades away quickly but when it is a close family member it can last awhile. Our brains are amazing machines. I think our brains take over in times like this and they protect us from the reality of what we are actually facing. When Ben died I immediately went into shock. I was doing everything I had to do-Talking to friends and relatives, planning his memorial and any other things I could think of that needed to be done. I did them all and I don't remember much of it. I remember not feeling, not wanting to feel. It took a long time for the shock to wear off. I guess looking back now I should be glad that my brain stepped in when I was not able to function. It was like being on autopilot. You do what you are suppose to be doing and all the while you don't even realize you are doing it. I was hurt by my son's suicide. I felt guilty that I could not protect him from the demons he had fought for so many years. I will always feel that I should have done more. But I didn't know how to help him and he always snowed the doctors and me into thinking he was fine. I always felt I would lose him early on in life. So when it happened, when he died, I dealt with the shock of knowing, knowing that this was what I had known would happen all along and I still didn't stop it. How could I his only mother not stop the hurt, not save him from himself. If I told you I was up all night the night before he died and I knew something was wrong, would you believe me. I was and still I didn't know what to do.  I knew something was wrong and still I did nothing. And as I type this "Imagine" by John Lennon comes on Pandora. I used quotes from "Imagine" at Ben's memorial service. He loved the Beatles and he had a very peaceful soul. I felt this song was ever appropriate for him. He wanted only to be loved and accepted. He was a gentle giant fighting demons daily. Shock, shock of him dying, shock that I knew that someday it would happen and now it did. Shock kept me almost sane in a most insane time. Shock kept me busy. Shock saved my life because without it I would have withered and died right along with Ben.
So when you brain puts your mind and body into shock all you can do is go with it. Let the brain take over because it is saving you from a reality that you can't handle. We all have challenges. We experience many things through our lives. We are lucky to have these amazing brains to protect us in our time of need. It seems God created our brains with a "what if" in mind. What if this happens or that happens, will this brain be able to take care of it's owner? And most of the time it does, it saves us from ourselves, it protects us in times of need. God's work is a mystery but an amazing one indeed.

Love & Peace
Annette

If you want to join me on this journey just scroll over to the right and subscribe to my blog. If you know someone who might need help dealing with their grief please share my blog with them.