DOWN AGAIN
EVER SINCE I HAD THAT VISION, OR THOUGHT I HAD THAT VISION I'M HEADING DOWNHILL AGAIN. I WENT TO THE CEMETARY ON MONDAY AND THANKED JACKIE FOR COMING TO SEE ME.
YOU ALL ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE ON EARTH THAT WOULDN'T THINK I'M GOING OUT OF MY MIND. AND MY SISTER. I CAN'T STOP CRYING. I WAS SO HAPPY THAT DAY. BUT NOW ALL I CAN THINK OF IS HOW I WANT IT TO BE REAL AND WHAT IF IT WASN'T. AND IF IT WAS, I COULDN'T TOUCH HER, OR HOLD HER OR KISS HER OR EVEN TALK TO HER.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. WHAT IF I DID IMAGINE IT. MY SISTER WAS TELLING ME TODAY THAT I HAVE TO TRY AND COME BACK TO MYSELF AGAIN. I CAN FEEL MYSELF SLIPPING. I HAVE BEEN CRYING FOR THREE DAYS NOW JUST TALKING TO JACKIE AND THINKING WHAT I COULD HAVE DONE TO STOP HER.
I'M SUPPOSED TO BE GOING FORWARD NOT BACKWARD. I WAS DOING SO GOOD FOR A WHILE, KEEPING MYSELF BUSY. WHY WHY WHY, THATS ALL I CAN THINK OF. I'M HURTING SO MUCH. MY SON CALLED ME YESTERDAY ON HIS WAY HERE BUT I DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS COMING. HE JUST GOT THE FEELING TO COME. I COULDN'T HOLD IN THE TEARS ON THE PHONE AND WHEN HE KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AND I OPENED IT I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE HIM. HE CAME JUST AT THE RIGHT TIME. I REALLY WANT TO GET A GRIP. ITS SO HARD. I READ GARI'S JOURNAL TODAY AND IT WAS INSPIRING. BUT I KNOW ABOUT THAT ABYSS. I AM THERE AGAIN AND I NEED TO TAKE THAT STEP BACK BUT CAN'T YET. MAYBE SEEING JACKIE WAS NOT GOOD FOR ME IT JUST MADE ME WANT MORE. I DON'T KNOW.
YOU ALL ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE ON EARTH THAT WOULDN'T THINK I'M GOING OUT OF MY MIND. AND MY SISTER. I CAN'T STOP CRYING. I WAS SO HAPPY THAT DAY. BUT NOW ALL I CAN THINK OF IS HOW I WANT IT TO BE REAL AND WHAT IF IT WASN'T. AND IF IT WAS, I COULDN'T TOUCH HER, OR HOLD HER OR KISS HER OR EVEN TALK TO HER.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. WHAT IF I DID IMAGINE IT. MY SISTER WAS TELLING ME TODAY THAT I HAVE TO TRY AND COME BACK TO MYSELF AGAIN. I CAN FEEL MYSELF SLIPPING. I HAVE BEEN CRYING FOR THREE DAYS NOW JUST TALKING TO JACKIE AND THINKING WHAT I COULD HAVE DONE TO STOP HER.
I'M SUPPOSED TO BE GOING FORWARD NOT BACKWARD. I WAS DOING SO GOOD FOR A WHILE, KEEPING MYSELF BUSY. WHY WHY WHY, THATS ALL I CAN THINK OF. I'M HURTING SO MUCH. MY SON CALLED ME YESTERDAY ON HIS WAY HERE BUT I DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS COMING. HE JUST GOT THE FEELING TO COME. I COULDN'T HOLD IN THE TEARS ON THE PHONE AND WHEN HE KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AND I OPENED IT I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE HIM. HE CAME JUST AT THE RIGHT TIME. I REALLY WANT TO GET A GRIP. ITS SO HARD. I READ GARI'S JOURNAL TODAY AND IT WAS INSPIRING. BUT I KNOW ABOUT THAT ABYSS. I AM THERE AGAIN AND I NEED TO TAKE THAT STEP BACK BUT CAN'T YET. MAYBE SEEING JACKIE WAS NOT GOOD FOR ME IT JUST MADE ME WANT MORE. I DON'T KNOW.
Replies
I was just looking through a catalog and saw two pictures I am thinking of getting.
1. Courage doesn\'t always roar... sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying \"I will try again tomorrow.\"
2. The greatest gift we can give to those who have left us is to live fullly in their place
Hugs, MaryLou
I\'ve had many ups and downs, forward and backward, moments these past 5+ years. I guess it\'s all part of the whole healing process.... Controlling the doubts and the fears is hard work, but I\'m just stubborn enough to keep telling myself \"KALA IS and she talks to me and we are in the most intimate relationship of our lives right NOW\".
LOVE MaryLou\'s #1.....
Tight heart hugs my friend, Teri.
I saw my April also, fully glorified and joyful, very beautiful. And since then, two \"dreams\" that lasted three seconds each where she was suddenly at my right side. I have no doubt that the first vision was actually allowed by God so He could show me that she is with Him, being loved and healed. No, I don\'t believe you imagined anything. Having said that, your \"backsliding\" is - unfortunately - normal. Just when you think you have it all together, you get hit by that ten ton bus of horror. One step forward, three steps back, a slow process. You want to be better. You want to be free of the self blame (totally without merit, easy to say not easy to feel), you want to stop obsessing over the horror and try to move forward. These are signs of mental health and are all a normal, healthy progress. Yesterday, my friend Tricia helped me pack up my daughter\'s closet. Her son took his life five years ago. She told me that for the past few weeks she has been crying a lot; she\'s under a lot of stress in her job and now has custody of two very young grand daughters. If I had that pressure and stress, I would be a wreck, also. I told her I don\'t want to live that way, I don\'t want to be in deep sorrow and misery, it isn\'t how I want to live my life, it isn\'t how I\'ve always lived my life. I am struggling to slowly free myself of the horror and embrace the love my April and I shared. It\'s a very difficult thing but if I\'m going to continue to live - and I must - I have no choice. I think you, too, will get to this place in your own time.
This is the spiraling of this grief path with its ups, downs and in-between moments. I find some small comfort in knowing that I will never be where I was on that tragic day in July of 2008 nor will you.
Look into the abyss as long as you need to yet know that you can step slowly away and take from it what you need to. Think of each of putting our arms around one another and looking in yet taking those necessary steps to pull away from its gravity and its pull. There is nothing in there that you have not faced already and life is calling to you here and now above that deep, deep hole.
When I face times such as this I try to ride it out as best I can and if I feel that I\'m not coming out of it I look at the tools I\'ve been using and ask myself if it\'s time to add a few, take some off and what is helping me and what isn\'t. It might be such a time for you?
Please be ever so gentle with yourself as you grieve your Jackie and know that we are standing in that circle with you as your sisters of the heart with so much loving understanding and care.
XO Joanie
Those baby steps,,,1 foreward and 3 back....all those tears...let them fall...
embrace your dream or vision...keep it in your heart....try not to let those should haves get to you...we are here and we have been where you are and we love you...
1 step forward, 2 steps backward...sometime 3. I want you to know that what you are feeling is normal. This is big...this is as big as most of us will experience in a lifetime. So don\'t over worry where you are. Don\'t look at the BIG picture...look at little pictures of your day. Did you get out of bed...and if you did...that is one success...as the others have said...baby steps. Also...it WAS real...let go of your fear...love and hugs...Karen
Thanks my sisters for your loving support. I am feeling better since yesterday. Its so frustrating having these ups and downs. Tomorrow I will see my new great grandson, Vincent. I can\'t wait to hold him. I know what joy I will be feeling at that moment. Then I go home and tell Jackie about her new great nephew and I wish she was here to enjoy him. I am going to tell myself that she is seeing him and enjoying him. I have to start to believe that. I guess sometimes I get so tired of fighting the sorrow and pain that I just give into it. Thanks again for all your support. Love you all, Gail XXX OOO
Gail I believe the harder we fight the sorrow the harder it pushes back. I wish there was something to say to make you feel better. Just know that we do understand -- me especially since our circumstances are so similar. All the why\'s are so painfully and there can never be an answer. Sending love, Terry
Gail, I agree with what the other moms are saying. This journey is up and down and that is normal. The abyss is always right there and sometimes we do need to go there but after a while we go there less and less. There are times after 3 years since Ed left that I am knocked to the ground by this grief but I do not stay down as long..the pain gets lighter and gentler. Embrace your vision of Jackie. Don\'t over think it. My grief counselor told me to embrace the signs and that helped me a lot. Jackie may have known you would have a wave of grief and desperately miss her so she was there for you. God knew you needed her so she appeared. The answers I do not know but I know if you had a vision of her then just embrace it. feel her love, feel her essence. Another thing that helped me is something ColleenF, Jeff\'s mom, taught me. After dreams etc that I was grateful to receive I longed for Ed more. Colleen said she thinks of those dreams as \"visits, not keeps.\" Her words helped me a lot. I hope her words help you too. One day you will see your dear daughter again. Until then just know I love you and we are here for you. So glad your son visited and I can\'t wait to hear all about baby Vincent. Love and wishes for peace, Linda