Pam's things..

Pam had this cat picture in her living room. I found it in a box last week. I brought it back here after we had to sort through her things. I've put it on my dressing table. She loved cats, so do I. Her cat Ellie who she called Ellie Maypoles was adopted by her neighbour Alan, who Ellie had pretty much gone to live with anyway. Ellie is still having her love affair with Alan according to a friend here in Santa Fe who told me she'd met him by chance in Newport on her last visit there. We met this guy called Alan with a cat called Ellie who knew Pam! She said he never stopped talking about Ellie. Wow he loves that cat! Pam saw Alan get tazered by the police right outside his house not long before she died.

Do it perfectly..

Yesterday after telling my dad that I'm in pain again because of this orrid TMJ he said what he always says, "Oh no not again! My daughters are supposed to be perfect!" Perhaps that's where this drive comes from to grieve perfectly, to do everything perfectly. This week I was saying to a woman, "But I can't accept this, I can't! I've read the books and the stages they describe and they all say you have to come to a place of acceptance. That there is denial, and anger and bargaining and depression and then acceptance, well I'm sorry but I can't do it perfectly. I can't accept it,"

She said, "Well maybe you don't have to accept it and maybe you can throw out all those terms, maybe you will never accept it." I was about to start talking on and on again when I did a kind of delayed double take.

The books don't say that. Maybe I'll throw the books out as well and stop searching for the perfect way to do it.

music to help stare at the ground..

;

Smile

Frying an egg this morning this face was smiling up at me ... is something trying to tell me to lighten up?

Permission for Depression

Duino Elegies

We wasters of sorrows!
How we stare away into sad endurance beyond them
trying to foresee their end! Whereas they are nothing else
than our winter foliage, our somber evergreen, one
of the seasons of our interior year, - not only
season-they're also place, settlement, camp, soil, dwelling.

Rilke.

Still whacked out by the holidays.

I forgot that I have this file full of handouts on grief that I got from the hospice. I'm so exhausted emotionally. I've been so full of rage and hatred and sadness. Anyway in this file the majority of handouts are on dealing with the holidays. Here's one quote, 'Unfortunately American cultural mores place a virtual embargo on sadness during the holiday season and the consequent mandate to be jolly and cheerful makes the depressed person feel worse.' And another, 'Much holiday depression stems from the almost inevitable disappointment that follows the grandiose expectations people carry over from childhood based either on real memories or unfulfilled fantasies.'

I'm putting this post up so that next year I can look at it to a. remind me to read the handouts and b. read the handouts!

One more thing I just read, it's a bit cheesy but it just helped me to not feel alone.

The mother of a dead child
will always weep
at Christmas time
on that you can depend.

No matter how many people
or how many presents
the pulsating void that seems too large
for her heart to hold
keeps on drawing her attention
back to the child who's missing.

As others laugh and play
her thoughts fly away
to Christmases past
or a lonely cemetery.

To a face her heart aches to be kissing

The face of the child who's missing.

by Fay Harden.

Tomorrow it will be three and a half years..

Note to self read this next December.

Happy New Year

This has been the worst Christmas since Pam died. Last night I cried until my bones ached then I went to bed and dreamed that the world was ending and Pam and I were trying to find a place to be for the final end.

This is proving to be an awful time of year for me. Last night I came to the conclusion that perhaps the best thing would be not to do it anymore. Just try to shut Christmas and New Year out. It's too painful. Pam was my family. This is a family time. Let's all gather and be that happy family that we are supposed to be. Let's make it all nice. Let's make the table nice, the food nice, let's put glitter on everything and make it nice. Cover it with gloss. Now all that gloss makes me feel even worse. I've looked at blogs with photos of happy, shiny families all about to tuck into hills of tasty looking food. Gifts wrapped creatively and cosy scenes of bliss. Everyone getting what they want. I wish someone would put some photos up of the after effects. The bloated bellies and screaming rows. No this whole Christmas business only makes me feel the loss even more acutely. When the pain hits like this I feel like I've been thrown into a void. Like I don't belong anywhere. Like I've lost my place in the world.

Right now I feel like I'm going to end up in a home a lonely old woman who no one gives a shit about.

What I wouldn't give right now to be in a cafe with my sister having a good old chin wag and laughing our heads off.

Yes you are damn right I'm feeling sorry for myself.

Perhaps I'll delete this soon... sorry.