A special welcome
to anyone new to The Grieving Room.
We meet every Monday evening.
Whether your loss is recent,
or many years ago;
whether you've lost a person,
or a pet;
or even if the person you're "mourning" is still alive,
("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time),
you can come to this diary
and say
whatever you need to say.
Unlike a private journal,
here,
you know:
your words are read by people who share your values
and have been through their own hell.
There's no need to pretty it up
or tone it down.
It just is.
.....and then eat pie.
Here is the link to all the previous The Grieving Room diaries:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
For those of you reading this who don't know me,
I'm involved with this group
because my first wife, Pam,
died five and a half years ago,
and I used this group
as my only grief support group,
to get me through panic attacks and depression,
for about three years.
My new bride, Tonia,
brought back the fairy tale for me,
two years ago,
when I thought the fairy tale was a bullshit illusion
that was never real in the first place.
The fairy tale I'm writing about here
is the fairy tale of two adults,
smiling at each other,
saying I love you,
kissing passionately,
feeling the lips,
so soft and sensual,
holding,
caressing,
complete surrender,
and feeling completely safe.
That fairy tale.
It turns out,
all it takes to make the fairy tale come alive
is:
give each other all your money,
and simply hold and kiss and say I love you,
etc....
As the old shoe ad said,
just do it.
So,
I'm mostly safe from my old fears and depression.
So,
why would I volunteer
to write a diary for this group?
Here is the reason:
I looked at the calendar
a few weeks ago,
and saw that my birthday was coming up.
My first birthday
after Pam died,
in August of 2008,
I remember I was trying so hard
to make it a good day for myself,
to fight off the widower's depression,
to fight off the loneliness.
I decided to compare
that birthday
with this year's birthday.
I've never had a circle of friends,
so,
for that birthday,
in 2008,
I invited co-workers
to my birthday party.
Tonia was there,
as an acquaintance,
at that time.
At that time,
August of 2008,
I simply didn't know
what Tonia had in mind.
I didn't know Tonia would sweep me off my feet,
which she did,
in June of 2011.
(We got married in October
of 2011.)
But,
back in 2008,
I was still having episodes of depression,
now and then.
A lot.
There were so many awful moments,
and I'm simply not ready,
not now,
maybe never (?)
to relive those times.
You can read about them,
since I posted diaries
about my pain,
to find a sympathetic ear,
here at Daily Kos:
Diary from depression
I am not a strong person.
I often write here about overpopulation.
I have little hope for humankind.
I so often feel that I am on the edge of utter failure.
I certainly feel that humanity as a whole is on the edge of utter failure.
Shall we consider the option of assisted suicide?
But,
as I wrote above,
Tonia makes me feel safe.
So,
what grief can I even write about,
to justify writing
for the grief support group?
Try this:
Tonia is ill.
I knew she had some troubles,
but I thought she was healthy enough.
She's fifteen years younger than me;
she's 43,
I'm 58.
She's very strong,
she went to medical school,
all the way to RN PhD.
(Someone got angry at her,
and did a background check,
so she didn't get the actual diploma)
With a PhD in medicine,
she should know how to take good care of herself.
Right?
But she has diabetes.
Her kidneys function is getting bad.
She has little staph infection sores,
popping up all the time.
You've seen folks with feet missing,
folks with diabetes,
folks who'd gotten sores on those feet,
sores that wouldn't heal,
because of the diabetes,
so they cut off the foot,
so the infection wouldn't spread.
But,
if the infection is near the center of the body,
there is nothing to cut off.
The sores get worse and worse,
and folks die that way.
My mother died that way.
Tonia had a grandmother
and an uncle
who died that way.
Real bad sores,
that just get worse,
around the abdomen,
in the folds of flab
that don't get air.
I had a nasty panic attack over this.
But it faded.
I started looking at other women,
trying to imagine
what kind of woman
my next wife might be,
if I lose Tonia.
That calmed me down,
cheered me up.
The pretty,
sexy girls,
all around,
make me forget
that very few women
are anything like Tonia:
dedicated,
smart,
all-embracing.
Women I've known
are just not smart enough
to see my potential,
to see they can trust me,
to see they should invest in me,
invest everything in me.
Only Pam and Tonia,
so far,
could see that.
The younger and prettier ones
scare me the most,
since I find myself imagining
that the younger and prettier they are,
the most likely they would be
to demand everything from me,
and refuse to give much of anything back to me.
But I look at older women,
some look pretty good,
and I feel better,
and forget how hard it was.
My birthday party Saturday
had myself and Tonia and her brother,
Terrell,
at a nice Chinese restaurant,
where the birthday boy
gets a free meal,
with at least one paid meal.
I had egg drop soup,
crab rangoon,
and baked salmon
on a bed of rice,
with real butter from the crab leg section,
and soy sauce.
Truly satisfying.
I lingered over coffee cake
and coffee,
at the end.
Earlier,
before dessert,
Tonia looked at me,
and said,
with passion in her body language
and the look on her face,
she said,
"Mark, I love you."
"Happy birthday."
I cried,
tears of joy.
Most folks forget,
they forget to create those moments.
They just finish eating,
and go home.
Tonia remembers.
How will I find another wife like that?
How?
Thanks for reading.