What to do???

Today starts month number 8 of my new life.  It has been 7 months and 1 day since I last talked to Mary.  Today Tony’s mom held a dog walk fund raiser for her UGA funds.  It rained the whole time, sometimes hard sometimes only misting.  But we had about 25 people and dogs show up.  Many of the dogs were mutts, rescued from the pound or from abusive owners.  It was bitter sweet.  Mary’s doggies were all rescued from some place, our house or the pound.  She loved each of the fiercely.  Now they are what Tony holds on to so he can be close to Mary.  Yes, Taco even sleeps with him.  She used to sleep with Mary when Tony was out of town.  She would go to bed with Taco’s head laying on the pillow beside her and wake up with Taco’s butt beside her.  Mary loves her doggies.

But Choda was their special baby.  They picked him from all the pound dogs in Athens the first year they started dating.  Each told their parents that Choda belonged to the other.  He lived at both their apartments equally.  He didn’t’ like the color red (so Mary says) and wasn’t fond of men.  But he did love Tony.  Choda loved the outdoors as much as Mary and Tony.  Mary crocheted a back pack for Choda to haul his food when they went hiking.  Dried dog food weights a lot and if you’re going to enjoy the outdoors you have to pay the price of hauling your own food. 

Choda was killed by a drunk driver in front of their house.

The dog walk was a great success (even with the rain) and will be even bigger next year.  This is going to be an annual fund raiser. 

As I said last time I read other journals on line.  One is about a family with 3 children.  The middle girl is about 1.½ and has a heart transplant.  The have a new born and a 4 year old, I think.   All was well with them until around last April.  The little girl has been sick with complications related to being immuno-suppressed in general.  Her heart is fine.  She has been in and out of the hospital since April.  I wish I could say something to the mom (she writes the journal) to help her smile.  I have absolutely no words at all that could possibly comfort her.  I can only say to myself, hold on to SaraKate and hug her tightly while you have her.  Every parent should remember that whether their child is ill or not. 

There are so many reasons why a child dies.  Only old age is acceptable.  I’ve read comments on TCF website – drug overdose, suicide, incurable illness, murder, child abuse, “accident”, etc.  There are so many and they are so varied.  I can’t imagine what a parent goes through for any other reason than ours.  There are no better or worse scenarios.  There is just death and the absence of your child.  I can’t bear to hear or think about someone else’s loss because it makes mine so much more vivid and alive.  Yes, it moves, it crawls, it breathes.  It eats you up and spits you out.  All I can do is put a blanket over it for awhile so it will sleep.  Then it starts to move again.  Brace yourself.

Will I always have to fake the laughter that I knew before

he took you away from me?

 

Will I always have to pretend to smile at the jokes that people tell

to try to make be feel relief?

 

Will I always feel your love sheltering my pain? 

Taking all the hits that this new life portrays?

Will I always see your smile looking up at me?

Finding memories that help me through my day?

 

Will I always have to blink the tears from my eyes that come

whenever I think of you?

Will I always have to have to wear your clothes and jewelry next to my

heart to feel close to you?

 

Will I ever find the peace that your love gave everyone?

To continue with this life empty of your grace?

Will I ever find the steps that I need to take?

This path is so dark you need to light my way.

 

Will I ever?

 

Will I never?

 

What will I do?

For Danny, too

I only need to hear your voice

Just for one moment

To remind me you’re still here

If only for now

I only need to see your smile

Just for one second

To remind me of your love

If only for now

But I still need to know that you’ll always be with me

No matter what happens at the end of the day

I only need to feel your touch

Just for one second

To know you will hug me tight

Forever and a day.

Just a phone call away

I read the journal entries of several different families as they go through the before and after transplant process with their children.  Other journals are just life in general with the problems and trauma’s in life .  For some the days have been good to them for some their life is constantly churning with issues and stress.  I would give anything to be one of the ones who are walking on the edge because it would mean Mary was with me no matter how bad the situation.  I almost said I would trade places with them but I would not trade places with anyone.  No one should know the path I walk, that my family walks.  More so because Mary’s death was so fu*^&% preventable.   I would not even trade places with her killer because I believe the only thing as bad as where I am is where he is or should be.  At least it it would be for someone who gives a damn about people.  It would also mean one of his children would be gone.  I wish that on NO one.  But I hope he is tormented to the day he dies with the knowledge of what he has done.

On the Compassionate Friends website people leave updates about themselves and those they lost.  So many of them say “I lost my child (any age) 7, 12, 18 (etc) years ago….  It is hard for me to grasp that many years going by without Mary beside me.  It’s hard to grasp 7 months coming up.  Time does not heal.  It just screws everything up to where I don’t know what’s coming or going.  Sometimes it gets me through the day, some times it doesn’t.  Tonight it didn’t.  I was watching a TV show, a musical.  The mother was singing about watching her child grow up and leave her.  Wondering if she would ever get her back.  Well, that sent me to the laundry room to finish washing clothes and cry on the floor.  I called Danny just to hear his voice.  Even as I sit here and write this the tears are blocking my vision like rain drops on a windshield.  Too bad I don’t have eye wipers.

Many of the parents from TCF group have found solace in contacting mediums or spiritual readers to contact their children.  They have “after life communications” with their children.  Believe me, I have considered it often although I haven’t acted on any suggestions from psychics.  Where are all the billions of people who have died since Adam and Eve?  Just a phone call away?  Do you need something special to talk to a loved one?  Wouldn’t everybody be standing in line at every mediums door begging to talk to someone?  Just a thought….  I want so badly to talk to and see Mary again that I think I could twist every leaf dropping, door opening, bird call at 3 am, ray of sunlight, rainbow overhead, etc… as a “sign” from her.  I don’t want to rely on signs other people tell me are my link to Mary.  I want to see her standing in front of me.  I know I will see her when I leave this earth.  But I want to see her now.  I don’t want to “think” I see or hear her.  I want to know.

So, for now, I’ll just get by as I have been for now.  She has gone away for awhile.  She’s still my sweetie and I’m still her mom and we still take care of each other.

I only need to hear your voice

Just for one moment

To remind me you’re still here

If only for now

 

I only need to see your smile

Just for one second

To remind me of your love

If only for now

 

But I still need to know that you’ll always be with me

No matter what happens at the end of the day

 

I only need to feel your touch

Just for one second

To know you will hug me tight

Forever and a day.

One of those nights

This is one of those nights. Everything yesterday and today reminded me of Mary.  I could not get away from the sights and sounds of her life. I even dreamed about her for the 2nd time since she left.  But this time she was laying on a bed downstairs with her arms around me waiting to die from some long, slow disease.  Don't know if she was in pain just that she was holding me.  Aren't dreams weird?  Wonder if they really mean anything.  Wonder what anything means anymore.  

Tuesday was Kerry and my 36th wedding anniversary.  Just not the same..........

Cars cars cars.....

Some day I'm going to start off this journal with "today has been and ok day".  But not today.  My nerves are scrunching up my neck and I can feel the weight of the world, my world, hanging over my head.  I guess the days I'm breathing ok are the ones I don't write much. 

Last weekend Danny, Amanda, and I went to Augusta for the Mustang Car Show and the Boshears Air Show.  We left Saturday and it rained the entire ride over so the air show was rained out and we sat in the hotel room and waited for Sunday.  The car club gave Danny's transplant fund $1,000 last April, even before they knew about Mary.  He was chosen out of a group of people waiting on hearts who have funds.  Then they asked him to be their special guest for the car show and pick the 4 "Best of Show" cars/trucks on Sunday.  They told me all proceeds from the show will go to Danny.  I cried.  The first time since "before" I actually put a dab of mascara on and it all came dripping down my face.  Thank goodness for sunglasses.  Danny got to ride in the very first Mustang Fastback every made.  

We got to go to the air show for an hour - it was right beside the car show so we saw most of it without being in the audience.  It was awesome also.  

Then Monday comes with the mail and rains on my smiles.  Julie's divorce is getting bumpy and there's nothing I can do.  I've had to accept the fact that there is nothing I could ever do for anything in my life, even when I thought I could or was.  They say all you have control over is your attitude and right now, that's even out of my control.  I couldn't tell you from one minute to the next if I'm going to breathe or break down.  Lack of control is a very hard lesson to learn, kind of like learning to have patience.  I guess the only thing I can REALLY control is who and what I love.  It's mine to give to take away.  That's all that matters.


Nicole came over last night and I went through Mary's things looking for her cold weather clothes.  Some of them Nicole can wear, some were too small.  They'll get used doing what Mary loved, playing in the outdoors.  Tony and Nicole are heading to a little town near Denver for the winter. 

The Gap

This is from The Compassionate Friends web site.  

By Sharon Throop 

We lost our only daughter, Wendy, 13 years ago the 12th of next month. I was just sent a prose, that sums up so much for so many who walk this road. You may have read it before, but if not, send it on to some of your friends and realize that it sums up the loss of our children.

The Gap

The gap between those who have lost children and those who have not
is profoundly difficult to bridge. No one whose children are well
and intact can be expected to understand what parents who have lost
children have absorbed, what they bear. Our children now come to us
through every blade of grass, every crack in the sidewalk, every
bowl of breakfast cereal, every kid on a scooter. We seek contact
with their atoms - their hairbrushes, toothbrushes, their clothing.
We reach out for what was integrally woven into the fabric of our
lives, now torn and shredded. A black hole has been blown through
our souls and, indeed,it often does not allow the light to escape.
It is a difficult place. For us to enter there is to be cut deeply
and torn anew, each time we go there, by the jagged edges of our
loss. Yet we return, again and again, for that is where our
children now reside. This will be so for years to come and it will
change us, profoundly. At some point, in the distant future, the
edges of that hole will have tempered and softened, but the empty
space will remain--a life sentence.

Our friends will change through this. There is no avoiding it. We
grieve for our children in part, through talking about them, and our
feelings for having lost them. Some go there with us; others cannot
and, through their denial, add a further measure, however unwitting,
to an already heavy burden.. Assuming that we may be feeling
"better" 6 months later is simply "to not get it". The excruciating
and isolating reality that bereaved parents feel is hermetically
sealed from the nature of any other human experience. Thus it is a
trap--those whose compassion and insight we most need are those for
whom we abhor the experience that would allow them that sensitivity
and capacity. And yet, somehow, there are those, each in their own
fashion, who have found a way to reach us and stay, to our
immeasurable comfort. They have understood, again each in their own
way, that our children remain our children through our memory of
them. Their memory is sustained through speaking about them and our
feelings about their death. Deny this and you deny their life.
Deny their life and you have no place in ours.

We recognize that we have moved to an emotional place where it is
often very difficult to reach us. Our attempts to be normal are
painful, and the day to day carries a silent, screaming anguish that
accompanies us, sometimes from moment to moment. Were we to give it
its own voice, we fear we would become truly unreachable and so we
remain "strong" for a host of reasons even as the strength saps our
energy and drains our will. Were we to act out our true feelings, we
would be impossible to be with. We resent having to act normal, yet
we dare not do otherwise. People who understand this dynamic are
our gold standard. Working our way through this over the years will
change us as does every experience-- and extreme experience changes
one extremely. We know we will have actually managed to survive
when, as we have read, it is no longer so painful to be normal. We
do not know who we will be at that point nor who will still be with
us.

We have read that the gap is so difficult that, often, bereaved
parents must attempt to reach out to friends and relatives or risk
losing them. This is our attempt. For those untarnished by such
events, who wish to know in some way what they, thankfully, do not
know, read this. It may provide a window that is helpful for both
sides of the gap.

O M G

Today I emailed Mc Cray's Tavern with the details of Mary and Danny's life for her birthday party in January.  I tried to send a link to the newpaper article from April with pictures of her and Tony in it.  I mistakenly opened the other one and saw her car.  I ended up laying under my desk crying uncontrollably but I did manage to close my office door so no one would hear.  There are not enough words in any language to describe what I felt when I saw that picture. It was only for a second or two until it registered what I had done.  But it was enough.  It was even worse that I had imagined.  My counselor told me there would be set backs in this journey and this is one of them.  I am numb.  I am empty.  I am broken.  I am, once again, seeing images that now are not speculation but fact.  I hate that man even more that I thought possible.  Mary could not have come out of that wreckage in one piece.  Now, you imagine what I saw.

Tomorrow Danny and I are going to Augusta for the weekend to the Mustang car show.  It will be better than sitting around here.

Sleeping

Today has not been the best of days.  I have not cried today, not one tear.  But there’s been an overwhelming cloud of sadness hovering over me all day long.  I walked around like I was dragging a hundred pound weight on my leg.  I didn’t smile much.  When something got in my way on my desk I threw it across the room.  Temper tantrum…  And, of course, my chest had a weight sitting on it.  Just acting like a zombie with no feelings except irritability. 

I don’t like taking anything that makes me sleep.  And, I don’t sleep all that much.  So I stay up until I’m so tired I fall asleep and then I go to bed.  Last night I fell asleep on the sofa watching TV.  Then woke up at 1am and went to bed.  I laid there for awhile and finally fell back asleep.  This morning Kerry tells me he had a huge anxiety attack around midnight, got up to look for me, found me on the sofa, and let me sleep because I looked peaceful.  Ha.  That’s why I don’t want to take anything.  If I can’t wake up when someone needs me when I sleep naturally, I sure as hell won’t wake up if I took a sleep aide.   When Mary was little she would come and stand by my bed and stare at me in the middle of the night when she got scared.  She didn’t want to wake me.  After about 15 seconds of staring I would wake up.  Something about eyes piercing into my mind or else her breathing hard would wake me.  The point is, I WOKE UP.  I could wake at the sound of a mosquito, someone tip toeing down the hall, any little sound.  Whenever my babies needed me I was ready.

When I sleep now I hear NOTHING.  The ice maker used to wake me up, corn popping, microwave humming, dishwasher running (Danny is a night owl).  I don’t like not knowing what’s going on even when I’m sleeping.  Usually I can’t get to sleep.  I just lay there and toss and turn.

The other night while Julie was channel surfing the news popped up and described a house fire where three sisters died from smoke inhalation.  The new caster was actually interviewing the mother.  Unbelievable.  You could see shock stamped all over her face and body and yet they kept asking questions of her while showing the remains of the house behind her.  Everyone is different I realize but to loose three children at one time and still be able to talk and breathe is not in my universe of life.  I don’t know what caused the fire.  We changed the channel before getting any details.  I can’t stand knowing how someone else must feel and I can’t imagine what that mother is going through.

Take my hand

Move aside

See me run

Let me hide

Touch my heart

Tell me no

See my face

Let me go

I don’t wanna ever turn you loose

I don’t wanna ever reach the end

Give me something to hang on to for awhile

Cuz I’m gonna need another shot of your smile

I need you here

Need you to stay

Need you everywhere

Hug me tight

Into the night

See me cry

Watch me die

I don’t wanna ever turn you loose

I don’t wanna ever reach the end

Give me something to hang on to for awhile

Cuz I’m gonna need another shot of your smile

Please don’t go

I need to know

You’ll be here

Forever…..

I Don't ...

I don't like the poems I write anymore.  I don't like the way I write them.  They are too much alike now, not the words but the meter or rhythm.  Like listening to someone sing different songs to the same tune.  So I will have to figure out a different way of writing.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid life now more than ever.  I've never been afraid of much other than spiders and drowning.  Mostly because I've had a nest of daddy long legs jump on me and I swallowed too much salt water at the beach.  Both happened when I was young and impressionable as opposed to be old and stoic.  Now I'm afraid of tomorrow, today, even yesterday.  Afraid life won't go on without Mary but really afraid it will.  I'm not supposed to worry about what might happen tomorrow, next week, next month.  "Don't cross that bridge till you get there because you might never get there."  I'm afraid the bridge won't be there.  I want to scream and punch something but I'm afraid if I start I won't be able to stop.  I'm afraid I will never forget 2am March 31st and yet I'm afraid I will.  It's quite the Catch 22.

I'm afraid to answer the phone when it rings and I used to be afraid of not answering it and missing a call that could be really important.  Kerry would always say "if it's important they'll call back".  I want Emory to call but every time they do call my heart jumps in my throat and it's always an appointment reminder.  But when the call finally does come it will mean someone, some family has, is going through what we went through.  I can't wish that on someone.  But I can't not hope for life for Danny.  It's a really horrible place to be sitting.

I'm afraid of going back to a full time job as if nothing has changed when the entire world has.  But I'm afraid if I don't the world will change again and not in a good way. But then, how could it get much worse that living each day without Mary.  Don't say it.  It could get worse and I'm afraid of that.  I can't see it getting better.

I'm afraid of living and dying at the same time.  I'm afraid of living the future and re-living the past.  I'm stuck somewhere between here and there and I don't know where they are.  I want to leave everything and everybody behind and run away but I'm afraid of letting them out of my sight lest I never see them again. Or they might never see me again.

It's been over six months since I last hugged Mary.


I don't want to feel you but I can't let go
I don't want to see you but I can't look away
It seems like yesterday was only last month
And tomorrow is an eternity's wait


The pain is unbearable but it's comforting to know
The hurt will remind me of what I'll never forget
Life will go on but I don't have to watch
Always has now turned into not yet.

Happy Birthday Danny!

H A P P Y   B I R T H D A Y!

You were 27 years old today at at around 4pm born on a Tuesday.  Some things a mother never forgets.  I can remember going to the doctor's office on Monday afternoon by myself because your dad was in bed with something, a stomach virus, the flu, something. But whatever it was he got over it and showed up at the doctors office after I waited several hours in the "waiting" room for him to wake up.  I had to call my neighbor to go over and find him because he wasn't answering the phone. No, he was laying in bed, wishing I was there to take care of him, while I was wishing the same thing from him.  But he finally picked me up before the doctor's office kicked me out.  I guess I could have called a cab but I didn't want to have you born in a cab, in our car, fine, not in a cab.

So, I spent the rest of Monday hooked up to wires and cords waiting for you to come out.  But come out, you did not.  No, you just laid in my tummy making little contractions just often enough for me NOT to be sent home but enough to irritate me.  I was starving (can't eat lest you did pop out) while I smelled the pizza the nurses were eating.  I was drooling as I watched them walk past my door but they couldn't be bribed.  I watched the monitor  mark my contractions way up on the scale but really didn't feel much pain.  I had an eerie feeling they'd be sending me home in the morning and I did not want to go home.  These contractions had been bothering me since Saturday and I was damn tired of them.  I knew you were 3 weeks from your due date but I'd also been having contractions for the last 6 weeks and I was TIRED.  Maybe the doctor was wrong about the dates. Maybe I was just impatient.  I had been known to be that in the past.

I woke up Tuesday morning with NO contractions, nada, zilch.  Rats.  Great.....  But, I was starting to dilate a little and your heart rate was slower than normal they thought so they decided to keep me.  They gave me some meds to increase the contractions.  And increase they did, one on top of another but...... no real pain.  I thought this fairly interesting.  I kept asking if the anesthesiologist was around just incase the pain got worse.  They kept saying, "yeah, sure, right upstairs".  Then they decided to attach an electrode to your head to follow your heart beat. Again, rather archaic in today's standards.  Unfortunately it showed your heart rate at 78 and started quite a commotion until I reminded them that I had a pacemaker.  At noon they wanted to move things along and some bright doctor broke my water. All hell broke loose. OMG!!!!!!!  Pain like I never felt before.  Where was that anesthesiologist?  I yelled, I screamed, I bite your dad's hand, I begged for the pain meds.  But nnnooooooooo - by the time they found the anesthesiologist, I was too dilated.  (Now, 20 years in the future, you are NEVER too dilated - wish they had known that back then). Your poor dad was standing there trying to gently remove my teeth from his hand asking if there was SOMETHING they could give me.  Again, nnnoooooo.  I told the nurse I had to use the bathroom.  She looked and said, "No - that was you popping out".   I said, "I don't care what it is, I'm going".  She said, "NO you're not", and slapped me.  Well!  In my state of mind it probably seemed a lot more dramatic than it was but it did get my attention.  I was told to stop pushing.  Try telling a drowning man to stop swimming.  No such luck.  My doctor was not at the hospital and I was not going to wait for him.

Your dad jumped into the hospital gown, mask, and shoe covers (today you can come from the beach wearing a bikini and watch a baby being born) just as they rolled me into the delivery room.   One, two, three and you were out just as the intern sat down in front of me.  No waiting, no coaxing, just push, scream, and POP!  I heaved a sign of relief and THEN they gave me some sleepy time meds.  My first sight of you was in your dad's arms.  They wouldn't let me hold you because I was so groggy I couldn't raise my arms.  Which is probably why my recollection of you is with a full head of bright red hair.  Actually you were as bald as grandpa was.  Just like your sisters.  But it did cause a problem for me several hours later when they brought you in my room so I could feed you.  I looked in the crib and said "that is not my baby".  Daddy said, "yes, it is".  It took a few minutes for them to convince me that, yes, that was you.  Your grandma had red hair, but you definitely did not.  I did watch you closely for the next few weeks to see if someone dyed your hair (or what there was of it) and it would grow out red.

We stayed until Friday.  Now days they kick you out after two days.  I have to admit that not having any anesthesia did get me back onto my feet a lot faster than with the girls. But I still sat around for a few days and let your dad wait on me hand and foot.  Friday came and they said you needed to stay awhile longer.  Your temperature was lower than normal and they wanted to watch you for awhile longer. Watch you what? Sleep? Now, how does a mother who just gave birth go home and leave her baby at the hospital?  Not very happily.  (I won't go into the heartbreak situations that could occur here.)   I did NOT want to leave empty handed.  I laid out your little outfit on the bed I had ready so the doctor could see it and maybe feel guilty enough to let me take you home.  But, it didn't work.  We went home without you.  But only for 6 hours.  So, maybe it worked a little.  We got home (without you) and Julie met us at the door.  I knelt down, spread my arms, said "sweetie.....", and she ran right past me looking for you.  She didn't even see me.  She started crying when daddy told her we had to leave you, I started crying because she didn't want me, and Mary started crying because she was left standing at the top of the stairs unable to climb over the gate.  What noise!   

But 6 hours later all were well and happy!  They told me to keep you wrapped up tight and warm, hat, mittens, blankets.  It may have been October but it was NOT cold out. We had the attic fan on and you were under lots of covers.

Your childhood has not been that of the average child.  Your twenties has seen more downs that ups and you've spent most of it sitting waiting for a heart when you should have been out and about.  But mostly you have been living every single second to the fullest you possibly can.  I admire you for the qualities I don't have - patience, wisdom past your years, and the ability to see truth where it hides.  You are my little boy blue, my friend, my mentor and my guide.

I love you more....
Momma xoxo

Sour Grapes

So, here it is 1:45 am Saturday morning. All day long I have seen or heard things that pin point reality, Mary's gone, and it takes my breath away each time.  It causes me to squeeze my eyes shut, scrunch up my shoulders, grit my teeth, and hold my breath until the pain is pushed way back.  But sometimes the tears leak out.  Thursday night I could feel my heart breaking right through my smiles.  Oct 1st marks 6 months without hearing Mary's voice, feeling her hugs, seeing her face.  Six long, agonizing, anxious, painful, screaming months.  I wanted to run and hide so many times from all the people having a good time.  Christine hit it on the head when she said after you finish smiling and "having fun", the emptiness is overwhelming.  The hollow part of your heart echos the memories that should bring happiness but are only sour grapes.  

Yes, I have many things I am trying to get into to keep me occupied.  Sometimes I can get submerged but more likely than not they seem to remind me that Mary's not here to do it with me.  We had such fun putting together her purses.  Doing that by myself is impossible even though I'd like to continue to make them some day.  I am going to force myself to do something tomorrow besides clean house. 


Now I'm back to working regular work hours. This should be interesting.

Busy, busy, busy

This has been and continues to be a very busy week for me.   Monday - dinner out; Tuesday - dentist and landscaping consultant; Wednesday - painting class; Thursday - Art and Soul event for GTF; Friday - breathe deep and enjoy the kids; Saturday - Emory PFAC meeting; Sunday - clean house.  No real time to sit and think and write.  Too bad about the writing.

I have learned that I can't draw worth a hoot.  I'll find out about painting next week.  But still having fun.

Some of my TV shows season premiers have been very interesting and have stirred up a lot of thoughts.  Rare for a TV show of any kind.  I watched HOUSE late one night (on tape) and had to rewind a few times.  He had done something to a person that caused great hurt and House could not forgive himself.  He can forget his successes but not his failures.  Probably true for most of us.  Then someone told him to "ask for forgiveness and then move on". If the person didn't forgive him, oh well, that's their problem.   But he shouldn't let failure stop his life.  In the show he almost killed someone out of stupidity or self indulgence.  If you've seen the show you know what House is like.  I'm not sure why I watch it but something draws me to it.  But, I digress.  So, here we have someone who causes a life shattering event to someone else and all he has to do is ask for forgiveness and then go on with his life, let the past go, there's nothing left to do.  Interesting thought.  I guess if I was House or someone in that situation I should be relieved at not having to feel guilt the rest of my life.  BUT I'm not.  

I do know that I want that man to suffer all the days left of his life.  I want him to feel guilty forever.  In the newspaper article stating he was indicted, it said that it was and "unintentional accident" or some such nonsense.  I haven't seen the article first hand, it was read to me, but I see nothing unintentional about it.  And I do no see it as an accident.  He intentionally drank and got into that truck and drove away.  I want to see some real suffering, inside and out.  They say that anger and hate consumes the person harboring it more than it hurts the person it is aimed at.  Well, for now, that's fine with me.  I haven't been consumed yet.  And he better never ask me for forgiveness.  I have none for him right now.  I don't know how I'll feel next year, hell, I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow.  We'll see. 

Tomorrow is the Art and Soul event for GTF.  Mary will have a table there.  I have been learning how to escape some of the agony by diving into other activities.  Some have everything to do with Mary, some do not. But they keep me from sinking in my pit every day. But I do have to let it out when the pressure builds up.