Thursday, February 02, 2006

February

I hate February. The memories of the last couple of weeks of my Mom's life flood in...I wish it were just good memories, but it's mostly horror. I cannot believe it has been nearly seven years. It is like yesterday. The same sickening feelings hit me every year, right after my birthday. I hate it. Of course, I remember the good times and the fact that my mother loved me very much. It's just that my body- brain memory automatically kicks into processing mode...Unconscious feelings that I buried at the time out of coping necessity, come rolling over me like huge ocean waves, that swirl over me, get caught in little inlets and swirl around for awhile before they go back out to sea. Then the next wave hits...on and on...every year there are new memories to process.

I worked in Crisis ( DV, Child Protection, Hospice) work for so long, that being able to turn off my emotions in times of urgency was an emotional tool. I am the Queen Mistress of Detachment. I am glad I had that tool at the time. It allowed me to cope with the issues at hand, automatically. I was in auto pilot. I pay the price for that auto pilot mode every Feb. with a severe bout of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.


I was the strong one in the family. I was the counselor. I knew about the importance of the family processing feelings. I knew the death process. I knew what happened both physically, spiritually and emotionally to the patient and the families.
I was working as a Hospice Counselor at the time that my Mom was diagnosed with brain cancer ( Dec. 23,1998). I went on leave when she was diagnosed, because I knew it wouldn't be healthy for me, dealing with death every day. I needed to be there for my Mom and my family. I knew what brain cancer brings. I had seen it many times. We were determined as a family that my mother would not go to a nursing home to die. She didn't. She died at home on Feb.17, 1999.


I am writing a lot in my "secret journal" at Oprah.com right now. I can process and whine and cry and go into the horror in detail there if I need. I can scream and holler and write letters of anger to God/Goddess/All there is there with out feeling like I am pushing my stuff on anyone else. I also blab and on,in run on sentences. Jump from ship to ship. I'll spare everyone else that.


It gets a little better every year, as far as the day to day dealing with the loss and my grieving. I had five deaths in my immediate family in a 2 year period. In Oct.2000, when the last death, the death of my Dad (he was my step dad but my DAD) happened, there was a part of me that went away and never came back. Like standing in front of a big thick picture window and shattering it with a sledge hammer. That is how I felt and feel a lot still... The window can't be fixed. It can be replaced with a new piece of glass and a different view, but never fixed. I still find shards and slivers of glass sometimes...always lots of pieces in February.

Death sucks...grieving sucks...moving on sucks because you can't move on without processing the past. The whole thing SUCKS.

Bear with my posts if they get a little icky and I don't spell check or I disappear for a day or two, in the next few weeks. I am working on my own own stuff and dive into my hermit crab shell to do it. It's an Aquarian thing...I am ok, I will always be ok.
I am a tough little cookie...

The only good thing I ever look forward to in February, is NASCAR starts again. Thank Goodness for NASCAR. **LOL**

7 comments:

susan said...

February is a hard month for me also...I had a son in Feb and lost him in May...it has been years ago but the pain is still there...as long as I don't know what day of the month it is...I can deal with it easier...NASCAR starting helps me forget the days...Gives your mind something else to think about...take care of yourself

Rocky (Racquel) said...

Big hugs and warm thoughts to you Miss Clance'.

Unknown said...

I am thinking of you and my prayers go out for you. Losing family is very hard indeed and some of us just don't ever get over it. Race month. Yea.

Linda said...

Hi Clance' I have surfaced for a while and am trying to catch up with everybody and here I am at your blog. I am so sorry to hear that you are going thru a sad anniversary in your life...seems like the older we get the more of these days we have to get thru. Sometimes having all the counselling experience you have makes it a bit more complicated because you are able to analyse things from all directions. I never went to school to learn any of the things you and many other of the women have learned about coping with things. I have only been to The School Of Hard Knocks and I guess when I graduate I won't be around anymore. Sometimes the best way to deal with very hurtful things is to wear it thru with the help of"mother's little helper". Luckily for us we can put most of these awful feelings behind us the following day, at least on the back burner until the next anniversary. When I rushed home after my father suffered a massive heart attack, no one wanted to tell me he had passed on when I arrived at the airport. Even tho I knew he had been in very bad health and suffered for the past 7 years it hit me very hard. The dr. down there put up some Libriums for me, not knowing what else he should give me with the rest of the stuff I was taking. Without these pills I don't know how I could have gotton thru that week. I felt extremely guilty I was living here and not able to help my dad out in his last days, after all he did for me as his youngest daughter. I felt all kinds of things. The Libriums took the edge off so I was able to function. When it was over and I came back home, I stayed in a depressed, dream-like state where I felt so lost and kept thinking back to the last time I saw my dad, 5 months earlier in the nursing home and he was crying he wanted to go home. He died Feb.12,1992 and even tho it is 14 years gone by now and time passes, this day and his birthday July 13 are down days for me. So Clance', you have to cope the best way you can. Sometimes the best way is to let modern medicine help you for a little while. If you need to talk and need a large (and I mean large!) sh9oulder to cry on, I am here, for what it's worth. Take care of yourself. This, too shall pass, love and hugs, Linda

Cassandra said...

Damn, I'm way behind on blog reading. Guess we are all going through our own stuff right now. Do what you need to do for yourself. Scream, yell, fucking "process". Yes, that sucks.
Hugs to you. You are a tough cookie, but you don't have to be. Crack if you need to. Sometimes, it's the only way through.
Speedweeks, this weekend! Woo-hoo!

tazfan said...

I'm sorry that you have to go through this every year. I know how it feels. Every June I get the same. I lost my soulmate, and husband, Phil in June 1994. And not a day goes by that I dont think of him. But June is much, much worse. Like your February is to you.

All i can do is send my love and my good thoughts to you. You know I am always here.

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