Death Becomes Him

Today my Taid (Welsh for Grandfather ) passed away.

The last time I saw my Taid was when he was in hospital, and that was a few months ago. I returned to Madrid thinking he’d be soon well again, and start behaving himself by taking his medications as he should have been, and taking care of himself as he should have been and so on. Yet, he refused to do so (stubborn until the very end). Consequently his health deteriorated fast, to the point where he was taken in and out of hospital, collapsing at home and so on.

My Nain (Welsh for Grandmother), his wife, died three years ago, and to be truthful my Taid never recovered from her death. He didn’t think she would die when she did, but she did wasting away in a hospital bed. After that, Taid was never the same person again. Then again who is after they lose someone they love?

When my Mum told me Taid had died I was sitting in my Spanish class, and it was a shock. I began to cry and promptly left the class to return home.

I called my parents. I spoke to my Dad first (my Taid was his Father), and true to my Dad’s style he was upbeat, his only concern was to enquire about me and what I’m up to. In contrast, and very normally, my Mum was emotional. She was worried about me because at the moment I’m alone in Madrid, upset and stuck with the knowledge I’m not there for them at this moment.

I asked if Taid had company when he died, and my Mum said he was alone; by the time everyone had been informed (it’s a big family), and everyone arrived at the hospital, my Taid had already passed. Not even a Nurse by his side. I think that upset me more, to know that he was alone when he did eventually pass, and that for days he had been unconscious and unaware of who was there or what was happening. Yes, he had suffered before his death, and wasted away in a similar fashion to that in which my Nain did. And, in many ways I am thankful I never had to see that happen to such a strong man, as those things stick with you and over-ride the real way a person should be remembered.

Though my Taid was expected to die, death in whatever form is never really OK, or explainable.

And now it is complicated.

My Taid was a stern man, he was no Angel. He was Irish Catholic, spoke Gaelic and had been brought up tough on a farm in Southern Ireland. Try and ask him what his life was like, and he would act as though the question had never been asked, he despised talking about the past, about the family he left behind at 15 because his own Father sold him off as labour to a neighbouring farmer.

He ran away at 15 from his tyrannical Father, but felt guilt for leaving his loving Mother behind. Taid went over to Wales, settled there, found work and then eventually met my Nain. They were married for an age and had eight children together.

The saddest story is that what my Taid endured growing up made him hard, and angry. Sadder still was that he then inflicted his own unresolved emotions and past on his own children. In short, allowing that cycle of Hell to perpetuate.

Luckily for me, my Dad married my Mum. She helped show my Dad what it was to be loved and to feel love, to see what a family should be, to realise that kids should be seen and heard, and that interaction, expressing emotion and being nurturing is normal and not a weakness.

In fact, my Dad has a great nature. He is the most placid person I know, the kindest and the fairest. He might not always say too much, but then he was brought up not to be a talker, as he is a man, but what he does say, does count and makes infinite sense.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say my Dad is the last of a generation who really are men.

So, for all my Taid did or could have done, he still made my Dad. My Taid, like my Dad is part of me and I am part of them and proud to be. I don’t judge my Taid’s actions, if I’d endured what he had growing up, who knows what person I’d have become.

Here’s to my Taid (Irish whiskey in hand); I love you, and although I don’t recall you ever telling me that you loved me, I always knew that you did. God bless.

Oh Dear, I’m In Trouble.

Just want to follow up on my last post.

What can I say, sorry perhaps for concerning and worrying family members who read it, and thought it pertained to my current relationship with my boyfriend.

It didn’t.

I don’t want to excuse my writing the post though, as it is my blog and it is where I commit feelings, thoughts, concerns, ideas and so on and so on. Also, I often include generic scenarios, and ‘Devil Advocate’ posts too. Not everything I write is personal or indeed about one person I know or about my family, friends or boyfriend.

I would never write about anything as personal on my blog anyway! Reason being, well, people do get the wrong end of the stick, that is natural!

The reason for writing my last post, was merely for it to be read, and to receive comments. Also it was a chance for me to perhaps clear some long languishing emotional cobwebs. As those who read regularly know I am on a mission to change, and also progress. I write every post as a kind of therapy, for me, and not necessarily for the reader to like or even identify with. Writing is after all a personal pursuit.

I feel a little upset that the post was interpreted wrongly, as this could have caused me some trouble, and upset. Yet, I hope this explanation will clarify, what my previous post did not.

The post wasn’t intended to discuss one person, but things that have occurred to me or been said to me from time to time, in varied situations.

For reference, my boyfriend and I are not perfect, then what couple are?! We do have our share of problems, arguments and general ‘argh’ moments, but after many, many years I deem that quite acceptable.

Thanks all for reading, and hopefully this now makes sense.

A Helping Hand

Recently I have been speaking to people about what is takes to help them help themselves through certain situations, which are impacting upon their lives and well-being.

This is a personal issue really, one that involves not just other people, but also myself. I have realised, for some time actually, that this notion of ‘helping yourself’, is something of a hurdle for me at the moment too.

Now I know I am really good at lending helping hands to other people, it had been part and parcel of my many job descriptions over the years, and I did it without question. Providing advice, options, sign posting, information, listening and even comforting others; yet, helping myself to progress, to move on, to find direction, right now I seem unable to, I am beginning to fail myself.

We all find there are times when we have lost ourselves, some control and direction. How do we regain focus and find what we have misplaced????? Is it a case of actions speaking louder than words, or is it that once we find ourselves stuck – we remain so???

Do we all need a helping hand, a sign to show us the way sometimes?? Or is all that help and direction laying dormant within us, and waiting for us to actually see and hear it – rather than insisting upon searching beyond ourselves for answers???

Taking some time out to do what you want, or to think about what it is you want from your life – has to be a good thing, we all need time out. Time out can help us to regain our life’s compass settings. Time out takes you out of you, and the situation you find yourself in – it can help us to see things clearer – to then perhaps progress.

I think thinking is great, but doing something is too. Yet, how do you know what to do and when to do it – how can we know how if we are lost??? Is it just finding a reason to want to do something, and begin the ball rolling, which will help us to then move on and find what is missing in us and our lives? Can we then escape the pit that our lives have fallen into??

What if you don’t want to help yourself though, or more poignantly, can’t help yourself – how can you then progress and move on???

If there is help available for you to help yourself then take it! Yet, help isn’t always there – so what do you do then??

If you don’t know your direction in life; I empathise, as neither do I!!! Nothing I do or think changes this either – it seems complex, unless I am over thinking it all!!!!!!

I am stuck with uncertainties regarding my future, just as anyone could be. Only difference is I know about it in advance, and others might not have this insight so early on. Can I change anything about what might happen to me, well, I have tried.  Have I tried hard enough though, no not really – I have been lazy too long a time.

I now find myself wondering if I have the ability to take back my life and direction. So, what happens – depends on IF
I want to help myself or whether I just continue to sit back, and let MY life slide out of view (well, eventually, perhaps).

Sorry to be angst ridden and depressive, no one likes negative moaners right? Yet, sometimes, I feel like airing my laundry publicly and admitting – I have issues too!!!!! I am stuck, lost and confounded. I require a sign post, a helping hand. I don’t have all the answers I might need. I don’t have all the strength I might need to find my way either.

I admit that, so what??? Turn your back and think pathetic fool? Or, just maybe you get what I feel, and can lend that helping hand as I know I have, and would time and time again.

Yet, you are not me……………….

…………………………………………..and I am not you.

Unpicking You

How can you, unpick you – that is your fundamentals, what has made you you for so long?

I always think of myself as sentimental layers of life experiences built up over years, and compacted together to form layers which represent my whole being, a person; for the moment, a ‘final product’.

If there is something amiss, somewhere deep down in all that sediment layering then how can that be sifted through? How do we locate successfully that one ‘bad seed’ upsetting the equilibrium of our being, creating disharmony?

There are certain things which effect me and impact on my life; these I feel are embedded reactions to something long gone or long ago learnt. These embedded ‘flaws’ or ‘bad’ reactions, ‘faulty’ coping mechanisms or whatever else are more difficult to locate in my life layering than something recently learnt, experienced and assimilated into myself.

In fact, pin pointing the specific incident that triggered these flawed behaviours, faulty coping mechanisms or bad reactions which currently effect me, is the hardest thing to do! Perhaps the reason for this is because they are anchored to my childhood, before I was fully cognisant?

If something impacts upon us before we are fully self aware, how can we then unpick these flaws in ourselves? How do we begin to find the thread to unravel, and unpick ourselves, thus solving these issues we have? How can a root be found without knowing first where to look for it?

Isn’t what we have automatically assimilated into our fundamental core person, the most difficult to then rectify if there are problems with this assimilation?

Perhaps then it is time to move on from even trying to unpick ourselves. Is it ever worth spending time feeling that we should be more than we are? Is it worth considering that one moment, long ago in our past, may have diverted us from becoming a different person – one perhaps more ’rounded’ and grounded?

I have begun to think not.

Some things have no rhyme or reason, they just are. The best method of healing, for me, is to just accept my ‘warts and all’, and embrace who I am – faulty or otherwise! Unpicking myself, unraveling my threads would, I feel, create more problems than it would solve. I may be flawed, faulty and even bad on occasions, but then that is me, the only me I know – so who is anyone else to contest that?

None of us are perfect, but those little imperfections make us all perfect just the way we are.

Who would we be without our little flaws – would we be better people or would we be worse? Who can really ever know for certain.

A Ray Of Light

Being back here in the UK again so soon, feels weird. I must admit I’m not feeling 100% my usual ‘on top of the world’, and am struggling to maintain a smile and the facade of happiness.

Everything lately has seemingly taken an effect on me, like a delayed reaction. I was angry, and now I have had time to think I just feel sad. I can’t fully explain everything , all the emotions, they feel like a weight attached to my heart. I feel I need to sigh a lot, which means I have unresolved malarkey milling about inside, waiting to be set free – usually with a good cry.

Crying, is easier said than done. I am now in my parents house; time alone to ruminate is not really the easiest thing to procure! Also, I feel quite foolish, no one has died, so why do I feel so emotional and down??

I know a few bad things have occurred, and between them and other things (which are no doubt unresolved), the tension inside has been mounting for a while. I have allowed the bad feelings to lingering within me for too long a time.

So, feeling weird, and with the unnecessary little altercation over a pear (yes, over a piece of fruit), I left my parent’s house to walk. I needed to walk the emotions off, to give myself some space in the fresh air. I myself needed time away from anyone or anything just to think, to free my mind.

Although it was raining heavily I didn’t care, I let my feet take me in the direction they wanted to go. I found myself heading towards the graveyard, where my Grandmother (my Dad’s Mum) and my Grandfather (my Mum’s Dad) is buried.

Sounds morbid maybe, but I needed to be there. I hardly ever visit their graves, why, well I don’t believe they are actually there. I feel their essence left when they passed away, but sometimes being where they lie can be a focal point, a place to be at peace and think.

To cut a long story short my Grandfather or Tid as I called him from a baby, was like a second Father to me. I was close to him and my Nanna (who is currently ill in hospital). I couldn’t and still can’t really visit his grave without feeling emotional. Today, with everything mounting was no exception. I cried, and couldn’t stop myself. Although I was chiding myself for being foolish, for visiting ‘him’ with my shit when he, wherever he is, doesn’t need it, made me feel like an idiot.

I mean, it could be worse; I could be lying there where he is, instead I am alive and nothing is as bad as being dead.

So, I sat and thought and cried.

Then I noticed, from no-where a funeral procession was approaching me. This has never happened before. The exact spot I was sitting the funeral was making its way towards – taking up both walkways. I was a little shocked, and being dressed in black anyway I thought; ‘oh my goodness, I’m crying and in black, they’ll think I’m one of the relatives’!

I got up and left, and in that moment I felt relieved, a weight had been lifted. I laughed to myself at the irony – the coincidence. Moments before I saw the procession arrive I had said ‘Could be worse I could be dead’, and then there was the proof, walking towards me!

As I laughed and walked away the sun came out, the rain stopped and I just knew someone, somewhere was saying; ‘see, don’t be foolish, things will get better’.  I felt it was some sort of ‘sign’, some sort of comfort.

A weird comfort, but it worked.

 

I felt as though someone had heard me, and was trying to comfort me as best they could.

I don’t know what any of you will think reading this, perhaps that I have gone crazy. Yet, for me, it was the ‘sign’ I needed.

This Is Hell

So, waiting for my flight back to the UK to be confirmed, I am left cooling my heels and feeling the angst of the mini catastrophe awaiting me there, build about me like a dark shadow.

I truly am angry and upset. I am shocked and looking for revenge – yes, revenge!!!!!!!

After posting ‘M’ Is For The Many Ways I’d Maim ‘Her’ , and re-reading what I have stated there, I could laugh!!
“Rise to the bait and it is you who are maimed” said I, even though I knew I would always respond so angrily; even if someone had crossed me half as much as they have this time!! At this moment I really couldn’t give a damn if I burn in Hell for feeling so angry or so full of malice. I mean at the moment I feel I am in Hell, so why not consider the many ways I could maim those people who have hurt me. They deserve it for what they have done; how they rip people’s lives apart in one moment, and don’t care.

Basically, if I could grab the very fabric of the ethereal world that surrounds me, and use this as a weapon to wrap around those people, I would try to suffocate them, I would!!!

I really have seen this as a final ‘slap in the face’, the last ditch attempt of some messed up universal plan to ‘pull the rug’ out from underneath me. I feel I can go along and all is fine, and then suddenly, wham, bam, slap and down I go. It is like the universe is saying; ‘Hey Bex, you can’t have too much of a good thing. We have to ensure you get slapped back in line’.

I mean if I explained to you all the dirty tricks I’ve had played on me you’d probably say; ‘no way, I don’t believe it’. Yet, life, me and cosy and wonderful don’t go hand in hand. Never or ever!

Yet, until now I haven’t mentioned it, I haven’t harped on about it, I haven’t been sour over it – I just accept that is life and move on. Yet, this time, I feel my level of tolerance and the ability to move on has suddenly vanished.

I am truly dented; angry, hurt, and I am fed up with being pushed around by unseen decision makers who govern ‘fate’. Why is any of this considered as character building?? I could live life quite happily forever and ever without any more such ‘character building’ antics, thank you very much!

I am left feeling paranoid – this could happen again, I am at the mercy of things I can’t control. I have no power to alter anything. I am just me and I am not enough. I just want to go back to before this – so I don’t have to feel this way.

I have posted this, because I need to get some of these emotions out in the open. Stating them to the whole world (OK, exaggeration I know), but letting others see how I feel at this moment, well, it might just help me to release the negative and damaging vibes. I can’t explain in any detail anything that has happened, so I am just miscellaneously venting in a way, but that is OK, as I feel a weight could be lifted from my soul by merely doing that.

I basically need to vent!! I need to scream how I feel from the roof-tops, but I am trying to keep a lid on it too for everyone else’s sake. Others are worried and affected by all of this also. So, it isn’t so fair to load them down with my own selfish needs.

Consequently, you my wonderful WordPress readers are my free counsellors, my helping hands, my sounding boards, my sanity.

THANK YOU FOR READING!  Though I know none of it really makes a whole lot of sense!

Death Is Not The End

Nothing can prepare you for hearing those words, of realising that too soon you have to face up to such a harsh truth. Its knowledge that once gained alters everything else from that moment on. It is like the moment freezes, and suddenly normal body functions, such as breathing, become laboured as though the weight of this awful thing is physically, as well as emotionally bearing down on you.

A friend of mine has recently gone through the trauma of the death of her Father. When the news that his illness had taken a turn for the worse and had become life threatening, she was actually with me.

I felt futile; what can anyone say or do to relieve such sorrow and the empty hollowness that such events bring; nothing, no one can make it all better and take that from you. No words fit such a dramatic and profound event, it is beyond such things.

Such events change us I heard, and not just mentally and emotionally but actually physically too. For two years after a death those who are left behind have to also endure a physical change to their bodies as a result of loss and grief. I think this change never heals, how can it? You are not, nor ever will be the same person before that person died.

‘They’ do say a lot of things about death, like if we all experience things the same way. I am aware that grief moves in a process, and it does; after time this process should be completed and the individual remaining should be free of the feeling of loss and sadness (so ‘they’ say). For me that has never been the case.

My friend’s loss resonated with me; in that poignant and raw moment, that to be honest was fairly surreal for me, my own experiences of losing a loved one was quickly revived. I realised I was uncomfortable with the whole thing. I wasn’t able to deal with or cope with the unresolved feelings in myself, that were brought forth by my friend’s own heart breaking news.

My lingering grief remains extremely difficult to discuss, and for me the emotions and sadness are like raw and exposed nerves, which to this day cause me great distress. Even typing this, and thinking about what I want to say here, is more overwhelming than I thought it would be. I can feel the emotion sitting like a mound in my chest; it feels heavy and tight, I feel stressed and dizzy, afraid and upset. It’s almost like shock.

I am obviously not detached from the death of my loved ones, especially one in particular.

What prompted me to want to write this entry was something that happened a few nights ago. I have been thinking about this, although trying not to. It has been a while since I dreamt of the person I lost, but this dream was more vivid than ever I recall. They were back, standing in their house surrounded by other family members. I recall being immediately eager to see them. I pushed through a couple of people to get to this person, and we hugged each other tightly. I told the person I’d missed them so much, and feared I’d never see them again. This person said they knew that, but that they were with me, and had been watching me and were proud of me.

It was my final dream before waking. I got up and sat on the sofa and cried.

I haven’t told anyone else about this, the reason I write it here is that it is anonymous, and no one knows me, nor will anyone in my life have to know that right now, I am crying typing these words. I am obviously still affected by a death that occurred over 10 years ago. This is something I cannot resolve for myself, I haven’t the power to make it OK for myself.

The person I still mourn was special to me, that person shaped my life and is part of who I am. If I am selfish for wishing they were still here to talk to, ask advice of, hear their opinions, debate politics with or just laugh with, then I am and I don’t think that is a flaw. I don’t want them not to rest wherever they are, they deserve to be free of their body and to be happy in a good place; but I still miss them.

This death was an unexpected event. People used to say, ‘Oh, that is a good thing no suffering’; well let me tell you it wasn’t a good death for those of us who loved that person. That was just un-thoughtful and infuriating to hear. It was like they made light of the trauma and loss, as though we should have been grateful.

There were no goodbyes for us, no time to put things in order, hear the last words, and give one final kiss. No way of understanding, coming to terms with anything. How could it have been that one moment this person was alive, and the next gone forever, where no one could follow them. I couldn’t understand the difference in those moments, like a light had been switched off. Why that person had be extinguished in such an extreme manner, with all the evidence left behind that they had merely just stepped out, and would return at any given moment. It was cruel.

I couldn’t get that straight for years; that severed separation without warning left a deep wound. I kept asking the questions, wanting all the medical reasons and I hated everything and everyone for it being as it was. It was like unfinished business. I felt cheated, lied to and deceived, guilty too. In those moments I would have gladly shared my own life with that person so they could have lived on. I begged for that and prayed for it. Death couldn’t be the end.

What made it worse was the fact there had been this over bearing feeling of doom. A lingering and awful feeling that wouldn’t leave. I felt something terrible was going to happen, something I couldn’t change. In fact I felt it on that very morning of that person’s death, and ignored it. I didn’t go and see that person as something inside my self urged me to. I thought I was just being melodramatic, but after gaining a call when I was nearly 70 miles away that day to return home, I knew immediately it was going to be the worst news that greeted my return.

People don’t have to believe what I felt, but I know what I felt, and those around me know too, because they were there every time I told them something bad was going to happen. I felt that it was going to be something horrendous, so bad, it would make me cry hysterically.

I felt guilt, if only I had said and done something as a reaction to this feeling. Maybe I could have intervened and changed what happened. I felt I had let them and myself down. I felt I was a terrible person; by ignoring my bad feeling, I had just let the person die.

Writing this now was something I thought I’d never do, as I even avoid talking about it, because as I have mentioned already it is painful and distressing. I don’t like how it makes me feel still, sick, all through my system. Yet, it is there and somewhere I feel I have to let it go.

I can cope with most things life throws at me, but this is one thing I still cannot cope with and feel it still. This has created a great concern in me; that those I love will end up the same, and I won’t be there to see them, to comfort them to tell them I love them. That they will leave me the same way, without goodbye. I am frightened of that, not of my own death, but anyone else’s. Even admitting that scares me, it’s like tempting fate by exposing that weakness publicly, that something terrible will happen.

I’d like to know if anyone else feels like I do. I’d like to know I’m normal, and that amongst all these faceless bloggers I am somehow not alone in these emotions. Maybe this is my post where I truly write for personal therapy. I don’t want sympathy or to pull the ‘hard luck’ story, I don’t feel hard done by. I just suppose I want to gain an understanding of why I feel this way still, to gain comfort from knowing of others who have felt or do feel like me. Maybe I just needed to admit what damage grief has done, even after the years have ticked by the pain still can endure, and affect us who are left behind who just don’t understand why.

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