Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Leg on the Mend!

So today I went to see the Dr about the leg again, it is much better. But I am having a reaction to the Tetanus shot! My whole arm and shoulder is swollen and soooo sore, red and hot! She said I probably wouldn't be getting one of these anytime soon again! I remembered when I was a teenager, way back then, that I got really sick from a tetanus shot. But my leg looked so bad, I figured, it had been a long time ago and I probably was just being a baby. Well, now I remember!! Boy for being fairly healthy, this has been the pitts.
Today, I am going to give spinning a go again. I really want to finish the sock yarn on the Mach 1. I need to give her a name. Names really aren't my thing. Maybe wheel 1 and wheel 2?
Atleast now, we won't have to watch any more politics for a while!! Even though I am very disappointed at the out come, I am grateful for that!
I also need to get my room empty and ready to move. Get the trailer that hubby is staying in cleaned for him this week end, and start packing stuff up. I had an interesting question posted to me today and it made me stop and think. What are you worried about, anxiety over change? I have never really been a person to not roll with the flow. I haven't been controlling, or up tight. So when did this all change? Then it hit me. I got so scared when I couldn't do anything for Jeffery. The whole world changed in a split second for ever. Not just my world, the future of his wife and children, his sister, his dad, mine, everyone who knew him. I now feel scared because I now know, I really don't know what will happen, that I can do anything about it, or what is coming. Now it's not like I didn't know it before! I know who is in control. It is just so easy to say you "know" but then to let him do that! I feel like I am hanging on to something for dear life afraid to let go. I'm not quite sure what it is. It feels like change is my enemy and is very frightening. Now in my mind, I can work thru it, but in my heart and gut, the anxiety is over whelming. I haven't really spent much time trying to work my way thru our loss. I don't think you can, and just getting thru each day is such a exhausting job allot of the time, I feel encouraged to be able to do that. But I guess I also need to get back on track some what to my old self. I have turned off most all feelings except grief, fear and anxiety. But I can put on a happy face! I don't think that is unusual under these types of events, it is very hard to give yourself permission to feel anything else. I also had another mother tell me she got angry when people said they were sorry for her loss. She didn't feel that they understood. She's right. It's a different kind of anger I think. For me it's "why me" " what are you sorry about you have your son" " sorry doesn't even begin to touch it" I could go on and on but you get the point. People are very uncomfortable being around people after they have lost a child, they don't like you to talk about them, how you are feeling and how bad you hurt. They say silly things like "You'll get thru this" or " it'll be okay" "be thankful you have grandchildren" I know they try. Sometimes you just can't say any thing. It's been 2 years for me, and I have stopped crying everyday. I get that hole in my gut several times a day instead of all day. I can get a smile on my face once in a great while when I think of him instead of just tears. I can remind myself I can still enjoy life from time to time. But I hadn't realized I was carrying that fear with me on a daily basis. Thanks Michelle, if you hadn't posed that question, I may not have taken the time to think about it :) So I am going to approach this move as a new adventure. Work harder to have more good days that hard ones, more good thoughts than sad ones, more calm days than anxious ones, and most important, more faith and trust in him that put me here and loved me enough to give his son for me.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

I'm glad it helped a little bit, Dori Ann. I haven't been through anything like your trauma, but I've had a lot of issues from being a young child of divorce and all the pain, insecurity, fear and control issues that can bring. It took me a LONG time and lots of counseling, books and seminars, on top of my personal journey with God, to overcome much of it. That long journey is why I didn't have a child until the age of 40!

It really is hard for those of us who haven't been subjected to your level of pain to know what to say or how to act around the bereaved-- and then to be told that what we DO say is offensive doesn't make it easier! I, for one, like to hear people talk about their lost loved ones, because I feel like I am being given the gift of getting to know someone just a little bit and in learning, I get to help keep their memory alive. Is that okay, or does someone in your shoes think I have no right to help keep alive the memory of someone I didn't know in life? Maybe I should keep my mouth shut and just give hugs; I'm pretty good at hugs. Unfortunately they don't send well over the internet....

Dori Ann said...

Thanks for the kind words :) I know it can be hard for people to approach someone that has had a loss like this. It can feel so private, yet you want to share your feelings at times. Hugs are good, and yes, you can get them across the internet :))

Fairy Spun Fibers said...

Dear Dori,
Wow, I am so behind in reading all my favorite blogs - and leaving comments - I feel bad that I'm just now getting around to yours! I'm so glad your leg is finally healing. I was a bit worried about that bite - those often turn so nasty! The tetanus reaction is awful - and not at all surprising to me. Vaccines are BAD NEWS because of what goes in them and what they're made from. Ah, well...a hobby horse for me, I admit.

I don't like not being in control, either, Dori - it scares me stupid to know I'm not! Of course, my Faith assures me that no one ever is, anyway, so to quit grunching about it. Um...it isn't put quite that way, but one gets the picture... :-)

My dear lady, how I wish I could hug you and just keep you company. You and I both know that it's a fairly useless gesture. And yet ... it isn't. Nor is it emptied of all meaning because of its' supposed "uselessness". The human heart, so frail and full of imperfections, is still capable of great love and deep sorrow. It is capable of enormous empathy, and horror at injustice, and capable of nobility of thought and a high, moral character.

Unfortunately, the heart is also capable of all the opposites of the human virtues & sentiments mentioned, we being a most-grieviously fallen race.

Yes, we humans can say the silliest things imaginable - and some not so imaginable! - and wonder later at our own socially awkward foolishness. I have - thanks be to God! - never said such things to a grieving person. Maybe it is because, as a parent, I can imagine all-too-easily how my darling children could be 'next'. The horror of even thinking such a thing is almost enough to make my heart stop. I don't know. Somehow...to me...a mother's loss of her child feels like a loss to myself, if that makes any sense. I think that is part of being a Mother - a position so fraught with fear over one's babies, already. You - and all Mothers who have lost their children - DO have my sympathy and heart-felt aching. I won't - can't - "go on" with my life, not caring and not burdened over your loss, because your unbearable loss diminishes and saddens ALL of us parents. No one can undo what is done, but we can love you, pray for you, and support you in your grief, and you will know you aren't alone.

That hole in your heart - it will always be there, because it's a 'son-sized hole'. Those crazy words: that you'll "get through this" or you'll "get over it", are not words that they actually believe. Rather, those words are what they're hoping will come true for you. As you - and they - know perfectly well, it ISN'T "okay" - it will NEVER be "okay". But those silly, well-meant-but-wholly-misguided sentiments, are actually their hopes and prayers for you - that one day you WILL be able to be glad again; that you WILL want to live again. They never meant - or expected - that you'd somehow forget that you ever had a son. No, indeed.

It's just that...when a parent loses a child, there really IS nothing to say or do that can make it better. We feel so helpless and - yes, so horribly SORRY - that we can't make it better for you, so that your heart need not be torn to shreds. We grieve WITH you because, dearest Mother of your son, that is all a fellow parent CAN do. And we do it -gladly - because the human heart is capable of Love for one's neighbor. Thank God, at least we can do that much, and pray!

Love, {{{Hugs}}} and *continued* prayers from one sorrowful "neighbor" to another,
Connie