
Replacing the much lamented 'On My Mind' profile option, this thread is for musings, jottings, whimsies, preoccupations and the rest of the thesaurus for anyone to jot down anything they please.
I can't remember what the maximum character count was before, can anyone else? But anyway it wasn't very many so let's keep to that.
Thanks, send. Scriptures are always helpful. I am good with my decision. I don't need any more fam dram. Too many bad memories triggered.
I think the ashes are bothering me more. I need to spread them somewhere around here - help the trees grow - and be done with them. It is what it is though not what I wanted. I know we don't always get what we want.
I will stand by you
2 Timothy 4:17
I will help you through
Isaiah 41:13
When you've done all that you can do and cannot cope
Isaiah 41:13
I will dry your eyes
Revelation 21:4
I will fight your fight
Exodus 14:14
I will hold you tight and I won't let go
Deuteronomy 31:6
So I logged into this site. It always helps to know I’m not alone! It’s a “silent world” we live in as someone once said on here. Our family and friends know we “care for our parents, etc.” but only caregivers know what it’s really like. Our siblings don’t get it. Our children or husbands don’t get it. Our co-workers absolutely don’t get it! But people on here get it. Thank you all. 🩵💜
I am thankful for agingcare.com
You take care of yourself too.
Found out that my middle son was laid off in March and possibly moving down east. They don't communicate with any of us, I called and offered my support and we are, at least in contact for now, They have no children so moving is not a problem. If they moved down east I would probably never see then again and that kind of bothered me.!!!
The saga of Gordie's ashes has another chapter.
We got them, got home and realized there was far more than one person's ashes in the container. It was heavier than the urn I had left there with Gordie's ashes in it. I weighed it and it weighed as much as 1 1/2 people's ashes. I have assumed that the extra ashes are part of his dad's and I am not happy about that. I was looking forward to having my son's earthly remain with me for a while. Now I have to decide what to do with them. It has triggered off a pile of grief, more than I would have expected, but July is a hard month anyway as he passed at the end of the month.
And the last item which belongs on the dysfunctional family page, but I am here now so will share here.
Out oof the blue one of my cousins said he would be out west and would like to meet with me for a meal. This man has been coming out west for years to visit his son and family in Calgary and never made contact with me . He is a flying monkey for my sister, with whom I have cut contact but who has been trying (unsuccessfully) to re-establish contact with me. Note he asked me for a meal., not me and R. He has pried into my life before and, I am certain, shared with my sister. Once I contacted him about family and he said he did not get involved in such things, Hah! So be it. The answer will be thanks, but no thanks. I really didn't need that right now!
Finally we got some rain - now we need more sunshine...
Best to all. I lurk and keep track of what is happening here.. I really need to get to the optician for new glasses. Something else seems to crop up all the time.
HH that was supposed to be "take care of yourself!!!"
.
Be sure to take care of yourself???
She confided to me yesterday that she is going to be going for a biopsy for a lump in her breast and she asked me my thoughts as to how aggressive she should be with treating it if it turned out to be cancer. I hadn't a clue how to respond. I do know if it were me I probably would want palliative care and not do chemo. So many cancer patients complain of chemo fog and I think chemo probably would be counter indicated. But I didn't want influence her decision.
I ended up telling her to talk to a therapist to figure it out, that it would be better than having this uncomfortable discussion with family and friends right now. I think she should still be able to make these decisions for herself. She won't be able to soon enough.
This is so sad.
Hope you feel better and improve .
I also hope the adjustment to ALF goes well .
Please take good care of yourself.
My good news is I finally have contact re Gordie's ashes and we are making arrangements to get them here.
Dry, dry dry here. We need rain!!!🌧️⛈️🌦️
To clarify, Gordie's ashes were in a different container than his dad's - last I knew. His second wife transferred them from the original urn to a portable cardboard container. That's what I was going to pick up. She used the original urn for his dad's ashes. I bought the urn for Gordie but that's ok. Last I knew she was keeping ex's ashes, no plans to spread them,
I will keep trying to contact her. It's all I can do. Meanwhile it hurts a little.
Keeping these certificates seems silly to me when the govt has them. I understand the need to keep some estate papers in case of issues in the future.
As for the ashes - we've always gone for burial in my family so it hasn't come up but I know it's becoming a problematic issue in a lot of families. My cousin was supposed to inter his mother's ashes with his father but "never got around to it" until something forced the issue. My sister's in-laws are still dithering, the cremains were separated (for reasons 🙄) and some are just on a shelf waiting to be dealt with. Hopefully your Gordie is with his father like Send has suggested.
No wisdom from me.
I just want to convey that I appreciate and acknowledge your
wanting to know about Gordie's ashes. He's your Son!
If you don't hear, and there was a memorial for your ex, spreading his ashes,
you might console yourself with the thought that Gordie's were spread or buried with his father.
Sorry that happened the way it did, and you went uninformed. Still.
I had the ashes for a number of years. Then ex wanted them for a while. We were going to spread them in Jasper in the summer '22 but ex died the winter before that. His wife then contacted me and asked if the ashes could stay there for a while longer (unspecified) as ex had wanted his son's (Gordie's) ashes beside his for a while if he died before we could spread them. No problem. I have tried to contact the wife with no success and really don't know what to do now. She lives in a small town a but over an hour away. Maybe we have to turn up unannounced. She works in another small town about an hour away and that might be the better place to turn up to be sure to see her. I really don't understand this unless she has disposed of the ashes and doesn't want to face me. If she doesn't have them anymore, I would like to know what has happened to them. No recriminations, - I just want to know.
It is now over seven years since mother passed and I cam get rid of some documents. Apparently I should keep indefinitely
1) Death Certificates or Funeral Director statements of death
2) Marriage certificate and ? birth certificate
3) Various paper like the will which the lawyer has and I have never even seen.
I don't have mother's marriage certificate or birth certificate - they weren't among her papers. I honestly can't see the point of keeping them anyway. The government has them. Are families supposed to keep them down the generations?
Anybody have any wisdom on any of this?
The good news is that R's test numbers re his cancer are good, no more therapy for now and he will see his dr in 6 months. Yay!!!
Glad, too, you have a day off. You need lots of those! You are in a difficult situation.
I haven't been here for a while either, so no prob. Take care. This can't go on for ever. Do what you need to do to survive.
Thx for checking. It went pretty well. You are so right. Lately I have mostly been responding with "oh!" and do my best to get out of there without wanting to stuff my head in a pillow and scream.
Mom is usually "ok" until I leave then her anxiety takes over and I get calls where she sounds like she needs to be hospitalized and then it passes so I know he's dealing with that.
She just had a short series of sbrt radiation (her decision, to buy more time for her great granddaughter 🥹,) but it was pretty hard on her just getting there 4 days in a row and now very fatigued. So this will be the last time she does anything like that again, regardless of the outcome. It's almost like she developed mini delirium just from the short sessions even though everyone loves her and were very patient and kind. .
Her tolerance for anything medical is at an all time low. So I'm gonna try to convince her to do an assessment for Landmark Health, it's covered by her plan and nurse practitioners will come to her if she has an issue instead of trying to get her to an ER. "Trying" to be proactive. I don't know....
Anyway that was a long answer...Just trying to enjoy the calm moments but also know the other shoe can drop any moment.
I'm " off" tomorrow yayyyyy!!!
Hope you are well, I've not been in this thread for a while.. so apologies for not reciprocating...
"That's an interesting point of view."
" I hear you.",
"Well imagine that!!"
"I understand what you are saying."
and such responses.
It stopped the arguing and took much less of my energy.
You don't have to visit your father that often or any more if that is what is best for you. There comes a time when you have to put you first - your physical and mental health and peace of mind, You have a lot on your plate that you can set as priorities in your life. Perhaps visiting dad has to be lower down the list than before. That's OK. Things beyond our control change and we have to change with them. You have to look after you - put you first at least some of the time.
My heart goes out to you. 💕
I'm so sorry for your situation. Don't worry about your sister or her nonsense. The choice to go see your father or not go is yours to make and has nothing to do with her. Whatever you choose is right. There's no wrong thing to do here. It's okay to wish he would die. When someone is in the terrible condition your father is in, no one should want to see that misery prolonged. Please, don't beat yourself up with guilt wishing he would go. It will be a relief to you when he does finally go. Also, you do not have to justify anything to anyone. If you don't want to visit, you don't have to. Live by my motto: Don't explain and don't complain.
This has been especially difficult because I am now on the outs with my sister who is his health proxy. I haven't heard from her at all since we last spoke in February because my daughter called her out on her passive aggressive behavior and now she is angry at me. My last conversation with her I was upset because my DH was in the hospital because of heart issues. She never called to ask how he was.
I tried very hard to reconcile with her a few years ago but she is very easy to become insulted and just write you off. She's like my mother, you have to walk on eggs and appease. It's sad but I realize there is no getting our relationship back and I am going to let her go. It was never good, and I blame our mother for that. I realize now that mother managed to isolate the three of us and did not allow us to create sibling bonds. I wish my sister well but I cannot handle her passive-aggressive behavior long distance anymore.
My other sister (her twin who doesn't speak to her anymore either) saw our father a few weeks ago and said he was in bed but okay. He had very bad bed sores which were successfully treated (oh happy day). He's on hospice, I am hoping he doesn't recognize me anymore because I don't want to see him like this and I feel I need to justify my not going anymore. I simply cannot stand the fact that he is still alive in this miserable state and wish he would finally die.
Statistically, the percentage of caregivers who die before the person they are caring for is quite high. Don’t be a statistic.
This helped me make the difficult decision to move my husband into memory care because I was beginning to see serious health concerns for myself, physically and mentally. I vowed not to let HIS disease cause my own demise.
many of us are going through tough storms. hang in there!!
🍀🍀🍀🌸🌸🌸🍀🍀🍀🥰
My hubs laughed at me running for the washroom, sitting back down, running for the washroom, etc. etc.
I had a colonoscopy and an endoscopy the same day. They did the endoscopy first and gave something to relax for that so when I woke up they were already halfway through the colonoscopy part. I was surprised how easy the whole thing was. I had been nervous as it was my first time. Two polyps removed and advice to come back in 5 years.
Today I had my annual eye exam. I've had a headache since I came home from the drops they used. But eyes are good.
Send, I didn't buy any chocolate eggs this year. Decided to weigh the pros and cons. If I ate them I'd need to increase my walks and since I come back from my walks with sore everything these days I didn't cave. Wheat thins................hmm.