Vi, sometimes it 's good to take time to lick our wounds. Remember, family members can also reach out to you. Isn't that nice when that happens?

How is your mom doing? I can't imagine burying a child.

Eagle Heart, yes we are "profound feelers." I like that expression. Somehow it seems impossible for me to hybernate with Mom needing me, and my concerns for Dan. But I know it's necessary to do it as best I can.

Dotsie, yes, it is nice when family members reach out to me. It rarely happens. Friends do that . . . Family - there's that old thing about expectations. Mom is doing okay. Her take on death seems to be one of acceptance. She misses my sister, but when I ask her how she's doing with it, she seems to be okay. I have noticed though that she seems to be letting go of life more. I think that's why she no longer wanted the computer we got for her. I think she's winding down getting ready to die. She will be 87 next month, so it's a resonable thing to do.

I haven't been gone through the site to see how you are feeling about your recent loss. I've been hustling to get my book done. How are you? How is your husband and those you care about? I've been thinking about you.

Don't tell me I don't understand.

"Nobody understands, unless they've been through it," he said. He still wore the look of devastation at times. But he smiled now and laughed and talked about the new woman in his life.

"That's right," I said. "No one does understand exactly what you've been through."

"But Rosey does. She understands completely," he said.

"I'm sure she does," I said, guardedly, remembering what he had told me about her - that her husband took three years to die of Leukemia.

After the conversation I felt more alone with all my losses, all my grief. He hadn't a clue how hard they had all been for me, especially after Gary died. My sister and mother had come and spent the night. Dan, my sis and my mother had attended the funeral. I spent three weeks with Mom.

Although I had only known Gary two and a half years, my devastation was complete. Sure, I hadn't lived with him for nearly fifty years, but I had had two failed marriages, a history of relationships and life in general not working out. I had no children on purpose. I've always felt that people who don't want children are doing them a disservice if they have them. My friends rarely called after Gary's death - it was like they were afraid death was catching. Mom knew I was in agony, like she had been after Dad died. One friend was available if I needed to call. She almost never called me. I needed her to call every day.

It was after I almost walked myself into the fast moving water of the Clackamas River three months after Gary died, that I decided I had to force myself to get more help - even though at the time I was seeing a counselor. I found a grief support class. There, I met people who knew what it was like. Maryanna, 52, had lost her mother - the one person she could depend on in her life. Michelle, 31, had lost her teenage sister - to suicide. We befriended each other. One man had lost his baby - his wife was busy with the new twins, so he felt alone with his loss of the toddler who suddenly died of SIDS. There were a dozen others with their own unique stories. We shared our stories and cried together. Each of our losses was different, yet the same.

So when Dan said, "No one understands . . . But Rosey does," I knew it was his ignorance speaking.

No one can know the depth of anyone else's loss. No one can know, no matter what kind of relationship has been lost, how it affects another. It's almost like sometimes people need to think that what they are experiencing is far worse than someone else's loss, to justify their feelings of isolation. Feelings of isolation are a natural part of the grieving process. And although I forgive him for not understanding my losses, my needs, I feel less close to him now. To me that's sad. To talk it out with him would be counterproductive.

So please don't say or imply to anyone, ever, that they don't understand. That's like the statement of a teenagers who thinks their parents have never been young. I may not know what it feels like exactly for you in your circumstances. But I know loss - the kind that strips away all hope. That's why I write my stories - to help others, who reach the bottom, know that there is a way out of the pit. You can learn to be happy again. As you sit alone in your grief, I want you to know that I care.

"....So please don't say or imply to anyone, ever, that they don't understand. That's like the statement of a teenagers who thinks their parents have never been young. I may not know what it feels like exactly for you in your circumstances. But I know loss - the kind that strips away all hope...."

Thank you, Vi. Your understanding of bottomless unending loss is very much appreciated....There are no word-instruments sharp enough to cauterize the bleeding of my heart as I grieve the loss of my beloved sisters Ellie & Ronnie....Losing my brother and both parents was expected to some degree, although at 59, mom's premature passing in 1981 was still a shock. But losing my best-friend & sister Ellie in 1998 when she was 46 was just not supposed to happen. I clung to my slightly older sister Ronnie all the more for comfort & companionship. When Ronnie suddenly died at age 54 on what would have been Ellie's birthday last year, and she was buried on MY birthday, I lost more than can ever be recovered in this life. Each day I help at least one person feel good about themselves. I know the value of a hug. I do whatever I can to make around me a better place, as God has seen fit to leave me here for some inexplicable reason.....Maybe some future grandson will seek me out to make a difference in his life? Maybe my wonderful husband would "cave" if not for my presence in his life....Who knows why I am still this shell with the hemmorhaging, pulsating heart, waiting for peace. Waiting for a blessed re-union with those who knew me best over the decades....Hopeless. Yes. Now THERE's a word.

Josie,

"...Who knows why I am still this shell with the hemorrhaging, pulsating heart, waiting for peace."

I know of the hemorrhaging heart. Such a completely appropriate phrase. Dear sweet Josie, as you have surmised, you are here to bless others. The best I can figure out is those of us who remain, who survive the storms of insurmountable loss are here to learn, to grow, to become and to bless with our presence. Why me Lord? How many times have we asked ourselves that? How much can I take, Lord? Like Popeye always said, "I've had all I can stand and I can't stands no more." And yet it keeps coming. To live, to agree to live now, is to experience loss. To learn, to love, to become all that we can be, means to be immersed in pain at least some of the time. How can we ever expect to understand the needs of others, how can we ever hope to be of help to other hemorrhaging hearts, if we haven't gone through it in someway ourselves.

My mother-in-law, Elizabeth, was in concentration camp in WWII. Her husband was in Hilter's army, although they lived in Yugoslavia. Many in her family were killed. She escaped the camp all by herself, carrying her daughter who was one month old. She depended on the kindness of strangers, her supposed enemies. She stopped at farm houses and spent the night with these people. When she and the baby made it back home, her home had been destroyed. She temporarily had to leave the baby with the nuns in a nearby convent, so she could work. When the war was over Elizabeth, her daughter and a son, the person who became my husband, moved to this country to start a new life. After all her losses, her husband took up with another woman. Not speaking English, she got a job in a factory that made zippers. Her mother, who came with her, told Elizabeth constantly that she was worthless. The mother asked her why she, a mere woman had survived, when her brother had died. Her mother told Elizabeth, that it would have been better if she had died. Even so, Elizabeth continued to live with this mother; there were few economic choices at the time. She rose to a position of power in the zipper company. She met a man she loved who loved her. When circumstances finally allowed them to marry, he died suddenly of pancreatic cancer. Elizabeth is now 85. She was a good loving mother to my husband. She taught him to respect women. She taught him so many good things...because from her hardships and heartaches, she learned.

As we walk this painful life, we have a choice to become all we are capable of becoming and to develop the highest way of being - to become love.

You are becoming. You are a blessing to those around you. As you apply this knowledge to your ruptured heart, it will heal you - a little at a time.

My dearest love to you,
Vi

"...As we walk this painful life, we have a choice to become all we are capable of becoming and to develop the highest way of being - to become love....You are becoming. You are a blessing to those around you. As you apply this knowledge to your ruptured heart, it will heal you - a little at a time."

Thank you so much, Vi. If indeed the practical application of selfless love in its highest form reaches my doorstep, I shall have to live another 55 years to achieve it.....

Maybe you have given me a reason why God called Ellie & Ronnie home early. Ellie was everyone's best friend. Despite an extremely troubled long-term marriage to a philandering, abusive druggie, Ellie still smiled easily and provided daily comfort to her family and childhood buddies who leaned on her for strength & humor. Not to mention her culinary masterpieces of the meatloaf and stuffed cabbage variety.....

Ronnie was the second coming of Mother Teresa. In point of fact, she WAS a personal assistant to her, whenever Mother would "sneak" into the US to visit her Missionaries of Charity in NJ. I asked my sister why she didn't join this special order of nuns and she answered, "Because I want to devote myself to my family's needs first, before anything else." And she did. She gave and gave, often to lazy young adults in the family who used her goodness rather than work for a living. Ronnie would even borrow money on several credit cards to aid different ones in the family who chronically presented her with hard-luck stories. She never married and LIVED to please those she felt needed her. As a nurse and her sister, I saw the toll this was taking on Ronnie's health and cautioned her to take it easy, but she continued to work overtime to be able to give more to certain "needy" family members while she herself went without.....

Maybe God in His infinite wisdom decided Ellie & Ronnie deserved an eternal vacation devoid of heartache and crisis. If that was His intent on calling them home early, I am so very happy, for they are in a much better place..... That being said, I am selfishly struggling for acceptance of life without them. The present is so very unfamiliar to me now. I've actually called Ronnie's now-disconnected home phone, just to feel my finger's familiar sequence of numerical dialing pattern. I listen repeatedly to her old answering machine message, the last one she left my son, days before her fatal collapse. As I am writing this, I can see two photos of Ellie & Ronnie, taken during their childhood years, both positioned close to my heart, and the keyboard. The more painful recent pictures are here as well, but located farther and at a much safer distance from my quickly reactive tear ducts ...In memory of my two sweethearts Ellie & Ronnie, I continue their legacy of humor and giving (Disaster Relief & Special Olympics)....The expansive rupture remains.

God bless you for your kindness. May Anita rest in eternal peace. Josie

Josie,

The hole in your heart must be enormous. I feel your ache, your sorrow. I know of it’s depths. I know of its despair. Each day, do you feel that you can hardly get out of bed? Do you feel that the house is sitting on your chest, and you can hardly breathe? Do you feel that it’s impossible to get through the day? Do you feel like nothing will ever be all right again? I’ve experienced all those things. It seemed I would never get passed them. It took me a long time, because even though I had tried to heal from my losses, each one as it came along, still the effects were cumulative.

So, after my sweetheart Gary died, I again asked God, what more do you want me to do? How can I do this? I had no strength left, and even though I know God is always with us, that we are all part of the whole, still God did not have skin I could touch. I knew despair deeper than I ever thought possible. So I walked - a lot. I’d walk until I was exhausted, then I would turn around and walk home. I did this so I would be tired enough to sleep, so I would be so tired I wouldn’t care if I was miserable.

I examined all my beliefs, as I had each time tragedy hit. But this time I explored areas I had not explored before. I learned of the ways those of other faiths found their paths to God. I read and read. I went to workshops. After a few months I returned to the story I was writing about my brother.

I took one minute, ten minutes, one hour, one day, one week, one month, one minute, ten minutes - at a time. It was so difficult I never thought I’d get through it. Relief didn’t come all at once. I didn’t just pray for peace and have it suddenly show up. It came in little bits. It came as I learned to quiet my mind and stare at nature. It came as I dedicated myself to what I born to do - as I learned more about who I was and additional things I was born to do.

I am okay now, even though I have had other losses since Gary. They all leave a hole, but I am able to reclaim the peace more quickly than before. I am more determined than ever that all the pain I went through will not be for nothing. I use this pain as the stepping stool it was intended to be.

Each person has to find her/his own unique way through the cesspool of pain. There is a path or a series of paths that are right for you. You will find it/them, if you seek and do not give up.

There’s a quote by Paul Harvey that one of my friends paraphrased to me. She couldn’t remember it exactly. It’s taped to the front of my computer so I can see it as I write my stories every day. It goes like this:

“Never, never, never give up, for in the next second things could change in a way that will improve your whole life.”

May the peace of pure Love embrace your heart.

Vi