Old blogs you never saw

I tend to blog more in myspace, though most of my family is not on myspace, but before Uncle Jim started this family blog, that's where all my blogging was. This blog here has kind of turned into a blog about my mom. I guess that's ok as long as no one else cares. I thought I would post some blogs I wrote after she passed away for you to see. Just keep in mind, these emotions I express are raw and deep. They aren't meant to offend anyone. After the memorial service when I saw everyone, we all once again parted ways and no one really knew what I was going through. So, here's some blogs I wrote after she passed.


Subject : Reality setting in
Posted Date: : Oct 10, 2008 10:51 AM
People say it will get easier over time, but right now, I can't see that happening. Yesterday was the memorial service for my mom. I tried to stay strong like I knew she would want me to be, but hearing the beautiful things that everyone had to say made me realize that this isn't a bad dream like I had so hoped. We cleaned out her apartment today and it felt like I was ripping apart her life and just throwing it away with every trip to the dumpster. Of couse I can't bring everything from her apartment to my house but after loading a 14 ft U-haul and an F250 as well as my car, I think just about her entire apartment is now in my house, not that I mind. I am trying to keep busy so I don't lose my mind but on the drive home tonight alone and having time to think, I lost it again. I just don't want this to be real. I keep thinking she'll call anytime now to see what I'm up to and we'll bullshit about what DVD's or clothes she bought, but the phone doesn't ring and more and more it is beginning to seem all to real. If it wasn't for my truest friends and my honey, I couldn't have gotten through yesterday. It means the world to me that Kevin, you drove in from Erie to be with me and held my hand as I cried. Danika, you took off early from work to be with me. Angela, after being apart for 11 years, we picked up right where we left off and you spoke beautifully of my mom and how she helped raise all us kids.Joe, thank you so much for coming on such short notice to help us move the furniture and boxes and for your warm and caring hugs. Mandy, it must have been fate that we reunited and you've been there for me through emails and late night phone calls when you couldn't be here in person. And Sweetheart, you have been my rock these last couple of days and did what I couldn't. I'll always love you for that. You have held me up and let me cry as I fell to the ground. You all have made this a bit easier to deal with. I know it will take time to heal, but right now, I feel like I never will.


Subject : Anger
Posted Date: : Oct 17, 2008 4:41 AM
I want to hurt someone so bad right now. I want someone to feel as much pain as I feel. I don't understand why this happened and no one can give me any reason good enough as to why mom was taken away from me so soon and the way that she was. And that fucking coroner down in Allegheny county is so backed up, it could be 5 fucking months before I know why my mother is dead. Maybe if all those fuckin thugs down in the city would stop killing themselves, then the morgue wouldn't be so backed up and I wouldn't have to wait five agonizing months before I get any answers. I am just so fuckin angry right now. I want that god damn careworker who was at my mothers apartment Monday morning to pay for not using her fucking head and making the office manager open the door when my mother didn't, then mayne she wouldn't have laid there for 2 fuckin days like that. I will never get the visions out of my head as to what I saw. There is no reason my mother should have laid there dead for 2 fuckin days. That was blatant negligence. Yeah, She was already gone, but she never should have been left laying there like that for so long. I just want to hurt someone so bad. I don't know how much more I can take. Tuesday, I woke up at 2am with horrible stomach pains, doubled over in pain. It was so bad I would have went to the hospital, but I waited to call my doctor. He said that my ulcer is back and gave me Nexium. Then my blood pressure was 140/100. I guess my BP meds aren't working now either. Then, bless his heart, he gave me xanax to calm my nerves. I took one today at work and I fell asleep. I didn't wake up till the daughter came home and woke me up. She said she understood and wasn't mad. I've never done that. Its like I can't even function right now. I shouldn't be taking care of other poeple. I can't even take care of myself.

Subject : Ramblings and such
Posted Date: : Nov 1, 2008 2:09 AM
I started out having a pretty decent day. I was in good spirits, feeling kinda cooky and wacky but as the day goes on and I'm sitting here at work, i'm starting to feel a little sad again. I guess i'm bored and i want so bad to call my mom to see what she's doing and I can't. I have my good days and my bad days, I guess today is beginning to be a mixture of both. Perhaps its the fact that its Halloween and I'm used to getting dressed up to go somewhere and calling my mom to tell her what I dressed up as and showing her the pictures, only for her to shake her head in disbelief asking herself jokingly, "where did I go wrong" though I know she wouldn't actually mean it. Today, being Samhain or Halloween as many of you refer to it, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is the thinnest it will be of the year. This is the first year we didn't plan a Samhain ritual or go out for Halloween. Instead, we'll be staying home cleaning up the mess that still resides in my house and I am hoping that we will finish up early enough that by midnight I can have a small ritual with the hopes of making contact with my mom and hoping even more that I will see her. I have a sense that she is around me today though I'm sure she's with me everyday even if I can't feel her. Last night when I was finishing up cleaning our spare room that has housed most of my mother's belongings for the past three weeks, I found the only pillow of hers we were able to keep. It still smells like her. i just layed on the bed and inhaled her scent. It was the closest I felt to her since she's been gone. I'm trying to remain strong and do a good job putting on a front to those that are worried about me, but at the same time, will keeping everything inside cause me to crack? After my reading with Monica (the psychic/medium that made contact with my mom last weekend), I felt such a wonderful sense of peace but today I guess that peace is just slowly dwindling. I know my mom is happy now and she's out of pain. I know that she is with her mom and dad and other people that she lost but loved dearly. I know she is still watching over me, but I want her here. I'm selfish. I'll be the first to admit it. Its days like today that I just want to pick up the phone and hear her voice. Everyone says that it will take time and are surpised I am holding it together as well as I am but they can't see inside my heart. They dont' feel the pain I hide so well. They don't see the tears that only come out in the shower or when I'm alone. I don't want people worrying about me. I know one day I'll be fine. I'm trying hard to fight these urges that hide in the dark. Maybe I feel like this today because since this all happened, I haven't had time to really grieve. Everything happened so fast. Then having to clean her apartment and take care of business, I've been so busy. But eventually, I won't be handling her affairs anymore and the apartment is cleaned out so eventually I'll be done putting everything away in my own house. When all of that settles, will I lose it? Will it happen when she doesn't call to say Happy Thanksgiving or when we don't make our plans for Christmas. Will it happen when at 12:01 am New Years she's not the first to call to say Happy New Years? I think about all these things when I'm bored and I have nothing to do, I guess that's why I try to stay as busy as possible and have people around me or talk to someone on the phone. Its when I'm alone and there's no one to talk to that I start getting sad again because my mind is free to start thinking again. Sometimes I wonder if people are sick of hearing from me or about my mom, so I try not to talk about it too much unless someone else brings it up. I don't want to be alone again and I'm so afraid of being alone. Am I feeling what my mom felt? She was always afraid of being alone. I guess that's why she made choices to be with people or around people that treated her like shit, because as bad as it was, at least she wasn't alone. I dont' want to feel like that. For 51 years, my mother struggled with inner deamons and depression and fear. All she wanted was to be happy and loved and I just hope she knew that she was loved. I loved her. I still love her. And I miss her terribly.

Subject : Bloody Tears
Posted Date: : Nov 5, 2008 4:55 AM
I feel the need to rant and rave so if you don't feel like hearing it, don't bother continuing to read!
I constantly feel like no one wants to hear anymore about my mom and my grieving. Perhaps its just my paranoia. I tend to keep a lot of things bottled up inside for that very reason, which I know is not healthy but some days it seems better to live inside my mind where I go insane rather than release the very feelings that have me ready to commit myself once again. I try to fight off the urges to find alternate sources of feeling pain rather than feel this pain that lingers and refuses to go away. I'd give anything to not feel this pain anymore. I'd give anything not to have to stare at that plastic black box in my living room that reminds me that all I have left is ashes of my mother. Is that what we become? We live only to become a box full of ashes or stuffed in a box in the end. It's rather ironic dont' you think? We spend our entire lives searching for something better...money, happiness, beauty...and whether we find what we are looking for or not, in the end we are left with shit. What a cruel joke. I know...I know...our bodies are just a vessel and our soul forever lives on...blah...blah...blah. But we spend a lifetime caring for that vessel and for what? I, myself, strive to lose weight and have a beautiful body, though it never happens. I dream of having beautiful silky hair, a blemish free face, a body not mine. What the fuck for? What am I wasting my time for? In the end, it won't matter anyways. In the end, we are nothing.

I keep asking myself, "am I grieving right?" Are there any guidelines to how one should grieve? Is there a timeline for how long it will take for the visions of that horrific night to go away. Do they ever go away? Is it ok if I don't cry at least once a day? Is is ok to get angry? Am I selfish if I just want to be quiet and not talk to people some days. I am trying to be strong...I really am. Why do I have to be strong all the time. I used to remain strong in situations like this for my mom but now she's gone. Who do I have to be strong for now? Yet I still feel I need to stay strong for someone...anyone. Why? I feel selfish for being sad all the time. No one wants to be around someone who is depressed all the time. No one wants to constantly hear my problems. I'm not the only one that is going through something right now. I know that. That's why I said at the beginning, if you don't want to hear it, dont' read it.
Somedays I just want to run away. Not from anyone inparticular. Maybe just from myself. I think about hopping in the car and just driving with no destination in mind. Just driving until I run out of gas. What would I do when I got there? Probably just turn around and come right back. I don't have the balls to stay away. I can't hide from myself. I never could.
Somedays I'm just fucking angry. Angry at myself. Angry at my mom. Angry at the world. I'm angry at myself for being such a shitty daughter. I bitched all the time about how many times a day she would call and I would be nasty when she didn't understand that I couldn't talk. Now I'd give anything for the phone to ring. I'm angry at myself because she would always ask me to come down for a visit but instead I made excuses why I couldn't. I'm angry at my mom because she left. I'm angry because she didn't say goodbye. I'm angry because if she wasn't feeling well, why didn't she call me. Why didn't she call someone. She always did any other time. I'm angry because no one thought anything was off when they didn't hear or talk to her for 2 days. Everyone just assumed she was at my house. Why would people just assume? She never went anywhere without telling someone where she was going. She didn't show up for dinner with her friend. Why didn't her friend call someone, call me, anyone? What if there was a chance she could have been saved and no one did anything? I'm angry that I can't see or feel her. I'm angry that others have seen her, but I can't. I'm her daugher. I should be the one to see her. I don't want to hear from someone else that they saw her. I want to...dammit. Why didn't I feel like something was wrong? How did I not know until I found her lifeless body? Why did I have to be the one to find her. Why do I have to be left with the visions of her lying in that bed, hopeless and a box full of ashes?

I guess I'm just going through the motions of grief. Anger...Sadness...Guilt...Depression. How long before this fades? Will her memory fade too. Somedays I feel like I can't go on...or rather I shouldn't go on because I'm still alive and she's not. I feel like it should have been me and not her. She would do anything to help anyone. She never asked for anything in return. She did things out of the kindness of her heart with no expectations. She always wanted to help people. She wasn't wealthy but she was always willing to help someone out financially even if it meant her doing without. I know because she did it for me countless times. And now I feel guilty because I let her. I was a selfish daughter. I'm the first to admit it. And I'm the one that has to live with that now. I've lived on my own for 11 years. I should have been able to support myself and instead I continually went to my mom for help and without hesitation she always did help and in turn did without, herself. I should have been taking care of her. It was my job and I failed. I failed as a daughter and now I'll never be able to make it up to her. I can never tell her I'm sorry. I can never tell her that I love her and I'll never hear her say she loves me again. I cut her short that last night I talked to her and her last words to me were "Who loves you more that anyone?" Now I'll never hear that again. I'll never be able to call her again and share good news or call her and vent when I've had a bad day. I can't call her anymore to talk about what happened on the Young and the Restless or laugh about what Karen and Jack did on Will & Grace.
The nights seem to be harder when she doesn't call to say goodnight or ask me a quick question before I go to bed. Mom could never sleep at night and she often called late, even if I was already in bed. I used to love the night. Now I hate it. Most days, I don't even know where to put myself. I'm running out of things to keep busy. I'm running out of sanity.

Subject : I need to release this pent up rage
Posted Date: : Dec 11, 2008 4:56 AM
Today is one of those days I feel the need to release some of this pent up stress. I'm warning you. Its not gonna be pretty so if you don't wanna hear it, close out your page now. Otherwise, hold on for the ride, its gonna be brutal.
I've been trying really hard to put on a smile and be strong. Trying real hard to make everyone else happy because maybe my pain won't hurt so bad or feel so real. This is not to say that my intentions in making others happy are fake because they are not, but in the process I've managed to shove my own pain so far out of the way that last night, it came back to smack me in the face. I wanted so badly to forget the holidays and not even recognize that the days exist, but somehow got sucked into it anyway. I went with the flow, thinking maybe this is what I need. Maybe this is what my mom would have wanted. Last night, decorating the house, all of a sudden, everything came rushing back to me and it was like WTF am I doing? How can I be decorating my house for festivities at a time like this? After 2 months of this back and forth shit, having no answers and trying to deal with it the best I could, its all built up inside of me and I'm ready to explode.
I really do not feel like anyone truly understands how I am feeling right now. Yes, I know there are many people out there who have lost someone they love and I do not pretend to think that my pain is more real or more intense than anyone else's. Everyone has their own way of dealing with things. Loss affects everyone in different ways, so I guess it would make sense that I would feel no one can truly know how I feel. Especially those close to me. I don't expect people to be mind readers and to just KNOW when I want to be left alone, but when I plainly say, "I need time alone" or "I feel suffocated", that does not require a minder reader to interpret. Must I spell it out. "I WANT TO BE LEFT THE FUCK ALONE AND I DON'T CARE IF THAT HURTS YOU BECAUSE I AM HURTING TOO MUCH RIGHT NOW TO CARE HOW YOU FEEL!" Does that make more sense? Must I be so brutal and hurt someone else in order to get my point accross, in order to make people understand how I feel? I dont' want to hurt other people just because I am hurting but what else am I suppose to do? Usually when I want to be left alone, I'm quiet, but apparently, that is not enough of an indication to leave me alone. I am going through probably the hardest thing I will ever go through in my life. I have experienced something that most people never will. I am not just talking about the loss of a loved one. Everyone at some point will experience the loss of a loved one. I am talking about finding my mother dead in her apartment. I am talking about finding my mother after being dead for 2 days in her apartment and no one thinking anything was wrong. I am talking about living all these months without having any answers as to why this had to happen and happen the way that it did. I will never get the visions out of my head of how I walked in her apartment and saw her laying on her bed, her face blue, knowing she was dead and screaming so loud, praying that this was a nightmare and that my screams would wake me up. But my screams didn't change anything. She's still dead and I still dont' know why. I am not making my pain worse that anyone else's, but this is the worse pain I have ever felt and probably the worse pain I will ever feel in MY life.
With that said, I recieved a call from the coroner's office today. In the beginning I was calling everyday hoping to find anything out. Then I reduced it to twice a week, then once a week. Too much of hearing that nothing new had developed was becoming too much. Yesterday I made my weekly call and spoke to the medical examiner secretary that inputs results into the computer to generate the report. Of course the toxicology results were still pending and she could hear in my voice how much distress this was causing me. She told me that she would contact the chief of the lab and find out where they are as far as my mothers tests, basically to find out if they had even gotten to her yet, if they had been started, etc. She told me to call her today and she would tell me what she found out. After playing phone tag with her today, she finally called a few moments ago to tell me that the lab is currently working on my mother's blood tests. She explained that there are three levels of testing that the lab does. Level 1 is basically just drug and alcohol. Level 2 tests for approximately 250 different drugs, both illegal and legal. And Level 3 tests for basically anything that can be found in the blood including carbon monoxide, blood poisoning, etc. Now, while she couldnt' tell me what level they are testing my mother's blood at, based on how long we have been waiting, it is safe to assume that they are doing a Level 3 testing, which of course would make sense to take the longest. She went on to tell me that the results for the toxicology will be done by the end of next week and maybe even sooner. Once the toxicology results are in, the results will go the doctors along with the slides of the organs and he will do his analysis do determine the cause of death. I asked her if I would know before xmas and she couldn't tell me definitively, but she seemed confident that the autopsy report would be done before xmas, though she doesn't want to promise anything.
Everything is beginning to feel real now. For 2 months, I have been told that the results are still pending. Now, I have an actual time frame and I'm scared. I want to know, but at the same time, I'm afraid to know because when I know, then it really is real. Regardless of what the results are, its not going to change anything. My mother is still dead and she's not coming back. Knowing the results won't make me feel better, it will just tell me why. Will it bring me peace, knowing the truth? Only time will tell.