Most Stressful, Emotional Life Event

[Incredulity 11664]

IMPO some gallows humor is cathartic.

 

[deadshank 24652]

8 minutes ago, Lidig8r said:

The press would have us believe the world is so dark now... what you have been through provides little glimmers of light.  Keep it up.

The light scares away the darkness.  Life is what you make of it.  If you're not laughing you're not doing life in the correct manner. 

I refuse to go down without laughing and running my mouth.

[KCMasterpieceof 24]

9 hours ago, Shoxthemonkey said:

November 5, 1988, a Saturday. My 12 yr old son and I were back in the timber of our property cutting firewood. My wife has gone to town to pick up our 10 yr old daughter from her mother's house (my MIL).  An hour later, my cousin roars through our pasture honking his horn trying to find us. We run out and wave him to us. He lets me know that my wife has been in an accident and it isn't good. I ask a lot of questions but he doesn't have any answers. I don't know if she had already picked up the daughter or not. My son and I jump in my cousins truck and head to my wife's sister's house so I can drop off my son. We get there and she and I take her car and head to town, 15 miles away. On the way, we pass the scene of the accident. My wife's 85 Dodge Charger is in the ditch with a 3/4 ton flatbed farm truck sitting on top of it. The roof of the car is completely collapsed. I see no way that she could survive. We get to our small town hospital just as LifeWatch is leaving the helipad. I run into the Emergency room and our doctor meets me just inside. My wife was a nurse and has worked closely with him for several years. He turns me around and he and I get in his car and head for Wichita. On the way he tells me that she was alone in the car, she is unconscious but has no broken bones or visible trauma. At least my daughter is safe.

We get to the hospital and the first person that we encounter is a neurosurgeon who tells me that she is in a coma and might need immediate surgery to relieve brain swelling and I have to sign a mountain of paperwork. This begins a 3 week stay in ICU. They never have to do the surgery but  she doesn't come out of the coma until almost Thanksgiving. Once she is conscious again, they are able to assess the level of TBI and set the wheels in motion for the rehab that will follow. She will spend the next 8 weeks in the rehab wing of the hospital learning to speak, walk, and feed herself. I wasn't given any set values for the functions that she would regain so I wasn't sure what our future was going to look like. I was fortunate that our kids were old enough to be able to take care of themselves and be very helpful. My folks lived in Wichita at the time so we set home away from home there. Amazingly, she was able to recover to a remarkable degree and last May we celebrated our Golden anniversary.

Heck yea bro!

[Lidig8r 1871]

5 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Well, first....this is Surly.  It's what we do.

Second...I dunno.  Maybe, maybe not, as to your hypothesis.  I mean, I've been through some shit; at our age, most everyone has.  Some of the stories above are much more stressful than anything I ever dealt with, some less so.

What I find interesting about these stories is how the darkness and the light are often the same thing, or at least are so intertwined as to be inseparable.  We suffer unspeakable loss because we have loved.  We experience stress and worry because there are things worth caring about.  This is a hard, cruel, and beautiful world.  All at once.  

So incredibly insightful! You are correct.

We all handle adversity, stress, tragedy in accordance with our own gifts and deficiencies. Grief is as individual as our fingerprints.

After my daughter died, I had a very dear friend send me a card that resonates with me to this day. It basically said ... When we must endure an unspeakable tragedy, people tend to react in three ways ... (1). It destroys them (see, Brian Loncar; (2). It defines them in a negative way and keeps them in a dusky twilight until the end of their days, or (3). It fills them with incredible resolve.

I am so fortunate that my fate was the third path.

I hope we all find strength in our lives.

[Da Fino 2779]

I deal with death on a regular basis in my line of work. I’m fairly dark and blasé about it at this point. However, two things shake me and still haunt me several nights per week. The first was the look of fear in my father’s eyes when I found him dying unexpectedly on the floor. He didn’t make it. Really sucked. The second was the feeling when my daughter was given an errant diagnosis for a serious heart condition. Luckily she’s healthy as small horse now. But the nightmares are incredibly common and I can wake up a house yelping out during them. Gotta get that fixed. Unrelated, the strangest emotion I’ve encountered is the feeling when a group of people who get to go home at the end of the day, get to decide if you are getting locked in a cage at the end of the day. It’s a hard one to explain. 

[Baboontyme 2810]

Something happened recently that I can't stop thinking about. I tear up almost daily. I feel like I have survivor's guilt or something even though I didn't actually endure any suffering myself. I feel like I should have known better, I should have done more, and I'm a little disgusted with myself that in the moment I didn't recognize the threat or the potential catastrophic outcome. My motives were kind of selfish and naive. I'm kind of fucked about it tbh but life must go on. Thanks for letting me vent. 

[MissingInAction 25036]

Putting down Amber, my dog of 16 years. 

I've had a ruptured appendix and that pain didn't come close to what I felt when she was gone. I felt something inside me break in two. Couldn't eat for 3 days, and couldn't think straight. 

Her death had a profoundly positive effect on me in the long run. I became a much nicer person to those I care about, and those I don't.  

Edited September 21, 2023 by MissingInAction

[NWBuck 8552]

My job requires me to be with a lot of people in amazing and joyful life celebrations some days, and walking alongside others in the darkest parts of their existence. I've sat with families as their loved ones breathed their last, and I've contacted parents to tell them that their child has lost their lives in a tragedy (hiking accident, construction mishap). 

I was on the phone with my dad when he was hospitalized, and spent an hour listening to him tell me why he wanted to kill himself (and convincing him it was a terrible idea). I'm also responsible for telling parents their college student is being taken to the hospital after attempting suicide, and working to create a response and short term support plan for the student and their family. 

I've done a lot of work on my own internal stuff and regularly train for crisis response and psychological first aid and the like. 

But nothing prepared me for the focused panic I felt driving my daughter to the ER at 3am this summer after she overdosed and tried to take her own life. 

Edited September 21, 2023 by NWBuck

[Kennythetiger 9377]

8 hours ago, Lidig8r said:

So incredibly insightful! You are correct.

We all handle adversity, stress, tragedy in accordance with our own gifts and deficiencies. Grief is as individual as our fingerprints.

After my daughter died, I had a very dear friend send me a card that resonates with me to this day. It basically said ... When we must endure an unspeakable tragedy, people tend to react in three ways ... (1). It destroys them (see, Brian Loncar; (2). It defines them in a negative way and keeps them in a dusky twilight until the end of their days, or (3). It fills them with incredible resolve.

I am so fortunate that my fate was the third path.

I hope we all find strength in our lives.

I agree with Brisket, in that gallows humor is what we do. It’s defined this website for sure since I joined 20 years ago. To me, his Whataburger response was expected and perfectly placed. 
I remember when you had us all light a candle for your daughter several years ago. Christmastime, I believe. I think about you a lot. ❤️

[Kennythetiger 9377]

14 hours ago, deadshank said:

The light scares away the darkness.  Life is what you make of it.  If you're not laughing you're not doing life in the correct manner. 

I refuse to go down without laughing and running my mouth.

 

I found this note in a museum in Miles City, MT. 

 

[Bevo&Pevo 5131]

Well, what a start to my day.  This thread hit me like 2 tons of bricks.  One minute I'm crying with laughter at that damn monkey chaos in the "makes you lol" thread and seemingly the next I'm shaking and trying to keep my shit together thinking about my first wife. When I'm here at haus during the day I usually put on YT music and let it go.  Terry Jack's Season in the Sun was playing when I started reading this thread.  Such a flood of emotion overcame me.  I turned off the laptop and went outside, petted the dog, marveled at the beauty of the flowers and sky and pulled myself back together.  Right now, this is the best I can do.  It has yet to help me by talking about it and time has yet to heal this wound.   I think today I'll go to town and take my second bride to lunch, call the kids and my dad.  Dad said once "life has more to endure than enjoy".  He may be right.  

Shooter, I think in all fairness we need a thread for the glory, the best, proudest, etc. thing in our lives. 

[Incredulity 11664]

33 minutes ago, Bevo&Pevo said:

 I think today I'll go to town and take my second bride to lunch, call the kids and my dad.

Co-signed.

I had a similar reaction one time to the divorce thread.  Made time that weekend to date my wife and have tried to continue that habit.

Way to easy to get buried in the grind and not appreciate life.

Something, something dusty in here.

[heso 2791]

I have 2 I can add. 

1. When I was 7 my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I remember my dad coming into the living room to tell me and my sister. I remember pretending to cry because I didn’t really understand what exactly that meant but my dad and my sister were crying so I thought I should too. I was told that it was caught early enough and she’d be ok. The next 7 years were a roller coaster of “this has gotten worse” and “she’s going to be fine”. Multiple surgeries and chemo as it metastasized to her colon. My mom wasn’t fat, but full figured. Between the multiple rounds of chemo and the multiple sections of her colon being removed she was down under 90 pounds and had to walk with a walker. I vividly remember being 14 and frustrated/scared/embarrassed and being impatient at her needing to use a walker one day to get out to the car. She died not long after. I chose to not be in the hospital the day they unplugged the machines keeping her alive. That’s the last memory I have of her. I’ve never fully forgiven myself for that.

During the last few years of my mom’s life, my dad’s mom got alzheimer's. It was pretty ugly for my dad. She died a year and 10 days after my mom. All things considered, my dad did a remarkable job leading my sister and me through all of it. Looking back at it decades later I can see how much that time period broke him. I wish I was less of a shit head for him through that and a few years after. 

2. May 25th 2019, 3 days after my daughter’s 3rd birthday. My wife, 32 weeks pregnant with our second daughter, had gone to the hospital because she hadn’t felt the baby move in a while. It was late at night, our 3 year old was asleep upstairs when my wife called. There was no heartbeat. Our baby was dead. I had to wait around for my sister in law to get to the house so I could go down to the hospital. Holding my wife’s hand as she sobbed, delivering a lifeless baby was excruciating. After the delivery, the placenta didn’t detach and she was bleeding pretty badly. They had to rush her out to the OR. So there I was sitting alone in a hospital room, moments after they wheeled our dead baby out, moments after they rushed my wife to the OR, not sure if she was going to die or not, thinking about my 3 year old sleeping at home. That was the single hardest moment of my life. 

They were able to stop the bleeding and moved my wife to the icu. They weren’t able to get all of the placenta out so there would need to be some follow up procedure to take care of that. My wife would be fine. We comforted ourselves with the fact that she was ok, and after she healed up, and we mourned the loss we could have another baby. The follow up appointments and MRI showed that the placenta had grown through the wall of the uterus. She had to have a hysterectomy. There wouldn’t be another baby. 

A year or so after that my wife started having severe, unrelated, health issues in her colon. Probably 12 ER visits over 24 months, half a dozen colonoscopies, they thought it might be crohns, through all of the hospital stays and repeated rounds of antibiotics, she had developed recurrent CDIFF. Ultimately they got that under control and cauterized part of the inside of her colon that has seemingly been resolved. With all of the physical pain she was in through all of that they kept her on a pretty consistent diet of narcotics, which also made the emotional pain disappear temporarily. That combination lead to a pretty severe narcotics dependency. A year and a few months ago she took the steps to move beyond that, and a really difficult year later she’s in a much better place. she’s still not the person she was before the still birth, and part of me wonders if she’ll ever be able to be as truly happy as she was before that. 

Now, with all of that hopefully behind us, we’re in a position to start to move forward with surrogacy. Every meeting and appointment we’ve had so far has yielded positive results, but I’ve been so beaten down by the last 4 years that it’s so hard to have real genuine hope for something because I keep just waiting to be kicked back down again. 

[Shoxthemonkey 1977]

24 minutes ago, heso said:

I have 2 I can add. 

1. When I was 7 my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I remember my dad coming into the living room to tell me and my sister. I remember pretending to cry because I didn’t really understand what exactly that meant but my dad and my sister were crying so I thought I should too. I was told that it was caught early enough and she’d be ok. The next 7 years were a roller coaster of “this has gotten worse” and “she’s going to be fine”. Multiple surgeries and chemo as it metastasized to her colon. My mom wasn’t fat, but full figured. Between the multiple rounds of chemo and the multiple sections of her colon being removed she was down under 90 pounds and had to walk with a walker. I vividly remember being 14 and frustrated/scared/embarrassed and being impatient at her needing to use a walker one day to get out to the car. She died not long after. I chose to not be in the hospital the day they unplugged the machines keeping her alive. That’s the last memory I have of her. I’ve never fully forgiven myself for that.

During the last few years of my mom’s life, my dad’s mom got alzheimer's. It was pretty ugly for my dad. She died a year and 10 days after my mom. All things considered, my dad did a remarkable job leading my sister and me through all of it. Looking back at it decades later I can see how much that time period broke him. I wish I was less of a shit head for him through that and a few years after. 

2. May 25th 2019, 3 days after my daughter’s 3rd birthday. My wife, 32 weeks pregnant with our second daughter, had gone to the hospital because she hadn’t felt the baby move in a while. It was late at night, our 3 year old was asleep upstairs when my wife called. There was no heartbeat. Our baby was dead. I had to wait around for my sister in law to get to the house so I could go down to the hospital. Holding my wife’s hand as she sobbed, delivering a lifeless baby was excruciating. After the delivery, the placenta didn’t detach and she was bleeding pretty badly. They had to rush her out to the OR. So there I was sitting alone in a hospital room, moments after they wheeled our dead baby out, moments after they rushed my wife to the OR, not sure if she was going to die or not, thinking about my 3 year old sleeping at home. That was the single hardest moment of my life. 

They were able to stop the bleeding and moved my wife to the icu. They weren’t able to get all of the placenta out so there would need to be some follow up procedure to take care of that. My wife would be fine. We comforted ourselves with the fact that she was ok, and after she healed up, and we mourned the loss we could have another baby. The follow up appointments and MRI showed that the placenta had grown through the wall of the uterus. She had to have a hysterectomy. There wouldn’t be another baby. 

A year or so after that my wife started having severe, unrelated, health issues in her colon. Probably 12 ER visits over 24 months, half a dozen colonoscopies, they thought it might be crohns, through all of the hospital stays and repeated rounds of antibiotics, she had developed recurrent CDIFF. Ultimately they got that under control and cauterized part of the inside of her colon that has seemingly been resolved. With all of the physical pain she was in through all of that they kept her on a pretty consistent diet of narcotics, which also made the emotional pain disappear temporarily. That combination lead to a pretty severe narcotics dependency. A year and a few months ago she took the steps to move beyond that, and a really difficult year later she’s in a much better place. she’s still not the person she was before the still birth, and part of me wonders if she’ll ever be able to be as truly happy as she was before that. 

Now, with all of that hopefully behind us, we’re in a position to start to move forward with surrogacy. Every meeting and appointment we’ve had so far has yielded positive results, but I’ve been so beaten down by the last 4 years that it’s so hard to have real genuine hope for something because I keep just waiting to be kicked back down again. 

Good luck to you and your wife. I wanted to rec you but there isn't an appropriate emoji for what you have faced and your life going forward.

[GoPokes83 2240]

My job requires me to be with a lot of people in amazing and joyful life celebrations some days, and walking alongside others in the darkest parts of their existence. I've sat with families as their loved ones breathed their last, and I've contacted parents to tell them that their child has lost their lives in a tragedy (hiking accident, construction mishap). 
I was on the phone with my dad when he was hospitalized, and spent an hour listening to him tell me why he wanted to kill himself (and convincing him it was a terrible idea). I'm also responsible for telling parents their college student is being taken to the hospital after attempting suicide, and working to create a response and short term support plan for the student and their family. 
I've done a lot of work on my own internal stuff and regularly train for crisis response and psychological first aid and the like. 
But nothing prepared me for the focused panic I felt driving my daughter to the ER at 3am this summer after she overdosed and tried to take her own life. 

And I thought you people just said Welcome to Wal Mart and checked receipts from the really tan customers! Kudos my man!

[Lidig8r 1871]

So, in addition to my daughter ...

October 20 2019 (my birthday), am getting hammered with the SO and a doctor friend of mine at MiCo at Frankford and the Tollway. Big ass tornado hits. My dad, who is then at Presby Hospital (abdominal cancer) is wheeled into the central hallways at Presby (along with all of the other patients) because the tornado is approaching them. (It missed the hospital by about 8 blocks). Four days after that, October 24, 2019, my dad dies.

October 30, 2019... annual death date of my daughter.

February 2020, after my mom was at Medical City for a small stroke, she goes to a rehab place. I saw her once. Then Covid lockdown hits. I would never see her alive again. September 19, 2020, my mom dies in her sleep.

Oct. 24 and 30th... death commemoration date.

Nov. 10, 2020 I get a call from the Godless jezebel who was my older brother's wife. Told me he had a major heart attack. Ended up being heart arrythmia. The next day was told no brain function, being kept alive by life support. I have the Power of Attorney.

Nov. 11, 2020, I go to my son's house. .. to see my new granddaughter. The first time I get to hold this new, precious life, I have to tell my son that I am flying to Florida that evening because I have to give the instructions to pull my brother off of life support. Needless to say, the tears are just pouring out as I am holding that new life.

Nov. 13, 2020, instructions given. Life support pulled.

Jan. 2021, .. I get a call from the really nice wife of my younger brother (in California). She says my brother just had a major heart attack. I think it's a joke, and a poor one at that. But nooooooo. She is hysterical, in tears... it was my younger brother who was then in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. A "widow maker" heart attack. Fortunately, that day, the hospital had a well known heart surgeon in attendance. My brother sent me 3 pictures showing his arteries pretty much completely closed ... and then, pretty much completely open within 10 minutes! He survived.

That was a tough 15 months.

Am still soldiering on. Either I am the most emotionally stunted man in the history of God ... or God still has plans for me.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

In 2013 my wife had a miscarriage. I think it affected her a bit more than me, which I think is understandable. What is tough was we had been trying for awhile to get pregnant. But it wasn’t meant to be at that point. The day after the D&C procedure, I was on my way to work and flipped my truck on its side and spun down MOPAC. Fortunately Toyota makes a pretty damn good vehicle and I wasn’t injured. It was a fairly intense couple of days.


Oh, and as far as intense and emotional, 9/11 was pretty crazy as I was living in DC at the time. But I am pretty sure I have told that story a few times over the years on this and the old site.

[Gatorubet 30209]

On 9/19/2023 at 6:03 PM, SHOOTER12 said:

The 30 days after, I have absolutely no memory of anything other than the funeral, and my mother telling me I killed my dad.

in this episode of shiny happy people….

[Nuge 1966]

Thank you all for sharing.  I've shed a few tears reading these tales of woe but feel like I know and appreciate y'all more.  

[KCMasterpieceof 24]

54 minutes ago, Nuge said:

Thank you all for sharing.  I've shed a few tears reading these tales of woe but feel like I know and appreciate y'all more.  

This.

But there is also some really fantastic encouragement from reading what some of you guys have lived through and came out from.

[Armybrat 40832]

Last summer, when my oldest son who was vacationing in Florida called at 10:30 in the evening just as we were going to bed. 
He asked, “Are you both listening?”. (He was on speaker phone) 

When Mrs. Brat answered in the affirmative, he said “Parker (our 29 year old grandson) is dead”. 
It is gut-wrenching right now just to type that.

I never in my wildest dreams ever thought we would ever hear those words. I always knew I was going to be the first one in my immediate family to go. The rest of that night was just a blur of grief, as I lost it completely.

[Deej 76759]

On 9/20/2023 at 8:27 AM, jeevsie said:

But at least you know why he named you Sue.

[ajax 2609]

If we're talking about normal, non-tragic stuff, kids leaving home and going off on their own. Super stressful for me. 

[TexArcher 37774]

3 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

in this episode of shiny happy people….

Hey, thanks for putting this steaming shitpile of a song into my head for the next six days, which is going to rank pretty high on my trauma list.

But, my real answer to the question is that my best friend died tragically and unexpectedly about six months ago.  I don't want to talk about it too much, because it was a pretty public story, and I don't want to splash it around on here.  But, it fucking sucks and I miss him every day.  Rest in peace, Mikey.  Hope you can see the games from whatever's next.  We're kicking some ass.

Edited September 21, 2023 by TexArcher

[Celery Man 20934]

Mom died of ovarian when I was 15, but it’s hard to untangle the difficulties related to that with those of regular teenaged coming of age. But coming to grips with the “she will die” diagnosis was very hard.

Honestly, I had to do a RIF/layoff of 20% of our staff in my second year as an engineering manager. The whole planning of it took months and I thought I was going to get an ulcer, couldn’t stand it. I had been with that organization for 10 years, I really cared a lot and hated carrying that around.

Really all of that is child’s play in comparison to alcoholically circling the drain. That is just about the most miserable existence imaginable. I don’t even really think I’m being hyperbolic.

[hullabelew 3723]

4 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

in this episode of shiny happy people….

 

[Gatorubet 30209]

38 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Hey, thanks for putting this steaming shitpile of a song into my head for the next six days, which is going to rank pretty high on my trauma list.

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all

[DalTxHornFan 3101]

25 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all

Commie!

[NWBuck 8552]

1 hour ago, Gatorubet said:

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all

I hate you so much right now....

[Incredulity 11664]

I once spent 90 min on a broken down It’s a Small World mid-ride with the music playing.  A traumatic experience to say the least

[mininghorn88 2282]

7 hours ago, Lidig8r said:

That was a tough 15 months.

Am still soldiering on. Either I am the most emotionally stunted man in the history of God ... or God still has plans for me.

IMO, I would roll with this right here in a positive way.

Edited September 22, 2023 by mininghorn88

[Clintonaldo 2574]

My step father dying of cancer and my father shooting hisself literally hours apart. I was on my way to a lunch meeting to finalize taking a new job. I thought I handled it pretty well until my son was born 6 years later and I realized he will never know his grandfather and all of the things he will miss out in that respect.

Like Slorch it has really made me less empathetic to trivial little bullshit that a lot of people get wrapped up in and I am not saying that’s always a good thing. 

[fattyflattie 4639]

Appreciate these types of threads.  A stark reminder there’s real people behind the username. 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

Pulling the plug on my old man was tough.  He couldn’t really communicate other than squeezing my hand.  I sat and talked with him for a long while and asked him if he was ready. He was ready but didn’t want to say goodbye to his kids.   Didn’t know how. I told him he had accomplished far more than I could ever hope for, raising our family, and it was time for him to rest.  To go see my mom and his parents and all our old dogs.  He slept pretty peacefully for a couple hours until I held the pillow over his face. Just kidding.   

Edited September 22, 2023 by Judge Roybeanbag

[Celery Man 20934]

7 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Appreciate these types of threads.  A stark reminder there’s real people behind the username. 

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20395]

Let me preface this by saying that I've had some horrible experiences like everybody---- overcame cancer, have had loved ones die etc ... 

Having said that, I know this is going to sound trite/trivial but when Craig Curry muffed that punt in the 1983 Cotton Bowl, it sent me into one of the worst times of my life. I'm kind of embarrassed now but very few events have impacted me, emotionally, like that. I was mostly alone for the holidays that year and it sent me into a terrible funk that didn't get resolved until school started back up a couple of weeks later.  I couldn't eat, lost weight, looked like shit etc... My friends saw me and immediately knew something was wrong. "You look like you were run over by a truck,"  they said.   After that I resolved that I will never allow myself to be impacted like that by any game, ever. Looking back, I can't believe how unhealthy my attachment to that team was. 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Horn Under a Bad Sign

[Lidig8r 1871]

3 hours ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Pulling the plug on my old man was tough.  He couldn’t really communicate other than squeezing my hand.  I sat and talked with him for a long while and asked him if he was ready. He was ready but didn’t want to say goodbye to his kids.   Didn’t know how. I told him he had accomplished far more than I could ever hope for, raising our family, and it was time for him to rest.  To go see my mom and his parents and all our old dogs.  He slept pretty peacefully for a couple hours until I held the pillow over his face. Just kidding.   

YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD ... You had me... what a touching tribute and then, you pulled a Lucy and Charlie Brown on us.  Well played sir.

[fattyflattie 4639]

1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

Godamn that’s a great gif.  Have hundreds of negs here and you nailed it first.  Well done 

[Gatorubet 30209]

12 hours ago, Clintonaldo said:

My step father dying of cancer and my father shooting hisself literally hours apart. I was on my way to a lunch meeting to finalize taking a new job. I thought I handled it pretty well until my son was born 6 years later and I realized he will never know his grandfather and all of the things he will miss out in that respect.

Like Slorch it has really made me less empathetic to trivial little bullshit that a lot of people get wrapped up in and I am not saying that’s always a good thing. 

My mothers parents were both alive until I was in junior high. Of course, I never met them because they declined to spend the money on a bus or air ticket to ever go and meet their daughter’s two sons.

Priorities. 

[Sandman 3403]

39 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

My mothers parents were both alive until I was in junior high. Of course, I never met them because they declined to spend the money on a bus or air ticket to ever go and meet their daughter’s two sons.

Priorities. 

My mom's father was like that. Her folks lived in Colorado, we were in California and then Oklahoma. He couldn't be bothered to visit. My grandmother came out once. We went up there 2 or 3 times. I only met him 5 times in my life. He was never rude or shitty towards us, just didn't really care. I had my first grandchild 5 months ago and I worry about how that relationship works. I've never had a grandfather give me a hug and tell me he loves me. My dad's dad died before I was born, this is foreign territory for me.

My other kid is having a baby next year, so I need to un-fuck myself and figure it out, I suppose.

[T’Boo Ted Marshall 2732]

Watching Mom die from Leukemia was difficult.  The worst part was during hospice at home I was reading to her while she was in bed.  She was nearly gone at this point.  I could see she wanted a drink of water and the hospice nurse advised giving her water at that point could cause her to choke.  She was too weak.  I couldn't give it to her.  Her only son that she cared for throughout many years.  I don't wish that moment on anyone. 

 

Stressful was when our daughter was being born.  Our Dr thought the cord had somehow wrapped around her neck.  Dr made a fast call and wheeled Mrs. T'Boo into the OR, performed an emergency C-Section and got her out in the span of 5 minutes.  Both were fine, but that was crazy fast.  

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

4 hours ago, Lidig8r said:

YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD ... You had me... what a touching tribute and then, you pulled a Lucy and Charlie Brown on us.  Well played sir.

Actually I added that last part because I had to laugh to keep from crying.  Aside from the pillow, the rest was all true, for real. January 2019.  Man I was glad he passed before Covid hit, trying to do elder care during that would have been unimaginable.  

Edited September 22, 2023 by Judge Roybeanbag

[SydneyCarton 48075]

On 9/21/2023 at 11:40 AM, heso said:

I have 2 I can add. 

1. When I was 7 my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I remember my dad coming into the living room to tell me and my sister. I remember pretending to cry because I didn’t really understand what exactly that meant but my dad and my sister were crying so I thought I should too. I was told that it was caught early enough and she’d be ok. The next 7 years were a roller coaster of “this has gotten worse” and “she’s going to be fine”. Multiple surgeries and chemo as it metastasized to her colon. My mom wasn’t fat, but full figured. Between the multiple rounds of chemo and the multiple sections of her colon being removed she was down under 90 pounds and had to walk with a walker. I vividly remember being 14 and frustrated/scared/embarrassed and being impatient at her needing to use a walker one day to get out to the car. She died not long after. I chose to not be in the hospital the day they unplugged the machines keeping her alive. That’s the last memory I have of her. I’ve never fully forgiven myself for that.

During the last few years of my mom’s life, my dad’s mom got alzheimer's. It was pretty ugly for my dad. She died a year and 10 days after my mom. All things considered, my dad did a remarkable job leading my sister and me through all of it. Looking back at it decades later I can see how much that time period broke him. I wish I was less of a shit head for him through that and a few years after. 

2. May 25th 2019, 3 days after my daughter’s 3rd birthday. My wife, 32 weeks pregnant with our second daughter, had gone to the hospital because she hadn’t felt the baby move in a while. It was late at night, our 3 year old was asleep upstairs when my wife called. There was no heartbeat. Our baby was dead. I had to wait around for my sister in law to get to the house so I could go down to the hospital. Holding my wife’s hand as she sobbed, delivering a lifeless baby was excruciating. After the delivery, the placenta didn’t detach and she was bleeding pretty badly. They had to rush her out to the OR. So there I was sitting alone in a hospital room, moments after they wheeled our dead baby out, moments after they rushed my wife to the OR, not sure if she was going to die or not, thinking about my 3 year old sleeping at home. That was the single hardest moment of my life. 

They were able to stop the bleeding and moved my wife to the icu. They weren’t able to get all of the placenta out so there would need to be some follow up procedure to take care of that. My wife would be fine. We comforted ourselves with the fact that she was ok, and after she healed up, and we mourned the loss we could have another baby. The follow up appointments and MRI showed that the placenta had grown through the wall of the uterus. She had to have a hysterectomy. There wouldn’t be another baby. 

A year or so after that my wife started having severe, unrelated, health issues in her colon. Probably 12 ER visits over 24 months, half a dozen colonoscopies, they thought it might be crohns, through all of the hospital stays and repeated rounds of antibiotics, she had developed recurrent CDIFF. Ultimately they got that under control and cauterized part of the inside of her colon that has seemingly been resolved. With all of the physical pain she was in through all of that they kept her on a pretty consistent diet of narcotics, which also made the emotional pain disappear temporarily. That combination lead to a pretty severe narcotics dependency. A year and a few months ago she took the steps to move beyond that, and a really difficult year later she’s in a much better place. she’s still not the person she was before the still birth, and part of me wonders if she’ll ever be able to be as truly happy as she was before that. 

Now, with all of that hopefully behind us, we’re in a position to start to move forward with surrogacy. Every meeting and appointment we’ve had so far has yielded positive results, but I’ve been so beaten down by the last 4 years that it’s so hard to have real genuine hope for something because I keep just waiting to be kicked back down again. 

if I ever meet you in person, I'm giving you a fucking hug. Non-negotiable. 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

14 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

if I ever meet you in person, I'm giving you a fucking hug. Non-negotiable. 

Yeah no shit, I’ve had it easy compared to that. 

[Brisketexan 105095]

It's hard to read these and not think of your own experiences as either "shit, I should just shut up, I've had it easy," or "if I mention anything I've been through, it'll sound like I'm trying to one-up people -- 'oh YEAH?  You think YOU had it bad?  Wait till you hear THIS ONE!'"

Of course, the reality is that whoever you are, life has managed to kick you in the nuts one way or another.  And it's pointless to compare your pain to someone else's, because it really isn't about relativity.  You don't tell a guy who had one leg blown off by an IED "yeah, man, you're lucky, I met a dude who had BOTH legs blown off by an IED!"  Likewise, you don't tell the dude who lost both legs "man, I bet you wish you were the dude who only lost one leg."  Both experiences crossed the threshold of "traumatic and stressful shit that left a serious fucking scar."

Maybe some of the interesting ones are those that you didn't realize were quite so stressful at the time.  Like the pregnancy my wife lost between our two kids.  Bleeding.  She knew something was wrong.  Went to the hospital, and yep, she'd lost the baby and needed a procedure.  Meanwhile, our toddler daughter was at her part-time nanny's.  I call the nanny to ask can she please stay late, we don't have anyone else to watch her while I rush to the hospital.  "Of course, she's safe here.  Go."  I go to be with my wife through the procedure.  By the time she's in recovery, he mother (coming up from Houston) was there.  So I leave her to go pick up our daughter, knowing my wife will be coming home shortly after.  I ask her if there's anything she wants when she gets home.  She says "biscuits.  Fresh biscuits.  Like, from Jim's."  So, I pick up our daughter at 10:00 pm, way later than she's usually up.  I go in to pick up a half dozen biscuits to go, at the Jim's at 183 and Burnet.  It's 10;00, so it's pretty slow in there.  Waitress goes to get them, comes back and says "you know, all the biscuits we have are a bit old, so I asked the cook to put in a fresh batch.  Why don't you have a seat at the counter." I do.  I plop my 1.5 yr old daughter up on the counter.  The waitress brings her toast and jelly.  She brings me a cup of coffee, without me asking for any of it.  And I sat there at that counter with my smiling, happy daughter, and a kind waitress doting on her.  And I saw and felt the child we had just lost.  I was just hollow in that moment -- it took me months, years, to realize how hollow I really felt.  In a few minutes, we had a box of fresh biscuits, and we headed home.  I've never forgotten that moment, an intersection of childish purity and innocence, my pain, and a stranger's kindness, at the formica counter at Jim's at 10:00 on a weeknight.  The loss of that was a slow-burn for me.  It still hits me sometimes, in a random wave.  Thing is, it wasn't even a pregnancy we were ready for; my wife got pregnant much too soon after our first, we were a bit thrown, and still weren't sure how we were going to handle #2.  So, maybe there's some guilt in there as well - maybe because we were wrestling with wanting that child, as he died....yeah.

I also haven't talked here much about my mother's passing, to anyone.  Not even my wife.  My mom died of lung cancer.  Processed into hospice care at home on a Thursday evening, with an estimated few weeks to go till the end.  Saturday morning, my dad texts me "SOS."  I rush over there (fortunately, they had moved to a place 5 minutes away from us).  Bottom line, my mother was actively dying.  Her lungs were simply done.  It was awful, the gasping for breath, etc. etc.   I tended to her the best I could, while I told my dad to call 911 -- we had a DNR, but I also wanted something palliative done if possible.  And I sat there with my suffering mother, unable to help her, unable to take away the pain and fear and awfulness of the moment.  There's more to that moment, that raw moment.  Really don't want to write it here, or anywhere.  AFD eventually showed up, and did an incredible job of bringing peace.

My dad still tells himself the lie that he needs to tell himself about that day: "It was good how she went.  At home, at peace."  I know that's not how it was.  And I know he does too.  But I never argue with him when he says that out loud.  Which he does, quite often.  I just agree with him.

I went home after they took her body away.  I took off the t-shirt I was wearing, stained with my mother's blood from her last breaths on the front.  I shoved it in the back of the closet.  It's still there.

1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

if I ever meet you in person, I'm giving you a fucking hug. Non-negotiable. 

And...this.

Shit, realizing the pain that my fellow travelers have felt breaks my fucking heart.  I can't help but want to be John Coffey in The Green Mile - I want to absorb everyone else's pain, to take it away from them.  And to put it on me.  Which is at once narcissist savior bullshit and self-destructive and a failure to value myself as I should.  I also suspect that I'm far from alone in that respect.  A shitload of people are empathetic.  And most people are much better humans than I am.  So we just all carry our own pain.

Sometimes, though, we have the opportunity, and maybe the obligation, to help carry someone else and the baggage of their pain for just a moment.  Just enough time to catch their breath.  Until they can get their feet under them and renew their walk beside us, lugging their blue Samsonite rolling bag of pain while we tote our black Land's End garment bag of loss.  Heso, and the rest of you...we can't carry your shit for you.  But we can damned well let you know that we see it, and we give a damn.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Brisketexan

[KYHorn 17029]

9/22/23 

Reading this thread. 

 

Jk...thanks everyone for sharing.

[squib 1120]

I'll go in a bit different direction than divorce or kid stuff.

Grew up in south Texas where it was an hour to the grocery store. My family was super tight as we spent all our time together. Not many friends for any of us including parents as it was just too remote. From as far back as I can remember I spent tons and tons of time with my dad. He worked in the oil field checking on wells, and I could ride to work with him everyday in the summer. We ate big dill pickles, drank semi-cool Dr Peppers and just talked. ALOT. Many, many nights he would come in my room to say good night before I went to bed, and he would sit on the corner of the bed and tell me that all we had in this world was each other and our family. Seemed correct to me. 

Go off to college but come back and forth regularly to hunt and fish and often times work with him. So never a hard separation. Flash forward to 1995 and I have been working in Austin after college. Still seeing my folks every month or two. But I decided I hated my job and I got recruited to go to graduate school several states away. Call dad, telling him I am coming home to spend Christmas but will load up a few things I had there and I would be leaving to go off far away. He is excited for me and glad I am coming home for the holidays for a few days. We hunt and fish. 

The day comes that I need to leave so we get up and drink a few cups of coffee. I have a 15-hour drive ahead of me so I say I need to go. We walk out to front of house and he wants to show me a new tool, then a place for a future flower bed, and then some dent on a trailer, etc, etc. We walk around and talk and everytime I head toward my truck, he says "Hey, look at this...." Anyway, after an hour, I say "Dad, I have to get on the road." 

I get in the truck, roll the window down. He comes over and starts telling a story. I say, I have to go and I put the truck in drive. Say I love you, and start out of the driveway. He starts walking toward the house...and falls to his knees crying. I am watching all this in the rearview mirrow. I start bawling. I just about throw it in park, but I know if I step out of that truck, I will never leave. I grip the wheel, point the truck east and drive off with him in the yard..lost, broken, alone. 

Didn't see him and mom for almost a year. A long, hard year. 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

26 minutes ago, squib said:

I'll go in a bit different direction than divorce or kid stuff.

Grew up in south Texas where it was an hour to the grocery store. My family was super tight as we spent all our time together. Not many friends for any of us including parents as it was just too remote. From as far back as I can remember I spent tons and tons of time with my dad. He worked in the oil field checking on wells, and I could ride to work with him everyday in the summer. We ate big dill pickles, drank semi-cool Dr Peppers and just talked. ALOT. Many, many nights he would come in my room to say good night before I went to bed, and he would sit on the corner of the bed and tell me that all we had in this world was each other and our family. Seemed correct to me. 

Go off to college but come back and forth regularly to hunt and fish and often times work with him. So never a hard separation. Flash forward to 1995 and I have been working in Austin after college. Still seeing my folks every month or two. But I decided I hated my job and I got recruited to go to graduate school several states away. Call dad, telling him I am coming home to spend Christmas but will load up a few things I had there and I would be leaving to go off far away. He is excited for me and glad I am coming home for the holidays for a few days. We hunt and fish. 

The day comes that I need to leave so we get up and drink a few cups of coffee. I have a 15-hour drive ahead of me so I say I need to go. We walk out to front of house and he wants to show me a new tool, then a place for a future flower bed, and then some dent on a trailer, etc, etc. We walk around and talk and everytime I head toward my truck, he says "Hey, look at this...." Anyway, after an hour, I say "Dad, I have to get on the road." 

I get in the truck, roll the window down. He comes over and starts telling a story. I say, I have to go and I put the truck in drive. Say I love you, and start out of the driveway. He starts walking toward the house...and falls to his knees crying. I am watching all this in the rearview mirrow. I start bawling. I just about throw it in park, but I know if I step out of that truck, I will never leave. I grip the wheel, point the truck east and drive off with him in the yard..lost, broken, alone. 

Didn't see him and mom for almost a year. A long, hard year. 

Jeez Louise man, that part about sitting on the corner of the bed. That was totally my grandpa in law.  Sat there and said “you know all my friends are dead and gone”.   I said no, I’m sitting right here man.  

[South Austin 52463]

Jesus, after reading this thread, I feel fortunate that the worst and most emotional time in my life was my divorce, and I thought that was some nightmarish Hollywood script what-the-fuck-is-happening-to-me kind of shit. Seems minor compared to some of the Book of Job stories on this thread.

I’m always amazed at the human spirit. You all are made of some strong stuff.

Edited September 22, 2023 by South Austin

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

Grandpa was a piece of work.   I remember riding in his truck and the conversations.   He was a medic in WWII.   He would get mad when I told him he was a nurse.   “I wasn’t a fucking nurse”.  “Yes you were, I have your nurse bag right here”.  “That’s a war bag, son.” Call it what you want, looks like something a nurse would carry.  “ Look you little shit, you have no idea.”  You’re right I don’t.   Then we would pull into Praseks and eat. He may have been a nurse, but he was a badass.