Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Richard Rivera on February 17, 2017 at 3:46pm

i finally have some good news. The unemployment office called me and said that my benefits have been approved and that I will receive three weeks of unemployment payment within 48 hours. This means I can pay one out of the three mon the rent I owe.

In addition the mayors office called me and said that the landlord is willing to wait for their rent via the rental assistance program that I have applied for and that I will not be locked out of the apartment.

Even without the rental assistance I will still be able to pay every month I owe.

I know it's because of Annette. She's here, now in the bedroom watching over me. What would make this a perfect day is to hear her speak my name and tell me she loves and that we'll be together soon. Then I can move forward with her at my side. I'm going to pray tonight for her and I.

Permalink Reply by Elynn m on February 18, 2017 at 11:07am

Answer to prayer!!!   Great to hear that there is something positive going on now in your life.   

Permalink Reply by bluebird on February 17, 2017 at 3:48pm

That's good news indeed, Richard. :-)

Permalink Reply by Richard Rivera on February 17, 2017 at 4:19pm

I don't have food so I'm going to still have to live off those Jell-O cups until the money comes in but that's OK . As I said I'm not really picky about what I eat as long there's something around to keep me going.

And of course my sister texted me and blameed me for the life that I have led. She Uses anger so that she will not have to show sympathy and that's OK too. She is the type who if you were stabbed in the street she would blame you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I told her to please, don't speak to me anymore, to please leave me in peace, that's all I asked. so now I'm going to hopefully have more good news in the next few days to come. I'll keep posting as things unwravel.

Permalink Reply by bluebird on February 17, 2017 at 5:27pm

Just don't answer the phone when your sister calls, at least for a while. As for food, there MUST be a food pantry somewhere in your area, Wich can at least give you some rice and beans or something.

Permalink Reply by Richard Rivera on February 17, 2017 at 5:54pm

There are food pantries in my area, yes. The problem is I'm in no shape to carry or walk to them even when taking a bus. I'm that heavy and that weak as a consequence of being morbidly obese. I've tried explaining it to the various church pantries but I keep getting the same answer "we don't drop off groceries, it's not our mandate." You want food? Come and get it. Can't? Tough luck, sorry.

I suppose it's asking too much, I don't know. And anyway the pantries are not open on the weekends so it's already too late even if I were able to get there and back. I'm used to not eating for days on end, so I'm used to this. I'll just have to wait. that's OK. You'd be amazed how easy the mind compensates for lack of food. Your stomach shrinks and shrinks making it so that your appetite diminishes. So when you eat you're full very quickly because the stomach has shrunk so much. Not the healthiest way to live but then again, it's all I have for now.

Permalink Reply by Richard Rivera on February 18, 2017 at 12:38pm

I'm sitting outside and it's a gorgeous day. 65 degrees and breezy.

My unemployment money arrived in my bank account. I've paid every bill and now owe only 2 months rent instead of 3.

Something else. I finally stood in front of a mirror without my clothes to see just how bad my morbid obesity has gotten. What I saw was a deformed, misshapen figure. Grotesque.

My heart doesn't seem right. It feels strangely as if someone has their hands wrapped around it. I can't stand once again. I have to hold onto something and even that takes the wind out of me.

I prayed that the intense pain would go away but it keeps increasing. No hospitals for me. Already been there and the news of my health was always grim just like Annette's.

I can't get over how beautiful it is today..

Last night I woke up around 2am.
My chest felt like someone was standing on it. Feels just like now.

And still the unnatural of Annette's death won't go away.

Me legs have gotten darker which I was told is heart related with kidneys as part of the problem. I'm gonna rest now imas I did it get much sleep.

Permalink Reply by Richard Rivera on February 18, 2017 at 3:21pm

It's 4 o'clock in the afternoon and I am in my bedroom alone. The silence is incredible. I stopped by the landlord's office today and gave him his rent check plus the check for the late payment and strangely I couldn't stay standing. my legs were buckling and my gut was dangling over my sweatpants. I am a real mess. I can't believe how I look now.

Annette and I and I were actually members of a gym and we were losing a lot of weight and actually kickboxing believe it or not. We. We even paid for a private trainer. But when I lost my job you couldn't afford go to the gym or paying the rent. That's when everything else really started to go down fast.

I'm laying down in bed after a long day of trying to get bills paid.
Thank God I could do it online. It was the trip to the landlords that took it's toll on me.

The apartment is so empty so quiet my mind is slipping away little by little I can't tell the difference anymore when I'm awake or asleep it's so weird .

I have to try and sleep without screaming in the night. I keep praying that the screams finally go away now that i've taking care of paying most of the bills .

But I know that my heart is with you to give out I can actually feel it each day harder to breathe on the walk out the door can't stand up two lanes without wheezing on the leg so I just turn the worst I've seen scale dark no circulation.

My brother tells me to go to the doctor and stop complaining but the reality is I have nothing to look forward to anyway, so why even bother as long as I have a roof over my head, and a little bit of food. I'll stick it out despite my health problems. I just want to be able to sleep normally.

I still pray every night to my love and ask her to give me a sign that she's listening that she hears me and that she'll be there for me and that she'll always will love me. I will settle for that.

Damn pain keeps knawing at me throughout my body specially in the stomach chest. When I had a doctor he told me that I was essentially carrying an extra person. how right he was.

Permalink Reply by Richard Rivera on February 19, 2017 at 12:39pm

I just realized more so than ever that I am alone, completely cut off from the life I had, and the life I would have had. The loneliness and guilt of not doing more for my wife to save her is taking it's toll on me. I feel as though I'm going to suffer more as long as I live each day that I'm alive. Its getung worse and worse. I woke up again screaming as the nightmares keep coming and coming and I don't know how to stop it. My God, I woke up to a beautiful sunny day.

I keep blaming myself for my wife's death. I keep blaming myself for not doing enough to save her. I keep blaming myself every single day with every single breath I take. Im obsessed with wondering when the agony I have will it stop. when will I be at peace? It's frightening to think I will live many years in this agony and now I'll be more terrified that nothing will help me.

I just want my wife back. I just want the pain and grief and guilt to stop. I keep praying and hoping that God will have some mercy on me.

The last time I went to a group for grieving everyone in the group (and I do mean everyone) had a house, adult children, sound financial foundation, jobs that afforded them time off for grieving and they were never alone. I had to stop going there as these people would just bitch and moan -- not realizing how lucky they are compared to other people suffering. that in a way they got off easy because they had something to lean on.

I finally was compelled to tell each and everyone of the group that they were damn lucky.

they had jobs, had children and family to live with. That they would never feel alone or discarded and that I would switch and trade places with everyone of them if it meant that I could have some degree of peace and not have to worry about money, where I would live, and how to survive. I got sick and tired of listening to these people talk about how they had to sell the house the cars what to do with thrir stock portfolios, how they were going to have to commute back-and-forth. For school etc.. I reminded the group that each and every one of them still had anchors to this life and they were holding on to it with both hands tight because they could, not just because they had to. I got up and just walked out. I told them they had no idea what true grief is. that grief is compounded when you worry not just about your loss but about what's to come, where your next meal is going to come from or whether or not you'll be out on the street, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. To experience all of that all by yourself with no children, dead broke, hungry and wondering if you'll be out on the street in some shelter. One member of the group owns a house and his mother died over three years ago and he still hangs out with his friends and he still comes to the groups talking and talking about his gardening and trips across the country. I just wanted to slap the guY.

To be fair I'm sure there are people even worse off than I am and I acknowledge that those are the people that deserve the help and the patience and the sympathy.

I have this funny feeling that my health and the feelings that I have physically, will more sooner than later will result in my heart, liver and kidneys failing.

I know I'll die alone because I'll be alone and it doesn't bother me. Im actually comforted, because I know I won't have to inflict having anyone watch me as I decline in health. it's not fair for them to see me.

It's 130 in the afternoon and I think I'm going to go to bed. I'm that exhausted.9

Permalink Reply by joanne on February 19, 2017 at 2:44pm

Richard I have read you story and I have great sympathy for you o truly do, but to say that people who have children and  a better financial status than others  are lucky and have no meaning of true grief, I have to say you are  so very very wrong in that, my husband died he was only 42 and we have children  and I can tell you that I know what true grief is, my heart breaks every single day if i was lucky he would still be here, if i was lucky i wouldn't have to have sat down and told my kids that their father was never coming back, I do not lean on my children my daughter was only 9 when her father died, my son was 17, so I have to help carry their grief as well,  i have choosen not to lean on my family either, yes im lucky in the sense that if i needed them that would help me, so ive come to realise the only person who is going to help me is myself , so I know your angry at the world, but judging those grieving in that group regardless of their wealth, jobs, family is not fair, your situation is not their fault, we have all lost someone we love, we should be kind to each other. I wish you all the best Richard, I hope things get  better you x

Permalink Reply by morgan on February 19, 2017 at 3:57pm

 

Richard,

I want to start by saying that you too are lucky. Not in the way it sounds but I think we all breathed a sigh of relief when you wrote that unemployment came through.  It’s as though it’s some kind of wonderful sign Annette sent for you.  

And it sounds as though with the arrival of the unemployment monies you are lucky you can now have somewhere to stay with a roof over your head rather than the streets, and heaven knows none of us here wanted to have to read that it might have been where you ended up.  And as luck would have it the city/mayor’s office came through for you and talked your landlord into letting you stay while you worked on getting something else and gave you some money for groceries. (Beneficent city governance,unusual..)  And in the interim it sounds as though you are lucky that your brother came through for you with some groceries even if your sister is a meanie.

This is not to say that any of us consider what happens to keep us from scraping the absolute bottom as incredible luck but there are some things that if we are willing to admit we are not in complete control and that some things go our way to keep us upright.  It’s very possible that our beloveds have something to do with that from afar.  So, we are lucky in that way.  Barely, but a little.  It's all a matter of degrees.  

I also think there is a certain amount of what we term free will or making decisions that play into how we try to stand upright.  Not one of our spouses wants to see us suffer.  And each of us whether we have children, family, friends, religion or some other form of "support" we are all still very alone.  In that we are all the same.  At the end of every second that passes we know we were inextricably tied to another being, one very particular being and their departure has left us alone.  To weather the storms of this new life alone adding children to the mix could very possibly make it harder.  I don't know.  I don't have children of my own.  But all of us have to make decisions based on what we feel our spouses might have wanted if they were still with us.  We are alone, yes, but we still know they never stopped loving us. 

You have mentioned that you and Annette were members of a gym at one point.  From what you have written about your morbid obesity it seems it is a major contributor to your state of despair.  Surely that alone is a mountain that will prevent you from moving the grief around much if you don't tackle it head on.  All I can say is it is not going to make your grief any easier.  And maybe if you're like me you don't care if it is any easier.  I figure I have already lost everything so I have nothing else left to lose, weight or not.  But the misery and pain of carrying the grief burden is plenty so I am trying my best to minimize the other ton of bricks which I began to carry the day after he died.  My problems are different than yours and each of us has our own burden but none of us here want any of the rest of us to suffer needlessly.  If there is anything we can do to encourage someone else to try and minimize their hurt, we do.  So, I am encouraging you to do whatever it is that you can to reduce your burden. 

You are in the really early raw stages of grief.  At two months plus into this you have just been run over by the freight train barreling down the tracks at a 100/mph.  Nothing makes sense.  Everything is a major undertaking. But small things we must consider as a victory in beating back the pain.  You have done many things in order to not land on the streets.  Not all of them worked but some did.  Use those as a small step to beat back the freight train. 

And you need to try and stop beating yourself up for thinking you could have done more.  Guilt is a hungry lion.  It will eat you alive and not leave a bone behind.  And when we are unhealthy, biology steps up its own scientific experiment.  We can’t do more than we are capable of doing but doing nothing is a definite sentence.  And in that way, we write our own stories.  I’m writing my own story by trying to minimize caloric consumption and defying my body to keep going under deprivation.  It’s my middle finger to death and the loss it presented me with.  Is it smart?  Heck no.  Do I care?  Heck no.  The only thing I am doing is trying to meet my fate but with as little suffering as I can.  Am I doing things that are unhealthy?  Yep, and this coming from a woman who did yoga and ate healthy my entire life.  So, each of us makes a decision in how we deal with our grief, and our guilt and our aloneness.  Not one of us thinks this is a picnic in the park.  Those days are gone.  But we have to try and minimize the amount of pain we endure.  Each of us are living in a surreal world of a nightmare made present.  But each of us wishes for the next guy that they might find a way to minimize the hurt.  It’s not about if we die but when and what path we travel with what burden getting there.  For me, I’m going to encourage you to keep asking Annette what she wants you to do and hope she answers.  It’s all I do for myself and at times the signs are clearer than others but keep asking. 

morgan

Permalink Reply by Richard Rivera on February 19, 2017 at 4:48pm

Thank you both for responding to my latest updates you're probably right it's probably just as hard having children and having to tell them that the mother or father was gone. I suppose my diet is pretty much down the toilet as I, too have nothing to fear or worry about now that I'm getting help. I know Annette would want us to be together again.

I've been reading literature, videos and just about everything on the afterlife and I keep wondering with all the people who have had those near death experiences and have been transformed, they now look forward to not just this life but also the afterlife. They're no longer consumed with the worries in this life.

With my health declining at a fast pace, I no longer worry about death or disease because I have faith more and more each day. That at some point when I finally do succumb to all my ailments, Annette will be there waiting for me. however until that day whether it's now or later, I have to wait and pray and see what else this life will be throwing at me. because right now the absolute solitude and loneliness (as you well know) can destroy the mind as well as the spirit .

We are all different people now with a different life . it's one of the most hard lessons a human being must face.

Without my wife by my side my life for better or worse has now stopped. I suppose I'm too set in my ways to change. I suppose I don't want to change.

So I'm going to continue moving on and hope and pray .

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