COMPLICATED GRIEF

We are coming up on the one year Yarhzeit of my mother, Shirley...June 27th...

I've read The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and On Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth-Kubler Ross. Mimi recommended On Grief and Grieving. I read them over Mother's Day weekend. It helped enormously to get me in touch with the feelings. After she passed away, the tears flowed like a faucet - until my ex-brother was deposited on my doorstep before a week went by. The grief was truncated - while I re-directed my energy to help him. Now he is out of the picture - it's all about me and her.

I am starting the process of getting a marker for her. It is very hard and very painful. The last thing I have to do, want to do, need to do for her. I am sorry I had her buried - I was on automatic pilot - it was such a shock - it happened so fast - one day here, gone the next...now, almost a year later, I wish I had her cremated - then I could keep her ashes with me forever. If I ever have a spare $5,000.00 I will have her exhumed and cremated. But for now...

In On Grief and Grieving, she talks about how important it is to talk about the loss....to talk about the person who died. I feel the need to talk about her with people who knew her and that is not easy - she isolated for 20+ years.

Who has memories of Shirley ? Good or bad ? I want to hear from you, please.

I cannot be isolated in my Grief. Grief for me, what I didn't get, grief for her, a life not lived..........

And now Aunt Ruth is the last Sandler standing....she told me last week she doesn't remember anything from that long ago....she will be 92 in July.