Things not to do...

When someone is in mourning or recovering from a loss, resist the urge to pull away from them. If it has something to do with them- don't hide it because you think they can't handle it, your lack of communication is worse than anything. Think about it, you just lost someone fear to you and you feel totally vulnerable. Your feelings are raw and exposed like muscle with the skin pulled away... Do you think in that situation you'd like to have your friends or your family pull further away from you? Treat you like a plague bearer? Drop you cold?
No, of course not.

So just take my humble advice- save it, because I promise you the mourner is in worse shape than they let on.

Alone

I wish I had someone to talk to about this... Every time I think about it all some kind of mental coin dozer just pushes the thoughts and feelings deeper and deeper back. I really think I'm stuck in a strange dream world where sometimes your still alive And grandma isn't managing to foul up any kind of memorial service you might have. It makes me sick to think of it, like Shes trivializing your life even further than she did when you were Alive.... It makes me mad and further adds to all this confusion I feel. I am so lost and I feel like now more than ever I need you... But isn't that how it goes?

Dreaming of you...

I keep seeing you in my dreams. Last night I was at grandmas and it was the usual turmoil, strife etc. You flew on pike a spirit, wrapped in flowing white robes, and you told me that you had taken a job painting or being painted.. It was 8 dollars or something more than something else.. That's why you weren't around anymore though... Not because you were dead, it was just a whole huge hoax after all .

I guess that's one of the stages ( finger quotes ) ... That you think it's probably all bullshit. I guess the romantic in me just still wants to believe she's alive and this whole thing is fake. I Remember when she came to me in the dream... I was so stoked that she was alive so she could come and live with us in our awesome house and our awesome yard and per our awesome pig. I guess that's why they're called dreams.

Too tired

I stay up until I'm foo tired to do much else. I play games on my phone or computer... Anything really to avoid a silent mind.

I've been alone this week, my partner has been out of town. My attempts to grieve have failed. I'm not sure what exactly I'm supposed to do to grieve...act sad?cry? Be sad? I don't even believe it's true half the time... I still plan for when we buy the sweet house with a yard for the pig and a mother in law apt for mom... It's like it's all some weird sick test of my faith in my love for my mom...

"if you love her enough, she wont really be dead ..."

The cat sees her spirit, he's spotting her all over the house. He will meow to her and play with her energy but visually there's nothing there. Normally I'd chalk it up to weird cat behavior but he doesn't do that...or he never used to. It only started after she passed. She was in my dreams for a while. The witch shop lady said that was a first step for spirits before you could really contact them via medium... My issue is that I'm afraid I won't be able to find a medium I trust with this. It's almost like finding a good shrink. You can't just chose a schmuck offa the street.

Finally exhaustion.

Finally

I've been waiting to have enough desire to fond a blog app.. Most of my writing epiphanies are before or after I sleep. Finally did and here I am.
My mate is gone this week, off on a ski trip. Yesterday also happened to be my birthday. Thankfully I ok-Ed his trip...and had time to prepare. I tell ya... It would have been nice to have one of my surviving relatives call me. That's one of the many things I miss right there...My mom was apparently the only family member who cared enough to call me... It's so weird how much I didn't realize I was alone in this world besides her.

She was the one who called and sent birthday cards... And even though dad was never really one to do that it would have been nice to have that this year... This year is special.

crumpled

Yesterday, I spent the day sleeping. I had dreamless sleep. I realized I'm not excited anymore. I don't feel like anything is worth it. I'm not creative. I'm not exciting. I don't talk to anyone. I don't feel anything. I ignore my friends. I ignore my duties.

I am content to just fade into nothingness. Eventually, they are content too.

Turn up the volume.

Had a frighteningly lucid and painless conversation on sunday with Grandma... she only said the same thing 5 times this conversation, and interestingly, it was about expressing an interest in leanring more about me. I think she forgot her animosity for a day, because it was her 90th birthday. I actually called to wish her a happy birthday, good and dutiful granddaughter that I am...

I'm planning a 'super secret' memorial service with some of Mom's friends, because I was so aggrivated that grandma was taking over the memorial service plans and basically forcing things into a dull and homogenous yacht club experience.... Maybe I need to press more to get involved, maybe I need to be pushier. But in honesty, I just can't really do that right now. I'm through fighting and I'm through trying to plan things, because inevitably, I always get dissappointed.

If I do this gathering with Mom's friends, and my friends who remember Mom, it will feel so much better- so much more real. I'll go to the yacht club one, and I'll make nice, but I will really let my hair down at the one the cool kids are having.

Stephanie K Meyers.

I spend a lot of time now thinking about how my grandmother hates me. Truly, undoubtedly hates me. She writes to me now, telling me about things to do with my Mom. And instead of referring to her as mom, she's Pamela Meyers. And instead of being 'Grandma', she's Stephanie K. Meyers. I'm not Emmy, or Emy or anything of the like, I too am now addressed by my full name.

When she's accusing me of things- having secret money, or being somehow totally well off, or when she's accusing me of being a terrible person or being nasty when I'm really just trying to work with her... I feel so stripped down and bare, like someones peeled away layers of my skin and the soft pink meat is showing through. It's painful, but not in your standard pain way- more of a feeling of stretching, burning heat.

People just tell me to ignore her, ignore this hatred, but in reality it's eating away at me and making me feel small. It's consuming me so much, and I feel like I can't battle it well enough to even begin dealing with my Mom's passing.

I start to think of mom, and I push it away. "Now is not the time to think about that". I'm actively trying to avoid grieving right now. I recognize that I'm doing it, but why? the only reasoning I have is that it's because I've gotten subconsciously good at compartmentalizing, and thus I'm hiding this away for now....for jsut the right time to sneak out back and feel lousy... but who really wants to devote time to feeling like poop, even though eeryone and eery book tells them that they need to allow for the grieving... am I going to get scarred for life if I don't face my grief?

All I know is that I love my Mom, and my nasty grandma is hurting me so much that I don't care if I ever see her ever again.

My dead mom presents: my crazy grandma.

So Grandma.

When I was a kid, she was very kind to me. She liked me and took care of me, we spent time together when Mom was working or whatever, and it was good. She used to take me to plays and musicals, she'd take me to swimming lessons and I'd watch cable tv while she made lunch. She was nice to me and let me have my long, elaborate plots to capture her pissy tortoise shell cat, Cleo. It was good times.

Then I turned into a teenager, dyed my hair whore blonde and decided to form my own opinions. This was bad news, but Mom always served as the buffer. She'd take the sting out of much of Grandmas spewing hate arrows. Not all, but most.

Fast forward. Mom moved back into the house Grandma has lived in for the past 56 years, in part because she was broke and didn't want to live in public housing. In part because grandma was in her mid 80s at the time, and needed a hand. It worked. Or so I thought.

FF again. Mom dies, grandma is now alone. She has lost her daughter Joyce, her husband, and now her younger daughter. All thats left is the Granddaughter who she doesn't like now and hasn't liked in a long time. Grandma suffers from what I think is dementia, but hell she's 90 fucking years old, she's entitled to have swiss cheese for brains, right?

The issue is that Grandma has been manipulative, hateful, spiteful, paranoid, resentful, angry, two timing and nutty for ages. And the memory lapse/dementia has only made this 100X worse. When I was in Rochester after Mom died, she came into the room I was sleeping in. Keep in mind my Mom was a hoarder, and filled most of the rooms with her stuff so theres only about a 1ft path in the room from the door to the bed. Grandma came in at :

• 430AM, the day after I arrived. Woke me up. Said some gibberish about the funeral home and left when I told her I'd deal with it when I woke up.
• 530AM. Continues gibberish. I respond in same, takes twice as long for me to get her to go downstairs and leave me in peace.
• 630AM Gibber GIBBER GIBBER. I freak the fuck out- not only is the funeral home NOT motherfucking open at 630AM, but I'm motherfucking jet lagged, and you're giving me a goddamn panic attack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I plead with her to leave, I beg her to give me even 10 minutes to collect myself. I threaten her that I'll smoke in the house, I reason with her. I lie to her. Anything I can think of to get her to leave.
• 700AM: Call all the neighbors, freaking out. No one answers. Someone answers. They don't understand me, think Grandmas dead or something. Cops come, EMT comes, fire dept comes. I look like a crazy bitch because Grandma is downstairs acting like nothing ever happened.

Long story short, FF again to now. Grandma apparently has no idea where I am anymore, though I told her I was going back to Seattle. She thinks I'm at a friend's house..... starts stalking the people she claims to hate.

 Person one:

"Hi Emily. Your grandmother called me today, sounding a bit confused. She said she was trying to phone you, but your phone said it was disconnected (I'm not sure if she was dialing the right number). I know it's very difficult for you to talk to her, but she said there are some things that need to be taken care of regarding Pam's legal papers and stuff. Can you please give her a call? "

Person two:

"This morning at 9 am, at the same time I had set my alarm to wake up, your grandmother called me and asked where Pam (meaning you) was staying. I said, you mean, Emily? and she said, yes. She thought that you were in Rochester and that she had seen you this past week. I told her that you are in Seattle because you had to go back for school and that you'd been here a few weeks ago. She wants to call you and to talk with you about some things that she says have come up at the house (I don't know what). I told her that you and I had been writing and you wanted to help her with clearing this out of the house. I told her that we (you and I) think it would be great if she goes to do something fun with friends while you (Emily) are able to clean things in the house and sort through what is there, since most of the things in the house are Pam's or Emily's, I said. She thought that sounded fine. I told her that you would be coming sometime in the near future to help with this, and that either I or other friends of Stephanie's could take her out to do something enjoyable so she wouldn't have to go through the work of the sorting. This sounded good to her."

This insanity will continue and continue. I feel like I'm in a horror movie where I'm the unfortunate star. Not the girl who gets away from the murderer, but the girl who scrapes at window panes with peeling paint frames until my nailbeds bleed. The girl who vomits showers of hornets and pulls out her hair violently in an effort to make anyone understand whats going on. ...but when they come to cure me of this demon disease, I look normal and sane in my soiled white nightgown. Somehow the devil hides when I'm not alone.

Goodbye mom

On January 31st, perhaps even the morning of Feb 1st my Mom passed away in her home in Rochester, NY. She was 57 years old and suffered from:

• MS
• Chrons Disease
• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Diabetes
• Sleep apnea
• Kidney deformity (she was only born with one)
• Heart issues
• Depression
• Hoarding issues (she was a level 5 hoarder)
• ...and stuff I didn't even know about.

My mom died so suddenly. And I haven't had time, or even the ability to process it. She lived in a house, packed to the rim with belongings, things she collected or bought, things she couldn't get rid of. She lived there with my Grandmother who will be 90 this year. Grandma suffers from the ravages of old age, she's mentally almost as functioning as swiss cheese but somehow can convince some people that she's still on top of her game. It's just not true.

I went to my Grandmother's house about 4 or 5 days after my mom passed away. I flew in, and immediatly was saddled with the insanity that is my current situation. The house reeked of piss and shit, there was no doubt in my mind that it was almost a biological hazard.

Who else was there though? My Aunt died when I was 23, my Grandfather when I was 13. Literally, theres just me and my Grandmother.

The three days I spent in that house were some of the most emotionally draining and physically challenging days in my life. I can't even remember what happened because I've blocked so much of it out, yet what I can remember is that my Grandmother is quite literally insane. She badgered me and pressured me, she pushed me and only remembered to call me by my name a few times. Most often I was Pammy (my Mom) or Joyce. (my Aunt).

In the end, I left the house early after a huge blow out with my Grandmother over finances. She didn't believe that I wanted to help her financially. She didn't believe that I wanted to look after her, she didn't understand that at her age she isn't capable of handling things, and that my dead Mom did everything for her.

So when I left, I gave her the choice. She could accept my help or I'd wait until she moved out or passed away to handle my mom's things. My mom left no will, my mom left behind nothing that said her things were mine- and so now, it's all in limbo. Until my Grandmother passes away, it's all in limbo.

So why do I have this blog. It's not here to make anyone pity me, its here so I can somehow figure out how to catalogue all this shit. So I can find a way to make sense of it all...