Mountain Ash, the piece is wonderful, so wonderful.
Sharon and Anne I'm sending you two a monstrous cyber hug... hope you can feel it.

Anno, this is the part I haven't been able to share about too much here. The week that Gary died, another family crisis occurred which devastated and tore our family apart. For the past year, we've had no contact whatsoever with one brother and his family, and almost non-existent contact with the other brother (he's suffering the ripple effects). We were a very close-knit family before all of this. Now we're completely shattered and even when/if this crisis is resolved, I honestly don't know if we'll ever be able to mend us enough to enjoy family gatherings again. It's all out of our hands and beyond our control at this point, all we can do is weather this through and hope there's something left to salvage on the other side of this crisis. Only one thing's for certain, with Dad, Mom and Gary gone and the scars that this other crisis is leaving on our family, we will never be the same again.

While Gary's death was devastating, this other crisis is what has rocked my entire world and sense of direction...it has forced me to learn that sometimes all we can do is to allow others to be who they are without allowing their choices and behaviours to destroy who we are; my focus all year has been figuring out how to get on with my own life without them when their lives have been so intrinsically woven in and through mine for 40+ years.

Eagle
you are slowly explaining more and I wont ask further but this must be painful.

But as I grow older many of the sayings that were quoted by my Grandmother are clearer.
She would say things almost like a riddle..and I tried to understand but now I see "through the mirror clearly"

One was "I wont be here to see it but rest assured right will out."
meaning I suppose that in time injustice would be sorted out.
It is unjust that you were hurt more at a very vulnerable time. That was wrong.Whatever the reason.

Missing phone calls is understandable and can you substitute others who fill that role.
Due to my own family circumstances I have more friends than family.Yet my childhood was overflowing with family.
Thing is being reared by Grandparents means I lost them early.
In one year five cousins of my Mothers who were close all died. A whole family..Two were unmarried.One childless.
I became stunned as that year unfolded it was like a sick movie...funerals.

Draw closer then closer still to those who nurture you.Seek and yee shall find.
Mountain ash

It's interesting to note that since I became aware of how that line had been affecting me, my mind has been much clearer and I've been able to reassert my positive focus without so much resistance. That line seems to have taken on a taunting aspect...but every time I hear it beginning to play in my head again, I immediately stop it and substitute something positive ("Jesus be my light" fits right into the same melody).

I'm taken aback, even after all these years, of just how insidious something like a simple line from a song can become. There's nothing wrong with this song or that line - but for me, it took on very negative connotations and became a dangerous quicksand into which my spirit and mind were sinking fast.

I wonder now, if we think our children are not being affected by the lyrics of the music they're listening to, we're just fooling ourselves. While some can resist being dragged into the underlying nuances of the words, there are others much more fragile in spirit who must be succumbing to the messages of futility and violence and negativity that are pouring into their ears and minds.

I thought I had evolved past the point where this sort of thing could affect me to this extent. It's a lovely song, with beautiful musicality - I didn't see the potential for anything more than blissful listening pleasure. Now I realize yet again that when you're prone to mangled thinking (symptomatic of depression, anxiety disorders and other mental illnesses), you always has to be on guard against whatever tools that mangled thinking can use against you.

Uplifting self-talk, the power of positive thinking, and spiritual music heal emotions. Broken hearts take a while to mend. When folks' go to be with the Lord, it takes some time for folks' left behind on this ole earth to get use to life without them. Thank God we can smile at their memories!

And I keep you in heart and prayer too, Anne...we're pilgrims on the same road...the best silver linings that shine out of these stormy patches of road are the special people who touch our hearts and lives along the way. The women here on BWS are such blessings and gifts. If it's loss and lostness that brought me here, it's the wisdom, friendships and laughter found here that make it all worthwhile! If I hadn't been so broken, I would never have found BWS, and I shudder to think how empty my life would be without these amazing, caring women who are now the dearest people in the world to me.

God promises that "all things work together for those who love the Lord". When we keep our eyes and hearts open, that promise comes true in the most amazing, unexpected, life-lifting ways - BWS was one way that I could never have imagined before stumbling in here! Now I can't imagine my life without this place and these women.

Eagle, I am sorry that you lost your entire family when Gary died. I can understand, even better, what a difficult year this has been for you.

When Gary was in the hospital, didn't you mention the book, The Secret, and you were reading it? Or maybe it was another book, but it seemed to be just the right thing for you at the time. Maybe it would help again, now?