Another Death

I belong to a support group mailing list on Yahoo for MSA.  I haven't been on there for ages, but decided to stick my nose in today.  One of the frequent contributors on there finally lost her husband to MSA.  It never ceases to amaze me how much something like that can totally change my outlook on the day.

I don't know these people at all, just through their posts.  Never talked to them on the phone, never met them in person.   But I feel just awful about the death of this gentleman.   One thing the internet has done for good is support for people with diseases that aren't "sexy" or the new "in" disorder.   Nobody knows what MSA is for the most part.  They say, "MS?" and you have to go into a lenghthy discussion of what it is.  For someone dealing day-to-day with the rigors of caring for someone with this disease, or worse yet the patient themselves, this is a pain in the butt.  (I cleaned that up, by the way.)

So when you hear about someone else that has lost someone to this disease, it hurts all over again.  

Moving on....

For those of you that have lost a loved one recently, or not so recently, you've heard the mantra -Well you need to move on.   Move where?  Afghanistan?  I know that I'm being kind of snippy, but I really find it difficult for people who have never experienced a loss to come up to you and say, "You seem to be doing well, you must have moved on."  Think of strangling them?  I do?

Now, I've been thinking about those words "move on" more lately.  My dad is working on getting our family home ready for sale.  He is getting to the age where he can't take care of it anymore, though right now he still does very well, he could one day be unable to.   This is the place I grew up.  I lived there from the time I was in 1st grade until I finally moved away in my 20s. My mom died in that house, in her own room, my grandparents lived there most of their lives.   I thought about buying it, but then I couldn't "move on", and then the words sort of made sense.    Sunday I was walking around taking pictures of landmarks.  The cement floor of my dad's workshop that had his name and the year it was built written in the ground, my mom's rose bush starting to bud.  It was so overwhelming, I felt as if I was losing my mom all over again.     But then I thought, no matter where I am I will carry those memories with me.   It hasn't made it any easier, mind you, but it may just get me through it.   Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, my dad has so much stuff of my mom's and his, it will take a good year or better just to get through everything.   I have to remember this will be best for my dad.   Of course, he is getting ancy about it too.   But right now, getting things in order is keeping him busy, so I will go with it.

I guess I won't obsess too much about this right now.  Dealing with two deaths so close together isn't what I need.