Now Uncle Jim, look here please

[sugarmuffin]

At the risk of having tomatoes thrown at me, or being called a raving idiot (or something equally delightful) I just can't sit by and not respond on AW to your sad news. You know where to find me if you want to yell. :)

I can understand that you wouldn't want condolences offered in your thread--it's such a busy place, but this ain't your thread. It's mine, honey. (And anyone else that adds here.)

So here, my dear:

I read your post early this morning and have been thinking about you and your family all day, as I'm sure many of us at AW have.

Please accept my deepest condolences, my biggest comfort hugs, and my wish that your mother find peace and all good things wherever she now resides.

When folks I care about pass on, I imagine them sitting in the most comfortable chair with their feet up on an ottoman, wearing their favorite slippers, watching the continuing saga of human folly on some heavenly TV somewhere in the ether. They are usually having lots of belly laughs, sometimes pointing and yelling at the TV, like when people get all worked up watching the Redsox. I imagine my Uncle Lefty watching my daughter grow up this way.

May comfort surround you in the days ahead, Jim.

I'll be thinking of you.

Big hug,

Lisa


[Perhaps when you are back, and Jenna is back, this thread can be moved to somewhere more appropriate, or perhaps you'll want it deleted entirely in three hours, three days, three weeks, three years...your choice.]

[maestrowork]

My thoughts are with you, Jim.

[HollyB]

So sorry about your loss, Uncle Jim.

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er fraught heart, and bids it break.
-Shakespeare

My condolences.

[macalicious731]

Uncle Jim, many condolences. I know what cancer can do. The ACS is a wonderful organization. Thank you for suggesting everyone lend a hand.

[ChunkyC]

No one can know exactly how you feel, Uncle Jim, but I have an inkling. Both of my parents have passed on, as have the parents of my wife. I offer the only thing I can, my heartfelt condolences. May your mom live on in the hearts of those who loved her.

[aka eraser]

Lost my Dad in April. Warm thoughts and condolences helped me; hope they do the same for you Jim.

[Cate]

There is nothing to say.
Know that in these days ahead we all will be walking with you in spirit.
Peace.
Cate

[rtilryarms]

I don't post much here but you need to know I am with you too.

Mike

[Writing Again]

Many of us have already gone through it. Most of those who haven't will.

The only thought I knew to cling to was that millions have gone trough it before, and millions will again.

They made it, therefore I could make it.

And no matter how it seems, you will too.

One thing to remember:

Don't let anyone tell you how to grieve. It is your grief, do it your way.

[arrowqueen]

So sorry for your loss. Our thoughts are with you.

aq

[Arisa81]

All my sympathies Uncle Jim

[Duesylady]

My mother died in February, and my life has undergone radical change, but I'm still writing. I thank you for the work on the thread.

[SRHowen]

I feel for you, my friend. My mom has been moved to a hospice house form home care and is not expected to live much longer. She also is succumbing to cancer.

NO matter if it is expected or not--it is not easy to live with.

Shawn:cry

[Gala]

James--
I was very sorry to read your news this morning. Thanks for telling us.

I hoped by the time I got back this evening some renegade would have started this thread.

I know you're smart, actualized, had many intense experiences. Perhaps you'll find, as many of us do, that non of that seems to help in the first months, even year or two our mom leaves us.

We want to call and tell her the good news, and ask what she's doing for the Holiday. She doesn't call on our birthday--she's busy with other work, I guess.

I know you will honor an miss her in your private way. Remember that tears release toxins and suffering, to make way for the joy.

I pray that you mother will leave you signs that she is watching over you and around you. I have demanded signs from both my parents, and gotten them. They were physical and tangible.

I think you're way too young to be losing your mother, and my best thoughts wishes and cyber hugs abound.

<img border=0 src="http://www.absolutewrite.com/images/emoteCoffee.gif" />

[Greenwolf103]

Dear Uncle Jim,

You have given so much of yourself to us on this board now let us please give to you.

Please accept my most heartfelt condolences. I am very sorry for your loss. It's a very hard thing losing your parent, especially your mother. I can't imagine the pain you must be going through but please do take some time to heal. I'm sure that all of us here will understand.

Remember that your mother will always be with you, no matter what. The one thing about a loved one passing on is that, every time you think of them, they will be there for you. Always.

--Dawn

[Yeshanu]

My condolences, Jim. :hug

[Risseybug]

Jim. My mother has been gone nearly 20 years now (colon cancer) and not a day goes by that I don't think of her.

Remember the good times :)

[sc211]

For Uncle Jim and all who've been there...


No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.

- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed


Grief is an exquisite emotion that helps us become fully human and fully alive. That seems like a contradiction, but it’s not. Grief asks us to drop down into the river of life and truly mourn the passing of what we love and value. If we don’t make that journey, we can’t move forward whole in our lives.

I call grief “the utterly necessary river of the soul,” because it reconnects us to life after we’ve experienced deep and profound loss. When I see people running from grief, I feel such sorrow for them, because I know that they won’t be whole until they grieve.

We fear that grief will break us in two, but that’s not what happens. In true grief, our hearts break open, but they don’t break apart. We aren’t emptied by grief *we’re expanded. When we come up and out of the river of grief, we have more capacity to love, and more room to breathe.

- Karla McLaren


As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within that tells us so certainly when to go forth into the unknown. The unknown could actually be a homecoming.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross


For what is to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then shall you begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

- Kahlil Gibran


Our dead never forget this beautiful earth. It is their mother. They always love and remember her rivers, her great mountains, her valleys. And their spirits often return to visit and console us.

- Chief Seattle

[stormie267]

Our dead never forget this beautiful earth. It is their mother. They always love and remember her rivers, her great mountains, her valleys. And their spirits often return to visit and console us.

I like that quote. It's comforting.

Jim, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

[JuliePgh]

My deepest sympathies...

Julie

[emeraldcite]

my condolences as well.

[CaoPaux]

My condolences, Jim.

[LiamJackson]

I am truly sorry for your loss.

LJ