Posts filed under ‘death’
Sept 3rd – Moving On??? Chris Ritchey
“Try to remember the kind of September……….. “
I have no difficulty in remembering this Labor Day Holiday of yesteryear . You had been given another chance of a “cure”. Of course I realize now that the word “cure” was not an accurate description as given to us by the Cleveland Clinic. The “trial” of SGN 35 was just that another trial. What followed was a frenzied trip to Houston, and more of that four letter word HOPE!!!!
Septembers have come and gone and I remember the “beginning of the end of hope” with the pain that never lessens. As this blog brings to the fore writings of previous Septembers, I revisit those emotions of those times.
One such September third came to the fore today because it had been accessed by someone reading my words.
As I read what I had written in my emotional incontinence , I wonder would I have written anything similar today , you can see the anger, the hurt and the disgust I felt and I asked myself would I have felt the same or written the same today? The answer is YES! just as time has not eased your death and “taking of the memories that should have been” neither has it lessened the feelings I have toward those of self serving hypocrisy. The anger that keeps me upright is beneficial to being………… it is now part of me and who I am….
I love you my son ………. you are but a last breath away…
Chris Ritchey Source
August 3rd- Linked – Chris Ritchey
Graphics Chris Ritchey
Every street in this oldest neighborhood is designated by the signs designed by you for Lorain’s Bicentennial. It was supposed to bring a sense of pride to the residents who have continued to stay here and fight for a quality of life, the history of these oldest streets and a preservation of a neighborhood that was.
I wish I could say that those of us that banded together and set up a 501C3 30 years ago had succeeded in our endeavours but thanks to bank dumps in 2008-2009 with over 200 properties being dumped sometimes for pennies on the dollar, the unscrupulous out of town landlords and property companies, drug houses, lack of code enforcement well we have become a saturated solution of the negative.
Two things came together in my brain this week……. the news of a young man of 16 shot and killed by other young men… just two blocks away, the gun shot waking us up as the sounds of killing reverberated through the night air. I watched the news that evening and as I did the TV camera panned up to the street sign on 6th street, YOUR SIGN and my focus changed instantly as once more I was sent back to your passing and then the pain and I realized another mother , that of a 16 year old , would be weeping tears , heart pounding , trying to breathe trying to deal with the reality of the unreal.
Will she experience the tiniest interludes of happiness? You see, once in a great while, when exhaustion forces the body and mind to sleep there are moments, just between sleeping and waking. One such moment came this week the air was cool enough for the windows to be open and for a brief second as the sun kissed the morning to waken the day , the breeze picked up the peppery scent of the petunias in the window box, this body hadn’t quite realized it had aches and pains, there was for that precious second happiness and then “life” intruded once more……. and mothers weep for lost sons in this old neighborhood……..
Another August of holding my breath , fighting back the tears , holding myself ready for the trigger moments , knowing they will come and wanting
Love continues………. and memories of times much happier……..before life intruded
July 3rd- continuing – Chris Ritchey
I have written about you every month on the 3rd of the month as my memorial to you – your life and your art work. A few months ago I wrote these lines in the post https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/april-3rd-forgotten-chris-ritchey/
““They say you die three times – once when your body fails you – again when you are buried ( funeral) and again when you are forgotten”.
Death of the body and death of memory. When you are buried and that headstone in place is a remembrance of sorts but there’s the rub how long will that headstone last?
Most of us believe that record of our being in the places designed for such – as cemeteries and crematoriums will last forever, not so especially with the way things happen with cemeteries in recent years. This Blog https://lisanneharris.com/2013/05/12/sadly-utterly-abandoned-churches-cemeteries/ Ms. Harris has a plethora of photos from around the world of these sad places. The forlorn graves sinking into oblivion once held the tears and heartbreak of mourners who grieved over their loved ones. Even in this old neighborhood the citizens of Lorain in the past plowed under and buried the little Charleston Village Cemetery
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/tag/pioneer-cemetery-lorain/
I read once , here you can’t reclaim or take out graves until 100 years after the last burial. But that is another law that is circumvented. I know it happened to your Great Grandmother and Great Grandfather and Great- Great Grandmother, the site was moved (although other family members wouldn’t have it) but I remember visiting those graves in a totally different area of the cemetery and one was missing altogether.
You are not dead because our love of you is alive and you are in our thoughts and dreams daily.
Your Nana was not afraid to die, she was actually welcoming her demise -99 years is longer than most get on this earth.
She had out- lived her brothers , sisters, friends of her youth. She was ready but as she sipped her tea one day near the ending she look at me over the rim of the cup and said
“you won’t forget me will you, Nikki and the children will remember they had their Nana”.
There is no headstone in a “family plot” because that is not what she wanted. Her ashes will hopefully one day make it back to “her England” , time and life permitting.
Today, I received a notification from the Crematorium in England
about your Grandfather. What a mess that was when he passed , he had gone off with someone else – had a new family – although he clung still to his old one. Due to the fact he never remarried, I was still his next of kin, the arrangements were left to me although his “woman” did orchestrate some aspects.
Then a few years on, since Nana and I were home, we went to the crematorium and I asked the office where my fathers ashes were interred. Imagine my guilt when I found out no-one had ever claimed them! I had thought his fancy bit would have, she obviously was done with him after he died. I was told his ashes were scattered in a part of the crematorium I was shown the spot where his ashes had been scattered and was told
“I could have a “tablet” positioned on the walls surrounding the Willow Garden, and are ideal for those who wish to mark the position of a loved one whose ashes have been scattered below.”
It was decided, only Nana would have nothing to do with it , didn’t want her name mentioned and went and sat in the rose garden. This is truly a beautiful place. I realized, although his work of a cross ( commissioned by the Governor of Gibraltar) hopefully still adorns the altar in the Naval Chapel there ,
there was not a permanent dedication ( well as permanent as can be in this life) but one day even that small reminder will be taken from the wall
Anyway I purchased a “tablet: and every 10 years I receive an invoice to renew the dedication, a few hundred pounds. No-one goes to the crematorium anymore to pay their respects, I am not sure anyone other than I ever did but I paid this invoice today because his name is there , the fact he lived and died on those dates is still there and he is not forgotten and he did live and he loved me and I , him
My Dad and I happier times
Oh his great grandson has the look of him but only I and a photograph of old realize that :
And that is why I write about you month after month for as long as I can so you know you aren’t forgotten and that you lived…….. and are still loved with every breath in my body………..
Breath of Life – Celtic Knot – Chris Ritchey
June 3rd – archeology of sorts- Chris Ritchey
Oh! the pond, what a pain I am having with pumps , tubing and fish eating birds and animals. I have spent a small fortune on equipment this spring. The winter weeks, after your Dad was in the hospital, your brother-in law had to stop by a few times a week in the days of “polar vortex” to make sure we kept a hole in the ice. Just when I thought I had everything sorted last week , nets in place , aerators , new pump and filter system hooked up, and the waterfalls pump working and bringing at least me some peace and happiness as I watched the water cascading down the falls, of course, the waterfalls pump stopped working.
Now nothing is easy in this house, I could no longer find the same pump , the tubing was too big, too small, and this pump didn’t fit the old filter system. I tried as best I could to clean the filters every two days and that is a horrible job. Why ??? because your Ghost Koi needs air and clean water, from over forty fish we are down to 17 including “The Ghost”. Due to my diligence of filter cleaning every couple of days the water is crystal clear. The offending pump had to be taken out and replaced. Heron apparently don’t like ripples so making sure the water ripples means three pumps functioning .
I shut everything down and gingerly balanced precariously on the edge. The water was so still and clear I, for once, could see the very bottom of the pond. The Ghost Koi loomed large – 10 years of eating and being king of the pond, he has grown to a formidable size. As I teetered and wobbled trying to reach the old pump under the falls, the thought crossed my mind,
I might end up joining him… death by “pond life”,
he wasn’t actually endearing me to him in that moment and then I saw a glint of gold lying on the bottom.
I strained to see what was shining up at me and then I realized it was a pair of your aviator sunglasses, you too had been searching for the Koi that last summer ( a much smaller little fish) and had dropped your glasses and there they were still- where they had fallen. A reminder of why I need to protect and maintain the pond so my last Mother’s Day gift from you continues..the Ghost Koi…..
Those glasses and ones like them that hid you eyes from us when you would hear the bad news the Doctors would tell hiding tears and pain. Those same glasses that brought my tears flowing once more a reminder of a life too short. and a son lost.
I suppose when we are gone and he pond is filled in will someone, in a time to come, may dig the space they might wonder how a pair of aviator glasses came to be 4 foot underground and the story behind them… a curiosity for the future…… the missing of you, our love and memories that should have been can sometime cripple………
May3rd – Mothers and sons – Chris Ritchey
1st Mother’s Day card- Christopher Ritchey
I still have your first Mother’s Day card and all the little gifts through your childhood years, they along with the ones from your sister are still here in bedrooms, living room, den and kitchen. Chubby little handprints in clay , adorn walls along with art work and memories of happier Mother’s days.
This coming Mother’s Day is a first because for the first time in my life I will not have my mother your Nana to help celebrate. Coincidentally, when Nana retired and came to live here she arrived on Mother’s Day of that year and now I have lost you and her. Although little gifts of mine she had kept still wait to be dusted in her little living room.
And then there is your last Mothers Day gift to me , the ghost koi.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/ghost-in-the-pond-a-koi-story/
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/the-ghost-in-the-pond-continues/
Oh Chris what a few days I have had protecting him, by far the largest fish in the pond , he is so big. BUT that damned Heron who arrived last year is back again bigger than ever and now two others come to call. I have set up obstacle courses around the perimeter, tried all the “get rid of Heron” tips. Climbed over slippery moss-covered rocks, wobbled on the edge hoping my knee will not all of a sudden decide it has had enough. moved shelves for the fish to hide, all in vain the “angel of death ” just laughs at me as he circles over head.
Nothing deters him , he cruises in on huge blue wings and lands on a dime. He and his buddies have depleted my lovely fat goldfish by half , some of which have lived in that pond for 13 years since you helped dig the “new one” .
He partially eats them, or drops them and others he swallows whole. It is a bit like living with grief as it swallows one whole or takes bites out of you daily. We have lost at least 14 of the big goldfish and the smaller ones…. well who knows. The ones that are left huddle at the bottom of the pond close to your Ghost Koi – protection –
I don’t know but they don’t stray far from him. . I will battle on with this “angel of death” beautiful though they are so I can keep the “ghost” and the memory of that last Mother’s Day as I watched you slipping him into the pond.
I am so proud of you my son and love you through eternity …..
Breath of Life – Celtic Knot – Chris Ritchey
April 3rd- FORGOTTEN- Chris Ritchey
In the days and weeks I have been in this latest medical situation I managed to watch a movie – Hunters Lodge– not a wonderful movie but entertaining enough to take my mind off of things. However, the opening lines resonated with me:
“They say you die three times – once when your body fails you – again when you are buried ( funeral) and again when you are forgotten”
Those were the lines that set me watching the rest of the movie… I agree with them. I believe you have died twice and in some cases three times. There are those that forgot and dismissed you from memory in the very beginning of our loss but there are those who truly love you from whose memory and life you will not be forgotten.
Gavin, just a few months old when you passed and Braedyn born 3 years later KNOW you, talk of you and “remember” not in the usual way of remembering a life but who you are now! You are still very much a part of their lives.
Very few of my family left remember my Grandmother “Nanny Bunyan” and her sons, my mum’s mother , Nanny Hines – such a different person from my Dad’s mother not the exotic sophisticated wealthy red- haired fashion conscious , jewel wearing and Channel No 5 for her. Nanny Hines a nurse/ midwife mother to 6 – 3 boys and 3 girls and all that entailed, no, she was warm and loving and gentle .
Soon, those of us that still remember each of them as they were when they were alive and part of our living memory will also have passed and apart from the little bits of information left in my mothers” ” MY BOOK” ( hopefully passed down to the younger family members) we too will die our third death.
Cover Design Chris Ritchey
I have tried to hold (in the present ) the “man that time forgets” – you- by keeping your life, your art, your thoughts and our love for you alive on this blog- archived (hopefully for all time) – and with my own book, when it is completed
and our own contributions to the great – what happens after you die theories ……
Love doesn’t forget……. and neither do we
Jan 3rd,2019- Mystic/Magic – Chris Ritchey
Another year dawns, this past one has not been pleasant for the most part. No further answers to the question we all really want to know what happens after our body fails. Is there an “essence of life” that continues? The life “energy” that makes us unique to ourselves , can that be destroyed , gone, obliterated ?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-can-neither-be-created-nor-destroyed/
Questions that have been asked and answered in various religious beliefs for a few thousand years. But , when you get right down to it you won’t really know till your own body fails. YOU KNOW, my darling Chris, my mum – now knows.
Mum and Balcony
Mum, who lived a full 99 years, a voracious reader, travelled , lived in three different countries, met hundreds of people of varying walks of life. She would listen to the religious leaders, watch them on the Sunday shows, in her youth questioned them at length. In her last days she would talk to the Hospice Nurses as to their belief as to what would happen but she had no answers in even those last days .
As I sat beside her , holding her hand , watching and trying to ease her final “body life” moments , there was no answer for me, she and her life energy slipped quietly away. The same with you -although hooked up to machines , but by the time they disconnected you I already knew you had left hours before. Somehow, a mother knows when her child is no longer with her, at least I did.
Photo source https://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/the-story-of-fairy-rings-has-always-intrigued-me.
We all so need the mystic and magic, hope that there is more somehow to our world, my thoughts segued to my earliest beliefs and tiny child’s belief in fairies.
I lay awake in today’s very early hours, wracking my poor brain as to who first told me about magic and fairies and a world beyond that had nothing to do with religion, that came later when my mother would drag me to church in Canada.
I couldn’t for the life of me remember , it was as if I had always known about the possibility of a “magical” realm I so wanted to believe in. As a tiny tot I would play for hours in the garden rockery ( rock gardens were a staple part of the garden and the place where fairies loved to dwell) building fairy homes, looking for fairy circles in the morning dew, positive they existed and wanting to catch a glimpse. I told my children about fairies and then my grandchildren ( before they got to the age when they think I am dotty).
I went back in my mind , trying so hard to remember my grandmothers telling me stories of fairies . No, the one used to recite romantic and adventurous poems and tell stories of unrequited love. Mum’s mother , tired and worn from life, would tell me stories of the happenings of her children, my father- science fiction, space aliens and travels to the stars. My mum never told me fairy stories, so who? And then it dawned , my reprobate of a “grandfather”. A memory from the mist, taking down a saucer of milk whilst everyone in the house was asleep, woken from my tiny bed, slipper-less feet, cold on the tiled kitchen floor quietly putting the saucer down for the hedgehogs as they carried the fairies to dance in the moonlight.
I realize now, he was drunk again probably , he was an inebriate that is for certain. I supposed going through the trenches in France and being a professional soldier he may have had some issues we would recognize today.
Fairies a gift from Chris
All I do know , is that as angering and annoying he was to the rest of the family and his children- HE was the one who came home with kittens and the odd baby rabbit or two in his pockets for me, flowers from his flowers shop , never were his pockets empty , little gifts. He taught me to love the flowers in the garden and only pick certain ones , to leave the blue bells ( the fairy flowers) in the woods.
As I lay there in the half light of a New year my mind wandered to when he was he was in hospital, I had only been married a few weeks, we went to see him . He woke long enough to squeeze my hand and say ”
I can go now- “maggot” ( his nickname for me ) I have seen you.
We left the hospital and on the short ride home I could still feel the pressure of his hand and I knew before we got to my Aunt’s house he had gone without her having to tell me. He had said goodbye and with him went his “magic”, given to me only ??? and a memory of an old man , not well loved who shared a bit of the mystique of this world.
One memory triggers another and I was back in your hospital room your stats were fluctuating , nurses and techs adjusting machines and then your hand squeezed mine so hard – I didn’t know what you were trying to tell me but I think I do now……. you were saying goodbye ……..
But then the magic of you continues……….
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