dianeseattle
Member
So, this is a story about a young man named George. George had a sister named Harriett and she was married to John. George and John were great friends and jammed on the guitar and the fiddle as often as possible.
I met George in 1977 and he had just turned 22. I had just gone through a horrible trauma and had ended up back in my family's hometown, in a deep depression. I was 26.
There are no words to describe how George changed my life but he changed the lives of many people at the same time. He is without a doubt the most important person I have ever met. I memorialized his life by writing a novel about him called The Gospel According to George. I have never finished it, and it has never been published.
He stayed in my town and touched many lives for a few months. Then he left to return to his family home in Kansas City Missouri. A year later he was in an accident that rendered him a paraplegic. He was in a coma for an entire year. And when it was all said and done he suffered traumatic brain injury and a withered right arm and useless legs. Eventually, he lost his ability to say words.
Long story short, eventually his parents moved him from Kansas City to the town of Snohomish, Washington, to a rehab center, just north of me.
Fast forward to March, 2020. I got an email from Harriett, telling me she had some news about George she needed to share. I was already a wreck from this threat of a worldwide plague and when I saw her email I started shaking uncontrollably. Multiple sedatives and several hours later, I phoned her.
Harriett told me that George had died after multiple UTIs. A urinary tract infection is always dangerous for paraplegics because they don't know that they have one. And a UTI can kill because the E coli bacteria just magnifies until your entire body is septic, and that's what happened to George, just before his 64th birthday.
The tragedy didn't stop there. I marshaled together all the people I knew who had known George so they could send photos and stories to Harriet to create a memorial online for him. It amazed me that Harriett was able to do what she needed to do, considering the fact that her husband John had Lewy Body dementia. If you don't know what that is, just let me say that Robin Williams committed suicide after suffering from it for a short time. I can't even imagine an illness that leads to death that is worse than that.
After several days of emails being exchanged and phone calls being made, Harriett published the online Memorial. The next day, her husband John died. So not only had Harriett lost her little brother, but she lost her husband within a 3 week span of time.
For 42 years I have been part of this family's life because of George. The effect of this relationship just gets bigger and bigger and bigger all the time. I'm not even going to tell you the million details that made George and his family so special, but I seriously doubt many people are lucky enough to have had the experience I did.
So I'm not going to say more about that. It just was a more devastating event than COVID-19 could even try to be. I have spent the last several weeks in a state of depression so bad that I barely even know the difference between reality and illusion.
That doesn't explain my absence from the group, which came about for different reasons. The thing I did when I stopped posting here was I went looking for an online group that addressed PTSD, which I have had all my life. Like many of you, I experienced a traumatic childhood, filled with abuse of every type you can mention. I know I will never be okay but I have been able to adjust to being "good enough," because that is all I can ever expect: to be good enough.
Right now I am waiting for a phone call or text message from my pharmacy and then I'm going to go pick up some prescriptions and mail some sympathy cards.
I feel like I'm in quicksand, but it looks like I'm going to be able to get myself out of it before it kills me. Today truly is the first day of the rest of my life, as it is everyone's. Cherish what you have. Even if you are discouraged and demoralized and you think life is not worth living because horrible things have happened to you since the pandemic began, just take one moment. Count your blessings. You have more blessings than you know. Try to think of the horrors others are experiencing.
Then if you are still depressed about a bad post-surgical outcome or the hundreds of pounds you may be carrying on your frame, try to realize that that is small beer compared to what the rest of the world is feeling.
What is happening to you is important. But the fact that you are here, in this group, looking for love and support, just shows that you have an option. A lot of people don't. Once you put things in perspective, you can start to grow and heal and hope. And believe me, you will survive this and you will be happy again.
I met George in 1977 and he had just turned 22. I had just gone through a horrible trauma and had ended up back in my family's hometown, in a deep depression. I was 26.
There are no words to describe how George changed my life but he changed the lives of many people at the same time. He is without a doubt the most important person I have ever met. I memorialized his life by writing a novel about him called The Gospel According to George. I have never finished it, and it has never been published.
He stayed in my town and touched many lives for a few months. Then he left to return to his family home in Kansas City Missouri. A year later he was in an accident that rendered him a paraplegic. He was in a coma for an entire year. And when it was all said and done he suffered traumatic brain injury and a withered right arm and useless legs. Eventually, he lost his ability to say words.
Long story short, eventually his parents moved him from Kansas City to the town of Snohomish, Washington, to a rehab center, just north of me.
Fast forward to March, 2020. I got an email from Harriett, telling me she had some news about George she needed to share. I was already a wreck from this threat of a worldwide plague and when I saw her email I started shaking uncontrollably. Multiple sedatives and several hours later, I phoned her.
Harriett told me that George had died after multiple UTIs. A urinary tract infection is always dangerous for paraplegics because they don't know that they have one. And a UTI can kill because the E coli bacteria just magnifies until your entire body is septic, and that's what happened to George, just before his 64th birthday.
The tragedy didn't stop there. I marshaled together all the people I knew who had known George so they could send photos and stories to Harriet to create a memorial online for him. It amazed me that Harriett was able to do what she needed to do, considering the fact that her husband John had Lewy Body dementia. If you don't know what that is, just let me say that Robin Williams committed suicide after suffering from it for a short time. I can't even imagine an illness that leads to death that is worse than that.
After several days of emails being exchanged and phone calls being made, Harriett published the online Memorial. The next day, her husband John died. So not only had Harriett lost her little brother, but she lost her husband within a 3 week span of time.
For 42 years I have been part of this family's life because of George. The effect of this relationship just gets bigger and bigger and bigger all the time. I'm not even going to tell you the million details that made George and his family so special, but I seriously doubt many people are lucky enough to have had the experience I did.
So I'm not going to say more about that. It just was a more devastating event than COVID-19 could even try to be. I have spent the last several weeks in a state of depression so bad that I barely even know the difference between reality and illusion.
That doesn't explain my absence from the group, which came about for different reasons. The thing I did when I stopped posting here was I went looking for an online group that addressed PTSD, which I have had all my life. Like many of you, I experienced a traumatic childhood, filled with abuse of every type you can mention. I know I will never be okay but I have been able to adjust to being "good enough," because that is all I can ever expect: to be good enough.
Right now I am waiting for a phone call or text message from my pharmacy and then I'm going to go pick up some prescriptions and mail some sympathy cards.
I feel like I'm in quicksand, but it looks like I'm going to be able to get myself out of it before it kills me. Today truly is the first day of the rest of my life, as it is everyone's. Cherish what you have. Even if you are discouraged and demoralized and you think life is not worth living because horrible things have happened to you since the pandemic began, just take one moment. Count your blessings. You have more blessings than you know. Try to think of the horrors others are experiencing.
Then if you are still depressed about a bad post-surgical outcome or the hundreds of pounds you may be carrying on your frame, try to realize that that is small beer compared to what the rest of the world is feeling.
What is happening to you is important. But the fact that you are here, in this group, looking for love and support, just shows that you have an option. A lot of people don't. Once you put things in perspective, you can start to grow and heal and hope. And believe me, you will survive this and you will be happy again.
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