Category Archives: Grief

A Match Made in Heaven

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She likes soft colors, cream, light pastel,white.

The brighter, the better I say.

She loves big dogs WAY more than people in general.

I prefer them small (except hers). And love people easily.

Iphone for Sherry…

Android for me…

She loves Chocolate…

I’ll prefer Vanilla…

Country music only…classical makes her teeth itch.

Any music Except country for me.

Violent movies excite her .

I’m a movie wimp.

Loves the fast car race scenes..

They put me to sleep, literally!

Basketball, football, World Series, you name it.

Please, spare me all sports!

She knows the players and their teams.

Who???

TV on all day is fine.

Music background for me.

Green Chile salsa.

Red salsa, please.

Refried beans, love ’em

Give me guacamole.

Don’t need it, toss it out!

Try to fix it if at all possible.

We are a match made in heaven…

Selfish Love

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She is lying awake in the hospital bed, only able to communicate with her lips, eyes and hands.

The radiation has caused her to be unable to eat for months, only tiny bits daily. She has lost so much weight, although now arms and face are swollen due to fluid buildup.

But her eyes twinkle when she sees me. She mouths “I love you too” when I speak my love. She motions with her hand and we finally understand she wants her granddaughter’s boyfriend to play his guitar. He strums and sings Amarillo by Morning and she smiles.

I’ve waited all week for the family to allow me to visit. I hold back my tears until I drive home.

She has many close friends…others, like me have been waiting in the wings for permission to see her. We have prayed, sent our love from our heart hoping she could feel it, while we waited.

Yet, others we contact say they won’t come, they don’t want to see her like this. It would hurt too much. But I wonder at the support she might need. The love she needs to see in our eyes. Our loving touch. Our music.

Trying not to judge, but I do. It seems to be a selfish love they have: that takes the joy she gave them but declines the pain.

She is still here. She is still inside that starving body that struggles to live. Her beautiful caring, loving heart that comforted us in our traumas, listened to our fears, laughed joyfully at our silliness still there.

Do we only take from a loved one or share their pain, lend our strength when they need us most?

Dear God, please help me not to have selfish love.

Still missing her…

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Tomorrow is my daughter, Cherie’s birthday. She died six years ago in March. She was my youngest of four and the only girl. She knew me like no one else, and I knew her that way, too. We had been through hell with her addictions, incarcerations, betrayals, forgiveness, but understood each other’s pain like no one else could. I raised her two older children, taking them at 8 mos and 2 yrs when she went to prison. We drove and flew hundreds of miles to visit her so they could feel how much she loved them, more than she would ever love herself. She kept her quirky sense of humor, open tender heart towards others, often to her own detriment, and ached over her brothers rejection, due to her horrible mistakes.
I’m missing her so much today, more than usual, and can only feel that she is somehow nearer today to be with me on the day I became her mom. I love you, Cherie

Radiation day

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Radiation day

Every Monday he drives to his mothers house to pick her up. He drives her across town to a modern new hospital building. They don their masks, answer the questions to be admitted and take the elevator to the 3rd floor clinic.

Total state of art machines and techniques are used, and she patiently submits.

Only she may enter the room where the technicians check her vitals and start their procedures.   She is immobilized in a cast made to hold her head perfectly still. The radiation is precisely aimed to focus on the mass that is trying to destroy her jugular vein.

Only she knows the agony of being unable to move or receive comfort as the technology of the moment tries to kill the cancer.

It is brutal. They told her it would be. Her lips are swollen, burns inside her mouth and throat make eating impossible. She is basically starving as one or two spoons of soup or yogurt are all she can tolerate each day.

Even water burns, and anything cold is unbearable.

The son takes her home, helps her inside and to her bed, where she lays exhausted and weak.

Tomorrow he will pick her up again and repeat the process.

She has five more treatments …the machine has five more chances to complete killing the cancer hopefully without killing her.

Four words

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“We got it all”

Four short words.

Deep breath

We relax

The surgeon has spoken.

Four words we expect, yet take for granted.

Given the miracles of modern medicine…

Gifted surgeons….

But this time an explanation begins….

Detailing steps taken,

Things removed,

Things found,

Things left undone,

Things damaged,

Things still deadly.

So sorry

What?

What next?

How long?

My ears can’t hear these words

Oh my God!

Somehow

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I can tell stories of your coldness to me.

The neglect and distance …

Scorn for my love.

Not talking or sharing. . .

No common affection or gifts. . .

Cheating, many times. . .

Lack of participation in our life together.

Yet, you were the love of my life.

Why?

Was it the challenge of making you smile?

Knowing your childhood pain?

Understanding you deeply???

Learning every aspect of who you were?

All the loving behind closed doors?

I just don’t understand.

Maybe never will…

But you were, are, have always been, the love of my life.

Lonely without you…

But Lonely with you, too.

You started down this road with me,

The road of life,

Then somewhere got out of the vehicle and left me in it,

Driverless, but ever moving forward…

Relentlessly on this path,

Alone and clueless as to what would be next.

I grew, learned, adjusted, blossomed, even soared.

But ever in my heart somewhere deep inside

Missing the You I understood and craved,

And somehow loved.

Lyvonne Hill

April 12, 2021

Filigree…

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When the filigree of my life unravels and I am no more . . .

Only save the lovely pieces though they are few . . .

Don’t judge my failings, for they are many.

Be kind in your memories.

Adopt any useful habits I had and ignore the useless ones.

Remember my love for you, for it is endless.

Speak my name if I come to mind.

Watch for dragonflies, hummingbirds, butterflies, shooting stars and pennies, for they are my messengers.

Love never ends, even if life does.

Our relationship truly is forever,

I will always be thankful for You in my life.

Lyvonne Hill

April 14, 2021

YOUR GIFT

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I thought we would grow old together.

I thought you really loved me.

I thought our children were a priority to you.

I thought I could be enough.

I found you were ever searching for the ONE.

I was not enough, nor could ever be.

I was temporary, a detour in your life

I learned our children were a weight about your neck

Our home an unwanted responsibility

My love inadequate.

I found you were not looking  for faithfulness.

But someone to fix your inferiority,

To help you feel successful.

You had no clue what your value could be as a father.

You searched for someone to validate you as I could not.

You found that person and left us physically

To complete the emotional leaving you accomplished long ago.

Thank you for leaving me so I could find myself.

Could see my wonderful children instead of focusing on you.

Thank you for the gift of your absence.

I think of you…

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I think of you when I find a penny,
when I see a butterfly,
when I see a cute piggy,
when I hear certain songs,
when I see a hummingbird,
when I hear an owl,
when I pet my little dog,
when I go to sleep,
when I wake up,
when the phone rings,
when it doesn’t,
when I eat yummy foods,
Or tasteless ones,
when it rains,
when I watch the clouds,
when the sun shines,
when I get dressed for work,
when I get home,
when I am with other people,
when I am alone,
when I see your children,
when I don’t
when I hear a hearty laugh,
when I see someone cry,
when that someone is me.

Lyvonne Hill

March 10, 2021 makes five years since my beautiful, caring, sensitive, funny, loving, creative, only daughter stopped breathing leaving four hurting, confused children, an angry husband, grieving mother and many friends behind to try and get through life without her. Thank you, God, for giving Cherie to us for almost 50 years.

Danny, forever 26, 1987
Cherie, forever 49, 2016