Tom,

What "amazing grace "you have and let God`s light shine though you. Your family`s story is one I wish not to say "I understand your grive" however I do,My momma,who was my best friend pass in her sleep of a mass heart attack on 2-22-10 the night before we talked on the phone laughing and joking the end of the convession was always the same c-ya "Goose" love you,c-ya "golden egg" love you.March 2010, my 18teen year old daughter was trying out for what I call "the girls gone wild show" I could only pray she would not make it.My 22 year old son was on his 5th deployment, I was praying for his safe return,in July 2010 he returned with no scares to our eyes,2 weeks later he was in boating accident 6 days later he pass on,the last time we talked was the night of his accident again our convssion ended with c-ya love you,in our family there are no goodbyes we all believe we will see each other again. how blessed I am to have talked to them and ended in these words.My daughter is now 2o and home with us! praise be to God,also she just had a baby girl on 1-12-12 Emma Gwendolyn Grace Sharp our little EGGS, a sighn from heaven we believe.

Tom thank you for sharing and letting others heal with you....Tammie

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Thanks for your kind words. I`m glad you found us!!! Be sure and "like" my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/tomzuba1 That is where the "juice" is right now. I am in the process of updating/streamlining/simplifying this website. We should be done soon!!! Mark your calendar for Tuesday, March 20th if you are on the Rockford area. I will be presenting "Transforming the Way we `Do Grief` in the Rockford Area" at the NIU Center on East State Street twice that day ... once in the afternoon, once on the evening. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to come. Registration information will be available soon, and posted on my FB page. I am also presenting a 2.5 day heart-centered ReNEW Life Retreat At Eaglewood Resort in Itasca, IL on June 21, 22 and 23rd, followed by a one-day head/heart centered ReNEW Life Conference on Sunday, June 24th featuring a keynote address by best-selling author Kristine Carlson. "Heartbroken Open" and "Don`t Sweat the Small Stuff for Moms" (April, 2012). In November 2012, we will offer the ReNew Life Retreat and Conference again in Scottsdale, AZ. Registration material for the Chicago and Scottsdale events will be available soon.

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Happy Birthday, Sharon.  love, Dad

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I was guided here from a Robin Craig web show. I just wanted to say it feels good to be here and I`m glad I found tomzuba.com & Tom Zuba on fb.

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You are a gift to all those whose lives you have touched....thank  you!

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Lisa Ann, I read your post after I wrote mine, and am digesting about it. I feel less alone, that someone else experienced not so nice deaths, and various losses.  You sound very caring. What is TSA?  To our strength, and wishing you good healing, Claudia

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The loss of my sister was very hard. My best friend at the time was talking to me on phone while I walked over cliffs. Later I found out during that time my sister Judi died.  It is very hard for me to be with someone when they are very very sick and might die who I love. I did it with my husband but it was heabreaking when my sister had MS and was deteriorating. I couldn`t believe it.

One of the hard parts, so hard, was that she hated me, wouldn``t talk to me, and was circulating negative things about me including to my daughter.  I believe she had lost some abilities to process in her brain, and interpreted an incident that happened in a very angry way, after which everything had gone downhill. She not only had M.S., it seems she had bi-polar and other disorders. 

When I was praying Tehillim, psalms for her in the Jewish place her body was kept prior to funeral, I was informed by a sister that I was not supposed to go to the funeral, my sister had asked that. I later found out she had said I was not to have any of her things after she died.. A year later at the unveiling of the stone at the gravesite, I was asked not to speak, as she`d asked me not to be at the funeral.  By that time I sensed she had given me a sign.  After her funeral - which they used some Jewish technicality that I could be there due to bringing my daughter - I saw a bubble in the sky floating above the cars.  I think it was a sign from her of clarity, wholeness, that everything was clear between us, all was forgiven and she was good.

Around this time one of my best friends Toni died. She was a light and she liked listening to people and giving generously, and she ws funny. SHe was Black and Christian, really a pray - er to God. She believed in healing, had been healed from breast cancer, and didn`t tell me about her illness which apparently was a type of cancer that was very treatable.  I think she only wanted people to think about her and visualize her well. After the funeral I was not quite functioning properly.made a mistake at my other best friend`s home and alienated her. She said she didn`t want to be my friend anymore - she was going through a divorce and was kindof angry and slicingly assertive as if everyone was that husband who was taking all of her money.

These losses have been painful.  I still think of my sister at various times, as if she would be there to contact or see at a holiday.There is no one like her.  I feel very guilty for having had the feeling that due to her illness, the amount of grief she caused may have made her absence better.  Now I`ve said it.  She is mourned for by a friend of hers who speaks to me regularly about her with such sadness at her loss. I listen to how meaningful she was to him.  She was my sister who cared about me when we didn`t really learn in our family to care about each other. She reached out to me at various times in my life. She was encouraging and hospitable.  She said her mind and kicked away pretentiousness and convention with a swift boot. She was funny. I miss her even though she betrayed me in various ways at various times, creating chaos and heartache.  I imagine many people who have family members who die with mental health issues have this type of very wierd remembering of the wonderful aspects of the person and the pain they caused to them and others as well.

I don`t have lots of other close people.  I do have one dear friend whose life has intertwined with mine in various ways.  I may try to tackle my previous best friend`s rejection of me and try to connect again.  I have more community and here and there friends than really, really close ones. But I have many, many potentially dear friends, people I`ve connected with and care about. And I rarely have time for the ones where we mutually want to see each other again.

I just wanted to write about how troublesome and annoying it is to have someone with mental health issues with all the havoc they wreak and brilliance and goodness they generously gave, die.  Very confusing, and hard to have peace with, to hold these polarities.. Not something easy to talk about, not like talking about a beloved spouse who died. Not something I can talk about very much, so I`m glad to try to mourn it here, as confusing as it is.

 

Claudia

 

 

 

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Wanting to say hi to my old grief and mourn buddies during this dark and promising night! Claudia

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Hi Tom, I found out about you you thru Kari -L- R and read your Christmas hello to she and Chris. I know it was due to a higher power that I am now writing to you. First, I am so profoundly saddened by your losses. I thought I had my share but not in the way you have had. My Mom`s mom passed in `82 and we scattered her ashes in CA where I lived at the time. I knew her my whole life and was devastated that she was gone. I was in my 20`s and tried to remember everything I could about her and I laughed and cried. I shared with some close friends because my parents lived in Michigan and my mom didn`t want to talk about it and my siblings didn`t know her like I did so we couldn`t share my grief. My dad`s mom passed in `91 and I was hurt because I found out weeks later as that part of the family wasn`t close to me (divorce) and I ached to be at a funeral that had already happened. Again, I remembered all the stories we shared and life and moved on. 12/02, I got one of those late night phone calls you hate to get: my 4 years younger sister, Susie had committed suicide by handgun in New Orleans. My baby sister, Megan who was 10 years younger than I jumped on planes and flew there to be with our niece, Kacie and I figured out it wasn`t suicide but murder! It was like someone had punched me in the stomach. I went home and created a box with all her pictures and letters to me. Her Christmas card to me had been sent 1 day before and her handwriting was great, how could she have killed herself the next day? 5 months later, my eldest brother, Alan died of colon cancer. Again, Megan and I flew back to Ohio so I could be with him for his last minutes on this plain. Everyone had their own way of dealing with this death as opposed to Susie`s because everyone came to Alan`s and only my sister and I were there at Susie`s, not even my parents. Alan was married, stable, loved and so all his friends and relatives turned out and dealt with their mourning in different ways. Megan left early to go to the Bahamas and I flew back home to deal with it and the thought that in 5 months, someone else could die. 5 months later, my baby sister, Megan called and confessed to Being a closet drunk! What! She had warrants out and spent the night in jail, but she was gonna quit! She was 35, 11 days of being 36 and promised she`d cut down. She started drinking wine from the moment she opened her eyes and I was so blown away at the fact that the most beautiful girl in our family who had worked at Cisco Systems and made 100 k or so a year! Who knew?? I spoke to her the next day and she said she had cut back her consumption and I asked if I could fly down and help her but she turned me down. The next day, I tried to call her and there was no answer and I left her a message. I tried once more and gave up. That afternoon, I got a call from my younger brother and I felt as if my heart had been ripped out- Megan had gone to feed her horse in her boyfriend`s suburban and missed a curve, was trying to get her cell phone, was too drunk and lost control of the vehicle and rolled over and got tossed out and was a broken mess that they tried to revive but failed. OMG!!!!! She was almost 5x over the legal lot at 1:30 in the afternoon and I was on the first flight to San Francisco to be with her boyfriend in her house and clean out all the corkscrews and corks that were littered all over her car, purses and coats! 10 corkscrews! Over 50 corks!! OMG my poor baby had it bad and no one knew, not even her closest friends! Then to top it off, my brother starting packing her Waterford glasses and other stuff he wanted right after the funeral! I wanted to see her dead body but everyone said NO and we had a huge funeral and they cremated her and there were flowers everywhere and all I could go was ache so deep ony heart while this circus was happening around me. When I went home after a week, everyone was pissed at me because I dared to speak of her as a drunk and this was after we went to see the Suburban which had 2 empty bottles and 1 part full and corks everywhere and blood and hair and then we drove to the site and walked over the area and found the platinum necklace she lost and gave it to her boyfriend and there were syringes and wrappers of a feeble attempt to save her. So, I went home and they had a 2nd funeral for her in FL where my parents lived and her boyfriend got to take her ashes and sprinkle them in the Pacific and I asked for some but my mom said that she didnt want Megan split up(?). WTF??? I created a box for Megan and got the coroner`s report on both my sisters and the police reports. I read those reports on their death anniversary and Susie`s was just 12/17... I have no sissies anymore and my life has been so scarred since then. My cousin died of leukemia and my step brother died of MS a couple years later and in 7/09, my father passed away and I flew back from Seattle to Jacksonville 7 times including his funeral to help him out and my mom. It has been hell and if it wasn`t for my husband, therapist and my friends inside and out of TSA, I don`t know how I would`ve made it. Kari and all my other friends helped as much as they could and supported me but I have never gotten over the deaths of my sisters as I thought we would all grow older together and experience life and it was not meant to be and sometimes I wonder why they were taken and I was left to deal with life alone without them. Thank you for listening and God bless, Lisa Ann

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