Memoir writers, introduce yourselves!

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Permalink Reply by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/Granny G on June 10, 2012 at 3:12am

I lost my son, Tommy, my only child May 29, 2010.  I have traveled a very dark path with no one to help me cope with the grief... I've never known anyone who has lost a child personally. 

 

I had to learn the hard way how to deal with all... I don't think I'd made it off that dark path if my husband, Skip... and our Pups, Kissy Fairchild and Sweet Chadwick.... hadn't been there.  I wouldn't have had the strength to have lived, I would have drowned in the dark, deep sea of grief... they were my lifesavers.

 

I have two grandchildren, Taban and McKenzie, who no longer know me.  I know I will miss out on all their growing up years... I could be gone when one day they wish to meet me, their father's mother.  There will be no one to tell them what their Granny Gee was like, what she thought... how much she loved them.

 

I am nobody special, I write because I feel the need to.  The drive behind my writing is the death of my son, and my systervan, Lena in Sweden.  She and I wrote for 12 years everyday, several times a day by email... she died soon after my son. 

 

When Lena died... I couldn't 'just stop writing'... that's 'why' I keep writing.  I write about grief ... my grief as I'm no expert on anyone else's grief but, my own.  I write honestly how I feel, think and what I go through.  I, also, write about my life, what I think and do... for my grandchildren to read one day so, they can 'see Granny Gee and meet her through her own words'. 

 

I don't know really how to go about writing, publishing a book but, I hope the path to that will reveal itself to me as I keep on writing.  I have so much to say.

 

My whole world consist of my husband, Skip and our Pups.  I don't have any close family members anymore... I've had such a strange family... I really think it was in our genes before we were born ... to hate, distrust, not ever like anyone that was 'family'.  I loved with my heart, that love never mattered I don't think. 

 

Since 1998, I had cancer and went on a 3 year journey battling for my life.  In 2000, Skip went on a 2 year journey to battle cancer.  We had no one to help us... we made it on our own... looking back I see it was pure determination to live, make sure the other would recover.  We are very close.  Tommy was in Germany at that time... we hid alot from him to keep him from being upset.

 

During the following years, most of my family has died.  They have died of various causes, some to do with drugs, tragic head-on crash with a log truck, suicide, not by natural causes.  I have been grief-strickened for all these years with one death after the other.... I lost track after 19 of my most loved people died, some of our beloved pets along the way.

 

My husband, Skip, was in a horrible tractor-trailer wreck, caused by a car hydroplaning on I-40 in New Mexico.  They wrecked hitting the steering tire on Skip's tractor-trailer, causing him to go airborn over the opposite lanes of oncoming traffic... the truck landed upside down out on the desert floor. 

 

Some weeks after that.. a woman ran a stop sign, kept going across in front of Skip... he was in another wreck through no fault of his own!  He almost flipped, her van overturned in the middle of the road.

 

Several weeks after that... Skip was on the way to the physical therapist... there was a police chase... they were after a bank robber who ran a stoplight Skip was at... he almost crashed into Skip, barely missed him going up the lane on the opposite of the road, and wrecked.

 

So much has happened in our life, so much to write.  For now ...I write to overcome the heavy grief in my heart.  I'm so thankful to have found an outlet for all that has been contained inside myself.  I'm so happy to have met the people I have on my writing journey.  I hope to meet many more here.  :)))  Granny Gee/Gloria

 

I forgot to say that I'm a positive person, I love happy colors ... I am a survivor of many things in my life.  I love life and .... I've fought hard to go forward.  When I fall down... I get back up.  The one time I couldn't without help... was when I lost my only child... when I lost Tommy.

 

This is 'why' I'm here.  I hope to learn as I write from all of you.  I hope to make my writing into a book one day, it doesn't have to be a best seller... just enough to share my life with several special people in my life.  It's so nice to be here.